That's tougher, sometimes easier just to take an element, for example, we have Elven vikings who have lightning magic, maybe tweak them to be matriarchal , with the males vikings, but everythings run by the lightning sorceresses?
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help me think of cultures for my world
Camelot Unchained has a very impressive amount of creative races within their 3 kingdoms. You might want to check out what they've done for some inspiration:
Author
Camelot Unchained has a very impressive amount of creative races within their 3 kingdoms. You might want to check out what they've done for some inspiration:
just had a look and it seems promising though i'd have to find a way to update the races to a more 1700s setting
You list a large number of races. Which ones are culturally relevant?
Qualitatively, nonhuman races range from humans of different appearance to unfathomable aliens.
Quantitatively, one common race (traditionally plain old humans) is often "normal" and the others are rare enough to be special cases, often isolated in special places and ethnic communities or unimportant/oppressed minorities.
In other cases there is a truly multiracial society, which is relatively easy with similar races and more interesting with very different ones. (For reference: compare the ruggedness and suitability for living in New York of the dogs, cats, rodents, reptiles and birds in The secret life of pets and the extreme environment, size and lifestyle differences of the much more diverse animals in Zootopia).
Author
You list a large number of races. Which ones are culturally relevant?
Qualitatively, nonhuman races range from humans of different appearance to unfathomable aliens.
Quantitatively, one common race (traditionally plain old humans) is often "normal" and the others are rare enough to be special cases, often isolated in special places and ethnic communities or unimportant/oppressed minorities.
In other cases there is a truly multiracial society, which is relatively easy with similar races and more interesting with very different ones. (For reference: compare the ruggedness and suitability for living in New York of the dogs, cats, rodents, reptiles and birds in The secret life of pets and the extreme environment, size and lifestyle differences of the much more diverse animals in Zootopia).
the majority of the main races have different cultures and nations rather than just all of them having 1 each
the majority of the main races have different cultures and nations rather than just all of them having 1 each
One design thingy to ask yourself would be: "What trade and exchange of ideas, stories, languages, technology, and so on goes on between different races and cultures, and how does that influence each culture?"
a civilization's level requires (usually) coordinated resource control (water, aggricultutre land/food sources) to have bigger centralized populations for much greater specialization of labor/crafts and the achievements that result (and add of trade and organization for non-local resources)
If "the majority of the main races have different cultures and nations rather than just all of them having 1 each", with 8 continents and 11 races the number of different nations is ridiculously larger than what can be featured in a reasonable game (or in a long fantasy saga). Designing all cultures, races, places top-down is highly pointless; instead, after deciding on some geographical and metaphysical guidelines you should detail only the places and cultures featured in your game, according to your needs.
For example, if humans, elves and orcs were created by rival gods as dominant races but they can often get along, dwarves, gnomes and ogres are the respective mutant variants, goblins are immigrants from another world, and beastfolk are artificial and just common enough to reproduce, and if you want a game about famine and overpopulation, you can
- set it exclusively in Aegir (presumably close to the carrying capacity of modest agricultural resources, and at the mercy of cold climate),
- select as the only two and a half featured cultures an invasion of goblins out of nowhere disrupting mixed communities of peaceful human and orc farmers
So you want multiple cultures for each race? You can just create a great list by creating an axis around which each race spins, and then putting sub cultures along these axes:
Antikos
Human - Exploration Centric: each person a culture of one
Orc - War-Centric: warrior culture, mount culture, war machine culture
Daishan
Elf - Magic-Centric: Black Magic culture, white magic culture, grey cultures
Dark Elf - Nature Centric: forest cultures, mountain cultures, water cultures
Gorash
Dwarf - Science Centric: steampunk culture, technomage culture, metalworking culture
Gnome - Tradition centric: chivilary culture, agricultural culture, familial culture
Aegir
Goblin - Money centric: anarchist culture, merchant culture, theif culture
Lizardfolk - Hive centric: hive mind culture
Norharr
Catfolk - Self centric: anarchist culture, non-culture, xenophobic culture
Bullfolk - Leisure centric: vacation spot culture, amnesiac culture
Kydar
Ogre - Death centric: berserker culture, disease-based culture
But that's just a list. A list is not a game. You can create a list of 100 nations, but... how is that relevant to your game? How do the players feel the the Catfolk's anarchist nation vs their xenophobic nation? More importantly, does it make what's fun about your game more fun? You say you need this list, but I can't for the life of me imagine why.
Author
So you want multiple cultures for each race? You can just create a great list by creating an axis around which each race spins, and then putting sub cultures along these axes:
Antikos
Human - Exploration Centric: each person a culture of one
Orc - War-Centric: warrior culture, mount culture, war machine culture
Daishan
Elf - Magic-Centric: Black Magic culture, white magic culture, grey cultures
Dark Elf - Nature Centric: forest cultures, mountain cultures, water cultures
Gorash
Dwarf - Science Centric: steampunk culture, technomage culture, metalworking culture
Gnome - Tradition centric: chivilary culture, agricultural culture, familial culture
Aegir
Goblin - Money centric: anarchist culture, merchant culture, theif culture
Lizardfolk - Hive centric: hive mind culture
Norharr
Catfolk - Self centric: anarchist culture, non-culture, xenophobic culture
Bullfolk - Leisure centric: vacation spot culture, amnesiac culture
Kydar
Ogre - Death centric: berserker culture, disease-based culture
But that's just a list. A list is not a game. You can create a list of 100 nations, but... how is that relevant to your game? How do the players feel the the Catfolk's anarchist nation vs their xenophobic nation? More importantly, does it make what's fun about your game more fun? You say you need this list, but I can't for the life of me imagine why.
The main reason for the list is because the idea is it's gonna be a big world that I can have multiple games set in (Like elderscrolls) and possibly books (like ASOIAF)
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