Kobold King he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 A couple questions: 1) Can we put all off this info in one post when we're done? For coherency purposes. 2) die-AY-muss? 1) Sure thing my friend. 2) Yes? I just picked a random animal's Latin name, like I get most of my non-English names. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Slowswift he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 1) Sure thing my friend. 2) Yes? I just picked a random animal's Latin name, like I get most of my non-English names. 1) Cool! 2) Or dee-EYE-muss. any Latin majors here? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seonid he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 Well, that's not the point. Animals shoving piles of bugs into their mouths to do magic is just sort of a weird image to me. So I must be stuck somewhere. Fair enough. The current iteration of my headcanon on this it's that it's not just krill, but a whole phylum of microorganisms in the air, the soil, and the water. (Possibly genetically engineered for this purpose). Non-sapient creatures normally ingest them (either directly or by eating something that's eaten them - herbivores might get them just by taking a bite of plants, carnivores could get some from their prey) or inhale them (there would have to be places where they would congregate for that to work). Sapient races could, of course, cultivate them. There could be sentient cultivated colonies that work symbiotically with them (as I've brainstormed for the raptors), or a race could cultivate and make potions or magic food out of them, or whatever. The frantically shoveling food in its one option among many. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mckeedee123 he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 Fair enough. The current iteration of my headcanon on this it's that it's not just krill, but a whole phylum of microorganisms in the air, the soil, and the water. (Possibly genetically engineered for this purpose). Non-sapient creatures normally ingest them (either directly or by eating something that's eaten them - herbivores might get them just by taking a bite of plants, carnivores could get some from their prey) or inhale them (there would have to be places where they would congregate for that to work). Sapient races could, of course, cultivate them. There could be sentient cultivated colonies that work symbiotically with them (as I've brainstormed for the raptors), or a race could cultivate and make potions or magic food out of them, or whatever. The frantically shoveling food in its one option among many. Oh. Right. I suppose the image is still subjective then, because it's not fully developed yet. Well, let's get started. I guess I'll give a few ideas and see if Seonid agrees. (To be fair, krill are, like, 2 inches long most of the time. So I was picturing that.) If we wanted them to look, well, magical, they could be tiny, bioluminescent colonies of microorganisms, capable of drawing upon some sort of otherworldly reserve of magic to create energy instead of photosynthesis or chemosythesis. Other organisms can't do this, but they can use the excess magic inside of the creatures to power certain organs or functions of their bodies. The magic leaks into the world through certain "hotspots," and these hotspots are pretty common in most areas of the world. Colonies of the microorganisms can be found floating wherever these hotspots are found, and most creatures get their powers from ingesting them, one way or another. What is the magic? It could be anti-entropy, I guess. Forcing atoms to go against concentration gradients instead of with them. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mistrunner Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 (edited) Oh yeah, the arctic. Sure, why not? Arctic mountains with pine trees everywhere! Late like Slowswift (though even later). Can I still join up? I like the caves idea. Then we'd have the opportunity to do some pretty awesome geologic stuff. And I've always wanted to know how stuff would've worked out if the other biped humanoids had survived. Some species would be more advanced, others not; how would everything work out? Would more advanced races be benevolently helping the less-developed species, or would they treat them with disdain? Edited September 17, 2015 by Mistrunner 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Jerric he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 Uh... anyway, when are you planning to ask your pal for that map? Should we just go ahead and start getting into the details of the worldbuilding now? He already asked, and once I've gotten a little sleep I'll set to on drafting something up. Good maps aren't quick. In the meantime, there are plenty of magic systems and race designs to hash out. Geographical relationships should be avoided until some sort of map is available, unless you don't mind the potential for correcting contradictions. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mckeedee123 he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 (edited) And I've always wanted to know how stuff would've worked out if the other biped humanoids had survived. Some species would be more advanced, others not; how would everything work out? Would more advanced races be benevolently helping the less-developed species, or would they treat them with disdain? In ancient India, differences in appearance, and perceived differences in superiority between Indo-Europeans and Dravidians, led to the development of a strict caste system, so that's a possibility. On the subject of hominids, how do you think the raptor/spider races would dexterously manipulate objects in a way that allows them to build "stuff." With humans, it's our upright posture combined with out handy-dandy opposable thumbs . With saurians, it's... idunno Edited September 17, 2015 by Mckeedee123 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seonid he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 I love how we've ask just kind of adopted those three races already. I've actually already been thinking through the problem of tool using among the saurians and the arachnids. For the saurians, let's take the three-clawed standard hand shape of the average raptor. It's already an excellent shape for falling with pretty and grasping in general, but fine federal work is out. Now, take one of the digits and make it opposable. Reduce the size if the other two digits, maybe add a fourth, tiny digit for stability, maybe not. Either way, you've got a hand that is making progress towards grasping. More, make the claws retractable, and that's the final obstacle overcome. Hands capable of manipulating tools -check. There's even potential cultural tidbits here. Maybe in one culture, filling or clipping the smaller hand-claws is a sign of politeness or refinement, much like proper nail care is for some American cultures today. Maybe some leave the opposable digit's claw long, in imitation of the great toe-claw. That might be a militaristic society. Maybe there are elaborate claw sheathes that mark social status. Who knows? With the arachnids, we'd want then balanced such that they can rear up their forelegs (preferably the front 2 sets) comfortably. The front set of legs is sensory in nature, like real spiders, in addition to normal use for walking. The second set is altered. We'll get there in a moment. The back two sets are much thicker, and bear the weight. We'll need to look into exoskeleton materials to see if conventional spiders that size are plausible, or if we need an internal skeleton or some other mechanism to make it work. The second legs, though, are the key. Add a few small digits, including an opposable one, and you're on your way. Or, you could try to decide Adobe way on which using ask for front limbs compensates for the lack of opposable digits. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Young Bard he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 Permission to ask Chaos to make a subforum for this? I think by the end of this we'll have enough pages to warrant this. As it is, we could probably do with a species page, a map/ worldbuilding page, a magic page, a general Q&A/miscellaneous thread, and that's before we start the actual writing itself. (We could have it all on one thread, but I think it will get confusing very quickly.) Perhaps overboard right now, but I think it will be necessary later on. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seonid he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 Oh. Right. I suppose the image is still subjective then, because it's not fully developed yet. Well, let's get started. I guess I'll give a few ideas and see if Seonid agrees. (To be fair, krill are, like, 2 inches long most of the time. So I was picturing that.) If we wanted them to look, well, magical, they could be tiny, bioluminescent colonies of microorganisms, capable of drawing upon some sort of otherworldly reserve of magic to create energy instead of photosynthesis or chemosythesis. Other organisms can't do this, but they can use the excess magic inside of the creatures to power certain organs or functions of their bodies. The magic leaks into the world through certain "hotspots," and these hotspots are pretty common in most areas of the world. Colonies of the microorganisms can be found floating wherever these hotspots are found, and most creatures get their powers from ingesting them, one way or another. What is the magic? It could be anti-entropy, I guess. Forcing atoms to go against concentration gradients instead of with them. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Diaemian ley lines! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgedancer he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 (edited) Alright, I'll refine this a bit once I get to my PC but for now, may I propose an alternative to the Krill? Namely, the magic not coming from something on the Planet but it coming from the planet itself in the form of minerals, they are far spread and give us a branching point for the ecology of the world being different. Edited September 17, 2015 by Edgedancer 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Honey Badger he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 I have a little argument against the whole "dinosaur theme" I think that if there are raptors like the ones in Jurrassic Park and they can use magic and tools, it would be very unlikely that any humans would survive, they would get overrun. Note that. in our own world the rise of mammals could only occur after all the dinosaurs had been wiped out. Also, having these powerful species can cage our creativity because if we want to make a weak, yet very interesting race ... oh wait they just got wiped out by magic dinos. I'm just making an argument for logic and creativity. My recommendations- The "dinosaurs" capable of mammal annihilation, i.e. Raptors, should be highly territorial and somewhat restricted to certain climates and biomes. The dinosaurs could be limited in number depending on the size of their base ecosystem, an ecosystem can only support a few number of apex predators, and the ecosystems should be held to that. Just some of my thoughts, I like everything that is going on. Otters would be amazing, especially sapient large ones. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curious Anamaximder he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 I am so in this. I have not read through the whole topic, so I may have missed items. Will this be a RPG? This is a great and brilliant project, and it would be a better RP. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lindel he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 (edited) It's not an RP as of yet, but I don't see why you couldn't set up a roleplay once we've got everything layed out, though that might be a while. EDIT: Any artists here who might be able to do sketches of the major races and such? Edited September 17, 2015 by Lindel 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mailliw73 he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 We might be able to get Lark and some others to do some art for us if we ask nicely. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curious Anamaximder he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 I love this. Will we have humans? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Jerric he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 Since people seem to be interested in bio-magical adaptations, I have to ask why the "humans" of Diaemus do not have bio-magical properties of their own. I like to give each of my invented races a quirk that makes them stand out, and the "humans are just normal" of most fantasy drives me crazy. Ways to give "humans" a viable edge in the pecking order: Are humans the largest sapient race? If the raptors are only 1.5 meters head-to-tail, and the arachnids average 55% of average human mass . . . Do humans have better reflexes or mental capabilities? Are humans built like bulls from the waist down? Maybe have horns too? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 Maybe some humans have shapeshifting abilities while others can create illusions, giving the other sapient races an element of uncertainty when dealing with them. So the other races would tread lightly around humans, always unsure as to whether the human they were dealing with was a shapeshifter or just pretending to be one. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgedancer he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 Alright, time to work out the mineral idea a bit more. Obviously they are everywhere and can be integrated naturaly into an ecosystem easily, there are traces in the water, it's in the ground, plants suck it up through their roots and it can be mined for magitek etc. Let me take the underground arachnites as an example: Living underground they would have acces to a lot of high quality minerals (although that would mean we'd have to adapt them to somehow "eat" the minerals but hey that means originality and not just copy pasting something from earth) or they actually could be what's essentially living minerals that have gained sentience through the high amount of magic, which might make them the most powerful of the races but they wouldn't be able to survive on the surface, given that it lacks the abundance of resources they need. Similairly it woud give us a reason why there are multiple sentient races. The way to achive the most amount of minerals, the key to dominance, would be different in a lush forest compared to a mountain range, each race is adapted to their habitat and as such can't actually take over another reagion, as they can't stay at their full strenght once they left their own, even if they can survive in the other areas but they could still hold skirmishes at their borders. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curious Anamaximder he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 Alright, time to work out the mineral idea a bit more. Obviously they are everywhere and can be integrated naturaly into an ecosystem easily, there are traces in the water, it's in the ground, plants suck it up through their roots and it can be mined for magitek etc. Let me take the underground arachnites as an example: Living underground they would have acces to a lot of high quality minerals (although that would mean we'd have to adapt them to somehow "eat" the minerals but hey that means originality and not just copy pasting something from earth) or they actually could be what's essentially living minerals that have gained sentience through the high amount of magic, which might make them the most powerful of the races but they wouldn't be able to survive on the surface, given that it lacks the abundance of resources they need. Similairly it woud give us a reason why there are multiple sentient races. The way to achive the most amount of minerals, the key to dominance, would be different in a lush forest compared to a mountain range, each race is adapted to their habitat and as such can't actually take over another reagion, as they can't stay at their full strenght once they left their own, even if they can survive in the other areas but they could still hold skirmishes at their borders. Good idea, that will explain the no crossovers thing. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mckeedee123 he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 Alright, time to work out the mineral idea a bit more. Obviously they are everywhere and can be integrated naturaly into an ecosystem easily, there are traces in the water, it's in the ground, plants suck it up through their roots and it can be mined for magitek etc. Let me take the underground arachnites as an example: Living underground they would have acces to a lot of high quality minerals (although that would mean we'd have to adapt them to somehow "eat" the minerals but hey that means originality and not just copy pasting something from earth) or they actually could be what's essentially living minerals that have gained sentience through the high amount of magic, which might make them the most powerful of the races but they wouldn't be able to survive on the surface, given that it lacks the abundance of resources they need. Similairly it woud give us a reason why there are multiple sentient races. The way to achive the most amount of minerals, the key to dominance, would be different in a lush forest compared to a mountain range, each race is adapted to their habitat and as such can't actually take over another reagion, as they can't stay at their full strenght once they left their own, even if they can survive in the other areas but they could still hold skirmishes at their borders. To be honest, I'm still sort of rooting for my animist magic system, but that's definitely workable. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Jerric he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 Progress Report: (also known as, maps are complicated)The initial map is not done, but since this is a collaborative project, I have no good reason to keep people out of the loop. And this might be a good example of a process that you might care to try out on your own some day. The request was for two continents, one massive, one smaller. The intent was to provide a large set of diverse biomes for people to play in. When working on the large scale, I find flat, square projection maps don't give me the right sense of how broad a land mass is. So I decided to draw on a globe (kind of). Raw sphere grid, a splash of black, and a splash of blue. And a little math and counting to mark the equator and antarctic circle. Next, pull out the geography textbook and mark out some idealized climate latitudes. The climatic system that I am using is a modified version of the Köppen climate classification. The version I am using is simpler than the chart on the linked page. That done, I can place land form splotches until I think the desired objectives should be covered (i.e. looks cool and provides biome diversity). There we have a rough outline of a possible continental layout for a quarter hemisphere or thereabouts. Grid scale is 1/96 of a circle, or 3.75 degrees. Feedback on shape and whatever else is welcome. Next steps are identifying mountain ranges and thereby shaping realistic climatic regions, followed by refining coasts and adding islands. I might be busy with some other projects during the next few hours, but I may get more work done on this before bedtime. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mailliw73 he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 That's awesome, Jerric! I don't have much feedback besides that. Edge, I really like that idea. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lindel he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 (edited) As far as magic goes, I'm still in favor of the microorganisms that filter magical energy. I like the variability and uniqueness of it. The idea of a cloud of bioluminescent organisms swarming around magical hotspots, creating a general glow in the air, is pretty awesome. I also like the idea of magical tech being based on containing and cultivating these organisms. I don't have a problem with the mineral idea, I just find the microorganisms more interesting. Edited September 17, 2015 by Lindel 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanTheSeamonster he/him Posted September 18, 2015 Report Share Posted September 18, 2015 Aww, man. I'm late to the party. Do you guys mind if I still join up?? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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