October: Introduction

[ailelie]

World-building, as a creative endeavor, ignores traditional boundaries between art, math, writing, science, and more. The challenge is inherent in the task; can we overcome the same divisions? This comm will not be perfect, but it will strive to approach world-building from a variety of perspectives and challenge all of us to reach beyond our comfort zones.

Welcome, everyone, to build_a_world. If you haven't already, please introduce yourself over at the Meet & Greet.

October kicks off the first monthly challenge.

The task for October is to create our playground in the form of what will, for most of us, look like a map*. You do not have to draw. If you'd rather mold your world from clay or piece it together from legos, that's good too. As long as you have a scale and you can make sense of what you've made.

A world is not merely a collection of land and water (or steel and glass or so on). It is a collection of land, water, etc governed by rules. Before you start your map, you should understand these rules.

Do not yet place cities or countries. We'll do that after we make our intelligent species and figure out the population. If all you finish is a map of landmasses, mountains, rivers, and notes for where various biomes will go, that is fine as well. You can finish next month when we work out ecosystems.

I realize that not everyone is creating a planet. In that case, you need to think through what your playground will entail. If this includes mapping a star system, then map the star system. If you've a space station, then start mapping that.

The secondary challenge for this month is a writing one. Some of you are working in others' playgrounds or have already finished designing your own. In such cases, the challenge is to describe important natural landmarks, views, and so forth. Do not write as a native to the world. Instead, write like an Earthling from our time who has been transported to your world. What are three to five things they notice? What is most remarkable?

*As with any person-created representation of a thing, a map is only one view fraught with compromises, assumptions, arguments, and prejudice. That is why the challenge is to create your playground, rather than your map.

October: Main Challenge

[ailelie]

Challenge: Create your playground. (Read the Intro for more information)

1. You can make a map, sculpture, or whatever you like to represent your world. Just be sure that you have it to scale and that you know where and what everything is.

2. Do not worry about settlements, countries, or so forth yet. When we do intelligent life, we'll also look at how people spread across land, population statistics, etc.

3. Do post updates to your work in the WiP thread and comment on others' work.

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If you creating a planet, then I highly recommend reading the below links.

A Magical Society: Guide to Mapping (A plaintext version, sans diagrams, is available here.)
This is a free pdf download and you don't have to provide any information to get it. Pages 8 through 29 are the most helpful for this challenge. They'll take you step-by-step. You could get by with reading just this and the Climate Cookbook.

Creating an Earth-like Planet
Read this down through the climate section. While you can assume many aspects of your world to mimic Earth, your climate will also depend on where you place your landmasses/etc. Climate will also dictate the placement of biomes. (Don't worry about magic yet UNLESS magic is going to be a natural phenomenon, like wind/etc. In that case you'll need to figure out the effect it has upon the land and climate, then tinker accordingly.

The Climate Cookbook
Linked on the previous website, but important enough to warrant its own mention. This 'cookbook' will take you step-by-step in creating your climate and figuring out where deserts and forests and such can go. You may also find these websites useful.

The World Builder's Cookbook
This resource gets a lot more technical and breaks down the relevant equations for crafting a planet.

If you are creating a space station, ship, etc as your world, then watch this space. I am collecting links.

October: Secondary Challenge

[ailelie]

If you've already figured out your playground, then tell us what it looks like.

Writing from your own perspective (or a close friend's), what are some of the most remarkable views, landmarks, etc? Why are they remarkable?

If you walk barefoot, how does the ground feel? What sound does the wind make?

Pretend for a moment that you're looking down from an airplane or another space ship, what does the world look like?

Give directions from one landmark/area to another.

The goal of this challenge is to get a feel for your world. Later, after developing people and societies, we'll re-visit this challenge, but from the perspectives of native residents. If you've already figured out how you'd experience the world, it may be easier to distinguish your experience from that of those who live there.