Falling Down the Rabbit Hole: A guide to Worldbuilding

[Neop]

Macabees - Today at 9:02 PM
Welcome back @everyone . We have @Harlequin , known as Kylarnatia on NS, here with us to a lecture and Q&A on world building. Kylarnatia is a member of Gholgoth and a very well-known RPer within II. He was until recently a N&I mentor on the forums, his service to the community interrupted only because of a busy schedule. We have a great, great RPer presenting today who has spent years creating his own vast, beautiful world, and it's a honor to have here at the NSWF. The floor is yours, Kyle!

Harlequin - Today at 9:04 PM
Thank you very much @Macabees! Hello everyone, as Mac rightly said I'm Kylarnatia on NationStates, though most people know me as Kyle. This year is my ninth year on NationStates, and for the past three years or so I've served as an International Incident's Roleplay Mentor until retiring recently. This is also my third lecture in the long and colourful history of the NS World Fair, so I'm glad to be back again to give another one.

This time I've decided to talk about worldbuilding, under the title "Falling Down the Rabbit Hole"; I didn't choose such a title just to be fanciful, I did so deliberately in order to express what I aim for this lecture to cover over the next thirty minutes or so. While one could write a wholesale guide on the process of worldbuilding - which I am working on for II, which this lecture will supplement - this lecture will focus primarily on the abstract side of worldbuilding. That is to say, the actual thought process that should go into creating ones nation and the world it exists in, rather than simply the tools you can use in order to create it.

I believe it's important to look at the abstract concept more closely, firstly because I have faith in most people here being confident enough to know what tools suit them for the job, and secondly because I think when it comes to worldbuilding, most people do actually struggle with the thinking side of things rather then actually putting all the pieces together once that is done.

Lastly, do also note that the ideas I share here come from my years of experience on NationStates: you may have different approaches, and that's perfectly reasonable. At the very least, this will hopefully just give you an idea on what sort of an approach you can take.

With that all said then, let us begin.

When creating your nation, you have to consider a wide variety of factors, so wide that it's impossible to do it all at once (and in certain cases some of it is definitely impossible without having first interacted with the rest of the community, which we'll get onto in a moment). My general starting point is actually, before any people are involved, what geography they're about to be living in. I do this because, as history has demonstrated on several occasions in the real world, the natural circumstances around us generally dictate where we end up. To use my own nation as an example, Kylarnatia is a nation dominated by a large river which flows through it's heart and shoots off as it reaches the sea, creating a number of fertile deltas in the south while the trunk of the river also provides fertile living space, while the rest of the landscape is either flat and barren in the south and mountainous in the north.

Sound familiar? Yes, it's very much like Egypt (with a few alterations of my own), but I made that decision because then it helped me think of what sort of people I wanted to actually live in my nation.

When you then come to think of the people, it's best to first look at them objectively: Where did they come from? Why are they here now? What are their physical properties? There's quite a few bullet-point style questions you can ask yourself at this point, and it's best that you both tackle them one-by-one but that they also follow off from one another so that you can bridge the gaps.

Though already we find ourselves at a bit of a potential impasse. Now this is indeed not a case that applies to everyone, as I am well aware that some people prefer to write on their own / a small, select group of friends they have in real life, but in most cases which I encountered in my time as a Mentor, players are small fish being thrown into a pretty big sea on their own, with so many great ideas but no idea where to start or where to fit in.

When you first begin your life on NationStates, either for the very first time or with a brand new nation, it's best to keep your ideas light and your feet fast, so to speak. What I mean by this is that it's good to know what you want for your nation in general, but if you intend to dive into the wider world and interact with the hundreds of other people writing in International Incidents everyday, then all I can say is get stuck in and keep your door open!

This is where you can find a home for your nation - either literally in a region with a like-minded group of people or just generally by getting to know the world that exists - and then you can begin to start answering the deeper questions that pop up as you start to worldbuild (again, not always a necessary approach, but definitely the one I find to be most effective if you want to intergrate into the world of International Incidents as a whole). Again, as I've had as a re-occurring theme over all my lectures in the past, cooperation is key in NationStates, and that goes in every aspect. Not just in playing, but in creating as well.

So, back to the people. Where did they come from? Mine came from my neighbouring country and friend Crimmond in Gholgoth during the Ice Age, crossing what was once just one huge frozen sheet of ice and is now an entire sea. Why did they come here? The climate was beginning to warm and nature was already heading that way, so they followed nature and found a fertile landscape. As the climate continued to change the fertility receded to just the major river, which is where they settled into tribes which later competed and formed states and...you see where it's going. All of this has given my people a physical history of being hardy people, strong and tall, though that is also shaped by later history.

So now we have a geography, as well as an objective idea of who are people are. Now you can afford to be a little more abstract: Where do your people believe they came from? Why do they believe they're here? What do they think of themselves?

Studying Ancient History and Egyptology at University College London, one thing I've come to understand about the very early history of humankind - both as a species and as a group that form societies - is that our identities are forged by the way we imagine ourselves and the world around us, moreso than our actual circumstances (though, with that being said, the two can also be heavily intertwined). From this point you're not only just talking about personal identities, your talking about the identities of groups. The formation of ideologies, philosophies and religions. Again, just as before, we bullet-point these questions and tackle them one-by-one, and where necessary, consider how the world (players) around us effect these as well. Conversely, this gives them a chance to consider how we affect / have affected them.

Where do my people believe they came from? They believe they were a wondering band of hunter-gatherers, influenced by the whims of deities who wanted to use them for their own gain. They're where they are now because said deities wanted them to work the land for them and deliver them the spoils in tribute, under pain of death (remember that beyond the major river is a harsh landscape). Eventually they reject these deities, but instead worship spirits in the form of angels, chief of whom is the "Grand Mother" (who may have been a female warlord who united those tribes we mentioned earlier), whom they revere and believe is embodied by the Caesar, an autocrat who governs Kylarnatia to this day.

Harlequin - Today at 10:02 PM

In summary, what I'm trying to get across is that when you are designing your nation, you need not really start with the very material things, like a government's administration structure for instance - which most starter nations came to me asking questions about - but instead can take your time to think about the more general material, and sometimes, immaterial things that go into making your nation and its people who and what they are. From knowing what my people believe, in these beliefs of one spirit who directly guides them and who has protected them from the harshness of both nature and invading powers, I know that they are more trusting in the idea of a single leader than of a group of many. Therefore I know that my government and its structure would be more suited to an autocracy. I know that due to a historical reliance on a major river, the use of boats for transportation and defence has been pretty central, so even now the navy has a pretty high place on the nation's agenda.

While this has only been a very general overview of the idea, I hope it gives you all inspiration as to how to use the approach in your own writing going forward. If you have any questions, I will happily take them now in the Audience Chamber, or any time via telegram on NationStates. Thank you for your patience and I hope you've enjoyed this lecture.

Macabees - Today at 10:09 PM
Awesome lecture @Harlequin ! Thank you for taking the time to be here with us. Will you be putting this lecture on the NSWF or NS forums?

Harlequin - Today at 10:12 PM
@Macabees: I will be incorporating it into a larger guide on Worldbuilding I have in the works for the NS forums. I apologise for the fact that I had to give the lecture in this manner and not as a post for the NSWF, but being a student who also works and volunteers for the British Museum, Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology and as an advisor to some public policy bodies, I don't have as much time as I used to a year or two ago.

Macabees - Today at 10:13 PM
Ah, well I look forward to the guide!

[Borovan4]

This was helpful. I don't know how to proceed after