Revel in Revelations h Veronica Roth 99 Points of Entry Let’s do a worldbuilding exercise. I’ll provide a few points of entry for your fantasy religion. Your job is to pick one, make a decision, and commit to it so that you can build from it. Basic Tenets This is for those who like the straightforward approach. What are the core beliefs this religion holds that believers define as the foundations of the faith? For reference, look up the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, the Five Pillars of Islam, or the Nicene Creed of Christianity. Or, if you prefer to stick to fictional religions, look to the credo of the Bene Gesserit and the Jedi Code. Ritual Ritual is my favorite place to start. Maybe that’s why each of the virtue-based groups in my Divergent series has a ritual associated with it—the “public hearing” of the honest faction (“Candor”) or the “foot washing”-based initiation ceremony of the selfless faction (“Abnegation”), etc. Rituals can pertain to the everyday experiences of practitioners— prayer, confession, regular worship, meditation, etc.—and to special occasions, such as initiation/confirmation (e.g., the gom jabbar in Dune), marriage, becoming a clergy member, baptism, or death rites. It can also involve scripts, movements (facing a particular direction, postures such as kneeling, the sign of the cross), objects (candles, mats, holy water, thuribles, offerings), and special locations (a sanctified chamber in a religious building or a holy place one must make a pilgrimage to), among other things. Some questions to consider: What is the goal of the ritual? Is it purification, belonging, preparation for a particular act? What symbolic words, objects, acts, or images are used to facilitate that goal? Who performs this ritual? Can everyone—or only certain people in society? How many times is it performed in a lifetime? Who facilitates it—clergy, a parent, a fellow believer? What does not doing it mean for an adherent? Holidays Holidays are a good place to start thinking about religionbuilding because even people who don’t belong to a religion often still participate in or are otherwise affected by its holidays. (Imagine me gesturing vaguely toward Christmas here.) Holidays involve both public and private celebrations, and they can either be embraced by the state or ignored by it. They can define whole seasons of the year (for example, Lent or Ramadan). Callum Sim - [email protected] - 349937
100 Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding, Volume 2 Language Religious language proliferates our speech, as in the word “Goddamn” or the phrase “oh my God.” But there are other ways that religion affects language too—it can affect naming practices (what your characters, cities, streets, buildings are called), official titles (what we call respected people), or what we refer to in casual conversation (i.e., calling someone who betrays you a “Judas” or calling a kind person an angel). Sacred Objects Remember earlier, when I mentioned thuribles? I love thuribles. As with rituals, there are everyday objects and “special” objects in a religion—sacred texts, offering bowls . . . kyber crystals. But this also refers to objects of legend—the Holy Grail, for example, or Tolkien’s One Ring, Thor’s hammer Mjolnir, the objects used to test the Dalai Lama, the death bells from Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom trilogy. Sacred objects are big in fantasy—the focal points of magic, the goals of quests. But they require us to tell stories of their origins: Where do they come from? How were they made? Who possessed them? What were they used for? What is their significance now? Community The groups that form around a religion, i.e., a sacred order of witch nuns, a Jedi Council, a youth group, an extremist fringe movement, church elders, schools (!), monks. What does the group want to promote or prevent? What are the qualifications for membership? Do they have regular meetings? (If so, is there coffee?) Once you’ve made your selections above, you can build (and mix-andmatch!) from there—e.g., if you created a ritual, what basic tenets does the ritual express? What clergy facilitate it, and how are they selected and initiated? Does the ritual take place on a holiday? Does it involve any objects? Do congregants attend it? Any decision in worldbuilding is like pushing a snowball down a snowy hill. You just have to let it roll. Fear is the Mind-Killer One final word of advice: Don’t be afraid to embrace contradictions, inconsistencies, and hypocrisy. No religion is perfectly consistent. Religions are populated by people, and people are flawed. They say one thing and do another, or warp religious texts to suit their purposes, or draw foolish conclusions based on insufficient study. Those things, too, will give your worldbuilding verisimilitude. So go forth and multiply . . . your religions. And Godspeed! (See what I did there?) Callum Sim - [email protected] - 349937
Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding Volume 2 101 About the Contributors JOHN JOSEPH ADAMS is the series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and is the editor of more than thirty anthologies, such as Wastelands, The Living Dead, Epic: Legends of Fantasy, The Way of the Wizard, Operation Arcana, and The Dystopia Triptych. He is also editor (and publisher) of the Hugo Award-winning magazine Lightspeed and is publisher of its sister-magazines Nightmare and Fantasy. In addition to his short fiction work, he’s a producer for WIRED’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast, and for five years he was the editor of the John Joseph Adams Books novel imprint for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, where he edited novels by authors such as Veronica Roth, Hugh Howey, Greg Bear, Carrie Vaughn, Ashok K. Banker, and others. Lately, he’s been working as an editor on various TTRPG projects for Kobold Press and Monte Cook Games and as a contributing game designer on books such as Kobold Press’s Tome of Heroes. Learn more at johnjosephadams.com. KEITH BAKER is a game designer, author, and creator of the Eberron campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons and the card game Gloom. He’s written for Atlas Games, Green Ronin, Pelgrane Publishing, Wizards of the Coast, Goodman Games, and more. Through his company, Twogether Studios, he’s published a number of games such as The Adventure Zone Game, Illimat, and Phoenix Dawn Command. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Jennifer Ellis. TOBIAS S. BUCKELL is a New York Times bestselling writer and World Fantasy Award winner born in the Caribbean whose work has been called “violent, poetic and compulsively readable” by Maclean’s. He grew up in Grenada and spent time in the British and US Virgin Islands, and the islands he lived on influence much of his work. His Xenowealth series begins with Crystal Rain. Along with other stand-alone novels and his almost one hundred stories, his works have been translated into twenty different languages. He has been nominated for awards like the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and the Astounding Award for Best New Science Fiction Author. His latest novel is A Stranger in the Citadel, an Audible Original free to anyone with an Audible account. He currently lives in Bluffton, Ohio with his wife and two daughters, where he teaches Creative Writing at Bluffton University. He’s online at TobiasBuckell.com and is also an instructor at the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing program. Callum Sim - [email protected] - 349937
102 Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding, Volume 2 BANANA CHAN is a Cantonese Canadian game designer, writer, and publisher living in the US. They are the owner of a board game and RPG publishing company called Game and a Curry. Her latest work has been on Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous, Exquisite Crime, Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall, Scooby-Doo: Betrayal at Mystery Mansion, and Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. Though she has written for mainstream games, her true passion lies with experimentation in gameplay and storytelling by introducing different mediums into RPGs, such as video and audio components and social media platforms. You can find them on Twitter and Instagram @bananachangames and TikTok @banana.chan.games. C.L. CLARK is a BFA award-winning editor and Ignyte award-winning author of The Unbroken, the first book in the Magic of the Lost trilogy. She graduated from Indiana University’s creative writing MFA and was a 2012 Lambda Literary Fellow. She’s been a personal trainer, an English teacher, and an editor, and is some combination thereof as she travels the world. When she’s not writing or working, she’s learning languages, doing P90something, or reading about war and [post-]colonial history. Her work has appeared in Fantasy Magazine, Uncanny, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and more. THE DUNGEON DUDES—Kelly McLaughlin and Monty Martin—bring you 5e player’s guides, GM advice, roleplaying tips, reviews, and more via their popular YouTube channel, Dungeon Dudes. Together, they also created the 5e Dungeons of Drakkenheim campaign, which raised nearly $1.3 million dollars on Kickstarter. KATE ELLIOTT has been publishing for more than 30 years with a particular focus in immersive worldbuilding and epic stories of adventure and transformative cultural change. Her most recent publication is the fantasy novella Servant Mage. She is best known for her seven-volume (and complete!) Crown of Stars epic fantasy series; the Afro-Celtic post-Roman alt-history fantasy with lawyer dinosaurs, the Spiritwalker Trilogy (Cold Magic); the New York Times bestselling YA fantasy Court of Fives; and the Sun Chronicles (Unconquerable Sun), a gender-spun Alexander the Great as space opera. She has also written short stories (most recently in The Book of Dragons edited by Jonathan Strahan) as well as two novellas set in the Magic: The Gathering multiverse (The Wildered Quest: Throne of Eldraine and Chronicle of Bolas). Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, World Fantasy, Norton, and Locus Awards. Her novel Black Wolves won the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Epic Fantasy 2015. You can follow her on Twitter @KateElliottSFF where she talks about her schnauzer, outrigger canoe paddling, science fiction/fantasy and writing, and making up yet more worlds. Callum Sim - [email protected] - 349937
Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding Volume 2 103 SHANNA GERMAIN is an award-winning author, editor, and game designer, as well as the co-founder of Monte Cook Games. Over the years, she’s published hundreds of poems, essays, short stories, novellas, novels, games, articles, and more. She’s also taught classes in writing, publishing, media, and photography at a wide variety of places. As a game designer, she’s worked on projects like Numenera; Invisible Sun; No Thank You, Evil!; Shadow of the Demon Lord, Torment, and Predation. Her recent fiction projects include the novels The Poison Eater and Tomorrow’s Bones, as well as the short story collection, The Lure of Dangerous Women. Currently, she’s hard at work on a fantasy novel about drunken gods and post-it notes; a roleplaying game about the devil’s dandy dogs; and a cookie recipe that she hopes will bring all the puppies to her yard. She lives in a pocket rainforest with a dog named &. Follow her down the rabbit hole at shannagermain.com. JEFF GRUBB is a veteran game designer, author, and worldbuilder. He was one of the co-founders of the Dragonlance setting, a co-creator of the Forgotten Realms setting, and has built campaigns ranging from Al-Qadim to Spelljammer and has contributed to Kobold Press’s Midgard setting. His novels include seminal works for Magic: The Gathering, Warcraft, Guild Wars, and Star Wars, and his computer games include Guild Wars 2 and Crucible. He is currently a Senior Narrative Designer for Amazon Games. Interestingly, his training is as a civil engineer, and he has gone from building structures to building universes. He likes to dream big. GABE HICKS is a game designer for digital and tabletop. He works at Roll20 as a Creative Producer and has worked on Pathfinder, Starfinder, Critical Role’s Uk’otoa, MCDM’s Kingdoms and Warfare, Flames of Freedom, and recently has been Storyteller on Dimension20 for his campaign Shriek Week using an original game system called the Mythic Tales System. He leads a group called Mythic Grove focused on engaging new storytellers and voices in the industry to link them with existing professionals. RAJAN KHANNA is an author, reviewer, podcaster, musician, and narrator. His three novels, Falling Sky, Rising Tide, and Raining Fire, take place in a post-apocalyptic world of airships and floating cities. His short fiction has appeared in Analog Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and multiple anthologies. His articles and reviews have appeared at Tor.com and LitReactor.com, and his podcast narrations can be heard at Podcastle, Escape Pod, PseudoPod, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Lightspeed Magazine. He lives in Brooklyn where he’s a member of the Altered Fluid writing group. His personal website is rajankhanna.com and he tweets @rajanyk. Callum Sim - [email protected] - 349937
104 Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding, Volume 2 KEN LIU (http://kenliu.name) is an American author of speculative fiction. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, he wrote the Dandelion Dynasty, a silkpunk epic fantasy series, as well as short story collections The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories and The Hidden Girl and Other Stories. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Liu worked as a software engineer, corporate lawyer, and litigation consultant. Liu frequently speaks at conferences and universities on a variety of topics, including futurism, cryptocurrency, history of technology, bookmaking, the mathematics of origami, and fantasy engineering. CORAL ALEJANDRA MOORE has always been the kind of girl who makes up stories. Fortunately, she never grew out of that. She writes character-driven fiction and enjoys conversations about genetics and microbiology as much as those about vampires and werewolves. She has an MFA in Writing from Albertus Magnus College and is an alum of Viable Paradise XVII. She has been published by Diabolical Plots, Lightspeed Magazine, and Mermaid’s Monthly. Currently she lives in the beautiful state of Washington with the love of her life and a dangerously smart Catahoula Leopard Dog, where she rides motorcycles, raises chickens, and drinks all the coffee. In her most recent venture, she is the co-editor and co-publisher of Constelación Magazine, a bilingual speculative-fiction magazine publishing stories in Spanish and English. VERONICA ROTH is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Divergent series (Divergent, Insurgent, Allegiant, and Four: A Divergent Collection), Chosen Ones, the Carve the Mark series (Carve the Mark, The Fates Divide), The End and Other Beginnings collection of short fiction, and many other short stories and essays. Her latest novel, the dystopian Poster Girl, comes out in October 2022. She lives in Chicago. MICHAEL E. SHEA is the writer for the website Sly Flourish and the author of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, the Lazy DM’s Workbook, Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot, and co-author of Fantastic Lairs. Mike has freelanced for many RPG companies including Wizards of the Coast, Kobold Press, MCDM, Pelgrane Press, and Sasquash Games. Mike’s been playing RPGs since the mid ’80s and writing for and about RPGs since 2008. Mike also happens to be the son of Robert J. Shea, author of the ’70s cult science fiction novel Illuminatus!. Mike lives with his wife Michelle in Northern Virginia, USA. Callum Sim - [email protected] - 349937
Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding Volume 2 105 GAIL SIMONE is a critically-acclaimed writer of comics and animation, having written landmark runs on such titles as Deadpool, Birds of Prey, Batgirl, Wonder Woman, and many more. She’s also written for animated series including Tomb Raider, My Little Pony, Brave and the Bold, and Justice League Unlimited. She is a fierce advocate for new voices in genre fiction and lives on the Oregon coast with her family and greyhound. ANDREA STEWART is the daughter of immigrants and was raised in a number of places across the United States. Her parents always emphasized science and education, so she spent her childhood immersed in Star Trek and odd-smelling library books. When her (admittedly ambitious) dreams of becoming a dragon slayer didn’t pan out, she instead turned to writing fiction. Her short stories can be found in such venues as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Daily Science Fiction, Galaxy’s Edge, and others. Her epic fantasy trilogy, The Drowning Empire, is out with Orbit Books. She now lives in sunny California, and in addition to writing, can be found herding cats, looking at birds, and falling down research rabbit holes. JAMES L. SUTTER is a co-creator of the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games and served as both the first Creative Director for Starfinder and the Executive Editor of the Pathfinder Tales novel line. He is the author of the fantasy novels Death’s Heretic—a finalist for the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel—and The Redemption Engine, which won the 2015 Scribe Award for Best Original Speculative Novel. He’s published short stories in such venues as Nightmare, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and the #1 Amazon best-seller Machine of Death, as well as essays in Clarkesworld and Lightspeed: Queers Destroy Science Fiction. In addition, he’s written comics, a wealth of tabletop gaming material, and video games—most recently the Starfinder Alexa game featuring Nathan Fillion and Laura Bailey. For more information on his work, plus worldbuilding classes and writing advice, find him online on Twitter @JamesLSutter or at jameslsutter.com. ASHLEY WARREN is the founder and director of the Storytelling Collective, formerly known as the RPG Writer Workshop. She holds a Masters in Literacy Studies and is passionate about fostering inclusive literary communities. Ashley is the founder of the Uncaged anthology series and a co-author of books, including Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden (Wizards of the Coast); Heckna (Hit Point Press); and Legendlore (Onyx Path Publishing). Connect with Ashley at Scribemind.com. Callum Sim - [email protected] - 349937
Kobold Press brings you WARLOCK: a black and white print booklet full of new material for your 5th Edition game. Focusing on the world of Midgard—but usable in any 5E campaign—WARLOCK offers new monsters, mini‑adventures, magic items, and more! Plus, every once in a while, we’ll throw in a sticker, patch, or other special surprise… Kobold Press logo is a trademark of Open Design. BECOME A PATRON TODAY! www.patreon.com/koboldpress DARK FANTASY FOR 5TH EDITION Callum Sim - [email protected] - 349937
Bring new horrors and new enchantments into your 5E game, with the 400+ new beasts in Tome of Beasts 1, and 400 more in Creature Codex and Tome of Beasts 2! Plus, expand the spellcasting options and magical treasures for any high fantasy setting with Deep Magic for 5th Edition—including elementalism, dragon magic, rune magic, shadow magic and many more! Finally, hand out a treasure that will make your heroes shine, with 950+ items to choose from in the Vault of Magic—including items designed by Luke Gygax, Gail Simone, Deborah Anne Woll, and Patrick Rothfuss! KOBOLDPRESS.COM Kobold Press logo is a trademark of Open Design. Expand Your World for 5th Edition Callum Sim - [email protected] - 349937
Make your Game Your own! Let the Kobolds show you the way with the award-winning series of Kobold Guides covering every aspect of game design and game play. Kobold Guide to Monsters...............................................................$19.99 Kobold Guide to Plots & Campaigns ...............................................$19.99 Kobold Guide to Gamemastering.....................................................$19.99 Kobold Guide to Board Game Design .............................................$19.99 Kobold Guide to Combat ................................................................$19.99 Kobold Guide to Magic ...................................................................$19.99 Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding ......................................................$19.99 Complete Kobold Guide to Game Design, 2nd Ed. ..........................$24.99 All titles also available in Kindle format ..........................................$9.99 Some Kobold Guides are available as audio books from Audible.com AVAILABLE AT KOBOLDPRESS.COM AND WHEREVER BETTER BOOKS ARE SOLD! Callum Sim - [email protected] - 349937
Callum Sim - [email protected] - 349937
LEARN TO BUILD WORLDS WITH TITANS OF FANTASY AND TABLETOP! Middle-Earth, Faerûn, Westeros, Eberron, The World of the Wheel, Exandria … these richly detailed fantasy worlds have captured the imaginations of legions of fans worldwide. These settings offer worldbuilding that launched a thousand—or a thousand thousand—dreams. Whether you’re worldbuilding because you want to write the next Game of Thrones, intend to build a rich, vibrant world to enthrall the players of an upcoming tabletop RPG campaign, or you’re just curious to find out how all these creators did it, The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding, Volume 2 puts a team of master world-architects at your side. Featuring practical essays and roadmaps for the intrepid worldbuilder to follow, this anthology shows you how to: • create a pantheon of gods • incorporate technology into your fantastical environments • build great settings that look beyond our own history and cultural expectations • design a world in just 30 minutes • leave space when building a world so the characters can help bring it alive • and much more! The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding, Volume 2 features 19 stars of tabletop roleplaying games and fantasy fiction, such as Gail Simone, Keith Baker, Veronica Roth, James Sutter, Ken Liu, Ashley Warren, Kate Elliott, Michael E. Shea, Tobias S. Buckell, Shanna Germain, Jeff Grubb, Gabe Hicks, the Dungeon Dudes (Monty Martin & Kelly McLaughlin) and more. What worlds await? Let’s find out! www.KoboldPress.com ISBN 978-1-950789-28-3 $19.99 KOB9283 Printed in the USA Callum Sim - [email protected] - 349937