For those new members who I haven't met, I'm Emily! Nice to meet you. @AdamsEve1231 mentioned that you guys haven't all decided whether or not you'd like another member which is fine! I'm happy to lurk and read and just give me two cents every once in a while.
With that being said, I have started the featured story for this month and WOW @Munterbacon has really outdone themselves with the amount of thought and detail gone into this world building. I'm very impressed, as I always am when I see such elaborate world creation behind a story. Saying this, I am personally curious about where your inspiration for this world came from and the methods you used in creating the races, creatures and lore.
In response to the question Bacon posed earlier:
I have to say my favourite character is hands down Nakaia. I think she is such a sexy, funny yet intelligent and crafty character. I love how it plays into her ability to woo people with her voice and how she just LOVES to wreck chaos, or at least that is how it feels to me. I am a huge fan of morally ambiguous characters and I certainly get this vibe from her. She doesn't want to do bad things but she also seems like she'd be willing to do anything, including using her beguiling voice to get what she needs from people. And how she does this without a thought is very, very cool to me. Love her XD
thanks for visiting, @Dancer-freak. Great, question. I love world building too, and I like hearing how other writers come up with their worlds, cultures, lore, etc.
I was hoping for some of our regulars to cheek in so I could gain consensus. No pressure on anyone though. Feel free to PM me, anyone, if you have questions.
i know . in stories like his you expect the male to be the strong figure but chapter 1 suprised me.
Really? Why is that, @friendsfan367? No judgment here at all. Your thoughts are totally valid. I guess I'm just curious what made you think that.
because 99 percent of fantasy stories its a male who slays the dragon. i reaalize i'm stereotyping but i never read fantasy where the male wasn't the hero.
@friendsfan367@AdamsEve1231 I think this is an interesting conversation. I have to agree traditionally it is the "knight in shining armour" type story we expect when princesses and kings and kingdoms are involved. But then if we look at modern stories like "The Hunger Games" or "Divergent" - both stories I would place in a sci-fi/fantasy genre - we see an emerging style of female fronted stories. Which are all bada**, by the way.
And I, too, was pleasantly surprised when the main character was a woman and when I found out about the bonding ceremony I immediately expected Leyva to choose a man. I think that her wanting to choose Shaela was great! I secretly hope that a more romantic relationship forms between the two, but I also am very for the theme of friendship, a theme that in my opinion is way too over-looked.
So, as promised, here is the Short-Story which sparked the creation of Ironbound - the password is NinjaPig
I entered a shortened version of this story into a Kickstarter competition but it didn't place, but out of that, I had the makings of a novel which I started to write for NaNoWriMo a few years back. I hit a wall in the progress of the story so thought, why don't I reverse-engineer a story out of a Sci-Fi world? One that's set thousands of years in the future from my fantasy novel. It didn't work how I planned it would, but on the Brightside, we got Ironbound out of it!
I like to call the way I approach world/character-building "The Onion Process."
What do I mean by that? Well, onions have layers, and that is how I start, with broad ideas which I build upon to come up with the end result. I'll use a location which hasn't been introduced in Ironbound and it is unlikely to, other than a minor character coming from that location.
This is an area I created in my fantasy novel I am writing.
This country is situated in the West of the map.
It is covered in black sand which stretches as far as the eye can see for thousands of miles.
An impassable wall of obsidian blocks the North of the country.
To the South is a mountain range with only a few passes.
The sea is not actually a sea, but a lake. There is a fissure at the bottom which opens up to the planet's molten core.
To the West, after traversing thousands of miles, there is an ocean which is massive in scope. The thousands of shipwrecks on the Western coast is a sign that this ocean is not a forgiving place.
To the East of this country is a sea of lava.
The lava is not as thick as normal lava and acts almost like water.
Seismic events occur regularly, and can sometimes cause devastating tsunamis of fiery lava.
Vegetation is sparse, and wildlife is equally sparse.
What wildlife there is, is large and dangerous.
With all these layers, I can now start to build the actual country/region itself:
The Maata'Rukori are a people that live in one of the most desolate places on the planet Xaabos, this region is known as the Deadlands.
Black sand covers the entirety of the Deadlands, each corner of this region has its own perils which can claim the life of even seasoned hunters amongst the Maata'Rukori.
To the east, lies the Molten Sea, a lake of fiery death. The lava that spills to the surface from a massive fissure acts differently to regular lava, it is less viscous and acts more like water than it does lava. The seismic activity in the area adds another danger in the form of tsunamis of liquid fire. These occur often enough that the people post guards that watch the waters, and each house has an escape route into a cave system which is safe from the deadly waters.
To the north is a sheer cliff-face of obsidian that reaches over a thousand feet high at its tallest point. The smooth nature of the rock makes it impossible to scale by conventional means and any use of sharp climbing tools will cause the brittle rock to fracture and break.
To the west is an endless sea of black sand. It is known as the Sea of Exiles, as Maata'Rukori will send their dishonoured west as a punishment. Journey to the world's end and return, and you are innocent. Only one person has returned from exile and reported a ship graveyard. Broken ships scattered the coast, and this person could see no end to the ocean that barred his way. He really was at the end of the world.
To the south is a mountain range that effectively blocks the Deadlands of from all sides. There are a few mountain passes that can be safely traversed, but one must know where they are first as one wrong step and splat! The irony is that the Maata'Rukori have possibly the most defensible place on the planet, yet nobody would ever want their land.
Very little grows above ground, the Maata'Rukori instead grow mushrooms inside their cave system.
@Munterbacon oh wow! I like that approach, broad to narrow almost. I do a similar thing when world building (which I try not to do often, because I am a huge control freak and need every aspect of my world - regionally, politically, socially etc. - to be 100% thought out with perfect clarity. Like thousands and thousands of real world years compressed into one tiny story). But, when I do world build I go for the same broad to narrow aspect. I like to have a big main idea, for example how the world actually looks, what the land is like, the temperature and what have you. Then I narrow it down from there, in the same respect you do. I find that I draw a lot from other people and like to bounce ideas off of friends. Often people have a different outlook and will be able to spot some things that may have previously be missed. Do you find yourself doing this? Or are you a solitary world builder? Do you find it hard to decide what aspects of the world are important enough to think out? How do you narrow down the most important factors? Factors being the political situation, the flora/fauna of the world, the cultural/social aspects, etc. And how do you decide how in depth to go?
@Munterbacon oh wow! I like that approach, broad to narrow almost. I do a similar thing when world building (which I try not to do often, because I am a huge control freak and need every aspect of my world - regionally, politically, socially etc. - to be 100% thought out with perfect clarity. Like thousands and thousands of real world years compressed into one tiny story). But, when I do world build I go for the same broad to narrow aspect. I like to have a big main idea, for example how the world actually looks, what the land is like, the temperature and what have you. Then I narrow it down from there, in the same respect you do. I find that I draw a lot from other people and like to bounce ideas off of friends. Often people have a different outlook and will be able to spot some things that may have previously be missed.
Do you find yourself doing this? Or are you a solitary world builder? Do you find it hard to decide what aspects of the world are important enough to think out? How do you narrow down the most important factors? Factors being the political situation, the flora/fauna of the world, the cultural/social aspects, etc. And how do you decide how in depth to go?[/b]
Yeah, I showed my Short-Story to my brother when it was in its first draft phase and he pointed out a few things that I just completely missed, same for a friend of mine. A lot of the world-building I did though was my own, I have another story called My Life As A Zombie which has a lot of input from a group of friends, as we discussed over drinks what certain things should happen in a satirical story about zombies taking over the world.
For me, I struggle with religion, portraying it in my written literature because I just don't have that kind of belief myself, I don't want to include something that I don't think I could display properly - I have revered heroes which are like gods to their people, but that is as far as I really go. For other aspects, I like to flesh things out completely. An example would be the San'Dreki race, I created a character is CAS to be the steward of one of the Emperor's palaces, and I fell in love with the style of the character that I spent a whole day and a bit coming up with a background to him, that then went into creating a race with every little aspect I could think of detailed out into a few pages worth of notes.
I think in terms of choosing the most important factors, I just free-write anything that pops into my head and review it later, I remove what I think doesn't work and elaborate on what does. What ultimately decided how in depth I go is how much I'm enjoying the process. Creating the Molten Sea, the Rockfiends, the Helsian's and the San'Dreki and Gronyx were all so much fun for me, I went into so much detail for somethings which may only be mentioned in passing in the story!
Sorry I haven't been that active during my timeframe, my works building burnt down over the weekend so have been dealing with that for the last few days.
Comments
hi. i'm one of the newbies.
started munters story.
I was hoping for some of our regulars to cheek in so I could gain consensus. No pressure on anyone though. Feel free to PM me, anyone, if you have questions.
Find me elsewhere:
My EA App ID: livinasimminlife
Livin' A Simmin' Life Stories
My Worldbuilding Blog
Simblr
My Sims Pinterest
Yay, @friendsfan367. It's not so intimidating once you get started, right? @Munterbacon's story rocks.
Find me elsewhere:
My EA App ID: livinasimminlife
Livin' A Simmin' Life Stories
My Worldbuilding Blog
Simblr
My Sims Pinterest
i know . in stories like his you expect the male to be the strong figure but chapter 1 suprised me.
i had started the landon legacy but then dad died that week so i'm behind.
Really? Why is that, @friendsfan367? No judgment here at all. Your thoughts are totally valid. I guess I'm just curious what made you think that.
Find me elsewhere:
My EA App ID: livinasimminlife
Livin' A Simmin' Life Stories
My Worldbuilding Blog
Simblr
My Sims Pinterest
A Race Against Time
Romance on the Horizon
Raven's Nest-A 100 Baby Challenge
Diary of a Drifter
because 99 percent of fantasy stories its a male who slays the dragon. i reaalize i'm stereotyping but i never read fantasy where the male wasn't the hero.
@friendsfan367 @AdamsEve1231 I think this is an interesting conversation. I have to agree traditionally it is the "knight in shining armour" type story we expect when princesses and kings and kingdoms are involved. But then if we look at modern stories like "The Hunger Games" or "Divergent" - both stories I would place in a sci-fi/fantasy genre - we see an emerging style of female fronted stories. Which are all bada**, by the way.
I entered a shortened version of this story into a Kickstarter competition but it didn't place, but out of that, I had the makings of a novel which I started to write for NaNoWriMo a few years back. I hit a wall in the progress of the story so thought, why don't I reverse-engineer a story out of a Sci-Fi world? One that's set thousands of years in the future from my fantasy novel. It didn't work how I planned it would, but on the Brightside, we got Ironbound out of it!
I like to call the way I approach world/character-building "The Onion Process."
What do I mean by that? Well, onions have layers, and that is how I start, with broad ideas which I build upon to come up with the end result. I'll use a location which hasn't been introduced in Ironbound and it is unlikely to, other than a minor character coming from that location.
This is an area I created in my fantasy novel I am writing.
With all these layers, I can now start to build the actual country/region itself:
Find me elsewhere:
My EA App ID: livinasimminlife
Livin' A Simmin' Life Stories
My Worldbuilding Blog
Simblr
My Sims Pinterest
@Simcraft81 Hey!! Nice to see you XD
Yeah, I showed my Short-Story to my brother when it was in its first draft phase and he pointed out a few things that I just completely missed, same for a friend of mine. A lot of the world-building I did though was my own, I have another story called My Life As A Zombie which has a lot of input from a group of friends, as we discussed over drinks what certain things should happen in a satirical story about zombies taking over the world.
For me, I struggle with religion, portraying it in my written literature because I just don't have that kind of belief myself, I don't want to include something that I don't think I could display properly - I have revered heroes which are like gods to their people, but that is as far as I really go. For other aspects, I like to flesh things out completely. An example would be the San'Dreki race, I created a character is CAS to be the steward of one of the Emperor's palaces, and I fell in love with the style of the character that I spent a whole day and a bit coming up with a background to him, that then went into creating a race with every little aspect I could think of detailed out into a few pages worth of notes.
I think in terms of choosing the most important factors, I just free-write anything that pops into my head and review it later, I remove what I think doesn't work and elaborate on what does. What ultimately decided how in depth I go is how much I'm enjoying the process. Creating the Molten Sea, the Rockfiends, the Helsian's and the San'Dreki and Gronyx were all so much fun for me, I went into so much detail for somethings which may only be mentioned in passing in the story!
How is everyone doing?
A Race Against Time
Romance on the Horizon
Raven's Nest-A 100 Baby Challenge
Diary of a Drifter
Nobody was hurt, which is a huge relief but it's my friends business so I'm just trying to help keep him afloat and to minimise stress for him.