More DnD Worldbuilding

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Random DnD Worldbuilding

I will continue to build upon this list as time goes on. For now, I hope you find something useful!

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Either explain it or don’t.

When authors include things that don’t fit within the real world–magic, time travel, anachronisms–there is an impulse to explain how it works. Which can be fantastic for worldbuilding, but if you don’t know what you’re talking about, it can make more problems than it solves.

Stephenie Meyer tried to explain some bizarre thing about chromosomes, and it made the biology of vampires and werewolves make no sense. Suspending disbelief worked better in that case before she tried to ground it in the real world.

Lemony Snicket, on the other hand, just has random anachronisms that are never explained, but because there’s nothing even close to resembling an attempt at an explanation, we can just shrug and go, okay, that’s how it works. The magic in Harry Potter seems to basically not be grounded in anything, but we can believe it within the context of the story because she doesn’t try to ground it in anything.

In Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera, on the other hand, he goes into a lot of magic theory, and it gives us a strong feeling of worldbuilding. There’s enough logically coherent explanation for it to feel grounded within itself.

It is possible to go too far (see: Orson Scott Card’s Xenocide and Children of the Mind) where the plot ends up so tied in the reader understanding intricately detailed scientific and pseudo-scientific minutiae that the story is incomprehensible without it.

Generally, though, if you’re going to make something up, either say it exists and leave it at that, or entirely figure out how it works. Halfway is always less believable than nothing at all.

Jim Butcher’s other series, the Dresden Files is another good example of internally consistent explanations. 

You know what’s more fun than worldbuilding that makes some fantasy races EEEEVIIIIIIILLLLL!!!!? Worldbuilding that gives the different races cultural differences that help explain why there’s a lot of conflict between them:

Goblin culture doesn’t have a concept of “Property”. A stick on the ground and a tool in a locked shed are equally up for grabs if a thing needs doing. They casually take and leave things all over their communities, eat from communal pots, and genuinely Do Not Understand why the Core Races are so Angry and prone to Violence all the time.

Consequently Goblins who live near Core communities develop a reputation as “Thieves” despite not even having a *word* for that. (The closest word they have is more like “Greedy” and it means a person that hides things so nobody else can use them, and it’s a surefire fight-starter to call a Goblin that)

Common Orc Spiritual beliefs hold that a Soul can only grow stronger by overcoming Challenges in life, and see intruding on another person’s Challenge unasked for as not just Rude, but Deeply Harmful. You’re Stealing their chance to Grow. Asking for help is deeply personal and doing so can be both a way to grow closer with them or a too-personal intrusion, depending on your existing relationship with them. An exception is Children, as far as most Orcs are concerned, all Children are fundamentally the responsibility of the Whole Community, regardless of whose child they are, or even if said child is an Orc at *all*.

This means that Orcs who live near Core neighbors often seem Rude and Standoffish if not outright hostile, because they neither ask for nor offer aid even in times of trouble, and respond to unasked for aid themselves with Anger. There are even rumors that they Steal Children, because if an Orc finds a child lost in the woods they’re pretty much immediately going to start feeding it, and if they can’t find where to bring it back to, or it doesn’t seem to be well cared for, they’re just gonna keep it. 

This. I like this.

Sometimes worldbuilding is “this is how the dread armies are affecting agricultural output in this region, and the changing influence of the different gods as farmers see their crops collapse, and the erosion caused by fewer crops is turning the river silty and hard to navigate, causing difficulties in trade that would have alleviated the effects of the famine" 

 And sometimes worldbuilding is “the guards here are mostly lightning wizards because imagine how fucking sick it would be to have a bunch of guards shooting lighting down from the battlements. Badass.”

I love how this website is so surly and disinterested in the neo-internet content experience that every feature imported from twitter/insta/whatever is met with an indignant fury like the French being told they cant smoke on a bus and setting the town hall on fire in protest

The only content I want to see is content I opted into and the only order I want to see it in is chronological.

Gay_irl

shlep is one of the best yiddish words and we don’t talk about it enough

there’s no other word that specifically means 1) i am going somewhere, 2) it is a long and not very pleasant journey and 3) i am complaining about it

genuine question, because I have apparently(???) been using this word incorrectly this whole time: does it/can it not also mean, "I will be going there, and also carrying A Bunch Of Stuff?" As in, "I'm spending the night at their house, but I won't have time to come home after work, so now I gotta schlep all my stuff there and leave it in the back room until the end of shift?"

I have never heard this term used without Items Being Involved. You mean to say that one can schlep without having an armload of stuff? Or a giant backpack or something?

You can also be hauling stuff as part of the schlep

I feel like a schlep is always a haul, it’s just that sometimes the only thing you’re hauling is yourself.

Huh. I always thought schlep meant "an unkempt person"

That's a schlub! Sounds similar to shelp.

Sometimes you feel like a schlub because you got schmutz all over your shirt, and you were already shvitzing to begin with, so now it just looks like you're walking around in an old schmatte, and you can't possibly go to schul like this, so you'll have to schlep yourself home before shabbos and hope the journey doesn't make you too schluffy.

does anyone else remember grass. the warmth of the sun

winter makes me feel like the guys at the of the lotr. do you remember the taste of strawberries mr. frodo

some of y’all with printed copies of fanfiction are going to die someday and your books will end up at the secondhand book shop and someone is just going to innocently pick up blorbo/shitto enemies to lovers and when i think of it this way let’s keep printing fanfiction

weatherboy (derogatory)

op what does this mean

wouldn't you like to know weatherboy

bisexuals can cast fireball

people's misconception about neurodivergency is a huge part of why a lot of people are surprised and even defensive when they learn things like epilepsy, Tourette's, schizophrenia, and ocd make you neurodivergent.

neurodivergency ISN'T "autism and things that are similar". autism and ADHD aren't the standard for being neurodivergent.

currently thinking about: this photo of richard sandells kissing the eros statue in piccadilly circus as part of an outrage kiss-in protest against the prosecution of gay people showing affection in public.

love the phrase 'methinks'. me does think. thinketh me do.

YOU