creating a culture

[Queshire]

Quick survey; what all do you guys think I need to include if I want to build a believable, fleshed out culture for my world?

 

[ThinkerX]

Not sure which world of yours you are talking about.

Also, what sort of society? A magical equivilent of the contemporary US? A fantasy kingdom? Some sort of arcane republic? A totalitarian state?

Each of these would require different things in order to be properly 'fleshed out'.

 

[Queshire]

*shrug* just a culture in general, actually, I'm writing a paper for class about the process of creating a fictional culture. I just want to know what you all think goes into making a culture.

 

[ThinkerX]

Hmm...now we don't just provide writing advice, but help with homework as well

Ok...Religion and how people interact with it.

Government, how people interact with that, and what kind of control it has over their daily lives.

Castes /Class, formal (rigid and well defined) or informal - is it acceptable, say, for a common fisherman to become a captain of industry? If it is, the caste/class situation is informal, if it is unthinkable and really offensive, then these divisions are pretty hard. What are the relationships between the various castes and classes?

Military - is the culture militaristic? If so, expect lots of really bruising team sports, martial songs, and strong peer pressure to joing the army. Otherwise, there may not even be a true professional army.

Food - what are the most common meals? What sort of food is served on special occasions? Are there meals that cut across caste or class lines?

 

[Ghost]

If you're asking for general information aboutcreating cultures, you might want to take a gander at Creating Interesting Societies since it touches on this topic.

 

[Ophiucha]

Geographic location dictates a great deal of it. If you live in lush, fertile lands with no harsh winters, you likely would care less about gods of the harvest, since you always have a harvest, whether you pray or not. It determines what you wear, what you eat, and what you need in life (desert people are more concerned with water, since it is scarcer). It determines how you progress. If you don't have access to metals like iron, you simply won't progress along the same 'tech tree', to use Civilization terminology, as we did. You might not progress at all. Who knows. If you are walled in at all sides by mountains, you likely care less about military endeavours, since so few would be able to attack you.

Morality would be the second thing, again tied to everything else. Government, religion, equality among women, other races (if present). Animal rights: you could have a vegetarian or vegan culture if the people believe that is morally just. If you have your geographics and a basic idea of morality, the rest of the process is just giving everything a decent name.

 

[Shockley]

Food, music, what passes as comfort and what passes as barely surviving.

 

[Janga]

Political and religious structure.
Wealth of the people (class system? Poor? Rich? etc)
Geographic location (medieval England vs. Desert City etc etc)

I think those are the big three. Of course you can be as detailed as you want.

 

[zizban]

Start with a single real life culture and read how it all connects. There is no formula for this. Personally I worry less about believable and more about consistency. Everything should make sense about a culture (a simple example: the wheel wasn't a high priority among the Mongolian but mastering horses was because of the vast expanses they had to travel).

 

[Ankari]

Culture is independent of religion. It may be influenced by it, but culture can develop without religion.

Culture is the norm and expression of an identifiable group of people. So culture would be clothing, spoken language or dialect, music, art, food and etiquette of a people.

Governments, religions, wealth, geography, castes and military may influence a culture, but they do not define it. These would be aspects of a nation rather than a culture. Take a look at any culture which spans more than one country and you'll see this to be true. If you need an example look at the South Americans of Spanish descent. You'll find that they share much of the same cultural aspects but have different national expressions.

 

[Telcontar]

Culture is not the same as religion, but the two are not independent. In fact, I think that is the most important thing about creating a culture/civ/society for fiction - remember that nothing is independent of anything else. Religion will affect culture will affect politics will affect morals will affect religion.

I would say to start with history, and that in a large part starts with geography as Opiucha said. Give them an early history, ask yourself what it would mean to a primitive culture, and then start building from there, fleshing out some more history as needed. All cultures will change over time, and major events will have significant impacts (take a look at the people of Southern Spain before/during/after the period of Almohad rule).

 

[Jabrosky]

I think Telcontar's onto something, but my current method is to take real historical cultures and mix up their characteristics to produce something new.

 

[Saigonnus]

Go for the basic things any culture needs to survive as a building block. Food/resources they generate/trade, Basic societal structure, religions, geography (which could affect other areas), military might (or not), religions prevalent and of course transportation. Also consider what they look like while taking into account climate and possibilities of emigration (i.e. is your culture a mixing pot like modern ones or do they all have the same basic heritage?) What do they wear or build their homes from? are they sedentary (stays in one place) or are they migratory?

All of these questions/concepts could help to create a believable and fairly realistic culture.

 

[Devor]

I would say to start with history, and that in a large part starts with geography as Opiucha said. Give them an early history, ask yourself what it would mean to a primitive culture, and then start building from there, fleshing out some more history as needed. All cultures will change over time, and major events will have significant impacts (take a look at the people of Southern Spain before/during/after the period of Almohad rule).

That's cool, but to help narrow it down a little, I find it useful for me to focus on a specific event or two which most defines their history, and then figure out what built up or resulted from the event. Kind of like starting with WWI and WII, and then figuring out the before-and-after-and-inbetween.

 

[Ankari]

Culture is not the same as religion, but the two are not independent. In fact, I think that is the most important thing about creating a culture/civ/society for fiction - remember that nothing is independent of anything else. Religion will affect culture will affect politics will affect morals will affect religion.

I would say to start with history, and that in a large part starts with geography as Opiucha said. Give them an early history, ask yourself what it would mean to a primitive culture, and then start building from there, fleshing out some more history as needed. All cultures will change over time, and major events will have significant impacts (take a look at the people of Southern Spain before/during/after the period of Almohad rule).

I have lived in places where culture are not influenced by the religion of the people. The Middle East is a great example of this. One would think that Muslims, Christians and Atheists would have very different cultures, but this is farthest from the truth. Each religious community (or non religious) follow their faiths passionately, but the clothing, foods, music, etiquette and language are all the same.

Again, I don't refute that religion has a strong influence on cultures, all I am saying is that cultures can and do exist without, or independently of, religion.

 

[Anders Ämting]

Quick survey; what all do you guys think I need to include if I want to build a believable, fleshed out culture for my world?

I tend to approach this by asking two questions:

1) Which other culture (or cultures, if I am doing a combination) do they most resemble when it comes to the bells and whistles?

2) What is their collective "cultural personality"? What is their outlook on life, what do they believe in, and what quirks do they have as a people?

The answers to those questions will be the foundation I build the culture on. Note that question 2 doesn't necessarily have to be related to question 1. In fact, it often works better when it doesn't.

 

[Shockley]

I got to agree with the guys who are saying that religion is independent of culture.

The majority of the world's believers follow religions that came from one of two places: Israel or India. Most of these believers (with the exception of Hindus) do not live in the country where their religion originated.

The largest Muslim country is Indonesia. It's culture is far more Polynesian than anything we'd recognize as Arabic. China is more 'Chinese' than Buddhist, as can be seen by the major cultural differences between them and say, Japan and Burma (both of which are also Buddhist or super Buddhist influenced).

Heck, look at converts. Clovis and Guttorm the Old were both converts to Christianity late in life. They both stuck to their previous culture, though.

 

[Telcontar]

Independent is still the wrong way to think of it. "Not dependent on," certainly - but the society as a whole is impacted by the major religions within it. Religion affects culture. As it affects everything else, and vice versa.

Saying that a person 'stuck' to his previous culture is problematic. Culture is a society and group trait, not the trait of any single person. Furthermore, it is the sum of an extremely diverse set of things - including religion itself. It all adds up to my original stance: no part of a society/civilization is truly independent from the whole. You cannot remove any single aspect without affecting all of the rest.

my current method is to take real historical cultures and mix up their characteristics to produce something new.

@Jabrosky: I often do this as well, but I - and I imagine you as well - have to refine those parts to make them fit with each other.

 

[Shockley]

Saying that a person 'stuck' to his previous culture is problematic. Culture is a society and group trait, not the trait of any single person. Furthermore, it is the sum of an extremely diverse set of things - including religion itself. It all adds up to my original stance: no part of a society/civilization is truly independent from the whole. You cannot remove any single aspect without affecting all of the rest.

That's why I picked Guttorm and Clovis. They both Christianized their respective groups: Clovis the Franks, Guttorm the Vikings living in Anglo-Saxon England.

 

[ascanius]

One thing I did was write a travel guide through that realm where the culture lives, important people, places, customs, everything. It's a great place to start because you can go into further detail with the smaller aspects. Also it will tell you a little bit about the why and significance, how it is different.