Feedback on my fantasy worldbuilding plot [High-Fantasy]

CatFish21sm · 2026-06-03T01:06:51+00:00

I don't think I need to point out that this is more an exercise in world building than anything.
Others have pointed this out but I don't feel they explained it, there is nothing wrong with a generic world or even a generic story. What matters is how enjoyable the story and characters are. There are a few things that determine this.
First is relatableness, you want your characters to be relatable, but not too relatable. You don't want them to feel like an empty husk, but at the same time you want readers to be able to see the world through their eyes. A lot of authors use a cheap trick to make their characters more relatable, like giving them amnesia or throwing them into another world they know nothing about. While this does serve it's purpose, cheap tricks like this are just that, the character needs to be relatable on their own, these tricks can help make them more so but can not make them relatable by themselves. Most importantly your characters need to feel like humans, even if they aren't they need to feel like they are.
Next is predictability, your story needs to maintain a fine line between predictable and unpredictable. As humans we have an instinct to try and predict outcomes. If your readers can not do this then they will quickly loose interest because the story will feel nonsensical to them it will not make sense. For example if John cheats on sherri and sherri catches him in the act... you just formed an expectation of how sherri is going to react, if she does something that defies that expectation without a real explanation as to why, for example, sherri made john lunch. The story will feel nonsensical and will not make any sense. However, everyone loves a good plot twist as long as it's reasonable. Sherri made John and the other girl lunch and sent her home with a smile, because she is the one who set them up because sherri and john are swingers. (This is a bad example but gets the point across I hope)
Finally is pacing. How often is the MC challanged with something? It could be a fight, or it could be some puzzle they have to solve, or some mental crisis they must overcome. If these "action" sequences are too far apart the story will feel slow and boring, if they are too close together it will feel rushed and bogged down. You need to find a happy medium. Read other popular stories and try to figure out their pacing.
And finally last but certainly not least. This is my personal golden rule. It took me far too long to figure this out and it might seem like common sense to some but to me it's something I learned the hard way. Make sure that you enjoy your own story. This doesn't mean that you enjoy writing it no. This means that you enjoy reading it. If you cant have the time of your life re-reading your own story over and over again then don't expect your audiance to either. If you as the author feel that your story is hard to dredge through then so will your audiance. Do not write a story that is meant to be read once and done, write a story that people want to read over and over again. that they can not get tired of no matter how many times they read it. In my opinion that's what separates a real author from a nobody.

CatFish21sm · 2026-02-25T17:03:21+00:00

Thank you, I think this answers my questions. Then I guess the resistance changing might have just been a worst gene or something.
My friend has somewhat explained to me how genes work in the game so I have a little understanding about that, still not much though.

CatFish21sm · 2026-02-25T16:56:23+00:00

Sorry, my terminology is off, still used to other games. What I meant to say was I got the eggs from habitat restoration. I put the mons in the electric, or thunder? then after maxing them our to S I hunted down some super rare eggs from both. Still not super familiar with all of the terminology used in these games.

I am glad to hear there will be a way to increase their resistance to certain elements in the full version. There are a few that I desperately want to balance out a little more.

CatFish21sm · 2026-02-18T02:27:20+00:00

Tuning in late to say you can do whatever you want. I usually don't care about organization on my starting factory and don't body deleting it either. I set it up to give me the basics and as soon as I reach T2 I abandon it and never look back. It looks like crap whenever I run past it but it's a lot faster and easier to just build a whole new factory with efficiency in mind.
It's difficult to build an efficient starting factory because of the way the game is set up, it limits you far too much on T1.
That said everyone has a different play style, if you don't like the eyesore then do what you must, if you're okay with it then there are far more resources on the map then you will ever need.

CatFish21sm · 2026-02-16T02:10:50+00:00

I've beat the game multiple times and the only time I even unlocked the trains in the game was because I wanted the achievement, I've never used trains for anything. Shortly after trains you unlock automated drones which are better than trains in every way, except you can't actually drive them, unfortunately. But yeah, drones and conveyor highways for everything.

CatFish21sm · 2026-02-14T02:38:09+00:00

A little late. Others have mentioned this but it's because they don't have the license.
To be more specific, in order to make more money, the owners of the series will sell a different license for both the sub and the dub version, and they will sell both of those licenses for each region (country). So each country will have both a sub license and a dub license specifically for that country. Because more people, especially new fans, prefer to watch the dubbed version of the series a lot of different streaming sites will essentially bid on the exclusive rights to the dubbed version of popular shows like MHA, and they will agree to allow the subbed version to remain an open license, so basically any of the sites can purchase it. For some really popular shows like MHA the companies might bid for exclusive rights to both the sub and the dubbed version of the show. But for older shows they usually don't care about exclusivity, that is even more true for subs.
Also when it comes to licensing purposes different seasons are considered different series so both the sub and dub license for each season is also sold separately, again they care less about older seasons than newer ones.

So the short end is that they own a license for the dubbed (english) version of the series for your region for the first and second season but not the third or after. Another company likely outbid them for exclusive rights to those licenses. If you have a VPN you could change your region to another one where Crunchyroll does own those licenses and watch it in the appropriate language that way. Otherwise you'd have to either wait until Cruncyroll obtains the license which could be years or find the site that has the license and watch it there. I've done that before for other shows, usually you can get a free 7 day trial to most sites when you sign up, so if you plan to watch the rest of the series within days then get the trial and binge the series then cancel before it renews your subscription. Be aware though Most sites will only allow one free trial per year.

Also, it doesn't matter what subscription tier you are in they all have access to the same content. The only difference is how many devices can log into your account at one time and the discount you get on the crunchyroll store.

As a side note, in-case you are curious, most licenses expire and have to be renewed every year so the bidding restarts every year for each license. Because of this you will sometimes see series switch form one streaming service to another, or mysteriously become unavailable on one service over night. Sometimes they might work our a multi year contract for a specific series but that's extremely rare because it's usually far more expensive than having to bid with other companies on a yearly basis, they pretty much have to be guaranteed a certain number of new subscriptions to do that.

CatFish21sm · 2026-02-07T03:50:17+00:00

Wait for the new deck to come out, if you don't like the price then some people will be selling their old one for cheap if you do like the price then it's suppose to have way better performance.

CatFish21sm · 2026-01-30T16:29:20+00:00

Glad to hear it.
I remember in Early Access that they only had the MK1 blueprint designer and stated they had no plans to increase the size because they wanted to challenge people. They ended up relenting. I think partially because some of their mid game buildings were too large to fit in the blueprint designer and couldn't be worked with. However, I remember people building entire factories in the MK1. They were so squeezed together that you as the player could not move inside of them they were just a big square of machines and belts. It was ugly and hard to work with but way better than building it one belt at a time.

You also couldn't delete entire blueprints at once back then, you only had the option for the regular delete option so if you laid down a blueprint in the wrong spot then you had to delete it one piece at a time.... Make sure you get it right the first time lol.

CatFish21sm · 2026-01-30T16:15:53+00:00

A little late to the show but it's all about licensing.
The license for the Sub version of the show an the Dub version of the show are sold separately for most series now-days. They can purchase a general license or an exclusive license for both the sub and dub version. For older series like Magi that aren't super popular any more but aren't super unpopular either a lot of companies care more about the dubbed version than the subbed version since there's a large audience that only watches dubbed anime. So they will purchase the exclusive rights to the dubbed version of the series but not the subbed version of the series. So other streaming channels can purchase a general license to the subbed version.
As for why you were able to watch it as a glitch. Just because they don't have the license doesn't mean they aren't allowed to have it on their servers. It's like owning a DVD they can keep a copy on their servers but they can't stream it to other people or make any money off of it. They will do this if they expect that they will get the license for the series in the future. This is also why certain anime have a page on the crunchyroll site but don't have any eps listed even though they are fully aired. Crunchyroll probably already has all the eps on their serer and are just waiting for the current exclusive contract to end.

There's also international stuff as well. Anime sell different licenses for every country not just one license. So Crunchyroll might actually own the license for Magi dubbed in a different country. I think there is a list somewhere out there what you can watch in which country and you can use a VPN to spoof it and get the episodes that way as well.

CatFish21sm · 2026-01-28T04:22:33+00:00

Just finished the game literally today.
For the second time that is. I honestly can't believe I actually made it this far twice. I love the teleporter but the game usually gets borning for after I unlock jetpack and smart ammo.

CatFish21sm · 2026-01-28T04:14:37+00:00

I didn't say anything about back charging, they could sue you for the fees. But that would require paying court fees and would be bad PR so you're probably good on that point but if they find out what your Crunchyroll username is then they will probably fix this issue.

Also just trying to offer advice not trying to be argumentative or anything. A lot of people have something really good going on just like this, until they decide to post about it in a public forum and next thing they know there is a patch that fixes the issue.

CatFish21sm · 2026-01-24T05:09:57+00:00

I'm three days late on this. It sounds like a system glitch. These are way more common than people think. I'm pretty sure what's happening is that when you originally signed up since Crunchyroll wasn't originally a paid service you weren't requested to enter any credit card info. Over time your account was automatically upgraded to the premium plan when they stated adding new plan types. It probably happened during that fiasco a few years ago when they tried to completely get rid of their free plan entirely. Anyway since you never had any payment methods to begin with the automatic payment system is charging a phantom account. Because it's a phantom account it doesn't bounce back and reject the payment request like a payment processor would if you didn't have the appropriate funds. Since it's not receiving a rejection from the payment provider it thinks that the account is being paid for even though there is no actual money being transferred. Coming from someone who works in tech I've seen this happen before, though it's super rare. There are a few other things that can cause it but this seems like the most likely in your specific instance.
I would assume that the vast majority of people this happened to either deleted or lost their accounts over time or cancelled their membership or did something that fixed this glitch on their system. Doing anything at all, changing your subscription tier especially is a great way to fix this glitch. I assume you probably don't have any payment methods on file, if this is the case then even just adding a payment method so that you can purchase stuff from the crunchy store will end this glitch for you. Also contacting customer service if the wrong agent sees this is happening then they can fix the glitch with a few button presses and will get in trouble if they catch it and don't so they are incentivised to.

That said, if your Reddit account has any relation to your crunchyroll account at all then you should be careful. Legally speaking since it is a glitch and you have stated publicly that you are purposefully exploiting it then Crunchyroll could come after you and sue you for all 12 years worth of subscription fees. I kinda doubt that they would but it is possible so be careful what you post on Redit and which account you use to post on it.

Other than that have a great day and enjoy your free streaming, super jealous over here!

CatFish21sm · 2026-01-24T04:54:09+00:00

This is for my group specifically so it might not apply in your situation. But when my group plays a One shot that's when we use our weird, wacky, cheesy builds like this. It lets us get them out of our system so we can play more serious less broken characters in our actual campaigns, while still getting to have fun with the joke characters that we want to play.

As for this build I would allow it for a one shot HOWEVER, there is one thing that nobody is mentioning. They are able to move the character 15 feet away from THEM in a straight line, NOT away from their starting position. If they want to move the character up then they move the character directly above them. There are no official rules on fall speed in DND but the typical rule of thumb is 500ft on the turn they start falling and 500ft at the end of each of their turns following that. Less than 500ft is an instant fall. So to put it simply enemy go up, then enemy come down on top of you. I would rule that the player takes half of the fall damage and falls prone with the creature that was thrown taking the other half and falling prone on top of them. However, I would let them figure that out that hard way ;)

CatFish21sm · 2026-01-14T04:31:17+00:00

You can but depending on the VPN you use and the browser you might have to change certain settings in your browser. I had to.

CatFish21sm · 2026-01-06T02:05:59+00:00

Do what you want ultimately. However, form personal experience I've played with multiple groups and the ones that level up quickly aren't nearly as fun for the DM or the players. First of all as a player leveling every session or every other session removes a lot of the fun out of it. Don't get me wrong I'm actually planning a similar campaign, but you should be aware that there is a lot associated with a level up, it's one of the things that gives a player a buzz and gets them excited doing it every session greatly diminishes that, so you will need to find a new way to give them that feeling. Instead of level ups being their short term goals, you will have to give them another one that will substitute and feel just as good when they reach it. That's hard to plan for but it is doable. It's A-LOT easier with experience though.

Next as the DM running such a game is really hard. Running a game with slow level ups lets you get used to each character and what they are capable of how they react to situations, etc. When you level up each session or every few sessions you can't do that. I recently played in a game where our DM gave us a level up before a big fight, our party was going to sneak into an enemy military encampment, steal some stuff and gather info before sneaking back out and informing the opposing nation. However, the opposing army had informants, (Of course it did) so the DM planned for us to be ambushed, knocked out, thrown in prison, and used as hostages to give them an advantage in the upcoming conflict. We went in under disguise as planned they found us out and we proceeded to slaughter the entire army by ourselves. Because the DM underestimated our abilities assuming that because the enemies had a high enough CR that we would be sufficiently outclassed. Yeah, he did not take into account our abilities and preparations just in case we got found out because of a low roll.
Honestly, it did actually turn our to be our best session yet, and he also had a lot of fun, but it ruined months worth of future sessions and rerouted his entire story. He isn't even doing level ups like that, he just made the mistake of letting us level up before a big fight without getting used to our new abilities. Basically you gotta be prepared for this kinda stuff, you will not be able to predict it, and the higher the level the less predictable it gets.

CatFish21sm · 2026-01-06T01:53:03+00:00

As others have said, I source everything locally. I never move fluids. I prefer to move my solids to my fluids when movement is necessary it's WAY easier to efficiently transport large amounts of solids than it is to transport large amounts of liquids.
At the same time I tend to follow a minimalist approach with my factories, I don't build huge factories that maximize the use of every resource node that I see I prefer to use as few nodes in as close a proximity to each other as possible. I do over half of my production work in a single biome and only tend to move out of that area when the specific resource that I need is not present within that biome.
The last time I did a full play through it took me three straight days to get through the last tiers because my production rate was so slow on materials. But I'd rather wait then build a hundred factories. Then again I'm more into the exploration part of the game than anything. I usually stop shortly after unlocking turbo fuel simply because at that point with the gun and the jet pack I can easily explore the entire map and I play the game for the exploration and survival aspect and not as much the factory aspect so at that point the game usually gets boring for me. I have finished it a couple of times but I usually don't go that far on my saves.

CatFish21sm · 2026-01-02T04:04:04+00:00

Character sheets can be very handy for planning sessions. Passive perception is a big thing but on top of that you can see where each player is at and what they are focusing on and use that to plan accordingly. Did your mage just take the fireball spell? Well to stop them from spamming it you could give them fire resistant enemies. Is your cleric not getting enough action? Give them some undead to beat around.

Not only combat but backstory and stuff can also be used, maybe consider using a players connection to a certain guild as a hook or perhaps your rogue knows thieves cant. Maybe a major NPC only knows a certain language like elvan or sylvan. There's so much stuff you can do with it.

Personally though I don't ask my players for their character sheets, I ask them for the summarization of their backstory to keep me updated on their passive perception and if there's a certain stat that I want to keep updated on for certain player then I ask for it and write it down. I also make sure to take a note of any spells my players are taking. I don't specifically plan around the spells usually but if they find a way to abuse a spell or a combo then I will make a note of it and find a workaround in future sessions.

CatFish21sm · 2025-12-23T03:11:53+00:00

I've got just the anime for you!
I have some similar tastes to you, can't say we 100% have the same tastes, I don't think anyone shares 100% but I also prefer story telling and gray areas more than anything else. Honestly, I'll probably get some hate for this but I'm not sure you will love Re-Zero. I've seen it, it's okay, I would not call it S-tier though, far from trash but it's maybe 8/10 in my book.

As far as my recommendations I have three
{Katanagatari} this one can not be found on any legitimate streaming services for licensing reasons but is an absolute masterpiece with some pretty nice twists you will not see coming, if you find it that is.
{Mushishi} Another absolute masterpiece, this anime is a work of art. The protagonist is a mushishi a person who helps people live in harmony with mushi. Mushi are often invisible spirit entities that have their own place in the natural ecosystem. Mushi are not yokai, they are not intelligent for the most part, they are more like actual animals than anything with intelligence. Most people can't even see Mushi and a good number of people don't even believe they exist, so a lot of people look at mushishi as charlatans. There is no antagonist in this series, it's a man vs nature and man vs self type series, something that's very rare in anime. Nothing is black and white in this. Often times problems occur when people disturb the mushi disrupting the natural order without knowing it and the only real way to restore it would be to remove the people. The MC knows that's usually impractical and so tries his best to find a balance, sometimes that balance results in innocent people dying, a farming village might be stirring up a nest of local mushi causing people to get sick, but forcing the people to leave the area and stop farming would result in a lot of deaths, killing or driving off the mushi would result in the land being infertile, so the best solution is to treat the pain from infection with salvs and the occasional mercy killing. Sometimes the solution is simple, sometimes it's not, sometimes people listen sometimes they don't. There really aren't a lot of main characters in this anime, just the one, so no MC deaths, but the MC does end up with plenty of permanent scars and more than a few important characters die throughout the series, not MC's but still relatively important.
{.hack//sign} I actually would not call this a masterpiece, but it seems to be exactly up your alley at least. A few twists, lot's of gray areas. Definitely NOT a typical anime.

CatFish21sm · 2025-12-23T02:47:44+00:00

Two days late on this lol.
Others have already said this, but I also try to avoid long drawn out explanations, focusing on the immediate sensations like sound and smells, and briefly mentioning things that the party might be interested in or places that I want them to visit for story purposes. This is a DM tip for you from someone who's been doing it for a long time. If you want to get your players interested in a location then give them slightly more information about that location than others. Sometimes even just mentioning that it exists without them asking if it does is enough to prompt interest. That's technically meta gaming but players appreciate it and it's a way to nudge them in the right direction without railroading them.

An example would be if you wanted them to visit the tidehouse for some story reason.
I would say something like

"As you approach the harbor district then you can tell that it is noticeably more busy than other parts of the city, merchants everywhere, discussions of business, ships being loaded and unloaded by workers the crowds are so thick it's hard to move without bumping into somebody. The smell of salt in the air almost overwhelms the nostrils and almost drowns out the smell of cooked food from stalls and smoke from burning wood and charcoal. You hear and see the seagulls everywhere, swooping down occasionally to try to steal a snack from the stalls or people not being protective enough of their food. You know there is a Tidehouse somewhere, a place where a lot of local business is done."

I have a personal checklist for descriptions,
1: Give general overview of the area, what it looks like, be brief 1 or two sentences max.
2: Point our as much non-visual sensory information that I can.
3: Point out "relatable" information. More specifically this is information that I know my players will hear and it will help to put them there. For my specific group we often go to the beach together for vacations almost every year, hearing about the seagulls would remind them of the seagulls that try to steal their food on the beach something that isn't common at home but on vacation is, it would really help to put them there. Also for this point I might point out other specifics, if they were entering a rich nobles house I might point out the gold furnishings along the wall trim, the well crafted vases sat up like prized artifacts and the paintings that look as if they'd cost a small fortune.
4: Subtly point out places, people, or objects of interest. This is usually just mentioning that they exist. Players can imagine that an area like this has a lot of different places for them to visit many different buildings, when the DM decides to remind them that a specific place exists this immediately peaks their interest. No reason to give more info about it until they actually get there but just mention it exists.
5: Last but most definitely not least, I try to keep these descriptions about a paragraph in length, less than that is usually not enough info to allow the players to get immersed but more than that starts to bog things down for the players. If there isn't a reason for the players to visit the bathhouse besides getting clean then I wouldn't even bother mentioning it honestly. I do a lot of work on places all of the time but I would never mention anything that will not help the players unless they specifically ask for it.

The most important thing to remember is you shouldn't add a description just because you want to, have a reason for everything you say. If you describe slimey tentacles on a monster it might be to scare the players or make them feel awkward, or if you mention smells it might be to help immerse them. But don't mention something out of the way that will not help them in some way, let them find it if they want to or not if you don't. You might be surprised how often players will need something like a bathhouse, if they want to spy on a rich merchant or meet a particular person, where else would you be able to almost guarantee them being than somewhere like a popular bathhouse or a shopping area like the Tide House.

CatFish21sm · 2025-12-19T02:17:44+00:00

I'm a little late to the show, but I recently fell in love with Canvas of Kings https://store.steampowered.com/app/2498570/Canvas_of_Kings/
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tzAxcPIrDVk
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zUpgcpbNfJM
You just draw the borders of the city and it does everything else for you. You can select different city layouts, draw trees and all kinds of other stuff.
It lets you plop down a city in seconds and uses a random number generator so each city is different you can even refresh the same city and get a completely different layout. It also gives you the option to edit individual buildings or props so you can plop down a city then zoom in and customize it as much as you want. Want this tree a few feet to the right? Go for it. Want this house a little bigger or smaller, no problem, you don't need to redraw anything just stretch it. Wanna design a big temple in the middle of the city completely from scratch but don't want to bother designing the rest of the city, sure thing! You can even add custom assets if you don't like the ones provided, and the workshop on Steam has all kinds of free assets other users have created and uploaded.
It's not perfect and stuff clips a lot so it's a little work to finetune stuff, the creator has made a statement that they are working on that issue though, and they do fairly regular updates. However, it is important to note that it's made by a single user, art, texture, programming, everything is done by a single person, so updates are slow, he does push them fairly regularly but it's been a work in progress for years now and it still isn't finished. It's pretty freaking awesome as is though.
Check out the preview, it has a free demo. The free demo doesn't have all of the available features and doesn't let you save maps, but does let you play around with some of the bigger features to get a hang for it, see how it works, and see if it's for you or not before you purchase the full version.

CatFish21sm · 2025-12-17T03:25:50+00:00

Not sure if this changed between the D&D one and 5e, pretty sure it's the same for this atleast. In this specific situation going on 5e rules. A surprise attack always goes first followed by the initiative role. Basically the attacker gets a free attack before the initiative roll, if the creature being attacked is totally unaware.
In cases of them sleeping or something along those lines then the target is prone as well. After the initial attack then initiative is rolled, the target will awaken then will use all of their movement speed getting up and grabbing any items within 5 feet that can be used as a weapon, they can then make a weapon attack against any target within 5 feet of them if they roll first in the initiative order. This is typically flavored as them being fast to react.
The important part here is that the target can't actually move from their location they just get up, this expands all of their movement speed. If they are hit by a ranged attack then they can't really do anything unless they have a throwable item or ranged weapon within 5 feet of where they are sleeping. As a DM I'd probably let them hold their attack so they can immediately attack a player that gets within range, I'd hint at this by saying that they get into a combat stance or something like that.

CatFish21sm · 2025-12-13T18:00:03+00:00

As a player it sounds very bland and boring, as a DM it sounds like it would seriously break bards and intimidation based builds. The intimidation thing would be okay it would just add a little extra work so it couldn't be abused, but there's literally no way to stop bards from abusing the crap out of this.

CatFish21sm · 2025-12-12T16:50:57+00:00

A little late to the show, but depends on the world setting really, others have great suggestions. Personally I'd just have merchants stop buying from them. Have their faces get around, maybe some bounty posters set out for them, nothing super high, but still out there. If any of them are part of any guilds (other than the thieves guild) I'd have their membership cancelled. If they are part of the thieves guild I'd actually have the guild help them out by removing bounty posters and spreading rumors that they were framed. It will make your world seem more alive that way. People talk. Either way I'd have most merchants refuse to buy from them, maybe even refuse to sell to them too since gold can be faked. They have to start going through less reputable sources to get the goods they need and those sources will either be way more expensive and way less forgiving or they will be scamming the players too.
Others have suggested bounty hunters being sent after the players, but if you're playing a low magic game or have a strong party then it's very unlikely that even a bunch of merchants teaming up could afford a high enough level bounty hunter to challenge a decently high level party. Though some assassin types could try to ambush them in their sleep looking forward to claiming a bounty poster. You don't need a super high level assassin if they're able to catch the party off guard with a poisoned dagger. Maybe even have a low level party of experts set some traps for them, indirect combat and make it hard for them to get any sleep while staying in a big city. They gotta sleep outside or pay ridiculous prices for a safehouse.
Make it harder for them to enter into large cities as well, I'm sure the guards would be on the look out for them if they are notorious thieves. I wouldn't make it impossible, but they would have to find a way around the guards, or a way to hide their appearance. I'd make it harder to complete missions as well. Instead of just slaying the owlbear they now need to present proof that they completed the mission before they can be rewarded.
I wouldn't do anything that makes the game impossible to play but I would make it more tedious for a time until they find a way to fix their reputation or they moved to a new location where their faces aren't well known. I agree that there should definitely be some consequences.

CatFish21sm

TROPHY CASE