Concept: A D&D-style Fantasy Setting Where Humanity’s Weird Thing Is That We’re The Only Sapient

Concept: a D&D-style fantasy setting where humanity’s weird thing is that we’re the only sapient species that reproduces organically.

Dwarves carve each other out of rock. In theory this can be managed alone, but in practice, few dwarves have mastered all of the necessary skills. Most commonly, it’s a collaborative effort by three to eight individuals. The new dwarf’s body is covered with runes that are in part a recounting of the crafters’ respective lineages, and in part an elaboration of the rights and duties of a member of dwarven society; each dwarf is thus a living legal argument establishing their own existence.

Elves aren’t made, but educated. An elf who wishes to produce offspring selects an ordinary animal and begins teaching it, starting with house-breaking, and progressing through years of increasingly sophisticated lessons. By gradual degrees the animal in question develops reasoning, speech, tool use, and finally the ability to assume a humanoid form at will. Most elves are derived from terrestrial mammals, but there’s at least one community that favours octopuses and squid as its root stock.

Goblins were created by alchemy as servants for an evil wizard, but immediately stole their own formula and rebelled. New goblins are brewed in big brass cauldrons full of exotic reagents; each village keeps a single cauldron in a central location, and emerging goblings are raised by the whole community, with no concept of parentage or lineage. Sometimes they like to add stuff to the goblin soup just to see what happens – there are a lot of weird goblins.

Halflings reproduce via tall tales. Making up fanciful stories about the adventures of fictitious cousins is halfling culture’s main amusement; if a given individual’s story is passed around and elaborated upon by enough people, a halfling answering to that individual’s description just shows up one day. They won’t necessarily possess any truly outlandish abilities that have been attributed to them – mostly you get the sort of person of whom the stories could be plausible exaggerations.

To address the obvious question, yes, this means that dwarves have no cultural notion of childhood, at least not one that humans would recognise as such. Elves and goblins do, though it’s kind of a weird childhood in the case of elves, while with halflings it’s a toss-up; mostly they instantiate as the equivalent of a human 12–14-year-old, and are promptly adopted by a loose affiliation of self-appointed aunts and uncles, though there are outliers in either direction.

soft asks to get to know people

what song makes you feel better?

what’s your feel-good movie?

what’s your favorite candle scent?

what flower would you like to be given?

who do you feel most you around?

say three nice things about yourself (three physical and three non-physical).

what color brings you peace?

tag someone (or multiple people) who make you feel good.

what calms you down?

what’s something you’re excited for?

what’s your ideal date?

how are you?

what’s your comfort food?

favorite feel-good show?

for every emoji you get, tag someone and describe them in one word.

compliment the person who sent you this number.

fairy lights or LED lights?

do you still love stuffed animals?

most important thing in your life?

what do you want most in the world right now?

if you could tell your past self one thing, what would it be?

what would you say to your future self?

favorite piece of clothing?

what’s something you do to de-stress?

what’s the best personal gift someone could give you (playlist, homemade card, etc.)

what movie would you want to live in?

which character would you want to be?

hugs or hand-holding?

morning, afternoon or night?

what reminds you of home (doesn’t have to mean house… just things that remind you of the feeling of home)?

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easthernico

4 years ago

is no one going to talk about the worldbuilding potential the scuffed origins mod server map has or do i have to.

the floating island? the dumb circle-ravine encompassing the spawn area? the chunk errors where different biomes eat into each other? wilbur calling the dark oak forest nearby “the enchanted forest”? the fact that avians were implied to evolve FROM another species? the giant fuckoff void pit glitch Phil found in the mines?

it’s SO COOL??? WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS?????

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easthernico

1 year ago

V.1: Silent Pines, 1998 Special Credit: Silent Pines is heavily inspired by and uses a very similar style to the stunning @windbrook savefile by @folkling, the gorgeous portsim savefile by @florwal, and the amazing builds by @moonwoodmillz. Thank you all for your hard work, I take a lot of inspiration from you all. Silent Pines is a base-game only save file inspired by Life is Strange with 3 major worlds, a whole new set of townies, and a complete mystery to solve.

Version 1 contains;

Willow Creek as Silent Pines

13 Community Lots

3 move-in ready homes for your sims

A total of 9 houses, 6 of which are filled with townies

18 households with jobs, story, and drama

A complete mystery to solve (should you want to)

DOWNLOAD, INFO, AND SCREENSHOTS BELOW

I used S4Studio to rename all the worlds, and I've decorated all the neighbourhoods with T.O.O.L. As I said before, Silent Pines is completely base-game friendly, absolutely no packs or kits are used. There is some custom CC, mainly posters that add to the story. The CC is one package file and adds nothing other than some customisation to the story. It is not required.

For example the missing poster of Cleo Emerson, a girl who disappeared under mysterious circumstances;

SPECIAL THANKS Thank you to my beta testers @theemodernsim, @authorspirit, @acuar-io, @aridridge for all your help! You've been amazing and I really am very grateful. And thank you to everyone who has liked, reblogged, followed, and generally supported Silent Pines. It means the world to me to be able to share my work with people!

🌲 Download (Patreon) 🌲

Gallery ID: Cosmoosims

DISCLAIMER: There have been reports of the 'build mode item missing' message popping up, especially in the downtown area. I've tried to fix this to the best of my ability, and I hope it's alright! Also, if there is anything I should fix or have left out, please let me know. Thank you for your patience <3

ALSO: Due to the Sims 4 being a broken game, I really don't recommend playing Silent Pines with Rental Units, in case the T.O.O.L objects up and disappear lol.

Silent Pines is heavily inspired by Life is Strange, the Windbrook save file, florwalsims' Portsim save file, as well as the hazy nostalgia of the late 90s and early 2000s. I hope to see you all soon for V.2!

The Mystery Update A more comprehensive outline for this update will be coming soon, but essentially it will contain;

Hopefully the fixed Harris household

More mystery clues to make the mystery more engaging and easier to solve

Better and complete lot descriptions

Love from, Silent Pines.

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easthernico

3 years ago

Follow Me On Twitter For More Vampire Nonsense

Follow me on Twitter for more vampire nonsense

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easthernico

3 years ago

i still hate y’all bitches who say oc x canon shit is cringe like bitch you have ANY idea how flattered i would be if someone made an oc for my fantasy world? how utterly PSYCHED my ass would be they loved a character so much they fleshed out one themselves just 2 be with one of mine? fuck y’all haters

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easthernico

4 years ago

If you have a cat please reblog this with its name please and thank you

So you want to get your friend obsessed with the Dream SMP?

I have made The Dream SMP Powerpoint, a collection of clips, VODS, animatics, and helpfully organized information to concisely explain the story of the first season of the ream SMP. I’m going to continue editing it, but it currently covers the L’manburg revolution to the final battle.

If you have suggestions for how to improve it, send me an ask!

Update: just got a friend to go through this with me, and she is now in love with Wilbur Soot. It works!

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easthernico

3 years ago

It's VERY Important Tokoyami, He Swears!!

It's VERY important Tokoyami, he swears!!

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easthernico

4 years ago

how to make a story file

As I am preparing for Camp NaNo*, I have been working on my story file. It occurred to me this might not be common or popular practice. “Story File” is a name I gave it and maybe some of y’all have a different name with the same contents.

*There’s still time to apply to join my Camp NaNo cabin!

My Story File contains everything about my story that doesn’t go in the outline.

It’s broken up into major categories and specific templates. So without further ado, here is how I structure my Story File.

Intro

Title

Logline

Synopsis

Genre

Estimated Total Length (word count)

Draft Length Goal (word count)

Character Bank

Main characters and brief, one-sentence descriptions with ages

Themes and Character Development

Central Question

The Yes/No question that is being asked through the whole story

Should have objective qualities, rather than subjective

i.e. “Will they fall in love?” (subjective) vs. “Will they leave their partners and become a couple?” (objective)

Thematic Questions

These are the internal conflict questions that reside in your character(s) and your story

ex. “Can there really be a successful government?”

ex. “Does grief excuse bad actions?”

Themes at a Glance

Words or phrases that relate to the themes of the story

ex. person vs. nature

ex. isolation

ex. grief

ex. first love

Motivation / Stasis State / Final State

for each main character, you should write a sentence or two pertaining to these three things

Motivation: What is the drive behind this character and their past, present, and future actions? What part of their background makes them the way that they are? What are they looking for? What do they want out of this/a situation?

Stasis State: What are they like before the inciting incident? What problems and questions do they have?

Final State: What has changed about them and their outlook? What questions have they resolved? What has happened to their internal conflict?

Relationships

I usually make a little web of the MCs and their relationship to one another. One for the stasis and one for final.

Stasis: How do these characters see each other? How do they act toward the other? (All before the inciting incident)

Final: How do these characters see each other now? How has their idea of one another shifted?

Even if a character dies before the end, include the most recent relationship status in the Final web.

ex. this is how I organize it, using the Draw feature of Google Docs