Share Your Setting!
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Haha! Yeah, it makes me happy lol! Ttyl Aunty A! 🙂
Jominkreesa! For the weirdos who know what it means! 😉 I love you guys!
@kimlikesart Your culture is beautifully fleshed-out! I love all the traditions! ^-^
The fantasy world I’d want to ramble about has a bunch of different pieces, so… I’m not sure where to start. XD Um… I’m trying to avoid the classic Medieval European model as much as possible with this particular world, and I’m trying to incorporate a bunch of different environments, so I’ve had a lot of fun getting more creative and researching different cultures than I usually would.
I started out with a desert region made up of five nations, and I was really exploring the idea of nations with core values around the time I built them, so they have very strong themes of religion, military, beauty/growth, life/joy, and family, respectively. (I’ve carried that basic principle through the rest of my worldbuilding, but I like to think there’s more nuance to it at this point, lol.) Interestingly enough, though, these five don’t have as much depth to them as some of the nations that have come after them.
The setting of my current WIP is called Virilia, and it’s inspired by Vietnamese, Chinese, and Japanese culture. The section of Virilia where my WIP takes place is very community-oriented and very craft-oriented, so craft guilds are a big part of the community and children are welcomed to observe the guilds and learn craft from whatever age they’re ready (though they don’t become official members of any guild until age 17 or older; they just explore different crafts and learn). Families are very important, and very close-knit. But it’s also common for people in Lower Virilia to have many “adopted” siblings, aunts, uncles, etc. in addition to their blood family. (One of my favorite relationships in my WIP is between the MC and her guildmate’s older brother, who’s like an older brother to her as well.)
Upper Virilia is also craft-oriented, but it puts more stock in perfection (or close to it) and commerce and less on enjoying the process and taking things slow and involving community (though those things can also be found in much weaker concentration).
I’m also quite fond of a pseudo-matriarchal culture I’m working on developing, just because it’s interesting to explore the culture that springs up from their mythology and whatnot. The Piradi hold women in very high esteem because they believe that their culture originated after their god created men, then created a woman as an experiment and ended up causing the men to fight over her, which he tried to fix by creating enough women for all of the men, but then he still had to pull out a handful of men and women to preserve a more “clean” line (supposedly, the Piradi). There are several cultural results of this origin story: Women are held in high esteem, conflict is frowned upon, there’s a segment of Piradi who swear to celibacy, and (not because of that, but because they believe their god came across a fully formed but neglected earth and originally created men to tend it) they value the nurturing and protection of living things. So women, as those who carry, deliver, and primarily nurture children (at least for the first several years) are considered more valuable to Piradi society than men, who are considered competitive (leading to conflict) and who are responsible for the unfortunate but necessary task of lowering the animal population every now and then. (…I feel like I should note that none of these views reflect my own beliefs. They’re just what I felt naturally sprung from the Piradi creation story. XD)
I also really enjoy developing fantasy religions and exploring differing beliefs within single religions, so a recent development of a tritheistic culture has been really fun for me. Each god represents a different aspect of worship: theological knowledge, evangelism, and living in faith. Each god has their own followers, and while these factions are all quite different in their approaches to religion, the three gods work together and thus their followers attempt to work together and see the value in each approach outside of their own, as well. Of course, nobody’s perfect and there are also those who see their faction as superior to others; there are also those who attempt to convince members of a different faction to join their own, out of a genuine desire to help; and then there are those who believe there should be no factions at all and that all three elements of worship should be integrated together.
Anyway, I suppose I should stop rambling now. XD I actually have a whole WorldAnvil wiki for this world, although a lot of the info hasn’t been moved off of my braindump document into organized pages over there, so… it’s sparser than all the info in my head. I don’t know if anyone’s interested in poking around that. But yeah. I have a lot of fun with this world, and I’m super open to questions. ;D
Speculative fiction author. Mythology nerd. Worldbuilding enthusiast. Singer. Fan of classic literature.
@r-m-archer Wow! Your worlds and stories sound so cool!
I’m not a world building type of person…so mine aren’t that detailed. I usually have a basic idea of what things are like in my head, and hope it’s not too confusing in the story.😄
I love how you broke some of those stereotypes that “every” world seems to have. Have you ever read Gillian Bronte Adam’s Songkeeper Series? She has some pretty amazing settings.
"If I'm gonna break, I'll break like the dawn." -Nightbirde
@arindown Thank you!
Hey, if it works. Some stories benefit from grand worlds, some are better kept simple.
I haven’t yet. They’ve been on my TBR for ages, and I think I have at least the first couple on my kindle, but all of the unread books on my physical shelf keep distracting me. XD I might have to push them up on the list! 🙂
Speculative fiction author. Mythology nerd. Worldbuilding enthusiast. Singer. Fan of classic literature.
😆 “Works” might not be the best thing for me as an author. Thankfully, I’ve got an awesome older sister who seems to enjoy drawing maps and stuff. Most of our stories happen in a fantasy world we built together.
I definitely recommend the Songkeeper Series. I just read them this year, and whereas they don’t really compare to the Wingfeather Saga (I mean…what does?😄) they’re very good.
Also…I looked at the link you posted (really cool, btw), and I’ve never heard of World Anvil. I don’t know if you’ve been on for long, but would you recommend it? It looks cool.
"If I'm gonna break, I'll break like the dawn." -Nightbirde
😆 “Works” might not be the best thing for me as an author. Thankfully, I’ve got an awesome older sister who seems to enjoy drawing maps and stuff. Most of our stories happen in a fantasy world we built together.
That’s cool! Writing with siblings is awesome, and collaborative worldbuilding is super fun.
I definitely recommend the Songkeeper Series. I just read them this year, and whereas they don’t really compare to the Wingfeather Saga (I mean…what does?😄) they’re very good.
XD Yeah, I’ll have to check them out! ^-^
Also…I looked at the link you posted (really cool, btw), and I’ve never heard of World Anvil. I don’t know if you’ve been on for long, but would you recommend it? It looks cool.
Definitely! I love World Anvil. It works super well for organizing stuff, it has tons of fields in each article template (which are pre-set for certain aspects of a world, but you can also use a blank template and organize it your own way) which can sometimes prompt thought about areas you hadn’t considered before, but you can also fill in as many or as few as you need to (so it doesn’t have to be overwhelming). Also, the free version has a ton of the core features, so you can start working and decide later if you want to upgrade (which I personally recommend if you can, but I’m basically a walking World Anvil sales pitch XD). It also has a ton of different display themes, which is really an unimportant detail but a fun one, and it allows you to choose a theme that fits the tone and style of your world. Also, map markers are super handy and can link to articles, which is super cool. Um… yeah, I think that’s the main stuff, for me. But yeah, I’d definitely recommend it! It’s a super helpful tool. 🙂
Speculative fiction author. Mythology nerd. Worldbuilding enthusiast. Singer. Fan of classic literature.
The setting for my current series is the (fictional) Southeast European country of Sevia. It’s a place inspired by the time I’ve spent in some of the real world’s most troubled places, but it isn’t meant to represent any of them. I did this partly because I enjoyed the challenge of creating a world from scratch, but also because the series contains themes of war and ethnic violence, and I didn’t want to entangle my stories with any real-world conflicts.
Sevian people look Slavic/Balkan. Their language is related to Russian, and written in Cyrillic.
Tur people sometimes look more Asian (think Kazakh or Turkman.) Their language is distantly related to Persian and is written in Anglo script.
The country tends to be hot and dry. It is mountainous, but also has a seacoast. You could drive from the tip of the northernmost province to the sea in about twelve hours (it would be shorter but the roads in the mountains are very bad.)
And there you have it!
@zee That sounds cool! I find fantasy to be a great tool for exploring important topics like that. How did you decide which languages to pull from?
Speculative fiction author. Mythology nerd. Worldbuilding enthusiast. Singer. Fan of classic literature.
@r-m-archer, I chose Russian because it is a dominant language in the part of the world where I imagine the story to be set, and Persian because it’s my own second language. One of my key characters happens to be a linguist, and another is an interpreter, so language and communication are important story themes. However, the details of the languages are less important than simply the fact that they are completely different.
It sounds like you put a lot of thought and care into creating fantasy worlds. How do you go about choosing languages for them?
Persian because it’s my own second language.
That’s super cool! :O What inspired you to learn Persian?
One of my key characters happens to be a linguist, and another is an interpreter, so language and communication are important story themes.
That sounds epic! Communication is super cool, and it doesn’t seem like it’s explored much in fantasy. Your book sounds like it would be super fun to write!
However, the details of the languages are less important than simply the fact that they are completely different.
*nods* That makes sense. Language barriers can add a lot to a story.
It sounds like you put a lot of thought and care into creating fantasy worlds. How do you go about choosing languages for them?
I usually use a method I call “frankentranslating,” lol. I choose 2-3 languages connected to cultures that have inspired various facets of my fictional culture, and for vocabulary I translate words into each of those languages and then smush together the results (and run it back through into English to make sure it isn’t an actual foreign word I’m unaware of ;P). I don’t usually create especially thorough languages–10-30 vocabulary words or so is usually enough to reach the level of depth I aim for within my prose, and then I can just allude to the sound of a language or the basic style of its script or whatever other details can be observed about it–so frankentranslating is pretty much the core of my language-building. I usually put more creativity into what sorts of slang terms would be used, how many terms a culture would have for a certain thing (e.g. the one nation I have where there are two words for “grandmother”), and how the language is used in general (for instance, if a nation has one language for the upper class and a separate language for the lower class) than in the words themselves.
Speculative fiction author. Mythology nerd. Worldbuilding enthusiast. Singer. Fan of classic literature.
@r-m-archer, that’s fascinating! How do you decide which real-world countries or cultures to draw from? I imagine that involves a fair bit of research, as well as a great imagination. I have to ask, do the two words for “grandmother” indicate paternal/maternal grandmother, or something else?
The story behind why I speak Persian is long and complicated, and unfortunately I can’t discuss it on a public forum. Suffice it to say it’s a fascinating language, and not nearly as hard to pick up as you’d think.
that’s fascinating! How do you decide which real-world countries or cultures to draw from? I imagine that involves a fair bit of research, as well as a great imagination.
Thank you! I usually have a springing off point that helps me pinpoint a culture or two. The style of architecture or the nearby food ingredients (not usually the food itself, because I’m not good at imagining food from scratch XD) or what’s important to the culture. Or sometimes it’s the other way around and I think “It would be cool to build a culture based on X” and build it out from the real-world inspiration.
I can’t actually remember how exactly I paired most of my cultures now, so I’m struggling to think of concrete examples. 😛 One of them, Rasell, I think got its Moroccan inspiration when I looked up architecture on Pinterest and started picking out a lot of the Moroccan style, and then later it ended up pulling in some French and Italian inspiration, too. So its languages are Arabic and Hindi (the latter drawn from a country it used to be part of, which pulls some inspiration from India) with a hint of Italian. The idea is for it to be a dialect of the language spoken by its mother country, but I think making that work effectively will be a learning process, lol.
I have to ask, do the two words for “grandmother” indicate paternal/maternal grandmother, or something else?
They indicate a grandmother-by-blood and an honorary grandmother. (Although paternal and maternal grandmother would also make sense… I might have to add a third term now. XD)
The story behind why I speak Persian is long and complicated, and unfortunately I can’t discuss it on a public forum. Suffice it to say it’s a fascinating language, and not nearly as hard to pick up as you’d think.
That’s cool! 🙂
Speculative fiction author. Mythology nerd. Worldbuilding enthusiast. Singer. Fan of classic literature.
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