Worldbuilding Interesting Countries
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ส.ค. 2024
- In this video we go over three points to create more interesting countries for your Fantasy and Scifi Worldbuilding, no matter if you're a Dungeon Master, a Writer, or worldbuilding just for fun.
Twitter: / worldbuildsage
Discord Server: / discord
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:42 First Question
03:26 Second Question
07:44 Third Question
Music: Witcher 3 - CD Project Red, Lord of the Rings Online - Standing Stone Games, Stellaris - Paradox Entertainment
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Personally, I find building an interesting nation as something to be treated more as an afterthought - maybe not as one outright, but close enough to one. The problem with trying to build interesting is that nations are based on ideals, and what those ideals are ultimately do not matter, at least not over what would make the nation compelling. That can make it easier to come up with a nation, but making an interesting nation out of whatever you use is a whole other matter and often leagues harder. You might find yourself just lazily going with tropes, which is not inherently a problem, but it can very easily be poisonous to whatever you are building, especially if they do not fit with the world. That is why I find it easier to focus more on people, because as someone existing, you already have actual references to real examples of people in your mind, whereas for nations, you are largely just stuck with whatever the propaganda was (and let's be honest, nearly everything we know about a nation in our world, even - sometimes especially - our home nation, is propaganda perpetuated by some nation irrespective of which nation it is).
Because a nation cannot exist without people, it is generally better - or at least easier - to focus on characters. A few key characters are important for the specific story being told, but there still need to be supporting characters (and not necessarily in the political sense). Granted, this does not require all the characters (main, side or whatever) to be named or given a complete backstory, but the more characters you can present going about their own lives while life itself just goes on, with or without their input, the more the world feels alive, and that arguably does more to make a world and the nations within it interesting than anything else. The people of a nation can practice their purported ideals, or there can be some sort of disconnect between them. The former is often easier to write, as it requires less attention towards crafting what is done in the nation; when having to choose between one set of ideals for a nation versus two sets, which sounds easier (but not necessarily better) to go with?
Complex or simple, grounded or cartoonish, real-world inspiration or fanciful fantasy - any and all of these can work. It just comes down to the world being built and the approach to it, particularly regarding the story/stories taking place in it. That might be my advice on this topic: just build stories, however big or small they might be, and just figure out how to connect them together, whether they are integral to each, are little more than passersby, or anything in between for any amount of storytelling, for eventually, it will give way to worldbuilding, and the more storytelling you do, whether or not it is the same stories as before, the more potential for interest the nation will have. Or to put it another way, just build it, and it will come.
It really depends on the story you're trying to tell. In a story that has barely any politics in it, a country doesn't need to be the most fleshed out part of the worldbuilding. Yet it still helps to make the world more alive by just thinking about the factors I've talked about in the video.
Two of which are arguably just "characters" and "Plot" anyway.
@@worldbuildingsage Fully agree there, though I will add the slight qualifier that even politics does not need to be fleshed out in order to make a world feel alive - it still helps to do so most of the time, sure, but technically, it is not needed, and it comes back to what you said, the story being written.
Do you need to flesh out the politics going on at the time the president orders his security detail to get him a slushie from the closest 7-11? Not really, but maybe, just maybe, it could bring up how the opposition uses the story of how the agent tasked with it ended up in a traffic pinball gag straight out of Looney Tunes.
And just FYI, the example I gave came from a Resident Evil 4 fanfic called "Mission: Almost Impossible," and that example is from what I personally consider to be the funniest chapter. Mind you, there is no mention of the opposition party, but I had thought, "What if" over that after re-reading and laughing for the... I would say, 75th time, but I am likely underestimating - it was just a "How much more hilariously stupid could this have been if..." kind of thing.
This is why in my story the setting is small and closed in (an isolated, agrarian republic with about ~250,000 people total.) It greatly simplifies the worldbuilding because a tiny republic like this wouldn’t have a ton of complex bureaucracy or huge amounts of class stratification. The people in charge are no more wealthier than the average adult (it also helps that land ownership is widespread, so no serfdom.)
What happens if population explodes? Do they cull, or is reproduction regulated? Are species like coyotes that adjust litter size based on population numbers or something etc?
@@dylanbuttera Reproduction is very much **not** regulated - ‘have babies like crazy’ is pretty much their motto. However, the presence of carnivorous dinosaurs does make expansion somewhat difficult, so most of the population is concentrated inside two cities, with only a couple of outlying villages - and this is *after* they culled the pterodactyls.
One Empire I am thinking of making is one with a God King dynasty who would be consider godlike in the eyes of regular men and women as though they have supernatural divine authority over the world but they are still impotent and despite their power and supernatural strength and hyper cognitions and senses and competence they still have relative limitations and can be overwhelmed or harmed when confronted with a greater or far more numerous power then themselves. They have created a long lasting authoritarian theocracy and culture, which has become a Imperium mainly defending itself or launching campaigns against less advance nations and peoples they see as a foreign threat to their interests and think endanger the integrity of their nation in some way. Despite their country being the most populated their culture and doctrines encourage and condition it to be rural instead of being urban or suburban and very few vastly populated concentrated cities. The dynasty of supernatural beings are heavily aware of the dangers of secularism, anthropocentric perspectives, ideologies, philosophies lawlessness, antithetical theologies, and technologies uprooting and compromising the culture they have created for to last for over 2 thousand years as well as their survival as a community and reign. So they do everything they can to preserve their Imperium while making sure their human ethnic and national culture who follows them remain separate from the lowly countries they view with pity and mistrust. They are not the Omnipotent creator God but they will make themselves out to be in order to secure their own survival up against the varies vile and principalities of darkness and other antagonistic or deceptive hierarchies whom seek to do harm to them. They centralize the most advance of technologies and weapons to themselves.
They are also aware of the dangers of what a declining population pyramid would do to the integrity and cultural and community stability of their nation. So that is why a Rural system has been the way of life to help lower the stakes of such a circumstance in the variables they see.
Edit: This nation's people deal in mostly in regional trade as they actively dislike external nations, governments, and cultures viewing them as folk who would take advantage and try to subvert their communities and future generations with a knife behind their backs in the long run. And they extremely dislike the notion and practice of a competitive society and breaking down the family unit. They heavily adhere to complementary relationships and poetry. They are also naturally stronger, faster, and live longer then the majority of the outsider kingdoms. One note. Do not antagonize or try to sabotage them with sedition or seed a rebellion. That will invoke their ire and intention to devastate the instigators and aggressors.
Nice narration, Dracula🧛🏾♂️
Damn
@@worldbuildingsage I was certain that you added the accent on purpose
@@navarog378 I wish
Bro is racist