I've been working on this project since I started college (On/off so it isn't like I have two-three years of work to show for it). I guess it is important to start with the beginning of the idea. It originally sprang from a really short story I wrote about some medieval super-soldiers fighting an impossible battle. It was honestly nothing serious, but I ended up expanding the world endlessly. Draft after draft the world became more complex, and in some drafts shittier than the last. I'm not even sure where to begin because things rarely settle long enough to share. There is a little bit of exposition of the world I could probably share.
The world this takes place in has been called Astraea (All names are subject to change)
In this world there are 4 natural born races: O'kani, Aquivir, Gheldura, and Hasreni.
O'kani are island-dwellers (Asia-Pacific). Aquivir are the plain-dwellers (Native American). Gheldura are giant mountain-dwellers (Scandinavians). Hasreni are the desert-dwellers (middle-eastern/African).
After that you have two non-natural born races: Aetirn, and the Shadai.
Aetirn are the elve forest-dwellers, but were actually forged by a God of crafting to defend the human race (It obviously doesn't work out that way, but still that's the idea).
Shadai are a little more complex. They were born of a curse, but they were human. The curse originally morphed them into animal hybrids that could literally hunt down (think like werewolves). When the God of the Moon saw the abominations he took pity on them. Not having the strength to dispel the curse, he provided them clarity to return to something closer to human. Then the Shadai were born. Ashen skin, silvery white hair, and born with a fiery anger. There is more to them, but that is the gist of them.
The newest draft of the magic system is based off the idea that the planets in the solar system of Astraea emit a force upon the universe. These force can be tapped into, and used in different manners. This is probably the newest draft of the magic system, so it is very young. As it gets larger I might make a separate post on it.
The magical community makes up one very large and powerful faction in the world of Astraea, but there are obviously the national structures. So far there are 5 major national structures each representing the 5 major races (Shadai are poorly treated, and scattered. It isn't that they don't have structure it just isn't recognized). There is a major knight order, and a few religious orders, but those are kind of hard to get into. Most of these factions are unimportant to the main novel series.
I think that is the majority of important stuff without going to far down the rabbit hole. I only have a little bit of a story arc in place.
Before humanity was born the Gods existed. The Goddess of the Stars, and the God of the Void fought among one another, and the other gods took sides. When the God of the Void became consumed by the idea of literally consuming all living things the war fell apart. The goddess of the stars managed to force the Void to sleep. The followers of the Void managed to escape to Astraea. Once there they wreaked havoc, destroying all that humanity was. The remaining Gods who had spent their time lulling the void to sleep granted humanity knowledge that would help them combat the followers of the void. The knowledge given to humanity would be the deciding force in the coming wars. Even when the followers were defeated they remain in Astraea like a disease returning in every age. That is pretty much the very basic premise of the novel, but I haven't gotten very far beyond that.
Honestly, going through the jumble of notes that I have on this it all seems overwhelming how much useless information I have on the entire world. I mean most of it is just for me, and won't make it into the main novel series. I guess I find it cool to have all that rich detail even if it is just for me, you know?
I guess I just wanted to share a bit of the exposition. I guess if there are any thoughts, or questions I will do my best to answer them. My goal with this is just simply to start organizing my thoughts so that I can actually start moving towards a concept for the novels.
Why should I care? That is not a snarky attack on your world, but a piece of advice that a lot of sci fi/fantasy writers miss. Everybody knows Ringworld, nobody knows The Smoke Ring, despite both of them being Larry Niven. The Smoke Ring is a much more interesting storyworld, constructed with a great deal more care... but Ringworld has Louis Wu, Teela Brown and Speaker to Animals. I think you have enough of your world that it's time to figure out who you're going to put into it and why your readers will care. Because in the end, it isn't an intricately constructed storyworld that hooks readers, it's your characters' interaction with an intricately constructed storyworld that does the trick. Pos-apocalyptic Australia only gets you so far. You need a Road Warrior to tie it together. Otherwise it's just Steel Dawn.
I made the world and I've been asking myself that question. The world took a hell of a lot of work to build and make sure all the wheels spin nicely, but honestly this far down the road I find myself questioning why I began in the first place. I think that was the point of me posting this really not to so much get stuff in order, but to start moving forward with construction of a meaningful cast of characters and answering the question, "Why should I care?". If I post about this project in the future, my goal will be to try to answer that question. Thanks for the feedback.
It's the most important question for everybody else. The most important question for you is "what do I want to explore?" and everything here is a great answer to that. I've optioned two screenplays and have a novel at a boutique in NY. You have more layout than any project I've ever worked on, and I worked with an MIT astrophysicist to lay out a plausible architecture for Alpha Centauri A/B because I needed day/night cycles and moon behavior. The trick is to funnel the part you find interesting into a part the reader finds interesting. Plot a story that exposes these aspects of your world as viewed through the eyes of memorable characters. The world is figured out. There will be changes but they'll be dependent on what you need, not what you want. Now the trick is to determine who you want to explore it with.
My first points are not on the exposition itself, but to encourage you to continue worldbuilding and assure you that you are doing everything right: Hobbies like this are always on/off; I'm working on a text adventure game, and after a year, I think I had less than 200 lines of code, which is practically nothing. Stuff like this always takes time, and everyone goes at their own pace depending on how busy they are with the rest of their life, and what other projects they're working on. Oh, I've shared parts of my worlds online that are now out of date. In one of my worlds, a race called bumans were kind of like a Hagrid/Klingon hybrid, and a warrior tribe with coming-of-age hunting ceremonies. But all that's been wiped out and now bumans are more like rhinocerous/armadillo humanoids with fungi as their primary food (not meat), which eliminates their hunting rites. I hope the purpose of this #worldbuilding tag (and getting a worldbuilding community started on Hubski) is to share not just the final result, but many steps along the way. Nothing is ever written in stone, not even when it's written in bits on the Internet. Heck, I'd be interested to see what stuff you'd made that got cut! That's part of what worldbuilding is about: you're not just writing a novel or novel series, that's just the product you have to show a wider audience. But the world you're making will always go beyond the pages. In fact, it's really how many writers write their novels: they've got to create the cohesive world first, then write the outline, then write the novel, then edit the novel and cut stuff out. I've read that anywhere between 10 to 50% (FIFTY!) of a novel gets cut between first draft and published work. That's a lot that never sees the light of day! And that was stuff that was intended to be shown. I bet much more of the world of the writer was created, that never even got into the first outline. Creating the fuller world is how writers make the world of the novel feel bigger than just what's happening on the page. The events of a novel aren't happening within a bubble by themselves. Heck, take Lord of the Rings: you know a lot more went into the world than just the four books (Hobbit + LotR), since there's not only appendices, but also the Simarillion. (Ugh, every time I write a comment like this, I realize it should be a complete post on its own!) But let's get to your stuff: You said the stuff about the gods' war and giving humanity the knowledge to defeat the followers of the void is the "basic premise of the novel". Do you mean it's the backstory, and the novel focuses on later events? Or do you mean the gods' war etc. is the meat of the novel? If the gods' war is the meat of the novel, I'd definitely like to see the gods described in greater detail. Are they humanoid like the Greek pantheon, anthropomorphized hybrids like the Egyptian pantheon, or strange superbeings like Lovecraft's mythos? The closer to humanity you make them, the more relatable they become. Perhaps they could even act more like the Christian god in Milton's Paradise Lost, who used his angelic army to defeat Satan's army, rather than getting into the fray Himself. Do the gods have their own lives, squabbles, backstories, creation stories? You begin the paragraph detailing the gods' war with "Before humanity was born...", then in the middle you say "...destroying all humanity...". At what point does humanity get created and why? Did humanity evolve, did they come about through cosmic accident, or if I compare this to Milton again: were they the angelic force to used to defeat Satan's (the Void's) army? Perhaps the Goddess of the Stars created most of humanity in response to the God of the Void creating the Shadai (or the precursor to the Shadai)? Looking back up, I see you said the Aetirn were created for defense, so they might be the angelic army comparison. In that case, I'd have to ask again why the human races were created. I would find it a bit interesting if the human races evolved naturally out of control of the gods, and the gods were surprised to discover new intelligent races appearing on the world. You've mentioned that the God of the Moon had limited power, so perhaps all the gods do, as well. If your focus is not on the gods' war, but rather on the human element, I wonder if you could give more detail on the races you've created. What separates them beyond their home climate? What happens when these races interact? As far as novels go, I've always wanted to read a novel series that switches focus per novel, so, for instance, you might spend a novel focusing on the O'kani, then the next would focus on the Hasreni, and so on. (In the same vein, I'm disappointed the Harry Potter series is mostly over, and we never really got to see much about Ravenclaw, my favorite house.) Working on any human characters? Do you know what the overall technological setting is for the humans? (Greek, medieval, steampunk, modern, cyberpunk, etc.) Or, if the races are separated geographically, you could even separate the tech levels (like how the Europeans were far more advanced than the Native Americans when they met). Perhaps a unique level of tech we have not categorization for, or anachronistic tech (like they have computers, but never invented guns)? I see you mentioned in your initial short story it was medieval, but has that changed over the evolution of your world? How do the gods interact with humans? Do they have an intimate role, coming down from on high often to talk and lead? Do they have a hands-off approach, where once things are set in motion, they back off? Do they see humans as purely pawns in a larger game? You said at the beginning that you don't "have two-three years of work to show for it", but you've actually got quite a lot going on, and I'm interested to see how all of these different aspects interact. I haven't even touched upon how the magic system works! I wonder how thoroughly the gods matter in regards to the national structures (were you referring to governments?) and the religious orders. Do some religious orders believe in different religions and gods that don't exist? It'd be pretty interesting if all the religious orders were wrong, and none of them believed in the gods that do exist! Welp, I've written enough for now. I hope I've given you enough questions to make your head spin, and encouragement to continue, and continue to share!I've been working on this project since I started college (On/off so it isn't like I have two-three years of work to show for it)
I'm not even sure where to begin because things rarely settle long enough to share.
it all seems overwhelming how much useless information I have on the entire world. I mean most of it is just for me, and won't make it into the main novel series. I guess I find it cool to have all that rich detail even if it is just for me, you know?
That was a big reason for my questions :p There's definitely a lot here to take in, and your god system looks pretty complex! I think now that I've got a semi-decent handle on the metaphysical parts of your world, I'm interested in the human stories. You said you've got a few short stories already written on some characters. Would you consider posting them? Have you had others read them before? What were their thoughts? I tend to find that one of the issues with lore dumps like this is that while we get a feel for your world in an academic sense (history, cultures, etc.), we don't necessarily get the tone of the world, or as much emotional attachment as we would if we get a character to latch on to, that we can empathize with and follow. Have you got a short story that focuses on a likeable protagonist, but also provides a particularly intriguing look into your world? Perhaps Zakier's story, or perhaps another? Perhaps you might consider your stories as "pilot episodes" to see what garners the most interest from readers, and you might take one story and expand on it, or at least focus your attention in some regard. For instance, if you post stories about each race, and, say, the Gheldura happened to get the most positive response, you might consider working your novel outline to focus on the Gheldura.This actually helped me put some stuff in order.
Most of the short stories are pretty old, and honestly out of context with the current world. For the next year or so I'm going to start shifting my focus from the world, and more towards the novels themselves. I'll try to share some stuff as I move along in the process.
Why'd ya delete the comment a couple up? (If you don't mind me asking)