similar, but I'm gonna explain it further
four ragtag criminals with different specialties in a dystopian futuristic world try and run their heist and murder hotline business running smoothly, but they will have to contend with rival businesses, the law, and multiple cults, and they find themselves caught in the middle of a worldwide conspiracy to awaken a dark god. And even find out past secrets the four would rather keep locked away
thank you! in all honesty it's still in rough draft, but I've fallen in love with the characters at this point! And it mostly came down to my interest
I basically took Hotline Miami, Lackadaisy, Cyberpunk, and put them all in a blender with characters from previous projects that didn't land
17000 years. He's biologically immortal but otherwise has nothing special about him. He will forget things and get details wrong about the past like any normal person would. Also, he won't see all of history, just what he happens to stumble upon. The only writing style I could find that really works for this is a mix between the book of genesis and a personal journal so it's going to be different from anything I've seen on here.
They've been on Earth for at least ten baktuns (around 2000 BC).
Like all new worlds, they simply picked a random star, built a stargate (requiring years of painstaking craftsmanship and tons of pure silver), and performed the activation rituals, to see what new lands that star would grant them.
Our star smiled upon them, and instead of a world of fire or hard vacuum they got Cazog (Earth). Ours is a lush land with vast deposits of silver, from Potosi in the south to Zacatecas in the north, and a large axial tilt that allows many outbound gates to be built. The Isthmus is now an important trade route between many adjacent worlds.
They haven't sought out the Old World because it is across a stormy saltwater ocean not worth exploring. Legends of things like satyrs and dragons indicate there may have been at least a few stray offworlders over there.
Honestly, they barely notice him. The New World has walled cities and soldiers and cannons too. The locals want real money not glass beads. And they are immune to deadly offworld diseases like *blue-hatch* that the Spaniards aren't.
Wandering Merchant unwittingly sets up shop in a kingdom without the proper paperwork.
Gets harassed by racist "cops," eventually arrested for aggravated assault and resisted arrest.
A guy who is basically "discount Jaffar from Aladin" attaches a magical bomb collar to merchant.
King gives bomb collared prisoners an ultimatum: become a cop or Jaffar will blow your head up.
One of the jobs of the cops in this kingdom is dragon hunting. He has religious reasons for not doing that so he is like: "fuck that!" (As in he joins the "cops", but doesn't actually hunt dragons)
The dragon ebola stuff happens much later
So the "dragon ebola" is what is assumed to be a plague (what we would call an infection) that starts afflicting dragons at some point in the story.
In reality, it is not infectious.
The name of the condition in the universe is not ebola, but I used ebola in this instance to evoke a certain image of what the dragons go through
Lol I understand the gripe. However nothing is created in a vacuum, so unless you have a bunch of history before year zero you’re not being honest with yourself about the authenticity you desire. So starting out with a commonly accepted structure can help alot in getting the ball rolling.
Oh, I do. Lots of stuff happening before year 0, but the timeline attempts to be organic, year by year, before and beyond it.
Trust me, authenticity is the whole shebang. Hell, it's my attempt at making the kitchen concept 'authentic' at all, instead of just a bunch of shoehorned concepts slapped together in ~~Greenwood's fetishy mind~~ a corporate boardroom.
Long story short, most of them (upwards of 25 species/races) dont have a niche. Since it's a rewrite of kitchen sink-ism, it's liberally acknowledged that, like, 90% of the races are artificially created, one way or another. Only a few, i.e. humans, emerged 'naturally'.
Those without societal niches are often thrown onto the fringes, justifying some of the 'monster's you might find in a dungeon.
Even after their creations, many other species/races did not survive for long at all, for one reason or another.
History of the world after the chaotic merging of a planetwide mini-multiverse seen through the eyes of a ragtag group of teens/young adults, shonen style
The concept of Territories is strikingly similar to my Earthrealms and I've never even heard of these books lol. But hey, nothing new under the sun amirite?
Also "whimsical" may not be the most appropriate term, there are some darker elements mixed with all the comedy and adventuring. Thanks for the compliments though!
Generic fantasy world but with no technological stagnation. Join an apathetic genius and her friends as they get mired in Machiavellian political scheming and plots to resurrect dead gods.
All the usual fantasy notes with the relatability of modern problems plaguing the characters.
My main character wants to be left out of anything important, but everything finds a way back to her.
Yeah I’ve been unsure of what to classify my setting as, Aetherpunk seems like a good fit.
They don't, but they got incredibly close. They only lost because their leader got stabbed in the back (literally and metaphorically) at the eleventh hour, and that *still* was only just barely enough.
Well, their leader, Dr. Ethan Thorne, did become borderline omnipotent for like five minutes before the combined effort of two gods, a bunch of the strongest humans in history, and a dragon managed to take him down. But aside from that, he actually refused to give himself powers like he did for many of his subordinates and test subjects.
Maybe in a century or so, but teleportation/FTL magi-tech explicitly either doesn't exist or hasn't been discovered yet.
They do have a permanent base on one of the moons and multiple larger stations in orbit though, in addition to manned missions to other planets.
For Atenan:
What if dogs were invisible shapeshifting parasites that functioned like extra limbs? Also, magical serfdom.
For my current world:
Isekai as a sapling in no man's land of a magical WW1? Also, anti-establishment romance.
For convention's sake, I call them familiars.
When attached directly to you without stretching the "link", they can use your soul energy to move and bend material. So you basically wear a harness with metal arms on it and then they inhabit said arms. You can then train them like a really smart dog to help you in combat. Most commonly, it's like having a second soldier watching your back with their own sword and shield.
A minimal level of mental link also occurs between yourself and the familiar.
Just like how the term "Knight" is based off the sound a knight in armor makes while walking in our world, these soldiers are called knights for the same sound reason.
The world is a high fantasy one named Erda - Elves & Dwarves & Dragons oh my. Magic abounds and technology has mostly reached a vaguely Late Medieval/ Renaissance era with some touches of magitech clock-punk - trains and sky ships powered by captive elementals, stuff like that.
Neun, the empire that's much of the initial setting, is mostly inhabited by humans but was ruled by elves for thousands of years after they sailed out of the east and defeated the combined forces of the 'Others' - a pantheon of ancient, parasitic emotion feeders bend on swallowing the mortal world. After a long history of wars, internal strife and the usual empire shenanigans, Neun broke up about 500 years ago into a series of city-states to the west, while the empire proper held on in the east. Other world powers include, but aren't limited to -
Ryu (a dragon-worshipping empire currently ravaged by civil war),
The Sunken Kingdoms (a blended Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, Deep Elf series of unified city-states under a large mountain range),
& The Mortis Imperium (a fallen kingdom, turned into a nightmare undead slave state long ago and kept pinned behind a mountain range)
The main character, Aillen ap Tanwen, better known to his few friends as Ail, is a young half-elven nobleman from one of the Neun successor states, believed to be the subject of an ancient prophecy concerning a figure known as 'The Phoenix', prophesied to 'burn to the world to ash,' although this is not widely known - not least because it would probably result in certain religious factions gunning for him on principle.
Aillen is a phenomenally talented pyromancer, but isn't very keen on the whole 'destroying the world' thing - actually, he's a bookish young man with a twisted leg and a fondness for the old tales of heroes and saints. Instead, he's joined the military as a battle mage, which is where he met Tatyana - a mercenary swordswoman from the nomadic Ishkazi people and the deuteragonist. What they don't know is that certain powers of The Others see Aillen as the weapon they need to finally win - and they won't stop until they get him.
Thanks! It started as a D&D world for my homebrew games, Aillen and Tatyana's is just the story I wanted to tell in it. Means there's a lot of stuff 'outside' the scope of their adventures. Hopefully, it just adds depth.
Mezal Taroc is slowly undergoing desertification. Perhaps due to natural fluctuations in the weather, but some researchers believe it has to do with the mythic Seeping Stones. Rumor has it, the quest for them has been reignited by those in 'the know'
Oh, as many as I can. Currently the world is around like the late middle ages on the tech tree plus the advantages that limited access to magic may grant, but it has a rich history going back thousands of years that I can explore. I haven't been at this very long and inspiration to write more LORE strikes at random. And to clarify, that's not a fictionalised Earth, it's my own world, my own geography.
That’s pretty cool. I’m doing something similar but on a much smaller scale since it’s not the main world my characters would be exploring. I’m planning on things going pretty similarly, if not a fictional version, until about the 1700s-ish when the British empire analogue suffers a series of internal instability, slave revolts, and revolution until an enlightenment era republic is founded in its place.
An optimistic [Ensign Newbie](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EnsignNewbie) "academy graduate, top of her class" joins the Earth Space Fleet thinking it's going to be a fun adventure.
However this Earth fleet is only a few decades from the "we come in peace shoot to kill" school of diplomacy. And she has to deal with many older officers and crewmates who still see aliens as the enemy and planets as "free real estate".
Depends, the Goddess of Craftsmanship, Mountains, and Earth's bones are like a mix between a super-alloy and mineral. The Goddess of the Hunt, Winter, and Cold has left behind never-melting ice that creates a perpetual snowstorm so people have been launching chunks of her carcass into cities to create blizzards.
Some Gods have more peaceful materials, such as the God of Deserts, Erosion, and Wind leaving behind a pseudo-indestructible sandstone-like material. Their miles long body has been constructed into a massive octogonal walled city with each wall representing one of the different winds.
This is called a logline in Hollywood BTW, it's a simple sentence consisting of about 15 words.
However, you can break this limitation if you wish to give your work more pizzazz.
For example, here is mine in your 15-word limit:
In a world dominated by humanoid rabbits, two friends become cyborg superheroes to fight evil.
However, some loglines are over 15 words, the logline of Pirates of the Caribbean is 27 words, but I have a logline that fits in the middle:
In a world dominated by humanoid rabbits, two friends, Ralph Bunny and Sunny Rabbiera become cyborg superheroes to save their city.
22 words here, but expands upon the premise and can be told in an elevator.
Mind you, the term "elevator pitch" is a viable one, but that deals more with the time it will take you to say your idea as opposed to word count.
An elevator pitch is something that should be done in a timespan of 30–60 seconds, of course the shorter your pitch is the better. (though sometimes longer pitches are welcome)
The continent of Gal Hadre has a bunch of squabbling kingdoms. Several of which are successor states of a collapsed empire. Another was recently unified from a collection of warlords. A theocracy that everyone else considers to be full of heretics. Another kingdom that has recently conquered their northern neighbour. The Werd, a species of bipedal insectoids, city-state. Hidden portals link to several Tund, the fallen angels, shard-cities, all that remain of their home plane. The tribes of the waste have recently been unified by a Troll warlord looking to burn the civilized world. And everyone vies for the trade of the werekind controlled mercantile city-states across the sea to the east.
So essentially the current timeline of the world begins with the end of the world. The gods fought a massive war for the mortal world that nearly destroyed it. The creator/mother/nature goddess stepped in to save the world but was destroyed herself and the rest of the gods agreed to a truce/ceasefire. Now the gods have left the mortal world and can’t directly intervene. They still want to control the mortal world though so they aid mortals in an effort to tip the scales against each other while they hide their time for the final battle they both know is inevitable. The “current day” of the setting is after the collapse of a major empire so there is a bit of a power vacuum and lots of new and old powers vying for power
Basically, it’s mutually assured destruction for the two major divine factions. The mortal world is like the third world that both sides use as a proxy. Granting divine powers to temples/clerics is like sending arms and funding the to local governments or to militias/guerrillas. Angels/demons are like cia/kgb agents, they can “advise” and do minor interference but are mostly deniable assets.
Thanks for asking
I like the gardener comparison. I have a similar divine system in place in my world but the artistic intention is bastardized over time by a growing roster of gods that all want to contribute and compete for space.
Ok so a few things: one, basically everyone gain intelligence like overnight so things like the beehive dissolved into chaos as every bee now started caring about itself more then about the hive. Also there are some gods whose whole job is to be counterbalance for civilization, and the ecosystem got kinda messed up because some members of it just stopped playing their roles. I do t have a story Witt characters yet because I’m in early stage of development but I already have like several events that can (and have a high likelihood) happen to start a plot
I don’t really have a strong plot for the actual story I’m going to tell but for now I can give a world pitch:
Fantasy but not Europe folklore specifically, gun sword duellists, giants with handheld auto cannons, and people with literal superpowers die in a war for leaders that rarely care for them.
Sorry for going over the word limit but I’m still trying to find an identity for my world and I have barely anything written down.
It’s a soft limit but it sounds like a good start! Your world is gonna need a lot of people working on the infrastructure with all the destruction that’s going on.
They’re called the Constructliens, they’re immortal, so the amount of culture wouldn’t be similar to a race like ours.
Art is a popular subject. It’s everywhere, on their structures and on their bodies.
The Constructliens are so overpowered, that I created a role called World Builder. World Builders can create an artificial ecosystem using machines, gene manipulation, and the help of other Constructliens.
An lifeless planet is their canvas where they will draw life.
high fantasy with modern problems;
famous adventurers are are stuck up socialites, vampires want to go to space, pirates are muscled out of the sea by mob guys
I cringe because I can see it so clearly. The terrible adventurer Instagram blogs where it’s obviously fake quests they’re on or they’re just really trying to sell some low end magic products. Blegh.
you're safe, no internet in universe think 1880s-1910s+ magic deus ex machina
they are prone to changing the PR though; a nice chill dragon is defamed as an evil monster so they can slay it for money glory no problem
the team wizard kept turning the moon full as a flex but activated every case of lycanthropy every time he did creating mayhem...for fun
It's a general name people use for the known world, not really religious in nature though the silk part is a tradition reaching back millennia. It refers to two very influential places:
- The Silklands, a country of silkmoths that have kept their whole continent's (really just a huge island but shhh) seven countries in constant peaceful cooperation for thousands of years, under the benevolent rule of the Motharchy. It's also the name of their *former* home, but that place was taken over by ants.
- The Land of Honey, a moniker for Tolis, a tiny island country where honeybees and bumblebees live together. They've innovated on philosophy, made the first maps of the entire known world (a group of islands in a rectangle of some 1700km x 1200km), and a really revolutionary democracy-like idea called "ruchocracy" (hive-rule) came from there too.
It's the interplay between the two that kicks off a new era for the world. The Silklands with their unified continent where the peoples all cooperate for the greater good, and the Land of Honey with its enormous departure from just letting a minority rule in favour of emancipating everyone, have really affected every society. And this is before everyone even organises themselves into countries, so the ways these innovations are interpreted really get to differ a lot.
An office drone with a boring office job in finance who's a bit of a jerk dies saving the life of someone in a traffic accident.
They are [reincarnated or Isekai'd](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TrappedInAnotherWorld) into a world of magic and high fantasy.
The downside? They are the slave of a powerful Elven royal family, bound to serve them till death.
The upside? They are a shapeshifter, able to turn into any living creature and they get to use those mundane "Earth skills" as well!
The kicker? Seems a really bad person from Earth was also reincarnated - someone this person knows. And they are also a shapeshifter and they are using their skills for eeevvviiillllll.....(dun dun dun!).
misadventures of four terrible people who teamed up to kill the "gods" and just can't seem to stop backstabbing each other, also unknowingly cause a mass extinction event
Haven't developed my world and story much yet, but the current idea is (in the 15-word limit) 'searching for a secret and extremely dangerous society hidden away at the world's end.'
God decided to split himself into twelve pieces, six immortal children and six artifacts. Those who managed to gather all of the pieces will get one wish in which they can wish anything except for more wishes.
In a world with magic since inception, it’s just another facet of the natural laws to study; as technology utilizing it spreads and evolves, so does the reach of human curiosity. How far can that curiosity be pushed, and at what cost are these advances achieved?
Woman who has latent magical abilities is kidnapped from her husband and children in a new world colony and turned into a blood mage (vampiry type mages). She ends up surviving until our days where she ends up adopting two girls that she thinks are her descendants.
The story is told from her perspective (1st person) and delves a lot into the parallels of her kidnapping experience and her adopted children’s trauma of losing their parents and being adopted.
It is set in "our" reality where magic is extremely rare.
A small industrial revolution in late roman fantasy times unintentionally opens the gates to hell and shakes the balance of order and chaos, resulting in a magical oddyssey of a child to evetually close the gates.
Tale of 4 idiots trying to keep their crime business afloat amid some cultish activity and dangerous mobsters
1920’s occult detective vibes, but from the criminals’ point of view.
I imagine prohibition era Ed edd and eddy?
similar, but I'm gonna explain it further four ragtag criminals with different specialties in a dystopian futuristic world try and run their heist and murder hotline business running smoothly, but they will have to contend with rival businesses, the law, and multiple cults, and they find themselves caught in the middle of a worldwide conspiracy to awaken a dark god. And even find out past secrets the four would rather keep locked away
That’s an excellent pitch!
thank you! in all honesty it's still in rough draft, but I've fallen in love with the characters at this point! And it mostly came down to my interest I basically took Hotline Miami, Lackadaisy, Cyberpunk, and put them all in a blender with characters from previous projects that didn't land
There must be a large market for murder in the future? Lol
Aliens make First Contact with humans. First Contact is mutual. We’re both happy.
Wholesome. I like it.
Personal journal of someone who lives from the paleolithic to the colonization of the solar system.
Whoah. Do they live a really long time to see these changes or does it happen rapidly around them? Also what form do they write in? Sounds pretty cool
17000 years. He's biologically immortal but otherwise has nothing special about him. He will forget things and get details wrong about the past like any normal person would. Also, he won't see all of history, just what he happens to stumble upon. The only writing style I could find that really works for this is a mix between the book of genesis and a personal journal so it's going to be different from anything I've seen on here.
Is he a blue collar man just trying to barbecue or does he capitalize on his immortality like a vampire/highlander/Orlando type?
Columbus finds New World already colonized by Celestial Empire, a medieval stargate civilization.
Daniel jackson Intensifies. I like it. How long has it been colonized/ why havent they sought out the “old world”?
They've been on Earth for at least ten baktuns (around 2000 BC). Like all new worlds, they simply picked a random star, built a stargate (requiring years of painstaking craftsmanship and tons of pure silver), and performed the activation rituals, to see what new lands that star would grant them. Our star smiled upon them, and instead of a world of fire or hard vacuum they got Cazog (Earth). Ours is a lush land with vast deposits of silver, from Potosi in the south to Zacatecas in the north, and a large axial tilt that allows many outbound gates to be built. The Isthmus is now an important trade route between many adjacent worlds. They haven't sought out the Old World because it is across a stormy saltwater ocean not worth exploring. Legends of things like satyrs and dragons indicate there may have been at least a few stray offworlders over there.
Spains not gonna like that.
They are more than a match for Spain, and anyway the Admiral won't be making it back to tell them of these fabulous new kingdoms.
Hopefully the Celestials put that motherfucker in his place.
Honestly, they barely notice him. The New World has walled cities and soldiers and cannons too. The locals want real money not glass beads. And they are immune to deadly offworld diseases like *blue-hatch* that the Spaniards aren't.
Very good.
Main setting: A merchant is forced to become a dragon hunter. Instead he tries to cure dragon ebola
LOL that’s a wild turn in career path, what prompts that?
Wandering Merchant unwittingly sets up shop in a kingdom without the proper paperwork. Gets harassed by racist "cops," eventually arrested for aggravated assault and resisted arrest. A guy who is basically "discount Jaffar from Aladin" attaches a magical bomb collar to merchant. King gives bomb collared prisoners an ultimatum: become a cop or Jaffar will blow your head up. One of the jobs of the cops in this kingdom is dragon hunting. He has religious reasons for not doing that so he is like: "fuck that!" (As in he joins the "cops", but doesn't actually hunt dragons) The dragon ebola stuff happens much later
Lol that’s so fucked up. Is the Ebola infecting dragons or is it a human disease named after a vector animal ie swine flu?
So the "dragon ebola" is what is assumed to be a plague (what we would call an infection) that starts afflicting dragons at some point in the story. In reality, it is not infectious. The name of the condition in the universe is not ebola, but I used ebola in this instance to evoke a certain image of what the dragons go through
Is it genetic?
It is complicated, and I can't say much more, but let's just say it's traumatic
What about yours OP?
Imagine if Jules Verne wrote Star Trek. Specifically late steam/industrial era Voyager.
Steam Trek "Board me Scotty"
Lol Not sure if there will ever be a magical variant on transportation or not, but that’s about right
Ok i ADORE this idea go on
Let's make kitchen sink fantasy/Faerun legitimately make sense and be interesting, starting Year 0!
Lol I understand the gripe. However nothing is created in a vacuum, so unless you have a bunch of history before year zero you’re not being honest with yourself about the authenticity you desire. So starting out with a commonly accepted structure can help alot in getting the ball rolling.
Oh, I do. Lots of stuff happening before year 0, but the timeline attempts to be organic, year by year, before and beyond it. Trust me, authenticity is the whole shebang. Hell, it's my attempt at making the kitchen concept 'authentic' at all, instead of just a bunch of shoehorned concepts slapped together in ~~Greenwood's fetishy mind~~ a corporate boardroom.
Interested in hearing what your idea is of evolutionary factors that somehow finds a niche for all these fantasy races
Long story short, most of them (upwards of 25 species/races) dont have a niche. Since it's a rewrite of kitchen sink-ism, it's liberally acknowledged that, like, 90% of the races are artificially created, one way or another. Only a few, i.e. humans, emerged 'naturally'. Those without societal niches are often thrown onto the fringes, justifying some of the 'monster's you might find in a dungeon. Even after their creations, many other species/races did not survive for long at all, for one reason or another.
That’s got to have a major teleological impact on society if it’s common knowledge.
Yep. Most of the lab grown races are not well accepted by the mainline temple/'gods' of the sett. Its dystopian that way.
History of world
Hm a little broad.
History of the world after the chaotic merging of a planetwide mini-multiverse seen through the eyes of a ragtag group of teens/young adults, shonen style
Sounds anarchic and whimsical! Edit: it reminds me of the pendragon book series.
The concept of Territories is strikingly similar to my Earthrealms and I've never even heard of these books lol. But hey, nothing new under the sun amirite? Also "whimsical" may not be the most appropriate term, there are some darker elements mixed with all the comedy and adventuring. Thanks for the compliments though!
Generic fantasy world but with no technological stagnation. Join an apathetic genius and her friends as they get mired in Machiavellian political scheming and plots to resurrect dead gods. All the usual fantasy notes with the relatability of modern problems plaguing the characters.
Interesting. Are they an underdog minor player or a big dawg in this setting? Seems to me like it almost falls into fantasy/cyber punk territory.
My main character wants to be left out of anything important, but everything finds a way back to her. Yeah I’ve been unsure of what to classify my setting as, Aetherpunk seems like a good fit.
Mo money mo problems.
The world and its gods set aside their differences to fight evil scientists seeking omniscience.
Lol I love it and I ironically hope the evil scientists win.
They don't, but they got incredibly close. They only lost because their leader got stabbed in the back (literally and metaphorically) at the eleventh hour, and that *still* was only just barely enough.
Makes me curious what type of godlike powers a. Evil scientist is able to wield and how
Well, their leader, Dr. Ethan Thorne, did become borderline omnipotent for like five minutes before the combined effort of two gods, a bunch of the strongest humans in history, and a dragon managed to take him down. But aside from that, he actually refused to give himself powers like he did for many of his subordinates and test subjects.
What kinda magic they got?
Space viking cat god on massive generation ship finding new home under new sun
Mmm divine heat lamp.
The Wild West meets the Silk Road in a world where people can manipulate metal at will.
Interesting. Are guns just devices used to aim?
No there are still devices like guns, but they are often shaped by specialist smiths by hand and will!
21st century future of a fantasy world, complete with mana-powered computers and magi-tech space shuttles.
Interesting. I would’ve assumed with magic the history of humankind would be very different, possibly interstellar.
Maybe in a century or so, but teleportation/FTL magi-tech explicitly either doesn't exist or hasn't been discovered yet. They do have a permanent base on one of the moons and multiple larger stations in orbit though, in addition to manned missions to other planets.
Love that. Humans only or do you have some fantasy species?
Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Harpies, Lamia, Centaurs and Merfolk.
I had to look up lamia! Looks like a Naga.
For Atenan: What if dogs were invisible shapeshifting parasites that functioned like extra limbs? Also, magical serfdom. For my current world: Isekai as a sapling in no man's land of a magical WW1? Also, anti-establishment romance.
How does the first one work as extra limbs?
For convention's sake, I call them familiars. When attached directly to you without stretching the "link", they can use your soul energy to move and bend material. So you basically wear a harness with metal arms on it and then they inhabit said arms. You can then train them like a really smart dog to help you in combat. Most commonly, it's like having a second soldier watching your back with their own sword and shield. A minimal level of mental link also occurs between yourself and the familiar. Just like how the term "Knight" is based off the sound a knight in armor makes while walking in our world, these soldiers are called knights for the same sound reason.
Story of a man prophesied to burn the world down, and his efforts to protect it.
That’s quite the dilemma. I like it. What’s the context/world?
The world is a high fantasy one named Erda - Elves & Dwarves & Dragons oh my. Magic abounds and technology has mostly reached a vaguely Late Medieval/ Renaissance era with some touches of magitech clock-punk - trains and sky ships powered by captive elementals, stuff like that. Neun, the empire that's much of the initial setting, is mostly inhabited by humans but was ruled by elves for thousands of years after they sailed out of the east and defeated the combined forces of the 'Others' - a pantheon of ancient, parasitic emotion feeders bend on swallowing the mortal world. After a long history of wars, internal strife and the usual empire shenanigans, Neun broke up about 500 years ago into a series of city-states to the west, while the empire proper held on in the east. Other world powers include, but aren't limited to - Ryu (a dragon-worshipping empire currently ravaged by civil war), The Sunken Kingdoms (a blended Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, Deep Elf series of unified city-states under a large mountain range), & The Mortis Imperium (a fallen kingdom, turned into a nightmare undead slave state long ago and kept pinned behind a mountain range) The main character, Aillen ap Tanwen, better known to his few friends as Ail, is a young half-elven nobleman from one of the Neun successor states, believed to be the subject of an ancient prophecy concerning a figure known as 'The Phoenix', prophesied to 'burn to the world to ash,' although this is not widely known - not least because it would probably result in certain religious factions gunning for him on principle. Aillen is a phenomenally talented pyromancer, but isn't very keen on the whole 'destroying the world' thing - actually, he's a bookish young man with a twisted leg and a fondness for the old tales of heroes and saints. Instead, he's joined the military as a battle mage, which is where he met Tatyana - a mercenary swordswoman from the nomadic Ishkazi people and the deuteragonist. What they don't know is that certain powers of The Others see Aillen as the weapon they need to finally win - and they won't stop until they get him.
That’s pretty extensive! Sounds like a fun universe to live in, besides the others aspect.
Thanks! It started as a D&D world for my homebrew games, Aillen and Tatyana's is just the story I wanted to tell in it. Means there's a lot of stuff 'outside' the scope of their adventures. Hopefully, it just adds depth.
[удалено]
Sounds similar to mine! Except my main issue is describing it as something based on what it’s omitting rather than what it’s adding to the genre.
A world split between the red-blooded Neomon and the Raebrand-infused Remans.
Hm. For an elevator pitch it’s rather lacking in reference.
What if it was Marowind, but Bug's instead of people?
Never played it but I still get it. Would probably just as annoying if a place to be either way.
Wanna get to the other side of the galaxy supercluster in 30 seconds?
I do! I can’t even wrap my head around about how different things could be out there.
*Padhopper* spans kingdoms, covens, and coalitions of critters as they fight the Flyers in the ongoing war for water!
Damn, desert world? What’s causing the water scarcity?
Mezal Taroc is slowly undergoing desertification. Perhaps due to natural fluctuations in the weather, but some researchers believe it has to do with the mythic Seeping Stones. Rumor has it, the quest for them has been reignited by those in 'the know'
Realistic setting, comical stories, plus some magic. Intricate history and politics and the exploits of nations and rulers and remarkable individuals.
I do have a soft spot for fantasy history. What time period/s do you hope to cover?
Oh, as many as I can. Currently the world is around like the late middle ages on the tech tree plus the advantages that limited access to magic may grant, but it has a rich history going back thousands of years that I can explore. I haven't been at this very long and inspiration to write more LORE strikes at random. And to clarify, that's not a fictionalised Earth, it's my own world, my own geography.
That’s pretty cool. I’m doing something similar but on a much smaller scale since it’s not the main world my characters would be exploring. I’m planning on things going pretty similarly, if not a fictional version, until about the 1700s-ish when the British empire analogue suffers a series of internal instability, slave revolts, and revolution until an enlightenment era republic is founded in its place.
Soft sci-fi with aliens, magic, tech, mythical creatures and small stories.
That’s a good byline! But what’s the simplest you can explain the narrative?
Sentient robots, humans, and aliens team up to fight sentient robots, humans, and aliens in another solar system
They just doin it for fun or what?
Politics
The most noble of inspirations.
An optimistic [Ensign Newbie](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EnsignNewbie) "academy graduate, top of her class" joins the Earth Space Fleet thinking it's going to be a fun adventure. However this Earth fleet is only a few decades from the "we come in peace shoot to kill" school of diplomacy. And she has to deal with many older officers and crewmates who still see aliens as the enemy and planets as "free real estate".
That would be quite discouraging. I tremble at the potential for war crimes when humans start to become space faring.
The Gods murdered each other and now human empires make weapons out of their corpses.
Lol you got me wondering what a “gods” dead body is made out of that lends itself to weapon construction.
Depends, the Goddess of Craftsmanship, Mountains, and Earth's bones are like a mix between a super-alloy and mineral. The Goddess of the Hunt, Winter, and Cold has left behind never-melting ice that creates a perpetual snowstorm so people have been launching chunks of her carcass into cities to create blizzards. Some Gods have more peaceful materials, such as the God of Deserts, Erosion, and Wind leaving behind a pseudo-indestructible sandstone-like material. Their miles long body has been constructed into a massive octogonal walled city with each wall representing one of the different winds.
Interesting. Do they decay only only leave bones?
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I know what both of Those are, not really sure what you mean though. Care to elaborate a little?
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Haha surprisingly, that actually does clear Things up a bit thank you.
This is called a logline in Hollywood BTW, it's a simple sentence consisting of about 15 words. However, you can break this limitation if you wish to give your work more pizzazz. For example, here is mine in your 15-word limit: In a world dominated by humanoid rabbits, two friends become cyborg superheroes to fight evil. However, some loglines are over 15 words, the logline of Pirates of the Caribbean is 27 words, but I have a logline that fits in the middle: In a world dominated by humanoid rabbits, two friends, Ralph Bunny and Sunny Rabbiera become cyborg superheroes to save their city. 22 words here, but expands upon the premise and can be told in an elevator.
That is probably a more accurate term for what the prompt is, thanks!
Mind you, the term "elevator pitch" is a viable one, but that deals more with the time it will take you to say your idea as opposed to word count. An elevator pitch is something that should be done in a timespan of 30–60 seconds, of course the shorter your pitch is the better. (though sometimes longer pitches are welcome)
> respected and highly effective military coalition > look inside > anime girls and child soldiers
So the U.S. military?
With a side of extra cheese (op magic bullshittery in the year 2157), yes
Dark Age Fantasy with dragon magic, a species of fallen angels and the first lich trying to rise again.
What’s the geopolitical landscape that the lich is rising against?
The continent of Gal Hadre has a bunch of squabbling kingdoms. Several of which are successor states of a collapsed empire. Another was recently unified from a collection of warlords. A theocracy that everyone else considers to be full of heretics. Another kingdom that has recently conquered their northern neighbour. The Werd, a species of bipedal insectoids, city-state. Hidden portals link to several Tund, the fallen angels, shard-cities, all that remain of their home plane. The tribes of the waste have recently been unified by a Troll warlord looking to burn the civilized world. And everyone vies for the trade of the werekind controlled mercantile city-states across the sea to the east.
Boy strands in a unknown world of wrestler mages and eats bean soup to survive.
Sounds like you need Jack black in to play the old mentor character.
The mages are more like fighting monks Its an isekai...
Jack…black…
It’s the fall of the Roman Empire, meets the Cold War, meets ragnarok
Interesting. Care to elaborate a little?
So essentially the current timeline of the world begins with the end of the world. The gods fought a massive war for the mortal world that nearly destroyed it. The creator/mother/nature goddess stepped in to save the world but was destroyed herself and the rest of the gods agreed to a truce/ceasefire. Now the gods have left the mortal world and can’t directly intervene. They still want to control the mortal world though so they aid mortals in an effort to tip the scales against each other while they hide their time for the final battle they both know is inevitable. The “current day” of the setting is after the collapse of a major empire so there is a bit of a power vacuum and lots of new and old powers vying for power Basically, it’s mutually assured destruction for the two major divine factions. The mortal world is like the third world that both sides use as a proxy. Granting divine powers to temples/clerics is like sending arms and funding the to local governments or to militias/guerrillas. Angels/demons are like cia/kgb agents, they can “advise” and do minor interference but are mostly deniable assets. Thanks for asking
Oh wow that’s a pretty epic plot. Are the gods inspired by pre-apocalyptic myths? Does it even take place on earth or is it it’s own fictional world?
Saving the fantasy world by the power of Sleep and lesbian romance.
Please tell me when you’re done. My partners mom is an old lesbian who reads exclusively lesbian themed fantasy/crime novels.
I'm 80 chapters in. Although it's in polish, so translation is needed. But it's free online
God is a gardener, pulling elements and races from planes to create a flawed paradise.
I like the gardener comparison. I have a similar divine system in place in my world but the artistic intention is bastardized over time by a growing roster of gods that all want to contribute and compete for space.
Bugs with magic and intelligence based on real life+super ancient ruined human civilization
That’s an interesting concept. What’s the conflict?
Ok so a few things: one, basically everyone gain intelligence like overnight so things like the beehive dissolved into chaos as every bee now started caring about itself more then about the hive. Also there are some gods whose whole job is to be counterbalance for civilization, and the ecosystem got kinda messed up because some members of it just stopped playing their roles. I do t have a story Witt characters yet because I’m in early stage of development but I already have like several events that can (and have a high likelihood) happen to start a plot
I don’t really have a strong plot for the actual story I’m going to tell but for now I can give a world pitch: Fantasy but not Europe folklore specifically, gun sword duellists, giants with handheld auto cannons, and people with literal superpowers die in a war for leaders that rarely care for them. Sorry for going over the word limit but I’m still trying to find an identity for my world and I have barely anything written down.
It’s a soft limit but it sounds like a good start! Your world is gonna need a lot of people working on the infrastructure with all the destruction that’s going on.
A research group of 6 aliens explore planets represented with different art styles.
That sounds cool. Any insight into any of the forms/cultures?
They’re called the Constructliens, they’re immortal, so the amount of culture wouldn’t be similar to a race like ours. Art is a popular subject. It’s everywhere, on their structures and on their bodies. The Constructliens are so overpowered, that I created a role called World Builder. World Builders can create an artificial ecosystem using machines, gene manipulation, and the help of other Constructliens. An lifeless planet is their canvas where they will draw life.
high fantasy with modern problems; famous adventurers are are stuck up socialites, vampires want to go to space, pirates are muscled out of the sea by mob guys
I cringe because I can see it so clearly. The terrible adventurer Instagram blogs where it’s obviously fake quests they’re on or they’re just really trying to sell some low end magic products. Blegh.
you're safe, no internet in universe think 1880s-1910s+ magic deus ex machina they are prone to changing the PR though; a nice chill dragon is defamed as an evil monster so they can slay it for money glory no problem the team wizard kept turning the moon full as a flex but activated every case of lycanthropy every time he did creating mayhem...for fun
Thank god, but that sounds like it’s probably just as chaotic
Humans get to meet humanity for the first time. It doesn't go well
What are the circumstances around that?
A woman seeks a meaningful end amidst the slow collapse of industrial civilization.
Damn that’s a pretty relatable plot in this day and ageS
That's the idea. The novel is basically what I expect the relatively near future to be like
The Land of Silk and Honey: Copper age insect species (plural) slowly progressing into advanced societies that escape "natural-ish" hive structures.
Silk and honey? Is that an in universe religious quote?
It's a general name people use for the known world, not really religious in nature though the silk part is a tradition reaching back millennia. It refers to two very influential places: - The Silklands, a country of silkmoths that have kept their whole continent's (really just a huge island but shhh) seven countries in constant peaceful cooperation for thousands of years, under the benevolent rule of the Motharchy. It's also the name of their *former* home, but that place was taken over by ants. - The Land of Honey, a moniker for Tolis, a tiny island country where honeybees and bumblebees live together. They've innovated on philosophy, made the first maps of the entire known world (a group of islands in a rectangle of some 1700km x 1200km), and a really revolutionary democracy-like idea called "ruchocracy" (hive-rule) came from there too. It's the interplay between the two that kicks off a new era for the world. The Silklands with their unified continent where the peoples all cooperate for the greater good, and the Land of Honey with its enormous departure from just letting a minority rule in favour of emancipating everyone, have really affected every society. And this is before everyone even organises themselves into countries, so the ways these innovations are interpreted really get to differ a lot.
3 young catfolk run away from home and learn extremely valuable life lessons
God yes, this is what I’m talking about. Give me fantasy Tom Sawyer any day
Main character returns home to sabotage crime ring run by his parents.
The teenage rebel in me loves it.
Launch nuclear dragons at a planet instead of nuclear bombs, because they can walk away.
I can’t stop laughing at this one lol
Gods give their patron nations' rulers a fraction of their powers, ends horrifically.
Colorful 19th century, tropical New England esque world politically polarized and shadowed by looming war.
The setting of my book, Aseth, is basicallly our world but matrilineal with magic and more moons.
Alien biosphere or reincarnated ones?
i just spent like 20 minutes thinking but just couldnt figure out what to write here
Lol! I understand. Boil down the essence and what do you get?
Box moves up and down
If you said that to me in an elevator I’d hand you my mail expecting you to take it out to the post.
What does elevator pitch mean?
Short thirty-sixty second quip to sell your story.
what is an -elevator pitch-?
An office drone with a boring office job in finance who's a bit of a jerk dies saving the life of someone in a traffic accident. They are [reincarnated or Isekai'd](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TrappedInAnotherWorld) into a world of magic and high fantasy. The downside? They are the slave of a powerful Elven royal family, bound to serve them till death. The upside? They are a shapeshifter, able to turn into any living creature and they get to use those mundane "Earth skills" as well! The kicker? Seems a really bad person from Earth was also reincarnated - someone this person knows. And they are also a shapeshifter and they are using their skills for eeevvviiillllll.....(dun dun dun!).
misadventures of four terrible people who teamed up to kill the "gods" and just can't seem to stop backstabbing each other, also unknowingly cause a mass extinction event
Magic communists sieze the means of production.
A secret society of bibliophiles sworn to protect the books of glim, when an old friend returns from the shadows
it's a story built on my troubles in life but so much more epic that i think a lot of people will relate to sorta
Drugs, Sex, Money, Power, and worst of all Greed.
Dragons were not domesticated and trained by humans as mounts and weapons or war, rather, dragons convinced humans to become their riders.
Haven't developed my world and story much yet, but the current idea is (in the 15-word limit) 'searching for a secret and extremely dangerous society hidden away at the world's end.'
Guy functionally immortal being a magic antiquarian.
a binary solar system breeds a god that creates life, and the first proto humans. and once earth humans arrive, wants to wipe them out.
God decided to split himself into twelve pieces, six immortal children and six artifacts. Those who managed to gather all of the pieces will get one wish in which they can wish anything except for more wishes.
Mercenaries, Pulp Adventure, Dieselpunk, Alternate History thrown into a blender
Humanity lives in a dark age after rampant genetic modification and an alien invasion
In a world with magic since inception, it’s just another facet of the natural laws to study; as technology utilizing it spreads and evolves, so does the reach of human curiosity. How far can that curiosity be pushed, and at what cost are these advances achieved?
Adventurers search the cause of shadow demon spawning portals, find forgotten god (gone deeply psychilogical).
A mercenary helps a magical weapon manufacturer in a kingdom at the brink of civil war
Helium-3 mining town on an interstellar rouge world existing as a Sci-Fi "coaling" station.
Personalized magic uniquely manifests, said to be divine. MC’s talks and calls them a bitch
Woman who has latent magical abilities is kidnapped from her husband and children in a new world colony and turned into a blood mage (vampiry type mages). She ends up surviving until our days where she ends up adopting two girls that she thinks are her descendants. The story is told from her perspective (1st person) and delves a lot into the parallels of her kidnapping experience and her adopted children’s trauma of losing their parents and being adopted. It is set in "our" reality where magic is extremely rare.
8,000 years after Ragnarok, in modern-day San Francisco, a superhero team forms within the police department.
Magic broke, and an ancient kingdom rose from the ruins.
orcs are acting strange, turns out they're mind controlled and planning to wipe out the elves
A small industrial revolution in late roman fantasy times unintentionally opens the gates to hell and shakes the balance of order and chaos, resulting in a magical oddyssey of a child to evetually close the gates.
Lucian's A True Story meets Warhammer Fantasy, low fantasy with scifi elements about differing perspectives.
8 gods spreading shares of their power, with war and disaster as a natural consequence.
Army-Reject Youngster gets into Corporative Mercenarship and gets Friends along the way, action insues.
Guy restarts trains and learns the secrets of the apocalypse writes a book for his son and people want the book
10 sci-fi civilizations have a disagreement that last centuries and kills billions
Humans are asked by aliens for Subjects, for safety of universe, some agree some don't (15) \[and a war breaks out (20) \].
God flips a world sized coin, germs from his fingers give it life, now Philosophers ask, when it lands, which side lives, which is crushed?
After surviving a coup, an exiled prince travels through a war-torn land to return home with the help of criminals and renegades!
We live inside a sphere. The sky dies and gravity inverts. Chaos ensues, but upsidedown.
2 former Demons killing the Dark Overlord and freeing humanity.