So, mandatory first post out of the way, I can talk about what I’ve been up to this last week and start toying around with some ideas for world #2.

I’ve decided a good place to start is with the positives and negatives I had with the last world, as it may still be unclear why I’m starting afresh rather than just developing what I’ve got.

1. Scale

You’d think a whole world would be room enough to design something without running out of space. Something I didn’t take into account was just how big our world is! The UK is about 870 miles long (from Land’s End to John O Groats) and the average adult can hike 20-30 miles a day – depending on what they’re carrying. This means it would take just under a month of solid travelling to walk the length of the United Kingdom. Now think how comparatively small the UK is compared to the rest of the world!

Essentially, our world is huge. It is so detailed it would take more than a lifetime to create a fictional equivalent. When I created Natharia, I didn’t really take size into account – other than in relation to itself. As a result, the entire main continent could be walked in about 20 days. Now I don’t know how obvious this pitfall is to the majority of the world building community but when it came to playing Dungeons & Dragons, it meant my players could quickly explore every part of the world. This might be useful if a small world is what you have in mind, but I felt very limited, very quickly by the finite space.

In world building, there exist two methods; macro to micro, and micro to macro. I have used both but I’ve found I much prefer the former – to create the shapes then gradually fill in the blanks.

World #2 aims to draw from some more realistic proportions; hopefully more countries than I know what to do with and am forced to leave space to fill in later.

2. Coastlines & Borders

Something I’m still proud of from my virgin world, is the coastline. For a long time I found a lot of draft maps I made had unnatural looking coasts, either too rigid and linear or too complex and fragmented. Again, what got me out of this rut was drawing inspiration from the real world – looking at maps of Scandinavia and the Greek Isles for their intricate shapes. I took the same approach for world #2 and I’m pleased with the majority of the coast.

Borders are equally as tricky to get right, and I feel I am still somewhere on this learning curve. A bit of research has suggested that there are three types of border, which I’m going to call natural, conquered, and allotted.

A natural border is a border which falls on a geographical feature – stopping expansion in some way. Perhaps a river dividing nations, an impassible mountain range, or the sea. These are generally the first borders to form as they are physical barriers rather than proposed ‘lines in the sand.’

A conquered border is one carved out by many battles and agreements on who’s land is who’s. A look at a map of Europe is the perfect example of conquered borders as they exist between almost every country, due to a long history of fighting and many empires rising and falling over the last 2000 years.

Lastly is the allotted border. A border where land is divided up into a certain area of space regardless of geographic features. These borders appear straight and rigid on a map, like many of the states in the US or countries in Africa from the many invading empires pre-World War I. These are generally seen quite late in a world’s development as it implies there’s some greater power dictating who owns what land.

Using a combination of these, depending on the world’s age, is what I would suggest to give a realistic look to your design. World #2 is a relatively young world in the stage I’ve drawn it so as it stands it only uses natural and conquered borders but within these countries I may use some allotted borders too.

Before moving on I’d also like to draw attention to a potential fourth type of border – specific only to fantasy; where the land physically stops. Arguably a natural border, however in the case of world #2 – which is a flat world – this is simply an edge into the abyss below.

3. Origins & Ideas

Finally I’d like to discuss origins and themes within worlds. Whether your world is a globe, a flat-earth, or a tidally-locked, hollow doughnut, it should affect the people in it. For instance, Natharia was a flat-earth but to the North it simply broke off into an area known as The Cracks where the Gods were said to be birthed from and souls return to when you die. Although my players never made it to The Cracks they were well aware of them, purely because of the lore of the world and people’s understanding of the shape of the earth. The same understanding that if you were to sail too far into the sea it would just go on forever. Whereas in a globe world, discovering that the earth is round is monumental and leads to an entirely different approach to trade and travel.

World #2 is to be a disk world. The edges of the map are where the sea pours over the precipice and down into the open sky below. The rim of the circle is also dotted with land masses extending beyond the edge, which will affect the people who inhabit them massively. Sailors will know not stray near to the falls less they are swept over the cliffs. A world surrounded by this on all sides would undoubtedly develop some form of common lore.

On top of this, note the large lake at the centre of the main landmass. This body of freshwater is named the Firstwater, where all life is rumoured to stem from and it’s rivers have spread over centuries to fill all corners of the disk. Something as crucial to the world’s development as this would also become crucial to the mythos and the culture of surrounding countries; spiritually, geographically, and eventually politically. Something so abundant in life and natural resources would quickly become a greatly desired area of land. Those on its shores would grow prosperous while others would seek to conquer their way to the lakeside.

Both of these ideas were not preplanned when I started designing, besides the initial shape of the world. I would suggest toying around with shapes and seeing if you can write a quick history to describe what is going on within the borders. Let the lay of the land influence how it develops and grows. Nowhere on this map is named and I think it should remain nameless until it has a language to be named in. It also keeps it free of any preconceived cultural ties, the more fluid at this stage the better.

Many of these concepts I discussed here were only happened upon by accident when designing Natharia, which is my main reason for this change. While I believe the process should be fluid, I think that the final creative decisions should be deliberate. Here’s to a brave new world!