Tag: Fantasy writing

Worldbuilding 102 – Politics and Government in Fantasy Societies

Published by mjtedin on June 4, 2022

When worldbuilding, politics and government are fundamental aspects of the world you create. How does your character interact with government agents? Are there government agents? Does your protagonist or antagonist have a political view? It’s hard given the state of politics in the United States today to think anyone wouldn’t. As a result, perhaps your characters maintain opposing political views. This might give them the motivation for their actions, thereby creating the drama for your story.

When writing speculative fiction, it is easy to forget about the politics of your world. Lazy writers will default to clichés. Too frequently, mediocre writers set their fantasy story in medieval feudalism. Similarly, futuristic science fiction relies on some form of fascism or universal democracy. Don’t fall into this trap.

History of Politics

Politics has been a feature of human society since the beginning. Therefore, one must imagine politics and government came long before civilization. Other primates also have forms of social organization. Similar to their primate cousins, paleolithic humans lived with their families in band societies as hunter-gatherers. See Worldbuilding 102 – Caste, Class, and Clan in Fantasy Societies.

The earliest evidence of prehistoric warfare is during the Mesolithic era approximately fourteen thousand years ago. Moreover, with war comes diplomacy. The first evidence of diplomacy was well into the Bronze Age in Egypt. On the other hand, we must imagine some form of formalized contact between tribal bands before that.

Cave painting of a battle between archers, Morella la Vella, Spain. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Tribal social organization first emerged in the agricultural revolution, in about the eighth or ninth millennium BCE. The development of agriculture led to higher populations. As a result, denser societies grew in inequality, developing political and social hierarchies.

The first small city-states appeared at the beginning of the Bronze Age about five thousand years ago. Subsequently, by the third to second millennium BCE, some of these had developed into larger kingdoms and empires. See Worldbuilding 102 – Creating Cities in a Fantasy Society.

Some societies created governments based on the tribal structure they grew out of. For example, Rome formalized the tribes that made up Roman society. The words tribune and tribute derive from the Latin word for tribe.

Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com, CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia Commons

Type of Political Systems

When worldbuilding politics and government, think about the range of possible governmental systems. After all, political scientists since the time of Plato have classified governments into various types. The most familiar are monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy. A monarchy is rule by a single individual. This group includes kingdoms, dictatorships, and tyrannies.

Oligarchy is rule by an elite minority. For example there are the aristocracy, plutocracy, and rule by a racial minority.

Democracy is rule by the people as a whole either through direct or representative democracy. Direct democracy usually involves initiative or referendum. Representative democracy includes republics and parliamentary systems.

On the other hand, anthropologists classify political systems differently.

Uncentralized Political Systems

Uncentralized systems include the band society and the tribe. Band societies consist of small family groups. These are usually extended families or clans of thirty to fifty individuals. See Worldbuilding 102 – Caste, Class, and Clan in Fantasy Societies.

Tribes are generally larger. They usually consist of many families. Typically, tribes have more complex social institutions, including chiefs or councils of elders. In addition, they are generally more permanent than bands. Often, tribes are sub-divided into bands.

Men of the Shkreli tribe at the feast of Saint Nicholas at Bzheta in Shkreli territory, Albania, 1908. Edith Durham, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Centralized Political Systems

Centralized Political Systems include chiefdoms, sovereign states, and supranational political systems such as empires or leagues.

Chiefdoms are more complex than tribes or band, though they are less complex than a state or empire. Centralized authority is the main feature of a chiefdom. People living in tribes and bands are more or less on the same footing. On the other hand, those living in chiefdoms face inequality. Consequently, a single family of an elite class rules the chiefdom. In addition, complex chiefdoms can have multiple levels of political hierarchy. Small kingdoms, duchies, or other feudal units fall into this category.

A sovereign state has a permanent population, a defined territory, and a centralized government. Also, they have the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. Certainly, this form of government is the most recognized in the modern era, though it was less common in medieval Europe.

The ratification of the Peace of Westphalia. From Wikimedia Commons.

Supranational Political Systems

Empires are widespread states ruled by a single person. They can consist of multiple kingdoms or other polities. Some empires included democratic features. Their wealth often allowed them to build city infrastructures. Similarly, their political control maintained order among diverse communities. Such political control often required complex governmental structures.

Leagues are international alliances of states with a common purpose. Often, leagues form under military or economic pressures. Often, representatives of all involved nations meet in a neutral location. For instance, the European Union in modern times or the Delian League of ancient Greece are both leagues.

Flags of member nations at the United Nations Headquarters, seen in 2007. I, Aotearoa, CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia Commons

These large categories mask a complex set of governmental types too numerous to list here. Click this link for a list of various types of governments.

Political Divisions in Fantasy Societies

The main benefit of worldbuilding politics and government is having clearly defined political divisions. These divisions are a vast resource to mine for dramatic conflict. Above all, divisions arise from differing views on how best to govern a society. Often, such divisions are ideological. Other times, factions might simply be jockeying for control of resources. Also, reasons for political division overlap. Factions with non-competing views might form larger factions, such as the Republican or Democratic parties in the United States.

In short, to find the political divisions in your worldbuilding, examine the societies you have created so far. Look to economic, class, or religious differences.

Economics and Class

In Worldbuilding 102 – Economics in Fantasy Societies Part 1, I asked whether we need to define economics to write a fantasy story. Certainly, worldbuilding politics and government is where it pays off. Economics is about providing people with the resources to survive or thrive. Consequently, the debate over allocation of resources creates conflict. In the context of a political system, that conflict creates factions.

The Bazaar of Athens by Edward Dodwell, 1821. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In Worldbuilding 102 – Caste, Class, and Clan in Fantasy Societies, I wrote that social structures divide people into groups and define a person’s position in society. As a result, these groups tend to share common interests in advancing or maintaining social status. Often, this can be the basis of a political faction.

A symbolic image of three orders of feudal society in Europe prior to the French Revolution. M. P., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Religion and Philosophy

In addition, religion and philosophy are basically explanations for how the world works. These world views provide rallying points for political factions you can use in worldbuilding politics and government. For more, see Worldbuilding 102 – Religion and Philosophy

After all, ideology is a powerful political motivator. Anyone growing up in the 20th century recognizes the power of political ideology in the conflict between communism and capitalism. Similarly, in ancient times rulers claimed authority from the will of god or the gods. This was true in pagan Rome, Christian Byzantium, China, Egypt, and most other ancient civilizations.

Ahura Mazda gives divine kingship to Ardashir. Ziegler175, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Any difference between groups of people can form the basis of a political faction. The strength of a faction might depend on how deep and pervasive those divisions are. For instance, differences in race or language might form the basis of a faction. See Worldbuilding 102 – How To Make a Constructed Language Sound Natural for more on language. Also, see Worldbuilding 102 – Creating Societies in a Fantasy World – Demographics for more on race.

How Rulers Rule

In Rules for Rulers, CGP Grey laid out the actual mechanism through which rulers apply political power. Rulers gain power and maintain it by balancing the needs of key supporters, no matter the type of government. Grey used an argument fromThe Dictator’s Handbook. The ruler achieves political balance by implementing three basic rules.
1. Get key supporters on your side,
2. Control the treasure, and
3. Minimize key supporters.

“No matter how bright the rays of any sun king: No man rules alone. A king can’t build roads alone, can’t enforce laws alone, can’t defend the nation or himself, alone. The power of a king is not to act, but to get others to act on his behalf, using the treasure in his vaults. A king needs an army, and someone to run it. Treasure and someone to collect it. Law and someone to enforce it. The individuals needed to make the necessary things happen are the king’s keys to power. All the changes you wish to make are but thoughts in your head if the keys will not follow your commands.” CGP Grey.

The application of these rules in a given situation could form the basis of a good political thriller, whether modern, historical, or fantasy.

Worldbuilding Politics and Government in Fantasy

As I have said many times, the core of a good story is the drama created by conflict between characters. Politics is a gold mine for conflict and drama, especially the politics of personal relationships.

I have laid out a number of potential political conflicts within a society that might lead to political factions. Now comes the time in worldbuilding your politics and government to decide how to apply them.

Features of Pancirclea Society

In my demonstration world of Pancirclea, I applied demographics, settlement patterns, urban geography, magic and technology, and some economics. I defined three cultures in Worldbuilding 102 –Applied Worldbuilding. Later, I focused on the Savannah culture (Töpfumaar Daaškhōhu).

The source of magic among the Töpfumaar Daaškhōhu is human sacrifice. Consequently, the central feature of their society is human sacrifice and slavery. They might take slaves from among their own people. More often, they will go to war or raid the Silvans to capture slaves. In addition, Hillfolk will trade slaves for grain or other goods.

Töpfumaar Daaškhōhu cultural area of Pancirclea. Image by Michael Tedin.

Social Divisions in Töpfumaar Daaškhōhu

In Worldbuilding 102 – Caste, Class, and Clan in Fantasy Societies, I chose a caste system for the Töpfumaar Daaškhōhu. There are four castes: warriors and rulers, scholars and priests, merchants, and peasants. Religious rules and sacred texts govern relations between the castes. In addition, there is a large underclass of slaves made up mainly of Silvans. This underclass exists outside the caste system. Only the top two castes of warrior rulers and scholar priests may own slaves and only their owners may interact with them.

Powerful banking and trading clans are members of the merchant caste. These clans profit from the slave trade. In addition, the warrior and ruler caste borrows from banking clans to finance their wars.

The scholar and priest caste supports the entire system by enforcing religious rules. These rules govern the class and caste divisions of their society. This caste includes mages and priests. Both need slaves and ritual sacrifice to cast spells to maintain their power and the power of the ruling elite.

ignote, codex from 16th century, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Political Factions in Töpfumaar Daaškhōhu

Now that we have an idea of the social groupings, we can begin worldbuilding politics and government. The outline of the social structure shows a clear conflict between the upper castes and slaves. Being outside the caste system, slaves have no official political power. That power is held solely by the warrior and ruler caste.

That does not mean other groups have no political influence. After all, political influence is often exercised by the application of other types of power. For example, merchants can use the power of the purse to cut off finance from the rulers. Priests can interpret religious rules in the rulers’ favor or not. Slaves and peasants have few political levers other than the potential for revolt and revolution.

Governments and States in Töpfumaar Daaškhōhu

I named six cities in Worldbuilding 102 – Constructed Language for Fantasy Fiction – Words:
Čönkög̲ōn
Köbaškhōmör
Gōndoreẖu
Reẖuzoẖu
Anzoreẖu
Qaaqdeẖuškhōmör

Čönkög̲ōn is central and among the oldest of cities. Furthermore, it is the site of the main temple of the religion. The temple is similar to an Aztec pyramid, with an altar at the top for the gathered crowds to view the ritual slayings.

Political rulers need to be near the base of the religion. After all, the source of their political authority derives from sacred texts maintained by the caste of priests. Čönkög̲ōn therefore is the central and most powerful city of the region.

As a result, the king of Čönkög̲ōn has extended his political control over neighboring cities, creating the Töpfumaar Empire. He conquered Köbaškhōmör and Anzoreẖu in war. In addition, he subjugated Reẖuzoẖu in a one-sided alliance. Furthermore, ambitious members of the warrior and ruler caste gravitated to the imperial court from these cities. Over time, this caste created a byzantine and ruthless bureacracy.

Qaaqdeẖuškhōmör and Gōndoreẖu maintain independent kingdoms due to the wealth and power derived from their slave trade. However, the political elites of all neighboring cities struggle to maintain their political autonomy in the face of the power of the imperial court in Čönkög̲ōn.

States of the Töpfumaar Cultural Zone in Körung̲ung̲éẖu (Pancirclea). Image by Michael Tedin.

Potential Political Conflicts

In laying out the social structures of Körung̲ung̲éẖu (Pancirlea), I identified numerous conflicts that could serve as the basis of a dramatic conflict. All you have to do is place your characters in one or more of the groupings defined. Doing so should provide plenty of opportunity to define dramatic conflict either internally or with or among other characters.

There is the conflict between slaves and their masters. Also, there is the conflict between the various castes of Töpfumaar Daaškhōhu. Mages and priests rely on merchants and warriors for a supply of slaves for human sacrifice. Merchants might oppose war because it disrupts trade while warriors and bankers might support it because it the source of their wealth. The differing views of the merchants and rulers or rulers and priests create constant political conflict.

*The Prophet Nathan rebukes King David.* Eugène Siberdt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In addition, there are the social divisions of culture and demographics. Most slaves come from the Silvan culture. There are traders and merchants from the Hillfolk who share a similar but separate caste system.

You can use any or more of these ideas from worldbuilding politics and government as the basis of your story. Use them as a central conflict or as background. I recommend making your world as complex as you can. This will result in more complex characters. See Writer’s Digest (May/June 2021) for a great article on The Russian Nested Doll Theory of Motivation.

As you can see, fleshing out the social structure of your world creates a gold mine for for political and personal conflict. This adds depth to your world. As a result, your readers gain the opportunity to explore a world outside their own, whether to investigate the structure of their own world or as an escape from it.

List of Society Worldbuilding Topics

For reference to previous society worldbuilding topics, use these links.

Human Demographics
Humanoids and Non-Humans
Settlement patterns (Villages, Towns, Cities)
Designing Fantasy Cities (Urban Geography)
Magic and Technology (Resources, Knowledge, Magic)
Economics
Types of Economies and Trade,
Money and Banking,
Caste, Class, and Clan
Language
Sounds and Phonemes
Words and Morphology
Culture
Architecture
Philosophy & Religion
Government & Politics

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Worldbuilding 102 – Religion and Philosophy

Published by mjtedin on February 13, 2022

Conflict is the essence of drama. There’s no better way to introduce drama into a story than to add religion and philosophy when worldbuilding. Humans have fought innumerable wars and conflicts over how different people view the world.

After all, religion and philosophy are basically explanations for how the world works. For many people they provide the fundamental assumptions, truths, and axioms that they build their worldviews on.

Religion has played a major role in the daily lives of people since long before civilization and writing. Some of the first writings and the longest lasting were religious texts. According to some thinkers, most historical religions came about during the Axial Age, from the fourth through the sixth centuries BCE.

Religion and philosophy are different but related ideas. Religion is a combination of belief and practice along with some social organization. The beliefs and practices might include gods and rituals and they might not.

To be clear, the definition of philosophy I am using is a person or organization’s guiding principles for behavior. As such, one cannot separate religion and philosophy. The guiding principles of a religion comprise that religion’s philosophy.

When worldbuilding a society’s backstory, remember that religion and philosophy change over time. The Roman Empire changed from a pagan worshipping society to a Christian society over the course of centuries. The competition between these two worldviews created conflict among the various factions within the empire. Naturally, competing views provide fertile ground for stories both fictional and non-fictional.

Belief

As a writer, you can use the characters’ religion or philosophy as the theme of your story. When worldbuilding, your characters’ religion and philosophical beliefs should drive their actions, not just be window dressing. For most religious people, their beliefs give meaning to their lives.

The philosophy that underpins a religion makes up a religion’s core beliefs. That philosophy defines how people think about their religion, what it means to them, and what they believe it should mean to others. Over time a religion might stay the same but the philosophy that underpins it might change, even while staying true to the original belief.

The two main areas of belief in religion are the religion’s mythology and how followers should worship the gods.

The Chariot of Zeus from the 1879 Stories from the Greek Tragedians by Alfred Church. Wikimedia

Mythologies

By mythology, I mean the stories about the gods or heroes of a particular culture. Most people define mythology as a fictional story. In a religion, what is relevant is that the story gives meaning to people’s lives. It provides a guide to how they should act and what decisions are best. Whether the story is factually true is irrelevant.

As an example, the story of Abraham in the book of Genesis is a cautionary tale. Rather than Abraham being a role-model, he goes through a number of episodes where he makes the wrong decision. He lied about his wife being his sister and was banished. He had a child with his wife’s handmaiden who was later banished. He followed Yahweh’s order and started to sacrifice Isaac, only for Yahweh to tell him at the last minute not to.

Each of these stories is instructive: Don’t lie. Don’t marry your sister. Don’t sleep with servants. Don’t practice human sacrifice.

Religion and its underlying philosophy often provides a set of rules for ordering society and forms the basis of law. For example, the western world has the story of the ten commandments. The rules on their face make sense as fundamental rules for how to act within a society. Because the story says Yahweh gave them to the Jews, they now have divine force.

In the same way, the story of Jesus’s teachings and death on the cross might not have as much impact without the exclamation point of his resurrection at the end.

Practice

Worship of the Divine/Gods

Most people think of religious practice as the commemoration or veneration of deities or saints through meditation or prayer.

Many religions have a belief in divine beings or powers, or sacred things or teachings.
One God (monotheism): Christianity, Islam, Judaism
Multiple Gods (polytheism): Greece, Rome, Hinduism
No gods (nontheism or naturalism): Taoism, Buddhism, Shamanism, Ancestor veneration

Most religions have some form of practice, whether it be rituals in the form of sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, funerary services, or matrimonial services. One also finds religious themes in music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human culture.

While worldbuilding, it may be necessary to develop a religion’s practices, depending on the needs of your story. If a character is in the middle of a ritual, it might help to know what is going on in that ritual.

Otherwise, how religious practice presents itself in the society you are creating depends on how pervasive that religion is in the society. For example, in the United States, people make few public religious pronouncements. On the other hand, in a theocracy such as Iran or a society such as Europe in the Middle Ages, religion controls most aspects of life. As such, one would expect to see public displays of religion. In fact, the United States and modern Europe are unique in history in not having many overt displays of religious belief or ritual.

Organization

Religions are organized in many different ways, from the strict hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church to the individualist practice of shamans. A religion might splinter into sects with competing hierarchies, often with competing philosophies. One example of this is the various sects of Christianity based on often hair-splitting interpretations of holy scripture. Different castes or classes might follow different religions.

A religion’s organization or lack thereof can make a difference in your worldbuilding. Do any of your characters follow a religion or philosophy? If so, that religion’s philosophy might inform the character’s arc and personal growth. Religious people will give deference to a priest, cleric, shaman, or other religious figure. With religion a major part of people’s everyday lives, decision makers want to know if their decisions are correct.

Is your character a cleric or do you have some who are? That person might have a superior giving direction based on the needs of the church. Churches have their own agendas. The needs of a church organization creates a myriad of possibilities for conflict. A religion or religious superior might be corrupt or telling character to do something the character doesn’t think is right. A church might be one player in a political or social conflict.

Church and State

If your characters engage in the politics of your world, then they will undoubtedly encounter religious figures. In most societies in human history, church and state were inextricably linked. Even in modern secular societies, if the church and state are separate, religion and politics are not.

Throughout history, priests and clerics have acted as advisors to kings and rulers. Even the elders and chiefs of tribal societies might look to religious people or rituals for guidance in decision making. If a leader is a religious person, then they might want to confer with a higher power when making a decision that will impact their followers. In some cases, religious advisors might act based on the needs of politics while the ruler struggles with the urge to do the right thing.

Worldbuilding philosophy and religion into your story adds depth and variety. Any time you add an additional perspective to a situation, you increase the potential for conflict. In a political story, the needs of politics might conflict with the philosophical guidance of religion, either within an individual or between characters. The conflict between the needs of politics and the urge to do the right thing is an ages-old drama.

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Worldbuilding 102 – Use Fantasy Architecture to Improve Your Story

Published by mjtedin on September 17, 2021

Before I get into fantasy architecture, let’s take a look at what defines a culture. When writing a fantasy novel, one of the best ways to set yourself apart from the run of the mill story is to create a setting with a unique culture. There are two main aspects of culture, the culture of ideas and material culture.

A culture spreads ideas through literature and the arts. The culture of ideas includes such things as language, which we already covered in articles on how language sounds and creating words. I’ll write about other aspects of the culture of ideas in later articles, including the perennial favorites of politics and religion, philosophy.

Material culture is made up of the artifacts of daily life and artifacts that persist beyond. These artifacts also carry culture not just to new geographical areas, but through time as well. The culture of daily life includes things such as technology, tools, and in a fantasy world, magic. Other important aspects of daily life include clothing and food.

The realm of “high culture” includes architecture and art, both as painting, sculpture, and other visual arts. In this article, I want to focus on fantasy architecture.

Architecture Defined

Architecture is buildings. Buildings are enclosed constructions with roofs, both public and private. That is to say, architecture isn’t just fancy decorations or styles of buildings, it’s how buildings are built.

It also implies that there is a way of thinking about how to construct a building. A building is typically built for a specific need, whether as shelter, security, worship, or some other function. How it is built is constrained by available materials and the skills of those building it.

For example, I can build a small shed because I have some carpentry skills and a ready supply of lumber from my local building supply store. I can’t build a castle or gothic cathedral because I don’t have anything but the most basic masonry skills and because I don’t have a ready supply of stone to build with.

Travertine Quarry, Serre di Rapolano, Italy. Photo by Michael Tedin

Theory of Architecture

There have been many treatises on architecture throughout history. One of the first was by Vitruvius, a Roman architect most famous for being the inspiration for Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.

This drawing relates to the last of the three attributes Vitruvius said that all buildings should have: strength, utility, and beauty.

Durability in Architecture

Rather than focus on the strength of a building, I’d rather think about its durability and structural integrity. That is, a building should be solid and remain in good condition.

Stone and wooden beams make for sturdy buildings. Cultures without those materials readily available used technology to create bundled reeds, such as in Egypt, or mud and straw bricks, such as in Mesopotamia.

A building also has to be resilient. That is, it needs to withstand the environment and wear and tear over time. Available materials determine and constrain how a building weathers its environment. The environment also determines those resources. Therefore, your fantasy architecture should take its biome and climate into consideration.

Rain and wind weather a building differently from sun, sand, and wind. Different materials will resist weathering in different ways as well. For example, the wood-based cultures of the Pacific Northwest leave few artifacts after a few generations. The wooden buildings and totem poles either rot in the wet environment or burn down when a fire gets out of control.

By contrast, in dry areas where stone building is more common, such as Greece, Rome, or the Middle East, buildings might endure for thousands of years, having a ripple effect on culture over the entire time.

Totem poles, Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site, Haida Gwaii

Architectural Styles in Early History

Some examples of how different earthly cultures adapted their architecture to their environment include Neolithic builders using dolmens and megaliths to create trilithons. These structures evoke the later post and lintel structure of classical architecture.

Egyptian columns resembled bundled reeds. The style is thought to resemble vernacular reed-built shrines. Due to the scarcity of wood, the two other main materials ancient Egyptians used were sun-baked mud brick and stone, including limestone, sandstone, and granite.

Minoans used wood in their vernacular style, so their stone columns resembled tree trunks. Greek, Roman, and Persians adopted the column from the Minoans and Egyptians. Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans decorated the capitals of their columns with floral and plant shapes. The Persians decorated theirs with horses.

Fantasy Architecture Depends on your Fantasy World’s Environment

Back in my early posts on worldbuilding, I wrote about plate tectonics, climate, biomes, and erosion creating sedimentary rocks. This is where these topics become important in determining culture. Plate tectonics and erosion determine available stone, types of stone, mud, sand, and lime. The biomes you choose for your fantasy world will determine available plant-based materials such as wood, reeds, or paper.

If you have a certain culture and architecture in mind for a story, you have two choices. You can look at the environment you created and place your story where it fits best. If you want a culture with stone buildings dating back thousands of years, you would want to place it in a dry location with lots of available stone.

On the other hand, you don’t have to be constrained by decisions you made in step one of mapping out your continents. You can reverse engineer your world so it makes sense. If you want a dry environment culture mixing with a moist forest environment culture, you can put them next to each other. If you do so, you should go back to step one of mapping your world to take into account how those very different environments came together on the same map.

Pancirclea plate tectonics. Map by Michael Tedin.

Utility in Architecture

Utility is a basic principle of architecture. That is, a building should be suitable for the purpose for which it is used. Louis Sullivan interpreted the concept of usefulness in architecture with his famous statement, “Form follows function.”

In my post on designing cities, I wrote about how cities grow up around major features such as the palace or citadel; market or bazaar; or temple, cathedral, or church. Each of these features has its own utility, so needs to be designed to meet its unique needs.

You wouldn’t want to celebrate a religious ritual in an office cubicle farm. You could do it if necessary, but it is not the best space for it, nor is it the best use of the space. The best place to celebrate a religious ritual is a larger space. The congregants need to be able to see the celebrant or celebrants or the entire congregation needs to be able to participate.

Office spaces usually have individual spaces for private work as well as one or a few meeting rooms. Even those meeting rooms don’t work well for religious rituals. The large table in the middle is better for working with paper or computers. It is not an altar.

See the source image — Modern office meeting room

Architecture and Technology

The usefulness of a building often depends on available technology. Does the society have the technology to create large spaces such as basilicas, cathedrals, or castles? Building such large edifices requires a certain level of technology as well as the skill to use it. Greek culture didn’t have the technology to create arches, vaults, or domes until Roman architects and engineers invented them.

The utility of a space also depends on more mundane features such as light, air, water, and sewage. A religious space or library needs more light than a prison or castle. A living space needs water and sewage whereas a public space might not if it is not regularly occupied. In ancient Rome, baths and latrines were public facilities. Individual homes didn’t have their own bathrooms.

Think also about ingress and egress. Palaces and temples have different needs than a castle or fortress. A temple might need as much access as possible whereas a castle must limit access to an easily defended point. Modern architects think about access in terms of easy evacuation in case of fire or other disaster.

Utility in Fantasy Architecture

For the most part, fantasy architecture follows real life architecture. I’ve mentioned palaces, temples, and castles, all of which are standard in most fantasy literature. On the othe rhand, what other settings might your story require? There are the mundane aspects of living spaces, shops, bazaars, and offices. What about a magician’s study or a stable for dragon mounts?

Do you have non-human beings in your story? How would the architecture of your world reflect their needs? Would dwarves or hobbits build a city neighborhood at a smaller scale than the human neighborhoods? In The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, hobbits live in holes in the ground. Would rich hobbits live in holes above the ground?

Bag End in Hobbiton, New Zealand. Photo by Michael Tedin

Magic in Fantasy Architecture

Does magic play a part in the technology of architecture in your world? A society that has readily available magic might use it to build architecture beyond the ability of a society without. Why use cranes or scaffolding when a builder could use magic to move materials? In fact, why depend on the durability of the materials if magic could hold a building together. Think of the shapes an architect could design if unconstrained by gravity or material strength. Remember, before you break the rules of architecture, be sure you understand them.

Other principles of architecture might affect how your story is written. How does ingress and egress constrain a character’s choices? If a character can’t get into a building, they might make different choices, ones that cause them more difficulty than they expected. On the other hand, if they can’t get out, that might lead to different choices.

Even mundane aspects such as light, air, water, and sewage might have an effect on character choices. If a character is in a space with no light, how do they know what is there? If they have no air, the urgency of a situation increases. The same goes for no water, though the need is over a much longer timeline.

Beauty in Architecture

I saved the topic of beauty for last, though it is the attribute that most people think of when they think of architecture. Its impact on your writing will be mainly in the setting. How does your world feel?

The principle of beauty in architecture is that it should be aesthetically pleasing. Architecture is considered to be a form of art. This does not mean that all architecture is beautiful. Often, a particular building might be very controversial because of this very topic.

Experience Music Project, Seattle, WA. Designed by Frank Gehry. Image from en.wikiarquitectura.com

Le Corbusier wrote: “You employ stone, wood, and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces: that is construction. Ingenuity is at work. But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good. I am happy and I say: This is beautiful. That is Architecture”.

A good architect takes into account scale and proportion when designing a building. The scale of a design must be appropriate in size to its intended use. The proportion of a design must relate the separate parts to each other and the whole of the building to create a harmonious composition.

Classical architecture focused on symmetry. Much post-modern and contemporary architecture does not, though it still must maintain the principle of balance.

Decoration is a fundamental aspect of architectural design, often in its absence, such as the modern architecture of the 20th century. The opposite of the modern sensibility might be the late Baroque Rococo design of 18th century Europe.

File:Dresden-Zwinger-Wallpavillion-gp.jpg — Zwinger in Dresden. User:Kolossos, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Decoration often depends on the materials available. For example, stone can be not only structural, but also decorative. Think of the marble facings or floors on the inside and outside of Italian churches. Minoans used blue–greenschist to pave floors of streets and courtyards. Woodcarvers can create a variety of shapes from their chosen material.

Fantasy Architecture Design

If you design a fantasy architecture for your fantasy world, you probably don’t need to go into great detail or description. Occasional references to design and decoration might be all you need to give a feeling for it.

If you have an artistic bent, go ahead and sketch out some design parameters for the various cultures of your world. If not, you are free to borrow from real world analogies. Just be aware that using real world designs will locate your fantasy culture in those real-world cultures. You might want to mix and match designs from different cultures if you don’t want people to think your fantasy culture is medieval European or ancient Greek, for example.

It might be late in this article to think about the need for a well-designed fantasy architecture. The beauty of the architecture can only be reflected in your characters’ reaction to it. It might be a necessary story element or it might not.

In any case, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as the old saying goes. By beholder, I don’t mean the D&D monster, but your characters.

Dungeons and Dragons Beholder. Art by Todd Lockwood

What this means for the writer is that you can choose to describe the architecture of your world or not, depending on how your characters interact with it. If the character has an eye for it, it can create a richer experience for your reader. If not, they probably wouldn’t miss it, but it leaves your world a little poorer.

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Worldbuilding 102 – Constructed Language for Fantasy Fiction – Words

Published by mjtedin on August 21, 2021

Words in Constructed Languages (Morphology)

Now that we have the basic feel for what a constructed language sounds like and how to write it for an English speaking reader, we can focus on creating words that actually mean something.

There are a few things to consider when creating words in your constructed language:
Basic Words – Basics for fantasy fiction
Morphology – How are words constructed?
Phonotactics – What sounds can go next to one another?
Semantics – What do words mean?

Basic Words in a Constructed Language for Fiction

When creating a constructed language for your story, you don’t have to be able to write entire sentences with a full grammar. After all, you aren’t writing your book in the constructed language. That is, unless you want to. If you do, you are unlikely to find any readers. There are no subtitles in books.

In the rough draft of my first novel, The Statue of the Mad Caliph, I wrote full sentences spoken by Ushidian characters. I thought I was being clever and showing how the POV character couldn’t understand the language. My beta readers rebelled. It just confused them. I now limit words in my constructed language to a few things.

It makes sense to create foreign words for these things, but not much else:
Names
Places
Unique objects
Idioms
Swear Words

Yes, the first thing most people learn in a foreign language are the swear words. That and how to count. I personally can swear in at least six languages. Of course, most of them are variations on the Romance word merda, mierda, or merde, but you get the point.

If you do want to go through the trouble of constructing a language in detail, I recommend checking out the The Language Construction Kit or the Conlang Wikibook, Both of these have resources and instruction on constructed languages.

Names and Places

Of course, for a writer, names and places are key to creating characters and a setting. Ideally, you want to create names that sound culturally appropriate and actually mean something. You can do this by following the rules of the constructed language and following the guidelines for semantics below.

Objects and Idioms

Having names for unique objects is also a tricky thing. It is very easy to over do this. What is the definition of a unique object? When does a dress or robe become a gunna or rokota? I was trying to distinguish the gunna style dress of one culture from the stola style of another. It probably wasn’t necessary.

Having too many unique items can clutter your writing and confuse your readers. I created words for wizard and sorcerer (maholos and alutsa) and use them frequently. Because the words are foreign, they are supposed to be italicized. Now I’ve got italicized foreign words all throughout all my books, making it harder to read.

If you really want to add flavor to your characters, create some idioms and swear words they use frequently. Idioms are phrases whose meaning cannot be figured out from the parts of the phrase. They are tricky to do and probably won’t be understood by anyone not versed in the language. My favorite when I was looking for German ones was “Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof.” It means I only understand Bahnhof (train station). Basically, it’s like saying “It’s all Greek to me,” which is an English idiom.

The one thing I did do is to put all the magic spells in constructed languages. It adds a bit a magic and mystery to the story while still satisfies my urge to write full sentences in my constructed language.

Morphology

Morphology describes how to construct words in a language. The basic building block of a word is a morpheme. Analytic languages have little to no morphology, like Mandarin Chinese and to some extent, English. That is, they only have morphemes as words. These often have ideographic writing systems as well.

Many other languages add morphemes as prefixes, suffixes, and affixes to a root to create new words. The two types are inflectional or fusional and agglutinative.

Most Indo-European languages are inflectional or fusional. That is inflectional morphemes are “fused” together. For example, the English word ‘language’ itself is made up of the morpheme ‘lang-‘, which derives from Latin for ‘tongue’, and the suffix ‘-age’, which also derives from Latin for ‘that which is associated with or characterized by.’ The extra ‘u’ is added to make a hard ‘g’.

Often, changes in meaning of a word will also change the pronunciation. This is common in German, where the main vowels in plurals will become more closed. E.g. gans becomes gänse (pr. gense with a hard ‘g’). This is the same in English for the same word. Goose becomes geese. What confuses non-English speakers is that moose does not become meese. English!

Agglutinative languages have many easily separable morphemes. Finnish, Turkish, Japanese, and Tlingit fall in this category. The difference between agglutinative and fusional languages is subtle. In fusional languages, one changes morphemes to inflect meaning of the word. In agglutinative languages, one appends prefixes and suffixes to add meaning, leaving the stem intact.

It helps when constructing a language to have a list of common morphemes that you can use to build other words from. For this, you need to think about how morphemes are constructed in a language. Most morphemes are simple syllables.

Constructed Language Syllable Structure

Often, morphemes exist as a simple syllable. Think about syllable structure. Do syllables have to end in a vowel like in Japanese? This might have an impact on how you create a writing system. Some languages don’t allow a syllable to start with a vowel, others require it.

The basic format of a syllable is consonant/vowel/consonant (CVC). Often, a language will omit the beginning or ending consonant or both. Some languages don’t allow consonants at the end of a syllable, such as Japanese. The Hirigana and Katakana scripts are both syllabary scripts.

Syllable components as a directed graph. Crissov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Non-syllabic Word Structures

In Semitic and other Afroasiatic languages, the roots of verbs and most nouns are based on triliterals rather than syllables. The basic structure is of three consonants (C₁-C₂-C₃). In this system, the speaker inserts vowels, doubles consonants, lengthens vowels, or adds prefixes, suffixes, or infixes to make words.

If you want to go this direction rather than the syllable route, simply set the basic format of a root using consonant/ consonant /consonant (C-C-C). When you get to The step of building words (see below), set your rules based on what vowels, double consonants, and affixes change the meaning of the roots. My recommendation is to get a good feeling for a Semitic language such as Arabic or Hebrew.

From Examples of how the Arabic root and form system works. Qr189 Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Constructed Language: Savannah Speech

When creating morphemes for my constructed language, Savannah Speech, I created a matrix of all the consonants and vowels, leaving a space for an omitted consonant. With 26 phonemes and 12 digraphs, I have 39 beginning or ending consonants or consonant clusters, including a space for no consonant. Taking the square of that (39 beginning times 39 ending consonants) and multiplying by 9 vowels, I would have possible 13,689 syllables.

That was a lot, so I only took ones I thought would be most frequent based on how often I thought a particular consonant or vowel would occur. I ended up with 721 morphemes I decided to use. My next step was to assign meaning to them.

Semantics

Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases, sentences, or text. An individual word can have many meanings. The meaning can be conveyed in the context or by adding affixes or adjectives to clarify.

In a constructed language the creator has full reign to assign meaning to individual words as they wish. Those meanings should be assigned at the level of a morpheme so the language constructor can build words from those morphemes.

When constructing Savannah Speech, I chose a number of semantic categories to choose from, including:
Verbs,
Verb tenses,
Adverbs (again, before, good, bad),
Adjectives (big, little, long, short),Numerals,
Ordinals,
Quantities,
Colors,
Prepositions (above, across, against, around, in, to),
Pronouns (he, she, it),
Demonstratives (this, that, etc.),
Nouns,
Body Parts,Natural Features,
Negation (non-, un-)

Verbs and Verb Tenses

The verb tenses required me to get ahead of myself. That is, I had to think about grammar. I had decided the words would each have a verb embedded in them because many place names are based on somebody doing something either currently or far in the past. I decided on a simple set of verb tenses.
perfective (s/he (verbed))
constant imperfective (s/he is always (verbing))
progressive imperfective (s/he is in the process of (verbing))
repetitive imperfective (s/he (verbs) regularly
imperfective (s/he is (verbing); s/he (verbs))

My next step was to assign the verbs, tenses, and other meanings to the morphemes I had chosen. To some extent, I assigned them based on the frequency of occurrence of each morpheme and the frequency of occurrence of each meaning. The frequency of each morpheme was somewhat arbitrary based on the frequency of the phoneme.

Building Words in a Constructed Language

There are different ways words are created in a language, such as borrowing, derivation, compounding, or blending, among others. I am going to focus on derivation and compounding. That is, creating new words from existing words by adding prefixes or suffixes or by compounding roots together.

Words begin as simple concepts, with other words or affixes added to them (in agglutinative languages) or to a sentence around them (in analytic languages). Often, this relies heavily on grammar. At this stage, you should have a basic idea of your constructed language’s grammar.

In derivation, a speaker will add an affix to a root. The affix is usually an adjective or adverbial morpheme changing the meaning of the root, like misspell is a derivation of the root spell with the prefix mis-, meaning wrong, added.

Compounded words have two roots combined to create a new word with a different meaning. For example, the English word footpath is a compound of the two nouns foot and path. This is very much like derivation. In this case, foot is like an adjective describing the path, but it is a root unto itself.

Pronouncing New Words

One thing to think about is which syllable in a word or sentence gets an accent. Readers will always want to know how a word, phrase, or sentence is pronounced. It helps to pronounce the word out loud to yourself. If you have a set of rules for pronunciation, sounding the word out can tell you if it fits the rules or not.

Phonotactics

Also, think about phonotactics. Phonotactics are the rules for what sounds can go next to each other. Most languages have rules about this. For example, English doesn’t use ‘ts’ at the beginning of a word, but it is very common in Russian. Russian also has ‘shch’, but most other languages don’t. English uses ‘str’, but few non-Germanic languages use it.

Some sounds are allowed at certain places in a word, but not in others. For example, English allows ‘tl’ in the middle and end of a word (settlement or battle), but not the beginning. ‘Tr’ is allowed at the beginning or middle of a word (transit or contract), but not the end.

If certain non-standard sound combinations or placements are in words borrowed from other languages, speakers will often change the sound to fit their own language’s phonotactics. For example, Arabic Arabic al-jabr and al-Khwarizmi became algebra and algorithm.

Constructed Language: Savannah Speech

When creating words for Savannah Speech, I took a number of real world people and place names and looked up their meaning translated into English. I then took those meanings and translated them into new languages.

For example, take Mesopotamia. It is Greek for “between the rivers”. I thought about how that would be expressed in Savannah Speech. Decciding that a basic root should be a verb, I translated it as “(it) stands between two rivers”. I used the following roots and affixes: čön- (between), kö- (two), g̲ōn- (river), re- (stay, stand), and -ẖu (constant imperfective (s/he is always (verbing))). čön-kö-g̲ōn-re-ẖu

Because the /r/ is pronounced in the back of the throat and the /n/ is pronounced near the front, these two sounds can’t go together, but are pronounced / ng̲ /. Therefore, I end up with čönkög̲ōng̲éẖu between-two-rivers-stands. That’s still a mouthful, so it might be pronounced čönkög̲ōn, or between-two-rivers, with the verb ending implied. I might use that as a city name.

Savannah People: Töpfumaardaaškhōhu

I now need a name for the Savannah people. They might be called People of the Savannah, but what does savannah mean? It comes from the American Taino people. Zabana meant “a tract of low-lying marshy ground. That doesn’t really capture the description of this biome, which is a wide treeless plain. I want this word to be self-descriptive and nobody likes to describe themselves by a negative or what they lack. If I came from that area, I would think of it as a wide grassy plain, so the culture is that of the People of the Wide Grassy Plain.

I haven’t yet assigned any morphemes to any of these semantic meanings except for grass (tö-). I will assign: škhō– (inhabit), pfum– (wide), maar– (plain). My basic word form follows this schema: [ADJ]-[O]-[S]-root-[ADV]-TENSE, or grassy-wide-plain-(they)-inhabit-constant imperfective, or tö- (grass), pfum– (wide), maar– (plain), daa– (they), škhō– (inhabit), –ẖu (constant imperfective). The accent goes on the verb škhō: Töpfumaardaaškhōhu. The word for people or inhabitants would be daaškhōẖu. A traveller from an area would be daaškhōnuš. Someone who used to live there would be daaškhōng̲on.

I will go on to create new names for places. I won’t go through the process, but you can see them on my map of Körung̲ung̲éẖu. Next, I’ll create place names in the Hillfolk and Silvan languages.

Körung̲ung̲éẖu (Pancirlea) with places in the Savannah Speech (*Töpfumaardaaškhōhu* ). Image by Michael Tedin.

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Worldbuilding 102 – How To Make a Constructed Language Sound Natural

Published by mjtedin on August 7, 2021

I’ve been looking forward to writing an article about constructed languages for a while. But when it comes down to it, I find it difficult. I love languages and I have studied them for over forty years. I want to write everything there is to know about how to construct a language.

The difficulty for me is to rein it in. The problem is that, when writing fiction, less is more. You want a constructed language to add a fantasy flavor to a fictional world. That is, create words, names, and places unique to your world that sets the scene and creates a feel for the people living there. You don’t need a fully fleshed out grammar or writing system. You don’t want to overdo it and make your story hard to read.

Contents:
Consonants
Vowels
Pitch and Tones
Choosing Sounds
Orthography
Phonotactics

Language as Cultural Identity

It is a common belief that different cultures have different languages. For the most part, that’s true, though there are some cultures that differ in some ways but share a language that is almost exactly the same. For example, Serbian and Croatian are very similar, but the two cultures are divided by religion. The languages might be mutually intelligible if spoken, but one is written in the Latin script and the other in Cyrillic.

Language is often used as an indicator of group identity. Subtle differences in speech can mark a person as being part of a group or not. Often, it can be used to distinguish class as well. With your constructed languages, think about how different groups within your world use those languages. Do street people have a jargon they use to confuse the elites and avoid authority?

The problem for the fantasy writer is how to convey those differences. Often, you need characters to interact using dialog. If they don’t speak the same language, how do you write dialogue? One solution is to have everybody speak the same language. But if you do that, you lose the opportunity to breed misunderstanding and conflict.

Creating Consistency in a Constructed Language

In addition to showing differences, a language has to sound consistent within the group of speakers. Often, writers make up names and words on the spot, but they sound phony and ad hoc. In order for your world to to ring true to the reader, it helps for the invented words and names to have some consistency. That is, the words and names should sound like they are coming from the same language.

One of the easiest ways to create consistency is to simply use a real-world language as a template. Of course, then you are implying your fantasy world is Earth or some analog. You can copy a real-world language and make a constructed language that is similar, like J.K. Rowling did with spells in Harry Potter. All the words were pseudo-Latin, making the spells sound scholarly.

Whether you copy a real-world language or create one from scratch, it helps to do some basic work in constructing a language in order to get that consistency. One of the first things to think about is what it sounds like.

Sounds and Phonemes

Consonants

Every language uses a limited number of phonemes, or sounds. Some use more than others. For example, Lingit, the language of indigenous peoples of Southeast Alaska, has 47 different consonants, many of which sound similar to a native English speaker’s ears. On the opposite range, native Hawai’ian has only eight consonants. By comparison, English has 24 consonants represented by 21 letters.

The various sounds created by human speech are recorded in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). No one language uses all of the sounds represented in the IPA.

A portion of the official chart of the IPA. International Phonetic Association, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

English speakers are familiar with a fraction of these sounds. Arabic uses retroflex and uvular consonants. The glottal stop has no letter in English, but is common. Think of the Cockney pronunciation of bottle: /bo(‘)l/.

Lingit uses ejectives, which are a class of non-pulmonic consonants. That is, they are created by a push of air from the throat, not from the lungs. The Khoisan languages of south and east African use clicks, which are created by pushes of air in the mouth.

/R/ is pronounced differently in most languages. As a alveolar trill in Finnish, uvular trill in French, German, and Arabic, approximant in American English. English dialects use both postalveolar and retroflex as well as some dialects with the aveolar flap or trill to pronounce /r/.

You will need to choose which sounds you will use to build your constructed language.

Vowels

There are generally far fewer vowels in a language than consonants. The difference between consonants and vowels is like the difference between digital and analog. Consonants are distinct sounds, while vowels exist along a range.

The range of vowel sounds expands along two axes, from the front of the mouth to the back, and from closed to open. Also, vowels are often long or short (tense or lax).

An example of front of the mouth and closed is /i/ as in English ‘bit’. The long version is Spanish /i/ or English ‘ee’ as in ‘beet’. An example of open back of the mouth is /o/ as in English ‘hot’.

Vowels might be different within different dialects of a single language, though they are very similar. Compare an American saying ‘pin’ or ‘pen’ against a New Zealander saying it. The two words are switched in pronunciation. Even within the United States, vowels shifted as people moved from New England to the Midwest in the 19th century.

Nearly all languages have a minimum of three vowels. Few have more than ten, but some have as many as thirteen.

Often, they are combined into diphthongs, such as /ai/, similar to the English long /i/ as in ‘bite’, or /au/ as in the English ‘ow’, ‘au’, or ‘ough’ as in ‘bow’, ‘bauhaus’, or ‘bough’.

Pitch and Tones

In some languages, speakers change the pitch of their voice to convey meaning. That is, the speaker will add a rising or falling pitch. English speakers use this to add a questioning tone to the end of a question, though English is not a tonal language. Sometimes, this lift at the end of a sentence is used in statements when the speaker is looking for the listener to agree with the statement.

Speakers of some languages have multiple pitch changes throughout a sentence, not just at the end. This variation occurs even in various dialects of English. Compare an American speaker of English to someone from India. Americans speak in very flat tones while Indians speak with a variety of rising and falling pitches like ripples on a pond. These pitch changes might be conveying meaning, shifting the mood of the speaker’s meaning. Since I am an American, I speak in flat tones and any possible meaning from these pitch changes are lost on me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In tonal languages, tonal changes can be very complex, changing the meaning of words. This is common in east Asian languages such as Vietnamese, Cantonese, or Mandarin. For example, the word ‘ma’ in Mandarin has five different meanings depending on the nature of the tone:
mā (媽/妈) ‘mother’
má (麻/麻) ‘hemp’
mǎ (馬/马) ‘horse’
mà (罵/骂) ‘scold’
ma (嗎/吗) (an interrogative particle)

I don’t use tonal changes in my constructed languages because I am not very familiar with them.

Choosing Sounds for your Constructed Language

When designing your constructed language, think about what it will sound like in the reader’s head. Is it beautiful? Is it harsh? Does it sound like Latin or Greek? Chinese or Japanese? This will have an impact on how your readers approach the culture and your characters.

For example, Tolkien chose many unvoiced sibilants (f, s, l, h, hy) and often used the vowel ‘a’ when constructing elvish because he liked the sounds. Conversely, in the Black Speech and Orcish, he chose many fricatives such as th, s, z, sh, zh, kh, gh. The vowel ‘u’ is more common than in elvish.

It helps to sound out the words and phrases when you create them. You’ll get a better idea of how your your constructed language will sound to your readers.

Example: Savannah Speech

For Savannah culture, I want it to sound more throaty and harsh. The reason is that I intend this culture to be harsh. They are slave traders and the bad guys are the rulers, nobles, and elites of their area. Like Tolkien, I find throaty sounds more harsh and not as pretty as sounds produced in the front of the mouth and glides such as l, y, and wh. Of course, there are some front of mouth sounds that are basic in just about any human language.

The twenty-five consonants (written in IPA) I decided on using for Savannah Speech are: p, ɸ, m, b, β, t, s, n, d, ts, z, t̠ʃ, ʃ, d̠ʒ, ʒ, k, x, ŋ, ɡ, ɣ, q, ɢ, ʀ, ʔ, h, ɦ.

Because the Savannah people use a lot of consonants in the back of the mouth, the vowels follow the same pattern. I chose these four: a, œ, u, and ɒ. We will use the short version of all of them and the long version of a, u, and ɒ. We’ll also use the diphthongs au and ei.

Cultural and Language areas within Pancirclea. Image by Michael Tedin

Constructed Language Orthography

Orthography is how a language is written. There are three basic types of writing systems: logographic – symbols represent words. E.g Chinese
syllabic – symbols represent syllables. E.g. Japanese or Korean, and
alphabetic – symbols represent phonemes. E.g. Latin, Cyrllic, or Arabic alphabets.

We have been discussing sounds using IPA lettering. In order for an English reader of fiction to understand them, we’ll need to transcribe them. For the most part, this means using letters of the Latin alphabet.

You could design a fully functional script to write your language, but if you are doing it for written fiction, you likely won’t be using it. Even if you do come up with a script, good luck getting a publisher to typeset anything using it. For more information on types of writing systems, check out this Conlang wiki or the Language Construction Kit.

“Tengwar” in the Tengwar script created by J.R.R. Tolkein

For the most part, it make sense to simply write the letters out using their English equivalents. The sounds might not match exactly to the sounds English speakers use for those same letters. This might cause some confusion as to how the words are actually pronounced, but that’s what book appendices and speaker’s forums are for, right?

Accent Marks

Accent marks can indicate differences between pronunciation of English and that of your constructed language. Be careful how you use these. Accent marks mean certain things in different languages. Too often, I see writers use accent marks to make words look foreign with no sense of what those accent marks mean. My own pet peeve is Mötley Crüe. It’s supposed to sound like Mawtley Crew with some “cool” accent marks. I think it reads like Mootly Cryu.

Some examples of accent marks used in different languages are apostrophes (‘), accent grave (è), accent acute (é), tilde (ñ), umlaut or diareses (ä), among others. These accents might mean different things in different languages. For example, the accent acute and accent grave indicates a tonal change in Vietnamese, but a change in pronunciation in French.

Many languages use apostrophes for consonants. The one I see most often is the apostrophe for a glottal stop, as in Hawaiian. For example, Kauai and Hawaii are pronounced with a glottal stop as Kaua’i and Hawai’i, not Kauayi or Hawaiyi.

You can find a list of codes to type out letters with accents at alt-codes.net. If you just want a visual chart without pop-ups, you can find one here.

Phonotactics – Letter Combinations

Accents don’t work for all sounds. Often, we use letter combinations to indicate different sounds. For example, in English, we use a following ‘h’ to indicate a fricative. English doesn’t use þ (thorn) or ð (eth) for the dental fricative like Icelandic. Instead, we add an ‘h’ after a ‘t’, using ‘th’ for both sounds.

Often, English speakers will transcribe sounds in foreign languages the same way. For example, we don’t have letters for IPA x or ɣ. Standard English doesn’t use them, but Russian or Arabic do. We often transcribe them with ‘kh’ or ‘gh’.

One of my favorite letter combinations is the German transcription of tʃ. In English we simply use ‘ch’. In German, they need four letters to write the sound: ‘tsch’.

Another method of transcribing phonemes is by doubling the letter. For example, ‘ll’ in Welsh makes the ɬ lateral fricative sound (like ‘l’ but with air moving on either side of the tongue). The same combination in Spanish makes the ʎ lateral approximant (similar to English ‘y’). The ‘tl’ combination is used in Tlingit. Even IPA has a hard time with this, combining two symbols to represent one sound: ‘tɬ‘

Example: Savannah Speech

With twenty-six consonants, seven short and long vowels, and two diphthongs, it would stand to reason that my constructed language for the Savannah People would need thirty-five letters, but most languages use the same letters for the long and short vowels, so that makes it fewer.

The sounds ɸ, β, ts, t̠ʃ, ʃ, d̠ʒ, ʒ, x, ŋ, ɣ, ɢ, ɦ can be written using letter combinations, such as ‘pf’, ‘bh’, ‘zh’, ‘kh’, ‘ng’, and ‘gh’ for ‘ɸ’, ‘β’, ‘ʒ’, ‘x’, ‘ŋ’, and ‘ɣ’. I’ll add diacritical marks to change the sound of others, like in Czech. Also, ‘č’ and ‘š’ can stand for ‘t̠ʃ’ and ‘ʃ’.

I’ll use ‘dzh’ for ‘d̠ʒ’. I could use ‘j’, but I like the harsher look of ‘dzh’. The ‘ɢ’, and ‘ɦ’ are the voiced versions of ‘q’ and ‘h’, we can use ‘g̲’ and ‘ẖ’. They will only be between vowels or at the beginning of a word. Finally, I’ll use ‘r’ and ‘ for ‘ʀ’ and ‘ʔ’.

For the vowels, we have ‘a’, ‘œ’, ‘u’, and ‘ɒ’. The first three can be spelled with ‘a’, ‘ö’, and ‘u’. I’ll use ‘o’ for ‘ɒ’. The diphthongs ‘au’ and ‘eɪ’ are straightfoward enough, but I’ll use ‘e’ for ‘eɪ ‘. For the long version of ‘a’, I’ll simply double it: ‘aa’. I’ll use accents to distinguish long ‘u’ and ‘ɒ’: ‘ū’ and ‘ō’.

This gives me a set of sounds written with b, bh, p, pf, m, t, s, n, d, ts, z, č , š , dzh, zh, k, kh, ng, g, gh, r, q, q, h, h, a, ö, u, o, aa, ū and ō. The alphabet is much shorter: a, b, č , d, e, f, g, g̲, h, ẖ, k, m, n, o, ö, p, q, r, s, t, u, z, and ‘.

Next, we can start building words and giving them some meaning. Also, we’ll finally get around to naming some places in Pancirclea in their indigenous languages.

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Worldbuilding 102 – Caste, Class, and Clan in Fantasy Societies

Published by mjtedin on June 24, 2021

Many societies organize themselves along caste, class, or clan. Each of these terms represents a way a society organizes itself, though caste is something of a hybrid between class and clan. I put it first on the list because the list sounds better in that order. Give me a break. I’m a writer, not an academic.

Putting the Character in a Caste, Class, or Clan

These social structures divide people into groups and define a person’s position in society. Often, these groups place demands on and provide incentives to their members to keep them in their own group and keep outsiders out. These incentives often create conflict between the character’s wants and needs and the demands of his caste, class, or clan. That conflict can provide the drama for your fiction, either as the central drama or as background or subtext.

When writing fiction, the first thing to focus on isn’t plot or setting, but characters. Plot is what happens when your characters want something and something else is in the way. It is the nexus of desire and obstacle. Setting is the world your characters inhabit. One of the most important aspects of your character is where they fit in the society we have been building.

In this series of articles, I am focused on setting, but all along the way, I have tried to keep my eye on the ultimate goal: creating a rich world that informs your character’s decisions.

Class

The modern definition of class is a group sharing the same economic or social status, but we need to think of it in a broader sense. It is an order or ranking of a group of people having certain characteristics in common. The ranking implies a hierarchy within your society, but also people grouped together by certain characteristics.

We think of class as economic, but it doesn’t have to be. Many class systems throughout human history were based on occupation, but some were based on a certain social or legal status.

To tie it to economics, think about who is getting rich. Is it the priestly class? Warrior Class? Merchant Class? Who controls trade, land, or mines? Is it businesses, trading houses, families, clans, tribes, government, religion?

Upper vs Lower Classes

Drama requires conflict. The differences between classes has formed the basis of dramatic conflict throughout history. For example, there’s the Suddenly Suitable Suitor trope of stories like Aladdin. There are a ton of tropes along the lines of the Unable to Support a Wife line.

The upper classes tended to share common interests in advancing or maintaining their privileged status. If your characters, either hero or villain, has that status challenged, it might be a motivation for them to act. An inciting incident that challenges the status quo, such as a monster destroying their kingdom, would be a powerful motivation. E.g. Raya and the Last Dragon.

The converse of who is getting rich is who is staying poor, like peasants and slaves. Often, the poor have had some wealth taken away from them such as a weaker indigenous people without the resources or technology to defend against a stronger invading people.

Many characters from fiction come from the poorer classes. Their poverty often gives them the motivation to change their situation, putting them on a hero’s quest. Find the gold and save the family, only to learn that the family is more important than the gold.

Different Class Systems

When creating a fictional society, don’t be limited by the modern conception of class as a division between rich and poor. Human societies have organized themselves based on a myriad of class systems.

In Neolithic times, occupation determined social class, with farmers and craftsmen at the lower end, and priests and warriors at the higher. People with a surplus of goods (such as food items, textiles, obsidian and stone technology) had greater influence in society because they had what other people wanted. This created leverage and a sense of deference to those who had more.

In Bronze age, we saw a greater differentiation in social classes. Priests and warriors grew in power while farmers and craftsmen diminished.

Classical Rome

In ancient Rome, society divided freeborn citizens into the patrician and plebian classes. The distinction was originally a divide between rich and poor, but the distinction eventually became hereditary. In addition to this distinction, later Roman society divided citizen from non-citizen. There was also an equestrian class system based on the amount of property one held. Finally, there was a huge class of slaves doing much of the hard labor of Roman society.

Chinese Four Occupations

Confucian China recognized four classes based on occupations: shi (gentry scholars and warriors), the nong (peasant farmers), the gong (artisans and craftsmen), and the shang (merchants and traders). These were less a socioeconomic class than an economic classification. This social system extended beyond China to Korea, Japan, and Vietnam as well.

A Song dynasty gentry and his servant. Ma Yuan, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

European Feudalism

Medieval Europe maintained a division between three classes: the nobility, the clergy, and and the peasants. Nobility was a political ruling class, usually just below royalty, not a socioeconomic class. While a noble might have had wealth and power, it was not a defining characteristic. Many nobles lost their wealth, but maintained their social status.

The Third Estate of the peasantry was much more diverse than the description implies. The class included not just agricultural peasants, but also beggars and urban laborers from artisans, shopkeepers, and commercial middle classes to wealthy merchants and bankers.

France maintained this system up to the French revolution, known as the three Estates of the Realm. The United States and Europe maintain a shadow of this system when we refer to the free press as the Fourth Estate.

13th-century French representation of the tripartite social order. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Industrial Revolution

In the 14th century (after the Black Death) urbanization led to a separate class of merchants that became the seed for the Industrial Revolution in the 17th-19th centuries. The Industrial Revolution upended the medieval class system, leading to a search for a new definition of the social order.

In his analysis of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, Karl Marx defined class to be about who owns the “means of production”. The bourgeoisie (merchant class) owned the means of production (capital) and the proletariat (working class) worked for the bourgeoisie, thereby creating more capital.

These two classes grew out of the feudal system, with urban merchants becoming the bourgeoisie. As industrialism took hold, the nobility sold off their land and forced the peasants who had worked it to leave for urban factories. This new class of urban poor became the proletariat.

File:Powerloom weaving in 1835.jpg — A Roberts loom in a weaving shed in 1835. Illustrator T. Allom, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In the Marxist perspective, all the gains of the system accrued to the bourgeoisie, thereby impoverishing the proletariat.

Modern America

In 20th century United States, we had a conceptual division between the upper, middle and lower classes. In this perspective, the upper class were the rich, holding most of the wealth and power. The lower classes were the working class, either unemployed or holding low wage jobs. The middle class included people with typical-everyday jobs that pay above the poverty line. This group made up the bulk of society.

A typical white middle class family in the 1950s.

In the 21st century, we have seen a marked increase in income inequality since the Great Recession of 2008. Now, people are more likely to talk about the 1% vs the 99%. That is, 1% of society controls as much wealth as the bottom 90%. In this view, with such vast differences in wealth, the distinctions below the 1% are meaningless.

Choosing a Social System for your Fantasy World

Throughout human history, we have seen a wide variety of class systems. Which caste, class, or clan you apply to your world is up to you, but it is likely to make a difference in how your characters view the world.

Is your society hierarchical or egalitarian? Does the surplus of the economy accrue to the elite or is it spread broadly? Is there much social mobility? Is there slavery? These are questions you must ask in order to define your social structure.

Is social class and behavior laid down in law such as the Indian caste system, medieval European guilds, or serfdom?. You might decide that your fantasy society restricts membership in a group by religion, race, ethnicity, or gender as well as wealth. If your society has a racial minority, the dominant race might exclude them from certain more profitable occupations.

On the other hand, social mores might restrict the dominant race or religion from certain occupations. Those occupations might become profitable, in which case the dominant group would have to break custom to participate. As an example, because coal mining is dirty, only the lower classes might mine coal. If industrialization picks up and coal becomes valuable, then that class might be well situated to take advantage of its higher value.

Caste – Intermediate between Class and Clan

Caste is a hereditary social class that restricts the occupation of their members and their association with the members of other castes. It is like a clan because it is hereditary, but it is like class because it maintains an economic and social stratification.

Caste is known mainly as a feature of Hindu society, but other, mainly south and southeast Asian, societies also have some form as well. For example, the historic relationship between Blacks and Whites in the United States has been described as a caste system.

Caste is based on occupation. It has a ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultural notions of purity and pollution.

Similar to Confucian Chinese social structure, the Hindu caste system has four main groups based on ritual text (Varna), though it has thousands based on birth (Jati). The four Varna castes are the Brahmins (scholars and yajna priests), Kshatriyas (rulers and warriors), Vaishyas (farmers, merchants and artisans) and Shudras (workmen/service providers).

Creating a caste system for your own fantasy world would require much research and work. You would need to define the classes first. Then create the rituals and customs of society that create the rules of interaction between them. You might need to create a religious system before a caste system. One option is to create a class system based on occupation, then figure out the rules of the caste system when you define your religions.

Clans and Tribes

Clan and tribe systems are the most common and universal social structures in human societies. Clans are large groups of families related by kinship, often descended from a single person. E.g. according to legend, the Julii of Rome descended from a mythical person Iulus, the son of Aeneas of Troy. Julius Caesar was its most famous member, but the clan predated him by at least 400 years.

Most preindustrial societies organized themselves by clan. Later Neolithic and Bronze Age societies organized into small and medium-sized chiefdoms that struggled for dominance between various powerful families.

In societies where institutional structures have broken down, social structures might revert to tribe and clan organization. Post-war Iraq in the 21st century is a good example of this.

Clans might specialize in certain occupations, especially in caste societies. For example, many gangs of organized crime follow family or clan lines, such as the Italian Mafia.

Sometimes there is a class hierarchy within a clan. Sometimes the clans fall out along a class hierarchy. For example, in ancient Rome, a client was a minor member of a his patron’s clan (gens), but each gens was defined as either patrician or plebian.

Clan Organization and Structure

Tribal and clan structures differ from culture to culture. Often, a clan is a smaller part of a larger society such as a tribe or chiefdom. Clans may have an official leader such as a chief, matriarch or patriarch, or a council or elders. In others, people would have to achieve leadership positions.

They might be patrilineal or matrilineal. For example, in Roman society one’s father determined one’s gens. Among the Tlingits of Southeast Alaska, children are born to the mother’s clan and gain their status within her family.

Clans might further break down in smaller families, such as the houses (hít) of the Tlingit or the stirpes of the Romans.

Clans might belong to larger groups within a society, such as patrician or plebian among the Romans or the Eagle, Raven, or Wolf moieties of the Tlingit.

Tlingit Tribes, Clans, and Clan Houses. Copyright Tlingit Readers, Inc.

Rules and Customs

Often times, certain rules or social customs control the relationships between or among clans. These rule most often apply to marriage restrictions. For example, a member of the Eagle moiety in Tlingit culture may only marry a member of the Raven moiety.

In many societies, there is no concept of private property. A clan or a house within a clan owned all the property. This is true of classical Rome, where the pater familias owned all property. The familia was the basic economic and social unit of Roman society.

In Hawaii, the upper caste Ali’i owned all the land, which Ali‘i Nui then split among his followers, similar to European feudalism. Among the Tlingit, each clan owns its own history, songs, crests, and totems.

Totem pole at Sitka National Historical Park, Alaska. Photograph by Robert A. Estremo, copyright 2005. via Wikimedia Commons

Caste, Class, and Clan in Fantasy Societies

The variety of class-based or tribe and clan-based social organization allows a writer of fiction wide latitude in creating interesting social structures. While I would not recommend using lengthy exposition to describe the intricate details of social ritual, it would be fun to create a character in your story who is limited by social rules.

One can imagine a Romeo and Juliet story where two lovers can’t see each other because they are from clans in the same moiety or from upper class and lower class clans or castes. I’m sure those stories exist in just about every culture as cautionary tales. It’s a story as old as humanity.

Applying Caste, Class, and Clan in Pancirclea

In my demonstration world of Pancirclea, I have decided on a class system among the Savannah culture, a caste system for the Hillfolk, and a clan system among the Silvans.

Hillfolk

Hillfolk culture divides society among four classes similar to the Hindu Varna: warriors and rulers, scholars and priests, merchants, and peasants. In addition, there is an underclass of slaves.

Unlike the Hindu castes, Hillfolk culture has no ritual restrictions on how they interact with each other. Also, there are no restrictions on mobility between the classes. A person may move between classes, though there may be economic or other barriers to social mobility.

In addition to classes, the Hillfolk have a clan system, though it is less strict than that of the Silvans. These clans specialize in certain occupations, so fall mainly into one or another class. For example, one clan might control the army, so fall in the warrior class. Another clan might fall into the merchant and tradesmen class.

Savannah

The Savannah culture has four castes similar to the four main classes of the Hillfolk culture. In addition, there is a large underclass of slaves made up mainly of Silvans that exists outside the caste system.

The four castes include strict restrictions on who can be a member of a caste as well as how the castes interact. Members of the four main castes may not interact with slaves. Only the top two castes of warrior rulers and scholar priests may own them and only their owners may interact with them with certain exceptions.

Religious rules and sacred texts govern these restrictions. We will explore this more when we discuss religion in a later article.

Images from the manuscript ‘Seventy-Two Specimens of Castes in India. — Images from the manuscript *Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India*. Public domain.

Silvan

Silvan culture is more egalitarian. There is no class or caste system though there are richer and poorer members of society. Their culture is divided into tribes, clans, and houses. These family units make up the political organization of the Silvans as well, with councils of clans made up of the leaders of houses and councils of tribes made up of the leaders of clans.

Tribes control large regions within the Silvan territory, though clans within a tribe might exist throughout that tribe’s territory. There are three main groups of clans (phratries) within Silvan society. One may only marry into a clan outside one’s own phratry.

The phratries are Eagle, Panther, and Gorilla in the south, Eagle, Cougar, and Bear in the north.

Create Your Own Social Structures

As you can see, with a little forethought and research, you can create your own caste, class, or clan system for your fantasy world. Whether you have one or more societies, it isn’t difficult to create social structures that give your characters more depth and add more complex and compelling themes to your fiction.

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Worldbuilding 102 – Money and Banking in Fantasy Societies

Published by mjtedin on May 22, 2021

When worldbuilding a fantasy world, money and banking might influence how trade is carried out, but it doesn’t actually have much impact on other aspects of a society. For the most part, creating a money system in a fantasy world is a good way to give the world a certain ambience.

What is Money?

The best definition of money I have found is that is a medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value and a method of valuing debts. Most people are familiar with its role as a medium of exchange. Rather than bartering, we put our value in money and use that as a replacement for other valuable items.

Prior to developing money, trade was done by barter. The first forms of money were cattle and grain. Mesopotamians commodified trade by pegging it to the weight of a bushel of grain. Farmers would deposit their grain in the temple, which then recorded the deposit on clay tablets. The temple gave the farmer a receipt in the form of a clay token which they could then use to pay fees or other debts. For more on trade, see my article on Fantasy Economics.

Later, when trade with foreigners required a form of money not tied to the local economy, they developed coins that carried value with it. They stamped metal to indicate its value. Metal is durable, portable, and easily divisible.

Conceptually, any money system depends on the value the users place on the marker being used. The original Mesopotamian shekel represented a certain amount of grain, but the value of gold and silver is all in the minds of the people using it.

The rarity of these items keeps their value high, but their prevalence made them useful as commodities for exchange. The important thing is that there be a stable amount of the material in circulation, otherwise, you run the risk of inflation or deflation.

What Kind of Money?

Societies throughout human history have used a variety of materials as money. For most of history, the material money was made from has been commodity based. People have used cowry shells as money for millennia. The Chinese first started using them 3000 years ago. They were also used in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia, and Pacific Islands, often spread by the slave trade.

At various times in history, people have used salt as money, including the “salarium” of a Roman soldier. Ethiopians used it up through the 20th century.

Those of us who played Dungeons and Dragons are familiar with gold, silver, and copper pieces. The first metal money appeared in China in the form of Bronze Knives and spades in China. Though not used as a medium of exchange, the Indians of the Pacific Northwest similarly used large copper plates as symbols of wealth and prestige.

The first coins appeared around the same time in China, India, and the eastern Mediterranean in the 7th century BCE. The Kingdom of Lydia developed the first inscribed coins in the Iron Age. These were of electrum, an alloy of gold and silver. The old school gamers will remember electrum coins from 1st & 2nd Edition Dungeons and Dragons.

File:Triti, Phanes, 625-600 BC, Ionia - 301224.jpg — Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Croesus introduced pure gold coins in the 6th century BCE, hence the phrase “as rich as Croesus.”

Gold Croeseid, minted by King Croesus circa 561–546 BCE. Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Money remained much the same, with various reforms, changes in weight, purity, and denomination for the next two thousand years or so until the invention of paper money.

Paper Money

The first recorded use of paper money occurred in China in the 11th century CE. Its development grew out of commercial transactions where exchanging large quantities of coins became difficult. Merchants would give a credit note from a deposit house in exchange for goods. The seller could then take the credit note to draw the amount from the deposit house.

The idea of the paper promissory note made its way to Europe at the end of the middle ages, where trade was flourishing. A merchant could deposit a sum with a banker in one town. In turn the banker handed out a bill of exchange that the merchant could redeem in another town. Over time, these credit notes became bearer notes, that is, they were written to pay whoever held the note.

File:Sweden-Credityf-Zedels.jpg — The first paper money in Europe, issued by the Stockholms Banco in 1666. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

At first, banks and deposit houses wrote the notes, but eventually, governments stepped in to control the money supply and set a monopoly on printing bank notes.

Paper money carried the fiction that it represented a certain share of gold or silver until 1971 when the U.S. government de-pegged the dollar from gold. Modern money systems have even unlinked value from a specific physical object to a balance on an account sheet, often merely electronically recorded. In the case of cryptocurrency, the currency itself is divorced from a physical form. Could a highly magical society create something like a cryptocurrency?

Money in Fantasy Societies

The easiest way to deal with money in a fantasy story is to ignore it altogether. For the most part, your readers don’t need or even want to know the price of a loaf of bread or a night in an inn. You can simply say that they rented a room or bought a loaf of bread.

If you have your characters counting out coins and making change, your worldbuilding might be taking over your character development. Character first! Worldbuilding gives your characters a background. You don’t invent characters to live in the beautiful world you created.

On the other hand, it might be a useful pressure point on your characters to not have money. This is a great opportunity to follow the old writing advice to force your characters in a corner and poke them with a stick. Lack of money is one way to force them into a corner. If they don’t have money, their options might be more limited in certain situations.

In my own books, I created the fiction that one character has all the money he needs. When he is around, the characters don’t need to worry about money and I, as an author, don’t need to worry about it either. At least inside the story. In another book, I separated them and the one character’s limited money supply is becoming a point of tension for her.

Fantasy Money (Bitcoin anyone?)

If you want to use money to add depth to your fictional world, the easiest method without developing your own monetary system is to use generic coins of gold, silver, and copper or model it on a real-world monetary system such as the English in the middle ages. Kenneth Hodges at the University of California created a list of medieval prices of various commodities and services. It is based on pounds, shillings, and pennies, but includes a conversion to crowns and marks.

Henry VIII Gold Crown. Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

If you really want to develop your own fantasy money system, you can go as far as inventing your own denominations for gold, silver, and copper or add other metals such as platinum, electrum, or bronze. You can also follow some of the other historical systems such as cowrie shells or salt.

If you want something truly fantastic, invent some other commodity that has that balance between widespread and rare. It has to be rare enough that it is hard to duplicate easily but widespread enough that it can be held by a large number of people.

One idea might be a magically infused item. Perhaps gold or silver is non-existent in your world. In order to keep a tight control on the money supply, a king might have his vizier or chief mage manufacture items that display a magical image of his face. These might be as simple as a bronze disk or as fancy as a glass ball. I would imagine a glass ball displaying the king’s face would be more valuable than the bronze disk.

Crystal balls as fantasy money — Well, it’s an idea.

Banking and Accounting

Accounting is older than the Bronze Age. It was invented during the late Neolithic as a method of counting agricultural produce. It is closely related to the development of writing. Both arose as a method of counting and recording stores of grain and wealth.

Banking came later, in about the 4th millennium BCE. The history of banking is inextricably linked to the history of money. Temples acted as the first banks in ancient Mesopotamia. People stored their wealth in the temples for a fee. Later, about 1000 BCE, private lending houses arose. The Code of Hammurabi recorded interest-bearing loans.

In Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Greece, and Rome temples acted as banks. In many areas, such as China and India, merchants formed the first banks. Ancient Egypt developed the first government central banks. We must remember that the relationship between the temple and the king was very close in ancient societies.

The signature development of modern banking in the 16th and 17th centuries CE was the issuance of bank debt that served as a substitute for gold and silver. This debt became the new money that underpins the modern international economy.

14th century Italian counting house. Cocharelli, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Banks in Fantasy Fiction

Whatever form banks might take in your fiction, they can also act as useful villains. The best example I have read recently is in Joe Abercrombie‘s First Law and Age of Madness trilogies. The banking house of Valint and Balk acts as a nebulous antagonist that seems to be behind many of the plots and scheming in the books.

Debt can be a motivator for your characters. Like poverty, the fear of poverty and the obligation to pay debt can put a character in a corner. The banker might come by and poke them with a stick from time to time.

Another nebulous entity putting pressure on characters is the Iron Bank of the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin. This bank lends money to governments and armies, often on different sides of a conflict. Much of the conflict in the series is based on how the players scheme to get the backing of the Iron Bank or have to pay them back.

Fantasy banking in Game of Thrones — Stannis Baratheon negotiates with the Iron Bank. Image copyright HBO

Fantasy Banks and Money in Pancirclea

I am going to skip any development of specific coins in Pancirclea, but I want to have a banking system. This will serve two purposes. My characters can store any wealth they have and borrow money if necessary. Additionally, the bank itself can advance the plot. If characters have borrowed money, the bank can be an antagonist. The characters’ need to pay the debt can force them to act when they otherwise wouldn’t.

I would expect every town to have its own bank. Perhaps they would have multiple lending houses. The most powerful banks would have branches in every city, facilitating trade and enabling traders and adventurers to draw on funds when they are traveling.

I would think the bank would be controlled by a clan, rather than a company. I am leaning toward using clans to control major organizations in Pancirclea. Banking clans, trading clans. Clans that permeate the upper levels of government or the military.

Like the Game of Thrones or First Law worlds, I would have one premier bank that can act as the antagonist in the story. If I need another to put pressure on that main banking clan, I would likely mention another.

Trade Routes in Pancirclea. Image by Michael Tedin

In sum (no pun intended), you don’t need money and banking in your fantasy world. You can develop the other features without any detailed development of these features. On the other hand, doing so can enrich the ambient feel of the world and provide some powerful motivations for your characters.

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Worldbuilding 102 – Applied Worldbuilding

Published by mjtedin on May 1, 2021

So far in this series, we have discussed a lot of theories with a few suggestions for practical applied worldbuilding. I have set out a few examples along the way. Now lets take a moment to apply what we know to the sample world I created, Pancirclea. If you have read this series from the beginning, you’d know that the continent is named because I started with two circles representing continents and smashed them together.

Applied Worldbuilding: What We Know So Far

Back in my worldbuilding article on demographics, I came up with three basic genetic groupings, Hillfolk, Savannah People, and Silvans. I based them on the climate and biomes that they evolved in. When I was doing that, I kept in mind that they would likely have distinct cultures from each other.

Culture is not a single defining feature, but a set of features among a society that gives the society a distinct feel. Many of the things we talk about in this series of articles make up the culture of each society. Later, we will talk about language, religion, and politics.

What we know so far in the series is demographics, settlement patterns, urban geography, magic and technology, and some economics (types of economies and trade).

In earlier articles, I mapped out the demographics and settlement patterns of southeast Pancirclea. Now let’s apply some worldbuilding techniques and look at the technology and economics of the region. I’ll take a stab at listing out some of the social forces at work in each society. Once we know that, we can begin to see some areas of conflict.

These social forces and conflicts are the starting points for developing characters that live in these areas. Those characters may have these conflicts as motivations, either as primary motivations or as secondary motivations. Either way, characters with multiple motivations make for much more interesting characters. See the most recent issue of Writer’s Digest (May/June 2021) for a great article on The Russian Nested Doll Theory of Motivation.

Applied Worldbuilding: Cultural Zones of Pancirclea. Image by Michael Tedin

Applied Worldbuilding: Resources Are Important

In order apply our worldbuilding techniques to what we know about each society’s technology and trade, we need to know what resources each of them has. This depends on where they’ve settled because their environment determines the natural resources available.

Savannah Culture

Savannah People are an agricultural society. They’ve settled in the plains and by rivers in cities A, B, C, D, F, M, and G. (I am going to finally give these cities names when I write an article about language. Stay tuned.)

They grow grain and raise livestock, including horses, cattle, sheep, and goats. The livestock also produce milk, cheese, and wool.

Hillfolk

The Hillfolk have settled in the hills. Their cities are E, F, H, I, J, K, and L. Cities E and F have some crossover culture between the Hillfolk and Savannah cultures.

Some of the hills are forested, some are not. The hills provide mineral resources such as copper, tin, and coal for bronze making, as well as iron, salt, limestone, and marble. The forests also provide wood for building. Wood can also be converted to charcoal for use in for smelting. They also raise livestock, including sheep and goats.

Silvans

The Silvans did not advance as much technologically as the Savannah or Hillfolk cultures because they were not as much under ecological pressure to survive. The forests still provide enough for their villages to thrive. Consequently, the need for developing intensive agriculture or metallurgy was not as high.

The resources available to them are mostly forest resources they can gather, including the obvious wood and woodcrafts. Also, their long relationship with the forest has allowed them to develop a deep understanding of the forest herbs and medicines derived from them.

Pancirclea Resources — Applied Worldbuilding: Natural and economic resources of Pancirclea. Image by Michael Tedin

Applied Worldbuilding: Technology and Magic

At this point, it’s time to apply our worldbuilding techniques to make some creative decisions. I’ve decided that, due to environmental pressures, the Hillfolk and Savannah People have developed Bronze Age technology, but the Silvans have not. The Silvans still make use of technology borrowed from the other two.

The creative part is the development of magic. There is no real world analogy, so let’s just make this shit up! Without going into too much detail on the mechanisms behind magical theory, let’s just say magic is based on life energy. It’s a common trope and one that works well for the purpose of this demonstration.

Sources of Magic

The Hillfolk have a lot of forests in their hills, so they can draw on the life force of the forests to wield magic. On the other hand, the Savannah People have grasses on the plains, though there are trees along the rivers. Therefore, they have less life force in the natural world to draw on (in spite of the equal value of different types of mana in Magic: The Gathering).

The relative scarcity of life energy in the plains forces that Savannah People to rely on another, more powerful source of life energy: human sacrifice. Naturally, nobody wants to volunteer for the duty, so they rely on prisoners and slaves for sacrifice. Later, we will see how this affects society in the areas of class, religion, and politics.

The Hillfolk are near forests, so they use as much plant material as possible. It is depleting the forests, clearing large areas. They use these cleared areas to plant grain and graze sheep and goats. The hills around city E, where civilization first stared, are almost completely bare.

The Silvans have an abundance of forest resources, including magical energy from the life force of the forest. Because of this and their ready access to herbs and medicines derived from them, they also have developed the knowledge of magical potions.

Applied Worldbuilding: Economics and Trade

As I pointed out in my last article on trade, societies will exchange their surplus resources with other societies for resources they lack.

If you wonder why I focus on trade so much, it’s not because I think every story needs to have merchants or traders in it. Rather, trade is a major pathway for cultural exchange. Ideas, religion, technology, art, and literature all flow along trade routes. It helps to know what materials flow along those routes to know where the routes get laid out.

Savannah People

The Savannah people have a surplus of grain, but lack minerals, metals, wood and charcoal. Because of the cost of the things they lack they have developed a culture that relies on them less. Where they cannot get them, they will trade with the Hillfolk for minerals and metals. To some extent, they will also trade for wood.

The Savannah people also use human sacrifice to power their magic. To some extent, they will take slaves from among their own people, either criminals or subjugated peoples. To make up the difference, they will go to war with other cities or kingdoms to capture slaves, raid the Silvans, or trade with the Hillfolk for them. We’ll discuss war, government, and politics later.

Hillfolk

The Hillfolk have almost exactly the opposite surpluses and deficits than the Savannah people. This makes these two societies natural trading partners. The Hillfolk have minerals and metals but less grain.

They also have wood and charcoal from their forested hills. Because of the forests, they also have more magical energy available. They can’t export that energy, but they can craft magical artifacts for sale. I imagine a brisk trade selling such artifacts to the people of the Savannah.

Silvans

Silvans have little they need from other societies, but find metals and minerals useful. Their magical energy derives from the forest. They store this energy in potions and trade with the Hillfolk for metals and minerals. Because they live on villages and have no cities, they also have no major trade routes.

Nobody is willing to trade their own people, so Hillfolk and Savannah people resort to raids to capture slaves. The easiest source for raids is among the Silvans who live mainly in poorly defended villages.

Pancirclea Trade Routes — Applied Worldbuilding: Trade Routes in red. Slave trade in yellow. Image by Michael Tedin

Setup for Conflict

The core of a good story is the drama created by conflict between characters. Already, we are starting to see conflict arise between societies that might translate into personal conflicts. In my next article, I’ll discuss the class divisions within a society along with a money system.

Pancirclea Conflict Zones. Image by Michael Tedin

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Worldbuilding 102 – Economics in Fantasy Societies Part 1

Published by mjtedin on April 13, 2021

Economics sounds like a dry subject, even if it is fantasy economics. In college I wasn’t interested in microeconomics. I had little interest in supply and demand curves, prices, and opportunity costs. This article won’t cover that. Instead, we’ll look at macroeconomics. What resources does your fantasy society have, what does it need, and how does it get them?

Do we really need to get into economics to write a fantasy story? You don’t need a lot of detail, but some background helps flesh out the world. In addition, understanding the economics of your fantasy society helps provide motivation for any factions you might want to create. We’ll look at class and caste in Part 2.

Economics is About Allocation of Resources

When thinking about the economics of your fantasy society, ask what is the basis of the economy? To some extent, this depends on the resources available to your society as well as the level of technology (and magic) available. For more about resources, see my article on Landforms. Also, see my article on Magic and Technology.

At its most basic, economics is about providing the people of a society with the things they need to survive or thrive. Fantasy economics is no different. The word comes from the Greek oikonomia, meaning “household management”. All societies need food, water, and shelter. More advanced societies need metal and minerals, wood, energy sources such as coal for heat and animals (or slaves) for work, and other technology or materials.

Types of Economies

Naturally, there are multiple ways to get resources to the people that need them. Scholars have grouped them into three basic types: gift economies, barter systems, and market economies. These need not be mutually exclusive. A society with a market economy might use barter or gift economies as alternatives methods of resource distribution.

Gift Economy

A gift economy is an exchange where goods aren’t sold, but given without an explicit agreement for anything in return. There are usually rules, social norms, and customs governing how gifts are given. For example, it might be a social obligation for the wealthy to give alms or hold a potlach. Often, while there is no explicit expectation of a return gift, there might be an implied expectation of a gift at some point in the future in order to maintain a relationship. Think about birthday or Christmas gift giving.

Gift economies might become quite complex and embedded in a culture. An example is the gift-giving potlaches of the tribes of the Northwest Pacific coast. These feasts were opportunities for leaders to demonstrate their power by giving away their wealth.

Patronage and Feudalism as a Gift Economy

Another type of semi-gift economy was the patronage system in the Roman Empire. A patron would give a gift in land or position in expectation of service by the client at some unspecified point in the future. This evolved into feudalism in medieval Europe where vassals received land in return for a promise of military service in the future.

If you are looking for a good conflict to form the basis of the drama of a story, you don’t need to look much further than the conflict between the social norms and customs of a gift economy and how people actually act in such situations. Perhaps the conflict is between two leaders, each trying to outdo the other in maintaining social status. Perhaps a client balks when his patron requests he perform his promised obligation.

A system of gifts might work within a society where social norms are agreed upon, but it doesn’t work as a system of exchange with other societies that might have different customs. As such, it can’t be used for external trade, that is, for a society to trade with others to obtain resources they lack.

Barter

Barter is a more familiar form of exchange to most westerners. It works better as a system for external trade. In barter, participants directly exchange goods or services for other goods or services without money. When bartering, both sides must agree on the value of the goods traded. Barter is common even in market economies when money is scarce.

It is difficult to use barter for long distance trade due to the difficulty in carrying large amounts of goods long distances and coming to an agreement on the value of the goods you brought. There is a high risk of bringing what you think is valuable to a distant city only to discover your trading partners don’t think it is as valuable as you do.

I can think of possible story hooks where a merchant brings his goods a long distance to trade only to find they had less value than he expects. Does he bring them back and lose the cost of the travel? Does he trade them for less than he thinks they are worth? What sort of risks and dangers would such a merchant face?

Market Economies

Market economies are the most familiar to modern readers. As such, they usually work well as a default option for fantasy stories. It is an economic system in which the price of goods determine decisions regarding investment, production and distribution of resources. Markets can be highly regulated or completely unregulated (laissez-faire), depending on the level of government involvement or social custom. For a market economy to work, the society needs clearly defined property rights.

Note that a market system is not the same as a capitalist system. Capitalism is a system based on private ownership of the means of production and operated for profit. The feudal system of the middle ages had a market system, but not a capitalist one.

File:The farmer's market near the Potala in Lhasa.jpg — The farmer’s market near the Potala in Lhasa, Tibet. Nathan Freitas, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Fantasy Economics and Trade

In my article on mapping out the cities in your fantasy world, I discussed trade as a main driver of city growth. At that point, I was already thinking about trade routes. Now, it’s time to think about what moves along those routes.

Placement of the first cities and trade routes in Pancirclea. Image by Michael Tedin.

Societies typically don’t have all the resources the need or want, so they trade. Trade happens when a society has a surplus of one commodity and a shortage of another. A society lacking certain resources might value a commodity more highly than a society with a surplus. They will trade their surplus with the surplus of another in order to fill their shortage. In this way, trade benefits both societies.

In David Ricardo’s formulation of comparative advantage states, “When an inefficient producer sends the merchandise it produces best to a country able to produce it more efficiently, both countries benefit.” At least, that’s how the theory works. Often, trade is between unequal partners and conflict arises.

People can trade through barter (see above) or through trade markets. Often, a more powerful trading partner can dictate the terms of the exchange. This will often lead to conflict if the weaker partner doesn’t feel they received full value for their products.

Trade Goods in Fantasy Economies

What goods and services can people trade in fantasy economies? Start by looking at the resources available. Mountainous areas have metals and minerals. Forests provide wood, lumber, charcoal, herbs, spices, and medicines. Plains have grain, cattle, and horses in abundance. In dry hills one finds cattle, sheep, and wool.

You can also put economics with a fantasy element at the center of your story. Think about magical trade goods. Do your mages create magic items to trade? Would such items be considered protected technology like cutting edge electronics and software is in the computer age?

Services are also traded, though usually within a society. What services could be sold in a fantasy economy?

Magic: The Gathering Aladdin’s Lamp. Art by Mark Tedin. Copyright Wizards of the Coast

In my next few articles, I’ll continue discussing other aspects of fantasy economics, specifically money and class.

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Worldbuilding 102 – Magic and Technology

Published by mjtedin on March 21, 2021

Magic and technology are two sides of the same coin and are inextricably linked. Therefore when building your fantasy world, consider whether to include magic and at what level.

Similarly, think about what level of technology your society is at. Whatever level you choose, magic will influence it. Magic might replace certain technologies. On the other hand, the existence of certain magic might render certain technological advances irrelevant.

What do I mean by level of technology? Is it medieval, classical, bronze age, stone age? What inventions have been made and discoveries found?

Most fantasy stories default to a semi-medieval level of technology with some magic thrown in. Before you use default the default option, think about the implications. What technologies are available? Do you want to take some away to make life more difficult for your characters? How does magic affect the development of other technologies? Above all, because the semi-medieval level is default, it is also cliché.

Magic and Technology

Remember, many of the factors in worldbuilding have to be considered at the same time as others. Magic is one of those. I don’t want to get too deep into designing a magic system. After all, that could fill an entire course higher than 101-level.

More importantly, when deciding on a magic system for your fantasy world, think about how pervasive magic is. You needn’t get into too much detail initially. All things considered, if magic is widespread and common, it would likely replace other technologies. If you have a fireball spell, who needs gunpowder?

On the other hand, some magic might spur other technologies. Like technological development, magic might give a society certain advantages over others. For example, the fireball spell will give a military advantage over those without it. Controlled use of it might advance metallurgy.

One possible scenario is living in a society that has fallen from its peak. It had magic, but lost knowledge of it. Such a society might be stunted in its technological development. Some people would be seeking to retain or relearn certain magic. Others might strive to find technological developments to replace it.

Available Resources

Another factor that determines available technology is what resources are available to the society. We spent some time in Worldbuilding 101 – How to Map Your Fictional World – Landforms thinking about where resources are located in the fantasy world.

For example, if society developed iron weapons, what is the source of the iron? If your fantasy empire is in the center of a broad plain, it’s unlikely they are mining iron. Without an energy source such as wood or coal, they would not likely be smelting ore either. They would have to trade for iron and coal. What do they have to trade? If they’re in the middle of a broad plain, they probably have a surplus of grain. I’ll discuss trade in more detail in a future article about economics.

Bloomery smelting during the Middle Ages.

Perhaps the technology never developed in your society. Bronze and iron smelting didn’t reach the Americas until the arrival of Columbus. Even without widespread metal tools, pre-Columbian societies had complex societies.

On the other hand, one society might benefit from the developments in another. For example, the peoples of the Northwest Coast or America did have access to iron that drifted in from Japan.

Knowledge vs Technology

Another factor in the level of technology is the level of knowledge in the society. The difference between knowledge and technology is like the difference between intelligence and wisdom. Knowledge is information. Technology is turning that information into useful tools. As an example, mathematics is knowledge. Engineers use it to develop technology.

Mathematics developed when people began counting and measuring the natural world. From there, they began to calculate those measurements. Finding patterns in the measurements and calculations allows prediction of other measurements. This was important in developing astronomy, astrology, and calculating time.

In a world that uses technology and magic, mathematics might not develop. If it does, it drives the accumulation of other knowledge. It might even drive the development of magic in the form of numeromancy. In fact, the three magi or “wise men” of the Jesus story were widely believed to be astrologers, which was dependent on mathematics. The word “magi” originally meant a Zoroastrian priest whom the Greeks perceived to be magicians.

File:Albategnius.jpeg — Al-Battani (850-926) Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Technology Through History

The history of technological development looks linear. The makes intuitive sense. For one advancement, others need to be made first, right?

Technology often unlocks more advanced activities, increases wealth and population, and gives societies advantages over other societies. For example, western Europe had ocean-going ships and gunpowder, giving it an advantage over other societies.

Gunpowder and steel allowed Europeans to subdue pre-Columbian civilizations and enslave Africans. Once disease depopulated the Americas, these technological advancements allowed Europeans to plunder the wealth of the newly conquered continents.

Pizarro seizing the Inca of Peru by John Everett Millais. Used on the cover of *Guns, Germs, and Steel* by Jared Diamond.

On the other hand, some inventions are made that never lead to other inventions. For example, the Chinese invented gunpowder, but not guns.

In some cases, one society developed a technology well before others did. For example, the crab claw sail drove Austronesian expansion across the Pacific beginning at around 3000 BCE. Lateen sails reached the Mediterranean in the Roman era (Lateen = Latin). The lateen sail developed from the crab claw. This sail type allows sailing into the wind and is necessary for ocean-going ships. Without it, the Europeans would never have conquered the Americas. The Austronesians also developed double-hulled catamarans, which are more stable on the ocean. The Europeans never did.

File:Hokule'aSailing2009.jpg — Hōkūle`a, a modern Hawaiian *wa’a kaulua* or voyaging canoe, via Wikimedia Commons

Metalworking

The main technology driving social change for thousands of years BCE was metal. The great ages of human history and pre-history are named for advancements in metal. The Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. The Iron Age corresponds to slightly before the classical era of Europe.

Metal is a prime technology because it is needed for weapons. As bronze weapons replaced stone, societies with bronze weapons had a significant advantage. For a swords and sorcery adventure story, technology and magic matter. It makes a difference what the swords are made of.

Neolithic Era

When one says Stone Age, most people think of Paleolithic cave men carrying clubs and wearing fur pelts. In fact, Neolithic societies were far more advanced than widely imagined. They had developed agriculture, pottery, and irrigation. People lived in villages and towns, fought wars, and traded with faraway places. They wore jewelry, woven clothing, and used a variety of tools. Social life was organized with clans, tribes, priests, and warlords. The main difference between this society and the Bronze Age society was the lack of metal.

Bronze Age

The development of smelting led to the development of copper tools. When combined with arsenic or tin, it led to bronze (ca. 3000 BCE). Tin didn’t often naturally occur in the same area as copper. For most societies, trade networks brought the two metals to them.

While metalworking didn’t change the basic aspects of daily life, it did lead to major changes in social structure. The Bronze Age is characterized by the development of cities with hundreds of thousands of people. It is in this era we find the first written records.

Writing allowed people to measure the stars and earth, leading to astronomy and mathematics.

Technological advancement led to a more centralized government, hereditary monarchies, a caste of priests, and written laws. City states became kingdoms and empires.

Iron Age

In constrast, iron is more abundant than copper or tin, but melts at a higher temperature (1535ºC). This means the civilization must have access to wood or coal and a furnace to maintain the heat. The technological advance that made iron possible was the furnace. In order for society to develop this furnace, knowledge of smelting was necessary.

Catalan Hearth. Copyright Encyclopedia Britannica.

Iron was more common than bronze due to the scarcity of copper and tin. On the other hand, steel is an alloy of iron and other ingredients, mainly carbon. The invention of steel didn’t make a huge difference in the life of the average person. In the default setting of medieval Europe, steel was available, but expensive. Only the fabulously wealthy could afford a full suit of plate steel armor.

China entered the bronze age much later (ca. 1600 BCE). Consequently, they progressed to iron later as well. It wasn’t until China was unified under the Qin dynasty (221 – 206 BCE) that iron technology fully developed.

Later Eras

After the Iron Age came the classical Greek and Roman periods in Europe, both of which advanced in other areas of science. In western Europe, the Roman world degraded to medieval society. The real difference between classical Roman Empire and medieval society are the loss of technology and development of the feudal social structure.

In the Middle East, the Umayyad Caliphate replaced the Roman Empire. Later, technology and learning continued to advance under the Abbasids in Baghdad.

Writing as Technology and a Source of Magic

Writing was a major technological advance. Whether and what kind of writing a society has can determine how knowledge is collected and passed on. Consequently, for a fantasy society, writing is a major consideration in magic and technology.

Do your wizards write down spells? Are they invoked by runes? Is other knowledge and technology recorded or transmitted through writing?

The *Codex Gigas*, 13th century, Bohemia. Kungl. biblioteket, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons

Think about how widespread reading is. If writing requires expensive materials, the poor won’t be able or even have the opportunity to read. Instead, it will be the technology of the rich. In societies where magic can only be written, it would be the domain of rich wizards. On the other hand, where spells can be memorized, the poor will have their own witches and sorcerers.

Widespread writing and books requires cheap materials. The earliest records were recorded on stone, wood, bone, clay, wax, cloth, or metal. The Egyptians used papyrus as far back as 3000 BCE. Parchment replaced papyrus in the 2nd century BCE . The Chinese invented paper in 105 CE, but didn’t reach Europe for another thousand years.

Stone, clay, and, to some extent, metal tablets don’t travel well, so are impractical for mass storage or transmission of knowledge over distances. Parchment, papyrus, and paper work better, but are subject to deterioration over time.

Energy Technology and Magic

Any society requires a power source to drive its economic activity. Before the domestication of cattle in the Neolithic era, agriculture and hunting was done by humans. Later, domesticating cattle and horses to pull plows allowed increased agricultural output and importantly, the surplus needed to feed the animals.

Other civilizations made use of slave labor. This is easy and cheap if the society has:
1. a high population of people available to enslave,
2. the means to subdue others, and
3. agricultural surplus to feed them.

Industrial Development

If there fewer people available to enslave, societies might innovate new sources of energy such as water or wind power. Does your areas have flowing water? If not, is there enough wind to drive mills and pumps? After all, harnessing water and wind requires machines, which implies a level of technology that might not develop if the society relies on slave or animal labor.

Industrial development in western Europe grew when engineers used the steam pump to raise water out of tin mines in Cornwall. The steam engine was cheaper than importing slaves, which is ironic given the slave trade spurred the British exploitation of colonies in North America and the Caribbean.

Magic and Energy

Likewise, think about how magic determines power sources. Does the magical system in your world require an energy source? What is that source? Is it provided by technology? For a more sinister source, perhaps it comes from human sacrifice in the form of slaves.

Do magic users have the knowledge of how the energy is called upon or the technology to create it? If magic is free and easy, why invest in enslaving other people when you can make things magically move?

Finally, when thinking about the society of your story, ask whether slavery exists. If it does, it doesn’t preclude other technological advances. On the other hand, there would be less incentive to develop other energy sources and other technologies. In addition, think about whether your society domesticated horses or oxen. After all, it’s hard to think of a fantasy story without riding horses, though it’s certainly possible.

Other Technologies

There are many technologies that might or might not be present in a fantasy world. The clichéd default option of medieval Europe gets boring. As a thought experiment, try removing some technology and think about what happens to society if that technology doesn’t exist. Will someone use magic to invent a replacement?

Here are some topics and some of the technologies to think about in each category.
Navigation: Compass? Astrolabe?
Measuring time: Mechanical clocks? Sundials?
Literature: Writing? Paper? Printing? Movable type?
Agriculture: Irrigation? Windmills? Plough? Wheel? Pottery?
Architecture: Building with stone? Brick?

There are probably more topics under technology, but for every one you think of, think about why it would develop. What need does it meet? Are the resources and knowledge available for it to develop? Can magic meet the need? In order to answer these questions, you need to have a good understanding of your society’s level of technology and magic.

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Tag: Fantasy writing

History of Politics

Type of Political Systems

Uncentralized Political Systems

Centralized Political Systems

Supranational Political Systems

Political Divisions in Fantasy Societies

Economics and Class

Religion and Philosophy

How Rulers Rule

Worldbuilding Politics and Government in Fantasy

Features of Pancirclea Society

Social Divisions in Töpfumaar Daaškhōhu

Political Factions in Töpfumaar Daaškhōhu

Governments and States in Töpfumaar Daaškhōhu

Potential Political Conflicts

List of Society Worldbuilding Topics

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Belief

Mythologies

Practice

Worship of the Divine/Gods

Organization

Church and State

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Architecture Defined

Theory of Architecture

Durability in Architecture

Fantasy Architecture Depends on your Fantasy World’s Environment

Utility in Architecture

Architecture and Technology

Utility in Fantasy Architecture

Magic in Fantasy Architecture

Beauty in Architecture

Fantasy Architecture Design

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Words in Constructed Languages (Morphology)

Basic Words in a Constructed Language for Fiction

Names and Places

Objects and Idioms

Morphology

Constructed Language Syllable Structure

Non-syllabic Word Structures

Constructed Language: Savannah Speech

Semantics

Verbs and Verb Tenses

Building Words in a Constructed Language

Pronouncing New Words

Phonotactics

Constructed Language: Savannah Speech

Savannah People: Töpfumaardaaškhōhu

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Language as Cultural Identity

Creating Consistency in a Constructed Language

Sounds and Phonemes

Consonants

Vowels

Pitch and Tones

Choosing Sounds for your Constructed Language

Example: Savannah Speech

Constructed Language Orthography

Accent Marks

Phonotactics – Letter Combinations

Example: Savannah Speech

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Putting the Character in a Caste, Class, or Clan

Class

Upper vs Lower Classes

Different Class Systems

Classical Rome

Chinese Four Occupations

European Feudalism

Industrial Revolution

Modern America

Choosing a Social System for your Fantasy World