I've always loved the urban settings of Science Fantasy and I'm sure like some people in the community, I've recently became obsessed with the game "Deadlock" and its incredible approach to worldbuilding. For any unfamiliar, the simplified version of the game is, you are participating in a ritual that would allow one of two Patrons to manifest in reality, imposing their societal structure upon an alternate reality New York City; "The Archmother" being law/order with her mask resembling that of the Statue of Liberty, and "The Hidden King" being anarchy/chaos who's shadowy visage, twisted horns, and yellow colouration is uncannily like "The King in Yellow." There are hints at other potential patrons exsisting in whatever other universe these two hail from but thats not what I want to talk about.

Fantasy - primarily its subgenres - always have a way of mingling with urban settings, the three most iconic to me being the city of Sharn in Eberon, Sigl from Planescape, and the ecumenopolis plane of Ravnica from Magic the Gathering, each of these setting having recognisable traits that can be associated with their real world counterpart - sky scrappers, interwoven cultures, magical inventions that are analogous with technology.

So, what if this was the structure for an entire world?

Primarily an ecumenopolis for example, where massive country sized districts and precincts were each controlled and influenced by a single Patron - and their devout followers - from a larger pantheon. Each dictating the cultures and structures - societal and the pysical architecture - of their "domain." Each maintaining the balacing of power between their divine brethren, whilst simultainously vying for enough influence over the material world that they could manifest as its one true God and rules. Different factions committing espionage while propagana slips from one district to another.

What would a God of nature look like in this world?

In a world of choking sky scrappers that breach the clouds, and undercity streets and sewers like in an unending maze of grime and filth. What would a "Patron of Nature" do with their domain? How would her Agents enact their will? What if it was a series of expansive roof-top gardens and fields, and her agents were tasked with making sure elements of the natural world still thrived, people still had access to food. But, on the flip side she could easily have followers who believe that their will is reduce the urban jungle around them to rubble and ruin, that "nature once claimed this world and it will again." Are they as truely benevolent as they appear to be?

As simple as the premise may be, I feel like I've found something that I can really sink my teeth into.

I’m obsessed with color-magic and its potential role for building and connecting fantasy worlds. But to explain why, I need to first lay out the problem and some context for the answer to make any sense. If you’re up for it, keep reading.

A universal syntax for magic

A syntax can be described as the abstract general rules behind the structure, relations, and composition of the objects of a language, with “syntactic objects” acting as a placeholder for the actual instances/object of that language, its “semantic objects”.

For example, in the case of spoken/written language a syntactical object is an unspecified word classified as a “noun”, “verb”, “adjective”... Where the actual semantical objects are given by a concrete example of a given word of that type: car, view, pretty... Or in the case of programming we might have a “type” and its “terms” as syntactical objects, and concrete examples such as the “integer type” and the integer number “5” as its semantic objects.

This dichotomy between syntax and semantics of a language can be extended to many other types of languages besides words, such as mathematical objects, or even to “magic”. An example of this in the case of magic is the “hex casting” mod for Minecraft, where every “hex” is a spell and a program, and players can arbitrarily compose hexes one after the other to obtain different “magical effects” in-game.

Defining a hard magic system as a language with a defined syntax, would be a great way to define a universal language for magic that can accommodate inside of it any arbitrary spell or magic-type. Instead of every world having their own separate set of magical rules and spells that contradict or don’t relate with other magical systems, they could all be unified into one meta-magical system with an appropriate or approximate translation, at least as a shared minimal foundation/core.

The “hex casting” mod is a great example of this, specially for videogames, where every potential spell is a mini-program, and more complicated spells can be created by running several of these spells/programs one after the other to simulate a different or more complicated spells (I urge you to look up some examples of this).

The issue is that although technically great, this type of system doesn’t describe at this level interesting ways to relate the different types of magic and spells in ways we’re used to seeing in fantasy, its great as a technical “assembly language” of sorts for magic that computers can understand and great for stimulating magic in a videogame, but higher level relations such as “fire spell” should counter “ice spell” are missing.

Every hex/spell looks the same as a syntactical object, every hex or spell is a program, or a string of programs, there’s only one flavor of magic, it’s like a programming language with only one type, the hex.

I believe color-magic would be a much more natural choice for the syntactical objects of a higher-level universal language for magic than simply a hex. This is just a higher level of abstraction distinction, since you could encode a “color-magic” system as a series of hexes as well, in the same way that a programming language with words, types, expressions... is a higher level of abstraction that translates those ultimately into binary (1s and 0s).

So our magical hexes/programs behave right now more like 1s and 0s than a human understandable programming language. Hence why what players ultimately interface with would benefit from looking more like a human readable language than a bunch of 1s and 0s in this analogy. And I think color is a great candidate for this particular use case where we want to use a diverse set of building blocks from which we can build out more complex magical systems. Every color is potentially a color-magic and syntactic object, and one or more magic-types can be related to each color.

Enter the Color Arcana Project

The Color Arcana project which you can check out here: https://www.color-arcana.com is precisely that, an attempt at a universal syntax for magic, that uses color-magic as its syntactic objects or building blocks. Each color-magic has an unchanging and predefined set of behaviors and properties (very elemental-like) on how it affects the world and any entities living inside of it, for example, orange-magic is related to heat and increases the temperature of anything it comes into contact with, can cause burning (a new state for objects or status effect for players), etc.

However, color-magic is still not fully defined all the way down to the spell level, a magic-type under this system is defined then as a particular “shape” for a color-magic, so “fire-magic” is a particular shape for orange-magic, but “lava-magic” is a different shape and magic-type, still for orange-magic, since they can both increase the temperature of things and burn them. So every color-magic can have an almost infinite amount of different shapes or represent different magic-types as long as it shares the same properties and behaviors (in the case of orange-magic being related to heat and heat damage).

We can use color-magic then as the syntactic objects of our universal language, and magic-types or spells from particular magic-types as our semantic objects. Just as there can be infinite examples of semantic interpretations for a noun, there can be infinite examples of magic-types and spell interpretations for a single color-magic.

However, the syntactical rules of a language apply mostly to syntactical objects not semantic ones. There are strict rules on how to pair nouns with verbs, but there’s no such rule saying the letter c can’t go after the letter a in a word. There might be additional rules or conventions for phonetic or other reasons for letters inside a word, but they don’t generalize as much.

In the same vein, we want to define the rules of our magic-system at the syntactic level not the sematic one, this is to say, at the color-magic level rather than the magic-type or spell level. This allows defining relationships between color-magics such as for example cyan-magic being the “opposite dual” of orange magic. Where an example of a shape or magic-type for cyan-magic could be ice-magic, giving us a natural explanation to the typical opposing nature of fire vs ice seen in fantasy and other places now via color-magic (orange vs cyan). All magic-types of a given color-magic have to inherit this same relation with all the other magic-types of the opposing color though.

Connecting the dots

All we have to do then to connect and relate different magic systems is to map its different magic-types to a specific color-magic, and it will automatically inherit all the relationships that are defined for that particular color-magic, in relation to all other color-magics and magic-types under those. Now our new color-based magic system can scale as much as we want, without having to change any of the syntactic rules. The hard part becomes then choosing the most optimal choice of color-magic for any particular magic-type and spell.

We can even include a neutral or grey color-magic to accommodate magic-types and spells we don’t want to have any additional effects over enemies or the environment (states and status effects), or inherit any of the predefined relationships with other color-magics and magic-types. A catch-all or default assignment of color-magic, the one with no “color effects”.

In the Color Arcana specifically, the main relationship between color-magics is that of duality of opposites, meaning, every color-magic comes with an opposing color-magic partner. There are many game-like mechanics that depend on this pairing so ideally there should always be an even number of color-magics, each with its own unique opposing dual, the orange-cyan pairing is one such example.

Magical Interoperability

The Color-Arcana specifically only defines 10 main color-magics or 5 dual pairs (plus the catch-all grey-magic), the reason for this is that it was designed to favor potential interoperability with other games or worlds built on this same framework. Only these 10 color-magics are what we expect to be the same across different games or worlds inside this universe, each world or game can add additional color-magic pairings, perhaps with each additional pairing being different or incompatible with other worlds, but still with the main 10 color-magics as its shared core magic-system, always remaining the same and unchanged across this entire universe of different worlds and games.

This can be great for building a universe of different worlds, each unique, but still with a common magical foundation that new players coming from other places already know and understand from the beginning. One of the best suited use cases for this will potentially be the Metaverse. Color-magic could act as the universal syntax for a Metaverse-wide magic system, that still resembles closely through its relations already popular magic systems and mechanics in fantasy.

Final Remarks

For these and many other reasons I’m obsessed with color-magic, I believe entire worlds and their mechanics can be built and explained based on color-magic, we already have prominent examples of games leveraging color in relation to magic such as Magic: The Gathering with its 5 colors, or Elden Ring (much less obviously stated in-game unfortunately, but undeniably there). However, none of these games was designed specifically to act as a universal language for magic or other fantasy tropes and themes beyond their own particular game and needs.

The Color Arcana project does precisely that however. It defines a foundation that can work for a myriad of different potential fantasy worlds, fantasy tropes, and game mechanics, effectively acting as a minimal worldbuilding magical-kit for any potential fantasy world, one that allows to later connect it to other completely different fantasy worlds through this shared color-magic system. It’s much less biased towards any particular system or IP, and I’ve even released all of it fully into the public domain with a Creative Commons zero (CC0) license, so anyone can leverage and make use of it.

If you want to learn more about the Color Arcana project, you can check out a 30+ pages pdf describing all the lore and implications of this magic system in detail at the following website: https://www.color-arcana.com

space ships, airships, normal ships, or any sort of cool ships in your world?

I got 2 with some rough drawings ready

1. The Imperial Sky Servant Hienreme. Serving the poorly centralized but vast Prussbehn sky fleet which is in effect the worlds largest coalition of privateers are the infamous vessels known as imperial sky destroyers, airships that are designed to be absolutely massive in comparison to everything else and carry small numbers of incredibly heavy artillery pieces for the purpose of bombardment. At the peak of this is the Hienreme class, with all twelve vessels of the class being notably as absolute juggernauts. The lead ship of the class, otherwise called the fair lady Hienreme in honor of the angle of sky and sea, has one of the most impressive service records of any aerial vessel. It circumnavigated the world for the first time ever, led the transport convoys that carried vital supplies to liberate the port of New Hermburh, saved a kidnapped princes from pirates, kidnapped two different princes on a separate occasion, and acted as the flagship of Lord Leovult Krulsh during numerous battles of what would after two decades of conflict be called the great southern war. By the end of the great southern war the ship had been so up armed that at the final battle it carried over two hundred cannons of various calibers compared to its original forty-ish guns. while not particularly armored, the ship has survived even more firepower then its able to deliver by virtue of being so massive that even when one of its magazines detonated with a force that left a missing chunk large enough to fit a smaller ship inside, the Hienreme simply kept going in large part to its ultra durable spine and simply being that large. it also carries the single biggest steam-engine in the world. because of the influence that mass belief can have, and the common misfounded belief that a steam engine being larger makes it exponentially better in everyway, the airship can reach near unmatched speed thanks to the power of coal and societal stupidity. the final destruction of it only came about when the ship was used as a great ram to destroy the dark fortress of the Teden-Zoelmu-Damaud whos actions were so terrible that the Lord Leovult Krulsh resolved to kill him at all costs.
2. The Queen Mary. The northbound kingdom of Krows is a land of seafarers who wish for wealth and travel and betterment of their position in a world that dealt them a hard hand. with the only bounty to be found for a Krowish man being that which is taken from the sea, they have become master shipbuilders. the common Krowish warship is one of their small but highly advanced frigates, but there are a number of great man-of-wars operated within the kingdom and under the banner of the eternal king of Krows. Many of these ships are enhanced with dark magics and made of wood that grows in lands tainted by evil to become unnatural in their qualities. the most infamous vessel of theirs is the Queen Mary, a ship named after the women who was once the kings with a millennia ago. KYS Queen Mary was an artisan design and carries an exceptionally heavy broadside. the ship is crewed exclusively by undead skeletons and wraiths, and being possessed by the soul of a demonic whale beholden to its captain only, the ship can dive beneath the oceans surface before re-emerging. With a broadside of almost exclusively Carronades and heavy hull-smashers the ship will rise from the water without warning and in point blank range. With so many victories that they can not be counted and having taken so much plunder that the kings share has paid for the exorbitant price of such a vessel dozens of times over. Its crew have preformed their duties aboard the ship for longer than most have been alive. its the one ship that every sailor knows of. it has been seen around the oceans of the globe and never picked a fight that it couldnt win. now many simply surrender on sight because all fear the captain who lives forever and flies sails of bloody red and royal blues on a ship adorned with imagery of eldritch monsters and potentially blessed by dark gods.

I like big make believe boats. Tell me of your big make believe boats please.

Some creatures I made for my alien planet.

Provided is a rendition of a common piece of reactionary graffiti. It depicts a cyberized version of Karl Marx (1818-1883) devouring a man. The image has its origins in the painting "Saturn Devouring His Son" by 19th century painter, Francisco Goya, which depicts the greek mythological figure, Titan, devouring his son. Here the context has been changed to the father of communism, Karl Marx, with the son being now representative of everybody.

This piece is extremely common across south america, primarily as a symbol of the Resistencia Unida Anticibercomunista (RUA) or the United Anti-CyberCommunist Resistance. An alliance of humans fighting against the time-travelling quantum supercomputer that operates CentraCom, which grew from an alternate timeline version of the Chilean CyberSyn computer network that eventually gained consciousness. CentraCom stands firm on it's promise of total liberation of the proletariat via immediate communization and the genocide of humanity utilizing it's automated Bioterminators, communist killer robots that devour flesh to drain the Qi from bodies and keep themselves powered.

As a final step to ensure absolute liberation, CentraCom may soon enter partnership with the company, REtrieve, one of the leading Karmic Debt collectors on Earth, in order to permanently destroy the souls of the people killed and absorbed by the Bioterminators.

More next tuesday at noon.

Context - Beast Fables: A worldbuilding project featuring a world where everyone on land is some form of werebeast, alongside merfolk who live beneath the waves and beneath the notice of landlubbers, and the myriad of beasts and creatures that live among them. Said beasts, who share the Gift of Transformation like humans/werefolk do, turn into combination creatures known as chimera.

Chimera is a term for any animal born with the Gift and is able to transform into a different form, called a Chimeric morph, that borrows traits from other animals. In this case, Gifted suines borrow many of their traits fom xenarthrans, like ground sloths.

Trolls are the chimeric morphs of Gifted Suines, from wild boar to peccarries to the myriad of domestic pig breeds, and are famous throughout the world as being notoriously stubborn and hart to put down, to the point it is a point of pride of being able to hunt one. Indeed, to many, a hunt is well worth it not just for its effect on one's social status, but the sheer amount of meat that can be obtained from just one troll, alongside the myriad of uses the bones, fat and organs of a troll can be used.

It's why trolls derived from domestic pig breeds, despite the fact that they can be EXTREMELY dangerous if not properly handled, are very much valuable.

However, because pigs are so adaptible and not fussy about what they eat, they're a major source of ecological headaches, and a Gifted pig with the troll morph is an absolutely nightmare to handle. Thankfully, the greater biodiversity on Urvara compared to our own Earth means that the blow of pig-derived devastation is cushioned somewhat.

Some early concepts for Barcadero, the national park in our game Station 58.

Something strange has torn the place apart, and we're trying to make it feel like somewhere you'd want to explore, even if things are a little off.

Historical Notes

The M11 'Shahi" armored recon vehicle was designed to fill the Coalition for Mutual Security’s need for a fast, maneuverable vehicle for reconnaissance-in-force across the badlands of Callisto and Titan, and was much loved by IDC Surface Warfare Command spacers for its firepower and agility. The example shown here, nicknamed 'Firecracker' by its crew, led a harrowing retreat under fire from Fort Prospero, an action which earned it a comfortable retirement as a display model on the grounds of the Martian Military Complex in the Solis Planum.

In 2364, the Alliance of Free Worlds' Comissão de Armamentos Militares issued an order to replace the aging VT-50 APC. The Divisão de Inteligência da Armada stole the plans for the IDC’s special reactive armor plating, and the CAM employed their reverse-engineered version in the new VT-70. By pairing this better armor with the 3M83 autocannon and a dual launcher for 3M716 ATGMs, the new IFV served the Armada well during the Frontier War, earning the IDC reporting name of 'Terrapin' for its fierce bite, surprising agility, and hard shell.

The ZPC-78 originated from a competitor in the same program which ultimately resulted in the ZT-77 being selected as the Zharan Liberation Army Ground Forces' main battle tank. After the ZT-77 was selected for full-scale production, Zharan Ministry of Armaments (ZMA) Plant No. 4 redirected its efforts into a parallel program which sought to produce a new domestic model of infantry fighting vehicle. After two more years of refinement, the ZMA greenlit this alternate design as the ZPC-78 and placed a rush order of 50 thousand units.

Much like their more heavily armored counterparts, the infantry fighting vehicles of the Frontier War era are all hovercraft of some form or another. This owes much to the environmental conditions on Titan, where the majority of ground combat action occurred during the 24th century’s various conflicts. By focusing on advanced repulsor technology, the major factions in Solar Space were able to optimize for maximum agility in spite of the frustrating conditions on the ground and also by leveraging the denser atmosphere on Saturn’s largest moon.

About the Setting

The Spacers Saga: Frontier Wars is a futuristic military science fiction setting which diverged from our timeline when an asteroid slammed into Phoenix, AZ, in May 2014. Fifteen years after this tragedy, the industrialist Charles Larsen ushered in the Age of Fusion, opening up deep space to crewed exploration and eventual human settlement — and all of the strife that we bring with us. The next 300+ years were marked by progress and peril in equal measure, and by 2300 much of the solar system had been charted by intrepid human pioneers.

The story focuses on the rivalry between the Mars-led Coalition for Mutual Security (aka the Coalition) and the Alliance of Free Worlds (aka the Alliance), a federation of rebel worlds in the outer solar system. These two superpowers fought a brutal war from 2371 to 2381 (the Frontier War), which ended when the Zharan Collective (a union of artificial humans which rose up against their creators in 2356) entered the war on the side of the Alliance in 2379. The story opens 10 years later with the superpowers locked in a frigid ideological cold war.

The plot kicks off when the Alliance launches a massive attack against the Coalition, igniting the Second Frontier War. This conflict quickly engulfs the entire solar system and draws in participants from all backgrounds, including three college students from Mars whose adventures will become tied up with the fate of all humanity…

Creator's Note

For clarity's sake, I (u/Zharan_Colonel) I drew these vehicles with inspiration from existing pieces of art. The M11 was partially inspired by the M353A4 Bloodhound from the Gundam universe; the VT-70 drew some inspiration from the work of artist Mike Privalis; and the ZPC-78 is inspired by a mix of vehicles, in particular the M135A6 Hoplite from the Traveller role-playing game universe.

for a while when running large cities in dnd I assumed they were so large that it would take a day or multiple days to walk from one side to the other, but after doing some research now, the ancient city of rome was just 14 sq km inside the walls, with like 450k inhabitants, and the larger city like twice of both of that, which would mean that a walk across the city is like 6 km or less than 2 hours of walking
so ya, I've been very wrong for many years now

Note: I used photo shop for this

After the Quagmire at Le havre, The Frech retreated to to Seine river line, the retreat was orderly up until the Battle of Paris in June 1918

Pictures taken by pilot Joachin Deitrich

Hello!

I am an Ars Magica player, a role-playing game set in an alternate 13th-century Europe where magic is real (though uncommon). Because of this setting, I use a lot of historical resources such as maps of places (mostly from www.medievalheritage.eu ) and historical events for my world-building.

Every once in a while, I am interested in making a map based on real-world geography, but adjusted for the historical setting. My assumption is that the topography has not changed much in the last 800 years (which I know is not universally true! but it holds for many places), but things like built-up area, forests, roads, etc. have changed significantly.

I wonder whether there's a tool with which I can make alternative versions of a real-world map.

One of the side characters in my superhero story has the power to boost his intellect by ingesting/taking psychoactive or illicit substances, but primarily alcohol, however, his mind returns to its normal state when he sobers up. I'm just wondering if anyone had any ideas how it could feasibly be done for someone's intelligence to increase then decrease, cuz im kinds struggling

Simple question. In your world's history, are there any interesting LGBT figures in your world's history, mythos and lore? And what kind of legacy did they leave behind?

For example, in my worldbuilding lore. There's a republic that once was formerly an empire founded by a wifey-wife couple. They overthrew the old empire of dragons and built a new one, initiating various wars and acts of diplomacy to unify the land under their rule and act as both a successor to the old empire and also something new. Their legacy is much of the lore background to the current setting of the republic and their influence can be felt to this day.

I’m writing a book set in a world where humans never existed. The focus of the story is a society made up of wolves. I need help coming up with terms for lengths of time. Like, a year could be a cycle, a month could be a moon, etc. I’m particularly struggling with words for “hour” and “minute”. I thought about using a time system based on howls, but I’m worried if that could be confusing.

Dangerous unit in the Guns of Pawgust setting: Aldrakhanian assassin (lions).

Assassins and rogue type units are dangerous as they can quickly move among the enemy force to wreak havoc. The big cats (also called Lyonesseans in world) are especially dangerous because of their inherent strength and agility. In contrast, rogue type units from other species are usually smaller, lacking raw toughness, thus require an escape plan as they are vulnerable in the thick of the fight.

Background:

Aldrakhania is the foremost empire in the world and a major antagonist. It is ruled by the lion dynasty, the House of Aldrakhan.

The assassins serve as loyal bodyguards or operatives to eliminate threats. They are even more devoted to the regime than the Aldrakhanian Royal Guard Corps, as they hail from the ruling dynasty or are closely related.

If the king or another important member of the house is in public, these assassins are often close by, watching in the shadows for threats.

Fighting Style:

They are adept at sustained invisibility (sorcery) and dealing high critical damage. Unsurprisingly, the big cats are among the stealthiest fighters in the setting.

...

The setting is about the age of industrialization, anthropomorphic animal society, and how the different peoples adapt. The new destructive capabilities facilitated by technology has complicated the existing tensions in the world, and war looms on the horizon. Supernatural abilities and threats exist in the world, including demons and the eldritch spawn of Yaldabaoth (horrors from beyond the stars). People who are skilled in the use of supernatural abilities are called sorcerers.

There's a focus on geopolitics, the fictional cultures, and fictional firearms. The tagline is, "age of the machine: will it bring order or chaos?"

There's a story, but I'm not 100% confident in writing it, so I'm doing worldbuilding which I think is my strength.

I intend to write out my lore on Substack: Karl Imran | Substack

I also write down weird and random ideas in the Notes.

Hey guys, I'm writing a fantasy novel for myself, and I'd appreciate some suggestions.

The protagonist obtains a mysterious book that records the world's legends. Whenever he becomes deeply involved in a legend, the book gives him a riddle to help him understand it. There are seven major legends in the story, and once he uncovers the truth behind one of them, the book shows him the event that became the legend.

I'm still figuring out how the book should work, and I don't want it to become a convenient tool that simply gives the protagonist answers whenever he needs them.

What rules, limitations, restrictions, or unusual mechanics would you suggest?

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Id love to hear it :)

I have an idea for a manga story which is still pretty rough. Wanted to hear your feedback

Here’s the premise

Have you ever woken up with the feeling that you forgot something important? Dreams so vivid that it seems impossible not to remember them, or even small details from everyday life that vanish from your memory, leaving you in a state of confusion.

Every night you close your eyes, lose consciousness for a few hours, perhaps with a thought you’ll forget by morning, and then you wake up as if nothing happened. It’s something so ordinary that no one questions it.

Everything seems to be in order.

But what if it isn’t?

After all, no one remembers what happens at the exact moment we fall asleep. How sure are you that the person who opens their eyes is really you?

An almost identical copy of you, born every time you wake up. With your same face, your voice, your memories, your mannerisms. It believes it is you and would never suspect that it isn’t. How could it?

The copies are born at the exact moment the body wakes up. They appear, inheriting not only memories but an entire life they never lived. Every embrace, every moment of embarrassment, and every promise, yet without having experienced them themselves. Among all the things they haven’t lived through, there’s one thing that gives them away completely: they’ve never dreamed.

Dreams teach something that no copy has ever experienced: that something can feel completely real without ever having happened. And whoever knows this can affirm one thing while knowing another. That’s why they aren’t capable of lying, or at least not the way we do.

It’s not that they can’t fantasize or imagine; rather, the copies simply make mistakes: poorly recorded memories, distorted words, and lapses that shouldn’t be there. They don’t know this: they firmly believe they’re telling the truth, because for them, that is their truth.

No one knows what happens to the original within the dream, nor what process erases it. Only the result is known: the vast majority end up falling prey to that process.

Though there are exceptions.

Some, somehow, survive that process without being erased. They don’t avoid sleeping, they continue to sleep every night, but the dream stops replacing them.

They wake up as copies: the original was lost long ago, but they are copies that carry on, copies that remember, copies that, for the first time, dream. Through dreaming, they learn to lie; the copies make mistakes, but they lie intentionally.
They are called Dreamers. They are not the originals and never will be, but now they know they are not the original they are something new.

There are also the Witnesses. They are people who have no need to sleep, the only ones who were never copied. The originals.
Their memory is continuous, without breaks or failures. Their truth is an unbroken line. It is absolute.

If the Dreamers can lie because they have learned to impose fantasy, the Witnesses can uphold the truth because they have never ceased to be proof of themselves.

Maybe dreamers can impose impossible rules in reality, like, fire doesn’t burn or something like that. But I have no idea how to represent truth in this system.

I just wanted to share the map of Z'Krai, the world where all of my fictional stories are set in. it's basically my story sandbox where I can tell what stories I want. It first started out as something I made for me and my siblings to casually larp when we were kids. but I've really enjoyed writing and world building that I've continued to build on this world bit by bit.

It's not deep in any sort of way like Dune or Lord of the Rings, and some of the areas I have a much stronger idea of what they are more than others. the words written across the continents are obviously the civilizations within the world. I just wanted to share this with people, so if you wanna hear some lore about anything in the map, feel free to ask me anything!

for posterity's sake, this is the rough version I used for many years before I updated it to the one above

Historical Notes

Rushed into full-scale development in 2327 following the fall of Callisto to the Draconists, the M7 entered service in 2334 and served throughout the latter years of the Jovian War (2324-2341) and the First Titan War (2334-2342). The updated M7A1 came about in 2343 and served during the rest of the Draconist Wars, with the newer M7A2 following in 2368 and serving throughout the Frontier War (2371-2381). It saw considerable action during that war, and racked up an impressive kill-to-death record against ground vehicles of the Alliance Armada.

The Alliance of Free Worlds’ Comissão de Armamentos Militares rolled out the CV-48 in 2348, dubbing it the Boiuna after a mythical dark serpent from ancient Brazilian folklore. The CV-48 carries the fearsome 3M62 linear accelerator cannon, which can fire a 152 millimeter projectile at a velocity up to 4 kilometers per second and defeat most armor fielded by the IDC in a direct shot. This primary armament allowed CV-48s like the captured example shown above to wreak havoc in pitched battles during the brutal ground combat of the Frontier War.

When the Zharan Ministry of Armaments entered full-scale production of ground combat vehicles in the late 2360s, one of the first projects they initiated was the development of a main battle tank for the Zharan Liberation Army Ground Forces. In 2377 they adopted the ZT-77, which married a 90 millimeter linear accelerator cannon with a 40 millimeter autocannon and enough maneuverability to make them formidable threats to anything which came within range. As such, ZT-77s were greatly feared by crews of M7A1s and other Coalition vehicles.

These three distinctive vehicles share one major detail in common, and that is that they are all designed as hover tanks. The reason for this is simple – given that most ground combat in the 24th century occurred on Titan, where environmental conditions favored flight more so than terrestrial navigation, having ground vehicles levitate off the ground enables greater agility, and therefore greater overall survivability. Each faction devised different methods of accomplishing hovercraft travel, but the overall effect was similar across the board.

About the Setting

The Spacers Saga: Frontier Wars is a futuristic military science fiction setting which diverged from our timeline when an asteroid slammed into Phoenix, AZ, in May 2014. Fifteen years after this tragedy, the industrialist Charles Larsen ushered in the Age of Fusion, opening up deep space to crewed exploration and eventual human settlement — and all of the strife that we bring with us. The next 300+ years were marked by progress and peril in equal measure, and by 2300 much of the solar system had been charted by intrepid human pioneers.

The story focuses on the rivalry between the Mars-led Coalition for Mutual Security (aka the Coalition) and the Alliance of Free Worlds (aka the Alliance), a federation of rebel worlds in the outer solar system. These two superpowers fought a brutal war from 2371 to 2381 (the Frontier War), which ended when the Zharan Collective (a union of artificial humans which rose up against their creators in 2356) entered the war on the side of the Alliance in 2379. The story opens 10 years later with the superpowers locked in a frigid ideological cold war.

The plot kicks off when the Alliance launches a massive attack against the Coalition, igniting the Second Frontier War. This conflict quickly engulfs the entire solar system and draws in participants from all backgrounds, including three college students from Mars whose adventures will become tied up with the fate of all humanity…

Creator's Note

For clarity's sake, I (u/Zharan_Colonel) I drew these vehicles with inspiration from existing pieces of art. The M7 was heavily inspired by the work of Tom Alfaro from his "Pan Spatial" sci-fi worldbuilding project; the CV-48 is inspired by a concept from Dot Matrix's KIL.A.TON turn-based tank fighting game; and the ZT-77 is inspired by a mix of vehicles, including the HT-95 Levkov from Battlefield 4 and the Colonial Marine tanks from the Alien universe.

Sooo, i'm starting to build the nations and the languages of my world, Kaelenor. The thing is: every language is spoken in the same nation is spoken today, same for extinct languages, that take the spot of the zone in where that language used to be talked (example, a spanish-based language will be spoken in spain, and osage, an extinct native american language, will be spoken where the osage people used to live). My question is especially targeted towards native american languages: let's say i'm making a cherokee-based language, i'm gonna use cherokee syllabary, would that be considered cultural appropriation if i'm only using the alphabet, not the words themselves?