Recent content by DeathtoTrite

I like the steppes/ silk road/ middle east. So much of the way I world build stems from trade and resources, so these locations really lend themselves to take inspiration from. Plus, awesome leaders, battles, and stories come out of these regions! Honestly, I feel like western Europe gets a bad...

Sounds interesting! I'm reminded a little of witches in the movie stardust or the tv show Penny Dreadful, where magic ages them and they are made youthful by sources of power (although it sounds like in your case, its a more literal translation) When you say the area around them, how does that...

I think the steampunk vs. cyberpunk could be easily explainable-- size difference, natural barriers, distance, internal politics, available resources, etc. etc. can all explain them both existing. So yeah, I say sure. Just have at least some explanation as to the why of things, and don't give...

Ha! Dunmer are by far my favorite race lore-wise in TES. Personally, Drow are too DnD for me. And just kind of a boring, goth version of a race I already find bland.

Oh, I'm certainly not saying not to have strong female characters. Reading about how some Byzantine empresses or Mongol queens succeeded in incredibly sexist societies is incredible. More that society shouldn't just be all nice and accepting. My current book easily has 50%+ female characters...

Thoughts on 13- I see things like this a lot, and it always annoys me. Of all the cultures I've created, maybe 3-4 are not sexist to some degree, and maybe 2-3 are not homophobic (to some degree). Maybe because I love using history as a template, but if practically every culture in Western...

I definitely feel like its an aesthetic issue. Animators can use birds and bats as a basis for wyverns, but dragons don't have a real-life equivalent so the body shape is more mammalian, leading to weird wing positioning and size, as well as the legs looking awkward during flight.

Honestly, I feel this is GRRM's biggest weakness-- especially around books 4-5 when he was big enough to not need an editor. I have nothing against natural evolution, etc. But trim it down so that its concise. GoT risks being more jungle than garden, to extend the analogy. But this could...

Previously, I've done broad strokes outlines. I'm trying something a bit different with a scene-by-scene, hyper-detailed outline, so that I see everything that happens to the characters like a movie in my mind, then actually writing is just about effective prose.

If you want a genius general with unorthodox tactics, look no further than Skanderbeg! I never understood why Dracula gets all the fame when Skanderbeg was easily the most impressive Christian ruler at the time.

Ha! I can sympathize, but with ck2. I love the Byzantine Empire and would have loved to play Basil II, but apparently adding India and Satanists and Charlemagne were all more important than filling in dates from 867 to 1066 How would Poland beat the Ottomans? Hell, Skanderbeg was still...

So, I'm rather a fan of human only or human dominated fantasy worlds but fantasy races have their role. What I really, really loathe is "race as culture". Real life humans aren't homogeneous, so why should dwarfs, elves, or orcs be? (they can be, but that should be a major point) The giantism...

Do you play paradox interactive games by chance?

This is shockingly similar to how I do things. I write short stories purely to see more of my world. I have written histories, drawn city-level maps, written short stories, etc. that I have no ambition to be seen by anyone besides myself. Worldbuilding is less for preparing a story in this case...

How does the city fit within the larger setting? How does trade fit into the cities economy?