A Snippet of Worldbuilding from Zonduth

Steven and I have been worldbuilding and storybuilding for Zonduth over the last few months. That may seem like a lot of time spent without any story output, but we are firm believers that you cannot build a story on a weak world or your story will also be weak.

We’re also both programmers, and well aware that every hour spent planning saves three hours in revision. Revision is by far the LEAST fun part of writing.

I thought I’d share a tiny bit of the worldbuilding that we’ve done and compare it to a similar-but-different piece of worldbuilding so that you can see how we work.

“Warbirds”

Our original concept for Zonduth (over ten years ago) included a mount for the human armies called Warbirds. Think brown ostrich without all the plumy feathers, with a sour red eye and a vicious attitude.

Well, we no longer have armies (for various worldbuilding historical reasons) so we had to decide if we wanted to keep the original concept of the bird.

We did, so we thought about how they’d be used and by whom, and what they’d look like and how big they’d be and all the sudden we’ve got a life cycle where the dinosaur-like RAPTORS (No longer Warbirds) hatch from a clutch of eggs.

As they grow, they have no gender. Around puberty, depending on the requirements of the flock, they will split into males (hunters and protectors) and eggless females (egg tenders and child rearers). One female may become a queen, capable of laying eggs and starting her own flock. This is not something that happens in every clutch, and even the people who have Raptor ranches in our world don’t quite know exactly how to force a Queen to emerge.

Eggless females are docile and drab, with no markings or feathers. They will only emerge if there aren’t enough tenders for the flock already, so are typically left with their mother.

Males are the most common result of clutches. They are brilliantly colored, with stripes and spots and extravagant feathers, used to woo Queens. In the wild, the males are the only ones to leave the flock, and they hunt in packs and carry meat back to the cave for the females to eat. In captivity, most of the males are taken as soon as their gender begins to show, to be trained as mounts. They are much like puppies at that stage, and can be trained to be a companion and protector.

Queens are much larger than either of the other types. Although they will grow some feathers, their decoration is nothing along the lines of the males. Queens are also incredibly ill-tempered and territorial. Once they’ve established their flock, they are the last line of defense for the eggs and they will kill any living thing that gets in their nesting caves.

How Much Of That Matters?

All of it MATTERS. I just don’t know how much is going to make it into the book. That’ll be situationally dependent upon the needs of the plot.

However, we went from “bird mount of army” to all of that because our storybuilding led us to adding a Warbird to our adventuring party. As such, we needed to know rather a lot about the animals in order for its inclusion to actually drive the story forward. Because we went into that amount of detail, this warbird isn’t just an amusing animal companion — it drives character growth for not one but two of our heroes, and the problems it causes become plot points that affect the story.

When we added the “bird” to the party, we made sure it mattered, and we couldn’t do that without knowing more about it.

Cheebum and Banglo

Contrast that with a few other animals youthful-us added to our story a decade ago. The Banglo and the Cheebum.

Banglo are bunnycatkangaroo things. They’ve got the long ears of a rabbit, but the thick balancing tail of a kangaroo, tipped with a tuft of fur like a lion. Cheebum were developed at the same time, as part of a not-so-friendly rivalry between two mages. Cheebum are small like a mouse, but have some ungulate features, like hooves and grinding teeth so they can eat both grasses and seeds.

We know they were developed by Beast Cadre mages on a lark but that enough of them escaped to the wilds to start causing some serious problems with the native ecosystem. Rabbits and mice are now almost extinct.

How Much Of That Matters?

That’s it. That’s all we’ve got. Seems kind of weak compared to the worldbuilding we did for the Raptors, right?

Well, sure, but we don’t have any Banglo or Cheebum driving important plot points right now, excepting the historical significance of Beast Mages monkeying about with genetic manipulation. We don’t even have a character with a Banglo pet.

If it becomes important, we’ll add it at that time.

Worldbuilding Forever!

We focus our worldbuilding on the elements that need it. Otherwise, we’d NEVER finish worldbuilding. How many of us even know much about the plants and animals in our own biome, let alone ecosystems we don’t live in?

It’s a delicate balance, choosing what to build and what to leave out, but the primary question remains the same.

What matters for the STORY we’re trying to tell?

Everything else is just spinning our wheels, and I can assure you that I am itchy as heckfire to get started writing this story.

Related posts:

NaNo2010 > Worldbuilding 1
NaNo2010 > Worldbuilding 2
On Worldbuilding And Infodumps