world-build for ranmaro

[magician2magici]

hello

how are you all ??

And I still think that we agree on the essence.
Worldbuilding is pointless when badly done.

that's what i read from the thread of world-build pointless or not , so i decided to open my paper here , some may say like my workshop of my world of my story ..

here , i'll show you my world build , discuss with you what i made , hearing from you your opinions and learn ofcourse


so , here we are , together at the door gate of ranmaro..

my story depends on new myth i created where i use the whole world as my play ground , i ended two parts so far , where i never needed world-build , as they were the basis for the rest of the story..

now i'm at part three , where i need so strong well-built fantasy world..

from following your lead here , i've drawn a general map of the new world , which is name ( ko-you) world , which is far planet , connected to ours by an old universe accident , this new planet is the field of my new world

i'll say it as simple as i can , i need to construct a whole new world , so big to be like our world ..

this is the general map ,
zSHARE - 4.jpg

as you can see there is three continents here , each consists of sub-areas , two continents have 6 areas , and the third has only 5 areas..
the legend which drives the events at this part , says that there is a hidden area , a legendary area , at each continent , which has been hidden for so long time..

ranmaro - my hero - has to retrieve the three legendary area , to do so he has to visit each area of the continent , release the seal at certain temple at that area , when all the seals are removed , this hidden area will be retrained..

so , from this talk , ranmaro has to visit each area , has adventures at each area , so i have to make very strong base of my world

so , my question here , what would you do if you were me ? what do you think i should cover at the preparation of my world ?

i'm thinking of the people , their towns and places , their languages , their history , then the nature of the landscape and geology ,

do you see any missing things in my plan ? any advice you have to me ?

sorry for this long talk , but i hope you can help me,,

thanks to all

salam..
el-saher>>

[Peter Graham]

Hello M2M

i'm thinking of the people , their towns and places , their languages , their history , then the nature of the landscape and geology ,

This depends entirely on how much time you have. If, like the great Prof Tolkien, you have a spare thirty years or so in which to work out the intricacies of several different Elven dialects and the will to write about twenty tons of back story that no-one will see, then go for it.

If, by contrast, you are more interested in the action and the story, you might want to cut a few corners. A few hints from one who doesn't really know but likes to comment anyway (all my stuff is based in the here and now)....

1. Paint with a broad brush. You need the world fleshed out enough in your own head to make it all hang together, but you can get a long way in the text with bits and bobs of flavour - names, the odd word of dialect, that sort of thing. This is what most fantasy does - different worlds, different names and the odd strange word to denote different languages, but still more or less everyone rides around on horses, drinks in taverns and fights with swords.

2. Keep it consistent.

3. Don't waste too much time on unnecessary detail - for example, the marriage customs or dry-cleaning rituals of parts of the land to which your hero will never actually go.

4. Unless it's necessary for the plot, be slow to introduce entirely new laws of physics. Rivers of flouresecent green mercury flowing away from the sea and heading uphill to arid purple deserts might sound pretty exciting, but you'll lose your reader almost immediately.

4. Never, never, never practice wierd social eugenics whereby all of the nice people live in one place and all of the evil people live in another place called "blasted death land" or something similar.

do you see any missing things in my plan ?

Oceans!

Regards,

Peter

[Sapheron]

Why is your world square?

As Peter said, where be the seven seas, argh?

Why are these 'areas' there? Is it based on national or geographical borders (or both)? If so, surely people realise when the whole of the country next door goes missing? Surely, therefore, someone would go to see what's going on. Why can't they?

Do you actually intend to write his visit to each of the many areas? That sounds like a lot of boring stuff, if you ask me. I think I'd cut it down to a few less of them, or gloss over the majority, in which case you don't need to think about them much.

[magician2magici]

hello peter
how are you ?

mmm , you can say i have the same time that tolkien had , actually i don't interest in time as much to the result , which matters me most

for me , i have a question here , at my region they consider taking the elves , dwarfes , the giants , and goblins from tolien or from any other source is a shame , is this right ? can't i use these creature and modify them to suit my story ?

for me , i hate preparations , during which i can't write , always preparing preparing , but i get used to it somehow , and i hope i can enjoy it later..

your advices are good , and i use some of them now , about the oceans , i'm hesitated about them , why i describe a thing i won't use now ? i'll use them later ofcourse , but for sure not for part three..

thanls for your advice , i'm waiting for more:d ..

salam..
el-saher

[iansales]

Elves, dwarves, giants, dragons, etc. appear in many mythologies, and so can be used. AFAIK, only orcs and hobbits are specifically from Tolkien, and so protected by copyright. I may be wrong about orcs, but I seem to recall TSR having to use "halfling" in place of "hobbit" in Dungeons & Dragons because of Tolkien.

[Giovanna Clairval]

We do have Orcs in Europe (from Latin Orcus).

Maybe they couldn't swim across the Channel.

And yeah, a square world? Like Tolkien's middle-earth? And Robert Jordan's square map with mountains kindly and conveniently rising on two orthogonal sides?

Aren't you afraid of being taken to Court? I mean one of the Courts of Chaos, with the accusation of being on Order's payroll.

[magician2magici]

Originally Posted by Sapheron

Why is your world square?

As Peter said, where be the seven seas, argh?

Why are these 'areas' there? Is it based on national or geographical borders (or both)? If so, surely people realise when the whole of the country next door goes missing? Surely, therefore, someone would go to see what's going on. Why can't they?

Do you actually intend to write his visit to each of the many areas? That sounds like a lot of boring stuff, if you ask me. I think I'd cut it down to a few less of them, or gloss over the majority, in which case you don't need to think about them much.

hello sephron
how are you ?

good questions you ask , for the first one , i don't intend it to be a square like , i maybe not see this point before , i only drew it like that , like the world maps , but it seems wrong , right ? so what do you think ?

the areas..
do you know the word control ?
here is the same..

when i told you about the ancient accident of the three planets , the planet named - (ko-you) has its own people ofcourse , who are named after the planet ( ko-you people) those people has the view of control over humans at planet earth , and this control came from the fact that they , and only they , can travel between the two planets , however humans not..

so they have some sort of self over-esteem and so they started to overcome the only aspect that humans have the upper hand at , which is the number of people..
humans always had the large numbers , so the ko-you people tried to overcome this by many studies , which all ended by revealling the fact that the human females are more fertile than their women , so they started to take human females , marry them , and give birth , but the result was un-expected..
the new babies were so different , they have the shape of huamns - which differs from the shape of ko you people abit - and some powers of ko you people , which is magic..
those new specis were named - beto you- who are actually the magicians , werewolves , and vampires..

so after many desperate tries from ko-you people to fix the problem , they admit the defeat , and tried to make a final solution to save their dignity..
they mobilize the ko-you people from their planet to the human planet- earth ofcourse- where they lived in hidden towns , away from the humans..this thing happened after a series of events prepared carefully by ko you people , and ofcourse without the knowledge of the beto you people..

these facts happened as you can say seven thousands years ago , and my story happens at our time now , so these facts have been modified to become like legends , old un-confirmed legends, like the legend about these areas ,

the fact also that the ko-you world has become like a museum for the beto-you people , they visit from time to time for certain purposes , but now , the situation has changed..

i guess this explains why the borders aren't known before , and why people don't understand..
also there's a point here , these borders are like political borders , they are illusionary lines which determine the areas only , the purpose of this lines won't matter us now , but it's like an ancient heritage from old kingdoms to nowadays people , we - in fact and in reliable life - inherit so many things , and don't understand their origion , here is the same..

the next question , which is the greatest challenge to me, yes , it may be boring , but i see my world as wide as the universe , as my imagination too , i'll try my hard to guarantee that each adventure differs from the past , and from what will come next , if i don't give my adventures their own taste , i'll consider myself a big failure , you can say that i'm crazy , for sure i'm , i have a secure way , and non-secure one , and i chose the last one , becuase i love challenging impossible , and i love destroynig it ,

for the seas , i see they have a great influence on the reader , i'll have adventures in seas , but truely , part three is full of events , i don't have spare for it..

you may ask about the place of it in the map . i'll say , you only have what our heroes have , but this isn't the true nature of this world..

i hope i could make these points clear
any questions , opinions , advices , i'll be truely grateful for you to share..

and i'm so happy for your discussion , waiting for your next

salam..
el-saher>>

[magician2magici]

Originally Posted by iansales

Elves, dwarves, giants, dragons, etc. appear in many mythologies, and so can be used. AFAIK, only orcs and hobbits are specifically from Tolkien, and so protected by copyright. I may be wrong about orcs, but I seem to recall TSR having to use "halfling" in place of "hobbit" in Dungeons & Dragons because of Tolkien.

hello ians
how are you ?
yeah , i got your point here , so elves , dwarves , giants , and all what've mentioned before in old mythologies i can use , thank you for this , i really had a nightmare ,
about hobbits , i see them some modification of dwarves by tolkien , and i can't truely use them as my world doesn't suit them ..

orcs..
here is another nightmare , i really got fascinated of them , strange creauture , like people , eat human flesh meat , i see them a good example for the evil soldiers , and i can't keep them away from my mind , but i'll try to figure out a solution , as i truely need evil soldiers , need them so much..
do you have any advice about this matter ?

thanks for your opinions
salam..
el-saher>>

Originally Posted by Giovanna Clairval

We do have Orcs in Europe (from Latin Orcus).

Maybe they couldn't swim across the Channel.

And yeah, a square world? Like Tolkien's middle-earth? And Robert Jordan's square map with mountains kindly and conveniently rising on two orthogonal sides?

Aren't you afraid of being taken to Court? I mean one of the Courts of Chaos, with the accusation of being on Order's payroll.

hello giovanna , who inspired me by this thread
how are you ?

courts ? no ofcourse , i'm not afraid

square world , yes , truely i got what tolkien drew , studied them carefull , so i can draw my own..
by i took only the way of srawing , i mean how he drew the mountains , the lakes , the hills , and then i use my imagination , the instructions i read here about what should not be in a map , and some of geology rules i remember , and drew the map..

by the way , i'm now drawing a single map for each area , to help me in my story..

thanks for the share , and i think it's better not to use orcs by any means , they are actually connected to tolkien , but do you have any idea about creatures that suits to be evil soldiers ?

thank you..
salam..
el-saher>>

[chopper]

Hey there M2M,

The map is interesting, if a little too constrained by the page itself, but my main focus is on that southernmost continent. Obviously we can't see the full geographical or geopolitical detail here, but I'm wondering how/why these areas/countries are divided up the way they are. Most countries use some form of geographical divide to separate them - a shared river, or mountains, for example. If the borders are imposed upon them, they can look like the State lines in the US. This southern continent looks like each area has encroached on the others at one time or another, perhaps suggesting constant feuding and ever-shifting alliances (Eastern Europe as a very loose example). Areas 2, 3, 4 & 5 all meet at the same point- a central city? A place for negotiations? A sacred place?

Sometimes you can draw the map from knowing what the story requires; sometimes you can draw the map and then build the ideas that result into the story.

Hope this helps in the process..

Chopper

[Peter Graham]

Hello M2M

for me , i have a question here , at my region they consider taking the elves , dwarfes , the giants , and goblins from tolien or from any other source is a shame , is this right ? can't i use these creature and modify them to suit my story ?

Like Ian said, Tolkien didn't invent elves, dwarves etc. "Orc" is from an old Scandinavian word, but Tolkien just used it as another word for "goblin". Tolkien raided the larder of Western and Northern European folklore and mythology and re-invented what he found there.

What he also did was set down the invisible ground rules for how other races look and live. I might be wrong, but I have a feeling that he popularised the notion that elves were a separate race of pointy-eared, long living, musical clever dicks who lived in forests. Much copied ever since in fantasy literature, to the point that it is now almost impossible to do anything else with them. However, Elves have existed as a concept for centuries in Faerie stories, where they variously appear as large, small, winged, mischievous, tricksy, evil or helpful.

Dwarves are similar. Tolkien popularised the idea of dwarves as stumpy, bearded miners living in caves and spending all their considerable lives talking about gold, but in Norse mythology (from whence they came) they were giant sized lumbering behemoths, hewn from the rock.

Much the same thing happened with goblins, although it appears that in recent years they have become green-skinned!

I think what I am trying to say here is that so much of what we now take for granted in fantasy was down to Tolkien. If you want to avoid comparison, I'd be inclined to steer away from these conventions and do something different. You could even avoid European mythology entirely and draw your literary seed corn from other cultures (Egypt would be an obvious choice in your case - ancient culture doesn't get much better than that!).

Good luck!

Regards,

Peter

[iansales]

Alf Laylat wa Layla has been pretty well plumbed by Western literature already, so the idea of Western mythology being used by someone from the Arab world sounds like it could result in an interesting perspective on the genre.

Of course, there's always the danger that the current state of fantasy has yet to reach Egypt. After all, Tolkien wrote his books 50 years ago, and a lot has changed since then...

[magician2magici]

Originally Posted by chopper

Hey there M2M,

The map is interesting, if a little too constrained by the page itself, but my main focus is on that southernmost continent. Obviously we can't see the full geographical or geopolitical detail here, but I'm wondering how/why these areas/countries are divided up the way they are. Most countries use some form of geographical divide to separate them - a shared river, or mountains, for example. If the borders are imposed upon them, they can look like the State lines in the US. This southern continent looks like each area has encroached on the others at one time or another, perhaps suggesting constant feuding and ever-shifting alliances (Eastern Europe as a very loose example). Areas 2, 3, 4 & 5 all meet at the same point- a central city? A place for negotiations? A sacred place?

Sometimes you can draw the map from knowing what the story requires; sometimes you can draw the map and then build the ideas that result into the story.

Hope this helps in the process..

Chopper

hello chopper , how are you ?
sorry for this late , but i was kinda busy ..

well , you have good eye , although this map doesn't illustrate the geographical state of each area , but you asked a good question ..

yes , there is no one landmark extending from one area to another ..
this may look strange , but surely i have an explanation ,,

i said before that there is one legendary area , hidden area at each continent , well , this area actually extends like snake between every area and the other , that means the lines that here is the borders , actually it hides this legendary area , which seperates the whole areas from one another .. strange idea i got here .. i hope you understand it ..

so this explain why there is no one landmark extending from one area to another , as these areas aren't actually beside each other , but they are separated by the hidden area which prevents the geographical landmarks to be shared between areas .. and also to be the borders between areas ..

about the sea and the distribution here , long time ago there was no sea , the land of the planet was one whole continent surrounded by huge ocean , but after what happened to the ko-you people and beto-you people , ko-you people made a curse , big one , which cause great damage to the land , making areas lower than the others , then theses areas were automatically filled by the ocean , which developed the new seas ..

this was for a reason , as deep inside this sea there is a complete society of ko-you people at many big island , where they live away from the eyes of beto-you people , and ofcourse at safe place to make their evil plans

last thing is that this map here is what my heroes have in their hands , but it's not the true map of the planet , there is many hidden places and secret areas not present here ..

interesting talking , and yes it helped me alot in stabilizing my world , thank you , and hopefully you come back ..

salam..
el-saher>>