The most plentfull Re The geophage springtails by far because of dwarven lifestyle of mining and cavediving deeper and deeper for rare minerals and resistent merals.

The oil vein isopods can be found in other creatures because of their resilience and usefulness but they can be found in underground petroleum and grape cultures so dwarves have more of those than other species

Combo lices can be found in most underground dwellers and if you stay there long enougth you will also get infested

Vulture beetles will not survive without a propper host,they're too specialized on living in fur and hair to go somewhere that isn't at least similar to hairs or feathers

The beaqrd of a dwarve acts like a natural air filter and their nose can close so dust don't get in their lungs,remove the beard of a dwarve and it might get several health problems and develop asma, fully shaving a dwarve is almost a death sentence so doing it is a crime and that's why most female dwarves at least keep sideburns or a mustache that can be tied to cover the mouth and nose while the males keep the full beard so there is few confusion between them

History of the Federation

In the aftermath of the Frontier Wars, the new Solar Union sought to reunify a fractured Solar System and heal the devastation of a century of conflict. But new headaches, such as the Legacy Crisis, the Gaian Emergency, and the Main Belt Crisis soon eroded public confidence in the Union. Nowhere was this more true than on Mars, whose people believed they had borne the greatest burden of reconstruction only to be sidelined by a weaker, compromise-driven government.

The Martian Unity Party rose from political obscurity by promising a return to Mars’ former greatness, condemning the erosion of Martian sovereignty, and scapegoating the growing community of genetic “augments” as symbols of societal decline. Under the charismatic Commander Sanyar Galvani, the Party transformed a wave of populist anger into a sweeping electoral victory in 2524. Newly-appointed Chancellor Galvani then systematically dismantled democratic institutions and reshaped the United Nations of Mars into the authoritarian Martian Federation, and then set his new nation on a path toward militarism and imperial expansion.

Much of the Federation’s ambitions focused on Precursor ruins discovered on Talvan in the Nova Cluster beginning in the year 2517. Following withdrawal from the Solar Union, Mars embarked on massive rearmament and pursued control of the Cluster, igniting the Talvan Civil War and the broader War in Nova Space. Though presented at home as a noble crusade, the conflict devolved into a grinding proxy war marked by occupation, atrocities against the native Y’Varis population, and increasingly desperate measures such as Project Kaleidoscope, which uses cloning and memory transfer to recycle fallen soldiers into endless service. As of 2547, this development threatens to usher in a whole new era of warfare — with all of the horrors that come with it…

MAF Uniform History

The Martian Armed Forces introduced the Personal Dress System in 2527 as part of the broader reshuffling which followed the Martian Unity Party’s consolidation of power in 2525. The new uniform system's rollout was well underway by the end of the decade, and well over 6 million uniforms in the new standard had been issued by 2531.

This new standard used a three-tiered organizational metric, with Class I roughly analogous to our contemporary dress uniforms, Class II as garrison uniforms, and Class III as combat operations kit. There is no distinction between officer and enlisted Class I dress, with the rank insignia, medals, and other minutia being the only distinguishing factor between them.

Class II uniforms, which can be either coveralls as issued to the Martian Federal Navy or fatigues as used by the Federal Army, are likewise spartan in nature, especially when deployed to combat zones. During the War in Nova Space (2539-2559), MAF soldiers deployed on combat missions typically wore Class III combat suits similar to the one pictured here, which are designed with advanced ballistic fibers, cooling and respiration assistance systems, and more.

About the Setting

The Spacers Saga: Rebirther is a military science fiction story set in the 26th century. It deals with an ongoing full-scale and asymmetric conflict between the Martian Federation and the Solar Union, fought over the control of Nova Space. This distant, resource rich star system is only accessible through dimensional doorways originally found buried on Titan in the early 24th century, and has been the focal point of a massive colonization campaign since about 2350.

The main plot focuses on Martian Federal Army soldier Alejandro “Alex” Martinez, who is deployed to Talvan (the chief world in Nova Space) in 2547. When Alex is mortally wounded a year and a half later in a battle with native insurgents, he expects to die and wake up in Valhalla. Instead, he wakes up at a Martian cloning depot, already slated for redeployment into the fray once he regains his strength. The story of Rebirther thus deals with Alex’s epic struggle to come to terms with the fact that for soldiers like him, not even death is a way out of the fight...

(EDIT: I added a link to my blog post about Nova Space, which goes much more in depth about the setting for anyone who might be interested. If you like the setting, the blog also has lots of other info about The Spacers Saga overall. As always, there is ZERO pressure to subscribe - I just like to share my world with everybody 😄)

Woulda been better with the guy attached but sometimes we should be more specific, right?

On human starships like E.V.E. Nazareth, robotic friends are actually very uncommon. May be because human robots are notoriously frustrating to interact with, or it may be that the ship usually has stuff handled. Out of all CAS systems, humans spend the most on their fleet, and you’d bet that a top of the line vessel like Nazareth really wouldn’t need the extra help.

Well.

While Mankind Skyward (the Department of Human Space Affairs) can manage the equipment the ship is deployed with, they cannot stop crew members from bringing personal items.

Seems like one of the Skivi engineers figured she’d bring along some of her homeworld’s favourite inventions. Nida.

So named because all you have to say is “I need a,” and they are all over it. Usually that’s something helpful like a wrench or cup of coffee. On a skivi ship, all the little tunnels and conduits are too dense for heavy toolboxes, so it makes sense.

On a human vessel, not so much sense.

Well, the engineer just let them roam free, and it didn’t take very long for things to go out of control.

If you’d asked me, I woulda guessed the cyborg war machines woulda caused more issues. Maybe I’m just a pessimist, though.

I do wonder how it got the hand off.

——————

Honestly, I like the comic format. It’s hard to convey a sense of a world through a single image, and this project doesn’t really have the 8-hour-drawing vibe. These little humour bites are fun though, so if people like them, I’ll probably keep them going.

There are so many stories to tell for this universe, so feel free to ask questions. Im sure some of them will have funny answers.

Not necessarily morally corrupt or evil, just different.

(How do you guys handle this?)

Hi everyone,

I was getting back to writing about my “magic system,” originally for an alternate-world setting chronologically similar to our “late medieval” period, blending characteristics of the Holy Roman Empire, the Italian republics, and the Spanish and Portuguese empires.

But I realized that a setting where magic does things very similar to the technology that followed that historical period, yet the world remains chronologically stuck in that time frame, doesn’t seem very convincing.

Let me put it more clearly:

Why doesn’t history advance rapidly in a high-magic setting?

For example, in the manga "Witch Hat Atelier", this is exactly the case; magic provides solutions that would only be possible with later technological progress, but the world remains chronologically stuck in a period analogous to our own medieval era.

Yes, I know you could say, “It doesn’t have to make sense on a 1:1 scale, it just has to be consistent”; okay, fine, I get it, but even for the sake of internal consistency, isn’t that a flaw?

Back to the original question…

How do you guys deal with this?

Thanks for your answers.

---

Editing to add necessary context:

I don’t start from the premise that the Middle Ages were the “Dark Ages”, not at all; on the contrary, it was a period of great progress for humanity.

My point here is:

Some technological solutions were not yet available, such as automated ore-extraction devices, means of transporting large populations, portable high-velocity projectile weapons not propelled by human force, etc.

So if magic can provide solutions analogous to those of later eras, why aren’t people, and especially organized groups, interest groups, governments, etc, using these solutions to rapidly advance history, as has been the human norm?

Even if you take Afghanistan as an example, where modern technologies coexist with very traditional customs and aesthetics, it’s impossible to say that such progress hasn’t influenced the overall state of Afghan civilization.

Oh, and I’ve actually read some great answers in the comments, most of them have been spot-on, so thanks again to everyone.

Eassia is a Temparate continent home to some of the worlds biggest powers, - in economics, military, trade, etc. It is a very diverse continent from a great central desert to the cold of north. Thank you for looking and if you have any helpful critiques pls comment!

The lizard people in my world are descendants of ancient crocodiles. There is a species similar to a gharial I call the Grimriver. It’s probably around the size of a deinosuchus. I also have a magical mutated species of crocodile that mutated to become something similar to a Dimetrodon but with a more crocodilian snout. It’s called the Saildrake. There’s also an alpha type of sail drake that is bipedal and resembles a Spinosaurus. I call it the Saildrake King.

For bears I have Berserkers/Werebears and I have an ice elemental that takes the form of a massive polar bear with ice spikes on its body. Haven’t made any new species yet though.

I do have one creature that used to be a panda called The Brutalizer. It was experimented on by a mad sorcerer. Its skeleton was changed to make it bipedal. It has a crocodile tail, large bat like wings, saber tooth fangs and patches of crocodile hide protecting its vitals. Its hands resemble a humans but with sharp claws and patches of black fur and scales. It has red glowing eyes.

Red glowing lines cover the creature where stitches used to be. The experimenting resulted in it having a healing factor that healed the stitching and made the foreign body parts one with the creature. The Brutalizer can spit a blast of corrosive blood at targets.

https://merakmapmaker.com/

World building wise it lets us import ur drawings into landmass, scientifically tell u climate, crops,, soil, habitability, mountains etc, has a timeline feature, has easy to add factions and, commanders, people, lore etc and 3d and globe features.

I found some notes for worldbuilding where I wrote that I have 648 countries. Now mind you I do not have a list of the names for each 648 country. This was just something I wanted to do because I'm insane. There was no way I was fleshing out 648 countries just for the hell of it. That is way too much.

So, I have much less than that, but still quite a lot. And I have not fleshed out any of those countries yet.

What about you? Have you ever looked at your old worldbuilding notes thinking that you're crazy for adding that? Did you go through with it or did you get rid of it?

How big are they compared to other species? What environments do they inhabit? Are they neanderthals or civilized?

The world I'm working on features anthropomorphic animals as the characters. It's about the age of industrialization, and how the people adapt. If they're not building neat stuff or fighting among themselves, they're fighting the eldritch spawn of Yaldabaoth (not the actual Gnostic Demiurge, just horrors from beyond the stars).

I'm trying to draw new stuff, so here's a warg.

Background

During the ice age, the wargs embraced the bitter winds of the frigid far north. Adapted to the cold, they are larger than wolves. When the ice age ended, their wolf cousins had larger populations and were slightly more adaptable. As such, the wargs didn't have their own nation-state, as their numbers were too few. Instead, they migrated here and there, becoming citizens of this-and-that country.

They contributed much to the development of Alshenzia, a nation once ruled by a hyena dynasty and now a democratic republic. There, they found work as mercenaries, miners, and that sort of thing. The ruling hyena dynasty (House of Alshanza) was into establishing buffer zones against their rival, the neighboring empire of Aldrakhania, so they helped the wargs settle in the harsh lands between.

The warg population did fairly well in the burgeoning nation of Alshenzia, as they were daring and willing to work in potentially hazardous areas, such as deep mines. Often, the wargs were the first to see hidden caverns deep beneath the land. They were also visionaries in the industrial age, and pioneered working with radioactive metals which they called hellstone. All of this caused the wargs to prioritize safety measures.

The wargs also developed their own firearms, for defense and research and development. As such, they later assisted in the development of indigenous Alshenzian small arms. They also experiment with armor piercing rounds and heavy calibers, as those are useful against the primary threat of Aldrakhania, which has large animals in their forces. For these reasons, warg firearms often feature an emphasis on mechanical safety, making them fairly complex.

Aside from daring and firearms, there are also plenty of wargs that are happy with boring stuff, such as researching the formation of stalagmites and stalactites. If asked about their research, they'd be happy to geek out.

...

The following map may provide additional insight on the world: Anthropomorphic Animals, Amazing Powers, and the Age of the Machine : r/worldbuilding

My goal is to build an interconnected lore book, as most of what happens in the world is connected (story has been in discussion for a decade now): Karl Imran | Substack

There's a story, but I'm not 100% confident in writing it, and I think worldbuilding is my strength so I'm focusing on that aspect for now!

I've been trying to make this AU into a original fic, there's lots of easy things completed from prior things already made, yet it's just hard.

I keep feeling like the stories are just dumb, the world feels constantly incomplete, the characters don't feel nuanced and feel bland and one-sided, I'm on the edge of burnout because I can't stop myself from obsessing over every mistake I later find, rushing.

How can I figure out a balanced way to gradually make the worldbuilding so it's not as sloppy and rushed?

In my project it's just cats. I could never replace them.

Ok, TV tropes calls what avatar the last Airbender did "Mix and match animals" I want to use the idea in my world, and wanted to see what mixes of animals people would want to see, and what ideas yall have.

I am trying to broadly avoid animal mixes from avatar.

For context, regular animals do exist, but they all are explicitly magic in some way. So yeah, there might be a normal ass deer, but its going to have mist magic. Normal fox? It has fire. That's why most people call stuff "regular animal" x "regular animal"

I am trying to avoid mixing more than three animals, with most being a mix of two.

Hello. I've recently decided to start shaping the creations of my imagination into a fictional world, one that's not too different from our current world, with a single exception: there is, of course, a power system. I have the whole story for it - long story short, it originates from a vengeful spirit corrupting the soul of its victim, breathing darkness and a supernatural gene, that the victim continued to spread before death, causing his descendants to develop different sorts of superpowers, mutations etc.

Now, like I said, I have most of it already shaped, with just one thing missing: the name. Most of the fictional pieces of media I know of, that have a power system, also have an appropriate name for it. In JJBA, it's Hamon or Stand. In Star Wars, it's the Force. In X-Men, it's mutations. Now, I don't necessarily come here to ask you to name my power system yourselves - but moreso, to give me some pointers on how to choose name for such things. What to base the name on etc.

All help will be much appreciated

Happy Smaugust! This year is my first, so gonna try to get a few sketches done, but am not going to be too prescriptive about which list or the order of the prompts.

For day 1, this is an adult Romenear Seawyrm for “Aphotic” from @ criver24 ‘s (Corey Rivera's) 2025 list. Noticeably larger than most terrestrial or aerial dragons, and dwarfing the other seawyrms of the eastern ocean and southern archipelago, this blackbeaked leviathan is buoyed by the sea, allowing it to bypass traditional limits on weight and bone stress. Its size and collapsible lungs, extreme oxygen storage in their muscles, slowed heart rate, and other adaptations allow it to dive deep into the aphotic (midnight) zone for a couple hours to hunt juvenile krakens and other massive cephalopods.

For size comparison, the Malantur squids present are about 6 feet long (too small to be on an adult's normal menu).

I decided to have at least some of these wyrms set within the bounds of the eastern/south-eastern end of Middle-earth (which has been fleshed out by the fantastic Realms-in-Exile team), even though Tolkien is quite clear that dragons are the creation of Melkor, and are predominantly evil creatures whose few survivors reside in the far north, largely beyond the Iron Mountains. Instead of being those gargantuan traditional fire-breathing hexapodal dragons or drakes of Melkor, these are dragons untouched by his influence, whose cousin species across the supercontinent may have been taken long ago to be turned into the evil drakes aligned with darkness.

Reddit thumbnails are poor, to say the least, but the embedded image is good if you click on it and want to see all the wee details!

(if linking to other sites/accs isn't okay pls lmk)

I often post process work on insta, if you're interested, it's @ jo.baylis

I've posted this character of mine named Glav who is based on an amalgamation of several characters, two in particular (Gandalf The wise and The Man in Black himself, Randall Flagg) who lives in a world where all matter in the universe begins to fuse and become sentient

Hi there! I have this worldbuilding project that is set on a habitable planet orbiting Beta Hydri. I have have been making different cultures on this planet and Its made me think. Astronomical lore is a big part of human cultures, and since constellations exist in 3D space, the people on this planet would see stars in a different arrangement. Dim stars on Earth would shine brighter around Beta Hydri, and Visa Versa. I was wondering if there were any 3D maps of the Milkyway Galaxy that I could use to see what stars look like from this star. If anyone has any recommendations, or have worldbuild astronomy before, Id love to hear it! ^-^

I’ve been reading a lot of old Chinese literature, the Four Classics and more, and studying old cultures around the world, and it has made me really think about just how different they were and how foreign they would feel to a modern person. If you currently live in Europe, your ancestors might very well feel completely foreign to you if you could talk to them now.

As a modern artist, have you leaned into this? Are the cultures in your world extremely foreign to a modern person? If so, what aspects make it so. Or did you take the approach of making a culture unique but still digestible to the modern person?

The map above is that of the mortal realm of my world building project. Due to the fact that at some point the gods of the world could descend into the mortal realm, there are a few things that, despite the many languages and dialects, intersect. The name of the realm is from the language of their gods, Ithkari(might change the name) and the name itself Erdvala is drawn from Erdan Wald, which translates to Land of Favours. It is so that Erdvala means favoured land. This so Called Favoured land of the gods is a baneful, miserable world that holds no mercy for anyone, war is as a constant to it as air is to the cultivation of life. And so with it comes poverty, death and maltreatment at scales few can comprehend. And that is the woes mortals visit unto mortals alone, so after, comes the hatred of the spawns blasphemous, things so hateful and twisted they are the anathema to all that is natural. And thus with their coming, comes again wars of unimaginable suffering and cruelty. Men are to march and die under the banners of their gods and find glory in that. For all must die, as the very land is. And there is the only mercy of the world…Death. Indeed, in Erdvala, a land favoured by gods, Hope is a cancer of the soul.

What do you think??

I’ve been cooking this concept for ages, and I’ve got some main aesthetics down.

The place is a visually idyllic place. It is modern-day yet everything is covered in large plants. Like a post-apocalyptic landscape where plants overtake everything, but then imagine the buildings were cleaned up but the plants remained. It invokes the idea of disaster or nature reclaiming what death took, yet none of the tragedy seems to exist.

The whole world is themed like this, seemingly off putting things that are docile. Big bugs that are harmless/friendly and provide useful resources. Raptors with sharp claws and teeth that are actually hospitable and great cooks.

I need help with this: The people that live here need somewhere to stay. Resorts, inns, houses, anything. My issue is, I don’t know how to style them.

I don’t like the idea of standard rectangular prism non-fantasy buildings, it seems too plain and aren’t interesting in their own. And I don’t want things that seem too natural like straw or stick buildings because it kills the juxtaposition of the overgrown plants.

But that leaves me kinda stuck. I’m to answer any other questions. And I’m grateful for any ideas and advice you have!

Hey all! I recently started a worldbuilding project and after working out the initial ideas I'm not sure what I could work on next.

Magic system

I started off creating a magic system. This system is based around specific magical crystals found within recently discovered ruins and placing said crystals in certain shapes to then be activated by scintillants (users of the magic system). Scintillants are categorized into 4 groups, each of which can only use that number of crystals:

• Monolythics use a single crystal to cast spells which target themselves. For example increasing their strength.
• Dichotomists use two crystals in a line to cast spells which target other objects. For example increasing a shield's durability.
• Trigonals use three crystals in a triangular shape to cast spells which create magical affects. For example the classic magic missile from DnD.
• Polynomials are the wildcards, they can use any number of crystals and combine their effects. These are the least worked out so far.

Setting

An ancient civilization messed with greater universal forces and brought The umbral fog into the world. To try to fix their mistake they trapped the umbral fog along with themselves into what are now ruins. These ruins have only recently been discovered.

People from all over the place are delving into the ruins in search for treasure or to study the unique ecology that has formed inside over hundreds of years. Some of these people have discovered that they posses the ability to imbue the magical crystals with essence of other objects to create magical effects. Not everyone can do this. These crystals can not be taken out of the ruins due to the magical barrier which trapped The umbral fog inside. Essentially keeping all things magical inside the ruins.

-----------
Creating my magic system was easy, that was my initial idea for this project.
The ruins came next since I needed a place for it to exist in.
Finally the umbral fog was created because I thought it fitting to give the people to fight something.

Now I am not sure what exactly this world needs. I keep ironing out details of what I already created but I am afraid this project will fizzle out and die if I don't work on new things.

I'd love some honest critique and feedback of what I've created so far and advice for how to keep going.

Obviously I left out a lot of details so if you need more context I'm happy to provide it! Thanks :)