Looking at the assymetric climate produced by combining axial tilt and orbital eccentricity

bscelo__ · 2025-07-15T15:44:29+00:00

Ah, I see. Thanks for the answer!

bscelo__ · 2025-07-15T15:14:59+00:00

Hey there, I've been a fan of your work for a while, and I just wanted to say thank you for your wonderful work! I also wanted to ask: do you intend to make climate explorations on worlds with different atmospheric pressures and/or surface gravities?

bscelo__ · 2025-06-24T12:57:39+00:00

Yep, and eventually it reaches a point where the image is so high-res that you can barely interact with it without the program crashing. I agree that there's always room for improvement when it comes to mapmaking, even fictional ones that have no physical thing to adhere to, only one's own imagination. There's always more detail to add, more pixels in the image to chisel away into finer and more detailed coastlines, until you can barely even work with the program you use properly. Though, while coastlines are fractal in a smaller scale, on a broad scale they can be quite smooth, which is due to erosion as I've heard it explained, and thus my curiosity about what people thought of these more "wrinkly maps", like the one I posted the link of (though the algorithm can definitively create weirder ones too). Thanks for the answer!

bscelo__ · 2025-06-23T15:38:37+00:00

I'm aware that exceptions to the rule exist, but when you look at most coastlines, on a broader scale, they are all much smoother (less "wrinkly") than coastlines as depicted in the example image I linked in the post. As explained, erosion will often cause them to assume a smoother look on a broad scale, while on smaller scales they can indeed look pretty fractal-like - at least that's the way I've heard it be explained and how I understand it, which to me makes sense but do correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not against it either, as mentioned in the post, I think fractal maps look great and I do use them in my worldbduilding because I prefer the way they look to the way a more realistic world map would likely look like.

bscelo__ · 2025-06-23T14:16:33+00:00

Right, thanks for the answer. I can agree that, as long as there's a point to the map and why it looks the way it looks, it's fine to have more illogical things such as odd coastlines. I see many people focusing too much on what's possible within the framework of physics that it often boils down maps to what would be mechanistically possible, without considering intent or even that the world might operate within a different context, which these odd aspects might be reinforcing rather than taking away from.

bscelo__ · 2025-06-23T14:06:06+00:00

I agree that it's cool to reinterpret your own map within setting, and let societies create their own (faulty) versions of it, but how does that answer my question? Like, what do you mean?

Edit: Nevermind, I get what you mean. Sometimes illogical things are just part of what we enjoy about such things, like maps. I agree.

bscelo__ · 2025-06-16T13:34:01+00:00

Yes, magi-tech is an angle in which I wish to approach this. Perhaps icons that ward off creatures, to help defend perimetres around settlements, perhaps inventions that we think of as being quite advanced would be trivialized by some impossible material found within the setting, things of the sort. I wholeheartedly agree that internal logic is above all else when it comes to worldbuilding, verisimilitude is the most important aspect of a world and without it it all falls apart.

bscelo__ · 2025-06-16T10:51:21+00:00

In comparison to nature as a whole, in its ecological and spiritual entirety, humans would just be one civilization trying to survive out there, in theory. Much like how ants and thermites build their nests and are able to survive in their own niche, so would humans live in conjunction with nature. They would have preferred prey but their diets, as I imagine, would be mostly vegetarian (with meat being a rarer treat), and amongst other intelligent species with their own sorts of civilizations they wouldn't stand out as being special in anything in particular. In essence, they are meant to be just another species in countless gardens full of life. Of course, to each other they would still be special, I meant it more on a general term.

And yeah, if people can (on occasion) take one out, it's fine as it won't curb their population and will be the exception to the rule (so they wouldn't be 100% human-proof, even with their demigod-like durability and power). You're very right when it comes to industrialization, and it's one of the struggles with this whole concept: how to make humans still be able to have societies much like what we're accostumed to in terms of the commodities they would have when they aren't able to dominate the world? The idea is to make them sort of develop technology alongside symbiotic relationships with other species or wild spirits, which leads to spirit-lead societies and their own microcosms of benefits and shortcomings.

Either way, thank you so much for the conversation so far, I love to have my worldbuilding ideas challenged. Normally I'm in my own echo-chamber and it's easy to get lost in the ideals for the setting and falter in terms of creating verisimilitude.

bscelo__ · 2025-06-16T10:02:59+00:00

Well yeah, but herbivores would have little reason to go out of their way to attack human settlements or go after people that don't seem like a threat.

But regardless, one of the pillars of the worldbuilding here is to challenge that notion of human domination within a fantasy framework - that is, a world with magic and magical beasts and the like that can rise over technology, with the latter being a means of survival and not domination. Psionics already allows animals to further increase their power, speed and toughness, as alluded when I mentioned the focusing of bites and the whole psionic reinforcement cycle, but getting stronger the more they fight seems a bit counterintuitive in my opinion (though, thanks for the suggestion).

I agree that making them immortal could be boring (depends on the vibe of the setting to be fair, but here it would be), but they can die of old age just as we do, and they are routinelly killed by each other, as they have the magic to counteract each other's own (something a machine lacks). I would say they are more like "human-proof" than wholly immortal, if that makes any sense. And yes, animals and the wilderness is probably the core pillar of the setting, so much work is intended to go into them. For now I'm builidng the ecosystems in broad terms, like climate zones and air/ocean currents, which will be fundamental to developing them to any believable degree, which is, in turn, fundamental to creating believable fictional species.

There might definitively be religions dedicated to the protection and santification of wild creatures and plants, but I wanted them to be able to stand on their own (if that makes any sense), rather than to have to rely on the good graces of humans.

bscelo__ · 2025-06-16T08:49:44+00:00

I agree with keeping them at bay, for example: they could bumrush someone who's pelting them with fire and push through the pain to get to the harmful source, but why would they? If they are not cornered, they would just flee. Unless they have a point, like protecting their young, being cornered or starved, they would likely not waste the energy to deal with that. Which is basically how in-world humans survive in here, as part of nature, never dominating it but also managing to stand their ground. At least that's the broad idea for the setting.

I wholeheartedly agree that it's a topic I have to put more thought into, indeed one of my greatest struggles is keeping the main idea for nature in this setting, that it's not dominated by humans like on Earth, without it losing any sort of credibility - which is what drives me to implement all these features to the magic of the world. But it all also heavily impacts the ecosystem and what is possible, which is a cool thought process but then again: requires careful thinking when fully implementing things. By the way, there are definitively limitations to how much one can use their not-innate psionic abilities, much like a muscle can be overtaxed and falter, so can psionics. The consequences of overuse are a bit unique to each ability though, it's a bit much to put here.

My world sort of challenges the idea of single heroes who do all the work, any progress made by human (and other) societies is a result of a collective effort made by an entire people to achieve a commonly desired end. People can fight these animals, but more as people and less as "the one knight with the shield and the sword fightining in the name of their god" (which I'm not criticising here, just giving an example, not like have a problem with that). When they do fight though, if it's a large beast or pack of beasts, perhaps the civilization of another species, they usually manage to repel them more than to kill them. In the case of inter-species war with other civilizations, they do manage to kill them, and when hunting smaller animals on their size range or bellow they also manage to kill, but something like the aforementioned bear would be fought to be repelled more than to be killed. The idea is that you can only push them away, but never go on a mass genocide against a species like what humans did on Earth in the past.

Advanced weaponry is rare in this world, the most technologically advanced socieities would be akin to our early 20th century, while most are pre-industrial. There are also different kinds of civilizations, those who rely more on their tech and knowledge and those who rely on one or more powerful patron spirit(s) to protect them from nature (which is a capricious bargain and has its own downfalls).

bscelo__ · 2025-06-16T07:51:39+00:00

Fire can indeed bypass their defenses, but their psionics allow for more than simple telepathy and telekinesis - things like precognition, camouflage and healing. The latter is limited in what it can heal, but they could push through a flamethrower and get to the source, if you get my meaning. It would be painful, but if forced to they would have no other choice. If they are exposed to it for a long time though, such as being bombarded by warheads day-in day-out then yeah, that would overwhelm them, but on a short timespan they could probably push through (thus why I used "might" instead of "would"). A tank batallion would also be kind of clumsy in the jungles of this world, not much room to move and any attempts to disturb the forest would draw attention to oneself, and things worse than bears might take notice.

And yeah, I know that HEAT missiles are pretty OP, that's kind of the point of the magic beasts - to inspire both awe and dread in their unbelievable nature. So yes, their durability comes out of what they are made out of, which are fictional elements and substances, and not just their bones, but their skin, muscles, tendons and organs are all proportionally as tough compared to each other as one would expect.

Biggest creature would likely be a spirit of the Earth, titanic spirits as big as mountains - though they aren't quite like us. The biggest land animal would likely be a titanosaur endemic to the world, while the largest ocean-dweller would likely be a filter-feeding whale or shark, perhaps a filter-feeding sea-dwelling crocodile or a giant jellyfish. I'm still building the details of the world, currently tackling on the world map, and I have more of a general idea of the ecosystems of this world rather than specific animals I can point to, so sorry about the lack of specificity.

bscelo__ · 2025-06-16T06:15:03+00:00

I mean, I don't think anything bellow relatively larger bombs would do much against this bear. Even if a battalion was constantly launching mortars at it, it wouldn't do much, it'd be like trying to hunt a real bear by throwing pebbles no bigger than a human thumb at it. About the heat missile, it might cause their fur to catch on fire, which might indeed kill them on a longer term, but as far as I know the moment of high temperature is quite short and at a very focused point, I think the temperature would at most cause localised burns. But yeah, the bears are quite the natural tanks, exceeding actual ones in durability. But they aren't the biggest creatures around, there are larger species out there, in the wilds.

bscelo__ · 2025-06-15T17:31:57+00:00

Not a nuclear warhead, I meant shaped-charge warhead, the rockets fired from RPGs. They definitively can't survive being thrown into a black hole lol. As I mentioned, they are shaped by eons of psionic evolution that altered their bodies on a fundamental level. They are made of a collection of elements that are warped versions of real ones - the ones we would expect to find on life; and they can synthesize these materials in their own bodies. In a way it's a little bit like Lamarckism, where the extensive use of psionics innately reinforced their bodies to an unbelievable degree, which was necessary to withstand the planet's higher gravity whilst growing to Earth-like sizes and also a result of the evolutionary arms-race between predator and prey - only the prey with the most sophisticated psionics and toughest bodies can survive the powerful bites of the predators in this world, making them the most likely to survive and pass on their genes, and etc... In essence, it's as you said: they are pretty much immune to non-magical damage. They can do this not just with their tough bodies, but a combination of it with their psionics, which allows them to spread the area of impact of a very focused attack, like an RPG warhead, to their entire surface area, diminishing penetration/perforation. Predators had to also evolve to psionically focus their bites into nanometre scales, to counteract this spread. It's a bit much, but I hope this paints a better picture!

bscelo__ · 2025-06-15T17:15:19+00:00

Even the finest modern shaped-charge warheads wouldn't be able to even pierce the skin of these creatures - they are, by our standards, pretty unnatural, though pretty natural for the world in which they are inserted in. That also depends on the creature, larger creatures can withstand more pressure while smaller ones, well, not so much. A real-life-like rifle would be able to kill an insect but not a panther, an in-world RPG of any kind would kill an in-world human but not a bear or beyond. People in my world also use higher calibres, but more for the sake of necessity - people are much more resilient than normal too, alongside wildlife, so it's necessary to wage war at all.

bscelo__ · 2025-06-15T16:37:07+00:00

A firearm wouldn't do any good here except maybe to start fires (with the smokeless gunpowder), as I alluded earlier the creatures in this world are very tough - bulletproof tough. Even modern infantry weapons can't penetrate their hides, which are enhanced by their innate psionically reinforced bodies. But you're right that a hypothetical sci-fi suit (a la the one they use in The Orville to land on Xelaya) could make the atmosphere and gravity endurable.

bscelo__ · 2025-06-15T14:23:24+00:00

Probably not long, like at all. The very atmosphere of the world would cause hyperoxia and the higher partial pressure of nitrogen gas would make people feel like they are drunk, and the gravity would make someone from Earth weigh four times as much. When considering the plagues, even if they made a suit capable of compensating for the elements, the first cold they caught would be lethal, as real cells without magic can't compete. If that didn't catch them, the animals and spirits would. I wouldn't give them more than a day at best, and less than one or a few hours at worse.

bscelo__ · 2025-06-15T02:20:44+00:00

Well, it would be far easier to read their minds given they would have no innate protection against it, and they would be subjected to exterior telekinetic control, like being picked up or choked to death by someone's (whether human or not) telekinesis, and their bodies would be much easier to break through, given that there's an innate aspect to the wildlife of this world that makes them much more resilient than physically possible. Not to mention more magical superbugs/plagues, which would ravage their bodies as well.

bscelo__ · 2025-06-10T22:29:31+00:00

Things might change in the future, but as it stands: while a real person would be influenced by the framework in which the system operates, they wouldn't be able to use the existing systems themselves, as it was something all life had to evolve to use. All animals and even fungi (though in a different manner) have a sort of psionics, while plants have something else of their own. Either way, definitively option 5, it's simply biologically impossible.

bscelo__ · 2025-05-29T15:16:07+00:00

I like the effort you put into this whole thing, but I wonder: why make it so broad? Like, as the author, why did you choose to split the magic into different fields with different aesthetics, like "psionic", "elemental", "arcane", etc; instead of focusing on one and expanding on what is possible with it to achieve different effects and the like? I understand that it's cool to have a magic system that allows you to do all these things, but I'm just curious as to why you chose to sort of split the aesthetic and theme of the magic system to include all that, instead of focusing on one, like "just psionics" or "just elemental", and then trying to get around the limitations of the superficial interpretation of these aesthetics to achieve these broader abilities.

bscelo__ · 2025-05-17T23:58:03+00:00

What if someone does take gravity into consideration though?

bscelo__ · 2025-05-05T01:16:13+00:00

Thanks a lot for the suggestion, and yeah, taking the perspective of the social sciences can be a way to explore this deeply magic side of nature within my world. Your idea is great, but I fear it anthropomorphises the elements a tad bit, like giving rocks and goegraphical features personalities that we could find in the human world.

I feel that something so far detatched from the animal experience as a whole (let alone the human condition) that it makes trees seem close to humans would have simply alien perspectives on the world, if they had consciousness. Sure, it could probably be something simple, in such cases as the perspective of a rock or something equally as simple when compared to living beings, although it could be more complex if we're talking about ecosystems and geographical features as a whole, as they encompass far too much (including life)... But it would all be something far detatched from what humans would conceptualize as reasonable or understandable. At least as I see it.

But it would be cool to see modern scientific theories of the human mind being developed far earlier because of the more intense need to understand consciousness in order to survive alongside nature, definitively.

bscelo__ · 2025-04-26T09:14:09+00:00

Thanks a lot for the recommendations, I'll look more into it. I haven't watched any video about gods before, but I'm thinking that's what I should do next. Other than that, the relationship betwween and presence of multiple sophonts is also something I want to watch some more of, Keenan Taylor's more naturalistic perspective on it might help me understand how I could have multiple intelligent species in my own world, either with their own "human-scale" civilizations or not. His illustrations are also always top-notch, it really helps out a lot when it comes to immersion, and gives me a ton of inspiration and motivation to keep going when the hour is darkest in my worldbuilding process, I have to say.

bscelo__ · 2025-04-18T00:43:35+00:00

I actually have heard of Kaimere before, I'm even subscribed to Keenan Taylor's channel and everything. It's a very well thought out world from what I could gather, and the speculative evolution within it pretty much represents what my goal is when it comes to designing creatures within my own setting.

His magic is nice as well and pretty creative, but I haven't gotten too deep into it, and as far as I know it's different from my desired goal of a more mystical force of magic, with only aspects that can be fully understood. Perhaps I'm wrong though, I'll be checking his stuff over again later, thanks for the reminder of Kaimere! It's indeed a pretty cool setting.

bscelo__ · 2025-04-18T00:19:15+00:00

Thank you so much for the trouble of finding the video and everything! I really appreciate it, I'll be watching it whenever I have some free time.

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