Newsletter 02/09/04

This Will Take More Than Seven Days: Appendix
A Live Example

Welcome once again. I know I said that the world design series was at an end last month, but something came up that was just too good to pass up. Someone started working on a fantasy world and asked for advice and assistance from me. He's not a Writing.Com member, at least he wasn't at the time we last chatted. I did refer him to the site, so it's possible he's reading this now. In any case, the world isn't on in any of the stories on site. I'm just using it as an example of one right way to build your own.

Note carefully that I said one right way. There is no single way to do things. This example, however, is very well constructed, as far as it has gone to date. The author has considered the ramifications of all the choices he has made and come up with some really interesting takes on old fantasy standards. I'm looking forward to seeing what the finished product will look like. For now, however, I can give you some first hand looks at the process.

First off, the builder started with a kernel of an idea. By itself it wasn't enough to make the world, but it was the inspiration for everything that came after and it channeled the author's creativity to help form a more cohesive whole. The base idea was that werebeasts were the progenitors of all the intelligent races of the world. All others, Dwarves, Elves, Humans, Goblins, Ogres and whatever else descended from these shape shifters. With that core in mind, he decided that the world would be one geared toward exploration and discovery with many ancient secrets still hidden from society.

He also decided that the world was not a tame and friendly place. It would be a world of colossal, dangerous mountains, sprawling plains, dense forests and violent oceans. In short, while there are cities, they exist mostly to protect their dwellers from the hazards of living in the wilderness. Going from point A to point B is not a simple matter of getting on the road and following the signs. Roads are few and signs fewer.

His next step was to come up with some ancient history. In the beginning, there were the werebeasts, of course. They worshiped bestial gods, chiefly Wolf, Rat, Bear and a few others. There were also godly manifestations of natural phenomena like the sun, the moon, the elements, nature itself and so on, but they were not popular in worship. The werebeasts developed a great civilization that blended with the natural world, but at some point they became dissatisfied with their lot. They felt that their beastly natures were holding them back. As a result, they discovered methods to cast off that part of their natures.

For the earliest of them, it did not work as expected. The process was not perfected and created misshapen creatures that showed both their bestial and humanoid natures at once. These beings included the Centaurs, Minotaurs and other beastmen.

Other experiments came closer and closer to shedding the beast within, but still left some residue. These became the goblins, the trolls, the ogres and other more bestial humanoids. They did have the merger of man and animal, but there was still something less (or maybe more) than human about them.

Finally, the methods came to full fruition and the manlike races were born. Men, Elves, Dwarves and others cast aside their animalistic natures and became more civilized. But there was a side effect.

When the beast was cast aside, it did not die. Instead, they escaped, evolved and became true beasts of legend. Huge, powerful, and deadly, they became the Feralan.

At about the same time Sun became wholly dissatisfied with the rule of the animal gods. He organized a rebellion and overthrew Wolf and his minions and allies. The less animalistic gods became the leaders of the new religions the civilized races venerated. Some of the animal gods, seeing change on the wind, cast their lot in with the rebels and took on different names and methods, and disguised themselves are more human oriented powers. Some, however, remained true to their natures and plotted the overthrow of these usurpers. Somewhere in the outer darkness, Wolf and Rat scheme and plan ways to return to their former power.

This is where the world stands so far. For reference sake, the Feralan was my major contribution. He didn't want dragons in the world. They had no place. So I suggested that Dragons are simply large flying lizards, so why not other huge animals taking their place. When he set up the casting off of the animalistic nature, that fit the idea and he went with it.

He also plans to have societies of the beastmen, since they were the earliest ones to at least partially escape their animalistic nature. The Minotaurs will be warrior-philosophers who see mazes and labyrinths as a metaphor for life, as an example. All of the traditionally barbaric and savage races are going to be civilized to a certain extent.

As this world is being designed for a gaming environment, he feels the standard races are going to be necessary. He is putting some different slants on them, however. He hasn't fully decided what changes he plans to make, but early discussions indicate they will be eerily familiar, but still genuinely different as well. All in all it is an exciting time.

So that's it for the skeleton view of a developing world. And it all started with a single tiny concept. Hope this serves as some inspiration to all of you in your own world building.