Some useful notes on metals, mainly from old research I did while procrastinating on doing an art history essay school -Although sources differ, early Ironworking methods to my knowledge create inferior tools to bronze if given a high enough Tin count. A main reason the move was made was that tin was a rare metal only found in certain areas (for example, in Ireland our Bronze Age people got their tim from Wales). A major collapse of civilisations in the Mediterranean the end of Bronze Age lead to all a collapse in trade, meaning this weaker metal was a substitute. - This doesn’t mean Iron was disadvantageous, for Iron is a lot more common in the earths soil than the materials needed to make Bronze, which made it more practical and common when it comes to tool use. A good example of this would be in warfare, as metal weaponry could now be produced to an entire army, sculpted with the techniques already developed through bronze and gold use. -Steel, like Bronze, is an alloy, instead being an alloy of Iron made with Carbon, initially using coal. -Bronze, though usually made copper and tin, refers to several other copper alloys. Copper and Zinc and Copper and Arsenic are such examples. These also have other uses, but I forgot them :P
Arsenical bronze isn't actually substituting tin with arsenic, but adding small amounts of arsenic to another bronze recipe. It tarnishes differently depending on the amount of arsenic, and even a tiny amount of arsenic makes the bronze far tougher and harder- Compared not only to primitive ironwork, but also most pre-modern steels. As a fun fact about fiction, Tolkien probably based Mithril on arsenical bronze. The Sword of Goujian, a gorgeous ancient Chinese sword found in a tomb, was made from different ratios of arsenical bronze to form its complex geometric tarnish pattern. That said, you're right about iron's commonness being advantageous. A popular theory is that the reason ancient humans switched to using iron and eventually steel was that it became difficult to find tin in the areas where that happened (particularly the mediterranean), so making bronze became extremely difficult; Another issue was that arsenical bronze (aka the good kind) produced toxic fumes in the forge, making it difficult and dangerous to smelt. Steel isn't _just_ iron and carbon; It also contains other metals, nickel usually being a large component. Iron and carbon alone produce pig iron, which is heavy, brittle and not very useful except as cookware or grates. (Cast iron and wrought iron are made from pig iron.)
to my knowledge the greeks refered to the early iron age as a dark age because fpr example they could not get bronce and had to use iron istead which they saw as inferior.
A note on the video from someone who coincidentally learned about metal deposits recently: Copper and Iron aren't usually native metals in nature! The deposits where it's almost pure usually happen really sporadically (with some exeptions, see the Great Lakes Copper Deposit), and most of where they do show up is in much larger ore deposits, which need to be melted down. There's a fair bit of variation here, so keep in mind real life examples while worldbuilding!
While I do worldbuild for storytelling, my favorite hobby is literally worldbuilding and thinking too much about the tiny details is everything to me. I adore this stuff.
I am definitely a hard researcher because the tiny intricate (somewhat useless) details are extremely fun for me to think about. Most of that doesn't make it into the stories I write, but it is still so much fun to think about I can't stop. When I read stories by writers who add little details it just gets me excited. I love it.
I am definitely a hard researcher. I love thinking of tiny, insignificant, (mostly useless) little details so much! Even though most of it doesn't make it into the story, it's just so much fun I can't help it. It helps me visualize the story when I write also, so it's worth it to me. When writers add inconsequential little details it honestly makes me excited. I love it.
Aluminum is primarily extracted using a relatively new chemical process, and has ben a valuable and metal for a long time. Napoleon had a set of Aluminum cutlery to be brought out when he had important guests. @hannahsmth
i'm a gamedev doing worldbuilding. i've been spending months and months studying rock types, 3d modeling tree types, studying landforms and fauna, to build the world from the bottom up. the way I see it, this stuff is the foundation of immersion, and it's so often neglected in video games especially.
An important note, in case it escaped your notice: While Aluminium is indeed one of the most common metals, it has been historically one of the hardest metals to mine. As such, up until the industrial revolution, Aluminium was considered rarer and more precious than gold or silver.
Yeah having certain metals available earlier than normal can do some very interesting things. In my setting tungsten has been available for centuries despite being generally medieval to early 1800s tech because of how the magic works that people could detect it separately and actually create usable tungsten metals.
smelt. it's hard to smelt. it requires super high temperatures. now we use electricity to smelt it, so that's convenient and makes it readily available. but without electricity, it's much more complicated
Also, the guy who discovered the metal used both "aluminum" and "aluminium" when referring to it, so both are acceptable and yes I will die on this hill.
Napoleon even served meals on aluminum plate ware because it was so difficult to mine and refine. Same with diamonds, which arent rare at all and they were much less useful in pre-indsutrial world... and also much less valued since a lot of their value now is artificially inflated. We lose sight of things like that in the modern era when looking at pre-industrial settings.
@@inowar7981 Not quite, it actually doesn't require as much heat as iron and the importance of electricity in the process has nothing to do with generating heat. It's actually electrolysis of the already molten substance in order to form elemental (pure) aluminium. If you want to knwo more look up the Hall-Héroult process.
For anyone reading this struggeling with creating their world: Artifexian has some really useful videos on where to place climate zones, ocean currents, wind patterns, resources, etc. Might save you some research work on the geological parts. He also goes quite in depth into plate tectonics and such, so it can help you create a really 'realistic' natural world, if that's what you want.
Important thing to note from someone who frequently interacts with the accurate cartography/geology worldbuilding circle! It’s said by a lot of people there that a good chunk of Artifexian content on planetary science (and conlanging, if you do that sort of thing) has quite a long track record of misinformation and inaccuracy. While it may be serviceable for someone who is just starting, I recommend taking his info with a grain of salt and using other sources if you want to go deep. I’m not sure who else makes content like this on UA-cam though, so you might want to find people in the worldbuilding sphere to talk to for advice or find some other creator for that (but talking to people whether online or offline is more helpful in the long run imo)
@@Sonicx5040 r/worldbuilding, r/conlangs and their respective discord servers are good places to start, and you can ask around if you need more specific communities (in all honesty, you don’t need to look for any more)
@@Sonicx5040 r/worldbuilding, r/conlangs and their respective discord servers are good places to start. You can ask around for more specific communities, but in all honestly you don't need any more
Might want to include Obsidian in your Native Elements, obsidian can be found around volcanoes and can be easily chipped to incredibly sharp edges, in fact obsidian can be made so sharp that it’s still used today for the finest of surgical scalpels. So very useful as arrowheads, spear points and knives. The main downside of obsidian is it’s brittleness but for an example of a larger weapon utilizing it you can check out the Aztec Macuahuitl, which according to one conquistadors account was so sharp it could decapitate a horse in one swing. Pretty sure the Aztec warrior swinging it was basically their version of Goliath but still not a material to overlook since it can be utilized as early as the Stone Age.
amphibians actually thrive in cold environments outside the arctic circle, its reptiles that struggle with the lack of heat. europe especially is filled with newts and toads and frogs, and colder climates in america and asia are home to the three largest species of amphibian on the planet with the three extant giant salamanders.
Water is an excellent insulator. That's why fish and many amphibians can survive in cold environments. The surface of a lake may freeze over in the winter but underneath the layer of ice will be "relatively" warmer water.
@drizzmatec well, really, its that fish and amphibians that have adapted to the cold with a greater range of proteins that function in cold temperatures, whereas reptiles didnt or lost them and found it easier to find heat.
Calling naturally-occurring metals "native" runs into the issue of glossing over the utility of what that term is used for irl--that is, metals that occur in usably-pure concentrations without needing smelting (ex: finding a lump of metal inside a rock, gold flecks in a stream, etc). In the context of worldbuilding, the main benefit of native metals is showing where gold rush-style mining towns are most likely to form, but meteoric iron (that is, native iron gathered from a fallen asteroid) is a nice source for culturally significant artifacts or cheating an iron sword into the bronze age. You need less heat to forge iron than you do to smelt it from ore, after all. Another thing native metals are useful for is showing where even low-fuel societies can engage in metalworking. Your average plains nomad likely doesn't have the charcoal on-hand needed to smelt something from ore, but dried animal dung is a decent substitute if you just need to hammer metal into shape.
A major source of native copper in the Americas is Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Which has was traded far and wide across the continent and has ended up in sites as far away as Louisiana. From a world building perspective the value of native copper is that you can cold work it with occasional heating called "annealing" to remove stress in the surface of the worked copper. (A relatively low temperature process, atleast much lower than actually melting the metal) This is in stark contrast to iron ore refining which is so much more work intensive that its was considered a downgrade from bronze by ancient Mediterranean cultures. The iron age happened because the apocalypse called the brinze age collapse took out the trade routes importing tin into the region. And then alloys are their own special thing, at the simplest explanation they are careful mixtures of metals and sometimes nonmetals like carbon. They are typically better than the pure elemental metal, but generally come after the primary metal was used. How any of this relates to world building is simple, basic resources define where cultures can become more powerful and what regions bigger nations will fight over. (In the modern era everyone is dependent on oil which makes the Middle East significantly more geopolitically important than it otherwise should be.)
Thank you for including Fahrenheit! That was a very small but VERY NOCTICEABLE detail. Thank you. AMAZING VIDEO! Definitely inspirational to say the least and very informative!! I will say I will be watching everything here!
I am trying to create my own setting not for a story but for a ttrpg with a unique, alien environment, and videos like this do a lot to help me understand how to make it feel truly alive, so it is much appreciated
and that’s why I’ve been researching swordfighting for years! actually tho I’ve found group-level combat to be more useful for writing, since it benefits the narrative more to have clear goals and structure, whereas a fight between two dudes can absolutely just be them smacking the tar out of one another.
I like how youtube recommended me this after I started writing a new story and accidentally wrote paragraphs about the paper industry in my fantasy world
Honestly I think this might be my favorite part of world building, yes making continent spending multi cultural empires are cool, but Really Making a World is just something magical
So thankful to have stumbled upon this community! I LOVE everything you've included in this video, your style, your pace, your focus and love of details. I've always played with these things casually, usually in making stuff up with friends while we watch movies or play video games. I've had a lot to focus on, and struggles to overcome these past years. After my divorce last year I've been finding myself building up this insatiable desire to worldbuild! I love playing with cause and effect. Exploring all the details that go into creating societies. Creating all the details of a world, or enough, that I can play around with a specific location, people, creatures, flesh it out with all the things I'd like to see happen with them. Often emotionally/tone driven. One I'm working on now I've built up the immediate area with elements I know I want that will help further the type of story I'm interested in, but along the way I also am seeing and building events and interactions between elements that's building the story, and how if things were ordered differently or a few things were changed it could be entirely different. Like a goblin society that has a goblin more musically inclined discover parts of a creature can be used as a type of instrument, and how that can be a cornerstone of development for the society. How that's influenced by the history, traumas, personalities of the village. What they're surrounded by or not surrounded by. I don't know how to express what I love about emergent gameplay. I want to build a world that can be used for that in tabletop, that I can also play my own stories in. For that I need DETAILS! What foods can be made from flora and fauna? Who has access? Who has knowledge? I gotta stop because nothing I'm writing is gonna paint the complete picture, I just gotta get back to BUILDING! I have no training, I've played D&D with people for a dozen or so sessions years ago. But I've played SO many games, reflected on so much media, and LIFE! Feelin' excited and passionate today, wishing the best to everyone! 😆🥰
The best thing you can do in life is ask yourself questions. By asking a question, you can seek an answer. Once you start looking for an answer to your question, you can find it and keep it jotted down, then move on to another. I would recommend asking a load of questions first, marking each one down, and then answering each one individually and continuing to ask more questions about those answers before spreading out an entire world. All it takes is a few important questions, and you will be able to go anywhere with them.
Fascinating in presentation and information provided. I've been worldbuilding for TTRPGs for years and don't tend to worry too much about details except when making a new town or city, I find some fascinating things I didn't know and fantasy it up for a unique aspect of that city. It's enough and I usually deep dive a *lot* which means if players need more I have it tucked in my brain somewhere and can make stuff up on the spot. Delving into just writing and publishing my own web novel has made me even more deeply fascinated with this stuff and this is an absolutely wonderful way to present yourself, good work!
I sometimes spend almost as much time building out my worlds as I do writing stories for them, which for one such story set across various alien planets, was both an extremely fun creative exercise and a frustratingly complex challenge...
In terms of stone, I feel it's a good idea to also add stones used for building. Here sandstone or brick was the go-tos in europe. And wood may be very expensive heating-source in regions without a lot of trees, which is why peat (worth looking up, not as much used today) was used by a lot by people to heat their homes/cook etc. Plants, you would often find Flax a useful plant, as it was used for its fibers to create clothing, other plants like nettle etc. was also used by some. But you will typically find cloth being made out of cotton (plant, where you spin), flax (where you need to preprocess it) or wool (animal). Most people would spend a lot of time spinning and weaving, before spinning wheel you used drop spindle(need rotation to bind thread together) and a distaff(held the wool/etc. so easy to draw from.)
I played in a resource based game one time. My character was named King of Cows, the Lord of Dairy. I paid a lot money for this marketing campaign. The goal was to convince kids to eat two bowls of cereal a day. It was somewhat successful.
This is incredible! I always thought that I put too much time into research for settings but now I see I don't do enough! Immense thanks for all the details you put into this!
definately gonna use my anthropology background to build interesting cultures, peoples, religions, and other things. I was taught in classes how environments effected the shaping of peoples and their cultures, beliefs.
I tend to write in hard research because I can’t help but love that which I write and who I am writing, and I want to do everything to make their world beautiful and full.
there are several uses for precious metals, mainly revolving around non reactivity. Like bone replacement prothesis (maybe teeth, maybe kneecaps), piercings and jewelry (although copper jewelry is really prominent on some cultures), in corrosion resistant alloys like sterling silver, used for intricate machining pieces that are susceptible to corrosion/ have to work for a long time (automatic watches, sewing machines, several analog measuring devises) and lets not forget conductivity and electronics! for gemstones its a little more complicated but the basics are: hard gemstones (not just diamonds) are used for making high quality grinding wheels and "cutting"(which is more of grinding pieces if the material away than wedge cutting) also used for pieces exposed to friction wear. Some gems are valued because of the substances that can be extracted from them (fluorite and sulfur are big ones) pigments too, really dangerous pigments like arsenic and mercury specially so. Some gemstones are valued for their refractive properties, not just to make eyeglasses, but also telescope and microscope lenses (pure clear quarts is really valuable for this reason [ also its more heat resistant than glass]) other optic devises, prisms.
This was a fun video to watch, I’ve been working on a world for a certain project I’m working on so this was oddly good timing too, I hadn’t thought about what animals could be used for other than meat and pelts before so that could be really useful for me. Can’t believe this got into my recommended though, my recommendations aren’t usually that good. Anyways first video from this channel I’ve seen but I subscribed anyway, hope I see more of your videos in my recommendations.
although im not really a worldbuilder, i usually take my inspirations from anatolia. you got cold mountains, dry cold mountains, mountainous area with insane amounts of trees, grasslands, types of steppes, mediterrian places and a few more different types of places. it usually works out well for any games i host due to the simple reason there is a lot of difference between one place and another, with resources/water sources distributed accordingly.
I just found out about this channel and I thoroughly enjoy it! Your art style is very pleasing and your enthusiasm for worldbuilding is infectious! I have quite a bit of experience in worldbuilding, be it making my own worlds, helping others, or leading online worldbuilding communities. I'd like to give some constructive criticism to this video just to help you out, because this channel has potential and I'd like to see you fulfill it. 1. Kudos on the overview and philosophy of worldbuilding, you covered the wide range of forms it can take very well! 2. This was mentioned in another comment, so I'll keep it short. Native elements are generally speaking elements that can occur as pure in the Earth; no smelting or processing required. Native iron is just iron, native gold is just gold, etc. The presence of these can jumpstart a society by giving them access to "refined" resources early on. Fun fact: A lot of this native metal comes from space in the form of meteorites, and these were utilized worldwide! 3. Your definition of a non-native metal is properly called an alloy, though some alloys can occur naturally. Galena is not an example of this, for it is an ore (lead sulfide with silver impurities). 4. Gold, silver, and platinum are extremely useful in industry for mirrors, electrical contacts, catalysts, etc. I don't know what tech level you are aiming for with these descriptions, but I presume it includes modern times because platinum was discovered and utilized only fairly recently, and the energy-intensive process of smelting aluminum was also a recent find, downgrading it from a precious metal to a common one. 5. Phenomenal crash course on the uses of plants and animals! 6. Colder average temperatures do decrease the diversity of amphibians and bugs, but they also do so for every other animal. Nothing special about warm-bloodedness here; cold temperatures are tough for diversity across the board. 7. I like the little discussion about the relationship between a civilization and nature. It indeed can be as awful or mutually beneficial as one wishes. 8. I definitely agree with the frustration that can come with reading a work of fiction that is not well worldbuilt. Keep in mind one caveat, though: Judge work based on the technology of the time. It's easy to forget that we live in an age replete with information that is easier to find than ever. Works created earlier would not only be restricted by the knowledge of the time, but by the accessibility of that knowledge via local public libraries and the speed of communication between people. Of course, this gives us all the more motivation to tear apart poorly made cash grabs that took no advantage of modern knowledge, which often plagues cinema. I'll keep watching your vids, and I hope you keep making them! I hope my feedback was worth something to you.
This is my first time here and I am pleased to see the ancient prophecies were correct. You truly are the lost heir to the Holy Trinity of Worldbuilding Guides. Rise now, and take your rightful place alongside Artefaxxian and Atlas Pro. We will prepare the way.
Bronze and brass are also used in modern day manufacturing, and likely many other industries, generally in the maintenance of steel parts that cannot be put at risk of scratching but require a durable metal tool to maintain or adjust. An example being the usage of a bronze putty knife used in tandem with a rag soaked in solvent to get adhesive off of the steel cutting blades in the assembly lines I presently work on. Brass wire brushes are also used for the cleaning of some complex steel injection-molding dyes in the manufacturing department I previously worked in for a time.
I keep telling myself I dont have a type, but your character's white hair drew me in, the content caused me to subscribe. Now its time to binge the backlog of content!
I think this video contains a lot of good information. It reminds me of the research I did for one of my stories that takes place after the events of a plane crash. I haven't worked on the story in a while, but at the time I was really into survivalism, so I wanted to write a story where a group of characters had to survive. When I first started writing it, I made a major mistake. The story ended up being too much of me showing off my knowledge of survivalism which I'm glad I realized. Eventually, I plan to revisit the idea. I still have a list of survival tricks such as how to make birch pitch. I came across some cool channels while researching for that story and one of them put me onto an anime called Dr. Stone which plays with the idea of survival.
Also worth noting that our change from bronze to iron as the primary metal used was caused to a large degree by thr Late Bronze Age Collapse... it became worth it for us to focus on iron (which at the time wasnt easier to extract or work) because the tin trade necessary to make bronze became a lot harder to acquire... almost all tin was coming from either what is now Wales/Cornwall, Spain or Turkey. There were a lot of degrees for the quality of bronze based on what percentage of tin was used and if other metals were added as well, some of which rivaled the average iron tools and weapons of the time. The Spanish imorted so much silver from South America that they devalued it and it hit their economy hard. So even what is available and its value can change a lot because of world events.
So, the usefulness of your "aesthetic elements" actually depends a lot on TL (tech level), and even in low TLs some of them are very useful. Just a few examples: -Malachite and turquoise are copper ores, and cinnabar is the principle ore of mercury (which has all kinds of uses, apart from being super toxic). Note that copper was kind of the first "aesthetic metal," on the other hand; Its earliest uses were pretty strictly as jewelry for wealthy and powerful people, before gold and silver were found in sufficient quantities to take that role, and before copper's biggest claims to fame became first bronze and brass, and later electronic wiring and superconductors. -Gold is biologically inert, making it ideal for housing things like implants, and it's also an excellent conductor often used in contact plates for electronics. -Silver has antimicrobial properties. -Platinum (and iridium) are crucial for large-scale high-efficiency solar power, and some promising leads with 3D graphene aside, are one of the big things actually stopping us from adopting that power option on modernday Earth. -Jade is one of the absolute toughest minerals (meaning that, notwithstanding how easy it is to scratch (it kinda isn't, it's harder than quartz but still much softer than diamond), it is incredibly difficult to break (by comparison, diamonds and even sapphires are fairly easy to shatter into tiny bits with percussive force)). -Quartz, on that note, is used in atomic clocks. It's also used to make glass. -Sapphire is pretty much second only to diamond in mohs hardness (scratch resistance, and ability to scratch other materials), making sapphire dust almost as useful of an abrasive. If you have a recently-made, higher-end smartphone, its screen is probably made from sapphire too (pretty much only low-end androids don't have sapphire screens at this point). Phone manufacturers do that so they can objectively correctly advertise their screens as "hard" and somewhat misleadingly as "durable," so that they're almost impossible to scratch, and, crucially, so that they shatter super easily (again, sapphire and diamond are hard but not tough; in other words they are brittle), forcing you to buy a new one. -Technically still sapphire (they have the same crystal lattice, but a red sapphire is called a ruby), but rubies are used for lasers. (So are other sapphires, sometimes.) -Tantalite is an ore of tantalum. (Tantalite is usually only considered a gemstone as manganotantalite, which is also the heaviest non-toxic, clear, facetable gemstone; That's just fun rock trivia and not practical info on the gem's usefulness, though.) -Flint and obsidian's usefulness is well-known (both have been or sometimes still are considered gemstones); Obsidian remains useful in eclectic cases today due to the sharpness of an obsidian blade (it's sometimes used in scalpels). Also depending on its makeup bronze also often tarnishes blue or green. Arsenic and zinc content tend to alter that.
I think I value world building more than any other part of fiction. The story and characters are just a means to explore other worlds as far as I’m concerned.
I love your style and presentation, I would’ve really loved your videos a year ago, I just don’t need the information anymore, writing a different story with a more modern setting. Still much love, and I will still be subscribed
Just found your channel and I love it. I love the idea of building a world for campaigns but find it such an overwhelming task with how many factors are involved. You explain it so well
Love the video, I have got to read up more on Foraging, and learning that birch tree bark can be eaten makes me intrigued as to how it would taste. I was reading a fantasy book recently called The Grace of Kings, and the character Jia plays a lot with how herbs and stuff work, and the part reminds me of that. Mind if I ask, do you have any resources to use as a starting point for this part?
Thankyou for liking the video! And good question; uhhh unfortunately there's so much information out there I really couldn't suggest a single resource for absolutely everything. A decent jumping off point though is Wikipedia: which has a "list of forageable plants", and while I wouldn't take what Wikipedia says at face value without backing it up with other sources, it's a good jumping off point! Other than that there are hundreds of survival guides and tutorials, foraging hobbyist communities and more that helped me with compiling as much as possible on foraging. Hope that helps? ^^"
would like to add that geological formations don't date million of years no, but BILLIONS. Soft ground is usually hundreds of thousands, but bedrock can be as old as 3.5 billion in north europe! I know many won't be interested in this, but (in case any aspiring writer sees this), things that might be useful include (yes these are all geology): - swamp structure and formation - river types and their main features (search: meandering, braided, and straight channel rivers) - chronostratigraphy aka the eons earth is divided in (search: geological time scale for nicer drawings) - Fossil formation and most common environments, this ties back to swamps (search: fossil types) of course these are only useful for more world exploration heavy settings, or as thought exercises, but especially for those eager to make maps i recommend the river one!
today diamond coated drill are used to bore tunnels and rubies are used in water jets to cut almost anything. So the pretty metals and stones in a setting could be practical and aesthetic
Silver, gold and Platinum are extremly useful materials, Platinum is major catalyst in many industrial processes and used in a lot of small equimpent. Silver is not only major part of mirror making, it's also a excelent electricity conductor, and base for old age photography. And gold. Gold is the main electronic compoent, it's a incrediably easily molduable metal. Also biggest part. All of them can be made into money
Aluminum was not available until the industrial era. I think Zinc was the same. If you are including modern materials and uses, like aluminum or diamond for cutting, gold, platinum, and silver do have uses. Silver, especially, was used in photography for a long time.
If you're not starting with the Directional Rotation of your Planet, Continental and Ocean Plate Tectonics and even Ocean Currents and their effect on Climate are you *really* doing hard research for your Worldbuilding?
How did the planet form. What kind of star did the cosmic dust that became your planet form around? What strange powers hallucinated your world into being? Just how many elephants down is it?
While checking out megafauna in fiction, I'd recommend a look at the Monster Hunter series, especially Monster Hunter World. The designers took a lot of care with designing the ecology of their world, and it stands as an interesting case study for things to do or avoid in one's own writing.
My plan for the worldbuild of the short stories that I'm writing is to say the name of the tech that allows whatever I need to and then skip back to the plot as fast as I can!
For a very long time lead was used for pipes. Things is the minerals in the water would bind to the lead and coat the inside of the pipe. Also if you are just using it for moving waste it doesn't really matter.
The whole radioisotopes of lead comes from that lead can either come from nuclear decay of heavier elements, or from neutron star collisions. The heavier nuclei decay at sort of random, and less stable forms of lead decay faster than more stable forms into either non-isotopic lead or other elements. If you ask where lead comes from, it doesn’t really help world building unless you deal with in which stage the universe at large is in. If you want to know where to find lead, then that is a different geological question I don’t really know how to answer. It’s technically possible to manufacture lead in the very real nuclear transmutation sense, but this is almost completely for research purposes. Just coming from a mechanical engineer.
Frankly you're REALLY underselling lead, weird to say I know, but having a stone that was so durable yet easy-to-work metal is crucial for a burgeoning civilization.
Material World by Ed Conway is a book you might enjoy! It goes into depth on the handful of materials that have shaped the ancient and modern world. Material science is fascinating
I too have been writting a story set in the Paleolithic and i STG i spend more time researching nature facts and tutorials on how to make tools the "olden way" than actually making up plot points and characters : v
Something interesting about ruby and sapphire is that are made of aluminum oxide and are pretty much one step below diamonds in terms of hardness and are commonly used in sanders or high precision cutters. So not *entirely* useless. Also crystals are used by wizards in most settings. Just btw, I’m not criticizing you, just adding to what was said
Late to the party on that one, but yeath. The part about lead is me. I was researching how to draw a mountain pass. Ended up studying Brenner Pass and then the geology of Brenner Pass. Eight hours before my pencil hit paper.
Also keep in mind that many of those earth inspired facts only are relevant if your world is a planet :) especially climate zones, seasons and all those things.
Fun fact! Before the 1840s, aluminum was a more precious metal then gold. The chemical process used to extract aluminum from bauxite wasnt invented till then and aluminum very rarely forms into ores large enough to extract.
Aluminum was actually very expensive to produce until a modern method of production was developed. I feel it would be out of place in a fantasy environment unless a magical process is used to refine it.
Please beware lead isn't as common as you'd think the only reason it's common is because of the ease of use it gave. Also the most useful gemstone is quartz because of its high thermals, stability and resilience being used from lighters to clocks from cellphone screens to high temp and pressurized forges but the oldest use for them would be as fire starters since if you smack any form of quarts together hard enough it'll emit hot sparks that are hot enough to make a fire fairly easily the most easily available wound be quartzite. And diamond isn't as useful as you'd think it'd be. Sure it's used in high strength applications like digging into miles and miles of dirt to carving and stress tests but most of those require a significant amount of knowledge in materials science and engineering.
Some useful notes on metals, mainly from old research I did while procrastinating on doing an art history essay school
-Although sources differ, early Ironworking methods to my knowledge create inferior tools to bronze if given a high enough Tin count. A main reason the move was made was that tin was a rare metal only found in certain areas (for example, in Ireland our Bronze Age people got their tim from Wales). A major collapse of civilisations in the Mediterranean the end of Bronze Age lead to all a collapse in trade, meaning this weaker metal was a substitute.
- This doesn’t mean Iron was disadvantageous, for Iron is a lot more common in the earths soil than the materials needed to make Bronze, which made it more practical and common when it comes to tool use. A good example of this would be in warfare, as metal weaponry could now be produced to an entire army, sculpted with the techniques already developed through bronze and gold use.
-Steel, like Bronze, is an alloy, instead being an alloy of Iron made with Carbon, initially using coal.
-Bronze, though usually made copper and tin, refers to several other copper alloys. Copper and Zinc and Copper and Arsenic are such examples. These also have other uses, but I forgot them :P
Arsenical bronze isn't actually substituting tin with arsenic, but adding small amounts of arsenic to another bronze recipe. It tarnishes differently depending on the amount of arsenic, and even a tiny amount of arsenic makes the bronze far tougher and harder- Compared not only to primitive ironwork, but also most pre-modern steels. As a fun fact about fiction, Tolkien probably based Mithril on arsenical bronze. The Sword of Goujian, a gorgeous ancient Chinese sword found in a tomb, was made from different ratios of arsenical bronze to form its complex geometric tarnish pattern.
That said, you're right about iron's commonness being advantageous. A popular theory is that the reason ancient humans switched to using iron and eventually steel was that it became difficult to find tin in the areas where that happened (particularly the mediterranean), so making bronze became extremely difficult; Another issue was that arsenical bronze (aka the good kind) produced toxic fumes in the forge, making it difficult and dangerous to smelt.
Steel isn't _just_ iron and carbon; It also contains other metals, nickel usually being a large component. Iron and carbon alone produce pig iron, which is heavy, brittle and not very useful except as cookware or grates. (Cast iron and wrought iron are made from pig iron.)
to my knowledge the greeks refered to the early iron age as a dark age because fpr example they could not get bronce and had to use iron istead which they saw as inferior.
@@lubenicmackavic2780 more because Greek society effectively collapsed in that period. It was so bad the writing system stopped existing
@@Emery_Pallas I am aware. I was not saying it was, i should i worded differently. The iron part was certainly playing into that though
A note on the video from someone who coincidentally learned about metal deposits recently: Copper and Iron aren't usually native metals in nature! The deposits where it's almost pure usually happen really sporadically (with some exeptions, see the Great Lakes Copper Deposit), and most of where they do show up is in much larger ore deposits, which need to be melted down. There's a fair bit of variation here, so keep in mind real life examples while worldbuilding!
While I do worldbuild for storytelling, my favorite hobby is literally worldbuilding and thinking too much about the tiny details is everything to me. I adore this stuff.
@DirectorDeltathis is what i do instead of school work
Kinship
It's interesting how often these little details make the biggest difference to immersion.
I am definitely a hard researcher because the tiny intricate (somewhat useless) details are extremely fun for me to think about. Most of that doesn't make it into the stories I write, but it is still so much fun to think about I can't stop. When I read stories by writers who add little details it just gets me excited. I love it.
I am definitely a hard researcher. I love thinking of tiny, insignificant, (mostly useless) little details so much! Even though most of it doesn't make it into the story, it's just so much fun I can't help it. It helps me visualize the story when I write also, so it's worth it to me. When writers add inconsequential little details it honestly makes me excited. I love it.
Finally! My Biology degree is useful for something! Loved to see someone hyperfixated on small aspects of worldbuilding that isn't me.
Hehe hyperfixated is definitely the word - glad you enjoyed it! It's awesome to see someone who knows the subject matter watching! :)
Aluminum is primarily extracted using a relatively new chemical process, and has ben a valuable and metal for a long time. Napoleon had a set of Aluminum cutlery to be brought out when he had important guests. @hannahsmth
I frequently fixate on specific aspects of the seting, sometimes at the exclusion of others as well.
i'm a gamedev doing worldbuilding. i've been spending months and months studying rock types, 3d modeling tree types, studying landforms and fauna, to build the world from the bottom up. the way I see it, this stuff is the foundation of immersion, and it's so often neglected in video games especially.
An important note, in case it escaped your notice: While Aluminium is indeed one of the most common metals, it has been historically one of the hardest metals to mine. As such, up until the industrial revolution, Aluminium was considered rarer and more precious than gold or silver.
Yeah having certain metals available earlier than normal can do some very interesting things. In my setting tungsten has been available for centuries despite being generally medieval to early 1800s tech because of how the magic works that people could detect it separately and actually create usable tungsten metals.
smelt. it's hard to smelt. it requires super high temperatures. now we use electricity to smelt it, so that's convenient and makes it readily available. but without electricity, it's much more complicated
Also, the guy who discovered the metal used both "aluminum" and "aluminium" when referring to it, so both are acceptable and yes I will die on this hill.
Napoleon even served meals on aluminum plate ware because it was so difficult to mine and refine. Same with diamonds, which arent rare at all and they were much less useful in pre-indsutrial world... and also much less valued since a lot of their value now is artificially inflated. We lose sight of things like that in the modern era when looking at pre-industrial settings.
@@inowar7981 Not quite, it actually doesn't require as much heat as iron and the importance of electricity in the process has nothing to do with generating heat. It's actually electrolysis of the already molten substance in order to form elemental (pure) aluminium. If you want to knwo more look up the Hall-Héroult process.
This is not only world buildings tips. This is an introductory video on mineralogy, biology, botanics and anthropology.
I love it.
Ooh! "Aestetic Elements" is an amazing term!!!
For anyone reading this struggeling with creating their world: Artifexian has some really useful videos on where to place climate zones, ocean currents, wind patterns, resources, etc. Might save you some research work on the geological parts. He also goes quite in depth into plate tectonics and such, so it can help you create a really 'realistic' natural world, if that's what you want.
Important thing to note from someone who frequently interacts with the accurate cartography/geology worldbuilding circle! It’s said by a lot of people there that a good chunk of Artifexian content on planetary science (and conlanging, if you do that sort of thing) has quite a long track record of misinformation and inaccuracy. While it may be serviceable for someone who is just starting, I recommend taking his info with a grain of salt and using other sources if you want to go deep. I’m not sure who else makes content like this on UA-cam though, so you might want to find people in the worldbuilding sphere to talk to for advice or find some other creator for that (but talking to people whether online or offline is more helpful in the long run imo)
@@notmyrealnamefinally where exactly does someone enter this "worldbuilding sphere"?
@@Sonicx5040 r/worldbuilding, r/conlangs and their respective discord servers are good places to start, and you can ask around if you need more specific communities (in all honesty, you don’t need to look for any more)
Although I’d recommend r/conlangs because i prefer hanging out there
@@Sonicx5040 r/worldbuilding, r/conlangs and their respective discord servers are good places to start. You can ask around for more specific communities, but in all honestly you don't need any more
Might want to include Obsidian in your Native Elements, obsidian can be found around volcanoes and can be easily chipped to incredibly sharp edges, in fact obsidian can be made so sharp that it’s still used today for the finest of surgical scalpels. So very useful as arrowheads, spear points and knives. The main downside of obsidian is it’s brittleness but for an example of a larger weapon utilizing it you can check out the Aztec Macuahuitl, which according to one conquistadors account was so sharp it could decapitate a horse in one swing. Pretty sure the Aztec warrior swinging it was basically their version of Goliath but still not a material to overlook since it can be utilized as early as the Stone Age.
Bruh, this is a ridiculously underrated channel
She’s the goat
amphibians actually thrive in cold environments outside the arctic circle, its reptiles that struggle with the lack of heat. europe especially is filled with newts and toads and frogs, and colder climates in america and asia are home to the three largest species of amphibian on the planet with the three extant giant salamanders.
Water is an excellent insulator. That's why fish and many amphibians can survive in cold environments. The surface of a lake may freeze over in the winter but underneath the layer of ice will be "relatively" warmer water.
@drizzmatec well, really, its that fish and amphibians that have adapted to the cold with a greater range of proteins that function in cold temperatures, whereas reptiles didnt or lost them and found it easier to find heat.
Calling naturally-occurring metals "native" runs into the issue of glossing over the utility of what that term is used for irl--that is, metals that occur in usably-pure concentrations without needing smelting (ex: finding a lump of metal inside a rock, gold flecks in a stream, etc). In the context of worldbuilding, the main benefit of native metals is showing where gold rush-style mining towns are most likely to form, but meteoric iron (that is, native iron gathered from a fallen asteroid) is a nice source for culturally significant artifacts or cheating an iron sword into the bronze age. You need less heat to forge iron than you do to smelt it from ore, after all.
Another thing native metals are useful for is showing where even low-fuel societies can engage in metalworking. Your average plains nomad likely doesn't have the charcoal on-hand needed to smelt something from ore, but dried animal dung is a decent substitute if you just need to hammer metal into shape.
A major source of native copper in the Americas is Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Which has was traded far and wide across the continent and has ended up in sites as far away as Louisiana.
From a world building perspective the value of native copper is that you can cold work it with occasional heating called "annealing" to remove stress in the surface of the worked copper. (A relatively low temperature process, atleast much lower than actually melting the metal)
This is in stark contrast to iron ore refining which is so much more work intensive that its was considered a downgrade from bronze by ancient Mediterranean cultures. The iron age happened because the apocalypse called the brinze age collapse took out the trade routes importing tin into the region.
And then alloys are their own special thing, at the simplest explanation they are careful mixtures of metals and sometimes nonmetals like carbon. They are typically better than the pure elemental metal, but generally come after the primary metal was used.
How any of this relates to world building is simple, basic resources define where cultures can become more powerful and what regions bigger nations will fight over. (In the modern era everyone is dependent on oil which makes the Middle East significantly more geopolitically important than it otherwise should be.)
Thank you for including Fahrenheit! That was a very small but VERY NOCTICEABLE detail. Thank you. AMAZING VIDEO! Definitely inspirational to say the least and very informative!! I will say I will be watching everything here!
I am trying to create my own setting not for a story but for a ttrpg with a unique, alien environment, and videos like this do a lot to help me understand how to make it feel truly alive, so it is much appreciated
and that’s why I’ve been researching swordfighting for years!
actually tho I’ve found group-level combat to be more useful for writing, since it benefits the narrative more to have clear goals and structure, whereas a fight between two dudes can absolutely just be them smacking the tar out of one another.
I like how youtube recommended me this after I started writing a new story and accidentally wrote paragraphs about the paper industry in my fantasy world
Honestly I think this might be my favorite part of world building, yes making continent spending multi cultural empires are cool, but Really Making a World is just something magical
So thankful to have stumbled upon this community! I LOVE everything you've included in this video, your style, your pace, your focus and love of details.
I've always played with these things casually, usually in making stuff up with friends while we watch movies or play video games. I've had a lot to focus on, and struggles to overcome these past years. After my divorce last year I've been finding myself building up this insatiable desire to worldbuild!
I love playing with cause and effect. Exploring all the details that go into creating societies. Creating all the details of a world, or enough, that I can play around with a specific location, people, creatures, flesh it out with all the things I'd like to see happen with them. Often emotionally/tone driven.
One I'm working on now I've built up the immediate area with elements I know I want that will help further the type of story I'm interested in, but along the way I also am seeing and building events and interactions between elements that's building the story, and how if things were ordered differently or a few things were changed it could be entirely different.
Like a goblin society that has a goblin more musically inclined discover parts of a creature can be used as a type of instrument, and how that can be a cornerstone of development for the society. How that's influenced by the history, traumas, personalities of the village. What they're surrounded by or not surrounded by.
I don't know how to express what I love about emergent gameplay. I want to build a world that can be used for that in tabletop, that I can also play my own stories in.
For that I need DETAILS! What foods can be made from flora and fauna? Who has access? Who has knowledge?
I gotta stop because nothing I'm writing is gonna paint the complete picture, I just gotta get back to BUILDING!
I have no training, I've played D&D with people for a dozen or so sessions years ago. But I've played SO many games, reflected on so much media, and LIFE!
Feelin' excited and passionate today, wishing the best to everyone!
😆🥰
The best thing you can do in life is ask yourself questions. By asking a question, you can seek an answer. Once you start looking for an answer to your question, you can find it and keep it jotted down, then move on to another. I would recommend asking a load of questions first, marking each one down, and then answering each one individually and continuing to ask more questions about those answers before spreading out an entire world. All it takes is a few important questions, and you will be able to go anywhere with them.
You know what your are talking about! Nice to see
Yaaayyyyyyy we hath been blessed by an upload!
I love watching your videos while working on my own WB project
Yeah a new video, love to see more about your world.
I really like world building and love to see other people do it so great video
Fascinating in presentation and information provided. I've been worldbuilding for TTRPGs for years and don't tend to worry too much about details except when making a new town or city, I find some fascinating things I didn't know and fantasy it up for a unique aspect of that city. It's enough and I usually deep dive a *lot* which means if players need more I have it tucked in my brain somewhere and can make stuff up on the spot.
Delving into just writing and publishing my own web novel has made me even more deeply fascinated with this stuff and this is an absolutely wonderful way to present yourself, good work!
Hannah: "content warning for a somewhat violent description (of use of a deer)"
MH Fans: *vigorously writing down notes*
What a wonderful channel, ill have to continue my binge tomorrow
I sometimes spend almost as much time building out my worlds as I do writing stories for them, which for one such story set across various alien planets, was both an extremely fun creative exercise and a frustratingly complex challenge...
I'm so happy to find your channel! Great inspiration
In terms of stone, I feel it's a good idea to also add stones used for building. Here sandstone or brick was the go-tos in europe.
And wood may be very expensive heating-source in regions without a lot of trees, which is why peat (worth looking up, not as much used today) was used by a lot by people to heat their homes/cook etc.
Plants, you would often find Flax a useful plant, as it was used for its fibers to create clothing, other plants like nettle etc. was also used by some. But you will typically find cloth being made out of cotton (plant, where you spin), flax (where you need to preprocess it) or wool (animal). Most people would spend a lot of time spinning and weaving, before spinning wheel you used drop spindle(need rotation to bind thread together) and a distaff(held the wool/etc. so easy to draw from.)
I am enjoying your channel, I hope it goes viral.
I played in a resource based game one time. My character was named King of Cows, the Lord of Dairy. I paid a lot money for this marketing campaign. The goal was to convince kids to eat two bowls of cereal a day. It was somewhat successful.
Thanks!
This is incredible! I always thought that I put too much time into research for settings but now I see I don't do enough! Immense thanks for all the details you put into this!
definately gonna use my anthropology background to build interesting cultures, peoples, religions, and other things. I was taught in classes how environments effected the shaping of peoples and their cultures, beliefs.
I tend to write in hard research because I can’t help but love that which I write and who I am writing, and I want to do everything to make their world beautiful and full.
there are several uses for precious metals, mainly revolving around non reactivity. Like bone replacement prothesis (maybe teeth, maybe kneecaps), piercings and jewelry (although copper jewelry is really prominent on some cultures), in corrosion resistant alloys like sterling silver, used for intricate machining pieces that are susceptible to corrosion/ have to work for a long time (automatic watches, sewing machines, several analog measuring devises)
and lets not forget conductivity and electronics!
for gemstones its a little more complicated but the basics are: hard gemstones (not just diamonds) are used for making high quality grinding wheels and "cutting"(which is more of grinding pieces if the material away than wedge cutting) also used for pieces exposed to friction wear. Some gems are valued because of the substances that can be extracted from them (fluorite and sulfur are big ones) pigments too, really dangerous pigments like arsenic and mercury specially so. Some gemstones are valued for their refractive properties, not just to make eyeglasses, but also telescope and microscope lenses (pure clear quarts is really valuable for this reason [ also its more heat resistant than glass]) other optic devises, prisms.
This was a fun video to watch, I’ve been working on a world for a certain project I’m working on so this was oddly good timing too, I hadn’t thought about what animals could be used for other than meat and pelts before so that could be really useful for me. Can’t believe this got into my recommended though, my recommendations aren’t usually that good. Anyways first video from this channel I’ve seen but I subscribed anyway, hope I see more of your videos in my recommendations.
although im not really a worldbuilder, i usually take my inspirations from anatolia. you got cold mountains, dry cold mountains, mountainous area with insane amounts of trees, grasslands, types of steppes, mediterrian places and a few more different types of places. it usually works out well for any games i host due to the simple reason there is a lot of difference between one place and another, with resources/water sources distributed accordingly.
I just found out about this channel and I thoroughly enjoy it! Your art style is very pleasing and your enthusiasm for worldbuilding is infectious! I have quite a bit of experience in worldbuilding, be it making my own worlds, helping others, or leading online worldbuilding communities. I'd like to give some constructive criticism to this video just to help you out, because this channel has potential and I'd like to see you fulfill it.
1. Kudos on the overview and philosophy of worldbuilding, you covered the wide range of forms it can take very well!
2. This was mentioned in another comment, so I'll keep it short. Native elements are generally speaking elements that can occur as pure in the Earth; no smelting or processing required. Native iron is just iron, native gold is just gold, etc. The presence of these can jumpstart a society by giving them access to "refined" resources early on. Fun fact: A lot of this native metal comes from space in the form of meteorites, and these were utilized worldwide!
3. Your definition of a non-native metal is properly called an alloy, though some alloys can occur naturally. Galena is not an example of this, for it is an ore (lead sulfide with silver impurities).
4. Gold, silver, and platinum are extremely useful in industry for mirrors, electrical contacts, catalysts, etc. I don't know what tech level you are aiming for with these descriptions, but I presume it includes modern times because platinum was discovered and utilized only fairly recently, and the energy-intensive process of smelting aluminum was also a recent find, downgrading it from a precious metal to a common one.
5. Phenomenal crash course on the uses of plants and animals!
6. Colder average temperatures do decrease the diversity of amphibians and bugs, but they also do so for every other animal. Nothing special about warm-bloodedness here; cold temperatures are tough for diversity across the board.
7. I like the little discussion about the relationship between a civilization and nature. It indeed can be as awful or mutually beneficial as one wishes.
8. I definitely agree with the frustration that can come with reading a work of fiction that is not well worldbuilt. Keep in mind one caveat, though: Judge work based on the technology of the time. It's easy to forget that we live in an age replete with information that is easier to find than ever. Works created earlier would not only be restricted by the knowledge of the time, but by the accessibility of that knowledge via local public libraries and the speed of communication between people. Of course, this gives us all the more motivation to tear apart poorly made cash grabs that took no advantage of modern knowledge, which often plagues cinema.
I'll keep watching your vids, and I hope you keep making them! I hope my feedback was worth something to you.
This is my first time here and I am pleased to see the ancient prophecies were correct.
You truly are the lost heir to the Holy Trinity of Worldbuilding Guides.
Rise now, and take your rightful place alongside Artefaxxian and Atlas Pro.
We will prepare the way.
Bronze and brass are also used in modern day manufacturing, and likely many other industries, generally in the maintenance of steel parts that cannot be put at risk of scratching but require a durable metal tool to maintain or adjust. An example being the usage of a bronze putty knife used in tandem with a rag soaked in solvent to get adhesive off of the steel cutting blades in the assembly lines I presently work on. Brass wire brushes are also used for the cleaning of some complex steel injection-molding dyes in the manufacturing department I previously worked in for a time.
I keep telling myself I dont have a type, but your character's white hair drew me in, the content caused me to subscribe. Now its time to binge the backlog of content!
i tend to start my stories with census data, so this was an interesting look at another perspective. thanks!
I think this video contains a lot of good information. It reminds me of the research I did for one of my stories that takes place after the events of a plane crash. I haven't worked on the story in a while, but at the time I was really into survivalism, so I wanted to write a story where a group of characters had to survive. When I first started writing it, I made a major mistake. The story ended up being too much of me showing off my knowledge of survivalism which I'm glad I realized. Eventually, I plan to revisit the idea. I still have a list of survival tricks such as how to make birch pitch. I came across some cool channels while researching for that story and one of them put me onto an anime called Dr. Stone which plays with the idea of survival.
You are gonna love Dwarf Fortress. Play it!
Also worth noting that our change from bronze to iron as the primary metal used was caused to a large degree by thr Late Bronze Age Collapse... it became worth it for us to focus on iron (which at the time wasnt easier to extract or work) because the tin trade necessary to make bronze became a lot harder to acquire... almost all tin was coming from either what is now Wales/Cornwall, Spain or Turkey. There were a lot of degrees for the quality of bronze based on what percentage of tin was used and if other metals were added as well, some of which rivaled the average iron tools and weapons of the time.
The Spanish imorted so much silver from South America that they devalued it and it hit their economy hard.
So even what is available and its value can change a lot because of world events.
So, the usefulness of your "aesthetic elements" actually depends a lot on TL (tech level), and even in low TLs some of them are very useful. Just a few examples:
-Malachite and turquoise are copper ores, and cinnabar is the principle ore of mercury (which has all kinds of uses, apart from being super toxic). Note that copper was kind of the first "aesthetic metal," on the other hand; Its earliest uses were pretty strictly as jewelry for wealthy and powerful people, before gold and silver were found in sufficient quantities to take that role, and before copper's biggest claims to fame became first bronze and brass, and later electronic wiring and superconductors.
-Gold is biologically inert, making it ideal for housing things like implants, and it's also an excellent conductor often used in contact plates for electronics.
-Silver has antimicrobial properties.
-Platinum (and iridium) are crucial for large-scale high-efficiency solar power, and some promising leads with 3D graphene aside, are one of the big things actually stopping us from adopting that power option on modernday Earth.
-Jade is one of the absolute toughest minerals (meaning that, notwithstanding how easy it is to scratch (it kinda isn't, it's harder than quartz but still much softer than diamond), it is incredibly difficult to break (by comparison, diamonds and even sapphires are fairly easy to shatter into tiny bits with percussive force)).
-Quartz, on that note, is used in atomic clocks. It's also used to make glass.
-Sapphire is pretty much second only to diamond in mohs hardness (scratch resistance, and ability to scratch other materials), making sapphire dust almost as useful of an abrasive. If you have a recently-made, higher-end smartphone, its screen is probably made from sapphire too (pretty much only low-end androids don't have sapphire screens at this point). Phone manufacturers do that so they can objectively correctly advertise their screens as "hard" and somewhat misleadingly as "durable," so that they're almost impossible to scratch, and, crucially, so that they shatter super easily (again, sapphire and diamond are hard but not tough; in other words they are brittle), forcing you to buy a new one.
-Technically still sapphire (they have the same crystal lattice, but a red sapphire is called a ruby), but rubies are used for lasers. (So are other sapphires, sometimes.)
-Tantalite is an ore of tantalum. (Tantalite is usually only considered a gemstone as manganotantalite, which is also the heaviest non-toxic, clear, facetable gemstone; That's just fun rock trivia and not practical info on the gem's usefulness, though.)
-Flint and obsidian's usefulness is well-known (both have been or sometimes still are considered gemstones); Obsidian remains useful in eclectic cases today due to the sharpness of an obsidian blade (it's sometimes used in scalpels).
Also depending on its makeup bronze also often tarnishes blue or green. Arsenic and zinc content tend to alter that.
I think I value world building more than any other part of fiction. The story and characters are just a means to explore other worlds as far as I’m concerned.
Thanks a ton! I'm working on finishing a dnd setting I'm working on enough to be playable, and this is helps a ton!
What a phenomenal video. More!
AMAZING VIDEO! Really well done! Thank you!
Will probably use your channel as a resource/jumping off point for any world building I do for tabletop related stuff. Very good stuff
6:45 Quartz: Piezo electric effect.
Rubies: Low friction bearings inside watches.
I love your style and presentation, I would’ve really loved your videos a year ago, I just don’t need the information anymore, writing a different story with a more modern setting. Still much love, and I will still be subscribed
Just found your channel and I love it. I love the idea of building a world for campaigns but find it such an overwhelming task with how many factors are involved. You explain it so well
your art is always so cool! i love your style
Love the video, I have got to read up more on Foraging, and learning that birch tree bark can be eaten makes me intrigued as to how it would taste. I was reading a fantasy book recently called The Grace of Kings, and the character Jia plays a lot with how herbs and stuff work, and the part reminds me of that.
Mind if I ask, do you have any resources to use as a starting point for this part?
Thankyou for liking the video! And good question; uhhh unfortunately there's so much information out there I really couldn't suggest a single resource for absolutely everything. A decent jumping off point though is Wikipedia: which has a "list of forageable plants", and while I wouldn't take what Wikipedia says at face value without backing it up with other sources, it's a good jumping off point! Other than that there are hundreds of survival guides and tutorials, foraging hobbyist communities and more that helped me with compiling as much as possible on foraging. Hope that helps? ^^"
What a lovely channel I found! Great video.
I'm worldbuilding a DND setting from scratch so looks like I'll be binging your vids!
im no writer (yet) but i got so excited seeing the word geology since that's my passion (and major). Maybe it's time to give world building a try
would like to add that geological formations don't date million of years no, but BILLIONS. Soft ground is usually hundreds of thousands, but bedrock can be as old as 3.5 billion in north europe! I know many won't be interested in this, but (in case any aspiring writer sees this), things that might be useful include (yes these are all geology):
- swamp structure and formation
- river types and their main features (search: meandering, braided, and straight channel rivers)
- chronostratigraphy aka the eons earth is divided in (search: geological time scale for nicer drawings)
- Fossil formation and most common environments, this ties back to swamps (search: fossil types)
of course these are only useful for more world exploration heavy settings, or as thought exercises, but especially for those eager to make maps i recommend the river one!
today diamond coated drill are used to bore tunnels and rubies are used in water jets to cut almost anything. So the pretty metals and stones in a setting could be practical and aesthetic
Silver, gold and Platinum are extremly useful materials, Platinum is major catalyst in many industrial processes and used in a lot of small equimpent.
Silver is not only major part of mirror making, it's also a excelent electricity conductor, and base for old age photography.
And gold. Gold is the main electronic compoent, it's a incrediably easily molduable metal.
Also biggest part. All of them can be made into money
Aluminum was not available until the industrial era. I think Zinc was the same. If you are including modern materials and uses, like aluminum or diamond for cutting, gold, platinum, and silver do have uses. Silver, especially, was used in photography for a long time.
Jist stumbled on this channnel, 10/10 i love the style and drawings in the videos cheers
Woww love this, as aspiring concept artist i gound this is gold!
Brilliant!
If you're not starting with the Directional Rotation of your Planet, Continental and Ocean Plate Tectonics and even Ocean Currents and their effect on Climate are you *really* doing hard research for your Worldbuilding?
How did the planet form. What kind of star did the cosmic dust that became your planet form around? What strange powers hallucinated your world into being?
Just how many elephants down is it?
@@TheReedsofEnki How Old is your Universe and how much time is left until it reaches it’s Heat Death
Note: an animal bladder is used to make water skins
While checking out megafauna in fiction, I'd recommend a look at the Monster Hunter series, especially Monster Hunter World. The designers took a lot of care with designing the ecology of their world, and it stands as an interesting case study for things to do or avoid in one's own writing.
My plan for the worldbuild of the short stories that I'm writing is to say the name of the tech that allows whatever I need to and then skip back to the plot as fast as I can!
I really like thinking of the stock market and how demand and supply is effected by mountains and stuff
i love your vids
Earned my sub before the world building started
For a very long time lead was used for pipes. Things is the minerals in the water would bind to the lead and coat the inside of the pipe. Also if you are just using it for moving waste it doesn't really matter.
5:29 I mean, those got proper uses with late industrialization.
REALLY liked this one!
Almost out of content on your channel.
Great stuff!
Thanks for Makin it!
The whole radioisotopes of lead comes from that lead can either come from nuclear decay of heavier elements, or from neutron star collisions. The heavier nuclei decay at sort of random, and less stable forms of lead decay faster than more stable forms into either non-isotopic lead or other elements.
If you ask where lead comes from, it doesn’t really help world building unless you deal with in which stage the universe at large is in. If you want to know where to find lead, then that is a different geological question I don’t really know how to answer.
It’s technically possible to manufacture lead in the very real nuclear transmutation sense, but this is almost completely for research purposes.
Just coming from a mechanical engineer.
ThE INITIAL SEARCH FOR LEAD IS SO RELATABLE LMAOOOO
Universe Creator Survival Guide: "Just nuke the earth, and plunge it into a moderate ice age."
Frankly you're REALLY underselling lead, weird to say I know, but having a stone that was so durable yet easy-to-work metal is crucial for a burgeoning civilization.
Material World by Ed Conway is a book you might enjoy! It goes into depth on the handful of materials that have shaped the ancient and modern world. Material science is fascinating
I too have been writting a story set in the Paleolithic and i STG i spend more time researching nature facts and tutorials on how to make tools the "olden way" than actually making up plot points and characters : v
Nice drawing style
Beautiful thumbnail.
Brass is extremely useful for the fire department. While most nozzles now-a-days are plastic there are a few special nozzles that are still brass.
Something interesting about ruby and sapphire is that are made of aluminum oxide and are pretty much one step below diamonds in terms of hardness and are commonly used in sanders or high precision cutters. So not *entirely* useless. Also crystals are used by wizards in most settings.
Just btw, I’m not criticizing you, just adding to what was said
Great Video !
superb
you are amazing thanks for that
Late to the party on that one, but yeath. The part about lead is me. I was researching how to draw a mountain pass. Ended up studying Brenner Pass and then the geology of Brenner Pass. Eight hours before my pencil hit paper.
9:49
No mention of flint, obsidian and other rocks suitable for trools?
Also keep in mind that many of those earth inspired facts only are relevant if your world is a planet :) especially climate zones, seasons and all those things.
Fun fact! Before the 1840s, aluminum was a more precious metal then gold. The chemical process used to extract aluminum from bauxite wasnt invented till then and aluminum very rarely forms into ores large enough to extract.
15:02 Instructions unclear, the Heavy is dead.
Aluminum was actually very expensive to produce until a modern method of production was developed. I feel it would be out of place in a fantasy environment unless a magical process is used to refine it.
15:05 I will try but no promises.😂
Please beware lead isn't as common as you'd think the only reason it's common is because of the ease of use it gave.
Also the most useful gemstone is quartz because of its high thermals, stability and resilience being used from lighters to clocks from cellphone screens to high temp and pressurized forges but the oldest use for them would be as fire starters since if you smack any form of quarts together hard enough it'll emit hot sparks that are hot enough to make a fire fairly easily the most easily available wound be quartzite. And diamond isn't as useful as you'd think it'd be. Sure it's used in high strength applications like digging into miles and miles of dirt to carving and stress tests but most of those require a significant amount of knowledge in materials science and engineering.
Very cool, but remember, another settlement needs our help.
The area you used really looks like world of banner lord 2
The thumbnail reminds me of a webtoon I really like
Bruv, your hard research is my light research