Withering Wastelands

Hello again!

Welcome to another blogpost. Today we'll be diving into a slight different topic, namely, the process of worldbuilding and my personal takes on it.
I felt like it would be fun to embark on a couple of blogpost adventures, where you could come along with me and dive into some aspect of storytelling or anything surrounding it. And what's more relevant for a first episode than a direct reflection on the fantasy world of "The Boundless Saga", welcome to a deep dive on Gylgomorah, welcome to the origins of my very own Withering Wastelands.

I wanna talk a bit about worldbuilding in general first, before launching off into specifically the setting of a fantasy world, the influence of it on the world, and mainly how to make your own. Then I wanna talk about 'realism' and its close connection to the setting and worldbuilding process, followed by a closer look on my very own world and how I grew my world into what it is today. So hop along if you're interested, and get ready to be inspired!

Worldbuilding 101: so what actually is Worldbuilding?

Worldbuilding is simply put the process of building a world. And even though that may sound like something only relevant to immersive science-fiction book series or RPG games set in a medieval fantasy setting, it actually stretches way beyond that. Worldbuilding applies for pretty much any fictional story told. It applies to a wide range of magnitudes, taking the form of imaginary characters, fictional events, or even amplified social rules or relationships. These are all elements that play a part of worldbuilding, it sets limitations, rules, expectations, or even settings that our (newly invented) personas need to abide by.
So again, what is worldbuilding then? To me, it is the creative process of making those rules. It is the creation of peculiar characters, the invention of historic events, as well as the concepts behind large-scale (fantastic) societies and cultures—it is invention!

But while worldbuilding stretches more genres than you might have thought, I would like to orient this post towards the fantasy genre, centering the concept of worldbuilding to the creation of literal, fictional worlds. It is in this branch of worldbuilding that one could spend a lifetime mapping out every single detail of a world, ranging from the vague outlines of a timeline, to the geological formation of some "wildstone" in the eastern oceanic trenches.
Yep, it's wide, versitile, but eventually everyone needs to start somewhere, with a decision that highly influences the creation of whatever might follow: The Setting.

Worldbuilding 102: Picking a Setting

During the process of building a literal fantasy world, you'll be making a lot of decisions. Arguably the most important one however is going to be the setting, what are the natural restrictions of your world, and what are the historic restrictions.
The setting of something is generally defined as the context, filling in the broader idea of the environment, history, and circumstances. This might sound a bit vague in terms of fantasy though, because what does it mean for a fantasy world to have circumstances, or an environment? To me, this relates mostly to two important aspects:

• Geological context, and;
• Circumstantial context.

Geological Context

With geological context, I mostly aim to convey the range of geological features and biomes that are possible within your world. Think about what climates might exist, how those interact with one another, what happens when they intersect, or how the answer to any of these questions might differ from what's known and conventional in the geological context of Earth or another planet.
In other words, the geological context marks where your stories or characters might end up (or where they won't).

Circumstantial Context

The circumstantial context on the other hand applies more to the fantasy aspect of worldbuilding, it tells you what can and what can not. This might sound a bit vague, but let me see if I can put it more clearly:
Let's have a look at some fantasy examples. Imagine a world where water flows upwards, or a world where the earth is constantly moving at high speeds, or maybe even a world where just seeing a particular color is enough to put you to sleep. I'm just naming some extreme examples here that severely change the way the world work, but these are rules you can just come up with, rules that influence the way the world work, and the way that characters interact with it. Some other (more grounded) examples include a world where magic exists and is practised, a world where magic can only be practised by a particular race or people, or gods exists, and they could grant access to magic or its use. Another example I'd like to mention is the Highlander concept, where a certain race exists that can only die by being beheaded.
The circumstantial context includes all these examples, its the rules of the world, it's what's fact (whether your characters know about it or not), it's the rules and limitations where everyone and every process needs to abide by.

Constructing a Setting

So to put it all together, we can now construct a setting. Taking the grounded (geological), and the fantastic (circumstantial) rules, we have basically got a world. This marks your basic ruleset and what's possible within that frame. It basically sets you limits for your own process of creation, which might limit your options and your freedom at first, but it will eventually help manage the sheer scale of what worldbuilding can turn out to be.
Combining these rules might yield you a cold world, that only has distant suns, shining upon the surface a mere 4 hours per day. Though nevertheless a world where any temperature above 0°C (or any other system you want it to be) can cause severe burns on the people. But maybe it is more of a balanced world, one that knows climates similar to earth, but where it never rains and where the only source of water is the blessing of the gods.
See how much fun it is to experiment with these ideas, so much is possible, and all of that is only just confined within the concept of a setting. And these settings enable your story to take versitile perspective, purely based on what your characters will have to face, where they originate from, or what their goals might be. The setting eventually lays the foundation for the storytelling within your world.

The Reality of a Setting: Okay, but Why?

Something that I like to pay a lot of attention to within worldbuilding is realism. I know that a lot of people actually don't care too much about this, and that is completely fine as well—it's your world after all—but I would like to go over how realism in worldbuilding can actually be used as a tool over a restriction, and how it can actually make your world more alive than ever.

Imagine the following scenario: You stumble upon a world where all white rocks float. The first thing that crosses your mind (or at least, crosses my mind), is why? What makes it that the white rocks fly, and the others not? For the solution behind this scenario, I can currently think of 3 possible explanations:

1. "They just do." — This is the simple explanation, there is no realism behind it or any explanation why white rocks fly, other than the fact that they just do. If you don't feel like diving too deep into explanations or new rules that need to be followed, this is a solid answer—you want white rocks to fly, so white rocks fly, duh. It can also serve as a great placeholder that doesn't immediately lock you into limitations, but can later be worked into a more complete world.
2. "Magic" — This is another simple explanation, white rocks fly because magic makes it fly. This immediately adds realism, since magic will allow this rule to exist within the circumstantial context for your world. If your world knows magic, then magic is a valid answer for making white rocks fly. But even though this explanation is correct and real, it can be further expanded upon for a more immersive world. This is where realism really becomes your friend. You could ask yourself: "Who or what casted magic on the white stones?", "Does it apply automatically to newly formed white stones?", "What type of magic makes rocks float in the first place?". These are some really interesting questions to explore, both enhancing the history of your world, along with the rules, and the completeness of your magic system.
3. "Because white rocks are the only rocks to contain Gymorraphonitite, a chemical compound released in the formation of..." — This is what realism in a Low-Fantasy setting will get you—the hard way so to say. It gives a clear reasoning that still makes sense within the circumstantial rules, though this is more directly comparable to how explanations like these work on Earth. Just like I described above, this system—and the use of realism within the explanation—can be such a great tool for worldbuilding. It requires you to think of chemical compositions, what elements might be contained within what minerals and compositions, and what the effects are within. It can also spark new inspirations. If white rocks fly because of the chemical element within the white pigment, does that mean that other things that are white can fly? Could there be different types of white, depending on whether or not it contains the chemical element? Is it something that wears down over time? What else can that element be found in?
   As you can see, plenty of questions to ask, and plenty of world to develop. But I must warn you though, if you take this route, the rules of your world could become really complex really soon...

Notice how explanation can gradually expand the possibilities of your world? Just pausing for a second and looking at the reasoning or meaning behind certain phenomenons can both deepen the lore and realism behind these phenomenons, as well as maybe spark new inspirations, new ways of thinking about what actually happens and how the elements of your world are secretly more connected than you might guess at first sight.

Realistic Settings?

So to put it all together, how can you add realism to add depth to your setting? I pretty much just have a single answer for you, ask yourself, but why?
Let's say, you have a cold-temperatured setting where the inhabitants of your world don't get older than 35. You can start asking yourself the first question, but why is that? Maybe because that is the age where a lot of people catch the common disease called "Icebite". Okay, but why? Maybe because that is when your body stops making certain biological hormones. Okay, but why? Maybe because at that age your organs have fully stopped growing, meaning there is no longer a need to keep producing the hormones. Boom, we have just created some very deep biological lore about the inhabitants. It might even allow for possibilities for people to research cures for this "Icebite", or maybe there is a cure, but it's only available to the wealthy, allowing them to live up to 135. There is endless possibilities, and all because of that simple "why" question. Realism isn't so bad after all, huh?

The Setting of Boundless

To maybe put all of this in context, I thought it might be fun to go over my personal worldbuilding project: Gylgomorah. This is the world that serves as the playground for "The Boundless Saga", and I've been able to slowly chip away at this world bit by piece for almost 2 years at this point. That being said, there is still soo much that needs more attention. But without further ado, let's just get into it:

Geological Context of Gylgomorah

As I have mentioned before, Gylgomorah is not fully developed yet, since I'm not quite sure yet whether the continent I have constructed should be the entire world or not. So far, there is just 3 major regions, which are layered horizontally. In the north, there is the cold and the mountains, in the south are mainly plains and lush greenery, and in the dead center of it all is what is called "The Wastelands". This is not exactly quite as barren as the word "Wasteland" would imply, but still, it's pretty dry out there.
As I mentioned earlier, the bigger scope needs some work, so honestly I cannot go too much into detail behind the geological context (I also didn't quite explore my aforementioned process of realism yet...), so let's maybe skip over to the next section:

Circumstantial Context of Gylgomorah

Gylgomorah is a wonderous place, and as such, it does know magic. However, since I personally like the taste of scientific realism a bit better, I tried to explain most reasoning through biological and chemical systems. There are a few species (and certain minerals) that are known to possess magic, and those are also used accordingly. I wanted to create floating islands for one of my cities, and as a result, I added the mineral "Moonstone" at its core, known to hold magic and make the islands float.
As for the people, I have created a couple of races that are all a bit more grounded in the sense you would expect humans to be. They are all human-like, and differ through a combination of psychological and visual features. These features however are all grounded in the race's history. For example, People who have always lived in the burning heat of "The Wastelands", also have a tougher skin, whereas cave dwellers have better eyesight. Additionally, I loved to draw a lot of inspiration from minerals and interaction. This means that Gylgomorah has plenty of unique minerals, which might or might not interfere with the biological composition of the people.
Finally, the existance of gods is a fact, though it's merely a belief for the people. Some choose to believe the gods exist, while others don't. They have a realm of their own, which interacts in its own ways with the 'real world' so to say.

In conclusion, I must admit that Gylgomorah is maybe not the most unique of settings, but as its still in its early days, I do love experimenting with the setting and context as a go. It creates a fun element to think about, while still opening new options every day. To name one, gods exist and "The Wastelands" exist. Why are "The Wastelands" wastelands? Could it be because a fiery god is buried beneath the earth? Maybe its heat radiates so much that it even starts melting the sand into shards of glass on the surface? Maybe the tough skin isn't a consequence of the sun or heat, but actually a biological response from the people against the radiation, pulsing from the core of "The Wastelands". Something to think about, not?

Closing Thoughts

I think that'll be enough to keep you engaged for a bit, I do love worldbuilding a lot, and I hope it shined through via this blogpost. I hope I inspired you or made you see things in a different light, and if I didn't, I'm surprised you're still here.
But nevertheless, everything I'm writing about here is close to my heart, along with the writing itself of course. If you feel like you wanna share something, a project you did yourself or maybe even some feedback on this new style of blogposts, you're always welcome to reach out :)

Okay, go on, make something cool already, I've had my turn to ramble!