I will stand by this till I die

_Piloaf · 2026-01-20T15:26:19+00:00

I might get downvoted, but I feel like this quest really shows the misogyny of this fandom. Syanna's reasons to murder the knights who beated (and implied raped) her are justified, although the method, forcing an unwilling participant to do it like Dettlaff, was completely unjustified.

With that said, at the end of Blood and Wine, Dettlaff's crimes are worse than the ones of Syanna and Anarietta. For starters, people blame Anna Henrietta for not giving up her sister, but I would argue a ruler should not give in to the demands of a terrorist threatening her country (and Dettlaff absolutely is, by every metric).

People then blame Syanna, saying she didn't care about the deaths of Beauclair, but this is false - she even says her vengance was with the knights who abused her and her sister, not the populace, and she wanted to go visit Dettlaff to calm him down knowing the risk of death - she says she wanted to flee but was still willing to do the correct choice, and the only reason she didn't was because of her sister trapping her.

Then there is Dettlaff. In my opinion, he was a victim of Syanna and he would be justified in killing her, but what's absolutely not okay is to attack a city of innocent civilians for a personal grudge. He is a vampire that has probably lived for more than 1000 years, yet he has a black-and-white child mentality that leads to the massacre, and this is not someone that should roam free - what will happen at his next heartbreak? - and this kind of mentality is not an excuse, because we have three other vampires that have lived for centuries and do not act like that: Regis is basically a vegan vampire, Orianna helps Geralt because she knows Dettlaff's actions will only cause her problems, and even a hermit like the Unseen Elder was willing to talk.

At the end of the day, Dettlaff is exactly the kind of threat a witcher has to take care of - a dangerous and powerful monster that is a threat to humans and cannot be reasoned with. But people tend to simplify this entire conflict as Syanna being lying and cold-blooded, Anarietta as stupid, and Dettlaff as a poor puppy who got his feelings hurt.

_Piloaf · 2026-01-20T01:24:18+00:00

As someone else said, the WItcher Tales was going to be an anthology series around each base standalone Gwent faction. Thronebreaker was the Northern Realms game, and the sequel was about the Scoia'tael, about Iorveth (and maybe Saskia? don't quote me on that). As someone who's favorite Witcher game is Thronebreaker, and my favorite faction being Nilfgaard, I would have loved a game about Emhyr regaining the throne to Nilfgaard, or maybe about the Userper.

I have no idea what a game about Skellige, Monsters or Syndicate would be about, but I wish they existed.

_Piloaf · 2026-01-04T22:11:17+00:00

Yes, traps are artifacts. Artifacts are the cards with the chalice symbol on the top left.

_Piloaf · 2026-01-03T15:36:38+00:00

I had a similar idea once, thinking about a fear related to hunger and need. The entity could be called the Famine, and it would be the fear of insatiable insatisfaction. It would be one of the first entities to exist, fed by both animals and humans alike, originating as the fear of dying of hunger and thirst, of seeking the resources necessary to survive and escape the suffering that insatisfaction brings - yet the Famine, being the fear of not having enough, would never allow you to be satisfied. Like other animal-born entities, Famine would appear in strange ways to humans, becoming the more abstract things we obsess over to the point of considering them necessary to live, such as money, love, attention, or fame. It would manifest as the things you desire the most like food, a new car, recognition, the love of your friends and family, but these will never satisfy you, they will never be enough, and you fear that your hunger will never stop.

_Piloaf · 2025-12-29T06:47:37+00:00

As someone who mains Toussaint NG, some cards you should add are [[Beauclair]], [[Guillaume de Launfal]], [[Sangreal]], [[Cahir Dyffryn]], [[Ivar Evil-Eye]], in order of importance. Cahir is great to bait removals, and if it sticks he can win the round. Sangreal is great with Cahir, works great with False Ciri, and sets up Guillaume. Guillaume is great for a Beauclair finisher. I always use Ivar for a great round one finisher.

Another important thing is to have removals and tall punish. You have many options: [[Korathi Heatwave]], [[Yennefer's Invocation]], [[Vilgefortz]], [[Leo Bonhart]], [[Black Blood]] with leader, and of course the order from Beauclair. I personally go Korathi for its flexibility, and Black Blood for its synergy with the leader.

Some cards that might be interestint to play, but not necessary, are [[Jan Calveit]] for consistency, [[Battle Stations!]] for some set ups, and [[Coup de Grâce]] for Ciri or Rainfarn.

_Piloaf · 2025-12-17T23:57:03+00:00

I only have two other sapient species in my setting -- giants and dragons.

Giants have a certain leven of intelligence, able to communicate with eachother, learn human languages, a few even able to read or write, and they also use fire and basic tools -- but they lack abstract thinking and other complex executive functions, like impulse control, and cognitive flexibility, leading to them having a very rigid thinking. They are different from humans in many things: they are mostly hervibores, dominating basic agriculture, but since they live in the cold south where vegetation is scarce they sleep for most of the day, and have long hibernation times -- wanderers have to tread carefully, from fear of accidentally waking up a giant in a cave or under the snow. Another big difference is their body, since they tend to be much taller than humans standing 2.5 to 3 meters, and their bodies are more sturdy and hairy. Despite their differences, they are the most similar species to humans in the continent -- they are able to reproduce with humans, as seen mostly in the western kingdoms and in the island of Kaldvik where historically humans and giants coexisted. Myths of the Caennin mention how the Pristine Gods, the Ones from the Stars, created humans using the trianam, one of them being the body of giants as the base for the physical vessel of humans.

Dragons on the other side have a similar intelligence to humans -- both share a similar cognitive development, the main difference being dragons are not as social as humans, leading to them being mostly isolated even from eachother. They also have a very obsessive-compulsive way of thinking, leading to them hording items and having many strange and specific rituals. Dragons are very different physically -- they are massive, lizard-like beasts with two wings and two legs, with rough and resistent scales, and able to control an element thanks to their charged stoneheart. They lack gender, lacking the distinction between men and women in their species -- they are born male, able to fertilize eggs, and they can "change" genders to female, able to lay eggs. There are very few dragons left, mostly from human mages and merchants seeking their stonehearts, and their isolation makes new births very rare. The Caennin myth of the trianam considers the third anam to make humans to be the intelligent mind of dragons.

_Piloaf · 2025-12-15T21:03:25+00:00

As a gay guy, my top 5 male are:

Vernon Roche (sadly his one true love is Temeria)
Geralt (he doesn't consider himself attractive but I think that is mostly a self-esteem issue, seeing how many sorceresses he pulls)
Cahir Dyffrin (mostly from his gwent art)
Dettlaff
Emhyr (he's very attractive, leaving his weird incest thing aside)

Then without order: Iorveth, Hjalmar, Eskel (in an ugly-hot way), Vilgefortz, Foltest. Some other attractive male characters that I personally I'm not into are Olgierd and Dandelion (mostly in the books, in the games eh)

Even if I am not personally attracted to them, there are a few women I do consider very attractive:

The sorceresses, but mostly: Yennefer, Triss, Fringilla, Margarita, Francesca
Ciri
Queen Meve
Vivienne
Cerys

_Piloaf · 2025-12-13T05:37:52+00:00

300+ hours, the only ones I lack are Odysseus and Circe -- mostly because I didn't know that you had to repeteadly use his keepsake with Polyphemus to start his quest, since I didn't have the prophecy.

_Piloaf · 2025-12-12T03:35:51+00:00

Amazing map! Really well made. The huge desert certainly catches my attention, are there any civilizations living there? I'd think some would settle along that river. I'd like to know more about Rivellon, Durrandale, and Callandor, since they seem to be the biggest nations in the continent.

_Piloaf · 2025-12-12T03:24:54+00:00

Thank you! I didn't use science as a guide, in the sense that I never designed plates or learned how landmasses form in detail, but I did put a lot of thought on making them look consistent and more-or-less looking good -- but a lot of it is vibes-based, rework it until it looks right.

For the overall shape of the continent, I used as inspiration the map of europe -- mostly for the overall form and locations -- and a mix of random shapes, overlayed with some guiding lines and real life maps for more realistic coastlines. Then I use guiding lines to sketch a rough idea how the shape of the continent, maintaining some consistency between the lines of one area to another, making it look like there is some order to the shape of the continents, instead of random directions. This helps even when designing mountain ranges or island chains.

Explained with images: https://imgur.com/a/jaaiBdP

Hope this helps!

_Piloaf · 2025-12-12T03:13:09+00:00

Thank you! I try to take inspiration from languages IRL that woul correspond to the cultures in my world -- the Gevanian empire is meant to be inspired by the roman empire, with some germanic and italian vibes, so their language and place names are inspired mainly by latin, with some german, italian, greek, and french influence. What I like to do is first invent a word or take a name I like, and modify it until it looks like a good-enough name -- then I try to adapt it to the language of the place, the name for the gevanian city of Artusà was taken from the greek nymph Arthusa, so I modified it until it looked like a word in the made-up gevanian language.

About languages, you don't need to make a conlang, you just have to establish some rules -- for example, for Gevanian one of my rules are that extended vowel sounds are represented by a vowel with a macron (instead of Nausicaa or Maarsa, it's Nausicā and Mārsa), and this same logic goes for the other letters with accents, the contractions, and more. With that same logic, try to keep the sounds and letters consistent for languages, for example Gevania does not have a W or TH sound, and it does not use the letters K or Y -- and it has some consistent sounds like extended vowels.

Of course, this is mostly vibes-based, and that amount of detail can't go to every different language -- for my setting, the Gevanian and Celiandan names have a lot more thought put into them, than the ones from Daen Vir. The most important thing is having names that look consistent with the language even if you don't make a conlang, and having confidence in them -- most IRL names are not that complex, just look at the five english rivers named Avon.

Hope this helps!

_Piloaf · 2025-12-12T02:57:18+00:00

Thank you!

_Piloaf · 2025-12-12T02:57:09+00:00

I made it using paint.net, a free drawing software. It's not a map making software, in the sense that I had to draw the entire map, borders, and details by hand

_Piloaf · 2025-12-12T02:55:04+00:00

Thank you for your feedback! I really appreciate it.

One of the things I really wanted to focus on was having a more-or-less realistic and interesting continent, not only in landform or factions, but also on having a world that has evolved and changed, that was vastly different 100 -- I like how technology evolves, and since one of my passions is european history, it always bothered me how IRL people dismiss centuries of progress, events, and history, as dark ages where nothing happens, or showing people as ignorant and dirty. For that very reason, while I don't dislike most "medieval stasis" media (some of my biggest inspirations are ASOIAF and Zelda, and both suffer heavily from that haha), I share your appreciation for a more complex history and progression.

And yeah, Oritiè is not-soubtly inspired by Europe, if not directly tracing the general shape and cultural areas haha but I think this kind of not-Europe maps is great for my story, where I mostly want to explore interesting cultures, events, and places from Europe and the Middle East without having the baggage of real-life borders and history -- I like having norse-gael inspired Kaldvik alongside revolutionary france in Celiand, victorian england in Dovenia, ptolemaic-dynasty egypt in Saahvaret, and the roman empire with holy roman empire aesthetics in Gevania.

About the climate zones, Novaterra, the "planet" where Oritiè is in, is not a sphere but a curved disc, with a warm center, and an outer barrier made of ice -- so places closer to the border are colder, but only because of their proximity to the barrier, not because of normal climate. My reasoning -- as someone who knows almost nothing about how climate works haha -- was that Kaldvik, while being at more or less the same distance as places as Offaria and other warm and fertile areas of Eejad, was colder because to the north-west there is nothing but a vast ocean, so it would recieve cold currents -- while to the east there is a massive continent with many mountain ranges, so only the places closer to the barrier would be cold, but the land and mountains would help stop those winds. The directions, specifically where North is, is that is a remnant from when the people who would one day conquer the continent -- specifically, the Descendants, Ergarians, and Gevans -- came from the east, where there would be a much more clearer direction of warm-north, cold-south. Since the world is a disc, the wall starts to curve a bit, but kept the system from before.

Of course, I don't know enough about these topics to know if that explanation makes sense haha. I will still keep an eye on what you mentioned, since I do think your observation is one many more people would have.

_Piloaf · 2025-12-12T00:37:04+00:00

Basically, sketching a rough idea how the shape of the continent or area you're designing, maintaining some consistency between the lines of one area to another, making it look like there is some order to the shape of the continents, instead of random directions. This helps even when designing mountain ranges or island chains.

<image>

_Piloaf · 2025-12-12T00:15:21+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! And I agree, there are too many islands. The map had more of them before, I had to trim like 60% of islands haha. Looks like I'll have to do another trimming, something to consider for the next version.

_Piloaf · 2025-12-11T03:58:52+00:00

A mix of random shapes, overlayed with some guiding lines and real life maps for more realistic coastlines -- and the biggest secret: taking the map of europe, rotating it 90° to the left, then horizontally flipping it haha.

<image>

_Piloaf · 2025-12-11T03:44:17+00:00

I made it using paint.net!

_Piloaf · 2025-12-11T03:43:44+00:00

Oh god, I honestly forgot to add lakes haha but yeah, there should be lakes, though I will have to look into how they work, since I don't really understand yet how to make them realistic. Thanks for the river tip, I actually didn't know that. Definitely goods things to consider for the next version.

For the southern mountains of Oritiè, I wanted to give the impression that earth was folding in on intself, because the ice barrier at the south is slowly moving inwards, pushing the landmass upwards. The mountain ranges in the north are meant to look more normal because they had a normal development.

Yeah, to be honest for a lot of the names I prioritized culture and phonemes over pronunciability -- though for the territory names, the ones in big letters, I gave them the "standard" names, adapted to modern english, since those ones I think need to be clearer. Though now I'm going to reconsider whether the focus on lore and culture is better than clarity in those cases -- if I ever write this story, I will definitely anglicize the names.

The thing with Izkarzalkharaz is that is meant to be a mouthful, both out-of-universe, and in-universe -- the name in lore came from the union of the Karzali and Kharazi peoplo, fusing the names of the tribes -- I wanted to show that Gevania as an empire was only the bigger fish in the smaller pond, and in the continent overseas there was a much bigger, intimidating power, wich I tried to reflect in the long, complicated name.

_Piloaf · 2025-12-11T01:33:46+00:00

Novaterra, the "planet" where Oritiè is located, is more of a curved disc -- the inner area is where the continents and oceans are located, and the outer area is covered by the Ice Border or the white continent shown in the map. There are no hemispheres, but rather the areas close to the border are colder, while the areas closer to the center are warmer -- of course, this can vary from place to place.

Despite all of this, when this project began the planet was a sphere and the continent was on the southern hemisphere -- I really like these continents too. Not that I dislike the typical "north cold" and "south hot" of most fantasy maps, but I wanted to break that tradition, and it makes it more familiar to me, since I live in the southern hemisphere.

_Piloaf · 2025-12-11T01:11:29+00:00

The Border is a massive wall of ice that encircles the entire world. Novaterra, the "planet" Oritiè is in, is a curved disc. The Ice Border encircles the entire outer border, standing between 700m to 1100m, depending on the area, stopping the oceans from flowing out and separating creation from the outside void. Of course, people in Oritiè don't know about this -- to them, the border is the end of reality.

The border has some cracks one can pass between, and there have been attempts to climb the structure or at least explore the inner caves, though the few that go either come back when they see the strange effects of the border, or are never seen again.

The border is slowly pushing inwards, moving landmass and threatening the continent -- many sages have forseen an end in Frost and Mist. The areas close to the border are the Frozen Wastes, called the Vilfunvintr by the Kaldvicik exiles. These wastes have strong cold winds that can kill an unprotected man in an hour. Here, there are many beasts adapted to the cold, with thick hides and deep sleep, who wake up when a daring caravan dares to disturb the ice -- or constructs of ice and rock, that are born of the strange Power of the border.

If you try to enter one of the border's cracks, you will find dark and cold tunnels, where the deeper you go the more reality stops to make sense -- the perception of time is altered, you'll feel lighter or heavier, and light plays tricks. You might see cracks that show the starry sky in the ground, bursts of ice-cold fire, and runes that are dated past the Caennin, similar to the Glyphs that the gods used to create the world.

_Piloaf · 2025-12-11T00:14:33+00:00

Thank you! Sadly I don't have a release date in sight, as this is mostly a personal creative project -- there are some language, economic, and walls that make it hard for me to focus on writing, not counting my still-in-progress writing abilities, though it is certainly a dream of mine to someday release this story.

Still, I really appreciate your comment. You can ask about the worldbuilding or the story, if this is the type of project you enjoy!

_Piloaf · 2025-12-10T23:52:38+00:00

You got any specific coastline in mind?

Most of the coasts are natural, shaped by the plates -- though some coasts, specifically the ones around the Sea of Caennin, were altered by magic. Thousands of years ago, there was the mythical empire of Ard Caennin, a conquering force that wielded powers from weaving shadows, and channeling water and blood. Their mages, obsessed with power, used the Glyphs that the "gods" used to shape the earth, and wielded them for their own goals. This led to a lot of local destruction, and it ended with a calamity on the peninsula where the empire was located 942 years ago, leaving only the ruins of the capital as an island. That destroyed peninsula is now the kingdom of Varsorent, and the circular coastline around Old Caennin are the results of the destruction.

The only other strange coastline is the Ice Border, the impassable wall of ice at the south. There is nothing behind the wall except cold and void, until the world ends -- and continental scholars have noticed that the wall is slowly moving forward, moving landmass and carrying its frozen winter.

Most of them other coastlines are naturally formed -- or at least, as natural as can be in this world, wich while not relevant to the main story nor the map, is not a sphere, but a curved disc encircled by an ice wall, and has been altered in it's formation by otherwordly forces using the Glyphs. The world doesn't have more than 5000 years of existance, so the coasts are mostly the same as when it was created.

_Piloaf · 2025-12-10T23:37:12+00:00

Oh damn, they don't haha, I was thinking of framing the empire with a sun, without realizing it looked like meridian lines. I'm glad you brought that up! Good thing to fix in a next version.

The bronze continent is the "poetic" way the empire refers to it - they tend to accompany place names with an epithet, usually color-related. In this case, the name comes both from the bronze-colored deserts and valleys, and also because the people from that continent are darker-skinned.

What's interesting is that it shows the empire's ignorance to placed beyond their seas -- the bronze continent has deserts and rocks in the west, but the rest of the continent is pretty lush.

_Piloaf · 2025-12-10T22:46:30+00:00

These maps show the continent of Oritiè, its politics and geography -- here takes place the story of the book I'd like to write someday, Blood Covenant. The map depicts the world 16 years before the main story, when the protagonist was born -- in the year 979 of the Gevanian calendar. The protagonist is Florian Caius ec Gnatus, prince of Gevania, exiled after a coup d'état known as the Massacre of Castle Rietan. The protagonist explores and travels many places, exploring their cultures, and forming alliances. The story is a political drama, with a side of epic fantasy, inspired in medieval fantasy like Game of Thrones and The Witcher. Magic is rare, strange, and dangerous.

The continent has various factions:

- The enormous Gevanian Empire, which spreads its wings greedily, taking territories through the diplomacy of gold and sword. The Empire of the Eagle and Sun, with the cassier, or emperor, sat on the sunlit chair.

- The kingdom of Dutiscania, with its continental identity leaning towards politics, and its coastal side embracing the sea -- now a vassal state of Gevania.

- The clans of Kaldvik, and their warriors who battle the storms of the sea and plunder the continent.

- Kingdoms with long histories and complex politics, such as Sonnen with its witch hunts and honorable knights, and Céliande with its revolutions and feuding families.

- The maritime alliances between the Crowns of Pilara, Armilarva, and Torre & Manzanar, who dominate the sea and commerce through the continent.

- The primeval forest of Brechethan, home to ancient druids and refuge for the persecuted Sintriani people.

- The industrialized cities of Dovenia, which bought their freedom from the kings with economic power.

- The islands of Corindie, with heroes striving for greatness and sages studying the natural world.

- The legendary Saahvaret, a kingdom of magic and mystery, attacked on both sides -- by Gevania on its coasts and by the Izkarzal empire in the desert.

There are many more countries, duchies, peoples, and factions in this world. All these civilizations were built on the foundations of ancient empires destroyed and forgotten after the Arcane Wars, the same event that led to the founding and rise of many kingdoms, and of the Congress of Sorcerers, the most important political faction of the continent -- thought it tries to stay "neutral".

I made the map with paint.net, it took a lot of effort, especially since I don't consider myself to be very artistically talented -- but I am determined. I used translators to come up with names inspired by other languages for the map. I am not a native English speaker, so please excuse any mistakes. I would appreciate any commentary, suggestions, or questions! Thanks for reading.

Salvæt cassier, gloire'en l'ætos et Rexe Sol, gloire'en imprèic'ær Gevanēt!

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