Happy WBW!

I've got two questions for you:

In the world of your WIP, is there a main pantheon of deities/gods that is worshipped? Are they actual celestial beings that exist or are they figments of the people's imagination? If they exist, do they have anything to do with the magic that exists in that world?

Do you worldbuild before writing your WIPs first draft, like a form of plotting, or does worldbuilding come naturally to you as you develop the story?

Thank you! This one is also super relevant to the Champion & Mage novella I'm working on:

Pantheon:

Yes! There are 5 deities that used to be more directly involved in humans' lives until they started an incredibly destructive war. Thanks to that oopsie, they're now self-banished from the humans, with only their Champions as channels for their influence. (Each deity gets one Champion.)

Their destructive war left behind a ton of magic remnants, which humans harvest and use to create enchanted objects. This has spawned a whole field of mages: novices, harvesters, artifcers, overseers, etc. However, given that the gods aren't around anymore, this scavenged magic is finite, so it's very valuable.

World-Building:

I usually try to have all the relevant bones of the world in place before I start plotting, but things will always come up as I'm drafting for the first time! For example, when starting the first draft of the story, I had to stop to think about details like food, clothing, jewelry, superstitions, architectural style, and traditional offerings.

Happy WBW! Do plate tectonics exist in your world? What did the world look like three hundred million years ago?

Ooh, fun ones!

Since this is world-building and not discussing, I'm going to try and answer with Pale Blood's world of Morne - which I do not know enough about yet.

(editing to add a cut because I did not see how long this got whups)

First answer;

It is a misshapen ball of rock, ice, blasted deserts and vast chaotic forests of varying climates that was once regular victim to the debris of massive creatures battling just outside its atmosphere. Much of the mess outside the only surviving city exists for this reason. There are megafauna that grew to replace some landmasses for this reason as well, birthed by the magic leaking from scales, teeth, blood and bones that once rained from the skies.

That bit was important to explain that yes, there are tectonics! Though not all of it is natural in the way we might think of it. There were many continents once, but the constant barrage from the skies prompted much of it to snuggle up close; in the hopes it would hurt less that way. Now there is only the one, and it's a big one, but sometimes bits of it break off to go for a swim through the frigid waters - setting off quakes and making a mess of whatever is living on it - and it doesn't always come back.

Dolor survives largely because it is landlocked and, while few living there would admit it, the fall of the moon wyrm and erection of the barrier between city and Wylds has really cut down on the fear of the lands beneath it getting up and walking away.

Second answer;

Three hundred million years ago, Morne was a perfectly round pebble of a thing floating aimlessly through space. Not even a planet. It was more of an asteroid, broken from some long-dead moon that maybe orbited a planet and a sun but those had wasted away and burnt out. It was content to float in chill nothingness, with the microscopic things wriggling in its dust and rock to keep it company.

But, to the eyes of two cosmic wanderers, Morne was a shiny bauble too pretty to let pass them by. Both were known, to their own, as wyrms; immense and powerful serpents that soared through space, feeding on whatever crunchy bits of stardust they could. Som, the perceived male of the two, grabbed the little rock first. He coiled around it and his warm flesh and bright, hot gaze burned along its surface, forcing it to bubble and burst with towering mountains and ignited something in the microscopic life within. Then Vi, his sister, wrested it from him and her icy flesh and dark, cool eyes chilled the burns her brother left and drew the waters from deep within its heart out in raging rivers to nourish the budding life.

Soon, Morne had seas, it had mountains and it had life; if simple life.

The two would fight over their shiny bauble for millions of years after, with the day and night cycles of the world they'd made shifting depending on who held it. To those growing on the planet, they appeared as merely the sky, in its various shades and cloud or star-cover, with two glaring suns or two glowering moons.

Eventually, they would share their names, through the growls that shook the trees and stuttered mountain tops. Though it wouldn't be until the first creature stood upright and began to speak...and proclaimed themselves Gods for the privilege.

Happy World-building Wednesday! 

I made a few different covers inspired by four of the major countries in The Hour of Magic: Correlaine, Crestwall, New Nobelia, and Magnolia! Just a fun “getting the vibes down” exercise I recommend for anyone with different, distinct settings in their WIP!

⭐ WIP Intro ⭐Prologue

Happy worldbuilding Wednesday. Last week I went into the origin of magic in my world, so I thought it would be fun to expand on it a bit by going into the difference between old, rebuilt and new magic. These are just quick terms that may change eventually, but of course my world is still a work in progress.

Old magic, as it is currently understood, is the ancient force that drives everything in nature. Not many could originally use it because to do so one had to align their entire being with this life force, which took a lot of discipline and dedication. Upon reaching a connection to life one could learn the true words to move the world simply by listening to life itself.

Casters that came from this era of magic were either druids or mages, the ones who gained a link to nature through hard work and those who were born to wield it. This is also what the evolution of humanoids is credited to: being able to eventually connect to nature in such a close manner that the development of language and understanding of life grew from it. Their magic was a request to nature. They asked by using the right words, and the world would respond.

The rise of the new gods is what eventually slightly changed the outlook on magic. While before their arrival the people did worship the forces of nature and the creator many societies dubbed the Allmother, the new gods brought practicality with their religions. With that, they also brought the ability to bless their followers with a connection to the life force that powered them. In those days these people would have been considered holy warriors, though they mostly would have resembled today's warlocks in that their power was only granted by signing a pact with their chosen deity who would give them the language to move earth for their causes.

But this form of magic merely brought a new caster type. Learning magic was still hard, and those who learned it were almost seen as holy figures in their own rights.

Then the goddess Meredyl, daughter of the sun and moon and the maiden of roses, rose to the status of goddess some 4000 years ago. In her early days she set up a network of magic by weaving the energy of nature. This created a more easy to manipulate web of energy that anyone could learn to access should they want to do so, which in turn also strengthened the power of the new gods and goddesses. The growth in power would eventually allow for holy warriors to become clerics and paladins with people now embed with the force of their gods, and for the easier study of the craft through wizardry.

Meredyl's rebuilt magic took a few hundred years to complete, but by the end most mortals had completely forgotten their old ways and religions. Meredyl became the Weaver of Magic, and civilization started to grow.

Her woven magic wasn't perfect, however. While it was more easy to access for everyone it was also a lot more destructive. Those who used it without consideration could permanently drain all life from an area, and the magic itself could backfire if not used carefully. Many a war was fought with the use of this magic, and civilizations crumbled from overuse. Some places in the world were so drained from magic that even in modern society they remain low or dead magic zones. Rebuilt magic was taking its toll, and it wouldn't be until some 2500 thousand years ago that people would finally put a stop to this abuse of magic.

The use of new magic was introduced by a mage named Solomon, whom had grown interested in past magic through the discovery of ancient ruins. He'd surmised that if one were to teach a combination of weave manipulation and divine words the amount of negative side effects could be almost completely eliminated.

Solomon set out to experiment with his theory, and would eventually set up schools of magic that would teach his new methods of casting. This wasn't without complete backlash at first, but his methods proved successful, and eventually new magic would replace any teachings of rebuilt magic.

With old magic moving the world with speech, rebuilt magic pulled the strings, while new magic learned to play them.

Likes don’t increase visibility to others! Please reblog this to spread the word! 

I think Werewolf is an inherently queer medium

This is all a part of a larger long-term project.

I am trying to hold the World of Darkness to higher standards of inclusivity.

Book 1: Cliath

Meet The Gaians — a chosen people blessed by Gaia of whom among them there are heroes who are born, blessed with the power to Change. They have been charged with the duty of protecting her and her brood, and among them are fellowships from every culture. They are largely comprised of Kinfolk. Vanguards of the earth, they follow the Codes and Creeds of renown in chiminage to the spirits in exchange for favor, protection, and power to strengthen their Fellowships and they form one of several primary factions.

A small number of Gaia’s chosen have been gifted the ability to shapeshift through either bite or birth into animals; warriors joining the fight against the Wyrm. The Gaians have many secret names for these shapeshifters between their cultures, and they range across many animal species and tribes, but the most common among them in these times are Garou.

This sourcebook includes information on First Changes, Rites of Passage, how people become werewolves, and what they're fighting for. Book 1 is effectively a players guide, including enough comprehensive character creation rules for people to create rank 1 Garou.

The World of Darkness is implied to exist just beneath a facade that all others take for granted as simply being a world gone wrong. When the Change happens to a Garou, human or otherwise, the world they once knew ceases to be. The Apocalypse is said to be something happening to everything, everywhere, simultaneously, and on every level. This transcends the concept of everything succumbing to a singular event but many small ones.

In many ways, the Garou themselves are emblematic of this Apocalypse, with these former lives ending and sweeping the cub into something far bigger than themselves. A Call To Action is the theme of Book 1.

Book 1: Cliath goes into warborn, bitten, wolf-born, and human-born lives leading up to the change. It presents a curated depiction of the Garou from the perspective of those who would mentor them. There are not a lot of conflicts, profound lore, or politics so much as 'this is what we are, this is what we do.' Functionally, this can be considered a Players’ Guide, containing your attributes, abilities, advantages, and Merits and Flaws. Gifts and rites will be truncated to rank 1 for the most part. Guidelines for new STs will be found here, including enough powers and enemy stats to keep their troupe of players on their toes. This will also include things like chargen and descriptions of attributes, abilities, and advantages. This will also have many details on packs and the importance of one's packmates. And what better way to introduce new players than to have it happen in an all-new setting for storytellers to introduce their players to the game: the first three chapters of Dead Mountain!

Dead Mountain isn't going anywhere. In fact, it will be used as the foundation for this series. Already-finished parts of the Dead Mountain will be released over the next few months, and a delayed release of the full chronicle will come next spring. The scope of Werewolf: the Essentials will strongly diverge from past game traditions. In past core books and settings, there was an intent to showcase the world at large, written from the perspective of people who had never been to these places. In the end, many details were laughably wrong or mediocre representations that didn’t appeal to the groups they represented. We want the World of Darkness to be HUGE. So, we will be laser-focusing this project to represent the Garou from the Pacific Northwest as an example, with guidelines on how to make your own World of Darkness at your locale HUGE too!

CALLING ALL CHARACHS!

We cannot make this happen without your help.  We are putting out the call for folx from all parts of the queer, lesbian, trans, bisexual, gay, and asexual werewolf fandom looking to help make this the best possible release we can:

Artists

Horror writers

Editors

Consultants

Hype Wolves to help spread the word

Indie TTRPG creators

Working together, we can create a game that is fun, engaging, and genuinely representative of the diverse community of players and fans who love Werewolf. To help us out, click here We look forward to providing you future updates!

UPDATE: Our team has grown huge, and we're grateful to the fandom for rising up and howling with us! We received far more applications than we were able to fully process, but we promise to deliver you the best possible Sourcebook anthology we can! Meet the Writing Team Meet the Art Team Follow our official account for future announcements! To check out a book preview and help us hire cultural consultants click here

Social Media Shout-out! I offer my thanks to @peltofash and @a-boros-named-seamus for supporting me on the Adren and Athro tiers! Your contributions are directly helping make this game more inclusive!

Worldbuilding Tip

If you have a fantasy race with animal traits look at that animals social structure when desiging their culture.

A kingdom of lion people could have 2 types of towns, one with mostly women and one man as mayor and another made up of men banished from the first town when they hit puberity. With duals to decide the mayor of the first town.

Fauns and satyrs could banish all men from town except for during mating season with only women running socity or have seperate towns for each gender like actual deer herds.

Most cultures in fantasy are real world cultures with the serial numbers shaved off or a mish mash of real world cultures. So this is a great way to make more interesting cultures in your setting.

Dark School (Wednesday) No CC

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Thank you everyone who likes and reblogs 🤍

Happy Happy WBW! <33 So, Magnolia. Tell me about it please, because it sounded suuuch a fun country as a story element! I imagined that all of it's people love fashion, but how society there looks like there anyway? And how magic affected it, how they perceive magic? A country full of artists can be chaotic as hell lol but I love the idea. OH ALSO, is any aspect of it related to the flower magnolia?

Yesssss!!!! I would love to!!! Thank you for the ask!!! ❤️❤️❤️

(In my very first world-building draft notes, this was their flag. I will definitely make a better one some day, but visuals always look nice on long texts posts. Have an eye break before I ramble on forever lmao).

Obviously Magnolia isn't a totally homogenous culture and their population is pretty diverse with varied interests, same as any real-world country, but there is DEFINITELY a cultural emphasis on aesthetics, art, poetry, creation, etc. While some cultures have cornerstones of "hard work leads to success" or whatever, Magnolia has the philosophy of "your quality of life is greatly impacted by your environment. Let's make it as beautiful as possible", and with varying definitions of "beautiful" in the different regions of Magnolia. Also, yes, they are definitely viewed as the most fashionable country in the world! Even a more casually dressed Magnolian will look more colorful and put together than, say, your average Crestwall citizen. When they were invited to the cultural exchange by Crestwall, they had Met Gala-levels of dresses and outfits created for the visit!

Art and public works projects are very well-funded, and most of the artists who "make it big" have the cultural expectation of being patrons to other artists, architects, poets, etc. starting out. While differences are celebrated, there is a pervasive idea of "communal inspiration", the concept that interactions big and small may inspire someone else and that art is a product of your time and materials, but also the inspiration and support from the entire community.

Magic is hugely embraced in Magnolia! Instead of an "apocalypse", the Hour of Magic was viewed as the world itself evolving. Geographically, Magnolia was lucky to not have very many abyssal wealds, so monsters aren't much of an everyday threat for the average Magnolian. With magic to make life easier, Magnolians as a whole feel their civilization can focus on culture. Like that John Adam's quote: "I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy...in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.” Magnolia believes themselves to be at the apex of their civilization and with a strong Alliance with the other countries, they feel fairly secure. They are in their #tapestry and pottery era. 😎😎😎

I'm not 100% done developing their government, but my idea is that they have a royal family because that's just very romantic and they love that ✨👑🌹royal-core🌹👑✨ aesthetic, but any significant decisions are put to a popular vote (and I'm pretty sure their sovereigns are just flat out elected. So basically they are a democracy with the visuals of a monarchy (in the same way that modern readers love a good fantasy royal but are probably anti-monarchy irl.)).

"OH ALSO, is any aspect of it related to the flower magnolia?"

Yessss but not in the way you'd think!!! The deity that they worship is named Magnol. Magnol is known to be a very beautiful being no matter their form, so the Magnolia flower, and the country, was named after them! (I really liked the name as a country since it immediately evokes images of a very beautiful place, but I didn't want to use too many real-world influences. This was a way to sneak in our world's flower lmao).

Thank you again for the ask!!! Magnolia is probably my least fleshed-out country at this point, and they are definitely deeper than they appear, but I like what I have so far!

With it being world-building wednesday I thought it'd be fun to join in and share some of my own worldbuilding with whomever stumbles across this. I plan to do this every wednesday, mostly for myself, so let's see if I can keep up the habit!

The world I'll be introducing is known as Globa Attica, though much like ourselves the inhabitants simply call it earth. It is a world much like our own, with similar laws of physics, though their understanding of science and math is greatly influenced by the existence of magic. This magic is what I'll be diving into first.

On Globa Attica magic is everywhere. It is the life energy of every living being, flowing through plants and objects, through the soil, the blazing fires, the streamflow of water or the breeze of the wind. For those who can see it, such as elves and in some cases sorcerers, living with its rythm makes one able to pull its strings and manipulate the material world it breathes life into. This used to be much harder before the great gods arrived, however.

Before the weave was set into place those that could manipulate this life energy were called lightcasters; highly respected mages and druids that were so in tune with their surroundings they could alter it merely by speaking. Not everyone could attune to nature in this way, and it was a tough skill to learn. Some, those called light maidens, were born with the ability at a young age. In the eyes of the old folk they would be seen as gods and goddesses walking the earth.

Eventually, though, the great gods arrived. Though gods had been present before their religion was less defined and mostly ritualistic. People would worship the allmother and follow the path of the sun, phases of the moon or live with the seasons. The greater gods changed this way of life. They made living more convenient, offering assistance by creating pacts with mortals and thus creating the first warlocks.

It wasn't until the risen goddess Meredyl appeared that other magic classes even became a possibility. Her weaving of magic made it possible for gods to bestow their followers with sacred magic, thus creating a way for clerics and paladins to gain their sacred abilities. Alongside that, her restructuring of magical energy paved the way for wizards and bards to tap into magical energy when before it had been restricted to mages, druids and those whom had made pacts with their gods.

While more accessible, this magic had the possibility to be a lot more destructive if used without consideration. Someone using the weave could carelessly pull its strings without considering where the energy would come from or what it would flow into. This meant that spells, when cast without further thought, could backfire massively even on those most knowledgeable. To counter this schools of magic were set up to teach a balanced casting that involved the use of true words; Words that make reality bend your will while respecting the will of the life around you. This resurgence of true word casting effectively created the method of spellcasting as it is used today.

Burned Hide

Illustrated and Licensed from @morggo

Burned Hide is a very old wolf-born garou, well over 100 years old. Cursed with Longevity, she is a living direct descendant of Rala Bloodclaw, and the last surviving descendant of Tawatuy. She has reared and lost many families of wolves in her lifetime, and underwent her first change in trying to save her family from a forest fire.

A Galliard of the Hapil, she is Talesinger of Sept of the Trillium Glade, and Leader of Sept of Thaevarmet to the east. She'd be a legend in her own right, were it not for her tendency to speak her mind and rob herself of the renown, living up to Rala's fiery nature.

With burn scars covering over 75% of her body, she often struggles against the pain caused by these scars, but wears them with pride, advertising the love and dedication she holds for her wolf family. When in the Trillium Glade, she is constantly shaking her head for all the butterflies that like to land on her to drink the tears seeping from her blind eye.

Happy WBW!

Is there any magic in your world?

Happy World Building Wednesday to you too!

And yes! Thank you for asking. There is lots of magic in Hunger Pangs.

There are enchanted forests dotted around the earth that are the sole source of all remaining wild magic in the world.

The rest of the magic was drained from the world in a war against the gods, who now lie imprisoned between worlds for their crimes against mortals. Neither living nor dead but a secret third thing (Trapped in an eternal slumber of howling nightmares.)

The forests are primarily protected by werewolves and some other shape-shifting creatures who act as custodians of the land. As the series progresses, you'll find some other wild and magical creatures in there, too.

There are also magic users like witches, necromancers, and vampires, who all have their own form of ritual magic. And Ursula, who is her own wild thing.

Even the 'science' veers toward the magical, hence why Hunger Pangs falls under the gaslamp (magic/fantasy) subgenre and not steampunk (fantastical science/sci-fi).

There are also some magic standing stones no one can quite figure out. But I'm sure those won't be relevant. Not for a while, at least...

Rope MF Loses Track of Time

Day time:

Afternoon:

Nighttime:

Song credit:

OMG you turned asks back on!! I was just checking yoir blog and saw the button and got so excited lol. Your latest TFT was so good and fun with drunk possessive Wednesday and that YMU chapter had me curled up sobbing in bed like how are you so good at everything yoi write????? I just know we're going to eat when you get to Pandora, I'm so hyped!!!!!! You should charge people money for your fics because wow they're amazing and you could make bank on them, I woukd buy any book you ever wrote. Hopefully hear from you soon, Caio!

Yeah, I was thinking of dipping a toe back in, we'll see how it goes 😂

I love drunk Wednesday! I understand some people may view her as out of character but UGH can't be asked anymore! Let the girl get a little tipsy when she has her wife to protect her, she's not killing people yet.

YMU felt so good to finally get there, and I'm so happy with how it turned out 😭 she deserved that hug, it's been years in the making!! The whole family can heal, now with their favorite werewolf, too!

I'm working on Pandora this weekend, I have such big ideas for this next chapter. We finally get to see more of Wednesday~

Thank you for saying so! I'm still always so surprised when people praise my work so loudly, I love you guys 😭😭 And you're not the only person to mention money to me, as several people have asked if I have like, patreon or something so they can support me, but making money off fanfic is illegal and I'm not looking to ruin the game for the rest of us 😂🩷🖤 My ass is here for fun!

My own book though... 👀😏

wip wheneverday

Tagged by @cleric4vampire to share a wip (thank you!), so here's the draft segment of the I-guess-my-version-of-Gortash-invented-lighters thing I was talking about yesterday—

(It's fundamentally a durgetash first time fic, but it has the setup of durgetash-attempt-a-murder-together)

Skie Silvershield could be considered a beauty, maybe, though her father’s reedy frame and angular features did her no favours. Unique, a suitor might say. Rare. Soft-tongued attempts at obscuring the true motivations in their plays for her hand, more interest in a fulsome dowry than a pretty wife. She knows it, too, it’s why she’s out here in the cool air rather than dancing in the arms of a some shiny boy from a shiny family—and she’s always liked a bit of a scoundrel.  He’s found her passable, the other times they’ve spoken on nights much like this. The only reason Enver’s stayed away, really, is how he finds women some decades her senior more loose with their gifts and their coin. He studies her—dress hiked up so she can lean against the wall with one leg, thoroughly ignoring him, focused on something small in her hands—and looks for his opening. Finds it, and runs a hand through his hair, turns his face into the mask and his mind into the weapon he’ll need to see this through. “Can I light that for you?”

She startles, brown eyes wide with a quick flutter of fear, but relaxes when she looks up into his face. Promising, that she hadn’t realized it was him. That she’d been ignoring just an anonymous figure fresh from the house. There’s even a sparkle of invitation there, he thinks; at least, he’s going to proceed as if there is. “You won’t fare any better,” she says despite it, but he plucks the small lighter from her hand anyway. It’s a Gondian thing, meant to house a flame cantrip on demand, and it’s pretty in its silverwork, but they’re notoriously unreliable. It must have belonged to her father, from his days parading around as the head of Gond’s church, and it’s much like the ones Enver’s taken apart, studied, put back together again, between hours observing the cantrip’s properties across Valas’s fingers. “I mean it,” she says, a laugh in her voice. “Gond himself would struggle to master that thing.” He’s tempted to smash it to the ground, if he thought she’d take it in jest. But perhaps not—he’s not sure how fondly she thinks back on her dearly departed father, how much she knows about who he really was. He imagines she must have expected at least something, living under the same roof, but they do have the most extravagantly large estate in the Gate, and there’s a common naivety, he’s found, to the idea that adherents of the darker faiths walk around in one’s midst. He hands her his glass instead—she accepts it after shifting her pipe to the other hand—and digs through his pocket for his own prototype. She takes a long sip of his wine as he does, her eyes never leaving his, not until he leans against the wall by her side and shows her. His is in gold, the metal more intricately carved, but the real beauty lies in its function. “It was a good idea,” he says of the Gondian lighter, sliding it into her dress’s pocket, “but the magic tends to fade, and they don’t make a reliable spark. But if you use cerium, a metal simple enough to import from Chult, and mix it with iron—” He flicks the mechanism, and a flame appears: almost blue, solid and strong, unwavering as a cleric’s faith. “You could sell these,” she says, then leans forward to light her pipe.  He’d expected a little more awe, or praise of his ingenuity; he wouldn’t have shared the secret behind how it works otherwise. He shouldn’t share such a thing, not with anyone, beyond the Bhaalist who watched him do it, not if he wants to keep the credit for himself, and not as he works to find deadlier uses for metal so adept at producing flame. But, of course—it’s not like she’ll live until morning. There’s a small thrill, at the images he can’t ignore. At the thought of Valas’s violet eyes bright in his manor’s dark shadows; of the tension in his muscles as he waits, watches, springs; and his look of relief and exultant release in the aftermath. At how Enver will cup his chin, still warm and wet with her blood, and force him to look into his eyes, to understand the favour, the gesture, the debt tying them closer together. “Perhaps,” he says, taking back his wine. Slowly, so no brush of emotion shows through, and with intention, his fingers lingering against hers. He takes a sip and considers complimenting her.