Seeking Worldbuilding Advice!

[jwabeasley]

Several weeks ago, one of my kids asked me to start telling her a bedtime story I made up - she's 8, she figured out that my writing and drawing stories could be put to good use .

Her stipulation was that the story had to be about a flying lion (she loves lions) she named Leo. I combined that with a half-baked setting I came up with as a teenager to make a serial adventure for Leo the Flying Lion. I am a victim of my own success - we're several weeks of adventures in and she's loving it but I'm starting to run dry, since I didn't exactly plan out any character arcs or anything.

I could use some advice or some adventure prompts for the setting that could translate into more adventures, or cool additions to the worldbuilding that could also make fun adventure prompts.

The setting is a super-post-apocalyptic world where the ground is covered by a cancerous toxic pink mist that can kill you in minutes as you melt into a mess of tubers or get petrified by cancerous bone growth on steroids. Nobody alive knows, but basically some aliens came to earth to terraform it for themselves but they crashed and their bio-modifying viruses got away from them and transformed the world.

There are large airborne masses of plant matter that drift in the skies, held aloft by the hydrogen bladders they grow, which are eaten by large bulbous "sky cows" that eat the hydrogen bladders so that they can also float. The sky cows have two predators so far: winged lions and jetsharks. Winged lions are what you'd expect (except they're more bobcat-sized, and jet sharks are swarming ambush predators with the head of a shark/dunkleosteous and fly in bursts using compressed air from the back end (the kids like that feature a lot).

The humans of this world are smaller than us today, basically being hobbit size (but slim), but they don't know that they are smaller than they used to be. They live an almost entirely airborne lifestyle, patching together balloon cities, but larger balloon cities made from multiple attached zeppelins constantly prey on the smaller ones for their resources and people (like in Mortal Engines). Some humans can live on the highest mountaintops, but the only ones we've met so far live a nomadic hunting lifestyle where they hunt the sky cows and use them for everything. They also repurpose industrial goods and can survive on the ground for extended periods with the help of gas masks.

The story so far (short version): Leo the Lion was kicked out of his family pride because he is now of age. He got injured hunting for himself and crashed in the pink mist but was rescued by a human girl , "Maeve" who took him to her balloon town to heal using her glider that looks like the one Nausicaa uses (Maeve is basically Nausicaa). They became friends but then Balloon Town was attacked by a much larger city, Stormtropolis. Long story short, Leo helped them escape but their 'liberated' transport was shot down before they could find safety. Now Leo and Maeve are looking for a way to get the Balloon Town people airborne again before they all die in the mist.

Any ideas? I know the setting is pretty challenging, but let's keep things PG if possible, like the Redwall level of violence and scariness. What's a credible lifecycle for the sky cows, the Flying Lions, and the Jetsharks?

[yaziroburrows]

I have been summoned! I love worldbuilding sooo much.

SO! Since the sky cows, winged lions and jetsharks are all sky bound, lets start with the winged lions since they are more grounded in real world biology.

If they are just bob-cat sized lions with wings, lets keep in mind that they need to have hollow bones,(to lesson their weight) and definitely need to be able to take an aerodynamic shape while flying, like completely tucking their limbs during flight to lesson drag. I would say that their main method of attack would be bite, since their claws should be better adapted to landing and since sky cows use hydrogen bladders to float, they just really need to knock them out of the sky. A quick bite, and then they can land to eat. The real question is do they still give birth to live young, because that could cause all kinds of interesting challenges for teaching the young ones to fly!

For the sky cows and jetsharks, this is a bit different. There isn't much biological precedent for animals using gases to fly, but we do see it in the ocean. I also noticed you didn't give much about what the sky cows are. Are the actually cows that simply float using hydrogen bladders, or they completely different in shape and form? Because I almost see them as whale-ish, trading legs for a tail and fins, which would help with the floating, and they merely eat the masses they pass.(this also depends on if the masses are like solid, or just floating, like how seaweed can be firmly planted of float in small masses). The sky cows could also have their young on the masses, so the young can eat right away and begin to float.

The jet sharks honestly sound great as is, although I think it could be cool if they, like real sharks, can't even actually stop moving. So even if they mostly save their energy for ambushing the sky cows, they have a hydrogen bladder as well so that they can float and keep moving in order to not die or fall out of the sky

[jwabeasley]

Those are some good thoughts! I figured everything being smaller would make it proportionally lighter - if the humans and the winged lions are both smaller, they'd never notice but their bodies, engines, and tools would take a lot less energy to sustain aloft.

I think of the sky cows as large blimpy crosses between a tardigrade and a humpback whale, but all pink. Maybe it gets that color to imitate the pink mist below? I wonder what a life cycle would look like for a creature like that. Maybe the young have to hang off the body until they eat enough hydrogen to float themselves?

What if for the sky-sargassia, its a clump of tumbleweeds that grow on a vine like a bunch of giant grapes, but at the end of its lifecycle it dries out and the hydrogen gets more concentrated until it takes off to spread seeds all over the place? Then when in the air, moisture from clouds sticks to it and symbiotic mosses grow on the surface, safe from the toxic cancer microbes below?

[IndigoShirtProd]

Have you considered having some kind of mcguffin that needs to be found or maybe someway to disperse the mist on earth or they can do like a spy mission in Stormtropolis where they infiltrate the city for resources. Or maybe they find some humans that still look "human" who were somehow living underground. No, I got it.

The next big story arc: They are able to keep the inhabitants of Balloon town safe underground but only for a limited amount of time while Maeve and Leo travel to Stormtropolis to infiltrate, steal some resources, and find [insert item here] that can aid in getting Balloon city back in the air and away from Stormtropolis. They come to face with many a foe, but friends too, and in the end some citizens of Stormtropilis leave with the pair to live a simpler life in Balloon Town.

I wonder what a life cycle would look like for a creature like that. Maybe the young have to hang off the body until they eat enough hydrogen to float themselves?

When I think of hydrogen, I think of the sun and lifetime of stars. Maybe the hydrogen bladders keep expanding before turning into tiny, pale pink balls and the rest of the body follow suit with a barely recognizable snout and flippers/legs.

[wolflu66]

(My English isn't very good, translation mainly relies on app. Please excuse any misunderstandings.)

I think we can describe their ecology from the perspectives of the three species.

Start with the story from the winged lion's perspective, since it's the protagonist. Make the other two animals appear to be antagonists.

Then write separately from the perspectives of the other two animals. Readers will eventually discover that none of them are truly bad, they just have different positions and factions.

During the adventure of the girl Maeve and the winged lion "Leo," they accidentally rescue a sky cow and learn about the sky cow tribe's situation and predicament.

The sky cow tribe is facing a large number of jet sharks closing in, and the girl and Leo decide to help the sky cows resist the jet sharks.

Later they discover that the jet sharks are also being controlled by some force that makes them go mad and attack other creatures everywhere (like the dragons in How to Train Your Dragon 1).

The three species and one human embark on an adventure together to find a way to resolve the conflict and solve the toxic pink mist problem.

It's a very fairy tale-like development, what do you think?

We could also add a twist that the toxic pink mist is actually cause by humans.

[lizardlullabye]

What if the pink mist is basically a defense mechanism/digestive tract for one very big plant species which is where hydrogen bladders originally come from (mistaken origin). Hydrogen bladders float away when they are too full. Kind of like a dandelion seed flying in the wind.

Afterwards the hydrogen bladders can go two ways in the sky.

• The first is recognizable as the edible form when they have a softer shell.
• The second comes about when they are uneaten and their shell harden (like how oranges sometimes do when you forget to eat them). At this point, symbiotic moss can grow on hydrogen bladder, while on the hydrogen bladder can start sprouting tiny hydrogen bladders (edible) from nutrient gather by the moss. [Assume moss uses photosynthesis, hydrogen bladders does not] AKA, can building floating "islands" from this.

Anything that falls down can get caught in the pink mist and feeds the big plant species below. This includes floating islands with additional biomass thanks to the moss and the feces & corpses of sky cows and well, . . .everyone, etc.

No one had yet to figure out the cycle since (1) the big plant is visually obscured by the pink mist with limited time to observe on ground (or death) and (2) a hard-shell hydrogen bladder looks very different from an edible one.

[jwabeasley]

That would be, although if the lions and the sharks make it up with the cows, what will they all eat? None of them have been sentient so far, Leo can mostly communicate with Maeve because of her affinity with animals, so that might be difficult.

On the other hand, my daughter likes it when everyone gets along in the end so I should put some thought into that.

[jwabeasley]

That's a very good idea! That sounds interesting, I'd previously described a bunch of bone-white bare 'trees' in the pink mist, that could connect to this life cycle!

[jwabeasley]

Have you considered having some kind of mcguffin that needs to be found or maybe someway to disperse the mist on earth or they can do like a spy mission in Stormtropolis where they infiltrate the city for resources. Or maybe they find some humans that still look "human" who were somehow living underground.

Those are some good ideas! I wonder what a good mcguffin would be. I think a GECK, fallout style is a bit too clean, but maybe there's something along those lines that would work. Your idea to have some underground people is interesting, too! Some Morlock-type humans would be a very good add to this setting!