Mention a random quirk of your world

The Disciples of R'lyeh and the Breakers of R'lyeh are two groups...that have absolutely nothing to do with one another nor are direct rivals.

The Disciples of R'lyeh are an cult of Cthulhu that got their start as an ironic cult of Cthulhu that lost the "ironic" part due to a combination of Lovecraft's novels being mangled a bit by the passage of centuries and influence from the human extinction movement that gained some significant traction in the 28th century. They are still active during the 31st century when the story takes place, but aren't considered a serious threat to any of the major powers.

The Breakers of R'lyeh are more commonly referred to as the Atlantic Nomads, and are the descendants of a massive slave revolt that took place in the floating city of R'lyeh in the 24th century, which had simply been named after the city of Lovecraftian story. Their revolt resulted in R'lyeh being sunk beneath the waves and they took to the seas on a fleet of more conventional ships and their society has existed on the water ever since.

While the two groups don't like each other much, they also don't really think of each other all that much either since they travel in very different circles. The Breakers of R'lyeh are a nomadic society that spends most of their time sailing from port city to port city in the Atlantic Ocean, and the Disciples of R'lyeh are a tiny religious sect mostly confined to the cities of the Northern Union or Southern Alliance.

Edited by DivineFlame100 on Jul 10th 2021 at 6:42:06 AM

• In one of my stories, the world is populated by Bird People, while all the other animal species are normal and humans never existed. They still have birdlike mannerisms like casually flying, buying worms and seed as a snack, using claws and beaks as weapons, laying eggs in nests (though they keep the nests in houses and sleep in beds), and each species having the same diet as in the real world, and unlike a lot of Bird Folk in different works apparently, my bird folk has wings for hands and not as separate limbs. Species-based racism is going strong, with the most prominent examples being segregation in Fredonia and the trush-nazis in Eurooe. Carnivore Confusion avoids becoming an issue because only birds are people, and other animals are normal.
• The birds can fly but have invented all the vehicles humans have at that historical point because why fly longndistances under your own power when you can sit in a zeppelin or a plane, or why fly into bttle when you can have the structure of a fighter plane protecting you and the ability to shoot while you're in the air?
• The birds only use sleeveless clothes and coats to have the freedom of wing movement without taking the cloth off. However they consider clothing optional aside from uniform, fashion, and warmth.
• The important Real Life countries has a Fantasy Counterpart Culture, like Anglia (England) and Morena (Monaco), while others are more layered like the Italy counterpart and the Germany counterpart taking on, together, the role of Austro-Hungary alongside the Italy role and the Germany role, becsuse i'm simplifying the background events so that they won't overtake the story. The fictional country the story is set in is basically dieselpunk Lapland but with large cities in the north coast.
• The current story is kind of 1900-2000 (but without human gender roles or the prohibition, and LGBTQA people being treated as equals) condensed into about fifty years because of the above-mentioned simplifications and because i wanted the events to fit in the main character's lifetime.
• This world has communism and fascism but communism was invented after fascism. The politics of the world are basically the same as what humans have.
• The setting ended up becoming a matriarchy because; in the beginning mosr characters except a few most of whom were love interests were all male. I stopped and questioned why did i treat the male as the default and the female as the extra. First i tried to funk the way into having the perfect 50/50 gender split, but then i thought "this is stupid" and nust flipped everybody's genders which resulted in all the characters in positions of power becoming female.
• I'm trying to use this pseudo-twenties birdworld setting to prod at the modern political and societal issues.

Edited by Nukeli on Dec 13th 2020 at 1:53:53 PM

There are 3 Dark Ages in my future setting's history. None of them are the actual historical Dark Ages, which are generally referred to as "the Little Dark Age" or "The Dark Age of Europe" in historical reocords.

The first Dark Age was set off by a nuclear conflict that occurred at the tail end of the 21st century.

The Second Dark Age was set off by two major events in the early 26th Century. The first being a massive eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano, which caused crop failures worldwide and basically wiped the United States off the global stage for good.^note by the time the main story takes place in the early 31st century, the closest thing to the United States is a handful of disconnected city-states, and a nuclear conflict that was kicked off by an explicit attempt to wipe out humanity.

The Third Dark Age covered most of the 28th century and consisted of a century long overlap between the reign of the God-Emperor of Antarctica and the rise of the dystopian Humanity Ascendant regime in the north. During this period almost everyone was either living under a totalitarian government headed by a guy who presented himself as a living god or a totalitarian government that so tightly controlled information that simply acknowledging the existence of the other totalitarian government could get you disappeared.

While a few city-states and various groups were fully independent for at least part of the 3rd Dark Age, the only major group of people to never be ruled by either were the Atlantic Nomads (aka the Breakers of R'lyeh). Which has since become a major source of cultural pride for them.

Fur Against Fang is uncommon in my stories because vampires and werewolves both have greater enmities with other species.

Both vampires and werewolves have to beware of unicorns and their poisonous blood. Unicorns are highly territorial and do not take it well when their forests are used as hunting grounds, they will not hesitate to kick, trample, impale, cast spells, or engage in biological warfare (e.g. growing garlic and wolfsbane all over the place or plotting a Deliberate Injury Gambit). But at least unicorns will begrudgingly leave alone vampires and werewolves who do not set foot on their territory.

Werewolves have to beware of pegasi, who unlike unicorns, do not have any territorial boundaries past which they'll stop attacking predators. The pegasi sympathize with their flightless equine brethren, mundane or otherwise, and don't like being woken up in the night by howls. Even if a pack of werewolves who run into a flock of pegasi are lucky enough to escape immediate Goomba Stomp retaliation, pegasi are persistent enough to keep chasing, hold grudges, and plot ambushes for later.

Vampires have to beware of dragons. Dragon blood is a Fantastic Drug to vampires, at first giving them feelings of cozy warmth and drowsy contentment, but then hitting them with the withdrawal symptoms of aches, insomnia and pseudo-hypothermia. Dragons find it very amusing to get vampires addicted and then force them into slavery by dangling the promise of "just one more taste" in front of them and letting desperation and withdrawal symptoms do the rest.

My worldbuilding started with the idea that there are four races differentiated by what liquid they survive off of: Humans/Lumabreith live off water (but have extensively adapted to solid food), Vampires/Pharnabreith live off blood (and are not dead), Pixies/Velibreith survive on nectar, and Wood Elves/Tolebreith live off of tree sap. There MIGHT be a legendary race that drinks lava.

Also ghosts are magenta because Overly Sarcastic Productions ruined The Colour Out of Space for me.

There exists a sailing ship made of a crew of undead, ghosts, ghouls, zombies, you name it. They roam the seas looking for capsized sailors, abandoned crews, or poor unfortunate victims, and pull them on board once they have found them. All to then ask these poor souls where they are from and sail them home to their fellows and loved ones.

The crew of this ship are all made of Lost Souls who wished they had somebody to come save them in their darkest moments facing the abyss. The Crew are made of sailors from all across the world united in this purpose, to save those not ready to die, they don't want to see anyone meet the same watery fate as they did.

You can't save everyone however, and sometimes they get there to late. The Dead are then given a chance to join them to hopefully prevent it from happening again, or to move on to the next life. The ship becomes a little larger every time a new person joins, eventually it will become too large and split into two ships.

The crew has no delusions, they are aware that they may be doing this for as long as the seas exists but in their eyes they see it as a worthy cause.

The first intelligent alien species humanity made contact with in this universe can regenerate lost limbs, so they consider eating their own or each other’s arms a normal, reasonable, everyday thing between friends or family.

Kykvelsha radio serials often feature characters from neighboring Qorisa. There's even a few stereotypical stock Qorisayane characters, ones that flatter the Qorisayane's self-perceptions.

If the Kykvelsha hero is squeaky-clean, the team's Qorisayane representative will be a snarky Knight in Sour Armor. If the Kykvelsha hero is a cunning Anti-Hero, the Qorisayane will be an honorable Warrior Poet instead.

Despite the differences, each archetype appeals to the Qorisayane for the same reason: the Qorisayane understanding of the virtue of ketali, loosely translated as "pragmatism". The Qorisayane believe too much of a virtue can be a vice. If the hero lacks ketali, the Qorisayane see fit to instill it. If he has too much, it seems sensible to the Qorisayane to dampen it with a sense of honor. Not that (most) Kykvelsha serial writers really understand this with that much nuance; they've just noticed that team members that somehow "balance" the team seem to do well in translations into Qorisayane.

Edited by KillerClowns on Feb 8th 2021 at 8:20:16 AM

Imperial historians debate whether the 22 Years Crisis that followed the fall of the Eldira Dynasty should include the last two years of the Eldira Dynasty considering that's when regicide became popular. In addition to making it the 24 Years Crisis, it would also mean the average reign of a monarch at the time would go down from 2 years to 1.3 years.

In prehistory, an alien corporation came to Earth and produced a PMC army from early humanity (or hominids at least). Genetic modification during this time is believed to be the source of human superpowers in the present day. Despite the army eventually overthrowing the corporation, the society of the Human Subspecies descended from them remains extremely militaristic, if fractured. They’re also still heavily into cloning, eugenics, super soldier experimentation, etc. Earth hasn’t made formal interstellar contact yet, but humanity still has a strong presence in the wider universe because of all this.

I think I said this before but I do Dark Green is the new black because I wanted malachite to be assisted with Casting a Shadow.

As a side effect, I made Poisonous Person a side Appalachian of dark and Hollywood Acid a Green Thumb thing even if it should be the other way around.

Edited by Shyhero on Feb 16th 2021 at 2:01:35 PM

When humanity fled its dying world, they drifted to find their new home. Along the way they met with a race of humanoids in crystaline ships called the Deskari, they discussed with the diplomat core to talk about what humanity had suffered through. They proceeded to lecture about the mistakes humanity made and how primitive it is and how unready they are for the galaxy...

However!

Humanity later met with numerous other races who not only sympathized with what humanity had went through, but outright offered to help in trade deals, turns out the Deskari are just jackasses who nobody likes! Their condescending attitude, lecturing nature, and belief that they are a superior people has done nothing but hinder and hurt them in trade relations, apparently having poor public relations due to their smug self righteous views.

Not all of the Deskari are like this, many are in fact decent folk with entire colony worlds who hold good trade relations. The Empire has been splintered in the last few generations and the Deskari don't hold as much power as they once did.

Edited by DivineFlame100 on Jul 10th 2021 at 6:41:50 AM

Advents are Uploads who have shed the notion of flesh and embraced a synthetic lifestyle. The bodies are designed to replicate many human functions to keep a level of sanity going for the sudden change. The sudden loss of all feeling would be like dropping somebody into an isolation chamber.

Becoming an Advent isn't an easy process as there are screenings you must undergo, with many Advents only being approved due to extenuating circumstances such as terminal illness. You'd be surprised how many Advents will admit that their old flesh body was dying before they got approved to undergo the upload procedure.

This screening process is because it is a one way street, with you essentially leaving your old flesh body behind forever, the upload process isn't a simple copy paste and for safety reasons it is limited.

Advents take adjustment time, some however pick up the changes instantly. Many report difficulty adjusting to their newfound strength, the more advanced senses that come with their robotic forms, the feeling of their power source instead of a beating heart and lungs, and a few crises of identity as they ponder if they are still the old them (They are).

Many Advents to help themselves adjust to the major change opt into taking a new name, it's purely psychological as to why they do that but with immortality to look forward to. So a new name for a new body, a new life.

Some Advents opt to upgrade their forms or even their brains to allow them to do many things their old bodies couldn't do, such as leap to new bodies in case of an accident, or perhaps greater strength than their base form had.

• In The Nightling, my superhero universe, it's impossible for a person to have more than one power (plus Required Secondary Powers. Maybe).

• Everybody on earth has superpower genes, but only around half have active powers (it's stated in-universe that the actual percentage propably goes over 50, because the people in isolated areas, developing countries, and places like North Korea and Donavia are going unaccounted for.

• Powers are hereditary and do not "mix"; a child will have either parent's power, not some kind of a blend. You can also be simply powerless or have a grandparent's power.

• Monsieur Mangetout was generally counted as Powered, though the source of his ability was unclear because nobody in his family had anything similiar.

• History doesn't change much because most people's powers are weird, weak, or useless (secreting paint-like substance from fingers, seeing magnetic fields like a fox or a bird, glowing in the dark, diving in and out of shadows but being unable to do literally anything else, etc).

• Myth and legend tell about powered people committing such feats as causing volcanic eruptions, raising gigantic tsunamis, and distrupting earth's magntic field with electric powers, but they're often taken for exaggeration. There do exist people with comicbook-superhero-style power levels or otherwise directly dangerous abilities, but most of them are normal people who want normal lives, like a secondary protagonist's father who's required by law to wear a long-nonorganic glove on his left arm to keep his always-on one-handed Make Them Rot power from harming people and property, and is happy that his son didn't inherit it.

• Geneva Conventions have rules about Powered people in warfare, but they're not completely banned due to the how large chunk of the world population has some kind of a power. The rules mostly concern the use of highly powerful or classified-actively-dangerous people.

• Humans have had Powers since before the rise of civilization, and they've always been seen as natural human traits, though explanations for their existence have varied. It has also been argued about whether religious figures and gods were just exceptionally strong Powered humans.

• There have been groups of non-powerless people (often religious ones) claiming that having Powers makes powered people inhuman, and there has also been groups of Powered people saying that having Powers is what makes humans human, meaning that the powerless are subhuman^note  Neo-nazis are also consistently fighting between powerless supremacists and powered supremacists which is once a plot point, while the original nazis also killed white people with weak or "useless" powers and tried to breed the whole "aryan" population into having Powers, they didn't try to kill off the powerless "aryans".

• The vatican's official position is that Jesus did not have Powers. There also are old laws saying that using Powers to walk on water is blasphemous. Whether religious figures were divine or just Powered is a hot-button debate.

• There are similiar debates about historical figures like Hitler and Dordevic possibly having Compelling Voice or similiar manipulative powers. Proof doesn't exactly exist, and many people justifiably think that kind of talk is shiftingthe blame away from the people who followed these dictators and obeyed their orders. Dordevic is a modern-day dictator^note  Showed up during the yugoslav Wars, gathered a force of 250 exceptionally strong Powered and promised people protection from the real-life factions in exchange for serving her, and eventually ended up with a smallish chunk of land near southern Hungary and turned it into europe's (is that still europe?) North Korea. and is shown to have no powers whatsoever, while nobody knows about hitler since he obviously has been dead for over 70 years and people who would've been in position to notice have always made contradictory statements either way.

Edited by Nukeli on Sep 27th 2022 at 6:29:09 PM

Demon Classifications

Identifying a demon is less a case of genus as all demons are natural shapeshifters, any one could easily change shape. Being creatures of what appears to be solid thaumatic force the designation of such beings seems to be more a fluid caste of sorts, many minor demons can ascend to higher ranks. Demonic researchers have provided help in identifying how the caste system works, noting that the designation is based upon the individual power of one’s soul.

Some demons work for higher castes in exchange for power and status, essentially acting as a symbiote as they provide services as they gain power.

Barring cases such as Legions and Destroyers, the list is mostly accurate to how this works.

TIER-I: The lowest tier of demon, many start off here when first forming

• Imp
• Husk
• Vermin

TIER-II: The first advancement towards higher ranking

• Soldier
• Squire
• Initiate
• Seeker

TIER-III

• Fiend
• Knight
• Warrior
• Flayer
• Immortal
• Mage

TIER-IV: A mid tier, many human souls are equivalent to this level

• Familiar
• Stalker
• Cerberus
• Caster
• Bandit
• Wretch
• Spectre

TIER-V

• Succubus/Incubus/Encubus
• Puppet-master
• Webmaster
• Fateweaver
• Arachna
• Mindflayer
• Revenant

TIER-VI

• Wizard/Sorcerer/Archmage
• Gladiator
• Devil
• Leviathan
• Archvile
• Baron

TIER-VII: Just below the highest tier

• Marauder
• Champion
• Lord
• Master
• Tyrant
• Dread Knight

TIER-VIII: The highest point, only two roles for this reason, you are either a commander of an entire empire, or you are casting magic like nobody's business.

• Archdevil
• King

Edited by EchoingSilence on Aug 13th 2021 at 8:18:13 AM

One of my creative works has a wild predator-like entity who hunts by Ret-Gone-ing itself so that the prey never knows it exists at all, then popping back into existence near the prey to pounce on it.

They're capable of being tamed and kept as pets, although doing so is extremely frustrating because a good bit of the time the owner will never remember having one as a pet at all.

Edited by ironcommando on Sep 18th 2021 at 1:35:10 AM

Every now and again, some random person will create a highly expansionist country called "The Ascendancy of <X>" or "The Unifying Captaincy of <X>", or "The Overlordship of <X>" or something similarly grandiose, and nearly succeed at taking over the world, (usually through a series of rapid invasions, though other methods have been seen) before abruptly failing out of seemingly nowhere, and their countries disintegrating behind them. No one knows how (or why) this keeps happening, but nonetheless, other countries have figured out ways to not collapse despite being occasionally invaded and annexed for a few years at a time.

Mareqara thanas, mareqara valex.

A cup full of silk, a cup full of gold.

Qorisayane philosophy and art are fascinated by concepts of balance, often leading to foreigners assuming they are Stupid Neutral. Nothing could be further from the truth; introduce a Qorisayane to the idea of the Balance Between Good and Evil, and they will repeat the above phrase.

The general meaning is an admonishment that "balance" can mean many things; a cup filled with silk and a cup filled with of gold, for instance, may have the same volume, but obviously not the same mass. Likewise, while the Qorisayane believe that virtues are found on the point of balance between vices of deficiency and vices of excess; e.g., the place between being a hoarding miser and being a hedonistic wastrel isn't necessarily the exact middle of the two.

Indeed, any two Qorisayane are likely to disagree on where that point of balance is. To use the above example, someone like Malo ul'Valmoth, a member of Qorisa's newly rising bourgeois, is going to argue that the place of virtue is spending money carefully and wisely. Not letting it languish in a vault, certainly, but only taking it out with good reason and an investor's eye. Even when donating to a charitable cause, as she often does, she treats it as an investment in the public good and expects clear evidence of results that satisfy her expectations. Meanwhile, the firebrand Mayane vash'Soqaxil respects that people have a right to earn a good living from their wits and work, but the sheer amount of wealth a woman like Malo has accumulated is suspicious in of itself, especially given how much of it comes from the jewelry factories she owns rather than her own personal craft. Neither woman can fairly be called evil, and both believe they are acting towards the balance between greed and profligacy, but their disagreements are very real.

Edited by KillerClowns on Oct 7th 2021 at 8:54:10 AM

Because of the widespread beliefs of Christianity, most Vampires find red wine, especially communion wine, to be a suitable substitute for blood.

In my modern day superhero story concept, The Nightling, the system for numbering alternate universe is based on Marvel Comic's and DC Comics' numbering system. As in, the characters in-universe knew of the comics, and decided to go with a similiar system in "real life". They assign their own universe "U01" ("U" = "universe"), and then number the other universes in ascending order as they're encountered.

for my Universe, Worldbuilder Multi-Omniverse is a Multiverse that focuses on all aspects of Speculative Fiction from aliens, Transformation, Time Travel, etc but it furthered the divide Project Isekai is inspired by various Isekai Fiction both Pre & Post Sword Art Online where worldbuilding is the main focus. Magic systems are based on Concepts of both Natural, Supernatural & man-made. The setting is similar to Generic Isekai but MC will not kill the God or Demon but explore the world from west to east & vice versa. People from another world which is now Otherworld Travelers is the most valuable human resource and there are so many lifeforms both Flora, Fauna, Sapient Species,Alien, and Monster

Edited by ohmmy on Sep 24th 2022 at 12:43:37 AM

Elves were the second race to develop magic (the first were dragons), but they never developed what we'd call "civilization." The world was so clement for them with their natural powers (aside from dangerous magical beasts, which were often fought with hunting parties) that they never needed states, bureaucracies or authority figures. Instead, depending on preference and group, they lived in settled communities or groups of nomadic gatherers, both dedicated to art, song and leisure, and were connected by a sort of society of elder elves who had left their own communities, the Wanderers. (To this day, an elf calling a person "Wanderer" is paying them a very sincere compliment.)

To humans and beastkin, they taught the secrets of magic, ironwork, and agriculture, but magic never came as naturally to these races, and the world wasn't nearly as kind to them. Humans adapted by settling down in larger communities and employing more intensive agriculture, which led to the first cities, kings, and dedicated master magicians.

Most Size Shifting, Shapeshifting and Healing Factor superheroes in my setting do so through the unconscious use of mysterious particles. The lead, a Badass Native Rubber Woman and Science Heroine who uses such particles, tries her best to study them so that the knowledge could be used to help mankind, because they manage to break the rules of physics.

Reed Richards Is Useless is averted. We see the setting mutate because of such inventions into a mix of Cyberpunk and Raygun Gothic, depending of the mood of the story. Among such inventions include a water filter that neutralizes harmful chemicals and bacteria.

Edited by thebigguy270 on Sep 25th 2022 at 11:01:13 AM