Random fantasy & stuff discussion

[drakensji]

We were getting too long in our discussion in a comment section, so i made this thread to spare the poor website of loading the hundreds of our comments under the chapter (unlimited power - the arcane path ch 6 for those curious)

@SolerFox
@Rezkin_kdt

 

[drakensji]

The first book of the epic trilogy of fantasy worldbuilding discussion is in the comment section of Unlimited Power, now lets try to continue book 2

 

[SolerFox]

every new story needs a good hook, how about we start with how a hero is seen. a hero is seen as a hero to their specific kingdom, to the opposing side, he/she will be seen as a 'demon king' and vice versa. if you think about it, a hero is a person who usually commits genocide in the name of his/her king and/or god/goddess. using the flesh of his/her enemies as weapons to help him/her in their cause.
though this side of things is not usually stated, but as the saying goes 'history is written by the victors.'
when you think about it when the king or queen summons the hero it is usually to fight in a war of sorts.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

Just a random scribbler here. O.o Why do read this story btw? The ratings seem terrible and the reviews far from encouraging.

To get 3,9 as rating on scribble you have to do quite a lot. So what fascinates you so much about arcane to open up 100 comment discussions?

 

[SolerFox]

are you talking about the story where we posted in the comment section? if you are then it was just a story to read.
if you are talking about the comment section itself, then the only thing I can say is to read it yourself if you want.

 

[drakensji]

every new story needs a good hook, how about we start with how a hero is seen. a hero is seen as a hero to their specific kingdom, to the opposing side, he/she will be seen as a 'demon king' and vice versa. if you think about it, a hero is a person who usually commits genocide in the name of his/her king and/or god/goddess. using the flesh of his/her enemies as weapons to help him/her in their cause.
though this side of things is not usually stated, but as the saying goes 'history is written by the victors.'
when you think about it when the king or queen summons the hero it is usually to fight in a war of sorts.

This is usually resolved because most of the first isekai/hero stories had a clear black and white distinction of the good guys and the bad guys. The demon king was the worst evil monster by nature, and the hero was the epitome of goodness. Of course people got tired of this trope and wrote various variations.
One of my favorites was a story about a boy who reincarnated into a fantasy world and got trained by a whole mountain of ghosts of past legendary heroes. But after the events of these heroes (and because of one of the ghosts in particular) each country will have their own "hero" and calls the heroes of other countries "demon kings". At that point demon king simply became the term for OP people, regardless of their nature, and they all get hunted down by the armies of various countries. The mc meets these fleeing demon lords and decides to form a group to protect them and he automatically becomes the leader because he is just ridiculously over powered compared to the others. There weren't many chapters so not much else i can say about this.

Lots of other novels have recently gone down the "bad summoning" route, in various ways. Either the king and summoners want to manipulate the summoned being(s) to their advantage in nefarious ways (mind control, slave items, misinformation), or there are multiple summoned beings and the mc gets discarded for some reason or another and wants revenge.

Heroes are just so overused that everyone is tired of them, and wants to beat on them or make fun of them. Similar to the "prince on a white horse". Now most princes are arrogant, stupid, annoying and generally antagonistic to the mc (usually a fl).

It seems the fate of any good trope is to be overused to the point of being hated and turned on its head

 

[SolerFox]

from one perspective it would make sense for the ruling body to get rid of the summoned hero. the reason would be to get rid of a potential threat to his/her kingdom, usually in the form of a civil war. when you think about it a hero usually goes from place to place to help out, since this is the case the hero usually doesn't see the full state of the kingdom he/she is in. the hero in question usually only see a fraction of it or at least sees what the king/queen wants them to see. so when the war is finally over and the hero see the corruption of the kingdom, well you can tell what would happen then.

a good reason why the king/queen to be paranoid by the hero is that the hero took their word as truth without question and commits genocide without being affected by it. a person who does that is dangerous no matter how you put it, not to mention he/she has the power to back it up.

you can take into consideration that the hero usually doesn't help/talk to the demon race to see their perspective of things. there is usually a better way to end the fighting without the destruction of one side in a fantasy world, especially one with a system. from this, you can say that the hero would be likened to a mindless killing machine that if asked by somebody that he/she would listen to would commit genocide again.

 

[drakensji]

I always loved tieflings and demonic like races. Though i dont like evil, i like fake evil, or when evil looking people are actually good. Its so funntly, heartwarming.
It also reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, from Paathurnax, "what is better? To be born good? Or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"

I always love irony of good demons

 

[drakensji]

from one perspective it would make sense for the ruling body to get rid of the summoned hero. the reason would be to get rid of a potential threat to his/her kingdom, usually in the form of a civil war. when you think about it a hero usually goes from place to place to help out, since this is the case the hero usually doesn't see the full state of the kingdom he/she is in. the hero in question usually only see a fraction of it or at least sees what the king/queen wants them to see. so when the war is finally over and the hero see the corruption of the kingdom, well you can tell what would happen then.

a good reason why the king/queen to be paranoid by the hero is that the hero took their word as truth without question and commits genocide without being affected by it. a person who does that is dangerous no matter how you put it, not to mention he/she has the power to back it up.

you can take into consideration that the hero usually doesn't help/talk to the demon race to see their perspective of things. there is usually a better way to end the fighting without the destruction of one side in a fantasy world, especially one with a system. from this, you can say that the hero would be likened to a mindless killing machine that if asked by somebody that he/she would listen to would commit genocide again.

In trees of Aeon this seems to be an important issue. Heroes are sort of mind controlled to defeat the demon lord, but afterwards they cause a lot of problems. And i get the feeling the heroes are purposefully balanced to be at similar strength to the demon lord so that they kill eachother.
The locals pretty much hope for this because the alternative is to have a weapon of mass destruction walking around doing whatever it wants

 

[jokei]

how do you guys make it show your storyes under your posts? @Assurbanipal_II

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

how do you guys make it show your storyes under your posts? @Assurbanipal_II

Profile - signature.

 

[SolerFox]

if anyone hasn't read the trees of Aeon yet then this post may contain spoilers.

in the story of Aeon, the gods seem to interfere/ control the heroes to kill every demon they come across. the gods make leveling up easier when they fight when the demon king is alive. since they do this it would make the gods try to end things as soon as possible, not only to minimize the damage but to stop helping the heroes from advancing in level in their hero class. levels in this book seem to be different compared to others. the proof of this is when Aeon hit a certain level he got a domain, it seems the higher your level the more godlike you become. since this is the case, it would make sense for the gods to make the heroes and the demon king not reach this level. this is further proven later in the story when the demon king has been defeated, the heroes lose their blessing and basically stop leveling in the hero class. so in conclusion the gods/goddess seems to not want to help, they seem to be forced to help out somehow and they want the resources they spent on the heroes back. you can see this after they beat the demon king, the heroes can trade the levels of their hero class to level other classes.

 

[drakensji]

if anyone hasn't read the trees of Aeon yet then this post may contain spoilers.

in the story of Aeon, the gods seem to interfere/ control the heroes to kill every demon they come across. the gods make leveling up easier when they fight when the demon king is alive. since they do this it would make the gods try to end things as soon as possible, not only to minimize the damage but to stop helping the heroes from advancing in level in their hero class. levels in this book seem to be different compared to others. the proof of this is when Aeon hit a certain level he got a domain, it seems the higher your level the more godlike you become. since this is the case, it would make sense for the gods to make the heroes and the demon king not reach this level. this is further proven later in the story when the demon king has been defeated, the heroes lose their blessing and basically stop leveling in the hero class. so in conclusion the gods/goddess seems to not want to help, they seem to be forced to help out somehow and they want the resources they spent on the heroes back. you can see this after they beat the demon king, the heroes can trade the levels of their hero class to level other classes.

I get the impression gods are playing a game. They don't seem to seriously want to defeat the demon lords but seem to want entertainment in the form of epic battles. Its like the gods are playing a strategy game with the heroes as the units of one side and the demons as the units of the other side.
Though recent chapters seem to indicate that the demons are controlled and struggling for their homeworld

 

[SolerFox]

since it takes 10 years for each demon king to be summoned, just as long as the previous demon king is killed, it seems like there is some kind of ritual going on. it seems like either 1.) like you said 'the gods are looking for some entertainment', 2.) the demons have something that the world needs, 3.) it is a natural event, and/or 4.) that the demons are forcing their way to the world where Aeon is.

1.) gods are immortal, depending on their domain/law/nature/personality can determine their goal. in some stories, since gods are so long-lived they will constantly lack entertainment. for some of the gods, this would lead to temporary madness, but for someone so long-lived temporary madness may seem permanent.
2.) in some stories, the demons are the source of mana. to me, this is poor plot development. the reason why is that the world can never have peace and that the humans of that world will more than likely destroy themselves.
3.) in the least likely event this can happen, but since the gods can't prevent it then this is very unlikely.
4.) from what we can see their world lack a lot of resources, but from what we can gather from their world and mana they are able to live in their world. they are more than likely being pulled in to the other world by some unseen force, the force being more than likely divine or worldly in nature.

 

[drakensji]

since it takes 10 years for each demon king to be summoned, just as long as the previous demon king is killed, it seems like there is some kind of ritual going on. it seems like either 1.) like you said 'the gods are looking for some entertainment', 2.) the demons have something that the world needs, 3.) it is a natural event, and/or 4.) that the demons are forcing their way to the world where Aeon is.

1.) gods are immortal, depending on their domain/law/nature/personality can determine their goal. in some stories, since gods are so long-lived they will constantly lack entertainment. for some of the gods, this would lead to temporary madness, but for someone so long-lived temporary madness may seem permanent.
2.) in some stories, the demons are the source of mana. to me, this is poor plot development. the reason why is that the world can never have peace and that the humans of that world will more than likely destroy themselves.
3.) in the least likely event this can happen, but since the gods can't prevent it then this is very unlikely.
4.) from what we can see their world lack a lot of resources, but from what we can gather from their world and mana they are able to live in their world. they are more than likely being pulled in to the other world by some unseen force, the force being more than likely divine or worldly in nature.

I doubt the demons are a source of mana in this case. They are described as burning empty souls, they probably can't use magic the same as the locals but maybe something similar.
I also doubt that the gods "went mad", temporarily or not. I think it is either their nature or they became too bored to care.

The demons seem to be in a shitty situation. I think they are forced to invade either due to being corrupted by a higher power, or it is neccessary for their homeworld. It certainly doesn't seem to bring any gain for the invading demons.

 

[SolerFox]

one of the reasons the mc id so powerful is the fact that he/she doesn't have common sense. as I said about magic systems before, a part of magic would be belief/faith. since with the common sense of the fantasy world, the residents of that world would be a lot less curious about magic with their own belief. their belief usually being that they can't do it, only nobility/royalty can do it, or it would require them to go to a magic academy. for the mc this is not the case, their belief would be to experiment to see what is possible with the belief that there is no reason for them to not be able to do that. this can be further found when they learn spells, for a regular person they would just learn the spell and believe that is that, for the mc, he/she would experiment to see what the limits are and to see if he/she can modify it. of course, this isn't always true, but for the people who this doesn't apply are usually magic enthusiasts.

 

[SolerFox]

when there is a kingdom or any form of civilization in fantasy stories, it is usually overlooked or given a half-hearted explanation of it ex: it's magic. I know it would be a bit of research on the writer's part, but on the other hand they don't truly have to do that. the author could use something that the villages, cities, kingdoms, the capital, etc. can trade with each other. using this and what each race need to survive you could make a layout of the trade of the kingdoms, both outside and inside, throughout the year and during hard times. just by using what would be the major export that would be in a reasonable area would make for easer world-building.

cities/villages don't just pop out of nowhere, there is always a reason. the reason could be a good farming area, being a good place for sea-trade, a defensible area, a good mining area, lumbar, and since this is a fantasy world dungeons. those are the main reasons why a village that would lead to being into a city would be. another crucial point would be a place near drinkable water. just because it is a fantasy world that doesn't decrease the critical need for water.

the minor thing that a village/city can transport would be after they set up. this is usually in the form of a trade/profession a person has. this can be hunting, clothes, weapons, etc.. another thing that could be c

after you have the potential trade set up, then you have to put the trade routs down, and which one the trader would more than likely go down. a trader would go down the path that takes the shortest point while being the safest. another thing you might want to consider is the history of your kingdom. by this I mean where did the kingdom originate, why did the kingdom come to be, did the capital relocate, did they offend any other kingdom or it's equivalent. the reason why is that this would show in the story. if the capital relocated then the capital would look new and somewhere in that kingdom would be relatively good roads that people would travel one. think of it as revenants of the past.

just by taking care of the needs of the people and taking advantage of the fantasy genre, ex: making new crops, you can have a feasible kingdom.

(finally figured out what was wrong, I usually do this in dark mode. since it was in light mode I was experiencing a weird form of writer's block. now that I found where to turn this to dark mode the quality of my content will increase.)

 

[drakensji]

one of the reasons the mc id so powerful is the fact that he/she doesn't have common sense. as I said about magic systems before, a part of magic would be belief/faith. since with the common sense of the fantasy world, the residents of that world would be a lot less curious about magic with their own belief. their belief usually being that they can't do it, only nobility/royalty can do it, or it would require them to go to a magic academy. for the mc this is not the case, their belief would be to experiment to see what is possible with the belief that there is no reason for them to not be able to do that. this can be further found when they learn spells, for a regular person they would just learn the spell and believe that is that, for the mc, he/she would experiment to see what the limits are and to see if he/she can modify it. of course, this isn't always true, but for the people who this doesn't apply are usually magic enthusiasts.

Usually isekai mc's have the advantages of scientific knowledge as well as anime ans and other fantasy stories as inspiration to make new magic and technology.
If the magic system relies on imagination than isekai protags have a large advantage. If the magic instead follows its own original rules, than in theory the mc should have as much trouble as a local learning magic, and can only rely on their own talent or god given abilities.
This is why i now prefer fantasy stories without isekai (at least from our world). Cause it makes for protagonists with more ties to the world, more effort into their skills, and just generally more original after so many stories with jap isekai protagonists.

 

[drakensji]

when there is a kingdom or any form of civilization in fantasy stories, it is usually overlooked or given a half-hearted explanation of it ex: it's magic. I know it would be a bit of research on the writer's part, but on the other hand they don't truly have to do that. the author could use something that the villages, cities, kingdoms, the capital, etc. can trade with each other. using this and what each race need to survive you could make a layout of the trade of the kingdoms, both outside and inside, throughout the year and during hard times. just by using what would be the major export that would be in a reasonable area would make for easer world-building.

cities/villages don't just pop out of nowhere, there is always a reason. the reason could be a good farming area, being a good place for sea-trade, a defensible area, a good mining area, lumbar, and since this is a fantasy world dungeons. those are the main reasons why a village that would lead to being into a city would be. another crucial point would be a place near drinkable water. just because it is a fantasy world that doesn't decrease the critical need for water.

the minor thing that a village/city can transport would be after they set up. this is usually in the form of a trade/profession a person has. this can be hunting, clothes, weapons, etc.. another thing that could be c

after you have the potential trade set up, then you have to put the trade routs down, and which one the trader would more than likely go down. a trader would go down the path that takes the shortest point while being the safest. another thing you might want to consider is the history of your kingdom. by this I mean where did the kingdom originate, why did the kingdom come to be, did the capital relocate, did they offend any other kingdom or it's equivalent. the reason why is that this would show in the story. if the capital relocated then the capital would look new and somewhere in that kingdom would be relatively good roads that people would travel one. think of it as revenants of the past.

just by taking care of the needs of the people and taking advantage of the fantasy genre, ex: making new crops, you can have a feasible kingdom.

(finally figured out what was wrong, I usually do this in dark mode. since it was in light mode I was experiencing a weird form of writer's block. now that I found where to turn this to dark mode the quality of my content will increase.)

Worldbuilding is fun but hard. There are so many things that requires research or study that are a pain to look for. But building a world from scratch and doing it well is immensely satisfying.
I see a few worldbuilding tips on the internet and some said similar things, like think about basic neccesities, water, food, sewage, etc.
Magic can change a lot of things depending on how widespread and versatile it is.
Slimes could make for perfect cleaning agents. Disease might be a minor inconvenience thanks to gods blessing (think skyrim).
Maybe teleportation is a relatively common form of transportation? Greatly reducing the distance between certain cities or locations.
Also the presence of monsters would generally restrict all forms of expansion or travel, but it could also mean that the average population are all skilled in combat to some degree. Making armies easy to draft.

Something i find really annoying in a lot of novels, is that "the border town constantly facing immense dangers is full of boonies and ignorant weaklings, while all the strong people live in the capital".
Whyyyy?? In a place full of danger, combat experts are born. While in a well structered location like the capital, intruige and plots might make it comparibly dangerous, but you wouldn't grow as a fighter.
I always hate when the mc meets "people from the capital" who are ohh sO pOweRfUl compared to the people who live constantly fighting for their lives and improving.
Wealth might concentrate in the capital but skilled/powerful people not so much.

 

[Saileri]

Something i find really annoying in a lot of novels, is that "the border town constantly facing immense dangers is full of boonies and ignorant weaklings, while all the strong people live in the capital".
Whyyyy?? In a place full of danger, combat experts are born. While in a well structered location like the capital, intruige and plots might make it comparibly dangerous, but you wouldn't grow as a fighter.

Same reason people move out from rural to city. Better perspectives, more money around, higher chances for better-paid jobs, gaining contacts, etc. It's not that illogical. Yes, they might have been "born" in the dangerous area, but they might have moved to the low-risk city with their experience and skills to have an easier time. Not all adventurers have to be battle junkies who risk their lives for fame and skill, a lot actually are doing it just for money, kinda like mercenaries. And I wouldn't say they wouldn't grow as a fighter. School, mentors, masters, etc., exist. Same principle as with real-world schools.

But all that depends on the world's setting and general principles about adventuring. Don't go assuming that someone living in a less dangerous area is actually lazily sitting on their ass. There are a lot of variables and how they are portrayed will depend on the author.