Questions tagged [low-fantasy]
For questions focused on worlds where magic exists, but is rare, in a world otherwise abiding to natural laws.
235
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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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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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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 ...
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4
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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 ...
- 13.4k
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3
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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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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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1
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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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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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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 ...
- 13.4k
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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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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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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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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 ...
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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 ...
- 2,694
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
- 2,694
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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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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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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 ...
- 2,694
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4
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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 ...
- 13.4k
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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 ...
- 2,694
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Flammable Dragon Oil
I was seeing in this post an answer about an organic way for a carnivorous dragon to produce fire. It is said that the dragon produces a synthesized oil from the diet that, in conjunction with the ...
- 2,694
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3
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What Benefits Could Tongue-eating Lice Have For Mermaids
Well, after asking Would mermaids be affected by tongue-eating lice evolving alongside them?, I realized they would be a worthy addition to a more monstrous subspecies of mermaid. There's only one ...
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2
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Explaining Falscale
Falscale are large bugs that parasitize dragons in a most unusual way. You see, they take off a dragon's scales and take their place. There are two ways this could work:
A Falscale takes off a dragon ...
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2
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131
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Gravity operated railroads in a low tech fantasy world?
I'm working on a low tech setting for a fantasy story. I'd like to see how far I can get operating within the laws of physics (no magic, gunpowder, or steam-powered devices) but still produce ...
- 409
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3
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What Uses Will Chompers Have In Medieval Society?
This overdue question concerns Chompers, which are adequately explained in this link. As a general rule, humanity either eliminates species or finds a use for them, and so I have to wonder what humans ...
- 13.4k
2
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8
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396
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Breaking the Laws of Thermodynamics without Invoking Magic or the Divine
Title pretty much says it all honestly. I wanna design a character for my fantasy story with abilities that are not only shown to break the laws of thermodynamics (the first and second laws ...
- 347
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1
answer
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Utility of Grafts In Medieval Society
What Are Grafts?
Grafts are special bodily modifications, created through magic and typically used by a small percentage of adventurers who care more about performance or cool abilities than ...
- 13.4k
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5
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How Quickly Can you Get From a Population Of 100 Humans to a Walled City-State?
For an RPG, I'm building a world that is the inverse of the fantasy world which contains ancient ruins and long-lost arcane secrets. This world will be home to the folks who built those first ...
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3
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What Adaptations Do Viji Need To Survive On Mountains?
"Metal Monsters?" Yeah, creatures called Viji. Their distinguishing traits are as follows:
1: Orb-like heads
2: Strong talons (noted for viselike grip and capacity to lock on grasped objects)...
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12
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19
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Why Would Adventurers and Mages Wear Impractical Clothing?
What Is The Problem?
In this question, a woman from the modern age is brought into the medieval era, which is problematic because what we consider fashionable today is incredibly immodest. In my story,...
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21
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14
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What kind of weapon would be most useful for a fantasy civilization of blind creatures?
In my low-fantasy setting there is a civilization of completely blind humanoid creatures. Their ability to perceive the world is directly related to the other senses (hearing, smell and touch), which ...
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1
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Gaining a Better Understanding on how Sand Powers Work
Awhile ago, I posted a question on this site asking how a group of air-controlling mages could use their powers to create and project lightning/electricity, sorta like an Avatar/LoK sub-bending art ...
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17
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Why is this less profitable for an adventurer to craft and then sell an artefact, rather than to sell ingredients needed to craft the artefact?
Suppose we have standard world of fantasy RPG videogame. The MC (main character) earns money by killing monsters and then selling loot. Also, sometimes there are people happy to pay generous reward ...
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9
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How can nations control large plains and deserts?
How can organized nations in a fantasy setting control large land masses (20-30,000 km²) made of deserts, rocky deserts, and drymuds?
By control, I mean enforcing laws, defending it during conflicts, ...
- 227
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8
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Usefulness of a weapon based on throwing hot water
The people of my flat medieval fantasy world have found a rune that generates infinite boiling water, and they want to use it to kill each other. Sadly the water cannot be made with momentum included, ...
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3
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Evolution of Monks [closed]
Wait, what? Monks...evolving? Don't worry, I don't mean biological evolution, I mean social evolution, the natural progression and alteration of a societal role, specifically the Monk Class.
...
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Why there is white ash everywhere?
In my world a war happened between a few tribal leaders a really long time ago. Those leaders had nearly god-like magical powers, giving them the ability to modify bodies, matter (like earth, stone, ...
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7
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Medieval rebel army, mostly peasants, led by a small number of men with considerable military experience. What is camp life like?
In continuation to this question, my small (for now) force, made mostly of peasants, is rebelling against an empire that has conquered their land. Most people of this force have no military experience,...
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1
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Explaining Swinger, giant bugs with swinging methods of hunting
What Are Swinger?
Swinger are giant bugs (ranging from the size of a toy mallet to a mace), teardrop-shaped with a stalk growing out of their dorsal (top) side at the pointy end of their body. ...
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How hard would it be for a blacksmith to produce a cauldron?
I'm writing a story with a fantasy-adventure-like background. The usual world where adventurers take quests and explore dungeons, but instead, I want my main focus to be on the support roles. Those ...
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17
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How can children dying increase fitness?
There are three true gods in the world: Order, Chaos and Nature. All of them patron a couple of humanoid races that carry their values. While Order and Chaos carry on their petty feud fought by their ...
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A huge forest native almost solely to elves who are widely regarded with hatred. What's to stop an army from simply burning the entire forest? [closed]
A big army, fearful and hateful of elves, is standing in front of the forest they all (or vast majority of) reside in. Behind them is a stream, and beyond the forest is the coast. What is to stop them ...
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What's a good fire-resistant material to write on?
In my setting (pretty generic medieval fantasy), certain valuable texts can simply not be copied (because of certain religious beliefs, a will to protect information through secrecy or because of some ...
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5
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Medieval fantasy world, rebel forces against an empire, how can the rebels win? [closed]
So I found myself in this situation:
My characters are in a land composed mainly of city states with some degree of recognition of common nationality (a la greeks at the time of the persian wars), the ...
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