D. Gray Warrior
Troubadour
I am planning on building a fantasy world, but I do not know how to go about it.
Building from scratch seems overwheling and I feel like no matter what I do, the fictional society will be too similar to a RL culture.
I get that some resemblance to real life cultures is inevitable, but to what extent should you borrow from those cultures?
Let's say you want to build a world and you use China as the main inspiration for your culture. How similar should you make it? Do they have their own versions of Confucianism and Taoism and philosophy or do they have their own beliefs completely different from their RL counterpart?
I know Avatar borrows heavily from Asia with a little Native American thrown in (Southern Water Tribe are Inuits, for example.), but it is still very Asian-esque from architecture, to names, etc.
I want to use a real life culture as a starting point for worldbuilding and have it go its own way as I development more. I want a balance between RL cultures while still having plenty of creative freedom when designig the culture and world
However, it is tempting to make such cultures very similar to their real life counterpart, just with different names.
I'm trying to find the middle groud between TvTrope's "Fantasy Counterpart Culture" and worldbuilding from Scratch.
Building from scratch seems overwheling and I feel like no matter what I do, the fictional society will be too similar to a RL culture.
I get that some resemblance to real life cultures is inevitable, but to what extent should you borrow from those cultures?
Let's say you want to build a world and you use China as the main inspiration for your culture. How similar should you make it? Do they have their own versions of Confucianism and Taoism and philosophy or do they have their own beliefs completely different from their RL counterpart?
I know Avatar borrows heavily from Asia with a little Native American thrown in (Southern Water Tribe are Inuits, for example.), but it is still very Asian-esque from architecture, to names, etc.
I want to use a real life culture as a starting point for worldbuilding and have it go its own way as I development more. I want a balance between RL cultures while still having plenty of creative freedom when designig the culture and world
However, it is tempting to make such cultures very similar to their real life counterpart, just with different names.
I'm trying to find the middle groud between TvTrope's "Fantasy Counterpart Culture" and worldbuilding from Scratch.