THE LAST OF MY OLD POSTER REMAKES This One Took A While On Account Of “I Forgot I Was Doing These”

Art by jocelin carmes

Oh my gosh. I just found this website that walks you though creating a believable society. It breaks each facet down into individual questions and makes it so simple! It seems really helpful for worldbuilding!

Fantasy Guide to Political Structures

A Horse! A Horse! My X for a Horse!

Let's be honest, fantasy authors love their kingdoms and empires. You can throw a rock in a bookshop or a library in the fantasy section and you will 99.99999% hit a fantasy book that will be set in or mention either of those structures. But what are they really? What's the difference between them all? Are there any more examples of structures that would suit your WIP better? Are you using the right terms? Let's have a closer look.

Duchy

A Duchy is a small territory ruled by a Duke/Duchess. While Duchies can be found in kingdoms, some duchies were sovereign states in their own right. Duchies are usually small by land mass but some duchies such as Burgundy were extremely powerful and influential. Independent Duchies were usually apart of a kingdom but grew so powerful that they eventually broke away to become a sovereign state in their own right. An example would be modern day Luxembourg, historic Milan and Burgundy.

Principality

A principality is territory ruled by a Prince/Princess. A principality is typically smaller than a kingdom and in some instances, can be apart of a larger kingdom or be a sovereign state. Principalities have a history of having broken away from a larger kingdom or eventually becoming apart of a kingdom. A principality within a kingdom is ruled by a Prince/Princess, usually an heir of the monarch and can be used to train them up to assume the throne in the future. Examples include Monaco, Liechtenstein and Andorra.

Kingdom

A sovereign state/country that is ruled by ruling King or a Queen. A kingdom is much larger and more powerful than a principality. Kingdoms can be feudal, meaning they are ruled in a strict hierarchy or an autocracy where the monarch rules alone with minimal input from the government or constitutional where the monarch is more of a figurehead and the government has a good chunk of control. Examples include England, Thailand and modern day Spain.

Commonwealth

A Commonwealth isn't a popular choice in fantasy but it is an interesting structure. A Commonwealth in its most basic form is a collection of states that are linked by either a shared culture or history. A Commonwealth can be a politically power or an economic power, with every state allowed to participate as much as they like. Not one state leads the others, it is all one group of equals. A Commonwealth can be a good idea for a group of nations that are more powerful together with them keeping their own independence.

Federation

A Federation is a political structure that is made up of united states or countries that are under a single government but each state is still independent and rules itself. Each state can have different laws, different cultures and economies but they all answer to the single government. Examples include the United States of America.

Republic

A Republic is a territory that is ruled by leaders and heads of state that have been elected on merit and by choice of the people. Republics are not just countries but can also be much smaller areas such as cities. Republics are democratic in nature, with the people having a say in who leads them in accordance to a constitution. There are many kinds of Republic: presidential, parliamentary, federal, theocratic, unitary. Examples of Republics include the Republic of Ireland and the city of Florence.

Protectorate

A Protectorate is a country/region/territory that is independent but relies on a larger, more powerful state for protection either in a military or diplomatic sense. A Protectorate was often used by Empires in order to maintain control over an area without annexing it. There are many reasons a larger state and the protectorate would agree to this, mainly the protectorate is much smaller meaning it is far more vulnerable to attack or it has very little power when compared to other states. A Protectorate allows the territory some power to rule itself but the larger state may feel the need or desire to interfere in the dealings of the territory. Examples of protectorates include the client kingdoms of the Roman Empire like Egypt before its annexation and Puerto Rico.

Empire

An Empire is a collection of nations that are united under one sovereign head of state or government. An Empire is formed by one nation steadily taking control of other nations, either through straight invasion and colonization or acquiring them through marriage and other less violent ways. An Empire is powerful mainly because it can drum up more resources, more influence and more military power. An Empire might impose the traditions, beliefs and culture of its principal nation - the nation that started it all - onto its colonies for better control and feeling of uniformity. Empires never last, that is something to always remember. Empires will eventually fragment due to the vast size and sometimes revolt among the conquered states. Examples of empires include the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire.

TOOL: OC QUESTIONS GENERATOR

a neat little generator that gives you a random question for your ocs! find it here // support me on ko-fi

>> FEATURES

over 600 different questions, covering every aspect of character building

easy to use, no unnecessary distractions, just a very straightforward generator

content warnings on the page itself, as well as in the first screenshot

>> NOTES

please send me a dm if there’s a content warning missing, i’ll add it to the page immediately!

if you have any ideas for questions, feel free to let me know and if they’re not on the list already, i’ll add them!

feel free to use this tool for personal projects or tell your friends about it, as long as you don’t try to steal the code of the page or claim the generator as your own :)

i do not take credit for all the questions in this generator, i’ve gathered them at some point from both my own brain as well as stuff online

likes are always welcome, reblogs much appreciated!

I cannot describe how much I love plant horror 💕

I blame my elementary school science teacher who did a week on invasive species and introduced us to those pics of kudzu vines that are in the shape of animals and monsters ans how rapidly they spread

Like, I just want to be devoured by the earth while my blood is still warm and there's still breath in my lungs. I think it would be fittingly painful and very nice.

I just want to:

More writers should consider just not telling their readers all of shit. Just don’t tell them stuff. What’s that monster? Fuck if you’ll find out. How did that weird as hell landscape marker come to be? Wouldn’t you like to know. How does the magic work? Just believe it does, motherfucker.

Readers don’t need to know everything. In fact, I absolutely advocate for not telling them certain stuff. If the characters don’t know, neither do they. If the narrator is omniscient? Lol no they aren’t.

Is this necessary for every story? Probably not. There’s plenty of good stories you could write while explaining all of it. But leaving those gaps, leaving those holes, can bring a story to life. Sometimes things happen in life that just… happen. Fucked if anyone knows why. Sometimes information gets lost. Sometimes information is hidden. But even beyond that, it expands the narrative.

If you explain when and why and how the murder monster became a murder monster, well… that’s forever set in stone now. Now they know. But if you leave it blank, absent of explanation, any explanation… it becomes an unknown. It forces your audience to wonder. Makes them think. That, more than you might think, makes a story get into your audience’s head, and once you’re there, you can make some real impacts.

So yeah, tell a story. But sometimes? Don’t tell your readers something. Make them fill in the blanks themselves.

Know what I’m salty about?

In all my art classes, I was never taught HOW to use the various tools of art.

Like yes, form, and shape and space and color theory and figure drawing is important, but so is KNOWING what different tools do.

I’m 29 and I JUST learned this past month that India Ink is fucking waterproof when it dries. Why is this important? Because I can line something in India Ink and then go over it with watercolors. And that has CHANGED the ENTIRE way I art and the ease I can create with.

tldr: Art Teachers: teach your students what different tools do. PLEASE.

@sendhelpimstupid MY GOD I LOVE MUSHROOMS THIS LIT UP MY WEEK

Um hi yes, Uh I just drew this little mushroom spirit and I thought you might like it ;-; anyway hope you're having a good day okay bye

Oh my gosh they’re BEAUTIFUL!! HOLY MOLY the detail is stunning, and their expression is so soft and melancholy! And the little ghostly mushroom friends are flipping adorable!! You’re very talented! Thank you for sharing them with me!!

some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.

Hello, everyone!

Now your group can explore a mine that is rich in a mineral from another dimension! This mine has just begun operations recently, and a strange crystal with powerful properties is being mined to create powerful artifacts.

But soon after, the miners start to mysteriously vanish and creatures from another world start pouring out of the rift! Your players can help the miners clean out the mine and have access to a strange world underground.

The creature tokens for this map are a Deep Flesh Devourer, a Deep Spider Aberration and a Dwarf Grenadier. Emerald tier gets the Deep Spider Aberration while Diamond tier gets all three. In addition, Sapphire tier gets extra creature token variants.

You can see a preview of all of this week’s Patreon content here.

Thank you very much for taking a look and be sure to check out my Patreon where you can pledge for gridless version, alternate map versions as well as the tokens pertaining to this map.