Is there any creative sort that would be interested in a collaborative world-building exercise? I have some bones of a setting I would like to work with a partner on. The genre is arcanepunk-with-a-hindu/vedic-skeleton-ish.
Some basic notes I've started with, as a jumping off point for whoever joins me:

• The "game world" is a massive, floating, chunk of rock several miles above a world below
• In the centre of the rock there is a large city
• The population found this city, which is believed to be a city of the gods, several millennia ago, in the distant past
• Whatever gods lived here are long-since gone
• The city has lots of arcanepunk features to it, some of which the people have learned to use and reproduce, some not
• Around the city are huge tracts of unpopulated or sparsely populated land - for non-urban adventures
• There are other cities like this, but access to them is restricted as only an insular, secretive group - akin to the Navigator Guild from Dune - have uncovered the secrets to making operable airships

At first I was crafting just a standard arcanepunk setting, but I decided I wanted a unique flavour to it. I ran across this quote from the Nasadiya Sukta of the Rig Veda and thought...hey, replace "universe" with "city" that would be really cool and interesting as a message left for whomever finds it in the middle of the city.

Anyways. Anybody want to help?

I could do a little brainstorm with you. Let's start with a few questions first...

About the first note. Where and what exactly is it? Is it a complete fantasy world? Is it set somewhere in the future? If so, is it on a distant planet, or a post-apocalyptic Earth?

About the second note. So the gods are gone; where? Who are living here exactly? The gods' degenerated scions? Some humans who found the city by chance a few years/millennia ago? Other species/race/(arcane) mutated creatures?

About the third note (the first in your list). How are these chunk of rock floating? Simple magic? Massive electro-magnetic field? (if set in the future, could be used to block all electronic equipment, forcing settlers to "learn" magic.) Inner pouches of light gas? (In a dense atmosphere like Venus, or Bespin in Star Wars, it could be working. The world surface would be a hell of a place though, perhaps populated by dangerous djinns/weird aliens.)

About the city itself. Who is the leader? Is it a dystopian world, led by a totalitarian techno-mage, with perhaps a few rebel groups? Is it an utopian world where everyone has everything they need, with the help of the research on magic? In the later case, what is the population ready to do in order to protect their piece of paradise? To keep with your hindu/vedic genre, I would keep the utopian word.

I would mix the populated/non-populated land within and around the city itself. For example, a district in the center of the city holds weird and misunderstood magic; as a result, no one is living there, despite being set between heavily populated areas. Perhaps a group wishes to simply destroy the district and its weird magic to allow safe passing between the other districts, while another group wishes to preserve and study the weird magic, and another survivalist group is calling this dangerous district home against all odds. Meanwhile, a "typical" village has been built in a fertile valley; but the more it grows, the more it unbalance the floating rock...

The floating island reminds me of something from a campaign world of mine. The worlds moon was a flat disk that bounced off the walls of reality, it was called The Tremor Lands by the locals. This island was a dense rain forest filled with dinosaurs and a handful of feral Wood Elf tribes. Sometimes a creature would be too near the edge during the impact quake and would be flung off.

I like your setting though, very unique and a good visual. Maybe the gods are ancient artificers that transcended mortal flesh and became the city? So the machine that can't be replicated are actually barely sentient beings, hearts pumping and blood (grease?) flowing. If the party alters the city too much or go places they shouldn't, the gods will begin waking and making their lives hell.

Sorry, I should have been more specific: I was intending it to be a D&D 4e campaign world.

Humans and other PC races found there way here millennia ago and repopulated it. Various NPC races occupy the land out beyond the city on the island, who may or may not precede the PC races living there.

An unknown means. Presumed to be magic of some sort. The world below was habitable at one point, though it becoming inhabitable was why the people ended up on the island.

About the city itself. Who is the leader? Is it a dystopian world, led by a totalitarian techno-mage, with perhaps a few rebel groups? Is it an utopian world where everyone has everything they need, with the help of the research on magic? In the later case, what is the population ready to do in order to protect their piece of paradise? To keep with your hindu/vedic genre, I would keep the utopian word.