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Oceans of Candela: Create an Original Fantasy World

SharkLord

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So yeah. It's another one of those SmashBoards(TM) Creates threads that have been going around ever since Super Smash Bros. Infinite became a thing. The main difference here is that instead of working on a fighting game roster, we're collaboratively building up a fantasy world to use for... Whatever we end up using it for.

Yeah, that's the gist of it. We're still sorting out the details, but instead or voting on characters and stages to add to the roster, we're voting on the setting, the maps, the races, the wildlife, that kind of stuff.

Even if you don't end up submitting much, feel free to take inspiration from some of the submissions or chime in if you find an idea you really like. Who knows, you might end up getting dragged in that way regardless!

Current Jobs
  • TBA
Current Votes
  • Job 10 - Submit a Starting Town

Setting
  • Takes place on an ocean planet
  • Not much land, must terrestrial life constrained to islands
  • Uses solarpunk technology, meaning it works in tandem with nature instead of harming it
  • TBA
Magic
  • Comes from Photoluciferin, a substance found in algae that replicates the Sun's energy
  • Six branches: Heat (Fire and warmth), Wind (Self-explanatory), Water (Self-explanatory, includes water vapor), Growth (Healing and plant life), Charge (Electricity), and Coal (Used for absorbing other magics)
  • TBA
Races
  • Humans - TBA
  • Merrow - TBA
 
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SharkLord

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Aight, first things first:

Discussion Period: First Jobs
...Yeah, we need to set things straight first. The first job will definitely be voting on what the setting's like, but I think we should decide on what's really important for settings like these. Is our priority on creating the races first? Or is it the magic? Or the regions, perhaps?

Aside from that I'm trying to gauge interest in this thread. I want to see how many people are interested in joining, and what their priorities and interests are.

So yeah. Job 0: Actually organize %$#@.
 

airConditioner

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I think it would be best to start creating the overall setting. If we're going to be using fantasy races, magic, and other things, it'd be best to have the natural settings first to see how they have already adapted to their surroundings. This way we can use the settings as guides to see how these races have evolved and thrived throughout the years, how magic has been used by these people to benefit themselves, how economies and political factions are formed, etc.
 

SharkLord

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I think it would be best to start creating the overall setting. If we're going to be using fantasy races, magic, and other things, it'd be best to have the natural settings first to see how they have already adapted to their surroundings. This way we can use the settings as guides to see how these races have evolved and thrived throughout the years, how magic has been used by these people to benefit themselves, how economies and political factions are formed, etc.
Yeah, the one job set in stone is that we decide on the overall setting - Like, is it a standard medieval Europe fantasy, a magical Wild West, a space fantasy world, etc. After that, we'll see what to do next.

Personally, my priorities after that are setting up the races and environment. Should probably give some focus towards the wildlife too. I'm thinking we start with one region of the world and build on that first, then start adding on other regions while using our first region as a "viewpoint," so to speak. We'll probably need to determine the technology and magic systems, too.

To lay it all out:
  • Setting
  • First Region
    • Environment
    • Races
    • Wildlife
  • Technology
  • Magic
Anything else I've missed?
 

Yiptap

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I think the best place to start out would be setting. I'm interested in following this thread, but aside from the Infinite thread, I've never been a complete regular on other threads, though I'll try my best to follow this.
 

Glubbfubb

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What I like in a fantasy world is that no race I inherently bad or good, I hate how orcs in most media are portrayed as evil brutes and necromancers and dark magic users are automatically evil, sure they dont look like the nicest people but sometimes depth is important
 

SharkLord

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I'm quickly realizing that when I'm starting out I'm gonna need at least some structure, so we'll be doing our first job alongside the discussion period:

Job 1 - Setting
Yeah, we can all agree that we're doing the setting as the absolute first thing we're doing. We can settle on our next couple jobs while we pitch our setting ideas. Submissions'll be structured like this:

Job 1 Submission - Ocean World
1635462464677.png

It is what it says - A world covered by water. Islands dot the planet, but they're but a speck in the vast blue fields. There's lots and lots of sea life to be found, and the sentient inhabitants of this world are mostly island-dwellers and sailors, though people living underwater certainly isn't out of the question.
 

SharkLord

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Also, is there supposed to be a specific "style" to this world? This is just out of curiosity.
Funny you should ask, because I set up the job for determining that basically right as you posted the question.

So yeah, submit settings, and feel free to bring up any other topics to focus on after we set up the foundation.
 

Glubbfubb

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downloadfile-26.jpg


A Literal World of Fire and Ice

In this world the planet is set extremely close to the sun, causing the planet's surface on the north side to be nothing by magma filled ravines and the south side a scorching desert. Deeper in the planet is a bunch of ice caves with very twisty tunnels, and between the two extremes is a freshwater ocean just under the surface. The story deals with the many species leaning to deal with the 2 extremes and try to work together for the betterment of there planet.
 

GolisoPower

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Job 1:
1635462905803.png
1635463152776.png

Cavern World:
In this setting, the whole world takes place in a deep, dark cavern system, scattered with large open caverns where civilizations lay. These are connected together by various cave tunnels and formations such as aquifers. The cave system, despite there being a good number of villages, is still largely unexplored, with scouting parties either vanishing without a trace or returning scarred by unknown forces. There are the usual human villages that have drilled holes in cavern ceilings for sunlight, but there are other races with inherent night vision, echolocation, sharp scent, or any combination of the three.
 
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Wario Wario Wario

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Solarpunk

A beautiful world where technology has adapted to nature and not the other way around. We could explore a variety of climates, their hyper-evolved inhabitants, and the ways they live upon man and mother nature's passion project for one another. Whether this is Earth or another planet is up to the thread - though I'm in the "Earth" camp due to it playing into the themes of optimism and repair this setting invokes.
 
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Venus of the Desert Bloom

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Urban High Fantasy World

The movie “Bright” was one that I was excited for and happily enjoyed but felt it failed to address core concepts and issues that could be introduced in an urban fantasy world; especially the source content that comes with it. In this potential setting, humans, orcs, elevens, trolls, ogres, dragons, wizards, fairies, centaurs, lycanthropes, witches, goblins, dwarves, and all sorts of creatures live in a world that is largely like ours but also carries the fantasy tropes found in high fantasy works of fiction such as TES, Dragon Age, LotR, and more. This also includes weaponry and armor that infuses magical components into it using something called Wiztek. I’m unsure if we are making an actual game and not a world but, if it’s a game, it could be comparable to GTE meets high fantasy. Open world, travel between a large urban city and surrounding neighborhoods while coming into contact with all sorts of fantastical folk along with more primitive forms that serve as enemies.
 
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SharkLord

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It's too early to set up a proper vote now - I think it's only fair if I give an entire day's worth of time for submissions - But I'm really liking our submissions so far. Honestly, my only experience with writing fantasy worlds has just been the standard fantasy stuff, plus some modernized elements that don't really have much influence on the overall setting. Even then, I've just devolved into making a series of bullet points about the fantasy races at the expense of every other aspect of the setting. Seeing all these new ideas and inputs has been pretty cool, and the thread looks like it'll be a good source of inspiration - Hopefully for everyone else too, not just me.
 

Krookodilian

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Yo nice to see a lot of regulars from the infinite thread here. I have no experience with world building but this already has a lot of potential so I’ll definitely at least be watching.

I don’t have any suggestions for settings, but I will suggest that unlike in other threads where there is a definite winner for each job, we should incorporate elements of the second and third placements when applicable, since a lot of them won’t be mutually exclusive. So for example if the water world gets first, and the cavern world gets second, we would still do a water world, but include a cavern city, or something along those lines. There would need to be a line drawn as to keep some central cohesive idea but I think its something worth exploring.
 

SharkLord

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Yo nice to see a lot of regulars from the infinite thread here. I have no experience with world building but this already has a lot of potential so I’ll definitely at least be watching.

I don’t have any suggestions for settings, but I will suggest that unlike in other threads where there is a definite winner for each job, we should incorporate elements of the second and third placements when applicable, since a lot of them won’t be mutually exclusive. So for example if the water world gets first, and the cavern world gets second, we would still do a water world, but include a cavern city, or something along those lines. There would need to be a line drawn as to keep some central cohesive idea but I think its something worth exploring.
Yeah, I was kinda thinking that too. In the scenario where we do get a water world, like you mentioned, it would be rather monotonous if it's all water and that's it. More traditional fantasy content is usually thought of as having wandering knights traveling through forests and fields, but they've ventured into different biomes before - For instance, Adol of Ys fame has entered a lost sci-fi city before. We'll be using the #1 spot as a foundation for the first couple regions, but we can definitely do some out-of-genre stuff, like flying islands or futuristic cities in a mostly grounded traditional fantasy, to give some examples.
 

KneeOfJustice99

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Job #1 Submission - The Abyss.

It's been a little difficult for me to find images to explain this, but allow me to explain.

Essentially, the idea for this is that the planet that this "world" is set on, well, the surface is uninhabitable. It's essentially a desert wasteland, and very few people even reside there given the exceptionally toxic air. The actual "world" is far underground. See, in this world, there's essentially a "cave" that's like, around 10km below the ground, but is around half the size of the planet, and is around 500km deep. The "cities" here are very much a steampunk sort of style, but all of them are hanging from the crust at the very top, given that it's bedrock above them. Because of that, cities are very much built top-down - as opposed to the traditional style of "the most wealthy are at the top," cities are built like inverse pyramids with the upper layers being for the poorer folk whilst the lower layers are where richer people reside.

There's actually a couple of cities like this, as well as a vast amount of small "villages" which are essentially built from scrap materials, hanging from the ceiling - and all of these are connected by a vast, interconnected amount of bridges, through which trains will travel. Whilst airships are occasionally used, it's rare to see them, mostly because of the sheer amount of gas on the upper layers. However, this makes it intensely dangerous to travel between cities and the like, and thus it's quite common to see "pirate trains" on the Rails, as well as nomadic groups who take the Rails as their home, and travelling merchants who move between cities in order to do business. The Rails are quite well known for being on several different layers - it's a common practice for Rail Pirates to hog upper Rails in order to leap down to lower ones in order to pilfer their goods, and then use winches to get themselves back up.

In terms of the biome itself, the bottom of the cavern - being around 500km deep - is essentially a death sentence, and nearly impossible to physically reach. The bottom itself is usually where waste is tossed - with the actual "floor" of the cave consisting of a vast amount of incredibly thick, bubbling oil which is heated by the core of the planet itself. Notably, the upper levels of the cave are filled with a variety of fumes, most notably large amounts of toxic and extremely flammable gas which make it nearly impossible to breathe - meaning apparatus is required to effectively operate airships in the Abyss. It also means it's quite possible for large explosions to occur - for instance, one of the more notable cities there exploded violently after an airship crashed into the ceiling of the Abyss, falling downward and killing thousands of people.

I also like to imagine that light is considered to be a premium, given that people live in this vast cavern. Coal is the main means of energy, but given that it has to be dug from the ceiling, it's intensely dangerous to do so - with mining being essentially the most dangerous job in the entire system, but being mandatory service for people (a little like how Switzerland has "public service" as mandatory for a certain period of time.) As such, having light is rare - and thus, having more light in your establishment is considered to be a sign of wealth or esteem. There's also a particular ore, known as Lumina, which constantly gives off a soft green light - originally thought to be a wonderful thing, but eventually found to be exceptionally toxic. As a result, Lumina is often used by miners in place of fire due to the sheer amount of gas on the upper levels of the Abyss.

The cities themselves are built in a particularly ramshackle manner - having been built from the top down, they are essentially a mess of exposed walkways, buildings and huge cables holding the cities in place - as well as a series of train tracks that pierce directly through the cities in order to most effectively deliver stuff.

Anyways, this is just my own basic idea - hope y'all like it!
 

Dan Quixote

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First of all, based idea and I am very excited to see where this thread will end up in a few months. Worldbuilding is definitely among the most fun aspects of writing any sort of story, so I am also excited to submit... this!

Job #1: Miniature World

1635527641713.png


Well, it's not the world that's miniature, so maybe that's an improper name for it. In this world, we'll still have a wide variety of biomes and structures, but the races themselves will all be shrunk down to a diminutive size. This could mean races based on small animals like mice and birds, small fantasy races like fairies, or just the regular set of races simply miniaturized. The point is that the world around them will be very different. Trees will rise up into the heavens seemingly without end, rivers will act like small seas separating landmasses, rolling hills work as mountains, houses will be made of just a few leaves, grass shoots, or flower petals, and lilypads can be used as boats in a pinch. The actual different biomes themselves will be have to be shrunk a bit to allow for feasible transport between them, but it's still safe to say this world is not one where people can just walk from place to place.

The world is flexible enough to fill it with whatever accoutrement we wish, like deserts or glaciers or caverns, but they are all recontextualized to be utterly massive from the perspective of the races inhabiting them. For example, caves can be used not as a temporary housing from the elements, but a whole small civilization could live inside of it. Cities could be contained in the space of a little river island or a beach. Forces of nature will also become far more dangerous in this setting. Thunderstorms will cause dangerous flooding on the ground floor pretty much every time. Wind can blow almost anything away. Puddles of mud could become deadly quicksand, and a sandstorm in a desert could be like the worst hailstorm you've ever seen. Food will be easy to come by in this world, I imagine, so the threats will all come from war by the other races or nature itself. It's not necessary, but another idea to add onto this could be that some animals or creatures that we know remain their standard sizes, meaning these gigantic crows or dogs or insects could pose a threat to the races every now and then.
 
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Job 1:
Feudal Japan and Modern Japan Mixed.

The World of Feudal/Modern Japan Setting could be interesting, because Japan has cool Culture like Sumo Fights, Interesting lore and cool Technologies like Futuristic Capsule Hotels. Even tho, it could be cool of we had Japanese Setting with Classic and Modern stuff Mixed. The cities are Based on Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Nagasaki, while also based on Older Japan looks. It also has the Mountain that resembles Mt. Fuji. There are Temples that are secretly Military Army Bases.

The Technology could be Mechs and Stuff while Feudal Japan has their Technology like Samuari Swords and etc. Also, the civilization is full of Cyborg Japanese Village people and Robot Samurais, who defend the Land from Cosmic Forces from Outer Space like Dogu Aliens or Extraterrestrial Yokai. Don't forget that there is History about the Region/Land, where it was same like Feudal Japan and other Japan periods and after World War II, it became highly Futuristic weapons with Mechs, Defensive Items like Laser Walls. There are also God's, who were existed, but they faded away until they became AI Holograms that support soldiers, who are attacking the Evil Forces.
 

SharkLord

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Aight, it's getting close to the 24-hour mark. At around 4:10 PST, I'll be setting up the voting period. If you want to submit something, do it soon!
 

SharkLord

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VOTING PERIOD IS NOW OPEN!
  1. Ocean World by SharkLord SharkLord - An ocean planet, littered with islands and dominated by water
  2. Fire and Ice World by Glubbfubb Glubbfubb - A planet of lava and desert on the outside and icy caverns on the inside
  3. Cavern World by GolisoPower GolisoPower - A world set underground, with caves full of mystery to be explored
  4. Solarpunk World by Wario Wario Wario Wario Wario Wario - A world where technology and nature work in harmony
  5. Urban Fantasy World by Venus of the Desert Bloom Venus of the Desert Bloom - A world where magic and fantasy creatures survive to the modern day
  6. The Abyss by KneeOfJustice99 KneeOfJustice99 - A world inside the planet, hanging upside-down over a vast unknown abyss
  7. Miniature World by Dan Quixote Dan Quixote - A world who's inhabitants are absolutely tiny, turning hills into mountains and a light sprinkle into a flood
  8. Japan-Styled World by Tankman from Newgrounds Tankman from Newgrounds - A world where the aesthetic of feudal Japan has been updated to the modern day
Ranked voting is in effect. For those not familiar with Super Smash Bros. Infinite's system:
  1. Gets three points
  2. Gets two points
  3. Gets one point
Keep this in mind and make sure you arrange your votes in order. With that, vote away!
(Quick edit: Also, you can't vote for your own submission as your first choice. We'll solidify these rules later on, but keep that in mind for now)
 
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GolisoPower

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1) Solarpunk World
2) Urban Fantasy World
3) The Abyss

Also, SharkLord, just wanna ask: are the self-voting rules from other Creation Threads the same as here or not? I feel like it should be important for future job votings.
 

SharkLord

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1) Solarpunk World
2) Urban Fantasy World
3) The Abyss

Also, SharkLord, just wanna ask: are the self-voting rules from other Creation Threads the same as here or not? I feel like it should be important for future job votings.
Yeah, just added that. Blanked on it for a moment, but yeah, you can't vote for your submission as your first choice. I'm debating on how completely I want to ban self-voting, but for now the only thing outlawed is your own submission in first place.
 

airConditioner

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1. Ocean World
I absolutely love marine environments and ocean ecosystems. I think the littering of islands around these oceans would definitely shape each island or archipelago's culture, which would give us so much room to explore. We could also explore how these Islands are formed (which could also depend on what other settings we may decide to go with.) Whether it be through natural volcanic activity or artificially created via inner workings of magic and technology, this world would definitely be an interesting one to explore.
2. Solarpunk World
Technology and nature working together to create a single setting just sounds so cool. I stopped trying for explanations so assume for the rest is "cool!, and also works well with the other themes I chose"
3. Urban Fantasy
 

SharkLord

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And the votes are in!
  1. SOLARPUNK WORLD - 16
  2. Ocean World - 15
  3. Urban Fantasy World - 11
  4. Miniature World - 8
  5. Cavern World - 7
  6. The Abyss - 4
  7. Japan-Styled World - 3
  8. Fire and Ice World - 2
Dan Quixote Dan Quixote 's Solarpunk World just barely snags a win, with 16 points. However, it might not be the only winner. As Krookodilian Krookodilian mentioned, not everything is mutually exclusive, and we can easily incorporate elements of the other submissions. Given just how close the Solarpunk and Ocean submissions came, plus the fact that the former is about the aesthetic and the latter is about the environment, I think they can very easily share the focus.

As a result, I'm putting up a poll to decide on whether or not we'll completely combine the Solarpunk and Ocean submissions. For clarity, if we combine them we'll have Solarpunk technology on an ocean planet. If we leave them separate, the ocean elements will be on the side.

In other news, I've mapped out our next couple jobs. Feel free to give your input on them while we wait for the poll to finish, which will be around 10-11 AM in Pacific Time.
  • Job 2 - Magic System
  • Job 3 - Set of Elements
  • Job 4 - Average Technological Level
  • Job 5 - Humanity's Status in the World
 
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Glubbfubb

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Since were done with the first job I have a good tip to prevent this thread from being slower paced, if no one is responding to anything in the last few hours make a post saying submission will end in am hour then start voting after that time, at least have people vote throughout the day so that there would be at least 12 hours for the job
 

Yiptap

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I choose to keep the worlds separate. Although I prefer the Ocean World way more than Solarpunk, I don't see a way how both can work, though maybe we can find workarounds.
 

Venus of the Desert Bloom

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What if….there are massive elevated domes filled with different ecosystems that humans managed to bio-engineer to co-exist with after near-destruction of the fantasy world via massive global flooding. These would be desolated areas with raging floods with a few islands here and there.
 
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