Loretober: A Fantasy Worldbuilding Challenge for October!

[Edgar Ironpelt]

That’s why I mentioned “without magical intervention”.

And that's one reason why I used the Norse gods as an example: Idun's fruit, and what happened when they lost access to it, makes them a closer precedent to your idea.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And that's one reason why I used the Norse gods as an example: Idun's fruit, and what happened when they lost access to it, makes them a closer precedent to your idea.

Seriously, we’re on the same page- I meant that Idun’s apples were the exact reason why I specified no magical intervention.

 

[RangerWickett]

Hey folks! I've been really enjoying having a daily TTRPG task I can give myself for the past few months, having done Swordtember and RPG a Day. Due to the popularity of Inktober, I was having a hard time finding something TTRPG focused for next month, so some friends and I made one! I don't have a hashtag or anything, just wanted to share this with some folks who might be looking for something like this!

Neat idea, but why is this image 15 megabytes? Ouch. This could have been a text file.

 

[aramis erak]

why is this image 15 megabytes? Ouch. This could have been a text file.

Because it's in PNG format, which is a raster format.
If it had been an SVG, it could still have the formatting, but could have been MUCH smaller, as SVG is a vector format, as are most fonts these days...
⇒ As a raster, it's a 4500 × 8000 px, total 36,000,000 px... 36 Mp
⇒ it's at 32 bpp (4 Bpp), so 4×36 = 144 MB.
⇒ plus a bit of file overhead (a few bytes per chunk, at least 3 chunks
The image is then compressed using a lossless compression down to the 15 MB, a nearly 10:1 compression ratio.

Spoiler: Mathy Rant on why vector is better

For vectors, shapes, colors, and positions are needed. I'm not going through completely accurately, but close enough, based upon using binary .ps... but binary PS is rare, so the numbers are likely to be double these...
Let's see, the unique shapes
1234567890 .!()ABCDEG HIjLMNOPST UVWabcdefg hilmnoprst uvxyLORETO BER2024&/
I count 69. each needs 15 to 30 vertices, typically 20, at 1.5 B each, but normally stored as 4B each, so 30 B each for verticies, plus a 1 or 2 byte name. So let's be a bit generous and call it an average of 40 B per unique shape (but not size)... adding a space, we get 70 characters... some overhead, lets round up to 300 B.
Each use has 3 axis location (X and Y typically 2B each, Z typically 1 B), plus a size multiplier of a couple bytes, and a 32 bit color (RGBα) field, plus the reference id of the base shape... so 40 B shape plus 11 B per use (there are ways to reduce that - using text blocks instead of individual letters) ... 560 characters (according to open office), adding a space (needed for the word placement strings) which reduce to 1B per character plus 11 B per text box (84 of those, fo 932 B of text boxes and 560B of characters), and 5 boxes for the background colors with special color notations for the gradients, at about 40 B each, 5 of those, plus the frame box of 4 locations for 8 plus some overhead of abotu 30 B.... a Vector can come in under 2KiB for this. I can't tell if there are drop shadows behind the letters, if so, double the letter count and text box count.

This is why fonts moved to vector formats in the 1980's; for long documents, it's much easier to locate the line and insert the string referencing to a character list than to store a dozen copies of rasters...

Futher, the user can enlarge or reduce with no issue of scalability on a vector image... from a 3 cm nearly unreadably small without magnification pin to a full size streetside banner from one file with no jaggies...

Now, Sure, text can present it in 590 B or so... (allowing for header values), it can't do it compellingly; vector and raster versions both look really nice.

There is an issue with some vector formats, especially PDF and SVG: both include operation code, not just image data, in their standards.

Abbr. Key
(px = pixels; bpp = bits per pixe; Bpp is Bytes per pixel, Mp = megapixels; KiB = Kibi Bytes, 1024 Bytes; MiB = MibiBytes, of 1024 KiB.).

 

[jaybirdthings]

I'll suggest a second change: Villains is misspelled as 'Villans'

And text form because some people find that handier:

Loretober
1. Old Gods
2. Nightlife
3. Prophecy
4. Music
5. Psionics
6. Heroes
7. Villains
8. Myths & Legends
9. Occultism
10. Dragons
11. Nature
12. Cuisine
13. Weapons
14. War
15. History
16. Premonition
17. Time
18. Innovation
19. Biome
20. Occupation
21. Sport
22. Coming of Age
23. Boon
24. Spell
25. Tome
26. Political Leader
27. Gala
28. Death
29. Artifact
30. Export/Import
31. Tradition

Use these tables to inspire your creations!

Subject(d4)   Canvas(d4)
1. Person     1. Local
2. Place      2. Regional
3. Item       3. Global
4. Event      4. Dimensional

Thanks for doing this! I fixed that typo you spotted

 

[jaybirdthings]

Neat idea, but why is this image 15 megabytes? Ouch. This could have been a text file.

Compressed it down to 2 mb! Sorry, pngs can get pretty chunky

 

[jaybirdthings]

I have lots of worlds. Some are game worlds, and some are worlds for my read-only fiction. So I'm left uncertain as to how this Loretober is supposed to work.

Can we put a spotlight on an old, well-established example in one of our worlds for the theme of a given day, or should all the themes be brand-new ones?

Should the themes all fit into the same world, or can they be assigned to different ones?

Should we use an existing world or world of ours, or create a new one for this?

Should we even attach each theme to a specific world of ours, or should we create free-floating themes that aren't particularly attached to any specific world?

Its up to you! I know I'm going to be using this for my main world, but a few of my friends are talking about creating for multiple worlds or even using this to start the creation of a new setting.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

A lot of the Egyptian gods just plain got old. IIRC, Ra is bordering on senile in one myth.

So did some of the Japanese gods, Izanagi and Izanami famously.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

Loretober 1: Old Gods
Gwayb is the One Who Has Not Yet Been Born. Some say Gwayb is older than the world, and ought to be counted as a sixth among the Golden Ones who created the world. Others claim that Gwayb is an invention of the mad goblin poet Kiovort Egob-son. All concede that Gwayb's powers in the world are very subtle at best (and as non-existent as he is, at worst). Those who believe in Gwayb make various claims about the wonderful and/or horrible things that will happen when Gwayb finally is born.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

Loretober 2: Nightlife
Wednesday nights are Dart Nights at the Anvil and Barrel in the halfling village of Broadstump. In truth, darts are played there every night, but on nights other than Wednesdays they're played "for funsies." Wednesday night darts, on the other hand, are played for a pair of battered oakwood plaques kept in the tavern. One plaque is marked with the name of the "Champion Dartflinger" - the winner of that Wednesday's contest. The other bears the name of the "Master Dartflinger" - the one who has won the most contests in the past twelve months.