Let's build a setting around this:

[Eilathen]

Hi and happy new year to all CG members!

I am not sure this is the right subforum for this, but no other subforum seemed better suited (moderation-team, feel free to move this if you think this is the wrong place).

The CG is full of people with a lot of creativity and awesome talent in mapmaking and other stuff. So i really wanted to post this on this forum as well. I hope we can get our creative-juices flowing...i want to harness your talents


So here goes:

Help me build a setting around these lines (see below), and try to keep it in the tone aka don't go too far of the rails (it's not the goal to be as freaky/nuts as possible but instead to build on the vision inherent in these starter-ideas).
P.S.: I don't take credit for those ideas, so i am not trying to protect my ideas or flatter my own ego

You take the oddest bits of the Old Testament, stir in various secondary material from all three Abrahamic religions, and throw in Creationist kookery, and you have one of the weirdest and wooliest sword-and-sorcery settings around
* Sophisticated, but scattered civilizations
* Wildernesses full of every cool prehistoric critter of every era
* Centuries-old patriarchs - drop by the right place, and you can meet the very first man
* Mysterious wandering deities. You can't tell them apart, you can only take them at their word when they say they're your old benefactor. However, while quite powerful, they're less than omniscient.
* The beautiful and awful servants of at least one of those deities
* Giants and other fabulous hybrids of humans and some of those servants
* Strange and wretched once-humans cursed by those deities, who've gained vast power that they often use against humanity

As we have tons of talented mappers on here, i really hope some of you will throw in suggestions for an appropriate world-map.

[Eilathen]

No interest for a bit of worldbuilding at all?! Awww...

Ok, how about this:

At the beginning of Time there were 13 Tribes of man. Each lead by a Patriarch, immortal first men. Many of the names of these Patriarchs are now lost to time. What is known is this: The tribes migrated all over Gaia, some kept the nomadic lifestyle, some settled. In time, 7 huge Cities were raised by seven of the tribes, feats of engineering, helped sometimes by godlings that were drawn to the power of the tribes. ... (more forthcoming? I don't know yet ^^ ).

There are still two Patriarchs that are known by name, at least it is whispered that these are their names:

Liwyāṯān - Name of the Patriarch of the tribe Leviathan, the bigest of all the tribes of man. It is said that he can turn into a colossal monster that can devour entiry cities.

Nebutkar – Patriarch of the Derkesthai tribe. It is said that Nebutkar can kill with a single glance. But he's also attributed with great insight into all things of this world.

[tilt]

great that you want to do some world building - however in addition to this being a mapping page and there is a collaborative world building project here all ready - your informations concern the story of the world but don't mention anything about the geography - what you're saying could take place in any kind of world

[Eilathen]

Hey tilt,

Thanks for posting...at least one post that is not my own

I don't agree, it could not take place in any world...see my first post. There is a very specific set-up, or tone, if you will. This was intended to be a collaborative exercise in building a world from some (i hope) interesting ground-ideas/principles. I think we have a lot of creative people on these forums and i was hoping we could create something truly diverse and interesting.

As to the mapping-part : Well, how would you imagine such a world where the above "stuff" happens in? That is the challenge here...i have no descriptions in geographical terms, true, but i am sure everyone has a picture in his/her head when he/she reads those inspirational-lines. Or that was what i was hoping for. So if you feel like giving a map a try instead of coming up with world-details, that'd be more than awesome

[octopod]

I like this idea! Especially gods you can't tell apart. That's a great touch. Hell, that's enough to build a setting on right there.

What geographical scale do you think we can make this work on? It sounds like a whole continent to me, maybe a bit less than a whole continent, but you definitely want a North African/Near Eastern/Western Asian kind of feel to the biome. Largely arid, desert and plains, but with huge deltas and inland seas and stuff like that.

Would love to help but I may suck at name generation as I don't speak any Semitic languages at all...

[Eilathen]

Thanks for chipping in, octopod!

At least continental-scale, i'd say. I think this is a world setting concept. But the world can, theoretically, look as compact as say, the world of conan's Hyborea. So i guess the lines are not that shaply drawn.
I agree with what you said on climates...but i think it'd be cool if we also had tribes that migrated into a northern hemisphere with all that this includes for cultural development and the fitting myths and stuff. Some fur-clad tribes in snow covered mountains always capture my imagination

As to name generation...i also don't speak semitic languages...but maybe someone else does ...or we just make up something similar sounding. And we have the internet to help us