Worldbuilding Exercise – The Fire Thieves Studio

World of Eos: 8 Questions to Build Up your City

12Mar

By CharlesNo Comments

Culture, Environment, Original Worlds, Unnamed Fantasy Setting, Worldbuilding Exercise, Worldbuilding Process, Worldbuilding Topic

World of Eos: 8 Questions to Build Up your City

Previously: We determined the three original seats of human civilization on Eos. Each was pitched by the servant of a god to the humans living in the creshold valley. Each servant then guided the humans who aligned with their philosophy to the location where they would build their city. Today we're going to develop the first of those cities in a number of aspects. We're starting with Banderlin. Banderlin was built by the followers of the god Infra Dev. The values he upholds are hard work, labor, honesty, stability, tradition, and dedication to the tried-and-true. These values will inform some of the details, but I want to expand out even further, into the general inspirations for this location and this culture and define some more specific elements. So this will be kind of a bra...

New Language Tool: Invent and Improvise a Fantasy or Sci-Fi Language in Minutes

8Feb

By CharlesNo Comments

Unnamed Fantasy Setting, Worldbuilding Exercise, Worldbuilding Process

New Language Tool: Invent and Improvise a Fantasy or Sci-Fi Language in Minutes

First, I just want to say, we aren't all J.R.R. Tolkien. Creating a fully functional, learnable fantasy or sci-fi language isn't going to be done easily or quickly. There are countless considerations to account for. Reeclehsla satai zeh ray'ahcleh'ill sca. If you want to really dive into it, there are some solid starting places which are immediately available to you. There are professionals making videos on youtube about constructed languages (or conlangs) that, if you dedicated yourself, could get you pretty far. It's still going to take a lot of research and work. Taiva rree'ek, zattahshre djavas lyr. But we aren't all looking to BECOME Tolkien either. So what I'm talking about today is a method that is going to be useful for the following: Develop a unique and consis...

New Random Deity Generator Tool: When you need religion… fast!

2Feb

By CharlesNo Comments

Culture, Religion, Worldbuilding Exercise

New Random Deity Generator Tool: When you need religion… fast!

Sometimes when you're working on a setting, you don't want to create a whole pantheon from the ground up, or a complex and details religion starting from the very origins of the world. Sometimes you just want something basic with a few interesting details to be fleshed out later. So if you need a deity fast, where do you begin? Right here! This tool should be a fun and quick way to spit out whole pantheons in less time than it takes to bring forth a universe from the void. Keeping in mind, the focus here is on a Pantheon of Fantasy deities, not necessarily a single monotheistic creator. There'll be several phases. In each phases you can roll randomly, or you can pick and choose. Do not feel any more beholden to the dice than you want to be! The process will be broken dow...

List of Five New but Terrible and Unnecessary Kaiju

14Dec

By CharlesNo Comments

Content Lists, Kaiju, Monsters, Worldbuilding Exercise

List of Five New but Terrible and Unnecessary Kaiju

Today I present to you a list of several Kaiju who are just awful. Just really bad. Like... if you were creating a story about kaiju, why would you pick these? Only a weirdo would come up with these awful kaiju. 1: The Carpe Deus "It began with the lashing. A pair of gigantic sucker-less tentacles rose up out of the ocean near the port city beach. They flopped down, flailed, crushing properties, sending people fleeing. Sometimes they would find something particularly heavy, a tower, or a large vehicle, on one case, a waterfront Ferris-wheel... and wrap around them, wrenching them into the ocean. Experts assumed at first that they were dealing with some kind of giant cephalopod or mollusk. Yet when the lashing arms finally found solid purchase, they strained, the water heaved an...

How to Make a Monster Part 2: The Primal Predator

28Sep

By CharlesNo Comments

Monsters, Species/Race, Worldbuilding Exercise, Worldbuilding Process, Worldbuilding Topic

How to Make a Monster Part 2: The Primal Predator

Last week I talked about the 4 Monster Archetypes I am using the Primal Predator, the Twisted Reflections, the Corrupted Humanity, and the Divine Enforcers. This week I want to break down the Primal predator and see if we can build some of our own. Primal Predator Examples: Xenomorph, Jason Vorhees, Jaws, Demogorgon, Graboids Common features: Physically Superior either by natural ability, supernatural benefit, or mastery of it's environment (an environment where we are disadvantaged.)Natural Advantages: Hypermetabolism, Great Strength, Natural Carapace (usually bulletproof of course), Dense Bones, Acidic Blood/Spit, Regeneration, Thermal Vision, Claws and Teeth, Voice Mimicry, Heightened Senses, Tentacles, Venom, Quills, SymbiosisSupernatural Powers: Immortal, Undead, Py...

How to Name Things when you struggle with Naming Things

31Aug

By CharlesNo Comments

Culture, Species/Race, Worldbuilding Exercise, Worldbuilding Topic

How to Name Things when you struggle with Naming Things

Coming up with the perfect name for a character, a location, or almost anything can be one of the most frustrating parts of worldbuilding, or storytelling in general. At times the perfect name just comes to you, but often, when you have to name a thing before you can move on, it can be feel like nothing fits, and what you settle on sounds like garbage the next time you hear it. It is easy to overthink, especially if it is an important name, like a main character. It is also unfortunately easy to tell when someone has overthought a name. Johnny Stormlash. Nikki Heat. There is a kind of a love of ironically appropriate names, but for me, unless it really fits the genre to be so cheesy, those kinds of names only annoy me. So I'm going to go through some ways to circumvent the ...

Creating New Civilizations with a Random Generator

24Aug

By CharlesNo Comments

Culture, Species/Race, Worldbuilding Exercise, Worldbuilding Topic

Creating New Civilizations with a Random Generator

Mountainside Temple in Bhutan Where to begin: Asking Questions I've already talked about this in previous posts because it is one of the key aspects of my methodology when it comes to worldbuilding. If you're stuck, don't know where to go next, don't have any idea what might need to be added to bring some uniqueness to your world, you want to start asking questions. Each answer will provide the potential for new questions, new answers, connections, and patterns to develop. Let us say you know you want a warrior culture, but don't want them to just be Klingons or follow that same honorable warrior cliche. You want something more original. Let's say they are human, for the sake of ease. Where do you go from here? Well, we've already established two parameters for what they need ...

Designing Unique Alien Species for your World

10Aug

By CharlesNo Comments

Species/Race, Worldbuilding Exercise, Worldbuilding Topic

Designing Unique Alien Species for your World

This is honestly one of my favorite topics. It's always important to me for a world to have a variety of points of view, physical forms, and non-human species and cultures. Of course it can be tricky to come up with something that isn't just a copy of some other setting, so today we'll explore the options when it comes to creating a cast of non-human species. An important thing to consider as you work on this is: what role is this species playing in the world I'm creating? Do you need them to be antagonists? Allies? Are they the dominant species or hidden and unknown to most of the world? If they live alongside humans, how do humans see them and how do they see humans? Keep these intentions in mind, to help the rest of your design elements line up with them. Though, of course, don...

31Jul

By CharlesNo Comments

Environment, Original Worlds, Unnamed Fantasy Setting, Worldbuilding Exercise

How to Generate a Map for your World

The Goal So there are any number of ways to draw up a map of the local region, or even a continent. You can start from many different angles, such as putting the city which is the main focus of the story at the center and then just building around it. You could roll randomly for where the deserts and forests and mountains are, or decide arbitrarily as the story dictates. Consistency is pretty important, but in a lot of stories, your players will meet you half way (remember that one?), and you don't need to be perfectly geographically accurate I mean... not unless you want to. Me? I want to. At the very least I want things to make SOME logical sense. There are a few rules for map-making you can keep in mind which will help tie things together, and help it look like a real living ...