Module Preview: Monastery of the Slime Mage

Alright, here's something new for y'all! I'm gonna start publishing some previews of adventures I'm working on with my friends. This is the first one, in collaboration with the talented artist (not to mention really good friend of mine) Martin Lucchini: an upcoming module called Monastery of the Slime Mage. I'll link the PDF for it here asap, once it's ready.

Premise and History

Journey to the Monastery, by Martin Lucchini

Reebo Abaladaris was once considered one of the most learned and powerful wizards in all the land (or empire, or region, or world, or sultanate; whatever works best for your own campaign). Few matched him in pure knowledge of the arcane arts at large, and none could claim to have even a fraction of his expertise in the study of his specialty: micromagic. 

Micromagic is the study of arcane germs and cells. It is not a particularly popular subject; few invest much time into it, and even fewer fully specialize in its intricacies. Reebo Abaladaris was an exception. He believed that germs were the answer to all of the universe's riddles. Love, immortality, magic, power. They were all linked to the invisible world of the single-celled, in his mind. The hidden might of germs secretly powered all the great forces in the world, and to understand the single-celled was to understand the dynamics of everything. 

This theory, while not widely accepted, was nonetheless well received and discussed, even among the rampant naysayers and germ deniers of the time. It was strange, yes, but also moderate enough for civil debate. 

But Reebo Abaladaris was not happy with such moderation, and he decided to delve deeper into this microscopic rabbit hole of academic discussion. Guided by strange readings and dreams born of obsession, he began to claim that beyond the scope of our eyes, in the sublimely small world of single celled organisms, since the beginning of time a war had been raging. A war between the forces of good and evil. His theory was that microbiota were the first bastion of defense in protecting the material realm from the threats of the multiverse, and that for every demon, or mind flayer, or devil that was vanquished from our reality, the germs exterminated countless threats, much smaller and much more perilous to the fabric of our existence. Microbes, in his opinion, are reality's immune system, and the knights and wizards and clerics who defend the realm are merely taking care of the threats too bulky for germs to notice. 

This opinion was quite controversial, to say the least.

He struggled to find funding for his research. His peers began to ostracize him, for they felt like his theory, which completely discounted the importance of the non-microbial, invalidated much that they, as multi celled organisms, all strived to achieve. Egos were bruised, and arguments ensued, often going past the realm of debate and into the dangerous territory of arcane squabbles and spellslinging duels. Many of Reebo Abaladaris' apprentices and students grew concerned for their own futures in the shadow of such a controversial teacher, so they found different mentors with more orthodox opinions and methods. Soon, the world's best micromagic researcher was left with very little money and very little credibility in the academic world of the arcane studies.

So he took matters into his own hands.

Using the last of his funds, Reebo Abaladaris was able to purchase an abandoned monastery from the nobility of a remote village.

The Abbey of Saint Martin of Canigou, my inspiration for the building

This monastery was not just a desperate purchase, however. Even in his darkest hour, as with all his other enterprises Reebo Abaladaris had been very meticulous in the selection of this specific location, and there were many ulterior motives involved in his decision. 

The monastery was secluded. The only town nearby was small, and the villagers already superstitious of the structure up on the cliffs. Reebo knew he could study in peace up there. And he could get away with almost anything, unnoticed.

It was also spacious. There was plenty of room for the few apprentices he had left.

But most important, of course, was the microbiome under the monastery. The mountain on which it rests, according to Reebo's studies, was home to a very unique ecosystem of bacteria and soil microbes. 

Perfect for his experiments...

The Hubris of Abaladaris

Consumed by a thirst for knowledge and scarred by humiliation, from his newly settled monastery Reebo Abaladaris began his mad and most desperate studies, surrounded only by his books and most loyal apprentices (those devoted enough to follow him into the delves of madness). 

From the sparse knowledge contained in his most ancient and arcane tomes, the mad micromage was able to design a revolutionary experiment. It was not a simple task; he and his apprentices spent day and night designing a system and excavating the mountain. The goal was to recreate what was hinted at in the scribbling of madmen as the Protoslime, or what we would today call primordial soup or broth, and from this theoretical experiment Reebo hoped to discover the secrets of cells, the truth behind the origin of life, and the power to alter the fate of the entire universe by harnessing the strength of the smallest possible beings. 

They dug out a dungeonous lab under the monastery, into the very side of the mountain, and set up a system of funnels and filters to harness rainwater soaking through the mountain's micro ecosystem, as well and a plumbing system engineered to collect microflora from the intestinal waste of Reebo himself and his apprentices.

The experiment was successful.

A German board game about the "Ursuppe"

In a secret vat under the mountain, Reebo used science and magic to weave this smelly cocktail of microbes into a mysterious gelatin. It matched the description of the Protoslime from his books: oozy, greenish-brown, and with a smell like fresh pollen mixed with moldy petrichor. 

Harnessing the power of this concoction he was able to make many discoveries about the microscopic world. Discoveries far, far ahead of their time. In our own world, for example, it is not until the 1600s that we were able to identify the existence of cells, and it took about 300 years after that to learn their inner mechanisms. Reebo was able to make these discoveries, and far greater ones as well.

By using his concoction to create larger, more observable cells, with mitochondria the size of cats and nuclei like dogs, Reebo Abaladaris was able to identify not only how cells work, but to point out organs like mitochondria, ribosomes, and nuclei, and identify their purposes.

A very funky cell diagram from Byjus.com

But harnessing the forces of genesis is not a task meant for mere mortals. The Protoslime began to take on a will of its own. 

At the beginning of the experiment, Reebo and his apprentices were able to control the generative powers of their experiment, but soon after its genesis the primordial soup began to spew out unexpected progeny in the form of oozes and slimes. 

The inhabitants of the monastery were able to keep this under control for a while. They started guarding the vat, taking shifts day and night to exterminate the single celled creatures that crawled out. Ooze population control was within their abilities, as they were all somewhat experienced spellcasters of some power. But ironically enough, it was a microscopic threat that caused the downfall of the proud Reebo Abaladaris.

Luigi the Slime, by Martin Lucchini

As the Protoslime evolved, its primordial powers started affecting the bodies of the cloistered scholars. The millions of individual cells that made up their organisms started to fuse together. The humans fell ill, haunted by visions and dreams of primordial blackness. The Protoslime beckoned to them, until, driven mad by their ongoing transformations, they bathed in the vat.

The metamorphosis was complete. The will of the slime had been exerted, and the mages went through a painful process of oozification.

The cells in their bodies fused together. They became like the beings they once studied, and their human intelligence was overrun by the ancient instincts of microbiota.

The metamorphosis was complete.

The Slime Mage was born.

The Slime Mage

Reebo Abaladaris the slime mage, by Martin Lucchini

Even after his human intelligence was disintegrated by the process of oozification, Reebo's obsessive curiosity did not fully abide. A vestigial ghost of his thirst for knowledge remains, as well as an instinct for spellcasting. His single-celled body hungers for the flesh of humans, but what is seeks more than protein or sugar is magical energy. He is an imposing figure, about 12 feet tall. His translucent body reveals an entire bookshelf's worth of spellbooks floating around his cytoplasm like ribosomes. His mitochondria crackle with arcane power. 

From the slime-crafted tunnels of his abandoned monastery he waits for mages who, fueled by their own curiosity as he once was, following rumors and whispers of great secrets come to the abandoned halls of the edifice, only to find revelations of doom.

Reebo Abaladaris by me

AC 4, HD 14, Att 2 x Tentacle (1d6) then englobe automatically if both attacks hit, magical mitochondria THAC0 16, MV 60' (20'), SV D8 W9 P10 B10 S12 (8), ML 12, AL Neutral

Englobe: Inside the slime mage, suffer 2d6 damage per round until the slime mage dies or you break free (save vs death). You can attack the slime mage from inside with a -4 penalty to hit, but deal double damage if you hit his nucleus directly.

Immunity: fear and charm effects, half damage from nonmagical weapons, unharmed by cold or lightning.

Spellcasting: The slime mage knows 7d4 spells of any level, chosen randomly from the magic user and illusionist spell lists.

Magical Mitochondria: The slime mage starts the battle with 3 magical mitochondria. Each one has HP 12 and AC 0 (if attacked from outside the slime mage), or AC 9 if the attacker is inside the membrane (the -4 penalty to attack the slime mage from inside does not apply against the magical mitochondria). The slime mage can cast a number of random spells from its list for each living magical mitochondria. 

Arcane Membrane: Spells targeting the slime mage have a 25% chance of reflecting off its membrane and hitting another random unit instead.

Conclusion

I am thinking of making these modules a big part of this blog. Let me know what you think! My friends and I have been having a great time with this.

Speaking of, make sure you follow Martin on Instagram.

This adventure will be coming out soon on PDF. Thank you for reading! Until next time.

The Godling's Task: Creating an original fantasy world for OSR DnD [part 4]

 

The World, Vast and Dangerous

Art by Paul Bonnel for Trudvand Chronicles

Greetings! Welcome back to our series. Progress was made. 

I finished the geographical map of the peninsula for Hard Iron Skies. I present to you: Jarland.

And with hexes:

Remember, each hex is roughly 20 miles from center to center.

Before delving into the different areas and biomes of the Peninsula of Jarland, I will explain the process I used to determine the geographical features.

There are three main factors at play.

Factor 1: Distance from the Equator and Temperature. 

As I mentioned in the previous post, Jarland is roughly at the same latitude as the Pacific Northwest. This would place it in the temperate zone, bordering on the polar zone to the north. I took this into consideration, but I also factored in the world at large. The Northern Hemisphere on this fictional planet has a little more landmass than our own on Earth. This means that the temperature is slightly more extreme in this world's north than in ours. With this in mind, I decided on an average temperature in Jarland similar to that of Oslo, Norway. Here is a graph of maximum and minimum average temperatures throughout the year:

Being a pretty mountainous region, Jarland will tend on the colder side, reaching pretty extreme temperatures in high altitude, but as a general rule of thumb this curve should work nicely. 

Factor 2: General Wind Direction and Mountains.

In the previous post we determined wind directions in our world based on latitude. Jarland, because of its position on the globe, receives (for the most part) winds coming from the north, and heading south with a slightly westward inclination. These winds are cold, first of all. They do not come in from the ocean, but from a large mainland. 

But the most important thing is the way these winds interact with the land itself, specifically with mountains. Jarland has three main mountain ranges (still unnamed), one to the north, on in the center and near the western coast, and one to the south. What happens with these mountains is that they create what are known as rain shadows. To put it briefly, large mountains form barriers for the wind (which is carrying water molecules), so on one side they have wet zones, while on the other the land tends to be more dry. This same principle is the reason why people say moss grows on the north side of trees. As a generalization, this may be correct, but in truth trees are small and water has other ways of spreading on such a scale, so moss can grow pretty much anywhere. At the scale of global winds and mountain ranges, however, this law is more reliable. 

The consequence is that in Jarland the territories in the southern and wester sides of mountain ranges will be more dry, while the ones to the north will be wetter. That is why a lot of the water and rivers accumulate in that east-central area. The brownish black/green and the dark green areas represent marshlands and forests and the blue, of course, represents bodies of water. 

It is also important to note, however, that even in rain shadows, the land ca receive water. As a peninsula, Jarland has a lot of coastal land, therefore even the drier areas of the territory are relatively wet (for example, the southern tip of the peninsula).

Factor 3: Magic and Supernatural Influences.

Titania by Arthur Rackman

After some deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that there are no large scale magical effects influencing the climate of Jarland in any significant ways. I considered a few options, such as winter curses or benevolent sea gods, but ended up deciding against any large scale effects of this nature.

On a smaller, more local scale however, magic will play quite an important role on the land. This is not something I am going to delve into in this particular post, but winter curses blighting villages, benevolent sea gods beckoning warm trade winds, the squabbles of faerie rulers upsetting the natural order and much much more will come into play on a hex-to-hex basis. More on that in future updates.

For now, that's all I have. I have begun working on the placement of humanoid settlements, and on the different cultures of Jarland. That is going to be a big post (I may have to split it into two), but hopefully a fun one! So keep your eyes open for that update.

Thanks for reading! Happy travels. 

The Godling's Task: Creating an original fantasy world for OSR DnD [part 3]

 

Shaping Seas and Mountains

"The Great Waterfall" by Roberto Nieto

Hello friends! Welcome back to our series. In case you need a reminder, today we will be creating the geographical world for our upcoming Hexcrawl/Oregon Trail campaign: Hard Iron Skies. In the previous post, I went over the inspirations and the intentions I had for this campaign. In this post, we will be getting our hands dirty... in rocks, mud, and salty water. We are going to focus less on art and more on the craft of building a world for a Hexcrawl campaign.

Before I begin, I do want to mention that, aside from my own personal research, a lot of my information comes from Expeditious Retreat Press' fantastic (and NYOP!) guidebook: A Magical Society: Guide to Mapping. It's a great starting place for a project like this one. Also, as I listed in my inspirations on part 2 of this series, Bat In The Attic made a fantastic guide to designing a fantasy sandbox adventure, please check it out.

Now, without further ado, let's get started.

From the very beginning...

Pangaea. Pan means sexy sylvan goat god, but it also means all, everything, the whole shabang. Gaea means lands. All the lands, in one single continent. To create my world, I started here.

The first thig I did was draw some blobs. A lot of great projects start with blobs. 

Here they are. Sorry if they are hard to see. Blobs.

Next, I tore out the blobs, and colored them in pencil. As so:

Then I took those blobs and put them all together to create my world's Pangaea equivalent. This process basically felt like solving a jigsaw puzzle by egregiously cheating. Just cram them however they fit. It's like packing a small car for a long camping trip. 

My Pangaea ended up looking like this:

Those dark spots are potential mountains. The most ancient mountains, that form in our continents at the time of Pangaea.

The next step was moving the plates. I found this neat lil time lapse video showing how the continents moved from Pangaea to our current positions. I just mimicked it, somewhat, using my lil fingers instead of the convection of underground forces. This was the result:

I put in some new dark spots showing where new mountains may be, caused by the collision of the continents as they separated. So now we have old mountains, from the Pangaea times, and new mountains, caused by the movements of separation.

Next, I outlined the continents on Gimp (I do not have Photoshop) and laid a transparent map of our own world over my own planet, just to get an idea of latitude, longitude, and general scale:

Notice I added another little landmass up top. It felt a little empty. 

The next step was wind directions. I won't get too much into the science of it here, the Guide to Mapping I mentioned earlier does a great job with this. To put it simply, because of various thermal factors, the inclination of our planet, and its rotation, the direction of the world's winds follows a convective pattern depending on latitude.

This is going to be important later, when determining climate zones and biomes.

Overlaying this scheme onto our outline, it ended up looking something like this:

Now, I have to pick where to base the Hard Iron Skies campaign. I am looking for a place with extreme temperatures, specifically cold ones. Generally speaking, as a rule of thumb a hemisphere's temperature tends to be more extreme the more landmass is present in the hemisphere (this is the case in our own world, where the northern half of the planet tends to have more extreme temperatures than the southern). 

The reason for this are the different properties of minerals versus water. Water conserves heat more effectively, so in the colder seasons the general temperature stays warmer because of conserved heat. Water also warms up slower than land, therefore in the hot seasons the southern hemisphere tends to remain cooler than its northern counterpart. 

The world we created follows the same pattern as our own. North = more extreme, because it has a higher percentage of surface landmass. So we are gonna go with a northern location for Hard Iron Skies.

I ended up going with this continent, the large landmass to the northwest of our world, which I zoomed in on and re-outlined with more detail:

Here it is! And it's huge. Much too big for the purpose of our campaign (if you notice, underneath you can see some parts of Canada, the USA, and even Mexico), but still, pretty cool.

We need to zoom in further to determine the starting point for our caravan.

I am going to focus on this area:

Enhance! And show some mountains.

I am going to zoom in even further. This peninsula is still large, more or less the size of the Pacific Northwest, plus some parts higher up in Canada.

So I am going to zoom in further, and focus on the southern end of the peninsula, with some attention to the location of major mountains (the gray splotches). Something like this:

As you see, I already put the hex grid over the Territory. It is still large, more or less the same size as the American Pacific Northwest. 

Making a rough estimate, each hex, side to side, is 20 miles. The edges are roughly 12 miles long, and the area of each hex is 346 square miles. Those are big, but not too big. 

Let me explain my thought process with these dimensions. The main crux of Hard Iron Skies is a caravan, and not a military one. These are not travelers with tears of training and tough regimens. These are pilgrims, trekking through a dangerous lands, bringing their few worldly possessions along with them.

To get a better picture of this situation, I did a little bit of research on travel on the silk road. I won't go down the rabbit hole of interesting details I found, I might make a post about that in the future! The important finding is the speed of silk road caravans. On average, a silk road caravan could travel between 10 to 12 miles a day. This means that, in our own game, a dwarven caravan can travel roughly the same speed, thus getting from the center of one hex to the other in approximately 2 days. I can work with that. 

And there we go! We now have the canvas for our Hexcrawl. In the next post, we will determine Biomes and hex features. 

Until then, happy travels. 

The Godling's Task: Creating an original fantasy world for OSR DnD [part 2]

Hard Iron Skies

Art by Borkuart, aka u/Nagli. Found here

Part of what makes the idea of writing a blog appealing to me is that it holds me accountable to my ideas. I'm flaky and aloof, most of the time, and I feel like that's unfair to the things that pop up in my head. Those aren't mine, after all. Ideas are weird Frankenstein creatures, patched together by speedy tidbits, cursed magic, and whoknowswhatelse and jolted to life by neuron charges. They deserve a good life! And I've been pretty bad with that. I'm great at starting things, but it's been a while since I brought a project to an adequate conclusion. So, I am here. Let's do it. Hell ya. Of course, there is no real way for you, dear reader, to hold me accountable on this, so... yeah, let's just pretend this means something! 

Alright, here we go.

Here's the plan with this one. If you read my previous post, then you know what's up. If not, read it! Just kidding, basically what we are doing here is expressing and acknowledging inspirations. We are gonna identify the many bits that make up the idea in my head, and from there create an outline for our general desired feel, mood, aesthetic, genre for our world/game. So, without further ado, allow me to introduce: Hard Iron Skies!

Basically, Hard Iron Skies will be a sandbox/open world/West Marches project set in the world spawned by this larger project. 

The main inspiration for this is the Adams brothers' videoludic masterpiece: Dwarf Fortress. If you haven't heard of it, I highly recommend checking it out. If you have heard of it, but have too intimidated to give it a try, I promise, it's not as complicated as it looks, and it delivers a truly unique experience. Either way, should you be interested in exploring the DF Community, or if you just want some really high quality hours of entertainment, I can't recommend Kruggsmash's Videos enough. He is extremely talented, and his narrative videos are an experience unlike any other. 

Now, what makes Dwarf Fortress unique... well... a lot of stuff... a ton of stuff, actually... but, for our purposes, we are gonna single out two things specifically.

Thing number one: the world generation. Oh man, oh man. So, to put this simply, Dwarf Fortress is an extremely complex game. It does not look like it, but there is so much going on. So. Freakin. Much. To give you an idea, this interview with Tarn Adams perfects illustrates just how baroque this video game is. I will not get too into this, because I would, without the shadow of a doubt, get lost in amazing DF facts and stories. We gotta focus here. 

The complexity of this game starts before your game actually takes place. You see, before you can choose where to settle, before you can see you dwarves thrive, or (most likely) suffer horrible things, the game has to create your world, and to do this, not only does it build a geographically unique continent for you, but it also simulates 200 years of history! That's right. 200 years. Which are fully documented in Legends Mode, and which generate cultures, gods, legends, wars, and characters that WILL POP UP in your Fortress.

DF World Generation Screen

That's pretty cool, right? I want that in my game. I want to find a way to make the world feel old. Much older than the players. That's what good worldbuilding does. Think of the Wheel of Time series, for example. Everything has a history, and it feels so grand and beautiful. I feel the same way about DF, and I want my game to feel like that. So that's the first thing.

Thing number two: DWARVES. ON. A. MISSION.

Not much else to say. Dwarves are, in my opinion, tragically underrepresented in modern fantasy literature and gaming. So, we're bringing them back. And there will be drama. Lots of it.

LOOK AT THESE GUYS! Eric Sutherland is the artist, for the original AD&D Blue Book (1977)

The idea here is migration. Finding a home. Hard Iron Skies will (hopefully) give the players a chance to take charge of a small group of refugees (mostly Dwarven) and roam the continent in search of a new land to call their own, a place to build their fortress. Kind of like The Hobbit meets Oregon Trail. 

Now, that's our main inspiration. Now for secondary ideas: 

1. As I kinda mentioned, a lot of the imagery and feel I want this world to have comes from the Wheel of Time series, by Robert Jordan. His world feel so ancient and epic. His narration of travel is well paced and geographically accurate. Both things we want!
2. I also mentioned the Hobbit, and, of course I must include it in this post. Whenever I think of Dwarves, that book comes to mind. Similarly to WoT, the world feels very ancient and epic. Also, super cool dwarven road trip: basically perfect. Right up our alley! I'll probably be re-watching the old animated film for inspiration (and using that music when I wirte and when we play!).
3. Vinland Saga!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
   
   
   
4. Berserk. I'm not quite sure why, but everything I create seems to be heavily influenced by Kentaro Miura's masterpiece, and I'm sure this will be no different. It's too far deep in my brain.
5. Godspeed You! Black Emperor's album Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven.
6. Finally, I wanna plug another OSR blog here. Bat In The Attic made a fantastic guide to designing a fantasy sandbox adventure, and it really got my brain gears spinning. Their guide is well made, and the world they create is really neat! It serves as inspiration for my own humble project. A lot of what I will be doing, specifically in the early phases of this project, will be almost a step by step follow-through of their great advice, so please check them out.

Alright that about does it for inspirations. At least, the ones I could list. There are definitely countless other little tidbits of stories and media that are subtly influencing my own ideas, but unfortunately I can't list them all, or really even pin them down!

For the last section of this post, I wanted to talk about how I plan on running this game, because I do think it is an important factor to keep in mind when creating a homebrew RPG world, even if it is kinda getting ahead of ourselves.

First of all, the system. I have settled on using Old School Essentials. Some of my players are familiar with it already, and I find it really delightful. The UI design is awesome, and the game is elegant (also I recently backed their newest Kickstarter campaign, and I'm very much looking forward to getting my hands on those books!).

Ok, we figured out the system. So how's it gonna play? Well, as I mentioned already, this is going to more or less follow the West Marches campaign style. The explorable world will be, for the most part, planned ahead. Since the main driving factor of the story is not a small group of individuals, but rather an entire community, players can come and go accordingly (which is a REALLY GOOD THING, especially during these "unprecedented times"). Also, the direction the narrative will be following is completely up to the players. I will be, as DM, setting up the physics of our world. The players will be playing with it. 

To do this, of course, I need to have the continent mapped out. That section will be in the form of a hexcrawl, in which I will be using several modules, both new and old, as well as writing some of my own.

But, another important thing to keep in mind is that these are dwarves we are talking about. If the players do end up founding a fortress, or just exploring caves and other possible underground locations to settle, I will need a way to run those strange environments. But whatever could that be?!?!?!

YEP! You guessed it. Patrick Stewart and Scrap Princess' incredible collaborative sourcebook: Veins of The Earth. A treasure trove. 

Finally, I wanna try something I never have. During each winter in the world, if the settlers are in a cold enough environment, they will have to rest and wait out the deadly season. For this, I will be using a little minigame/sourcebook called Do Not Let Us Die In The Dark Night Of This Cold Winter.

That about does it! There it is, the seed of our world.

Next episode: Crunchy Plates and Moving Landmass.

The Godling's Task: Creating an original fantasy world for OSR DnD [part 1]

In the beginning...

art by Luka Rejec, from the OSE Rules Tome

Oh wow. My first post!

First of all, dear reader, whoever you may be, welcome to Weirdward Ways. I'm Thom. Thank you for scouring through the web for this blog, clicking a link, or most likely stumbling upon it by pure chance. Something has brought you here. I don't want to get too deep into introductions or anything like that, but a small celebration is in order. You see, this is my very first post on my very first blog and, chances are, you are one of my very first readers. I probably do not know you, and we will never meet, but I feel like there's something very special to all of this. Forces are at work, dearest reader. So let me repeat myself: thank you. I hope you enjoy my content moving forward, should you be inclined to keep following this blog.

My plan for Weirdward Ways is ill-defined and somewhat oneiric. The general theme, to put it in one word, is Fantasy. Vague, I know. To narrow it down a bit, most of what I will be writing about is speculative tabletop gaming (specifically OSR content, though other forms of the medium will be discussed as well), but also books, shows, films, art, documentaries, music, and the various ways all these strange and wonderful things intersect within the cavernous halls of human imagination.

Still vague, huh? Let's leave it like that; it's more fun.

We should probably move on to the actual post now.

A Godlike Hoax

Worldbuilding is a charlatan's art. It is an incomplete con, a flimsy house of cards, a series of small dots on an infinite white canvas. Worldbuilding is the Achilles Paradox put to paper, and for every city you invent, for every sea you form, there will always be an unquenchable void, ever present in the liminal spaces between your creations. In a true world, between every shore are miles of rolling hills. Between those hills are countless blades of grass. Between the blades is weighted space, a universe made of molecules and atoms and physical laws that we can only attempt to replicate. 

And so we lie to make up for our incompetence.

Fiction is a hoax, after all, and worldbuilders are scoundrels by nature. We are no gods. We are just dreamers, idlers, head-in-the-clouders. We have no true powers. No ability to mold mountains out of stone, and mold Dwarves out of mountains. We cannot invent gravity, and time, and space, and matter. We can only simulate it. The world we build in our own heads, in our messy notebooks, on our google docs is nothing but a fake plastic scaffolding for a true universe. A blueprint filled with a whole bunch of nothing.

It is through the act of sharing that our world becomes something more than a complete failure.

It is our audience's mental eye that fills in the countless blanks left by our mortal limitations. Be it a reader or a player, once they participate in our world, they are in on our scam. They become our accomplices is this godlike hoax. Their own imaginations do all the heavy lifting that we were too lazy to see through in the first place. Now, the city takes sound and color. The ocean roars, each wave a tiny storm of its own. The civilians on the street shuffle about, chatting, each with their own problems and worries. Dragons in the sky, Demons in the depths, and all things in between. Everything is full, thanks to our reader. The world is no longer broken and empty, but it has weight and it has mass and it has sunsets and sunrises and rainclouds, and anything else the reader decides to put there. 

We merely planted the seed. Storytelling, like gardening, is by necessity a collaborative experience. 

The Purpose of These Posts

All of this, of course, does not mean we can leave everything up to our audience. Remember, we are trying to trick them into helping us build our world. We cannot expect them to help us for free, that would be too easy. That would not be fiction. So here's my proposition with this little series of posts: I want to create a world from scratch. Something detailed and profound, something that feels real on paper and on the tabletop. I want my oceans to feel briny and deep. My mountains grand, my cities strange. I want it all to make sense, and follow rules that my players can recognize, even on a subconscious level. From geology, to meteorology, to anthropology, to mythology, we will learn how to manipulate these forces in the act of worldbuilding. 

I also want it to feel strange. Magical, mystical, arcane, and dangerous. More on that in the future.

I will document my progress with this project on this blog through this series, "The Godling's Task," and I would be honored, dearest reader, if you tagged along and made your own world, a sister to my own, alongside me. It is a daunting journey, and I would love some company. We are gonna learn the tricks of the trade, and figure out how to make our readers fall for our epic scheme. 

And if we fail, at least we tried.

So, step one. 

The first question I will be asking myself, before placing mountains or oceans, is "what am I trying to make my players believe?" What lies am I telling my audience? What fantasies are true in this fictional world? What are our speculation, our inspirations, our tone, our genre, our "what if?" Also an essential question: "what will this world feel like?" What will it look like? Colors, light, darkness, shapes, lines. How does it all interact. Smells and sounds, heat and cold. 

The answer to these question is possibly the most important part of the long process ahead. This is the seed of our world. Everything else is the elaborate prank that will trick the reader into helping this seed sprout. 

I have thought of this for a while, and I came up with a list of major inspirations, as well as a few thematic choices and speculations. Here is a hint to one of my many inspirations:

SUPER HECKIN COOL!

I encourage you to think of a few of your own. This is the phase of worldbuilding in which we steal big time. We steal ideas, concepts, moods, aesthetics. The seed of our world sprouts from other creations. That, in many ways, is the underlying truth of any artistic enterprise: theft. Art is a crime, baby. So, make a list of things that just drive you crazy, that give you goosebumps, that keep your mind active even after you are years done with them. Make a list of books, games, songs, shows, drawings, sculptures, poems that YOU wish YOU had created, and get ready to steal.

We will start with those next time.