Setting: The world is in your hands

While Bandar Bermaya did not seem like much, it had heart.

Six-hundred square metres of seaside real-estate, a steady supply of travelers from trading ships making port while on the way to Stragunberg, and a friendly local community made it rather popular in the twenties. It was once a small fishing village, growing due to a rather enterprising young woman, named Sri Aini Bermaya, who expanded its port, after seeing its potential as a waypoint between the North-South Trade Line. It'd been eighty years, though, and things changed. Things changed a lot.

Traders started to settle in Bermaya. And then more traders. Bandar Bermaya grew from a sleepy port town to a bustling trade city almost overnight. In the thirties the town grew to almost twice its size in just under a decade. Vodens seemed to like the city very much due to its tropical clime, a change from their usual cold homeland, and more of them settled there.

Then the Great War.

A trade dispute between the Sultanate of Marterra and Proletarian Republic of Voddenhart (PRV), both of which had long been wary of each other, exploded into war in 3147. It was a simple matter; Voddenhart wanted more wheat from Marterra, but it was offering much less in return, so Marterra refused. Voddenhart responded by rounding up every single Marterran merchant within its borders and imprisoning them, until its demands were met. Marterra still refused. So Voddenhart, under Prime Minister Heimrich Dovstag, ordered a bold and controversial move: Executing the prisoners. This sparked much outrage from some of its neighbours, and the flames of war flared up into life.

While the war went on, trade in Bandar Bermaya all but disappeared. The Vodens who had settled down there were ostracised and shunned by the local Marterran community, and soon restrictions were put on former Voden citizens, as ordered by the Sultanate. Many fled across the border to escape discrimination, but some still stood firm, maintaining that they were now Marterran citizens, and were loyal to Marterra.

During the war Bandar Bermaya was suffering despite being far away from the theatre of war, and the rich lives of the traders who lived there were all but gone, replaced by war-time rationing and drafting of able men into the army. Once the war was officially over in 3153, trade was slow to return in Bandar Bermaya, being mainly a pitstop between the Republic of Sri Kezali to the northwest and the former PRV to the south. Again the inhabitants suffered, and many left the hollow-shell of a city that it was at that time. Again, there were still those who stayed, and they endured the post-war depression that followed.

In the wake of the new federal parliamentary monarchy in the seventies, Port Bermaya was reinvented by the Tourism industry as a destination for beach-lovers, with new resorts sprouting up along the long, sandy western beach, away from the bay that was once its harbour. Now named only Bermaya, housing developments were planned, and people soon filtered to the new resort-like city, cleaned up and changed irrevocably from its pre-war era. It was literally rebuilt from the ground-up, slowly but surely. And twenty years later, in 3202, it is a modern resort city, with resort after resort after resort along its beaches, and shopping malls and even a theme park. Of course, those places were not my goal.

Heaving along my haversack, I started to make my way to the centre of the Old Town District, to Bermaya Square. My name is Seri Aishah Bermaya bint Abdul Karim, and I am finally going back home, to see my great-grandmother.

The setting.

Important to some, taken for granted by others, it is a large part of a narrative story, no matter what kind it is (of course, like everything else in English, there's always exceptions). Whether it's an isolated island for a marooned character with everything that he needs to survive, to a hostile world filled with monsters and dangerous beasties, there always has to be a setting. And setting does not always mean the physical setting. How the people of the world react to each other, how the borders are drawn, and how the world works are all part of the setting. While this may seem overwhelming to some, others (Like me!) take particular joy in creating vibrant worlds just for our characters to live in, interact, save, or destroy. There are several things to take note of in creating a setting.

First thing is: Decide on how much you want to flesh out your setting, and how much work you wish to put in. You might just want a simple map of the area that your characters will stomp around in, or you might want to create a whole universe (!) for them. Just keep in mind that you're making it, and you're also, you know, supposed to be writing the story too.

Think about the themes and tone of your story, novel, etcetera, and reflect it in your world. If your story is a gritty dark fantasy, make the world a not very happy place to live in, with dark horrors/bandits/evil kings/whathaveyou.

Also, take into consideration the realism level of the world in comparison to our own, and try to think of how to explain something being there. For example, magic. Is there magic? How much magic is there? Is it rare or common? What are its effects? Is it limited to certain parts of the world, or to certain types of beings or peoples? This also applies to city locations and geographical features. Remember, the more you want to flesh out the world, the more you need to explain things which are there. Remember that something, like magic, has far-reaching effects which aren't limited to one single field. Think about economic or social effects, like how it affects trade.

Everything in this world is interconnected. Countries trade with countries, cities trade with cities, people trade with people. So it's natural that you should somehow make each aspect of your world interact with another. Make it feel like it belongs there.

I'll stop for now, but I'll give more helpful tips on worldbuilding again soon!

Worldbuilding Articles Part 1

"Mages think so that you don't have to."
Gla-Blek Gokk

Aether

Aether is like the lifeforce of the worlds, permeating it and sustaining it. It's a colourless, odourless substance that manifests itself on the physical plane as somewhere between a liquid and a gas, sort of like the old-style ectoplasm that the mediums used back in the 19th century. However, it does not actually exist on the physical plane often, but its presence can still be felt in many parts of the worlds. Mages utilise this substance as a catalyst as well as fuel for their magic, willing it to do a specific action. However, due to the inherent nature of Aether, the action has to be very specific, or it might have unintended side-effects.

The properties of Aether include its incredible ability to emulate any physical substance, property, or energy. However, it is driven by the imagination of the channeller, and even then, in the case of mages, it will only vaguely follow what the mage intended, unless if the mage constrained it within a very specific set of rules.

Reagents are items that have a high Aether content. Magically-infused substances, items associated with life, all that. The often-used reagent that many carry are, surprisingly, acorns. Acorns have unnaturally high Aether content, therefore the Mages often use them the most. Another reagent that I've established so far is Crystalsand, from a place called the Crystalsands.

The Crystalsands a highly-Aether-rich location where Aether was literally ripped from its plane and pulled to the site, causing a large area around it to basically have its reality warped. I liken it to a Chernobyl effect; inside the Crystalsands, there are pockets of concentrated Aether. Anyone who even walks in the general vicinity of one will either go insane, gain tremendous power, or be mutated irrevocably by the chaotic effects of pure Aether. Naturally, even the sand is powerful; a grain of crystalsand is about as powerful as a single acorn in terms of Aether content.

Alchemy

Aether also is very soluble in water or any liquid substance. This means that, yes, potions do exist in some form, and thus alchemists exist as well. Unlike real-world alchemy, it is a refined art, and its range from medicine, war, scrying, and enchantments. Unlike conventional fantasy alchemy, though, it isn't only the water that is important; it's the potion bottle. It's often covered in Aetheric formulae, designed to change the properties of the Aetheric solution within it.

The Solution itself also changes the Aether's properties; water, for example, is often the baseline, and often used when the potion is to be drunk, while quicksilver is used for scrying, and oil for (you guessed it) making things go boom spectacularly. In the latter case, the bottles come very cheap, as making Aether explode is much, much easier than making it -not- explode.

The bottle would be inscribed instead with a command to 'explode', with a condition being 'upon breaking', then they'd pour some lightly-aetheric solution in (Oil is usually used, but anything can be, really) and then throw. Boom, instant exploding potion. If one wanted to, for example, grant the user the ability to breathe fireballs, it'll take a little more work and a more concentrated solution of Aether, and, depending on the solution itself, the more concentrated it is, the longer the duration of the firebreathing. Of course, one has to worry about ingesting too much Aether, but Aetheric solutions often are much, much less dangerous than pure Aether.

Nether

Netheric energy is the complete opposite of Aetheric energy. Aetheric energy only changed or mutated the world around it, and Netheric energy stunts the mutation, effectively nulling the Aetheric energy's effects. And instead of something that is manipulated by the imagination and the strength of will of the person, Netheric energy can be manipulated by only the emotions of an individual. Netheric energy also deals in intangible things, like thoughts, emotions, ideals, psychology, as well as being able to create something, anything, out of only Netheric energy, a rare feat which earned it the name 'the Energy of Creation'. Netheric energy, therefore, is inherently impossible to control consciously by the mortal races, and its control is thought by contemporary scholars to only be of the realm of the Gods. However, it does come into play in other ways.

This leads back to my theme of 'belief'. If one believes strongly enough in something, it will somehow manifest itself. If many believe in something, it will eventually somehow pop into existence, and it will change as the people do. The true Gods themselves used this to create avatars whom they control to govern a particular world - these avatars often being the 'Gods' that the mortal races see. The power of belief is limitless in my universe, although the denizens themselves do not know it.

Netheric energy also plays into the resistance of Aetheric manipulation; If an individual strongly believes that 'Magic' does not exist, Aether ceases to have a significant effect on him, due to a build-up of Nether on his person, which nulls any attempt to 'change' him via Aetheric manipulation. For example, a fireball conjured via a mage will harmlessly engulf him, causing no damage at all. Several groups have made use of this, though the willpower and belief needed prevented many individuals from fully resisting a spell. The Mage City/University of my world actually employs a tribe of desert-dwellers that have this resistance to magic, as arbiters, police, and renegade-hunters.

For the same reason, if someone believes that 'Magic' flows through him like water, Netheric energy avoids him, causing much less resistance against the flow of natural Aether through his body and easing his spellcasting, while actually increasing his vulnerability to change via Aether. Often, one believes so much in this that Aether often runs unchecked through their systems, altering the body and the reality around the mage, resulting in the phenomenon known as 'Wild Magic'.

The thing about the mortal beings is that, to attain the high level of control needed, they'd have to be Godlike, since Nether is, inherently, as chaotic as Aether, if not more. Someone like that might have an ironclad resistance to Aether, but his or her grasp on the control of Nether will be little to none - of course, this could still be quite a bit, since mastery of Nether would mean that one can actually make a physical object out of only Netheric energy, which, as far as scholars can theorize, exists everywhere. The manipulation of Netheric energy is much, much more delicate than the manipulation of Aetheric energy.

Of course, there are some who actually have attained Godlike powers through mastery of the Nether. The Titans in my world's mythos, in fact, were one of them, and a few Dragons have 'ascended' as well. The more normal humanoid races, however, have rarely, if ever, touched the surface of it. I've been trying to keep an emphasis on how properly hard it is to even scratch the surface of Netheric control.

Religious Context

Religious figures are often created by the amount of belief of the mortals- without the knowledge of the mortals themselves. Somewhat like Terry Pratchett's system of belief, really. These figures or 'Avatars' then are often controlled by the 'True Gods' of the universe, each having their own domains. In some cases, these figures are actual people who have ascended.

Priests strive for Godliness, sort of. The thing about the 'Gods' in my world is that it doesn't matter what the Gods represent; it's just how much faith the people put in them. Morals, customs, etc are just that - Morals and Customs, which are determined by whatever prophet or priest or leader or focus or ideal or whathaveyou. The very godly nature of Nether is much unknown to many; only a select few, including the most learned scholars in the realm of Theological Speculation, even know of its ability to create. Heck, most dismiss it as just a resistor of Aetheric energy.

An older version of Aetheric Manipulation is what they call Natural Magic, which druidic and shamanistic magic fall under. Back before Controlled Aetheric Manipulation, these two were thought to have no connection at all. Shamans and Druids, however, are about the same as priests - they only believe in different things: nature itself, natural spirits or ancestral spirits. Their belief system revolves around having a symbiotic relationship with nature. Take what you need, give back what you can, protect the environment, and, whenever possible, never kill without reason.

All of these belief systems involve drawing Aether from a direct source, be it a Religious figure, an ideal, nature, spirits of nature, or ancestral spirits. The Aether actually is drawn from these sources, but the Aether that is taken is actually from the True Gods themselves.