millawritesstuff-blog

[millawritesstuff-blog]

This is why this blog has been a bit neglected lately. Moving sucks, but I'll be back in a while.

Hi.

So. I’ve been absent from this blog for a while. Maybe that needs some explanation.

First it was my report at school. Then it was world building June. And then, it was time to move houses.

I just woke up in our new apartment today. We got the keys yesterday, and moved some of the large furniture and the most essential things during yesterday. Right now, I’m going to drive to the old apartment to get some stuff ready to be moved over. My gaming battlestation is going down today. I have nowhere to rig it up yet, but at least it will be ready when we find out where it’s going to be rigged.

So I’m going to be super busy for a while longer. I’ll be back in a while to resume my queuing of random things.

[millawritesstuff-blog]

World Building June Day 8

Day 8: Hierarchy, Power, & Governance

Different cultures - different ways to rule a country.

Enarion - In Enarion, there are two leaders working together - The High Druid, who is an Elder, and have been the High Druid for over a millennium, and the Enari monarch. Right now there is a queen on the throne, and she has been a queen for nearly seven hundred years. The High Druid is chosen by the druids when the High Druid dies, is unable or unwilling to keep the office, or if the druids vote for change. If more than half the druids vote to get a new High Druid, it's decided that someone else should take the responsibility. The title of Enari monarch is in most cases hereditary, but a new monarch will have to win the vote to become regent. A little more than half of the votes must be in the favor of the new monarch, or else someone else can take the throne. This has happened before, when the child of a former elven king just got about 45% of the votes.

Inmalenor - Inmalenor has one leader in the capitol city, who rules the city. The rest of the lands are run by one clan leader from each clan. Sometimes, the clan leaders and the leader in the capitol get together and make nationwide changes. There is a council held once a year where all clan leaders are expected to attend. This council is used to discuss how to lead, make nationwide laws or changes, and to talk about what has happened sine the last council. It’s an important social part of the nation. It is a great honor for people who aren’t clan leaders to be allowed to attend one of these councils. The new clan leaders (and the leader of the capitol) is chosen out from skill as a leader, and when the heir is chosen, they too are expected to be at the council, although they can't vote for things there before they actually become a leader.

Vulborim - The barbarians of Vulborim are led by a chieftain, who gets chosen through trial by combat. The strongest person becomes the leader. Up until some decades ago this made Vulborim a chaotic and unstable country, but then one chieftain won the title, and kept it. The country has never been so stable, and since the same chieftain keeps the title, there have been few changes of policy. In some ways this is a good thing. In other ways, this makes it hard to change things that are horrible in the current laws.

Asharia - Asharia is a monarchy, where the throne goes to the eldest son of the current king. There is a strict system of who gets the throne if the king has no sons, starting with the king’s younger brothers and their sons, branching outwards until it’s impossible to find a descendant. The legends say that if the line dies, Asharia will die with it.

Kupria - Kupria is, like Asharia, a monarchy, but after King Rennan decided that gender didn't matter in the question of heir, it’s the eldest child that inherits the throne. The children can refuse to take the throne if they don’t feel up to it, and in those cases as well as when there is no heir, the people vote for the next monarch. The people can also vote to overthrow bad monarchs, but this hasn’t happened in at least a century.

Lenthir - The city state of Lenthir is officially run by the Archmage. The Archmage is also headmaster of the academy. The practical work of running the city is delegated to a chosen mayor. The mayor can’t make all decisions themselves, so there is also a council that have to help make decisions. The Archmage is on this council. Smaller decisions is up to the mayor, though.

Elders - The Elders are all part of the Conclave of the Elder Ones, which is basically a council where all the Elders meet up and discuss things that concern the Elders. Or, that is the concept, since they aren’t supposed to mess around with mortals. Both Jannalor and the High Druid do have a lot of contact with mortals, though, so sometimes the discussion goes in the direction of how much meddling is too much, and what is happening to Jannalor’s growing mortal family. The Conclave of the Elder Ones doesn’t have a ruler per se, but they have a moderator to keep the discussion on topic. This role belongs to the oldest Elder, and will belong to him as long as he doesn’t get corrupt or killed.

[millawritesstuff-blog]

World Building June Day 7

Day 7: Economy

Money, get away. Get a good job with more pay and you're O.K.

I’m thinking that my world have golden and silver coins as currency. Gold coins are worth more than silver coins. Also, the mints in the different countries have different designs. Lenthir has a phoenix on their gold coin, and a unicorn's head on the silver one. Kupria has the profile of the current regent on the gold coin. Asharia also has the regent’s profile on their gold coin. Enarion’s gold coin has a stylished sun on it, and the silver coin has a similarly stylished moon. Inmalenor has a seal on the silver coin, and an image of their most grown crop on the gold one. Vulborim coins have weapons on them - the gold coin has a double-headed battle axe on it.

In addition to coins, Lenthir also have magic paper money (which is not quite the same as the paper(-ish) money we use today, more like a proof of worth on paper) which only the mages in the bank in Lenthir can make. It's usable as currency in all the capitols, but out in the small villages outside Lenthir or the capitols, most people would scoff at you if you tried to use them as anyhing worthy.

Which country’s currency that is usable in which country depends on relations between the nations. The conversion rates might be horrible as well. Kuprian money in Asharia was worthless during the war, and now they are worth less than their Asharian counterparts. Asharian money in Kupria, however, has always been legal tender, although it varies from place to place how much these coins are worth. Enarion and Inmalenor doesn’t differentiate their different currencies, and can use both in both countries without any difference. Vulborim money is not legal tender in the elven lands, though. Lenthir takes all coins at the same value - a gold coin is a gold coin.

And... Exports.

Lenthir exports mostly magic items, potions and spells. The city state has no arable land, since the city fills up all space available. Maybe some other crafts from imported raw materials.

Inmalenor exports mainy furs and crafts.

Enarion exports some wood, taking great care not to mess up the local ecosystem by chopping down too many trees. Also, crafts made out of natural materials found in the forest. Oh, and of course magical and medicinal plants.

Vulborim? I have no idea. What do barbarian tribes export?

That’s all I had time for today. I’m just looking at the following prompts, and there’s no way I’m gonna catch up my lag for days yet. Especially not when I lost almost a day to character creation for our DnD group, and we’re moving in a bit more than a week.

[millawritesstuff-blog]

World Building June Day 6

Day 6: Gender/Sexuality This is actually an interesting prompt that I would probably forget to think about if it wasn’t a prompt.

Asharia and Kupria - These mostly human nations are pretty similar to each other in relation to gender roles and sexuality. Both nations tend to favor traditional gender roles slightly, but it isn’t unusual for people to not conform to the traditional gender roles and do what they please. There are two official genders, yet it seems like a third gender might be official soon. Most people mind their own business and let people identify as they please. There is, however, a small number of people who are opposed to everything not cis/het. These people are usually looked down upon by society in general, but there are no laws against having such beliefs, and they are many enough to find each other.

Lenthir - Lenthir is a place of diversion, in almost all possible ways. With all the different cultures mashing together in one place, there's not really a set pack of rules. In parts of the city with mostly humans, human social rules apply. In parts with a high elven population, the culture is slightly closer to what the elves do. The city has laws against gender discrimination, so even though discrimination happens, it will be struck down on.

Enarion - The Enari elves are the most laid back about gender and sexuality. Everyone is free to love whomever they want, and also how many they want, as long as it's consensual. They have four genders - male, female, both or neither, and everyone is free to identify as whichever gender they feel like at the moment. There are no actual gender roles in the society, with the exception of pregnancy (you kinda need a womb to become pregnant). The children are brought up by the parent(s) and/or the community.

Inmalenor - The Inmali elves are less laid back than the Enari. In general, males do the hunting and fishing, and females do the cooking, sewing and tending of children and homes. Yet there are no strict rules about this, so a female that wants to hunt and a man who wants to stay at home and do work there are free to do so. Inmali are more prone to having steady relationships than the Enari, either monogamous or polygamous.  

Vulborim - This is probably the worst part of the world in regards of gender equality. The society is completely patriarchal, ruled by a chieftain that's chosen through combat. The role as a chieftain can be challenged at any time if someone want the responsibility of being the leader. If a female (and we're talking biological female (sex), not what people identify as here. (gender)) tries to rise to the role as a chieftain, she will be ridiculed.

The Elders - The Elders are generally cis/het, but that might be due to the fact that there are maybe seven or eight Elders in the world in total. It’s hard to make statistics with such a small group of people. Half-Elders and quarter-Elders tend to follow the norms of their non-Elder culture.

So, that’s it for now. I know I’m a day late. Life happened (in the form of spending a day at work, then a night doing the RPG, and then I had to make a new character today since my bard suddenly got his brains devoured by a mind flayer.) But I’ll keep at this until it’s done, even though I might be at it until August. Or November, if everything goes wrong. We will see.

[millawritesstuff-blog]

World Building June Day 5

Day 5 - Civilization and Architecture

So yeah. If there’s something I definitely know nothing about, it’s architecture. But I’ll try anyways.

This is going to be a mess. I’m warning you right now.

Kupria

I have pictured the Kuprian capitol as a larger and more fortified Edoras from the Lord of the Rings movies. But, you know, I’ve also pictured it more like the castle in Prague, Czechia. And like a couple of castles in England. But at least the houses people live in are a bit like medieval to late medieval European houses.

Asharia

When I think about how Asharian castles look like, I often think about something like this: http://blockworksmc.com/project/babel/ Or this: http://lathander1987.deviantart.com/art/Setaperium-Palace-Distirict-331666521

Lenthir

I’m thinking Art Nouveau, maybe? It’s a very different place from the rest of the world, especially considering that it’s surrounded by two other nations. My head says swirly decorations, especially the tower of the magic academy. And also, colors. And designs in the cobblestone in the street. Like, the first archmage was hella flamboyant, and no one bothered to change the design after he died. Maybe some of the newer buildings are toned down a little, but yeah. I feel Lenthir would be an art nouveau-inspired mess. In a charming way, of course. With a bit of art deco thrown in for good measure. Maybe.

Enarion

Basically this: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/b9/74/47/b97447edfdc236a60a2c32eb9d19df58.jpg (Artist Richard Wright for M:tG). For the capitol, that is. But yeah. Houses built out of stone, mostly, with trees growing wherever they can grow.

Inmalenor

Inmalenor is very cold and harsh, much like the northernmost parts of our world, north of the arctic circle. In the northernmost parts it’s impossible to live in one place for long, since food is scarce, so the few elven tribes that manage to survive are nomadic, living in portable housing while they follow their food through the year. The architecture would look like Sami lavvos or goathis, or Inuit tupiqs. Further south, where it’s possible to farm a little, the Inmalenorians make more permanent houses, traditionally in stone or peat. The capitol has had some influence from other countries, so here you can find some more wooden buildings, like Medieval Scandinavia had. But there's still a lot of stone buildings.

Vulborim

Visigothic/mesopotamian, maybe? I’d expect the Vulborians just built stuff for function, and big, blocky stone structures seems right up their alley. Adobe style buildings also fit them fine.

~*~

So what have I learned today? I've learned that I know less about architecture than I thought. I spent 12 hours researching and writing this post. I am now tired of looking at castles and reading about different architectursal styles. But it was fun, and I did develop my world just a little bit. (And I totally spent half an hour listening to Inuit throat singing on YouTube. Research, yo.)

[millawritesstuff-blog]

World Building June Day 4

Day 4: History

Yay, timelines. x.x

I was thinking about digging around in the history before this point, but I have no idea where to start, and I’m kind of busy today, so that will have to wait for another time.

The years in this timeline is not the way my world numbers years. I haven’t figured out what event they use to symbolize year 0 yet. The numbers are how many years it is after the birth of Tagas, Thrannan and Ilmonar. This is the way I’ve calculated time since the timeline became a thing. This is not, however, the way my world does it. 

(I like how I have the calendar all figured out, but don’t know which year it is.)

So here you have it - a basic timeline of what happens to the kings and queens of Kupria. There’s more plot than this, but I can’t really give away all the plot, now can I?

Year 7 - King Lazar of Asharia kills the king of Kupria and invades the country. 

Year 8 - Crown prince Rennan of Kupria manage to muster up a rebellion, kills King Lazar, and frees Kupria. He then becomes king of Kupria. This starts a war between the two nations.

Year 9 - Lazar’s son, Erelim becomes the new king of Asharia, and decides that Kuprians aren’t allowed to study at the magical academy in Lenthir anymore. He tries to invade Lenthir, but fails. Lenthir still stays neutral, although a bit wary of the Asharian royal family.

Year 30 - After many years of only fighting along the border, King Erelim launches a siege on Vobranas, the Kuprian capitol, but fails to conquer the city. The Asharian army goes home, after managing to capture King Rennan’s brother Tagas.

Year 40 -  After ten years of trying, failing and planning, Tagas is finally freed from Asharia. Jannalor, the Elder in Kupria, makes himself known to some people. Asharia is pissed over losing their captive, and launches another siege on Vobranas. They fail again after losing a large chunk of their army.

Year 47 - Asharia manage to assassinate King Rennan and his close family, except his youngest daughter, Talanashta. She takes over the throne after this.

Year 48 - A town along the northern border between Kupria and Inmalenor burns down, killing all the inhabitants. Arsony is suspected, but never proved.

Year 62 - Queen Talanashta of Kupria dies of illness. The country votes for a new monarch, and her uncle Ilmonar takes the throne.

Year 66 - King Ilmonar of Kupria and King Erelim of Asharia decides after long discussion that the war is over. Most people are happy about this, but there are some on both sides of the border that doesn’t approve. Still, there is peace, for the first time in almost 60 years.

Year 70 - King Ilmonar is captured by a new enemy, coming from the northern wastelands to the west of Enarion. His brother Tagas manages to save him, and they decide to go up there and hit the new enemy with a raiding party. Ilmonar dies in this skirmish. Tagas takes the throne, since his children refuse the responsibility.

Year 75 - Weird things happen. Some high up people in Kupria gets hit by strange assassins. After some time, it is clear that the former king of Kupria is the assassin, after being magically brainwashed. While King Tagas goes on a quest to get his brother back, the new enemy throws a surprise siege on Vobranas. There is on and off fighting for several days, while Vobranas is locked in by the enemy army. Kupria manages to send for help, and wins the siege with help both from Asharia and Enarion. King Tagas manages to get his brother Ilmonar back, and is not okay about his capitol being attacked behind his back. Kupria sends assassins to kill off the leader of the new enemy, and succeeds. Ilmonar retakes the throne.

Year 85 - Queen Alenia of Kupria dies of old age. King Ilmonar finds out what it means to be a half-Elder, and hates the thought of seeing everyone he love die of old age. 

Year 86 - The current year in my world. (Not to say that this is where the stories begin. This is more like how far I’ve gotten with plotting, since the story starts at year 8.)

And, since my brain wanted to do other things than making a history for my world, I’ve done a bit of different other things today. A lot of characters are now named with names I could use. Also, while giving characters names, I had to make reminders on who’s who. I have a table in my Scrivener file called “the Mandatory Name Document”, with a small comment that will remind me who the character is (because new names are hard), together with the new name. So we have “Asharian Douchebag King”, “Metal Elf”, “Opera Druid”, “Emo Kid” and “Angry Knight”. Which makes a lot of sense in my head, but probably not to anyone else.

I also drew out a family tree of the Kuprian royal family, and realized just how many people there is in that family. I will post a family tree of the whole family some time later, but, you know, a few of the characters still misses names, and I really want to fix that before actually posting a family tree. Also, there are still some birth and death years missing.

But yeah. There were progress. I’ve also thought a bit about economy today, but if there’s anything I know practically nothing about, it’s economy. It will be fun to learn more about that, though.

[millawritesstuff-blog]

World Building June Day 3

Day 3: People & Races

This post is kind of long, so I will put it under a read more thingy. Under the cut you’ll find Elders, elves, undead and werewolves.

My world is pretty generic fantasy, I guess. I mean, I have elves. I made a new race called the Elders, though, but they’re probably quite generic as well.

First, there is the humans. They are by far the most numerous race in my world. They work as ordinary humans, comes in several shapes, sizes and colors, lives to about 80-100, with no racial magic abilities, although they can do magic.

The Elders are a race that looks completely like humans in every way. The only way to see if a person is an Elder is to observe the person for two or three decades. If the person doesn’t age, it’s probably an Elder, or part Elder. The members of this race live for at least two millenniums, quite possibly forever, if not killed. They don’t really get sick from things humans get sick of, like bacteria and viruses. They can, however, get poisoned, or killed any other way a human can get killed. The race as a whole has a kind of guideline that says that they shouldn’t mate with other races, even humans despite their similarities. There is, however, at least one Elder that has sired children, and I have four characters that are canonically half-Elders, plus their in total seven children who are quarter-Elders. The Elders are a rare race. There is one Elder in Kupria, and two Elders in Enarion. There’s rumors about at least two in Asharia as well. Most likely they’re not even from this world, but came from somewhere else ages ago, like another plane. The Elders that are in my world might be closely related, or they might not. I think three of them are brothers, but that would mean that there is at least one in Asharia. The Elders might or might not be closer to the divine than humans. I haven’t decided yet. The whole race has an extra good affinity to magic. The one in Kupria is an excellent sorcerer, while the two in Enarion are druids. The one or more in Asharia might be some kind of cleric or other flavor of divine caster. Also, I’m thinking about each of them having a mythological creature, as in not actually being the creature, but kind of being more or less like the creature in skills and personality. This is undecided as of yet, but it might be kind of cool. Elders age at the same speed as humans, but they stop aging around 40. Same goes for part Elders at least down to third generation. The more watered out the Elder part becomes, the older the hybrids become before they stop aging, and the shorter they live. One family line in Vulborim stop aging between fifty an sixty, and lives for over a century, many generations after the half-Elder.

The, there’s the elves. There are at least two types - forest elves and frosty elves (race name not final). The forest elves come from Enarion, while the frosty elves come from Inmalenor. Forest elves are slightly shorter than humans, the tallest might reach 170-180 cm (5’7”-5’9”), while they average around 150 cm (4’11”). They are generally built lighter than humans. Despite being a bit more dexterous and acrobatic than humans, these elves won’t manage to “pull a Legolas”, and swing themselves up on the back of a mount around its neck. The forest elves considers the high druid as their leader, even though the high druid himself is an Elder, and not an elf. Frosty elves are generally slightly taller than forest elves, and built more sturdy. Their skin range from completely white to pale by human standards. There aren’t many frosty elves in the world. They have to hunt to survive, since growing crops in Inmalenor is hard, if not impossible. They also eat fish from lakes and the Northern sea, which is north of the continent. Usually, this includes making holes in the ice to get to the water, since even the sea is frozen most of the year up there. It is possible to grow some hardy types of crops during the short summer in the southern parts of Inmalenor, but due to the short growing period the crops yield very little. It’s still a nice addition to the fish and meat. There are towns in the southern parts, and nomadic tribes in the northern part.

I think I have dwarves in my world, but I haven’t decided yet. I mean, I like having dwarves, but if they don’t really appear in any of the stories I’m gonna write, I don’t really see the point of fleshing them out.

There are some undead creatures in this world, mostly because of necromancers. There is at least zombies and liches. I’m undecided on vampires, but I don’t think they exist for now. Maybe I’ll reconsider later. Liches are necromancers that wants to live forever at any cost. True, they get more time, but they can’t eat or drink, and they have no sense of touch. Also, of course, being forced to see everyone they loved grow old and die. Still, for a necromancer who needs more time to do research, it might be worthwhile. There are two known liches in my setting - one is very ancient, and the other one is very fresh. To become a lich, a person needs to go through a painful ritual.

Werewolves. I have a sweet spot for werewolves, so of course I have werewolves in my story. All humanoids can become a werewolf, with the exception of the undead. Lycantrophy transfers through bite, and only bite. Also, the werewolf needs to be in the lean, mean killing machine form to make other werewolves. If a werewolf in human form decides to bite someone, that someone won’t become a werewolf. Werewolves have three forms. The humanoid form is the same as they were before being afflicted, with some exceptions: Their eyes change color to a wolf eye color, usually some shade of gold, amber or yellow, their senses of smell and hearing gets better, and they get slightly stronger. Also, they get a healing factor that will heal wounds and sickness much faster than their base humanoid race could. The second form is the wolf form, where the werewolf looks like a wolf. They will have to learn how to act like a wolf to do so convincingly, though. The healing factor also applies to the wolf form. The sense of smell and hearing is best in this form. The third form is the big mean fighty machine form (which needs a better name, but it seems both war form and battle form is coined by White Wolf, so yeah). In this form, it’s almost impossible to kill the werewolf since the healing factor goes into overdrive. The werewolf is also almost twice as tall, and much more muscular. They are much stronger, and sports razor sharp claws and powerful jaws. Also, it’s very hard for the werewolf to keep control in this form, since it’s basically made of rage and instinct. Changing forms takes a lot of energy. The werewolf needs to eat more than usual, and is generally tired after changing, especially into buff form. Also, if the healing factor needs to work, that too takes extra energy. Silver is bad for a werewolf, but only if the silver gets through the skin. A werewolf can hold silver objects just fine, but as soon as the silver gets through the skin, like being poked by a needle or cut by something sharp, there is pain. Silver inflicted damage hurts a lot more than normal damage, the wound usually gets infected, and it heals slower than other damage. In fact, a silver infected cut on a werewolf heals slower than a similar cut on a humanoid of the same flavor. It’s also generally harder for a werewolf to change between forms, but it can be done if the werewolf can manage to block out the intense pain and concentrate. If there’s silver stuck inside the body, like a piece of silver shrapnel stuck somewhere, trying to change will fail, and end in total agonizing pain. If the werewolf has silver in their body when the full moon comes around, the body will try to change, and the werewolf will be in extreme agony, and become pale, sweaty and slightly feverish. This will last the whole night. The full moon will change the werewolf the first time. After this, it depends on whether or not the werewolf learns to control the changing, and the individual difference in being able to control their changes. For some werewolves, it’s pretty easy to control, and they might change involuntarily maybe once a year or less. Others might change every full moon. The period of the full moon stretches thirty hours in each direction from the actual time the moon is at its fullest, which roughly means three nights. Werewolves are often a member of a pack, usually the pack responsible for turning the werewolf in the first place. Sometimes, if the pack can’t find the new werewolf, or doesn’t know they’ve turned anyone, or if the new werewolf runs away, the new werewolf becomes a rogue werewolf. These werewolves are dangerous, because they haven’t been taught how to werewolf yet. There might be rogue werewolves that have been in a pack, and these are not as dangerous. But without a support network, the lone werewolf will still be at a disadvantage. If a rogue werewolf finds another pack, they might take this loner in, or they might not. It all depends on trust. The structure of a pack varies. Some are structured as a family, where maybe one werewolf acts as a parent or a guide for the pack. These structures happen out of trust. The other structure is the one that happens if there’s a lack of trust – the alpha structure. One alpha on top, followed with a number of betas underneath, who are the trusted members. This structure usually end in inward fighting for the alpha role, and are much less stable than the family structure.

The Asharian royal family also belong to a non-human race, but I haven’t figured out the details yet.

I’m pretty sure more races will be added to my setting as time goes by. This is what I have at the moment.

[millawritesstuff-blog]

Man, choosing names for races are hard. I mean, I have elves. There are two types, and one of the types is forest elves. The other type is some kind of polar version of elves. And I can’t decide what to call them.

It currently stands between polar, ice, frost, snow or boreal elves. We’ll see what I’ll call them in the end. Right now they go under “frosty elves”, until I decide on something better.

[millawritesstuff-blog]

World Building June day 2

2. Geography

First, I need to say that I know next to nothing about geography. So this might end up becoming a hot mess.

 As I said in my introduction, this setting was born as a weird game I played as a kid. There were two countries, Gold and Silver, which were at war. I’ve based my geography on this, and worked from there. Gold, which I’ve named Asharia, and Silver, now called Kupria, shares a long border. Asharia is to the east, and Kupria to the west. On the border of these lands is the fiercely neutral city-state of Lenthir, which is the home of the magic academy (which I need to name soon, seriously).

 Somewhere to the north of these lands is Enarion and Inmalenor, the two elven nations. Enarion is a temperate to cool forest area (I’m thinking evergreens like pine and fir, and pleasant summers and not too cold winters), and is the home of the wood elves and the druids. Inmalenor is much further north, and cold. Some areas there have permafrost. The winters are harsh and long, and summer is short. This is where the snow elves live.

 Further west is the land of the barbarians, Vulborim. A lot of these lands are dry and unwelcome, but other parts have agriculture. 

Some distance south of Lenthir, Kupria and Asharia is divided by a kind of fjord, kind of pointy coast, getting wider and wider until it becomes a sea.

 ...Hold on, I’ll draw a map.

This is the core concept of how I’m picturing the general placement of the nations. This is a map I quickly made in paint with one of those laptop mouse pads that work like half of the time, so don’t judge me. Also, this is not the final map to end all maps, so it will change. 

I think Enarion’s border to Kupria goes slightly southwards, and not northwards. Yet, it’s a start. 

[millawritesstuff-blog]

World Building June Day 1

1. Introduction

When I was a kid, I used to play a game I called Gold and Silver. I also used to torment other kids to join me in this game, probably scolding them if they got any of the characters wrong, if I know myself right. The story was basically that you had the country of Gold, and the country of Silver, and they were at war. I always sided with Silver, which is why all the stories I’ve ever written in this setting (without actually having a real setting to speak of, other than characters) have been about the people of Silver, and set in that part of the (non-existent) world. In fact, the first character I ever made for the setting became queen of Kupria (which is the name I gave to the country of Silver much later).

Now, I’ve called my project Tales of Gold and Silver, as a nod back to the start of it all. The character have evolved a lot. In fact, the characters were the only thing I’d actually made any effort to build. I have maybe twenty-five important characters, each with a fleshed out personality and backstory (some more than others, of course), but no real world they could live in. Until now.

I’ve built these characters for at least twenty years now, and I haven’t written down much. I started writing down some of the stories a couple of years ago, but without a grasp of the world, I end up inventing things as I go, and then forget about it again. This is not good for consistency. I have decided to make a world for my characters. I have some ideas. I started world building a bit before I heard about World Building June. I actually made some notes, too. I have a seven-page word document called my Setting Bible, and I hope this month will give me more stuff to add to it. (Seriously, folks. If you’re a writer, I’d recommend making a Story/Setting Bible. Especially if you’re creating a different world. But also stories set in this world. And keep it updated as you write, or come up with new stuff. I’ll tell you all about it in a different post, because it would’ve made my life so much easier if I’d made it a couple of years ago and not mid April this year.)

So, what can I say about my world? The story is character-driven. I just let my characters loose in my head, watch them do their everyday business, and document it. And believe me, something dramatic will happen. My characters always seem to get into trouble. There are politics, and there is family drama. Big baddies kidnap kings. Countries get invaded. People get poisoned at parties. There are elves, werewolves, griffins and dragons. Druids, knights and sorcerers. Forests and deserts. Lots and lots of magic. And, because of NaNoWriMo, mean chickens. Or, at least one mean chicken. Which is the reason I have a chicken as my profile pic.

(The reason why I haven’t mentioned anything about any characters in this post? I kinda sorta need to rename them all, since I blatantly stole their names from a game. And until I find fitting new names, I’ll just keep from mentioning them by name.)

Now I only hope I’ll have time to work on this, since I’m moving to a new apartment late June.

[millawritesstuff-blog]

use writing advice from others carefully. if it comes from a writer whose work you like? remember it, but don’t obsess over it. let your own work remain authentic. if it comes from a writer whose work you don’t like? forget it. learn from your favorite books, your favorite authors. write what you like. write what comes naturally. in the end that is what will fulfill you and others best of all.

[millawritesstuff-blog]

deep sigh

[millawritesstuff-blog]

worldbuilding process:

step 1: make up some cool mysterious shit step 2: desperately struggle to figure out why all the cool shit is there

[millawritesstuff-blog]

When no one listens to you, write, because the page will always listen to you.

missblueturtle  (via wnq-writers)

[millawritesstuff-blog]

Listen, sweethearts. There’s no Right Way to be a writer. You don’t have to drink whiskey in a smoke stained bar, your fingers hovering over the grimy keys of your hipster typewriter. You don’t even have to drink coffee (gasp!).

You just have to add the words, as many as you can and put your heart in.

And finish it.

[millawritesstuff-blog]

//Absurdly helpful for people writing royal characters and/or characters who interact with royalty and members of the nobility.

[x]

[millawritesstuff-blog]

At the end of every year, the team at Writers Write looks at which posts were viewed most over the previous 12 months. This year, however, we were curious to find out which of our writing posts were the most popular of all time.

So we decided to start 2017 with the 25 posts you’ve viewed most on our blog over the past five years. (The number of views indicated here are from 31 December 2016.)

Our top post has almost 2 million views, and we’ve seen it used in varying formats across the internet. The second and third posts have more than 1 million views combined.

The posts vary. They include reference sheets for writers, longer posts on grammar and creative writing, a selection of excerpts from poetry, business writing tips, writing prompts, and quotations. We hope you enjoy them.

Our Top 25 Writing Posts Of All Time

1.    45 Ways To Avoid Using The Word ‘Very’

2.    Cheat Sheets For Writing Body Language

3.    155 Words To Describe An Author’s Tone

4.    Synonyms for 95 Commonly Used Words - A Mini-Thesaurus for Writers

5.    123 Ideas For Character Flaws

6.    Persuasive Writing - Emotional vs Intellectual Words

7.    The Daily Word Counts of 39 Famous Authors

8.    17 Of The Most Powerful Excerpts From Poetry

9.    15 Questions Authors Should Ask Characters

10.  The 12 Common Character Archetypes

11.  350 Character Traits - A Fabulous Resource for Writers

12.  209 Words To Describe Touch

13.  Body Language Reference Sheet

14.  20 Myths To Use As Writing Prompts

15.  Eight Commonly Misused Words

16.  37 Ways To Write About Anger

17.  30 Examples To Help You Master Concord

18.  Psychopath Or Sociopath - What’s The Difference?

19.  The 5 Elements Of A Story

20.  16 Types of Government - A Writer’s Resource

21.  5 Incredibly Simple Ways To Help Writers Show And Not Tell

22.  6 Sub-Plots That Add Style To Your Story

23.  Write Your Novel In A Year - Week 35: 3 Must-Have Scenes That Reveal Character

24.  The Top 12 Literary Love Quotes

25.  Show! Don’t tell. - 10 Verbs That Make You Tell

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The posts were mostly written by Amanda Patterson, Mia Botha, Anthony Ehlers, and Donna Radley. Thank you for your brilliant contributions.