I’ve mentioned before that this site exists as much for me to practice and share my stories as it does for me to practice of world-building.  While Quartes is tragic and Keto is inspiring, at the end of the day Illithiust may be the most interesting of my creations.  The world’s influence by the belief of its inhabitants, the literal power of stories to define the world, is probably what I have most enjoyed about the setting.  Though, I admit that it’s not so well defined in the stories that have been posted on the site which is something I’m working on as I put future stories together.

Beyond just the innate power of stories, there’s so much to world-building.  There’s the geography, the people, their culture, and ultimately the history that is created from it all.  I look back at the creation of Illithiust and try to pull out at least some of the process that I have followed as I’ve developed my land of stories.

Given my background, I don’t think it will surprise that Illithiust was first created as a Dungeon and Dragons map for the first campaign I was ever the Dungeon Master for.  Then, Illithiust was populated with Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and your standard host of Fantasy creatures.  However, the Landians were always there.  While some of my early creation is lost to my memory, I know from the get go the Landians were an ancient race who had fought dragons and were attempting to stop the return of a particularly deadly one.  At the time of my original D&D campaign, there were very few Landians but one was a non-player character who led the party in gathering allies to go and prevent the return of deadly and ancient dragon of unparalleled power.  That Landian was of course Quartes in his earliest iteration.  In this story he was actually the brother of the Landian who was suppose to leading the fight against to prevent the dragon’s return, with that brother having turned away from the cause for reasons that became part of the lore of the campaign as Quartes needed allies.

Looking back, the lore is a bit simplistic and the Landians really were a case of me creating a race so my character could be “unique”.  Still, the seven Landian clans would form out of this, and I think it’s in trying to build their history that Illithiust really began to take on unique shape and flavor of its own.  I’ve seen comments over the years that one reason J.R.R. Tolkien made Middle-Earth was because he had made languages and realized that a language could only really be fleshed out if it had a people and culture to go with it.  Relating the seven Landian clans together, figuring out how they came to be and how they fell, I think is probably the biggest reason Illithiust has become as developed as it is.  The necessity of isolation for the original clan of Den gave a reason for the valley of the Carotark mountains to exist, the descendants of Lehn wanting to isolate meant they needed a place like the Auzrail forest to run to.  Beyond the Landians, the world that they left behind then became the foundation for the Humans, Aenesi, Oneidi, and others.  A springboard from which those races developed their own culture and histories.

Another bit of writing advice I’ve taken to heart over the years is that right up their with the protagonist and antagonist, the most important character in the story is the world.  The world is what shapes a person.  While this does mean that the setting helps to define the characters, given that I already had some characters created, our Fey, Bard, and Soldier key amongst several others, I had to make a world that would make sense for each of them to exist in.  For Keto that meant a world that took its stories seriously, for Quartes and Landians in general it meant having a reason for their perfect memories.

It’s a strange twisting of those two characters (and no doubt other aspects that would take me too long to understand) that led to the power of stories.  Landians represented some sort of stability.  Their perfect memories and a less creative nature resulting in them holding what was known in the world as a firm basis.  There is little belief in Landians, just knowing, and so that keeps the power of stories from running rampant (until some decided to abuse this power).  Keto in her way represents the other way to deal with a world defined by belief.  That instead of locking in place with certainty, there’s a power to manipulate stories to try and create a world: Build stories to take the world where you want it to go.  Whether that’s to craft a better or worse world is the danger of having a world dictated by the power of a bard’s telling of any tale.

The final piece in all of this (at least for this article) is that stories need an antagonist, they need a conflict.  A good story meant that it had to tie into the dark side of a world bound by stories and so comes the corruption of stories/Fey to make Dragons and then the inability to escape a cycle of destruction.  I’ll admit that the last bit is probably filled by me reading too much of real world history and seeing a few too many cyclical natures, but as I’ve written before we write to understand and to maybe see a better alternative.

So, all told there’s a bit of having fun with the creation of a people and a setting, refining it with relations and with characters and influences that have come before, and then tweaking it a bit to make sure there’s a story worth telling there.  Not the most refined thing but reiterated over years and years as I have and you do get something that is at least interesting, and for me fun.  Now, if I can just one day sit down and refine the map that I drew all those years ago, maybe show its cities throughout a few cycles, and I’d have something really cool to share with you all.

I’d be interested to hear anyone else’s thoughts on world-building in the comments or via email.  Similarly, if you’re wondering where some specific detail comes from feel free to ask.  Beyond that, I think the drop stories will continue for a bit as I work on some longer pieces and some articles specifically about the setting.  Hope you all have a good week.

Go forth and do good things,

Sean