Is it already time for a new world design? Well I'll be.
This will be another reference to an old, old post I made on page 172.
Shan Yu is the original home of the Horses, themselves distant relatives to the Unicorns of Valencia. For millennia, Shan Yu has been a sort of backwater- it's even wondered on whether it can properly be considered its own world, depending on who you ask, Shan Yu is simply a world which is culturally and politically bound to Mooshu, even if it is its own territory.
However, such an opinion is, admittedly, a little disingenuous. Back, before Mooshu interacted with this land, it was the home of the Horses. While it might be considered a hinterland now, these vast plains and wide deserts have hosted several mighty Horse empires, the most recent being the Amber Horde that currently plagues Subata Skyway. The Horses themselves are integral to the history of the spiral- they seem to be truly everywhere, and are one of the last races to use Leylines in tandem with Skyways and World Gates for travel. Wherever you go, expect one or two horses to be present, adventuring, scouting, looking eagerly for new lands to conquer...
Lore: Guided by an eagle to the top of the Altai mountains, Tengri was the first Horse Khan. For centuries his people dwelt in tribal conditions, their only other contact being with visiting camels, cows or reindeer from other worlds- and, ofcourse, the wild Ibex of Uriankhai, and the brave Snow Leopards of Urumqi. Tengri united, in those ancient days, all that he saw, the tribes under one banner, and in that moment he became the Eternal Blue Sky that colors the sky of Shan Yu even at night.
Centuries have passed, and empires rose and fell. The Kurultai- a coalition of elected nobles- have traditionally picked the Khans of Shan Yu's various horse factions. Today, three of these horse factions remain.
The Amber Horde remembers how their ancestor, Chingiis Ba'atur, briefly dominated Mooshu, Polaris, and Mirage alike, and had terrified realms as far as Krokotopia and Rajah into submission. Those days are gone, and the Amber Horde has much work to do.
The Sakha sit as a nation of Horses amongst the Tribes of Reindeer. They are humble trader folk with a very strong material culture, and it is their nation that now owns the Uriankhai woods- the only real forest in Shan Yu. It's a valuable land that can't afford to lose its territory- not to foreign Polarian invaders, and certainly not to the likes of the Amber Horde or Aisin.
In the distant east, one finds the vast plains and ports of Aisin. This great territory has traditionally been of little consequence, save for a brief moment it conquered Mooshu itself... it has the Amber Horde to thank for disassembling its brief control over the area. Now, they're becoming a second empire, and the entirety of Mooshu and Shan Yu alike are looking like tempting prizes.
Shan Yu itself is not remotely out of the woods (ironically enough). Imperials from Mooshu, Polarian Cossack Invaders, and even horses from a distant realm once-conquered have all broken back through for a piece of the vast plains and rich mountains. The future of Shan Yu is an uncertain one.
Design: The world is sparse- there aren't many cities here, and the few you do find are all pretty tiny. Mostly, it's Plains, Deserts, and Mountains. In the very center and towards the west, one finds the mighty Altai Mountains, at the top of which one finds Khan Tengri in Otuken Taiga, which doubles as the Commons area here. Descending down the mountains one heads to Urumqi, a mountainous desert with beautiful rainbow formations, and the heart of the Mooshu Occupation, where the Snow Leopards, inhabiting Hunnu lake, have their home.
This area connects to the many regions of the Amber Horde, including the Capital of Samarkand. The Red Plain to the East will lead you to Aisin land, and the Golden Sands, with hundreds of different lakes, sits at the base of Altai. No lake here is grander than Table Lake, which is shallow and wide, and stretches on a great distance. Farther east yet, one comes across the
To the direct north of Samarkand is Uriankhai and the region of Kyzyk- While Kyzyk is a snowy basin firmly under Polarian control, Uriankhai is a growing, if modest, power. These dense woodlands, inhabited by the Ibex tribes, are dense and stretch long. To the very north of this area is the Lake Baikal, a distant place some Polarian Seals call home. This great lake, like a gash on the edge of the world, is also very deep and very diverse.
To the East, through the Red Plains, one finds the Aisin territory- the massive plain of Aisin, which has been farmed and herded on for milennia. It's a flat land, which the Aisin jealously guard- their Banner Armies richly defend. There is a small city here, where Khan Nurhaci plots his next move. On the shores of Lake Taizu, in Aisin territory, sits the meeting place of every other faction- this is where the Kurultai convenes.
Story: Khan Nurhaci of Aisin, Khan Tygyn of Uriankhai, and Khan Jayaatu of the Amber Horde are all in less-than-happy situations towards one another... and it threatens to break into chaos. Likewise, the Polarians and the Mooshu Imperials would like to see this vast realm brought to heel at last.
While this is a fine set-up, I think it's even better as a base for us, the Wizard, to intervene. In search of the arc's big bad, we've come to Shan Yu. In the process, we get sucked into the game of cutthroat politics and imperial ambition, trying to maintain the fragile balance these worlds have struck. To do so, each of the Four Lakes must be reached...
Flavor: Mongolia comes to mind, first. Likewise, Manchuria, Qinghai, and Siberia should also be recalled. Ovoo dot the landscape, and cities are full of yurts and ger. Going to Qinghai, one sees Hui-influenced architecture, while going North one sees a much stronger Tatar influence. In the middle, Yuan-dynasty building clash with modern Yurts, while in Aisin, Qing and Jin dynasty architecture is present. The clothing and styles of the different nations corresponds accordingly- in Samarkand, many of the people wear Deel and long trousers, while in Aisin, the horses wear the Queue. The Ibex tribes, and Uriankhai as a whole, are fond of their pretty dresses and many shiny ornaments, while the Snow Leopards wear Hui-influenced clothing.
The music of the world is heavy on the Throat Singing, heavy on the Jews' Harps, heavy on the Morin Khuur, and heavy on the Yatga or Guzheng. Different regions will show local influence- in Kyzyk, Polarian Vocals take over the Throat Singing role, and the distant sound of horns enforces the oncoming imperial power. In Urumqi, the Erhu makes a surprise appearance in the ensemble, to represent just how close this foreign power truly is.
Spells for this world have plenty of sources. For one, Storm has an easy one that can be influenced by the Mongolian Death Worm- a worm that electrocuted all it came across and killed you with a single touch. Myth may receive Tulpar, the Winged Horses of the region- one part Falcon, one part Horse, these are the embodiments of spirit. Death can call upon the Dark, pig-faced lord Erlik Khan, to sap from their enemies their life essence. While I won't suggest any further, these are just a couple potential ideas for what spells one could find during their adventure in Shan Yu- the stats, as usual, are up to you!
For an official story arc I would like to see something similar to Steven Universe Future. The wizard is literally just a kid when there told to save the spiral and that's probably upsetting. when they get sent to skull island they learn about how bad things are (example: witchdoctors were prosecuted for practicing voodoo, despite wizards being able to do whatever)
they learn cheats from skull island, and they begin to learn that maybe merle ambrose wasn't a very good guy. sending kids to do his dirty work with nothing in return, allowing this to happen, the wizard becomes resentful.
Whatever happens happens but it would be cool to have a "The End" one day and have it be official and I would like to see our wizards have more depth then just a way to maneuver the world. Also I just adore Pirate101.
A world with vampire Transylvania/dracula vibes. So like gothic with gargoyles and other super natural creatures such as werewolves.
a true vampire, if someone has ever read the dracula book written by bram stoker then thats a great place to start building the legendary realm from, but why not include the capathian mountains, and from christine feehan her series dark (carpathain/dark) is also about vampires, but its vampires vs carpathians if you are not familiar with her writtings its simple. carpathians have all the abilities of the vampire including all their weakness but with one major difference they are like humans they can have children too. to make a long story short, wizards would need to get mythical creatures such as the carpathians, lyconthropes, shape shifters any others who fit into the good side of things to battle against the dark side, vampires, werewolves, and yes corrupted shape shifters and even humans who take up arms against wizards, carpathians, shape shifters and lycons, vampires, werewolves and other mythical creature. just to save the spiral from a devistating impending doom if the balance is not restored and the different realms come crashing together in the darkness with only a tiny light of hope that finally begins to blink much like a strobe light.
Maybe we have to go there and prevent something from happening.
Just an idea of course, but could be fun if done the right way.
That sounds pretty cool. Like, a flashback or going back in time and playing as a younger version of your wizard. I'd love to play through something like that.
What about a Mad Max type world or a world where the machines were all against the humans. Maybe a world where there is nuclear fallout and the creatures are all types of critters misshapen or deformed, as to be real creepy.
I don't know, I feel like Asgard should be a thing, we already have Aquila, and I know this is a popular opinion, but a world based on Asgard, maybe an extension of Grizzleheim/Wintertusk would be amazing, imo.
A world where different areas represent different seasons, perhaps? While I do think you might have to work to make winter not seem like Polaris or Wintertusk, I think it would be cool if the world was divided into quarters for the seasons.
I would love a world where (at least some of) the enemies are young, human wizards such as the ones in Wizard City that look similar to our own characters. I always found it so exciting for some reason when I would be up against another young wizard in PvE (e.g. Duncan Grimwater, Ivan Soulsinger). I think it's because it feels like I'm fighting an equivalent, or counterpart. If it's not a feature in a new world, perhaps it's a dungeon or special area like the Catacombs. I would love if they were much more difficult than Duncan or Ivan, however. High-health, high-damage, cheating bosses.
Relatedly, I was also thinking, perhaps near the end of a storyline arc, the main antagonist casts some kind of spell over Wizard City that makes wizards there turn against each other. In my mind, I picture a dark red sky, and a dense, gray/black mist that creeps over Wizard City and, once the citizens come into contact with it, unleashes a chaos. Something similar in concept and aesthetic to Ra's al Ghul's scheme in Batman Begins. The protagonist wizard comes back to wizard city to encounter all of the pandemonium and has to fight through some of their closest friends developed from arc 1 in order to sort everything out. Once they do, it returns back to normal. On the dev side, I don't think it would be impossible to implement as Azteca's Zocalo area gets a total rework once you finish the world and Xibalba comes crashing down.
I may be weird, but I want a world that is covered in vines and thorns as a side world. It would build on idea of shadow magic in the wake of grand father spider being absent -spoilers- so we need to assume responsibility for this magic.
The story would be simple: the titan of shadow has survived. Killing the ether titan released magic, which combined with the repaired Mandala resulted in the re-turn of the titan. The vines have grown at a pace beyond comprehension and are threatening bartlebees roots.
Like a vine strangling all life, the vines create twisted abominations of ravens creation. Massive powerful creatures.
It is the duty of the wizard to investigate this world, and navigate it’s confusing maze… the maps are built like hedge mazes from Harry Potter and the goblet of fire. For defeating the enemy we would get our first shadow gear set.
Big Apple - a World based on 1920s New York City complete with King Kong Cyber - A Tron like world TinselTown - A world based off of Hollywood and Southern California Bayou - A world based off of the Mississippi Delta
I would LOVE to see Wizards visit a world from any of the P101 Skyways.
A cool world I'd like to see is one where your wizard travels back in time to the very beginning of wizard city when Malistaire was still a teacher. Maybe even farther back when Merle Ambrose was a student even.
This may be a bit weird, but I would genuinely LOVE to see a Marleybone part 2 as part of the main questline. I doubt you'll do it, but even more than a new world I'd love to see that.
I love the theming of Marleybone so much and it feels like you finish with it so quickly and you don't come back nearly enough. But even more than that, I hate how it's almost exclusively rooftops. It feels like you're dodging around the bulk of the world the whole time, just skirting on the edges and barely seeing anything because it's all just hiding on the rooftops at night. I absolutely adore Marleybone but that's why it frustrates me so much that you see so little of it! If there were more to it it'd probably be my favourite world in the game.
It needs political intrigue, more mysteries with Sherlock Bones besides just dealing with already known criminals, and it's based on the British Empire right? So it needs to explore how Marleybone's expansion and colonization is affecting other people, both at home and abroad, there needs to be more conflict, Marleybone is PERFECT for that sort of thing and they do nothing with it. As is the world is great but it just screams wasted potential too.
I would genuinely love to have an entire new world's length of stuff that you come back to later, Marleybone deserves it.
If you don't want to do that with Marleybone, you could instead have a new world that Marleybone has colonized. Explore the troubles of the natives trying to deal with the encroaching foreign power, with Marleybone looking down on them as uncivilized and many of them genuinely believing they're helping them while not understanding the culture of the natives at all, and the natives being horribly frustrated that Marleybone is forcing them to conform and either give up who they are to integrate or leave their homeland, and you can still involve a lot of political intrigue and mysteries with Marleybone's characters and theming, like Marleybone is taking over the area visually too, like Marleybone style buildings and towns contrasting heavily with the native architectural styles. It would let you have a new world to satisfy people while also letting you revisit Marleybone and give it the time it needs, maybe having you hop between areas in the new world and brand new areas in Marleybone like how Pirate101 has you go back and forth between worlds sometimes.
There's also the tensions at home in Marleybone between the dogs, the cats, the rats, and the frogs, with the dogs quite clearly being the upper class, the cats and rats being lower class forced to turn to crime to survive, and the frogs barely even being noticed most of the time, there's so much you could do with that class dynamic and really shake up the world.
The only thing to make sure of though is that you don't do it quite how you did it back in the day with the bison and ESPECIALLY the water moles, because those feel more like native caricatures and stereotypes than actual people a lot of the time, especially with how they're often the only people that have difficulty speaking properly even though nearly every world is based on a different foreign culture. Even for KI's style it's just too caricatured and stereotypey and it feels weird to play through it.
I think having a world where everything you know about the amazing Wizard City is flipped on it's head! A mirror image of Wizard City which could be deemed as "Fallen Wizard City." In this world, the first thing the player notices is that you exit out of Bartelby in the Death School area instead of Ravenwood, which would be deemed "Dark Ravenwood." Bartelby then explains what has happened and that the Wizard Resistance HQ needs your help to find a way to defeat the evil of Headmaster Merle Ambrose, who could be called Emperor Merle Ambrose or Corrupted Merle Ambrose rules the world with an iron fist. The education there would mostly remain the same, besides for the professors. There could be a Resistance HQ for the people who didn't want to support Emperor Ambrose in his journey to rule Reverse Wizard City. This could be in the fallen Death School, which is protected by an ancient spell which prevents Merle Ambrose from entering. The HQ Leaders could be someone like Professor Cyrus Drake or something among those lines. The streets of Wizard City could be littered with monsters you'd see in normal Wizard City. Maybe make the bad guys in this world, like Rattlebones good guys and have them give you quests to help take down Emperor Merle Ambrose!
Just a world idea that could be really fun and throw a ton of new and interesting things at the player.
This may be a bit weird, but I would genuinely LOVE to see a Marleybone part 2 as part of the main questline. I doubt you'll do it, but even more than a new world I'd love to see that.
I love the theming of Marleybone so much and it feels like you finish with it so quickly and you don't come back nearly enough. But even more than that, I hate how it's almost exclusively rooftops. It feels like you're dodging around the bulk of the world the whole time, just skirting on the edges and barely seeing anything because it's all just hiding on the rooftops at night. I absolutely adore Marleybone but that's why it frustrates me so much that you see so little of it! If there were more to it it'd probably be my favourite world in the game.
It needs political intrigue, more mysteries with Sherlock Bones besides just dealing with already known criminals, and it's based on the British Empire right? So it needs to explore how Marleybone's expansion and colonization is affecting other people, both at home and abroad, there needs to be more conflict, Marleybone is PERFECT for that sort of thing and they do nothing with it. As is the world is great but it just screams wasted potential too.
I would genuinely love to have an entire new world's length of stuff that you come back to later, Marleybone deserves it.
If you don't want to do that with Marleybone, you could instead have a new world that Marleybone has colonized. Explore the troubles of the natives trying to deal with the encroaching foreign power, with Marleybone looking down on them as uncivilized and many of them genuinely believing they're helping them while not understanding the culture of the natives at all, and the natives being horribly frustrated that Marleybone is forcing them to conform and either give up who they are to integrate or leave their homeland, and you can still involve a lot of political intrigue and mysteries with Marleybone's characters and theming, like Marleybone is taking over the area visually too, like Marleybone style buildings and towns contrasting heavily with the native architectural styles. It would let you have a new world to satisfy people while also letting you revisit Marleybone and give it the time it needs, maybe having you hop between areas in the new world and brand new areas in Marleybone like how Pirate101 has you go back and forth between worlds sometimes.
There's also the tensions at home in Marleybone between the dogs, the cats, the rats, and the frogs, with the dogs quite clearly being the upper class, the cats and rats being lower class forced to turn to crime to survive, and the frogs barely even being noticed most of the time, there's so much you could do with that class dynamic and really shake up the world.
The only thing to make sure of though is that you don't do it quite how you did it back in the day with the bison and ESPECIALLY the water moles, because those feel more like native caricatures and stereotypes than actual people a lot of the time, especially with how they're often the only people that have difficulty speaking properly even though nearly every world is based on a different foreign culture. Even for KI's style it's just too caricatured and stereotypey and it feels weird to play through it.
Marleybone was my favorite world. I loved the look and the feel of Marleybone (and also, that its always night). I would love them to do another version of Marleybone, but like you said - less rooftops.
I would like to see a few worlds that already exist in The Spiral, but we're not able to visit in Wizard101... I would LOVE to see Cool Ranch in Wizard101. Just watched Tombstone last night actually. Maybe Merle Ambrose could send brave wizards to take up arms with Captain Avery and a few pirates in Valencia to help stop an evil force from rebuilding The Armada. Monquistadors have appeared in Azteca if I recall correctly, so i'm surprised Monquista hasn't appeared in the story yet. We have Azteca, so how about a world themed around the Mayans? Maybe Mayana? I think Aquila has potential for an expansion as well.
My friends and I were thinking that a space world would be cool. Like actually in space. zero G and all. While I know we have Celestia. We think it would be epic to have a space world. Space creatures would include alien-looking hydra boss, Dragon boss, Giant whales. And, other alien looking creatures. Im open for ideas reguarding this.
