Questions tagged [low-fantasy]
For questions focused on worlds where magic exists, but is rare, in a world otherwise abiding to natural laws.
209
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How to design a “legendary looking bow” that fits a Medieval European fantasy? [closed]
Introduction
We often see bows and archer heroes (and heroines) being depicted in various fantasy series, wielding some “legendary bows” with bizarre and pointy shapes which looks like unattended ...
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1
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How would technology differ in a society with different intelligent species than just humans?
In my story, Longhorn, there’s five races descended from five gods of the same names, which consist of humans, keratas (anthropomorphic big cats w horns) lykos (anthropomorphic Wolf/hyena creatures) ...
8
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5
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235
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A Pangaean civilization has its land split apart by something
I want to write a story that has a Pangaean like world, but human civilization already existed during that era. Basically, the earth just has one giant piece of land while the rest is the sea.
People ...
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30
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15
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Best Way to Style Ridiculously Long Hair (for magic purposes)
Okay, so for the story I am working on, I have a problem-or, rather, Serena the Shaman/Witch has a distinct problem. She has only one low-mana spell-Hydro Jet-and it deals low but consistent damage. ...
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1
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2
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Clothing preference and Skin type of race which can absorb heat energy via skin?
My alien race is able to absorb energy via the skin, like plants using sunlight for photosynthesis.
The race eats a lot of food, like humans, But they need this absorbed energy for their proper inner ...
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What's a viable reason for why underground societies are more accepting of slavery?
In fantasy, a relatively common trope in fantasy settings, particularly D&D, is underground societies that are more willing to endorse slavery than surface-dwelling societies.
We see it in the ...
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7
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4
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Is there development of advanced polymers/composite materials?
Background: seeking modern technologies, resources, etc that could potentially be discovered and applied in a fantasy setting where manufacturing processes, while advanced, are more akin to the late ...
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14
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What would prevent the genocide of a legitimately dangerous race?
I’m writing a low magic fantasy story in which there’s a race of creatures called shadow-thralls that were basically bred as a slave race by a wizard thousands of years in the past. In the present day,...
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3
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Why Would Serazor Wield Axes? [closed]
Serazor. These odd dragons in Dracoriri are unusual in that their eyes appear dark, but they act about as intelligent as a primate or bear (yes bears are, in fact, intelligent). With their chiseled ...
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2
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Development of Firespines [closed]
The land of Dracori contains many magical creatures. One of these is the Firespline Landfish (also called a Terrakanthes).
The Terrakanthes looks like a chubby lizard, with a ridge of magical spikes ...
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12
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3
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How Would Humanoids Form Their Own Gems?
Sequinoans. This strange race of Amazonians has many unusual traits, but the foremost our scholars are concerned with are their gems. You see, Sequinoans somehow form gems naturally, perfectly smooth ...
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3
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5
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How Can a Bug Larvae Hijack a Robot?
When inactive, the robot looks like a Steelstone arch. Steelstone resembles marble only it is virtually indestructible. The knowledge to work Steelstone was lost thousands of years ago.
When the robot ...
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7
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5
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Why would a herbivore be armed and aggressive?
In Dracoriri, I plan to have a species of small dragon called a Malidge (by small, we mean about the size of a human). These dragons are red, shiny, and covered in plates instead of scales, a natural ...
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2
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3
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An earthlike world is flooded with fantasy flora and fauna. What happens to the ecosystem, and how long does it take to recover? [closed]
Let's assume for the sake of argument that:
It's a 50/50ish split between new prey/predators herbivores/carnivores being introduced. So already a bit imbalanced.
The creatures/flora make sense ...
4
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2
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112
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How Can Crashdrake Live In a Pine Forest?
Crashdrakes. These dragons are, for just about any intent or purpose, a cassowary, or in other words they are big, flightless, highly aggressive and yet herbivorous death birds. Seeing that dragons in ...
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How Can a Creature With Rock Armor Also Have an Inflating Head?
Globold are darkeye dragons with some rather unusual traits. Their bodies are more or less cylindrical, with a rounded chest and a sloping back, with two small arms and two big legs and a tail like a ...
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3
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Canidrakes: Determining Their Niche
Canidrakes are a well-known and relatively common species of darkeyed dragon, which due to convergent evolution and perhaps some magic resemble wolves but are bigger-most Canidrakes are like dire ...
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3
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1
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56
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Best Non-Arctic Environment for Chimerake
Chimerake are a species of brighteyed dragon, known for their aggressive and territorial natures. They are like tyrannosaurs, but the size of an Indian rhino, quadrupedal and covered in fluffy fur, ...
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25
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17
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How could people in the medieval times defeat an armored vehicle?
In my setting there is a mad artificer making armored cars for the army. The cars have wooden frames with 10 mm of steel on every side, wooden wheels with metal plates covering them, and are propelled ...
3
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1
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Gastric Reversion: How Can It Work?
Scerafin, a species of quadrupedal darkeyed dragon that resemble sharks but live on land, are known for their telescoping necks (range of 3 yards), razor-sharp lance (read: snout horn) and tailfin, ...
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12
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8
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How would an underground society measure time? [duplicate]
I have a very mind-boggling question about time reckoning.
I have a race of Dwarves, that at the very beginning of their history lived only underground and were forbidden to reach the surface. They ...
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10
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Variable Intelligence Among Dragons
In the land of Dracoriri, there are dragons. There weren't always dragons, once humans were the dominant species, but then magic-an unexplained phenomenon-invaded earth alongside creatures from ...
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What could someone who is able to add to their muscle mass accomplish?
In my world I have a type of magic user who grows stronger the more they kill animals and people.
Currently I conceptualise this as a sort of pocket dimension muscle, whenever they kill a creature, ...
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Explaining Anthropomorphism In Later Development
After 1000 years of dwelling in apocalyptic shelters, some brave souls have begun exploring the surface. (This is how Rhydars were discovered and documented, by the way.) Among the first things these '...
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3
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Explaining Symbiosis for Rhydar
If you don't know what a Rhydar is, please see here and here.
So, Rhydar are pretty interesting creatures. Post-apocalypse radiation and magical energy (long story short, this world was apocalyzed-...
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4
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How do you prove whether there are four elements?
A person from our world visits a (low magic) fantasy universe. Now, obviously our hero considers our world's science to be more advanced than the pseudo medieval world he finds himself in. But he ...
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8
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8
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Determining Feasible Mermaid Locomotion Methods (Land Edition)
Lately, I've again pondered how mermaids could move on land. I know certain fish, like frogfish, devilfish, and even batfish, as well as mudskippers, have developed fins that work as feet.
However, I'...
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7
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How would a humanoid gain a symbiotic head bulb?
Seedgirls look like ordinary girls but they have a big green bulb on their head. This bulb holds a powder they use to speed and enhance plant growth. My question is how the bulb gets there in the ...
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How Fireproof Could a Fire Creature Be?
Typically in fantasy, creatures that are infused with fire (dragons, pyromancers, fire elementals, fire-infused monsters, you get the drift right?) seem to be completely unharmed by said fire and its ...
- 13k
6
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4
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841
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Feasibility of Velocisharks
This question is all about how a shark can evolve to have the following traits:
Amphibious
Pack behavior
Dromaeosaurid form (bipedal, scaly, with four talons and a sleek but strong frame-resembling a ...
- 13k
2
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3
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232
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Strength of Little Mermaids
This is a successor of Little Mermaids: Will They Survive? and concerns the strength a little mermaid has to throw around.
You see, a little mermaid has enhanced strength; the strength of a typical ...
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1
answer
110
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Fire-monster Pouch Development
Kapowch is a kangaroo-like creature infused with Fire magic, which naturally leads to certain problems with its pouch, no matter how you slice it. First of all, even if it’s open like a real kangaroo’...
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Rubberizing's Effects on Giant Caterpillars
Giant caterpillars vs. Plops = Giant caterpillars > Plop
It appears, since giant caterpillars lack bones and possibly rigid parts in general, they could serve as a viable Plop predator despite ...
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4
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1
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248
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Little Mermaids: Will They Survive?
No, this question is not about creating a subspecies of mermaid that all happen to look and act like a certain Disney princess. Not at all, in fact. You see, mermaids in my setting are capable of ...
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5
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Feasibility of Giant Butterflies as Predators
I have asked multiple questions about giant caterpillars, now it's time to account for their evolutions. Sure, giant flowers could and probably would exist in Alendyias; an Engorger dying in a flowery ...
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3
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1
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Determining the Best Wild Anklebiter Predator
The natural sequel to Making a Predator For Wild Anklebiters, which was inconclusive. You see, Wild Anklebiters are chimeric monsters-being equal parts flower, worm, and leech-with a rather ...
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2
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Explaining Chasers as a Evolutionary Stage of a Caterpillar
I recently discovered Chasers (described here) are basically impossible as a form of giant caterpillar, since caterpillars are a larval stage and need to store energy for metamorphosis. However, if ...
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1
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Feasibility of Giant Caterpillar Archetypes
Note: This question is not about the feasibility of giant caterpillars. That is covered by the addition of magic. However, evolution and natural selection still apply to magical beings (and I love ...
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5
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3
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How Could Giant Caterpillars Come to Prey On Leafmaw?
Leafmaw are terrible monsters. Evolved from hydras or octopi (which developed to live on land), they possess the Mimicry enchantment, but unlike Octoplop, lack the ability to mimic anything but bushes....
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2
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Explaining Flight for Mermaids
Alright, so after deciding mermaids would be an all-female species, I realized I had to put some work into reworking Sirens. Originally, the Greeks conceived of half-woman, half-bird creatures they ...
- 13k
2
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1
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Thunderbird Questions: Insulator
Introduction:
I posted a while ago about a lightning dragon and one of the answers was really interesting. The answer, in this case, is from Mr Adrian Colomitchi, it was very detailed, but I still ...
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How could an animal produce miraculous saliva?
Many species arise from evolution, but as in many fantasy works the creatures are created by gods, titans or something similar, so I think this gives a certain freedom to create creatures with ...
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7
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2
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255
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Determining Predator/Prey Relationship for Plop and Chompers
Yes, I know I've created two different questions that resulted in a Plop or Chomper predator, respectively. However, given that Plops and Chompers are among the most common monsters in Alendyias, it ...
- 13k
4
votes
1
answer
89
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Convection Cells in the Atmosphere of a Jupiter-Sized Planet
Background
The setting for a story I am creating is an earth-like planet near jovian surface area, existing in a universe where the force of gravity is appreciably weaker than in our own, such that a ...
- 275
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0
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80
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Light Gas for Large Flyers [duplicate]
I'm kind of on a journey in search of how to scientifically explain fantastic creatures in a way that doesn't rely on magic, because I think that makes things more interesting. Currently my biggest ...
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26
votes
9
answers
3k
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The green and the dragons
In several fantasy works they have the iconic dragons, giant reptile creatures and that commonly breathe fire. In some works these creatures were tamed and trained to serve as military weapons in wars,...
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7
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5
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Transportation in a fantasy world without wood
In my low-fantasy world wood is a very limited resource because all forests are haunted. Cutting a tree often means drawing the wrath of the creatures living in the woods, resulting in some very ...
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2
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1
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Four-legged Flying Animals
Pegasus, griffins, dragons, sphinxes, hippogriffs... I think all of them
these fantastic creatures are very fascinating and challenging when it comes to explaining how they fly without relying on ...
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votes
4
answers
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How Would Monsters Adapt to Respawning Adventurers? [closed]
Monsters are creatures mutated by Chaos Energy, which is the driving force behind "magic" in my setting. However, humans were also changed by Chaos Energy; mysterious beings called Kanyeri ...
- 13k
5
votes
2
answers
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Pegasus Flight Problem
I've been searching here at the WBSE (I hope this acronym is correct and doesn't offend anyone) for answers on how a pegasus could be scientifically correct and I found these post: Anatomically ...
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