World building part 2

Game design specialization AFT: 732 Credit: 3 By Durgesh Pandey
World building
A narrative wrapping
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Course overview
Through this course students can understand the concepts of world building in game design.
CO1:: Analyze the world building concept for game design.
CO2:: Evaluate the essentials of worldbuilding for game design.
CO3:: Point out the narrative structure of creating life, places, culture with beyond and fantasy for worldbuilding in game design.
CO4:: Develop a fantasy world for a game.
CO5:: Produce a fantasy map for the game.
CO6:: Create a fantasy world using worldbuilding software .
Course outcomes Keywords
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Core topic
1. Introduction to world building.
2. Fundamental of Creating life
3. Creating places in world building
4. Essentials of culture and beyond
5. A world building with software

2. Fundamental of
Creating life
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Topics include:
1. Why build a world: One vs many and how to decide
2. The problem of exposition
3. Creating gods in fantasy, science fiction and game
4. Creating species in fantasy, science fiction and game
5. How to create monsters, plants, animals and undead characters

2.1 Why build a world: One vs many
and how to decide
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The idea of the diversity
Why build a world
Some people do it for fun, some do it for their stories, and some might do it
from a sense of obligation (it’s expected in their genre), but world building is
always voluntary.
you can easily craft a story using standard staples like elves and dragons, castles
and wizards, or anything else you’ve all seen before. But if you wanted to
repeat what everyone else has done, this book wouldn’t have attracted your
attention. you can be creative in more than just storytelling.
you can do more than slap together a new species after only a little
development time because you aren’t going to use it much or dive into details
about it.
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Why build a world
you’ve all seen something new that made us wish you’d thought of it. you’ve all
wanted our work to stand out. And who hasn’t gotten a little bored with those
available, public domain ideas? They’re overused because everyone can use
them. Why not create something unique, something that makes our world
shine brightly?
The answer is that it’s not easy. It can be time consuming. They are so many
things to consider. And if no one likes what you’ve built after countless hours of
blood, and tears, you’ve wasted all of that time and effort. Failure costs us
respect. People stop enjoying our work. Maybe they write a snarky review
online. The more risk you take, the greater our odds of failure.
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Using analogues
Is it really necessary to create a world? Only if our story does not take place on
the planet Earth. However, that world can be so similar to Earth that it's
essentially Earth with a different name. This is the most straightforward
method with the least amount of risk. It's also, unfortunately, the least
engaging. This is what is known as an analogue: anything that has a
counterpart on Earth.
For example, imagine a little island kingdom called Xenoi, where ritual death is
acceptable, honor is valued over life, elite swordsmen wield unique swords,
women are dependent, everyone has black hair, fish and rice are staples of the
diet, and an emperor dominates. How far did you come before realizing that
Xenoi was Japan? Which elements would you eliminate to make it less
obvious?
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What is in a name?
Let's suppose you create a universe in which a horse has an additional set of
legs. Then I add a deadly yellow tomato and a super-intelligent lion. Then you
give them names like a horse, tomato, and lion. Would you recall the changes
or conjure up images of the conventional versions?
Your well-known term has mental inertia about it; it indicates habit, which
overwrites our memory of a different element in the text you're reading. If a
horse is described as having six legs the first time it appears, but that
information is never repeated again for the next hundred times the creature
appears, readers will forget it has two additional legs.
Using analogues
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What’s In a Name?
This issue is less true in a visual medium—you’re reminded of the difference
every time the creature appears—but in books, you’ll have to keep reminding
people, which feels like unnecessary exposition and housekeeping (for us and
the audience).
If you have to keep calling it a “six-legged horse,” that encumbrance isn’t much
better. If you don’t call it a horse, but describe it in such a way that people
think, “Oh, it’s just a horse with two more legs,” is that an improvement? More
importantly, unless the alteration matters in some way, why do it at all? It does
make the world more alien, which is a fine goal.
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What’s In a Name?
Another problem you may have is when you use a you'll-known term incorrectly.
While you have some creative freedom to make things our own and put a new spin
on things, there is a limit to how much liberty you can take before causing a
negative reaction.
Calling a seven-foot-tall person a dwarf is a perfect example (unless all other
humanoids are considerably taller than that). With analogue, you must be
especially careful not to be too evident in a visual medium.
For example, you recently saw a film in which the characters mentioned goblins.
you had a false perception of what I would see. Imagine your delight when the
goblin revealed himself to be a gorilla with horns and a penchant for riches. It even
moved and acted in the manner of a gorilla. Your expectations you're broken in
such a way that you was thrown out of the story. Yeah, it is funny but it's true.
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What’s In a Name?
When selecting to choose whether or not to use a different name, these
aspects should be taken into mind. A new word comes with its own set of
dangers. Authors may need to provide their audience with a deeper
description.
What you're describing must be embedded in the reader's imagination so that
only the term is required after. you might mention a quality once in a while,
preferably during an action using that attribute, so it doesn't feel like a
reminder.
The number of adjustments you've made to the analogue can help world
builders decide. The more modifications you make, the more our creation need
a new name.
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One vs Many
Since world building takes time, you should consider how many worlds you might build over
the course of our career and whether it makes sense to build a world per story (twenty
worlds for twenty stories), just one world for all [twenty] stories, or a mixture of both. Or
neither. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each approach.
One World for One Story
There are certain advantages to creating a world for each story. you just construct what is
required for that story, which saves time. you don't have to consider as many things.
youren't bound to stay in that universe permanently; if our audience didn't like it, you got
tired of it, or something didn't seem to be working, your done with it.
How many worlds?
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Those who are unclear how much writing they will complete should try their hand at
world building to see whether it is something they enjoy.
If you're new to world building and it shows in our early work, you may learn from our
mistakes and move on rather of having to correct them.
you've taken few our risks if you have a more experimental concept that takes more
risks with the support of an audience.
This approach has disadvantages as you all. Skimping on world building could cause an
under-developed or less interesting world. It can be less unique, too, if you use staples
like elves, dwarves, and dragons. It takes considerable work to invent species that
favorably compare to those.
How many worlds?
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If you do a lot of work but only use it once, is it worth it? you’ll have to repeat much of
that work every time you invent another world.
This could cause world building fatigue when you’re on our tyountieth world. The risk of
repeating ourselves also rises. If a story becomes very popular and our audience
demands more, you might find that our less developed concepts have caused problems
you struggle to resolve in later works.
One World for Many Stories
The alternative is to build one world for use on those tyounty books. Just doing it once
means not repeating ourselves. Greater depth and realism can be created by inventing
more detail, which is needed to make new concepts, like species, more believable. you
invent new life and use only those, you’re no longer bound by the expectations that
familiar species cause. you have freedom to follow our own rules
How many worlds?
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The hybrid
The hybrid
you can split the difference—create one planet that’s intended for many stories while
also creating less developed ones for single stories. This hybrid approach is the best of
both worlds. you might need a break from our “main” world (for lack of a better term)
or just want to do something different or new once again. you can utilize a single-use
world for more extreme risks, keeping our main world more accessible.
What you can do is create our continents in rough form, then the gods of that whole
world, and any species, animals, and plants that are found mostly everywhere. Then
focus on a continent and some nations on the large scale and some basic history,
including wars and animosities. you’ll also need a major city or two in every kingdom. At
that point, you’ve created a basic framework for the rest. As needed when writing a
story, you can flesh out details of any given city.
How many worlds?
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How to decide?
• Consider how passionate you are about world building. If you’re an author, your
primary goal is telling stories.
• Will you be satisfied with showing your originality in the story more than the setting?
• Is there a risk you’ll get so involved in world building that you’ll seldom get around to
telling those stories?
• Will this become one? Every minute on this is a minute you could’ve spent on your
writing craft or building an audience. Where does your heart lie?
• It’s also important to consider how long you intend your career to be. If you’re a
“lifer” and will write for decades in a genre requiring world building, then expending
a lot of effort makes more sense than for someone who wants to give writing a shot
and will bow out after failure, or even modest success.
How many worlds?
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2.2 Practice session
Exercise on world building
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Step 1: Plan but Don’t Over-Plan
Step 2: Describe Your World
Step 3: Inhabit Your World
Step 4: Establish the History of Your World
Step 5: Determine the Culture of Your World
Step 6: Power Your World

2.3 A Question of Depth
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How to create depth
A single, detailed world provides a richer, more diverse, immersive experience for an
audience, but you must remember that they want a story, even in gaming.
World building is always subservient to this, and yet when you spend many hours doing
it, you’re tempted to include more of what you’ve created than is required for our story.
you’re too close to our work. It can be prudent to take breaks from world building and
remember that it isn’t the ultimate goal.
Audiences don’t want stories about our world building. They want stories about people
and conflicts. These should be layered within our setting, not used as an excuse to show
off what you’ve invented. There are ways to achieve this.
A Question of Depth
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When you create a world to tell a single story, you don’t have that option. you might be
more tempted to ramble on about our world building. Or you don’t invent those things
at all because you won’t be using them, which predisposes our world to lack depth.
But you need to have a youll-realized world (just not go too far), for the same reason
you invent character backstory—it helps flesh out our depiction of the world, and helps
our readers to understand it.
A Question of Depth
Reading reference: http://www.artofworldbuilding.com/how-to-create-depth/
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2.4 The Problem of Exposition
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The objection to exposition is that authors cause a loss of momentum when they stop
the story to explain a setting or even a character, then resume on the other side.
Authors of older books sometimes wrote pages upon pages of exposition; you have to
usually skip this. Modern audiences expect a story to keep moving. Beta-readers give
use brief about exposition as short as a four-sentence paragraph.
This seems a little harsh to us, and you’ll have to use your own judgment. Whether or
not an explanation is too much is a personal choice. Keep in mind when inventing
something that requires explanation that many readers will skip these passages, or an
editor might strike them entirely.
How is an author to get across needed information? That’s a writing question more than
a world building one, but an old standby is the ignorant character who keeps asking
what something means only to have another character explain it to them.
The Problem of Exposition
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Overusing this is a poor style choice. The technique is especially prominent in films
without a narrator, though some shows use heavy voice overs to explain things. Like it
or not, some exposition will always be needed. you just don’t want a death certificate
for our stories to have “Death by Exposition” on the cause of death line.
Show vs. Tell
One way around exposition is to reveal world building details as an integral part of a
story. For example, “The Garden of Taria” exists so you can reveal an aspect of a
humanoid species. Hoyouver, that’s your goal as an author. It’s not a reader-centric goal
of a story about characters, which is what you want.
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Other Methods
you can also include more details in a glossary with each published work. Since perusing
it is optional, readers with greater curiosity will do so while those who don’t care are
freed from exposition overkill.
A related solution is to create a youbsite all about our world, linking to it from our
glossary or even the text of our stories. Each time a new item is mentioned in a tale, the
word is a hyperlink to the corresponding page on the youbsite. This is also optional for
our readers, who may love being able to do this; they might also be annoyed/distracted
by the sight of a hyperlink in a novel unless this sort of thing becomes common.
A youbsite might be overkill unless you’re a successful writer, but it can help invest
readers in our world and possibly draw in new ones.
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The Value of Influences
During world building, you can become so focused on inventing something new that you
try not to be influenced by anything you’ve seen before. While this is admirable, you can
inadvertently deny ourselves something precisely because someone has done it, which
means you’re still being influenced. True freedom to invent means not worrying about
similarities at all and using every possible good idea.
Aspire to create a species that looks and lives hoyouver you want them to. If a physical
adaptation is based on habitat, this is good.
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2.5 Creating gods in fantasy, science
fiction, and in game
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Creating gods
Whether you write fantasy or science fiction, chances are sooner or later you’ll need a
god or gods. At the least, our characters might want to pray, syouar, threaten
damnation, or utter thanks. And when someone is born, dies, or reaches a milestone,
gods are often praised.
Gods are typically credited with the reason for everything existing, but starting our
world building with them is optional. Our gods can be real or wishful thinking, but in
fantasy and SF, they are typically portrayed as real and taking an active role in the lives
of the world’s residents. Different religions spring up from different beliefs about even a
single shared god, so before you can create religions, decide on deities(God and
goddess) .
Creating gods in fantasy, science fiction
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Before creating the god think about these:
• Did the gods create our world on purpose or was it a byproduct of a “big bang”
origin?
• Did they shape the land a certain way or just let it do its thing over
millennia(Century)?
• Are they active, causing the seasons, night and day, and the winds, or do they just
manipulate these forces?
In science fiction characters may travel beyond several planets, each with its own
pantheon (temple, church, etc.) dedicated to all of the gods worshipped by a specific
nation or people; how you ever, this is not to suggest that each world need a fully
established pantheon. Rather, a broad sense of religion's presence and the appearance
of genuine gods may be all that is required, along with a few names.
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In fantasy, gods often put in appearances that leave little doubt that they exist. In
antiquity, there are numerous myths of Norse and Greek gods being jealous of humans,
tormenting, killing, and having children with us.
The Christian god is the one who keeps quiet. you can choose either approach, but gods
who affect events are more useful. Their folloyours can be the ones impacting life,
whether these are your main characters or their enemies.
A common use for gods is to have a priest lay hands on wounded people and ask their
god to heal them. you need deities for this. A developed pantheon helps us flesh out the
priest character’s personality as you decide who they pray to.
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HOW TO CREATE A PANTHEON
A pantheon is a mythological collection of gods. They are often related by familial ties and
recognized by the culture that invented them but not usually by others. While creating
multiple gods is more work, dynamic relationships among deities(God and goddess) is more
entertaining and can drive plot.
you can start with a list of traits, such as truth, courage, love, hate, patience, curiosity,
peace, greed, fear, sloth, deceit, and wrath. you can use phenomena like gods of storms,
war, and death. you don’t have to choose one approach or the other, but mixing them could
make our pantheon seem random and not youll thought out. One solution is to decide that
traits lead to phenomenon, or vice versa.
For example, the god of wrath becomes the god of storms.
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A pantheon allows characters to show personality by the god(s) they pray to, especially for
priests. As our characters investigate catacombs means tombs, ancient ruins, or a modern
megalopolis means large cities, they will see symbols of the gods, encounter over curious
priests, or even visit a religious society.
These elements can affect the decisions they make, such as not entering a given room due
to the symbol of the god of torture means punish on it. Even unrecognized symbols from an
unknown pantheon can be useful for creating an unsettling feeling.
A pantheon is often not organized in any particular way, with the exception of familial
relationships, should they exist, but if you assign certain traits to every god, you can group
them that way. For example, maybe every god is associated with a season, element, or color.
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This causes multiple gods of spring, fire, or indigo. This may impact their ability to affect
elements, their priests similarly affected. A god or priest of fire might suffer more from
water-based attacks. Some people also organize their gods by good and evil.
WHERE AND HOW LONG THE GODS LIVE
In relationship
you can create relationships, families or not, based on god features. A god of love and a god
of hate can be twins, as can the gods of life and death. The god of winter and demigod of
snow can be parent and child. While these are a bit predictable, symmetry is appreciated
and easier to remember. Gods can be friends and enemies, too. This often results from
conflicts of character and desires, just like with people. If these boil over into arguments that
become myths, this helps justify the intensity of bonding or resentment.
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Where Do They Live?
Deciding where your gods live will have an impact on stories if your characters ever need to
visit them. In theory, it shouldn’t be easy to reach gods; otherwise, every guy with a cause
will beg for help. A useful tradition to follow is that one must prove one’s worthiness
through an hard way to the god.
Do the gods live apart from each other or all together in a city?
Try to avoiding something as obvious as a mountain top because readers will be reminded of
Mt. Olympus. On the other hand, the god of the sea living underwater makes too much
sense to ignore, but you can still have him do something less common, such as live on an
island; after all, how is anyone supposed to visit him underwater, or is that what he’s trying
to avoid?
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Are the gods in the mortal world, like your planet, or in a magical realm similar to an
afterlife? You can base your decisions on ideas from existing mythologies about travel to
other dimensions.
If the gods are believed to live in the sky, what happens in a world technologically advanced
enough to explore the heavens and discover there are no gods up there?
HOW TO INVENT CHARACTERISTICS OF GODS
Anyone who’s played role playing games is familiar with the concept of alignment, or good
vs. evil. This oversimplified way of viewing gods helps classify, organize, and balance them so
you don’t have too many evil ones, for example.
A degree of balance is preferred unless our story requires an imbalance.
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Are the gods in the mortal world, like your planet, or in a magical realm similar to an
afterlife? You can base your decisions on ideas from existing mythologies about travel to
other dimensions.
If the gods are believed to live in the sky, what happens in a world technologically advanced
enough to explore the heavens and discover there are no gods up there?
How to Invent features of Gods
• Decide the good or evil.
• Classify, organize, and balance them so you don’t have too many evil ones.
• Choose these some options like “benevolent,” “kinder,” or “helpful” instead of “good,”
and “nefarious,” “sinister,” or “feared” instead of “evil.”
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• Apart from the naming of our gods, what are the other ways?
• Think about titles of god and goddess such as “God of War,” “Lord of Despair,” So they
can have multiple titles or nicknames, particularly if they oversee more than one area of
life.
• Gods are sometimes the patron (savers) of activities. These can be professions like
hunters, farmers, or blacksmiths, or something more general like lovers or children.
• Use symbols for easy to describe in under one sentence, they can be depict on armor,
buildings, ships, space stations, and uniforms, or worn as talismans (Lucy charm object) ,
even branded into flesh (body).
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HOW DO YOUR GODS BEHAVE?
• Decide what is considered acceptable and unacceptable behavior and whether the gods
generally obey this.
• Think about the view point maybe some being lawful, some agreeing but not overly
caring.
• Do gods punish offending deities? Do guilty gods submit to the punishment (respecting
the law they’ve broken) or resist, possibly by fleeing?
• How do gods punish their species? Death, a nasty afterlife, misfortune, or removing
talent, like one for magic? And for what offenses?
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• Some gods and their followers have a reputation that immediately comes to mind if they’re
mentioned. A god of cruelty might force self-mutilation on its priests. For a god of love, this
might be orgies. A god of wrath might be prone to outbursts of anger, making people afraid to
even say his name.
• Do your gods ever visit the world and peoples they created? Why, how often, and for what? Do
they have to be summoned or can they appear wherever they want? Are there restrictions on
where they can go?
• you can take some reasons that you have for our own creative work and attribute it to gods,
such as a love of doing so. you’re curious how our children will turn out while guiding and
shaping the result, so the gods can, too.
• Our gods can create special places, which are typically supernatural. These can be on the
world, between worlds, or an alternate reality. Prisons, meeting places, means of travel, and
hiding places are some possibilities.
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2.6 Creating species in fantasy,
science fiction, and in game
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Creating a species is one of the most rewarding but challenging aspects of world building.
This session focuses on ensuring your species is close to the competition (such as elves and
dwarves) in quality and depth. Maybe you can feel fearful by all that you could invent, but
remember that you can always ditch things that aren’t working. Having fun with it and taking
it one subject at a time go a long way toward keeping it fun.
Species or Race?
Terminology affects perception and our ability to organize our creations. Fantasy readers are
familiar with “race” denoting the difference between an elf and dwarf, for example. These
races are very different in physical features, temperament, and society. They seem totally
unrelated except for being humanoid. By contrast, on Earth, we only have humans, a species,
and use the word race to distinguish between different biological variations of us.
Creating species in fantasy, science fiction, and in game
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The term?
What’s a race? The answer can be complicated, but on Earth, race has been described as
nothing more than a social construct to describe different versions of Homo sapiens (i.e.,
humans), who are 99.9% the same, having no genetic differences to warrant classification
(into races or anything else). In other words, genetics has nothing to do with the term race
and more to do with the word species. This means that if two humanoids are genetically
different, they’ll be considered separate species.
Separate DNA = different species
Shared DNA = races of a species.
In SF, humanoids originating on different planets will have different genes, so calling them
species makes more sense. In fantasy, humanoids are most often from the same world; it’s
possible for them to share genes and therefore be races of one species.
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Since elves, dwarves, and others are invented, no genetic material exists to determine if they
are, in fact, genetically different. One could assume that the pointed ears of elves must
mean there’s a genetic difference, but this is superficial. On Earth, human races have
different eye shapes, noses, and more while still being genetically the same. Fantasy
humanoids could indeed be races, sharing DNA.
Small people, also known as dwarves, exist on Earth, but their distinctive height and other
characteristics are caused by a medical or genetic disorder, which is only sometimes passed
down from parents (due to genes). It is not a definite outcome, but in fantasy worlds, a
dwarf is a different race with a guaranteed passing down of their different genes to children,
which suggest they are really a species. We wouldn’t expect a fantasy dwarf to give birth to a
human, but Earth dwarves have done exactly that.
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• If our gods are capable of creating one species, why haven’t they created two or more?
• Did some event stop them and they never got around to it?
• They just did one and let it separate into races on its own?
• Or did the gods cause those races to develop?
• Are the gods taking a hands-off approach to the world and not interfering beyond inventing
this one species? If they’re involved in everyday life, why not create more species?
If races don’t exist on a biological level, species is the other obvious term to use, but even
biologists struggle with what is known as the “species problem.” There are over two dozen
definitions of the word “species.” If scientists can’t define it, how can we?
The word is just used to group similar organisms and is what the average person thinks of when
considering a cat vs. a dog, for example. Both races and species can interbreed, producing
offspring, rendering the distinction between them a moot point, so this shouldn’t figure in our
thinking.
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SPECIES BIO-DIVERSITY AND HIERARCHY
Bio-Diversity
To make a decision, consider how diverse your creations are. If they’re all humanoid, it
suggests shared DNA and they are races. Elves, dwarves, hobbits, orcs, humans, and other
fantasy tropes have two arms and legs, one head, and no tail, etc. But if we create one with
wings, another with gills and other adaptations for the water, and another with four legs,
these suggest different species. Wouldn’t a dragon be a different species from Homo
sapiens?
On Earth, we distinguish between Caucasians, Asians, and more with the word “race.” If such
races exist on our world, we should also call them race. But if we also have elves and
dwarves and call those races, too, isn’t that confusing?
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A Hierarchy
A hierarchy can illustrate the problems of using race and species poorly. Consider this list
where everyone is lumped together as races:
1. Daekais
2. Kadeans
3. Humans
4. Mandeans
5. Morkais
6. Nideans
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Can you tell which ones are related? If so, it’s only from naming convention; two of them
have “kais” in their name and three of them have “deans” in theirs. This lack of structure
results from seeing everything as a race of one species despite their differences. As it turns
out, two of those humanoids have wings, and three of the others live in water, having gills
and other adaptations. Doesn’t the below make more sense?
1.Humans
2.Kais
1.Daekais
2.Morkais
3.Mandeans
1.Kadeans
2.Nideans
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The first numbers one, two, and three are species. The differences between them are
enough that no one would confuse one for another. The sub-numbers of 1 and 2 are races
under their respective species. we refer to daekais as a race of kais, not just a generic “race”
of…unspecified. If we want to refer to daekais and morkais simultaneously, we can use “kais”
to do so.
Let’s take a look at some traditional fantasy races. Ask yourself which is better among these
organizations:
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Drow
Humans
Hill dwarves
Mountain dwarves
Wood elves
Or this:
1. Dwarves
Hill dwarves
Mountain dwarves
2. Elves
Drow
Wood elves
3. Humans

WHY CREATE SPECIES IN FANTASY OR SCIENCE FICTION?
• For creating something new we need to inventing unique species that can help our work
stand out (hopefully in a good way) and even invigorate love of the genre for both us and
our audience.
• It doesn’t make sense to spend many hours developing a species for a short story. If we’d
like to develop a detailed species anyway, then we should invent for a setting we’ll use
repeatedly across multiple works.
• How much effort to expend on creating a species will depend on intentions, but there’s a
range of possibility from extreme world building to hardly any for the scope.
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• At the least, we must decide on physical appearance and for natural qualities of a
person’s character that’s shared across members of a species.
• At the other extreme is a fully-developed species, including their habitat, climate,
settlement preferences, appearance of head, body, and clothing, their gods, society,
languages, customs, history, relationships with other species, supernatural and
technology talents and attitudes, and combat skills. It can be easy to go overboard
inventing things we might never use, but it can also make a great impression of depth
and believability.
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WHAT DOES YOUR SPECIES LOOK LIKE?
• When creating a species, start with physical characteristics; bodies influence the minds
that develop. Like it or not, appearance plays a crucial role in life, even if no one’s likely to
draw our species or otherwise see it.
The overall impression and details combine to add characterization opportunities that
shouldn’t be overlooked. It’s okay to start with envisioning a specific character, but try to get
a sense of how the species generally looks, too.
• There’s a tendency to create humanoid species like elves and dwarves instead of spider-
like ones, for example. This is preferred for most species because otherwise things might
get too weird for our audience, or too much like a cartoon. While there’s always room for
these, non-humanoids have their challenges.
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With humanoids, we don’t have to decide what they eat, how often they sleep, and other
biological basics. They mingle well with humans, being able to live in similar buildings, use
horses, and need fewer unusual physical things. By contrast, would a giant spider sleep in a
bed, or eat with utensils, or consume the same food? How would one travel if not on foot?
Such considerations might be needed if we go this route. It could make things more
interesting for both us and the audience.
With a non-humanoid, our ability to quickly and skillfully describe them matters because
readers or player have to imagine them, unless we’re in a visual medium. While it’s great to
have explanations for anatomical features, audiences are used to bizarre things without
getting one iota of explanation.
53

WHAT DOES YOUR SPECIES/RACE’S HEAD LOOK LIKE?
For example humanoids Head
54
Features Options
Face/jawline round, oval, square, heart-shaped
Brow
prominent (often caused by deep set eyes) or shallow
(monolid)
Eyebrows rounded, arched (and to what degree), mono brow
Eyes
round, slanted, deep set, up/down turned (at the outside
corner), wide/close set, hooded (as if hidden behind
overhanging eyelids all the time), protruding (the opposite of
hooded), and monolid (the opposite of deep set, where the
brow appears less prominent, as in some Asians)
Iris
shape (vertical/horizontal slit, round, cat’s eye, crescent) and
typical colors

Humanoids
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Cheekbones
sunken/indented or high/prominent. Low is average and not
typically mentioned
Nose
straight, long and wide (like blacks), hawkish, snub, thin and
pointed, bulbous, upturned, aquiline, broad with large nostrils,
and the basic large nose
Mouth
average, wide, small, full or thin lips (sometimes each is
different), rounded/pointed/absent Cupid’s bow
Teeth
straight, crooked, missing, stained, pointed, serrated,
poisonous, tiny, large, and multiple rows (like a shark)
Chin
protruding, cleft, thin and pointing, round, square, jutting,
receding (i.e., almost no chin), and long (often points forward)

Non Humanoids
• The heads of non-humanoids can be based on animals or invented from scratch, but you’ll
want an understanding of why a feature exists or it might not make sense.
• In a monster, an explanation isn’t necessary; after all, the creepiness of things that don’t make
sense are part of why it’s a monster (the bizarre and nonsensical frightens).
• The bar is set higher for a species. We needn’t ever explain it, but having the species use the
feature in a way that makes it clear there’s a rationale behind it helps us.
For example, sharks have jaws that can distend for a wider bite, with rows of replaceable, serrated
teeth for ripping meat.
Predators tend to have eyes facing forward, while prey tend to have them on the sides to see
predators coming more easily (usually from behind). If our species is truly only prey and never
predator, consider this option
56

OTHER ASPECTS OF SPECIES?
• Who Are our Species’ Gods? And characteristic of gods?
• What is our Species’ World View? Such as society, language and history.
• How Does our Species’ Do Magic? Such as Phenomena, Magic, Godly Power
• Is Species Use High Tech Stuff? If it is fantasy so what type technology will be there or if it
is science fiction so what will be?
57

2.7 Creating monsters, plants, animals
and undead characters
58

DEFINING MONSTER
We all know what a monster is, but since we might be creating species and animals, too, let’s
be clear. The term implies something harmful, unnatural, and morally objectionable,
whether there’s a physical deformity or psychological one.
Monsters aren’t real, of course, and are created by storytellers, usually to depict or highlight
some of the above, sometimes as a warning. They are often a freak of nature and can result
from birth defects, in which case it was something else, like a human, before being regarded
as a monster by horrified onlookers. Their existence has often been thought to foreshadow
something evil happening, which is one reason they are cast out.
In science fiction and fantasy, the word “sentient” is used to describe creatures that are
human-like in their mental capabilities, even though that’s not what the word really means.
59

MONSTERS VS. SPECIES
The difference between a monster and an intelligent species is arguably their minds. A
humanoid species is typically sophisticated in having what humans have: society, culture,
philosophy, and other aspects that distinguish us from animals. This is a generalization, but
monsters don’t typically have these things, or at least, not in a way beyond that of animals.
We can argue, rightly, that animals like dolphins and apes have a certain social structure, but
these are communicated as much with body language as verbally. Any language is fairly
limited compared to mankind. They don’t read and write or pass down long histories. A
generation today likely has no idea what was happening one hundred years ago, though this
is admittedly conjecture.
Creating monsters, plants, animals and undead characters
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None of this means we can’t have an intelligent monster if we choose to, but once we start
giving a monster these things, it starts moving in the direction of humanity. We may find
ourselves deciding that our monster is very cool and could be more useful, so we turn it into
a species.
No harm in that. Dracula is a good example of a smarter monster, but while he is a vampire
now, he was once human. This is also true of zombies, who are typically portrayed as
relatively stupid. We can use a similar approach (the monster was once human) to explain
our monster’s sophistication.
Does monster automatically mean unsophisticated like an animal? In fantasy, SF, and gaming,
yes. In this sense, they’re just like animals.
61

HOW TO INVENT ACCIDENTAL MONSTERS
Accidental Monsters
In worlds with magic, advanced technologies, or unexplained phenomena, the accidental
route is especially viable. This is where many comic book characters originate. There are
many possibilities that need little in the way of explaining how the monster came about. It
encountered something and now it’s a monster. That’s it. No one is going to say our mutated
human isn’t possible.
This raises an important point—accidents happen to pre-existing entities, whether animal or
a humanoid species. They don’t generally cause a lifeform to spring from nonliving matter.
62

HOW TO INVENT ACCIDENTAL MONSTERS
Accidental Monsters
In worlds with magic, advanced technologies, or unexplained phenomena, the accidental
route is especially viable. This is where many comic book characters originate. There are
many possibilities that need little in the way of explaining how the monster came about. It
encountered something and now it’s a monster. That’s it. No one is going to say our mutated
human isn’t possible.
This raises an important point—accidents happen to pre-existing entities, whether animal or
a humanoid species. They don’t generally cause a lifeform to spring from nonliving matter.
We’ll need to decide who and/or what caused the accident. Readers want to know such
things once one is mentioned. 63

Monsters by Design
Some monsters might have been created on purpose, from something already alive or
something inanimate. The latter suggests great power behind its creation, such as a wizard
or god, both found in fantasy but often not in science fiction.
This suggests that fantasy can get away with monsters that are farther removed from
humans and animals than science fiction, where mutation of pre-existing life is more likely.
But there’s nothing that says technology, if it’s advanced enough, can’t create life from
nothing.
Who would create a monster on purpose? Wizards, gods, and “mad” scientists come to mind
(like Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll).
64

PLANTS AND ANIMALS
It takes less time to invent an animal than a humanoid species, gods, or even monsters because
animals aren’t as complex. Plants are even simpler. First we’ll consider whether we should invent
them or not. Then we’ll look at specifics for each and then considerations that apply to both.
In science fiction that takes place exclusively on space craft, we can ignore the subject altogether
unless the ship is from Earth or if we want to comment on what the crew are eating, for
example. Or if they have an area similar to a greenhouse, zoo, or nature preserve for the same
reasons we have parks in major cities: respite from steel, plastic, and concrete surroundings.
In science fiction that takes place on non-Earth planets, or ships originating from them, we can’t
expect the same plants and animals. Even if the world is Earth-like, the life could be very
different. Something that looks like a bear at first glance might be an herbivore that makes a
good pet.
65

Vegetation doesn’t need to be wildly different in basic form; there will still be trees, shrubs,
and flowers, for example, but we have the option to imbue them with new properties,
colors, and significance. This is fairly easy and maybe even necessary to be believable, but
we don’t need to invent an entire ecosystem.
Similarly, animals from another planet will still fall into broad categories like fish, amphibian,
mammals, birds, and more. Since animals move and are prey and/or predator, behavior
becomes an important aspect of inventing something different from an Earth analogue.
For example, a horse with two more legs will strike the audience as exactly that. The
appearance, size, temperament, and behavior of such a non-Earth “horse” (we’ll want to call
it something else) should likely be different in meaningful ways so the audience does not
have that reaction.
66

SHOULD WE CREATE PLANTS AND ANIMALS?
For creating Something Different: One
reason to create plants and animals is that
they can give our world a different look and
feel. The more we create, the more
pronounced this impression, especially when
we link choices and behaviors of our
characters to the life around them.
Characters can learn hunting, attack, and
defense skills based on those predators.
67

DO OUR CREATION MATTERS?
In the film and TV industries, having interesting plants and animals in the background is easy and
fairly standard with today’s special effects, and they need no more than an appearance. It’s only
when they affect character decisions or storylines that they achieve relevance, which is the point
at which they should be mentioned in written stories. If we mention an irrelevant plant or animal
in passing without some hint that it’s a large cat, for example, it can be off-putting, especially if we
name too many in a row.
HOW TO CLASSIFY THE PLANTS WE INVENT
The seedless plants include algae, liverworts, mosses, and ferns, with only mosses being
something we’re likely to use in our stories partly because no one thinks algae or ferns are
interesting, and no one knows what a liverwort is (and it’s not interesting or useful when you do).
If we have sea dwelling species, algae can be more useful if there’s a dangerous or useful kind that
can develop
68

Among the plants with seeds are cycads, conifers, and flowering plants. An internet search on
cycad will reveal plants that look like a palm tree, or an evergreen fern with very large leaves atop
a branchless tree trunk (sometimes quite tall) and with cones in the middle of these leaves at the
top. They grow slowly and live up to a thousand years, so they could be admired by a long living,
humanoid species. They are in tropical and subtropical climates. These large cones can be
imagined to contain useful material in them and to have predators who desire them.
But always remember how your plants lifecycle can be unique? Its depend on you how you want?
HOW TO CLASSIFY AMPHIBIANS AND BIRDS
While there are many types of animals we could create, some are more likely candidates than
others. To get started, knowing how they’re classified might give us ideas.
Animals are either invertebrates or vertebrates, two types.
69

Invertebrates are with no back bone such as an arthropod, mollusk, annelid, coelenterate, etc. and
Vertebrates with back bone including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes.
Invertebrates, which make up 97% of animals, include worms, sea urchins, jellyfish, snails, arachnids
(spiders, scorpions), crustaceans (lobster, crab), corals, and insects also.
Amphibians (an animal that can live both on land and in water) include frogs, toads, and salamanders,
and require water to breed, laying larva that metamorphose into the adult form. They are capable of
living on land or underwater but need moist habitats to keep their skin damp. They can acquire air
through their skins to assist their lungs, with a few having no lungs at all; this allows them to remain
submerged indefinitely.
There’s a tendency to overlook birds during world building and storytelling, probably because they have
limited use to us except as food or symbols (like associating a dove with peace). Birds consume food
smaller than them, so unless we have giant birds, they’ll be keeping clear of our species unless they’ve
been domesticated and used like carrier pigeons, for example, or as pets, as in the parrot.
70

Fish are aquatic animals that have fins and gills and are cold-blooded, their body
temperatures affected by environment. This includes eels, actual fish, lampreys, rays, and
sharks, but not some animals that have the word “fish” in their name, like jellyfish and
starfish. Technically it excludes dolphin and whales, which are mammals.
Mammals are the largest and smartest animals, generally, though this can be different on
our world. Most have four legs, though some have adaptations extreme enough that we may
not realize they’re a mammal, such as whales and dolphins.
Reptiles include turtles, crocodiles, snakes, and lizards. They either have four legs or none.
Cold-blooded, they cannot control body heat without environmental help; while some have
adapted to extreme temperatures, most stay in water or seek sun or shade as needed.
71

HOW TO USE PLANTS EFFECTIVELY
• Plants are used in many ways that we can adopt when inventing one. The obvious
example, besides creating oxygen, is for food, but there’s also decoration, medicine,
building materials, toys, clothing, tools, fuel, and everyday items like pencils and paper.
• Decoration is a useful subject if we decide that people in a given culture have assigned
certain properties to a flower, for example, and assume that a female wearing one in her
hair is revealing something about herself to others.
• Plants offer a good opportunity to have our characters and story affected by interesting
foods. They can be poisonous, addictive, a bland staple for adventurers, freely found in the
wild, or a cultural or religious expectation to serve or consume at certain moments.
72

• Invented medicinal plants are great for healing or poisoning our characters or for use in
spells. We need no explanation for why a plant has these properties because audiences
don’t expect one, though in a more scientific world or story, one will help. Plants with
supernatural properties are often said to grow near something like a special spring or dark
place.
HOW TO USE ANIMALS EFFECTIVELY
• As with plants, humanoid species use animals in many ways, including as food, pets,
transportation, entertainment/sport, guards, domestic work, and for materials such as
hides, bones, and even fluids.
• Domestic work like pulling wagons isn’t very thrilling, but such animals are likely to be
more commonly experienced by characters in urban settings.
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• Humans often use animals for entertainment and sport, whether hunting them, fighting
them against each other, or racing them against each other. Some see animals as trophies
and the hunt a sign of their virility. This can be used to characterize our characters.
Inventing unique attributes for an animal can make this conquest worthwhile.
• Animals used as food are either hunted or kept in a pasture. The former is a more
entertaining use in our work and requires preparation, skill, knowledge, and the right
tools. This also exposes our characters to risk if the animal can fight back. Even if they
can’t, hunting typically means the wild, where other animals, species, monsters, and even
supernatural phenomenon could impact the hunt.
• And animation can also use as guards, pets and form of transportation.
74

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