Your gateway to endless inspiration
worldbuilding holidays; possible traditions for holidays based on historical events:
commemorating victims of the historical event
parades
mass lighting candles
displaying art related to the event
cooking traditional dishes
organizing discussions and lectures to educate the public
planting commemorative trees
family trips to museums
discussions with people who lived through the event
reenacting the event
family reunions
wearing awareness accessories (ribbons, etc.)
political figures giving commemorative speeches
fundraisers for victims of the event
workshops to educate children in schools
building monuments/statues
feel free to add more!
Rpg and other game-mechanics can throw a wrench into storytelling by punching immersion-threatening hole into the worldbuilding. This can be especially bothersome if you are writing in a serious or dark tone, or working with a crossover.
With a little creativity, it’s relatively easy to fix this problem.
The Minecraft enchantment system works off of experience obtained from mining, hunting, farming, and other experiences. The points earned in your XP bar are combined with Lapis Lazuli, and used to enchant items, as the game’s primary enchanting method. From a mechanic standpoint, this is very sound. But how do we explain this XP system in a narrative view?
Using Lapis as a focus, or an already enchanted manuscript (in the instance of using an anvil,) enchanting can be performed with the sheer power of lived experiences and knowledge gained. The memories themself, or perhaps the connections of neurons formed when learning, produce energy channeled into enchanting. However, these memories can only be used for energy once. Perhaps the energy formed upon the new neuron connection is all the power that memory will ever make, or perhaps the memories are lost and forgotten once they are used to enchant.
Books, the written memories and experiences of other people, interact with this magic system by boosting the power of an enchanting table. By being immortalized knowledge, they inherently strengthen the potential of experience magic.
you know how in some fantasy worlds, deities only exist when people worship them, and deities become real when people worship them?
what if spells worked the same way? what if people who wanted to make new spells needed them to go viral before they worked? what if you were using an indie spell and suddenly it was way more powerful and then you found out a wizardtok influencer had used it in their latest video? what if people posted spells on tumblr with the caption "likes < reblogs < usage"? what if there were ads for spells on podcasts?
A worldbuilding idea for making your fictional nation interesting: choose a crime, taboo, etc. and make it legal, perhaps even engraved in the culture.
For example, cannibalism. It could be tradition to hold a feast in the honor of the recently deceased, devouring them as a way to signify their sacrifice will not be wasted. That could be not only the main way of holding a funeral, but it could be embedded in the culture. Perhaps it arose from the early days of the nation, when the founders resorted to cannibalism to survive.
Setting Idea:
A modern fantasy world where street signs are powerful magic sigils. When the red stoplight glows, it forcibly holds your car in place, and when you pass a school crossing, conjured will-o-wisps drift back and forth to lead children safely across the street. Highways are lined with runic instructions, sending out pulses that direct the flow of traffic.
In this world, hacker mages race their motorcycles through the network of glyphs, competing to be the fastest, to steal and move illegal goods, to test their knowledge of vehicular magic.