Feb

28

Worldbuilding in the Gates of Amduat: Transportation and Communication

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Welcome back!

Today it’s transportation and communication. The nomads travel mainly by foot or camel. A few – usually tribal leaders – have horses. Sometimes oxen are ridden, or used to pull wagons. There are no magical means of transportation. If urgent messages need to be sent, and they’re short ones, the equivalent of carrier pigeons are used. If those are not available, then someone is sent to deliver it and possibly bring back a reply. If it is not urgent (or of relatively low importance), it’s carried along by someone as their family/tribe moves and delivered when they reach their destination.
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Feb

25

Worldbuilding in the Gates of Amduat: Commerce and Trade

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Now we’re into the next section of the worldbuilding questions. This time it’s commerce and trade. As I’ve seen – and mentioned before – some of the questions are repeats from other sections, but that’s fine. I’ll answer them as needed.

The countries and nations that existed before the war with the Green Lord are gone, remembered only as names in stories. What exists now are much smaller networks of cities, or in the case of the desert area where Gates of Amduat is taking place, towns and tribes. There are the standard rivalries between tribes and towns. Some towns welcome trade and contact with the nomads, while others shun them or are even openly hostile.
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Feb

24

Why I Hate Worldbuilding

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As much as I love writing and creating, sometimes worldbuilding can feel like such a chore. Here’s why:

It forces me to sit down, slow down and think. I don’t always want to do that? Why can’t I just start typing up the story? (Because, Lisa, you’ll make a mess of it and end up rewriting about 30k words because you had absolutely no consistency.)

For me, worldbuilding on the fly just doesn’t work. I need to have something, even if it’s a barebones idea of what I’m aiming for. For example, I’m working on the Thayar, a race and culture for a novel I have on the backburner, and part of the world of Kolrath. (I’m working on developing Kolrath fully into something for publication as a role playing game campaign setting.) It’s in the very early stages, but the defining sentence is “highly advanced magic/tech underwater society forced to integrate into primitive Celtic surface one in order to survive”. Sounds kind of crazy, but it works for me – I know what I’m aiming for.

So tell me. What do you hate about worldbuilding, and what do you do to make it easier?

Feb

23

Worldbuilding in the Gates of Amduat: Weapons

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Weapons are everywhere, from knives to guns to personal particle accelerator rifles. People fight all the time, and it’s something we need to think about when worldbuilding. We’ll be taking a look at the nomads and the people from the temple.
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Feb

22

What is a Meta-Story

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We’re taking a bit of a side trek here, and talking about an aspect of writing known as meta-story. I first came across this concept when running role playing games. As I learned it, the meta-story is the overarching story of the game or campaign. Everything that happens is a part of it, even if it’s not obvious as you’re playing through it all.
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