Well, really, I just wrote the text for one--haven't gone and done up one of the fancy image prompt things. If anyone wants to help find art to go with the options, be my guest!
Anyway, this is just something I threw together while pretending to work, but hey, I think it has potential to turn out some fun ideas. Anyone care to give it a whirl and share the results with us? I'd love to see what sorts of worlds you put together!
Hi there! Don’t be alarmed--I know you’re confused right now, but I promise, everything is fine. You’re perfectly safe.
...Where are you? Well...okay, I’m sorry, but there’s not really an easy way to say this: you’re dead. Calm down, calm down! It’s okay, really. I know this is a lot to take in, but please, let me explain.
...The afterlife? Well, sort of. I’m guessing you’re picturing a heaven and hell sort of deal, but that’s not really how it works. See, normally, humans and other sapients reincarnate into new bodies after they die, with little to no memory of their previous life. But you’re one of a lucky few! You’ve been randomly selected for training as what we call an Architect--that’s who I am, by the way. The Architect of Earth, along with a few other worlds you won’t be familiar with. Delighted to meet you! Although it’s not exactly my first time meeting you, seeing how I’m aware of everything that happens on Earth and know every detail of your life.
...Oh, come on, don’t be silly. You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about. Trust me, I’ve literally seen it all.
Anyway, if I can put us back on track: your selection as an Architect. To put it simply, upon death, a very, very small fraction of all sapient souls are selected at random to be trained for the position. What position is it, I hear you ask? Well, you might think of us as gods, although that’s not entirely accurate to how you understand the term. Architects are those who design and build new worlds, populate them with sapient souls, and administer them to ensure everything functions smoothly. We get a few perks with the job, notably immortality, which we can also extend to any loved ones from our previous lives upon their own deaths--so don’t worry, you’ll be with them again before you know it. The other big benefit, of course, is that we’re free to incarnate in whatever shapes we like to go down to worlds we’ve built and experience things there! It can be tons of fun, and the best part is, if you want, you can alter your own memories when you go down, so as long as you’re there, you’ll feel every bit like an inhabitant of that world, and get to really experience the challenges and thrills without it all being ruined by knowing you’re really immortal and in control of everything.
I know this is all pretty overwhelming--trust me, I remember my first time. That’s why, as part of your training, I’ll be riding along and helping you through the process of building your very first new world! Don’t worry, you’re in good hands--I’m an expert at this.
Why don’t we start off with something nice and familiar, just so you can get the hang of the process? Let’s try making something that emulates human fantasy fiction. Just follow along, and I’ll walk you through all the steps...
Choose 1:
Choose 1:
Choose 1:
Choose 1:
Choose 1:
Choose 1:
Choose 1:
Choose any number:
Choose any number:
Choose 1:
Choose any number:
...All done? Remember, once you lock in these choices, it’ll be a whole lot harder to go back and change them. Either you’ll have to tweak things in the present, which is tricky and can take a while to work, or start mucking around with time travel, and trust me, that’s a headache you want to avoid if at all possible.
Okay? Great! Congratulations, you’re now the proud Architect of your very first world. Welcome to the club, kid. Now get down there and explore!
Anyway, this is just something I threw together while pretending to work, but hey, I think it has potential to turn out some fun ideas. Anyone care to give it a whirl and share the results with us? I'd love to see what sorts of worlds you put together!
Fantasy World Creation CYOA
Hi there! Don’t be alarmed--I know you’re confused right now, but I promise, everything is fine. You’re perfectly safe.
...Where are you? Well...okay, I’m sorry, but there’s not really an easy way to say this: you’re dead. Calm down, calm down! It’s okay, really. I know this is a lot to take in, but please, let me explain.
...The afterlife? Well, sort of. I’m guessing you’re picturing a heaven and hell sort of deal, but that’s not really how it works. See, normally, humans and other sapients reincarnate into new bodies after they die, with little to no memory of their previous life. But you’re one of a lucky few! You’ve been randomly selected for training as what we call an Architect--that’s who I am, by the way. The Architect of Earth, along with a few other worlds you won’t be familiar with. Delighted to meet you! Although it’s not exactly my first time meeting you, seeing how I’m aware of everything that happens on Earth and know every detail of your life.
...Oh, come on, don’t be silly. You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about. Trust me, I’ve literally seen it all.
Anyway, if I can put us back on track: your selection as an Architect. To put it simply, upon death, a very, very small fraction of all sapient souls are selected at random to be trained for the position. What position is it, I hear you ask? Well, you might think of us as gods, although that’s not entirely accurate to how you understand the term. Architects are those who design and build new worlds, populate them with sapient souls, and administer them to ensure everything functions smoothly. We get a few perks with the job, notably immortality, which we can also extend to any loved ones from our previous lives upon their own deaths--so don’t worry, you’ll be with them again before you know it. The other big benefit, of course, is that we’re free to incarnate in whatever shapes we like to go down to worlds we’ve built and experience things there! It can be tons of fun, and the best part is, if you want, you can alter your own memories when you go down, so as long as you’re there, you’ll feel every bit like an inhabitant of that world, and get to really experience the challenges and thrills without it all being ruined by knowing you’re really immortal and in control of everything.
I know this is all pretty overwhelming--trust me, I remember my first time. That’s why, as part of your training, I’ll be riding along and helping you through the process of building your very first new world! Don’t worry, you’re in good hands--I’m an expert at this.
Why don’t we start off with something nice and familiar, just so you can get the hang of the process? Let’s try making something that emulates human fantasy fiction. Just follow along, and I’ll walk you through all the steps...
- World Type
Choose 1:
- Earth-like. Just what you’d expect: a little of everything, spread across different biomes. You’ll get forests, mountains, deserts, arctic, oceans, all the stuff you’re familiar with. You can make the wildlife different if you want, but it’ll have more or less the same ecological niches.
- Eden. Crank the wildlife up to eleven. This is how you get a whole world covered in jungle with trees the size of skyscrapers, and animals that would make Earth’s biggest, scariest predators look cute and fuzzy. Whoever lives here had better learn to coexist with nature, or it’ll fuck ‘em right up.
- Wasteland. The opposite of the Eden type, this’ll make your world a blasted hellscape. Could be a radioactive desert, a global ice age, whatever; any way you slice it, life will be scarce, and the survivors will be all the tougher for the struggle.
- Waterworld. Lots of oceans, not much land. You’ll probably get people living on islands and sailing to get around, and maybe some underwater or amphibious civilizations too.
- Weird. Do something totally different, something that’s nothing like Earth at all! Ringworld? Dyson Sphere? Floating islands in an infinite sky? Go nuts!
- Inhabitants
Choose 1:
- Humans Only. What it says on the tin.
- Limited Cast. You get humans, and maybe a few others that mostly keep to themselves. When different species encounter each other, it’s a big deal, and they’ll probably find each other scary and weird.
- Cosmopolitan. Humans plus a handful of other species, all of whom are well aware of each other and interact fairly often, whether in cooperation or conflict. Think Middle-Earth.
- Kitchen Sink. You’ve got humans, elves, kobolds, centaurs, ogres, just everybody, all living together in the same neighborhoods. Be careful who you make interfertile, unless you want things to get really crazy.
- +Different Baseline. Want humans to be a minority, or not around at all? Pick this as an add-on. The most numerous sapients will be something other than humans; they can be like-humans-but-different, or another species altogether, whatever you want.
- Tone
Choose 1:
- Grimdark. Everything’s awful, all the time. Have fun watching all hope and beauty be ground down into dust, you monster.
- Gritty. This will be the most familiar to you, from living on Earth. A lot of people are gonna suffer a whole bunch, but there’s still hope and optimism to be found if you know where to look.
- Heroic. Things aren’t perfect, but most people’s lives are pretty okay. The good guys will be more concerned with upholding the status quo than changing things for the better.
- Noblebright. Life’s good, the heroes always win, the villains always lose, and everyone gets their happy endings. Kinda boring for my taste, but hey, it’s your world.
- Tech Level
Choose 1:
- Neolithic. Fire and flint-knapping are still the cutting edge.
- Bronze Age. Comparable to the earliest human civilizations.
- Iron Age. Anything from classical Greece to the vikings.
- Early Medieval. Chainmail and bows.
- Late Medieval. Early plate, crossbows, and longswords.
- Renaissance. Guns have entered the chat. Also, full articulated plate and fancy polearms.
- Industrial. Steam engines, clockwork, and printing presses. Season with whale oil to taste.
- Diesel Age. From the start of the 20th century up to the end of World War II. May or may not include Tesla coils.
- Modern. What you had back on Earth, or close enough. Cars and computers.
- Futuristic. Beyond where Earth is at now, but still with limits you can understand. Spacefaring, cyberpunk, that kind of thing.
- Hypertech. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- +Lost Tech. Pick two options. The first is what people understand and can produce right now; the second is more advanced stuff from a past golden era, which may as well be magic at this point.
- Gods
Choose 1:
- Agnosticism. Definitely easiest on your end. Don’t make your existence known at all; let the mortals decide for themselves what they’ll believe. This will give you all kinds of different religions all over the place, all of them probably convinced they’re right and everyone else is wrong, even though none of them have any hard evidence.
- Monotheism. Keep it simple: you’re the only God, and you make sure they know it. You can be as specific as you want about what kind of God you are, and how you want to be worshiped; let them decide, and they’ll probably all come up with their own ways of venerating you.
- Polytheism. Come up with a pantheon of multiple gods to represent yourself. Everyone in the world will know that these are the only real gods, and will worship all of them accordingly.
- Henotheism. As above, except people won’t worship all the gods equally; instead, different people and societies will pick favorite patron gods, and they’ll worship their choice as the best. They’ll still acknowledge that the rest exist, but they might ignore them, or they might actively oppose their worship.
- Pantheism. Everyone will know that gods are real, but that’s about all they’ll be able to agree on. Come up with as many identities as you like, to use all over the world. You’ll end up with a million different religions that all believe in different versions of you, some monotheistic and some polytheistic, and they’ll all be right.
- Magic Rarity
Choose 1:
- No Magic. Boring! But hey, whatever floats your boat. And I guess if you already have hypertech around, throwing in actual magic too could be overkill. Obviously, if you pick this, skip all the other stuff about magic.
- Low Magic. Most people will go their whole lives without ever encountering anything magical. Actual magic-users are even rarer. Society at large might not even be aware that magic exists, dismissing it as the stuff of fairytales.
- Moderate Magic. Pretty much everyone will know about magic at this point, and seeing it won’t be too uncommon, but it’ll still be the province of the powerful. Kings might have court mages, but the common folk make do without.
- High Magic. This is where you start seeing magic used on a societal scale, to really change how ordinary people live. Cities will have magical infrastructure; armies will take magic into account in their basic tactics. Anyone with a decent education will have a shot at becoming a magic-user, if magic is something you can learn.
- Ubiquitous Magic. Just, fuckin’ everywhere, dude. Everybody uses magic stuff every day; people ride flying carpets to work, use pyromancy to cook their food, the whole deal. At this point, you don’t even need regular technology to have societies that look crazy advanced compared to Earth.
- Magic Power
Choose 1:
- Weak Magic. Think about the kind of stuff people who believe in magic on Earth say it can do. Telling the future in vague hints, warding off bad luck, curing common diseases--little things that make life easier, but nothing that’ll really change the world.
- Potent Magic. This level makes magic about as effective at any particular thing as a highly competent person would be. A combat mage is as scary as a master swordsman, but not more.
- Powerful Magic. A competent mage can do things normal people can’t dream of. One wizard can conjure food to feed a whole village, or blast away an entire platoon of soldiers.
- World-Shaking Magic. The strongest mages are basically living gods, the sort who can level cities if they want to. If they don’t rule the world, there’s probably a very good reason why.
- +Limited Magic. However much power a mage can throw around, they can’t just do it whenever they want--there’s some big limiting factor involved. They might need rare components to cast spells, or it might involve rituals that take hours.
- +Focused Magic. Magic might be really powerful, but only at one specific thing. Maybe all mages just control the weather, or communicate with the dead. They can be as good at that as your main choice says, but that’s all they can do.
- Magic Type
Choose any number:
- Academic. Magic is a skill, just like reading or math. Anyone can learn it, but it takes time and training.
- Innate. Mages are born, not made. If you have the power, it’ll come out whether you want it to or not; better learn to control it.
- Spiritual. Magic is learned, but not the way you learn a language; it’s about attaining a certain state of mind, going on spirit quests, achieving inner harmony and enlightenment, all that jazz. Sort of like becoming a Jedi.
- Miracles. Straight from you, baby. You’re the one who decides who gets magic and when. Maybe you grant it to worshipers, or maybe you just pick whatever schmucks you want and hit ‘em with the Saint Stick.
- Pacts. Really the same as miracles, but with a scary coat of paint. Put demons or hungry ghosts or eldritch horrors or whatever down there, and anyone desperate or stupid enough who gets in touch with them can bargain for power at the cost of their soooouuuuuuuul...or, y’know, their blood, or years off their life, or whatever.
- +Combined. Pick this as an add-on and stick any number of the above together into one system. Want mages to be born with the potential, but need training to unlock it? Holy sages meditating for years to commune with you and receive miracles? Go nuts.
- Monsters
Choose any number:
- Monstrous People. Now, this option used to be a lot more popular, but it’s fallen out of favor lately--a lot of us have had it pointed out that it’s kind of unfair to make species that are as smart as people but stuck in the role of monsters. I’d advise against it, but if you really need to have your goblins or orcs or lizardfolk or whoever be just threats for everyone else to kill, this is your pick.
- Magical Beasts. If you want dragons or chimeras or any other big scary critters that aren’t covered by the wildlife you’ve already got, this’ll do for ya.
- The Unquiet Dead. People die when they are killed, except when they don’t. Pick this if you want some of them to stick around and cause problems for the living--ghosts, ghouls, vampires, all of the above.
- The Fair Folk. Think fairies, but old-school. Awe-inspiringly beautiful, completely alien. They might help you for some bizarre price while just acting creepy, or they might slowly torture you to death and laugh over your broken remains.
- The Created. Stuff that someone made once, now out of control and wrecking everyone else’s shit. Robot armies, legions of vat-grown super-warriors, that kind of thing.
- Demons. Not necessarily the traditional fire-and-pitchforks kind--we just use it as a general term for evil spirits, or at least ones that don’t like people. If you want, they might be open to buying mortal souls, or maybe they just want to eat everybody.
- Things From Beyond. The kind of stuff that Lovecraft guy had nightmares about. These can overlap with demons, but at least people can understand what demons are about. Anyone who’ll make a deal with these guys definitely doesn’t have their shit together.
- Sexyness
Choose 1:
- Non-sexualized. Pick this if you’re not interested in sexing up this world any more than Earth. People will still be far from asexual on average, but sex won’t have any kind of extra influence on society.
- Lewd. This one will put things in the realm of the improbable, rather than the impossible, when it comes to sex. People’s appearances will tend to be idealized; almost everyone will be on the horny side, and pretty much any situation that conceivably could lead to sex, will. The weird and magical parts of the world, including the monsters, will likely have a sexual bent.
- Pornographic. Here’s where sex starts to affect every part of daily life. Stuff like walking around naked or having sex in public becomes normal; people will still have preferences and a concept of consent, but if they like each other, they’ll fuck at the drop of a hat. Monsters are likely to be more interested in sex than anything else.
- Sex-Obsessed. Sex isn’t just everywhere, it’s everything. People think about it constantly; every activity and institution becomes organized around it. Anyone will fuck anyone. Sexualized fashion is universal. All gods are sex gods. Combat is exclusively to the rape, rather than to the death.
- Kinks
Choose any number:
- No STDs. I highly recommend this one if you’re cranking up the sex at all, but if you want to keep things more grounded, feel free to leave it.
- Anthro. Replaces all the sapients in your world with anthropomorphic animal people of whatever types you want. Up to you whether this is just a cosmetic change, or if people actually act like their type of animal in any way. I guess you could’ve already just made all your sapients anthros, but since so many of you humans have a fetish for this, I figured I should put it here too.
- Kemonomimi. Anthro-lite, you could say. Instead of full anthro animals, all your sapients will have minor animal features, like cute little ears and tails.
- Light Patriarchy. Tips social power in favor of men, but, unlike when this happens on Earth, most women here are pretty okay with it. Those who aren’t will usually end up getting comeuppance in ways that range from hilarious to sexual, and deep down, they all just want dick anyway. Women aren’t brutally oppressed or treated as slaves or anything, but they’re kept out of power and generally seen as inferior.
- Heavy Patriarchy. As above, but more intense. This is where women are actually slaves or property, with no rights or allowed free will. They’ll have the same range of reactions to this as to the above.
- Light Matriarchy. The opposite of Light Patriarchy, with women in charge. You know those stories some people would write on Earth about worlds where the stereotypical gender roles are reversed? This is like that.
- Heavy Matriarchy. Once again, the opposite of Heavy Patriarchy. Here, it’s the men who are slaves and property, with women controlling every part of society.
- Sex Slavery. Makes sexual slavery a ubiquitous cultural institution throughout the world, but without the gender bias of Heavy Patriarchy or Heavy Matriarchy.
- Free Use. Makes both consent and sexual assault nonexistent concepts in the world. It’s totally normal to just walk up to anyone and start fucking them without preamble, any time, anywhere; no one will think twice about asking permission, or refusing to fuck someone. Can apply equally to all genders, or unequally, as you like.
- Pansexuality. Makes everyone completely pansexual--sex and gender are no longer factors in attraction, for anyone. Or, you can apply it to certain genders only, like making all women pansexual, but leaving men unchanged.
- Hermaphroditism. Makes some portion of the sapient population into hermaphrodites of any type you like, or more than one. By default, they’ll be a minority, but check out the next option.
- Gender Imbalance. Skews the ratio of sexes and genders, any way you want. You can make a world where only one tenth of the population is male, and all men get harems. If you have Hermaphroditism, you can make a world without any men at all, just women and futa. Any combination and ratio you want, go nuts.
- Breeding. Makes sex much more likely to lead to conception, and gives people a preoccupation with and fetish for pregnancy and childbirth, from whatever side of the equation they can work. If you want, you can make birth much less painful, or not at all, and generally lessen the work involved in raising kids.
- Lactation. Anyone with breasts will produce milk, in increased amounts. Breastfeeding may or may not be socially acceptable for adults, as you like.
- Monstergirls/Monsterboys. Replaces some or all of the world’s monsters with sexy monstergirls and/or monsterboys. All of them will be as intelligent as humans (though not necessarily smart humans) and able to communicate. They’ll still act like their monster types for the most part, but with modifications as appropriate to their new nature.
- Tentacle Monsters. Increases the preponderance of monsters with tentacles among the types you’ve placed in the world. All of them will be eager to use their tentacles for exactly what you’d expect.
- Parasites. Makes a desired portion of the world’s monsters parasitic in some fashion. They might implant eggs in victims, or they might physically parasitize other creatures themselves. You can make it so none of this is lethal or really harmful, unlike parasites on Earth.
- Transformatives. Makes transformative magic more common than the default, basically guaranteeing that anyone who goes and interacts with magic will end up with at least some transformations.
- Impossible Physiology. Gives people the ability to perform sex acts that are impossible on Earth. Cervical penetration, nipple fucking, docking, whatever you want, it can happen, and feels good for everyone involved.
- Hyper Proportions. Giant dicks and massive mammaries, ahoy! Won’t cause their owners any pain or discomfort, and by default, no one will have any trouble taking such huge penetration.
- Size Queens. Makes everyone prefer bigger dicks, always, without exception. No such thing as too big, within whatever reasonable limits you want to set.
- Incest. Family members will fuck each other. By default, this won’t cause any of the expected problems if pregnancy happens.
- Teratophilia. Makes everyone generally okay with fucking and getting fucked by monsters, even the ones that aren’t remotely humanlike. Optionally, you can make sapients and monsters interfertile.
- Bestiality. Like teratophilia, but applies to regular animals. If you really want, you can also make sapients interfertile with said animals. Weirdo.
- Watersports. Makes urine a feature of sex, in whatever form you want. You can keep it light, like just public urination being a normal thing, or make it as heavy as you please, up to things like people pissing inside their partners during sex. If you want this to include urine tasting and/or smelling better, it can do that too.
...All done? Remember, once you lock in these choices, it’ll be a whole lot harder to go back and change them. Either you’ll have to tweak things in the present, which is tricky and can take a while to work, or start mucking around with time travel, and trust me, that’s a headache you want to avoid if at all possible.
Okay? Great! Congratulations, you’re now the proud Architect of your very first world. Welcome to the club, kid. Now get down there and explore!
Last edited by a moderator: