(no subject)

[the_rck]

I'm trying to come up with a short cut-- any sort of short cut-- for the world building I need to do for the next chapter of Rheotaxis. I need to sketch in several cultures, I think. I can layer the dominant culture over the top of them, but that's a veneer. Plus, I know very little about the dominant culture. I don't want to take real world cultures and try to copy them for these cultures. That really doesn't work very well and isn't very respectful (plus, even were I inclined to be so lazy, I don't know enough about most real world cultures).

I have four planets. Each of them should have multiple cultures. There may be some common characteristics to all the cultures from a given world-- they're all pretty globalized and have been for generations-- but there should be differences, too.

I'm thinking to cheat a little and take basic planetary characteristics, things like range of climate and natural resources and such, from a game book. We've got a couple of different games that have supplements dealing with a multitude of planets. The Babylon 5 supplement for the Non-aligned Worlds comes to mind, and I know we've got a ton of GURPS Traveler books. There must be something usable in there.

I'm wanting to make this as simple for myself as possible. I don't anticipate all of this stuff having a large impact on the story. It's just background for a chapter or three. I don't think that anything I make up is going to limit me later on, and I don't expect to have to expand on my sketchy world building later on. Of course, if I'm wrong, if I ever write a sequel to Rheotaxis, I'll be in deep trouble.

Anybody have any world building advice?

Comments

[chorus-of-chaos.livejournal.com]

what I can suggest is a good place to get inspiration by one hell of a world builder.

haikujaguar has written numerous books about alien worlds, for truely epic world building concepts, I suggest her Kerishdar series. There is a link to her website on her user info page, you can read stories from the series there. She might even be open to giving a few suggestions, she's a pretty nice lady.

......and you know I'm always cheering you on to work on Rheotaxis *\0/* (--- lame cheerleader

[the_rck]

Thanks for the recommendation!

[leorising1959.livejournal.com]

Gee, I don't have any better ideas. I think using the GURPS books is brilliant! Good luck with it all.

[the_rck]

The GURPS books will take some excavating to access (they're on a shelf with other stuff stored in front of it), so right now I'm using the Babylon 5 Galactic Guide (It's a D20 game). That's got about thirty different planets/star systems in it. Using it is making me think a bit more about what I want for these various planets in terms of natural resources and climate and the like. I'm using the various planet profiles as a starting point and tweaking as I see fit.