this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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Socialist Worldbuilding

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Worldbuilding is the process in fiction writing where one develops the setting, background details, in-universe history, lore, basically anything establishes and/or describes the universe in which a fictional story takes place is worldbuilding. Either done in order to create a more compelling and internally consistent plot or just for fun!

This is an explicitly socialist/Marxist space, but the fictional worlds you post does not have to specifically be socialist or leftist worlds, any is fine as long as it follows the broader Lemmygrad rules. Likewise with any genre or medium that your world is portrayed as.

Any type of post relating to worldbuilding is welcome here, including sharing lore that you've developed or generally talking about your world, questions, discussion and advice, writing prompts, etc.

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Some lore and world building from my 'little' thing (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Sooo this is gonna be a long one. It's some sci-fi fantasy thingy, but whatever just read.

So geographically its kinda a mess right now, but the only really important thing is that their is a large monster filled wasteland in the north, called the northern no man land.

Major factions

This list is incomplete, and only contains factions that have at least one character and a little bit of lore in them at the moment. First the leftist factions:

Nordfront

Originally a paramilitary group founded to protect the independent Communities (such as small counties, city states and villages) in the far north from the monster of the northern wasteland. Today it still serves in that purpose, but has also developed into a marxist-leninst group that works to liberate all people of the world. The group, under various names, has existed for several hundred years.

The Eastern Republic

A young socialist republic in the east (woah who would have thought!). It was founded 20 years ago after the end of a civil war, which the revolutionary forces won with support from Nordfront. It has since developed into one of the biggest scientific and economic powerhouses in the world.

Demokratische Republik Nordland/DRN (Democratic republic of north land)

A socialist state in the north west. While mostly isolated, it's national university is the center of global science. It was founded nearly 90 years ago, when the quickly modernizing region required a proper government to be created. It is one of the major supporters of Nordfront and Everblue Engineering.

Everblue Engineering

A more or less state owned company run by the DRN, Nordfront and the Eastern republic. It's jobs include, but are not limited too: Industrial cooperation, construction of research and military installations, covert support for revolutionary movements, trading, etc. I could make a whole own post about them, but this will do for now.

now the other factions in no particular order :

Lionese Empire

Basically the British empire but fantasy scifi. That's kinda it (for now).

The Federation of Independents

A collection of independent villages in the Iron Mountains. They are protected by the Union of Dragons (a local group of dragon-born). Very limited industry.

The 12 Cities

A southern desert country (similar in climate to northern Africa), currently occupied by the Lionese Empire. It primarily consist of 12 cities. Duh.

Some things about the magic system

Now the first thing to talk about are the following groups:

  • animal-born: Those born with the traits of animals (these can be mythological beings like dragons too)
  • magic-born: Those born with an extremely high natural affinity for magic
  • non-humans: human like beings that are not actually humans, for example animal spirits, aka animals with human level intelligence who can also communicate with humans

Note that most non-humans are magic born. Magic-born are extremely rare in normal humans and animal-born, although slightly more common in the later.

Casting

Most people need casting units to use magic. This is because ordinary people don't have any way do control magic by them selves. While casting without a casting unit can be learned to some extent, however for most casters it is not a skill worth perusing. Modern technology has made casting somewhat easier, mainly through Computer Assisted Casting Units (CACU).

Animal-born

They have some traits from a specific animal, fictional or real. They can also be refereed to as specific-thing-born, for example wolf-born for those with the traits of wolfs or dragon-born for those with the traits of dragons. These are also called the races of the animal-born. The extent of differences between 'normal' humans and animal born varies greatly. For example, other than the ears and tail, a cat-born will only vary minimal from 'normal' humans. However the dragon-born have significant differences to them, such as height, additional organs, significantly higher strength, etc. on top of their obvious 'animal' traits.

Magic-born

Most of them have specialized organs to use magic. This means that they do not need casting units to use magic. In fact, usually casting units are detrimental to their abilities. Due to the fact that magic is natural to them from birth, to them it is as simple as breathing. Magic-born are thus far more capable than ordinary people. A magic-born ten year old often is better at using magic than a trained professional non magic-born caster. However this is not necessarily a good thing: Almost all education for casters, which is necessary to actually make use of one's magic ability, is aimed at non magic-born. This is simply because magic born are so rare, that even filling a class with them would be pretty hard in, and finding an adequate teacher would also not be very easy. This leads to most magic born not having good control of their abilities. Due to the fact that they are quite powerful, a major loss of control could lead to both the deaths of anyone to close and the magic-born themselves.

I'll now go to sleep. See you tomorrow internet people.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Are magic borns like wild magic sorcerers? Can they be any race but an emergent ability that shows up at random?

You might want to check out RWBY for inspiration because it already has alot of what you have in it for worldbuilding but under a capitalist mode of production and written by a Liberal. Quite frankly the politics of it are horrible, but I'd like to hear a class concious version of rwby.

Grimm are monsters that feed on fear and terror of humans and faunus and they have of all kinds of appearances.

Hunters slay the Grimm that have specific magic spells called semblances but they can only do what their semblance can do and regular human abilities.

Dust is magic from another era mineralized and is mined from the ground for millitary or industrial use. Otherwise magic is unheard of.

Humans exist and created cities to protect themselves from the Grimm, but also most of them agreed to persecute the faunus for generations.

Faunus are people that have animal features. The animal features are completly random. Faunus have been persecuted, but the fucking lib attitude by the writers kind of annoys me. I wish there were more explicit demands for reparations other than letting them have an island.

Magic can be done for some people. The number of people is 4 and only 4 "maidens". They are protected by the nation states and kept secret. Technically other people can do magic but last i checked it only allows people to turn into birds so that's not as impressive as what maidens can do.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Are magic borns like wild magic sorcerers? Can they be any race but an emergent ability that shows up at random?

yes, they just more or less show up at random. There are only very limited exception, like the dragon-born where most of them are magic-born as well. On average 0.01 - 0.02% of the population are magic born. For dragon-born (and a few others, mostly those races based on mythological beings) its more like 70%, but these races are very rare (there are less than a thousand dragon-born for example).

You might want to check out RWBY for inspiration

heard of it, watched hbomberguy's video on it. Might watch it, right now the main source of inspiration is Arknights.

persecute the faunus for generations

There is some limited persecution against the animal-born as well, but that will depend strongly on time and place. I feel a bit bad for using dragon-born as an example for everything, but well, you aren't going to start shit with one. The average dragon born is well over 2.2m tall, will have a pretty massive tail too (often 2-3 times longer than they are tall), and is strong enough to yet your car. And that still ignoring that most of them are magic-born on top of that. So while they are demonized in some places like the Lionese Empire, they don't really face discrimination where they actually live (mostly in the Federation of Independents). On the other side, wolf-born face huge discrimination in most of the world. They are often forced out of society, and most of them live in the wilderness. Notably the DRN and Nordfront have a large percentage of wolf born in them. The later even is majority wolf-born. Most other races are somewhere between that.

The animal features are completely random

i don't think i mentioned it, but being animal-born is semi random too. To put it simply: if two animal-born have a child they are most likely animal-born, but there is a small chance they aren't. If two 'normal' people have a child, there is a small chance it's animal-born. In the case mixed parents it's 50/50.

Magic can be done for some people. The number of people is 4 and only 4 “maidens”. They are protected by the nation states and kept secret. Technically other people can do magic but last i checked it only allows people to turn into birds so that’s not as impressive as what maidens can do.

cool concept honestly. Can't really make much use of it since it doesn't fit into my setting at all though.