Fantasy Gods, Races, Settings, Magic Systems and Miscellaneous

Depends on what you mean by “staff”. Are we talking regular to intermittent patrols or fierce combat along the entire length of the wall? Are the soldiers on the wall the entire fighting force expected to defend it, or sentries? When you’re talking about support staff are you talking about commanders and on site personnel, or the entire logistics tail? There’s a lot of variables.

Depending on the details it could be anywhere from a handful of guys to a full army.

Edited by archonspeaks on Feb 14th 2019 at 7:15:45 AM

It's a relatively complex question, at least during peacetime. It really depends on the political purpose of the wall. The wikipedia article on the garrison of Hadrian's Wall, indicates that the garrison was stationed primarily in milecastles, and sent out patrols between the "castles" (really small forts). It also states that the total garrison was between 1000-1500 men. It was 73 miles long, so by simple division, each mile required 14-21 men. But that's in peacetime.

In wartime, it depends on the size and deployment of the enemy. If necessary, they would man the wall with as many men as could physically fit on it, with reserves waiting on the ground behind it.

If the situation is somewhat volatile but not a full blown military attack, then as many men as are required to prevent small groups from crossing the wall undetected, or overrunning the forts. That depends on how large the raiding parties are. At a certain point, it becomes more practical to rely on the wall garrison as a warning tactic, and cavalry positioned in urban centers behind the wall to actually catch and defeat the raiders.

Edited by DeMarquis on Feb 14th 2019 at 6:53:04 AM

I'm trying to construct a Fictional Earth-style original fantasy setting for a primarily Classical Mythology-centric fanfic^note Yeah, apparently individual mythologies count as "works" to make derivatives of (such as fanfics), if FanficRecs.Classical Mythology is any indication., with a Crossover Cosmology in effect for the various mythologies that I'm making use of.

I am trying to come up with good names for the fantasy versions of our world's continents that would serve as the main landmasses of my setting, facing quite some difficulty in this because everyone and their mother on this planet apparently never thought of giving names to these landmasses before the Ancient Greeks/Romans and European colonizers did, and thus simply borrowed the technically foreign names into their own language.

Here's my provisional choices, with the real-world counterpart in parentheses:

• Asteria (Europe): Just like its RL counterpart, the name is Greek in origin; specifically, it's a feminine name that literally means "starry one" (alluding to the star motif in the Flag of Europe), is attributed to several figures in Greek mythology, and its masculine counterpart Asterion is both the Cretan name of the Minotaur and the name of a Cretan king who was the mortal husband of princess Europa (who is Europe's namesake) and, by virtue of being the stepfather of Europa's son Minos, the aforementioned Minotaur's step-grandfather. The connection with the two Asterions alludes to another symbol of Europe, that of the white bull that the god Zeus transformed into to abscond with princess Europa.

• Wassua (Asia): One possible etymology for the word Asia traces back to Akkadian (w)aṣû(m), which roughly denotes the east as the direction of sunrise. Another possible origin of the word traces back to Hittite Assuwa, which is also the name of a historical coalition of states in Anatolia — the same Anatolia that is often called "Asia Minor".

• Ribue (Africa): The Ancient Greeks used the word Libya to denote either a specific region or the whole continent of Africa. I chose the Attic Greek spelling of the word, since this dialect is, alongside Ionic, evolved into the Koine Greek of Alexander's Hellenic Empire and thus became the primary influence on the Modern Greek language; I then replaced the L with R to reflect the word's own origin from Ancient Egyptian R'bw (commonly transcribed as Rebu).

• Khebyala (the Americas): Derives from two indigenous names for the American continents — Kheya Wita (from Lakota, lit. "Turtle Island") for North America, and Abya Yala (meaning "land in its full maturity" or "land of vital blood"), which the Guna people use it for their part of Central America, while Nahuatl Wikipedia and Aymara Wikipedia (in the form "Awya Yala") actually claim that it's (at least currently) used to denote all of the Americas.

• Uluru (Australia): After the eponymous landmark, AKA "Ayers Rock" in English. It's the one geographical feature that comes to my mind when I think of Australia, and its uniqueness seems fitting to use it as a name for its fantasy counterpart, in the absence of any better alternative from any of the Aboriginal languages. It helps that it has some cool myths surrounding its origins, some of which seem close to being actual creation myths for the world as the Aborigines knew it.

What do you guys think?

So, I was wondering how the presence of super-hero level individuals would work in ancient/post-classical/early modern warfare. So, kinda like what if a Viking army was normal footsoldiers and Thor. Would it turn into Dynasty Warriors, or would the 'supers' (assuming both sides have some) just duel each other in the middle of the field? Would warfare just turn into strike groups of supers doing the main bulk of the fighting and normal soldiers being used simply to hold/defend captured territory and suppress civilian resistance? Would large blocks of infantry simply cease to become a 'thing' because of artillery/AOE damage supers in the army composition? Or would armies literally just specially train their troops to counter/mitigate the threat of opposing supers? My own WIP is using a setup similar to this, and I wonder just how much of the very basic assumptions we have about medieval (and classical and early modern) warfare would change once you add supers.

Or dragons (dragons are in my WIP, and the race that uses them against each other tend to have either completely enclosed settlements, settlements hidden away or in the case of the cities, very tall towers that essentially remove the advantage of height from any dragon trying to attack the city/walls).

Question- can these supers kill each other? Is it as easy as one normal killing another one?

Second question- how are super powers distributed across humanity? Is there a very small, well known group of people with all the powers, or is everyone somewhere on a more or less continuous hierarchy of power?

Edited by DeMarquis on Jul 3rd 2019 at 4:39:54 AM

Supers can kill each other, and do so all the time. Even normals *can* kill supers, since anything can happen in a fight, but they'd always be at a severe disadvantage against any combat-type super, and most supers who go out on the battlefield will be confident that they have the powers/support to survive an entire regiment of spearmen/archers trying to focus them down or gank them. Shooting Superman is NOT in effect for most supers, unless the super's explicit power is being able to turn to stone or something.

It's somewhere between the two in my particular WIP example, there are several methods of becoming supers, that basically boil down to either having the right genes (elemental power types, which can be as broad as any comic book universe's super powers), hard work and dedicated training (for weapon masters that become beyond around and above wuxia hero level combatants), a combination of the previous two (not enough elemental power to give powers from birth, but enough of a spark that can be trained to give a specific power), finding a certain item that can give you a Dangerous Forbidden Technique, or learning to Cast from (other people's) Lifespan which is the setting's equivalent of black magic. As a result, almost anyone could become a super, but most of the common folk don't have the time or resources to access any method other than the first one - being born with powers. The pure hard work/training method is flat out available to all, but it requires years of dedicated training that might not even pay off. Training the elemental power usually needs a compatible mentor within reach, as well as the proper testing to sense this power. The Dangerous Forbidden Technique items are hunted and hoarded by realms and individuals, so finding one is near-impossible for most people. And knowledge of the 'Black Magic' is outright suppressed in most societies. This leads to a relatively small amount of supers per capita, as having enough of the right genes to just have powers mutant-style is fairly rare, but training schools and state academies (depending on where you were born) will also comb all social classes for talent - but there's only so many places. So there are more supers around than there are supers in the Marvel/DC universe for example - maybe double, but this is certainly no MHA level of ubiquity.

So on the whole, those who have mastered their powers to a sufficient level are collectively called "Champions" - and they are considered military assets in themselves - the weakest of whom would be considered to be equivalent to an entire squad of soldiers, and the strongest could be considered equivalent to a battalion or regiment of soldiers, if not higher in some cases. There are non-Champion-level supers, but the tendency is that anyone with even only that much power (let's say a low level DnD caster) will have little reason not to apply themselves to become Champion level as soon as possible (and will probably be able to find a patron to support them until they reach that point). This leads to an overall "soft" border between normals and supers since anyone can theoretically become one, but there are economic, societal and practical barriers for most people, and the gradual slope that exists is very small and most people who are on it move up and off it fairly quickly.

Hope that covers everything and makes sense.

In that case, as combat with other supers or large numbers of normals is dangerous to them, most will likely decide to "lead from the rear", only engaging in combat themselves when no other option is available.

Many of them aren't natural leaders or tacticians, or even necessarily in leadership positions. Most front-line supers would have specific powers that make their defensive capabilities higher than normal - either special armour, Spin to Deflect Stuff (this is usually combined with Combat Clairvoyance and Implausible Fencing Powers), barrier abilities, there are some where Shooting Superman applies to them. The Dangerously Forbidden Technique is basically a whole body Deflector Shield that annihilates anything it touches. Healing Hands and Healing Factors are also present.

Sorry, I should have made that clearer - in that, yes they can be killed and sometimes quite easily. But in most cases it's like expecting mooks to take down Guts from Berserk, or Zoro from One Piece. They could do it. But it's pretty unlikely, and the culture very much promotes Frontline Generals and Royals Who Actually Do Something.

Plus, I may have given the impression that the supers were primarily from the noble classes, and they are overrepresented given they are a minority of the population (access to training etc), but the majority of supers are still drawn from the middle and lower classes, simply because there are mechanics in place to find those with potential and raise them up. Now, if those mechanics don't find you it's hard as fuck to do it alone.

I've also decided that this would more or less, if not eliminate, then significantly diminish the instances of patriarchal systems. If the, say, two out of the three strongest warriors in the kingdom are female because they a) got the right genes and b) worked their ass off to become a weapon master and got stronger than all the men fair and square, and that this kind of dynamic has been ongoing for centuries, would that society really be male-dominated anymore? A bit like the Wheel of Time universe, where women have a gender advantage over men in many cultures, probably because for thousands of years, women are the only ones who can use magic without going mad and blowing themselves up.

So I decided to take a stab at making my own race, and I found it easier to modify the standard fantasy races as opposed to making something from whole cloth. Most went nowhere, but I think this one came out pretty well:

Name: The Draugrm, AKA the Drachari, AKA the Drakkar, AKA some already taken and copyrighted D-names.

Physical Description: The Draugrm are medium-sized humanoids, ranging from four to five and a half feet, with some as tall as seven. They tend to be broader and thicker than humans, making them look squat. They have thick, leathery skin with some scaly growths, in dull hues (tan, olive, red, gray, etc.). Their facial features tend to the broad and square. They have fangs and thick claws, but these are too blunt to make effective natural weapons, being used to grind up tough fibrous meals and dig through earth.

Draugrm lay eggs like dinosaurs, so Draugrm women don't have Non-Mammal Mammaries (though they are warm blooded). This feeds the usual Dwarvish jokes about the men and the women looking the same, although the women tend to have wider hips. Draugrm do have epidermal growths similar to hair, but more akin to feathers or soft quills. Males can grow beards as a sort of display, and their "hair" is usually brighter-colored than females. Some Draugrm have fleshy growths like whiskers or barbs, a holdover from living in the dark.

Draugrm are naturally long-lived, averaging 150-200 years. They're slow to breed and can't match human reproduction numbers, but they mature quickly and don't decay until the last quarter of their lives. Draugrm have a reputation for hardiness and are resistant to poison, being able to eat most things in the underground. They have decent low-light vision and some variants can see in the dark, although these have trouble in the light.

Culture: While Draugrm societies are as varied as human societies, they have their stereotypes. Draugrm tend to stick together in clan-like structures. The specifics vary- some are blood related and traced through the generations, while others are formed and dispersed like military companies. While bloodlines aren't unknown, many Draugrm focus less on specific heritage and more on big picture "It takes a village", with every Draugrm child being a child of the clan. The eggs are placed together in the rookery and the children are raised together. Certain Draugrm societies will exchange clan eggs instead of intermarrying to forge social ties. Others have an open-door policy, where impressive or useful individuals (not always Draugrm!) are invited to join the clan.

Draugrm clans tend to focus on several specific trades (blacksmithing, farming, textiles, etc.) with a smattering of other skills as needed. Depending on the size of the clan, they could have all the facilities and training of a small village, or be a single farming family. Draugrm dwellings vary from fortified compounds to underground keeps to small villages in their own right, and when living among other races Draugrm tend to pack themselves together. Draugrm clans have communal hordes, but these tend to be less shiny things (although those are nice) and more warehouses of necessary goods- iron and copper are often preferred over silver and gold. Clan hordes are treasure troves of clan-crafted items, from the sentimental to the very potent and magical, which are parceled out as needed. So, a Draugrm adventurer in good standing is likely to have some neat toys from the folks back home.

Draugrm societies tend to focus more on the community over the individual, and are slow to change. The clan elders are often as strong as they were in their youth and can hold their own, meaning they can enforce their rules, violently or otherwise. Assuming societies progress with every funeral, Draugrm are less "innovative" than humans, but have much longer to pick a trade or three and master them- so Draugrm society is less likely to build newfangled magical analytical engines, but their weapons and armor are among the finest in the world. While there may be a single leader on the local level, larger Draugrm societies tend towards councils and group rule to make sure clans are happy or at least unlikely to rebel- oligarchy over monarchy, congress over president.

Some examples of Draugrm civilization include Venetian Republic-style merchant clans and aristocrats, Spartan-esque fascists with an emphasis on individual toughness and duty to the volk, communist workers' paradises both real and fake, and hippy farming communes.

Some notes:

From an RPG standpoint, Draugrm are medium creatures with limited Darkvision. They have a bonus to Constitution, and resistance to poisons, like the classic dorf. Variants get an armor bonus or enhanced Darkvision/perception based on where they're from.

They like axes because axes are great for chopping through other Draugrm, but they also like halberds and pollaxes with spear tips for tunnel fighting. Some like to use entrenching tools and sharpened shovels instead of regular axes.

Instead of using apostrophes like the elves, Draugrm drop a vowel or two to sound more fantasy-like.

Influences include Gargoyles, Scarrans, Enutrofs and of course the Dwarves and Dragonborn and Dark Elves of D&D.

Also, I'd like to apologize to the mods. I somehow missed this thread and made my own, and I don't know how to delete it.

So I'm starting to flesh out my Clockpunk setting some more, and was contemplating about how telecommunication would work if they lack electricity. I'm trying to avoid magitek as I want the clockwork tech to be able to function on their own without magic, and the setting is supposed to be on the low magic side.

However, I am toying with the idea of using conjured familiars in communication. Someone summons a familiar that they establish a mental link with. They command their familiar to deliver a message to someone, and the familiar teleports to that person, and the other person does the same with their familiar. Alternatively, I could just use magic mirrors or crystal balls, but I think this idea is a little more original.

Any thoughts?

I've been trawling Wikipedia for ideas, and I think you'll like this one: The Optical Telegraph.

It's a series of towers with a semaphore rig, and apparently faster than a horse and rider. The system was in use up to WWII. There's actually one in The Count of Monte Cristo, but I'd assumed it was an electric telegraph. I don't know the particulars of your world, but you could have these for the hoi polloi, and the upper crust get the magic mirrors and crystal balls.

Edited by JBC31187 on Jan 18th 2020 at 7:04:40 AM

Kinda like how in Harry Potter they eventually figured out that you could send a patronus for a message?

Because if you can summon a familiar or somesuch and it can leave your presence, you can simply have your familiar state your message directly.

Ah, good point, although I happen to really like the optical telegraph idea now. Might save the idea about the familiars for something else.

You could probably have a magically-enhanced optical telegraph capable of sending and receiving greater amounts of data, like a free-space laser link that used beams of magical energy or something. That depends how far you want to lean into the magitek angle, though.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 19th 2020 at 10:00:09 AM

If it's a low-magic clockpunk world, then you could fuse the two. Huge clocktower-like structures, whose clock hands spell out messages, with bound spirits to automate them.

Edit: If it's a police state, then you could have towering clockwork golems every few blocks, with bound spirits to watch the passerby. When someone makes a disturbance, the bell tower rings, and the the golems send out a message calling for backup.

Edited by JBC31187 on Jan 19th 2020 at 2:13:39 AM

For the clockpunk worlds: the Strandbeest!

What I like about the Strandbeests is that their leg system is easy to understand, and can be applied in different configurations. They're also built with multiple energy sources (wind, electric motors) so they're more flexible to put in your world.

Cool! I'll definitely check it out.

I read the article you linked, so now I'll see if I can learn more about them.

I love the strandbeests! I'm using their aesthetic for a couple of my story ideas!

So, Youtube has plenty of Strandbeest videos, but to avoid spamming the thread, I'm just going to leave this one: The Walking Chair.

I think the most interesting parts are: it can carry a human, negotiate hills and uneven terrain, and can turn.

I'm trying to put together a very, very broad cosmology and explanation to how magic works in my setting. My goal is to keep it as simple as possible, leaving plenty of room for additions and alterations.

So, the universe is divided into two planes: the Mundane and the Arcane. The Mundane is the material plane and the scientific laws that govern it. Elements like carbon, gold, and plutonium are Mundane. Physics and chemistry and their applications are Mundane. Gravity and electro-magnetism are Mundane, although the people of that universe might not have conceived of such things.

The Arcane is all things magic. It's a seemingly infinite plane of magical energy, that's considered responsible for anything that breaks the laws of Mundane nature. Spells draw on the Arcane, creatures like dragons and giants get their abilities from the Arcane, and so forth.

Like in Gargoyles, energy is energy, and neither Mundane or Arcane are necessarily superior. A +2 shield isn't going to do squat against a tank, and a mage's fireball is extra-dangerous to blackpowder weapons.

Magic and science are considered separate disciplines. While both can be studied and practiced, what is considered Arcane is mainly a question of "Can you Counterspell/Drain it?" Because all Arcana comes from the same source, it can all be shut off in similar ways. This isn't to say that a novice mage can counterspell a dragon and win, but if you have enough juice in the tank you can shut the dragonbreath down the same way you'd counter an apprentice mage.

And while magic is plenty effective on Mundane tech, it has to follow physical law. A mage can set blackpowder weapons on fire, or douse them in water, or blind the gunner, but they can't cast Counterspell and stop the chemical reactions from working.

The Arcane plane, as far as anyone knows, is infinite, and you can use this energy to do anything. In practice, casting spells is really really hard. Spells are limited to what has been tested and verified to work. While traditions may vary on the surface, every spellcaster- warlock, cleric, wizard, etc- is ultimately drawing upon the Arcane plane, and they all have the same spell list, with only time and practice and training limiting what any mage can cast. You could in theory take that infinite energy and feed multitudes, or a make a planet, or blow up a castle, but in practice you have to understand what you're doing. Just trying to do magic will either result in nothing, or disaster.

So I have an idea about a Goddess of the Earth who has various incarnations based on the Five Stages of Grief, minus Acceptance. The short story is that the Goddess of the Earth was all alone and was left a shell of its former self by its creators.

Denial: The Mother of Caverns, the Underground Goddess, who keeps the former civilizations underneath the lands, denying what has happened to her. Anger: Mistress of Riptides, the goddess of the seas, who’s storms rage every day at what happened to her. Bargaining: No clue. Depression: The Earth Goddess as a whole.

I’m trying to think of a theme that fits Bargaining.

Nature—you can obtain all the resources you need if you are willing to integrate yourself into the local ecosystem.

You could link each aspect to an element or facet of nature more generally.

E.g. Denial could be the literal interpretation of an earth goddess (earth/fire), with aspects of earthquake and wildfires and such.

Anger representing all storms (wind/water), so not just raging seas but also tornadoes and hurricanes.

Bargaining: Metal/Life. Both have an element of tradeoffs, values and risks. Great value can be found but at great risk, Nature can provide if you pitch in.

Depression: Dark/Thunder, obscures the truth and has a cold and deadness to it.

Edited by devak on Jun 20th 2020 at 11:46:12 AM

Well, I made the basics of a homebrew for a friend to use for his campaign, but it didn't really go anywhere due to quarantine. Thought I might share it here in case anyone is interested.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HXIf74fTKRdzxfw8HTaDe7Qpgs0Q4cl4e1bIxp5aIBA/edit?usp=sharing

Edited by ericshaofangwang on Jul 1st 2020 at 6:01:04 PM

So, I have a fantasy setting that is essentially anachronistic Renaissance Italy, and it's obviously clockpunk.

I've been thinking about the setting's religion, and the most obvious answer seems to just use a fantasy version of Catholicism, but I don't want to just copy and paste the real Italian Renaissance into a fantasy setting and considered making up a completely different religion.

However, many institutions of the Italian Renaissance seem to be products of Catholicism, and I think my setting wouldn't be remotely similar unless it had its own version of Catholicism or the same history as RL.