Worldbuilding Stuff - Blog Posts

Geology of Natural Disasters and How to write them into your fictional universe.

So, you want to write about a natural disaster to advance your plot and torture your players/characters even more? Let me tell you how, accurately.

I feel like unless it is a volcano, natural disasters are a pretty slept on plot drivers, and some of them are really cool and unique! Today, I will talk to you about land slides, earthquakes (And earthquake related disasters), and volcanoes.

Landslides: Probably one I see the least in stories, but one that would be incredibly interesting to write into a plot where they believe in curses. Landslides can happen along ocean bluffs, slightly hilly areas, and highly mountainous areas, this means it is something that can happen in most landscapes. But what can trigger a landslide? Mostly all you need to trigger a landslide could be just abnormally large amounts of rain, excessive deforestation (with a little bit of rain), or an earthquake. If you don't want to use deforestation or an earthquake as a catalyst, a really cool indicator that the land is slipping and may be prone to a collapse is J hooked trees.

This indicates that there is soil creeping slowly over time, and it may lead to a major landslide.

2. Earthquakes: Probably one of the easiest things to write, earthquakes can happen anywhere, but they are most common in places that are tectonically active areas. There are about three types of environments you can expect earthquakes to be common. The first is just rugged mountains, if your landscape looks like this, you should write in earthquakes. Associated hazards could be landslides, avalanches, and large falling rocks.

The next landscape could be a thin mountain range, next to the ocean, very scenic, but very dangerous. Essentially, I am describing a subduction zone environment.

Earthquakes in these areas could equal a couple different associated disasters. Scenario one: A very large earthquake happens, and the ocean begins to recede. This is a tsunami, enough said. If you are writing a tsunami though, please, please, do not write it as a large wave, thank you. Also, a common way people are hurt by tsunami's are from them going into the ocean because they don't understand a tsunami is going to happen.

Scenario two: A large earthquake happens, your characters are in a valley and suddenly the ground begins to liquify as the ground shakes, once the shaking stops, the ground becomes solid like nothing ever happened, except everything has suddenly sunk into the now hard ground. This is called liquefaction and it typically happens in areas that have loose dirt or lots of saturated soil.

Scenario three: There are a lot of small earthquakes, they do not cause a lot of damage, but you begin to notice that one of the isolated mountains has a plume rising. Earthquakes can indicate lava moving underground and the filling of magma chambers.

The next environment that can host lots of earthquakes would be regions that have a lot of really deep valleys and small mountain ranges (not cone volcanoes), but overall seems pretty flat.

This indicates a transform fault like the San Andreas. If you want to hint at there being earthquakes in the area, you can show fence posts that are suddenly several feet out of line at a dilapidated farm or something similar.

(These earthquakes are different because they are cased from sideways movement, not an up-and-down movement this hint can only be used for this environment). Volcanoes would not be found here, but liquefaction and landslides could still occur here.

4. Volcanoes: If you thought earthquakes had a lot of information, volcanoes do too. First you have to ask yourself, what kind of volcano you want to have, what kind of eruption style? So lets break down the kind of eruptions you can have and what their landscapes look like. Hawaiian Shield volcano: This will produce a smooth fast lava, the landscape typically is pretty flat, but there will be small cones and the rocks can have a ropey or jagged texture and the rocks will be almost exclusively black to dark red.

Stratovolcanoes: These will be solitary mountains, typically, that look like perfect cones (Picture shown in earthquake section). These will have large ash cloud eruptions and pyroclastic flows, they may have some lava, but typically most damage is done from the pyroclastic flows (think Pompeii). Some hints of these, other than describing the cone features (which can be hidden by other mountains), would be to talk about petrified wood! Trees can get fossilized in the ash and I imagine it would be very strange to find this rock that clearly looks to be a piece of wood, but its a rock. Subcategory- Calderas: Used to be a large stratovolcano, but they erupt so explosively that the entire cone collapses and creates a basin.

There are a lot of kinds of volcanoes out there, so forgive me for just putting an infographic and then talking to you about these really rare types of eruptions that I feel like people should know about.

Okay lets talk about blue lava (kind of) and black lava

You will notice the lava is still red in the middle of this image, during the day these would look like a normal eruption, but at night the burning sulfur would make it appear blue. Some cool features other than this, would be that any water in the area would become very acidic and burn the skin due to sulfuric acid. This would again be really cool if you are trying to describe a 'cursed' land.

Black lava: This happens only in the east African rift I believe, but it is a carbonatite lava, but if you are writing in a rift valley (where the continent is tearing apart to form a new ocean) this might be a cool feature. The lava will cool white and will quickly erode, it makes for a very alien landscape!

Anyway as always, this is supposed to be an introductive guide for the basics of writing geology to create cool landscapes/features into dnd or fictional universes, if you are a geologist please understand my oversimplification of tectonics, I didn't want people to run away.

Striga Lore #2 - The Striga Hierarchy

A short post on the hierarchy of a striga house/coven, reminiscent of a traditional werewolf pack hierarchy. Further posts will elaborate on the ranks' individual powers and roles, but here's the basics:

High Umbra

Similar Rank: King

Role: Leader of all Strigae

Challenged: Yes

Hereditary: Yes

Umbra

Similar rank: Alpha

Role: House/Coven Leader

Challenged: Yes

Hereditary: Depends on who Umbra chooses as Heir

Nyxos

Similar Rank: Luna

Role: Consort of House/Coven Leader

Challenged: Yes

Hereditary: No

Tenebra

Similar Rank: Beta

Role: Inner Circle (such as spymaster, treasurer, Captain of the Guard, etc.)

Challenged: No

Hereditary: No

Diaval

Similar Rank: Gamma

Role: Warriors and Hunters

Challenged: No

Hereditary: No

Malthos

Similar Rank: Delta

Role: Mages and Healers

Challenged: No

Hereditary: Depends

Fenrir

Similar Rank: Epsilon

Role: Scouts, Spies and Sentinels

Challenged: No

Hereditary: No

Drita

Similar Rank: Omega

Role: None

Challenged: No

Hereditary: Possible

OTHER ROLES EXPLAINED

Scouts - Usually sent out to keep eyes on neighbouring nobles and houses and relay messages from the Umbra/Nyxos

Sentinels - Patrol the edges of the striga territories, watching for intruders and ensuring security when passing through striga lands; sent to escort nobles

Hunters - Organise and lead hunts to take down prey such as dyre wolves, deer and other creatures; trained on most weapons, ambushing, tracking and skillful executions; frequently become warriors, assassins or even executioners

More in part 3

magic-related fun facts

here are a few fun facts about magic and magic users on my planet, Kirotar.

terms like "witch" and "wizard" are not gender-specific, and instead used to describe magic users of different skill levels.

a magician: general term for any and all magic users of any skill level or discipline a witch: term for magic users who are self-taught or learned from friends and family, not professionally educated, have a non-scholarly understanding of magic a wizard: term for magic users who are educated professionally, studied magic at least to a basic level, have a scholarly understanding of magic, learned through curriculum a warlock: specialized and skilled magic users with years of dedicated professional study, sought to learn magic in higher levels of education, masters of magic a magus: magical scientists, those who study, research, and experiment with magic as a career; they are often magicians, but not always

2. people from different places have different styles of performing magic, based on the way they were taught, and each one is unique.

people from Safimatet (the east) typically perform magic with movements of the open palms to direct their magic. people from Besilyon (the south) usually perform magic by making different hand signs, with different positions of the fingers. people from Tovapikus (the west) also perform magic by moving their hands, but they use closed fists instead of open palms. people from Ramocesin (the north) regularly preform magic with dance-like motions of the hands, wrists, and fingers all at once. the thing about this is: each of these styles are equivalent! it's different methods of doing the same thing. it can be compared to drawing with a pencil versus drawing with a pen; it looks different, but the product is essentially the same/very similar. also, these things aren't necessary for performing the actual magic, it's more to assist the user. it's like using a ruler; if a person hasn't practiced drawing straight lines on their own, they'd usually use a ruler, because if they don't, then their lines are a little wobbly and imperfect. the ruler just helps them to get it right.

3. some people on Kirotar perform magic as a job. because it's so highly specialized, people will hire experts to use magic they can't use themselves. for example, builders might hire a warlock of motion magic to help them move heavy materials that they either couldn't lift or would have extreme difficultly lifting otherwise.

4. magic is something that scientists theorize about constantly. there is a lot of magic that could be possible, but it would take too much energy or skill to perform, so they can't test if it would actually work. this doesn't stop them from writing out long equations and coming up with complicated hypotheses about it, though. 5. there is a magical code of conduct which is widely accepted across the planet that dictates what kind of magic can legally be performed. depending on the area, breaking this code of conduct can be a very serious offense. one example of a magical crime would be necromancy/using magic to revive a human being.

that's all for now. there was going to be a drawing with this post (as there has been in the others so far) but I haven't had the motivation to doodle as of late, so I'm just going to post this anyway. hope the facts are actually fun

magic system on Kirotar (2 of 2)

now that I've explained magical energy (see this post) I'm going to explain what you can actually do with magic, how they classify different types of magic, and how it's used by the people living on Kirotar...

(the person in the drawing is one of my characters, whose name is Robbie.)

with Kirotaran magic, the possibilities are unfortunately not endless, but this is not to say that there isn't an extremely wide range of things you can do with it. the humans on Kirotar have a generally accepted magic classification system which details the different types of magical acts that can be performed, but it's important to note that there are no actual different types of magical energy itself; these distinctions are purely artificial, social constructs, if you will.

there are three overall categories of magic, with three subcategories each. here is what I typically call The Tree of Magical Classification:

1. MECHANICAL MAGIC

1a. motion magic, such as: moving matter without contact, manipulating matter's speed, moving matter through solids 1b. force magic, such as: manipulating gravity's intensity, manipulating friction or tension, generating "force fields" 1c. acoustic magic, such as: manipulating a sound's pitch, volume, or direction, generating a specific sound

2. ELECTROMAGNETIC MAGIC

2a. electricity magic, such as: manipulating electrical fields, currents, and charges, generating electricity 2b. light magic, such as: manipulating the intensity or color of light, passing light through matter or reflecting light off of matter 2c. thermal magic, such as: transferring heat between matter, absorbing heat, radiating heat, manipulating the state of matter

3. CHEMICAL MAGIC

3a. bonds magic, such as: manipulating molecular bonds between matter, breaking one object apart, joining two objects together 3b. mass magic, such as: manipulating density, volume, or both, affecting size and/or weight of matter 3c. transmutation magic, such as: changing an element/molecule into another element/molecule, manipulating its properties

the examples listed here are not the only things that can be done with magic, they're just meant to create an idea of what the category entails. everything has a very vague "scientific" explanation based on my limited education on the sciences, and it's meant to mostly obey laws of the universe, like "matter can't be created or destroyed."

now, the second component of magic, aside from magical energy: skill. in order to preform any kind of magic, a person needs to have skill. it's the same as any other talent or activity, and can very easily be compared to something like drawing. sure, most everyone can put a pencil to paper and draw a shape, but in order to create something unique, detailed, and interesting, people have to study and practice for years to develop that skill. magic is the same way.

because magic is so varied and needs a lot of practice to perform, people are rarely good at all of it. often, a person will be an expert in a single subcategory of magic, while barely knowing any magic in any of the other categories. other times, a person can be decent at magic from multiple subcategories within the same category, although learning two subcategories that belong to different categories is more uncommon. magics within categories are similar, though not the same. it's sort of like a guitarist learning to play the ukulele (same category) versus learning to play the flute (different categories). a person could choose to learn some magic from nearly every category, but they wouldn't be very good at any of it.

another note is that the amount of skill it takes to do something and the amount of magical energy it takes are proportional. the more complicated something is, the more skill it takes, the more energy it uses. for example, using motion magic to make a puddle of water float in the air is relatively easy, but attempting to lift up all the water in the ocean at the same time is practically impossible because of the sheer amount of skill and energy it would require.

last thing for this post: magic is for everyone. on Kirotar, magic is something anyone can do if they choose to, and while not everyone does, the majority of people do. it's something people use in their everyday lives as a helpful tool, to make things easier, as a convenience. never, ever is it used as a weapon (more on that later). it's something people learn from their grandparents, something people go to school to study, something people experiment with. the study of magic is considered a branch of science on Kirotar, the same as biology or chemistry. it is more or less an integral part of the world and the daily life of the people who live there, even if they don't use magic often.

anyway, this isn't everything I have to say, but this post is longer than my last one, so I think I'll cut it off here. next post will maybe just be some fun facts.

magic system on Kirotar (1 of 2)

my fictional planet called Kirotar features the existence of magic, and I've created a unique system for how it works and how it's used by the people living there. here's one of two posts I'll make about it, where I'll first talk about what facilitates the existence of magic...

(by the way, the person in the drawing is a character of mine named Fabian.)

on Kirotar, there exists another form of energy called magical energy (creative, I know). it exists in and can be possessed by all living things, and it is one of the two components needed to perform acts of magic.

there are also two kinds of magical energy: inherent magical energy and foreign magical energy. they have a few differences in the way they're used and interacted with.

inherent magical energy is just that: inherent. every living thing (plants, animals, fungi, etc.) is born or otherwise begins its existence with at least some magical energy. the amount of energy varies from species to species and individual to individual; for example, plants generally have a lot less inherent energy than humans do, but one human may have marginally more or less energy than another human. it is a fixed amount that doesn't change (excepting some specific circumstances).

when inherent energy is being used, it isn't expelled/depleted. I think the best way to explain this is to imagine it like it's a dial that goes from 0-100% of someone's magical energy. if someone is doing something that uses 50% of their energy, they can do something else that uses 50% of their energy, and the dial is turned up to 100%. the moment they stop, they're not using any energy, it's turned back to 0%, and they can use it for something else. it "replenishes" itself, in a sense, and it can be sustained indefinitely.

when magical energy is transferred between beings, it becomes foreign energy in whatever is receiving it. once inherent energy is transferred from one thing to another, it is no longer replenished, and the fixed amount of inherent energy in the being it came from decreases. if person A has high energy and gives some of it to person B, who has low energy, this results in person A now having a medium amount of energy and person B also having a medium amount of energy, until the energy from person A is used.

unlike inherent energy, foreign energy does not work like a dial. it works more like mana in video games; it is a finite resource. as a person uses it for magic, it is depleted, and they can only sustain the magic for as long as they have more energy to use up. once they run out of energy, they stop.

in order to get more energy, it must be taken from other living things. eating regular meals does not give people magical energy, because even though they're eating plants and animals, by the time they're doing so, the plants and animals are dead. commonly, the people of Kirotar will eat seeds in order to gain energy, because those are alive, even if the amount of energy they gain is small.

since this post is already pretty long, I'll talk about what people can actually do with magic in the next one. hope this explanation makes sense so far. I'd absolutely love to answer any questions about it.

the planet I made up

since I'm planning on talking about my original world/story/characters on here, I should probably introduce the actual world where the story/characters belong first. so, here is a little bit about the planet Kirotar...

(I drew this map myself by hand, for the record, no map-making tools. it took a while.)

this is Kirotar (at least, in the beginning). it's a bit smaller than Earth and has eight little moons. one day there is around 72 hours on Earth.

as shown, there are four major continents and lots of islands in-between them. to the east is Safimatet, the desert continent, to the south is Besilyon, the jungle continent, to the west is Tovapikus, the taiga continent, and to the north is Ramocesin, the grasslands continent. (also, please notice the compass at the bottom-right of the map; it's aligned differently than what's typical for maps on Earth.)

fun fact: each of the continents is actually named after the Kirotaran god that resides over it.

this planet is inhabited by several fictional humanoid species I've made (twelve, to be exact), but I'll talk about those individually later. as of current development, there are a variety of plants and animals living there that aren't too different from those on Earth. overall, Kirotar looks very similar to Earth, but there are plenty of differences.

for example, a form of magic exists on Kirotar, which is often used by humans (and sometimes even animals). my story has elements of fantasy, but also a lot of magical realism. the system I've made for magic will also get its own post another time.

I hope that's a sufficient introduction. more to come soon.