The rarity of modern-day conworlds confuses me.

[Chagen]

I've noticed for quite some time that many conworlders prefer to go fro low-tech conworlds. I like them sometimes, but to be fair...I kind of find them boring. It's my personal preference and it seems to be highly uncommon.

My "main" conworld, of Thooselqat, takes place in roughly modern-day times with magic (giving it an Urban Fantasy feel, though it tends to edge towards Dieselpunk). To me, the idea of an modern interconnected world with a different history and people from us is fascinating. Some others on this forum have stated that it's boring because we live in the modern-day world already, but I don't think so. Part of the fun of Thooselqat to me, at least, is how it is much like our world in many ways, but in others, it's radically different. From the different wars it has had, to the different cultures all connected together from our own, to the various world events--it's really cool stuff to me.

I like coming up with stuff like the Ac'eng-Qeq riots of Dorarat Samjujja of SG 1350 (roughly equivalent to 2001) (where racial tensions in the Azenti capital between two minorities, the Ac'eng and Qeq, fueled by a war between them in another part of the world of gem mines, exploded and caused a 7-day riot that damn near tore the city apart as both groups, with capable magic wielders, fought in the ghettos of the city until International troops came in and stopped the riot and restored peace--the city ghettos are STILL unrepaired) to be really interesting and entertaining. It's just my personal opinion.

Or, to name an even bigger event, the whole World War that happened in SG 1309 (roughly 1960) that still has affected the world to modern times (causing Pazmat to lose a lot of power, while Kron, Ngith, and Azenti started to rise up in the world, while also leaving several other small countries like Satkicz, Ac'eng and Queng-Wo nearly flattened). Plus, I'm focusing on the years of SG 1359-1362 (roughly 2010-2012), where ANOTHER world war is breaking out because Chyffelb and Sefir are combating each other fiercely due to both sides having a lot of racial violence, and since both are over some HIGHLY important oil fields, they're dragging all of their allies into a cold war that looks ready to become hot soon...the only hope is somehow defusing the tensions, but when Chyffelb is trying to genocide Sefir...war looks pretty likely.

Also, I just love modern-day technology. I find coming up with military vehicles/equipment quite fun. Thooselqat has got quite a bit--from guns augmented with magic to provide various effects (such as freezing/burning/shocking/poisoning/etc. victims of the blast--with the whole magic thing going on just one shotgun shell isn't going to take out any well-equipped troop even at point-blank), to fighter jets partially powered by spirits bound in the jet engines. Compare the Paz staple, the TTI-4/2 (short for "Tor'ibus Tuwi'isjtar", "fighting airplane"--the 4/2 references how it possesses 4 miniguns and 2 rocket-launcher pods as its main loadout) a massively heavy and powerful fight jet that can blow nearly any other place out of the sky...should it even catch up to it, to the Azen SR17-FSB (short for "Stazarat Ratras", "flying soldier"--"FSB" is short for "Frostav, Stirbhyga", or "Rocket, Machine Gun", as that is it's main loadout), a small and agile plane that is very weak, but can easily dodge even the most dogged fire, allowing it to simply defeat planes much bigger by constantly slamming them with its weak guns until they collapse under constant fire.

.....So, uh, yeah. I wanted to see why so many of con-worlders prefer low-tech worlds and dislike high-tech ones.

[WeepingElf]

I also have a modern-day conworld: Rosæ Crux. It has not grown much so far, I am still laying out its foundation. Rosæ Crux is a world with modern culture, technology and politics, but also Elves, Dwarves and magic. Like you, I see nothing wrong with low-tech fantasy worlds, but I wanted to do something different. Rosæ Crux differs from many modern fantasy worlds I have seen in that there is no mass-produced, industrial-scale magic, much less a world where magic takes the role of technology; instead, as I have laid out here, magic is a rare and expensive art. In a German RPG forum where the matter was discussed, someone remarked that this is "a way to combine magic and technology without getting something brain-cracked" (hirnrissig was the original German adjective).

EDIT: If you master German, the discussions mentioned are here and here.

[Matrix]

Well, I certainly don't dislike high-tech. I have a modern-day superhero conworld - though I only really started to expand on it recently - and then there's the Maja, who would probably be interplanetary if their universe worked like ours in that respect. However, they don't have stars and planets. They have vaguely planet-sized landmasses - called toli (sg. tol) - emerging from an ocean that is infinite along the x and y axes. However, one big difference between the Maja civilization and your conworld is that the Maja are mostly unified under one government - the Maja Empire - and eventually, that state is able to completely unify the species. If we compared the size of the Maja Empire (35+ toli) to what a similar-sized state would have to be in our universe, it'd be interstellar. However, intertolic travel is magnitudes easier then interstellar travel, so given the sort of technology the Maja Empire has access to, they'd probably only be interplanetary at best in a universe more like ours - and only barely at that. The Maja Empire is more advanced than real-world civilizations, but in many cases not too much. In some cases, the completely lack certain technologies. They have hologram technology in regular use, such as for computer displays. They have fusion power. They have no guns, because their metaparticle-based powers have precluded the development of firearms - but they do have explosives, such as missiles. Their oceangoing ships can get really advanced, since they need those for expeditions to find new toli. Otherwise, they use what is probably their most advanced technology, portals, for long-distance travel. They have satellite-analogues, called floaters, which, well, float in the void above the universal atmosphere (which really isn't a sphere here, silly word).

[Soap]

I started out with a futuristic space-based conworld when I was three years old. I kept it for many years and kept on adding to different parts of the timeline. I seem to have liked the medieval area the most, since that's what I've expanded the most. Because I've always held to a principle of never discarding *any* idea I've ever come up with, all the stuff I came up with as a kid is still "valid", but I'd say that 95% of my effort is going to the medieval timeline. I'd think someone going over my material who saw the early space-based stuff and the new down-to-earth medieval stuff would realize it was written by the same person, even in the absence of obvious clues like planet and country names, because all of what I've written has always been very fantasy and magic-oriented, even when it tries to be scientific as well. That may be why I'm more comfortable in a low-tech society that believes in magic.

[Hallow XIII]

Bcause genre tropes, you nit. Did you srsly think we were gonna be creative?

Also, modern worlds entail things like paper money, and democracy, and all that bullshit I don't like. Furthermore, ye can't play D&D in such a world.

[Anguipes]

I can't be arsed to sort out that much history and technological development.

I'm not sure what technology level Vana will get, except that it will probably look completely schizophrenic - there are beings that know the entirely of Vanan natural law, a hell of a lot of magic, and a taboo against animal domestication.

[Chagen]

Bcause genre tropes, you nit. Did you srsly think we were gonna be creative?

Also, modern worlds entail things like paper money, and democracy, and all that bullshit I don't like. Furthermore, ye can't play D&D in such a world.

Why play D&D when you can play Exalted or Dark Heresy/any of the W40K RPGs?

(man, I have not played an RPG in FOREVER)

[Izambri]

I prefer to develop different historical periods for my conworld, from prehistory to contemporary times.

[clawgrip]

I imagine that when people create conworlds it is usually about escapism. People set their conworlds in the past or the future probably because they want to imagine something different from what they already know, i.e., the present. Why the past is more common than the future...I don't know. Maybe because it takes less effort to remove technology than to add it.

[Imralu]

Generally, technology doesn't interest me as much as language and culture do. I don't want to come up with different technology of the "equivalent level" of what we have today. If I did, I'd be an inventor.

[Cael]

While I haven't fleshed out my conworld I tend to look at it from multiples eras. Some events I look at and see how it will effect history down the line whether into the modern age or space age.

[ZMoring]

Only somewhat relevant, but:

They have satellite-analogues, called floaters, which, well, float in the void above the universal atmosphere (which really isn't a sphere here, silly word).

ATMOSPLANE.

Why play D&D when you can play Exalted

I love you.

[Matrix]

ATMOSPLANE.

hahaha yes

[Boşkoventi]

ATMOSPLANE.

hahaha yes

No. "Atmoplane", you dolts. Lrn 2 Greek.

(Or maybe "atmopedion / atmopedium" if you want only Greek roots.)

---

Back on topic ...

My conworld is sort of "post-post-Apocalyptic". There was a Big Huge War, but it was so long ago that it's sort of like the Biblical flood - some people think it's a just story, but there's evidence that the story is based on a real event. At any rate, the Gzho and Panaka have a lingering aversion to technology and anything else that might pervert or corrupt the world, or lead to another Big Huge War. Meanwhile, on another continent, there are the Nér and Vai, who are a different species (supposedly from another planet). They are much more advanced than real-life humans, having things like cold fusion and, like, flying cars and stuff.

And aside from all of that, everybody's level of "development" varies over time, so it doesn't really make sense to describe my conworld as more or less "modern" than the real world.

[Kvan]

I think it may just be daunting to look at all there is to reinvent in your conworld. Since the pace of technology has increased drastically since the era in which most Conworlders emulate it may just be easier to stick with some pre-Industrial or Industrial era.

What seems interesting I think is having a conworld which has no easily assessable analog in any era. I also want to have an Industrial, Post-Industrial or perhaps even vaguely futuristic. Perhaps disproportionate growth in one or a few areas of development while perhaps a complete absence of growth in another is a good way to achieve a different aesthetic. For instance in my conworld the cultures who have discovered "both paths of knowledge": Thoughtlore or, Science and Runework essentially the study of the highly improbable involving a few strange acts like ritual animal sacrifice, hallucinogenics (usually in the form of hallucinogenic animal flesh and blood as well as some herbs), belief, as well as writing and meditation on paradoxes and koan-like concepts. Where Thoughtlore yields long term results, slow gradual increments of gained knowledge with a measured process of gaining knowledge one that relies on reproducible results its counterpoint Runework requires belief and though it does palpably generate results these are inconsistent, generally require absurd amounts of energy and generally the results of successful Runework are either beautiful or terrible.

The complications come in the form of ultra-high technology intermingling with modern tech and industrial-level technology, with high and low "magic" as well. For instance medicine is always in the domain of Thoughtlore as all experiments to use runework to cure end up killing individuals, erasing past members of family (subsequently fucking up entire timelines) et cetera.

On the other side of the coin, most of the megalopolises of the Eastern side of the continent are built with Runework. One city is rumored to be larger on the inside than on the outside even.

The only reliable magic of the world is that of fire-sympathy (for lack of a better term) though the knowledge of this practice is new but it's revolutionizing.

[Curlyjimsam]

I have a "modern-day" world, which allows me to do interesting things I wouldn't be able to in an "historical" conworld like write the TV schedules. Of course, there's nothing to stop a conworlder from working on their world at any point in its history, and I must admit that a huge amount of the work on my world is on stuff in its "past".

[Ketumak]

My conworld Tekuo is a parallel Earth with a remote point of departure. It's technology, institutions, species and continents have recognisible Earthly parallels but with a twist. I only study one country and its neighbours in any detail. This region is modelled as a thought experiment: how would our world have turned different with incremental changes? What would have stayed the same?

The world's present is the same as ours and that's what most of my offline notes are about. The level of technological development is slightly ahead of ours though. I'm also taking snapshots of one small part of Tekuo in three earlier periods to see how the world reached its present state, starting with the iron age Õtari people whose language is mostly up on the site.

[Imralu]

My conworld, Qol (or Ngol) is not modern day but it doesn't correspond exactly to any past stage of development on Earth. It's a terraformed planet so there are no fossil fuels and thus no combustion engines, but their knowledge of working with available materials (metal, rubbers, leather - no plastics) is very advanced, as is their knowledge of mechanics. Unfortunately for the Ahu, all animals of the size of horses and cattle are extinct on Qol. Without beasts of burden or combustion, a lot more work is performed by human labour. Many factories are mechanically powered by windmills or water wheels. Where this is unfeasible, human pedal power drives the machinery.

an "historical"

*shudder*

[maıráí]

I've never really felt like making a modern-day conworld because I never much liked imagining the naturalistic nitpicking it seemed like it would invite, with such a current standard to hold it to.

I'm making one with slight magic now, so that is obviously not something I care/worry about anymore. It's not very far along, so there isn't anything to say.

[prettydragoon]

Rireinu, my conworld, could be described as Schizo Tech, even more so than 21st century Earth. They have FTL starships trading with their neighbouring civilisations, but some farmers still work their fields with the help of draft animals. The setting is basically soft SF.

[Torco]

the future is too unkown, the past is very well known <and thus you have references>, the present is too small <compared to the huge past and the infinite future>

[Hallow XIII]

Also you can get enough complete dishevelment of everything by simply taking fantasy and actually carrying it to its conclusions (namely, with magic available it's very likely that technology would evolve much faster than social structures would for a variety of reasons).

[Kvan]

Also you can get enough complete dishevelment of everything by simply taking fantasy and actually carrying it to its conclusions (namely, with magic available it's very likely that technology would evolve much faster than social structures would for a variety of reasons).

The nature of the magic in your conworld I think would largely dictate whether technology would evolve faster or not. If it's a counterpoint to science/engineering or if it's supplementary to the sciences than perhaps. If magic is however, dangerous and unreliable or it requires higher powers who may or may not help you or any of a number of permutations - this might not be the case and technology may not go any faster.

One could even foresee a stalling of tech if magic could provide just the right amount of happiness and prosperity across the board there may not ever be a need or drive for making better tech. But that's a fringe case I'd think.

[zoqaëski]

All of my conworlding efforts (so far just the one, Qevelia) have been set in a contemporary period. Usually the technology is at a slightly-more-advanced level, so they have high-temperature superconductive materials and can mess around with the weak and strong nuclear forces, but no FTL travel, so space travel is largely limited to the solar system.

I also like the appeal of some magical elements, but these are meant to be unexplained arts or rare phenomena that could be explained (one day) but presently are not. I haven’t really thought through that as much; probably include folk magic (charms and the like) and other races who choose to remain hidden. Also, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

[cunningham]

My theory is that some conworlders feel obliged to start from the very beginning of civilization and work their way from there.
Like I do...and then I overwhelm myself.
It's probably because I don't want to start in the middle because then I would have to work backwards like Zomp did.