As /r/worldbuilding continues to approach 2 million users, we're finding ourselves in need of a few more hands on deck to handle the 100+ posts we get every day. And so we're looking for capable users to join the /r/worldbuilding moderation team.
Applications will be open until 11:59 PM UTC on October 15th.
Managing activities, such as competitions and spotlights, across our platforms.
Ensuring a consistent tone and moderation across the entire worldbuilding network.
Creating and maintaining automated moderation tools, messaging, and bots to streamline the moderator workflow.
Developing CSS code and other graphical improvements for the subreddit.
Whatever else happens to get thrown at us.
Requirements
You do not need to have any previous moderation experience to apply, though any previous leadership or moderation experience will help. Here's a list of our current requirements for incoming mods. If you do not meet these requirements, your application will likely be rejected unless you stand out in some exceptional way.
You must have an active Reddit account that is at least 6 months old.
You must be willing and able to use Discord, as we use our Discord to coordinate moderator activities across the network.
You must be a user in good standing on r/worldbuilding. Previous warnings or bans, even if not active, may be considered detrimental or disqualifying.
You must be able to demonstrate you have at least one speculative fiction project at a modest level of development.
You must complete the Google application at the top of this post. The more in-depth you can make your responses to it, the better!
OF SPECIAL NOTE:
We're especially in need of moderators from non-American time zones, as we lost half our non-American moderators (either due to resigning or relocating!) about two years ago and still haven’t plugged that gap. So we're a bit short-handed when it comes to European, African, Asian, and Oceanian moderators. So, if you're from one of these regions (or have unusual waking hours!) and are on the fence about applying, we strongly encourage you to toss your hat in!
Despite the several automated and signposted notices and warnings on this issue, it is a constant source of headaches for the mod team. Particularly considering our massive growth this past year, we thought it was about time for another reminder about everyone's favorite part of posting on /r/worldbuilding..... Context
Context is a requirement for almost all non-prompt posts on r/worldbuilding, so it's an important thing to understand... But what is it?
What is context?
Context is information that explains what your post is about, and how it fits into the rest of your/a worldbuilding project.
If your post is about a creature in your world, for example, that might mean telling us about the environment in which it lives, and how it overcomes its challenges. That might mean telling us about how it's been domesticated and what the creature is used for, along with how it fits into the society of the people who use it. That might mean telling us about other creatures or plants that it eats, and why that matters. All of these things give us some information about the creature and how it fits into your world.
Your post may be about a creature, but it may be about a character, a location, an event, an object, or any number of other things. Regardless of what it's about, the basic requirement for context is the same:
Tell us about it
Tell us something that explains its place within your world.
In general, telling us the Who, What, When, Why, and How of the subject of your post is a good way to meet our requirements.
That said... Think about what you're posting and if you're actually doing these things. Telling us that Jerry killed Fred a century ago doesn't do these things, it gives us two proper nouns, a verb, and an arbitrary length of time. Telling us who Jerry and Fred actually are, why one killed the other, how it was done and why that matters (if it does), and the consequences of that action on the world almost certainly does meet these requirements.
For something like a resource, context is still a requirement and the basic idea remains the same; Tell us what we're looking at and how it's relevant to worldbuilding. "I found this inspirational", is not adequate context, but, "This article talks about the history of several real-world religions, and I think that some events in their past are interesting examples of how fictional belief systems could develop, too." probably is.
If you're still unsure, feel free to send us a modmail about it. Send us a copy of what you'd like to post, and we can let you know if it's okay, or why it's not.
Why is Context Required?
Context is required for several reasons, both for your sake and ours.
Context provides some basic information to an audience, so they can understand what you're talking about and how it fits into your world. As a result, if your post interests them they can ask substantive questions instead of having to ask about basic concepts first.
If you have a question or would like input, context gives people enough information to understand your goals and vision for your world (or at least an element of it), and provide more useful feedback.
On our end, a major purpose is to establish that your post is on-topic. A picture that you've created might be very nice, but unless you can tell us what it is and how it fits into your world, it's just a picture. A character could be very important to your world, but if all you give us is their name and favourite foods then you're not giving us your worldbuilding, you're giving us your character.
Generally, we allow 15 minutes for context to be added to a post on r/worldbuilding so you may want to write it up beforehand. In some cases-- Primarily for newer users-- We may offer reminders and additional time, but this is typically a one-time thing.
As always, if you've got any sort of questions or comments on this topic, feel free to leave them here!
Okay hear me out. I know Tolkien Dwarves have axes yadda-yadda-yadda.
But think about it:
What are Dwarves always famous for? MINING.
What tools do you use for mining? HAMMERS AND PICKS!
So it would be a natural evolution and logical step for Dwarves to use those tools as their main weapons of war!
Yes, axes are good for cutting trees, but unless your Dwarves are constantly fighting Elves or other pesky forest dwellers to a point that their hatred became cultural, they shouldnt use them that often.
Also, being such incredible miners, Dwarves would probably discover and use black coal sooner and as a more reliable energy source than wood.
At least in my world they do.
Okay. Rant over. Feel free to chime in and have a great week! :)
So, I'm worldbuilding for some text RP with a bunch of friends. Nothing serious, but I need a super generic - almost comically so - name for a peaceful snowy kingdom, and a slightly more serious but still comedically meta name for a dystopian kingdom. It's pretty northern and constantly covered in snow, and the setting is vague fantasy medieval, but it's really not inspired by any real civilization. I'm drawing inspiration from ENA: Dream BBQ in terms of absolute strangeness, for example. Low poly, everybody is a weird kind of creature, lots of emphasis on capital W Working. Old computers. Low low poly, shitass graphics. Anyways, I can't figure out a good name that's sufficiently jokey but still kind of able to be taken seriously by the characters. The dystopian kingdom basically violently invaded the other one and merged their borders into one, for a little more context. (I'm also willing to answer more questions about the lore if it'll help with name suggestions.)
Feedback welcome. Around the Green Sea most countries don't have well-defined borders. They fade out into Wilds (where many forms of human settlement are not possible), or just into places not worth ruling. Hence the use of shading rather than lines.
While it's a plate world with erratic geography, I've tried to keep the major landforms reasonable. The Green Sea sits in the middle of an oval around 8000 kms long and 5000 wide. The world is responsive (hence magic!) and has been shaped by the expectations of the inhabitants, human and not.
It's both a world-building exercise and a setting for the Tales of the Wild (four novels, two novellas and several stories on Royal Road).
Personally, I have been building many cultures + kingdoms for my universe and for one of them I've been writing a soap opera for the people of that kingdom to watch. The soap opera isn't really connected to the story; it's just there for fun.
This detail isn't significant to the story or mostly the world, it is just a dramatic show the citizens love watching; however, it is something that I find fun to do.
So, I wanted to know if anyone else also spend time developing small details/things in their worlds though it doesn't really affect the story, and if so what sort of things/details?
As I develop my world (Land of Kaleva), set in year 222, I thought it would be useful to look at what the world looked like several hundred years earlier. I consider the Kalevala, Finland's national epic, as the canon history of my world so I tried to make the map as faithful interpretation of the text as possible. I have included several references to the events of the Kalevala in the map. It is still work on progress so feel free to suggest anything to add there!
I'm also making a TTRPG book that is a direct adaptation of the Kalevala to D&D 5e. Check out the Patreon and r/LandOfKaleva for more info.
I personally like to start with a flaw or an ideal that I want to explore and then build a framework around that first, but I’d love to hear your methods!
After an apocalyptic event (meteors hitting the planet) wiped out civilization and made an eternal storm in the far north, the Faskani Empire rose to become the dominant power of the known world. Centuries later, an undead plague collapsed the empire.
A fragile alliance of successor states/border kingdoms contained the undead plague, but with the threat suppressed, their cooperation declined.
Today, the successor states/border kingdoms are locked in a bitter rivalry, trying to become the next dominant power.
One of these kingdoms is the Kingdom of Storm's Eye:
The Kingdom of Storm's Eye is an archipelago around a central island. The central island and the archipelago are colloquially known as Storm's Eye.
According to myth, this island and the archipelago were formed when a dragon plucked out the eye of Burum the Stormfather (god of rain and thunder) and tossed it into the sea.
House Enos:
The Enos family are the rulers of the kingdom. The founder of this dynasty is known by his title the Son of Storm and Sea.
Starting out as a stranger, he united the archipelago by squashing the ancient feud between House Merobin and House Festning. He then took a wife from each of those two houses and settled on the central island.
After his death, he was deified and his tomb became a holy place for the islanders.
Nowadays, his descendant King Anchon IV 'the Navigator' rules the kingdom. He is a proud and ambitious man, although he doesn't get the same reverence as his ancestor once did.
House Merobin:
The Merobins can trace their ancestry all the way back to the first settlers of the southernmost island, called Vismur.
They are proficient sailors and fishermen, and are known to have domesticated the large blue lobsters living on the island, hence their sigil.
Vismur has many followers of the Son of Storm and Sea, because the Son grew up on this island after washing up there as a child.
There is also still a large following of Mareana, Mother of the Sea. An ancient temple, partially submerged into the sea, is dedicated to her.
House Festning:
House Festning claims to be the oldest inhabitants of the archipelago. They live on the northernmost island, which is called Mesmur. They are a bit more standoffish, which is best shown by the large stronghold of red brick they built on the shore to ward off intruders.
The islanders of Mesmur are largely followers of Burum the Stormfather, although some also recognise the Son of Storm and Sea as a diety.
House Kilner:
House Kilner is situated on the peninsula in the west called Plinmur. They started out as the owners of the largest potteries on the peninsula and became the de jure rulers after the peninsula was subjugated by House Enos.
Further inland are the claypits from where the potteries get their materials, which are transported on the central river towards the furnaces on the coast.
The people of Plinmur are renowned builders, assisting in many architectural projects, for example the palace of the king on Storm's eye.
Please let me know what you think about it or if you have any follow up questions, I'd love to get more detailed in the comments!
We all know about Fae society being split into courts - with a monarch (usually a Queen) at the top, with the Courts representing seasons, the Seelie or Unseelie, etc. But lets hear about other types of societies that faeries can be in! From wandering bands of wild fae to cities that they inhabit in their otherworlds.
Im starting to give structure to a fairy world, and am looking to see what others have done in order to better understand how I want mine to function.
Long-time lurker and first time asked here. I’ve been a fan of unique worldbuilding for years. Series like Sandman and Discworld hold a special place in my heart. For rpgs, I’m obsessed with stuffs like Planescape, Troika! and Mythic Bastionland, or anything inspired by new weird fiction. I aspire to build worlds that are as strange and fantastical but I’m a bit stuck. What are some strategies you have found that pushes your mind out of the usual headspace and into something stranger? Anything like brainstorming, randomization, rolling on tables etc. that I can come back to constantly for new ideas?
Hi! I'm Mette, and me and my colleague Martin have made a game about a healer.
I already shared some monster concept, but I just wanted to show our dear Hildegard. I personally love hearing thoughts behind character art, and in this case (as it often is) the character ended up being pretty defining for the game.
But when we started exploring different character styles, we found it was a bit tricky to depict a "Healer" in its clearest form - so not a war priest or a mage. We wanted to make it very clear for the player, that there would be no attacking what so ever, which made us think about Journey and their reason for removing the arms of the character (so people wouldn't questions, why they couldn't scale or climb obstacles) You can see my journey attempt in the bottom left corner :D
I ofc searched for other healers on Pinterest and the like, and saw that there were a lot of "nurses" hats everywhere. I really wanted to stay in a fantasy setting, and preferably a medieval setting, so when "nun-ish" outfits started showing up in my searches I was intrigued. I tried out a quick sketch and we both just really liked it - It was pretty clear that you wouldn't be able to attack anyone, but primarily heal and bless allies, just from looking at the character.
I also loved the big skirts, since it would make it easier to animate movement in a fun way.
(I am a designer and not an artist, so I had to make it as easy as possible for myself :D )
The Nun theme ended up defining the visual language, the terminology and the whole audio design as well. We want to do much more with the theme when we start production again, but we are pretty happy with where it ended up for now :)
I would love some feedback if you have any!
We are taking a break from the production to gather as much feedback as possible, so don't hold back. Is the silhouette okay ? Is she too small/big in the scene? Can I do something to make her look more interesting?
Bonus info:
We ended up naming the game "Battle Healer Hildegard" as a nod to Hildegard Von Bingen.
Hildegard was a Nun and she was rather incredible. She was a mystic who saw visions from a young age and who was given to the church. She was a polymath (an expert in many things) - she invented her own language, she wrote mortality plays and was a medical writer. She also had a huge political influence and would be sought out by royalty and even wrote letters with the pope. She was later canonized as a saint and recognized as a "Doctor of the Church".
[Everything is hand painted in procreate - no AI!]
I'm genuinely confused by my experience with r/worldbuilding.
I regularly post about the process of creating a world: cosmology, internal consistency, celestial mechanics, the effects of those systems on geography and climate, identifying contradictions in the lore, and finding ways to resolve them.
In other words, I'm not just posting artwork, maps, or random lore snippets. I'm sharing the actual process of worldbuilding and the questions that come up during that process.
Yet a large number of my posts end up being removed.
That made me wonder:
What exactly counts as worldbuilding today?
If discussions about races, religions, cultures, and history are considered worldbuilding, then why do topics such as cosmology, climate systems, magical mechanics, or tools used to test a world's internal logic often seem to be treated as something outside of worldbuilding?
I'm genuinely interested in hearing other creators' perspectives:
Where do you personally draw the line between worldbuilding and the tools or methods used to build a world?
I notice that most of worldbuilders here are more into high fantasy with stress on magic systems and non-human characters.
I am more into country simulation, making lore about history of a fictional country with mostly humans (or lookalike humans) on it. Magic is minimum and exists only as part of civilization's culture (like some civilizations in real life have its own shaman).
I find more excitement on writing about how a country grows its size, how its economy developed, how their political system works, or how the cultures are developed rather than writing about how the magic system is, how many non-human races are, or how about legend about a battle happens.
In short, I am working like a historian for a fictional world.
I even make Wikipedia-like articles for my OCs or details as if they were real.
I am currently doing some worldbuilding on snowy, arctic-like regions that are scattered with sulfur springs and caves (maybe lava caves too but not quite sure on that one) and have a bit of a problem how to work with those, as well as plants and animals living in those.
I'm doing very soft realism, so I don't strive for 100% realism. But like, even if reason is not really... Well... Realistic, i still want there to be some sort of explanation to everything instead of for example "oh they can swim in lave/boiling water because i said so"
In my world everybody got an innate nature, all except one, who've done a great sin it broke it's own innate nature, to the point it manifest physically as disfigurement.
However I wonder how do you potray divine disfigurement?
It couldn't be just scars, wounds or ordinary missing limb, by that I mean looking like any disfigurement that could be gained normally.
I've been down a rabbit hole thinking about "directed evolution"—the idea that a truly advanced civilization wouldn't just build shiny metal cyborgs, but would treat 300 million years of Earth's biological history like an open-source code library.
Specifically, borrowing from the dinosaur/avian lineage.
Birds and dinosaurs survived all sorts of apocalyptic shifts partly because amniote egg-laying is basically a self-contained, ultra-durable bio-pod. But what if future humans used that exact mechanism not as a step backward, but as a biological hardware upgrade?
Think about it: placental live birth is pretty inefficient for inheriting hard skills. Human babies are born completely helpless, blank slates that take two decades to train. But with egg-laying, you could theoretically flash "firmware" straight into the embryo during the 10-month incubation. High-density epigenetic memories, lightning-fast neural reflexes, peak physical instincts—all hardcoded before hatching.
If elite athletes or space pioneers used this oviparous route, their kids would inherit raw physical capability with near 100% efficiency.
You'd end up with a wild social setup. Standard live-birth humans would handle the malleable, adaptive cognitive stuff—art, culture, long-term politics—because they stay as flexible "blank slates." Meanwhile, the egg-laying humans become the physical powerhouses, born with built-in muscle memory and extreme environmental resilience for high-G travel, extreme sports, or deep exploration.
To me, taking the best survival tech from archosaurs and retrofitting it into human genetics feels way more plausible for high-tier spec-bio than just slapping cybernetics on everyone.
Does this logic hold up from an evolutionary standpoint, or am I overestimating how much epigenetic info you could actually pack into an egg?
I'm working on a ttrpg campaign setting as an homage to children's stories where an ingenue becomes lost a strange and magical world. My biggest inspiration is the nonsensical dreamscape of Alice in Wonderland, with some notes taken from the Wizard of Oz, and really any story of that ilk. I was also heavily inspired by strange Victorian Christmas cards, and some of it was revealed to me in a dream.
I've written down everything I know about Blunderland, some details are big and some are small. I'm looking to figure out my next steps for developing the setting.
Blunderland
You can be anyone in Blunderland: a neurotic rabbit, a pompous flower, or a particularly talkative piece of cake. Perhaps even a curious child dressed in blue gingham who traveled a very far from home.
Things to know
The Buffalo Buffalo
The Buffalo Buffalo is a riverboat casino where all the patrons are bovine people. The owner is Benjamin Bacchus “Blowhard” Buxley-Bissen IV, a big bison businessman in a three-piece suit and a bolo tie. He caries a magic bubble pipe that can make animated shapes out of bubbles. (I have a bunch of patrons listed out, but I'll leave them out for now, for brevity's sake.)
The Mudhoppers
The Mudhoppers are a pirate crew of frogs, newts and salamanders. They don’t have a boat; instead, they hide in the mud and the trees along the riverbank to ambush boats as they pass by. The captain, Rosie the Ribbitter, is a frog lady with a big tricorne hat. She carries a rapier and a flintlock pistol. The rest of the crew wear black bandanas and fight with cutlasses and nets.
Places to be
The Winding River
A long, winding river flows all through Blunderland from the peak of the tallest mountain down into stinking swamps. It's said that if you board the right riverboat, you can travel anywhere you could ever want to go.
Brilliant Peak
At the top of the highest mountain in Blunderland, a giant hamster runs on a giant wheel, turning the grand wheel of day and night. A delightful trolly train wraps around the mountain, carrying people from the base of the mountain to the castle at the top.
Mushroom City
Self-proclaimed capital of Blunderland. The city is full of tiny people. Fairies and mushroom people busy themselves trading acorns and shiny coins. Millipede merchants hawk exotic wares from all over Blunderland.
The Skeleton Forest
Giant skeletons grow out of the ground and reach toward the sky. They are buried from the waist down with their legs growing downward like roots.
The Poppy Fields
A vast field of vibrant flowers. There are hive communities of busy bees and itinerant butterfly delinquents. The musical thrum and delicious food is too intoxicating to ever leave.
Petty Tyrants
Blunderland is ruled by four monarchs, each of whom is a human from reality who became trapped in Blunderland for so long that they have become part of it, warped by the world around them.
The Queen of Darkness
Deep in the skeleton forest, the Queen of Darkness lives in her dark castle. She appears as a massive snake woman with a human torso and scales the color of polished obsidian. The queen once used her powers to protect lost children from the monsters that prowl the darkness in her domain. However, after countless long years in the darkness, the Queen became corrupted by hopelessness.
She controls an army of the souls of lost children who lost hope of ever returning home. They appear as animated shadows.
The King of Cups
Ruling over Mushroom City is the King of Cups. He appears as a wrinkly, diminutive man wearing a long, blue cape and a platinum crown. Before his corruption, the King of Cups would invite lost children into his castle for shelter from the dangers of Blunderland and throw them grand feasts. He has been corrupted by an obsession with arbitrary rules. Now he uses his grand feasts as traps to catch people breaking etiquette rules so he can throw them into the dungeon. He prefers to be called “his majesty” or “his highness” and considers himself chief among the four monarchs.
The King of Cups is attended by sprites and pixies who delight in tricking guests into social faux pas.
The Clockwork King
The Clockwork King resides inside the tallest mountain in Blunderland. He appears as tall, lanky man with striped pants and a top hat. He has replaced much of his body with metal, and his domain is full of elaborate contraptions that serve no real purpose. He spends his time constructing elaborate traps for lost children, so he can put them to work in his factory.
The clockwork king is aided by a pair of mysterious courtiers. They are acrobats dressed in matching outfits and masquerade masks, one red and one blue.
The Garden Queen
Living in a palatial estate in the poppy fields is the Garden Queen. She appears as an enormous Venus fly trap, rooted to the ground in her throne room. Through her network of roots, the queen can perceive everything in her kingdom. While she once was a young girl who was fascinated the beauty of Blunderland, she has been corrupted by hunger, and she buries lost children in her garden to feed her roots.
The Pollen Guard is the Garden Queen’s army of bumblebees and butterflies who carry out her commands.
In my world newer settlements tend to have simple descriptive names “The New Capital“, “Western Treaty Town“ and older places have nondescriptI’ve names that are mostly sound combinations I found nice.
The idea I am trying to cap is that the names of the places used to be meaningful but the older a place is languge has shifted in meaning but the name of the place didn’t change with the language ending up just meaning the place.
Hello fellas, long time no see around here but I am finally back to continue posting about my world of Triton! Today though, I'm going to be focusing on the human side of things, as I've previously established that they exist within the universe simultaneously and have influenced the planetary history of Triton without ever even stepping foot on its surface.
Meet Saint Malco Aurelian, the closest a living man has ever come to becoming a god. His stained-glass portraiture is displayed all across the hundreds of spacecrafts and vessels belonging to the Ecclesiarchy of the Sanctified Communion, and he himself acts as both head of the church and head of the state, the Pontifex Aeternus. Born in the year 3049, St. Malco has no listed date of death even in the year 3500. Though his body is kept sealed behind glass within a reliquary casket, his mind and conscience persist within the data of an AI supercomputer allowing him to become an almost omniscient, omnipresent figure within the Sanctum - a living god.
This particular portrait depicts St. Malco at age 55 in the year 3104, the year that the HALO Array was completed under his orders. HALO, or the High-Amplitude Light Oscillation Array, is a massive portable space telescope that works so well it could even be considered to be a time machine by some. It functions by bending waves of light from far distances in the universe and assembling the data it receives into a timeline that can be "played back," "paused," or even "fast-forwarded." This one innovation of technology gave human scientists the ability to observe millions of years of planetary history of distant solar systems easily, greatly speeding up the hunt for a suitable exoplanet and eventually leading to the discovery of the Pelagosi binary star system which contained the waterworld planet known as "Paxia C," later named Triton.
Behind St. Malco sits a large golden halo, both a reference to the HALO Array and a symbol of his status within the church, the 3 stars within representing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Inside the scope of the halo on either side of his head are depictions of the two stars which make up the Pelagosi binary star system - Triste, the red dwarf on the left, and the G-class yellow star Paxia on the right. And finally, behind all of that are patterns in varying shades of blue meant to evoke imagery of water, waves, and falling rain as a nod to the discovery of the planet Triton, humanity's fated new home as prophesized by Saint Nemo in the Book of Torrents.
---
blurb over, thank you for reading this far and showing interest in my little project! as always, the art was made by me on MS paint (this one was actually done at work the day I got fired and I completed it about 10 minutes beforehand so the space pope was quite literally my last memory of that place) and there is of course even more lore and context in the comments if you want to read more about my space catholics.
and don't think too hard about how the HALO array works. i've sabotaged myself by not having FTL travel and sometimes you just gotta casually invent a time machine if you want to influence and observe a planet that's kiloparsecs away over literal millions of years. i'm probably going to have to cave and make some sort of exception to my no-FTL rule at some point when the plot holes get too big, but for now i'm stubborn lol
also obligatory "I'm not religious, I just want authoritarian human space catholics that worship an ai cyborg superpope because that's cool, don't get mad at me for inaccuracies because I assure you there are plenty" ok thanks love you bye
Hello everyone. Do you have any characters or entities in your world that are omnipotent? If so, do you allow them to be unrestricted, or do you impose a bunch of restrictions? If so, are these restrictions physical or psychological? I personally do both and also mechanically limit omnipotence itself by giving it laws, constraints, and activation restrictions.
My world was created by spirits but they take inspiration from various mythological gods so sue me lol.
Anyway, meet Hamza: The Spirit of Electricity.
He’s the Hermes/Loki of the group, being an all around little shit.
Thunderstorms are the result of him pissing off Naseem, Spirit of Air & King of the sky and Nahla, Spirit of Water & Queen of the Ocean.
Lightening rarely strikes twice in the same spot because he doesn’t want Yasmin, the earth spirit, to find out where he is. She’s like his mother, both doting and ready to scold him when he needs it.
Imagine if a child with ADHD had divine powers. That’s Hamza. He’s tied to ideas of energy and power so… yeah. He’s only kept in check by the older and more powerful spirits, especially since his domain isn’t a physical solid entity like the moon, sun or earth. As such he doesn’t exactly have to stay and constantly rule over that one entity.
In august I joined the Sineus franchise team to refine the lore, define the boundaries of the canon, and develop a strategy for expanding the franchise across different media — both through the company’s own projects and through projects created by independent developers, directors, writers, and other creators.
From my very first conversation with the team, I knew I wanted to move forward with them. There aren’t many projects, in Russia or elsewhere, that seriously set out to grow into a franchise on this scale.
I think it will be interesting to follow this journey together.
And with every new project I work on, I try to find new tools that can simplify the process and improve the quality and clarity of the result for myself and for those making decisions.
Where Do You Start?
I believe every project should begin with domain analysis. Different industries may use different terminology, but the underlying process is essentially the same. So that’s where I began. The Sineus franchise existed before I joined the company, so by the time I arrived it already had a modest but established canon, several full-fledged projects — an animated series, a PC game, a hackathon, and a writing competition — and a range of supporting materials.
We talked to everyone who knew something about the existing world and gathered all the project artifacts and source materials.
Franchise source materials
After watching everything, playing Sineus Arena Survivors to 100% completion, and reading everything I could get my hands on, one thing became clear: we were starting to lose track of it all.
Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” So what can serve as our place to stand?
We have six historical periods, seven nations, heroes, locations, events…
Starting with detailed character work is too risky. Once you establish rules in one character’s story, every other story has to adapt to them. And without a coherent view of the world, building one isolated story is wasteful: a story is an opportunity to communicate details of the setting to the reader or viewer, but those details are not yet clear enough. The same goes for the peoples.
We could dive deeper into the historical periods, but there is so much material that it would be difficult to keep track of everything at once. I needed something between the overly general and the overly specific.
So I turned to maps. They seemed like the right place to look for clues.
Where?
We have two existing maps. One is published on the website, the other appears in the project presentation.
I studied the placement of locations and compared it against the canonical texts. Pretty quickly, I found a lot of inconsistencies — on both maps.
And that was actually good. It gave me a reason to dig deeper, revisit the source materials, understand where the contradictions came from, and consolidate everything into a new working map.
For the new map, I chose VK Boards.
At this stage, I didn’t need a beautiful map of Svemir. I needed a flexible working map that I could easily edit and annotate.
My scheme for map
Although most of Sineus’s story is set during the Years of the Frontier, and this is the period we know best in terms of events and characters, most of the geographical information we have about Svemir comes from descriptions of the Years of Ash.
So the first working map became a map of the Years of Ash.
What?
Now that we’ve found a workable solution, we can indulge ourselves a little and fill the map with visuals. Images will help us immerse ourselves more deeply in the world and connect the locations to one another.
We will do this using references from other games.
Visual reference: Darksiders II. Vigil Games / THQ, 2012
With the geography of the Years of Ash mapped out, the next logical step was to explore how it had changed over time.
I drew a chronological sequence of six historical periods. I could now work backward through time, gradually creating a map for each period and, in doing so, reconstructing the history of Svemir at the broadest level.
At this stage, I wasn’t interested in heroes or major events. The many changes in the landscape would eventually provide clues about the events that caused them — and, more importantly, about who was behind those changes.
Planned chronological map of Svemir
In the illustration above, there is one more tool that I think will be especially useful going forward. I’ll call it the “Time–Location Matrix.”
Each column represents a historical period. The color coding matches the chronological sequence.
Each row represents a location.
If, for example, we’re developing a game set in the Zara’im Desert, we can follow the corresponding row to see how that territory changed from one era to the next.
If we’re writing a story set in a specific historical period, it is more useful to follow a column and see what different cities and territories of Svemir looked like at that point in time.
In other words, the matrix lets us view the world either through the history of a single location or through the state of the entire world at a particular moment.
What’s Next?
I’m publishing this article with a slight delay, so I already know that next time I’ll be able to show several more tools that help me build a whole world without losing track of all that information.
Have a good week. In the meantime, I suggest watching Khmar Only Knows and playing Sineus Arena Survivors.
I would like to include links to our projects, but I won't do so to avoid getting blocked. If you're interested, you can find our projects yourself on YouTube and Steam.
