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I was just revisiting the video series by Curious Archive on Dylan Bajda’s speculative evolution of 'Serina: A Natural History of the World of Birds' for motivational inspiration for building my own world, and I'm still in awe at how simple the very small the ecosystem started as on the fictional terraformed moon of Serina.  'Serina: A Natural History of the World of Birds' by Dylan Bajda On this far-off journey of speculative evolution, the world of Serina included certain organisms from our world that evolved into a truly wild diverse ecosystem. What I found fascinating was how small the starting selection of organisms available. Imagine a simple ecosystem that started with only grasses, algae, flowering planets like sunflowers, insects like ants and crickets, small tiny fish like guppies and swordtails, and the star of the show, the single vertebrate animal dominating the lands of the World of Birds, the domestic canary. Revisiting the video series made me wonder if one could maybe break down the ecosystem into its core elements and see if one could create a similarly simple starting ecosystem that would evolve into a complex tree of life fueled by a world of magic. Let's do a simple study of the complex ecosystem of Serina.  'Creating Fantasy and Science Fiction Worlds' by Michael James Liljenberg The starting ecosystem of Serina contains insects such as ants and crickets, plants such as grasses, algae, and sunflowers, with the starting fauna being guppies, and swordtails in the waters of Serina, and the domestic canary dominating the land and sky. According to Dylan Bajda’s speculative evolution project, the endless food supply available for the canaries of Serina could’ve led to an explosion of biodiversity among their kin. Over the generations, the early specialization of the local canaries subtly diverged into insect-eaters, plant-eaters, egg-eaters, and seed-eaters taking up even more place on the food chain of the planet. Without any predators for the guppies and swordtails of Serina, these small fish are now allowed to grow and diversify as well. On my world of Arthya, I wanted to have magic being a natural substance that evolve within the ecosystem to the point that all life, both flora and fauna, adapted to metabolize into "magic energy". I also want plants, animals, and people to produce that magic energy naturally, but consuming food that would be rich in magic energy could in a sense replenish the host if they used too much magic. So I guess for a future blog post I would think about a few insects, plants, land, sea, and aerial animals that could be the basis for the ecosystem. I don't expect a miracle, let's just say doing this is brainstorming fuel for me, so it might lead to something, or lead to nothing special. However, it might help me with the whole "magic has evolved with the flora and fauna from Arthya causing them to be intertwined in the ecosystem" situation I have to deal with.
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So I was visiting a friend during Christmas Eve and after enjoying the Christmas Eve supper and the gift exchange we ended up playing a board game called Catan. The game places the players in the role of settlers and you have to build settlements and cities, gather resources, and even trade between players.  25 Year Anniversary Edition Box of Catan Board Game. As the title of the article implies, playing the game got my imagination overflowing, it was a simple game, gather sources to build and expand your territory, but it was just enough to get me thinking about it in a worldbuilding sense. Would would happen if you took your world map, or even just your nation map, divided it into hexes, and then placed Catan-inspired tiles onto these hexes? Could one use this to in a sense roleplay through the development of a nation's history? Could one create these types of tiles and place them in something like Tabletop Simulation and basically play a Catan-inspired game where the landmass is much bigger, but you still have to build settlements and roads, gather resources like wool, grain, lumber, clay bricks, and ore?  The Catan Game Board with Expansion. I am basically just talking to talk, but it is something simmering in the back of my mind. One of the goals I have in 2024 is to try to master Blender, and I do already have Tabletop Simulator, so in theory if I would create nice looking small environments on hex tiles to import into Tabletop Simulation I could test out this type of gamified brainstorming as a way of worldbuilding.  The Catan Game Board with Expansion. I didn't end up winning the game sadly, but it was a fun experience and I'm definitely going to play the game again. What do you think? Are there some strange board games or video games that you've played once, and thought to yourself that they might be interesting as a fun worldbuilding tool?
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