In an early world building phase

[Merri]

So, hello! I'll make a long story as short as I can. In the current flow of time I'm 36 years old web developer with not a lot of experience on writing fiction. I had my Tolkien moment in the late 90's and created Finnish forums on Tolkien which have been online since 2001 and still going which is a rarity considering how many forums died with the rise of post-forums era social media. Have had struggles in life, but got myself to worklife 12 years ago and managed to stabilize my life so that I'm now in a position where I can safely have a little bit of extra time off while I'm looking for my next developer position

I have all sorts of interests and have some insane projects such as localizing Civilization V and VI to Finnish. So it isn't surprising I've had a world in my mind for a while that has been evolving from a game idea into a more refined fantasy setting with inspirations from Tolkien, Final Fantasy, Breath of the Wild, Babylon 5, and climate crisis. I have a lot of interest in taking the baseline of elves, humans, dwarves and hobbits from Tolkien, but what also interests me is to have more reality mixed in. Thus I'm not going for a mythology but more of a world that does evolve much more as far as technology is considered. There will also be no orcs. As there will be a climate crisis which will happen in the world there will also be a collapse and loss of knowledge. And since there will be elves in the story there will be characters who will experience all of that, which makes for some interesting challenges. Especially as there will be no magic in the world to save the day or to provide convenient escapes.

There is still a lot to do and I only have two characters at the moment. The main villain will be greatly inspired by Kefka of FF6. So far instead of characters I've spent much more time thinking about the world and I've used a planet generator to create a suitable setting for the ideas that I have. It is likely this project will not be completed before I die, but I'll have fun with it and see where it goes

 

[Mia]

Hello and welcome on the forum!

 

[S.T. Ockenner]

no magic? Sounds like Sci-Fi

 

[Merri]

After a global catastrophe many things that previously could be explained will be magic to the characters. I guess before the fall the setting has more resemblance to a steampunkish scifi than to a regular fantasy. The development of technology will have a very different focus to that of the world we know to allow for a more fantasy based tone. The familiar mechanical vehicles like trains will end up being a very short lived invention before collapse. Doing that convincingly is a challenge. I like the aspect of having an explanation and the work required to achieve them when building the world, and the possibilities it gives for telling a story. What people are doing in different parts of the world based on varying levels of limited knowledge of the past? At that point various cultures will have their own unique myths.