Creation Daily

[Kobold King he/him]

First off, I did write this in one night with minimal research, so I'm not exactly surprised at all of my errors. Also, I think I posted the slightly-less-polished draft, not the one I printed and turned in. Oops.

 

Anyways, Paragraph 1: I like the idea of the ice minerals as a dietary supplement. IIRC, Europa does have some geysers, just not as many as Enceladus. I'll look into hydrothermal vents and algae.

 

Paragraph 2: Yeah, I really just estimated most of my numbers. The idea is, their body temperature is extremely high, so if a predator or something developed more of a dependence on thermal vision, bye-bye fishies. Honestly, this aspect is probably going to go through a lot of revision before I'm happy.

 

Lastly, thanks for your feedback! Who knows, I might write them into a story. Heck, I might just let you have them if I never get around to doing anything. We'll see how it all works out.

 

 

On Paragraph 2: once heat vision develops, the fishies will be forced to evolve in one of two different ways to evade predation.

 

1, they could simply evolve speed and heat senses of their own to simply detect and swim away from predators. For a carnivore, being able to sense prey is only the smallest and easiest part of the battle. There's no reason the fishies would be driven wholly to extinction by the evolution of predators. If anything, the competition between predator and prey would only cause a mass diversification of forms in the fishies. There'd be way more species of them.

 

2, fishies could evolve some sort of outer layer that insulates their internal bodies and prevents heat from radiating out into the water. The less heat radiates away from them, the closer to invisible they will be to predators.

 

 

So don't worry. The Europite fishies will be more than capable of surviving the evolution of predators. From a biodiversity standpoint they will actually prosper.

[+Slowswift]

On Paragraph 2: once heat vision develops, the fishies will be forced to evolve in one of two different ways to evade predation.

 

1, they could simply evolve speed and heat senses of their own to simply detect and swim away from predators. For a carnivore, being able to sense prey is only the smallest and easiest part of the battle. There's no reason the fishies would be driven wholly to extinction by the evolution of predators. If anything, the competition between predator and prey would only cause a mass diversification of forms in the fishies. There'd be way more species of them.

 

2, fishies could evolve some sort of outer layer that insulates their internal bodies and prevents heat from radiating out into the water. The less heat radiates away from them, the closer to invisible they will be to predators.

 

 

So don't worry. The Europite fishies will be more than capable of surviving the evolution of predators. From a biodiversity standpoint they will actually prosper.

 

Thank you so much again!

[Zathoth]

I have an idea for a setting for a sci fi story that I have no idea what I shall do with, but I may as well share it.

 

It is pretty simple. Most of earths history is the same, but somewhere during the 60s we make first contact with aliens. For very simple reasons. In this alternate reality Venus and Mars can sustain life and have both have 'intelligent' species.

 

Sure, Venus is still warmer than earth and Mars is still colder, but they can sustain human life.

 

Present day: Trade, politics and so on is open between the planets. You can find Martians on Venus, you can find Venusians on Earth and so on. Space travel and technology is leaps ahead because of space travel being needed.

 

And then I need to figure out what kind of life Venus and Mars would develop... and a plot.

[Aonar he/him]

Morzathoth: If you're looking for ideas on how evolution might drive the species on those planets, here are a couple:

 

Martians will have adapted to the cold, lower oxygen concentrations/atmospheric pressure/gravity, as well as a more limited water supply. A few ideas:

 

-Haemocyanin based respiration as opposed to haemoglobin. (Haemocyanin bonds oxygen more efficiently in lower concentrations; all this would mean for your story is that Martians will have colourless (unoxygenated) or blue (oxygenated) blood.) 

 

-Mars will be generally inhospitable to avians, and by extension aviation; even if we increase the atmospheric density substantially from what it is in reality for the purposes of the story, you'd still need to accelerate to ridiculous speeds to achieve flight; (400+mph [roughly half the speed of sound] just to get off the ground) it's not improbable that they'd manage space travel before they did aviation.

 

-Large creatures will probably be the norm. Between the cold and the reduced gravity, larger body masses will generally be better for survival; the main limiting factor would be oxygen concentration, but if Mars in this story is survivable for unaugmented humans, I'll assume that the concentration would be something not dissimilar to what you'd see on a moderately high mountain, so there shouldn't be many problems. Species with some form of fur, in addition to internal thermoregulation systems, (IE, roughly mammal-like) will probably be pretty dominant.

 

-Limited water is iffier; one can assume that they would evolve to conserve water; there's a good chance they'd be largely nocturnal, and have a lower average body temperature. Additional sensory inputs might arise too; they might develop some sort of biological system to precisely gauge humidity, to help seek out water sources.

 

Venusians will have almost the exact opposite challenges to martians. As such, I would be surprised if Venusians were terribly comfortable on Mars, or vice versa. They'd have to deal with increased gravity (Well, relatively increased. Compared to Earth, Venus's gravity is actually a fraction weaker (about 9%), but that's still more than double what Mars has.), heat, and atmospheric pressure. Thankfully, Venus has a fair bit more water than Mars, so if we cool things down enough to allow liquid water to form, and ease up on the whole "sulfuric acid storms and constant hurricane force winds that are hot enough to melt lead," thing, that won't be a problem. In case you can't tell, in real life, Venus is far less hospitable even than Mars, but if we're assuming Venus to be more Earth-like in this 'verse, you might see things like this:

 

-The heat and the gravity will mean that creatures will trend towards being smaller, but the atmosphere and weather will mean that everything is going to have to be pretty sturdy. Insects, crustaceans and reptiles would do well; mammals less so, although it's not impossible that something mammal-like could evolve.

 

-Animals on Venus would likely have an additional sense similar to ones on Mars; theirs however would deal with barometric pressure. Even with a survivable temperature and atmosphere, storms on Venus will be a helluva lot stronger than anything we're used to on Earth; advance warning in order to seek shelter would be essential to any species' development.

 

-Due to Venus's thicker atmosphere, flight will be ridiculously easy; expect lots of birds/bird-like things, and animals with gliding capabilities. If the primary sapient inhabitants are not avians of one form or another themselves, expect them to have developed aviation quite early, relative to us.

 

Anyways, I don't know if any of that was helpful, (Kobold will likely be able to provide some better help, when he gets around) but those are a couple quick conjectures one could make about theoretical life on each of those planets.

Edited February 5, 2016 by Aonar Faileas

[Zathoth]

Morzathoth: If you're looking for ideas on how evolution might drive the species on those planets, here are a couple:

 

Martians will have adapted to the cold, lower oxygen concentrations/atmospheric pressure/gravity, as well as a more limited water supply. A few ideas:

 

-Haemocyanin based respiration as opposed to haemoglobin. (Haemocyanin bonds oxygen more efficiently in lower concentrations; all this would mean for your story is that Martians will have colourless (unoxygenated) or blue (oxygenated) blood.) 

 

-Mars will be generally inhospitable to avians, and by extension aviation; even if we increase the atmospheric density substantially from what it is in reality for the purposes of the story, you'd still need to accelerate to ridiculous speeds to achieve flight; (400+mph [roughly half the speed of sound] just to get off the ground) it's not improbable that they'd manage space travel before they did aviation.

 

-Large creatures will probably be the norm. Between the cold and the reduced gravity, larger body masses will generally be better for survival; the main limiting factor would be oxygen concentration, but if Mars in this story is survivable for unaugmented humans, I'll assume that the concentration would be something not dissimilar to what you'd see on a moderately high mountain, so there shouldn't be many problems. Species with some form of fur, in addition to internal thermoregulation systems, (IE, roughly mammal-like) will probably be pretty dominant.

 

-Limited water is iffier; one can assume that they would evolve to conserve water; there's a good chance they'd be largely nocturnal, and have a lower average body temperature. Additional sensory inputs might arise too; they might develop some sort of biological system to precisely gauge humidity, to help seek out water sources.

 

Venusians will have almost the exact opposite challenges to martians. As such, I would be surprised if Venusians were terribly comfortable on Mars, or vice versa. They'd have to deal with increased gravity, heat, and atmospheric pressure. Thankfully, Venus has a fair bit more water than Mars, so if we cool things down enough to allow liquid water to form, and ease up on the whole "sulfuric acid storms and constant hurricane force winds that are hot enough to melt lead," thing, that won't be a problem. In case you can't tell, in real life, Venus is far less hospitable even than Mars, but if we're assuming Venus to be more Earth-like in this 'verse, you might see things like this:

 

-The heat and the gravity will mean that creatures will trend towards being smaller, but the atmosphere and weather will mean that everything is going to have to be pretty sturdy. Insects, crustaceans and reptiles would do well; mammals less so, although it's not impossible that something mammal-like could evolve.

 

-Animals on Venus would likely have an additional sense similar to ones on Mars; theirs however would deal with barometric pressure. Even with a survivable temperature and atmosphere, storms on Venus will be a helluva lot stronger than anything we're used to on Earth; advance warning in order to seek shelter would be essential to any species' development.

 

-Due to Venus's thicker atmosphere, flight will be ridiculously easy; expect lots of birds/bird-like things, and animals with gliding capabilities. If the primary sapient inhabitants are not avians of one form or another themselves, expect them to have developed aviation quite early, relative to us.

 

Anyways, I don't know if any of that was helpful, (Kobold will likely be able to provide some better help, when he gets around) but those are a couple quick conjectures one could make about theoretical life on each of those planets.

Thank you! I have been having this idea for months without having any clue where to start. This helps a lot.

 

 

But anyway, you understand my idea, I know Venus would be more or less impossible to terraform, so I am changing things for narrative purposes, but I dont want to change too much either...

 

Mars

Would blimps and such be impossible too? Seems like travel would be very difficult on Mars.

I think I'll keep the air pressure around mountain levels, yes.

I really like the idea of martians being huge, beast like creatures.

Could I give Mars more water than it has in reality? Just a little bit more to solve the problem. Then again I do like the idea of having senses to gauge humidity.

 

Venus

Venus is basically Roshar, but with lots of flying creatures, got it XD

Flying lizards with shells, I love it.

 

 

Ok, now I have lots of ideas for fauna, how about the flora on both planets?

 

I almost want to make Mercury... not livable, but less certain death. Maybe it has some kind of life, obviously living underneath the surface, but no one wants to go to Mercury.

 

I once read that The Moon would have about the same climate as Florida if we terraformed it, so now I am imagining a vacation resort on the moon XD

[Aonar he/him]

Thank you! I have been having this idea for months without having any clue where to start. This helps a lot.

 

 

But anyway, you understand my idea, I know Venus would be more or less impossible to terraform, so I am changing things for narrative purposes, but I dont want to change too much either...

 

Mars

Would blimps and such be impossible too? Seems like travel would be very difficult on Mars.

I think I'll keep the air pressure around mountain levels, yes.

I really like the idea of martians being huge, beast like creatures.

Could I give Mars more water than it has in reality? Just a little bit more to solve the problem. Then again I do like the idea of having senses to gauge humidity.

 

Venus

Venus is basically Roshar, but with lots of flying creatures, got it XD

Flying lizards with shells, I love it.

 

 

Ok, now I have lots of ideas for fauna, how about the flora on both planets?

 

I almost want to make Mercury... not livable, but less certain death. Maybe it has some kind of life, obviously living underneath the surface, but no one wants to go to Mercury.

 

I once read that The Moon would have about the same climate as Florida if we terraformed it, so now I am imagining a vacation resort on the moon XD

 

Mars:

Blimps may actually be even less practical, I'm afraid. (As a word of warning, most of the physics here is stuff I've just taught myself on the spot in order to answer this, but I think it's right. ) I'm assuming for the purposes of this story that atmospheric pressure on Mars is about 40 kPa, pretty close the the minimum survivable amount for a human. (About 67 times what it is on Mars in reality.) Now, at STP, air on Earth has a density of about 1.2 kilos/meter cubed. Mars will be a little colder than Earth, so let's call the density of it's air about 1.4*0.4, or 0.56kg/m^3.

 

One we know that, we can start figuring out other stuff. A commercial blimp these days runs about 4250 kilos empty, and has a volume of about 6000 m^3. This means that It will displace roughly 6000*0.56 kilos of air, or 3360 kilos. This is a problem, seeing how we haven't even started factoring in payload or the weight of the gas that will be lifting it, and we're already too heavy by about 900 kilos. (I haven't factored in Mars's reduced gravity simply because it's unnecessary to the equation; it'll effect both the buoyant force and the weight of the airship equally.)

 

You could theoretically get by with some sort of ultralight design, with minimal payload; probably personal craft or some such. A viable commercial industry though would be unlikely. (Once again, not impossible; if you wanted to make it work, you could, but the blimps in question would be rather sketchy and ultimately unreliable, I would think.)

 

 

In terms of water, you can do really whatever you'd like; you've already shifted Venus's position in space by several thousand kilometers at least, so I'd imagine having a few additional ice-bearing comets strike Mars at some point in it's past is not out of the question.

 

 

Venus:

Pretty much, yeah. (Crab dragons! )

 

 

Flora... that's trickier. Mars, depending on location, and how you decide to mess with water concentration, will vary between having flora similar to arid areas in midwestern America/the middle east, to things more like what would be seen in subarctic/tundra scrublands of Canada, Russia and northern Europe.

 

Venus... Hrm. I would imagine dense, tropical forests would be plentiful, stretching from the equator well into the higher latitudes. Go further north/south, and things will get more temperate, but life there would never have to adapt to anything like winter. They'd be more shaped by the storms, I would imagine; most things would not grow too tall, save perhaps if they all grew close enough together to be able to weather the extreme winds. Perhaps some would even take advantage of the storms, maybe even requiring them for reproduction, similar to the way some pines have adapted to forest fires?

 

 

The problem with terraforming the moon is that any atmosphere you introduced would be stripped away in a matter of days, if not hours, due to the lack of gravity. (Unless you were sensible and contained the atmosphere within an enclosure of some sort, but that's boring.) So it'd be like Florida for about a weekend, tops, then everything would die.

Edited February 6, 2016 by Aonar Faileas

[Zathoth]

Mars:

Blimps may actually be even less practical, I'm afraid. (As a word of warning, most of the physics here is stuff I've just taught myself on the spot in order to answer this, but I think it's right. ) I'm assuming for the purposes of this story that atmospheric pressure on Mars is about 40 kPa, pretty close the the minimum survivable amount for a human. (About 67 times what it is on Mars in reality.) Now, at STP, air on Earth has a density of about 1.2 kilos/meter cubed. Mars will be a little colder than Earth, so let's call the density of it's air about 1.4*0.4, or 0.56kg/m^3.

 

One we know that, we can start figuring out other stuff. A commercial blimp these days runs about 4250 kilos empty, and has a volume of about 6000 m^3. This means that It will displace roughly 6000*0.56 kilos of air, or 3360 kilos. This is a problem, seeing how we haven't even started factoring in payload or the weight of the gas that will be lifting it, and we're already too heavy by about 900 kilos. (I haven't factored in Mars's reduced gravity simply because it's unnecessary to the equation; it'll effect both the buoyant force and the weight of the airship equally.)

 

You could theoretically get by with some sort of ultralight design, with minimal payload; probably personal craft or some such. A viable commercial industry though would be unlikely. (Once again, not impossible; if you wanted to make it work, you could, but the blimps in question would be rather sketchy and ultimately unreliable, I would think.)

 

 

In terms of water, you can do really whatever you'd like; you've already shifted Venus's position in space by several thousand kilometers at least, so I'd imagine having a few additional ice-bearing comets strike Mars at some point in it's past is not out of the question.

 

 

Venus:

Pretty much, yeah. (Crab dragons! )

 

 

Flora... that's trickier. Mars, depending on location, and how you decide to mess with water concentration, will vary between having flora similar to arid areas in midwestern America/the middle east, to fauna more like what would be seen in subarctic/tundra scrublands of Canada, Russia and northern Europe.

 

Venus... Hrm. I would imagine dense, tropical forests would be plentiful, stretching from the equator well into the higher latitudes. Go further north/south, and things will get more temperate, but life there would never have to adapt to anything like winter. They'd be more shaped by the storms, I would imagine; most things would not grow too tall, save perhaps if they all grew close enough together to be able to weather the extreme winds. Perhaps some would even take advantage of the storms, maybe even requiring them for reproduction, similar to the way some pines have adapted to forest fires?

 

 

The problem with terraforming the moon is that any atmosphere you introduced would be stripped away in a matter of days, if not hours, due to the lack of gravity. (Unless you were sensible and contained the atmosphere within an enclosure of some sort, but that's boring.) So it'd be like Florida for about a weekend, tops, then everything would die.

 

Mars

Ok, no flying on mars. Instead they have the best railroads in the solar system. Then again if they invented magnet rails that early... Japans Maglev train tops at 603 km/h, 650 is not impossible. Still not very viable though XD

 

On one hand I kind of want water on Mars, on the other hand I like the mental image of barren, frozen deserts XD... no reason I cant have both, right? Considering all the different climates on earth.

 

Venus

Crab Dragons! I love it!

 

 

Very, very sturdy trees with few branches could make sense. And yes, definitely have plants that uses the storms somehow. Everything flies on venus, if it doesnt it will be pretty much nailed to the ground...

 

 

Hnnn... but I want a vacation resort on the moon... well, either the moon is now large enough to hold an atmosphere or I have gone the boring route.

 

I already moved Venus thousands of kilometers, whatever XD

[Mestiv he/him]

Sooo... Seeing so many Sharders playing around with worldbuilding and storywriting, I got my own idea stuck in my head

 

The idea is simple:

We have a world that is more or less on our technological level. The difference is, all their devices aren't powered by electricity but by magic. Everyone is able to use simple magic, like create a little ball of light for few seconds, but only very few bother to train those abilities as it requires a lot of practice (just like training sports or learning science etc. only few people are really good).

 

What makes those magical devices work? Something like Aons. There is a given set of simple Glyphs that can interact with magic to do very basic stuff, however, if you have time and will you can make interesting stuff with them. Just like in our world, we have simple stuff like capacitors and semiconductors, they're simple stuff right? And yet, they are the base of all our technology. People of this world discovered how to miniaturize Glyphs just like we did with circuits and BOOM! technomagical revolution a'la our XX century. 

 

I'm still working on any story to use this in, but what do you think?

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Sooo... Seeing so many Sharders playing around with worldbuilding and storywriting, I got my own idea stuck in my head

 

The idea is simple:

We have a world that is more or less on our technological level. The difference is, all their devices aren't powered by electricity but by magic. Everyone is able to use simple magic, like create a little ball of light for few seconds, but only very few bother to train those abilities as it requires a lot of practice (just like training sports or learning science etc. only few people are really good).

 

What makes those magical devices work? Something like Aons. There is a given set of simple Glyphs that can interact with magic to do very basic stuff, however, if you have time and will you can make interesting stuff with them. Just like in our world, we have simple stuff like capacitors and semiconductors, they're simple stuff right? And yet, they are the base of all our technology. People of this world discovered how to miniaturize Glyphs just like we did with circuits and BOOM! technomagical revolution a'la our XX century. 

 

I'm still working on any story to use this in, but what do you think?

 

I think it's worthy of an upvote.  

[Oversleep]

I need some help with developing magic limitations. See, the general rule is "the more specific ability, the more powerful". So somebody whose power is to control electromagnetic waves would be weaker at manipulating visible light than illusion mage; storm mage would be weaker at wind manipulation than wind mage, etc. This rule can be also paraphrased as "The more powerful your ability is the less you are able to do". For example, ability to shoot lasers is powerful, but you can't cast illusions.

The way magic works is that mage uses magic to produce an effect which is suspectible to our physics. So first ice mage breaks second law of enthropy to cast a freezing spell, but after that the frozen object melts normally.

Now the problem is to set up another rule. We Sanderfans know it as "Investiture Interference". So I have to explain why main character can't just snap his fingers and set opponent on fire from 500 meters away and instead he throws fireballs. I could write it off as "magic cannot affect magic", but on the other hand I want it possible for spells to interact both in cooperative and hostile way. I want magnetic mages to touch opponent, charge him, and then watch him attract all the sharp metal prepared earlier. I want people to be able to lend their spells to somebody else (and also make artifacts). For example, one of the characters of the main crew is decay mage. He's very destructively oriented, but compared to the rest is very fragile (minor regeneration, almost nonexistant enhacements and so on) and can't keep up with faster opponents; but the weapons he creates are very valuable since they literally destroy magic and those more powerful mages often have full body armors. So decay shuriken will go right through the three walls, pierce armor, pierce through the victim and poison the wound with decay (largely counteracts regeneration and resists healing).
Now, magnetic mages would find those shurikens very useful, but if I go with "magic cannot affect magic" then it's kind of useless to make artifacts.

I have thought about making spell templates - said decay mage casts the spell on the weapon and then carefully removes his aura from it, leaving only the scaffolding of the spell and then he proceeds to remove spell's connection to him. That leaves a weapon which can be powered by anyone and still produces the decay effect. On the other hand, I wanted the auras (mage's energy is flavored by nature of his ability) to be responsible for the end effect.
But that doesn't solve the problem of affecting other person with your magic. I have to explain why telekinetic mages can't just rip people in half while still allowing gravity mages charge people.

 

I have thought about sorting powers into natural and unnatural - since everything has gravity, the mage just amplifies the natural gravity and the victim collapses his own house on himself, but why wouldn't fire mage be able to amplify body's heat to set people on fire? So I will probably discard that sorting idea.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Oversleep

[Edgedancer he/him]

I need some help with developing magic limitations. See, the general rule is "the more specific ability, the more powerful". So somebody whose power is to control electromagnetic waves would be weaker at manipulating visible light than illusion mage; storm mage would be weaker at wind manipulation than wind mage, etc. This rule can be also paraphrased as "The more powerful your ability is the less you are able to do". For example, ability to shoot lasers is powerful, but you can't cast illusions.

The way magic works is that mage uses magic to produce an effect which is suspectible to our physics. So first ice mage breaks second law of enthropy to cast a freezing spell, but after that the frozen object melts normally.

Now the problem is to set up another rule. We Sanderfans know it as "Investiture Interference". So I have to explain why main character can't just snap his fingers and set opponent on fire from 500 meters away and instead he throws fireballs. I could write it off as "magic cannot affect magic", but on the other hand I want it possible for spells to interact both in cooperative and hostile way. I want magnetic mages to touch opponent, charge him, and then watch him attract all the sharp metal prepared earlier. I want people to be able to lend their spells to somebody else (and also make artifacts). For example, one of the characters of the main crew is decay mage. He's very destructively oriented, but compared to the rest is very fragile (minor regeneration, almost nonexistant enhacements and so on) and can't keep up with faster opponents; but the weapons he creates are very valuable since they literally destroy magic and those more powerful mages often have full body armors. So decay shuriken will go right through the three walls, pierce armor, pierce through the victim and poison the wound with decay (largely counteracts regeneration and resists healing).

Now, magnetic mages would find those shurikens very useful, but if I go with "magic cannot affect magic" then it's kind of useless to make artifacts.

I have thought about making spell templates - said decay mage casts the spell on the weapon and then carefully removes his aura from it, leaving only the scaffolding of the spell and then he proceeds to remove spell's connection to him. That leaves a weapon which can be powered by anyone and still produces the decay effect. On the other hand, I wanted the auras (mage's energy is flavored by nature of his ability) to be responsible for the end effect.

But that doesn't solve the problem of affecting other person with your magic. I have to explain why telekinetic mages can't just rip people in half while still allowing gravity mages charge people.

 

I have thought about sorting powers into natural and unnatural - since everything has gravity, the mage just amplifies the natural gravity and the victim collapses his own house on himself, but why wouldn't fire mage be able to amplify body's heat to set people on fire? So I will probably discard that sorting idea.

Well one option would be to require it that magic starts with the user, so a fire mage could tecnically set someone on fire but they have to get into touch range first, which is a lot more dangerous than throwing fireballs instead. Possibly leaving the option of leaving a charge in an object to affect them when the physical contact no longer exsists.

 

As a side question, how can something as vague as decay be that powerful... or give regeneration for that matter?

[Oversleep]

Well one option would be to require it that magic starts with the user, so a fire mage could tecnically set someone on fire but they have to get into touch range first, which is a lot more dangerous than throwing fireballs instead. Possibly leaving the option of leaving a charge in an object to affect them when the physical contact no longer exsists.

 

As a side question, how can something as vague as decay be that powerful... or give regeneration for that matter?

I have thought about this too. That it requires touch. Well, for the fire mage being in close combat there is no use to imbue somebody with his aura to get him to burn. It would be easier to just summon fire and throw it at the opponent.

But for the gravity (or magnetic) mage it would be very useful as he'd basically get all his projectiles not only auto-aim but also homing effect.

...Wait. That's basically how infusing with Stormlight works.

...

Everything has been already done, eh?

As for your question, I can PM you with the answer, but I'm not really comfortable with putting it out in the open in the Internet. The answer requires explaining ideas it took me long to figure out.

Short answer: every mage gets some Stormlight holding enhancements but sadly decay doesn't get along with improving things.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

First world writer problems: 

 

 

Seriously. Right now, the two top contenders are "Albert" and "Bertrand," with "Egbert" running a distant third. And I don't like any of them.

 

Edit: I'm toying with calling him Augustine, after Augustine of Hippo. (No, I am not going to name him Hippo, no matter how tempting the prospect. ) It'd make sense for him, given his background and parents. 

Edited February 10, 2016 by TwiLyghtSansSparkles

[Stormgate he/him]

Ooh, I actually like that a lot! And you're right, Green doesn't fit with Gravity, but it works quite well with Elasticity. Thanks!

EDIT: So, the first couple things that popped into my head when it comes to messing with objects's Elasticity were absorbing absorbing shock, turning your legs into massive springs, that kind of thing. And potentially decreasing Elasticity to make an object, (or a bone...), more brittle and breakable. Is this basically what you picturing? Any other interesting applications you thought of?

You could make You mention bone, but it might be better in a material that draws more strength from elasticity, like skin. Or maybe wood or something.

Also, I'm working on a magic system based on color, but I was lacking some major details. Mind if I take your system and modify it? I'm not sure how much I would take, though.

[Seonid he/him]

I asked this in the random stuff thread, but I thought it would be a useful question here too. How interested would you folks be if I were to post a thread dedicated to my workshops and settings? Just trying to see if there's enough interest at this time to make the project worthwhile.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

I asked this in the random stuff thread, but I thought it would be a useful question here too. How interested would you folks be if I were to post a thread dedicated to my workshops and settings? Just trying to see if there's enough interest at this time to make the project worthwhile.

 

I'd keep up with a thread like that. 

[Oversleep]

I also thought of starting my thread. (as the piece I posted here got 0% feedback)

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Finally, I never feel I've developed a character enough until I know what their Patronus would be and why. For instance, I know Susan's would be a dove, because she strives to be a peacemaker and always prefers nonviolent resolutions to conflicts. I'm still working on the Patronuses for the other characters in this WIP, so I've got a ways to go. 

 

I have the Patronuses for several other characters! I feel so proud of myself. 

 

Charles Whitelaw: Boa constrictor. I actually searched for "animals who suffocate their prey" while trying to decide on his, and I learned that boas don't suffocate their prey. Instead, they cut off their blood supply. Death follows soon after. 

 

Chief Cusick: German shepherd. Commonly associated with police work, these dogs have since been replaced in many departments by Dutch malamutes. This isn't because malamutes are smarter, but because they're dumber. German shepherds are so smart that eventually, they began to wonder why they had to follow orders. 

 

Felix Fortune: Antarctic skua. I haven't mentioned him yet, but he's a clairvoyant crime boss who previously sold insurance for a living. This type of predatory bird not only catches its own fish, but will bully and harass other birds into leaving theirs. 

[Gabriele she/her]

First world writer problems: 

 

 

Seriously. Right now, the two top contenders are "Albert" and "Bertrand," with "Egbert" running a distant third. And I don't like any of them.

 

Edit: I'm toying with calling him Augustine, after Augustine of Hippo. (No, I am not going to name him Hippo, no matter how tempting the prospect. ) It'd make sense for him, given his background and parents. 

Those tripartite Roman names I have to deal with are fun, too. *sigh* Or trying to find 1st century AD Germanic names that have not been tampered with by Tacitus.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Those tripartite Roman names I have to deal with are fun, too. *sigh* Or trying to find 1st century AD Germanic names that have not been tampered with by Tacitus.

 

I thought sticking with 1940s names would make things easier. Susan. Charles. Mary. Francine was a little harder, but I eventually landed on it while thinking about Saint Francis. It's when I started looking for plausible names for the time period with a specific meaning that things got dicy….until I just decided to name him Augustine. Of course, then I realized I should probably read Confessions to figure out why his parents would name him that. 

[Gabriele she/her]

The plotbunnies I keep catching are always either

- Roman (A Land Unconquered featuring the Battle in the Teutoburg Forest and Germanicus' campaigns 9-16 AD; its semi-sequel Eagle of the Sea featuring the Battle of Mons Graupius and Domitian's campaigns in Germania about AD 83; Beyond Dark Mountains shows the last years of Septimius Severus ~ AD 210; Never to Return the Battle of the Harzhorn AD 235),

- early Middle Ages (The Battle of the Blue Swords about the Battle of Nechtansmere is 7th century, the Saga of House Sichelstein which features, among others, the battles of Brunanburh, Riade and Lechfeld, early 10th century) ,

- high Mediaeval (Kings and Rebels, the monster that turned Fantasy on me, is still mostly based on 12th century Europe). 

 

Of course, the stories are about much more than the battles, but those serve well as timeframe, and they do play a significant role in the books. Besides the politics, intrigues, clashes of culture, a bit of romance, loyalties divided, evil schemes, dysfunctional familes, blood feuds and whatever fun I can come up with within the frame of history - which is a fair bit, considering those times aren't too well documented.

Edited February 13, 2016 by Gabriele

[Lindel he/him]

You could make You mention bone, but it might be better in a material that draws more strength from elasticity, like skin. Or maybe wood or something.

Also, I'm working on a magic system based on color, but I was lacking some major details. Mind if I take your system and modify it? I'm not sure how much I would take, though.

Feel free to take whatever you like. Heck, if I like some of the changes you make, I might even borrow some back.

[DreamEternal]

One of the main characters from a history I am planning and outlining turned out to be transgender. The other is basically genderless, when it comes to identity and interaction with other characters, and is forcing me to struggle to find a way to portray it while writing from a third person viewpoint in a language without gender-neutral pronouns and adjectives.

And a very important secondary character is having trouble taking shape because I just can't get in the right mindset to write him. Maybe I just need the right hat to get into the mindset, but them I'd have to figure out what kind of hat is associated with his organization, which acts like a federal police of sorts.

Oh, and I need to figure the exact tech level for this setting. They don't have widespread use of eletricity and lack fossile fuels, but the local magic systems make them have surprisingly advanced knowledge of medicine, biology, and to a lesser degree physics. I need to find out how said knowledge can be put to use without anything derived from petroleum or needing eletricity to be made, especialy in the areas of surgery and forensics.

Edited February 15, 2016 by DreamEternal

[Patar he/him]

Would anyone mind checking out The Osterix Chronicles? I feel like it could use some work, and I'd really appreciate some comments/feedback. Thanks 

[DreamEternal]

Suddenly, my Verse's version of angels became much more similar to extremely advanced aliens working under a non-intervention policy and exploiting its loopholes, despite retaining their semi-divine nature.

And many characters I still needed to develop further gained motivations linked to them as I found ancient alien shaped holes in their motivations and backstories.

It is interesting, how by developing one faction or filling a hole in your worldbuilding many lose pieces rearrange themselves to make a more complete picture.