Pure imagination
Pure imagination – Fantasy world designing.
The different aspects of fantasy world designing are not too dissimilar in many ways to working with other projects that require a lot of thinking in their ideas and applications. All of them have a number of categories that need to be identified and understood, as well as tracking the dynamics of the project.
The supporting topics of Imagination basics and Chaos may help with the challenge of designing and managing the thinking.
The basic design of a fantasy world is covered across a number of different pages and are listed below. They are given in this specific order as later ones often use information obtained from an earlier one – for example the placing of a settlement can only be done once the geography is defined and you have a river to place it beside.
- Designing a fantasy world The fundamentals for designing a fantasy world
- Geographical design, world view Landscapes and features, mountains, rivers…
- Culture, the basic world view Are the natives friendly? General world culture
- Settlements and people Settlements, why they are there and who lives in them
- Fantasy History, how it started Why, where, when and what happened in the past.
Keeping track of a fantasy world design
How to keep track of the information and design of a fantasy world is cover in ‘managing your ideas. a worked example: Keeping track of a fantasy world design.’ Go there for details
Real world parallels – Engineering design
Strangely, this type of thinking and requirement analysis is not totally dissimilar to designing an engineering project from first principles. You have a number of different aspects to consider (software, hardware, operations, users) and all of them have to find a way of coexisting and coordinating with each other, with research and tracking of development. An easy parallel for different aspects of designing a world (geography, history, settlements, culture) that have to work together, with research and tracking of story development.
The path to the woods
Key design points:
World Design
It is not just a case of designing a physical world, but also one that sets the background for the stories. Details that need to be designed into a fantasy world include the layout of the world, how it functions (Culture, settlements, …), a history to the world, and what it is that makes the world special.
Characters
When it comes to character creation this must take into consideration the environment that they come from, as well as the skills that they have, their personalities and personal histories. For example those that came from mountain settlements will have a different set of basic skills and knowledge than those that come from small islands (‘What’s a boat?’ / ‘Does land really go up that high?’)
Stories
The plot-line and reasons for the stories need to be identified. This includes making decisions such as what is it that is driving the adventurers? What are they ultimately trying to achieve? and where are the stories taking them, as well as the readers!
Jenny Maryl ~ Inspiring the Imagination ~ Contact Me
Jenny Maryl 