Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen’s September newsletter features an interview with Lead World Builder and Lead Environment Artist, John “Montreseur” Diasparra, who explains the process of putting Pantheon’s world together bit by bit.

“The process begins when I get a nice thorough lore document hot off the press from [the Lore Master and Lead Writer]. The world building team gets together for a series of meetings where we go through the document, all the moods, the histories, the conflicts, who is involved, and all those juicy details,” Diasparra says. “[After the meetings] I start getting a picture of the impact I can have on the player using all the great information that gets vetted. With that fire burning bright I start hitting the pipeline, and one of the most important early steps is collecting as much reference material as I can. For example if it’s a set of ruins I look for style, age, type of wear; was it just rained on for a 1000 years? Was there a battle? To answer those questions I use real life examples of sorts of areas. To gain inspiration for the fantasy elements, like if it needs a giant metallic, magic mechanism floating with particles for example, I find smaller elements to help me bring that together as a whole.”

Diasparra also says that continuity between zones in the world is a big deal, something he focuses on intentionally. But his favorite part of world building? “[B]eing able to bring a world to life” and “show[ing] something new to […] VIPs and followers.”

“Feeling others’ excitement for what is being done is one of the biggest rewards I’ve come to know,” he says.