Religions have a significant hand in shaping the cultures around them, and developing them can be a powerful tool both in developing those cultures and in exploring worldview. While I’ve talked before about the basics of creating a fantasy religion, today I want to talk about some of the complexities and details that will deepen that religion (or really any organization or culture) and make it feel more organic and complete. Continue reading “How to Deepen a Fantasy Religion”
Category: Culture-Building
Preptober Prompts Day 10 – 2020
It’s the last prompt of the week! Drumroll please…
Who are the great heroes who have shaped your storyworld?
Lorcan and Valda (the Elfbournes’ parents) have been fairly instrumental in the shaping of The Hylands. They’ve already driven out King Julen once, and they’ve helped banish discrimination against faeries in The Hylands.
Valda’s father Willian helped defend The Hylands from Julen’s father Cordier; he died in battle, but not before he’d nearly secured victory and his men were able to finish pushing Cordier back.
There was also an older Lorcan, King Lorcan’s namesake, who was a renowned hunter and Continue reading “Preptober Prompts Day 10 – 2020”
Preptober Prompts Day 7 – 2020
Today’s prompt is all about multi-cultural influence:
Have outside cultures impacted your story’s core setting? How so?
These prompts are making me miss Deseran, because Aleruus is so much less dynamic. XD I mean… King Julen influenced King Lorcan and Queen Valda to ship their kids off to Earth for safe-keeping while Julen was trying to conquer a bunch of stuff, so the royal children were gone for ten years. And Thienid can be thanked for the Dewin, several of whom are currently stationed in The Hylands. Although neither of those are really… cultural. Um… King Lorcan decided to hire a faerie high steward, which is rather akin to Teradel?
Nope. I got nothin’. :P Someplace in Kersir would have been so much more interesting for this prompt. XD
How about you? Have your cultures intermixed, or are they still young and unique?
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5 Reasons We Don’t Have Flying Cars (and the Worldbuilding Takeaways)
A couple of weeks ago, I had the strange idea to write a post about why we don’t have flying cars. “Well that’s random,” I thought. “Where in the world am I going to post that?” And then the idea rattled around in my head for a couple of days and I realized I could associate worldbuilding principles to my reasons for our current lack of flying cars. So… here we are. XD Continue reading “5 Reasons We Don’t Have Flying Cars (and the Worldbuilding Takeaways)”
How to Write About Converging Cultures
It’s been wayyyy too long since I last posted, and even longer since I posted something other than a blog tag. I could blame the fact that the Coronavirus goings-on have turned my brain completely upside-down, but that’s really only part of it, so… Regardless of the reason, I apologize for totally disappearing. :P
Anyway, I got a writing question from one of my newsletter subscribers last month and it was on a topic that I find really fun: mixing cultures. I had several tips on the topic, so I thought I’d adapt the advice I gave to the subscriber into a blog post and share it with y’all. :) Continue reading “How to Write About Converging Cultures”