Questions tagged [low-fantasy]

For questions focused on worlds where magic exists, but is rare, in a world otherwise abiding to natural laws.

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Societies After A Sudden 'Ice Age'

About 300 years ago, my world underwent massive climate change. It suddenly shifted from something we'd consider normal/livable to a climate similar to that of the last glacial maximum. (Side note: I ...
aquariumgravel's user avatar
15 votes
7 answers
5k views

Will a Humans Tolerance Keep Going Until Full Immunity?

Context: This is a post apocalypse low fantasy, soft science world. In it megacorps have built a protected city for citizens to survive. The world outside the walls in dangerous, with toxic gas, ...
Saxionkin's user avatar
  • 333
9 votes
6 answers
2k views

Alternative chalk board materials

For the sake of context, this is a fantasy setting where this character has no access to magic and lives in a small village. He would like to write a book and since wiriting materials are a little ...
PompousPamplemouse 's user avatar
13 votes
16 answers
5k views

How to serve the gods

TL;DR: How can a mortal become worthy of being listened to by the gods? I'm seeking a logical framework to establish a specific relationship between gods and mortals. The Relationship: Mortals can ...
user avatar
13 votes
15 answers
5k views

How can kaiju exist in nature and not significantly alter civilization?

I'm building a world where kaiju-sized creatures exist alongside regular-sized creatures. How these kaiju don't crumble under their own weight doesn't matter, and can be explained away by them being ...
M Arif Rahman Winandar's user avatar
13 votes
7 answers
2k views

What would a potion that increases resistance to damage actually do to the body?

Alright, we are in a medieval fantasy setting. In this setting, northern warriors (basically vikings or typical fantasy barbarians) have berserkers that use certain potions that make themselves ...
Chuck's user avatar
  • 1,269
5 votes
3 answers
339 views

How to non-lethally capture a sapient gorilla using only what can be found in an average American kitchen? [closed]

I'm writing this story where a good friend of the main character gets kidnapped by a clan of sapient Gorilla-like creatures. In order to find where they are keeping him captive, the MC decides that ...
SmartBulbInc's user avatar
  • 1,513
10 votes
15 answers
4k views

Unconventional ranged weapon for primitive sci-fantasy race?

This race lives underground in massive caverns/cave network. Hundreds of square miles large per cavern. Large/wide/tall enough that they have their own atmospheric conditions, essentially large ...
Bastion's user avatar
  • 101
5 votes
1 answer
204 views

How long do Brown Bear coats/pelts last?

I have a character who intends to wear the pelt of a Brown Bear at a particular point in time. That doesn't come about for a decade. I was wondering how badly degraded, or preserved will the coat be ...
jay moore's user avatar
3 votes
5 answers
2k views

Building a settlement in a place in temporal stasis. What problems the settlers would face?

In my low-fantasy world there is a place where the environment has been frozen by magic in some kind of temporal stasis. It's an antarctic type of environment, with mountains and huge ice sheets: ...
Soel's user avatar
  • 919
1 vote
6 answers
563 views

Star that creates millions of galaxies through a massive coronal mass ejection. Does this make any sense? [closed]

I want to base my novel off of the idea of a star creating millions of galaxies from a gigantic coronal mass ejection. Due to this it spawns the void which threatens to absorb the entirety of space, ...
Nivek's user avatar
  • 53
16 votes
11 answers
5k views

What problems would a truly gigantic fantasy city encounter?

Supposing a world that falls somewhere between low and high magic, what would stop a city of truly epic size from existing? The city is a city-state that has existed for millennia. It is pretty much ...
biziclop's user avatar
  • 2,972
9 votes
8 answers
6k views

How can I heat my buildings without fire in a low-fantasy setting?

In my low-fantasy setting there is a civilization of blind people living in a very safe and isolated region of the world. Thinking about how this civilization could have developed throughout the ...
Soel's user avatar
  • 919
6 votes
8 answers
4k views

Removing slaves' digit to prevent uprising

What digit, if removed, would hamper a human from fighting using medieval weaponry? (I'm toying with both thumbs but this may be too limiting in the work that the slaves can do or both little fingers ...
Corrbear's user avatar
  • 111
3 votes
1 answer
573 views

Peak Copper Age Society

How far could the technology of a copper age society get; Could they work up to the level of late antiquity? Context: Im working on a si-fi/fantasy world were people have been transplanted onto a ...
William.L's user avatar
  • 327
3 votes
1 answer
120 views

Help with a planet that resembles Mercury: double sunset/sunrise etc

I'm new. I'm here because I need help for the geography of a fantasy planet I'm building. I don't want to be scientific, but I also want that my planet is credible. I imagined a planet that has maybe ...
Lucrezia's user avatar
7 votes
3 answers
278 views

Can ecological collapse happen in a person's lifetime?

I'm writing a story for a character who is a an old monster hunter. In his younger days, he used to make a living by hunting the most dangerous monsters which are basically the story's equivalent of ...
M Arif Rahman Winandar's user avatar
6 votes
5 answers
799 views

Question on gravity and its relation to weight and force

I'm working on a character for a story that has the ability to somewhat play around with gravitational forces, mainly weight reduction stuff but I'm sure there's other applications. Practically this ...
Mythror's user avatar
  • 69
6 votes
2 answers
376 views

Formula for calculating aging rate of a decaying half-elf dynasty

A powerful human king had a child with an elf princess. His life expectancy is about 70 years (human average), hers is 2000 years. The half-elf prince is expected to live for about 1000 years, more or ...
MoholyNagy's user avatar
  • 1,097
0 votes
1 answer
166 views

Humans breeding with dragons [closed]

Firstly, by dragon I am referring to the type with 4 legs a tail and wings. Their actual sizes vary greatly, from the size of your average house cat to feasting on planets in one bite. Most are ...
PirateFox's user avatar
0 votes
4 answers
126 views

Amazon drones controlled by magic, how to control as many as possible with your brain given low technology level but runic alternative to coding [closed]

My research: In the real world the technology to read and interpret the human brain has been arround for almost a century now and the idea of controlling devices with your brain has been around for ...
user avatar
10 votes
9 answers
3k views

How do you motivate people to post flyers around town?

This one feels a bit trivial, but I am genuinely stumped on how best to word a job specification that one of my characters is posting in a fantasy world. The basic idea is I have a dwarf who is in a ...
Andrew Micallef's user avatar
1 vote
3 answers
568 views

How do I Make the "Anime Girl Warrior Physique" Realistic?

In some Anime, Women look nothing at all like men, yet are capable of nearly the same exact feats of physical strength: Image from Dragon Ball Super Is there a way to manipulate biology and ...
Neuro's user avatar
  • 95
12 votes
14 answers
5k views

How to prevent super-strong slaves from escaping and rebelling

I have a fantasy setting that is about as advanced as the late 15th to early 16th century. There are humans and many other sapient non-human species; humans are one of the only species to create large ...
BoaHancocklover's user avatar
12 votes
6 answers
3k views

How can I make combination weapons widespread in my world?

I'm writing a low fantasy fiction in a XVIII century-tech kind of world. The reason of the setting is that I love early modern muzzleloading weapons, and I think guns can make fantasy more interesting....
MAG's user avatar
  • 487
4 votes
3 answers
208 views

Sea serpent evolved into dragon anatomy?

In my story there are scary monstrous sea serpent like creatures of all shapes and sizes. What the people don’t know, is (reverse whale evolution theory) they came to shore and turned into something ...
KATE's user avatar
  • 43
3 votes
1 answer
134 views

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 ...
Wolfensniper's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
195 views

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) ...
an owl with internet access's user avatar
8 votes
5 answers
278 views

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 ...
not chocobo's user avatar
31 votes
15 answers
8k views

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. ...
Alendyias's user avatar
  • 13.4k
1 vote
2 answers
142 views

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 ...
Sangeetha's user avatar
  • 357
8 votes
5 answers
2k views

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 ...
Brinstar77's user avatar
  • 1,487
8 votes
4 answers
209 views

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 ...
merz1v's user avatar
  • 81
27 votes
14 answers
6k views

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,...
Doguskang's user avatar
  • 439
-1 votes
3 answers
126 views

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 ...
Alendyias's user avatar
  • 13.4k
0 votes
2 answers
76 views

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 ...
Alendyias's user avatar
  • 13.4k
12 votes
3 answers
1k views

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 ...
Alendyias's user avatar
  • 13.4k
3 votes
5 answers
181 views

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 ...
Alendyias's user avatar
  • 13.4k
8 votes
5 answers
296 views

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 ...
Alendyias's user avatar
  • 13.4k
2 votes
3 answers
95 views

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 ...
allthatisandeverwas's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
120 views

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 ...
Alendyias's user avatar
  • 13.4k
0 votes
1 answer
86 views

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 ...
Alendyias's user avatar
  • 13.4k
3 votes
1 answer
77 views

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 ...
Alendyias's user avatar
  • 13.4k
3 votes
1 answer
60 views

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, ...
Alendyias's user avatar
  • 13.4k
25 votes
17 answers
9k views

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 ...
TheEmperorProtects's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
116 views

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, ...
Alendyias's user avatar
  • 13.4k
12 votes
8 answers
2k views

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 ...
Faegir Dariusson's user avatar
13 votes
10 answers
2k views

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 ...
Alendyias's user avatar
  • 13.4k
2 votes
1 answer
203 views

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, ...
Momoke's user avatar
  • 66
6 votes
5 answers
544 views

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 '...
Alendyias's user avatar
  • 13.4k

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