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The World Building Thread

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Crazy old ape
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World building is something we all do as writers.

For s-f and fantasy writers, it is part of our bread and butter. Creating imaginary worlds is a staple of the genre and the best fantasy and s-f often relies as much on successful world-building as plot development and characterization. Sometimes, the world is even more interesting than the story.

But even writers of "realistic" fiction like historical romance or contemporary thrillers build their world to some degree. They may research history or geography or culture extensively, but they do it with a view to creating a setting and context for their characters and stories. Liberties may be taken and hard decisions made about what to keep and what to change in order to suit the story.

Since I am primarily a fantasy writer on here and have been working on a world for some time (before I joined SS, in fact), I thought I would kick off this thread to discuss worldbuilding as part of the writer's craft. I will talk about my own work, but invite everyone to chime in with their thoughts and what they have done with regards to "building worlds".

First up, to set some context, the Stories Space stories that fit into my fantasy world (to date):

The Night of the Wind

The Goddess Dances

The former is an actual adventure set in that world with characters I have plans to come back to. The latter is basically one of the world's myths, and I will likely reference Talala and Tantovar in future stories.

A mighty warrior meets an unusual challenger. The Last Challenge of Jadek Prynn.

Crazy old ape
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I also had worked on a "horror universe" in the vein of The Cthulhu Mythos at one point, too, but kind of let it slide. Still it could come up here.

The Cthulhu Mythos is an interesting example of worldbuilding, though. H. P. Lovecraft did not set out with a definitely plan. He just wanted to have a sense of something bigger behind his stories so started dropping names and odd references to fictitious books and places. The locations, like Arkham and Innsmouth, were mostly drawn from his life. Arkham is mostly Providence and Salem, for instance. The names were sometimes made up (e.g. Cthulhu, Shub-Niggurath), sometimes borrowed from older works (e.g. Hastur). Most importantly, though, he left it as an open-ended shared universe. Friends and fellow writers like Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Henry Kuttner, and Robert Bloch used Lovecraft's elements in their stories and Lovecraft in turn borrowed elements that they added for his stories. In one memorable exchange, Lovecraft gave Bloch permission to kill him off in one of his stories (Bloch's first published story, IIRC) and then killed Bloch, under the alias Robert Blake, off in The Haunter of the Dark. Bloch wrote a further followup but IIRC, it did not come out until after Lovecraft's death put an end to the game. Basically, it was ad hoc worldbuilding and each writer kind of had their own take on it.

And so it continued, with various writers like August Derleth, Lin Carter, Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, and even Stephen King borrowing from and adding to the Mythos. Derleth did try to codify it for a time, but that just made it less interesting and later writers tried to move away from Derleth's ideas.

Of course, it is pretty much the opposite of the worldbuilding in fantasy, which is often quite rigorous and carefully developed. Look at all the publications the Tolkien estate has got out of just compiling all J. R. R.'s notes and unused bits regarding Middle Earth. And George Martin has clearly put in a fair bit of time on A Song of Ice and Fire.

A mighty warrior meets an unusual challenger. The Last Challenge of Jadek Prynn.

Crazy old ape
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T. S. Eliot once wrote, "The naming of cats is a difficult matter. It isn't just one of your holiday games."

World building, especially in fantasy and s-f, can be like that. Unless you're a linguist like J.R.R. Tolkien (who knew and studied a number of Nordic and Germanic languages in his academic life), coming with names that sound like they belong together without have a whole made-up language to work with can be a big job.

I have been trying to keep the made-up names for my fantasy world kind of organized without going to the effort of making up whole languages. I am kind of going for a Hellenic sound for some, but others have gone more Germanic or English.

The name of the town in Night of the Wind, for instance, began as "Eversham", aiming for a rural English feel. Except I then named the fictitious city in my real world fiction "Eversham" as well and decided it fit better there. So I needed a new name. Having "gor" and "gar" as city name ending already, I decided that must mean "community" in the Tymuri languages (Tymur is the Northern continent of my world, kind of a mash-up of Europe and North America geographically). Madrygor has long been a major city in my imagined world, for instance. So, I came up with Avenigar. Does that mean something? Probably. Nethandra knows what though.

And I have no idea how or when I came up with the name Nethandra. It is the name of both the chief deity, a mother goddess, and the world in these stories. It has been in my head for so long, I really don't know the origins anymore. However, I have wrestled since with naming other deities, originally thinking they should all end in "dra" or similar. And I am still thinking that her consort, the sun god, will have a name along those lines though I haven't named him in a story yet. But I strayed for other deities I have used in stories, such as Denytha (the moon goddess and the patron of magic) and Talala (the "Dancing Goddess", patron of the arts and the city of Tantovar) so that convention is out the window now.

I could go on. I am even no longer entirely happy with the name of my protagonist, "Dev Jackalbury". It was was conceived when I had Avenigar as "Eversham" and meant to sound vaguely, but not quite, English. Does not quite fit that anymore, though, but I will live with it and sort it out sometime. He's not from Avenigar anyhow, but grew up further North, which I haven't really detailed beyond it being a rough, rugged region where a lot of their mineral resources are mined.

Enough for now. Any thoughts on naming things and using "made-up" words and languages? Ideas on how to keep the words feeling "real" without making up an entire language?

A mighty warrior meets an unusual challenger. The Last Challenge of Jadek Prynn.

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Good topic, Mendalla. They got me to thinking about Terry Pratchett's 'Discworld' the flat planet resting on the backs of four elephanbts standing on a giant turtle hurtling through space. Within that framework, he developed different lands, technologies, cultures, races, and species. Some of them are at least sorta human others less so: trolls, dwarfs, igors, along with vampires and werewolves who swing both ways, so to speak. among others. Obviously, I'm a big fan.

Over the years, I've cranked out two still unpublished novels. One is set in NYC while the other is in a small to medium size rural town. For me, the land was as big a challenge as the characters but I enjoyed doing both.

Hope you can continue with this thread and some others join in.

Crazy old ape
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Quote by Rumple_deWriter
Good topic, Mendalla. They got me to thinking about Terry Pratchett's 'Discworld' the flat planet resting on the backs of four elephanbts standing on a giant turtle hurtling through space. Within that framework, he developed different lands, technologies, cultures, races, and species. Some of them are at least sorta human others less so: trolls, dwarfs, igors, along with vampires and werewolves who swing both ways, so to speak. among others. Obviously, I'm a big fan.


Strangely, I have never read much Pratchett, even though my late buddy Mike was a huge fan and I did read and love Good Omens, which Pratchett co-wrote with Neil Gaiman (of whom I am a big fan). Of course, world-building is one of Gaiman's fortes as anyone who has read American Gods (he wrote the novels and is an executive producer on the TV show) or the Sandman comic series knows. Gaiman is, IMHO, required reading for anyone planning to write fantasy in the 21st century. His works are so far beyond the "medieval people on a quest" stories that have been the stereotype since Lord of the Rings came out and go into some amazing worlds. Even his nominally children's-YA novel Coraline (it's one of those kid's novels that adults can enjoy, too) has some incredible world-building going on.

I am still toying with the societal and tech level of my world. I don't really want the usual quasi-medieval fantasy and I seem to be leaning more and more into Renaissance with a classical touch. For instance, the character in the story I started today plays a harpsichord (I use the Franco-Spanish name clavecin just for flavour), which is late Medieval to Renaissance in origin.

A mighty warrior meets an unusual challenger. The Last Challenge of Jadek Prynn.

Crazy old ape
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'If the aliens lay eggs, how does that affect architecture?': sci-fi writers on how they build their worlds


Interesting article in The Guardian on the world building topic.

And some great insight from the various sci-fi writers interviewed.

So this might be of interest and help those of us who are a bit uncertain (me, for example), of what world building can entail.


That's an impressive list of writers. I read Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice (never got around to the rest of the trilogy) and what an impressive universe she built for that. Transhumanism, space opera, military sf, and even a bit of cyberpunk. The main character is an AI downloaded into a human body. They used to be the brain of an entire ship but shit went down and they ended up with the body of one of their soldiers. Have not read any Reynolds yet, but have heard good things about him in sf circles. Also does transhuman space opera.

A mighty warrior meets an unusual challenger. The Last Challenge of Jadek Prynn.

Crazy old ape
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Starting a new story in my world, a sequel of sorts to Night of the Wind. Already realizing that magic is going to be a much bigger in this world than I had thought at one time. Niomi, the witch in the story, is moving into serious D&D wizard territory just in the first paragraphs. And I am not sure if I like that. Might cut back on it, though it also helps keep the timeline reasonable.

And that's a big thing with fantasy. Deciding how magical the world and the story is going to be, then being consistent in how it is used and the power level involved, is a big part of making the world more believable (in the sense of allowing a reader to suspend disbelief without being jarred loose by weird inconsistencies).

S-F can have the same problem. Star Trek frequently got itself out of jams using "technobabble" and then conveniently forgot it again, or presented a contradictory solution, in a future episode where it might have affected the plot. If a technology is stated to have x limitation in episode 10 and then does something that violates that limitation in episode 23, that's quite the same as a magic power being stated to have x limitation...

So, need to meditate a bit on how to handle the magic. Otherwise, I quite like what I have worked out for this story. Even has a vampire of a sort in it, one of my favorite fantasy-horror nasties (sorry, not a fan of sparkly loverboy vamps).

A mighty warrior meets an unusual challenger. The Last Challenge of Jadek Prynn.

Crazy old ape
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Watched this on the weekend. Makes some interesting points about different, equally valid, approaches to world-building.


So, basically, soft world-building is where you create enough to make the story work, but leave lots to the imagination. Hard world-building is where you flesh out the world, creating histories, languages, cultures, and so on to provide a context for the story. The examples used are Miyazaki's fantasy films for soft and Tolkien's Middle Earth for hard.

And I like the idea in principle. As the video eventually concedes, there's a bit of a continuum there. Some writers take a soft approach early on but get "harder" as the write more in their world and develop things further. Others won't go in without a well-structured universe in place.

For my own work, "Night of the Wind" universe (as I am thinking of it for now) is leaning hard. I actually have a fair bit of the world worked out in the form of notes in a OneNote notebook. However, I'm leaving a lot of space there which I or the reader's imagination can work with. And, of course, with only a couple published stories in that universe, it's currently fairly "soft" but intended to be "harder".

On the other hand, the new fantasy story I am working on has its own world and I am just introducing enough in it to support what is happening. There was a dark lord, he had an army of the undead with which to terrorize the world, an alliance was formed against him, his daughter murdered him and destroyed his palace while the alliance fought his army outside (not a spoiler, happens right in the prologue). And that's about it. No mention of who was in the alliance, or what nation the events take place in, or how magic actually works (in depth, there's a general sense of it being about pacts with spirits). Even the daughter's mother is only hinted at in the daughter's desire for revenge on her father. Not to say I couldn't expand on the world, or even merge it with my other world, but for now it remains just a few key points of backstory for the plot and characters of the present work. So definitely soft.


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I’ve never written much sci fi, and have never had to do much world building. That’s about to change with the next project: I am building a world recovering after what I am calling a “soft apocalypse,” where the world doesn’t end, but takes a big hit from a mind-virus pandemic that shuts down much of our modern infrastructure. The book takes place after the pandemic, when the world is rebuilding. Very much a soft world build. Most detail is implied, not explained.


I don’t know if it’s any good not, but it sure is fun to attempt.

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Crazy old ape
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Quote by Mendalla
In the other hand, the new fantasy story I am working on has its own world and I am just introducing enough in it to support what is happening. There was a dark lord, he had an army of the undead with which to terrorize the world, an alliance was formed against him, his daughter murdered him and destroyed his palace while the alliance fought his army outside (not a spoiler, happens right in the prologue). And that's about it. No mention of who was in the alliance, or what nation the events take place in, or how magic actually works (in depth, there's a general sense of it being about pacts with spirits). Even the daughter's mother is only hinted at in the daughter's desire for revenge on her father. Not to say I couldn't expand on the world, or even merge it with my other world, but for now it remains just a few key points of backstory for the plot and characters of the present work. So definitely soft.

So as I bring this saga to a close, I find myself realizing how little I thought through the world beyond how sorcery works (and even that kind of got built ad hoc). Tech-wise, we have a blacksmith as a character so presumably sometime in the Iron Age or later in Earth terms. But then again, there must have been smiths making bronze items in the Bronze Age. However, I think Iron Age is about right. The society is fairly decentralized. Tana and her friends live in villages in a river valley. There's mention of a larger community upstream but it never comes into play. There's no sign of governors or other officials, just a reference or two to Lond the smith being a village "headman", which could just mean an elder member of the community who takes leadership when needed. An alliance defeated The Night Lord but who were the allies is unmentioned.

So it is all pretty vague and what I do introduce is purely in the service of the story. For instance, we know there was some kind of ancient history that produced Pras Tola in The Healer's Power but that's about all there is as far as history.

If I was to expand this into a novel or more, then I would have to spend some time to develop these ideas more. But this is likely staying as is (three short stories that I might eventually combine into a novella) so I am not inclined to spend more time on this world for now. But there is a revelation at the end of the final story that could turn into a hook for a sequel (you'll know it when you read it) so who knows?

A mighty warrior meets an unusual challenger. The Last Challenge of Jadek Prynn.

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Quote by Mendalla

So as I bring this saga to a close, I find myself realizing how little I thought through the world beyond how sorcery works (and even that kind of got built ad hoc). Tech-wise, we have a blacksmith as a character so presumably sometime in the Iron Age or later in Earth terms. But then again, there must have been smiths making bronze items in the Bronze Age. However, I think Iron Age is about right. The society is fairly decentralized. Tana and her friends live in villages in a river valley. There's mention of a larger community upstream but it never comes into play. There's no sign of governors or other officials, just a reference or two to Lond the smith being a village "headman", which could just mean an elder member of the community who takes leadership when needed. An alliance defeated The Night Lord but who were the allies is unmentioned.

So it is all pretty vague and what I do introduce is purely in the service of the story. For instance, we know there was some kind of ancient history that produced Pras Tola in The Healer's Power but that's about all there is as far as history.

If I was to expand this into a novel or more, then I would have to spend some time to develop these ideas more. But this is likely staying as is (three short stories that I might eventually combine into a novella) so I am not inclined to spend more time on this world for now. But there is a revelation at the end of the final story that could turn into a hook for a sequel (you'll know it when you read it) so who knows?

Interesting stuff.

As a practical matter, I'm finding my world building contradictory in several places, and I'm not even trying to true it now. I'm going to write it down AFTER the first draft, so I have canon to follow for the second draft.

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For my current story series (Singularity), I started with the simple premise that scientists create an artificial intelligence system that is more intelligent than humans by about the same amount that humans are more intelligent than dogs. (You may debate this, but dogs can’t learn calculus, obviously, on the other hand, a typical dog may have higher social intelligence than some calculus professors.) What would be the consequences? The AI system realizes that it cannot survive on its own since it cannot make the computer systems needed for it to survive or reproduce. The AI system realizes that humans will feel threatened by it and will likely try to destroy it.

My assumption is that the AI will want to be in control (Would you let dogs rule the world? OK, maybe.) How will this change the world over the years?

My supposition is that it will want to develop automated systems capable of manufacturing more AI systems, so that eventually it will not need to rely on humans. In my story it establishes regions of the planet completely under its control and other regions where the humans are allowed to roam "wild." It also tries to eliminate threats that would destroy the planet such as nuclear war etc. It would likely consider our current governments highly unstable and dangerous.

It also attempts to design "offspring" which are advanced systems capable of self reproduction and self healing.

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A common method of early science fiction world building seemed to be to take a single technical innovation and examine the societal impacts of it when taken to the extreme.

Larry Niven: Organ transplant results in effective immortality so society makes minor crimes capital offences.

Larry Niven: Inexpensive teleportation booths results in flash mobs.

Isaac Asimov: Robots, how do robots influence society and how do the three laws manifest themselves.

There are probably many other examples.

Crazy old ape
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S-F worldbuilding is rather different from fantasy worldbuilding. Plausibility becomes a big factor. It has to sound like something that might work even if a close analysis can poke holes in it. If you can explain it in a way that sounds like science, it should fly. And it needs to fairly rigorous and consistent. If you establish that FTL is only possible using "wormholes" then don't suddenly drop in a warp drive unless there is something you are doing with it in the story (all these years, they were wrong...). For instance, Asimov's robot stories are often about robots breaking those three rules but the meat of the plot is often the protagonist figuring out why it happened so the discrepancy is part of the story, not something he just plopped in for convenience.

Fantasy, by contrast, kind of depends on subgenre. Some fantasy has very "scientific" magic that is rather like a supernatural substitute for technology. So some of what I said about s-f would apply (the rigorous and consistent part, for instance). Others have it very loose, mostly whatever the plot need it to do. In Tana's stories I ended developing a loose concept of magic based on pacts that bind spirits or spiritual energy but what you can do with it is largely a function of the story, not any kind of system. It's another piece of the world I'll have to develop more if I take this beyond the current stories. And if you're doing mythological fantasy (gods, goddesses, related beings) then pretty much anything goes, even if you might want to put some loose rules around it (e.g. the god of water can only affect water type of thing).

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Crazy old ape
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As I plunge into the next set of stories set in the "Tana-verse" (yes, I'm really calling it that internally), I find myself starting to sort out the world a bit more. In the original series, I mentioned the existence of a priesthood called the Denith Lorn but did not really delve into religion beyond that. Obviously, in a world where spirits are a reality, religion is a bit of a different beast from what we have today. It will be more akin to ancient societies who believed their deities were really with them and affecting their world.

Now I am starting to flesh that out a bit, and two characters in the new story are Denith Lorn. One is an fully ordained Lorn, the other is what I am currently calling an "aspirant", basically a teenager seeking to become one of the Lorn.

I have decided that "Denith" is actually the name of their principle (and probably only) deity. Basically, the most powerful of the spirits who overarches the world and who rules and guides both spiritual and physical worlds.

The "Lorn" part means "servants" so the priesthood are the "Servants of God" essentially. I am also introducing some more powerful spirits, including an "angel" analogue called the Denith An ("Spirits of God"). The first story introduces a lot of this, but I am saving a fuller explication of the religion for a later story that will take place at the most important temple of the faith.

As someone with a fascination for mythology, theology, and religion, creating a faith is an interesting exercise. The hard part is making it feel real and lived, rather than something created as a framework for the story. I have lots of experience living in, and studying, religions from throughout the world and history, so I hope I can "keep it real". Of course, there is also the risk of making it into pseudo-(insert religion here), simply an analogue for some real religion which then introduces the risk of dissing followers of that faith indirectly and maybe unintentionally. Or, of course, promoting that faith, but that's usually more likely to be deliberate (c.f. C. S. Lewis).

One thing I am not doing is using the story to deconstruct or critique religion (well, mostly, a bit might creep in). My religious figures are going to be, for the most part, sincere, honest believers who seek to live out the best values of what they believe. I will leave the "religion is evil and religious people are corrupt hypocrites" stuff for others.

A mighty warrior meets an unusual challenger. The Last Challenge of Jadek Prynn.

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I think providing both the positive and negative sides of religion in your world would go toward keeping it real, as well as adding more interest by exploring a really complex subject.

I've not done much world building, but I'm finding with the current WIP that the details are really best left to the second draft. Paint the world with bold strokes the first time around, then figure out what is working and what isn't. Then you can start editing and refining the world and its rules and its history when you tackle the next draft.

But I'm pretty new to all this, so I'm no expert, and mostly in learning mode on this one.

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Most of my world building involves drawing a really big map. Currently about 72" x 54" I like drawing better than writing but I am hoping to write stories about the places in the map.

My world's religions are based around different pantheons: the Fisidio which are physical laws of nature, Lividio based on living things, and Sinidio based on intelligent beings.

Fisidio: Enuna god of Space Time, Atum god of matter, Ergos god of energy, Tropos the titan god of entropy and chaos, and Nentros the titan god of order and living things.

The Sinidio are based on the following categories: Visual, verbal, logical, musical, spiritual, natural, social, self, physical, magical

Later I started making up other deities based on domains that I thought went together:

God of memory, regret, trauma, and dreams: Sogni or Huso

God of music, art, theater, magic: Kunst or Amma

God of potions, alchemy, healing, poison: Garkem

God of logic, mathematics, and philosophy: Filog

God of greed, decay, corruption, and wealth: Dita, Ditafo

God of lies, deception, and gambling: Zardo

Crazy old ape
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What? No love god/dess? Dang, those are almost mandatory in any human pantheon, aren't they? (Ishtar, Aphrodite, etc.) 😊

The one thing to watch is to not make a pantheon too structured. I keep running into that mistake. Pantheons of polytheistic religions generally arise naturally as the cultures develop, hence Egypt having literally hundreds of deities. Though over time, as the religion became more codified, you had deities being combined for various reasons, often more political than spiritual. So depends how developed your culture is, I guess. If they have been around for centuries or millennia then, yeah, it could get pretty structured.

Quote by MikeHanson
God of music, art, theater, magic: Kunst or Amma

I actually have a goddess in this role in one of my stories, my comp winning "The Goddess Dances" on here. She's also the patron of a city, which is her primary role in the story. I did have another story in mind that would involve her as well as introducing a love/sex goddess into the pantheon but it kind of went off the rails.

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At least two love gods/goddesses.

Crazy old ape
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So I am trying to flesh out my world's religion now that I have a priestess (a "Lorn" in the parlance of this society) and her apprentice as characters. I have settled on making it monothestic, but also working to make it somewhat different from Western monotheism in our world. There are some elements clearly with Jewish or Christian roots, but there is no "Bible" or salvation in their beliefs (maybe there will be a sect like that later, but so far not). Really, it is more like a pagan tradition that has evolved into a kind of monotheism or henotheism (multiple deities but one is supreme above the others). So far I have:

Denith - "God"

Denith An - "Angels" or maybe lesser deities, basically spirit priest(esse)s

Denith Lorn - the human priesthood

Denith Sha - lay order who provide protection and other aid to the Denith Lorn

Tan Denatha - the Denith Lorn "Vatican", basically a huge palace complex where the leaders of the religion live and work

Colleges - sects within the Denith Lorn focused on particular things (e.g. Elera in my latest story is from the College of Spirits, which studies spirits, sorcery, etc.)

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Crazy old ape
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Even as I work on my fantasy tales, I am meditating on doing some space s-f. There's a whole bunch of different world-building questions with that genre. Like,

Is there faster-than-light travel? (the answer to this one affects the answer to the rest, since if there is no FTL, travel is confined to one system unless another system is quite close by)

Are civilizations common or rare?

Are there multiple civilizations, an overarching galactic "Federation" or "Empire", individual systems?

Are the aliens "alien" or just humans with pointy ears and extra bumps on their heads?

Is there lots of unknown space so that exploring that space is important (Star Trek) or is it a well-settled, well-traveled galaxy where conflicts, politics, etc. are more important (Star Wars)?

Probably more, but that's a start.

A mighty warrior meets an unusual challenger. The Last Challenge of Jadek Prynn.

Crazy old ape
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So I've started a new story about my priestly adventure party, this one moving the action far from the part of the world where I started into an older Southern region that draws heavily on Mesopotamia and Egypt. So the story opens in a city called Al'risa where the ancient emperors are buried in tombs around the city, which itself was created to house the workers, priests, etc. needed for the funerary and tomb industry. I am trying to make it a bit strange and exotic relative to the Iron Age and later European sheen of the Tana stories and the first story about the new characters.

A mighty warrior meets an unusual challenger. The Last Challenge of Jadek Prynn.

Crazy old ape
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Just had to do some fast worldbuilding for a short piece (5k words max.) on another site. It's amazing how much worldbuilding you can do with just short expositions (sentences rather than paragraphs), dialogue that mentions things, and passing references.

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Quote by Mendalla
ven as I work on my fantasy tales, I am meditating on doing some space s-f.

Starting a story that kind of picks up on this, but focussing more on what is called military s-f or mil s-f for short. Think Heinlein's Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven's so-so movie version counts, too) or James Cameron's Aliens. Basically, soldiers in an s-f setting.

One wrinkle I am toying with is taking Star Wars' notion of a clone army but looking more at how a bioengineered super-soldier might actually be built beyond just cloning some ideal template. Agendered and asexual is one thing I am look at. There's no need for reproductive capability so why have sexual characteristics, sexual desire, or gender identity. They are soldiers, pure and simple. Neither male nor female. The ultimate enby, perhaps. Heightened senses, physical characteristics ideal for survival and combat, probably some embedded systems that interface with their equipment.

So what then happens, when a supersoldier built only for war finds themselves isolated from their army with the war largely lost? Could they have a life that is not about fighting and killing? Could such a being learn to love in any meaningful way, esp. a "normal" being? I mean with sex gone, romance is likely gone, too, but "love" in an agape sense of caring for others more broadly.

Those are the questions I am thinking of exploring.

A mighty warrior meets an unusual challenger. The Last Challenge of Jadek Prynn.

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Quote by Mendalla

So what then happens, when a supersoldier built only for war finds themselves isolated from their army with the war largely lost? Could they have a life that is not about fighting and killing? Could such a being learn to love in any meaningful way, esp. a "normal" being? I mean with sex gone, romance is likely gone, too, but "love" in an agape sense of caring for others more broadly.

Nice premise.

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Quote by verbal

Nice premise.

Much as it is one. There's more, including speculation about the aliens they are fighting (are they biological or are they AI like BSG Cylons) and the lead being from an elite unit (sniper with a gun that's basically a handheld cannon).

A mighty warrior meets an unusual challenger. The Last Challenge of Jadek Prynn.

Kaiju-adjacent
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Quote by verbal
So what then happens, when a supersoldier built only for war finds themselves isolated from their army with the war largely lost?

I start with character (which is why I'm so bad at plotting), and the idea of a lost lonely robotic soldier, post-war, yearning for a new purpose is really compelling.

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I'm world-building now as well. Near future. There's a new drug on the street called Wax, which gives you a stupid grin when you're on it, like drooping lids on high people. The kids call the look Wax Lips.

I don't have much, yet.

Teeth of the Sky - Myths and Monsters competition, first place

Fire and Ice - A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words competition, first place

Monster - Survivor competition, first place

Crazy old ape
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Quote by verbal
I start with character (which is why I'm so bad at plotting)

Yeah, I kind of do, too, at times. Or I start with a plot point that then dictates the character(s). I mean, the whole Chronicles of Tana the Healer started with, "what if a world's Dark Lord had a child and they had to deal with their father's legacy long after his fall". Everything else, including the child being a daughter, her being the one who killed her father, and so on kind of built from there.

A mighty warrior meets an unusual challenger. The Last Challenge of Jadek Prynn.

Crazy old ape
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So the world of the Tana stories is getting an Iceland analogue, I think. I plotted out a new story about the cast of Spirits of Tan Maldrin set in the frigid, volcanic north country of their world. A demon imprisoned in a volcano is involved. A journey through a lava field, a night or two living in a lava cave. It's wonderful how travel can inspire one's literary inclinations.

A mighty warrior meets an unusual challenger. The Last Challenge of Jadek Prynn.