New and thinking of a Conworld

[Taskuhecate]

So I'm just bundling this all together, since I've apparently been notice and suck at ninja:ing. (Hi, Sir Gwalchafad!)

So...'llo, I'm your average language nerd who is possibly overly fond of Germanic languages + Finnish. Currently in Finland, and dreading the day I've gotta go back to the States. I've been doing text-based RP for about...five years now? Which eventually lead my bf to suggest I try out Pathfinder. Our group plays in a world the GM made, which made me terribly interested in perhaps creating my own world - wouldn't be the first time I attempted this, but as the last time was in high school, it's rife with interesting. . ."features".

I plan to make this one much more detailed, but I'm hesitating with the initial idea of it.

I've got a rough map drawn up, no place names yet, or race names or the like. But I have races thought up (just nameless atm), I have a vague idea of how they interact, perhaps, and the sort of vague rules for the world.

I'm wondering if I should just start. . .writing short stories set in the world or get more of it down first. Also I'm tempted to ask if anyone wants to maybe lend a hand with the three conlangs I want to make for the world. . . I have a rough idea of influences and sounds, but that's about it. Conlanging has never been a strong suit of mine.

I'll explain more about the races and vague history I've jotted down if anyone wants to help. The world is a bit of a mix of steampunk and magic, but. . .not quite? The magic isn't strong-do-anything, but more for little things, and only used by maybe one or two of the races, the same with steampunk elements.

[patiku]

If you're using this for an RPG setting then there isn't any need to have detailed language families; the Zompmeister says that all he really needed were names, which the players surely butchered anyway, and which your players surely will, too.

[ZMoring]

Welcome to the ZBB! It is a delightful community of intelligent people united in our love of making things that don't exist. If you've been a lurker, you probably already know this, but a quick introduction about the members never hurts. Let's go, everyone I remember off the top of my head (only good things to say about most of them):

-All of the admins are cool, intelligent people. Listen to them, they'll usually know what they're saying.
-I usually know nothing.
-Finlay is usually right, if you can't tell from his signature.
-Torco/Torque is a pretty cool dude.
-Kereb is hilarious.
-patiku is just... patiku. Take everything patiku says with a grain of salt, then a pound, then a tonne, then, about half the time, throw it out the window.
-Drydic Guy is pretty smart.
-clawgrip is, also, pretty smart. I think that's a description that covers pretty much everyone here.
-Nortaneous is brilliant. And his conlangs are pretty interesting, too. Clicks and stuff, man. Weird, awesome stuff.
-Anguipipes's writing-only/animal-drawing conlang is absolutely beautiful and incredible, so you should go look at that.
-99% of the board are incredible, brilliant, intensely creative people. 1% are robots.

Your conworld sounds very interesting. I, personally, usually develop the world concurrently with the stories I'm writing, or I just build the world without any intent for a story. Finishing, though, is the bane of my existence. But I've noticed that, generally, before you start writing, you'll want a bit of definition in your world, just so that you have an actual setting for your characters to interact in.

I'd offer to help you with your conlangs, but I never finish or make significant progress in anything, so I'd just be a hindrance.

[Torco]

Welcome, its great to have ya' !!
Hey! we're being too nice here! this needs some criticism!

you seem to imagine that a world is made up of races, placenames on a map, and a spell list: Of course, you *could* just say "its exactly like the generic high fantasy D&D world except there's all sorts of different elves, and there's this cool race i came up with that's basically humans with rubber foreheads and a single personality characteristic that defines the temperament and identity of everyone <stuff like "warrior races" or "calm, vengeful races" or *cringe* "teenagely-petty-and-obnoxiously-full-of-meaningless-arrogance elves". I mean I know teenagers can't imagine old people complexely, but still>.
Rand aside, a conworld that is just standard plus minus a few races and given a couple of names is, I suppose, well and good if you want to give your D&D table a bit of a custom feel, but its little more than adornment. I invite you to discover the wonders of actually imagining possible worlds a bit more complexely. Feel free to post whatever you have on your conworld, and it will be looked at by this here community more likely than not.

and, really, welcome and hope your stay here is awesome. pickles and tea.

[Qwynegold]

Tervetuloa! Teetä ja suolakurkkuja. Höh, Torco ninjasi mut.

[Thry]

I'm more into conlanging than conworlding myself.
Welcome aboard and have a nice time here

[Qwynegold]

Anyways, as others have suggested, a naming language might be more what you need.

[Taskuhecate]

Tervetuloa! Teetä ja suolakurkkuja. Höh, Torco ninjasi mut.

Voi, voi - en puhu suomea vaan ruotsia ja englantia. :3 Eeeh. . .okei, puhun vähän suomea. But still. (Ymmärsin sua, btw.) I know naming would serve me just as well, and if I made an RP world out of it (text-based, not tabletop), that would be all that was needed, but I also want to write stories about the world that are my own, and for that I would like to have conlangs, so the world feels more complete and whatnot.

I'm more into conlanging than conworlding myself.
Welcome aboard and have a nice time here

I wish I was better at conlanging, but I have a hard time "hearing" languages, and thus I can never get past phonetics. :\ Any tips for that?

If you're using this for an RPG setting then there isn't any need to have detailed language families; the Zompmeister says that all he really needed were names, which the players surely butchered anyway, and which your players surely will, too.

Yea, I know. XD But like I said to Qwynegold, it's more about having a more complete world for my own stories.

Welcome to the ZBB! It is a delightful community of intelligent people united in our love of making things that don't exist. If you've been a lurker, you probably already know this, but a quick introduction about the members never hurts.

Thank you! :3 I'm actually not a lurker, so that was quite helpful!

Your conworld sounds very interesting. I, personally, usually develop the world concurrently with the stories I'm writing, or I just build the world without any intent for a story. Finishing, though, is the bane of my existence. But I've noticed that, generally, before you start writing, you'll want a bit of definition in your world, just so that you have an actual setting for your characters to interact in.

I'd offer to help you with your conlangs, but I never finish or make significant progress in anything, so I'd just be a hindrance.

Oh god, I'm horrible with finishing things myself. . . Mm, obviously I'll flesh out the world at least a bit more before I start writing in earnest. It already has a bit more definition than I stated, and I probably overused the word "vague".

Welcome, its great to have ya' !!
Hey! we're being too nice here! this needs some criticism!

you seem to imagine that a world is made up of races, placenames on a map, and a spell list: Of course, you *could* just say "its exactly like the generic high fantasy D&D world except there's all sorts of different elves, and there's this cool race i came up with that's basically humans with rubber foreheads and a single personality characteristic that defines the temperament and identity of everyone <stuff like "warrior races" or "calm, vengeful races" or *cringe* "teenagely-petty-and-obnoxiously-full-of-meaningless-arrogance elves". I mean I know teenagers can't imagine old people complexely, but still>.
Rand aside, a conworld that is just standard plus minus a few races and given a couple of names is, I suppose, well and good if you want to give your D&D table a bit of a custom feel, but its little more than adornment. I invite you to discover the wonders of actually imagining possible worlds a bit more complexely. Feel free to post whatever you have on your conworld, and it will be looked at by this here community more likely than not.

and, really, welcome and hope your stay here is awesome. pickles and tea.

Oh dear, no. XD I'm not imagining that, but that is a place to start. There are beings coming to life in my head, and entire nations starting to function. But so far, I'm afraid to explore too deeply, because I'm stuck on the naming aspects atm. Ahahaha, yea. I'm actually in my mid-twenties, btw. I very much want to make it a complex world.

Thus far, I've come up with four races, and I don't know why I feel the need for four races, but. . .it's apparently four. There is also perhaps a "fifth race", which is really just where most on the world lump half-breeds. There's a winged race, an underground race, a aquatic race, and then standard humans. Hopefully that doesn't sound too ridiculous yet. . .though I know it's a bit cookie-cutter sounding, maybe.

I need names for these damn races, but I am just drawing a blank on them. I know which languages inspire which conlang - Slavic and Spanish for the underground race, Swedish/Finnish/French for the aquatic, and then hard consonants, clicks, and. . .not sure how to describe the last one, but very birdlike for the winged race. Perhaps there might also be a pidgin or creole language for the "fifth race".

I sadly have no access to a scanner, though I might try and take a picture of the roooouuugh map sketch tomorrow. I believe it was in the history that the underground race kept the humans as slaves for a time, until an uprising of the humans managed to change the general political thought at the time (I'm sure it will end up more complicated than that once I'm through with it). After this, the humans were "given" the harsher continent closer to the north pole of the world. Yet, they survived this, and eventually began to expand, taking over the smaller continent where the winged race lives, forcing some tribes of the winged race to move to a much smaller island, and rely more heavily on the aquatic race's help. The aquatic race, however, has seemed to stay out of the main playing field.

There are at least 3-4 human nations, and 2 of the underground race. I haven't focused as much on the winged and aquatic races, as this idea has really only been in my head for a week or two now. Thus, it's still in a very rough stage. I hate saying "steampunk", but I'm going to use it for the sake of simplicity: The underground race had such technology first, and the humans "stole" it when they were freed from slavery. The aquatic race has very little use for it, but I believe does use it a bit, adapted somehow for them. The winged race is rather opposed to it and sees no need for machines to fly when they have their own wings.

Truly, this idea grew from another forum's RP section trying to come up with a steampunk world. I soon realized I was more interested in other facets - such as how a winged race would adapt in a world with a sort of "steampunk" technology. Not to mention race and nation interactions and all that fun stuff. Gah, forgive me, it's a bit late here, so this might not have all the information, or I might've missed someone's question. <.<;; But it's already a bit long, so I'll stop for now.

[Taskuhecate]

Gaah, still stuck. . . Help?

[Hallow XIII]

I would like to offer the opinion that working out the distribution of languages in a conworld designed for RP is beneficial because it allows precise working-out of where interpreters are needed and of what kind (and subsequently even their pricing).

Also, to Tasku: really, you're going the one-language-per-species (also known as "lol species=nationality") way?

[Taskuhecate]

No no no, I won't - it was just a starting point before I start working out the rest. But you're right - I need to start thinking more in terms of nations and defining less by race.

And that is a very good advice/opinion that I hadn't thought of! I shall keep that in mind. :3

[finlay]