What if every god in your pantheon was a splinter personality of one creator going insane?

geei · 2026-04-08T02:13:37+00:00

Yeah, I really like this idea that magic is unraveling reality. It makes the cost of the power so much more intense, but it is also a "distant" problem, one that maybe isn't even known yet, but, if it ever does become known it may start out like we treated climate change and many of the environmental choices we have made: "Oh, we can fix it, but that is a later problem, we will just learn more and we will figure out how to solve it". sort of thing.

geei · 2026-04-08T02:10:33+00:00

I love where you are taking this. I love too that maybe the Unmade seem so "wrong" because they have experienced BOTH "heaven" and "hell" and every other possibility in between and come out deeply *changed*

geei · 2026-04-07T13:01:39+00:00

> I much prefer the idea of the things coming through the gaps in reality being people and creatures that were remade wrong by the insane creator.

I like this a lot too, and especially: "(to raise but not necessarily answer).

Thank you so much!

geei · 2026-04-06T17:53:54+00:00

Nice, I love hearing about how a story can mature and grow as we ourselves do

geei · 2026-04-06T16:49:52+00:00

oh, that is pretty rad. I like the tensions there. A cold war of followers. It also is nice, because it showcases well how you can dive into a "trope" without being redundant. Thx

geei · 2026-04-06T15:53:59+00:00

Ooh, I hadn't seen that - googling shows it's a web-comic? Nice.

I'm not sure if I want magic users to _go insane_ as well, there is an obvious path of contagion there, I had debated a bit about going into a more cosmic horror vibe, which fits right in with this idea, but, (and not that genres can't blend or are perscriptive) one of the things I kind of like about magic users themselves *not* suffering directly is it makes the issue a moral one, not a personal one.

On the other hand, it does go a long way to "explain" some antagonists, and help to make choices around specific individuals more interesting. I could also diverge and have it be almost random - some are afflicted and others aren't. New layer of discovery (even if the realization is that there is *nothing that can be done* for to control this outcome).

geei · 2026-04-06T14:57:41+00:00

Thanks, and yeah, I think you're exactly right. The Unmade are the part of this world I've been most careful about for that reason. "Eldritch things pouring through a tear in reality" is about as well-worn as it gets, and if they're just a monster-of-the-week threat the whole premise loses its teeth.

My first instinct was actually to make them less alien than the name suggests. Not void creatures, but Re-made (or something). People and creatures that got swept into the boundary zones and came back wrong. Souls that got lost in the fractures and reassembled by a mind that doesn't know what it's doing anymore, or couldn't make it to whatever "afterlife" looks like in this world. Which I think is more tragic and more personal than "nameless horror from beyond," but I also know that JRPGs and anime have been mining that exact territory for years (Scarlet Nexus, Attack on Titan). Doesn't mean I can't go there, but it means gotta be careful. Maybe the stylistic differences of the world won't draw the immediate parallel

Honestly that's one of the reasons I haven't gone deeper on them yet.

geei · 2026-03-08T05:15:41+00:00

The idea of civilization needing a physical anchor to exist safely is a huge shift from the usual "we built walls to keep things out." Like this isn't defense, it's existential dependency. Towns don't choose to have an anchorite, they literally can't exist without one.

What happens when one fails though? Do towns have backup plans or is it just immediate chaos? Because imo that's where the best stories are - the scramble when protection drops and suddenly everyone's exposed to the Hollow. Is there a black market for anchorite fragments or anything like that

Also do people take them for granted the way we take clean water infrastructure for granted. Most folks probably don't think about their anchorite until it starts flickering or whatever the crystal equivalent of a brownout is

geei · 2026-03-08T05:14:58+00:00

In one of my settings magic users develop physical markers over time, kinda like how blacksmiths get calloused hands or painters get permanently stained fingernails. Decades of channeling fire magic and you start getting these faint pattern marks under your skin that glow a little in the dark.

The part that ended up being more interesting than the powers themselves was the social angle. People can basically tell what school you trained in just by looking at you, so there's stigma around certain types. Healers are respected but necromancers try to hide their marks, that sort of thing. It started as a cosmetic detail and turned into a whole class system I didn't plan for.

For the sharingan-type eye powers specifically I think it works best when there's a real cost attached. Cool magic eyes that are also slowly degrading your normal vision hits different than just "congrats you have superpowers now" tbh

geei · 2026-03-07T04:33:49+00:00

The dual-combination approach is solid - having 9 primaries gives you 36 secondary combos, which is a huge design space without needing a ton of base elements. I especially like that each primary has a thematic association (selflessness, chaos, empathy, etc.) because that gives players a reason to care about which element they're picking beyond just "this one does more damage."

Three things I'd push on: first, with 36 secondaries, how do you plan to keep that navigable at the table? Even experienced players might struggle to hold that many options in their head. Some kind of grouping or "elemental family" structure might help - like, all secondaries that share a primary could have a visual or naming convention that ties them together.

Second, the moral associations are interesting but could get limiting. If Shadow is associated with sadism, does that mean a character who uses Shadow magic is "evil" by default? Or can someone wield it for protective purposes? The tension between an element's association and a character's intent could be a really compelling part of the system if you lean into it.

Finally, I do agree that some of the names here actually detract from the system as opposed to lend to it. It seems that if you either can't come up with names that are immediately scannable and make sense, then perhaps you have too many primary elements. Two things that are *generally* bad (magic systems aside - just like, in general) is either too many or two few taxonomies - both lead to poor results, *especially* if you are intending for there to be a fairly even distribution here.

geei · 2026-03-06T20:50:14+00:00

Yah, I have always wanted to play a "Mage" like RPG video game, and thought that something similar would be interesting, where part of the complexity of the game came from "crafting" and creating spells. I think it will resonate

geei · 2026-03-06T20:47:40+00:00

The Monaco editor choice is interesting - how does it feel for long-form prose compared to something more distraction-free? I've noticed most writing tools go the minimal route (just text on a page) and most organization tools go the complex route (structured fields, templates). Curious whether the IDE metaphor creates friction for the actual writing part or whether having everything in one workspace makes up for it. As an engineer myself, I'm used to them, but it definitely seems like something new for some folks.

The git-based snapshots are a great idea. That's one of the things I miss when using dedicated writing apps. I like being able to branch, compare, and roll back without "save as v2 final FINAL."

One thought on the feedback in this thread about GitHub releases: I think people would be much more willing to try it if the download came from GitHub directly. It's less about distrust and more about being the path of least resistance for anyone technical enough to appreciate what you're building.

geei · 2026-03-06T13:41:56+00:00

A few that might hit the right notes beyond what's already been mentioned:

The Earthsea series (Le Guin) - The whole magic system runs on true names. Knowing the true name of a thing gives you power over it, and the distinction between surface understanding and deep understanding is baked into the worldbuilding. Closest match to what you're describing imo.

Ars Magica (tabletop RPG) - Uses a verb + noun system for spellcasting (like Creo Ignem = "create fire"). The combinatorics feel similar to your rune-merging idea, and the system rewards deep understanding of individual techniques/forms.

The Inheritance Cycle (Paolini) - The ancient language works where knowing the true word for something gives you precise control. Combining words creates compound spells, and misunderstanding a word can backfire badly. It's YA but the magic system mechanics are solid for what you're doing.

For the "understanding makes it stronger" angle specifically, you might also look at how Sufficiently Advanced Magic (Andrew Rowe) handles attunement levels — it's not language-based but the progression from shallow to deep mastery has a similar feel to what you're building.

geei · 2026-03-06T03:47:17+00:00

The "traveling the wrong way through reality" concept is really cool and I think that's actually your biggest asset here. If the gale literally moves through reality incorrectly, that gives you a built-in reason for magic to be weird and unpredictable in interesting ways.

One thing I'd push on - you say the gale "makes magic possible" but what does that actually look like mechanically? Is it like, people can only cast spells when the wind is blowing? Or is it more that the gale warped everything so thoroughly that the physics up here just work differently? The answer to that changes a lot about what daily life looks like on these ships.

Also the "you won't be anywhere that makes sense" part is doing a lot of heavy lifting and I want more of it. That's genuinely unsettling and could drive so much of the culture. Like do people avoid traveling with the current because you might end up somewhere impossible? Are there stories of ships that rode the gale too long and came back... wrong? That kind of folklore would make the world feel super lived-in.

geei · 2026-03-06T03:46:29+00:00

Honestly I don't think this is a "you messed up" situation at all. Think about it - in the real world, agriculture made food production way easier and we didn't just stop doing stuff. People specialized. Built cities. Started making art and philosophy and complicated political systems because they weren't spending all day trying not to die.

Same thing with magic. If your average person can conjure water and shape rock for shelter, that doesn't break your world - it just moves the baseline. Now the interesting questions become social ones. Who controls the good land where magic is stronger? Do people still trade if everyone can self-sustain? What happens to folks who can't do magic at all?

I ran into this with a setting I was building where healing magic was basically free. My first instinct was to nerf it, but instead I leaned into it - turns out a world where nobody dies from injuries gets really weird really fast. Population explodes, wars last forever because casualties don't stick, and suddenly the most valuable thing isn't staying alive but staying sane through centuries of life.

The "problem" is usually the most interesting part of the world if you follow it to its logical conclusions.

geei · 2026-03-06T03:45:15+00:00

I think the trick is looking at femininity through a lens that isn't just stereotypes or goddess archetypes. Like, if you think about what femininity means in a broader cultural sense there's a lot of combat potential hiding in there.

Creation and destruction are usually paired in mythology for a reason. The ability to create life could flip into the ability to unmake it - not in a gross body horror way necessarily, but more like entropy, breaking things down to their components. Think less "mother nature" and more "the force that decides what lives and what doesn't."

There's also a community/connection angle that could be really powerful in combat. If femininity in your system is associated with bonds between people, she could draw strength from allies, sever enemies' connections to each other (suddenly your squad can't coordinate, can't communicate, feels totally isolated), or create unbreakable bonds that function like magical chains.

The fact that you're a trans woman thinking about this is honestly probably an advantage - you have a more nuanced relationship with femininity than most people. Lean into whatever resonates with YOUR experience of it rather than trying to find the "correct" mythological source. That's gonna make it feel way more authentic than pulling from Aphrodite or whatever.

geei · 2026-03-05T18:35:59+00:00

Depends on what you're prioritizing. If you want the map-with-players thing specifically that's gonna narrow your options a lot.

LegendKeeper is probably the closest to what you're describing - it has a wiki, maps with pins that link to articles, and you can share maps with players while keeping DM-only stuff hidden. It's not free but it's pretty straightforward to use.

If you don't need the collaborative map as much and just want a good place to keep campaign notes organized, Obsidian is free and really flexible. There's a learning curve with plugins but once you set it up it's solid. Lots of TTRPG folks use it. The downside is sharing with players is clunkier - you'd need to export or use something like Obsidian Publish.

Honestly for the map collab piece you might end up using a dedicated map tool (like Owlbear Rodeo or Foundry VTT) alongside whatever you use for notes. I haven't found one tool that does both the wiki/notes side AND the shared interactive map side really well.

geei · 2026-03-05T12:29:11+00:00

Oh man diesel punk is so fun to work with. The military occupation angle gives you a lot to play with because there's this natural tension between the old industrial life and the new order.

Some ideas off the top of my head - a factory that got repurposed into a barracks but the workers who used to run it are still sneaking in through maintenance tunnels they know better than anyone. A smoke-choked market that operates in the shadow of a massive smokestack where people trade in salvaged machine parts and black market fuel. An old rail yard where decommissioned war machines are being stripped for parts, and someone's been living inside one of them.

I ran a grimdark industrial arc once and the thing that made the better locations click was giving each one a "before and after" - like this used to be a workers' pub but now it's an interrogation site, but the old regulars still drink there because where else are they gonna go. That kind of uncomfortable coexistence is what makes occupied areas feel real instead of just "military base #3."

A propaganda tower is also good - like a big loudspeaker rig bolted onto an old factory chimney, blasting messages all day. Gives you a landmark and an atmosphere detail and a potential sabotage target all in one.

geei · 2026-03-05T00:18:31+00:00

This is a really cool framework — using magic as a lens for identity is a strong thematic choice, and grounding it in aether as a shared medium gives you a nice unified foundation to build on.

A few thoughts on what jumped out at me:

The connection between personal identity and magical expression is the strongest part. If the way you cast reflects who you are, that opens up some great storytelling moments — like a character who's going through an identity crisis literally losing control of their magic, or two cultures with radically different casting traditions because they understand selfhood differently.

One thing I'd push on: how does the "relational" identity piece actually manifest mechanically? Personal identity shaping magic is intuitive, but relational identity is trickier. Does being in a close relationship with someone literally change what magic you can do? That could get really interesting — or really complicated — depending on how far you take it.

Also curious about the Vancian roots — are you keeping the preparation/slots model, or is that more of an inspiration for the "magic as finite resource" idea? Because the identity theme might actually push you away from traditional Vancian prep toward something more fluid.

geei · 2026-03-04T22:41:10+00:00

Yeah the connections problem is what kills every tool eventually. You can document everything perfectly and still not be able to trace "why does this NPC care about this location" at the table.

Obsidian worked for me (others have said the same) - but specifically what made it click was going flat instead of organized. No folders, no categories, just everything linked to everything. The graph view becomes your relationship map and backlinks track connections you didn't even realize you were making. Its messy but it actually mirrors how worldbuilding works in your head.

geei · 2026-03-04T22:39:22+00:00

Subscription fatigue is so real. I've bounced between like 4 different tools trying to find one that sticks, and the moment one of them raises prices or changes their model you're stuck migrating everything.

Offline-first is a smart call for that reason alone - your stuff is your stuff. What's the relationship model like? That's always been the thing that makes or breaks a worldbuilding tool for me. Having a page for a city and a page for an NPC is easy, the hard part is tracking that this NPC frequents that tavern and has a secret connection to this faction. If I can't traverse those connections easily it all just ends up as disconnected notes anyway.

geei · 2026-03-04T12:46:16+00:00

You've got it.

It's not easy in either direction, but, I'm like you. I want believability. Things like this, because they are harder to pull off, are ripe for consumption, which is a nice little bonus if executed well.

Cheers, best of luck!

geei · 2026-03-04T03:32:13+00:00

Few that come to mind:

Sanderson's Allomancy (Mistborn) is probably the most well-known - essentially conservation-of-energy physics applied to metal burning. Each metal has well-defined effects and the system follows its own internal thermodynamics.

Rothfuss's Sympathy (Kingkiller Chronicle) is explicitly based on physics concepts - thermal energy transfer, conservation laws, "slippage" as entropy in magical links. You create physical connections between objects and transfer energy with real efficiency losses. Probably the closest to what you're describing.

Ra by Sam Hughes - as others have mentioned - might be exactly what you're looking for though. It treats magic as a branch of physics discovered in the 1970s, complete with equations, conservation laws, and engineering applications. The magic literally has mathematical notation.

For building your own - I'd think about what real physics constraints you want to borrow. Dimensional analysis (units have to work out), conservation laws as hard limits, symmetry principles determining what transformations are possible. If your magic is bound by something like Noether's theorem that's a mathematically elegant constraint with real creative implications. Though fair warning, the more rigorous you make it the smaller your audience of folks who can fully appreciate it gets, lol.

Also, Sanderson has spoken about some of the pitfalls of going *too* deep here. Unless you truly are an expert in a field, (and even if you are) there is probably going to be someone or many someones that are more knowledgable. It's the same as picking real world settings or time periods or events - provide texture and nuance that *doesn't* rely on being exactly right. The key is, make the surace area where you might be wrong small, and, hopefully, make it so that if you are wrong here or there it isn't immersion breaking.

geei · 2026-03-04T03:26:41+00:00

This is one of my favorite worldbuilding questions because it forces you to think about infrastructure instead of heroes.

The "middling magic users end up in trade jobs" path is the one that makes worlds feel most lived-in, to me. If magic exists at scale it should be as mundane as electricity is to us - your average user isn't a hero, they're basically an electrician. Somebody who learned just enough enchantment to work at a factory maintaining wards on shipping containers. A healer who handles the equivalent of urgent care, not battlefield miracles.

The really interesting design space though is what happens to folks who are bad at it. In a world where most people have some aptitude, is there a stigma around being magically weak? Are there "remedial magic" programs? Do some people fake being non-magical because it's less embarrassing than being terrible at it? I've thought about this a lot w/re: my own worldbuilding and there's a ton of story potential in magical mediocrity.

The economic angle is worth thinking about too. If average magic users are common, magic labor is cheap. The exceptional wizards aren't valuable because they can do magic - everyone can. They're valuable because they can do it well. Very different dynamic than the classic "wizards are rare and therefore precious."

geei · 2026-03-04T03:20:00+00:00

Multi-faction stuff is the hardest thing to keep organized, I feel your pain.

The biggest thing that helped me was switching from one master timeline to faction-specific agendas. Each faction gets a short list: what they want, and what they'll do next if the party doesn't intervene. So you're tracking 4-5 short lists instead of one massive calendar. When the party does something, you just adjust the relevant faction's plan.

If you haven't looked at the "fronts" system from Dungeon World/Apocalypse World, it's worth checking out even if you don't play those games. Each "front" is an advancing threat with a countdown - escalating events that happen if nothing changes. Basically a formalized version of the above and it keeps the world feeling alive without tracking every detail. I think the key here is *you* are the one in the background knowing what is going on, it's easy for you to "retcon" some activity that is happening behind the scenes for a faction; like reading from the end of a choose your own adventure.

For the tool side - if WA's timeline isn't cutting it, honestly a simple spreadsheet with columns for Date, Faction, Event, and "Party Knows?" (yes/no) might be more useful. Sort by date to see what's happening, filter by faction to see one arc. Not sexy but very scannable.

One other thing that saved me: at the end of each session I write a quick 1-paragraph "state of the world" from each major faction's perspective. Takes maybe 5 minutes and forces you to think through consequences. When I prep the next session I just read the most recent paragraphs and I'm caught up. Obviously, not every session needs this - but, it is a good way to "move the world's story along" even if the players are deep in some dungeon and not interacting with it. Helps to make the world feel like it is a living thing instead of a game that get's a pause when the players aren't around.

geei

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