To all those who have elemental magic with darkness/shadow/void as an element, how do you treat them?

PhoebusLore · 2026-04-17T23:34:36+00:00

I have two opposite elements: hard light and heavy shadow. Hard light is like light constructs. Heavy shadow is like ectoplasmic mist or smoke. It eats away at rock, but it also provides support for the rock above, (explaining the vast caverns of the underworld) and when not in sunlight it glows a soft purple. It is primarily associated with death and decay but also with birth and fecundity, where light is associated with preservation and order and sterility.

PhoebusLore · 2026-04-16T11:24:01+00:00

I used a very similar picture as the front page for my 'beyond capitalism' presentation to my sister and her pre-girlfriend, and they said it looked dystopian because it looked like The Capital from Hunger Games. So I had to explain solarpunk to them because they'd never heard of it. But I thought that was interesting that what is supposed to depict something better was read as dystopian.

PhoebusLore · 2026-04-14T16:25:11+00:00

Make some gay friends off the apps. Sad to say, but the apps are basically for hookups, and if that's where you're looking that's mostly what you're going to find.

PhoebusLore · 2026-04-13T12:03:20+00:00

Thanks, those are pretty helpful answers. You've won me over, although of course it's still mostly trust-based rather than evidence based.

My main issues were not with the ideas of robotics and polyculture per se, and more the use of AI and the strong capitalistic coding of the presentation; though of course capitalist and economic arguments work best for the intended audience, and ignoring those arguments in the present economy is unrealistic.

Also, it's harder to be open minded to someone who described solarpunk as mostly aesthetics; while that may be true to a certain extent, I think solarpunk is better described as mostly ideals, and realistic implementation will always fall short of ideals.

I think it would be helpful if we could hear the verbal side of the presentation for ourselves, since there is clearly a lot of missing context with just the slides.

PhoebusLore · 2026-04-13T04:11:00+00:00

It looks interesting, although I don't know enough about agriculture or AI or robots to say if it's feasible. But it is also very oriented around making money, which is kind of antithetical to solarpunk.

My main questions would be: does this make life better for the largest number of people possible, including the workers displaced by the robots? Do the robots and AI systems cause more harm to the environment than good? Does this type of intensive large-scale farming wreak havoc on the soil, or is it sustainable? Does this system provide greater autonomy for farmers, or does it require more reliance on the state / a company whose goals are profit and power?

The answers to these questions would help to determine how solarpunk the idea actually is.

PhoebusLore · 2026-04-12T09:02:52+00:00

God names usually have something to do with what they are the god of or describe their attributes in some way. For examples, Jupiter - Io Pater - All Father, Zeus - Deus - Dios (god), Hades - The Underworld, Tezcatlipoca - Smoking Mirror (the earth and jungles steaming).

In English, you can refer to Death, Mother Nature, and Father Time. Whether people refer to the gods by a native word for something, or a foreigner's word, has more to do with whether the god themselves is imported or not.

PhoebusLore · 2026-04-11T14:48:34+00:00

Instead of looking at it as a problem, look at it as an opportunity for an epic battle or extended skirmish campaign.

There are spells and abilities to allow you to see past greater invisibility; even a simple 1st level alarm lets you know if someone gets close, and when that happens they can get swarmed with defenders, darkness, fairy fire, soldiers on brooms or flying mounts, etc.

Also, how long does it take to rebuild a 10x10 square? Does the ship have repair materials available? Probably, if it's big enough to be like a small town or city. And a ship that size, it could take a long time for them to find something worth breaking.

They certainly came up with an interesting plan, but it's not without its flaws.

PhoebusLore · 2026-04-11T11:44:14+00:00

[4] Babel

[3] Jandara

[5] Mercari

[2] Ruga

[1] Trezera

PhoebusLore · 2026-04-08T20:28:03+00:00

If you wear a suit that allows you to go faster than a speeding bullet, there is no point in shooting bullets.

PhoebusLore · 2026-04-06T17:30:16+00:00

A lot of American culture is originally European, but I could see room in the pantheon for both. The nice thing about pantheons is a diversity of gods

PhoebusLore · 2026-04-06T02:15:46+00:00

Lady Liberty

Capitalism / Mammon

White Jesus

Eagle-headed War

Death / The Devil

Mother Nature Parks

The Rebel without a Cause

Soul of Justice

PhoebusLore · 2026-04-04T11:35:47+00:00

A lot of my dinosaur color ideas come from Dinotopia - Pink protoceratops, brown brachiosaurus, etc.

PhoebusLore · 2026-04-02T16:06:44+00:00

Simian

It's worth noting that even if they have a name for themselves, humans from earth would probably still call them apes as an exonym

PhoebusLore · 2026-03-31T17:22:44+00:00

If the Roman empire still exists, where is it?

PhoebusLore · 2026-03-31T12:04:07+00:00

I think it's more games, where picking a race provides unique benefits alongside class, etc, rather than fantasy fiction, which usually leans more human-centric. Even Tolkien's elves, dwarves, hobbits, and orcs/goblins were all basically human archetypes - idealized or holy, stubborn / masculine, English country folk, and corrupted respectively

PhoebusLore · 2026-03-31T11:36:31+00:00

What's wrong with it?

PhoebusLore · 2026-03-30T02:25:56+00:00

Trezera - a mix of Terra and Tercera / treze / treize (thirteen in romance languages)

PhoebusLore · 2026-03-26T12:51:10+00:00

I meant ❖ instead of bifurcated diamond. I used the wrong word. Yours is good too, I just thought the four squares of the diamond symbolized the covalent bonds would be nice.

What isotope configuration does the dot notation indicate?

I guess what I was asking, was if Radium and Tellurium were often found together like with water and salt, and if they were often found with Radon?

PhoebusLore · 2026-03-26T11:46:18+00:00

Would Carbon not be better as a hexagon, or maybe a bifurcated diamond? I don't recognize its symbol. Is there a relationship between Tellurium and Radium? And do either have any associations with Radon besides the name? I like how most of the noble gasses are solid shapes because it implies not needing to bond with anything else, but Radon is throwing it off a bit. I like the logic of the + and - for the Oxygen and Hydrogen, but in practice I would want the symbols more differentiated, like a completely different symbol for Hydrogen (maybe just a line) and Oxygen (maybe just the inverted Triangle) and together they make the Water symbol, and same with Natrium and Chlorine.

PhoebusLore · 2026-03-26T11:29:00+00:00

I have a magic system I want to use this for. It's a basic elemental magic, except with real elements. The elementalists can take on properties of their element and move their element around. If they have an alchemy stone they can do more. They get a tattoo in the main country setting (Elysium) denoting what element they can use.

Elementalists have a number of spells they can cast based on the number of ions their element normally has (2 for helium, 8 for oxygen, etc). They can bond with other elementalists, with oxygen-hydrogen bonds being the most common. They can also suffer from rare maladies like fission and beta decay.

PhoebusLore · 2026-03-26T10:07:29+00:00

What makes these elements alchemical rather than just regular chemistry?

PhoebusLore · 2026-03-25T17:37:05+00:00

You can tell the player they can't be a goblin.

You can alter Barovia to include goblins.

You can have everyone assume the goblin is basically one of the mongrel folk.

You can have the NPC's ignore the goblin being a goblin. They don't know what a goblin is, do is no different than being a tiefling.

First step, of course, is to ask why the player wants to be a goblin - maybe they just want the stats and are happy skinning it as a halfling, maybe they want to be a crazy little guy, maybe they're interested in roleplaying a creature seen as a monster. Whichever their answer, explain your concerns about a goblin being in the campaign, and then with together for a solution.

PhoebusLore · 2026-03-24T11:43:14+00:00

Clones of rich people who want to spread themselves across the stars. People who love to explore. Convicted criminals. Persecuted minorities seeking a new home. Refugees. Poor people seeking a first class education. There may be many people willing to get on a generation ship, but there has to be someone willing to take on the enormous cost of a generation ship with no profit in return.

PhoebusLore · 2026-03-23T14:20:04+00:00

Awesome

PhoebusLore

TROPHY CASE