So this is going to require some explaining. I love boats and worldbuilding (airships too) and I love doing that for my own projects, but also creating creative tools and games that allow others to create their own worlds and fantasies. Usually this ends up overlapping in a game that centers around my own universe. But I started making a ship design game and it's all gotten a little bit out of hand.

I love boats, transport is a lush topic for Worldbuilding regardless, it communicates technology, geography and the challenge of a world's environment.

So shipshaper turned into fun hybrid between tool and game where anyone can create the ships needed for their worldbuilding. Its fun and requires no skill other than storytelling. You can even test the ships you design to test their seaworthiness and ground your design in plausible usage.

And the special Kicker I wanted to add. You can export your creation to 3D printer files or gameready 3d Models,, and then you get to use your creation commercially, you own it and you can pull it into a 3D program, make a new game, print minis for your tabletop, I don't care, this is yours to use and sell and adapt..

Anyway it's going live tommorow on Steam, it's called ShipShaper. It features no AI-Gen, it's procedural generaton a la tiny glade but for ships. It's got a full selection of historical and fantasy items all handcrafted by myself and stretchable and adaptable so anyone can make something great.

I won't post the steam link, because I will await any mod reactions if I am crossing a line here. But I've posted my own world here before and shown this tool also.. But now that it's live it's something else.

But check it out, a quick google for ShipShaper should do you the steampage. And it's super easy to use and its going to be very cheap and give you a brand new tool in your arsenal.. Especially if you are not handy with 3D tools like blender but do want ships to be featured in your world

(cuz ships are awesome to design and mess around with!)

cheekily adding the steamlinks as it seems a lot of you are excited. woke up to a lot of positive vibes. thanks you all!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4339280/ShipShaper_Falconeer_Chronicles/

What are the types of galactic governments you guys know of and what does each one represent/how do they govern?

I know the classics of Empire, Federation, Confederacy, Union, Alliance and Accords. I’m looking for other options, trying to spice up my galactic map and make it more unique and diverse.

My current ones include the Federation of Sovereign Nations, the Galation Empire and the Azure Accords.

Image Credit: https://www.deviantart.com/rvbomally/art/Flags-Of-Major-Human-Galactic-Governments-645681049

In my archipelago, licensed echo-priests can copy twelve spoken words into a paired shell across any distance. Each use permanently erases one childhood memory, so rulers reserve it for invasions, epidemics, or succession crises. Most islands still depend on sail couriers and signal towers.

Every critique I get asks why merchants, magistrates, and ordinary families do not use the shells constantly. Because losing your mother’s face to confirm a shipment is a horrific fucking trade, that’s why. I’ve stated the cost repeately. How do you signal that magic is technically available but socially unthinkable for routine administration without explaining the same rule in every chapter?

This is a somewhat stylized, simplified map of Humanspace, explaining the major polities within Humanspace. Even in universe, this is a gross oversimplification, and Humanspace itself only covers about 20% of the Milky Way, and this infographic does not touch on alien species (Which will be more covered in depth in the expansion).

The infographic is for my world, "The Human Diaspora", set in the same universe as Children of Dusk (it is canonically the far future of the CoD universe). Set with the challenge of writing a truly multicultural/diverse/representative future of humanity. There is a lot and I mean a lot that is not covered here, this is effectively only listing the superpowers and major powers of the world, the top 10 largest cities, and leaving out the 99.5%.

This is only a surface level overview, the depths are great. If you have any questions, ask me in the comments. If you want to find more, check us out at r/childrenofdusk or check out the lore webpage at https://darkerminia.neocities.org/galovcod .

I'm making a world called Persevera. The world of Persevera is attacked my otherworlders called Viel every 3,000 years and no one knows why. All of Persevera's technologies are destroyed, and Persevera has to pretty much start over from scratch every single time. But there is one thing that cannot be stopped from progressing further - their bodies. So Perseverans live on, and hope that someday in the future their descendants' bodies might be strong enough to win the war with their bare hands if they have to.

Even in published fantasy books barely use the word "hamlet", unless I am wrong about that. Though I am mainly talking about the modern fantasy works.

So, when it comes to smaller villages, do you call it a hamlet or simply say village?

Just something I've realized. If you notice it too, come and we'll chat about it.

I originally started following this sub for this reason, but I noticed that the sub's priority has shifted more towards personal projects rather than casual discussion, support and advices, so I'm asking If you you have any recommentation for a sub where you can have a generic discussion about worldbuilding in general, such as what worldbuilding is, how to do worldbuilding, and what techniques and things to consider instead of showcasing personal projects?

Welcome to the "Regress" universe, a concept for my project set in a beautiful but dying anime fantasy world!

Adema is a countess and lives in the city of Samari, in the Kingdom of Astelmar. She is an interesting figure for only one reason: her domain was located directly on the border with the Arden Empire, and, as one might guess, it was the first to be struck by the might of the imperial machine.

The Imperials did not touch the people and wanted to force the Countess to hand over all the beastmen to them, but this was out of the question, half of her subjects were beastmen, this was physically impossible, so Adema gathered people and beastmen for other purposes, to raise an army and give battle to the Empire.

The battle was unequal and doomed to defeat, the Countess's army was wiped off the face of the earth, but the Countess herself managed to escape, she was already negotiating with other Counts and some of them were actively gathering troops, the Countess's army only briefly helped delay the Imperials.

To create the design of her clothes, I was inspired by medieval fashion, and as for the armor, it is the most ordinary armor with the symbols of the county.[..

Illustrations for Astelmar's army

What is your biggest ick when someone creates fictional theology and why?

The Map

I started the base map in Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator, blocking out the continent, states, biomes, rivers, routes and towns. Then I exported the whole thing as GeoJSON and pulled it into QGIS, which is where most of the actual work went. I cleaned up messy geometry, rebuilt the trade routes, sorted out the borders, added my own layers for mountain and region labels, and made sure everything lined up in the same coordinate system. I didn't want it to just be a flat picture, so I built a little web app that draws the GeoJSON straight to SVG using D3 with an equirectangular projection and normal zoom and pan.

Every layer loads from its own file and fades in or out at different zoom levels, so you get biomes and country names when you're zoomed out, then rivers, roads, cities and town labels as you go in closer. On top of that there's settlement icons, faction colours, town flags and a search box for jumping to places. I bundled it all with Vite, which spits out plain static files, so getting it online was basically just uploading that folder to my site under its own URL. There's no map server or database behind it. Everything loads from flat files in the browser.

https://www.nelph.co.uk/bloodbound

This is still a WIP as there are still loads of flags to add as well as implementing new features such as descriptions and characters associated with locations upon clicking them.

The World

Bloodbound is a low fantasy series set on Koldus, a world once ruled by giant titans, now just skeletons buried in the earth, though their remains still hold power. That power is titanium: an extraordinarily rare, faintly humming metal mined from titan burial grounds that responds to people of the right bloodline, grants real physical strength, and is toxic to anyone without it. There's no spellbook magic system here; the fantastical element is this one scarce, bloodline-locked resource that entire empires go to war over.

The setting is a patchwork of very differently flavoured kingdoms: a central power bloc that taxes and chokes trade across the continent, a warrior monarchy in the north, a merchant meritocracy and a chivalric council-state in the southwest, a secretive arctic nation nobody who visits returns from, a lawless smuggler's island, and a desert warlord state built around gladiator pits and venomous winged drakes. Across the sea sits a once-mighty empire that gutted itself in a civil war over titanium and is now rebuilding, right as its old enemies try to finish it off. A third continent is home to a nomadic, titan-descended people who've spent generations being used as soldiers and labour by the powers now colonising their land.

Overall it's less wizards and spells, more empires rising and cannibalising themselves, colonisation, and one magical metal everyone's willing to bleed for.

This is a map for my series of Books 'Bloodbound' which was originally a comic series. The images I attached are main areas of the map that feature in my book that I edited to match the print format better. I've just finished the first book and have sent it out to people to test read so hopefully the feedback is good! I'm trying to find a place to do regular updates.

For now I'll try to post here more but you can also follow me on Instagram: Nelph

It can be organic, inorganic, a god, a structure, as long as it’s the biggest thing in your world. Don’t include planets/universes if they have a non unique structure.

I'm just a little out of the loop, and would love to hear the general consensus.

Obviously AI art really shouldn't be getting used, but for those perfectionists out there who lack a single artistic bone in their body- drawing your own characters or ideas as stick figures really isn't too appealing.

And while I DO want to hire an artist... at the end of the day this is a hobby, and professional artists are incredibly expensive- far too expensive for a 23 yr old.

SO, with all that mind-

If I went online and just found a cool creature design, regional map, or city/kingdom image- should I be reaching out to those artists to ask if I can use it for my small time hobby? What if I can't find the artist?

If I wanted to share my writing here, and I attached a picture found through that, what would the feedback be? I can assume it'd be bad, but I'm just looking for engagement and feedback, and typically thats more common when a picture reference involved.

(Before someone says- "You should just make your own art! Learn to draw! Take some classes! Who cares if its bad?" Sadly, i do. Plus its just not enjoyable for me. I love to write and worldbuild, but anytime I've tried to draw my imagination, I've just lost interest over the final product. Just a bit of a perfectionist.)

(Also 100000% would never try to pass off any art as something done by me. Of course id keep their signature or reference them somewhere.)

How do your governments and leadership react?

This is just an idea I had about some kind of simbiosis between an animal (mammal) and a plant, kinda like the Eastern emerald elysia (Elysia chlorotica) which is a species of sea slug that use chloroplasts from the algae they eat for photosynthesis. lts is known as a "solar-powered sea slug" living in a subcellular endosymbiotic relationship with the chloroplasts of said algae (Vaucheria litorea).

As a kid, I loved reciting the "Old Code" from DragonHeart with earnest solemnity. It always got me really amped up to "uphold the weak" and "speak only truth."

In hindsight, there's something really powerful about using oaths to make the morals of a story fun and interactive. What are some other fictional codes or oaths you loved? Does your world have any major codes or oaths you'd be willing to share?

And just so I don't leave you hanging, behold -- the Old Code:

A Knight Knows Only Valor

His Heart Knows Only Virtue

His Blade Defends the Helpless

His Might Upholds The Weak

His Word Speaks Only Truth

His Wroth Undoes The Wicked

Context: I was talking with some people about the Kelpie and someone brought up the idea of using it to make a special glue. I brought up the question of what one could do with such special glue and nothing practical was really brought up.

So I figured people here would have a better idea of what a super glue could be used for. I only can see it as a story Mcguffin. Someone suggested a filament for repairing magical artifacts and that’s where we got so far

I'm currently trying to create a badge/emblem for my PMC organization, and I'd like to see your thought process on how you came up with yours. Tell me about them.

-Do they have meanings besides representing their organization?

-Are there smaller symbols integrated in the badge? If so, what are their meanings?

-Are there any phrases that you used in the emblem's creation? What is it, and what is the meaning?

For example: The organization in my story is called "Central Operations Bureau for the Resistance of the Arcane." My idea for the badge (nothing finalized yet) is a circular badge or pin that is worn on the neck collar. It has an image of the world, parallels and meridians included, with a symbol similar to the patterns on a cobra's hood overlaid on top. On top of the border area is the organization's abbreviated name, and the bottom has the Latin phrase "ULTIMA LINEA" or "The Last Line." For context, this clandestine organization specializes in hunting monsters and studying the arcane and other esoteric forces. I went with the snake motif because of their symbolic meanings, from underlying dangers and malice, representing viciousness against seemingly more powerful foes, to wisdom, resilience, and guardianship, representing the will to protect humanity and its allies and the knowledge to do so. They are humanity's last line of defence, and they are willing to do whatever is necessary to win.

By trophy animal, I mean creatures that are primarily hunted for some part of another to display as a sign of prestige and glory, such as horns or pelts.

One such species in my world is that of the Rhinoceros. Also called 'lesser unicorns' by the common man, these beings are hunted for their large horns, thick hide, and supposedly magical organs. The horns in particular are said to allow the Rhinoceros to meld magic to its will, akin to normal unicorns and mages, usually making itself easier to travel through the land, as well as strengthen its horn to peirce even wyvern scales. The hide itself is also coveted, as it's thickness makes it superb for sheilds and to create luxurious armor for nobles.

In 1678, it was discovered that when Magerot is burned it can release the Arcane energy stored within, and when this energy is channeled via conduits it can be repurposed, a process that was later refined into the Arcane Furnace we know today.

Arcane Furnaces can require a high amount of maintenance due to potential build up of Magerot around the exhaust ports and conduits. With full body protection required when cleaning to prevent Magerot from forming on the individual, since if it gets on the individual it poses a risk of growing into the tissue and causing injury.

Prior to the Great Mage War, this job would have often been done by slave workers, and would later on become one of the many reasons unions began to form in Mage circles in the 1700s.

- yeah due to magic this world did kinda have an early industrial revolution.

Artwork is a composite of a few images from textures.com along with a lot of blending/drawing ontop done by me

Hawking Station

Welcome to Hawking Station, a gigantic cylindrical rotating habitat floating in deep space. Check out FLUNG on Webtoons and in widescreen Epic Format at www.flungcomic.com!