New Player's Guide

Hello, and thank you for being interested in joining the CreateThisWorld project!

This will be the go-to manual, guide, and tutorial for all new players.

The Rules of Conduct

Okay, while I would love to tell you about the Shards (i.e. worlds) right now and how all this works, there is some mandatory logistics we need to do first. That is of course the rules of how all of you must behave.

Be Civil - Do not be a jerk to others; there is a human being on the other side of your screen. RP'ing is NOT an excuse for harassment. Also, please follow reddit's reddiquette when on the sub.
Be Understanding - We all have lives; perhaps your interaction partner is not able to post as frequently as you. Don't sweat it.
Be Collaborative - We want this to be fun, so please try not to intentionally destroy the work of others. You can interact by causing conflict, but do so in a way that makes sense within the project: do not cause conflict out of personal spite.
Be Active - While there is no set deadline, we ask that you try to continually contribute to the project or we may be compelled to mark your claim as inactive. An inactive claim is considered an "NPC claim", which are freely engageable by other players.
Give Credit - Avoid plagiarism; if you use another user's works directly, or an online artist's artwork, give a reference to them.
Have Fun - We want this to be fun. If there is something you don't like you are encouraged to politely speak up. Do not be a troll, especially out of personal spite for an in-game event(s).
We Have Power - We, the mods of the sub and wiki, hold the right to moderate the judgement for any infraction of the rules. We also hold the right to moderate any events and actions carried out on the subreddit, and can therefore decline any action from being canonised. Note, that we have these rights for the sake of the enjoyment of the many. We will not use these for abuse.

The Stained Glass Shards: What Are the Worlds?

We have a slightly special universal mythology for CreateThisWorld. It resides around three main ideas (among many other minor ones): The Spark, The Sound, and The Shards. To learn more about all of these please refer to the Stained Glass Shards page which explains them and analyzes all of them in depth.

The universal mythology has been continually developed with each passing Shard. The gist of it is that there is a Void that exists between all Shards. It is home to horrifying monsters that must be kept sealed away to stop them from destroying everything. However, some mortal beings may, under very rare circumstances, be able to cross into the Void and gain its power. This makes them like demigods, at which point they may use their powers for good or destruction. These Void-Walkers, as they are called, have the capacity to move between Shards.

This has resulted in the creation of a few recurring characters over the course of the greater mythology. The world's are still kept largely self-contained, and those recurring characters are treated primarily as cameos or Easter eggs. However, in any given Shard, any player is welcome to devise their own storyline by which one of their characters may become a Void-Walker.

Initial Claiming

When you first come to the subreddit, you will probably want to make a territorial claim. This will allow you to participate in the subreddit on an international scale as a discrete entity. Think of it like being a nation in a powers game, but with the intent of fun collaborative world-building rather than fun competition. Please keep the claim under the specific Shard's initial claim limit so as to leave room for other players. Keep in mind that this is dynamic: often nation's borders will change along with their very existence at times coming to question. So it is not paramount that it is exactly under the specified limit, but please have a good reason for going over as the limits are usually very generous. There may also be additional restrictions on claim territory. Some sections of the map may be excluded, or players may be required to claim within a specified distance of another player. There may also be resources and geographical features that play into where it would be advantageous to set down.

When claiming, you may use this as a template for submission (items with asterisks are required):

NAME of nation/claim.

LOCATION on map (picture please). Indicate your desired star system, then indicate which rings of the system you are occupying, along with which celestial bodies within the system you’re creating.

FLAG/SYMBOL of nation/claim (optional).

GEOGRAPHY/ASTROGRAPHY. What are the general characteristics of your inhabited worlds, and how do they relate to each other in the system? [75-150 words]

BIOLOGY/ETHNICITY. Please give a brief description of the physical characteristics of the people who make up your claim. [100-300 words]

HISTORY. Please give a brief history of how your people came to be where they are. [150-300 words]

SOCIETY. How is your society structured? How are leaders chosen? Tribal or urban? Monarchy or democracy? Classist or egalitarian? Mercantile, socialist, patriarchy, matriarchy, meritocracy, etc. [150-300 words]

CULTURE. Please give a quick overview of your people's culture. Things like traditions, art, clothing, food, customs, religion, etc. It need not be lengthy or comprehensive, just a few high points of what sets your people apart. [150-300 words]

OCCURRENCE OF MAGIC. Under the current magic scope, the entire population is capable of at least some magic. How central is magic to your society? [100-200 words]

TECHNOLOGY. What are the distinctive characteristics of your technology, including magitech? [100-150 words]

MAJOR INDUSTRIES, IMPORTS, & EXPORTS. When dealing with societies of a planetary or interplanetary level, you probably have most standard resources covered. So what industries or resources are unique enough that people might have them transported to distant stars? Are there areas you are particularly deficient in that you need to bring in from other planets?

All claims need to be approved by a moderator before the player can begin posting normally. A claim is almost never rejected outright, but mods may ask you to make some changes if some parts of your claim seem unrealistic, or if it falls outside of the scope of the shard, magically or technologically (as outlandish as this fantasy space opera shard is, there still may be some things that don’t work). Don't take this personally; we are just trying to keep everyone on an even playing field. Also, when there are a high volume of claims coming in, we can't keep the map updated quickly enough. So please be patient if you find yourself choosing a piece of territory that has already been claimed.

Please note a claim may be rejected solely on the grounds of lacking information if the claim seems too bare and/or vague. It can also be rejected on the grounds of a claim being too large in size, in which case we will ask you to reduce it. See past claims if you are worried, we are generally fair but will ask that you expand on your claim more if it seems bare and/or vague.

Quick reminder: please flair your posts. There is a [CLAIM] option in the flairs, and that makes it a lot easier for the mods to find your post.

Once your claim is approved, it is canon and you may start posting about it further. You may also create pages for your claim here on the wiki (something we strongly encourage).

Claiming Space

Obviously, claims in this shard are going to have to work differently than those where someone just outlines a bit of land on a world map. In a way it’s more complicated, but in another way it’s also simpler. Your claim will most likely start with identifying your home star system. (If not, see below.) Once you have your star picked, you will be able to create two inhabited spaces that make up your claim. An inhabited space might be a planet, a moon, an asteroid base, a large space station, or something else. Whatever you want them to be, you get a maximum of two distinct inhabited spaces spaces in your first claim. You can also identify two uninhabited spaces if you wish (for example, a gas giant around which your moon orbits).

The size of our star map is designed to be large enough to let people establish their own claims in their own systems, but also small enough to encourage the sharing of systems. However, we do ask that you talk to the other player first if you want to join a solar system with an existing claim.

Inhabited Space

What is “Inhabited Space”? An inhabited space is any space (planet, moon, asteroid, space station, etc) that has life on it. An uninhabited space is any such space that has 0 life on it. If you say a single amoeba lives on some rock in space, it is inhabited. There is no grey area here. You can write about your people exploring new moons or setting up space colonies to mine asteroids, but if you want anything to be canonically your territory, it must be claimed in an expansion post. If in any shard past or future someone says “my claim has built mines on this place outside my current area” they would always be required to post an expansion there, regardless of whether the mine is on an asteroid or island. We follow the spirit of this rule, not the letter and the point is to define the area size limit of claims and expansions in this space setting just like we have done in every previous shard, as well as the rough area size limits of the “islands” of the cluster: the solar systems.

There are two maps for this shard, one that will be our main map and the other that will say how much claimable inhabited space is available in each solar system. This will be updated as players claim. The rings around each star indicate how many planets and/or asteroid belts can be in that solar system. If a star’s rings look full on the map, they are full. But that may not mean their inhabited space is full as well. Please refer to the second numbered map for that information.

Note: Artificial beings count as life for the purposes of defining inhabited space.

There may be an exception to the limit on inhabited spaces in a given solar system. A player may turn an uninhabited space into an inhabited space, via terraforming for some other means. However, the player is expected to put time and effort into their posts to demonstrate how this was accomplished. This follows our unwritten CTW rule of “When in doubt, do a good job writing about it.”

Starless Claims - Space is big, and some people may choose to be nomadic, travelling between systems on a giant spaceship, or perhaps the back of some kind of galactic turtle. That’s totally fine.

Expansions

Throughout the game you can try to expand your existing territory. For an expansion to be approved, they must be accompanied by substantial lore explaining the reason for the expansion, and the player must be consistently active in the shard. We will start allowing expansions two weeks into the shard. You will also be allowed one retroactive expansion during the shard. This means you make an expansion, but as far as the lore is concerned, you always had it; you just couldn’t take it at first because of size restrictions. You cannot make more than one expansion post in a given two week period, and there must be at least two regular posts in between expansions.

Note: Things that do not require expansions include: space stations orbiting a planet you own, temporary mining expeditions, or a colony ship travelling from one point to another.

Non-States

As the subreddit has evolved, we have looked at new ways for players to exercise their creativity in world building. One of those ways is to include claims that are not a traditional nation-state/kingdom/empire. These non-states can be your sole focus, or they can be a secondary claim in addition to a regular state. There are several possibilities to choose from.

Environmental claims - Your claim can be simply an interesting piece of land: A dark forest with strange goings-on; a remote and storm-ravaged island; a nesting ground for bizarre creatures. The goal of an environmental claim is less about building a lore by yourself and more about offering up new features of the world that other players can use for their own stories.
Secret societies - Everyone loves a secret society. It could be occult, religious, scientific, criminal. It could be reclusive and remote, or it could work its way into positions of power in every other country. These societies will have their own lore to develop — history, hierarchy, code of beliefs — but also allow plenty of opportunities to build the lore of other players in relation to you. Remember that you need to keep a dialogue with other players if your actions affect them, though. You can't just decide that another player's king is a member of your society without consulting them first.
Vassal states / conquered states - This option will require cooperation with another player from the beginning. You can play as a state that is subordinate to another player. You can still develop lore, but you won't be able to make large-scale decisions. You can either begin the game as part of another player's territory, or you can begin independently with plans in place to be swiftly taken over.
Cultural groups - This is the most generic option. You can make a claim as a people that share cultural identity but are not organised into a unified political identity. You may be gathered on a particular piece of territory, or you may be scattered across various other nations. You have limited autonomy on the world state, but it offers plenty of role-playing opportunities.
Nomads - You can have a group of people who fulfill all the regular criteria for a claim, but have no fixed territory and thus do not need to be marked on a map. In some cases you may provide a general ranging territory that suggests the lands over which they might travel.
Individuals - This is the trickiest non-state to pull off. It is a world-building subreddit, so we need to be careful not to let individual character personalities too strongly overtake the larger cultural personalities that we are building. But we have had players RP as individuals before, in certain circumstances. We had a traveller who journeyed across the world, documenting various nations from an outside perspective. We also had a giant robot living in the middle of the desert who really wanted a friend.

NPC Claims

An NPC claim is one where it is not being controlled by a single player. It has its own established history, culture, and society, but it doesn't not participate in the world as an active and independent entity. Instead, any player is capable of interacting with the NPC and exerting a certain amount of control over it as needed. For example, if an NPC state is sitting on a tropical island, you can make a post about going there and trading for fruit and coffee beans without needed to get anyone's permission. You can add to the lore of an NPC, but you can't contradict what has been established. Players are allowed to war with and conquer NPC states. The normal rules of conflict don't apply, but players will still be expected to put effort into their posts to justify their actions.

Traditionally, NPCs were only created when user claims fell into disuse or were voluntarily given up by the creator. Since Shard IX we are allowing players to create NPC states to help flesh out the world. Perhaps you imagine there could be a neighbour in your star system, or in the next one over, but no one has put a claim there. You can make an NPC claim to give both yourself and other players the opportunity to interact with it. Once an NPC is established, you do not have direct control over it. The lore you developed can’t be overwritten, but people can add to it as they want. You or anyone else can also make an expansion for the NPC. Establishing or expanding an NPC counts towards your expansion limit, so you can’t both make an NPC and expand your regular claim within the same two week period.

Engaging With CTW

You've made your claim. Now what? A lot of people make their first claim and then get stuck on what to do next. There are no hard rules for how you want to develop your nation, but keep in mind that world-building on this sub breaks down into two broad categories: macro-building and micro-building.

Macro-building relates to your civilization at large. This includes lore posts that simply give information about aspects of your people's biology, culture, and society. It includes posts about large societal events like wars, new technologies, or changing of leaders. It also includes posts about animals, plants, or interesting geographic features.

Micro-building focuses on the lives of individual characters who exist within your civilization. These might be simple vignettes, or sprawling sagas that you develop piece by piece over a span of months.

Some people prefer one style of writing over the other. As you write, you will find what works best for you, but you should really engage with both levels of worldbuilding in order to get the most out of the experience.

Easy First Step

If you are still stumped about what to write, consider one of these options.

Biology – If you have invented a new race, then you should get a biology post out about them soon, outlining their characteristics and letting everyone else know what sort of folks we are going to be interacting with.
Religion – This gets lumped in with culture in the claim posts, but religion is a busy topic and is important to a lot of civilizations, so there is another good option for an early post.
Cities and territories – Most people will be claiming an area larger than a single city state. So you can introduce different cities and territories in your civilization, and the differences between them.
Cultural trademark – Do your people have something particular to their culture that sets them apart from everyone else? Is it a unique style of dress? A crazy religious or holiday festival? An obsession with keeping lemurs as pets? A practice of greeting one another by touching elbows? Whatever it is, you could always explain it in a little more detail (except for the elbow thing; that probably doesn't need much explanation).
History – Some people love writing about history. Are you one of those people? Tell us more about how you got here.
Story time – Maybe you are still working things out and you're not ready to make a big comprehensive lore post. One thing you can do is devise a character and write a little story for them, exploring the aspects of the world you've created through their eyes.
Maps and artwork – Play to your skills. If you like to draw or design maps, put those up and let us see what's going on.
Interactions – Market Monday interactions happen every week. They are a good place to introduce yourself to the world at large. And speaking of interactions....

Interactions

Interactions are, in some ways, the lifeblood of CTW. I don't think we would have lasted this long if we hadn't developed such an interactive culture. There is no pressure on anyone to participate in interactions, but it is encouraged. There are personal interactions and group interactions.

Personal Interactions are arranged between two players (usually) in a thread designated with the “Interaction” flair. Those players work out a story between themselves and eventually it reaches a conclusion. It is advisable to communicate with your interaction partner via PM or Discord beforehand, and don't simply surprise them when you make the post.

Group Interactions are most often the weekly Market Monday thread. One person hosts the interaction and everyone is free to join in and post. This is a great opportunity for new players to join in and get some experience interacting without committing to a whole thread on their own.

When interacting, keep these tips in mind:

Respect boundaries - As a general rule, you control your characters and the other person controls theirs. Don't try to pilot the other person's characters when they are not looking. Also, don't try to steer the interaction in a direction the other player doesn't want them to go. And if you have any issues with what is happening, please speak up and communicate with your partner.
Keep things moving - You don't need to take 20 comments just to have a conversation. While you can't control the other person's players, you can control other aspects of the scene, making multiple statements, asking questions, and introducing events, leaving room for them to react in different ways. The other player can then respond to the various stimuli in succession and carry on from there.
Reciprocate - You get as much out of interactions as you put in. If you respond to everything with single sentences, you are not going to get much back.
Be mindful of time - Everyone has lives, and many of us live in different timezones, so be patient waiting for replies. But also, don't get involved in an interaction if you know you won't have time to be responsive.
For more detailed interaction guidelines, check out the Market Monday Guide.

General Tips

Read as much as you can - This is a collaborative community, and everyone works hard on putting out their own content. So try your best to read what everyone else is posting. Learning more about other players helps the entire world come together in a more complex way, and also, if people notice you not commenting on anyone else’s posts, they will become less inclined to read yours.
You don’t have to read everything - I emphasize the words try your best in the above point. We know that people have lives to attend to, and some weeks there is just a ton of content being posted here that it becomes difficult to keep up with. So don’t feel that you have to read absolutely everything in order to continue participating. There won’t be a test at the end.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions - No one expects everyone else to read and remember everything they post. So if you are confused by another player’s post, if you want clarification on something, if you’re just curious. Then ask. In most cases they will be happy to tell you. No one is going to get angry at you for not remembering a single detail mentioned in a post from six weeks before.
Utopias are boring - People are going to get bored if you only want to talk about how great and wonderful your civilization is. Be sure to have some problems, and give yourself some weaknesses. It makes everything much more interesting.
Have fun - That's what this is all about. Don't obsess over little details. Just enjoy the community.

Posting Guidelines

Do not spam small junk posts. We will be mildly monitoring the quality of writing. (i.e. We check that it is readable, if there is a major problem we will ask you to correct it). And remember to flair your posts!

According to Conduct Rule #4, we expect you to be active. After a month of inactivity on the subreddit (that is, no posts or interactions), a moderator will message you to ask if you wish to continue participating. If you say yes, or do not reply, there will be another two week period for you to return and make a post. If you still haven't participated in the subreddit after 6 weeks, you will be notified that your claim has been rendered NPC.

This Wiki exists as a place to archive posts and keep information from the subreddit in a more stable and easily navigable state. Starting with Shard #9, Caelmar, we have begun trying to manage an archive of all posts on the subreddit.

As of now, all relevant non-meta posts about a Shard are immediately canon. Please do not abuse this, we still hold the right to de-canonise posts if they are blatant and intentional in being contradictory or destructive. If contradictions accidentally arise, this is often a good chance for others to reason through them in a creative way.

War and Conflict

Our subreddit has never developed a strict codified ruleset governing the practice of war. There is a reason for that — it was never intended to be a war sub. We operate in the spirit of collaborative world-building, and that extends to war. Collaboration over competition. War should be used as a mechanism for telling a story, rather than simply to win over another player.

Veni Vidi Vici: Guidelines for War

Under no circumstances are you to launch a "surprise attack" on another player, or begin conflict with them without their consent. Intention to do war needs to be discussed and agreed upon before any action is made. Characters and nations may be surprised, but players should not be. A war post that does not have prior consent of all parties will be considered void.

Don't clutter the board with stats. By all means, describe your army, but you don't need to itemise everything, assigning attack and defense ratings as you go. Limitations on the size and capacity of armies is flexible, but you need to be prepared to justify your choices if asked. For instance, if you say that 80% of your population is mobilised for combat, that is going to raise some serious questions about who is supplying food and fashioning weapons.

Note: Military is not a requirement. You can be a pacifistic nation if you wish, and that will be respected.

Role-playing involves improvisation. Keep an open mind and try to roll with the situation. There are limits, though, and we expect there is some level of communication between the parties in a conflict; i.e. no surprise invasions. And that goes both ways. If your opponent is playing along with your invasion, you need to be able to play along with the retaliation.

Keep in mind:

Major figures — generals, queens, prime ministers — cannot be killed without prior discussion.
No one can be destroyed or conquered without their consent.
The moderators will step in if there is clear evidence of power-gaming.

Methods

It's important not to let one war between two players overtake the entire board. For shorter conflicts, try to isolate it to one megathread. For more protracted conflicts, several megathreads that identify different stages of the war. In-board posting is better for longer posts taking a measured response and describing whole movements. Another option is to use an IM program like Discord, schedule a time for both players, and play out the battle there, later copy/pasting the text into a Reddit post. This works if you want to have a fast-paced conflict.

Mature Content Guidelines

We at CTW never really developed a mature content policy, because we simply left it to the discretion of players to mark their posts NSFW when necessary, and that worked well enough for a while. But due to the complex and evolving nature of CTW and its community, and the fact that “NSFW” is a very broad category, the time has come to implement a proper policy.

NSFW tags - These must be applied to posts that include sexual content or graphic violence. I know there's a grey area, but if you find yourself wondering if you should apply a NSFW tag, then you should do it.
Content warning - All NSFW-tagged posts must now carry a content warning at the top of the posts which specifies why it was marked NSFW. Indicate whether this was done for sexual content, violence, or both. In addition, give more specific mature content tags about subject matter in the post that could be offensive or triggering to your readers. This includes, but is not limited to: BDSM, rape, torture, mutilation, excessive blood, child abuse, infanticide, burning, and cannibalism.
Role-play between two or more players also needs to be marked. Sometimes RP can take turns into mature subject matter when that was not originally intended. In that case, a content warning should be retroactively applied to the beginning of the interaction, for anyone who might come by and read it later. In these cases, you need to follow the standard RP rule of “don't do anything that makes your RP partner uncomfortable.” If the RP is going to get into mature content, make sure you discuss this privately with your partner first.
Keep it legal, keep it consensual - In the case of erotic roleplay, make sure all parties know what is intended before it begins, and make sure all parties (both in terms of players and characters) are of legal age.
We have no desire to censor our writers. There are many mature writers on CTW who want to explore dark subject matter, and that is absolutely encouraged, as long as they observe the new policy. However, there may still be some extreme cases when a post requires moderator intervention.

Weekly Events

This section is about the weekly events we often do, such as Feature Fridays, or Menagerie Mondays.

Current Weekly Events

Here is the gist of the weekly schedule: (Note how some of these day's have a "focus"; all we ask for is that you primarily post these sorts of things on those days. Although, we will not strictly enforce it as that would be silly, arbitrary, and difficult.)

Schedule Sunday - The Clock advances and a new limit on future lore is set. (<- Applies to Shard #3 only) People volunteer for Feature Friday. We announce any special events for the week. We also sponsor cool prompts people will be doing during the week. Finally, throughout the week this is the perfect place to ask small Meta questions.

Market Monday - An interactive prompt taking place at a major market city or port in a particular nation. All players are encouraged to introduce characters and RP stories back and forth. Also a time to present key information about commerce and economics in your country. The Market Monday may also be taken over by a Meeting of Nations, a larger-scale interactive prompt bringing delegates from all countries together.

Weird Science Wednesday - This is a chance for one nation to present a new and exciting technology. It isn't just a chance to showcase some already existing technology, but rather to present something that could change the game going forward. Proposals for Weird Science Wednesday are subject to mod approval.

Feature Friday - Today is the time to shine! One nation, chosen from the Sunday volunteers, gets to have a huge post of theirs stickied to the sub until next Friday! Take this as an opportunity to learn about this featured nation. Feature Fridays can be about any number of different things, but generally it is more detailed and specific than what you would find in a typical lore post.

Outdated Weekly Events

Events we have had in the past but are not currently using.

Menagerie Monday - Occasional Meeting of Nations. (1/month?) Today's focus is interacting with others: war, peace, role-play, etc.
Tale Tuesday - Focus on narrative stories about characters, rather than nations
Tech Tuesday - Spotlight on a particular nation's techology
Wealth Wednesday - Spotlight on a particular nation's commerce, discussing imports/exports, trade relationships, currency, other economic regulations. Often involves and interactive prompt at the market in question.
What-if Wednesday - Today's focus is on interactive prompts. (Also, there might be a trade/market/Bazaar prompt)
Titanic Thursday - Today will occasionally have special events. (Particularly cataclysmic) If not, then today is a free day. (If you can though, world-build with a bit of pizzazz ;) )
Sophisticated Saturday - Spotlight on a nation's arts or cultural events.

Eureka!: Advancement

This section is about how cultures and nations may advance on their Shard so as to satisfy the thematic time-period.

Technology

Each Shard will have a technological theme. Generally, that means there will be rules on the kind of technology all players can have at the time they make their claims, and there will be a limit as to how far technology is allowed to advance. (eg. A medieval world may place a hard limit on the printing press.) But players are free to develop new technology throughout the course of the game, and we often have special posts dedicated to just that.

Magic

You can have anything that fits the thematic power-level and commonness of the setting. If it makes for a good story, it's probably fine. (If anything is out of line, we the mods will tell you. If you have concerns, message us and we can help.)

Claim Expansion

This section will be about how you may expand your claim.

Requirements for Official Expansion:

Location
- Important Rule: If the claim's region on the map is updated or changed due to moderation or other causes it needs to be updated in the claim post, not the comments. The comments will not be traced through for the most recent change.
Lore

(Note, you don't have to mark these next ones explicitly, we just expect there to be a REASON and a STORY behind your expansion. We expect both to be "good", that is noticeably thought about. (you don't need to post a novel, but the claim size should probably relate to the claim's lore amount).

RP/Meta Reason
- e.g. "I place Arbiter Sang's head on a spike as I survey the land...."/War with a player Sang....
- e.g. "Our people yearn for new lands...."/It's getting crowded....
- or almost anything. We are fairly generous.

RP/Meta How/Story
- e.g. "My legions of men and servants march over the iron fields of the northerners' stone....."/We won the war!....
- or almost anything. We are fairly generous.

Approval from a Mod

Requirements for Ethnic Expansion:

Location
- Important Rule: If the claim's region on the map is updated or changed due to moderation or other causes it needs to be updated in the claim post, not the comments. The comments will not be traced through for the most recent change.
Lore
Approval from a Mod
- We are even more generous on this one. Although, if the boundaries cross an existing nation, we "require" that you collaborate with them. (Again, we're generous about "require".)