Worldbuilding Tutorial #7: Example World B
Introduction This world, unlike World A, is composed primarily of humans. Furthermore, because it is a more normal setting, there is little need to adjust the traits of humans to suit the world they would have evolved out of. This begin the case, I’ll go a little more in-depth with adaptations that humans manifest in general, as well as building some more supernatural beings.
Humans To reiterate what I said in World A’s example, there’s no point to changing humans drastically if you want them to still be human. If you want to make three-horned, bat-winged, stone-skinned, brimstone-reeking humanoids then be my guest, but human is not a terribly descriptive word for them anymore. Gargoyle or imp might be more apt. If humans had, say, innate shape changing abilities in your world and could take on those traits but could also take on a myriad of others then they’re not gargoyles, they are still human - just with a little extra magic. The line gets a little fuzzy but you do the best you can.
Since there’s little to build here, I’ll go into the impact that climate has on the morphology of humans. Most people know about skin pigment by now, but there’s a lot more than that.
-Pigmentation: This affects not just skin pigment but also hair and eye pigment. In general, people from hotter climates with more sun exposure are likely to have darker pigmentation, whereas people from colder climates with less sun are likely to have lighter coloration. This has to do with the amount of sunlight people need to absorb in order to stay healthy. -Noses: Noses tend to be different shapes depend on how hot and humid your climate is. This is because part of the nose’s job is to essentially humidify the air coming into your body before it hits your lungs, which helps reduce disease. People in humid climates tend to have wider nose shapes because they don’t need it as much, whereas people in dry or cold climates tend to have narrower nose shapes. -Hair: How straight, wavy, or curly hair is is also affected by climate and again by sun exposure. If I recall correctly, the more wave or curl hair has to it, the more likely you are to live in a climate with a lot of sun exposure, because the shape of the hair helps protect you from too much sun. -Height: This one has less to do directly with the kind of climate you have and more to do with the environment that results from it. If you live someplace with a lot of trees and/or brush and thicket, it is not advantageous to be tall. Thus people in that kind of environment tend to be shorter so that it’s easier to navigate it. Whereas people who live in open climates with very little cover tend towards the taller side. -Build: Build will have to do to some extent with how much heat you need to keep or lose. Lithe builds are not suited well to very cold climates - you’re more likely to freeze to death than someone with a bulkier or stockier build. The same build would be much more helpful in a hotter climate where you need to lose a lot of heat, whereas a bulky build is going to hold on to that heat more and increase your chances of overheating.
Keep in mind that these are only tendencies - this is not an end-all-be-all. People come in a lot of different shapes and sizes not just across populations but within them. If you want your world to work a different way, then go for it - these are just pieces from the real world, at least so far as I understand them, and I am by no means a physical anthropologist.
Keep in mind also that people migrate. Just because your civilization is far up north doesn’t mean you can’t have people with wavy hair or darker skin - people trade, and people migrate due to choice or circumstance, sometimes singly or by family and sometimes in small or large populations. It can be fun to play with populations migrating over time and what it says about an area if the unexpected pops up. Same with heritage, especially when it comes down to individual characters.
Keep in mind also the health impacts that being in a foreign climate are going to have. If you’re from a humid climate and move somewhere cold and dry, you’re going to be much more prone to respiratory infections than the people around you. Similarly if you’re very pale and go somewhere with a lot of sun and heat, you’ve going to burn a lot faster and harder than everyone else. If you’re writing a travel narrative with long quests over the whole continent, it’s worth putting some consideration into the impact that your characters’ morphology has on them as they travel.
Supernatural Beings Now to build some supernatural beings that exist in this world. It will include both what “role” they play in the world’s supernatural ecosystem, so to speak, as well as some basic features of their morphology. I don’t want to get too in-depth here so that there’s room to develop them more later.
Angels: Angels are the servants of all the deities, whether good or evil. Each angel is attached to a particular deity and serves out that deity’s will as needed - whether as a messenger, holy warrior, or bringer of visions. Angels can vary highly in their physical appearance and are certainly not always humanoid; angels of Vysikar, for example - the god of the sea - often appear as fish. They don’t require the basic physiological necessities that mortals do - food, sleep, or even breathing - but they do need a connection to their deity, otherwise they wither and fade at about the rate that someone starves to death. Any traits that they have, such as strength or agility, will vary widely from angel to angel and what form they take, but they are always highly magical and tend to have superhuman traits in several areas.
Demons: Demons are rare and very powerful; they are always their own and not attached to any deities, but a particularly powerful one could give a deity a run for its money. Sometimes they are worshipped or treated as deities in their own right, and gain a certain amount of power from that. They do “feed”, after a fashion; not food, but by consuming in other ways. Power, wealth, willpower, mortal blood, you name it. But they have no need to eat “food” the same as we do. Neither do they “sleep” as we do, but they do need periods more like hibernation or undisturbed rest when they are not feeding adequately. Individual demons vary highly in form, but each one is unique, and like angels they are generally highly magical and have many superhuman traits.
Devils: Devils are much weaker than demons. Unlike demons they tend not to have a “home” or “lair” that they operate out of, but wander free across the landscape bringing misery to all they encounter. They often make “deals” with mortals - the idea of selling your soul to a devil would be very relevant here, as would getting into a fiddling contest with them. But they are also happy to go around causing curses, nightmares (a night hag would be a kind of devil in this world), and assorted woes. They do need to eat - generally by draining energy from others - but don’t need to sleep. Once again they are very magical creatures, but don’t have nearly as much in the way of supernatural traits as demons or angels. They are very cunning and may have senses that humans don’t, such as sensing magical presence or seeing perfectly in the dark, but generally differ little in their physical capabilities. They are mostly humanoid with some animalistic or distorted elements.
Fey: This is one I especially wanted to get to in order to demonstrate that different mythological beings can vary widely story to story. Fey in this world do not function as they do in World A. Here they are much more connected to nature and much less connected to magic than they are there. Fey here tend to be tied to a piece of land - a section of stream, a stand of wood, a particular rock or glade, etc - that is “their” place to caretake and guard. Inside their place they are powerful magically, but they weaken and wither very quickly if they ever leave or are taken from it. They live a long time but are not immortal - a thousand years or so. They can indeed have offspring by accident and with other beings. Fey, like any of the other supernatural beings here, differ widely from individual to individual in the particular form and abilities they manifest.
Spirits: Spirits are a big one in this world. They come are many types - ghost, haunt, poltergeist, etc. Spirits are generally not left behind by people who have died - in fact, this is very rare - but instead spawned by other forces in the world, such as chance or fate. They generally happen either when one of these forces is very off-balance, or when one of them is particularly present in that time or place. They do not always take physical form (at least, visible to the human eye - other creatures may be able to sense them), but may remain an amorphous presence throughout an area. Other times they may take the shape of something more familiar - human, animal, or other - if it is relevant to their existence.
It may have become very apparent by this point that most of the supernatural beings here are highly unique from individual to individual and vary widely. This is due to the nature of the world’s metaphysics; partly due to the power of names, partly due to the huge influence chance and karma has over fate, and partly some other as-of-yet-undescribed elements.
As one can imagine, given the highly variable nature of supernatural beings in this world, it can be hard to tell if what you’ve run into is a devil or an angel or some kind of fey etc. They are often mistaken for each other and havoc can ensue rather frequently. There are a set of rules that those who are aware of them can use to tell each kind apart, but that’s for a later post.
Enough about here - on to the next tutorial.