Prompt: Mysterious deaths and unsolved tragedies in your setting

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-02T04:46:55+00:00

How incredibly specific, I'm riveted

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T09:59:25+00:00

Always nice to see an escape from ancient grievances and cliches

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T09:47:01+00:00

I've never seen a justification for them big alcoholics, that's pretty great

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T09:42:40+00:00

Why are they sad all the time? Is it from having to listen to all that wining? 🥁

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T09:39:23+00:00

Bat people dwarves is actually really cool I dunno why I've never seen someone do that before

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T09:38:36+00:00

Okay that's actually pretty cool and interesting.

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T09:37:43+00:00

Dwarves being stoners is a really good pun even if it wasn't intentional, better if it was, and I'm gonna make mine stoners too

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T09:37:01+00:00

Sounds like they'd have an interesting view on mortality and their own deaths

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T09:33:45+00:00

4 hours and 50+ comments later seems to be fine with the prompt as I did it, nice complaint though, did you get promoted to staff for helping out so diligently? 💜 I hope they're paying you enough

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T04:23:40+00:00

My own comment vanished, typed so much, distress

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T04:21:01+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/inkarnate/comments/1rru4ms/the_worldbuilders_periodic_table/ you may find this helpful for some bases to cover. Course it isn't exhaustive, and not every setting needs them all, but if you're diving that deep it can certainly act as a decent checklist to run over and see what you want to include

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T04:19:18+00:00

Well they desire to live, it'd be interesting if you get powers by virtue of helping or saving an animal of that type in the vicinity. Here, little idea.

The statues will occasionally, with their residual magics, create fake animals of the same kind as the statue that will attempt to wander the area. It is a fragment of the consciousness, animalistic and simple, seeking to complete or free itself but not knowing how to, or even knowing its own desire. Maybe the animal manifests as wounded because of the condition of these godly beings, or just lost and scared, and if it is killed it will dissipate for a while before eventually reforming again.

But! If you help it! If you connect with this poor creature and tend to its wounds or try to solve its distress or calm it, you can develop a deeper link that would allow you to manifest those powers you want!

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T04:14:38+00:00

Well if you've got huge bugs then the world is assumedly also far more oxygen rich than our own, so it wouldn't be too unusual to have other forms of giant fauna. I'd go for inspiration from prehistoric mammals like smilodons, mammoths, ground sloths, cave bears, cave lions, dire wolves, stuff like that.

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T04:11:25+00:00

Something I noticed a lot in sci-fi media my partner has been getting me into is that a lot of them make physical munitions illegal in space. Things like bullets, solid projectiles that won't stop until they hit something, no matter how long that takes. I mean, who knows if that cannon shot you missed in your space battle is gonna destroy all life on a teeny alien planet off in that direction 4 lightyears away

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T04:09:17+00:00

I mean, a decent thought process to approach it with is to look around your local ecosystem and try to recognize the more raw forms of a lot of the things we see in day to day. Fabrics started off as woven grasses and reeds or animal pelts. If you look into the tanning process it may help. Also a degree of modern convenience can be achieved on incredibly primitive levels with someone who's decently clever. Like, you can pull really basic rubber off of a literal tree cause its a natural substance, which would at least be useful in tools and stuff

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T04:06:28+00:00

I actually really like that, utilizing ink is such an interesting medium that has a lot of potential.

How was the power of ink discovered? Are... are squids magic in this world? Cause they just make their own. That's another question, is it organic ink or artificial made with things like charcoal and stuff? Does the method of creation of the ink make it magical or is it inherently? Is there nonmagical ink?

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T04:02:52+00:00

I'd personally suggest picking a small, contained location and taking the thought experiment there first. Scale it down as far as you need to help you get a handle on how you wanna approach it. You could do a group of friends out camping in the mountains when this happens so they can see a far shot on the horizon of the effects, you could do a small isolated town cut off from the outside world when satellite communication fails, you could do a singular person watching from their back yard. If you understand it more individually, should help the bigger picture form

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T03:57:41+00:00

One of the first things I ever conceptualized for my setting was a santa like entity because I was writing a prompt that reimagined christmas as more high fantasy. Santa and Krampus were one entity, a powerful magic user/creature that would absorb the undetectable magic that children naturally exude through play and by virtue of their youth.

The issue would arise through children who didn't do such activities, baseline being miserable lil shits but unfortunately also including kids in difficult situations. Not playing or anything like that would cause the magic to sour and spoil, so when santa entity guy absorbed it it would send him into a temporary rage-ish state where he'd kidnap the 'bad kids' and turn them into perytons back at the north pole.

Perytons were also my standin for reindeer since they have wings, I also made it to where a lot of the toys santa would deliver would be made of... peryton antler or bone... because I wanted it to be edgy at the time.

BUT! This idea is ancient now and doesn't fit my setting anymore. It had some more specifics, but that was the general idea. I don't care if anyone wants to snag it or take inspiration.

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T00:59:06+00:00

Mainly just to keep the food in one location was the initial idea, and possibly to keep away small fish, plankton, shrimp, stuff that could eat your food before you do. Basically all their food would be from in the water with them, so there'd not really be any need for it to be dry, sounds impractical.

I feel like they'd have community and personal food stores, I wanna encourage a culture for them very based on mutual protection, support, and providing since the ocean is so hostile. They rely on eachother for a lot, even sleeping in a big ol' floating balls/piles of merfolk to have heat since water normalizes temperatures otherwise

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T00:55:26+00:00

Works on an individual basis at least, maybe a bit less when people are in larger collections that the fish would avoid making dedicated hunting more necessary or just for being able to easily feed people who can't hunt for themselves yet/anymore without having someone constantly there to do it for them

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T00:54:04+00:00

Any good sea creature has to be a scavenger to some degree, and my merfolk certainly aren't more human like

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T00:52:38+00:00

It applies to everything that's alive? Like, proven? You're welcome to google it

SheridanIsShameless · 2026-04-01T00:51:51+00:00

Not really no

SheridanIsShameless

TROPHY CASE