The Quick Questions About World Building Thread

Okay, what's a good gemstone to associate with Extra-ore-dinary? If it helps I'm giving it the color of Indago.

Indigo huh? I'm thinking Iolite or Tanzanite, but I'm gonna see if there's a list of gemstones sorted by metal content for more accurate candidates.

EDIT: I'm prolly gonna have to limit it to Colbalt and Vanadium colored gemstones as it runs out metal is everywhere in the jewels.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Nov 11th 2020 at 9:38:26 AM

Hematite comes to mind as a distinct possibility—although granted that it's not indigo in colour.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Nov 11th 2020 at 7:36:29 PM

Well google isn't helping me there,so I'm gonna add Lazrite to the suggestionsand call it a day (If you mean Indigo as in blue-violet than my original suggestions would fit more)

Let me also add tourmaline as a possibility: Wikipedia indicates that it can be blue or violet, and that its composition can include several metals. Indeed, the same article further indicates that a blue variety is termed the "Brazilian indicolite variety", which fits with "indigo" (see here).

Do you consider the standard pseudo-medieval European setting something to be avoided for writers and world builders?.

I want to make a science fantasy setting that still vaguely resembles pseudo-Medieval Europe on the surface, but I plan to put my own spin on it or go in my own direction.

In my opinion, the pseudo-Medieval European setting is pretty much a fantasy standard. Even my story sometimes falls into that trap, though it also has some other cultural elements such as how the Yong is usually killed before he grows too old to make way for his eldest biological son^note Eco, the elder of Lelfe's twin boys, is transgender, so whether or not he will actually become Yong is dependent upon the whims of Lelfe's will.

Not at all. For starters, there are plenty of European myths and cultures that aren't too well-covered in pop culture, like Finnish or (if you count them as European) Caucasian. The Witcher's whole brand is showcasing Slavic culture and mythology in a fantasy setting, leaning heavily towards the folk horror aspects.

Even with more well-exposed cultures, it really depends on what you decide to do with the setting. Not every fantasy story has to be about an epic quest to defeat an Evil Overlord in a final battle. You can lean more or less on the comedy, horror, mystery or romance aspects of the story. You can do a heist story, a road trip story or even a sport story. Discworld started out as a pastiche of standard fantasy tropes but then grew to tell just about every kind of story you could think of. Spice and Wolf lures you in with its Standard Fantasy Setting and uses it to deliver a course on medieval economics. And nobody would accuse Warhammer Fantasy of being subtle, but its use of 16th century German aesthetics for the Empire is fairly unique and iconic.

I'm primarily drawing from Central Asian culture and mythology for my own WIP, since it 1) fits the narrative theme I'm going for and 2) is half my ancestry. You've probably heard writers say that to get things right, you should Write What You Know. I'd put a little twist on that advice. Write about things you're interested in and care about. But ground your story in emotions and experiences you know. That's what makes your story yours, regardless of the trappings.

I think that eagleoftheninth's response covers the matter pretty well!

I would say further that I encourage the seeking of other settings for stories—but that doesn't mean that one may never write in a pseudo-mediaeval setting; not by a long shot!

There's all too little Western work that takes place in other settings, I feel, but the pseudo-mediaeval setting is still a fine one to use, I would say.

I think the issue with Medieval Europe Fantasy is that it too often borrows from the exact same tired narrative and elements, mostly stuff such as Arthurian legend. There's a lot more you can do with the setting, since ME covered 1000 years and technology and culture still evolved.

The Witcher was already mentioned for instance. It takes a much more folklore take on magic and monsters, while doing a clergy vs kings intrigue via mages.

Edited by devak on Nov 15th 2020 at 12:40:08 PM

I'd include Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian myth, too, which were Tolkien's primary inspirations- that's where you get things like the stereotypical Five Races. The world of Western fantasy literature is still, to this day, stuck in the shadow of Tolkien to some degree. It's gotten a lot better ever since the original Lord of the Rings movies were released during Limyaael's heyday back in the early 2000s, what with stuff like Brandon Sanderson and Nnedi Okorafor's works growing in popularity, but there's also some new Medieval European Fantasy influences that have been cropping up in the last decade, like A Song of Ice and Fire and DnD.

At the end of the day, the thing with Medieval European Fantasy is that in drawing from the specific pop version of Western Europe that the setting is known for, you come up with a lot of the same trappings and aesthetics as a lot of other works, which can make it hard to stand out, and if you use a common "Hero's Journey" quest-esque plot, then readers who do find your work are asking themselves why they should read your work when it sounds so much like these others they've read. You kind of have to do something unique if you're going to use such a common setting, like having a plot that isn't a standard "Hero's Journey" quest, or altering some aspect of the setting that totally changes the game. OP, you sound like you're on the right track with mixing it with Science Fantasy, and then further plans to put your own spin on it some more.

I do find it odd somewhat that my sort of medeival aesthetic is somewhat given life by the permanent daylight and comet moon, but the actual plotline revolving around it is probably an overarching D-plot— that is, it is kinda a lingering time bomb, but if it were removed it could be a bit odd.

Also, the trans element may bring some new life to it a bit, IMO, if it hasn't been done to death.

Game of thrones used the White Walkers as an overarching looming threat even though it's extremely slow burn. It's basically the Z plot. It's not necessarily a weakness.

One thing you could do is try to look for old folklore and such that fits the story you want to tell. The Witcher started out as little more than a parody of old folklore, which in turn is inspired by the fact that many fables have changed over the years. Even a simple story where a medieval fantasu kingdom has to deal with the overwhelming threat of an incoming comet impact might already be very interesting on it's own right. Or like Avatar, where the comet boosts fire users massively which sets a clock on the heroes plans and enables the bad guy.

It doesn't have to be super complex. You just have to give readers a reason to believe that the story is worth reading. A familiar setting works because people know what to expect in terms of story and tropes, but you want to add your own flavor to avoid people thinking it's all the same.

Edited by devak on Nov 16th 2020 at 11:57:10 AM

Tolkien actually was a leading scholar on medieval (specifically Anglo-Saxon) history and literature. That gave him a lot of insight into the medieval world that later writers might not necessarily have if they're simply patterning their settings after his Legendarium (or later stuff like Dungeons & Dragons).

As an example, you could look at how he treated war in his setting. It's quite a far cry from the Hollywood Tactics of the Peter Jackson movies.^* Which isn't necessarily bad! You do need to pace things and keep the audience engaged for a three-hour movie, after all. The troop movements, logistics and defensive schemes are all meticulously mapped out and make sense, because Tolkien studied actual medieval warfare quite closely and had a detailed picture of how these things worked logistically.

Above all, battles in his stories aren't about skill or force of arms. They're about morale. The question was never whether the walls of Minas Tirith could physically hold off Sauron's armies, or whether its defenders could shoot their bows and swing their swords well enough. It's whether they had the courage to withstand the creeping dread, despair, infighting and sense of abandonment welling up inside them. This, too, was a motif of many of the medieval works he drew from, like The Song of Roland and the Norse Eddas.

And even though his specialty was Anglo-Saxon culture, he consciously drew inspiration from other sources as well. The dwarves were taken partly from Norse and Germanic myths, with a Semitic-sounding language and a history that he explicitly based off that of the European Jews. Tolkien, being a lover of things and places with lots of "funny little ways", also took a liking to Finnish culture and drew quite heavily from The Kalevala. Gandalf's character borrowed a lot from the wizard Väinämöinen, and the name of Middle-Earth's creator deity, Eru Ilùvatar, is quite plainly inspired by that of the creator goddess Ilmatar.

You don't have to be a medieval scholar to write a convincing fantasy setting. I mean, if you do decide to read up on, say, the financing models of public works in 11th century Andalusia, or the assimilation of pagan Lithuanian culture into Christian tutejszy society, then you'll have a broader library of places, processes, social dynamics and character archetypes to borrow from. But in order to really breathe, the world needs to say something. We've all heard the debate on whether to focus on the story or worldbuilding, but I don't really see these as two separate things: the world itself needs to tell a story.

That means writing it around not just aesthetics you like, but also themes and ideas that you feel for. And Tolkien's inspiration on that front was something both modern and deeply personal: his experience in WWI.

Tolkien grew up in the British Empire at the height of its power. But he spent his childhood in rural Worcestershire, surrounded by idyllic farmlands that gave him a somewhat idealised, sort-of Little England view of things. Like many other young men, he enlisted in the Great War out of a patriotic sense of duty. And soon enough, it introduced him to the other side of the empire: its capacity for relentless, industrial violence.

He fought at the Somme and lost almost all his closest friends in the war. He saw villages and countrysides ripped apart in battle, and people whose souls were hollowed out by the unending shock and stress of warfare.

When Tolkien eventually get around to putting down Middle-Earth in ink, he didn't just write it as a world of kings, swords, magic and Anglo-Saxon-sounding names. He also wrote a world where magic, myths and the "funny little ways" are on the eve of fading away. Where old forests and villages are being ground down by twisted machines. Where unlikely heroes are forced to be, well, heroes for so long that when they go back from their long journey, their homes no longer feel like home.

The scene in The Silmarillion where Beren, half-mad and half-dead from years of wandering through a war-torn hellscape, sees Lúthien dancing under a tree and feels his mind healed, was directly based on the first time he remembered smiling after the war: when he saw his wife Edith dance. More than the cultures or the languages, Middle-Earth feels like Tolkien's own because it's built on his own emotions and experiences.

And I think we're all generally a lot better at liking things than understanding why we like them. So when the first wave of modern epic fantasy appeared in the '60s and '70s, writers asked themselves: how do we score the next LOTR? Is it the Five Races? The exotic names? The big battles? Nope. LOTR worked because all those aesthetic flourishes worked together to tell a story. The fact that Tolkien based them off actual European cultures was a bonus that helped it breathe, but by no means a necessity.

So maybe ask yourself: if you could use just one word or one emotion to describe your world, what would it be? That's what you're going to build your world and its magic around.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Nov 16th 2020 at 5:25:59 AM

Hello there!

I'm doing a story which is basically medieval/dark ages Resident Evil 2, complete with two protagonists trying to survive the black plague, which, in the story, is a zombie plague.

I've already started writing the setting a little bit. The story takes places in and around gravenbirch, a town in the west midlands, and i've also written about a secret order of direct descendants of the anglo-saxons, with a sacred and hidden treasure carrying a dark secret being one of the key parts of the plot.

Now, what i need to know is this: How do i build a realistic-sounding dark ages england experience, zombies aside? What unique part of the west-midlands i could add to make gravenvirch authentic? And what could the treasure of the anglo-saxons be? I first thought of it being essentially a dangerous breakthrough discovery that this story's anglo-saxon druids discovered way before Europeans had IRL, like a virus or a bio-chemical weapon or some shit like that, but i dunno...also, Did the Anglo-saxons had any thoughts of revenge against the normans after they conquered england?

I'm sure that English tropers would be most qualified to answer these, but a few things:

• Just to narrow it down, since we're not talking about the IRL Black Plague: which century is your story set in, roughly? Historians don't really say "the Dark Ages"; the term first originated from the idea that there weren't that many sources to tell us what was happening in Christian Western Europe at the time, but that's not really true: there were many works of history, art and literature produced even in the Early Medieval period (when the Anglo-Saxon culture predominated in England). The technology, culture and politics of 12th century England would be very different from the 15th century.
• For that matter, "direct descendants of the Anglo-Saxons" would include... well, pretty much everyone in England (if not genetically then culturally). The Anglo-Saxons weren't a dead ancient culture; we're speaking a modern version of their language, after all. The English nobility in the 11th century assimilated the French culture of the invading Normans,^* Which, among other things, is why we now use the native English words "chicken" and "cow" for animals and the fancy French-derived words "poultry" and "beef" for when we put them on the dinner table. but the English people as a whole still considered themselves descendants of the Anglo-Saxons.
  • A lot of people in England were obviously bitter over the Norman conquest, especially members of the ruling class whose lands were confiscated and given away to Norman nobles.
  • For the commoners, though, it didn't necessarily mean a whole lot: sure, there were now more stringent censuses for tax purposes, and the military levy system saw a rework. But for most parts, people still farmed, paid taxes to their local lords, told jokes, got married, went to church and festivals. Life went on.
  • And the Anglo-Norman nobles themselves would eventually grow to see themselves as "English", even as they still laid claim to lands in France across the Channel.
• The Anglo-Saxons didn't have druids. They were originally a Germanic culture with a religion similar to the Norse, who adopted Christianity after they arrived in England. Druids were religious figures in the Celtic cultures that settled in western Britain and Ireland before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons; many of the Celtic Britons had converted to Christianity before the Anglo-Saxons arrived, and the rest took it up around the same time that they did.
• As for "treasures": Anglo-Saxons traditionally left grave goods when burying their nobles. These could include everyday tools made of metal and bone, as well as the occasional weapons, armour and jewelry (Sutton Hoo being the most famous example). The body would typically be cremated prior to burial, which might damage the grave goods if they were placed alongside. And the final resting place could be an earthen burial mound (barrow) or a ship (which could be set alight or buried whole).

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Nov 26th 2020 at 3:19:03 AM

...so my entire story doesn't make any sense...

Goddammit. I can't do anything right. Im such a loser...

Edited by kinnikuniverse on Nov 26th 2020 at 6:22:32 AM

Hey there, no need to put yourself down. You did what you can and just asked for knowledgeable advice. Even if you made mistakes, it's not the end of the world. You can fix them.

Edited by DivineFlame100 on Nov 27th 2020 at 7:08:09 AM

Say, why don't we start a thread for your story and see what kind of medieval zombie setting we could come up with? We've got lots of wonderful history, culture and mythology to work with.

But thats the problem! Everything i do end up a massive failure because i forgot something, my knowledge turns out to be nothing but made up bullshit or my writing sucks or i can't organise things in my head or i'm lazy or...fuck.

...so yeah, what should i do? Is there any other extinct civilisation that my main bad guy/william birkin substitute can come from and avenge by using the secret treasure that is responsible for the plague? Cause that's a pretty big part of my story.

Also, if there was no dark age, then what period in medieval history is essentially medieval fallout?

EDIT: Read the post above. Yeah, i think that's what i should've done. Where should i post this thread?

Edited by kinnikuniverse on Nov 26th 2020 at 6:37:53 AM

There really wasn't a "Medieval Fallout" era. The whole dark ages concept in general is pretty much a pop history invention.

Well! That's how we all learned history in the first place.

First we read primary school textbooks and saw movies that told us that things happened this way.

Then we move on to pop history books and internet articles telling us: no, it's all wrong, things happened that way.

And then we read actual literature by professional historians telling us: look, some people who were there told us that it was like this; some people from later times wrote that it was like that; some of these claims we could verify through cross-referencing and physical archaeology, but keep in mind that everyone who wrote about them had an agenda behind their story. History is one unending detective work, and we're still learning new things every day.

As for which culture to choose: well, is there any medieval culture or period in particular that interests you? I personally believe that everything will work out best if you pick a time and place that you genuinely enjoy reading about, even beyond the scope of your story. Somewhere you could picture yourself living in, stepping into these people's shoes and seeing the world through their eyes. If you asked other poster here for ideas, then obviously everyone would give you references from the time and place that they're most knowledgeable in.

And if you do feel passionate about setting your story in medieval England, then sure, go ahead. Little word of advice, though: the market for stories based on English history, written in English, is quite saturated. So if you want to stand out from the rest, then you'll really have to work on making your characters and plot unique: who are these people like? What do they want? What are their personal quirks?

And on that note, you'd do yourself a big favour by not thinking of your story as a "Medieval Resident Evil 2". It's your story, with your characters and your ideas. Don't sell it short by putting it in something else's shadow.

Well, i call it medieval resident evil 2 because...well, it's essentially that. I mean, it takes place in a random town in the middle of the forest, there's a pandemic, two protagonists, The christian knights replaces the RPD, there's a spy a la ada wong, there's a mentally unstable figure of authority with a sadistic streak (instead of chief irons, it's lady le tissier, the countess of gravenbirch.) And there's a william birkin-type alchemist villain responsible for spreading the plague. I mean, it is medieval resident evil 2! You can't deny the truth!

As for a time period or culture that interests me, well...i actually am not that interested in medieval stuff. The only medieval stuff i'm familiar with is the 100 years war (thanks, simpsons), Age of empires, monty python, Kamelott and fantasy stuff, like LOTR, The elder scrolls or the witcher...but it's fantasy, not real medieval times...I'm more of a renaissance/japan/ancient rome and greece guy myself. I only chose medieval because nobody has done medieval horror before...i think?

Yeah, i think a zombie plague is more plausible with the renaissance. At leats, at that time period, alchemy and science was developped enough to have the plausibility of a similar plague...i think?

Edited by kinnikuniverse on Nov 26th 2020 at 8:35:32 AM

As a rule of thumb, it's generally a bad idea to say that your work is essentially another work. While it's ok to pull influences from works you love, in all, your work should stand on its own merits. Have you came up with a proper title for it? If not, then maybe a placeholder WIP title?

No, not really...i don't know what to come up with either...maybe "ghouls"? Or how about "wight"? I found that word, and it describes an undead creature in old english, which fits the medieval zombie thingie quite well.

Yeah, i'm such a noob at this whole writing game. I thought it was easy: think of an idea, then write it. Oh how wrong i was.

Edited by kinnikuniverse on Nov 26th 2020 at 9:11:04 AM