Worldbuilding for a Wild West, High Fantasy Setting.

Hi, I’m trying to make a High Fantasy setting inspired by the Wild West, Native American mythology and folklore, North American mythology and folklore, and perhaps even Mexican mythology and folklore.

I don't want to fall into typical Standard Fantasy Races and creatures, as I don't think that would fit what I’m going for (so probably no dragons).

I admit that I am not too good at worldbuilding in general.

My ideas so far were admittedly more story-related than worldbuilding related: I wanted to have an evil Dark Baron and a chase sequence that involved, not saving a train, but our main heroes stealing something from it, or even destroying the train altogether.

My current ideas for races are beings made of naturally occuring, inorganic materials that behave more like people than robots (so not golems), called Earthborns.

One subset would be Sandborns, people made from sand who can manipulate it.

I also had this idea to combine Bigfoot with the desert Fennec Fox and give them large ears that would allow them to hear sounds from long distances and, I'm assuming keep them cool (and call them Earfoot).

For more animal-like creatures, I was planning on just smashing different aspects of different desert creatures here in the USA, by taking three different, distinctive aspects of three different creatures and mashing them up to make something new and potentially terrifying like a Manticore.

Does anyone have any suggestions or criticisms for this concept? Any advice for building a constructed world of this caliber?

The defining feature of "Wild West" settings is the amount of freedom protagonist characters have from social institutions, while enjoying the benefits of an industrial civilization, like six shooters. The plots are all about setting up that final scene, when the heroes and the bad guys face off. The major difference from High Fantasy is that most of the time, "Evil" is not an overt, active force in the world, like it is in most HF settings. Rather, the difference between good and evil is in the moral choices the antiheroes are forced to make. So I would say it's rather challenging to mix these two genres properly. One series that did this exceptionally well is the Dark Tower by Stephan King.

The races can be whatever you want them to be, but the main question you have to ask yourself is, are they divided into good and bad, or is everyone faced with complex choices?

That's an interesting point to bring up, and I do agree it would be quite challenging to accomplish something like this. My thoughts were instead of the world being purely Grey and Grey Morality or Black-And-White Morality, you would see characters and factions that vary all across different spectrums of morality. So basically adding elements of Heroic Fantasy in that regard, to add depth.

Although there will be exceptions (such as skinwalkers), I generally want most fantasy races to vary in terms of their moral values individually as people.

One thought might be to make the "Wild West" element a subversion of the usual: to have the antiheroic characters in the story (the "cowboy" or "gunslinger" characters, perhaps) end up playing into the hands of Evil. The actual "saving of the day" might then be accomplished by the more-traditionally-heroic characters. (The latter being perhaps of native peoples?)

(As a suggestion, if I may, I could see the story perhaps setting up as though a traditional "Wild West" narrative, with the antiheroes dismissing the approach of the traditionally-heroic characters, and appearing at first to be correct in doing so. Only for a twist to reveal that they've only made things worse...)

Just pointing out that if any standard fantasy race would make it to North America, then it would be the centaurs.

If Spanish conquistadors could bring in horses then bringing in people-horses from across the sea would be no different.

Edited by Trainbarrel on Apr 19th 2024 at 5:05:11 PM

~Ars Thaumaturgis

Don’t get me wrong sir, these are really good ideas. More than likely, there will be antihero cowboys, and Native Americans (or the in-universe) being crucial for defeating the Big Bad Dark Baron. Hell, the idea of the good guys playing right into the Dark Barons is an especially really good idea.

I, however, would personally much rather have the cowboys (or at least one cowboy), and the Native Americans working together to stop the Dark Baron, as it is a story I’m far more interested in telling right now. I want there to be at least one main character to be unironic good guy cowboy working with good guy Native Americans. I'm not really looking to extremely deconstruct or have a more cynical take on cowboys or the Native Americans.

Still, it the whole idea of them playing right into the Dark Baron’s hands sounds very smart. I might just to have borrow and retool it.

~Tropers/Trainbarrel

While you’re correct, and it would make sense, I don’t really want to include any fantasy races or creatures people have seen before, generally speaking. I want to capture people’s imagination in the same way J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit did with his takes on Anglo-Saxon and Germanic folklore and mythology.

Edited by Orange_Swirl on Apr 20th 2024 at 12:34:49 PM

That's very fair! I think that I was just trying to find a way to marry the relatively-cynical outlook that DeMarquis described for the Wild West with the more idealistic outlook that they described for High Fantasy.

By the way, thinking of the question of "fantasy species", mentioned above, have you considered researching entities from native lore for inclusion? Beings like the wendigo, the thunderbird, and so on and so forth.

~Ars Thaumaturgis

You know, you’re right, that does make a lot of sense. My current plan is have the overall world be more of a Morality Kitchen Sink, which for some reason was not in the response I gave the user you mentioned (a blunder, I know).

Basically, factions and individuals would range from all sorts of moralities, even Blue-And-Orange.

Now that I say this, I would just like to say after reading your initial response and playing a bit of a certain recent JRPG, I think more than likely I do want the Dark Baron and maybe some of his goons to be manipulating the Native Americans (or the in-universe equivalent) and the cowboys into fighting against each other, at least for the first part of the story, and then we have them realizing they were both wrong as they target the real enemy.

I may just have changed my mind, now I come off as a hypocrite (I’m sorry).

Anyway, in regards to fantasy species, I did have the idea to include at least some from Native American culture and mythology, or at the very least inspired by it.

Wendigos and skinwalkers were creatures I immediately wanted to be in the world, as the former seems like it could reasonably be in a desert (and is typically the creature people associate with “Weird West” and “Fantasy Americana”), and the latter because, as I understand it, Native American tribes living in or around the deserts (such as the Navajo) of the USA believed in them.

The thunderbird I’m not sure about, because I’m not sure it fits the whole desert theme very well, or that Native American tribes living in or around…well…you know already.

Believed in them.

In addition, I also wanted to include creatures from or inspired by the following:

- North American mythology and folklore

- Mexican mythology and folklore

- Christianity (still deciding on that one, not sure)

- Extinct creatures that used to live in the areas in or around the deserts of the USA

- Actual creatures that currently exist in the deserts of my country, but with a mythical twist.

These creatures will likely be adjusted to fit the desert theme.

Extinct creatures?

Like the "Hagerman Horse", the "Western Camel" or the "American Lion"?

With a supernatural spice on top of them?

~Tropers/Trainbarrel

Yeah, essentially. And I gotta say, sir, you’re really on top of the game. I didn’t even know there was such an animal as the “Western Camel.” I was actually kind of sad I wouldn’t be able to include camels due to the location, the mythology and the folklore rules I set for myself. This one thing you mentioned changes EVERYTHING, at least for me.

More than likely not every, or even most extinct animals (especially extinct animals) or even regular animals are going to have this supernatural twist. I think at least some folks are going to want at least some sense of familiarity coming in from Wild West, Weird West, and Fantasy Americana fiction. I don’t want to go so far with the fantasy it’s nearly incomprehensible for the average…uhh reader? Gamer? Viewer? Still not sure what medium I want this fiction depicted in. Maybe everything down the line if I’m particularly successful, but a book would be good to start with.

I'm glad to have contributed. ^_^

Looking at Wikipedia page for this being, it would seem that a variant, at the least, appears in the stories of peoples from the "American Southwest". A very brief look at the page for that region suggests that it's a desert region, so while I don't know American geography all that well, it may still fit.

But more to the point, the thunderbird was just an example, as I recall, the overall point being to suggest that you research such entities, with which to fill out your setting's bestiary.

Changing one's mind is not hypocrisy, especially if one is open about it, I would say!

This is an interesting conversation, to be sure.

Indigenous creatures and antagonists fit right in your morality kitchen sink approach because indigenous people generally speaking didn't see the world in black and white, good vs. evil terms, that's more of a Western thing. Historically, that was one of the major cultural differences between them and the Christian invaders. Skin Walkers and such are more easily characterized as "unnatural" than "evil", which aren't necessarily the same thing. This could help set up some interesting communication challenges among your protagonists.

It would also be interesting if your Dark Baron antagonist is manipulating the Wendigoes and Skinwalkers as much as he is the indigenous and settler communities.