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matti23 Matti23 from Australia Since: Apr, 2013
Matti23
#1426: Jan 18th 2017 at 8:54:59 PM

Artificial gravity exists but isn't used like in most sci-fi. It's used to power all the weapons and is based off a similar concept to the FTL drive. By the time artificial gravity is figured out most of humanity has already transitioned into post humanity and no longer require it for comfortable living on ships.

On some Luddite luxury ships the artificial gravity simply points towards the walls rather than having a common down for the whole ship. This allows you to utilize all walls of a room better. With a set "down" the "roofs" become wasted space as they are harder to utilize than just having more floor.

Just checking, a galactic cluster spanning civilization that can outfit all of its warships with Alcubierre drives would probably have figured out artificial gravity right?

PhilosopherStones Anyways Here's Darude Sandstorm from The North (lots of planets have them) (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: You can be my wingman any time
Anyways Here's Darude Sandstorm
#1427: Jan 22nd 2017 at 10:15:59 AM

Ghosts exists but they take at least thousands of years to manifest.

GIVE ME YOUR FACE
EchoingSilence Since: Jun, 2013
#1428: Jan 22nd 2017 at 10:20:17 AM

This is more of a friend's thing, but she isn't on here so. I did somewhat help though.

In my friend's world, skeletons and zombies exist, they usually become conscious after death, a short time after. The reason for why a apocalypse has never happened is because they are engaging on their ultimate thrill ride. Entropic decay.

Falrinn Since: Dec, 2014
#1429: Jan 22nd 2017 at 7:43:52 PM

Just starting to lay the groundwork for a new fantasy setting. Here's a few quirks that are built in, some of which are actually very important to the story.

When Elisi, the patron deity of the Green Valley, saw that his priesthood was developing Knights Templar tendencies that ran counter to his intentnote  he manifested physically, walked into his own temple, and told them to knock it off. Who promptly believe it's some sort of demonic trick and try to kill him.

As it happens, in this setting gods are only able to physically manifest in the realm of the living at full power once every couple centuries, and if they manifest early they will be significantly weakened and vulnerable to mere mortals (or at least, a mere mortal with skills in the right magic and the right relics on hand, which the priesthood had).

Long story short, a god is nearly murdered by his own priesthood, only survives by trapping himself in mortal form, and then winds up teaming up with a bunch of less committed worshipers, worshipers of other gods, and a few NayTheists to battle his own priesthood people who believe themselves to be his most devout followers.

TooManyIdeas Magical Princess From Another Dimension from Twilight Town (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: A gay little love melody
Magical Princess From Another Dimension
#1430: Jan 25th 2017 at 12:35:33 AM

Several resistance cells against the oncoming Psychic horde, especially near occupied "flagship" cities (New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, etc.) have taken to calling themselves "Templars" on a crusade to restore freedom to the "holy lands." This is direct reference to 'Deus Vult' memes and is meant as a show of courage. They refuse to take themselves seriously because the Psychics take themselves so seriously.

DarkbloodCarnagefang They/Them from New Jersey Since: May, 2012
They/Them
#1431: Jan 25th 2017 at 1:29:28 AM

Besides souls (yours or someone else's), an excellent barginning chip to use while making deals with demons is to offer "a pound of flesh" in exchange for demonic services. This usually involves extremities like fingers or hands, but whole limbs or organs can also be taken if one isn't careful. The exchange is almost always explode-y.

Note to self: Pick less edgy username next time.
MapleSamurai Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
#1432: Feb 9th 2017 at 5:53:32 PM

Since the Awakening, many new jobs and services have arisen to deal with the different magical phenomena that are now part of daily life. One such profession: the wish attorney.

While "wish granting" doesn't work exactly like popular fantasy fiction has made it out to be, there are still a multitude a powerful supernatural entities that can perform services that are the next best thing. However, because the djinn and fae that end up performing these tasks only do so due to being bound into servitude (not to mention the major cultural stigma djinn have against servitude to humans), many wish granters constantly commit Loophole Abuse to spite their masters, and even when that is not the case they may simply misunderstand the human colloquialisms used by a given wisher, or just offer their services to random humans and go full Jackass Genie for the sheer hell of it.

Because of this, one particularly Genre Savvy human who came across a genie's bottle decided to consult a lawyer to word his wishes in such a way as to suffer no negative repercussions for them. Seeing the money to be made from this, the lawyer involved started his own law firm for this exact purpose, causing many lawyers to join his firm or start their own, and to this day wish attorneys are much-sought and well-compensated legal professionals, and many law schools now offer courses specifically geared for this profession.

MapleSamurai Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
#1434: Feb 11th 2017 at 8:22:48 AM

Link to the story's in my signature if you're interested, although I haven't incorporated the concept into the story itself yet.

It's just something that popped in my head and I thought, "that sounds exactly like something that fits in the world I'm building. Better write it down so I can keep it in mind for later."

KillerClowns Since: Jan, 2001
#1435: Feb 19th 2017 at 7:14:58 PM

Just over five hundred years ago, in the land of Uel, a nomad chieftain heard stories that captured her imagination. She read about a man by the name of Ziven, from a mysterious and exotic land far to the East. His writings, deeds, and lessons had completely changed the land of Zavi... and she completely misunderstood them. Ziven was The Anti-Nihilist, but the sociopathic chieftain, renaming herself Xeqa (a mangling of the Kykzavi word "Zekua", essentially translating into "strength of will"), went full Straw Nihilist and carved out an absolutely brutal empire. The only good thing that came of it was a slave revolt that managed to flourish in the chaos; the slavers had been too heavily brutalized by Xeqa's outright genocide of their allies to put it down.

Fast forwards to just a few decades ago. In the land of Zavi, a revolutionary leader heard stories that captured his imagination. He read about a woman by the name of Xeqa, from a mysterious and exotic land far to the West. Her writings, deeds, and lessons had completely changed the land of Uel... and he completely misunderstood them. Xeqa had not intentionally helped the enslaved peoples, she had merely killed their enemies because they were in her way, but the revolutionary leader, Enkar Zaa, assumed her utter brutality had been a carefully thought-out and necessary action to end the slavers' injustices. So Enkar... went full Well-Intentioned Extremist and carved out an absolutely brutal empire.

LambentSoul Ragna the Bloodedge from New Livingston Since: Jun, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
Ragna the Bloodedge
#1436: Feb 25th 2017 at 4:31:35 AM

@Maple Samurai Your idea got on reddit, lots of material to work with now. https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/5uyh15/wp_genies_exist_however_they_are_all_evil_wish/ Awesome concept, btw

edited 25th Feb '17 4:32:23 AM by LambentSoul

I am the white void, I am et cetera, et cetera... THE END HAS COME!
MapleSamurai Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
#1437: Feb 25th 2017 at 5:29:10 PM

[up]Wow, I never expected anyone to turn my idea into a full story of their own! [lol]

Falrinn Since: Dec, 2014
#1438: Mar 21st 2017 at 3:16:33 PM

This one is for an older fantasy setting then the one in my most recent post.

There are several ways to teleport from place to place, most require someone to be a particularly powerful magic user, but there is a way to do it through alchemy.

To do so one first needs to create a special potion that requires ingredients that are rare but not unobtainable to anyone who goes out of their way to procure them. Then just add the potion and an item that has spent a lot of time at the target destination (usually dirt or rocks gathered from the target location are used, but that's more a matter of convenience then an actual rule) to a pool of water, and the pool of water becomes a portal to the target destination.

Usually special basins are constructed for this purpose, but technically any pool of water that is at least an inch deep and wide enough for a person (or whatever you want to transport) to fit through will work. So turning the contents of a bathtub or a puddle or rainwater into a portal is something that absolutely can be done.note 

God_of_Awesome Since: Jan, 2001
#1439: Mar 25th 2017 at 1:17:48 PM

One of the empires of the world is ruled by an ancient lich queen, the Iron Empress. By this point in time, she's nothing more than a skeleton kept together by her necromantically bound spirit.

She keeps a "royal whore house", which she finds useful for entertaining visitors. It used to be the imperial bordello, but nowadays she had it repurposed and relocated far away from herself. If questioned, she will answer, "I just don't like being reminded I don't have a vagina anymore, okay?"

Since she's a skeleton, she just goes around sans clothes. At an international convention, she ended up standing next to the guardian god-thing, the Shining One, of another large swathe of foreign territory, a feminine creature of shining light and Barbie Doll Anatomy. She opined to the the Shining One, "Feels good to be the only ones allowed to go around naked, doesn't it?"

Black Emperor Hrod is an ancient black dragon that rules yet another empire in the far north. His human form is that of a well-muscled, chiseled jaw and dark-skinned man. At the convention, he felt he was not to be outdone by the Iron Empress or the Shining One and defiantly stripped down.

The Iron Empress had this to say about that, "Gods, I really miss my vagina."

It was an interesting convention and all three of them were banned from attending without clothes ever again. These three are the most powerful people in the world, and this worries everyone.

EchoingSilence Since: Jun, 2013
#1440: Mar 26th 2017 at 6:49:36 AM

A fantasy setting I'm working on called Dungeoneer (A Mid-Fantasy as I like to call it) has many rules to magic and various ideas.

My favorite so far is the Monkey King, who rules over the enchanted forest known as Dusk (Name may be changed later). The Monkey King is a powerful magical entity and is pretty much nigh immortal (save if you find his talisman tying him to this world) and is as you would expect, a bit of a trickster. Thankfully the King is not malicious, just mischievous, he prefers pranks for his amusement and nobody ever really gets hurt, some people even laugh at the prank as well.

Just be careful of what you do in his domain, he's very much a karmic entity and will curse your ass if you screw up. Not on first go of course, provided it is a understandable accident. Say you start a campfire, it spreads and soon the trees are on fire because you didn't properly zone it off, so long as no one in his domain gets hurt, you are fine. If it happens again, then he has no forgiveness because you should have learned the first time.

Other ways to get yourself cursed are attempting to deliberately hurt the Monkey King (Why though), hurt his subjects for just the sake of cruelty or amusement (foodchain is fine being a dick is not), or insulting the King to his face (He's got a ego). The curses vary in effect but a common element people have noted are transfiguration curses, the Monkey King is very much a fan of that.

You can undo your curse, but not through typical methods, the King as a heavily magical entity is technically a "spirit" and spirit curses can only be broken through their rules. Begging, pleading, and apologizing aren't going to work, there are only two ways to get rid of the curse. Serve the King for a month or two as a servant of his temple and please him (like clean the floors, be his steed so he can wave to his subjects), or out-trick the Trickster.

He won't ever say it, but the Monkey King loves the latter option, you just have to pull off one great big prank and outdo him. You can't do anything too obvious, or if you do, you have to do it in a way he'll never see coming. He's a prankster and can appreciate the irony of the situation.

He will then remove the curse, and then proceed to ask if you would like it as a blessing instead, some people choose yes, others choose no. But for those who do, find themselves able to call upon the "curse/blessing" as they wish.

edited 26th Mar '17 7:16:53 AM by EchoingSilence

God_of_Awesome Since: Jan, 2001
#1441: Mar 30th 2017 at 8:10:26 PM

[up]Reminds me of well... expanding on some of the character from [up][up]

Three powerful immortals rule huge swathes of the world. Like, half the world is split between them, another third is split between two other stable powers presided over by a succession of mortal rulers. The remaining sixths are a series of sovereign states that managed to remain independent.

The Protectorates Of The Shining One are not ruled by said Shining One, they are, as implied, protected by her. On the other, she does rule them, just not constantly. It's not "You rule at my pleasure" for her, it's "You stop ruling at my displeasure", since she will even protect her charges from themselves. She makes sure everyone within her territories are being cared for according to her standards, though these are pretty good standards.

And if anyone tries to fuck this up, inside or out, then glorious golden deus ex machina appears. She's usually characterized by others as a harsh-but-fair mothering figure. "Not a queen, not a goddess, the Shining One is everyone's mom." A supremely powerful entity that acts as the distant, loving matriarch to nearly a sixth of the world.

No one is sure what in the fuck the Shining One is. A true bonafide deity? (This world lacks for anything that conclusively holds that title.) Some kinda extreme powerful outsider with enough juice to stick around in this world? (This world is lousy with outsiders, but normally the real strong ones remain Outside.) A mortal sorceress that turned it up to fucking 11 and beyond?

ArilouLaLeeLay Freelance Distributor of Free Lances from a mostly harmless planet, far away Since: Dec, 2015 Relationship Status: Oh my word! I'm gay!
Freelance Distributor of Free Lances
#1442: Mar 31st 2017 at 2:07:51 PM

Every species has gods. Immortal beings that surpass the original species physically and mentally, and are capable of reproducing with other members of the species in order to produce demigods (which can then mature to full gods themselves) They can also communicate psychically with any other being, and many possess power over specific things that are crucial to their species' survival.

However, "immortal" means "can't die of old age and instead just grows stronger, is immune to all disease and poison, requires a ridiculous amount of punishment to actually kill, and has a Healing Factor". Meaning that gods can be killed, and often are, mostly by each other.

Also, by "every species" I mean every species. There's human gods, bear gods, deer gods, crocodile gods, horsefly gods, tapeworm gods, salmon gods, pelican eel gods, blue whale gods, cockroach gods, and repeat for every species of multicellular life in existence. Some of these, like the tapeworms, tend to be pretty nasty, considering that gods are universally bigger than the average member of the species, fully sentient and sapient even if their species normally isn't, and capable of communicating with all living beings.

Plant and fungus gods are also a thing, but they don't do much, and are indistinguishable from plants and fungi that just happen to be big. Also, trying to psychically read one's mind results in an interesting variety of results, all of which change the mind-reader's own mind permanently.

And of course there's a whole variety of lesser known beings. You do not mess with a slime mold god.

"If I was a tabletop RPG character, my player would be accused of both minmaxing and overdramatic roleplaying." -Me
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#1443: Apr 7th 2017 at 8:49:54 PM

The worst loss of life in the Empire wasn't from a war or conflict, but when a solar storm hit the most populated planet in the nation and caused a massive blackout which resulted in countless crashes and fires in all the cities affected.

Which totally could have been avoided if some douchebags in the planetary government hadn't accepted some bribes to get rid of regulations requiring companies to make their machines resistant to this sort of thing. Other worlds in the same situation would have gone through the same event with minimal difficulty.

edited 7th Apr '17 8:50:21 PM by Parable

heliosKAISER The Struggler from Shadow Moses Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
The Struggler
#1444: Apr 10th 2017 at 4:05:12 PM

The following isn't really 'my' world but from me making the Final Fantasy/Kingdom Hearts equivalent to Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights:

Any mage that trains at one of the monasteries for Mystic Knights gets a cape to go with their armor that matches the color of the robes that tells you what school of magic that mage belongs to. Black Magic: Sky blue, White Magic: White with red triangular frills, Time Magic: Orange and Summon magic: Green.

edited 10th Apr '17 4:05:36 PM by heliosKAISER

You gotta start somewhere.
MapleSamurai Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
#1445: Apr 14th 2017 at 6:12:55 PM

Thanks to this poster's question in the What Would Your Character Do thread (my answer to said question can be found below it, which contains some tidbits on how My Demons Are Different), I've been thinking about magical artefacts in my Crowley University series, and have got two particular quirks on the subject to post here, the first being something I'd decided on a long while ago, and one I got the idea for from the aforementioned thread question.

First, because of the importance of emotion in the practice of magic, while magic items can be mass produced, mass production models will always will significantly weaker than a single item that a given artificer puts their heart and soul into. This is why, as the protagonist's university professor puts it in a lecture, King Arthur couldn't just commission the Lady of the Lake to forge an arsenal of Excaliburs to give to all his knights, or why the Aesir didn't ask the dwarves that made Mjollnir to make one for every warrior in Asgard.

The other quirk on the subject, inspired by the question on the other thread, is related to destroying magic items. While low-level magic items can be destroyed outright, particularly powerful artefacts are trickier. Such relics often have minds, if not wills, of their own, and if they are destroyed, their magic does not dissipate as it does for lesser items, but instead flies off and imbues itself into the nearest nonliving object of appropriate type (so if Excalibur or Mjollnir were destroyed, it might remake itself in a nearby firearm, for example). How "choosy" a given relic is about its new form varies, but in any case they can "tweak" the shape of their new vessels should they choose to do so, within certain limits. And that's just if a given item can be destroyed at all. Some can repair themselves From a Single Cell if damaged, if they are not indestructible to begin with, and the most powerful relics of all can even rewrite reality itself to keep themselves from harm.

EchoingSilence Since: Jun, 2013
#1446: Apr 18th 2017 at 7:50:53 AM

In terms of "Earth is Space Australia" this has been a very good thing for the GTC's human relations. Humanity is known as the species who are just so balls out insane, but this has actively endeared them to several GTC species which in turn means better allies.

The Le'Ka Biomecha are actually quite similar to humanity in terms of personality, and despite being the biggest threat to them during first contact have actually become humanity's greatest allies.

The Gehb are a proud warrior race who are only second to humanity in balls out insanity (which mind you is still a large gap), but it's this aspect that drives the two close together. So far humanity is the only carbon based species that can generally hold up to a Gehb in drinking.

Viron are Mechanical Lifeforms, but appreciate the efforts humanity makes to treat them like anyone else ("We got bunches of stories about that and what it means to be human"), they can also appreciate the various feudal periods on the planet.

Xon like the sense of justice humanity attempts to carry itself with, injustice must be righted, they just wish humanity was more concrete and together on it. And that less of their attempts would be trying to subvert the careful laws placed in their own version of "vigilante justice".

Humanity's first contact with alien life was on Earth, and it wasn't pretty, for awhile the Kvar Grays and the Le'Ka were winning, until things got twisted... humanity stopped relying on regular tactics and went into balls out insane ideas. Scavenged vehicles, advanced machinery not yet ready for full use, turning the environment against the invaders. Hell when they downed one of the ships they proved themselves ready by reverse engineering the FTL device the Stardrive and flew a suicide ship into the Kvar Mothership that was hiding out near Neptune.

Basically, humanity is one of the few species that is willing to do the craziest of things to make it work.

ewolf2015 MIA from south Carolina Since: Jan, 2015 Relationship Status: I-It's not like I like you, or anything!
MIA
#1447: Apr 18th 2017 at 10:42:45 AM

with the use of nanomachines, humans are able to craft a technology based Magic Music, which means that music can be harness as superpowers as sorts.

edited 18th Apr '17 12:00:10 PM by ewolf2015

MIA
SantosLHalper Since: Aug, 2009
#1448: Apr 18th 2017 at 3:36:11 PM

So one of the factions in the story I'm writing, Romandiola (name temporary shift from previous and subject to change), is an interstellar totalitarian, theocratic dictatorship that persecutes mutants and aliens with fanaticism, much like the Imperium of Man... only it's pretty much the galactic equivalent of an impoverished third world dictatorship like ISIS or North Korea that has little (non-criminal, non-terroristic) influence outside its borders, if any.

edited 18th Apr '17 3:38:23 PM by SantosLHalper

HydraGem Swashbuckler Since: Jan, 2015
Swashbuckler
#1449: Apr 19th 2017 at 10:41:15 PM

Anybody can become superhuman and these superhumen are Athletes. With enough physical training, you can do almost anything. Boxers can stop trucks going at full-speed with a single punch. Baseball players can throw balls with enough force for the friction to cause them to catch fire. People who study Martial Arts like Karate or Judo can pull off those crazy Street Fighter moves. People who also have reached this level of superhumen also have increased healing factors. So a football player who broke his leg in his last game, could be back and ready for action if he rests properly.

Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#1450: Apr 20th 2017 at 5:48:02 PM

I can see a lot of rules being rewritten because of those superhuman capabilities.

The national animal of the Empire is an ugly little swamp critter with a big mouth. Why? Because one day the first king was out hiking with his inner circle and his top advisor fell while going through a swamp and the ugly critter up and tried to eat her head. They don't have a powerful bite so it wasn't dangerous but the little sucker wouldn't let go no matter how hard everyone pulled. The kind admired the thing's "determination" and decided it would be the perfect fit to represent the Empire.


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