How NOT to Conworld.

Discussions about constructed worlds, cultures and any topics related to constructed societies.
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Avjunza
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Avjunza »

Now I can't help picturing girls with 8 nipples....
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Visinoid »

If I ever make a conworld, there will be a least 3 genders. 8D Way to fuck up genetics.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

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I'm currently imagining a conspecies with 4 genders, where every gender can mate with any other gender (including the ability to impregnate itself) and has 10 different hemimorphosis cycles depending on the gender combination of the parents.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Visinoid »

How many forms does that make? O.o
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Micamo »

40. 1 for each gender and hemimorphosis type combination. Genders are distinguished from each other much less than hemimorphosis types do though. They work in a hive structure and each of the ten types plays a different role in the hive. Their mating instinct is chemically activated and they find attractive whatever gender they need to mate with in order to keep the appropriate balance needed. For example, if a gender 1 parent and a gender 2 parent makes a Warrior-type hemimorphosis, then the mass death of soldiers in a battle will prompt G1 and G2 members of a hive to start mating like crazy. When there are too many Warrior-types, then the chemicals will signal them to stop mating and G1 and G2 will find each other repulsive.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by eldin raigmore »

Is "hemimorphosis" a "real" word?
I only get 1 Dogpile hit for it.

Something about horseshoe crabs, and something about crustacea.
It appears to involve growing larger and moulting (sp? "molting", maybe?) without actually changing shape; something those with exoskeletons might have to worry about.
Neither fast-growing species nor large species are likely to find exoskeletons convenient.

"Hemimorphite" and "hemimorphic" have to do with crystals rather than living things.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Micamo »

My apologies, probably using the wrong term. What I meant was the type of metamorphosis that skips the pupal stage and instead has the larval and adult forms go through a gradual set of changes, like tadpoles do when they become frogs. According to a wikipedia article I read one time, "metamorphosis" properly only refers to changes with an intermediate pupal stage like butterflies, and the gradual change is another word that I must have misremembered as Hemimorphism. But now I can't find the article again, so I don't know what's going on either.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by stinger »

Something that makes me lose interest in a conworld is explicit deconstruction. It's somewhat depressing when the core concept of a world is showing that some idea is stupid and bad. I guess it's kinda like the preaching the OP mentioned, except with tropes and cliches rather than political views.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Darkgamma »

yacheritsi wrote:
Micamo wrote:Yeah but the udders are in the wrong place...
Spoiler:
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Oh my
Svo hvernig get ég annað en glott á þig dauðlega?
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by hylandpad »

I HATE Elves. With a passion. However, people seem to just LOVE them, and forget that fantasy can exist without them. So I have them in my conworld, and I go to great lengths to make sure that when people read my work, they HATE them - but in a good way, and a way which I personally enjoy. Not because they aren't given adequate attention, but because I make them the sleeziest, dirtiest, back-handed, cloak and dagger, ethically-disinclined race on the entire planet.
That and their entire society is arcanically inept, due to eons of genetic tampering which has left their genome irreparably damaged.
But I guess they still have pointy ears.

This was ranting in reply to OP's first post. =D
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Micamo »

My pronouns are <xe> [ziː] / <xym> [zɪm] / <xys> [zɪz]

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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Thakowsaizmu »

Elves are fine. It's just when the entire party is made up of elves...
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by hylandpad »

Perhaps not. But it's still far-out enough for them not to be archetyped into the same annoying class as 'Legolas' or 'Drizzt Do'Urden.'
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Thakowsaizmu »

Drizzt sucks. That is all.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Ollock »

hylandpad wrote:I HATE Elves. With a passion. However, people seem to just LOVE them, and forget that fantasy can exist without them. So I have them in my conworld, and I go to great lengths to make sure that when people read my work, they HATE them - but in a good way, and a way which I personally enjoy. Not because they aren't given adequate attention, but because I make them the sleeziest, dirtiest, back-handed, cloak and dagger, ethically-disinclined race on the entire planet.
That and their entire society is arcanically inept, due to eons of genetic tampering which has left their genome irreparably damaged.
But I guess they still have pointy ears.

This was ranting in reply to OP's first post. =D
You know, some people like sleazy, back-handed characters.

In any case, cookie-cutter fantasy elves have gotten old. More interesting takes with unique backstories are good. I rather like some aspects of the elves in the DragonAge world (once rather like generic High Elves, but now they are either enslaved by humans or wander the wilderness in nomadic clans).

Also, you know, you can always just omit elves. I have a fantasy conworld that includes no physical race other than humans. There are two groups that could be tangentially considered elves: The Aeruro, an ancient race that long ago left their bodies and merged with the air, and are now the source of a particular form of magic, and the Mak, humans who have been rendered immortal through magic, but neither really fits all that many of the "elf" tropes.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by eldin raigmore »

Everything since Darkgamma's post a month ago has been about elves!?! :!: :?: :!: [o.O] [O.O] [O.o] [:S] :roll: :wat: [¬.¬]

Anyone have anything else to say about anything mentioned on the first page -- maybe the first 25 to 100 posts?

Or how about the other things in Veris's original post?
Veris wrote:What are things that people tend to do with their conworlds that make you lose interest?
...
1. Reiterating over and over again how different your world is from Earth.
...
2. Having X number of intelligent, sapient creatures in your world, including humans, and having the first lines of your description of said humans go something like, "The humans of Conworld are rather average in culture, intellect and physical strength compared to the other races. They're also the most numerous."
...
4. A map with tons of unpronouncable, discordant names.
...
5. Copy-pasting Tolkien without realizing it.
...
6. Preaching.
...
About Number 1: I agree with Veris. (Especially the parts I didn't quote.)

About Number 2: Reallly, if there are that many other intelligent, sapient subspecies, species, genera, and even families and orders, in your conworld, then the humans' (con)culture would be influenced by that fact, and their (con)culture would certainly not be "average" compared to anything in the Real World nor to any other (con)culture there in the Conworld. Not even if their intellect and strength were about the same as Real People's Here. And it might be a very iffy thing, whether or not they'd be "most numerous".

About Number 4: Two parts; (a) maps (b) unpronounceables

(a) I don't like maps that just plain ignore facts of geology and physical geography. Rivers that run in a loop, for instance!

(b) European languages tend to have rather more vowels than the average natlang in the RealWorld. [a e i o u] is a quite adequate vowel-inventory for a conlang. Also, (C)V syllable structure is the commonest, with (C)(R)V(C) (R standing for a sonorant, such as a liquid or a glide or a semivowel) being the second-most-common. And consonants that are either non-pulmonic or non-egressive are also not all that common. So the average random natlang should actually be easier to pronounce than most of the L1s, or even the best-known L2s, of most members of this board.

Also, in any real map of any region of any real size, there will be areas where two different, mutually non-intelligible, languages are dominant. A realistic map should make it obvious, just from the toponymy, that the language spoken in one area is different from the language spoken in another.

(But to be realistic the names of rivers should be conserved even between different languages; that's a fact of the Real World that one wouldn't guess if one hadn't seen it.)

About numbers 5 and 6; What can I say besides [+1] ?
Last edited by eldin raigmore on 06 Nov 2011 22:05, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Ollock »

eldin raigmore wrote:Everything since Darkgamma's post a month ago has been about elves!?! :!: :?: :!: [o.O] [O.O] [O.o] [:S] :roll: :wat: [¬.¬]
Haha, I guess lots of people either love or hate elves.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Thakowsaizmu »

Ollock wrote: In any case, cookie-cutter fantasy elves have gotten old. More interesting takes with unique backstories are good. I rather like some aspects of the elves in the DragonAge world (once rather like generic High Elves, but now they are either enslaved by humans or wander the wilderness in nomadic clans)
Dark Sun campaign setting for AD&D had a pretty cool take on elves.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by hylandpad »

Ollock wrote:
hylandpad wrote:I HATE Elves. With a passion. However, people seem to just LOVE them, and forget that fantasy can exist without them. So I have them in my conworld, and I go to great lengths to make sure that when people read my work, they HATE them - but in a good way, and a way which I personally enjoy. Not because they aren't given adequate attention, but because I make them the sleeziest, dirtiest, back-handed, cloak and dagger, ethically-disinclined race on the entire planet.
That and their entire society is arcanically inept, due to eons of genetic tampering which has left their genome irreparably damaged.
But I guess they still have pointy ears.

This was ranting in reply to OP's first post. =D
You know, some people like sleazy, back-handed characters.

In any case, cookie-cutter fantasy elves have gotten old. More interesting takes with unique backstories are good. I rather like some aspects of the elves in the DragonAge world (once rather like generic High Elves, but now they are either enslaved by humans or wander the wilderness in nomadic clans).

Also, you know, you can always just omit elves. I have a fantasy conworld that includes no physical race other than humans. There are two groups that could be tangentially considered elves: The Aeruro, an ancient race that long ago left their bodies and merged with the air, and are now the source of a particular form of magic, and the Mak, humans who have been rendered immortal through magic, but neither really fits all that many of the "elf" tropes.
See, it's not the idea of Elves that I hate, it's the constant use of Tolkien-Style Elves and Forgotten Realms- Style Anti-Elves that I just despise. There seems to be very little inventiveness in the area concerning elves in mainstream fantasy. Granted, I have seen some interesting takes on elves that sort of break the mold, my favorite being the WH40k Eldar. I read another really awesome rendition of space elves on Strolen's Citadel which was refreshing, new and interesting.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Avjunza »

Dwarves with axes or hammers, that spend all their time mining or smithing, live underground and ALWAYS have massive beards.

Also anything with pure good and pure evil, or with a Dark Lord or any singular antagonist.
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