The "How Well do YOU Know Your World?" game!

Religion0

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So a while back there was a thread called "How well do you know your MC?" which was great fun! Basically, every poster on this thread responds to a question posed by the previous poster and writes a question for the next person. The questions then were about your main character, these are gonna be world building. You can respond either with the bare bones answer or use a question as a prompt to write a little short story.
For example, we have the question "How are criminals dealt with in your world?" so you could answer by saying "Primarily fines and incarceration, but some regions have corporal punishment" or you could describe the backstory of your world's equivalent of Alcatraz, or you could write the last day of a man about to be executed via battle to the death with giant scorpions.
So to start us off: What is the most valuable substance in your world?
 

Robinski

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What an awesome idea! Answer: real estate.

Edit: ah, and then do I supply the next question? I wasn't around for the last version. I'm going to go ahead and presume that I do, so...

Who is the most dangerous person on your world?
 
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Cobalt Jade

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The Dragon Queen. Because she lives under illusions.

My question: In your world, what do people eat while on the road?
 

Kjbartolotta

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:partyguy:

My question: In your world, what do people eat while on the road?

If they're alive, then it doesn't matter because they're trash and no one cares (not quite true, but all too common an attitude recently). If they're Dead, then they eat the living, which is why they need to get to the City of the Dead as quickly as possible before anthropophagy becomes a problem.

How common is sericulture (silk-making) in your world, and what is it used for?
 
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lilyWhite

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How common is sericulture (silk-making) in your world, and what is it used for?

One of the Outsider races, the chrysideans, are butterfly/moth-people who produce silk. As such, they use it widely in their culture and civilization—for strengthening structures, various forms of art, clothing, and their cocoons. Some human fashion designers are interested in making garments from chrysidean silk. It's also discovered to be useful for making human bandages that prevent blood loss due to its magical nature, but though not without curious side-effects.


How well-understood or well-researched is the most unusual phenomenon in your world (compared to real life)?
 

themindstream

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How well-understood or well-researched is the most unusual phenomenon in your world (compared to real life)?

The multiverse physics that form the structure of portals and cross-dimensional travel would appear familiar to a researcher of string theory. "Wild" portals may appear when the bubbles of two or more universes intersect with each other and the hyperstring density of an area is sufficiently high. To the uninformed it looks like magic and the erudite sigh with resignation whenever they have to explain to someone that it is not. It was a small step (on the scale of geological time) from exploiting natural portals to generating them with technology, especially once hyperstring-driven devices were perfected. Less well understood is the phenomenon of the "hypermancer", a being who either consciously or unconsciously is able to manipulate string forces with their mind. Hypermancers are more likely to manifest in dense hyperstring worlds but it has been observed that rare people who cross from a low-density world to a higher one may manifest the ability where no ability has been evident before.


What place is there for an atheist in your world? How do other people react to them?
 

kwanzaabot

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What place is there for an atheist in your world? How do other people react to them?

The Anaxarchists are "philosopher-monks" who travel from town to town preaching atheism. They're easily identified by their saffron robes, and the elves consider them dangerous heretics. A lone Anaxarchist is likely to find themselves reeducated or crucified, but thankfully the gates to their temples are cast from some of the purest iron in the world (rare for a world dominated by Bronze Age societies). The elves physically can't bear to be close to iron, as iron repels the enchantments they wear to artificially extend their lives. Iron makes them feel mortal, and when you're a thousand years past your life expectancy, that's incredibly painful, if not outright fatal.

What's the strangest (and most incorrect) thing that people in your world believe in? Or vice-versa? What's something that's completely true, that people think is made up?
 

DeleyanLee

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What's the strangest (and most incorrect) thing that people in your world believe in? Or vice-versa? What's something that's completely true, that people think is made up?

The strangest (and most incorrect) thing people believe is living magic is a myth. It's been outlawed or greatly restricted for hundreds of years, but it does exist and is still being researched and done in secret.

What's completely true is the King Spell (aka the Magus Spell) exists.


​What do teens do for fun that adults don't approve of?
 

MaeZe

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[Lurker note: What do teens do for fun that adults don't approve of? I should add that.][/lurker note]
 

Kjbartolotta

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[Lurker note: What do teens do for fun that adults don't approve of? I should add that.][/lurker note]

Noooooo, plaaaaay! Everybody needs to play. :D

What do teens do for fun that adults don't approve of?

tl;dr, Question: What is the most popular form of entertainment in your setting? What are people just dying to do when then get off of work?

On the far-out steppes of the Kingdom of Mixúnith, the younger generation is doing something their elders find strange and alarming. They are converting to monotheism. Zelé, the southern faith, has been making coverts for years, predominantly among the urban classes and those who do business along the Salt Road. But the Three Tribes have resisted conversion, giving their devotion first to the ancestors, then to Mimau the Horse Goddess, then to the Old Gods, who are remote but still demand sacrifice. Sure, some of the clans have adopted Zelé trappings, and may even say prayers to the Lord of the Horizons when they've exhausted every other deity to turn to. But the tribes remain have they have always been; pragmatic and resistant to change.

But the new generation sees something in the southern faith their parents do not. Perhaps it is the urban sophistication they associated with the religion; the books and the brightly colored robes. Perhaps it is the promise of an afterlife, the Orchards of the Sun sound like a much better place to idle away eternity than a musty tomb, always being hounded by your descendants for advice (or a dark, nightmarish underworld if you are unlucky enough to have no descendants). And it would be impossible to ignore the fact that the faith gives young people an outlet from their families. Away from their clans, in gold leafed temples where their sweaty bodies are pressed all together with people from all the different tribes. Pretty fun, if your regular Saturday night is milking horses.

Or perhaps it is simply that the blood of the Old Gods is running thin in the veins of the Three Tribes. Traditions fade, and the steppe slowly becomes a pastureland for the Great South and the Chain of Cities.

The young understand faith in a way different from their parents, and that is what is most alarming. The Fire of the Sun is within them, they are made Calm. There is no room for the old ways, and some young converts reject their heritage in ways not even the Golden Book would ask them to. They lash out in fury and disavow their families, withdrawing the valuable support they can offer their tribe. There has been talk of young people desecrating tombs lately, which is the worst transgressions imaginable.

Among the more traditional tribes, the Xuhazno and the Naú on the Outer Steppe, people tell stories of youth being drawn in by the Zelé, idle and tempted by decadent southern ways. Perhaps even being enticed by something evil. And they become more insular, more afraid of contamination. More protective of their young, and more distrustful of them.

For the first time, the concept of a 'pagan' exists, because the encroachment of the Zelé created it.

Mixúnith is a land built on traditions stretching back to the dawn of time, but as a nation it is only two generations old. Can it survive a war when the conflict is taking place within families?
 
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Religion0

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Noooooo, plaaaaay! Everybody needs to play. :D
Yes, the more the merrier!

tl;dr, Question: What is the most popular form of entertainment in your setting? What are people just dying to do when then get off of work?
Depends on who you ask.
The giné tribes all find ways to create impermanent art, painting on cave wall or cliff faces, some even paint snow, carving pictures into trees, making sculptures that are never treated so they'll stay around, but they all sing. They have no written word, so all their knowledge is contained within one, long and ever growing song, the oldest tribes have verses in the Old Language that tell of the dawn of the world.

The dahn love competitions, whether playing or watching, physical or mental, and will spend hours debating the virtues of jousting and tafl, or a multitude of other games, and why one is better than the other.

The fier have always considered themselves superior to any such thing as "trends" and "popular entertainment", but have yet to find a way that give them superior intelect without reading copiously and writing long-winded essays or producing art that will last centuries.

Question: What is the primary mode of transportation in your world, and how do people "pimp their rides"?
 

DeleyanLee

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Question: What is the primary mode of transportation in your world, and how do people "pimp their rides"?

This is an urban fantasy/police procedural, so this takes place in August, 2000 in a magical Pittsburgh.

So, the primary mode of transportation is the standard: Cars, trolleys, buses, walking, inclines, boats, etc.

"Pimp their ride", OTOH, can get exotic depending on what illusionary magic one knows or can afford to have cast on one's mode of transport. With illusion, you can literally make something look like anything permanently, or switching up whenever you want.

Just realized that might make ID'ing a getaway vehicle a very interesting challenge. Thanks!


Question: How much has changed in your main culture between your protagonist's generation and their grandparents'?
 

Religion0

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Question: How much has changed in your main culture between your protagonist's generation and their grandparents'?
For Hyarou, not a lot, her people have very short generations, the main things that's changed is how much value they place on steel knives v flint knapped knives.
For Aerian, a whole heck of a lot more. For one, they have a democracy now!

What year is it?
 

Filigree

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So to start us off: What is the most valuable substance in your world?

I'll join in a little late. On Lonhra, the most valuable substance is gir wood. Blue-gray, comes from gigantic sentient trees whose seeds are spacefaring. Relatively soft when fresh, it quickly 'fossilizes' extremely hard & light under the right conditions. It's valuable in building and armor.
 

Kjbartolotta

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What year is it?

It's always Year Zero. The Dead have no use for time, and so they claim. Scholars count forward from major historical events or changes in government, it's hard to get academia and the Trivium to agree on precise dates. It's been thirteen centuries or so since the end of the Misrule, since that nothing has happened to mark a clean break with the past, and so time idles on, like it always does for the Dead.

To track the passage of time, the Dead use not one but three calendars. The solar calendar, which is the least important, and useful mainly to track to tracks solstices and equinoxes, as well as to establish the date of Calibration. The lunar calendar is more important, and used to establish the dates of holidays and rituals. Finally, there is the Calendar of the Dead, an esoteric method of timekeeping no one really gets, but seems to be based on sidereal movement. It's usefulness is dubious, and many more practical Dead think it's a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, used by Trivium priestesses to control people's minds.

Question: Name me a popular in-universe piece of literature.
 

Harlequin

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Another World, a non-fiction philosophical text that controversially suggests the 'native' population the Republic oppresses are real... which contradicts government propaganda. (Because if they're real, it's a crime to oppress them).

For fiction, there is the ever-popular Raven Prince; the tale of a man who could not fly. And we all know there is nothing more useless than men who can't fly.


Question: For your longest-running civilisation... what is the secret to their success?
 

Albedo

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Another World, a non-fiction philosophical text that controversially suggests the 'native' population the Republic oppresses are real... which contradicts government propaganda. (Because if they're real, it's a crime to oppress them).

For fiction, there is the ever-popular Raven Prince; the tale of a man who could not fly. And we all know there is nothing more useless than men who can't fly.


Question: For your longest-running civilisation... what is the secret to their success?

Oerl, (a.k.a. Neuropterides magnum, cockroach gods, those big ugly fat f**kers) are a highly advanced race of 50-90 m long, methane-breathing, annelid or arthropod-like sea serpents, who have been around a long, long time, and generally regard all other intelligent lifeforms as, at best, interesting pets. Their success comes from their monopoly on safe, effective wormhole technology, and their willingness to license it in exchange for BFFship. They will politely deny any insight into why wormholes developed by lesser beings tend to randomly explode with enough force to blow a moderately large hole in a planetary crust, or just turn into black holes if you shake them the wrong way. They will resolutely deny that they are somehow sabotaging other people's wormholes. And are you going to argue with a four hundred tonne, psychic sea monster with a penchant for planet billiards?

What is the absolute worst, most embarrassing faux pas an upstanding citizen could possibly commit? What social sin do people of good taste have nightmares about in your world?
 

Blinkk

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Awesome thread idea!

Murder and rape and nasty things aside, touching a dead man's gun is horrifically taboo. The only people allowed to touch those guns are the Morgue Keepers, and they undergo years of training. In fact, that's a very respected job. In this world, they respect their gunslingers, because they are the main line of defense against demons. When a gunslinger falls, it's a holy ordeal.

If a character is frustrated, what's an exclamation they might shout? Are there are words/phrases that are socially uncomfortable, but people use anyway?
 

Taylor Harbin

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Awesome thread idea!

Murder and rape and nasty things aside, touching a dead man's gun is horrifically taboo. The only people allowed to touch those guns are the Morgue Keepers, and they undergo years of training. In fact, that's a very respected job. In this world, they respect their gunslingers, because they are the main line of defense against demons. When a gunslinger falls, it's a holy ordeal.

If a character is frustrated, what's an exclamation they might shout? Are there are words/phrases that are socially uncomfortable, but people use anyway?

My world has a creation story about a creature called The Wanderer, who cast light into the darkness to reveal every animal and region of the world. Therefore, saying "Wanderer's Lamp!" is commonly used, as well as exclamations about the stars and other celestial bodies.

Question: are characters in your world able to hold a place of importance even if they are physically disabled?
 

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Yes, there are a number of cultures in my world, so I'll just pick one that one of my MCs come from. The Khardun have an class of people called the Greymen (though some are women) who are lorekeepers, and who help people make spirit pacts. They live apart from the clans and will often travel between them. When they visit a clan who has someone with disabilities, they'll take them and give them a role within their abilities, anywhere from being a full greyman organizing the books of spirit pacts and symbols to just sweeping the halls.

Question: How does an interesting culture in your world finance itself?
 
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MaeZe

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The owners on the planet started out with all the wealth, they financed the emigration from Earth and one of the things in the contract was that they would own the resources. A century later their heirs remain rich. They hold positions of power in large corporations and the government.

The know-profs (knowledge-professionals) live well and have varying amounts of accumulated wealth. They have good educations and their offspring are well educated.

Some of the labor, the lower class, have moved up into the know-prof class through scholarships which are controlled by the wealthy. You have to have the right personality to get a scholarship.

Police are mostly from the labor class and some of them have accumulated wealth through graft and corruption. There are others in the labor class who have accumulated wealth, usually through corruption of some kind.

How is information and knowledge in your world spread and acquired?
 

Blinkk

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Tapestries are a popular way to record important historical events. They help educate people who can't read. Lots of tapestries are hung in places of religion as well as places like the palace. They don't generally appear in taverns or other social places. In taverns, information is generally shared (drum roll please) word of mouth. How surprising.

Aside from that, the educated class can read, so they have tapestries as well as books and scrolls. Generally scrolls, because they contain shorter works. Books are rarer to come by, and are generally kept for longer works, or to categorize many related smaller works together. For example, a book might come into being because three popular scrolls all discuss the meaning of the constellations. So a temple scribe might take those three scrolls and transpose them into one book. A lot of historical information is held by the temples, so temples scribes are generally responsible for recording important current events.

Long and boring answer, I know. I wish they had some super secret method of magical telepathy, but alas.

Does your world have illegal drugs, or consumables which are taboo?
 

Kjbartolotta

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I am so jacked up by how awesome this thread is getting.

Does your world have illegal drugs, or consumables which are taboo?

Hmm. Gov't in the City of the Dead is more made up of overlapping factions than any real central authority, so it's hard to prohibit anything. Also, many substances don't work on the Dead quite the same way. I don't know if the Dead smoke reefer, never asked. But, curiously, the Dead can get drunk, and alcohol consumption is watched carefully. Ok in small doses, frowned upon if it becomes a problem. Since the Dead are barely sane anyways, drunkenness can lead to mental instability. It's not physiological, but they're just not mentally flexible in the way that we are. Also, very old, and very depressed. So drunkenness is viewed as a public danger, and barely tolerated. Booze is hard to get anyways, since nothing grows in the City of the Dead. There's probably somebody making pruno somewhere, God knows what it tastes like.

Not quite a substance, but certain songs are heavily suppressed. There seems to be some kind of memory-transference going on with them (though no one's sure), evoking memories and truths the Trivium finds inconvenient. Some things are best left forgotten.

Question: Covered literature, now tell me an in-universe joke.
 

kwanzaabot

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I am so jacked up by how awesome this thread is getting.



Hmm. Gov't in the City of the Dead is more made up of overlapping factions than any real central authority, so it's hard to prohibit anything. Also, many substances don't work on the Dead quite the same way. I don't know if the Dead smoke reefer, never asked. But, curiously, the Dead can get drunk, and alcohol consumption is watched carefully. Ok in small doses, frowned upon if it becomes a problem. Since the Dead are barely sane anyways, drunkenness can lead to mental instability. It's not physiological, but they're just not mentally flexible in the way that we are. Also, very old, and very depressed. So drunkenness is viewed as a public danger, and barely tolerated. Booze is hard to get anyways, since nothing grows in the City of the Dead. There's probably somebody making pruno somewhere, God knows what it tastes like.

Not quite a substance, but certain songs are heavily suppressed. There seems to be some kind of memory-transference going on with them (though no one's sure), evoking memories and truths the Trivium finds inconvenient. Some things are best left forgotten.

Question: Covered literature, now tell me an in-universe joke.

Fun fact (and an extremely, extremely simplified chemistry lesson based on a 5-minute Google search; dammit Jim, I'm a nurse not a biochemist!), the liver produces a chemical called acetaldehyde which contributes to causing a hangover. Combine that with formaldehyde, and you've got pentaerythritol, which is used to make explosives.
Now, I'm not saying that the Dead should drink formaldehyde, but I'm not not saying that either...

Okay, joke time.

A Selkie, a Pale Man and a Woadwose walk into a tavern. The Selkie orders keshkab, the Pale Man orders wine, and the Woadwose says, "What do you mean, one drink?"

Question: Does your setting have Wonders of the World? Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat, that sort of thing. What are they?
 

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Question: Does your setting have Wonders of the World? Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat, that sort of thing. What are they?
Yes! They're called the "Buildings that survived the Gods". They were built by a species that went extinct during the chaos that followed the death of the four gods, but eight buildings spread across the globe managed to stay standing. It is highly confidential knowledge, not even rumored outside of the need-to-know circles, that the buildings all contain an artificial intellingence that can interact telepathically with their "commander" and highly advanced weaponry. They're mostly tourist destinations.
The buildings are called: Blue Tower, Deep Burrow, Red Tracks, Sky Island, Cliffside, Where's The Entrance, Night Sun, Olive Tree.

​What's the war that people still talk about?