The Hidden Side of World Building - The Kota Forests

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This is just random storytelling on a random map! YAY!
0:00 - 2:56 The Kota Forest and WoW
2:57 - 4:46 What the map looks like
4:47 - 6:15 Dichotomies of the world
6:16 - 11:27 Trade routes (water & land)
11:28 - 20:18 Military Geography
20:19 - 24:26 Food & Agriculture
24:27 - 24:43 The 7 Prime Empires
24:44 - 26:35 The Biotragamoth Empire
26:36 - 29:07 The Bullbriar Empire
29:08 - 30:59 The Four Rivers State
31:00 - 32:29 The Gyartom Tribe Domination
32:30 - 34:00 The Rofleyeb Empire (what a terrific name isn't it)
34:01 - 35:08 The Neo-Bullbriar Empire
35:09 - 35:51 The Tehean Empire
35:51 - 36:59 Kota's Future and Thank You's
Music-
Kevin Macleod- Drums of the Deep
Chris Zabriskie- Mario Bava sleeps in a little later than expected.
I'll put the rest in here soon, I'm on a deadline here.
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Descriptive tags- Worldbuilding, world building, writing, history, DM, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, culture, society, city, characters, empires, states, countries, borders, map, geography, how to, names, Rome, China, language, novel, writer, GM, art, migrate, character, land, help, creative, stoneworks, plot, story, structure, religion, archaeology, artifact, item, magic, quest, tv, movie, world anvil, campaign
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[@Stoneworks]

Take a shot every time I say "Basically" and mention Aristocracy. Play World of Warships here!!!: wo.ws/2VIba33 Thank you World of Warships for sponsoring this video. During registration use the code BOOM to get for free: 200 doubloons 2 ships: St. Louis and Premium ship Emden 20x Restless Fire Camouflage 2,5 million credits 7 Days of Premium The promo code is only for new players during the registration. Join the Minecraft server today! Ip: Stoneworks.mcserv.fun Discord: discord.gg/wDPzdKaeca Join the Legends on Patreon! www.patreon.com/stoneworks

[@petrameyer1121]

WG is a scum company that uses coercion to make money off its players in underhanded ways.

[@fritz2622]

Is the mc server available for non-premium?

[@travishunt2083]

This video is so longgggggg what did we do to deserve this, blessed by thy content

[@helpiamstuckonthismanshead3385]

The giant ants might bandit the trade ways in filed of horzions, gyanym plateau and along the southen west

[@helpiamstuckonthismanshead3385]

It will be easier to take food and other things then to make them yourself

[@worldforger0]

I just realised, humans were giants.

[@ajarofmayonnaise3250]

Woooo dude but what happened to them? Humanocalypse ?

[@Shatterverse]

Yep. And the intelligent races are tiny furries.

[@Axelovskji]

sooner or later a mouse is going to commit tax evasion and throw down the corrupt mouse mayor

[@senorsombrero1275]

*perhaps*

[@marcusviniciusalvesmedrame3373]

@@Axelovskji I see you're a person of culture aswell

[@DaUziel]

Something that we're realizing after studying and actually listening to Native Americans is that harvesting of nuts and veggies is actually its own form of agriculture and is certainly scalable to larger populations. Until they were largely wiped out by disease and settlers, they would essentially tend to forests the way Europeans tend to their farms, even breeding and spreading higher calorie nuts and berries we used to perceive as "foraging." This also had the effect of bringing in small creatures that could be trapped and hunted - almost like free roam livestock.

[@georgethompson1460]

Pretty sure that was what sedentary hunter gatherers living in regions such as Gobleki Tepe were probably doing.

[@j.mbarlow5952]

Very true, and this extends to the native South Americans. The amazon is an overgrown "farmland" of a disproportionately huge number of fruit and nut bearing trees

[@Harvest133]

It doesn't scale THAT well. NA only had about 3 to 4 million people in the entire continent before European showed up.

[@InTeamFunwetrust]

@@Harvest133 you are off by a factor of around 5 to 20

[@Harvest133]

@@InTeamFunwetrust no. No I'm not.

[@janrace6466]

As someone who lives in a country that's more than 50% forest, I can confirm that forests actually are big clumps of trees with nothing interesting about them.

[@BrutusAlbion]

clearly dendrophobic

[@John-bm4mq]

Clearly have not tried foraging yet

[@nathanaelsallhageriksson1719]

There are 3 types of forrests, ones that loose their leaves, ones that don't with big trees, and ones that don't with small trees.

[@Lipton3373]

i.e Sweden

[@TheDcraft]

That's false. They provide resources, wood is an extremely valuable resource. They provide game and sport. This both feeds the people and has important social contexts. For many society's forests could also be wilderness and have a sense of not just foreboding but being sacred.

[@learncat8771]

This is really cool so far, but did the predators have societies of their own? or maybe that's what Stoneworks was hinting at at the end of the video.

[@ramendude4062]

Nah without prey they woulda starved.

[@learncat8771]

@@ramendude4062 I thought Stoneworks said that there were prey outside of the force field's range though? they were the prey considered to be "barbarians", right?

[@someguynamedsteve203]

They say there's land outside Of The place as things go in and out

[@jitr1238]

I interpretated it as the land predator's (because the water one's we're already capable to work around it) are going to start to invade the lake and all lands surronding it (please tell me if i wrote something wrong i would apreciate it)

[@bobmakert2841]

​@@learncat8771 the mice are fighting the predators like they are giant beasts is what I think it was made to be

[@weltengeist]

"Forests are boring" Me: builds his world around an enormous jungle with sub-forest biomes lmao

[@romulusnuma116]

Must be a boring guy

[@weltengeist]

@@romulusnuma116 Anti-Forest guys are always boring.

[@Stoneworks]

and that is why the Weltengeist extended universe is Pogeurs

[@quantum6812]

Nice to see you here :)

[@weltengeist]

@@Stoneworks it's all coming together now

[@ZearthGJL]

Me, playing too much RTS: _starts burning the forests and seats back and wait for the mice to surrender._

[@helpiamstuckonthismanshead3385]

Vietnam 2 eltric boogalue

[@lapiswolf2780]

RTS?

[@helpiamstuckonthismanshead3385]

@@lapiswolf2780 real time strategy

[@tomvanbeek925]

About agriculture: Things can be too barren (deserts) or too lively (rain forest), these are infertile without modern technology. Rain forests can be fertile for a few years if you burn a part. 2-3 years harvest, 30-50 years regrowth. Things can be wet (swamps and bogs) or dry (grasslands), these need large amounts of infrastructure (water management, irrigation, land reclamation (you’ll also need a lot of ploughing in the heavy soils)). It’s very labour intensive but very fertile, very communal and authoritarian societies develop here (China, Egypt, Mesopotamia). These places can normally produce harvests every year. In certain areas, this water management isn’t possible without modern technology, these will stay unproductive. If everything averages out, you get a forests and woodlands. Loamy forests (Northern Europe, MidWest, Northern China) are the most fertile but need lots of ploughing. Lighter soils (Mediterranean) are more easy to use but less fertile. Sandy forests are infertile and usually become grazing grounds for sheep and goats (heather fields). Forests are usually made into fields by burning them. Loamy forests usually have 2-3 years of harvest and 1 year barren, lighter soil forests have 1-2 years of harvest and 1 year barren. In agricultural societies there are only forests left on places that are difficult for agriculture, mostly rugged hilly terrain. This is why forrest are almost always empty. But I agree that they are often too empty.

[@McHobotheBobo]

Yeah there should be trappers, hunters, loggers, and foragers throughout any forest near a city (barring it being a royal forest etc. Then poachers become a possible plot point though)

[@nicholasstewart1482]

Some of these areas become workable once fertilizer is figured out, whether animal or human fertilizer is used.

[@Great_Olaf5]

The problem with rain forests isn't that they're "too lively" as you put it. They get too much rainfall which washes most the minerals and nutrients out of the soil before they can be used. There have also been (premodern) civilizations who effectively utilized techniques other than slash and burn agriculture in rainforests. The Marajo at the mouth of the Amazon burnt the forests, but not to ash. They seem to have used a mixture of charcoal and broken pottery that retained and built soil quality over time, leaving a very distinct black soil even centuries after their collapse. And the Garamantean kingdom might have some words to say to you about deserts only being suitable for cultivation with modern technologies. They tapped into an underground reservoir to irrigate the desert and sustain their civilization in the northern Sahara for several centuries.

[@melvinklark4088]

@@Great_Olaf5 same difference

[@ramendude4062]

@@melvinklark4088 it completely different and worth knowing about if you wish to write about them.

[@alexanderaljabbar7773]

Kota in my language literally means "city", thus "the kota" means The City. Furthermore "ada" means "there is", thus ada kota means there's a city. I like to imagine the populace of ada kota frequently gets ignored by the central government in the kota, thus always gets reminded by the ada kota residents that there is a city there. Does that make any sense?

[@carlfabian4640]

Which language is it?

[@revimfadli4666]

@@carlfabian4640 bahasa indonesia?

[@Zack-et9wj]

@@revimfadli4666 malay and indonesia.

[@Krieg_Sherren]

@@carlfabian4640 it's Malay.

[@rayvenhd387]

Malay/Indonesian since they share 70% of the words

[@thalgrond]

This is excellent. However, there's one detail I think you're missing that would make the setting better: since squirrels are arboreal creatures, an army of mice mounted on squirrels is going to be very effective in combat in the trees. They can jump across gaps between branches that mice on their own would be unable to cross, meaning that "cavalry" forces in this setting would be significantly more vertically mobile than infantry in woodland environments. As a result, there would be powerful steppe-style herding empires and chivalric orders with significant power bases in wooded areas. Squirrel cavalry (squirrelry?) would even be useful in the swamps, since dense canopies make for excellent arboreal highways. A kingdom like Loga/the Four Rivers State, with a large food surplus and the ability to mobilize a major workforce, would even be able to construct bridges and ropes that would allow squirrelry to quickly cross gaps they wouldn't normally be able to go through, meaning that there might be arboreal highways maintained by the Keepers of the Paths or one of their southern offshoots, used to aid in the mobilization of Four Rivers knights. They might consist of strings or ropes strung from one tree to another, perhaps even across the gaps in the canopy caused by the rivers. This allows the Four Rivers armies to quickly mobilize across the rivers in their domain, and if they're forced to withdraw behind one of the rivers for defence, they can easily cut these ropes and force their enemies to make a river crossing without the benefit of arboreal mobility.

[@loganvurklemeyer1957]

wow

[@ecksthree6598]

SQUIRRELRY

[@themediocremaster2388]

23:54 check out the studies being done on food forests in the Pacific Northwest, it’s looking like Native Americans cultivated the forests to produce food with minimal human input, basically setting up a machine for producing food that they just have to keep on course, rather than the extremely labor intensive practice of farming, it’s pretty interesting

[@kgoblin5084]

One complicating factor I think you missed is that mice are SMALL. You touched a bit on it with the squirrel chariots, but that really isn't taking it far enough: 1. Mice are plenty small enough to ride tamed birds. This basically gives them tameable air transport/travel... that unlike airplanes can operate pretty easily locally as well as over long distances. This greatly expands military capability, but also changes the dynamics around trade, since air transport is going to be preferable for anything small & light enough to utilize it. That preference for air travel is in turn going to have an effect on technology & commerce, creating an incentive for devices & products which are small & compact, or can be broken into parts which are small & compact 2. Mice are small enough that something the size of a dog becomes a walking tank, and something the size of a horse becomes a walking small town. This potentially allows for the development of straight up mobile military bases, factories, & artisan/labour districts, which could potentially upend a lot of the assumptions around geography that are templated from real-world human(-sized) society 3. ... further to that point, mice-size also means that straight up floating cities become much, much more viable. For compareable to human-population you basically should just need something the size of a standard pontoon boat, for example 4. not in the mice's favor... food crops are going to ALSO be scaled up. If the rice equivalent is approximatly the size of real world rice for example, then a single plant will be the size of a house to the mice. This size differential might actually keep the mice from developing agriculture at all... and have them be a civilization of foragers.

[@Malorn0]

I just want to point out... a fruit tree can be the size of a house, and we manage to agriculture those just fine.

[@Lusa_Iceheart]

@@Malorn0 I can just see a bunch of mice using ladders made of toothpicks to harvest a single sprig of wheat like it's a full sized tree. It would certainly allow for mindboggling populations in much more compact areas, which would mean a lot more specialists like scientists and inventors coming up with new innovations. Armies would be stupid disposable tho. Why bother making armor for your foot soldiers when you can just throw 100 times as many bodies at your enemy. Wars would be really ugly affairs even very early on, no tiny skirmishes of a few hundred fighters total on each side, but just seas of cannon fodder.

[@MegaTang1234]

I don't see why agriculture can't develop by accident. Say some mice hides a few seeds as food stores for the winter and forgets it in a fertile area till they stumble across a growing plant, this might happen often enough for it to click that seeds + suitable ground = grown food. I imagine that empires in this world would be massive population wise concidering how prolific breeders mice are .

[@DragonwolfoftheSands]

Comments like this make me want to redo this world

[@clintcarpentier2424]

I have to disagree with your "best location for a capital city." I'm looking at that big hill in the... Oberlands? You can build a port city at it's base, which will eventually grow up the hill. You got the wetlands right beside it. And then you have the river leaving the lake right there; you control the mouth of that river, you control lake trade. If given the choice, THAT is where I'd build my Imperial Capital.

[@clintcarpentier2424]

@Daniel Marinho That too.

[@Mona-kg6hy]

@Daniel Marinho why not both

[@Voron_Aggrav]

@Daniel Marinho Thing is, this "Military Base" you're talking about would be a Castle, which tends to be the focal point of a City or Town, Especially if it ends up being the Capital, the Hills would be a very good defensive location, whilst the mouth of the river heading from Imbrew's Valley would be a good point to build your harbour, as the most sheltered part of the Lake, with some luck those hills could be quite rich in valuable metals like Iron, Silver or Gold, with relatively easy access to logging from Imbrew's Valley as you can just float the logs down the river, a fairly viable combination towards wealth and power, making it likely also quite easy to control the Lake itself, and with it the Trade upon it

[@McHobotheBobo]

@@Voron_Aggrav Reminds me of the loggers on the Shanegarn river of Icewind Dale..... 😊

[@Voron_Aggrav]

also, I forgot to address the Line Blockade Concern that he had, but if you build a fortification that covers the bend on the northern point (Depends also heavily on how much Range fortifications could have), you'd have a gap which ships could use, if the enemy doesn't have the fleet to invest the castle as well, but Blockades are always a case of how much ships can you effectively use towards that station, and really if they only need a line, or a semi circle matters little to it if you've got enough ships anyway,

[@algerianmonarchist8017]

I've never heard someone so passionate about forests

[@sonofjack6286]

14:46 Yeah, with songbirds serving as aerial beasts of war, things like sparrows could serve as scouts, & robins, cardinals, bluejays, and other such birds could serve as assault units. 16:02 So, control that large hill and possibly the town that could be on it, and you could have control over much of the surrounding region.

[@georgethompson1460]

Owls as super-bombers

[@sonofjack6286]

@@georgethompson1460 Or troop transports

[@rowanblair5694]

My homie really just said let's worldbuild Tales of Despereaux but cooler

[@masako8980]

Let's not go overboard

[@anguishedcarpet]

More like Redwall honestly lmao

[@valdemaragering3591]

I feels like a lot more of this should be based on the fact that theese are mice. I know that predators cant enter the forcefield area but what about things like deer and boars?

[@Stoneworks]

good point. What if there are bands of hunters that take down giant prey, and then become an economic/political force of their own?

[@beepbop6542]

Also insects.

[@deanholderde5959]

This would all be very threatening for the mice, fortunately carnivorous insects are kept out by the force field, and herbivorous insects don’t tend to be aggressive. The boars on the other hand are very aggressive prey creatures, meaning that they may rampage through mouse cities, potentially annihilating a city if there are multiple angry boars.

[@hoominbeeing]

@@Stoneworks I can imagine if the mice domesticate deer and boar, then they basically have tanks or moving fortresses. Maybe your world should have a history. Their "ww1-2" time period could be when they discover domestication of board and deer.

[@sparkieT88]

real world geography: sandy terrain does not limit plant growth only moisture availability does, see the sand hills in Georgia and Carolina's as an example, they still have lots of plants maybe specialized for the area, but not limited by soil, also i would think that this would inhibit the squirrel chariots mentions, as wheels dont do well in soft sand. in the fire prone grass lands you would find specialized plants and seeds that had their normal seeds for growing, but also special seeds that only open after they have been in a fire, see Serotinous or Serotinous Cones , i dont think the fast growing grass is wrong, but i don't think it would be the only wait to adapt to fire

[@anguishedcarpet]

The chariot and the animals riding would be incredibly light and squirrels would have insane traction in sand, I don't think they'd have too hard of a time moving. Hell, if its been long enough for mice to gain intelligence they'd probably end up breeding squirrels into proper steeds/beasts of burden anyway

[@DragonwolfoftheSands]

Iirc outside the belt of Black soil don't Georgia and the Carolinas mostly grow cash crops?

[@TheSaniloGuy]

If the mice started fishing, aren't they predators now and get deleted by anti predator field? 🤔🤔🤔

[@alalalus7692]

Depends on what that anti-predator field actually is. It might be a leaking nuclear waste container, and rats are so smart because they were lucky to get good mutation while former predators just died out

[@LegiuneaAM]

This really looks fun but it becomes a pain when You have to draw a whole actual world

[@Stoneworks]

yep! that’s why I only did this little region

[@J11_boohoo]

That’s one of the fun part for me

[@dgee92]

Two things to consider: First: World maps are a fadvent modern cartogrmaps tended to have a detailed "Core Region" showing the nation in the focus and the surrounding states in fairly high detail but the further you got from the point of focus the vaguer ariant of "Here be Dragons". Second: Historic maps tend to be created for either purposes (/tal claimsor as tools for local logistical mapmaker' would put of detail into a region of the map thate to the purpose of the map. If there is a reason for the map to a regionand focus on regions more important to the maps purpose.

[@ukishnzer]

@@Stoneworks Speaking of drawing worlds, what do you use to make this map? Like the website or whatever it is, I like the detail and texture.

[@Stoneworks]

@@ukishnzer Wonderdraft, I think it's like 30$

[@Writer-Two]

How did you make this map? I have tried to get into map building for the longest time, but I can never find a site that allows me to create such amazing maps such as this one. If you could point me in the right direction I would appreciate it thank you.

[@carlfabian4640]

I might be wrong but it looks like he used wonderdraft for this one

[@GunmanJag]

Also curious what website/software was used for it

[@girv98]

There's Inkarnate and Wonderdraft that I know of

[@Writer-Two]

Thanks for all the feedback guys! And why is this my most liked comment?

[@MRcreeper151]

wonderdraft is pretty cool

[@gavinsmith9871]

well this is fucking awesome. I can't wait to see more of this.

[@VisiblyPinkUnicorn]

Joe the Squirrel has just learned how to hunt! Unfortunately, Joe the Squirrel is now outside of the barrier...

[@Hakasedess]

Joe the Squirrel has befriended a badger. Joe the Squirrel has conquered half the region in mere months. monkaS

[@TESkyrimizer]

30:40 mentions mouse lifetimes as being extremely short. How are academic developments and technological innovations made with this short lifespan in mind? MAN I LOVE THIS LORE AND WORLDBUILDING THIS HAS BEEN THE BEST VIDEO IVE SEEN IN A LONG TIME

[@oz_jones]

Talk about boomtowns, lol

[@cosmetanoia5018]

This has to be my favorite of all your videos. I love all of it, it just suits my fancy perfectly. Will probably be my comfort video for a long time lol.

[@Stoneworks]

this brings me buckets and buckets of joy

[@davekachel]

This map struggles with scale. Sometimes its "from this point to this point is enough room for multiple cities - even civilizations" and sometimes its "yeah this is the same line but this time its a great military point because its such a short distance - so short, with a little elevation you can easily see double the distance!" In other words, sometimes the scale is France and sometimes its Paris.

[@matvocaat]

Remember they’re mouse sized

[@davekachel]

​@@matvocaat We still have two mayor problems if we assume the area is so tiny that the curvature of the earth doesn't apply (or the earth is secretly flat) and we assume that they have incredible eyesight to see this far, because sight is dependent on size (or we retcon some technology) Firstly if its so tiny there couldn't be so many bioms. The diversity is incredible on its own and we wave it because its a fantasy map. But now its a very very tiny area? Bioms dont work like this. Weather dont work like this. Sure, its fantasy, but I argued that it struggles with scale and this doesnt make it better. And secondly, and this is the problem, the narrative changes the distance constantly. Sometimes its not far. Sometimes its very far. On the map its the same line. So how long does it take to walk a given distance? A day, a week or a month? During this video we saw identical places and got diffrent answers. Its incoherent, no matter the size of the people that inhabit this place. Scale is the most common problem fantasy maps face. While this is a lovely map it still struggles with scale.

[@caiawlodarski5339]

@@davekachel What ? This variation of "biomes" is perfectly reasonable, have you ever been in a real world forest ?

[@davekachel]

@@caiawlodarski5339 didnt know climate changes by double digits in a couple of kilometers.

[@caiawlodarski5339]

@@davekachel What ? Where does that even happen on this map ? The variations aren't even real biomes.

[@gingie2542]

I'm so happy I found this, for the past year I've been making a world contained within one large forest and I've been struggling to think up more diverse geography. Thank you so much for this

[@elvastan]

I think that dike would look a lot like Colorado's Grand Hogback, a highly steep, eroded ridge that runs from Meeker to New Castle, Colorado. The top would likely be too steep to run a trade route through.

[@ilypo]

loving the server so far (though it's always full) , keep up the amazing work!

[@CatholicDragoon]

Good choice going for a race of mice. If you went with rats I would start calling bull at the forcefield.

[@Hakasedess]

Man, now you've got me invested in the story of a century or two of mice warfare in a quaint little forest. Can't wait to hear how it plays out, what is the forcefield's origin in truth? So many questions.

[@JacobODell_]

Your point about placing a city on top of a hill in the middle of a swamp reminds me of the story of Hereward the Wake. He held out against the Norman invasion of England because he staged himself on the Isle of Ely, a monastery town at the time, which sat in the middle of the Fens, when they were still many miles of boggy swampland, which the Normans couldn't navigate. Unfortunately, the legend goes he was betrayed by a Monk when they showed the Normans a path through the fen. Moral of the story ... errr ... well, there's no moral but it's a neat local legend.

[@klemensk8776]

If a mouse lives only 7 years, than a season would be the equivalent of 2,5 years of our lifespan, does that have some sort of impact on the mentally of the mice? Also, a mouse can have up to 12 offspring, so the potential for quick population replenishment or overpopulation -> food shortages -> cannibalism, and ofcourse plagues. I love the set up, am just wondering about the impact of these things

[@roberttheguy4974]

The map in this video looks like a wonder draft map to me wich is is a map making software that lets just draw where the land and water is then add stuff like paints that look like grass or water and place trees and mountains and stuff

[@deanholderde5959]

I don’t think there are any mammals the mice can domesticate, and seeing as plagues always come from other animals that are closely related enough to infect us(almost always domesticated ones) the mice would probably have little to worry about for plagues.

[@klemensk8776]

@@deanholderde5959 well there are the squirrel chariots and for civilizations to evolve over a Aztec level domestication is pretty much a must.

[@Luredreier]

12:11 That's not entierly true. The thing is protection from the elements is more important. You need a good *harbor* for power projection, protected from the storms, otherwise you'll loose your whole fleet the moment the weather turns bad. It's a good spot for a lookout, but the actual power projection would have to come from up northwest on that map. The shape of that area gives them more flexibility. Against a bigger navy they can shortern their frontline, against a smaller one they'll have the reaction time to move out and surround the enemy, swarming them.

[@40dayfreetrial70]

Very nice. I'm not going to play World of Warships tho XD

[@lorddreagus7253]

Maybe there's a single ancient snapping turtle or a northern pike at the bottom of the lake, and the mice have legends of a sea monster.

[@squifftopher]

Great vid! I initially found this channel due to the minecraft content, but, as a DM, but have since fallen absolutely in love with the worldbuilding stuff. Btw, I haven't seen anyone comment on this, but the giants are totally just humans in this scenario, right? Bc I think you mentioned the mice are mouse-sized in the vid.

[@lewismassie]

This is actually super interesting in the idea of worldbuilding into a forest. I feel like it makes sense to worldbuild to the scale of the beings that live in your world, you only really need the things that affect them. Mice-scale people have to be more careful about the specifics of the terrain than humans because they're just smaller, which I think really enhances the world you've got here

[@AtaMarKat]

Gotta love the Mandate of Heaven shifting so accurately throughout the history portion lol.

[@hellomybaby-hellodarknessm6895]

The main hills you highlighted in the plateau are kind of like Rohan's capital of Edoras in lord of the rings

[@xKeeganxxx]

I'm listening to this as background, and picking up bits to appropriate, but I'm at full attention every time you say Pubydubya.

[@apaper3978]

Please make more videos like this! This was really engaging and interesting to watch.

[@paninterstellar779]

Love the story so far hope you keep making more!

[@notyetdeleted6319]

Wolf-ant hills could make a really cool phsudo-empire. It could be a serious of fortress-cities, with strong cultural cohesion. I would imagine a fairly egalitarian society that especially values military prowess. Could have a huge trade monopoly on anything coming from the East or west of the Wolf ant lions, becoming wealthy and powerful by acting as a trade middleman, while not actually allowing anybody to cross their mountain range, so they keep knowledge of what’s beyond mysterious, raise prices, and pretend to be noble defenders for things far worse then wolf-ants. I also think that with enough time they could create a substance that mimics ant pheromones enough that they can try and domestic a few, (like a sort of royal battle mount reserved for the most fearsome of warriors.

[@slimslamfl]

Love this series. I'm putting together some world building stuff I've been working on since the 80s. Bringing it all together, mostly as an art project for myself, but we'll see where it goes. starting to stream my art process even. I really like the way you talk of real world biomes and expand on them. Great stuff

[@gabrielr3390]

I love your content, just found it today!

[@Jermcrusher]

Always good when they post

[@couufdr]

It is interesting that you mentioned that because I was going to make a game mechanic surrounding that whole thing. Some of them were going to be obvious but there was going to be notations pointing you to other locations card. The obvious ones will have you start noticing and looking for the more often. Now every blob has the potential of having something interesting inside an encounter or maybe a totally new village or something

[@avirusjareesum8979]

Love the music selection, reminded me vividly of Historia Civilis. Fantastic video, keep up the great world building work.

[@justinspade2774]

thank you for the new video, you have inspired me to start world build again.

[@melfice999]

Man this was so glorious mouse empire stuff. Can't wait for more.

[@banman2135]

This video is incredibly cool. Can’t wait to see more.

[@StarlasAiko]

If the chariots are squirrels, woodlands are not going to slow them down. In fact, they would have a mobility advantage to mice, since mice without squirrel would have to run up and down the tree trunks or stay in the floor, the squirrel riders can easily and quickly jump from tree top to tree top. Mice without squirrels would have less of a disadvantage in the planes.

[@TwinSteel]

Exceptional work - subbed

[@0rdnajela664]

Hey, is your River Running? If so, you'd do well to chase it down and capture it.

[@gone41214]

Man this stuff is what I'm subscribed for.

[@thebestoneforreal3491]

Love stuff like this please keep it up

7:30 Eh, assumption that any of those deep inland rivers would be navigable without constant enormous effort is really dubious. Rivers are not naturally navigable, and this kind of river trade only develops at much later stage of civilization. Anyway, I think the starting question needs to be overall technology level and "what do they eat", and population density in various places, and only then it makes sense to talk about trade, warfare etc.

[@alalalus7692]

But these are mice civilizations, in terms of navigable rivers and floating on them there should be no problem. But then the questions of food and population become very imprtant

@@alalalus7692 If they want to transport anything, they need boats and navigable rivers. It's actually a lot worse for mice than humans - mice eat 20% of their body weight every day, so any long trip would need insane amount of food.

[@thatsablackperson4708]

Yey new video

[@Draktand01]

Loga feels like a perfect place to have witches. I mean, they’re surrounded by a swamp! Perhaps there’s a lot of magical trees growing in swamps due to the mana released from the lifeforce of dead organisms that exists in the area due to the biodiversity or something. That’s be really cool!

[@danielbob2628]

So, the forest's current civilizations evolved into sentient beings because they faced *less* hardship than before?

[@Lusa_Iceheart]

For natural evolution, it's typically the opposite conditions that would promote intelligence. Also, prey species are FAR less likely to develop complex brains required for intelligence, since, well, grass is easy to find, you just stick your face down (which is why herbivores evolved downward bending faces). Humans, the only known intelligent species, are pack animal hunter-gathers. We operate in expanded family groups and eat a wide variety of foods (need lots of calories to support a large, dense brain). Outside of other primates, Wolves are probably one of the closest examples and make sense as to why they were our earliest domesticated animal. Dogs (and by extension Wolves) are considered one of the most intelligent species outside of primates (they actually beat out primates in some areas like understanding hand gestures, you point at the floor a chimp wont understand it without being taught while a dog will look to where you point instinctively) with Dolphins and Octopus/Squids coming in at just a bit better, but being water-based, that just sucks for developing things like fire containment and then metallurgy from that. Cats are way too antisocial to form a civilization, plus they are exclusively predators whereas canines are primary predators with omnivore and scavenger diets too, greatly increasing the range of diet. Cats would be stuck at the primitive hunter-tribe level almost indefinitely without some massive leap in food, so massive it would make our Agricultural Revolution seem insignificant. basically, if you gave dogs and cats thumbs and the whole upright anthropomorphic stance, canines would develop agriculture to sustain livestock in mass whereas unless the Cats stole the idea, they simply would be too few of them to come up with it on their own, both tho would be well past the 1 million year timetable it took humans to figure out fire and then settle down and do some agriculture (which then basically exploded to everything else in the comparatively short last 18k years or so). Canines, maybe do it in 1.5 million, maybe a bit more (I figure since wolves often like narrow valleys like the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone to utilize the natural chokepoints, they might develop the idea to just seal the valley off and trap grazing herds inside, they'd figure out the agriculture part when they realized the trapped herd they were 'farming' overgrazed and destroyed the soil, so they'd grow shit to feed the herd themselves). Felines probably wouldn't figure it out at all without outside help, given lifespans would be short and writing wouldn't exist to transfer complex ideas from one generation to the next, so a good idea would often just die out within a generation or two. They might figure something out like fishing, only for whatever group figured that out to be killed by rivals, or simply not spread wide enough to have real effect. Basically, humans had a really ideal combination of traits that allowed us to make use of the oversized brain at all. Live on land, omnivores, high climate tolerance, upright, endurance hunters, pack animals, thumbs... yeah it was just a really good mix and still took a million years. Mice have some features, but would basically never develop a brain dense enough to make use of them without outside influence. These giants would have had to uplifted the mice, possibly by accident. Lab experiments got loose or something to that effect.

[@hoominbeeing]

@@Lusa_Iceheart You forgot about elephants and gorillas. I doubt herbivory lowers intelligence. There are far more factors than just what an animal eats. The animals I just mentioned also have a far better chance at civilization considering they both have grasping appendages, live in herds, and aren't limited by living underwater. Also, I don't see how understanding pointing intuitively demonstrates high intellect. If anything, being able to *learn* to look where someone points demonstrates far higher intellect. Also, some felines do hunt in "packs" (lions) and will scavenge if given the opportunity.

[@Lusa_Iceheart]

Seeing as you and I are both Great Apes, OBVIOUSLY Gorillas are a candidate, (they also are not exclusively herbivores, ask the ants) I was considering animals outside of the immediate relatives of Humans. Elephants are one possibility, yes, but they're heavily limited by the shear volume of calories that need. The 12-hour work days agriculture takes to feed a single family, well that time is about what Elephants spend eating alone. They simply wouldn't have enough time for agriculture and be stuck at a foraging level for good. Without some hyper-efficient analog to Wheat with seed to plate taking a week not months and having a MUCH higher energy density, I don't see how they could develop agriculture. They'd see no benefit to it and wouldn't settle down into villages and develop specialized work b/c of it. It took humans a million years to figure out agriculture and decide that it was superior to hunter-gathering. The part about dogs understanding hand gestures was to point out that canines show intelligence on par with Great Apes like chimpanzees in some areas. OBVIOUSLY Chimps are smart, my point was that canines aren't that much further off as far as intelligence goes. And like, dude, if you don't think canines are very capable of learning, go look up Border Collies. Felines, yes, Lions have prides, but they are pure carnivores unlike canines. Lions also are extremely aggressive and it's well documented that males typically kill each other to take over the pride, even killing off their own male children. Humans could only afford those sorts of hyper-aggressive acts in the family after we developed agriculture. In a hunter Gather society, you don't kill your offspring, with a scarcity of resources one group splits off if the tribe becomes too big. Lions are also limited to a very narrow climate range further limiting how far they could develop. Population growth is paramount to technological progress. More bodies means more bodies to work and produce food, more bodies (and their brains) invested in improving production and inventing new things. Even the destructive aspects of population growth lead to development. I can go into that later if you wish. But Lions half an almost harem like system, a single male breeding with a dozen females (and murdering male competitors). This is great for increasing a population with YOUR genes (as evolution favors) but not overall population growth. Instead of having 3 kids with 12 females and killing half of them (total population of 26 counting all kids and adults) where if it was an even split of males and females with all reproducing each couple could produce 4-6 kids (or more as was common in human history) greatly increasing population growth. One male lion spending all day as a breeder is inefficient for development. Having a member of the community be exclusively for breeding and not participate much beyond that is terrible for a proto-civilization/tribe/village. It just doesn't work for mammals like it does insects.

[@hoominbeeing]

@@Lusa_Iceheart "gorillas are omnivores" Omni/carn/herbivory relates to general behavior. There are cases where horses and cows will eat meat, does not make them omnivores though. Do gorillas commonly eat ants? If so, what's the evidence. I agree that food requirements are a hurdle in regards to elephants. But considering you added the caveat of "if canines were bipedal and had opposable thumbs", I think we can do the same for elephants in this hypothetical. "If elephants evolved to be smaller to require less food", (which is far more likely) then they have greater potential than canines for civilization. As for lions, I would like to see the evidence for all of your claims about them. Yes, child k1lling does happen, but what's the evidence that it happens prevalently? Same with evidence in regards to prevalence of k1lling in fights. Also, it's unlikely the "alpha" male is the only one that gets to mate. Other males in the pride will breed as well, it will just be less likely. Furthermore, considering the majority of the canine diet is meat anyways, I don't see how that gives them much of an edge in evolution over lions. Lastly, in regards to being limited to Africa, humans were limited at one point as well before migration. The same can happen with lions. I am talking about one species, whereas you're talking about a whole genus.

[@Lusa_Iceheart]

@@hoominbeeing "Do gorillas commonly eat ants? If so, what's the evidence." I didn't know I had to provide evidence to a biology fact a child could tell you. As for Elephants, I did mention that a super dense food source would solve the issue and would be the same sort of hand-wave applied to canines and felines. I do agree that Elephants would be a good choice too, if an uncommon consideration. There *has* been more than a few entire series of science fiction books written on the topic of Uplifting animals and I've never seen Elephants suggested as an option tho I do see the possibility. It's always Chimps (or other apes), Dolphins and occasionally Dogs in such stories and they have very good reasoning behind them. As for felines, of the entire group of species typically considered a feline (excluding Hyenas which probably would be better than every other feline), the tigers, lions, Pumas, lynx, ect; Lions are the only social ones. And only semi-social when compared to other mammals. Lions are indeed known to kill male cubs, and documented instances in the wild show it's very rare for two male lions to cohabitate the Pride (and their always either brothers or father and son). Of all the main felines, lions are the only ones that come even close to being able to build communities that could then grow a society from, however it would be a stretch even then and would deviate extremely far from what humans would see as tolerable. IDK if you have a problem with my posts b/c it's a cats vs dogs grudge you've got or your just screwing with me or what, but your way too critical of my comments for a freaking youtube post on fantasy world building. If you want me to cite a bibliography for my claims, your on the wrong platform, dude.

[@orderofazarath7609]

Wondering if the borders of the force field should play a bigger role as natural border for empires and such.

[@charlottegoldman3580]

The giant ants is 100% valid as a world builder. Most people(myself included) just use a big ass ocean to keep people out, at least you have a unique, ecological reason.

[@Axatttt]

This channel underrated

[@leonhickson494]

LOVE THIS

[@napolien1310]

For the city that will be the most powerful in the lake, they will obviously take the hill to their north to protect their northern borders they will be great as a city state

[@The_Travelling_Merchant]

Absolutely loved this! I'm also really into worldbuilding and creating my own fantasy wonderlands, so this really opened my eyes into how interesting you can make just one biome. One question, how did you make your map, bcs it is absolutely gorgeous.

[@drianch.563]

Man this is so cool!

[@humonculeverotostre6804]

Hey! Just discovered your channel and you got plenty of great points about worldbuilding. Just wanted to know which program you use for your maps? Thank you!

[@joaquinleon4114]

You should have the mice go full Dutch and starting reclaiming land

[@legoforbeginners6950]

This is amazing.

[@AudioEsoterixxx]

Wonderful video

[@prantikroy2696]

We need a part 2. Shows us what the predator civilizations look like.

[@lasttarrasque6223]

Blackandforth field, I see what you did their and that funny

[@jovideos7546]

Ayyy y'boy getting sponsored

[@hamsteronion1428]

Dang this video is so good. Makes me jealous of their worldbuilding

[@evilmurlock]

more stories, this is so great! Mice are so cute! Worldbuilding is so POG!

[@calebchristensen900]

you got be going with squirrel calvary. However, They're probably be better mounts for the wooded kingdoms. The flatlands might be better suited with rabbit mounts. especially if speed if the main goal. With hares and marmots being draft stocks.

[@Diego51592]

GREAAAT video!!!

[@cizeek9748]

This dude just reinvented mouseguard

[@TheWarden04]

If they could domesticate beavers to build dams that'd be a great form of defense in the lake

[@AndreaXV]

PE Teacher: ok guys today we are throwing weights My Expectations: 1:48 Reality: 1:59

[@hoominbeeing]

Technically, you'd be the strongest person in the room, since a torpedo is many times heavier than a cannon shell.

[@AndreaXV]

@@hoominbeeing I know, that was a flex

[@oscarwells3070]

For a bit of context on distances, a mouse can run at up to 13 km/h so assuming cities are 200 meters or so apart, we are talking less than 1 minute of sprinting. That is VERY conducive to trade and empire so this scale of 100-ish km on the map might be a little small. I dont know how fast a mouse walks, but if they can sprint that fast, I can see beeeeeg mouse empires

[@oscarwells3070]

actually 600 meters is a bit more accurate so ore like 3 minutes but that is still fast right?

[@Tellemicus]

Huh, that was a surprisingly enthralling and realistic world history for the region! Good job! I'm actually quite curious to see where this world goes next! Maybe a new zealous religious order rises up from the southwest, working to spread their practices and beliefs to all critters that walk, fly, or swim?

[@ElderSwamp]

Really cool, and we'll thinked 🥳😉 I love creating maps and lore too

[@joshuacarre06]

Forests irl are epic

[@evilmurlock]

This is an amazing story PLEASE continue it! It deserves to be exapnded! What will hapen to the mice with the field turned off, will sapient predators arive? Ants? Someone Beyond the Ants? Give us MORE! I have been waiting for so long. whenwhenwhenwhenwhenwhenwhenwhen

[@dandane5227]

Hello. Im a new subscriber and loving your content. Just want to say that.

[@Stoneworks]

aw thank you I'm glad you like it!

[@Weirdoid]

You mentioned how many fantasu lands have patches of forest. I always found that odd as patches of non forest is odd around here. Forest is the default.

[@natahliazaring5291]

I do think it's worth noting that the majority of fantasy maps don't delineate between forested areas and it could be assumed that the "big empty forests" that get marked are representative of dense, hilly, or wetland forest areas that are difficult for travel, agriculture, and habitation, while less dense woodlands get marked with the developments that have been made within them.

[@temasebonego7007]

You can grow sorghum in sandy woodlands as they require little water.

[@AudioEsoterixxx]

Great vid

[@Lusa_Iceheart]

As a writer of Anthropomorphic (furry) sci-fi I can say without a doubt this video had my full attention and I would LOVE to see more on this setting. Suffice to say, Mice are an interesting choice. I'm going to spitball and figure I might be the only one in this comment section to do heavy research on specifically Furry world-building, and well for the most part I really liked the idea. I personally did the same exact writing work-around with your "giants" in my main sci-fi story, included a Precursor race that uplifted the various species and left behind tons of artifacts to 'guide' the populations of each and just completely circumvent all those nasty problems with natural selection requiring very specific conditions for intelligence. Make it all very UN-natural selection and you've got your fix. Adds the whole air of mystery as to "where did the elder race go and why did they leave?" to the setting and leaves you as the writer lots of world-building armor to work with. A few observations concerning Mice: Well, they'd be small, that's great for agriculture since one large tree will probably provide enough food and resources for an entire town managed correctly. This would allow for just staggering population levels. Technological innovations would be at a much faster pace due to the shear size of the population, they could support enough people to pop out thirty Einstein's in one generation and all be within relative close geographical proximity. However wars would be just horrifically brutal affairs, it'd be cheaper to just throw more serfs at your enemy than give any of them armor. Even some order of elite shock-troops would be just absolutely buried under the pile of corpses even a smallish city-state could throw at them. Mice are also burrowing animals, they likely build massive underground city-complexes, probably in the sandy soil regions well away from the rivers and swamps. Imagine in a siege on an enemy city, you could just have your army dig a shallow canal to the nearest entrance and drown out your enemy, absolutely brutal possibilities. Assaulting a mountain stronghold underground would be a likewise bloody affair, the enemy would be forced to use the massive numbers to just flood into the tunnels as a living wave, only to get butchered in the confines by the defenders. I could see entire tunnels filling up with blood, as so many would be thrown just trying to take such a fortress. The fortress for power projection at the top of the Oberlands mountains, yeah that would be a massive underground complex underneath, maybe the whole thing would be underground with just towers on the surface for scouting and watching. It'd just be impossible to siege down otherwise, have to starve it out. Rice keeps for a good long time tho, and if the underground was large enough it could house mushroom farms, basically making starving out such a fortress impossible. These mice would have horrifically brutal regimes that'd use them all as cannon fodder and probably not develop much in the way of social progress either, since if one group had a problem with how you ran things you just kill them. If they were some powerful noble, you offer their shit up to whoever does the killing for you. Population sizes like that, everyone becomes expendable. Not only does the agriculture allow for massive populations, Mice have lots of babies. The expectation is that most of them will die before adulthood, however with steady food and maybe things like medicine, you'd see massive population growth between each generation instead of the "just barely above replacement levels" growth humans saw. This would lead to overcrowding and probably diseases and extremely frequent wars culling the population each generation, not once every few centuries like for humans. Imagine a Black Death/Hundred Years war or a Spanish Flu/ Both World Wars multiple times in a single lifespan. Individuals probably would have very little actual relationships with their kin, there just being too many of them to ever get to know them all and family-clans could compromise whole towns, business would be done on the clan level, there would probably be very little notion of self, private property (just clan property) or rights of the individual. Both the massive population numbers and Rice cultivation favor those types of cultures in our own world. Overall, society would be stupidly bleak, make the darkest years the USSR under Stalin look pretty good. The art and culture coming out of this civilization would probably be a nightmare on a lot of levels, with generational Black Deaths and the soul crushing horror of WWI type stalemate wars. The state propoganda would probably be way more happy than the actual art, and it'd also have horrific Nazi-eque de(mouse?)ization themes in it about all the enemy nations to help keep the population in favor of wars. Suffice to say, the nomad barbarians living on the outside of the Force field and dying young to predators would have the happiest lives if I had to guess. Be like, "Oh a fox, THANK THE GODS, I can die, FINALLY!" and just jump right into that cute little foxy muzzle.

[@Khyranleander]

Food in the swamps? Not only rice out in swamps; know for a fact there's also edible leeks & processible skunk cabbage. Cranberries too, cattails that the mice might like, watercress, mints the ants WON'T like, taro...

[@nashpang1765]

Nice to see the new expansion to the Geronimo Stilton universe

[@celticdenefew]

This is pretty great. Im new to worldbuilding and I am in awe of your dynastic history. How do you think that all up? Mostly I've used the game Mappa Imperium for my world building and then add things from there, but im really so limited

[@oceandiamond22]

The sandy forest area could be somewhat similar to the Canadian shield, an area where there is a thin layer of soil attop rock. I think the soil was scraped off by the glaciers during the last ice age, or something to do with the massive lake when it ended, idk. But my point is that it may be open in a lot of parts, but there are a lot of bushes as well as uneven terrain, as many layers of rock have fractured leaving sharp drops, some larger than 3 meters , as well as cracks in the ground. Thus making squirrel chariots very difficult to manuver, except along maintained paths. An individual squirrel rider might even have trouble holding on when the squirrel climbs and traverses the rocks, so I can see trade occurring using squirrels, but not war, unless it is pulling some supplies along the roads for the soldiers.

[@Evanspar]

I’d like to think this vast fantasy world is only 15 sq miles

[@floppycorgi7767]

i think I've rewatched this video like 5 times, I absolutely love what you did, how you found or created a map then explained why you made the worldbuilding decisions you did, pointing out trade, war, strategic resources where the capital city would be then telling us a story about it. keep it up, this is one of your best videos yet!

[@thomasrevill7723]

The game Symbaroum is a good example of a world built around a forest that keeps things interesting and follows quite a few of the ideas here (esp. the divergence between "civilisation" and "barbarians")