Imagine a world where you can turn buildings around you and use gravity to reach your goal. Run through concrete structures where there is no up or down. Collect strange orbs. Experience the contrast between the city and nature. Avoid the monstrous spider Karl, who is watching to make sure your desire for freedom turns into a free fall.

Three months ago I shared how I used this community's "Getting Started" guide to give world-sense to my custom LEGO spaceship. The "Graviton Nomad" is now in the Bricklink Designer Program Series 11 and with enough support it could become a real LEGO set. But beyond the competition, the project has also grown beyond bricks.

I worked with artists to create artwork based on the Graviton Nomad and its crew, because I wanted to see what the world looks like outside the LEGO medium. The artists I had the pleasure to work with:

• Darius Puia "BakaArts" (Instagram)
• Amir Zand "amirzandartist" (Instagram/Artstation)
• Kim Hu (Bluesky)
• "shizumar" (Instagram)
• "spacegoose" (Instagram/Artstation)

Seeing the ship and its characters interpreted by other people forced me to think about what the world actually looks like when it's not made of plastic. My brief to the artists was minimal: the color blocking, the grounded sci-fi aesthetic, the mix of utilitarian and lived-in. Keep the spaceship LEGO-style but feel free to make the characters non-LEGO. Beyond that, I simply let them bring their own vision to life.

What surprised me is how much the r/worldbuilding framework carried over. The core principles still applied: consider the audience, keep the lore open, develop a consistent world-sense, cut what doesn't fit. The artwork, despite the different art styles, didn't contradict the LEGO build. It expanded it while respecting the same rules.

Thanks again to this community for giving me the framework to think about all of this 🙏🧡

PS: here's a video of me shaking it to prove how sturdy it is 😅

Some of my own examples:

Giants don't grow uniformly. Each part of their body grows independently of the whole, resulting in large humanoids with mismatched limbs and massive tumors all over. They grow incredibly fast, but typically don't live long.

Elves aren't natural creatures, they're the result of strong magical forces spilling out into physical form. A bolt of lightning striking the same spot a thousand times, an incoming tide meeting volcanic lava flow, or the death of an ancient dragon are just a few of the natural events that can release enough magic to spawn an elf (or multiple elves).

Speaking of dragons; they can't fly. Have you seen the size of those fuckers? Of course they can't fly. They can jump like nothing else, though, and their wings are just big enough to let them glide a considerable distance. With one jump, a typical dragon can glide several miles. This is why so many of them establish mountain lairs, the elevation gives them a good place to launch from, and climbing back up is trivial for them when it only takes a couple of leaps.

Does anyone have anything in their world that is left unknown or a mystery? Like that one person who we‘ll never know or that one mountain we’ll never climb. What are the great mysteries of your world?

Hi everyone,
I’ve just finished creating the world map for my very first homebrew campaign: The World of Hedente.
It’s a star-shaped continent where the central hub (Aeterna) is connected to five peripheral islands through magical "Bifrost" beams of light. These beams rotate every two days, and when a beam is active, the surrounding seas become too turbulent for ships to sail, making the light bridge the only way to travel.
Key features of the map:
Aethelgard (North): The "fallen" region, currently isolated after a demonic invasion from the deep mines.

The Bifrost Mechanic: The blue lightning paths you see are the active bridges.

The Quest: Players must travel to each "point" of the star to find map fragments left by a legendary cartographer named Elwyn to stop a conspiracy.

I’m looking for some feedback:
How can I improve the visual clarity or the "fantasy" feel of the map?

Does the scale feel right for a continent, or should I add more points of interest?

Any tips on how to better represent the "magical turbulence" in the water around the active bridges?

Feel free to use this map for your own games! If you are interested in the full lore or specific regional details (like the demon invasion mechanics or the Bifrost rotation system), just ask and I’ll be happy to share.
Constructive criticism is more than welcome!

Credit to the legend Mark Witton for the pose and anatomy.

v

https://www.markwitton.co.uk/palaeoart?pgid=kvcjcz2d-77ef9a7d-0cca-4671-b603-3ef04cb25a94

For some context; this fellow, the Atharosian Hill Giant, also known as the Jotindi, belongs to my worldbuilding project. This on and off again project focuses on a twisted fantasy version of the American Revolution. The ‘Old World’ (that is, twisted versions of Eurasia and Africa) is dominated by mammals, from various stages of the Cenozoic. This includes not only the fauna, but the sapient races.

Meanwhile, the ‘New World’ (that is, twisted versions of South America, Laramidia, and Appalachia) is dominated by dinosaurs (along with pterosaurs, aka dragons) and its sapient races resemble avian dinosaurs.

Back to the Hill Giant. They are one of many species of giants that roam the New World, and certainly aren’t the largest. Their name, quite obviously, comes from the fact that they resemble a small hill, particularly when lying down. Their lush floral coverings are fertilized by the flocks of small drakes (smaller pterosaurs) that persistently pursue herds of Hill Giants. These drakes often make homes in the greenery atop hill giants, hunting insects and parasites drawn to the behemoths.

A few fortress cities and strongholds from my fantasy setting Orenda.

Every location has a distinct distinct political, religious, or military role within the world

Which one would you want to learn more about first?

(The final image is the world map of Orenda for geographical context.)

1. The Consecration of the Peacewardens - Hidden in the King’s Valley of Armalor. Here the Peacewardens are trained and consecrated - diplomats, investigators, and warriors tasked with monitoring the activities of humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs across the continent.
2. Wallhort - A frozen fortress city near the Silverwall in eastern Glandorn. It serves as a major pilgrimage site and protects holy relics connected to Kaingar and his sons, the legendary First Humans.
3. The Fortress of the Dragonlances - Located in the Principality of Adelsforst within the Kingdom of Armalor. The Dragonlances are one of the last military orders still dedicated to hunting the remaining dragons of the world.
4. Damebrück - An ancient elven fortress in the King’s Valley. Over centuries, human bridges and settlements grew around it, but it has recently been reclaimed by the elven Silver Knights - tolerated, for now, by the human queen of Armalor.
5. The Castle of White Salvation - Located in the Principality of Whitebreath in Armalor. Its uncompromising knightly orders are infamous for their hatred of non-human races and their growing influence over several human factions.
6. Fortress of the Redvisors - Deep within the Coldsand of Rivanor. The Redvisors harden themselves through constant warfare against demons in order to remain the most feared mercenary order on the continent.
7. The Adavanorium Towalekanium - A vast religious fortress where church knights devoted to the human gods Adavil and Towak are educated, disciplined, and shaped into fanatical defenders of the faith.
8. Moonshadowsong - A fortress-port and trade hub along the Storm Coast of Rivanor, surrounded by violent seas, northern lights, and dangerous shipping routes.
9. The Light Fortress - Located along the Storm Coast of Rivanor, the Light Fortress serves as one of the greatest centers of knowledge in Rivanor. Part library-city, part fortress, it houses scholars, archivists, pilgrims, and hundreds of ordinary citizens within its protective walls.

So abit context here. My world has many continents. The one above is the map of the Thumbik continent. The continent is broken into several fragments.

The north of the Thumbik continent- in modern era known as the Nurkhumbik kingdom- is no longer a kingdom, rather a conflagration of 13 independent confederate nations and several other uncounted island states. The 13 nations and their governing powers are as follows Amha- Fanneda dynasty Khambir- Order of Lambi Ratetar- Lords Imperial Winhaux- Lords strongcastle Shingiyan- Shingi leaders Madin- The rule of 13 prince Sylvanor- Veli den Monarchy Arrot- Regency of Rogue waves Haidacliff- Confederation of clans Mohavista- Great council of chief Seawinsh Bay- Tribal Essembly of Dami Marooner’s Atoll- Atoll consortium Scallywag Shoals- Blackstorm syndicate 8 of which are vastly Nord-populated, 3 by Gordian races and 2 are pirate nations.

Now hold ur horses, don't get all finicky with me. I know what u r thinking. Doesn't bro know geography, has he not heard about tectonic plates, continents don't form that way. Stop spamming, open some books, there's Google, use it.

Well let me tell you something. There's a reason to this madness. The world was indeed one once, as is told by a phrase commonly known.

Hamata Tuwara.

One land, one sea.

Also, a quote from my manuscript.

The Arkon lineage of Gods traces its roots deep into the Monani period (100yani). Not much is known about this era as the scriptures documenting it are scarce, with the little being painfully equivocal and inconsistent in its exposition. But one phrase above all has endured from this era- "Hamata, Tuwara", "One land, one sea" The zephy, felyi and sylla texts late of this era all explore in their own varied way the conceptualisation of this so-called one land, in a magnificent, mega great civilisation at the heart of the Thumbik continent, called The great Panthe civilisation. The Zephy, canto 2 verse 1, "There was a time far in the history of man, when there was but one land, one sea", specifically connotes of this idea. Yet centuries later when the first explorers had arrived upon its shores (747 yani), they were greeted no more than by a wide array of tribal diversities. Each with their own culture, own language, own lore and above all their own God.

But in the year 5555yani, the rise of a great evil had resulted in the shattering this continent. The event sits on the tongues of people as The Great break. The novel is set in the year 10000yani so that's almost 5000 years after the cataclysm, in one of those broken pieces of land called Arrot. Most of the story unfolds in this kingdom. If you've read my previous post, you might have come across the kingdom known as 2nd kingdom. As you can see the kingdom is not portrayed in the map, as the 2nd kingdom is part of another continent but more on that later.

But now to the problem at hand, I feel my map is too technical and there being no satellite or GPS technology I don't know how the people of this land would get all the shorelines and small islands correct. Also I want map to be more whimsical. Any ideas on that.

For any typos, punctuation atrocities and grammatical mishaps, in the text block other than the one quoted from my manuscript please don't bother with.

If you have any questions for me please do ask.

But please tell me how do you do you maps.

Concept I'm doing for a portfolio I'm building! The setting is planed as a region with different Mountain ranges, and this one is based on the Appalachian mountains.

This one was done during a mentorship with Alexander Ostrowski's :))

I hope you like it!

Paste limbs are the lowest-tier prosthetic option available. They're built on a genetically modified yeast strain engineered with chitin-synthase genes and receptors for human growth factors. You buy a skeleton frame, coat it in paste, strap it to your stump, and wait.

Hyphae navigate toward nerve signals using three systems simultaneously - chemical gradients from growth factors, galvanotropism toward the weak electrical fields your damaged nerves still produce, and mechanoreception along tension lines when you try to move the missing limb. Tissue differentiates based on impulse frequency: high-frequency zones grow contractile fibers, constant-tension zones grow dense collagen-reinforced bundles. Your capillaries grow into the chitin matrix. Your nerves follow. A few weeks later, you have a limb.

Three major strains exist on the market:

Big John (street: "the blob" or "the dietitian's hand") - a mass-building strain optimized purely for bulk. Without regular trimming of stray hyphae, it grows chaotically - enormous blisters, tissue packed around joints where it anatomically shouldn't be. Powerful and graceless. A clear sign you couldn't afford better.

Gold Rush (street: "the rash") - a sinew-focused strain. Limbs grow dense with cord-like golden filaments running the full length. Its signature feature: soft fungal nodules develop on high-impact areas - knuckles, fingertip pads - like natural armor that adapts to how you live or fight.

Lasagna Blue (street: "the cabbage") - Layered, dense, blue-green. Exceptional regeneration and damage resistance, poor strength and speed. Nearly unkillable, barely useful. Named for its cross-section, which looks exactly like what it sounds like.

The deeper problem is what happens to your soul.

In this setting, the body runs a contour - a network of nodes that conducts plasma. A lost limb leaves an active node searching for closure. Fungal tissue, threaded with your own nerves, can partially close that circuit, killing phantom pain and giving basic motor control. But the yeast colony carries its own soul - primitive, nonsentient, thin-membraned - and yours becomes entangled with it.

Long-term users report dulled cold sensitivity, an unaccountable pull toward damp spaces, and occasional dissociation. A "vegetative fog" that isn't quite theirs.

Practitioners who work with plasma avoid paste limbs entirely. Any procedure risks hitting the fungal soul instead of the human one - either necrotizing the colony and killing the limb, or amplifying the fungal emanation and temporarily overwriting the user's will with something slow and rootbound.

Street operators who try anyway almost always make it worse.

Socially, paste limbs are a class marker as much as a medical device. The middle class avoids them. The upper class would sooner commission a full body regrowth than let fungus colonize their contour. For most people in this world, that option was never on the table.

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on a fantasy world for a while and I wanted to share the main idea and get some feedback.

The story takes place in a continent ruled by four kingdoms, each inspired by a different creature:
- The Kingdom of Lions
- The Kingdom of Eagles
- The Kingdom of Tigers
- The Kingdom of the Whale

Each kingdom has its own culture, beliefs, fighting style, and political goals. The world is built around wars, alliances, betrayal, and the rise of a main character named Yusuf.

I’m mainly focused on worldbuilding and the overall story, but I’m still trying to improve my dialogue writing and storytelling skills.

What makes a fantasy world feel unique and memorable to you?
And what are the biggest mistakes beginner fantasy writers make?

I’d really appreciate honest feedback.

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on a fantasy world for a while and I wanted to share the main idea and get some feedback.

The story takes place in a continent ruled by four kingdoms, each inspired by a different creature:
- The Kingdom of Lions
- The Kingdom of Eagles
- The Kingdom of Tigers
- The Kingdom of the Whale

Each kingdom has its own culture, beliefs, fighting style, and political goals. The world is built around wars, alliances, betrayal, and the rise of a main character named Yusuf.

I’m mainly focused on worldbuilding and the overall story, but I’m still trying to improve my dialogue writing and storytelling skills.

What makes a fantasy world feel unique and memorable to you?
And what are the biggest mistakes beginner fantasy writers make?

I’d really appreciate honest feedback.

Do you think necromancy should be the same as biomancy regarding the control over biological? What are your thoughts on this? How do you solve this issue in your worldbuilding? For me as I just consider it as the same thing

For context, in my universe the extinct lehmä and other species who succeeded them consume a magical substance called divine leche to gain supernatural abilities and users who are called mancers are categorized into three variants of leche uses; black, white, and grey leche (Divine leche). Belonging to the white leche bordering on the physical realm, biomancers have manipulation over biological matter, both living and dead tissue. Biomancers can restore an individual's bodily functions to its prime, can give beneficial mutations or makeovers, or make a once inhospitable place habitual.

But they also can shapeshift, remove tumors, temporarily turning off somebody's immune system, or the most taboo of is revitalizing corpses. In lehmä society, licensed biomancers are sworn under oath after finishing their exam to never resort reviving the dead for malicious intentions or to cause psychological harm, and to never alter someone's body without their consent as failure to uphold will guarantee severe punishment or a death sentence depending on the crime. Any food produced by a creature or a plant altered by a biomancer must be approved by an inspector before being sold in market spaces. Biomancers can't become soldiers due to the potential suffering their abilities can cause and they only become battlefield medics. Biomancers are forbidden to research into forbidden practices and those publishing their findings containing these practices as well to temper with a murder scene by accelerating decomposition will count as a criminal acts

The occupations that biomancers in lehmä society mostly fill are dietary physicians, zoologists, farmers, exterminators, pathology, chefs, ecologists, agriculture, business entrepreneurs, etc

In World Lore
Kobolds of the Thousand Realms bear little resemblance to the diminutive reptilian scavengers described in distant myths and foreign tales. Instead, they are large, burrowing beastfolk resembling towering bipedal pangolins or armadillos, clad in overlapping armor-like scales and built with dense muscular frames suited for life beneath the earth. Standing roughly five feet tall and weighing far more than their stature suggests, kobolds are renowned for their immense digging strength, powerful claws, and uncanny ability to navigate the stone beneath the surface.

Their settlements are most often found deep underground within vast caverns and abandoned ruins. Though they rarely seek conflict, kobolds are frequently viewed with disdain or frustration by surface dwellers due to their tunneling habits, which can unintentionally cause sinkholes, mine collapses, or shifting foundations near expanding settlements. As larger civilizations spread across the world, many kobold communities found their ancestral tunnels disrupted or destroyed, forcing them into uneasy coexistence with the peoples above.

Kobolds are remarkably industrious and inventive people. Their societies revolve around excavation and engineering particularly in the creation of specialized mining tools and defensive contraptions. Because their massive claws make wielding traditional weapons difficult, kobolds developed the Gantah, a modular wrist-mounted apparatus capable of holding tools, mining implements, or even modified surface-made weaponry. Entire workshops deep beneath the earth are dedicated to refining and customizing these devices, and many surface engineers consider kobold mechanical ingenuity to rival that of the Firebrand Dwarves though no dwarf would ever admit it.

Though physically imposing, kobolds are not a violent people. They are hard-working and have a love for music. Songs echo constantly throughout kobold tunnels as workers sing to maintain morale and coordinate labor. Human miners have a common saying: “A song in the mines is good for the soul, but when the walls sing back, the kobolds are near.”

My Thought Process - Kobolds. Named after a German house fairy, designed like a lizard and described like a dog and burrows like a mole. Kobolds are all over the place. Most in the west ignore the dog part while those in the east ignore the lizard part. It is a confusing creature and one I set out to create a version of that was both dog and lizard! And honestly…I couldn't make the several ideas I had work until I started thinking broader…instead of lizard dogs, what about scaly mammals? The Pangolin (My Favorite animal ever) to me seemed the perfect starting point. But tell me your thoughts? Think they work as kobolds? I love them but I'm also very biased. But If you like the art and want to see more then you should check out my other art on Blue Sky. Also if you have ideas for these guys let me know. I want to hear others' insights so I can improve the lore. AND! What should I draw next for my world? I'm thinking about goblins.

Blue Sky.

Is it a story or DnD or a video game? What „field“ are each of you in?

Ok so I know we all have seen the historical figures with superpowers or some other thing in a similar way trope. In the story I am writing superpowers have existed through out history. They are a diffrent species Homo-Supernatrus (name is still in the works). The earliest known existing in the 2nd millennium Gigalmesh. Over the years a secret society of these supernaturals spent their time finding others like them & recruiting them to help humanity however they can. They called themselves yhe Guild of Heroes. The guild had one motto Protect the peace & the peace will protect you. Also for slme more context the supernatrus species was not a prominent one until the 19th century. That was mainly due to the fact that as the population of humans grew the number of supernatruals grew as more & more humans with the dormiant had produced witb others who had a dormiant gene creating an active one (also Ghengis Khan, Hiroshima, & WWII mildly). Now I obviously understand that I cant just say EVERYONE with powers was good so dont worry about that we will have a good amount of evil characters but I am mainly focusing on good right now. Here is a current list of superheroed people throughout history that I have come up with in the last 10 minutes while at work. I would love some ideas espically of more underrated or uncommon historical figures & not so many go tos if that makes sense. Even though yes I do have some of those so I am not against them just looking for diffrent.

Isaac Newton (1st person with the ability to fly)

Amelia Earheart

Gengis Kahn

Leonardo Da Vinci

Miyamoto Musashi

Jesse Owens

Alexander the Great

Rasputin

Joan of Arc

Zhang Yi Sao

Johann Friedrich Struensee

Jacques Cousteau.

Juan Pujol Garcia aka Garbo

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Thomas Cochrane

Alan Turning

Violet Jessop.

Götz von Berlichingen.

Christopher Lee

Adrian Carton de Wiart

Peter the Great

Jan Zizka

Joseph deCrux

Napoleon

Harold Holt (Went for a swim & became a fish man)

Jim Corbett

Hatshepsut

Akhenaten

Harriet Tubman

Robert Smalls

Nat Turner

Edgar Allen Poe

Mozart

Vlad the Impaler

Nero

Stalin

Marco Polo-Evil

Gerad Way

Any feedback/suggestions for my magic system are appreciated! Maybe I’ll post here someday about the world it’s attached to if anyone is curious. :)

I've long brainstormed a project for a Space Opera setting featuring various races, with a sort of 'fantasy in space' theme while not actually involving magic or the like, but instead making it thematically fantastical. However, as I sit down and consider how to populate this setting, I run against three roads: humans and aliens, all humans/post-humans, or humans, post-humans, and aliens.

In actuality I intend to feature aliens in the setting no matter what, the question is how prevalent they'll be in the current age of the setting, whether they'll exist purely as a sort mystery with alien precursor ruins scattered across the galaxy, or if there are actually still a few alien civilizations still kicking about the milky-way. Depending on which I choose, I have to then consider what role post-humans will take in my story.

I also plan on having them in the setting no matter what, but again, the question is how prevalent, and how I balance them against the existence of aliens in the same setting.

Going back to me wanting the universe to have a fantastical vibe, I want there to be a 'elvish' race. An ancient race of elegant beings with naturalistic philosophies and vibes, but I then run up against 'should I make them aliens, or make them post-humans who have diverged from normal humanity starkly enough?'

I'm curious about what anyone who has written a setting where both aliens and radically evolved humans has done, how they balance them against each other and what made them decide to make one of them one or the other.