On Worldbuilding
A fantasy worldbuilding and short fiction blog
by Tristin Pulicci
This is a blog about all the different technical aspects of building fictional worlds. From religion to cosmology to art and food, I’m trying to cover just about every topic I can think of. So, the list gets longer every day.
To jump right in, start with Part 1: Subsistence Strategies
I’ve been a Dungeon Master for well over a decade, and I love writing short stories. When I got started in worldbuilding, I had a lot of questions and I had to do a lot of research to find all the little bits of real world lore and science I wanted to help make my world feel authentic. Now I’m compiling all the knowledge I’ve gained to share with you in the hope that I can save you some time and headache.
My approach is to present examples and research from the real world that tell us either about how fictional societies and worlds might be structured, or why certain narrative demands should influence your worldbuilding choices. Once every few posts, I throw in a play-by-play of myself building a world using these principles to show you how I put these ideas to work in my settings. Then, I write short stories set in this world, to show you how it all carries through to the final product.
The Most Recent Articles
Religions Part 3: Cosmology and Metamyth
When designing a fantasy world, you should be focused on the areas that will be the stage for your story; the cities, the ancient ruins, the castles and the bustling port cities. But, eventually either your audience or the conditions of your story will beg the question “What lies beyond?” The realms beyond the material…
Religions Part 2: Divine Archetypes and Motifs
In Part 1, I talked about various systems of belief and how to implement them in a fantasy world. However, I didn’t spare much time to talk about individual gods and how they might look. There is an innumerable myriad of gods greater and lesser, and so it’s almost impossible to go over every different…
Religions Part 1: Systems of Belief
When creating or imagining a fictional world, one inevitably is faced with the question; “What do these people believe?” It’s an open ended, but also important question to ask, because as we’ve seen through history belief systems can shape the development of culture in massive ways. Christianity in the West, Islam in the Middle East,…
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On Worldbuilding 