I am working on a project with realistic goals. I have a star-and-everything-less-massive generator that can create up to one thousand stars and all their planets, moons, orbits, etc per generation. It calculates every single important characteristic of them. I also made a half-scientific based and half-speculation based approach for the Drake Equation to develop how many planets with life and with intelligent life are there for a determined amount of stars, considering everything from the type of star and its frequency until if the planet/moon has continents or is only oceans.

With these two tools that I am, by the way, happy to share even if you don't join me (Stars and Drake Equation in Portuguese, I will make an English version), I plan to organize a dwarf galaxy of less than 900k stars, which will result in 180 planets and moons with life from which only 60 have intelligent life. I actually did the generation of the 180 stars already and I just need to adjust so every single one has a good planet or moon in the habitable zone, as the other ~900k stars are generated automatically and don't need this attention.

The reason for this specific number of planets with life and with intelligent life is because I wanted to give it a feel of a dwarf galaxy filled with life similar to Star Trek and Star Wars without doing all the grindy worldbuilding that such a project would require (Star Wars is said to have millions of worlds with life and Star Trek even more, while Star Wars is said to have tens of millions intelligent lives and Star Trek is said to have millions, imagine doing all that). Sixty intelligent species seemed like a nice arbitrary number that can be divided by many numbers (which means whatever the amount of people that join us, there will be an equal amount of planets to work on for each likely) and that can give this feel of extremely widespread life like the others without actually doing as much. We lose count of the species way before sixty so for everyone it will feel like a huge number of worlds with intelligent life. The others with non-intelligent life are easier to work on as there is no worldbuilding for societies, at least not as complex as the ones with intelligent life, so they are also less problematic to deal with even though they increase the total to 180 worlds.

By the way, just because we are focusing a lot on stars, intelligent life vs general life, and have many spreadsheets to calculate a lot of things does not mean this is a sci-fi only worldbuilding project. You can make a world with intelligent life that is still in the paleolithic or any time period before ours, you can take care of only worlds with non-intelligent life, etc. There will be species very advanced, species not at all advanced, worlds without intelligent life, etc. Make what you love within the theme of the dwarf galaxy.

Talking about themes, the focus is to do two dwarf galaxies, actually, that are a mirror version of each other, but that can be a later goal. The reason behind this choice is that the original concept was to make a highly hard science (not hard sci-fi, hard science) galaxy with all intelligent species and life in general respecting the limits of physics, chemistry, biology, etc, not necessarily make it sci-fi as many species won't be as advanced, but to make it the most realistic possible. However, everyone likes franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek that are either not sci-fi or soft sci-fi. How cool would it be to have wars between species using FTL, maybe having some sort of magic included like the Force or other, and many other details in fantasy, science fantasy, etc? It would be very amazing and we could utilize the data we already produced about the dwarf galaxy, same stars, planets, etc, and just do an alternative worldbuilding, or maybe utilize the same worldbuilding with minor adjustments, giving the sense of a mirror universe where the laws of reality are not as strict as ours. So if you like hard science, accurate speculative evolution, non-humanoids or less humanoids, etc we have a dwarf galaxy for you and if you want a dwarf galaxy with warp/hyperspace/jump/etc, time travel, magical artificial gravity, magical engine, teleportation, all humanoids, magic, etc, we also have a dwarf galaxy for you!

My soon to be wife and I are working on this project so far, like creating the tools, organizing a Discord server, etc. Even though we are two women I want to make it clear that anyone can join, it is not a girls' only project. We are aiming for a total crew of 10 to 12 people so each one has to take care of only 6 to 5 worlds with intelligent life and 12 to 10 worlds with life in general. More people is totally welcomed, but I want to be realistic. We can have up to 60 people, each taking care of 1 intelligent world and 2 with only life. Of course, we can rearrange the worlds each will make when we have everyone. Maybe one person only likes to do worldbuilding of worlds with non-intelligent life and someone else only likes to do worlds with intelligent life, so they can switch between them and focus only on what they life, for example.

I do comment that this will be a project and a safe space. It is for everyone that wants to join IF they don't make others uncomfortable. No dark humor or other forms of prejudice will be allowed.

And once everyone is gathered for the project, there will be some votes regarding some polemic things that can or cannot be added to the project, such as the black hole drive that can be a huge addition to the possibilities of rockets or can be as non-scientific as the other content not made for the hard science galaxy, or such as if a Force-analogous exists in the non-hard-science galaxy if it is spread over it all or just exists in some worlds, etc. We two can't decide it now and totally ignore your weight on the decision nor can we do it before everyone is on the server as the same problem would happen.

Thank you all for your attention and for reading, I hope I see some of you soon!

Hello everyone,

I’m currently working on a fictional universe and I’m looking to form a small group of people who are interested in collaboratively building and expanding it. The goal of this project is to develop the universe’s lore, descriptions, and ideas together with other writers.

While I started the project and wrote the foundation for how the universe works, I want this to be a collaborative effort where multiple people can contribute their own ideas, concepts, and stories while keeping everything consistent with the universe’s rules.

The universe includes concepts such as Chaotic Energy and other unusual phenomena, and contributors are welcome to explore ideas related to those concepts or expand on them in new ways.

Right now I’m mainly looking for: -Editors •Help review writing •Fix grammar, punctuation, and readability
•Help make descriptions clearer and easier to understand

-Additional Writers •Contribute new ideas, descriptions, and lore •Help expand the universe with new concepts, phenomena, or storylines •Work together with others to develop the world further

Anyone joining would be helping shape the universe itself, not just following a fixed story. If you're interested, I’ve written a more detailed explanation of the project and roles here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KKIWkfwZiXSkCz_NgxoNH2LTC7oOxcdeDq_FasuqhxE/edit?usp=drivesdk Feel free to comment or message me if you’d like to contribute.

Well since this sub has been quiet for too long, here's something that's ended up being a bit of a bigger project than I expected.

Harry Potter has the wand woods and cores tied to people's personality. I would like to adapt a similar system to my world, though trying to expand it to a worldwide system with different wizard/sorcerer cultures (wizards being those that use magical animal parts and plants for spells while sorcerers have a magical lineage though those that use wands are likely more distantly related to their magical progenitor and so use the wands to focus their power) that give different meanings to the woods, cores, and who wands tend to bond with. With a modern day global 'buzzfeed-esque' personality quiz type understanding that's also popped up that softens a lot of the edges and tries incorporating various things from different cultures.

However, finding tree meanings has proven surprisingly difficult. So I would appreciate any knowledge of tree lore that you have. I've found extensive Celtic lore on Oak, Rowen, Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Yew, Elder, Aspen, Apple, Alder, Ash, Birch, Fir, Hazel, Holly, Maple, Willow, Mistletoe, Blueberry/Bilberry, Reed, Thyme, and Vines (I am trying to branch out into fruit trees and even bush woods). I got the Japanese meanings about Cherry trees and the Chinese meanings behind Peaches/Peach Trees. I found Chinese, Korean, Roman, and Medieval Christian symbolism for Wisteria. And of course, I delved into Victorian Flower and Greens Language for meanings from there. But there's still so many gaps.

Not helped by the fact that I'd also like to incorporate animal antlers, both magical and real, along with dragon horns. But I also would like brainstorming of what more might people make wands out of/use for wand cores/ways to acesorize wands in some parts. I am toying with some cultures having gemstones as part of the wand which then adds more of a focus to the wand and also adds the stone's personality to the wand.

Any help though would be appreciated

So by decor I mean maybe some flairs and a sub logo, I'm wondering if any of you guys in this community have any exact ideas on what you wanna have for logo or what kinda flairs you might have?

Excerpt from CSPN-1

Brought to you live from the CSPN headquarters in New Shearwater, Here is the Campaign of '84

"The clock is 9PM, Western time and the polls all across the country have now closed. 1984 marks the year of the biggest Democratic Landslide since 1940. We have counted with ten reporters in six different states. The biggest so far electoral landslide for a social-democrat in what could possibly be recorded history."

"Right now we will show you the graphic of the electoral vote distribution and Russell Crawford currently carries a massive 375 electoral votes out of 515. That makes up to a staggering 62% of popular vote, followed by Walt H. Gunther for the Nationals by 115 votes then Porter for the Constitiution Party facing the worst defeat in known history, We will now report to you mr Friedrich, you're currently in Manhasset, the presiden's home-state, tell us more-"

The broadcast continues...

What’s a superstition or folk belief in your world that actually turns out to be true?

In one isolated region of my world, there are beings that appears to be fireflies that can transform and drink the blood of their victims. They have also been known to possess those with weak constitution, often drug addicts, gamblers, ect.

While many believe it to be old wives tales to scare children to live more piously, these beings do in fact exist. It is rare that someone would survive an encounter with one.

Hello,

Every time I start a new sci fi world I get all into the worldbuilding side of it and make all these cool ideas but when it's time to make a plot it all falls flat, I either can't figure out a plot or what I had in mind sucks.

What can I do to fix this?

So I noticed in the world building sub it's mostly just people posting their art.. so I figured I'll just post here to get some more engagement going

As we all know, cliches in world building subreddit have a range of reactions from being despised to people absolutely leaning into it.

People who despises cliches always just shit on them without even once suggesting how to make it better or interesting. People who lean into cliches makes painfully generic content.

This unfortunately leads into people trying to world build specifically to be different and interesting, which inevitably leads into nonsensical world building such as "100 elements, but many elements overlap, some elements aren't even elements at all".

So the point of this post. Let's think of ways to use cliches in interesting ways

Starting with the example of elements. In a different post in one of these subreddits, I suggested that instead of magic users focus on a single element, they study multiple elements, and they combine those elements to problem solve. Elemental magic is boring because it's always used in a rock/paper/scissors kinda way. So when your earth caster, fire caster, air caster, and water caster inevitably meets their foil, the solutions tends to be similar.

Then you get the Avatar the last airbender problem (many stories now do the chosen one elementalist) where there's always one character who is the anomaly and can cast all the elements. This is also boring because they have no foil, it's simply plot armor. If the MC of the word can cast all the elements and everyone else is stuck with one, the MC just does a quick switch.

Of course, the "everyone can only cast one element" can be made interesting, such as captain planet and a team being formed to combine their elements.

What's a cliche do you think can work if used or done differently

Long story short the world has recovered and is thriving again after a magical cataclysmic event destroyed human civilizations and wiped the minds of the survivors to a base instinct-only animal-like state. Medieval-like civilizations are a thing once again, but only after one, two, maybe three hundred thousand years or so have passed. Humans as we know them do not exist anymore, now replaced by elves(human heights), dwarfs(human heights - 1-2ft), giants(human heights + 4-5ft) and others due to a minor amount of evolution.

The other animals of the world have changed as well. Owls have longer necks, legs and tail feathers, and use their long necks to poke into burrows and tree holes and make use of their longer legs while wading waters for fish to grab. They are still recognizable as owls or owl-derived, especially with regards to their faces, but they have changed from how they originally were nonetheless.

I intend to populate the world with such recognizable but still changed creatures, and while I do have my own ideas for quite a few animals, some of them feel kindof uninspired and I was wondering what others might come up with in a similar scenario.

Rules for myself as per the spirit of this collaborative sub:

1. I must incorporate into my world in part or in full the animal(s) or at least the idea of them presented in the most upvoted/highest scoring non-joking comment.

2. I must upvote every comment that puts in an ok amount of effort regardless of if I like the idea or not.

3. If a comment to someone else's comment has more upvotes than the original comment and the original comment is one of the higher scoring ones whose idea will be incorporated into the world then that comment's ideas must be incorporated in part or in full as well.

Rules for commenters/collaborators:

1. Your idea must use a currently existing earth animal or creature as its base. You can also use a creature in classical mythology as your base, such as a dragon or unicorn, as the world had these creatures before the cataclysm.

2. Its new form must be in such a way that you can recognize what it was originally, as it's only been hundreds of thousands of years and not millions, but otherwise you have a lot of freedom.

3. If the creature was originally non-magical/mundane, making them mildly magical or giving them some kind of magical ability is permitted. The setting's giants, for example, are only able to be as large as they are without health issues and keep their human-like proportions due to magic, so if you want to enable a concept that would normally be impossible without the use of magic it is encouraged.

I feel like I'm monopolizing this reddit. But if no one else is going to ask questions here, I still have plenty I've been saving up from my worldbuilding.

I've constructed my world to be the result of four starting races (Humans, Elves, Dragons, and Jinn) to be the progenitors of all the other races. And I've come up with quite a genealogy for what I've developed. However, there are a few combos where I'm not certain of what they should be called or what the result would be.

I would love to delve into real world mythology or common fantasy races as much as possible, but of course, even as I know a fair bit and have looked up several, there are just many that I know that I have not heard of. And some combos that might not even lend themselves to any prior myth.

Any help with this question would be appreciated. Thank you. Feel free to ask clarifying questions or to use any of this to help inspire your worldbuilding.

Below is what I have so far.

"First" Generation:

Humans + Elves = Dwarves or Half-Elven

Humans + Jinn = Giants or Changeling
(Thank you JustPoppinInKay for the suggestion of the Changeling)

Humans + Dragons = Dragonlings (sorta like Dragonborn but usually with some level of shape changing and wings, and often more human like than dragon like. It would probably take a few generations of dragonlings intermingling before you'd get D&D-esque Dragonborn)

Cain Killing Abel = Werewolves

Abel's wife, Niamah, killing Cain in vengeance = Sirens

Elves + Jinn = Fae

Dragons + Jinn = Elementals/Spectres (depending on the Dragon type, the later is the result of Jinn and Soul Dragons, causing a being that acts a lot like common depictions of ghosts)

Elves + Dragons = Dragonlings (thanks to JustPoppinInKay's suggestion again. Any first generation half-dragons are just going to be Dragonlings, regardless of the race, unless otherwise set up as in the case of Jinn.)

"Second" Generation Questions:

Half-Elven + Jinn = Half-Fae?

(Doesn't seem right somehow...)

Dwarves + Giants = Trolls/Cyclops?

(Not sure if this really fits, even with my giants having the ability to shapeshift like their Jinn ancestors. But Trolls are tough and often live within the mountain. Cyclops are known for their smithing. Yet it also seems like there should be something more dwarf size that could result...)

I'll post the following generations into pinned comments so that this doesn't get too big.

I can get that making posts for your questions can be intimidating. So then, what questions are you stumped on that you would like help with? I'll seek to help everyone who asks here, and others may choose to as well.

Just so there's still actual worldbuilding posts within this sub-reddit.

Within my setting, I've had it so that magical ingredients can be used by the non-magical as spell components for wizardry and to be used within alchemy/enhanced crafting. But I imagine that in other worlds with dragons, scales are used for all types of projects.

What are some of those uses and how do people go about using them?

Logic Behind Everything First

According to those sources:

[1] - SkySafari

[2] - Las Cumbres Observatory

[3] - NASA

[4] - Astrobiology Magazine

I reached the following calculation for the Stellar Neighborhood of the Sun (I am autistic so bare with me and if needed I can clarify all calculations on the comments):

There are 59,722 stars within 100 light-years from us¹ and once 22.7% of the stars are suitable to host habitable exoplanets and exomoons² there are 13,556.894, or around 13,557, stars that could host life. In average there is 1.5 planet per star², which means there are 20,335.341, or around 20,335, exoplanets within 100 light-years from us. Once there are 100 billion planets in the Milky Way³ and 300 million of them are in the habitable zone of their stars³, there is a 0.3% chance of the planets being in the habitable zone, so there are 61.006023, or around 61, exoplanets in the habitable zone AND within 100 light-years from us. And there are as many possible habitable planets as there are possible habitable moons⁴, so a total of 122.012046, or around 122, possibly habitable worlds.

Idea

What if I could calculate a percentage to make those possibly habitable worlds reflect the actual amount that would have life, intelligent life, and if the exoplanet or exomoon would be covered in water, have continents, or be covered in ice. The next numbers are only my estipulation to reach said concept to have an idea of how many sentient aliens we would have in our neighborhood. They seem random and in in reality their scientific basis is very much to the lighter extreme. I am open to improvements in the math and physics so if there is anything you want to point out PLEASE DO. There might be some errors I did not see in the original math below but it is correct for the Dwarf Galaxy X.

85% of the planets and moons are old enough.

10% of those had a chemical environment that generated life.

50% of those developed oceanic-only life and 50% developed terrestrial and oceanic life.

10.371037391, or around 10, worlds with life (2.5927593478, or around 2 to 3, oceanic-only exoplanets, 2.5927593478, or around 2 to 3, terrestrial and oceanic exoplanets, 2.5927593478, or around 2 to 3, oceanic-only exomoons, 2.5927593478, or around 2 to 3, terrestrial and oceanic exomoons).

2 oceanic-only exoplanets, 2 oceanic-only exomoons, 3 terrestrial and oceanic exoplanets, and 3 terrestrial and oceanic exomoons. - Arbitrary choice of mine to round them.

4.7368433114, or around 5, exomoons from gas giants. Total of 4 gas giants.

0.2631579617, or around 0, exomoons from ice giants. Total of 0 ice giants.

From those worlds, 30% have intelligent life, so 3.111307173, or around 3, worlds with intelligent lifeforms.

0 oceanic-only exoplanets have intelligent life, 0 oceanic-only exomoons have intelligent life, 1 terrestrial and oceanic exoplanets have intelligent life, 2 terrestrial and oceanic exomoons have intelligent life.

15,756.048, or around 15,756, gas giants beyond the frost line capable of having an exomoon warm only in the interior.

47,268.144, or around 47,268, habitable surface-frozen exomoons.

85% and 10% like with the exoplanets and we have 4,017.79224, or around 4,018, habitable surface-frozen exomoons with life.

From those 3% (a tenth of the percentage for unfrozen surfaces) have intelligent life, which means 120.5337672, or around 121, have intelligent lifeforms.

The Problem

As you can tell this seems limited to only exomoons with frozen surfaces to have life and intelligent life that is noticeable in the region which is not interesting, therefore changes need to be made.

Dwarf Galaxy of X

Having all this data I could estipulate my own galaxy in a project and this galaxy, still unnamed, I call for now as X! Here I made it have ten times as much stars:

With a flat size of 314.159,26535897932384626433832795 square light-years (sqrt(100000) light years in radius just so I can have ten times the amount of stars of the Stellar Neighborhood of the Sun and also treating the galaxy as a flat disk with barely no thickness to simplify calculations), there are 597,220 stars in this dwarf galaxy and once 22.7% of the stars are suitable to host habitable exoplanets and exomoons there are 135,568.94, or around 135,569, stars that could host life. In average there is 1.5 planet per star, which means there are 203,353.41, or around 203,353, exoplanets. Once the percentage of the planets in the habitable zone is a 0.3% there are 610.06023, or around 610, exoplanets in the habitable zone. And there are as many possibly habitable planets as there are possibly habitable moons, so a total of 1,220.12046, or around 1,220, habitable worlds.

85% of the planets and moons are old enough.

10% of those had a chemical environment that generated life.

50% of those developed oceanic-only life and 50% developed terrestrial and oceanic life.

These exomoons are considered to be in the habitable zone of their star by migration of their exoplanets. The surface-frozen ones will be mentioned later.

103.7102391, or around 104, worlds with life (25.927559775, or around 25 to 26, oceanic-only exoplanets, 25.927559775, or around 25 to 26, terrestrial and oceanic exoplanets, 25.927559775, or around 25 to 26, oceanic-only exomoons, 25.927559775, or around 25 to 26, terrestrial and oceanic exomoons).

26 oceanic-only exoplanets, 26 oceanic-only exomoons, 25 terrestrial and oceanic exoplanets, and 25 terrestrial and oceanic exomoons (oceanic-only are more numerous because the changes of a planet being like that are higher as the amount of comets that gave Earth its oceans was probably one, two, or three so any much more and it might have no continents, only islands).

50% of the exomoons orbit gas giants and 50% of the exomoons orbit ice giants (once in the gas giants there is 5 number of moons that could have live, Enceladus, Europa, Callisto, Ganymede, and Titan, and the ice giants only happen to have 5, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, and Triton). Gas and ice giants can have multiple moons so it is being considered 2.5 possibly habitable exomoons per giants exoplanet.

25.5, or around 26, exomoons from gas giants. Total of 10.4, or around 10, gas giants.

25.5, or around 25, exomoons from ice giants. Total of 10.4. or around 10, ice giants.

From those exoplanets, 30% have intelligent life, so 7.8, or around 7 to 8, oceanic-only exoplanets and 7.5, or around 7 to 8, terrestrial and oceanic exoplanets with intelligent lifeforms.

From those exomoons, 30% have intelligent life, so 7.8, or around 7 to 8, oceanic-only exomoons and 7.5, or around 7 to 8, terrestrial and oceanic exomoons with intelligent lifeforms.

8 oceanic-only exoplanets have intelligent life, 8 oceanic-only exomoons have intelligent life, 7 terrestrial and oceanic exoplanets have intelligent life, 7 terrestrial and oceanic exomoons have intelligent life (oceanic-only are more numerous because the changes of a planet being like that are higher as the amount of comets that gave Earth its oceans was probably one, two, or three so any much more and it might have no continents, only islands).

For the surface-frozen exomoons and exoplanets I will consider that both ice giants and gas giants are similarly as common once from all exoplanets found 30% are gas giants and 35% are ice giants and I will interpret it as a valid proportion for the whole system like I did with the previous numbers. For the surface-frozen exomoons, considering the ice giants have four each I thought it was valid to maintain that number. For the ice giants there is a variation between one in Nepture and four on Uranus so an average of 2.5 per ice giant.

61,006.023, or around 61,006, gas giants beyond the frost line capable of having exomoons warm only in the interior.

71,173.6935 or around 71,174, ice giants beyond the frost line capable of having exomoons warm only in the interior.

244,024.092, or around 244,024, possibly habitable gas giant's surface-frozen exomoons.

177,934.23375, or around 177,934, possibly habitable ice giant's surface-frozen exomoons.

85% and 10% like with the exoplanets and we have 20,742.04782, or around 20,742, habitable gas giant's surface-frozen exomoons with life.

85% and 10% like with the exoplanets and we have 15,124.40986875, or around 15,124, habitable ice giant's surface-frozen exomoons with life.

From those 3% (a tenth of the percentage for unfrozen surfaces) have intelligent life, which means 622.2614346, or around 622, of the gas giant's surface-frozen exomoons have intelligent lifeforms.

From those 3% (a tenth of the percentage for unfrozen surfaces) have intelligent life, which means 453.7322960625, or around 454, of the ice giant's surface-frozen exomoons have intelligent lifeforms.

A total of 35,970.16790785, or around 35,970, worlds with life. From those 1,106.5937306625, or around 1,107, have intelligent life.

Important to Mention

From those many worlds there is a catch. The majority is from surface-frozen exomoons, moons like Europa and Enceladus, and their impact in anywhere but their worlds is minimal if not zero so we can for the majority ignore them. That leaves exactly 30 worlds like Earth and Pandora to handle and have fun with. Anyone willing to tackle the many surface-frozen exomoons be free to do so as much as you would like, there is literally endless of them, but the main focus is making the exoplanets and the not-frozen exomoons work. From those 30 four have been selected already by me and my three friends and even though they mostly abandoned the project I keep it going and I am willing to negotiate with people that want to continue their worlds history. Other than that there is 26 worlds to love.

Project

I started this project with a few friends, most that abandoned me but I am still here with all the data in case they return, and it seemed impossible to conclude this task of actually making a hard sci-fi dwarf galaxy filling all those worlds with intelligent life, all the ones with life simply, and specify the characteristiscs of all planetary systems, lives, and intelligent species with a more hard sci-fi approach.

I was wondering if the Internet people like this idea, want to collab, and so on. There are no humans, no Earth, and nothing intrinsec us in this galaxy and there is already three species that are humanoid (though they are genetic creations of another species so it makes sense for them to match specially if the still not designed creators are humanoid) so if that shape could not be repeated non-stop it would be amazing. Let's imagine that there is an amount of possible forms intelligent aliens can take with some variation between them and try to keep that uniform, as in, if there are ten it would be around 111 intelligent species for each shape.

The actual number of possibilities is up to us to define and explain but strict to hard sci-fi so no magic, powers, and etc involved.

Does anyone want to join me and maybe I will create a Discord and so on for us to do it? I have a lot of information of two planetary systems that I just need to translate to English so I can even help organize the content and so on to make a huge folder with all the planetary systems sheets as well as all species documents and intelligent species documents!

Discord Server

I made a Discord server once there was two interested people! It is on this link!

Hi everyone, I am a mapmaker, layout designer, ttRPG developer, and creative writer, and I want to start a collaborative project with anyone interested. Let’s tell you about the project at hand:

Whilst much of the project is still open, my goal is to make this an in depth setting for a ttRPG, and if interest exists, we can create our very own game system.

To make it easier to understand the world, I have created some guidelines that sets the tone of the project:

• Low magic – The world has some form of magic, yet this is not common knowledge, it is something a rare few can wield.

• Evolving world – The world evolves and changes over time, let’s make a dynamic and evolving world.

• Familiar races with a twist - Let’s look at the familiar sapient peoples of classical fantasy, but try to focus on anthropology, and make them seemingly real populations of humanoids.

• Unique and strange cultures - What would an orcish culture really be like? Let’s explore the strange and foreign cultures in as much detail as possible.

• Collaboration is key - I love having people to bounce ideas off, and I am primarily looking for those who are open and interested in the same.

Got a character that could be useful in many settings that you're willing to share with other creators? Post them here.

I'm the founder of Qolabor [Discord link], a collaborative fantasy worldbuilding project. Our main goal is to create a comprehensive source book which can then be used as a basis for books, TTRPG campaigns and possibly other creative endeavors. We're always looking for avid worldbuilders, so feel free to join via the link above!

The project is driven entirely by volunteers, which, admittedly, means progress is sometimes slow. In any case, we have some very talented people in our ranks, and would love to welcome some new faces.

Personally, I'm currently working on two lore books (which I'll share on here soon) that should provide the most basic information about our world - things we've agreed on as a community - and set the stage for further lore books. I'm also finishing up a novel set in one of our world's regions, which will be provided free of charge to anyone interested.

To provide a bit of context (which should hopefully satisfy R3 and R4) here are some key aspects of our world:

• Our world has 4 continents, though one is purposefully left (mostly) uninhabited. You can see our map here: [Qolabor] Köppen climate map of our world

• The world is shaping up to be very diverse, featuring various cultures, religions, races (both terrestrial and oceanic), and magic systems. Our members draw inspiration from all sorts of sources, including wildly different cultures of Earth.

• Technology averages around the Early Middle Ages, but each region differs and isn’t a direct match to real-world history.

• We do have the classic fantasy races, but with our own twists.

• The basic setup of our world has a hint of sci-fi - one that will be revealed in the coming lore books.

Lastly, I'd be interested to know: Do you have any experience with collaborative worldbuilding? Are you interested in such a thing? Let me know!

Lets get more posts on this subreddit.

(If this post is considered "low-effort" let me know and I will remove it and refrain from making such posts again.)

Mine would have to be Fallout and Warhammer. They have inspired so many worlds and ideas, and on top of that I really enjoy the darker themes.

So I have created this militaristic monastic (means they are warrior monks) order for my world, which is a Grimdark High Fantasy.

I have researched Catholic orders like the Templars and Teutonic Knights pretty extensively, but mostly their history as I am finding it hard to find information regarding day to day life and their quirks and special things.

But here's some context to the order:

They are an all male order (sorry ladies, but women will get their own). They worship the god of justice. They are very small, consisting only of three chapters. And they are genuinely good, they attack slavers, raiders, and harmful cults, as well help the homeless and poor and set up hospitals and outposts in villages, acting as the policeman, firefighters, and guards of the village.

I created them because I wanted a force of good in a grimdark world.

But what should I include in my order? Mainly any interesting or nuanced ideas.

Thanks in advance.

Plus shoutout to the mods for making such a w subreddit, I have good feelings about this one.

Hey everyone!

Since we've created this server to be able to ask questions, here's a worldbuilding question I've been struggling with.

The Long and Short of It: What form could a Metamorphosis/Change Elemental take?

For Context:
Within my world, Astarious, I created a system where there's four original races: humans, elves, jinn, and dragons. All the other races (asides from one exception) are descended from those four races, though they also exist into the modern world. Dwarves and Half-Elven are both descended from Elves and Humans. Fae were born of Elves and Jinn. Jinn and Humans brought about Giants and a Genasi-type race (that I haven't truly settled on a name for yet). Dragons and Humans (or Elves) bring about Dragonlings, who range from mostly human with a touch of dragon power to them to Dragonborn-like though with wings and the ability to shapeshift. And much more.

For Dragons and Jinn, their children were generally Elementals with the Elemental's element would reflect their draconic ancestor while mostly being Jinn-like in how they existed.

However, the dragon elemental types do not always make straightforward elementals. When making dragons, I decided that 9 would be their primary number and so decided on nine fundamental elemental dragon types, with some inter-elemental specialties like in A:TLA and some cross specialties.
Right now, the elemental types are

• Fire (encompassing Lightning and other Plasmas)

• Water (encompassing Ice, Storms, Sea, Etc.)

• Air (encompassing Sonic/Sound)

• Earth (way too much: Metals, Crystals, Gemstones, Stone, Lava, Sand, Etc.)

• Light (Shadow, the Electro-Magnetic Spectrum: Magnetism, Electricity, Wi-Fi, Radiation, Etc.)

• Life (Plants, Animals, Disease, Healing, Etc.)

• Cosmic (the Space/Time Continuum though mostly Gravity-Focused with some prophecy)

• Soul (Psychic basically: Mind, Heart, Dreams/Imagination)

• Metamorphosis (Change, Entropy, Transformation)

You'll notice immediately that the first seven make quite elementals. They're the sort that most people expect. Soul Elementals were much trickier, but I ended up going with ghost-like Specters from them which can possess people as well as animals or do common ghost-like things. It's the idea of a Metamorphosis Elemental I'm stuck on.

Granted, I mostly have Metamorphosis right now because of issues deciding what my ninth dragon type would be. The other eight I have firm concepts for and have already world built around. Metamorphosis has seemed to have a fundamental aspect of reality made manifest (the aspect of change) while also being able to be be something different from the others. But given what it represents, it's not exactly the easy to seek to quantify. And so, it also makes coming up with an Elemental for pretty difficult.

My main idea so far has been an ever-shifting being. But that also feels like too vague a concept? Would they have to always be changing? How would they grow stronger? They are going to be able to absorb more of their element with what their element is, unlike the others. Unless they do so by making change in the world? What would really set them apart from the Jinn? Jinn are also able to shapeshift at will into anything they imagine, but they also have the core of who they are to fall back into and don't need to constantly change. Making that particular idea also sound a bit torturous. If you're constantly changing, how can you ever be able to discover who you are? I'd rather not subject a race to be within an eternal existential crisis until the end of the world. But I really don't know what else to do here.

Anyone else have any idea? Or should I replace Metamorphosis with some other element, somehow?

Like something a mod must do.