Like the Starsailor Community Universe over on HWSF. Only a fantasy universe for us all to set fantasy stories in. It's a fun exercise, and it gives us a setting that could lead to anthologies in the future. Or at least contributions to an anthology.

I'd like to go about this systematically, using a process that Jay developed for world building. But first, I'd like us to answer some basic questions, so that we can have our own sub-forum and then get more organized.

Don't be bashful, worry about time commitments, or not contribute because you don't have much. If you're reading this and it interests you, just go ahead and post something.

Discussions will be color-coded for ease and clarity. These are the codes:

Cobha
Spirits
Races
Religion
Mindset
Astronomy
Geography
History
Language
Technology
Creatures
Plants
Mythology

Our discussion will happen in question groups, so we're not talking about everything at once. Again, just speak up if you have something. You don't have to participate in the whole conversation or anything like that, no commitment, just speak up. This is a project for the whole community, and it isn't on any sort of schedule.

Here are our first topics to discuss. Hopefully we will reach a consensus and be able to meet each goal. Please note that we are discussing all three of these things at the same time, because they effect each other.

First Discussion:
What is the Cobha of this world? Goal: A 1-2 sentance description. Do spirits (angels and demons) interact with the sapient races? How? 1-2 sentence summary. Will we have multiple intelligent races/species? How many? What are they be like? 1 sentence describing each race.

Sp, I'll just being with my thoughts.

For Cobha, I feel like we should try for something very original. It could be interesting to tie the cobha into our use of spirits in the world.

In fact, it could be interesting if the spirit ARE the cobha. So, we'd have different kinds of spirits with different powers, abilities, etc. Some would be fallen and some unfallen, but we should give them a different history than our angels and demons. Instead of predating humans, these could be part of man's dominion and therefore subject to his curse. And so, not only are all spirits fallen, just like men, but those spirits that are on the good side aren't perfect, and therefore much easier to account for in a story.

So, we'd have several races (well, varieties) of spirits, and at least humans. I really don't have any ideas beyond that. Perhaps the spirit-races could look like animals or combinations of animals and humans? Or are the spirit-races not actually physical and therefore a little more ethereal looking? And, this begs the question, do the spirits reproduce and have family units? Which makes one wonder, do they die?

Well...less active spirits, and more...mystery about them? Like people know they exist, but don't know a lot about them, or see them much.

It's hard to answer these questions and not just throw out the system used in Lor-Amar. I definitely like multiple sapients. Because of the way my world is, all of the races have to know about each other before hand. I think it would be neat to have the world created in such a way that other races could always be discovered.

This is veering toward another world I have, but what if the spirits could only inhabit created things? The best example I can think of is something like Pinocchio, just with a spirit that can move to inhabit something else if it needs to. Like you said, Neil, certain spirits could still have certain preferences or abilities to inhabit and work with certain things.

Is there a way we can separate these topics into their own places, possibly even this community world having its own sub-forum?

I wanna be involved! I'll come back when my thoughts are a little more organized.

Like I said in the introduction, we probably can't until we have some basic questions answered, just like the Realms Beyond subforums. We need to show that this isn't going to die next week or next month, probably, before we can get a subforum set up.

Couldn't we have one in the new "Realms in Development" section? I suppose that might be tricky...

So instead of just having this be the huge thread for every topic for a month, why don't we just agree on the questions you put forth?
Like this:
(these are my answers to those questions)

Cobha: Yes, but only a medium level
Spirits: A low amount of spirits that are hidden in mystery
Races: Quite a few, maybe 4 - 7?
Religion: I'd prefer to stay away from generating untrue religions.
Mindset: Umm...is this culture?
Astronomy: A few stars due to the galaxy's size
Geography: Some sort of disc, with a more visible land than water
History: Can't answer that in one sentence, sorry.
Language: I'd like to see a language that relies on images, and one that is voice only.
Technology: Late medieval/light steampunk with crude gunpowder-based weaponry
Creatures Preferably more than Earth creatures, dragons and gryphons?
Plants: Perhaps some dangerous and magical plants?
Mythology: If mythology is similar to folklore, then let's have tons!

Well, to be able to get our own forum, we'll need the amount of development required to get a Realms Beyond forum, which is a lot more specific than those questions.

But we can't develop an entire world in this one thread.

Definetely not.

But we do need some basics. A little description of the Cobha. Some races. A map. Etc.

Okay...would it be alright if we had dwarves?

I could put together a map.

Can it be a map of the whole planet? That will give everyone different places to work.

I'll make it a big planet, maybe...130,000 miles in circumference?

We can all focus on regional and continental maps later.

Map Specifics (my plan, anyway. Comment please) :

8+ Continents
Disc shaped world
Both sides habitable
130,000 miles in circumference
Large ice fields at one end
Small ice field in the center
Dense amounts of mountainous terrain opposite side of ice

Personally, I would prefer a sphere world... Since it's a community world, it will make it easier for everyone to tell their stories without having to figure out the logistics.

Sounds cool to me.

There's no calculating needed for a flat world, beside the problem of it collapsing into a sphere, which can be ignored.

But what with the stars and planets, it makes a lot of confusion. That was something that was odd in Narnia. There are ordinary planets in the sky, yet the world is flat. It also makes it easier for everyone to write their own stories in this world rather than feeling a need for a globally unified tale, because if too much is going on with the geology or theology or astronomy, it distracts from the creatures and characters (and perhaps magic) of all the individuals. So I think it would be better to choose where to be more arcane and where to frame it with the traditional.

I can't create a map as easily when it's a globe, since I have to work out the entire surface area, among other computations.

I could try to create one and just leave room for more lands to be discovered...maybe no one knows how big the world is.

We could do that....I'll start drawing...

Here's a basic map of this world, probably showing only 35 - 45% of the world. The rest is unexplored, hence why it is not shown.

Nice job.

Oh, I have some good and useful globe map tools. We can just draw up a few continents and I'll arrange them.

That map looks great!

If everybody wants dwarves, we could have dwarves. It would be neat if we could take the basic idea of dwarves and come up with a twist on it.

I just had an idea for a unique cobha based on the discussion y'all were having about the map. What if this world has a different system of geography? That's not something people usually mess with, you know. If you go that direction, you get there...right? But what if you didn't? What if this world was sort of limitless in scope, and navigation was more like going through a series of weird portals than walking somewhere? Then you could from anywhere to anywhere no matter how 'far' they were away -- as long as you 'have directions'.

That would be fascinating and fun to do, especially if different "areas" differ in size and physics. For example, you could have a large open area, similar to a plain on earth, but then you could move and be in a hyper-micro-Dyson-sphere! (Which would be fun but a little claustrophobic.)

That is a pretty cool and unique idea.

Sorry, but what is a dyson sphere?

What we could do is take a selection of normal Earth animals, or even plants, and then use them as inspiration for the races. For example, I have a race based on two sea creatures, an octopus and a jellyfish.

@ladykidh: I like the sound of that idea. It might be a little hard to draw a map for it though, unless we did a series of maps, all depicting, say, 1,000,000 square miles.... It could be easier if it had a set size, but then the thought of a world like that seems epic.

Wikipedia has a somewhat extensive explanation.

This project can get a subforum in Realms in Development like Lycanis originally suggested. The only thing is, that it would be hidden from HW general (that's the nature of RiD) and people would have to be given access individually, but those are the only real draw-backs to it. Or...we could handle this like they handled the community world on SF and give it a subforum here in Village Commons. And as far as Neil's concerns of getting basics covered first, I say go ahead and make a subforum and if the project flops, then we'll just archive the subforum or the threads.

Okay. Who's wanting to be in the project?

I'm in.

I'm interested in trying to help out. Not sure how active I'll be, but I'll definitely try.

Yes...but in a way it'd actually be easier, I think, 'cause we could always just make new pieces as we develop and write stories in it.

I like the sub forum in the Village Common idea better.

I have a question. What's the difference between this and Triterrus?