Worldbuilding Diary #1 - The Desert (Patreon)

Happy October! Coming by with an immediate audio drop, of sorts. This one isn't an RP ASMR, nor is it NSFW (though occasionally a NSFW topic may come up in these), though I did record it in an ASMR style. I'm also going to, probably tomorrow because I'm very tired, gather all of the Desert story audios into one collection.

In between major releases I want to start working on these diaries and developing my setting more. It's a good way to build for future audios, and to show you what's to come, rather than me just having a jumbled ball of random ideas I work through slowly.

Let me know if you enjoy this sort of thing! Regular ASMR RP audios will be back soon. :)

Below I've included a rough transcript of the audio, as well as a map of the region that I scribbled on. I will be referring to this map in the recording. I've also attached this map, which should be easier to read than the in-line version. I say rough because I wrote a general outline and then I adlibbed a bit, but it's pretty close.

(One last thing: There's a question at the end of the audio, and the bottom of this post!)

LOOSE TRANSCRIPT

This is going to be the first lore/world building audio I post. For now, I'm going to be focusing on top level views of things. Like, world layout, overviews of kingdoms and basic relations and how they function. I'm not going to get into the finer details YET, and I may do that in the Sasha RP audios. Also, the desert is lacking a lot of populace, so unlike some lore dumps, this one won't be super long. There's also more to develop in the future since it's such a large space.

I've decided to start with the desert because it has quite a few audios to it already, plus I just love the aesthetics and vibes that usually come with this kind of region. For me, it inspires curiosity for ancient civilizations, lost treasure, ruins, and such. The desert has such a great spirit of adventure to it.

From here on out, I will be referring to the map that is included in the post. I've marked it up for you as well.

Let's start with the two major civilizations in this region.

First, around the rivers up here, this is where the Lamia kingdom is, and where the various audios involving the Lamia Queen take place, as well as Safi.

Their territory previously covered more south and west toward the mountain ranged, covering small villages that surrounded various oases and pockets of natural resources.

The villages not near an oasis were supplied additional food and water by the capitol, as the natural resources were important in production of various goods for citizens.

Given the proximity toward the savanna, there's also some presence up there as well, but beyond a bit of farmland and hunting, they never really expanded northward, as some of their neighbors made it difficult. The gnolls weren't aggressive enough to move into the desert, but made it hard to really make good use the savanna.

Even with that, though, the savanna makes for a good source of food and wood. I do want to make a note here that, contrary to how much people envision savannas as being large rolling plains with sparse trees, there's actually quite a bit of tree density.

By the way, we'll talk more about gnolls later, but I imagine them having a central hub or stronghold here around this y-shaped river.

Next, let's move out west to the biiig mountain range.

There's this river here that extends up into the mountains. This is where I envisioned the Jackal Queen living at.

There's a big walled off fortress city up here... Imagine kind of like Helm's Deep, I guess, but tucked into a canyon. Then a bunch of smaller towns and villages that extend down the river. Everything here is a mixture of actual built structures, and homes carved into the side of the canyon walls.

There's also some tunnels that run out through the mountain and connect to the west. These are used to move troops and resources and facilitate ease of trade.

Getting food out here wasn't easy at first, even with the riverbed helping provide, but now there's a combination of surface farming, mushroom farming, and fishing. Hunting expeditions DO head out, but there's really not a ton of animals to hunt in this area.

I like to imagine the mountains are full of resources, both base metals and precious, which contributes to their military being so well developed. One of the big things they're missing though is that there's very very little wood available. Yes, there's oases in their territory, but they're otherwise lacking. While they do trade with Urvasc to the northwest, which we'll talk about soon, that territory is complete shit for wood also. There's at least rooty plants and such available to make cordage with, but wood is precious. Efforts have been made to create tree farms, but they haven't really had success.

By the way, I haven't really named this kingdom, or the lamia, so for now I'm just referring to it like... The Domain of the Jackal Queen, or something kinda intimidating like that.

Anyway. Natural citizens in this country are treated well... or well enough. As long as they lick the boot and do their job, they're fed and cared for. Ramla is evil but she's not stupid, she knows what to do to keep her people loyal. Mercenaries are treated well also, if you recall from her prior audio. I may need to revisit that, though, and see if any lore adjustments are needed. It has been a few years.

Conquered peoples are treated less well... Especially those that were previously ruled by the lamia. They're expected to produce the same resources as before, but with far less care and support.

The Jackals don't really have any allies at this point. They have one trading partner, Urvasc, who eyes them very carefully. Urvasc only supplies materials, some luxuries and some food. Largely things that could provide for the people. Leadership is very cautious to not allow trading of anything that would directly contribute to war. You could argue the food can go to troops, but it can go to the populace as well. It isn't the same as trading weapons, or magical components, etc.

Urvasc tries to be a neutral trading country, by the way. They also aren't entirely aware of the scope of what's going on in the desert. I also do want to add that, RIGHT NOW, Urvasc has the sheer military might to utterly overwhelm the Jackal Queen. She knows this and is working on a solution that would neutralize their undead army.

By the way, if you're wondering why I keep talking about things like food and resources, I think it's a very important consideration of worldbuilding to think about how people actually live in places. If you've ever played a game and seen a lot of people with homes but nothing of what sustains them doesn't it strike you as a little bit odd?

Now, from here, let's move on to things like minor populaces and destroyed civilizations and such.

Up in this range, around the mountains between the desert and savannah... we have a secret little like, foresty or jungley kind of cradle of life thing going on.

This is where Safi's people are originally from. They were discovered by the prior jackal queen, and assimilated into their society in a rather unfortunate manner. We'll talk about this more in Safi's audio.

In this day and age it has been resettled and is regrowing, but it's largely isolated. They don't really interact with the world, though they don't hate strangers or anything. They'll welcome guests, talk with them, and, let's say entertain them? Also trade, of course.

The majority of the Ruah'ti, which is a term you'll hear again later in Safi's actual audio, moved up into the territory of the lamia queen and integrated with the other free people.

Next... We have the scorpion folks. They're not really out here any more, beyond a very scattered presence. I want to say they had a few oasis-bound villages in the north part of the desert. Let's plop them down around... here. Now, the scorpions were independent and neutral. They're nice, they'd trade, but didn't want to be ruled by anyone but themselves. They chose to basically scatter when the Jackal Queen came in to subjugate them. They went to the Lamia at first, who lacked the resources to take them in due to the war straining them. A few probably stayed in the city due to being able to offer particular valuable skills, but the majority moved up into the savanna to resettle, and others just took off across the continent.

All that's left now in their territory are empty homes, probably now occupied by either the Jackal Queen's soldiers or by bandits or beasts.

Beyond that, I think all that's left is...

The cat goddess and her servants. There's a teeny tiny little bit of land sticking out here. I'm going to say this is where she's at. The Jackal Queen has dumpstered all of the other minor deities in the region, except her, because she's out of the way and laid low.

Of course, there was the ruins that held the dragon girl. I'm going to arbitrarily say that they're over here. I have no plans right now to detail that area beyond 'hey, lost civilization here, ruins, treasure, and so on!'

That covers the basic overview for this region.

Now, what I have left is a bunch of just random thoughts and questions. First off, this area needs a name of some sort beyond 'the desert'. Naming things is hard, I'll get to it.

There's also some hotspots... no pun intended, of course, that look like they could have other kingdoms out here. I'm going to mark a few on the map.

- Peninsula, close to the jackal queen. Subjugated? Wiped out? Resisting?

- Far east near the coast, there's rivers and a large island... There's such potential here.

- Not really a hotspot but I like to imagine the desert could've been different prior to this post-calamity cycle, and it's probably FULL of ruins and treasures and lost kingdoms.

- It's such a vast expanse that I could also reasonably throw a massive lake out here... which is supported by real life geography, and just say it has been kind of lost to general awareness over time.

I think that brings this to a close... So now, my dear listener, I have a question for you.

What kind of monster girls and boys do you think would live out here?

So far we have lamia, scorpions, jackals, terrestrial harpies, and a moderate population of humans, as well as bandits and such.

This is a great chance for you to help shape the world a little bit, so if you have ideas, I'd love to hear them.