The CBB Makes a Conworld

[TBPO]

A Grenland-sized island with a lot of mountains please.

Ok I’ll add some mountain ranges to Continent 2

[TBPO]

other collaborative conworld

[HolyHandGrenade!]

I promise I’ll have the final map done today

[HolyHandGrenade!]

Here we go:


The squiggly lines are meant to be mountain ranges.
1. Pick up to 2 regions. Refer to the earlier map for the labeling of the continents (ex: “I pick continent III, region 5”; “I want region V-3 & V-4”)
2. These regions are only meant for quick & easy reference. Your culture shouldn’t fit neatly into the borders. It can take up half a region, bleed into other regions, etc
3. You can always change and expand. This is meant to make sure everyone can have a reasonably sized culture in the beginning.
4. Any disputes over territory, whether that be initial region picking or later conquest, should be argued between the parties involved.
5. You can add some small islands in your regional maps, but nothing bigger than, say, New Zealand.
6. You are allowed to dispute anything on the map or any of the rules, but don’t expect me to comply with anything unreasonable, and I will not be drawing another world map.

[H. H. P. M. P. Cole]

I pick continent 6, regions 1 and 2.

The placeholder name of this culture would be the Coleculture.

This civilization is highly scientific, abandoning all forms of pagan religion since 340 years before the present day. Old temples and places of worship for the Coleculture's old pagan gods are now used as the largest and most prestigious scientific institutions of the continent. Magic is also taught in these institutions though they consider it to be more of a form of physics.

The lingua franca of the Coleculture is a language which has a grammar similar to Middle Chinese.

[HolyHandGrenade!]

Huzzah, our first conculture! Is it one unified nation or multiple separate ones that just have the same culture?

[H. H. P. M. P. Cole]

It is not one unified nation: there are about five to seven nations/provinces that have the same culture, depending on who is counting.

Also, I made a name for a region within the culture: Trjet-tsyuw, from Middle Chinese for "wise province".

EDITs:

The first figments of magic in the Coleculture were found in the caves of the Sea Mountains 950 years before the present. They look like uniformly cubic stones about 3 cm in length. The most common groupings of the stones are groups of four and five, though groups of six, seven, and more stones are rarer. (No grouping of 1, 2, or 3 activated stones has been observed and they are proven impossible.)

However, it was not harnessed until about 450 years before the present, when an academic proved that there were only thirty-nine possible stable structures of four stones. He also proposed that there is a fortieth one, said to "cut through all materials hard and soft", though this has not been proven to exist at that time. In addition, these can be activated or deactivated, and to switch from one to the other requires a frequency of about 40 Hz. This, along with other fears that the fortieth configuration might be found, caused the entirety of Trjet-tsyuwian and Coleculturian music to fall over this frequency for fear of activating stones. The Great Physics Academy of Trjet-tsyuw teaches this magic, known simply as "many swimming stones", ta-yuw-dzyek.

The thirty-nine configurations form the basis of a traditional Trjet-tsyuwian magicians' game called Sij-ka-dzyek, "four stones" which involves repeatedly deactivating, rearranging, and activating four stones.

Around 25 years ago, the fortieth structure of four stones was discovered and it is called the dzyek-syij, "stone arrow", named because it resembles an arrow.

In addition, the stones form the main foundation for Coleculturian scientific units using the standard put forward by the Great Physics Academy of Trjet-tsyuw:
- The main unit of distance is defined as the length of one stone, which is about 3.086cm.
- The main unit of mass is defined as the mass of one stone, which is about 76.4g.
- The main unit of speed is defined as the speed of the dzyek-syij, which is about 4.8454m/s.

(I'm just using Middle Chinese without tone markers for this.)

[TBPO]

I pick II-1 and II-2.

[H. H. P. M. P. Cole]

My map of Continent 6: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M9auqK ... sp=sharing

C.5 and C.6, and C.2 and C.7 are marked as separate regions though they might be considered separete countries or the same country due to opposing political interests.

C.3 is the province of Trjet-tsyuw, with its largest city having the name of the Trjet-tsyuw Urban District.

[HolyHandGrenade!]

I’ll take Continent I, regions 5 & 6 (that took an embarrassingly long time to decide).

[HolyHandGrenade!]

My culture will be the Kälüdyapsusor. They use elaborate stone carvings, have a strict caste system, practice funerary cannibalism, & have hundreds of gods.
The magic system consists of the true names of the gods, represented by the stars, carved onto different stones & metals for different effects. Some true names are well known & others are zealously guarded.
The culture consists of 4 rival kingdoms: Küptatyàguagähä (kingdom of many ducks), Küptahas!ïgrau (great stone kingdom), Küptasuefatrpaluä (kingdom of lucky red fish), Küptatsàchuluä (kingdom of goatskin)
These aren’t the official names of the kingdoms, but the official names usually change whenever there’s a new king.

[Flavia]

I would love to join. Preferably on an island somewhere, exactly the size of New Zealand and not a square centimetre more :p
How are the continents numbered? I don't think there are continent numbers on the map, unless I overlooked it.

[HolyHandGrenade!]

Look on the first page

[Flavia]

Look on the first page

Thanks! I'll take a New Zealand-sized island offshore III, close to regions 9 and 12.

I imagine my conculture being on the level of the Bronze Age, with rudimentary metallurgy and city-states. The ruling class consists of the descendants of a sea-faring people from across the ocean, who invaded the island a couple hundred years ago. Also, playing into the New Zealand thing, there is a lot of sheep.

Edit: I'll post my idea for their magic system later today.

[Flavia]

Look on the first page

Edit: I'll post my idea for their magic system later today.

I forgot to do that, and I already forgot what my original idea was. The magic they use is plain old haruspicy – reading omens from the entrails of sacrificial sheep.

They venerate one god who appears in four aspects – associated with: sea; forests and wild animals; farming and civilisation; sky, storms, and war, respectively.

[Egerius]

I had an idea for a conculture of an Anglo-Saxon-like people that worship a pantheon of marsupials.
Tentative name: Céodlingas [tʃeˑo̯dlɪnɡɑs] (“Pouchlings”, from Old English). I have no details yet on culture or even daily life.
Their origin story might be that the Céodlingas migrated from another continent and happened to run ashore somewhere else just as it began to look grim, and the first thing they saw were kangaroos chased by thylacines, thus they knew the new land was safe.

Their magic system would of course be rune based, but the most traded items would be leather and parchment.
Maybe some of your cultures need scribes, so you'll know where to get some.
For the linguistic side of things, I'd just mash up some unholy chimera of Old English and Old Norse (with dialects).

Is anything claimed on V yet?

[HolyHandGrenade!]

Is anything claimed on V yet?

No, not yet

[Egerius]

Is anything claimed on V yet?

No, not yet

I'll take 2 and 3 then.

Some more thoughts:
I'd probably use Proto-Germanic vocabulary and bogolang my way through sound and grammar changes; I'm aiming for 3 or 4 dialects, with conservatism ranging from close to Icelandic to something more like Faroese and German.
I've already lined out some of the sound changes for the conservative Wessex-ish dialect. It's positively uncanny, with a Great Vowel Shift and funny diphthongs that keep coming back over and over...

Culture-wise, I think the thylacine, Tasmanian devil, quoll, and kangaroo will assume the roles of main deities.
Thylacine ≈ Thot/Anubis (their forelimbs had five toes, their stripes may be interpreted as writing; they could be tamed)
Tasmanian devil ≈ Anubis/Seth (they eat carrion, scream and have black fur – if someone judges you after death and is belligerent, it's them)
Kangaroo ≈ ?? (fertility gods for sure, female kangaroos are always pregnant as soon as they can be)
Quoll ≈ Bastet? (basically cat equivalent)

The Céodlingas may have migrated from a different continent with their cattle and poultry on the boats.
Kangaroos may be used to provide leather for sturdy clothing, but the flesh is probably left outside on a platter for the devils and thylacines.
Thylacines and quolls probably are kept as pets, and their fur is used for ceremonial garments.
The black fur of devils is used by warriors, the bones are turned into talismans.

On magic: Runes are written on thylacine/kangaroo bones, stone, or wood.
They can be used for everyday communication, but bone is indicative of magic usage.
Parchment manuscripts have proven to be space-saving and popular with the clergy.
Divination is aided by interpreting the markings on thylacine, quoll and devil fur.

[Egerius]

Spoiler:

What do you think about this:

Here we go:


The squiggly lines are meant to be mountain ranges.

Double post, but I had an idea...

If you want, I can prepare a colour version of that map on my Amiga.
I saw a tutorial that shows how to create a spinning world with Deluxe Paint 4, and I could try to recreate that.
I could easily assign a colour to each conculture and we could trace conflicts/migrations as GIF animations (or DPaint anims on screen capture via an emulator if the GIF conversion fails...).
If you agree, I can get this done in March.

Here's how this works:

Spoiler:

1. I prepare a drawing, scan it, trace it on my Amiga and provide two versions of the map
A realistic one with the landscape in shades of green, yellow and blue for the general setting (we still can mark cities, landmarks, and borders)
A second map in shades of grey for the political/territorial view

2. You pick a colour for the political map (24 slots* free, with 4000 colours to choose from – except all shades of gray!)

3. I place your colour on the map, and movements can be animated frame by frame
*If you want conquests to be in a lighter colour, the number of slots is halved; if you can deal with a darker shade for that, I can use the original number of slots (nerdy technical reasons behind this).

[HolyHandGrenade!]

Spoiler:

What do you think about this:

Here we go:


The squiggly lines are meant to be mountain ranges.

Double post, but I had an idea...

If you want, I can prepare a colour version of that map on my Amiga.
I saw a tutorial that shows how to create a spinning world with Deluxe Paint 4, and I could try to recreate that.
I could easily assign a colour to each conculture and we could trace conflicts/migrations as GIF animations (or DPaint anims on screen capture via an emulator if the GIF conversion fails...).
If you agree, I can get this done in March.

Here's how this works:

Spoiler:

1. I prepare a drawing, scan it, trace it on my Amiga and provide two versions of the map
A realistic one with the landscape in shades of green, yellow and blue for the general setting (we still can mark cities, landmarks, and borders)
A second map in shades of grey for the political/territorial view

2. You pick a colour for the political map (24 slots* free, with 4000 colours to choose from – except all shades of gray!)

3. I place your colour on the map, and movements can be animated frame by frame
*If you want conquests to be in a lighter colour, the number of slots is halved; if you can deal with a darker shade for that, I can use the original number of slots (nerdy technical reasons behind this).

That sounds like a cool idea. Go for it!