World Building Wednesday - Tumblr Posts
Happy WBW! To kick off the spooky Asks, what are monsters like in your world? Real? Fictional? Surrounded by their own Cryptidology?
Heya Tori!
In not my magical destiny (which I WILL write most of by the end of the year I am promising myself) a form of monsters are real.
Most of the world exists as we do, but the sins and virtues play a delicate power balance game underneath. Some of that includes petty squabbles where they create monstrous creatures to attack the opposing side. Also, arguably some of their minions look monstrous, being specific offshoots of whatever sin or virtue they serve
Happy WBW!
I've got two questions for you:
In the world of your WIP, is there a main pantheon of deities/gods that is worshipped? Are they actual celestial beings that exist or are they figments of the people's imagination? If they exist, do they have anything to do with the magic that exists in that world?
Do you worldbuild before writing your WIPs first draft, like a form of plotting, or does worldbuilding come naturally to you as you develop the story?
Thank you! This one is also super relevant to the Champion & Mage novella I'm working on:
Pantheon:
Yes! There are 5 deities that used to be more directly involved in humans' lives until they started an incredibly destructive war. Thanks to that oopsie, they're now self-banished from the humans, with only their Champions as channels for their influence. (Each deity gets one Champion.)
Their destructive war left behind a ton of magic remnants, which humans harvest and use to create enchanted objects. This has spawned a whole field of mages: novices, harvesters, artifcers, overseers, etc. However, given that the gods aren't around anymore, this scavenged magic is finite, so it's very valuable.
World-Building:
I usually try to have all the relevant bones of the world in place before I start plotting, but things will always come up as I'm drafting for the first time! For example, when starting the first draft of the story, I had to stop to think about details like food, clothing, jewelry, superstitions, architectural style, and traditional offerings.
Happy Worldbuilding Wednesday! Do your characters have any particularly interesting fashion choices? What are they and why?👔🥻👘👗👚🛍
HOW DID I MISS THIS??? I'd wait to answer this tomorrow to be another Worldbuilding Wednesday, but I don't want to! Thank you for the ask! For this one, I'm choosing to go with my Crown of Blood WIP, since it's one of the few that I actually have kind of a plan for AND isn't just IRL casual clothes, lol.
For Crown of Blood, it widely varies by region, as well as social class, but most if it is medieval era Western (and East Asian!) clothing. I don't really know how to explain the fusion quite yet, but basically for Adrasteia specifically, she has a wider range because she's literally royalty and can therefore afford import costs. Her outfits range widely from more standard traditional clothes to clothes that have a fusion in terms of cuts and patterns. Skirts that wrap and tie, but are shaped kind of western, etc. Think some of the fancier clothing in Meiji period Japan as well as the mutual Eastern influences on Edwardian England and France.
There's an article about it on "lilyabsinthe.com", and while I don't know the validity or full accuracy of these claims, either way I liked the idea and want to explore it more. I've seen more modern examples of ideas online, of people mixing traditional and kinda modern pieces that I like, but I unfortunately don't have any on hand (it is VERY messy in my phone lol). But I'll leave it here because it's getting WAY too long haha.
The commoners/less obscenely wealthy, I'm thinking of a few ideas for. I initially was curious about the idea of clothing similar to some minority subgroups (I was particularly fascinated with Ainu and Nivkh clothing), but then I realized that might come across as insensitive/sending a bad message, etc. So I think I'll leave that for another story. My current idea is to have either medieval western clothing or even older East Asian clothes, though I haven't 100% decided which one is better/simpler etc. I'll have to determine the weather first. Obviously since this is an empire, there are definitely other cultures and societies that all make up the bigger entity. So they're not going to all have the same clothes, even amongst commoners if they're from different regions.
I think I'll have to determine the weather/terrain and culture of the regions first. The main hub of the empire is kinda woodsy with various bodies of water (but no ocean), so they might traditionally opt for tighter fit clothing- but I mean, Europe had plenty of forests, and people still wore long skirts, so... maybe I'm just trying too hard!
This is DEFINITELY too long now so I'll cut it here! Basically I've no clue yet, but I'm really fascinated by the idea of a fusion! Thanks again for the ask!