Share your fictional setting with the Escapist

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I decided to do this after a post from [user]aegix drakan[/user] in the "Let's talk about magic" thread.

It seemed like fun to make you all to read about my imaginary worlds see what kind of stuff everyone comes up with in their free time. Be it for a PnP rpg, story, or just something that you toy with in your imagination, what fictional world/magic system/ have you come up with that you feel like sharing?

Probably a good form would be to write out a brief summary, then spoiler a more detailed version. Here's a magic system that I was working on while bored on the Ctrain:

Brief Summary:

Magic is drawn from a number of aspects (Heat, Cold, Law, Chaos, etc...) from the mental realm in order to change the physical realm. The two forms of practitioners are Mages and Zealots. Mages use symbols on their arms to draw magic from one or more aspects. Zealots are people (or animals) strongly devoted to a single aspect. They have access to more power, but only with that single aspect.

Spoiler

The world is sort of inspired by dualism, reality is split between physical reality and mental. The physical realm is the normal world where everything you can perceive exists, the mental realm is a non-spatial mess of concepts, ideas and thoughts. In the mental world there exists dichotomous aspects that have no desire beyond being realized in the physical realm. The full list of ones I have established so far is here:

Spoiler

- Knowledge / Secrets
- Law (cooperation, conformity, duty) / Chaos (selfishness, passion, independence, freedom)
- Heat / Cold
- Stasis / Change
- Life (growth, vitality) / Death (decay, weakness)

Each dichotomy is something desirable to some degree, but is undesirable in excess. Lean too hard towards law and you lose identity, passion and agency, lean too hard towards chaos and everyone's is ruled by self interest at the expense of working with or helping anyone else.

Each of these ideas exists in the form of a sort of being in the mental realm who embodies its aspect, and bears an appropriate name. Chaos is The Unshackled, Law is The Many, etc...

Connections can be made between the mental and physical realms, which help realize in the physical realm whatever you're connecting to in the mental realm. For instance, drawing a connection between Heat and a location in the physical realm can call forth a searing blaze. Drawing stasis into a person can slow them, or potentially halt them entirely. These connections are identical in nature to those that connect a person's mind to their body.

There are two categories for those who use magic: Mages and Zealots.

Mages are functionally more similar to the typical spellcaster. Symbols and glyphs are used to make a link on the physical side of reality, and their minds create the link on the mental side. The lowest echelon of mages (usually referred to as Thaumaturges) can only do coarse, simple work, and generally take a long time to set up spells, having to manually draw appropriate glyphs wherever they want to draw a force to.

The more powerful Mages make permanent links between their arms and the mental realm. The glyphs and tattoos needed for this are unbelievably complicated, and a powerful Mage rarely inscribes his own. Typically a university sponsors an individual who wishes to become a Mage, and a team of people work for a period of days to get it right (It's slightly different for every individual). As a result, being a mage is a very exclusive territory, but it comes with some advantages.

For one, most Mages (depending on their tattoos) have the ability to draw from any source they want, if they want, they can even combine them together for more varied effects. There is no requisite intelligence required to use magic, but each discipline requires practice and talent to use properly. It's also much faster than thaumaturgy, you can use magic as fast as you can build the mental side of the link.

Zealots are the other class of spellcasters. Unlike Mages, anyone can become a Zealot. In fact, any living thing can, given the right need.

Zealots are born out of a strong desire, or need for something. A simplistic example would be someone freezing to death from a cold winter would have a strong desire for heat. If the desire is strong enough, and several other conditions hold, a permanent connection can be drawn between their heart and that idea. This leaves a permanent connection between their desires and that aspect, and to some degree they will always be drawn to it.

Zealots are a lot more limited than Mages, they only have a connection to a single aspect. But their link is always up, they can reach their power instantaneously and draw much more power through than Mages. It also warps their minds and bodies the strong they get.

There is a big risk to becoming a Zealot. The deeper you reach into the power, the more of your humanity you lose. There is no hard limit based on skill or innate traits for how much power you can access. Each time you reach for a larger amount of power, some of your humanity is replaced with that aspect, making it harder and harder to act against it in any way. As mentioned earlier, your form will also change.

Once a Zealot loses all of its humanity, it lives on as an inhuman avatar, with everything it does serving its bound aspect. For example, an avatar of death is a lithe, blackened, rotting figure that seeks only to leech away any place that shows an abundance of life.

 

[Queen Michael]

I came up with a horrifying dystopia a while ago. It's pretty much the same as our world, except the milk costs 30 cents more.

 

[Zontar]

I came up with a horrifying dystopia a while ago. It's pretty much the same as our world, except the milk costs 30 cents more.

The horror.

OT: I'm a little confused as to what this is supposed to be. Is this like a fictional world we've imagined?

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

OT: I'm a little confused as to what this is supposed to be. Is this like a fictional world we've imagined?

Yeah, that's more or less what I was envisioning. Doesn't need to just be that though, as I said it can also be a setting you made for a tabletop rpg, freeform rpg, or story.

I came up with a horrifying dystopia a while ago. It's pretty much the same as our world, except the milk costs 30 cents more.

How long did it take for society to crumble?

 

[Zontar]

OT: I'm a little confused as to what this is supposed to be. Is this like a fictional world we've imagined?

Yeah, that's more or less what I was envisioning. Doesn't need to just be that though, as I said it can also be a setting you made for a tabletop rpg, freeform rpg, or story.

Oh, well in that case I've got a story that's Evangelion meets Marvel in the form of Nerv being a division of Shield [https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9656414/1/Avalon], a story that's Battlestar Galactica meets (and fights) the Earth from Stargate SG1 [https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10627931/1/Brother-s-Betrayal], and a story that is Stargate SG1's Earth finding the gate address to an ancient city ship in the Triangulum Galaxy [https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10859418/1/Stargate-Triangulum]. All in the same setting to boot because I'm a f*&ing nerd.

 

[Silvanus]

I came up with a horrifying dystopia a while ago. It's pretty much the same as our world, except the milk costs 30 cents more.

Lord, Michael, you want to put that in a spoiler? There are kids on The Escapist.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

I've been developing a personal science fiction setting. It takes place in somewhat distant future, half a millennium or so from now. Humans have diverged into a handful of individual civilizations; The standard branch is basically us, psychics have their own nation, there is a branch that have fully robotic bodies containing biological brains, another is modified into amphibians, and one is genetically modified to live underground. There are dozens of alien nations ranging from familiar forms to bizarrely alien ones. Each sentient race has it's own advantages and disadvantages over others.

Spoiler: How humans stack up.

Humans tend to have one of the most diverse technological bases, but due to their youth as a galactic power, humanity tends to be less advanced technologically. That said humanity remains competitive. Humanity in all it's forms shares territory with neighbouring races, usually establishing cononies where other races can't. In this respect humanity is lucky because most of their neighbours cannot active live on worlds humans find ideal, as well as visa versa.

Due to an overtly diplomatic and empathic nature, humans maintain the largest alliance in the known galaxy. Many species use humans, in their varied forms to assist with diplomatic endeavours and to negotiate treaties. Human ambassadors are often used as middlemen to convey intentions, and find compromise for other races. As such humanity is often rewarded with samples of technology. To help maintain peace between a wide range of species, humanity also helps organize sport events, including blood sports.

Human hyper-drives aren't nearly the fastest in the galaxy, so to counter act this humans pioneered a system of modular jump gates that provide instant travel between any two gates. These gates are maintained through out all space controlled by all subsets of humanity, and with all of their allies. The fees for gate usage has made humanity one of the richer species in the galaxy, contributing to a surprisingly high standard of living amongst humans as a whole.

In statistical break down humans stand out in some odd ways: Human population growth ranks 9th of all known species, in spite of the statistically lowest life spans of all known species. Humanity is the most diverse species genetically, but would rank 5th without the extensive genetic engineering that humans use. Humans are tied with four of the most advanced races in the galaxy for technological development speed, but first in diversity in technological uses, often applying technologies in ways other races failed to think of.

The human military is the most specialized and flexible in the galaxy:

Spoiler: Humans have the most varried fleet, along with the largest.

Human space fleet breakdown:
Capitol ship classes: Battleships, Dreadnoughts, and Super Dreadnoughts. (Super Dreadnoughts and Battleships are exclusive to humans)
Screening element ship classes: Frigates, Destroyers, Light Cruisers, Heavy Cruisers, and Battle Cruisers. (Most other races use Gunships, and Raiding ships for screening elements.)
Carrier classes: Assault Carriers(built on Light Cruiser hulls), Flight Deck Carriers(Built on Battle Cruiser or Battleship hulls), Carriers(Dreadnought hull) and Super Carriers(Super Dreadnought hulls). (Humans are the only Carrier users early on.)
Small ships: Multi-Role Fighters, Heavy Fighters, Light Bombers, Heavy Bombers, Assault Shuttles, Interceptors, Attack Craft, Small Gunships, Space-Type Stellar Gears(Mecha). (Small craft usage is adopted by other races after humans demonstrate the concept.)
Other: Like all races humans maintain a sizable fleet of: Deep space tugs, in-system tugs, supply ships, troop and armor carrying ships, repair ships, and long range scouts. Humans are unique in maintaining a rather massive fleet of Nomadic ship-based colonies. These ships travel in clusters of up to 10,000 and in total carry a tenth of all humanity, some groups have travelled one end of the galaxy, to the other, and back.
Speciality:Cutters, Pinnaces, Shuttles, and Dispatch Boats. (Early on humanity lacks teleporters, so they rely on small craft for ship to ship and ship to surface transport. Humanity also had to deal with bandwidth issues on hyper-space communications, making Hyper-Capable Dispatch Craft necessary. None of which was ever fully abandoned.)

Note: Fleet types remain static amongst all humans sub-sets, though aesthetic design varies group to group. All human military ships are counted as the "Terran Republic Fleet" which is the largest in the galaxy in number of hulls. Due to the variety, complexity, and flexibility of the "Terran Fleet", it's often considered the most formidable in space combat.

Spoiler: Human Ground and Armor assets:

Humans have the most complicated military ground forces:
Army:Highly trained forces for invasion, occupation, and defence roles.
Infantry: Invasion, occupation, and defensive forces(In powered armor).
Armor: Supports the Infantry with Tanks, Mobile Artillery, Armored Transportation, and Terra Gears(Ground Mecha)
Air Corps: Aerospace Fighters, Attack Craft, Bombers, and Gun Ships for Close ground and air support.
Spec-Ops: Small squad special forces composed of Rangers and Omega-Force soldiers.
Military Police: Army Disciplinary and Law Enforcement Officers.
Army Engineers: Forces to maintain equipment, build infrastructure, establish camps, and permanent bases.
Army Logistics: Transport and Cargo bearing forces for the military. (Marine forces rely on them too.)

Marines:Advanced trained forces for ship assault, ship defence, and shock troop roles.
Trooper Corps: Specific ground force shock troops. Used as the first leg of an assault.
Aerospace Corps: Close aerospace support for the Trooper Corp.
Carrier Corps: Assault and Flight Deck carriers run by Marines for Marine operations.
Ship Corps: Marines stationed on-board naval ships as defence and ship assault forces.
Gear Corps: Marines trained to run Stellar Gears for space combat, or Terra Gears for ground combat.
Armor Corps: Marine Armor assets, composed of tanks and armored transports.
Spec-Ops: Black Corps, intelligence arm of the Marines.

Navy:The backbone of the "Terran Republic Military"
Enlistees: Non-officer crew for all Terran Ships.
Non-Commissioned Officers: Officers drawn exclusive from enlistees to oversee operations.
Midshipmen/women: Officer cadets from Naval Academies on their first shipboard assignment, before final exam.
Officers: Trained in naval academy, or drawn from non-coms. The operational leaders of each ship.
Admiralty: Officers who command flotillas, task groups, fleets, and the officer who oversees the entire space navy.
Enforcement Division: Shore Patrol, Law Enforcement, and Investigative officers for the whole of human military branches.
Spec-Ops: S.E.A.L.S. Corps (Space, Extra-vehicular, Air, Land, and Space special operations groups.) Gear-Tac (Special tactical Gear group.)

There is a lot more but it's a bit much for a single post...

 

[Saetha]

Eeehhh... normally I shy away from these things, it feels somehow dirty to go around bleeting to people about my writing, but meh, why not?

Spoiler

Okay, so it's kind of a modern magical setting sort of thing, with a dash of steampunk and good ol' high fantasy. The society itself is sort of caught between multiple eras, for instance, they've embraced capitalism but are still figuring out democracy, public education's widespread but organized religion still has quite a bit of sway, and the technology - actual, scientific technology - is somewhere in the Colonial era (More or less. This being a different world, their technological progression obviously wouldn't be identical.)

But magic's the really big thing in the setting. Nearly the whole of society runs on it, it's why technology has made as little progress as it has, and the big issue is that magic's a quickly fading resource - imagine if our entire world just lost electricity and you'd have a good idea of what they're staring down. Mages can do the sort of off-the-cuff casting that might've been mocked in that Magic thread, but they're a rarity that's becoming fewer and farther between. Outside of them, the only way the average person can do magic is via a complex magical art involving runes and circles and equations - it's hard magic to the core, and needs years of studying to make any headway. The issue? This art was forgotten centuries if not millenia ago, and the ones who rediscovered it are a heavily militaristic nation that's using it to essentially force people to submit to their rule, since it's either them or apocalypse.

There's some more stuff about the origin of magic, why it's faded away and all that, but it's spoilery and I don't really feel like going into it, so! There's the gist.

 

[JemothSkarii]

I'm not really one to share my settings and work anymore; had some bad runs with people stealing my stuff. But I've been doing some solid work on a magic heavy world where it's rather limited in the grand scale of things. Nobody can just go out and wipe out ten men with ease for example.

Also been putting some heavy work into cultures and making them rather diverse and morally grey. One of those 'I want you to pick a side' deals.

 

[Thaluikhain]

IMHO, if you are going to come up with something not set on Earth, it should generally take the opportunity to be different from Earth. No more "exactly the same as Earth, only the government has funny clothes". Or worse "exactly the same as I think England used to be like, but I'm not sure cause I failed history".

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeell.

Several years back I drew out a map, figured out population statistics/demographics/structural density and what not for four different nations plus a small volcanic island inhabited by watermancers and firemancers.

On said island is a subterranean fort, in which the aforementioned mancers hone their respective crafts. The former in an ice palace, for which they have an entire 'maintenance' team dedicated to maintaining the integrity of said palace, as they're a comically prideful lot and its surrounded by less than ideal temperatures. The latter in a fortress composed of volcanic rock.

It's post-stereotypical world-wide warfare, ie. peace time and the story focuses on a few individuals from one nation, Ry'varia (whose denizens include humans and intelligent gryphons, ala the Mage Wars) amid a potentially world-ending kerfuffle.

I went with a time period just past an industrial revolution, in which guns are available, yet not very wieldly on an individual basis...and because Arcanum apparently made a big impression on me as a lad, the gaps in technology are filled by magic of one sort or another.

Because I bleed cliches, god damn it.

 

[DefunctTheory]

I've had a universe rolling around in my head for years. Never done anything with it, of course - I'm terrible when it comes to creativity. It borrows quite a bit from Star Trek, to be honest. The jest of it...

It starts with World War III. Everything's going to shit, and everyone is losing and an entire city decides they want to opt out. The activate an experimental jump drive, and manage to transpose the entire city several spiral arms over onto a new world. They cause a global catastrophe on both ends of the trip, though - The drive dumps waste heat forward into the jump zone in proportion to the mass jumped and the distance gone, which causes wild spread damage on the small continent they jump to, and their exit from Earth ignites further antagonism.

500 years later, Earth has finally accomplished piece and joined the stellar community, joining a coalition of planets much like the Federation, and they come across a scout ship of their long lost brethren, now the founders of their own galactic nation. They've mastered the jump drive (The only known people to have done so, everyone else using your standard warp engine type device), and have taken to constructing materials in gravity forges - Massive factories orbiting stars that lower material into the star, using the stars heat and gravity to construct very dense material.

Much of the conflict spawns from the type of governments each side belongs to - Earth belongs to a species based confederation, where location isn't taken into account for citizenship and each planetary government has more overall power the he 'federal' level union. The exiles created the Stellar Union, a singular government reminiscent of the United States, where the overall government takes precedent over planetary governments, and species is consider irrelevant, except for the most obvious biological differences. The Stellar Union is actually mostly comprised of races elevated or rescued by the exiled humans - almost hilariously, while the Earth based humans found a relatively peaceful community after finishing their last world war, the Exiles found their part of the stars congested with aliens who could not or would not coexist with humanity. The Stellar Union now wages continual war across the galaxy, pushing against nightmares from beyond the stars to keep their own civilization safe.

There's of course a lot more, but I doubt anyone wants to get that into it.

 

[Zontar]

There's of course a lot more, but I doubt anyone wants to get that into it.

Don't sell yourself short, if that was a book with decent writing I'd read the hell out of it.

 

[Albino Boo]

Snip

I'm sorry to have to tell you but its already been done. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Blish

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Does alternate timeline earth with some mystical elements count?

Don't see why it shouldn't

*snip*

This actually reminds me somewhat of Fullmetal Alchemist, strangely enough. Was it at all inspired by it?

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Snip

I'm sorry to have to tell you but its already been done. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Blish

In sci-fi everything has been done. Doing it your own way is what adds uniqueness.

 

[EHKOS]

I have a setting for a story I think about sometimes but never write because I'm a lazy bum.

Most of the continent is desert, not many people know what's out there in the ocean. There's a coastal city, with sandy outskirts where drugs are grown. Outlaw is the first "boss". Then there are the ghetto single-story houses district that basically is like that part of town in Sin City where hookers rule. Ginger, the second boss, is fucking twisted. We have a dilapidated, broken down subway that runs under the entire city, the old, yet wise third boss Bones distributes the drugs through it. There is a large library where normally a city would have an observatory, in which resides the American made mostly-human. Technically the fourth boss, code name Victor Echo. Growing up hating the military that created him, he's a bit insane, but very knowledgeable since he's holed up in the library. And in the Ivory Tower (not really called that and not made of ivory) standing tall in the middle of it all, the final boss, Colin. Haven't worked him out much, besides being a bit like Handsome Jack, just serious and blonde.

There are earthquakes that get worse throughout the story, a gunslinger named Jack has been sent by a small faction of humans with an Oasis out in the desert who are trying to build a government and get humanity back on track. There are bandits and outlaws and vandals and kaizuko, nobody really remembers what happened. Post-apocalyptic kinda thing, like Fallout.The concept of currency exists but nobody has ever heard of a "dollar", nobody knows what gasoline is, humanity got kicked back to the Roman era. There are these orbs and half-orbs that plug into things to make electric things work.

So basically Jack, a man with a mysterious revolver named "The Broken Melody", travels there in his duster and is on order to bring chaos to the city so that his employers can hopefully re-take it and make it the home base for rebuilding humanity.

Are the earthquakes going to destroy everything? Do they signal the end of the world? Is there anything beyond the oceans? There must be, down by the docks there's a fellow named The Jester, basically looks like Barret from Psi-Ops with a jester hat a la bells, receiving shipments of weapons by boat. These things look like destroyers, big metal beasts. Victor occasionally does wetwork for Jester, dropping by his club, The Jester's Court, to pick up the details.

Yes, Jack is heavily inspired by Roland from the Dark Tower series, which is why I'm killing him off and having Victor take his name and become the replacement protagonist.

 

[Godhead]

I came up with a world based on Greek and Norse Mythology for a D&D campaign once. I also had a story where some guy created the stars because he was too fed up with tripping over himself at night.

 

[theSovietConnection]

I hadn't really thought of anything to do with it yet, but I had an idea for a world setting.

A technology had been created that would allow anyone to be inserted into any universe they wanted. Not simply through virtual reality, but something like the transporter in Star Trek, where you're dismantled in this reality and reassembled in another reality. The basic idea for the story I had behind the initial concept was focusing on what exactly would happen to Earth Prime, as more and more people went off to these new realms to live the lives that they wanted to in the worlds they wanted to.

I suppose other story ideas that could be explored in a universe like this would be things like law enforcement (catching a murderer who fled to another reality), overuse of the technology (perhaps some dimensions/realities collapsing into each other), things like that.