When people say, “nature is my religion” are they talking about flies that feed on shit, maggots in decomposing corpses, lionesses with stained teeth and mouths full of blood? Are they talking about floods and fires and things from which we should always run? Are they talking about carcasses, rot, death?
Or do they just mean “this particular copse of benign trees is my religion”
Hostile Environments
It’s not uncommon for your characters to find themselves stranded somewhere with less than ideal conditions.
There are the obvious risks of hypothermia and frostbite.
The time for these to set in can vary drastically with temperature and windchill.
In both cases, warming should be done slowly or risk blistering of the skin and other complications such as shock.
Like burns, frostbite is classified into degrees of severity:
First degree frostbite – Numbness and whitening of skin.
Second degree – Outer layer of skin frozen, blistering likely when warmed.
Third degree – Skin is white or blue and blotchy. Skin and the tissue beneath it is hard and cold.
Risk of heat exhaustion or heat stroke.
Heat exhaustion is caused by insufficient water and salt intake. It is easy to develop without realising it.
Heat stroke is more severe and often follows untreated heat exhaustion. It is extremely dangerous and can be fatal.
Symptoms of Heat Exhaustion
Headache
Dizziness, faintness
Confusion and irritability
Thirst
Fast and weak pulse and breathing
Clammy skin and cramps
Additional Symptoms of Heatstroke
Hot, dry, flushed skin
Sweating stops altogether
Nausea
Disorientation up to and including hallucinations
Abnormal blood pressure
Elevated temperature
Unconsciousness
Treatment focuses on lowering the body temperature and rehydrating the person as quickly as possible.
Apart from the obvious – lack of oxygen is rather bad for you (6-8 minutes for permanent brain damage) – the reason for the lack can have side effects of its own.
For example smoke, chemical or water inhalation can do physical damage to the lungs making breathing difficult even when the person is removed to a safe place.
In short, your major problems would be…
Oxygen deprivation
Exposure to extreme cold
Expansion of gases within the body – meaning that holding your breath would be a Big Mistake, but not one you’d live to regret for very long
In a sudden decompression there would also be the risk of decompression sickness (the bends) and of getting hit by flying debris during the decompression itself.
Assuming you survived the initial decompression you’d have about 10 seconds of consciousness to do something about it and about one and a half minutes to live.
Parts of the body exposed would suffer from swelling, frostbite, and interrupted circulation.
50% atmospheric pressure is enough to have people suffering from hypoxia (oxygen deprivation).
15% and you more or less, may as well be in vacuum.
Source: Leia Fee (with additions by Susannah Shepherd) More: Part 1 ⚜ Part 2 ⚜ Word Lists (Sick) (Pain) ⚜ Drunkenness ⚜ Autopsy
I was worldbuilding two bog standard fantasy species, wise old tree dudes and impulsive little rat guys, when I realized it was far funnier if they had each other's personalities.
The rat guys think fast and talk fast, but they're incredibly conservative and like to cover all the angles before they take any action. This comes with being a prey species: their ancestral environment had lots of clever traps and devious hazards, so you get rat councils wisely working the problem.
The tree dudes speak and move slowly, but they will propose and then do the most insane things you can imagine. They can slot together a rocket in an afternoon and will then use it without so much as a test fire first. They test new potions by quaffing them down, sometimes not even waiting for it to cool (though they're tree dudes, so I guess quaffing a potion just means pouring it over their root legs). This comes from the ancestral selection process too: the tree dudes that won were the ones that took big risks, that grew faster, stronger, and tried new things without worrying about consequences. The tree dudes evolved in an era when they had no natural predators and their only competition was each other.
And this is, of course, initially confusing for any human who makes contact with them. If a giant bearded tree nods at you solemnly and tells you to go through a portal, your first thought is not that he's curious about what will happen to spacetime. And if a hyperactive little rat guy tells you with some urgency that you must accompany him into a ruined city, you won't immediately think that this is step 11 of his branching 27 step plan.
academy
adventurer's guild
alchemist
apiary
apothecary
aquarium
armory
art gallery
bakery
bank
barber
barracks
bathhouse
blacksmith
boathouse
book store
bookbinder
botanical garden
brothel
butcher
carpenter
cartographer
casino
castle
cobbler
coffee shop
council chamber
court house
crypt for the noble family
dentist
distillery
docks
dovecot
dyer
embassy
farmer's market
fighting pit
fishmonger
fortune teller
gallows
gatehouse
general store
graveyard
greenhouses
guard post
guildhall
gymnasium
haberdashery
haunted house
hedge maze
herbalist
hospice
hospital
house for sale
inn
jail
jeweller
kindergarten
leatherworker
library
locksmith
mail courier
manor house
market
mayor's house
monastery
morgue
museum
music shop
observatory
orchard
orphanage
outhouse
paper maker
pawnshop
pet shop
potion shop
potter
printmaker
quest board
residence
restricted zone
sawmill
school
scribe
sewer entrance
sheriff's office
shrine
silversmith
spa
speakeasy
spice merchant
sports stadium
stables
street market
tailor
tannery
tavern
tax collector
tea house
temple
textile shop
theatre
thieves guild
thrift store
tinker's workshop
town crier post
town square
townhall
toy store
trinket shop
warehouse
watchtower
water mill
weaver
well
windmill
wishing well
wizard tower
*turns to hiking buddy*
you are hungry in the woods. are you eating moss or bug first
I am eating the big delectable USDA beef hamburger I brought with me
Eldritch Miku omgggg
Because a few have asked
⚠️ Warning for super fast gifs cause they all gotta be 5 seconds or less or else my phone shits the bed ⚠️
1. Do the following exercises. Don't just think about doing them or figure out a clever way to not do them, just do them. Yes even the boring ones and the ones that look ugly
2. If you have any pride, crush it. Kill it. Crunch it up into itty bitty bits and feed it to the ducks at the park. You have no talent and don't know anything and everything you make is hot garbage. Believe that. Make yourself believe that. That is where you live now. Surrender any indignation or shame you have to the void and embrace rock bottom.
3. Read step 2 again and actually do it this time. My methods will not work if you try to make this process pretty. Don't.
4. No drawing from your imagination on these. Actually draw from real life. If it's boring like eating day old oatmeal in in beige room but your usual art still feels wonky then I'm talking to you specifically. You can't write poetry until you learn words and yes learning words is as dull as horseshit sometimes but do you wanna be Robert Frost or not
5. Pick up some cheap paper and a ballpoint pen. Grab a small object, between the size of your hand and the size of a microwave. Set a timer for fifteen minutes. Put the tip of your pen to the paper and press "start".
Now without looking at your paper, only looking at the object, draw the object in as much detail as you can. Do not break contact between the paper and the pen tip until the timer goes off.
This is a continuous line drawing, and you're doing it in pen because you need to know what rock bottom looks like and rock bottom looks like no eyes no erasers no shading no do-overs.
6. Sit down in a public place. As someone walks by, draw their their body in as much accuracy as you can before they are no longer in view. Once you can't see them anymore, the drawing is done. No adding details. Pick someone else and do it again. No "base sketch". Just them. If it barely looks human you're doing great
7. Get a black pen. Put a small object on a dark, flat surface. Now draw the surface without drawing the object. Don't draw the outline of the object. Don't do a sketch. Just draw the surface that is visible around the object until only a silhouette remains. No time limit just do it.
The ability to draw accurate proportions from sight comes from learning to see what exists between a thing and the absence of a thing and if that hurts to think about then you need to do it more
8. Keep doing these until you are Ready.
9. You will know when you are Ready. It will make sense when you are Ready. You will Understand.
10. Unwind with some goofy shit so you don't forget why you wanna improve to begin with
You don't need anyone's approval for the stories you write and the art you create. But it's also absolutely valid to want some approval from your audience. Kudos and likes don't determine your creation's worth. But it just feels amazing to receive them.
World building fiction writer, He/Him or Skele/ton.Ask me anything :)Praise the worms that break the clay,Where maggots dance and life decay For corpse lays down, and death takes hold, And in the rot, life new unfolds.
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