Fantasy World to Write About (lots of Aspects)

This project is a huge help to aspiring writers. When you create culture for stories, and why other people act the way the do, and just to make it feel more authentic, having a world building job ready to go is very useful.

Note: this is a quick and easy version. For Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives, he spent 10 years of world building. (and it shows!)

1.Paper

2. pencil

3. translator (probably a computer for this)

4.Creative mind

First brainstorm some terrain ideas for your map. These are mine. TIP - put mountains in the back to avoid having to make an unclear horizon

(list)Terrain: Mountains in the North + NW

River flowing south

Jungle SW

Desert NE - Shrubbery to the S

Lake in S

Prairie + Meadow elsewhere

Get your pencil and paper ready to draw! I am starting with the mountains and putting them in the back. I just use triangles to represent the mountains.

I don't really know how to start a river, so mine is coming out of the mountains and pretty much cutting the map in half.

I put a jungle for my river to flow into. The trees are so close that all you can see is the top.

I started with a few big ones and worked my way SE with smaller ones.

Since the trees are farther apart you can see their trunks. My trees are just two curvy lines with a squiggle on top.

Remember - this map is for you! Make it as intricate or not as you want!

Like with my jungle, I put a few big trees and then filled in with smaller ones.

I drew a border for the desert (using my terrain list) and then made another for shrubbery.

My shrubs are the little squiggly lines - this picture may be hard to see.

Time to add cities! If this step seems like too big of a jump and you don't know where to go, check out the relationships step.

My cities are groups of buildings. The buildings are squares with a round line for a roof.

translate something that applies to your cities in latin. You might want to combine long things into a single word or pick one from the translation.

Lake - lacus - the city by the lake

Letens-secret: the city farthest north

Pedem-foot the city at the foot of the southernmost mountain

inerprope-almost/between :the farthest south mountain city

Chasma-chasm the one between a mountain (left and right)

Recta-straight the one on the right side of the straight part of the river

Procul-away the citie far in the East, away from all other cities

Curvae-curve the city on the inside of the river curve

Arborus-trees the city in the jungle

capti-trapped the city that is on the outside of the curve - I’ll just pretend it’s farther north

some things were changed to flow better

This is based on where they live. For me:

Mountain, River, Desert, and Jungle people

Mountain People - Petra: rock (mountain is the same in latin)

Desert People - Vastitas: desolation, apart, alone,

Jungle people-Saltu: jungle

River people-flumen: river

What wars have happened? Why did they happen?

Petra fight with Fluman.

Flumen want mining, Petra want fish

Saltu people defend their home against the Petra when the log

Vastitas are alone

Think about the recources that may be available to every people and what they might want

Here's my list:

Flumen women - loose shirts and open loose dress men - no shirts and loose pants

Petra women - tight dresses and hoods men - tight pants and hoods

Vastitas - flowy wraplike clothing

Saltu - animal skin togas + feather arms men - same but with pants

Think about functionality - what clothing would be best suited to the work the people do? If the people are rich, do the opposite, inability to do work has been seen as being rich since the medieval days.

My list:

Flumen + petra - believe in the omnituens, who can see there actions and deliver retribution
Saltu - believe in the spirits of nature

Vastitas - unknown

This one is hard to do. If you are having a hard time coming up with something, think about religions of people from a long time ago in the real world. ( eg. Maybe you could do an alternate version of Greek Gods)

This one has a lot of wiggle room. Come up with something fun! Here's mine:

Saltu: all equal - democracy
Vastitas: defeat someone in a duel and you move up the ranks. Higher ranks get first pick of job

Flumen: passed on by birth. Couples of different rank receive the higher rank. Children as well. Higher ranks have lower fish quota to receive grain ground by water mills

Petra: Dark skin is better and (as a result) live in wood homes - darker is better because that means you don’t spend your days mining.

about Petra: In history lighter skin was better because you only had light skin if you stayed inside. Poor people would work outside and do hard jobs.