Conworld random thread

[Raholeun]

I just remembered the Ethnological Questionnaire has a good section devoted to matters of religion. Still interested in other resources though..

[Man in Space]

Zompist details some of this in The Planet Construction Kit.

[Ryan of Tinellb]

I couldn't sleep last night because I was thinking about the Tinellbian version of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Specifically, fleshing out the idea of having one or two fundamental particles that make up everything else. I think I have it. It's based on combinations of particles of ±⅙ and ±½ the charge of a proton.

[bradrn]

I couldn't sleep last night because I was thinking about the Tinellbian version of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Specifically, fleshing out the idea of having one or two fundamental particles that make up everything else. I think I have it. It's based on combinations of particles of ±⅙ and ±½ the charge of a proton.

Does this mean that Tinellb runs on different fundamental physics to our world?

[Travis B.]

I couldn't sleep last night because I was thinking about the Tinellbian version of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Specifically, fleshing out the idea of having one or two fundamental particles that make up everything else. I think I have it. It's based on combinations of particles of ±⅙ and ±½ the charge of a proton.

Just be careful to produce a universe in which multicellular life can exist. This is harder than it sounds (changing just about any of the parameters of our universe even slightly makes multicellular life highly unlikely).

[bradrn]

I couldn't sleep last night because I was thinking about the Tinellbian version of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Specifically, fleshing out the idea of having one or two fundamental particles that make up everything else. I think I have it. It's based on combinations of particles of ±⅙ and ±½ the charge of a proton.

Just be careful to produce a universe in which multicellular life can exist. This is harder than it sounds (changing just about any of the parameters of our universe even slightly makes multicellular life highly unlikely).

Never mind multicellular life, even making a universe where stable atoms and molecules exist is reasonably difficult!

[WeepingElf]

Maybe Ryan is just speculating about what the particles of the Standard Model are made of.

[bradrn]

Maybe Ryan is just speculating about what the particles of the Standard Model are made of.

If so, that sounds a lot more reasonable to me.

[Ryan of Tinellb]

Maybe Ryan is just speculating about what the particles of the Standard Model are made of.

If so, that sounds a lot more reasonable to me.

This particular post was about expanding the particle zoo in such a way that it would be unnoticeable unless you have a particle accelerator. But Tinellb does have some different physics -- it is a fantasy universe, after all.

[foxcatdog]

Scratch elementary particles the Bindingverse is composed of Ideas the inhabitants of the physical world are just composed of less changeable and layered on layered ideas.

[Ryusenshi]

In heroic fantasy, dwarves tend to all be the same... at least, male dwarves do. Dwarf women, on the other hand, tend to vary. Tolkien said that dwarf women looked almost identical to dwarf men, including beards. Gimli's speech in the film version was taken straight from the Appendices.

It was said by Gimli that there are few dwarf-women, probably no more than a third of the whole people. They seldom walk abroad except at great need. They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart. This has given rise to the foolish opinion among Men that there are no dwarf-women, and that the Dwarves ‘grow out of stone’.

The Lord of the Rings — Appendix A

For the Naugrim have beards from the beginning of their lives, male and female alike; nor indeed can their womenkind be discerned by those of other race, be it in feature or in gait or in voice, nor in any wise save this: that they go not to war, and seldom save at direst need issue from their deep bowers and halls.

"Of the Naugrim and the Edain"

Early editions of Dungeons & Dragons similarly show bearded dwarf women. But recent editions show several female dwarves (3rd Edition, 4th Edition, 5th Edition) and they don't have beards. In the Forgotten Realms at least, the lore is that... they shave.

[malloc]

Recently my world-building work has led me back to the question of architecture (where is Viktor when you need him?). Many of the architectural blogs and tweets I've encountered in my research rhapsodize about the wonders of mass timber. Apparently concrete and steel are notorious for their carbon footprint, leading many ecologically-minded architects to advocate the return of wood. While this concept does fit the overall theme of my conworlding intentions, I have some serious reservations about the plausibility of wood for modernish settings. Even hardwoods are quite flimsy compared to steel and concrete, after all, and everything from fire to mold to termites easily destroys wood.

So, could wood plausibly support large apartment buildings and other structures a major city would need? And have any great cities actually used wood as their main construction material?

[Torco]

That is, actually, a very interesting topic I've somewhat gotten into. Exactly what are the limits of wood as a construction material for large structures and the durability thereof are both subjects of live research, but, overall, the tldr of it is that yes, you can build pretty big stuff out of wood, depending on exactly what you mean by "pretty big".

for example, the prinkipo orphanage in turkey is, I would say, rather big.


and it's not even a huge wonder of architecture, just a big, wooden building. as a general rule, if they have access to large, broad timbers of a decent hardwood, premodern people are capable of building impressively large wooden structures, even with hand tools. this one's from the 1100s or so.


And, of course, there's mjostarnet, in norway. pretty big if you ask me, though it has the benefit of modern materials.


of course, wood is objectively just weaker than, say, steel, per kilogram so, in terms of structurality, it's just inferior. same with concrete with steel rebar and other such conventional mateirals... but it's not that inferior, and it's superior in some other ways: you can still make diaphanous, lightweight structures, just not as thin:



these days, modern engineers and architects often use engineered wood products, as opposed to just big timbers, especially for structural members: part of th problem is that wood is, well, the body of a living thing, and is therefore not as homogeneous as man-made materials. so even if you calculate that a timber has whatever strenght (structural engineers use modulus of elasticity and like twenty other numbers of characterize and calculate how large a beam can span without pillars and other such questions, I once tried to learn that but honestly it was too much of a faff). but anyway, if you figure that wood has X strength, your problem is that it doesn't have that strength all over, this bit used to have a branch, and therefore the fibers are aligned differently, and so they're weaker here, stronger there. engineered wood, to a consumer, generally sounds like shittier, cheaper sawdust-and-glue kinds of products (melamine and MDF are nice, but they're a lot less nicer than a proper wooden panel, both visually and in terms of its structural properties: would you want your bed to be made of MDF? maybe you do, Ikea is quite popular). But you *can* make engineered wood products which are *better* than wood: for example, you cut a bunch of thin boards, make a panel out of them, make *another* panel and stick them together so that the first panel's fibers are across and the second panel's fibers go lengthwise: if you use good glue, it's going to be stronger than the same amount of unprocessed timber.

interestingly, some glues bond (including regular white PVA glue, the stuff I call cola fría) with wood even more strongly than wood bonds with itself, so having wood glued together in the correct way is viable and the result is more, not less, strong than if you had just cut a big timber: it'll also be more homogeneous, though, on the minus side, it takes more work.

I don't think modern *cities* use wood as a main material, but there exist wooden apartment buildings, wooden theaters, wooden stadia, wooden bridges... I don't think wooden highway viaducts are viable, but what do I know, maybe they are! they sure used to build wooden railway viaducts.

[keenir]

Recently my world-building work has led me back to the question of architecture (where is Viktor when you need him?). Many of the architectural blogs and tweets I've encountered in my research rhapsodize about the wonders of mass timber. Apparently concrete and steel are notorious for their carbon footprint, leading many ecologically-minded architects to advocate the return of wood.

I suppose that presupposes that the wood being used doesn't catch fire & that there are saplings planted to replace the tree - otherwise the footprint would be of a very different size.

While this concept does fit the overall theme of my conworlding intentions, I have some serious reservations about the plausibility of wood for modernish settings. Even hardwoods are quite flimsy compared to steel and concrete, after all, and everything from fire to mold to termites easily destroys wood.

So, could wood plausibly support large apartment buildings and other structures a major city would need? And have any great cities actually used wood as their main construction material?

I suppose one could ask "how large are the 'large apartment buildings' you're going to have?" (though that feels like cheating on my part; sorry)

I'm not sure if things like Woodhenge count as a large building, given how spread out it was.

The Anglo-Saxons famously had their great halls made of wood, and a number of times on episodes of Time Team, the diggers encountered Roman villas and other structures made of timber rather than of stone. And strictly speaking, the Mayans used entire forests to build their pyramids (granted, it was for mortar and I think paint, but its a good counter-argument if you run again into people who sing the praises of mass timber)

A bit more thinking reminded me of events like "the firebombing of Dresden"...which makes me wonder if Dresden would count as major for your conworlding purposes? (what of the Japanese cities that were planned targets for bat-bombs?)

The Salish longhouses were entirely wood, as i recall.

Thats as far as my brain will go about now; sorry. Hope you find more info. Good luck on your project.

[Man in Space]

The Tim Ar system of administrative divisions is…messy.

The "main line of succession":
- At the top you have the kedén îktu 'empire'.
- Next comes the mgíḫ 'viceroyalty' (of which there are five: ).
- Below that, you have the êu 'theme'.
- The ḫôrág 'riding' is a handful of smaller divisions (typically three to seven make up a theme).
- After the riding is the łiłtúge 'canton'
- At the bottom is the kámr 'city'.
- As a bonus, there is concept of the kámr ḫér 'free city', which is a city directly answering to the theme. There are two, both in the Core Imperium: Ágmrgámr (the City of Cities), the capital, and Írödkámr (World City), a sort of city-sized UN zone.
- There is also the concept of the ares ḫér úh iénhu 'special administrative zone'. These skip straight to the kámr level (i.e., there are no intervening divisions). There are two of these, namely Ḫurgéłis (Hurkélis) and Msíriún (the Mziddyun).

It wouldn't be a good, realistic system without the omustá (sg. moustá), which add more than a few wrinkles:

- There's one úh neém 'condominium', Úh Neém Támreg (the Täptäg Condominium). The condominium is divisible into a smaller unit, the sanhián 'prefecture', and thence the city. Some prefectures are coterminous with cities.
- The ninráḫ 'banner' is a military state or junta that has been incorporated. There are four: Ákłi (Oqsh), Kal Iháni, Teherís (Deverris), and Uúrlatłára (Wur Jara). These are divisible into a smaller unit called an en n'éarig 'vingtaine' and thence the city.
- There are also the concept of the arëm 'castellany' and the káirén 'palatinate', former city-states or similar, smaller entities that merged with the empire willingly—so they got perks/special privileges. The difference between the two is whether there was a significant garrison or not at the time of annexation. Where required, these are split into the ûl 'quarter' or 'district' level.
- The lone dołar î sagïs 'papal state' divides into the ómakses 'circle', then the kástïs 'moot', then the city.
- The łektóron 'dependency' is a constituent state that has been absorbed and is not otherwise specified. These divide into the province (úh dohár) and the county (lûg) before the city.

[hwhatting]

@Torco: Thanks for the overview with the photos, that was interesting.

[Emily]

idea that popped into my head: city laid out on a triangular rather than rectangular grid pattern

[bradrn]

idea that popped into my head: city laid out on a triangular rather than rectangular grid pattern

This is basically Canberra, especially its Parliamentary Triangle.

[Emily]

idea that popped into my head: city laid out on a triangular rather than rectangular grid pattern

This is basically Canberra, especially its Parliamentary Triangle.

i'm not talking about a loose grid system with a couple of prominent diagonal roads, i mean like, triangular blocks

[foxcatdog]

idea that popped into my head: city laid out on a triangular rather than rectangular grid pattern

This is basically Canberra, especially its Parliamentary Triangle.

i'm not talking about a loose grid system with a couple of prominent diagonal roads, i mean like, triangular blocks

Seems like it would be best suited for some alternate species with different spacial sense of rightness as us perhaps some kind of bee (although they use hexagons). Although i do think you could call up architechts and city planners to make your vision just to make a city no one lives in.