What's the coolest (clearly fictional) setting you've come up with.

[Naruzeldamaster]

One of my more 'fun' world building concepts is that in one of my stories instead of 'matter' everything is made up of 'data' (as in digital information made into solid matter) and it's actually a valuable part of the economy. In the far reaches of that realm, between the land of mortals and the land of gods is the Sea of Data. It's essentially the internet given physical form, literally an ocean of information that you can travel through. It's not an entirely original idea to be sure, but it's one of my more fun ones. There are rules and laws in place about preventing the abuse of the sea of data (and yes, it is generally frowned upon to swim in it to view cat videos all day, since it's a holy plane) and there's really only one group of Mages that fully grasp it and what it does and how it works for the world they live in. It's also a fun excuse to explain how the characters in a clearly fictional reality know about stuff in our reality, which doesn't come up often but when it does the sea of data is often sited as the source of that information.

 

[pmmg]

Heck, I would have to go back to my gamer days to pull out a strange landscape like that. That would fit right in with cyberpunk. We touched on that a little but it did not stick.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

Heck, I would have to go back to my gamer days to pull out a strange landscape like that. That would fit right in with cyberpunk. We touched on that a little but it did not stick.

I mean, it's more of an ocean but I could see it working with a cyberpunk story too.
This story is more fantasy fiction but instead of matter everything breaks down into data. And said data has a physical state.
It kind of allows me to have some really cool advanced magic technology without super explaining how it works.

 

[Saigonnus]

An old-west style frontier where the humans are expansive and expansionist and the other races are slowly being pushed off their land by human aggression. The story is told from the point of view of the other races, namely from a dwarvish gunsmith who gets (nearly) hanged; and loses his hand in the first chapter, and goes to work for the orcish "butcher" (all told from propaganda) that leads the principal force who opposes the humans with any degree of success. Where the humans use tech; gunpowder etc... the MC creates a type of firearm that employs magic instead; since they don't have the resources to make enough of anything to continue the fight for long.

 

[pmmg]

I recall from the first cyberpunk RPG there was a class that was just hacking the sea of the web, and they could customize their world in way similar to the above. The only one I remember is a chrome/silver experience, where everything looked like liquid metal.

 

[SamazonE]

I had a story based on unusual technology. There was a lightsaber key-lock, with green and red laser, one for cutting. I had a flashlight that projected holographics. You need to understand what a book is about before you can write it, the laws that establish it firmly in reality. I think that the worst way to go is some massive fat beast that you have to slay, everyone waiting for the end, but that seems to be like chopping down trees. If there was some king who got corrupt then you might just end up calling-him good in his own circumstances it is like that. You could always misconstrue reality so that the bad guys come out on top in some cases, but that is pretty much lying.

 

[Saigonnus]

I had a story based on unusual technology. There was a lightsaber key-lock, with green and red laser, one for cutting. I had a flashlight that projected holographics. You need to understand what a book is about before you can write it, the laws that establish it firmly in reality. I think that the worst way to go is some massive fat beast that you have to slay, everyone waiting for the end, but that seems to be like chopping down trees. If there was some king who got corrupt then you might just end up calling-him good in his own circumstances it is like that. You could always misconstrue reality so that the bad guys come out on top in some cases, but that is pretty much lying.

What if the antagonist was the only survivor of a imperial raid by mages that killed his whole family (maybe they have a claim to the throne and the present leader wanted to make sure no one can usurp his kingship). As a result, he takes over the empire and the people thrive under his rule, with one exception: mages would be hunted down and destroyed. Would he still be the villain even if the average "mage" had nothing to do with his family's death?

 

[SamazonE]

I think the back and forth of rule is pretty typical, maybe artificial. There is the average mage, but there is the average king, average queen, etc. There is no space for equality, nothing that could change their situation, and the rigamarole continues. I think the rigamarole of the antagonist king is important. Maybe if he was the ruler of these two situations, and then he started doing some chores, to make himself amiable, then maybe it would make sense to celebrate the little things, like a child gobbling down a cupcake, or a pour kid stubbing his toe. He might even end up liking the emperors new clothes, but that is putting things aside. There is always an upside, to any circumstance, but then corruption might make things more vain, thus preferable.

 

[Solusandra]

Urban Fantasy. Magic is largely gone, but not because of a masquerade, magic drought or anything like that. It is, instead, an accident of how the rules work.

There are two absolute rules, and they're both quite simple in concept.

Magic Comes from the Soul.
Magic Behaves based on belief.

Much like Physics and chemistry though, this is deceptive, as once you get to practical application, things get complicated fast.

For instance, magic behaves on belief.
Your belief shapes your magic.
Simple, right?
No so fast.

First, belief is something very VERY tricky to shape intentionally.
Second, what makes you think your belief is the most important factor?

The beliefs of everyone around you all have an influence. And the closer those other people are to you, the more important that influence becomes. To make things more complicated, close means both spiritually and / or physically.

Which brings us back to how magic vanished. As I said earlier, it was all a mistake.

It started with the Vikings.

If you add bone meal as a flux when forging metal you can drastically drop the melting point and allow wood furnaces to liquefy Iron for cast forging. In Viking Mythology, there is the belief that this makes your metal magically effective when used by or against the thing who's bones you used. A sword will become it's bane, armor can completely ignore damage from that source, a cup or food utensil can poison the thing while being safe for anyone else. Ect.

Europeans saw this, and through the power of Babel, translated the Norse explanation as "Cast Iron harms magical creatures." This belief swept the continent, and quickly became "Iron is the bane of Faeries". This belief was so powerful, that it survived thousands of years, Roman syncretism and Catholic suppression.

That said, survived, doesn't necessarily mean, in-tact. With Christianity came chivalry, and the belief became that a Knights Steel could cut through and ward off all magic. Which became that a Knights Faith and the Cross could banish magic as these were the acts of the devil.

And if they had stayed in Europe, that might have been the end of it. But with the renaissance, came the Age of Sail. Wherever Europeans went, they took with them the belief that their steel could defeat the heathen magic. And because they'd SEEN it in their own lives, in their own homes, their belief was (heh) ironclad. It allowed them to cut through more casual beliefs of those they met.

But there, it became the belief that Western Culture Destroyed Magic.

And everywhere Western Culture spread, magic retreated.

Until nobody even believes in magic in the first place. It's not part of their life after all. Nor the lives of anyone they've ever met. Science can't find proof of it, so did it ever even exist?

But it does. In the cracks of civilization. Among the outcasts and the hermits. Squirreled away by elites who've use their powers as part of family tradition to maintain their supremacy. And among those who seek it, desperate for a sign of something... MORE.

The story I'm working to write in google docs, is the story of one of those seekers.
If you want to use the setup for your own worldbuilding, I don't mind, so long as you credit me.

 

[D. Gray Warrior]

I had a diesel punk World War 1 inspired setting. I scrapped it because I couldn't find a way to make the magic mesh with early 20th century technology.

The main empire in the setting was inspired by Austria-Hungary in that it was a multi-ethno-linguistic polity that even had an archduke. Also, there were Prussian dwarves.

The backstory was that the magic died out because of a huge war in the past. The emperor hunted down the remaining magic users in his own territory to eliminate threats to his power. The royal family were the only ones who could legally use magic. The death of magic triggered an industrial arms race, turning a medieval setting into an early 20th Century world almost overnight.

The protagonist was a magic user, but he had to keep it a secret because the empire was still on an inquisition to purge mages.

There is actually one empire that still used magic. They were loosely based on the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East, so they weaponized the djinn as basically magical weapons of mass destruction.

 

[Solusandra]

I couldn't find a way to make the magic mesh with early 20th century technology.

could we get some more details on what that was? I'm happy to hammer the idea into shape.

they weaponized the djinn as basically magical weapons of mass destruction.

which would make it really hard to justify austria Hungry getting rid of magic, unless the way he did so was useful against the Djinn too.

 

[jhmcmullen]

Science fiction; I had a ship crash-land on an Anderson disk.
Fantasy: I had a city overtly ruled by vampires, where the basis of the currency was blood. All monsters (well, almost all: the exception was the point of the story) were allowed there, and the fact that the city was at an important trade juncture let them survive even though other kingdoms weren’t fond of them.

 

[D. Gray Warrior]

could we get some more details on what that was? I'm happy to hammer the idea into shape.

which would make it really hard to justify austria Hungry getting rid of magic, unless the way he did so was useful against the Djinn too.

Yeah, in hindsight, getting rid of magic probably wasn't the empire's smartest move. I also think the setting had some contradictions that I didn't notice until now.

I recall the magic in the setting being based around magitech, but it was really just normal WW1 industrial tech that was activated by magic. Basically, the tech is inscribed with runes, and only a mage can utilize the tech through voice activation. The magic was more like a key than actually being an integral part of the technology.

Personally, I don't think advanced tech and magic really go together. They seem to clash, imo. Magitech is a thing, sure, but I often find its execution to be shallow as "it looks like normal IRL tech but it runs on magic," or it's just a gun but with a crystal jutting out from it.

 

[Solusandra]

Yeah, in hindsight, getting rid of magic probably wasn't the empire's smartest move. I also think the setting had some contradictions that I didn't notice until now.

I recall the magic in the setting being based around magitech, but it was really just normal WW1 industrial tech that was activated by magic. Basically, the tech is inscribed with runes, and only a mage can utilize the tech through voice activation. The magic was more like a key than actually being an integral part of the technology.

Personally, I don't think advanced tech and magic really go together. They seem to clash, imo. Magitech is a thing, sure, but I often find its execution to be shallow as "it looks like normal IRL tech but it runs on magic," or it's just a gun but with a crystal jutting out from it.

No reason it has to be though. Typical enchanted items work a lot like tech already. Gathering special materials with particular properties, ritual actions used to shape it toward an intent (enchanting vs crafting) and a function following it's shape.

A gun with a crystal slapped on it is pretty shallow, sure, but a gun made of wand/staff wood with spell circles engraved into the rifling is more interesting, and you can easily continue to move up from there.

If you want to have a society based around modern tech run by magic, that'd be a sorta steam-punk, with the intent to make magic available to normal people. That's more where I feel you stumbled, than having magic and tech working together.

For the story, I'd focus less on the Djinn empire, and more how the society is reacting and adjusting to magic becoming available to non-mages. The Djinn empire would come later as one of the many foils to that idea. As a society who violently rejected the idea of magic and tech going together. Could have them in a love-hate relationship with another purely tech empire.

 

[Gurkhal]

A massive, continent sized, city with all manner of fanastical creatures living inside of it. And a focus on street gangs. The project has kind of being abandoned but I named it "Fantasy Gangland". It was pretty fun to envision how different fantasy species would come into organized crime.

I just wasn't sure it if would be based on modern times or the 1920s Prohibition Era in the USA.