Welcome back World Builders!!
Today I would like to start off with some updates to the blog. As of right now my time management has been getting a bit harder with summer being here and with work getting busy. I think I’m going to start trying to do one post maybe two in a week if I can swing it. I would like to keep the schedule as consistent as I can for you guys as well as myself. Wednesdays seem to be a good day for me to get a post out.
Another update I would like to talk about are some of my future post and what I am currently working on. In my last post I talked about Legend Keeper and since then I have been using it a lot more. At this time I will not be shutting down my World Anvil but I will be moving everything over to Legend Keeper. I am hoping one day there will a way to show our worlds on Legend Keeper publicly but for now I will be looking for an alternative way to show off my world.
I have posts planned out for the future of the blog. I would like to finish my map series with in two more post. I would also like to have a few post about aspects of maps and different things to think about when it comes to mapping your world. One thing I am planning on doing is a tutorial/review of Legend Keeper with all of the pros and cons that I can see with the web app.
With all of that being said, Let jump into today’s subject!
Last week I had a conversation with a close friend of mine, who also partakes in tabletop RPGs and world building, about my world Aeligord. I was explaining the world to him in some detail when he started to ask me questions that really made me think.
The first question he asked me was why am I world building from scratch when there are so many pre made worlds I could build off of or just play off of. He asked me what was the real reason I was world building. After some thought I explained to him that to me world building isn’t just about a story or a game. Its about something I am able to create, almost like an art form. I am able to go into as much detail or as little detail as I want to for each piece of my world. Some people world build for stories, RPGs, Games, or just for fun. I would like to create stories or even a novel from my world in the future, but for now I am enjoying just the process of building the world.
This got us on the conversation of world building in novels and information dumping. We talked about good fictional worlds verses bad fictional worlds. Then he asked me about the “theme” of my world. This is where our conversation got really deep. We spent a long time talking about different themes and genres of worlds and how a person could essentially combine more than one to make something unique. This was a good conversation as a genre or theme will help you stay on track and be consistent with your world.
So really what is a theme? Well there a Genres, Themes, and what I like to call Aspect Themes. A Genre is normally a group of something that is similar in style or subject. Examples of this would be like science fiction, historical fiction, or Fantasy (there are many many more). My overall genre would end up being categorized as Fantasy or Science Fiction Fantasy. Most people would say “that’s not a real Genre”, well to them I would ask where did genres come from in the first place?
That moves us on to the actual theme of my world. Themes help give a more specific feeling to a world or story. The most common fantasy theme would be your medieval swords and sorcery theme. I really like to combine a few different “Themes” to give my world a unique feeling.
A really good example of combining themes would be the Forgotten Realms. The Forgotten Realms is your typical medieval fantasy swords and sorcery, but as you explore more and more you find out that there are other themes throughout this same world. Maztica is another continent found in the Forgotten Realms that is based around Mayan and Aztec civilizations. They did such a good job mixing these themes together that most people don’t even notice.
The themes I have chosen for my world are Medieval Fantasy, Nomadic, Pirates, Oriental, Mayan/Aztec, and Norse/Viking. I know this is a lot of different themes, but I want my world to feel different no matter what corner you venture into! Aeligord is a very large world and most of these civilizations wont have any contact with each other for the most part. So I think having so many themes can be a good thing as long as I can keep the strait.
This leaves us with Aspect Themes. These are different parts of a whole theme that I would add into my world. This would help an area of the world feel even more unique than the typical theme. In my world I want to take different parts of an early “steampunk” style. For instance different parts of my world will have a very early type of steam engine used for boats and other transportation, a type of gunpowder has been invented, and different flying machines are being utilized on a small scale. With this I don’t want my entire world to be a steampunk themed world but to take specific things and change them to my liking for my world. .
Not all of this will be easy because it will make one thing about how it changes the world all around. For instance, flying machines will make travel time faster for people, but for me early flying machines means most people don’t have them and a select few know how to build or even fly them. Gun powder will help with the inventions of guns but guns are also very expensive and require specific knowledge and metals to create. Things like this will not be as common in my world but will still be there.
Like I’ve said time and time again, I am not an expert on writing or world building. Most of this is my thoughts and opinions. I am hoping that some of this helps people to figure out what they are trying to build or just use it as food for thought. My friend and I spent a few hours talking about different things and I took away a lot of good notes from our conversation that I felt was extremely helpful to my world. This was very important to me because I believe that every one should have a community to bounce ideas off of, give good feedback, and question things.
With that, I would like to pass a few questions off to you! What genera is your favorite to write or world build in? Do you think of themes and keep track of them? Do you add extras like my aspect themes into your worlds or stories? I would love to hear what you think!!
Follow and comment below!!
Until next time…
Pirate!
World Building With Pirate 