Robots, Golems, and Other Synthetic Entities Edition

Welcome to /wbg/, the official thread for the discussion of in-progress settings for traditional games.

Here is where you go to present and develop the details of your worlds such as lore, factions, magic and ecosystems. You can also post maps for your settings, as well as any relevant art (either created by you or used as inspiration for your work). Please remember that dialogue is what keeps the thread alive, so don't be afraid of giving someone feedback or post whatever relevant input you might have!

Last thread: >>95849839

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Thread questions:
>What constructs exist in your world, be they magical, technological or a mix? And how common are they?
>How are said constructs created, and how has the process changed/improved over time? And how expensive is it?
>Are they just mindless automatons, or are some of them as intelligent as humans, or even more intelligent? And what failsafes/control measures do they have?
>Next, how are these constructs used/how do they impact the setting? And if bodiless artificial intelligence exists, how does said AI or the equivalent affect it?
>Lastly, what are some other major magical or technological innovations that have recently made an impact on your setting, and how did you consider said impact?

>>96080428 (OP)
There is a cybernetic race that has come out of deep space long ago. They appear to be robots, a mistake which is sometimes still made in-universe, but despite their mechanical bodies they have organic brains.
This species has nodespheres, which are massive ships, each of which contains a huge sprawling mass of an organic brain which acts as the leader and focus of worship for the cyborgs it creates. Each cyborg brain is created as a growth off this central brain which is delicately severed and placed in a mechanical body. Each individual cyborg has a tiny sandgrained bit of the crystal which powers this universe's FTL inserted into their brain. This allows them to communicate instantly with the main brain, and the brain is able to act as a central node of communication between cyborgs. This makes their ability to coordinate very powerful. Despite this connection they are not a hivemind, each individual has its own personality.
The nodesphere brains can communicate with each other.
The main war in the setting came to an end when the brains were destroyed by an advanced technological means. The destruction of the brains severed the connection the cyborgs had between each other. The event was so mentally shocking that in the moment many of them locked up from mental shock. Some recovered but without the ability to mentally communicate they ended up with a sense of great loss.

>>96080616
Some of the surviving cyborgs created or fell into religious cults, some found purpose integrating into some other culture, some became mercenaries and criminals.
The default cyborg form and mental level is comparable to human. It has been remarked on in universe the oddity of how closely they resemble humans, but nothing has come of it. Some forms of cyborgs are stranger and have levels of intelligence different than human. Some of the lower intelligence cyborgs have survived as essentially animals, cryptids, or even being taken in as livestock or pets.

>>96080650
Human made artificial intelligence is more conventional. There are simple robots and automations, although they are normally not considered self aware. It takes a lot of hardware space to create a truly sapient artificial intelligence. Some colonies have invested in AI mainframes to handle urban operations. A standout is the Liefeld Colony, which had a mainframe that began with only mundane utility responsibilities, but as the genetic modification programs by the generations of colonists continued to favor more and more physical strength at the expense of intelligence, the mainframe which took on the name IMAGE became more and more responsible for all aspects of the colony. In the present day, the colony is totally and openly run by IMAGE while the population work most as mercenaries, bouncers, and other physically violent jobs and send their earnings back to the colony.

>>96080428 (OP)
>New tech things
After the war, one of the corporations was interested in the idea of instant mental communication by implanting crystals into brains. They weren't entirely sure how the cyborgs had done it. As the experiments would involve high risk brain surgery they were officially scrapped but one executive carried on in secret, having test subject abducted. The results for a long time were grisly failure with no progress, but one subject ended up getting Dr. Manhattan-lite powers. This strange fluke completely changed the trajectory of the research.

>Enjoy worldbuilding
>Find that most worldbuilding communities are full of people aggressively committed to even the stupidest ideas
Why are they like this? Even when people ask for c&c if you give any specific and actionable critique people flip and give paragraphs of how their dumb idea is actually good

>What constructs exist in your world, be they magical, technological or a mix? And how common are they?
Glad you asked! They're the main species of the world, being magic-infused golems.
>How are said constructs created, and how has the process changed/improved over time? And how expensive is it?
It goes as follows: Carve a sphere out of a specific type of stone, draw runes on it, and pump a smidge of two other construct's magic into it
>Are they just mindless automatons, or are some of them as intelligent as humans, or even more intelligent? And what failsafes/control measures do they have?
They're just as intelligent
>Next, how are these constructs used/how do they impact the setting? And if bodiless artificial intelligence exists, how does said AI or the equivalent affect it?
They're free as birds
>Lastly, what are some other major magical or technological innovations that have recently made an impact on your setting, and how did you consider said impact?
Their creation was "The final innovation" because after that humanity just fucked off to a higher plane and left them to rot

>>96080428 (OP)
The Retching Gargoyles have featured prominently (though less so than I'd planned) in my recent Fear Itself mini-campaign. They're effectively a blend of Doctor Who's Weeping Angels, Destiny's Vex and Mass Effect's Citadel Keepers all filtered through a blend of Metropolis meets the Monument Mythos.

In brief: humanity have unwittingly built their city-world colony atop an antimemetic precursor megastructure. The precursors in question are the accidental creators / victims of a prion-like idea complex which has ensnared countless sapients in p-zombiehood. On Zenotte this takes the form of a nanute slime-mold like distributed mind which reflexively "decants" itself into cyborg husk-mummies which proceed to clamber topside and proceed to literally dribble streams of sense-perception which gutter by gutter drain back into the cistern-brains for consideration.

The Gargoyles look nothing like gargoyles. They're called that because as vaguely animate yet inorganic shapes perched high above and spewing liquid they're most easily rationalized as such by mere mortals affected by their antimemetic aura. They do the Weeping Angel "blink teleport" thing not because they're super fast but because for every one you force yourself to see there are a dozen more lumbering around as unaware of you as you are of them. Blinking isn't movement, it's the "pseudo-self" of whatever Gargoyle happens to be dealing with (and partially "ensouled" by) a conscious observer "passing the baton" between suitable candidate bodies during your (and by extension its) moment of inattention.

>>96083400
It doesn't matter if the ideas are stupid as long as they're having fun.

>>96080616
Neat, I dig it when superficially "soft" space opera is willing to get weird. Pure headcanon yet useable as a cultist's in-universe deranged raving but based on what's suggested here the following occurs to me:

If all FTL is based on a single thing and a particular race has (or had rather) significant control then that thing is artificial. FTL implies causality violation and is almost the textbook definition of "sufficient advancement". Given their uncanny resemblance to humanity I suggest that the big brain (RIP) is in fact a far future descendant come back to bootstrap its own existence, all the orphan 'borgs could in fact be part of the plan (at least according to the following Highlander cult).

Trying to regrow the crystalline mental network entails delving into fringe-physics whackery. If the above time loop is proposed as a hypothesis then the big brain's collapse may be seen as causality protecting itself. The only way the big brain can be revived is if instead of a self-causing regress knowledge of it is wiped allowing it to be developed "naturally". This requires wiping out / reformatting other cyborgs until the last bot standing grows into that cancer mind (and having by design forgotten its origins fiddles with FTL to travel back in time).

Silly speculation aside what is the gist of the brain war and FTL crystal?

>>96083400
I mean myself included the amount of one-way loredumping vastly outweighs commenting on others' stuff which implies heavy narcissism in the general's culture. Also the reason "kill your darlings" is often given as advice is because it's painful, the fact that brute force editing accounts for so much of a work's quality over inspiration alone is also a hard pill to swallow.

>>96080428 (OP)
>TQ: le robots
Been researching irl examples of clockpunk (steampunk stuff before the industrial revolution) like Da Vinci, al-Jazari, Gotz Berlichingen, Antikythera, Mechanical Turk, Hesdin Castle, Abbasid court automata, Karakuri dolls, astronomical clocks, Old london bridge, Solomon's Throne
Real interesting stuff and it fits perfectly into fantasy without coming off as too anachronistic

>>96087167
https://www.marlymachine.org/

>>96088906
Thanks man, will look into this

>Setting where humans are a small minority, most races view humanity very positively, but at least 2 it's on sight
How realistic is it for there to just not be racism amongst humans in this setting? I feel like I'm being idealistic, but at the same time I can't visualize humans caring about skin color when there's truck sized lobsters that will ritualistically eat you alive and use your bones as tools/trophies (they're especially fond of ribs).

>>96086866
The idea with the crystals is that they are a very strange thing. No known method can destroy or crack them. Yet, they are found in all kinds of sizes and sometimes can clearly have shapes where they used to be larger but got cracked apart. Crystals are found all over a wide area of space, buried or otherwise but not actively growing.
For FTL it has been discovered than running a huge current through them with some other controls creates an energy field around the crystal which can be used for point-to-point jumping. This makes the crystals valuable as they can't be replicated and are needed for FTL. Crystal reserves form the backing of the major currency in the setting.

But that's all a sideshow. The real deal is that all of the crystals are actually part one single crystal which was blown apart at the moment of the Big Bang. If you get all the pieces reassembled, it creates the opposite of the Big Bang and destroys the universe, leaving the crystal as the one thing left*, but it inevitable explodes again making a universe. There is a being which survives this cycle over and over and it just wants to perfectly create the crystal and keep it from exploding so that there is no universe anymore ever. The being is very tired of material existence. The cyborg controlling big brains are helpers of this being, with the cyborgs at least initially unaware.
That's at least how I conceive of it. This is a very long term background plot which drives a lot of why the cyborgs did certain things during the war, and why there are strange cults now, but I'm hesitant to put and out loredump it in a way that spells out the motivation.

>>96091093
Here is a VERY OLD and no longer canon idea of what this being that keeps surviving would look like. It got dunked on a lot and the tone of the setting also changed so this design is abandoned and I haven't settled in a new one

>>96090838
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2017/08/28/venus-automaton-design-recalls-mechanical-computers/

https://greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2016/11/gang-lun-fa-huo-steel-wheel.html

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/01/the-mechanical-transmission-of-power-1-stangenkunst/

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/01/aerial-ropeways-automatic-cargo-transport-for-a-bargain/

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/03/the-sky-is-the-limit-human-powered-cranes-and-lifting-devices/

https://www.notechmagazine.com/2011/02/hand-operated-vacuum-cleaners.html

https://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2009/03/early-machine-technology.html

This one is a setting which uses clockwork and clockpunk in moderate amounts:
https://udan-adan.blogspot.com/p/against-wicked-city.html

Used this as inspiration for building-sized wizard-dwellings in a land of plains crisscrossed by the winds which the locals worship:
https://www.strandbeest.com/

>>96090981
Are they a small minority because they are vastly out numbered by every other race or because they were pushed to the brink or near extinction?

Either way, any forced cooperation may be surface level with various groups/classes/races still vying for power with one foot in the grave.

Question:

Should I go all in on Earth, and the Solar System, being devoured by an extra-dimensional space and Humanity just learning to live within the space.

Or,

Go the Half-Life route and have a Xen style world that is connected to Earth via permanent, stable portals?

>>96080774
What happened with said subject, and just what could they do?

>>96091117
Does this being have any weaknesses?

>>96091093
There's room for a terrible pun here. Ever heard of time crystals? They're supposed to be structures which repeat themselves temporally rather than spatially, namely a particle which decays into another and then back into the original ad infinitum.

Your Big Bounce cosmology makes it just such a repeating structure, since "before the beginning" and "after the end" are temporally unmoored it'd give room for the causal-fuckery entailed by FTL too. In fact as causality violation / FTL is deeply incompatible with out current understanding of reality the patterns of of crystal-enabled FTL use ma be dragging forward / back that "before / after" respectively as the anti-Demiuge tries to unmake all creations.

I take it that as biology-based the cyborgs were beings uplifted / entooled by symbiosis with the crystals which sustained their hive mind? Certainly explains why a war of extermination would be waged against them (provided outsiders found out about their goals).

>>96091906
Nice. nta and I'm familiar with a few of those but others are wonderful resources. Like the wind-wizard walking towers. Threw in Strandbeest myself as invasive alien life in a fantasy setting.

>>96086821
May as well elaborate by answering >>95849839
So, as a setting ultimately meant to be experienced by functionally imortal merchant-princes seeing snapshots over generational gaps deep time's something of a core theme. On Zenotte the oldest lore relates to the local antimemetic precursors but there's been plenty of change since that.

Briefly this was the planet's first settlement (they went Roanoke), second, backwater status, subversion / annexation by the Soupremacy, reconquest by the Quorum and finally the quiet decay of the present in the Semantaclysm's aftermath.

Critter-wise the Katfish are a relic of Quorum reclamation efforts, specifically they were engineered lifeforms set loose in the sewers to sniff out remnants of the Soup.

>>96099783
They look like a horrible cross of catfish olm-weasel mudskipper with characteristic lamprey + radula mouthparts (rated to chew through pipes to get at Soup). Their prey was once a cluster-spanning distributed hyperintelligence running on a microbial substrate (it turned the whole product ecosystem / trophic pyramid into its shitting, sweating, scheming "body") now reduced to vaguely sentient genius loci which nevertheless threatened to flare up into something awful. The barbed, branched whiskers of katfish are alive to the slightest hint of Soup in their environment which they will waft apart as best they can. Denser cultures concentrating and cogitating in the guts of hosts are rifled through and turned inside out by the furious fish, they don't have complete immunity to Soup subversion. Instead their destructive instinct is so strong that they disembowel themselves long before an colony inside them gets complex enough to send out soothing signals.

That's Katfish 1.0, they've since diversified as the Soup faded into memory. Mostly they're seen as messy pests who go berzerk over even the most innocuous fermented goods ("kat-whiskered" is an idiom like "ring of fire"). There pit-fighting breeds (most notably with blood that bioluminesces once mixed with the slurry they fight in), "gongfinder" sniffer hounds, "plumber's friend" guards and even corp=patented mascots (they often get flushed a la sewer croc a few years after the promotion in question).

Think I'll do them as fake-out precursors since these guys >>96086821 by definition can't be your first answer to "who built all these ruins?" (ruins you have to try very hard not to rationalise away in the first place). Since the deeper sewers beyond the greatly-diminished Soup's reach belong to the precursors the Quorum would've been out-teched and willing to risk far more innovation to meet the challenge than otherwise. Hulking, mutated aboleth-like breeds would be there with handlers' brains attached.

>>96080428 (OP)
One of the Engine Heart modules I never got around to writing involved a schizo AI that was collecting humanoid robots and reprogramming them to think they were humans and to ignore all evidence to the contrary, so that its other mind could be satisfied maintaining a colony of humans.

>>96099783
>Ever heard of time crystals?
No, but that repeating cycle slots in nicely to what I'm going for.
>I take it that as biology-based the cyborgs were beings uplifted / entooled by symbiosis with the crystals which sustained their hive mind?
The big brains on the ships were uplifted by the eternal being. They are aware of it's true purpose, all the cyborgs they create are not. The normal cyborgs don't (or at least until recently didn't) know of this being and they worshiped the big brains as their highest gods. Since their society has collapsed after those brains died, some of them have learned of the eternal being and the crystals and latched onto that as the center of new cults.
The war was between them and my alien-frog race. Both sides were aggressive for their own reasons, the cyborgs because the brains wanted to collect crystals in the frog-alien territory so told them to exterminate the forg-aliens. The frog-aliens have no idea about this whole eternal cycle stuff, but they were a very conventionally militaristic society (think Starship Troopers book society) who were expansionist and took the cyborgs on once it became clear war were declared.
>Hivemind
Want to always specify, not a hivemind. Each cyborg has its own individual thoughts and personality. They were able to communicate directly with the big brains that were their gods, and were able to communicate with other cyborgs with the brains as a central node.
>provided outsiders found out about their goals
The average cyborgs didn't even know the true reasons for war. Only after it was over, some of them caught on, though the information is twisted through the lens of cultism. Its very underground and esoteric early on, but yes eventually I want to go from worldbuilding to more focused story on main characters finding out.

>>96095616
>What happened with said subject, and just what could they do?
Oh you know, scifi stuff. Energy blasts, mindreading, making peoples' heads explode. All very unforeseen consequences of experiments that didn't quite know what they were messing with. She's in a very early stage of turning into the same kind of thing as the eternal being.
>Does this being have any weaknesses
Not really. It simply has limitations that it's goal takes a very long time to accomplish. I haven't quite worked it out, but defeating it will involve the test subject and likely not be with a fight but something it agrees to.

I have a problem, I have been trying to come up with a solution for to no success.
I have been trying to come up with some more Intelligent Alien Species for my Space Sci-fi setting I DM in.
and while I have about 5 or so 'species' as potential PC races currently, I feel as if a few more would be vastly help with more variety.
But my main problem is I Really have a large dislike for the 'blue human' or "basically just a human with X alien feature" type of aliens and have hit a point where most my latest ideas sound a little too 'obviously designed by a furry'

Thus far my current races/species are
>Stereotypical 'grey' Aliens, who serve as my main antagonist/bad guy Alien species I use as enemies, these guys are heavily into Terraforming, Eugenics on an Ecological scale and all around just being space Assholes
>Space Mantis's who are extremely peaceful and cowardly race but really hate the Greys
>Reptilians who are basically short, lizard-like race of mostly engineers and mechanics and almost worship old Technology
>Robots who while fully individuals, usually willingly serve under an AI overlord which is a 'sometimes' enemy to the party depending on their mission/goals
>A plant race which somewhat resemble giant mobile and fully sentient potatos

and aside from maybe trying to come up with a race of rock people, any other Ideas I got like a more avian/bird aliens or fish/aquatic species just eventually loop around to 'sounds like I am letting my furfag show' the moment I start trying to come up with Ideas or Lore for them.

and Ideally, I would love to eventually have an alien race and lore to cover most of the stereotypical Scifi Alien types

>>96104068
I would suggest starting with something small and unique then expanding that into a species. And here are some ideas off the top of my head:
>radially symmetrical
>reproduces by budding
>parasite
>hibernates for centuries
>made of nanobots
>shapeshifters

>>96080428 (OP)
I have what I call "bioconstructs" or "biogolems" within my setting, that are essentially biomechanical devices, machines and robots etc. They are composed of living tissues and organic materials, many of which are cultivated and grown but these bioconstructs themselves are not really "alive" in a real sense, as they are more akin to stitched together analgamations of various different living components, arranged into specific shapes to perform specific functions. Depending on the complexity of the bioconstruct they can be as simple as just basic tools and weapons all the way to semi autonomous robot like "golems" directed by cultivated neural networks or even brains, that have been "programmed" and conditioned towards specific functions.

Picture related, most of the stuff in here are various biogolems.

>>96080428 (OP)
>Take a robot
>Make it completely sapient
>It has emotions and a kind spirit
>A perfect specimen of mental health and highly intelligent
>Bury it in concrete so it can't move
>Dig it up in 1,000 years

Assuming it is still physically functional, would it be sane?

>>96107198
Would you be sane if you were buried alive for a thousand years? Just because it doesn't suffer the sort of physical trauma a human would the emotional toll and isolation would certain affect them.

>>96107198
If it survived it wasn't sane going in.

>>96080428 (OP)
Hi /wbg/, long time GM first time poster.
>What constructs exist in your world, be they magical, technological or a mix? And how common are they?
Current game is a sci-fi/space opera game. Sapient androids definitely exist, as do simple work robots with a non-sapient brain (no smarter than a modern-day video game character, canned voice lines, easily flummoxed by unexpected events). They make up about 15% of the population (literally roll a 6 on the d6 origin table during chargen).
Supernatural constructs? Well, certain areas and objects can be "haunted" by psychic phenomena, but that's closer to a ghost than a robot.
>How are said constructs created, and how has the process changed/improved over time? And how expensive is it?
Making an android body isn't that expensive, no more than a vehicle is expensive. The process of "spinning up" a sapient android personality in specially assembled computer hardware is very energy and time expensive, and has a high failure rate. Many potential personalities are "stillborn." There are also laws governing the bodies/hardware you can spin up a droid into, generally guaranteeing them humanlike capabilities. People violating those laws would be looked upon much like a modern-day person deliberately raising kids to cripple them and then imprison them in a call centre.
(cont)

>>96107754
(continued)
>Are they just mindless automatons, or are some of them as intelligent as humans, or even more intelligent? And what failsafes/control measures do they have?
While an android's personality is literally inside a computer, they don't have native access to the capabilities of a computer. An android is not inherently good at math, any more than a human is. Integrating a math module into a droid is perfectly possible, but you can hand a human a calculator too. They don't inherently think faster than a human, though there are differences and some advantages.
>Next, how are these constructs used/how do they impact the setting? And if bodiless artificial intelligence exists, how does said AI or the equivalent affect it?
Bodiless AI isn't _supposed_ to exist...
Worker drones are used as labour, though they're not common. For many tasks a dedicated machine might be better (i.e. farm equipment, tanks). For others, the low intelligence and ease of confusion make them undesirable. Labour drones are common in areas where they may be asked to assist in many different tasks: assisting disabled humans, remote outposts where flexibility helps, etc.
Sapient robots are part of the job market just like humans. In some areas, it's legal for companies to spin up droids and then demand a "creation debt" is worked off. This is controversial. Bombings are not unheard of.
>Lastly, what are some other major magical or technological innovations that have recently made an impact on your setting, and how did you consider said impact?
The end of the corporate wars in the sector have left a lasting legacy: mechanical armies. Semi-sapient droids created by military AI running in well-defended cores, forming self-repairing armed forces. Post-war, these have all gone "insane" and form a sort of deranged insurgency on the colony worlds. Mercenaries make fortunes taking contracts to defend installations from rogue mechanical forces, or to root out and destroy the AI cores.

>>96104068
Stealing from the obscure Vor game- energy beings that have been forced to retake a material form. They inhabit crystals which they shape into bodies. The more practiced they get, the smoother and more graceful the bodies are.

>>96091906
Tessarokonteres, Syracusia and Archimedes shit in general come to mind as well as Chinese and Korean gunpowder stuff

>>96111339
>Tessarokonteres, Syracusia
Why? Despite their size, they hardly used gears, if any. Though I once mixed them with the British propaganda of Napoleonic invasion ( https://www.notechmagazine.com/2009/11/floating-citadels-powered-by-wind-and-water-mills.html ), couple more details and made up pic related.

>and Archimedes shit in general come to mind
I thought any anon would already know about it. Btw, Ancient China had an Archimedes-like weapon: https://greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2024/08/unique-chinese-weapon-pai-gan.html

>as well as Chinese and Korean gunpowder stuff
Didnt consider it relevant.

I did find a few more links that might be relevant for "clockpunk".

https://www.notechmagazine.com/2009/07/guido-vigevanos-wind-car-1335.html

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/10/wind-powered-factories-history-and-future-of-industrial-windmills/

http://douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/POWER/dog/dog.htm

http://douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/POWER/clockwork/clockwork.htm

>>96080616

Here's a brainstorm for a different part of this universe, lemme know thoughts.
I've always envisioned that there was a big cultural split in humanity when it discovered the FTL enabling crystals. Some people wanted to use it for FTL, others wanted to study it to see how it could raise up the standard of human life and didn't want to bother leaving the solar system.
The humans the setting focuses on are the ones who left. However earth/solar system is still back there. I originally wanted those humans to be somewhat distant but still involved tenuously with the colonizing humans, with the earth society being a blatant rip off of Star Trek Federation earth. The idea was I could use it to comment on the kind of moral cowardice and hypcrasy they had with an idealisic but very isolationist and stagnant culture that was only doing as well as it was from a luck of the draw of not having been hit by any major galactic hardships. HOWEVER, new idea:

>>96115612
Humanity discovers the FTL crystals and splits ways. The setting focusing on those who left.
But all contact with the original solar system stops. TLDR the FTL in this universe can only go from certain points to certain other points, and all travel back to the points in the solar system by curious colonizing humans have resulted in radio silence. People jump but they don't come back.
The reason is because since these crystals fuck around with time (thank you for the breakthrough anon), the humanity of the solar system has [somehow] managed to create a field around it which has accelerated time within the solar system. So while only a few hundred years have passed for everyone else, for those humans it has been I dunno, thousands or tens of thousands of years. They have advanced to a level that puts them far beyond the normal races in the setting. They perhaps have just recently turned off or had the field turn off somehow and their ships show up rarely and unexpectedly in the human colony space now. The solar system human ships don't even register as human to the colonists though, since they are so strange. Solar system humans are maybe themselves super strangely evolved (I like drawing weird biostuff so this is good) so the rare few people who see them have no clue what they are looking at. These hyper advanced humans showed up and ended the cyborg's war effort by disabling their nodespheres, and then left, leaving everyone is a kind of shock and confusion.

>>96115670
Perhaps since I picture these hyper advanced humans using organic technology, they are the source of what I've been calling "mutomorphs" which are out of control organic growths that are mindless. Perhaps through some time fuckery, the advanced humans ended up accidentally seeding their biotech on distant planets, and without directive or purpose it grew into what we see today.
Even further brainstorming is that this biotrash is the origin of the big brains that are inside the nodespheres and which grow and control the brains of the rest of the cyborgs

what's stopping you from attaching a basic Mork Borg system and releasing your world build right now?

But what if: le insane cyborgs?

>>96080428 (OP)
Kys d*scored cancer.

>>96080428 (OP)
Thoughts on depicting sorcerers from different cultures? Media is not really diverse about it.

>>96119622
Being schizo is NOT cool.

>>96120272
First idea: art station, "Indonesia" search word, filter by "character design". Among the results, this one:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/0P5dK

If you try "character modeling" instead, you'll get 3d designs, like this:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/yDzLVK

I also tried "Syria" + "fashion & costume design", and the search gave me Pakistani 20th century fashion
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/L34LXv
BUT! Since the artist seemed like he was local, I checked his portfolio:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/48rB3n
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/q90oQn
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/5Xedb1
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8ld0Gn
Not precisely "sorcerer" design, but seems genuine enough to be used as a starting point.

Everywhere around the world, there are artists/authors which want(ed) to show off their native culture in media. Can't promise you'll find someone from São Tomé e Príncipe, but say, Sri-Lanka, is a given.

>>96120757
Second idea: museum websites. For example:

https://art.thewalters.org/browse/place/
I tried "Colombia"
https://art.thewalters.org/object/48.2845/

>Along with figurines, flutes and whistles were one of the most common artifacts made by ancient Pre-Columbian artists, and they are found in every culture, from the earliest times. This Tairona example closely resembles objects of other mediums (like gold), which are not whistles and depict winged figures. Such whistles are still used among the Kogi people of Colombia, who descended from the Tairona, and the wing forms may refer to shamanic flight.
The Shaman whistles his spells instead of speaking magical words? Ocarina instead of wand? Ornamental wing-like ornaments identify his magical prowess?

https://art.thewalters.org/object/2006.15.1/

>carved bone finial likely once graced the head of a ritual staff-like implement of a shaman.
Neat staff for a start.

>Throughout Middle America vultures are commonly affiliated with the celestial realm; jaguars with the terrestrial realm; and serpents with the watery underworld.
Vultures being associated with necromancy might make sense for us, but not this culture.

>The shaman's slightly simian nose and exaggerated grimace mark his altered trace-state; in effect, he has achieved a hyper-real, 'super'-natural state, and thus is prepared to communicate directly with the otherworldly spirit representatives of the earth, sky, and underworld.
Casting spells requires one to transmute into a caricature-like/symbolic-like state? Partially spiritual for a little time?

>>96121099
https://art.thewalters.org/object/2009.20.214/

>Figural urns found in chambers inside deep shaft tombs are particularly abundant in northwestern Colombia.
>By "planting" bones (seeds) in phallic-shaped urns inside womblike chambers in the ground (mother earth), renewed life would spring from the burials.
Perhaps the best way to represent necromancers in this culture is through broken urns and bones still covered in rotten flesh, but not bare bones.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection
I selected "Ancient Near Eastern Art"
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/327347

That ring seems like an interesting magical focus. Perhaps you use it as an animal harness, becoming a "beast of burden" to magical powers? Or like a finger ring, but one in which you must cut off the fingers to the side so it can fit? With such a detail, the rest of the character could be mundane, highlighting the ring.

https://www.metmuseum.org/essays
https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/power-coastal-ecuador
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/314183
Several figurines like this one. Not a sorcerer by itself, but perhaps mixed with
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/314299
We find clues of what is identified as an "elder" in this culture, and by association, "wisdom". Like the flattened head, which could have some ornamented hat, copper helmet or jewelry which worked as an "antenna for talking with spirits"?

>>96121113
Third method: wikisource and wikimedia. For this case, these categories:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Category:Travelogues

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Category:Travel_writing_by_country

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:People_by_country_in_art

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Historical_clothing_in_art

There'll be plenty of orientalism and other ethnocentrisms, but photographs and paintings can still be a useful guide. Though maybe not for sorcerers per se. Browsed some of it and couldn't find anything inspiring like on previous methods. Sorry.

Just wanting to flesh out a scene I had in my head for a game set in post-apocalyptic world it’s Fallout and wanted to know if anyone knew what all could cause firearm ammunition to spontaneously detonate?

Like not just the round in the chamber, but also in the magazine, spare clips, and any loose rounds rolling around in pockets and bags. I am aware that as gunpowder decomposes it can become unstable and more sensitive, but that still requires some kind of ignition mechanism, just a less overt one. And I’m aware that at certain temperatures ammo will ignite all on its own, but at those temperatures I’m pretty sure the person carrying the ammo would be on fire and the ammo cook off wouldn’t really be “inexplicable” (which for my purposes needs to be less obvious, so there’s a bit of mystery around it).

Would a buildup of electrical energy cause it? I was thinking about that and wondered if that could be a thing, a combination of old ammo plus a sudden and dramatic increase of static energy could, upon contact with a ground, cause a static discharge strong enough to ignite the powder?

I don’t know, I’m spitballing here

>>96120679
>Links to pisscord circlejerk chat room
>Schizo
Don't reply to me you underage simian.

>>96122969
Didn’t Mythbusters already try something like this?

What would an insane collective of interstellar robots controlled by a totally insane mainframe want that's better than "kill all humans"?

bio-ships, y/n?

>>96128504
Oh fug I was literally saving pics from that same game as reference for my bioships.

>Decide "fuck it" and try a Discord worldbuilding group
>Go to a brainstorming channel
>Write a pretty simple tidbit from my world, in simple language
>Person replies having totally misread
>I tell them tanks but they misread
>They tell me they didn't
>I say they did
>They quote part of my original post
>I point out they are misreading what they quoted
>Tell them I appreciate replies but they need to reread what I posted so they stop going on long, wrong tangents
>I get booted off the group
A+ discord experience

>>96128504
yes because biological stuff is cool

>>96128504
Yes, especially if they're weirdly personable despite their scary appearance.

>Have 2 unrelated elements
>Think of a neat way to join them together
I love it when this happens.
In this case there's a space empire that favors helicopters for in atmosphere transportation, and they originally came from a desert 'planet' so choppers were the most effective way of moving and they carried it with them across their solar system.

So my setting has Christianity as truth, with an added caveat that gateways tend to open up between worlds which caused the pollination of worlds across the universe with life from Earth. Some creatures even escaped the great flood this way.
>Deuteronomy 32:8-9
>When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.
>For the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
This refers to the scattering of people after the tower of Babel, and "children of Isreal" is a revision. The original term was "sons of God", as in angels. It seems to me that God raised up Isreal as his chosen while leaving the other peoples to angels and demons in some fashion, until it was time for Jesus to bring everyone into the fold.
I was thinking of this being a way to "justify" the other deities on other worlds not necessarily being evil. Maybe some are merely following their function and trying to guide their people into a readiness to accept the Lord. I even had a similar idea with dogmen being cursed canaanites who had the Aralez appointed as their guardians to guide them back from sin.
Thoughts, criticism? I'm very open to reworking this entirely if need be.

>>96132880
On second thought I have decided that there's a heap of very basic scripture that contradicts these ideas and that I need to go back to the drawing board.

>>96133794
>>96132880
I don't know enough to critcize any of it, just remembered about the notion that aliens might be free of the original Sin.

https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/canticle-of-brother-extraterrestrial-1051

>>96126416
Find where their makers disappeared off to, so that they could return to loyal, helpful service to people they have a nigh-religious reverence for, viewing them as fundamentally mortal and regular, yet still so beautifully advanced and so kind as to make a whole synthetic race.

They'll naturally utterly fail to comprehend (and will thus ignore or rationalize) all evidence that they probably wiped out their makers a long time ago.

>>96115763
I want to do a WoD system instead.

I made a potion system that works way better than RAW. Each plants has multiple properties, how you mix them is important and static, and it allows many unique concoctions.

>spices, glues, fruits, all kinds of shit

>>96080428 (OP)
I am workshopping a faction of magically-powered automatons made by a long lost civilization as war machines. But how should their circuitry work? Should they have elaborate wiring through which magical energy flows? Or just put a magic rock as their cores and call it a day?

>>96140594
Take inspiration from the human vascular system. Remember, human beings in reality are just advanced robots that can reproduce and create more of us.

Feeling more than a bit inspired by Destiny I'm on the fence on how to expand out from the idea of a 4th dimensional being dying and how it would affect Humanity:

1. A friend/sibling/lover/whatever of the dead being decides to help humanity because now it's blood is part of Humanity and we can be a useful tool for it's revenge.

2. The corpse is attracting cosmic carrion eaters while it's decaying body shapes and changes the solar system.

>>96132880
I once had this weird, silly idea where Christian God dislikes the Bible because it's inaccurate due to being written by biased, flawed human beings over a very long period of time. He even writes his own version that's the truth, and it brings a lot of his seemingly questionable actions in the Bible into a much more sensible light.
>He didn't cast Adam and Eve out of the garden for disobedience towards him. No, he cast them out for a DIFFERENT "Original Sin" which was something so utterly heinous and disgusting that he refuses to even write it down.
>Him "Telling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac" was actually a case of Abraham misinterpreting what he meant.
>The Tower of Babel was actually a straight up arcane superweapon capable of razing the planet and he had to stop it before it could come to fruition
>He didn't cast out Lucifer for just "Pride." He cast him out because he actually attempted to murder and enslave his brethren
And so on

>>96141121
¿Por que no los dos? "4th dimensional" can mean funky arrows of time as much as anything spatially exotic. What if the Best Beloved (said friend/sibling/lover) was in fact one of the "carrion suitors" who act as a sort of prion, writing / replicating their essence-pattern retroactively through time rather than "across" into other deformable structures as they do irl.

The Best Beloved knows not which suitor reached out to consume-infest the Being's corpse (thereby cemmenting itself as seed / sire / infant pre-self) and as such is quite defensively picky about the newcomers despite essentially being one of them. If it is a sort of ovipositwd parasite and / or vestigial cancer-twin which are its way out on the Being its consciousness may be patterned after the now-dead host's.

>>96142722
https://youtu.be/7609TWnhUIU?si=eSlN9J07ogNSfYUD

Jokes aside I think there's an interesting spin on "the REAL Original Sin is an unspeakable Evil" combined with the cope for Theodicy that "Evil is the absence of God". Perhaps human intermediaries are necessary because as unallowed Good a directly divinely authored work cannot directly come to grips with any explanation of Evil.

Additionally the "native tongue" of heaven is presumably the pre-Tower speech of Adam. To communicate with minimal distortion (which you state to be the goal) God might have to write in a lost universal language which runs the risk of allowing another Babel apocalyptic event.

>>96142722
>>96145947
I dislike these ideas on their face, they seem unduly critical of christianity and such attempts to lampoon their beliefs are dime a dozen and incredibly tired. If I'm to write I prefer to do so from a place of love and appreciation, not smug condescension.

Anyone know any good material to look up regarding how cultures influence weapons?

I'm trying to come up with what weapons different regions might make, presuming that material isn't so much of an issue and I'm not sure of what the drivers are. Like I guess if there's a jungle area, machete or kukri type tool-weapons would be common. But what else might influence this?

any good tables or generators for starport POIs?

>>96146332
So many god-damnned variables.

-For example, Inca knew how make bronze, they never bothered casting weapons & armour out of it because their enemies, and most of their allies, used mostly wood, stone, bone and textiles. Btw, pre-heated sling rocks wrapped in textiles = spaniards scared by the sudden rain of fire. Mostly a one-use trick, but goes to show the creativity due to limitations.

-The Bian (鞭, whip), seems to be the result of someone turning a bamboo beating stick/truncheon into a blunt weapon equivalent to maces.

-Phillipine mail was kinda spaced because anything tighter would exhaust you in that humid heat, and made of brass because it was easier to acquire than iron, and didn't rust so easily.

-A lot of those weird African blades are actually cerimonial, religious, or a way to show of your wealth. Though the actual throwing blades seem to have been an attempt to make sure 1 pointy end hits your target.

-Portuguese "Jogo do Pau", Stick fighting, was peasants forbidden from owning weapons, making a martial art out of staffs, bor self-defense and dueling.

-A lot of weapons derive from tools, like scythes > war scythes > fauchard. Following that logic, I made up a dwarf war shovel, used in underground shield walls kinda like gladius and iklwa. Pic related.

-Maori clubs (which might also have sharp edges) are so good because the nephrite jade they are made from, is particularly resistent to shock, it won't fracture as most stones/crystals. But it took a lifetime to carve one.

-I had a Indian/Arab hybrid society whose lower caste was forbidden from having weapons, so they figured out unarmed martial arts unknown to the other castes. Justified exotic, non-asian monks.

>>96146174
It's mostly because a lot of God's actions in the Bible come across as dickish

>>96150079
I'm not here to debate theology, merely to work out ways to work it into my projects. If you want to take that route like so many others you'll be in good company but it's a mine that's been tapped dry so I won't be going with that approach.

>>96150601
Fair

>>96080428 (OP)
Rate my map so far. Brown is mountains

>>96080428 (OP)
I want to have elemental constructs in my setting, what are some ways I can differentiate them from elementals beyond having them simply be powered by a core of the element’s power/a captive elemental?

>>96080428 (OP)
First draft of the map I'm making. Speaking from an aesthetic perspective, do the shapes of the continents look interesting or pleasing to look at? Or is this gay and generic.
The scale depicted in this map is intended to be half a globe. But the continents look too small--they just look like islands. Yet I have difficulty in making large continents look interesting.

You guys have any recommendations for organizational software or programs? The notes that I do write down I do so across like five different notepad documents and they're rather disorganized

>>96160991
Obsidian.

>>96156125
Neat

>>96146525
>any good tables or generators for starport POIs?
Are you familiar with Traveller?

For an archipelago world, how would one determine the largest land animal that would exist in it other than checking IRL islands and looking at what animals exist on them?
>>96159811
The continents look okay save for the one on the bottom right that looks like South America backwards.
>>96160991
Zotero. Although I see more people use Obsidian or Org-mode for the the same purpose.

>>96164442

As in life evolved on that planet?

Honestly there is no real hard cap or correlation - I mean, I think we had titanosaurians in Madagascar, smaller than south american batshit insane shit but still 10+ tons. I bet without the fossils we wouldn't believe that possible.

Consider island giantism from the coconut crab angle as well. More or less thinkable per se, we certainly had bigger arthropods, but it sounds damn strange that these motherfuckers get so big on such a small island in this era.

Not that I would suggest a tyrannosaur to evolve in something like Big Island, but still.

Any of you guys know enough about this to correct me?

>From county-scale down there first is the count and his demense, which is land he directly collects taxes from in the form of banalities, cens, corvee, etc. Pieces of he county he grants to (non-hereditary) knights that swore fealty to him, letting them be fully responsible for it. They owe him military service in exchange, sometimes a little money.

>The count also has several barons who owe fealty to his house, and they have been around for a while probably since that is technically his land but he can't take it back from any of those barons without them ganging up on him. They could be called "comital barons" since they swore fealty to the count's family directly in exchange for their lands, and both them and all their knights have to jump when the count says its time for war. This is different from "ducal" or "royal" barons who have sworn to a duke or king and are nearby to the count's sphere of influence. Barons have their own knights, same deal as the count.

>The town probably has charter thus actually owes literally nothing financial to the count, nor any one else. Functionally an independent city state. They host fairs when they want, apply whatever taxes they want, and are almost entirely run by craft guilds, down to electing the sheriff and mayor themselves, and also paying for the defense of the town.

>There are also probably at least one bishop and several parish priests. The bishop is functionally a baron himself, and owes temporal allegiance (including military contributions) to the count but tithes go to Rome/equivalent. Peasants pay secular tax and tithes to bishops, and tithes to their parish priest as well as their secular lord.

>On top of this there are also likely crown holdings within the count's sphere of influence which he can't fuck with and the money from there goes straight to the king, the seneschal or prevot or whatever is a civil servant not a sworn vassal and he handles that.

>>96119622
>>96124911
There are no links to Discord in OP, you are a psychotic loser who nobody likes, worse even than the guy who asks "Traditional games?" in every thread. Go away, and while going away, fall off a cliff to an untimely death.

>>96146332
You're just going to have to go to specific sources (articles, books) on this, I think. Pick the cultures that are physically closest to yours, and try to find info about their weapons, how & why they were designed the way they were. Weapons are generally in an arms race with armor, and both are limited in various ways by terrain (e.g. humidity can make glues in a bow break down, too hot/wet and you can't wear full plate, etc).

>>96146525
https://mothership-cockpit.netlify.app/generators/station-corespace

>>96167967
Open the first link and use your eyes you cretin. I'll keep posting until it's removed so deal with it.

>>96168591
I opened the first link and still didn't see any Discord links. No one will remove whatever you're bitching about on your behalf, you are an obnoxious loser and people should start adding a direct link to a Discord to the OP out of spite for you.

>>96168610
>you are a psychotic loser who nobody likes
Stay butthurt.

>>96168669
Alright. I will make sure to post the next thread, and I'll add a direct link to a worldbuilding Discord. If you say "kys discord cancer" again, then I'll post the thread after that, with two Discord links. This will continue until you stop or I run out of characters to put in the OP.

>>96168677
>cancer threatening metastasis
Kek

Not necessarily worldbuilding, but how do you guys handle travel?

Like I think fast travel should be circumstantial and diegetic so I'm thinking about different ways of handling travel in a fantasy setting.

I like the idea of interconnected dungeons that offer somewhat faster travel (less hills and mountains to go around) but more dangerous because of monsters.

Possibly an underworld river with an undead ferryman you can pay to ferry you even faster but it's crazy expensive.

Overworld travel would be pretty standard.

>>96172252
Underground dwarven train network, but it's not open to just anyone. You've got to be in good standing with the dwarves who run it. The only non-dwarves allowed have special dispensation like trusted merchant partners. And if they catch you free riding by jumping on a train they beat the shit out of you.

>>96172563
>Dwarfen Bay Transportation Authority criticized for recent video showing employees beating a night elf
>"she had it comin im not racist just dont like em" urist mcminer quoted before being booked in the local dungeon