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Today’s post will be the second part of the two-part series. The first post was published last week – “Galaxies To Explore…At Your Fingertips!” – and this post is the sequel. If you missed last week’s post, don’t worry, you can still read this post – just make sure to check out the previous post once you’ve finished reading this one.
Today we’re going to be exploring the different kinds of Fantasy worldbuilding you can use in creating your worlds, analysing the infinite potential of your keyboard. I will be using four different worlds I have created as examples: the world of Reavers (as featured in my ongoing Reavers serial fiction), the world of Gornathoria (from my WIP Curse of the Lightning’s Cry novel series and WIP The Balefire Lust novel), and the world of the Sky Islands (which features in my WIP Honour Thy Father novel).
First, we will look at Reavers (no spoilers). Now, at this point, the world of Reavers isn’t super fleshed-out. I have written fifteen chapters so far (with plans for many more) which have roughly begun the worldbuilding of the narrative. Overall, though, Reavers is an exploration of an urban fantasy world, similar to modern-day shonen worlds such as in Chainsaw Man and Jujutsu Kaisen. Intrinsically, though, what I like about this exploration of urban fantasy is that it combines aspects we are aware of – like cities and technology – with Fantasy, but in a way where it isn’t quite Sci-Fantasy. Yes, Reavers is set in the future, but this future is more a loose Sci-Fi, an excuse for me to explore certain aspects I maybe couldn’t if the world was set in the modern day. It also allows me to write my own history without having to do it in an Alternative Universe format.
The worldbuilding of Reavers and other urban fantasy stories comes down to two parts: the “normal” world (your towns, cities, ordinary people) and the fantastical world. This is an interesting method of worldbuilding, as you can combine the mundane with the extraordinary and the ordinary with the – quite frankly – bizarre.
The next route of worldbuilding we have is where we abandon the mundane entirely and create our own vibrant and unique worlds entirely independent of reality. This genre is typically referred to as epic fantasy. My own epic fantasy world is Gornathoria, a high medieval world that encompasses three main continents and many, many islands between them. Now, with epic fantasy, there are many different ways you can go about it. You can gritty and realistic – like A Song Of Ice And Fire or The Witcher – or you can go a bit more whimsical, a bit more magical, a bit more fantastical – like The Lord Of The Rings or The Wheel Of Time. Both methods and unique and fantastic in equal measure; it depends on taste as to which of the two you prefer. I love both. As such, I decided to combine the two in my own novel series: The Curse Of The Lightning’s Cry. There are those quintessential aspects of realism – racism, culture, language, politics, and an in-depth examination of how various regimes and places function – but there are also key bits of traditional epic fantasy: varied races such as elves, dwarves, orcs, droiden (my OC), llaerns (my OC), pojahs (my OC), and jakos (my OC); a grand, sweeping prophecy, spelling doom for all; and amidst the grey morals and politicking, an overarching tale of good versus evil.
For an example of this, I want to examine two excerpt from the first chapter of A Curse Of The Lightning’s Cry: The Brothers’ War.
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Extract 1
He battled to keep a calm face – as his father had taught him – to keep himself from falling too far to despair or anger. Gholaeris is the final casualty of this war. There is nowhere else left, no fortress of Hurram-dur still stands: Orleld is a lifeless ruin, Fel’dum a husk of ash and dust; as for Angrios…Angrios is gone. This mountain is the coffin for the last remnants of Hurram-dur.
His eyes flashed across the ruins, watching the Ajanns as they darted down streets and alleyways, swords stained red and hearts stained black. Flames spiralled within him, ones that dwarfed even those that blazed through Gholaeris.
—
The page later turns to:
Extract 2
His eyes fixed on the tall tower of white stone ahead of him looming over the carpet of fire and burnt-out ruins: the Great Porumeneum. Within its walls lay the records for thousands of years of Gornathoria’s history, meticulously tended to by the shrewd, uptight wahhers. Stories and legends Jarial had read in the Great Porumeneum had declared Gholaeris the greatest fortress of the dwarves. It had resisted sieges throughout the millennia of its existence: against the Lords of Mithel and the Vidri in the Heiran Crusade, against the dwarven Dais in the various Breakings of the Sword, and a furious attack from the mighty Hajbane forces of the Ispolin during the Years of Fire. But now, under the might of Aja, Gholaeris had fallen.
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Notice how Extract 1 carries that gritty tone, while in Extract 2, we are introduced to some of the history of the world, the stories and legends which make peoples’ collective consciousness. Does the extract still lean towards more modern Fantasy storytelling? Yes, but it does also take some aspects of traditional Epic Fantasy.
Finally, I just want to look at the world of the Sky Islands, as featured in my WIP novel Honour Thy Father. What I want to illustrate is that your world need not fit neatly into any one category of Fantasy worldbuilding. I would describe the world of the Sky Islands to be “Steampunk Vikings.” While it sounds as though I’ve been able to neatly categorise it, I have only been able to do that by going unorthodox. There isn’t really a genre which encompasses it.
So to you guys, I say, just go wherever your imagination takes you!
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What are you still doing here? It’s over. Go home, back to your keyboard: there’s stories to write and galaxies to type!
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