Well in the middle of nowhere

Well island and it's inhabitants

I STARTED ELDEN RING 💛💛💛💛💛

I need more weird and grotesque aristocracy in fantasy stories. I know not everyone has the same taste as me and is fine with ballrooms full of fairies that are essentially just humans with horns or sharp teeth, but I'm starving for more. Weirder.

Make your minotaurs lords and put them in vibrant blue tailcoats and give them manners so sharp and proper that your grandmother would find them overbearing. Give me harpy czarinas flirting from the rafters of the hall, calling down to twisted, grafted mounds of flesh, arrived from the Seminary of the Abundant Apostle. King Cockatrice with their vibrant plumage and spiraling crowns, great giant queens and their sons, monstrous and regal.

Enormous human spiders with long grins and sharp teeth draped in silks and jewels, and wizards, grand and stately, bodies long since melted and twisted by magic, still make an appearance any chance they can. Long necked, multi-headed dragon princes parade across the floor, each head simpering and flirting, their teeth stained with the blood of their most recent kill, and the daughters of death are presented to the court, immense floating heads, faces contorted into the most horrific expressions of pain and agony, barely hidden beneath sheer lace veils.

You see what I'm saying?

My favorite witch.

Via print:

Some more deities from my homebrew dnd setting. These are known as the elemental elder gods and have been involved in some big lore drops recently.

In my setting, there are 20 triangular artifacts like the faces of a d20 bound to 20 planes: 16 outer planes and 4 elemental planes. These deities are the first stewards of the elemental planes' faces.

Ontogwi was given stewardship of the face of water. They decided not to touch or use the domain, and because he is its first steward, no one else can claim it without him touching it first. Despite this, he still grants divine magic to her followers, powers of healing, moonlight, and water bending. Ontogwites also don't believe in death as a concept.

Karadris was given stewardship of the face of air. Then she fucking ate it >:)

Doshaera was given stewardship of the face of earth. To prevent others from claiming the domain, she broke it into many pieces and scattered it across the world, hidden deep underground. Eventually, its shards started making their way into dwarven vaults and dragon lairs.

Thalaar was given stewardship of the face of fire. Being prideful, he displayed his artifact in the light of the sun, where it was sealed for millennia before a group of adventurers in the fire plane managed to bring it down, immediately leading to a fight over who should have it. It was claimed by the vampire Nauron.

Om nom

my players are probably wondering how the Crimson Coven acquired this tasty triangle ^

Erdtree leaves enrich the soil where they fall, but plants grown in those places tend to turn golden over time.

Really delving into the Lore of Elden Ring just makes you realize how much of a tragedy it all is.

Like, basically the beginning of life was all connected and flowing through every living thing in a natural harmony, no creature was treated as horrific or damned and was actually seen as divine the more natural one was, all centered around the primordial belief of Life and Death in the form of this “Crucible” (the primordial, and maybe metaphorical, form of the Erdtree) and its Spirit Realm counterpart, the lampwood Helphen.

However, this outside viewer, the Greater Will (greater god-force or just a fancy way of saying another culture), saw it and was disgusted, only seeing it as primitive and uncivilized (probably contrasting this life to itself), so it sent down a mighty Force of Change to “tame” it. This Force made the Erdtree, whether by attaching itself to an already existing Tree of Life (Crucible or Helphen), attaching itself to a random tree and mutating it, or it’s sprouting was solely due to said Force landing, as the object of worship for this new process of Life and Death, while the Golden Order is the set rules made by the new culture, dare I say, invading.

It makes everything that was naturally born from the land sound like a victim to the Greater Will and its Golden Order. Possibly even the Erdtree itself is a victim/slave to them, who is just a made symbol responsible for helping souls pass on, but the Order is the one that chooses who is worthy and capable of doing so.

(Questioning Morgott’s loyalty exactly to who, not necessarily the history of the Lands Between, below)

But why was Morgott given grace even though he’s an Omen, damned and godforsaken by the Order? Why would the Order make one exception if it’s suppose to be perfect and absolute? Well, maybe the Order didn’t like him, but the Erdtree did. The Erdtree was able to give him Grace after the Elden Ring was crippled, weakening the power of the Golden Order.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Morgott separates the Erdtree from the Golden Order (in fact, nobody does) at all, but what I’m saying is he is loyal to the Erdtree, and by association, the Order, not the other way around. Besides, why would the game specify his loyalty to the Erdtree and not use “the Golden Order” with it interchangeably? Why would he want no harm to come to the Erdtree (again, they specify he is protecting the Erdtree, not the Order) despite harm needing to be done in order to get to the Order, fixing it for it to be whole and perfect again? If he just didn’t have the ability to get the Giant’s Flame, why was there no indication he was trying to find a way to obtain it, like finding/making a Kindle Maiden? It really sounds like he was deliberating trying not to harm the Erdtree despite his loyalty to the Order, thus making me believe he held the Erdtree higher than the Order itself whether he’s aware of it or not.

You could argue the Erdtree didn’t want him entering because he wanted to be Elden Lord, but what indicated he wanted to become Elden Lord? He just wanted into the tree for some reason, that’s it. It could have been for Lordship, it could have just been for fixing the Elden Ring and, in turn, the Order. He already doesn’t believe himself to be worthy of anything Order and Erdtree related because of what he is, but that doesn’t stop his loyalty for supporting it, so just wanting to fix it without becoming Lord is plausible. Heck, it wasn’t even the Erdtree that refused him access, it was an Order Seal made from the most Order simper, Radagon of the Golden Order. It all just seems…ඞ

Also, why is there a separate Sacred Seal for the Erdtree and the Golden Order? It’s not for “so you can use any Incantation,” because all Incantations can be used by any Seal, just some boost the powers of others. You could argue it’s made so one can have a non-boosting Seal, but Lore wise it’s something that sticks out.

So, you want a magic/power system with multiple categories assigned by birth or luck, where each category has different applications and uses outside of combat, based on real-life sciences like physics and chemistry. This system includes shapeshifting and the ability to add runes, symbols,tattoos and objects of power to improve or learn new abilities. Additionally, each ability represents the psychological mind of its user. There are also specialists who don't fit into any of the categories and therefore possess really cool, unique powers. In this system, training and discipline are more important than talent AND the world is populated with a rich fauna of fantastical beasts, animals, and plants??

And also you should add paranormal, esoteric and espiritual entities and rules that applies to all the cultures but each culture have to be unique !

huhhhh

Hi I'm having a rare original world building thought not tied to any fandom.

Wouldn't it be interesting to have a story where a race of people are cursed by some god or power, but by the time of the story's events, the people don't see it as a curse?

You have a main character raised in the idea that xyz trait is a blessing from the divine. We use [and possibly suffer] with something because we are greatly beloved. Foundations of the society they live in are based on this trait. It built the world our main character lives in.

So then, what happens when inevitably, the character discovers this thing that shapes the world is a curse? How does that one piece of information change their world view? Do they go on to tell the world about the curse, or disillusion society in pursuit of truth, knowing it could cause serious harm? Do they withhold the truth, determined to uphold their society's tenacity in making a blessing of a bad situation? Do they reject what they hear as a falsehood, that the gods themselves must be wrong? Do they learn this information as a part of a greater design, another god-thing meddling in the affairs of a rival?

I think you could make a cool story out of that.

[timeline:ab7cd3e7-c1c7-44b1-a3b2-1667171d5e98]

Not sure if the link will work or not, but put together a rough timeline of the Communion Church (Drake Knights) in the Lands Between. I promise I will explain all of this in due time.

T'kar culture was centred around mushrooms. And it totally makes sense. Mushrooms was always a reliable source of food after-all. Mushrooms also was growing from the dead bodies, being a living manifestation, of the lifes circle. That's why, every t'kar community had a totem-pole, often made out of shroom tree, often decorated with various trinkets, amulets and pieces of chitin.

Oh, of course! Chitin one of the three pillars early t'kar society was built upon. Mushrooms, songs and the chitin. Chitinous plates, were a symbol of all the years individual lived, all of his wisdom, and achievements. They basically were a wisdom of an individual soul. For sure, they hold a mystical power in them. Some turned the ancestral plates into weapons, some turned them into dust, which was believed to give you a connection with the spirit of the plates owner. And of course, the large burial mounds, were considered a places of power. Places, where the collective consciousness of all the generations buried in them could once again come to life, through a rituals, and chants performed, by the shamans, also known as the Kar'Taar — Soul Talkers. Soul Talkers, were capable, by singing, and making sacrifices to the moundshroom(a large totem pole made of a petrified fungi), to invoke a semicorporeal amalgamation of all the consciousnesses of the ones buried under it. Moundshroom spirits, were known to be capable of answering Soul Talkers questions(yet they often were hardly comprehensible, as many voices signified in them tried to talk all at once). They were also able to protect the T'Kar in the times of need, by fighting on their side, or turn into ferocious demons, in the case of the mound being desecrated...

Why are some people convinced that germ wrote the entirety of elden ring's lore without adding any fantasy element and then miyazaki added all the stuff

I'm back on my "watches elden ring lore videos even though I never finished the game" bullshit and I just love the whole concept of this game!! So many little things that mesh together without it ever being clearly given to the player. You just get immersed into this world and you have to figure it out by just living in it (or, you know, you let other people figure it out for you).

This is the ultimate way worldbuilding should be done. You can't do this in a book because books are too direct and it's difficult to have something going on in the background without focusing on it. It might work with movies or comics but definitely not as well as with video games. The player can discover it all on their own. You can tell so much with just environmental storytelling or little descriptive notes for objects. It sure is a lot more work for the player to truly know everything about the world but I also think it's so much more satisfying. It's like being an archaeologist or anthropologist and figuring out a culture through the artifacts they left behind.

And also the not knowing if your theories are true or if you misinterpreted something (or if an asset was just a reused asset that didn't actually hold any meaning lmao), it just makes it all so much more fun! Like academics arguing whether which of their million hypotheses are true.

I just love worldbuilding so much

The forgotten path to the forgotten city - The NightHeart Passage

last screenshot i took before i fought my in-laws and went on a 1000 year honeymoon into the void

i can't wait to play the new elden ring dlc and by "play" i mean suck up all the new worldbuilding/story through a straw and try to avoid actually picking up a controller as much as possible