Hi everyone — writer and long-time worldbuilder here

[Thavelgard]

Hi everyone!

I’m Joseph. I’ve been writing fiction and building fictional worlds for several years, and worldbuilding has gradually become one of the parts of storytelling I enjoy the most.

I’m especially interested in large interconnected settings — cultures, histories, mythology, languages, factions, characters, political relationships, and the way all of those things influence one another over time. I also enjoy experimenting with constructed languages and thinking about how language, culture, geography, and history shape fictional societies.

One thing I’ve become increasingly interested in is continuity. The larger a fictional world becomes, the more difficult it is to remember not just individual pieces of lore, but how those pieces connect and how changing one part of the world can affect several others.

I joined Mythic Scribes because I’d like to exchange ideas with other writers and worldbuilders, learn how other people approach these problems, and hopefully contribute something useful from my own experience as well.

Looking forward to meeting everyone and exploring the forum!

 

[hjgranhof]

Hi everyone!

I’m Joseph. I’ve been writing fiction and building fictional worlds for several years, and worldbuilding has gradually become one of the parts of storytelling I enjoy the most.

I’m especially interested in large interconnected settings — cultures, histories, mythology, languages, factions, characters, political relationships, and the way all of those things influence one another over time. I also enjoy experimenting with constructed languages and thinking about how language, culture, geography, and history shape fictional societies.

One thing I’ve become increasingly interested in is continuity. The larger a fictional world becomes, the more difficult it is to remember not just individual pieces of lore, but how those pieces connect and how changing one part of the world can affect several others.

I joined Mythic Scribes because I’d like to exchange ideas with other writers and worldbuilders, learn how other people approach these problems, and hopefully contribute something useful from my own experience as well.

Looking forward to meeting everyone and exploring the forum!

Hi, Thavelgard! I'm new here, as well.

Something I use to track my world concepts is a wiki program called Obsidian. It's free and can be customized pretty heavily.

Also, for the passage of book time or the determination of people's ages according to their birth dates, you might like Aeon Timeline.

Glad to meet you, and cheers!

 

[ThinkerX]

'Large, interconnected settings.' Been there, done that, still at it, with a dozen books out there set across three separate worlds. Interlinked histories, mythologies, all that.

But character and story take priority.

 

[Thavelgard]

Hi, Thavelgard! I'm new here, as well.

Something I use to track my world concepts is a wiki program called Obsidian. It's free and can be customized pretty heavily.

Also, for the passage of book time or the determination of people's ages according to their birth dates, you might like Aeon Timeline.

Glad to meet you, and cheers!

Thanks! Glad to meet you too.

I've heard a lot of good things about Obsidian, especially how flexible the linking system is. Aeon Timeline sounds interesting too — keeping ages and chronology consistent is actually one of the things I’ve struggled with most as my worlds got bigger.

I eventually ended up building my own system in Notion for that reason, called The God Terminal. It started as a way to keep track of my own characters, places, factions, bloodlines, events, languages, and timelines, but it gradually grew into a much larger connected worldbuilding system.

I’m still very interested in seeing how other people solve the same problems, though, so I’ll definitely take a look at both Obsidian and Aeon Timeline. Thanks for the recommendations!

 

[Thavelgard]

'Large, interconnected settings.' Been there, done that, still at it, with a dozen books out there set across three separate worlds. Interlinked histories, mythologies, all that.

But character and story take priority.

Absolutely — I agree with that.

For me, the worldbuilding is there to support the characters and the story, not replace them. Once a setting gets large enough, though, I find that keeping the history, factions, timelines, and relationships straight becomes its own problem. That’s actually part of why I started building The God Terminal (Gumroad) in the first place — not to make worldbuilding more complicated, but to keep the background complexity from getting in the way of the story.

Twelve books across three worlds is impressive, though. I’d be curious how you keep everything consistent across them.

 

[hjgranhof]

Wow! The God Terminal sounds like a pretty intense world building toool.

Admittedly, I'm only one and a half books into my series, and I'm kind of exploring my world as I go.

 

[ThinkerX]

Absolutely — I agree with that.

For me, the worldbuilding is there to support the characters and the story, not replace them. Once a setting gets large enough, though, I find that keeping the history, factions, timelines, and relationships straight becomes its own problem. That’s actually part of why I started building The God Terminal (Gumroad) in the first place — not to make worldbuilding more complicated, but to keep the background complexity from getting in the way of the story.

Twelve books across three worlds is impressive, though. I’d be curious how you keep everything consistent across them.

Two of the worlds began as AD&D game settings: a sort of 'mythic Europe dominated by a Roman Empire that didn't fall,' and a bizarre ribbon of land on aaaaaa world of water that wrapped around the entire planet. After a time, I began asking basic questions that mostly never occur to gamers or fantasy authors.

1 - These are low-tech societies. So, how did these people come to be on these worlds, and what of the nonhumans like goblins and elves?

2 - People have magic on these worlds. Magic doesn't really exist on Earth. Why is this?

Both questions had the same answer: the utterly inhuman 'ancient aliens,' a race with naturally high PSI ability, who took primitive humans and others from their home planets to these worlds as test subjects and servants. Modifications to primitive humans resulted in dwarves and elves (sort of). Goblins and hobgoblins are aliens with a highly skewed male-to-female ratio (100 to 1, give or take).

As the alien civilizations declined, their subjects gained autonomy: work camps became vassal states. Select humans and others were genetically imbued with very high PSI ability. The aliens continued to import humans and others right up until their civilizations imploded about 2000 years ago. Humans and others brought in retained elements of their old societies, leading to warped versions of Rome, ancient Egypt, Greece, and others.

Now, the ancient aliens are little more than myths, the vassal states are kingdoms, and the high-PSI folk are 'wizards.'

There is a bunch more: semi-functional alien tech is all over the place, Lovecraftian abominations are poking about, and...

 

[Thavelgard]

Wow! The God Terminal sounds like a pretty intense world building toool.

Admittedly, I'm only one and a half books into my series, and I'm kind of exploring my world as I go.

Yeah, that’s actually pretty close to how I like to work too. I don’t think a world needs to be completely mapped out before the story starts — a lot of the best ideas show up while you’re writing.

The God Terminal really became useful for me once all those discoveries started piling up and I needed to remember how characters, places, histories, and little details connected to each other. So I see it more as something that grows alongside the story rather than something you have to fill out beforehand.

One and a half books in is probably right around the point where the world starts developing a mind of its own anyway.

 

[Thavelgard]

Two of the worlds began as AD&D game settings: a sort of 'mythic Europe dominated by a Roman Empire that didn't fall,' and a bizarre ribbon of land on aaaaaa world of water that wrapped around the entire planet. After a time, I began asking basic questions that mostly never occur to gamers or fantasy authors.

1 - These are low-tech societies. So, how did these people come to be on these worlds, and what of the nonhumans like goblins and elves?

2 - People have magic on these worlds. Magic doesn't really exist on Earth. Why is this?

Both questions had the same answer: the utterly inhuman 'ancient aliens,' a race with naturally high PSI ability, who took primitive humans and others from their home planets to these worlds as test subjects and servants. Modifications to primitive humans resulted in dwarves and elves (sort of). Goblins and hobgoblins are aliens with a highly skewed male-to-female ratio (100 to 1, give or take).

As the alien civilizations declined, their subjects gained autonomy: work camps became vassal states. Select humans and others were genetically imbued with very high PSI ability. The aliens continued to import humans and others right up until their civilizations imploded about 2000 years ago. Humans and others brought in retained elements of their old societies, leading to warped versions of Rome, ancient Egypt, Greece, and others.

Now, the ancient aliens are little more than myths, the vassal states are kingdoms, and the high-PSI folk are 'wizards.'

There is a bunch more: semi-functional alien tech is all over the place, Lovecraftian abominations are poking about, and...

Okay, this is exactly the kind of worldbuilding that makes me want to keep asking questions.

What I really like here is that you’re not just adding “fantasy things” because the genre expects them — you’re giving them causes. Magic becomes PSI. “Ancient races” become the remnants of biological and cultural intervention. Even the warped versions of Rome, Egypt, and Greece have an actual historical reason to exist instead of just being aesthetic copies. That makes the setting feel like it has archaeology rather than just lore.

And honestly, this is the sort of setting where The God Terminal starts becoming useful very quickly. You’ve already got ancient civilizations, population transfers, genetic alterations, multiple species, political succession, technological remnants, mythologized history, magic/PSI, and probably a lot of contradictions or unanswered questions that only appear once you start connecting all of those things together.

The Terminal wouldn’t make those creative decisions for you, but it can keep track of the chains between them — who came from where, what changed genetically, which cultures inherited what, which myths preserve distorted historical facts, what technology is still functioning, what events contradict each other, and which questions still have no canon answer yet. That last part is actually something I built into it pretty deliberately: unresolved canon gaps and continuity problems can be surfaced instead of disappearing into old notes.

Your “ancient aliens became gods/myths, PSI became magic, work camps became kingdoms” progression is especially cool because it gives you a very long causal spine to work with. You could probably trace a present-day kingdom all the way back through myth, migration, alien intervention, and collapsed technology.

Now I’m curious about one thing: do the people in the present day have any idea that magic and the old gods are connected to PSI and alien technology, or is that truth almost completely lost?

 

[ThinkerX]

There are a very few 'Ancient Aliens' left. ('Kwintath': they resemble giant centipedes, but usually wear hooded, silvery robes when interacting with others.) They were never treated as Gods. What got them and everybody else in trouble was their extensive experiments with the 'Etheric Realm,' also called 'Null Space.' FTL travel, including Portals, passes through this space - and it is not empty. All sorts of effectively God-like entities are connected with this space, some semi-benevolent, some indifferent, others being literal Lovecraftian abominations. Many require a token of some sort to exist in the physical realm.

There are also the purely immaterial entities of the Astral Plane, who occasionally 'possess' suitable bodies to offer moral instruction and encouragement. (Saints.)

The dominant religion of the dominant Empire (Solaria) on the main world is monotheistic with multiple saintly orders, mostly Astral beings, though there were Etheric impersonators. They do not tolerate competition and claim authority over wizards. Summoning 'spirits' carries an automatic death penalty.

The omnibus for the main series is 'Empire: The Complete Collection,' set in the tottering Solarian Empire a few years after the devastating Demon War. It centers on four MCs: Tia, a wealthy commoner hunting for a highborn husband; Rebecca, her minstrel and maid; her grim bodyguard Sir Peter; and her carriage driver Kyle, a tortured veteran with a knack for magic. They attempt to forge new lives in a nation they no longer understand while dealing with past trauma - but the demons are still out there, whispering in Tia's dreams...

Elsewhere, wizardly spirit summoners are literal aristocrats, but they often end up slaves to the spirits they summoned, which usually results in lots of corpses. The corrupted realm of Traag, Solaria's foe during the Demon War, sacrificed tens of millions to a Lovecraftian deity. They began as one of the old vassal states.

The Kwintath are myths, though a few people know they exist. What is left of their tech is scattered across the planet. Sometimes it is treated as jewelry, while functional pieces are deemed 'magic.'

In 'Labyrinth War,' another alien race, the highly unpleasant crab-like Gotemik, used salvaged Kwibtath tech with moderate success to keep their civilization going. (The Gotemik were refugees fleeing a Lovecraftian apocalypse.) Much of 'Labyrinth War' is set in the gargantuan living maze of Gawana, a Kwintath construct.

 

[Thavelgard]

There are a very few 'Ancient Aliens' left. ('Kwintath': they resemble giant centipedes, but usually wear hooded, silvery robes when interacting with others.) They were never treated as Gods. What got them and everybody else in trouble was their extensive experiments with the 'Etheric Realm,' also called 'Null Space.' FTL travel, including Portals, passes through this space - and it is not empty. All sorts of effectively God-like entities are connected with this space, some semi-benevolent, some indifferent, others being literal Lovecraftian abominations. Many require a token of some sort to exist in the physical realm.

There are also the purely immaterial entities of the Astral Plane, who occasionally 'possess' suitable bodies to offer moral instruction and encouragement. (Saints.)

The dominant religion of the dominant Empire (Solaria) on the main world is monotheistic with multiple saintly orders, mostly Astral beings, though there were Etheric impersonators. They do not tolerate competition and claim authority over wizards. Summoning 'spirits' carries an automatic death penalty.

The omnibus for the main series is 'Empire: The Complete Collection,' set in the tottering Solarian Empire a few years after the devastating Demon War. It centers on four MCs: Tia, a wealthy commoner hunting for a highborn husband; Rebecca, her minstrel and maid; her grim bodyguard Sir Peter; and her carriage driver Kyle, a tortured veteran with a knack for magic. They attempt to forge new lives in a nation they no longer understand while dealing with past trauma - but the demons are still out there, whispering in Tia's dreams...

Elsewhere, wizardly spirit summoners are literal aristocrats, but they often end up slaves to the spirits they summoned, which usually results in lots of corpses. The corrupted realm of Traag, Solaria's foe during the Demon War, sacrificed tens of millions to a Lovecraftian deity. They began as one of the old vassal states.

The Kwintath are myths, though a few people know they exist. What is left of their tech is scattered across the planet. Sometimes it is treated as jewelry, while functional pieces are deemed 'magic.'

In 'Labyrinth War,' another alien race, the highly unpleasant crab-like Gotemik, used salvaged Kwibtath tech with moderate success to keep their civilization going. (The Gotemik were refugees fleeing a Lovecraftian apocalypse.) Much of 'Labyrinth War' is set in the gargantuan living maze of Gawana, a Kwintath construct.

This is really good. I especially like how the Etheric Realm and Astral Plane feel genuinely different rather than just being two names for “magic.” The religious side of Solaria is interesting too — saintly Astral beings on one hand, but an automatic death penalty for spirit summoning on the other. That immediately creates tension between faith, fear, authority, and magic.

The Kwintath material may be my favorite part, though. Ancient technology surviving as jewelry or being mistaken for magic is a great detail, and Gawana being a gigantic living maze instantly raises questions. I’d definitely want to know what it was originally built for.

The more you explain this setting, the more it feels like a world with accumulated history rather than a collection of separate lore ideas. That’s a very strong foundation.

 

[pmmg]

Howdy Thavelgard, Welcome Here.

 

[ThinkerX]

This is really good. I especially like how the Etheric Realm and Astral Plane feel genuinely different rather than just being two names for “magic.” The religious side of Solaria is interesting too — saintly Astral beings on one hand, but an automatic death penalty for spirit summoning on the other. That immediately creates tension between faith, fear, authority, and magic.

The Kwintath material may be my favorite part, though. Ancient technology surviving as jewelry or being mistaken for magic is a great detail, and Gawana being a gigantic living maze instantly raises questions. I’d definitely want to know what it was originally built for.

The more you explain this setting, the more it feels like a world with accumulated history rather than a collection of separate lore ideas. That’s a very strong foundation.

For Gawana, read 'Labyrinth War.'

As to surviving alien tech... yes, some of it is 'Star Trek' level... when it works. Much of 'Empire: Judgment' (book 6) is set on what's left of a Kwintath starship, but keepining even basic systems operational is a challenge.

Solaria and similar countries are developing tech from the ground up. Two provinces (Carbone - roughly Greece, and Equitant, industrial) had long reputations for innovation. Between them, they created printing presses, spyglasses, and a network of semaphore towers that allowed messages to traverse thousands of miles in days rather than months. Traditional (slave state) elements in Solaria viewed these creations with alarm, leading to them being restricted to the Church and State, or treated as toys for the rich. Then came the decades-long Demon War. Unable to match Traag's magic, the Emperors pulled out all the stops. Legions pedaled across the empire on bicycles. Balloons floated overhead. Special troops used gliders to bypass defenses. Explosives were developed. All were used or witnessed by millions of troops and civilians from across the empire. The last few battles left the Emperor with a million unpaid troops and an empty treasury. Desperate to stave off anarchy, he offered all veterans land and full citizenship in lieu of coin. That increased the middle class tenfold overnight, tripped off an industrial revolution, and ignited social unrest. Now, bicycles and similar machines are everywhere.

 

[Thavelgard]

For Gawana, read 'Labyrinth War.'

As to surviving alien tech... yes, some of it is 'Star Trek' level... when it works. Much of 'Empire: Judgment' (book 6) is set on what's left of a Kwintath starship, but keepining even basic systems operational is a challenge.

Solaria and similar countries are developing tech from the ground up. Two provinces (Carbone - roughly Greece, and Equitant, industrial) had long reputations for innovation. Between them, they created printing presses, spyglasses, and a network of semaphore towers that allowed messages to traverse thousands of miles in days rather than months. Traditional (slave state) elements in Solaria viewed these creations with alarm, leading to them being restricted to the Church and State, or treated as toys for the rich. Then came the decades-long Demon War. Unable to match Traag's magic, the Emperors pulled out all the stops. Legions pedaled across the empire on bicycles. Balloons floated overhead. Special troops used gliders to bypass defenses. Explosives were developed. All were used or witnessed by millions of troops and civilians from across the empire. The last few battles left the Emperor with a million unpaid troops and an empty treasury. Desperate to stave off anarchy, he offered all veterans land and full citizenship in lieu of coin. That increased the middle class tenfold overnight, tripped off an industrial revolution, and ignited social unrest. Now, bicycles and similar machines are everywhere.

That’s a really satisfying chain of cause and effect. I especially like that the technological shift doesn’t happen because the setting suddenly “advances,” but because the Demon War forces Solaria to use anything that might work. Bicycles, balloons, gliders, explosives, semaphore networks - once millions of soldiers and civilians have actually seen those things function, there’s no realistic way to put that knowledge back in the box.

The veteran settlement is probably my favorite part of this. Turning a military and financial crisis into a massive expansion of citizenship and land ownership, and then having that accidentally trigger industrialization and social unrest, feels very believable. It makes the postwar world sound genuinely transformed by the war rather than simply damaged by it. Really interesting setting.

 

[ThinkerX]

There are other realms and regions on the main world that are not as well developed: a primitive quasi-Russian nation (a setting for unpublished short stories), a fragmented oriental realm that is mostly a sketch, a lot of feuding hobgoblin city-states, and the 'Hundred Nations,' huge nomad tribes roaming the near-endless grasslands of the southern hemisphere, who occasionally form into vast hordes that toppled entire empires - or created new ones.

But there is also the other major world, the world of the Strand. When the Lovecraftian apocalypse hit several thousand years ago, the Kwintath had a notion: a protected 'Refuge World.' They took a planet that was mostly water, then stitched together many of the existing landmasses, then raised connecting pieces from the deeps to create the Strand: a ribbon of land that wraps around the entire world, but is usually no more than fifty miles across, and frequently less. At regular intervals, about a thousand miles apart, they placed the pyramidal 'Nexuses' (Later termed 'Shrines') that served as a sort of shield against Lovecraftian abominations. They imported millions of people to this planet before their civilization collapsed.

The Shrines worked...for a while...before an especially nasty race bypassed them. The result was Hell's own reign across much of the Strand before this race did something on an island continent that eradicated their evil empire, killed most of the Kwintath...and one hell of a lot of other people. (Think 300-foot tsunami moving at 200+ miles per hour.) The remaining Kwintath did manage to get the Shrines semi-functional, but that left them utterly spent. Most of the other races nd fiefs on the Strand developed a deep terror of the sea, and will not willingly sail out of sight of land. Lands past the Strand (two continents, plus island chains) are seen as accursed.

Enter the Solarians. Before they were an Empire, the Solarians were villagers on an island on the primary world. A despot decided to annex this island. Twenty towns found themselves cut off from the others and fled into the shunned Kwintath ruins. There, a Portal took them to the Strand, where they went into the Empire business. The leaders of those towns became the Twenty Families, who retained varying degrees of influence ever after. That Empire didn't fare well. For that matter, Empires of any race seldom lasted long on the Strand (resources) and usually ended in violent collapses. Finally, in exasperation, most of the remaining races and fiefs on the Western Strand formed the Dimmurian League, a sort of alliance that sort of maintains the peace.

Then there are the Pilgrimages. Even in their current state, the Shrines are immensely powerful. Visions, strange dreams, and supernatural events are common, some positive, some not. Pilgrims of multiple races travel between the Shrines, seeking hints of a better future. These Pilgrimages are regarded as semi-sacred by most of the fiefs and races along the Strand, who also maintain the Pilgrim Road and waystations.

Tech? Generally more advanced than the main world. Railways (usually goblin-operated) span thousands of miles in some places. Medicine/health is not bad. 'Line Talkers' use the Shrines for communication. Complex mechanisms are common.

 

[xena]

Welcome to the forum! There is a huge and wonderful community of worldbuilders here as well!!