Fantasy Worldbuilding Resources
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I don't know about anyone else, but for me one of the most fun aspects of writing fantasy is worldbuilding. In fact, I have so much fun creating elaborate cultures and histories and maps that I often don't even make it to writing the actual story. Oops. But whether you're like me and have so much fun creating the world that you never actually sit down to write its story or your story is already written and you want to make your world and its rules more coherent and consistent, I have a whole bunch of resources for you!
I will continue to add helpful links and resources about all aspects of science, culture, and fantasy as I find them. Although intended primarily for fantasy and science fiction writers, the information in this lens should be useful to gamers as well.
Books About Worldbuilding
Questions and Things to Think About
These are some of the best general world-building articles, essays, and questionaires to help you start thinking about your world. It's not necessary to answer every question or address every issue, of course, but reading through these links is a great way to help you decide what's important to consider.
- Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions
- Compiled by Patricia Wrede, author of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, these questions include things to think about from all aspects of fantasy world building: from biology and geography to culture and the rules of magic.
- Creating an Earth-Like World
- Compiled by Geoffrey Morven, these questions focus on the scientific aspects of world building
- Designing a Fantasy World
- A general overview of scientific and cultural aspects of world building
- World Builders
- Free online course materials from California State University, Los Angeles, primarily focusing on the scientific aspects of world building
- The Mythopoet's Manual
- These essays by Loren J. Miller focus on cultural and religious aspects of world building
- Limyaael's Fantasy Rants
- Rants and essays on just about any aspect of fantasy world building you could think of
- Creating a Fantasy World
- Includes information about industry trends
- Imaginary Worlds
- Blog, forums, and podcasts about different aspects of worldbuilding
- Creating a Fantasy Realm
- Another Squidoo lens with worldbuilding information and advice
- Magical World Builder's Guide
- An article on worldbuilding by Stephanie Cottrell Bryant
- A Way With Worlds
- Worldbuilding column on a variety of issues
- Worldbuilding From the Ground Up
- An interview with sf/f masters Dave Duncan, Dennis Jones, Anne McCaffrey and Juliet McKenna.
- Writing Workshop: How Much of My World Do I Build
- One of a series of workshops on worldbuilding by Holly Lisle
- Creating Fantasy and Science Fiction Worlds
- Another good introductory article on worldbuilding
Constructing Languages
Some writers use names and words from existing languages. Others think them up off the top of their heads, as they go. Yet others like to create real rules for the languages in their fantasy worlds. These can range from a simple decision that all female names end in 'a' or 'e' and all male names end in consonents, to dreaming up entire grammar systems, alphabets, and vocabularies.
- The Language Construction Kit
- Extensive information on linguistics for language constructors
- Lang Maker
- A language construction wiki
- Chris Pound's Language Machines
- Computer scripts to generate random names, vocabularies, kung-fu moves, creatures, spells, and so on based on real or imaginary languages.
- Fantasy Name Generator
- For serious use and fun, includes some specialized generators like a generator for Pernese dragon names, an insult generator, and more
- Ardalambion
- Comprehensive resource on Tolkein's many constructed languages
- Everchanging Book of Names
- The famous random name generator for 32-bit Windows systems.
- Medieval Names Archive
- Extensive information about medieval names of various cultures
- A Naming Language
- A detailed guide to inventing a language to use for realistic names
Classic Fantasy Worlds: Narnia
Another of the most influential fantasy series of the modern era, C.S. Lewis's Narnia was created as a Christian allegory, though it works just fine as a thrilling adventure story, too.
The Bestiary
Few fantasy novels are complete without a few dragons, elves, unicorns, or other legendary creatures running around. And you don't need to stick to the old standbys either. How about some kelpies waylaying travelers foolish enough to walk by themselves after dark? A chupucabra frustrating shepherds? Or perhaps your unicorns are really bloodthirsty karkadanns?
- Encylopedia Mythica
- One of the most comprehensive resources for gods, monsters, heroes, and other mythological creatures, persons, and places on the web
- Castle of Spirits
- Information about ghosts and spirits from around the world
- Monstropedia
- A wiki about monsters and other imaginary creatures
- List of legendary creatures
- Wikipedia's list of legendary creatures
- Medieval Bestiary
- A list of creatures, real and imaginary, with information about medieval beliefs about the creature
- Mysterious Britain
- Information about legendary creatures, places, and objects from Britain
Creating Realistic Fantasy and Science Fiction Creatures
Some fantasy and most science fiction writers will need to create new species for their worlds
- Test challenges for Alien Encounter: Communicating with Aliens (Part I)
- An exploration of some of the countless ways cultural and biological differences might affect inter-species communication
- Howstuffworks "How Aliens Work"
- An exploration of the likely differences and similarities of extra-terrestrial species
- 10 Steps to Creating Realistic Fantasy Animals, at 'FARP', Tutorials
- Intended for fantasy artists, but useful for writers as well
Modern Fantasy Worlds: Westeros
An epic world for an epic series by one of fantasy's greatest living writers, Westeros is the setting for George R.R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, a vivid historical fantasy series based loosely on the War of the Roses.
Medieval Life
The majority of fantasy novels are still set in a roughly medieval, Western European setting, so it doesn't hurt to familiarize yourself with the technology and culture of medieval life.
Medieval Demographics
- Medieval Demographics Made Easy
- How many people in a medieval city? How many taverns? How many castles in those hills? This article will let you know.
- Medieval Kingdom Generator
- Based on Medieval Demographics Made Easy by S. John Ross
Think Medieval Fantasy is overdone?
But maybe you don't want to write a medieval fantasy. Maybe you're thinking more J.R.R. Tolkein meets Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Hey, I'd read it!
Modern Fantasy Worlds: The Works of Neil Gaiman
Urban fantasy, an increasingly popular subgenre of fantasy that is generally based on an Alternate Earth with fantasy elements, requires a unique sort of worldbuilding to create an Earth that is a realistic extrapolation of our own, plus magic. Neil Gaiman is considered one of the masters of the genre.
Think Western fantasy is overdone?
Or maybe you want to leave Western inspirations behind entirely and explore the magic and mystery of the medieval Islamic world. Or samurai Japan. Or the Mayans. I'd read that too.
Modern Fantasy Worlds: Discworld
Terry Pratchett's clever Discworld series is a hilarious, sharply observant satire of both the fantasy genre and the real world, with a world that both revels in cliches and throws them on their head.
Avoid the Cliches....Or Revel in Them
Mythological Inspiration
Fantasy writers have been taking inspiration from the original fantasy stories: myths, legends, folklore, and fairy tales, for decades. There are still nearly endless paths to explore.
Mythological Inspiration Online
- Encyclopedia Mythica
- One of the most comprehensive resources for gods, monsters, heroes, and other mythological creatures, persons, and places on the web
- Mysterious Britain
- Information about legendary creatures, places, and objects from Britain
- Myth and Legend from Ancient Times to the Space Age
- An extensive collection of mythological links
- Mything Links
- Another large collection of mythological links
- Myths and Legends
- And one more
Fairy Tales
Culture and Religion Resources Online
This area is still under construction as I sift through my bookmarks (and bookshelves) for the best resources.
- Dr. Zahar's Ethnographical Questionnaire - FrathWiki
- Dr. Zahar's Ethnographical Questionnaire was compiled by David Zahir to help in the description of concultures
- The Mythopoet's Manual
- These essays by Loren J. Miller focus on cultural and religious aspects of world building
- Internet Sacred Text Archive
- An archive of sacred texts from around the world
- Growing Up Sexually Atlas
- Sexual practices around the world
- Godchecker.com
- Accurate but tongue-in-cheek recountings of mythology and legend relating to gods from around the world
- Countries and Their Cultures
- Encyclopedic collection of articles on world culture
How to Help Fantasy Characters Dress for Success
I'm a jeans and t-shirts kind of girl in real life, but I have to admit to being quite the fashionista where my characters are concerned. Lovely as they are, why stick to medieval gowns and tunics when you have a thousands of years of fashion history and an entire world of fantastic ethnic costumes to browse for inspiration?
- The Costumer's Manifesto
- Extensive information on historical and ethnic fashions
- The Costume Page
- Large collection of costume and fashion related links
- The History of Costume by Braun & Scheider
- Online text and engravings from a 19th century costume history book
Worldbuilding Generators
An increasing variety of generators is available on the web to provide shortcuts for worldbuilders
- Timeline Generator
- Fantasist.net's timeline generator
- SDZC.net
- Several interesting generators, including weather and cities (LINK CURRENTLY BROKEN)
- Terragen
- A scenery generator for Windows and Mac
- Irony Games World-maker
- Create maps ranging from villages to entire worlds with the click of a button
- Dungeon Master Utilities
- A number of generators, including a weather generator and a name generator, intended for gamers, but useful for writers as well
- OpenRoleplaying.org - Gaming Tools
- OpenRoleplaying.org's weather generator
- Fantasy Name Generator
- For serious use and fun, includes some specialized generators like a generator for Pernese dragon names, an insult generator, and more
- Everchanging Book of Names
- Random name generator for 32-bit Windows systems.
- Chris Pound's Name Generation Page
- Computer scripts to generate random names, vocabularies, kung-fu moves, creatures, spells, and so on based on real or imaginary languages.
Other Links of Interest
Again, this area is still under construction while I sift through bookmarks and bookshelves looking for the best resources.
- List of forms of government
- Wikipedia's list of the forms of government/leadership, organized alphabetically, etymologically, and several other ways
- Essays - Swords & Swordsmanship
- Information about medieval and renaissance swords and swordsmanship
- Guidelines to creating magic systems
- Designing magic systems for role playing games, also useful for writers (LINK CURRENTLY BROKEN)
- How To Draw Nice Maps
- Useful guide
World-Building Communities
Forums, shared universes and more
- conworlds.info
- A world-building forum
- Omniverse Zero Forum
- Omniverse Zero is a futuristic sci-fi worldbuilding endeavor allowing authors to create unique civilizations, worlds and entire universes, which can be used as the foundation of various literary items such as short stories and RPGs.
- Basilicus
- Basilicus is a massive world-building project focusing on the Basilicus Prime Galaxy, a fictional galaxy with several interstellar civilizations. Content ranges from space opera science fiction to magic-rich fantasy worlds.
- Constructed worlds - a Wikia wiki
- Both collaborative and private conworlds are detailed on this wikiproject
- Orion's Arm
- Another shared universe project
- Jacmus Prime
- A fictional world building resource for hobbyists, writers and role-players. Create and publish your own geofiction using the conworld editor and building model.
- FrathWiki
- FrathWiki, a wiki where anyone can present their conlangs and concultures, and a project to collect information on topics relating to conlanging, conculturing, and worldbuilding.
Inspiration From Other Worlds
If you're having trouble thinking of ways to make your world a little more interesting, browsing other people's ideas to see what they've done might help get your juices flowing.
- Worlds in the Net
- A database of online constructed worlds, primarily for role playing games, some for fun (LINK CURRENTLY BROKEN)
- List of fantasy worlds
- Wikipedia's list of fantasy worlds
- Planetocopia
- Planetocopia is a group of model worlds supporting intelligent life. Some of these worlds are set in our future, some are alternate Earths, some are purely imaginary experiments in planetology, biology, and sociology.
- Fantasy Web World Ratings
- An extensive list, with ratings, of worlds on the web, primarily developed by gamers
Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction
Special Advice for Science Fiction Writers
Although the majority of information on this page is useful for both fantasy and science fiction writers, due to the conventions of the genres, science fiction worldbuilders usually need to pay special attention to technology and physical laws.
- World Building: Constructing a SF Universe
- A useful overview of special concerns for science fiction worldbuilders
Resources for Gamers
I am not a gamer myself, but thanks to my interest in worldbuilding, I seem to be hanging out with more and more of them! Here are a few sites they've recommended for gamers interested in creating their own games or campaigns.
Expect this area to be under construction, and please feel free to contact me with more suggestions.
Expect this area to be under construction, and please feel free to contact me with more suggestions.
- The Forge
- A forum for those who play and create independent RPGs, also contains many useful articles
- RPGnet
- One of the web's largest RPG communities
- The Campaign Builder's Guild
- A forum for game masters who create their own campaigns
- TreasureTables: Worlbuilding
- A series of worldbuilding articles for gamers
Avoiding the Pitfalls of Great Worldbuilding
So, you've got tens or hundreds of pages of biology and zoology and anthropology and history and theology notes about your world. Your world is so real to you that you're dreaming about it. Now sit down and write your story, but remember to be very, very careful about how and how much of your worldbuilding you include.As a general rule, the goal with worldbuilding should be to make it invisible. Use worldbuilding to ensure that your world and its rules are consistent and realistic (at least, as realistic as fantasy novels get), because readers will notice if they are not, but treat it as the stage on which your characters play, without overwhelming readers with fascinating (to you) details that are irrelevent to the story. Readers are not going to care about how your characters believe the world was created unless it somehow affects the plot.
Film actor Humphrey Bogart once said that if he ever had to spout exposition, there'd better be two camels humping each other in the background to distract the audience. Don't make your readers feel like they'd rather be reading about humping camels.
Calling a Rabbit a Smeerp, and Other Writing Pitfalls
- Turkey City Lexicon
- The Turkey City Lexicon of bad writing.
- The Lexicon
- A phrasebook of terms for issues that occur repeatedly in fiction, compiled by author and editor Kit Whitfield
Keeping Everything Straight
- Wikis for Worldbuilding
- Writers, especially fantasy and science fiction writers, have a lot of things to keep track of. Traditionally, we keep track of them in notebooks. However, an increasing number of writers are turning to personal wikis to keep track of details about characters, places, and events.
Guestbook
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vzambito
Nov 1, 2011 @ 12:15 pm | delete
- Amazing lens! Especially for a new indie writer and devourer of epic fantasy like me. There is nothing nothing quite like the thrill of discovering and inventing new worlds and unique magics. Thank you for all of the great links.
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AlyCat150
Aug 30, 2011 @ 2:41 am | delete
- Love this lens! It has all my favorite lists for worldbuilding, and then many more!
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Trovki
Aug 1, 2011 @ 12:01 pm | delete
- I need advice. I'm creating my first world for a story I'm writing. I would really like to use elements from the Catholic religion in the story, but can I do that? I really want to do it, but if it's a different world from ours, how can I? Please help. Thanks, Trovki
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Aug 1, 2011 @ 1:01 pm | delete
- This isn't a problem at all. Use whatever rituals you want. USe them intact or change some words. In your new world substitute a word for Catholic. Voila! You have a new religion to go with your new world
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jim_coe
Aug 1, 2011 @ 2:02 pm | delete
- Sorry if this is a bit off-topic, but I recently did the same thing (via visual communication rather than text) in a 3D scene I made for a science fiction story. Here the Pope is the leader of a human sterrlar empire:
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/meeting-at-the-papal-residence-jim-coe.html
Cheers!
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by kerryg
kerryg
Kerry is a big dork with the attention span of a gnat for writing, and the attention span of a yogi for planning. more »
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