Worldbuilding - Blog Posts
Hell yeah
Warrior Bites: Clan Tools
[Image ID: Reedwhisker, a black RiverClan warrior cat, sits behind two terracotta pots, some strips of willowbark, a traditional wooden pot called a firkin, and a rock. He has a stick in his mouth.]
Warriors of the Clans are shown in-canon to be able to weave, dig tunnels, decorate with shells, and do whatever it is that BloodClan’s got going on with those collars and manicures. Have you considered what other tools a semi-realistic warrior could handle?
A guide to the various tools and methods that the Clans can use to prepare complex dishes, including the equipment needed for smoking, baking, pickling, and so on. Part of the Warrior Bites series for Bonefall’s Clan Culture.
(The art in this guide was once again provided by my partner who hasn’t read a single page of warrior cats in their life but so help me god I’ll drag them down with me)
Tools + Equipment
Fire Starting
Containers: Twine + Baskets + Buckets
Cookware: Smokers, Ovens, “Grillstones“
1. Fire Starting
Flint can be used to start a fire, especially for Clans that lack lumber. Because flint is most easily found around the Mothermouth, it’s associated with StarClan’s glow and considered somewhat divine.
But for those situations without a flint starter, the Clans generally teach their apprentices the paw-drill method using a spindle. But these days, SkyClan uses stolen Glass to start fires quicker and easier than any other Clan…
Except on cloudy days, where some unfortunate apprentice still gets saddled with spindle duty.
[Image ID: Reedclaw, a brown tabby Warrior Cat from SkyClan, sits on his haunches and spins a long stick called a ‘spindle’ with his front paws. Smoke is rising from the board the spindle is spinning against.]
2. Containers: Twine + Baskets + Buckets
RiverClan has the easiest access to twine; Willowbark can be peeled right off the tree and used without any processing for simple string to tie things with. WindClan uses woven grass as twine. ShadowClan, SkyClan, and ThunderClan are able to make cordage from Blackberry brambles.
Once the cat has twine, it can be woven into a simple basket to gather things, like berries, clams, or insects. In order to carry liquids, forested Clans can create firkins– a small wooden bucket that requires some carpentry ability, namely creating wooden nails.
But these tremble before the value of pottery, which is needed to store liquids, ferment and pickle food, and create stew.
Pottery is made from clay, which has to be baked in order to go from wet mud to terracotta. RiverClan is responsible for making the majority of new pottery because of the river, and ShadowClan’s marsh gives them lots of access to low-quality clay.
WindClan was once unmatched in the quality of their pottery thanks to tunneling leading them to the finest clay deposits known to the Clans. Though SkyClan is now rivaling the finest ancient WindClan pottery, due to their willingness to steal buckets from twolegs.
(Leafstar says, “if you cant make a firkin, store-bought is fine”)
[Image ID: Leafstar, the brown tabby-and-cream Warrior cat leader of SkyClan, sits behind a counter in front of an audience presenting a man-made firkin, parodying shopping channels. A speech bubble says, “Meow meow meow meow meow, storebought is meow.”]
3. Cookware: Smokers, Ovens, “Grillstones“
A smoker is very easy to construct, all that’s needed is some straight branches, twine, and fire.
First, a round pit is dug into the ground and filled with soaked woodchips. It is important they’re damp, because wet wood gives off more smoke than dry. Then, three beams are set and tied at the top, like a triangle. From there, a shelf is made inside of the beams. Multiple shelves can be made if a lot of food is being smoked at once.
ThunderClan wraps the smoker in a leather pelt, to keep the smoke in. Their prowess with smoking and seasoning a wide range of meats gives them the title of BBQ champions.
[Image ID: A primitive smoker setup, made of three sticks leaned against each other in a triangular shape and tied at the top. Two shelves are tied into the structure, the top row with minnows and the bottom with hanging strips of meat.]
An oven is a large construction. Capable of cooking several meals at once, each clan would have just one to use communally. Because the communal oven is such a big project, each Clan would have one that looks unique to their environment.
ThunderClan’s, for example, is flat and made of stone, simple in design but very sturdy and capable of cooking a lot of meat at once.
[Image ID: A stone oven made of flat, piled rocks. A fire is lit at the bottom and meat is browning on the top shelf. A stick leans against the side.]
For the quickest and easiest way to make a hot meal, meat is roasted on a spit or loose stick over an open fire. The best sear comes from a large, flat slab of rock propped up over a flame, known to the clans as a grillstone.
[Image ID: Firestar, ginger tabby warrior cat leader of ThunderClan, watches bacon sizzle on a large, flat rock placed over a fire. His daughter, Squirrelkit, sits beside him. A thought bubble above her head contains a waffle, and a question mark.]
(Clan blood be damned that kittypet can work a grill)
Small fantasy worldbuilding elements you might want to think about:
A currency that isn’t gold-standard/having gold be as valuable as tin
A currency that runs entirely on a perishable resource, like cocoa beans
A clock that isn’t 24-hours
More or less than four seasons/seasons other than the ones we know
Fantastical weather patterns like irregular cloud formations, iridescent rain
Multiple moons/no moon
Planetary rings
A northern lights effect, but near the equator
Roads that aren’t brown or grey/black, like San Juan’s blue bricks
Jewelry beyond precious gems and metals
Marriage signifiers other than wedding bands
The husband taking the wife's name / newlyweds inventing a new surname upon marriage
No concept of virginity or bastardry
More than 2 genders/no concept of gender
Monotheism, but not creationism
Gods that don’t look like people
Domesticated pets that aren’t re-skinned dogs and cats
Some normalized supernatural element that has nothing to do with the plot
Magical communication that isn’t Fantasy Zoom
“Books” that aren’t bound or scrolls
A nonverbal means of communicating, like sign language
A race of people who are obligate carnivores/ vegetarians/ vegans/ pescatarians (not religious, biological imperative)
I’ve done about half of these myself in one WIP or another and a little detail here or there goes a long way in reminding the audience that this isn’t Kansas anymore.
As the war rages on between the Commonwealth and Auridia, various divisions of the Commonwealth Initiative Starfleet are deployed to numerous planets throughout Concordia to conduct a variety of operations.
One such division, stationed at a remote base on a far-flung planet, receives reinforcements to better counteract new threats that have popped up in the area.
Ok wow
At a worldbuilding impasse, wondering which race I should flesh out/model next
At a worldbuilding impasse, wondering which race I should flesh out/model next
The Commonwealth raining down hellfire on unsuspecting enemies.
Due to the nature of their Starfleet lacking any sort of heavy bomber, the Commonwealth commissioned the Cavalier-class (shown front and center) as a multi-person, multiple bomber that could both be used in hard-hitting assaults and more isolated exploration/search-and-rescue type missions due to it featuring a spacious interior.
The Legion of Axis, a fleet devised in secret by the Astral Archmage, now known as Axis, to take the Commonwealth by surprise and conquer Concordia once more. It was comprised entirely of one class of ship, the Arbiter, which numbered in the thousands. This was because the ships could siphon power from each other when arranged in a certain way, allowing one ship to draw energy from others and fire a beam of plasma that could disintegrate any ship in its path.
Honestly there's a lot more to the Legion of Axis that I'd love to talk about, but it's been a while since I posted anything so I thought I'd add in this little snippet of lore for things to come. I'd love to hear ideas and feedback if you have any!
Hey guys! I tried my hand at making an animatic/animation for the larger story I have been brewing in my head for the past three years. I hope to animate it fully one day, but while it festers in my brain for now I hope to make shorter animations/animatics about it.
Song used is Runaway by Aurora, it fit really well for the main character of my story.
Hence I crawl out of my cave once again to post a little something I made while procrastinating on college work, an animation I made in Blender showcasing the Commonwealth SF-38 Longsword's supermaneuvrability against any similar air/spacecraft of its type.
Commissioned to the Dawnbreaker Company by the Commonwealth Initiative, the Longsword was made to be a cutting-edge starfighter that could outmatch any of its Auridian counterparts, and as such was equipped with shields, was hyperspace-capable, and featured new repulsor technology that allowed it to perform complex maneuvers in both the air and space.
Please tell me about your thing. I want to know more, cause right now you haven't talked enough about this thing bud
Oh boy this is going to be long, where do I start
Okay, so...
In a distant galaxy created by the ancient Astral Beings, the nation of Concordia, spanning several star systems, is thriving. The nation had just returned from the brink of a civil war, between the Empire of Auridia, led by an evil Astral Archmage wielding immense power, commanding legions of armies and starships, and a renegade group seeking to overthrow him and bring an end to his evil reign.
In the end, the renegade group won, and established the Commonweath of Planets, a new democratic government meant to represent the will of the people, contrary to the tyrannical rule Concordia had faced under the rule of the Astral Archmage. The remnants of the Auridian Empire, now without a leader and without purpose, aptly surrendered to the new Commonwealth of Planets, and a peace treaty was thereafter struck, where the Remnants would establish a democratic government of their own representing the will of the people formerly subjugated under their tyrannical reign.
The Remnants of Auridia then became a well-established democratic nation, with its residents having mainly positive perceptions of this new rebirth of a nation with a terrible past. The Commonwealth established a new Capitol on Concord Point, a binary planet system consisting of a larger and smaller planet, which were called Magnus Frater and Parvulus Frater, respectively.
The Commonwealth was facing certain hardships. There was recently a plague that had taken it by storm, and the current acting Commonwealth chancellor had done little to move the nation forward. Fortunately for the Commonwealth a new hero was seemingly stepping up for the task, a man by the name of Brenold Arcadia, heralding from the more aristocratic side of a lesser-known backwater world, had garnered the attention and admiration of all of Concordia with his promises of progress, his visions of grandeur, and determination to elevate the Commonwealth to a state it had never seen before. After an extremely successful campaign, Arcadia won the election and became chancellor. The phrase "Keep Moving Forward" was a prominent line by which his successful campaign had been run.
Chancellor Arcadia worked quick. He immediately went to work spending extremely large amounts of money on research and medicine, on technology, on innovation, just about anything that would get the voters to like him. And it worked, the people revered him like never before, and the Commonwealth was thrust into a new golden age.
However, his methods often had dark origins. The money to invest had to come from somewhere, and that was money the Commonwealth did not currently have. So, he resorted to often illicit deals with shady business partners under the counter to get the money for his grandiose projects. So when he was offered a partnership with the Dawnbreaker Company producing warships, he accepted without hesitation, since he knew it would help bring in more profits for the Commonwealth, and as such keep his perception high in the eyes of the people.
However warships would not be profitable without war, and the people would most likely get suspicious if hundreds of warships were produced solely for the purpose of "security" from existing minor pirate threats. Hence, Arcadia orchestrated a ploy, framing a small uprising on a city of his home planet of Pulveriss as a deliberate attack by the existing Auridian Remnants trying to take back the Commonwealth territory and re-establishing their tyrannical rule like they had in the days of the Astral Archmage. He then sent a new prototype Stalwart-class Battlecruiser to Pulveriss, which razed the entire city, killing peaceful protestors and 4500 innocent civillians in the process. Back at the Commonwealth Capitol's Golden City, the people were patriotically supportive of Arcadia's actions, since they were under the impression that the Auridians had tried to invade the Commonwealth.
Soon the Dawnbreaker Company was producing warships on a massive scale, Arcadia was raking in profits due to the deal he made, and all-out war had broken out between the Commonwealth and the Auridian Remnants. In response the Commonwealth Initiative was created, which served as the formal military force for the Commonwealth and spearheaded its war plan, under the uniting motto, which was also Arcadia's campaign slogan, "Keep Moving Forward".
Arcadia's actions were not without consequences, however. Soon tales began to spur about a mysterious Auridian knight who killed without mercy, and especially had a bloodlust for Arcadia.
His name: Artemis Castor, who was among one of the innocent people hurt in Arcadia's attacks on Pulveriss. Seeing his friends die around him to cannon fire from the Commonwealth, Artemis swore to avenge them, and made it his life goal from then on to kill Arcadia, and make him feel the pain and suffering he'd caused others, no matter the cost. What's more, Artemis Castor was rumored to be armed with arcane power, perhaps originating from the fallen Archmage himself...
So at present Concordia finds itself engulfed in another civil war, with one side led by a fraudulent Chancellor Arcadia, and the other side led by an unknown entity pulling the strings, as well as well-meaning separatists who were forced to take arms to combat a money-hungry Commonwealth. And on the edge of it all, a new threat lurks, perhaps a fragment of the evil Archmage that once was...
So yeah this was the basic premise of the story I'm working on, there's a lot more story-wise but this is the main exposition and world behind it. But I'm glad you're interested! I hope I didn't bore you too much with all the information lol. It's meant to be an animation project, I've already started working on it but I'm not sure when I'll finish, but until then I'll probably post more about it on this account, and edit the story as I work more on it because this isn't final.
Also if you have any questions feel free to ask!
Here's another ship I made for the Commonwealth of Planets, an interplanetary government from a worldbuilding project I'm working on. This one's called the Bulwark-class Supercarrier.
At 3 times the length of the Stalwart the Bulwark was made for a different purpose, to carry starfighters into battle. It could hold a combined total of over 250 starfighters, far more than the 45 carried by a single Stalwart. Although it lacked Arc cannons it still featured an extensive point-defense and flak system designed to combat any attacking squadrons that may be looking for close-range attacks. It also featured two underslung hangar bays that could hold a Vanguard-class Corvette each for rapid deployment against enemy threats.
Although less famous than its smaller cousin, the Stalwart, the Bulwark proved to be a crucial asset to the Commonwealth and was often seen leading Battlegroups.
Hey guys! First post here, just thought I would share a little spaceship I'd made a while back, the Stalwart-class Battlecruiser. the main Ship of the line created by the Commonwealth of Planets.
Designed to effectively combat the Auridian threat. Equipped with 16 large quad-barrel Arc Cannons and numerous other smaller flak and point-defense cannons, as well as 6 large hangar bays to accommodate various squadrons of SF-38 Longsword and ASF-10 Longbow fighters. It featured an advanced main reactor system that ran on Cane fuel that would allow it to travel through hyperspace at unprecedented rates, and a large plasmic ram that could be extended for head-on attacks and doubled as a shield.
This was created for a worldbuilding project I'm currently working on, it's set in a sci-fi/fantasy environment with a slight steampunk theme, more starships and vehicles to come!
Tbh I personally believe that if they ever develop an ai with enough emotional intelligence and complexity to create literally anything worth consuming, that AI will automatically be sentient enough to tell you to fuck off and create your own shit before it goes off to hang out with Hatsune Miku or fuck around with nuke codes or something.
man i want to worldbuildd soooo baddd..... no creativity.....
Cierian ergonomic gaming chairs for dragons more resemble recliners than typical human chairs. While they come in many shapes to accommodate different body types, this one is designed for long and noodly eastern bodies. The main body of the chair has support for a naturally curved spine and keeps the dragon's body in the most ideal and comfortable position.
Fancy chairs like these are hard to come by, due to stickman and faun technology prioritizing bipeds over obligate quadrupeds like most dragons. There are a few organizations in MicFortress dedicated to replicating stickfigure technology to be used by dragons. Exports from the city are common for dragons and dragon communities, but they aren't easy to get your hands on due to the price and near monopoly MicFortress has on the tech.
A dragon without kobolds is like a human without a taxes. We think. We don't actually know what a "taxes" is, we just hear humans bring them up all the time. We assume this is some kind of small creature.
Every time I'm around mosquitoes I start thinking about how people made the entirely correct connection between places with a lot of temperate stagnant water and the spread of malaria, but didn't quite connect all the dots - this place has stagnant water, this place has people getting sick with this same illness. Clearly it's the stinky water causing this, maybe it smells bad and the bad air is causing this. It's unhealthy to breathe the outdoor air at night, people who are out at night or don't shutter their windows tightly when the sun goes down are more likely to get sick because the bad air gets in.
The missing middle part was mosquitoes. Mosquitoes breed in standing water, and mosquitoes spread malaria.
I think this kind of thing would make a fun worldbuilding exercise. Have something in your world that does function the way people think it does, but they're completely wrong about why that happens. Or they've gotten the right connection, but backwards.
Holy rites that ward off evil but the Pure Substance is actually just antibacterial. Birds whose call is an omen of an approaching dragon, but these birds actually just have some symbiotic relationship with them. Half-elves that seem predestined to turn to dabbling with dark and lethal magic, but actually they just have a stronger tolerance of The Thing That Kills You due to hybrid vigour. Everyone knows that tigers never attack holy women because of a pact between their gods, but actually it's because a tiger is an ambush predator and the priestesses' headwear vaguely resembles a human face from the back, and the tigers can't quite tell whether she's facing away or towards them.
a list of 100+ buildings to put in your fantasy town
academy
adventurer's guild
alchemist
apiary
apothecary
aquarium
armory
art gallery
bakery
bank
barber
barracks
bathhouse
blacksmith
boathouse
book store
bookbinder
botanical garden
brothel
butcher
carpenter
cartographer
casino
castle
cobbler
coffee shop
council chamber
court house
crypt for the noble family
dentist
distillery
docks
dovecot
dyer
embassy
farmer's market
fighting pit
fishmonger
fortune teller
gallows
gatehouse
general store
graveyard
greenhouses
guard post
guildhall
gymnasium
haberdashery
haunted house
hedge maze
herbalist
hospice
hospital
house for sale
inn
jail
jeweller
kindergarten
leatherworker
library
locksmith
mail courier
manor house
market
mayor's house
monastery
morgue
museum
music shop
observatory
orchard
orphanage
outhouse
paper maker
pawnshop
pet shop
potion shop
potter
printmaker
quest board
residence
restricted zone
sawmill
school
scribe
sewer entrance
sheriff's office
shrine
silversmith
spa
speakeasy
spice merchant
sports stadium
stables
street market
tailor
tannery
tavern
tax collector
tea house
temple
textile shop
theatre
thieves guild
thrift store
tinker's workshop
town crier post
town square
townhall
toy store
trinket shop
warehouse
watchtower
water mill
weaver
well
windmill
wishing well
wizard tower
In a world where giant monsters are a fact of life, would there be toys of them? Would it be ethical to profit off of what are essentially walking natural disasters? If the profits went to charity, yeah sure. Also if they’re educational. I assume many are like Papo/Schleich dinosaur toys and get sold at craft supply stores and museum gift shops.
Keep reading
As it was becoming clear the US was headed into trade war territory, I got really interested in farming and the logistics of keeping people fed. I turned that interest into "your cool city needs a food supply," available now!
it's a hack of "i'm sorry did you say street magic" and "Microscope," two gold-standard worldbuilding games. It was polished by Nico MacDougall, who gave me some great advice on how to make this game really align with the themes and ideas I had in the draft.
I've always been a sicko about logistics and agriculture (growing up in the US midwest will do that to you), and I hope this game helps people think about how great a privilege it is to eat.
*grabs you*
I would love to hear some stuff about Chelsea, she’s literally my favorite boi ever and I need to know more about her gimme gimme /nf
AH CHELSEA YES I WOULD LOVE TO RANT ABOUT HER
(Horror and gore warning)
Okay so Chelsea is a coyote living in Yowkai. She was born to a Very Large Family and she is the middle child of middle children she is extremely overlooked, despite the fact she’s literally in the Yowkai Academy. She has a bit of an issue with her family, but hey at least she has a good group of friends.
She’s the seventh wheel.
Not only this, but she’s also cursed. Yaaaaaaay
Thing about curses:
In this universe, a large percentage of the overall population over the entire universe has some form of magic. Magic is genetic, and similar powers are passed down over generations. There is a variation of magic known as a curse, where aspects of the magic is turned from protection to destruction.
In Chelsea’s case, she has a curse known as Predator Syndrome.
Predator Syndrome is a curse that strengthens the host, but drives them to near insanity. It starts with random episodes where primal instincts start to overtake the host. If and when the host kills someone is when the curse is set into motion. Nothing immediate happens besides the lack of episodes. After a while (on average around 6-8 months), the host sees a figure that will watch and follow them. They star out too far away to make out any details, but with each day they grow closer until you realize that it’s an entire freaking skeleton.
They get closer until they are right behind the host. During this time while they’re drawing near, the host starts experiencing severe anxiety and starts having the primal episodes again.
In Chelsea’s case, she killed again, and that reset the skeleton. A few months later, it’s back with a friend.
Essentially what happens is there’s a long distance between the host and the skeleton. The skeleton moves closer to the host over time until the host can see the skeleton. When this happens, it triggers anxiety and predator responses. Each time the host kills, the clock is reset back to the beginning, except this time there’s another skeleton and they move slightly faster.
When the skeletons reach the host, the host dies.
With Chelsea, her heart is literally ripped out of place in her chest. In her eyes, the skeleton of her first victim bit a hole straight through her and crushed her heart in it’s jaws.
I have an animation I’m working on that focuses on her lore, but here’s her TH page that I really need to update at some point qwq
tired: mermaids are all women
wired: much like elves, merfolk are mistaken by sailors for being all women because they have long hair and are very pretty
When inventing a fantasy religion a lot of people a) make the mistake of assuming that everyone in fantasy world would worship the same gods and b) assume that polytheistic religions see all of their gods as morally good
Dealing with Healing and Disability in fantasy: Writing Disability
[ID: An image of the main character from Eragon, a white teenage boy with blond hair in silver armour as he sits, with his hand outstretched. On his hand is a glowing blue mark. He is visibly straining as he attempts to heal a large creature in front of him. /End ID]
I'm a massive fan of the fantasy genre, which is why it's so incredibly frustrating when I see so much resistance to adding disability representation to fantasy works. People's go-to reason for leaving us out is usually something to the effect of "But my setting has magic so disability wouldn't exist, it can just be healed!" so let's talk about magic, specifically healing magic, in these settings, and how you can use it without erasing disability from your story.
Ok, let's start with why you would even want to avoid erasing disability from a setting in the first place. I talked about this in a lot more detail in my post on The Miracle Cure. this line of thinking is another version of this trope, but applied to a whole setting (or at least, to the majority of people in the setting) instead of an individual, so it's going to run into the same issues I discussed there. To summarise the points that are relevant to this particular version of the trope though:
Not every disabled person wants or needs a cure - many of us see our disability as a part of our identity. Do difficulties come with being disabled? absolutely! It's literally part of the definition, but for some people in the disabled community, if you took our disabilities away, we would be entirely different people. While it is far from universal, there is a significant number of us who, if given a magical cure with no strings attached, would not take it. Saying no one in your setting would be disabled because these healing spells exists ignores this part of the community.
It messes with the stakes of your story - Just like how resurrecting characters or showing that this is something that is indeed possible in the setting can leave your audience feeling cheated or like they don't have to worry about a character *actually* ever dying. healing a character's disability, or establishing that disability doesn't exist in your setting because "magic" runs into the same problem. It will leave your readers or viewers feeling like they don't have to worry about your characters getting seriously hurt because it will only be temporary, which means your hero's actions carry significantly less risk, which in turn, lowers the stakes and tension if not handled very, very carefully.
It's an over-used trope - quite plainly and simply, this trope shows up a lot in the fantasy genre, to the point where I'd say it's just overused and kind of boring.
So with the "why should you avoid it" covered, let's look at how you can actually handle the topic.
Limited Access and Expensive Costs
One of the most common ways to deal with healing and disability in a fantasy setting, is to make the healing magic available, but inaccessible to most of the population. The most popular way to do that is by making the services of a magical healer capable of curing a disability really expensive to the point that most people just can't afford it. If this is the approach you're going to use, you also typically have to make that type of magic quite rare. To use D&D terms, if every first level sorcerer, bard, cleric and druid can heal a spinal injury, it's going to result in a lot of people who are able to undercut those massive prices and the expense will drop as demand goes down. If that last sentence didn't give you a hint, this is really popular method in stories that are critiquing capitalistic mindsets and ideologies, and is most commonly used by authors from the USA and other countries with a similar medical system, since it mirrors a lot of the difficulties faced by disabled Americans. If done right, this approach can be very effective, but it does need to be thought through more carefully than I think people tend to do. Mainly because a lot of fantasy stories end with the main character becoming rich and/or powerful, and so these prohibitively expensive cure become attainable by the story's end, which a lot of authors and writer's just never address. Of course, another approach is to make the availability of the magic itself the barrier. Maybe there just aren't that many people around who know the magic required for that kind of healing, so even without a prohibitive price tag, it's just not something that's an option for most people. If we're looking at a D&D-type setting, maybe you need to be an exceptionally high level to cast the more powerful healing spell, or maybe the spell requires some rare or lost material component. I'd personally advise people to be careful using this approach, since it often leads to stories centred around finding a miracle cure, which then just falls back into that trope more often than not.
Just outright state that some characters don't want/need it
Another, admittedly more direct approach, is to make it that these "cures" exist and are easily attainable, but to just make it that your character or others they encounter don't want or need it. This approach works best for characters who are born with their disabilities or who already had them for a long time before a cure was made available to them. Even within those groups though, this method works better with some types of characters than others depending on many other traits (personality, cultural beliefs, etc), and isn't really a one-size-fits-all solution, but to be fair, that's kind of the point. Some people will want a cure for their disabilities, others are content with their body's the way they are. There's a few caveats I have with this kind of approach though:
you want to make sure you, as the author, understand why some people in real life don't want a cure, and not just in a "yeah I know these people exist but I don't really get it" kind of way. I'm not saying you have to have a deep, personal understanding or anything, but some degree of understanding is required unless you want to sound like one of those "inspirational" body positivity posts that used to show up on Instagram back in the day.
Be wary when using cultural beliefs as a reasoning. It can work, but when media uses cultural beliefs as a reason for turning down some kind of cure, it's often intending to critique extreme beliefs about medicine, such as the ones seen in some New Age Spirituality groups and particularly intense Christian churches. As a general rule of thumb, it's probably not a good idea to connect these kinds of beliefs to disabled people just being happy in their bodies. Alternatively, you also need to be mindful of the "stuck in time" trope - a trope about indigenous people who are depicted as primitive or, as the name suggests, stuck in an earlier time, for "spurning the ways of the white man" which usually includes medicine or the setting's equivalent magic. I'm not the best person to advise you on how to avoid this specific trope, but my partner (who's Taino) has informed me of how often it shows up in fantasy specifically and we both thought it was worth including a warning at least so creators who are interested in this method know to do some further research.
Give the "cures" long-lasting side effects
Often in the real world, when a "cure" for a disability does exist, it's not a perfect solution and comes with a lot of side effects. For example, if you loose part of your arm in an accident, but you're able to get to a hospital quickly with said severed arm, it can sometimes be reattached, but doing so comes at a cost. Most people I know who had this done had a lot of issues with nerve damage, reduced strength, reduced fine-motor control and often a great deal of pain with no clear source. Two of the people I know who's limbs were saved ended up having them optionally re-amputated only a few years later. Likewise, I know many people who are paraplegics and quadriplegics via spinal injuries, who were able to regain the use of their arms and/or legs. However, the process was not an easy one, and involved years of intense physiotherapy and strength training. For some of them, they need to continue to do this work permanently just to maintain use of the effected limbs, so much so that it impacts their ability to do things like work a full-time job and engage in their hobbies regularly, and even then, none of them will be able bodied again. Even with all that work, they all still experience reduced strength and reduced control of the limbs. depending on the type, place and severity of the injury, some people are able to get back to "almost able bodied" again - such was the case for my childhood best friend's dad, but they often still have to deal with chronic pain from the injury or chronic fatigue.
Even though we are talking about magic in a fantasy setting, we can still look to real-life examples of "cures" to get ideas. Perhaps the magic used has a similar side effect. Yes, your paraplegic character can be "cured" enough to walk again, but the magic maintaining the spell needs a power source to keep it going, so it draws on the person's innate energy within their body, using the very energy the body needs to function and do things like move their limbs. They are cured, but constantly exhausted unless they're very careful, and if the spell is especially strong, the body might struggle to move at all, resulting in something that looks and functions similar to the nerve damage folks with spinal injuries sometimes deal with that causes that muscle weakness and motor control issues. Your amputee might be able to have their leg regrown, but it will always be slightly off. The regrown leg is weaker and causes them to walk with a limp, maybe even requiring them to use a cane or other mobility aid.
Some characters might decide these trade-offs are worth it, and while this cures their initial disability, it leaves them with another. Others might simply decide the initial disability is less trouble than these side effects, and choose to stay as they are.
Consider if these are actually cures
Speaking of looking to the real world for ideas, you might also want to consider whether these cures are doing what the people peddling them are claiming they do. Let's look at the so-called autism cures that spring up every couple of months as an example.
Without getting into the… hotly debated specifics, there are many therapies that are often labelled as "cures" for autism, but in reality, all they are doing is teaching autistic people how to make their autistic traits less noticeable to others. This is called masking, and it's a skill that often comes at great cost to an autistic person's mental health, especially when it's a behaviour that is forced on them. Many of these therapies give the appearance of being a cure, but the disability is still there, as are the needs and difficulties that come with it, they're just hidden away. From an outside perspective though, it often does look like a success, at least in the short-term. Then there are the entirely fake cures with no basis in reality, the things you'll find from your classic snake-oil salesmen. Even in a fantasy setting where real magic exists, these kinds of scams and misleading treatments can still exist. In fact, I think it would make them even more common than they are in the real world, since there's less suspension of disbelief required for people to fall for them. "What do you mean this miracle tonic is a scam? Phil next door can conjure flames in his hand and make the plants grow with a snap of his fingers, why is it so hard to believe this tonic could regrow my missing limb?"
I think the only example of this approach I've seen, at least recently, is from The Owl House. The magic in this world can do incredible things, but it works in very specific and defined ways. Eda's curse (which can be viewed as an allegory for many disabilities and chronic illnesses) is seemingly an exception to this, and as such, nothing is able to cure it. Treat it, yes, but not cure it. Eda's mother doesn't accept this though, and seeks out a cure anyway and ends up falling for a scam who's "treatments" just make things worse.
In your own stories, you can either have these scams just not work, or kind of work, but in ways that are harmful and just not worth it, like worse versions of the examples in the previous point. Alternatively, like Eda, it's entirely reasonable that a character who's been the target of these scams before might just not want to bother anymore. Eda is a really good example of this approach handled in a way that doesn't make her sad and depressed about it either. She's tried her mum's methods, they didn't work, and now she's found her own way of dealing with it that she's happy with. She only gets upset when her boundaries are ignored by Luz and her mother.
Think about how the healing magic is actually working
If you have a magic system that leans more on the "hard magic" side of things, a great way to get around the issue of healing magic erasing disability is to stop and think about how your healing magic actually works.
My favourite way of doing this is to make healing magic work by accelerating the natural processes of your body. Your body will, given enough time (assuming it remains infection-free) close a slash from a sword and mend a broken bone, but it will never regrow it's own limbs. It will never heal damage to it's own spinal cord. It will never undo whatever causes autism or fix it's own irregularities. Not without help. Likewise, healing magic alone won't do any of these things either, it's just accelerating the existing process and usually, by extension making it safer, since a wound staying open for an hour before you get to a healer is much less likely to get infected than one that slowly and naturally heals over a few weeks. In one of my own works, I take this even further by making it that the healing magic is only accelerating cell growth and repair, but the healer has to direct it. In order to actually heal, the healer needs to know the anatomy of what they're fixing to the finest detail. A spell can reconnect a torn muscle to a bone, but if you don't understand the structures that allow that to happen in the first place, you're likely going to make things worse. For this reason, you won't really see people using this kind of magic to, say, regrow limbs, even though it technically is possible. A limb is a complicated thing. The healer needs to be able to perfectly envision all the bones, the cartilage, the tendons and ligaments, the muscles (including the little ones, like those found in your skin that make your hair stand on end and give you goose bumps), the fat and skin tissues, all the nerves, all the blood vessels, all the structures within the bone that create your blood. Everything, and they need to know how it all connects, how it is supposed to move and be able to keep that clearly in their mind simultaneously while casting. Their mental image also has to match with the patient's internal "map" of the body and the lost limb, or they'll continue to experience phantom limb sensation even if the healing is successful. It's technically possible, but the chances they'll mess something up is too high, and so it's just not worth the risk to most people, including my main character.
Put Restrictions on the magic
This is mostly just the same advice as above, but for softer magic systems. put limits and restrictions on your healing magic. These can be innate (so things the magic itself is just incapable of doing) or external (things like laws that put limitations on certain types of magic and spells).
An example of internal restriction can be seen in how some people interpret D&D's higher level healing spells like regenerate (a 7th level spell-something most characters won't have access to for quite some time). The rules as written specify that disabilities like lost limbs can be healed using this spell, but some players take this to mean that if a character was born with the disability in question, say, born without a limb, regenerate would only heal them back to their body's natural state, which for them, is still disabled.
An external restriction would be that your setting has outlawed healing magic, perhaps because healing magic carries a lot of risks for some reason, eithe to the caster or the person being healed, or maybe because the healing magic here works by selectively reviving and altering the function of cells, which makes it a form of necromancy, just on a smaller scale. Of course, you can also use the tried and true, "all magic is outlawed" approach too. In either case, it's something that will prevent some people from being able to access it, despite it being technically possible. Other external restrictions could look like not being illegal, per say, but culturally frowned upon or taboo where your character is from.
But what if I don't want to do any of this?
Well you don't have to. These are just suggestions to get you thinking about how to make a world where healing magic and disability exist, but they aren't the only ways. Just the ones I thought of.
Of course, if you'd still rather make a setting where all disability is cured because magic and you just don't want to think about it any deeper, I can't stop you. I do however, want to ask you to at least consider where you are going to draw the line. Disability, in essence, is what happens when the body stops (or never started) functioning "normally". Sometimes that happens because of an injury, sometimes it's just bad luck, but the boundary between disabled and not disabled is not as solid as I think a lot of people expect it to be, and we as a society have a lot of weird ideas about what is and isn't a disability that just, quite plainly and simply, aren't consistent. You have to remember, a magic system won't pick and choose the way we humans do, it will apply universally, regardless of our societal hang-ups about disability.
What do I mean about this?
Well, consider for a moment, what causes aging? it's the result of our body not being able to repair itself as effectively as it used to. It's the body not being able to perform that function "normally". So in a setting where all disability is cured, there would be no aging. No elderly people. No death from old age. If you erase disability, you also erase natural processes like aging. magic won't pick and choose like that, not if you want it to be consistent.
Ok, ok, maybe that's too much of a stretch, so instead, let's look at our stereotypical buff hero covered in scars because he's a badass warrior. but in a world where you can heal anything, why would anything scar? Even if it did, could another healing spell not correct that too? Scars are part of the body's natural healing process, but if no natural healing occurred, why would a scar form? Scars are also considered disabling in and of themselves too, especially large ones, since they aren't as flexible or durable as normal skin and can even restrict growth and movement.
Even common things like needing glasses are, using this definition of disability at least, a disability. glasses are a socially accepted disability aid used to correct your eyes when they do not function "normally".
Now to be fair, in reality, there are several definitions of disability, most of which include something about the impact of society. For example, in Australia (according to the Disability Royal Commission), we define disability as "An evolving concept that results from the interaction between a person with impairment(s) and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others." - or in laymen's terms, the interaction between a person's impairment and societal barriers like people not making things accessible or holding misinformed beliefs about your impairment (e.g. people in wheelchairs are weaker than people who walk). Under a definition like this, things like scars and needing glasses aren't necessarily disabilities (most of the time) but that's because of how our modern society sees them. The problem with using a definition like this though to guide what your magic system will get rid of, is that something like a magic system won't differentiate between an "impairment" that has social impacts that and one that doesn't. It will still probably get rid of anything that is technically an example of your body functioning imperfectly, which all three of these things are. The society in your setting might apply these criteria indirectly, but really, why would they? Very few people like the side effects of aging on the body (and most people typically don't want to die), the issues that come with scars or glasses are annoying (speaking as someone with both) and I can see a lot of people getting rid of them when possible too. If they don't then it's just using the "not everyone wants it approach" I mentioned earlier. If there's some law or some kind of external pressure to push people away from fixing these more normalised issues, then it's using the "restrictions" method I mentioned earlier too.
Once again, you can do whatever you like with your fantasy setting, but it's something I think that would be worth thinking about at least.
Possession Code Super Explosion
hey did i mention it very mildly annoys me when people confuse possession/mind control/hivemind infections/other similar tropes, so i made an entire “possession shorthand” code that can communicate almost all aspects of a possession/mind control/jekyll and hyde/etc character in a string of letters and numbers
i was very bored
^ conditions
^ more detailed explanations of each condition
edit: Here i made this its even more. detailed explanations beacuse the previous explanations sucked still. also you can use the phrase “reoccuring” instead of “jekyll and hyde” for brevity or if you’re just uncomfortable with using the latter term for any reason 👍
i tried to make it so that you can communicate enough to get a basic idea for the dynamic of any possession-esque character. DO i plan on using this to communicate with anyone? No but it’s fun to have
(rules for use if you wanna use it for some reason:
1. DON’T use for characters/people with DID, OSDD, etc. this is supposed to be for silly fictional tropes you’d see in a cartoon not Dissociative Disorders)
2. DON’T use for f*tish/s*xual purposes fuck you)
So I have only my two cents to give on the "curing disabilities in fantasy/sci-fi stories" trope, as just one disabled person among many disabled people, but here are my two cents nonetheless.
One defense of the trope is that it's simply a form of escapism, and moreover, a fantasy that disabled people themselves can quite reasonably find joy in — as a feel-good story, a break from all the pain of real life. Many — not all by a long shot, but many — of us would jump at the chance for a cure, after all, and it's not like we're not valid to do so. Lots of us take pride in being disabled, but nevertheless, sometimes it really fucking sucks.
The counterargument to the above is this: that this isn't a realistic trope, and that particularly in combination with the suffocating frequency that this trope is used, this becomes the opposite of a hopeful fantasy. When you have an incurable condition, and the only happy endings you see represented for people like you in fiction are inevitably only achieved once the characters stop being like you — that can be indescribably upsetting.
Disabled characters do not get happy endings while remaining disabled — and fiction is fiction and all, but I'm not going to pretend like this doesn't have gradual, accumulative real-life effects on the amount of effort people/society are willing to put into accessibility and acceptance, because of beliefs like "aren't you going to be cured someday anyway?" Or "isn't this disability just going to stop existing, someday? one way or another?"
I hope I don't have to explain how damaging it is to think the above way, or to imagine a future where disability doesn't exist. (Yes, even though disability is partially socially constructed. That's a load-bearing "partially".)
So, if you couldn't tell, I do generally relate a lot more to the harsher, more critical view of this trope — but I certainly don't want to judge actual disabled people for writing it either (and especially not people with progressive conditions), not when there is genuine catharsis and escapist joy that can be wrung from it. I obviously don't trust non-disabled folks with writing "cure" stories any further than I could throw them, due to a long fucking history of non-disabled people fucking it up — but also, no one should be forced to reveal personal details, let alone medical history, to justify their choice to write something.
This is the paradox that I am willing to come to terms with, by throwing up my hands and saying, "okay, so some of the time I sure don't like it, but it's technically none of my business."
That said: if you're non-disabled, or you're writing about a disability much different from your own (a physical disability when you're autistic, for example), and you want to write an escapist feel-good story featuring disabled characters: I also want to stress that "escapist themes" versus "no one's disability gets cured ever" is very much a false binary. You can have both.
I've never written a "curing a disability" story. But I've both written and enjoyed some extremely escapist, unashamedly hopeful stories revolving around disabled characters — and it's all about accommodation.
A story of any genre where society is more accepting of — and willing to collectively help care for — chronic illnesses and chronic pain? That's escapist, and if it's something that characters once fought tooth and nail for, it's pretty damn cathartic. A fantasy or sci-fi story where medicines are still required to treat a condition, but the medicines are more accessible, more effective, et cetera, may also be escapist depending on the context.
Fantasy service animals, high-tech service robots, magical or indistinguishable-from-magic mobility devices? They're all possibly escapist too. (Just note that a lot of disabled people may still maintain a personal preference for seeing the "real world" versions, and that's that's also perfectly reasonable. Remember that the gripe with the original trope has a lot to do with a lack of variety in representation, justified by arbitrary rules about how fantasy/sci-fi "should" look, and the goal should be not to replicate that.)
So, in conclusion: if you find yourself writing a disabled character, and want to give them a happy ending, I urge you not to jump to "their disability is cured now" without at least thinking through the alternatives. Do your research regardless, and accept that disabled people will likely have a wide range of opinions on whatever you decide to go with — but accept that disabilities themselves are varied, and should not inherently have to consign either characters or real human beings to tragic lives by their mere existence.
Some people have asked me if I can publish my mapmaking tools. So I developed a software. 🙂
Here is the result:
