This is a long overdue post about more world building, thanks to my friend from England, Elise, who you might remember as the Magic Writer. Since my last world building post, Elise has written two more posts in her world building series. The first one is on characters and brainstorming initial character traits and everything that needs to be considered when setting up the society in your world. It lists off things like your main character, magic, government, other classes of people (like servants vs. wealthy and ordinary people), races (humanoid vs. fantasy creatures), and the roles of men and women in the society.
Powerful has an interesting way of looking at all these world building things. It's got quite a few different classes depending on which part of that world you're looking at. It's got four different kingdoms that all have unique set ups, then there's the Four Kingdoms overall. It's hard to simplify down. The main thing that jumped out at me, though, was that she mentioned gender roles. It's actually a fairly big point to my story. Tykra (Kyla's kingdom) doesn't really have distinct gender roles. Kyla doesn't run into any problems because she's female. Luzi doesn't pay any attention to gender roles in Laeto, because for him to rule he has to be married and they usually rule as a couple. As soon as Luzi gets married, he'll become king and his new bride becomes queen. In Zetalon, women hold the majority of the power. The monarchy is passed down from mother to daughter or the next closest female relative. Varn is different though. Aya is struggling with the traditional gender roles for her kingdom. Women are child bearers and rearers. They do occasionally hold jobs if needed, but they are not associated with the government in any way. Aya wants to be part of the government, so she is working hard to change the ways of her kingdom.
Magic Writer's other world building post was about names ranging from people to places to landmarks. There are quite a few things that I haven't actually named yet. For example, the main river that runs from the ocean in Tykra and feeds all the other rivers in Varn hasn't been named yet. I know I want it to be associated with their water goddess, but nothing I've come up with yet sounds right. The mountains in Zetalon haven't been named either, and neither has the sea in Tykra. The castles are all unnamed too. Looks like I've got something to work on!
For the rest of my post, I've found more pictures to show what other places look like besides Kyla's home and Floures Academy. First up, Luzi's home back in the Laetorian capital. The picture is of the Castillo de Colomares in Málaga, Spain.
This last castle is the stone castle of Zetalon, built using their earth powers. It's built into the mountainside. It's really the Hohenworfen Fortress in Salzberg, Austria.
This last building isn't a castle, but still important. I was having some trouble with the description of Central City. Mostly there was some confusion over what the Council Building looks like. This is the back of the building, where the explosion occurred. The other side of the building is what Kyla sees from her window. The Council Building is L shaped, and it curves around Floures on the Tykran and Laetorian sides (I'm working on a map which will hopefully make things less confusing for you). The center of the building is round like a turret, then the two parts branch out to make an L. The part on the Tykran side is mostly housing for the Councilors when they are working or the monarchs when they are visiting. The Laetorian side has all the offices for the Councilors as well as the court rooms (where Kyla was put on trial). The picture I chose is of the Elmer L. Anderson Library at the University of Minnesota.
That's all I have for now!
~Alyson
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