About time I started one of these otherwise “I should start a worldbuilding thread” would be my epitaph.
Anyways, so far I got:
It’s kinda late for me so I’m not posting anything yet, maybe tomorrow I can dump one of the two properly fleshed out magic systems.
Finally, another worldbuilding thread
Sol stopped updating his, so I must go to this one
The Republic, after it was officially re-established following the period of Tyranny, soon found itself in dire trouble. The funds were drained and war reparations were costly. Alongside that, there was a shortage of equipment, food and other resources. Even after the collapse of Catilin’s regime, there were many companies of deserters from his army who continued to wreak havoc.
In this situation, the Republic found itself in a war with nearby kingdoms who wished to exploit its weakened state. Especially dire was the war in the northwest of the Republic. A small coalition of 3 countries formed, the leader of which directly bordered the Republic at a passage between two mountain ranges. Around this passage were scattered many estates, forts and outposts belonging to both sides.
Due to the Republic having to lead multiple wars, the lords[2] in the northwest were forced to organize their own defenses. Due to repeated strategical shortcomings and internal quarrels, however, these defenses were often unsatisfactory. After 5 years of the war, the lords started becoming desperate, turning to any means to gather resources necessary to reinforce their positions, construct tools of war and equip their armies. Thus, the first Robber companies were made: lords would assign their most trusted captains a small group of well-equipped and well-trained soldiers and send them straight into the enemy terriroty. The companies would then operate as bandits, picking the easy fights, taking everything they can and destroying whatever they had to leave behind. Companies would remain behind enemy lines for months at a time and return with piles of loot, leaving behind a barren, ravaged land.
This strategy, initially, was quite successful to continue the war, and the lords managed to take over several fortifications behind the enemy lines. However, after 4 years, the opposing kingdom itself became desperate. Realizing there wasn’t much option, its ruler would send large armies to stomp over the conquered land and penetrate into the enemy territory. For several months, the Republic’s lords managed to withstand the enemy charges quite well. However, the destructive strategies started taking their toll.
Entering the 14th year of war, the situation was brought largely to a standstill. The fighting was constant, but its effect was never remarkable. Lords from both sides highly impoverished, they started taking raiding groups to pillage enemy estates. However, at this point, even the most bountiful raids procured pitiful amounts of loot. Tons of resources were used up to produce machines machines of war which would end up destroyed in a ditch somewhere after just a couple of raids, or to repair the damages caused by those machines in those couple of raids they managed to complete. Each raid would have to go deeper into the enemy territory, and would be followed up by a raid of vengeance seeking to take back what was stolen, dragging more and more lords into the conflict and poverty.
The war dragged on like this for around 18 more years, though even then, the circumstances begin to get muddy. With the northwestern estates turned desolate, it was around this time that many lords had turned against the Republic, or rather, the other lords within the Republic. Raiding parties would no longer just cross what used to be frontlines of the war; they would go in every direction, robbing allied lords as well as those originally not in the conflict, as the lords made agonizing attempts to renew their ruined estates. In the end, however, this only pushed the poverty line deeper into the Republic.
Around 40 years after the beginning of the war, it is estimated the aggressive kingdom ended up collapsing entirely, being consumed by the scourge of the desperate lords. Its allies severed ties even earlier, hoping the wave of poverty and ruin would not reach them. The Republic also resolved many of its wars and gained enough leeway to turn its attention towards the growing crisis.
After 40 years of war, however, the effect was undeniable. Dozens of estates were devastated, their owners turned into glorified bandit leaders. With the affected territory constantly growing, the Republic chose to redefine its territories into three categories: Safelands, being regions deep within the Republic’s borders which weren’t directly impacted by outer conflicts; Borderlands, a sort of military frontier directly affected by conflicts, but whose lords are still clearly loyal to the Republic and fellow lords; and Wildlands, all regions once formally recognized as part of the Republic but whose estates are now owned by individuals not aligned with the Republic, who carry out raids into the Borderlands. All landowners in the Wildlands were dubbed as Robber Barons and deemed enemies of the Republic.
This separation did scarcely anything to help out the lords in the Borderlands, however. They still found themselves victims of daily raids onto their farmlands, villages, towns, outposts and other properties. Though the Republic entitled them to a consistent amount of reinforcements on a yearly basis, according to their estates, this in reality did little to help. They still largely fought the war against the Robber Barons by themselves, and were losing heavily.
The Robber Baron crisis, thus, has become one of the most prominent crises which befell the Republic. Though it certainly wasn’t responsible alone for the terrible state of things within the Republic itself, which was not mentioned here, it still contributed greatly. With the Republic’s interior looking grim, there were many who thought of the Wildlands as a free realm, one which needs a powerful leader, and that powerful leader would be them. All manner of people set out to the Wildlands: impoverished nobles, disgruntled officers, bandit leaders, rebelling commoners, and many more. Yet, in the end, nearly the same fate befell all; they would die fighting for a half-ruined keep, or would end up subjects of the Robber Barons, or would rarely manage to kill or drive one away and take over their estate, only to end up Robber Barons themselves.
The reality of the Wildlands was ugly. Every person fought for their own survival. Robber Barons quarrelled amongst them, fighting battles with what little resources they managed to gather, or would end up overthrowing one another, and later being overthrown. Occasionally, though, a truly significant Robber Baron would emerge. One who, against all odds, managed to retain power and subject the others. Though many Robber Barons often gained more than one property, and lost them just as often, these Robber Barons would amass territories that could compare with lesser countries.
The rise of these Robber Kings, as the Republic dubbed them, was one of the biggest threats to its existance. Opportunism was the nature of the Wildlands, and while Robber Barons often fought amongst themselves, if they sensed the chance to join a mighty ruler who would protect them and their estates, they would easily bow down to them. A proven Robber King, thus, could quickly gain massive amounts of safe properties, provided they could uphold peace within their own borders; and maintaining peace was one of the biggest treasures of the Wildlands.
A Robber King left unchecked could deceptively quickly pile up on military might as well as stockpiles of resources. As the Republic grew weaker over time, these became a genuine threat, but not just to Republic; even other countries feared the abominations these Kings could create. Should one focus onto waging war, though the country may still win, the victory would come at such a horrible and crippling cost, they would surely be destroyed soon after.
There were 6 such Kings in the Wildlands during the Republic’s downfall, and whenever one was spotted, the Republic would be swift to take military action. Though at all times there were attempts organized by the Republic to take back some of the Wildlands, it always ended up with the Robber Barons simply being replaces. However, the rise of a Robber King would mean existential threat for the Republic, and so the Council would elect only the most exceptional commanders to deal with the threat.
To be continued.
I must now hibernate for a millennia to regain my lost power.
Elemental magic is the name given to all magics which can be wielded through manipulation of elemental energy. Depending on the user’s skill and intention, elemental magics can take different forms. They are separated into four main types: material, energic, antienergic and combined. Each type behaves somewhat differently.
To use elemental magic, the caster needs to have an idea for what they actually want to summon. Thus, it’s only natural that not all areas of the world have same types of magic. While energy magics are nearly universal, beings in different regions will use different kinds of material and combined magics.
Material magics are considered all those magics which manipulate the use of elemental energy to form an imitation of matter, be they solids, liquids, gasses or another state of matter entirely. When a material construct is made of elemental energy, it is important to note that said construct does not exist as actual matter. Their presence is merely an imitation created by elemental magic exerting force on the surroundings, such as pushing against whatever comes into contact with it, or pushing towards the strongest center of gravity to imitate mass.
Another thing that is important to note is, material constructs of elemental energy are unstable. The moment they are created, they immediately start degrading back into inert elemental energy. For this reason, nothing made of elemental energy can last. If the summoner does not focus, this process can be near instantaneous, with enormous boulders or lakes vanishing within seconds. The process of degradation can be slowed down to a degree by focusing, which allows the caster to actually achieve something with the construct, like throwing a rock at a target, but once the caster’s focus weakens, the process speeds up.
It is impossible to completely stop the degradation process, and casters rarely even bother trying to slow it down once the construct outlasts its purpose, as it is exhausting and takes a lot of attention. While it is theoretically possible to, for example, create a statue out of pure elemental energy, the effort to maintain the statue will render the caster practically useless, so people always resort to using actual materials when constructing something made to last.
The speed of degradation doesn’t just depend on the caster’s focus, but also on the so-called “elemental energy vacuum” around the construct. This idea is quite simple. If the construct is in an area which contains a high density of elemental energy, its degradation will be slowed until the energy around it diffuses into surroundings enough. This would in theory allow casters to fully preserve material constructs by coating them with a thick layer of inert elemental energy. However, since said energy is constantly on the move to establish a balance with surroundings, this is inefficient at best, due to the amount of focus required to keep the cloud of elemental energy compact.
Energic magics are quite different from material magics. When casting an energic magic, the caster doesn’t simply command properties into a cloud of elemental energy. Instead, the elemental energy is directly converted into a different type of energy, such as heat, light or electricity. This allows for the summoning of flame, or a light source, or even lightning.
Energic magics are most commonly found across the world, and a common theory states the reason to be that all creatures can easily find the “inspiration”, for the lack of a better word, to cast them. The heat of fire, strike of lightning or the blinding light of sun are ideas understood by nearly all creatures, and as such, many creatures resort to using them to hunt, fight, defend, even find partners.
Antienergic magics are a more obscure type of elemental magic. As the name says, they are by nature the polar opposite of antienergic magics; the caster does not manipulate elemental energy in the traditional way, forcing it to imitate matter or transforming it into other types of energy. Instead, it transforms other types of energy into elemental energy. This allows the caster to create such magics like cold or darkness, draining the area of heat or light by turning it into elemental energy as soon as it reaches it.
This type of magics is much more uncommon in nature, and usually only seen with creatures who reside in environments befitting of their magic, such as icy tundras or dark caves. It is also seemingly more difficult to control for other creatures, like inhabitants of warm or even temperate areas.
What is not entirely clear about energic magics is how the world does not seem to run out of elemental energy while creatures cast them. Less popular theory states that the usage of energic and antienergic magic always amounts to an equilibrium, meaning that an equal amount of elemental energy is transformed into light, heat, electricity and other energies, as is the amount of other energies transformed into elemental energy, the concept of which will be explained here later.
A more popular theory states that other types of energy created through transformation of elemental energy have an innate decay dependant on the ratio between the sum of other types of energy and inert elemental energy. Thus, if vast amounts of elemental energy are transformed into, for instance, heat, greater amounts of heat will be turned back into elemental energy, retaining a balance.
Combined magics aren’t a true standalone type of magic, but are, as name suggests, created through casting multiple different types of magic at once. This is usually a combination of material and energic or antienergic magics, creating elements such as steam or ice, but skilled and creative casters can even merge energic and antienergic types.
For instance, during the Vengeant Crusade of the Dunes, the city of Dardelan, which had been occupied for a long time by then, and which long ago stopped directly taking part in the Dunes’ conflicts, was attacks by several casters using “Darkflame” magic. This was fire magic, an energic type, interwoven with darkness magic, an antienergic magic. The result of darkness antienergy absorbing the fire’s light energy was a near invisible flame. Countless soldiers and citizens alike fell victim to it, as it was impossible to track the fire until it was too late. Cloth, wood and flesh would simply start emitting horrible heat and burn. Unless the victim realized what was going on, they wouldn’t even get a chance to reach water. Buildings were even harder to put out, causing much of the city, its residents and the surroundings to be destroyed by the flame over a period of several days.
While I remain unable to write in here, I am working on this irl. Got a basic idea for one of the races set down, and currently working on numerical systems.
I’m yoinking magic ideas
Most thought out world on this forum
You can try but I’d like to see you balance 8 or so different magic systems
Not to mention, plagiarising ideas isn’t very nice
Also don’t put down the work of others to glorify mine, that’s also not nice
I won’t, it’s personal stories like stuff for fun
I will add what I believe can be added. Each new magic system risks opening new plot holes, especially the softer it is.
True, any ideas for a name for an 18th century king?
I was thinking alfonso but he’s supposed to be german
Ferdinand could be one, or Franz, or Joseph, or Karl
I think I’ll build off Franz, thanks for the ideas!