layla | Entries tagged with worldbuilding

The final post in the Worldbuilding Blogfest – full list of participants here – is an excerpt from the work in progress. This obviously poses a bit of a problem for me because I went and changed everything. I tried writing some snippets from the new version, but I don’t really have a good enough handle on it to write it yet; I’m not sure who the characters are, or how closely it’s going to resemble the previous plot. So here’s an excerpt from the original story, “Angelcutters”, in which Franza, the protagonist, is investigating a murder that she’s really not supposed to be looking into.

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Crossposted to Wordpress, Livejournal and Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you like.

Crossposts: http://laylalawlor.livejournal.com/217408.html

As noted in the last post, we’re now on Karamanda 2.0, The Re-Karamanding. *g*

And the full list of blogfest participants, for your reading pleasure!

So, at this point, I’ve moved them from the mountains to the middle of a Mediterranean-like sea, and done away with most of my plot. *facepalm* One side effect of doing this is that most of the cultural stuff I’d come up with is no longer valid. A great deal of their material culture has changed tremendously — food and clothing, for example.

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Crossposted to Wordpress, Livejournal and Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you like.

Crossposts: http://laylalawlor.livejournal.com/217322.html

Something I keep forgetting to include: The full list of Worldbuilding Blogfest participants is here, so you can check out everyone else’s posts, too! There’s some good stuff.

Anyway, what’s currently happening to Karamanda is an excellent example of my creative process in action! I’ve been discussing it with Schneefink in the Dreamwidth comments (and also here) and, after running into some major worldbuilding dead ends on the structure of their city and why it’s located in the mountains, I became completely taken with the idea of “fixing” my problems (like the climate) by putting it on a Mediterranean island. A lot of the cultural stuff was originally drawn from the Greeks and Romans, after all. So worldbuilding that (and sketching the new, improved, island-dwelling Karamandans) is basically what I did yesterday. It’s now a lot less hard-boiled PI and a lot more … uh … I don’t know what, exactly. Epic fantasy? YA? Something a lot less gritty and dark, certainly — more light, adventuresome, and suited to their newly sundrenched world. (And now my plot no longer works. Fugnuts.)

Yesterday’s initial attempt at designing my island-dwelling Karamandans. (Click for bigger.) I was going for something that was sort of Greece + South Pacific, and accidentally ended up with more of a Native American look instead. (Not that there’s an inherent problem with that, but it’s not what I was aiming for.)

Anyway, all those posts you just read? It kinda … no longer works that way. The basics are still fundamentally the same: two separate groups of winged people, bird-worship religion, no magic, etc.

Here are the older posts, for the sake of completeness and comparison:

Then yesterday, I wrote this:

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Crossposted to Wordpress, Livejournal and Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you like.

Crossposts: http://laylalawlor.livejournal.com/216997.html

There is some really interesting discussion going on in the Dreamwidth comments to the earlier entries: here and here. I love this kind of worldbuilding brainstorming. And I’ve more-or-less decided to shift them from mountains to islands now — not because I feel like I’m being pressured at all (Schneefink, I definitely don’t want you to think that!) but because this is how my creative process WORKS. See, this is why it’s so hard for me to finish a novel. I am a complete flailbot when it comes to constantly changing my mind and being carried away by a shiny new idea. *g* And one of the reasons why I wanted to worldbuild Karamanda is because I have very little strongly established canon for them yet, and lots of things that could still change, or haven’t been developed at all.

Anyway, moving on to today’s topic!

Karamanda: Religion

Karamanda does not have actual, literal magic, in the fantasy-world sense. (Though it’s possible you could argue for some low-level magic being necessary to enable a being that’s roughly human-sized and human-shaped to fly. My kludge is that their gravity is a bit lighter than ours, but when it comes right down to it, they probably shouldn’t be capable of flying as easily as they can. The world doesn’t have magic in the traditional sense, but I reserve the right to claim magic for their flight if necessary!)

Traditional religion in the city takes two forms: the old religion (of which the Angels are the ceremonial leaders) and a somewhat debased form of it that is centered around the worship of particular kinds of birds — so there’s a pigeon cult, a sparrow cult, etc. There are also small groups of worshippers who follow various alternate religions introduced from outside.

The ceremonial life of the city is centered around a deity that is personified as a peregrine falcon, of which the Angels are its priests. This is the state religion, and all the official holidays and citywide public functions take place under this deity’s patronage. Falcons are sacred birds and may not be harmed. Angels keep them as pets (only Angels are allowed to) and hunt with them.

The different bird cults each have their own traditions and ceremonies. They are tolerated and mostly ignored; most of them include falcon reverence and follow state rituals/ceremonies while adding their own embellishments. Plenty of people are officially part of the falcon religion while privately following the teachings of one bird cult or another.

(If I do put them on islands, seagulls would be a major local bird; I should probably account for that …)

Crossposted to Wordpress, Livejournal and Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you like.

Crossposts: http://laylalawlor.livejournal.com/216691.html

Still no Internet at home … aargh. Obviously this is going to make it slow to reply to comments. Bear with me.

Also, for anyone coming in via links from elsewhere, I have anonymous commenting turned off on the WordPress blog because of the spampocalypse. However, all these posts are crossposted to my Livejournal account, where I do have anon commenting turned on! Anyway, on to Day 2.

Day 1: Geography & Climate – on WordPress | on Livejournal | on Dreamwidth
Day 2: History & Politics – on WordPress | on Livejournal | on Dreamwidth

Karamanda: Political Overview

The city has an interesting, uneasy push-pull between the elected government who run its day-to-day workings, and the Angels who are the ceremonial and religious leaders.

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Crossposted to Wordpress, Livejournal and Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you like.

Crossposts: http://laylalawlor.livejournal.com/216566.html

It’s going to be interesting trying to get these posted daily, because we haven’t had Internet at home since last Monday, and the nearest coffee shop is a 12-mile drive. Still, the Worldbuilding Blogfest starts on Monday, and I have my posts all roughed out. I’m posting this one a bit early, due to the aforementioned connection issues. Technically it’s due to go up Monday, but, uh, it’s Monday in some parts of the world? Ahem.

I thought about which world to develop for this — it’s not like I don’t have enough of ‘em — but I decided to work on Karamanda, because it really does need a lot of developing, so this will be a good opportunity to work on it. Karamanda is the setting of a short story that some of you beta-read for me in an earlier draft, titled “The Angel Killers” at the time. (It’s now called “Angelcutters” and I’ve tried shopping the finished version around, but can’t sell it. I’ve thought about trying Karamanda as an experiment in crowdfunding, since I would like to write more stories in the world, but other projects keep taking priority.)

Anyway, feel free to comment on any of these entries, critique what I’ve posted, or ask more questions. This is mostly brainstorming to figure things out, so input is welcome! Even if I take awhile to respond to things until we get reliable Internet again.

The Karamanda stories are, basically, hard-boiled P.I. stories set in a city in which everyone has wings. Here’s what’s coming up:

Day 1: Geography & Climate
Day 2: History & Politics
Day 3: Religion and/or Magic
Day 4: Food, Drink, Holidays & Culture
Day 5: Worldbuilding Excerpt

You can also see a list of participants and visit their blogs at the Worldbuilding Blogfest site and more details on each day’s topic here.

Karamanda: Geography & Climate (plus a brief Karamanda overview)

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Crossposted to Wordpress, Livejournal and Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you like.