Or was it green needle?
Hello.
Not that I’m at a loss for interesting/funny WG worldbuilding ideas, but I am interested:
What are some ideas you’ve came up with, or seen elsewhere that have been interesting, funny, or were just noteworthy to you?
There are no wrong answers, I’m just curious!
personally I haven’t given worldbuilding much thought other than “what if there was a race where the healthy weight would be morbidly obese for most other races”
Fair enough. That is actually a good point to start off from in my mind. I actually realized that half way through just looking at my post that some people might need something to grease their wheels a bit, so I’m actually writing about stuff that I’ve wrote/encountered to get people in the right headspace.
Why I didn’t think of that before I hit send, I don’t know, but I just in general wanna get the juices flowing since worldbuilding is like, my favorite part of writing.
The idea that flatulence leads to increased weight gain and/or slower metabolism which leads to more flatulence. That vicious cycle specifically.
a god or wizard or something one day just making food plentiful so people just give into their gluttony.
a fantasy world where peoples magic, and abilities are stronger the bigger they are.
an invasive alien species that invades planets to fatten all the people. for what reason? religion I guess.
these are not at all in-depth but that is typically how a story is born so that is how my brain works
I usually try to imagine why weight gain (or anything related to the fetish) is connected to a world. Is it due to magic? Some type of curse? How does the weight affect those that have and is it rapid or slow? How do others in the world view fatness and fitness? Many more questions can be added but they are all wide-ranging.
Definitely a fun thing to do, I love trying to imagine a world of how its people live day to day. Even if I may not create every world the ideas still remain.
Very good answers thusfar. Here I go!
I Have More Self Control Than You Could Ever Imagine!
I have to admit in good conscious before I continue that this idea was partially inspired by MysteryDad’s character Elise, but I have added much to the idea to not only make it unique, but also make it fit with The Elder Scrolls Universe. You’ve gotta be honest about where your inspiration comes from.
In Skyrim I have a vampire character who the idea was she was a kind hearted vampire. It is not necessarily unheard of in The Elder Scrolls to have vampires that resist their urges to feed on human blood, but it also depends on the bloodline of vampire how much the struggle is. For my character’s bloodline it is still a genuine struggle. In order to resist the urge to suck blood, she needs to consume animal blood and meat, that due to animals having much weaker souls is much less “sating” to a vampire than a very smart creature’s blood would be. Due to this, she has to eat a ridiculous amount of it.
Thiccness insues.
Beyond wholesome good vampire moments I just really personally like exploring a character that’s really really fat but also has very very high self control. Kind of flipping a trope on it’s head there, which I like to do.
Majin Buu.
Come on. Do I even have to say anything? Majin Buu (and by extension the whole Majin Race from extended Dragon Ball Media) is just over the top and it’s amazing.
First off, there’s the obvious, the Transfiguration Beam, known to some as the Candy Beam is an ability that allows the user to transform anything into anything else. (On a side note I actually really love Dragon Ball’s approach to magic sometimes, but not ALL THE TIME.) This is mostly use to turn random objects, entire buildings, but most of the time people into candy and other assorted sweets, that Majin Buu obviously enjoys. I mean, fuckin’ look at 'em! Though, look out, if whatever you’re turning into candy is stronger than you, then the results may not look favorably upon you. Also, in general, Majin Buu, and other Majins are almost universally pretty lazy and gluttonous in a very over the top way.
Second is Majin Buu’s amorphousness. Though it is mostly seen with his second form Super Buu, it’s actually kind of the main concept of the character, with him constantly changing and metamorphasizing the whole arc into different forms. One of the things his amorphous form leads to is an insane healing factor/regeneration that is almost second to none. You might be able to blow him apart but he can reform just as easy, even from atoms. If you tear him apart, the two parts of him are still perfectly sentient and probably can still kick your ass while separated if he wanted to. It’s cartoony as hell, but ultimately also really cool and inventive in my opinion.
I can hear you yawning already. “Where’s tha fetish in that, Stranger-Guy, if that even is your real name?” Well, to that I say:
Exhibit A: Super Buu Kills A Man
Exhibit B: #Buff-Vegito (The Rare Muscle-Inflation. Very sought after. Collectable.)
If male stuff or muscle stuff isn’t your speed (personally isn’t mine), good ol’ American Dream’s got your back with an animation you might’ve already seen that demonstrates what I’m talkin’ about.
Exhibit C: Super Buu Expands 18
Oh yeah. See what I’m talkin’ about now, feller?
Third and finally, something I already touched on before: There’s a whole Majin Race in extended Dragon Ball Media, which have been confirmed to have all of these abilities mostly through moves able to be learned in Xenoverse and Xenoverse 2. OCs can go hog wild with the toolkit that’s given here. I can attest to this myself.
(If you can’t already tell I’m kind of a Majin fanboy.)
Proverbs 23:20-21
Some real life lore here. Gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. While not strictly outlined in The Bible (The Bible treats idolatry much harsher than most of the Deadly Sins, which is why in some interpretations I’ve seen it is one) the Seven Deadly Sins are very culturally important to a lot of Christian denominations, and if you live in, or are at least familiar with the western world (which chances are you are) Christian ideas have at least crossed your mind before due to their prevalence.
Gluttony is mostly understood now as any physical vices that aren’t related to Lust, but is stereotypically associated with overeating, which does play into our favor, but generally I think in stories where The Seven Deadly Sins are present Gluttony can be used as a way to explore vice in general.
Why does this person feel the need to eat so much? Are there any underlying causes to this? Why does the vice cut deep into their very soul? Beyond health issues, how does it affect their life in a world where not everyone looks like a Goodyear Blimp? These are interesting questions that in universes where the sins are present can lead to more compelling characters. Ultimately, by putting a little hot sauce on the idea of being heavy, you’ve made it a good avenue to peer into the character’s personality and motivations, and at the same time they can eat like 40 cakes, which not only is equal to 4 tens, but is literally having our cake and eating it too. How do ya’ like them apples?
I’ve been playing with variations on an idea for a couple years now.
The basic concept is this:
A race of beings that isn’t impaired by the extra mass due to biological immortality and through some mechanism is able to convert their stored caloric energy into magic for the protagonist to utilize. When an Immortal dies, they’re immediately revived into their base form. As this happens whether they want it to or not, being trapped and starving to death over and over endlessly is a very real fear for Immortals, so most are inclined to eat as much as they can no matter the circumstances.
In my concept, “Vitality: Immortals’ Sins,” a number of human-like beings were created thousands of years in the past amidst an apocalypse. In the recovering fantasy-type earth later, the protagonist is possessed by Fhalma, the being that showed the scientists of the distant past how to fuse magic and biological engineering to create the first Immortals. These Immortals are able to connect with a Shaman (the protagonist) with Fhalma’s blessing and manifest their stored energy as Totems, elemental beings, to protect or fight for the Shaman.
This creates a feedback loop in gameplay: the player would need to gather resources from monsters to cook food for their Immortals and even more as their appetites and the number of gathered Immortals grew, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to use their Totems properly due to insufficient Magic Points (here called Vitality). Another complicated factor would be that each Immortal could only eat so much food in one day.
The goal of course would be manage your Totems so that you’re never too reliant one a small subset so you can continue to grow your Immortals bigger and unlock new abilities and a larger Vitality gauge. Use them improperly, and they’ll be too thin to manifest Totems. Give them their favorite foods, on the other hand, and they’ll eat more and grow more fond of the Shaman, which would unlock events and hidden skills.
Of course, having lived for thousands of years, many Immortals have found their places in the world. The bestial Gula and the cybernetic Vanagloria sisters have each built their own nations where the stable rule of the Immortals is welcomed by some humans whenever the two factions aren’t at war with each other. While most Immortals cannot use magic without a Shaman, they don’t need it when they’ve had over a millennium to practice statecraft.
Thousands of years is also enough time to drive some people insane, however. Invidia-Acedia, the Corpse Puppeteer, is a walking zombie apocalypse that is somehow able to use her Totem’s power on her own to control the dead bodies of her victims. Why? Because humans are easily the most abundant food source anywhere, and the reanimations are only what she doesn’t gorge herself on.
Well, that should be enough for now. It’s an idea for a full-length RPG that utilizes weight gain and food management as core mechanics, but it’s unlikely I’ll ever get it off the ground. I’m a better translator than game-maker anyway, even if it is fun to brainstorm like this.
I’ve had one thought that’s been bouncing around my head for a bit. In a fantasy setting, you got artificial creatures like golems, so theoretically you can just add more of what their made of to them magically and have them “gain weight”. This could work for a wide range of materials, but I’m not quite sure how I would apply it within the confines of the world itself. Like why anyone would want or try such a thing, basically.
Oooo. Very very interesting. I saw you typing for a while so I knew it was gonna be a BANGER.
Utilizing multiple ideas here, which is always great. You’ve got an ancient precursor species, on top of what sounds to be something like magi-tech and some ritual action.
Pretty banger idea all around I’d say.
If your project ever gets off the ground @0hmnkdsk (which I hope it does), I’d suggest going deep into the history of The Immortals, as precursor species can never be boring to me.
Simple, @Nopnopenohome. More mass means more oomph, and since it’s magic you can magic away the impractabilities of being so large (kind of like how a lot of people who make high fantasy stories magic away the fact that skeletons would be easy as hell to beat due to how light they are).
Another justification is culture.
Here is a what some people call a “Venus Statue”. Why does it look this way? Who knows. There are multiple theories. One that I actually like is it’s a woman trying to make an image of herself but her view is distorted by the fact that she’s only looking down at herself, that being the explaination why the head might as well not be there, but the explaination that a lot of people on here would probably like is that this was an image of a woman literally fetishized (as in, a fetish was made of them) in their mind.
Obviously our culture is much different. The robots we build with our puny modern technology look a certain way because it’s informed by what we think looks good.
Here’s the kicker, though:
While worldbuilding, the golems that your characters design can be informed by different cultural norms, just like how every woman doesn’t have double D’s and every dude doesn’t have a six pack, maybe not everyone in your world would look like these golems do, but a reason why they’d do it is simple:
Someone thought it looked good.
Well once upon a time many cultures viewed overweight women as a good sign, while others were the total opposite. It is sort of strange how one died out for a time before coming back and now matching its rival once more.
You know, I have seen the Venus before, but it just gave me a couple of potential ideas.
A church or cult makes representations of their gods through golems, emphasizing some of their “features” of the god. That could be a decent idea for a common enemy for cult.
A yearly festival that starts with the creation of a golem, then it ritualistically fattened up throughout the duration of the festival. It could be in celebration of a good harvest or fertility.
Lastly, some sort of guard or police force, where the individual golems are altered in size for certain purposes. They could usually start off small to fit in with normal sized people, and then get sized (and fattened) up to deal with a large threat or something. Maybe you could combine all of the individual members to make a fat giantess.
Those are just some practical purposes I just made up; I think I just needed some external prodding to the get the thoughts flowing from that premise. What people choose to make really demonstrates their cultural values.
That does remind me of how Oda usually looks through history and other ancient cultures to mold his massive world of One Piece. Relics of a bygone era, despite their original purpose being lost, can still lead to new interpretations of art or ways of thinking for future generations to draw upon.
Very true.
An interesting thing that you brought up is that it doesn’t need to be the same everywhere. We’re used to being able to hear what’s happening on opposite corners of the Earth to us today. You could be sitting at your computer manufactured in Taiwan, talking to your Moroccan friend about this documentary you saw about Bangledesh while eating borcht, but back before mass communication random people barely knew anything outside of their local community much less the entire world.
Culture, especially in worlds set in much more ancient settings is not uniform. You could have people over here doing this, people over here doing that, and people over here doing something entirely different. The world is your oyster.
See, here you were starting this off about how you didn’t even know why somebody would wanna do it, and here you are with 3 great reasons. (Even some power rangers sounding stuff with number 3).
That’s why one of the first things I wanted to do was start a discussion like this, because learning and sharing ideas is the avenue for wires to get crossed in your head and it almost always makes some good stuff happen. Anyone who’s reading this silently and thinks: “Man, I don’t have it in me.” You do! You just haven’t been inspired yet. Keep going. Keep crossing those wires. Eventually it will come.
After a couple of days I’ve decided to put some more ideas out there.
Just pointing out right now that regardless of a lot of my ideas coming from pop culture, and generally outside fetishistic material, any worldbuilding ideas you’ve thought of, or have seen and liked are welcome. Just step right up!
But, anyways, without further ado:
The Bosmer
Another thing from The Elder Scrolls. Fundamentalist religious Wood Elves adhere to The Green Pact, whereinby the elves promised to their God of The Forest Y’ffre never to harm the forest, and instead hunt for every meal as opposed to eating a mixed diet. The pact gave them many boons, like being able manipulate the trees using magic so that they may not be harmed in the process of building cities. Part of the pact beyond not harming plants however, is that nothing from a hunt can be wasted, and every part that can be used must be somehow. This not only applies to animals hunted, but also humans, elves, and beast folk killed in battle. If you killed a mighty foe, you must not let them go to waste either. Ironically, what some would consider to be a very brutal religious practice is one of the reasons The Bosmer are so accepting, carefree, good natured, and actually one of the most peaceful races on Nirn, due to the fact that they avoid violence for if not the moral implications of eating someone, then maybe sometimes just the impractibility. It put a wedge early on between those who were bloodthirsty, and the Bosmer religion.
Now, that being said, in the 4th Era these fundamentalist Bosmer are rarer than they used to be, with sometimes Bosmer importing foreign wood to build houses from, or many that don’t respect The Green Pact at all.
“Ey, wise guy, I might’ve misjudged ya’ on the pink guy, but what does some cannibalistic hippie elves ‘ave to do with people gettin’ fat, eh? I’m startin’ to think we gots us a Fat Fetish Faker over 'ere!”
- You, probably
Ok, ok, with all the context given, here I go:
Picture a Bosmer, following The Green Pact, just living their best life, but because of The Elder Scrolls being action games they inevitably get ambushed by animals, people… and animal… people?.. eh, whatever, the point is all sorts of other things, and being forced time after time into a situation in which they need to kill something, but to follow The Green Pact correctly, every single one they kill must be eaten after only a couple of days.
In an action game like Skyrim, or even Oblivion you’re lucky if you’re not literally killing something every minute you’re dungeon-diving. For someone who was following The Green Pact to a t would actually need to eat every single bandit in Embershard Mine. Not because they’re gluttonous, or a crazy cannibal (though they could be those too), but because anything else would be blasphemy.
Obviously, at a certain point, even the amount of exercising you do in an action game wouldn’t offset the sheer amount you’d need to eat, and as before, thiccness insues.
I just think it’s a cool roleplaying, or writing idea for the weight a character gains being a two pronged burden. Not only is it something that physically weighs them down, and makes them less conventionally attractive at a point, but maybe for some other reason there’s another reason why it bites. Not only the reason why the character is large, but also something that gives the character teeth.
…
“Eh, yeah, yeah, alright, Stranger Guy, if that is your real name. You got me again. Go on to the next one.”
- You, probably
I’m actually not done yet. Personally, vore is very situational for me, and most of the time I’m not very into it, but for all my vore people out there, I wanted to throw you a bone like I did the muscle people before.
In The Elder Scrolls, vampires, like they’re often portrayed in media have multiple bloodlines that have different powers, drawbacks, that sort of stuff. I was watching an Elder Scrolls lore video about vampires, and something crazy was just glossed over like it was nothing, and I had to take a double take. What did he just say again? I looked it up on the UESP, and then:
So, apparently, in Valenwood, where cannibalism is kind of the cultural equivalent to listening to vinyl records, some vampires there literally vore people. If you doubt my Elder Scrolls lore power, I want you to boot up Skyrim or Oblivion, and find the book named Immortal Blood, and start reading it. Follow this link if you’re either too lazy or don’t own Skyrim or Oblivion.
Mhm. Yeah. Some of you doubted me, did you?
So, long story short, if you were already playing with the Devourment mod (I personally just extracted the sliders and left everything else), and are hungering (pun intended) for a lore friendly route to literally "swallow men whole" (almost exact quote)…
Then have fun with your Yekef vore machine. Make sure to invest in Alteration so that you’re able to move after a while… Also, probably gotta invest in Illusion too so random passersby don’t get suspicious of you because whenever a disappearance happens you seem to grow a little bigger…
For everyone else, keep in mind the stuff I said about the weight being a two pronged problem for stories in which it’s played as a burden. It doesn’t need to be cannibalism, magic, or anything. It just has to be something beyond the normal downsides of being fat, and immediately you have something more to latch onto there.
The Adipose
“Ok, alright, this is where I draw the line, Stranger Guy! If you don’t explain what the FUCK this thing is in 5 seconds they won’t be able to say what happened to you on television.”
- You, probably
Woah, woah, okay! So, Doctor Who exists, right?.. Inevitably after years and years of doing a new monster of the week, they’d land on an idea that has potential for this fetish.
The Adipose are little cute aliens mostly made up of fat. They can’t germinate on their own, but can by using sources of fat like how a plant would use nutrients in soil. The people of Walmart alone definitely have shown me humanity is a compelling source of fat for one of their “Nursery Worlds”.
Their debut plot was when a strange new company popped up in London called Adipose Industries. They sold a weight loss pill that worked miracles. This was obviously fishy, so The Doctor and his new companion of the season need to go and suss out what’s going on here. Turns out, The Adipose apparently thought the same thing I did, and long story short after a couple hundred of the little guys grew up, a mothership came down and sucked 'em up never to be seen in the TV show again… I think?.. In my opinion a sub par episode in in most respects from what I remember, but I like Donna and Wilfred so they kind of made up for the fact the conflict of the episode was kind of lacking in my eyes.
Let’s focus on the broader idea though…
Aliens who use other beings gaining weight for some kind of strategical purpose beyond just eating them, or just because they think it’s fun. Personally I love fat being some kind of biproduct of something else as opposed to just being intentionally sought out.
Not using the examples of breeding like The Adipose, but maybe if you fed a race a certain substance the fat that would metabolize on their bodies could be valuable, and could be liposuctioned out for the process to continue again. Contrary to popular belief our bodies’ metabolic processes can sometimes be more efficient than just doing a reaction in a lab for multiple reasons. It could totally be a low impact way some kind of sci-fi race gets some kind of chemical sludge to be a really good coolant or something, because maybe the alternative is either too expensive, not able to be scaled up, or whatever, but all you’d have to do with some kind of biological element is just give them enough space, feed, and entertain them somehow and then they just make themselves.
This is just off the dome, but there could be many reasons an alien could require some kind of biological element in their supply chain. You could also go from innocent like The Adipose all the way to chest burster territory if you want with it. There could be an infinite number of creative reasons an alien species might want to fatten up a subservient one. The sky’s the limit! No wrong answers!..
…
No… wrong… no… wrong ans-
N-NO! I’m not talking about The Slitheen! Even if I wanted to I don’t think they count for this point!
…and thank God for that…
…thank God for that…
I’ve come up with a simple concept for a game with massive worldbuilding implications:
Small people, potentially very large food.
Not by having Cloudy with a Chance for Meatballs-style, but by having humans in miniature roaming their small world, dwelling within abandoned buildings, basements, maybe sneaking into a hotel’s banquet room to make off with a cake several times the weight of one of them…
Yes, the Borrowers, Terry Pratchett’s Bromeliad, or something akin to those, but with the seemingly obvious result of those tiny people encountering human-size food. They may need to fight off a rat via knitting needle or dodge a dog whose only experience with small people is a rubber squeaky toy shaped like Santa Claus, but stealing that cake or even part of it could feed their whole clan.
Or maybe just one or two of them.
I’m still working on the idea, but yes, it was inspired somewhat by Kirby’s Dream Buffet and by my recent acquisition of a copy of Sir Terry’s Bromeliad.
Any ideas? I was thinking it would be an RPG Maker game but I realized the issue: I’m no artist and decent tilesets that could work for a miniature world are vanishingly rare.
