World building: Power, Magic, and Beings
To finish with the topic of power from the previous blog, instead of the necessity of a good creator who is the originator of power, I could have used a ‘pool of power’ idea where the power is just there, and which many books use without explaining often where the power comes from – it just is. But then I think I would be depicting the world as a dog eat dog - survival of the fittest kind of world where one ends up with a book that tries to steer clear of the good vs. evil idea and you have to go too much towards - there is no good, and there is no evil (or worse evil is good, and good is evil). It ends up I believe like playing a game with no rules, or as if someone is making up the rules as one goes along. It’s no fun, and a book like that is painful to read I think.
Next I need to address a question because it ties into the existence of the fantasy creatures in the book.
Why is there magic in your book, isn’t it always evil? No, I don’t think magic is necessarily always evil. Here in the world we know magic is often presumed to be supernatural powers with demonic or an evil force behind it, but if the creator is the supernatural power behind the magic, or if the creator created other beings with powers beyond ours, their powers would seem like magic to us.
In the alternate world presented in the book the world has many beings created by the creator with natural powers beyond what we would class as natural on our earth, but their powers always have limits set by the creator, and the degree of free will the beings have will define how far beyond those limits they can go, and what evil effect it might have on other beings around them.
So, it is an alternate fantasy world, and the rules are not necessarily the same as here on earth.
The Humans – the humans are more or less just like us. They could be on another planet, or maybe in a different kind of universe in which fantasy worlds can exist. The world is at a Dark Age stage which I prefer rather than a Middle Age setting like many fantasy books.
The Beasts – There are big ugly blundering evil beasts in my book. Unlike other created beings these beasts don’t belong in the world, or at least not on that side of the gate. They are completely evil or depraved having made their “eternal choice” at some time in the distant past.
Because they are eternal created beings their present state is not how the creator wanted them to be, so it might be well enough to feel sorry that it couldn’t be otherwise, but that is how it is with free will beings, you have to let them suffer the consequences of their free actions, or they are not really free beings. At some time in the far distant past they had the same chance as everyone else to choose good over evil, and they made their eternal choice.
You could ask, ‘Is that true to reality?’ I think it could be, but at any rate that is the rule I decided on so that there are bounds on these beings, and so it is morally ok to be killing them. If they are killed, they go back to the burning plains where they don’t really want to be. That is their true eternal state, where they belong now, and they are not supposed to be on the human side of the gate.
The Endsætas (border guards or protectors in old English) known as the blue elves by the humans, they were earlier created beings that the creator placed as guards between the lower world beasts and the new creation of humans. But a rebellion against the creator’s authority broke out among the Endsætas.
Once a faction of the Endsæta rebelled and they were no longer doing their job, then the High King had to step in and provide some protection for the humans by setting up the Bluestone Army with all its soldiers and tasks to be done at the gate. And because it is a gate that is openable and closeable, well it becomes kind of an Adam’s apple kind of thing for humans in this world, a way they can chose evil over good. It’s a tool and a temptation as well for the dark robes who use it to unleash devastation on humanity, or to leave it closed and try to entice humans to follow them or make them think they are good or better than anything else on offer.
Finally applying it all simply to the world in the book, there are lower world beasts who have made their eternal choice, there are humans presently making their choice and there are Endsætas who have made their eternal choice, but a challenge to the High Kings authority and judgment on the matter is in due process, so it is playing itself out during the time of the books, and has very much to do with the background of the whole story.
That’s all for this time, unfortunately I didn’t really get into how I came up with all my names, hopefully in the next one.
Next I need to address a question because it ties into the existence of the fantasy creatures in the book.
Why is there magic in your book, isn’t it always evil? No, I don’t think magic is necessarily always evil. Here in the world we know magic is often presumed to be supernatural powers with demonic or an evil force behind it, but if the creator is the supernatural power behind the magic, or if the creator created other beings with powers beyond ours, their powers would seem like magic to us.
In the alternate world presented in the book the world has many beings created by the creator with natural powers beyond what we would class as natural on our earth, but their powers always have limits set by the creator, and the degree of free will the beings have will define how far beyond those limits they can go, and what evil effect it might have on other beings around them.
So, it is an alternate fantasy world, and the rules are not necessarily the same as here on earth.
The Humans – the humans are more or less just like us. They could be on another planet, or maybe in a different kind of universe in which fantasy worlds can exist. The world is at a Dark Age stage which I prefer rather than a Middle Age setting like many fantasy books.
The Beasts – There are big ugly blundering evil beasts in my book. Unlike other created beings these beasts don’t belong in the world, or at least not on that side of the gate. They are completely evil or depraved having made their “eternal choice” at some time in the distant past.
Because they are eternal created beings their present state is not how the creator wanted them to be, so it might be well enough to feel sorry that it couldn’t be otherwise, but that is how it is with free will beings, you have to let them suffer the consequences of their free actions, or they are not really free beings. At some time in the far distant past they had the same chance as everyone else to choose good over evil, and they made their eternal choice.
You could ask, ‘Is that true to reality?’ I think it could be, but at any rate that is the rule I decided on so that there are bounds on these beings, and so it is morally ok to be killing them. If they are killed, they go back to the burning plains where they don’t really want to be. That is their true eternal state, where they belong now, and they are not supposed to be on the human side of the gate.
The Endsætas (border guards or protectors in old English) known as the blue elves by the humans, they were earlier created beings that the creator placed as guards between the lower world beasts and the new creation of humans. But a rebellion against the creator’s authority broke out among the Endsætas.
Once a faction of the Endsæta rebelled and they were no longer doing their job, then the High King had to step in and provide some protection for the humans by setting up the Bluestone Army with all its soldiers and tasks to be done at the gate. And because it is a gate that is openable and closeable, well it becomes kind of an Adam’s apple kind of thing for humans in this world, a way they can chose evil over good. It’s a tool and a temptation as well for the dark robes who use it to unleash devastation on humanity, or to leave it closed and try to entice humans to follow them or make them think they are good or better than anything else on offer.
Finally applying it all simply to the world in the book, there are lower world beasts who have made their eternal choice, there are humans presently making their choice and there are Endsætas who have made their eternal choice, but a challenge to the High Kings authority and judgment on the matter is in due process, so it is playing itself out during the time of the books, and has very much to do with the background of the whole story.
That’s all for this time, unfortunately I didn’t really get into how I came up with all my names, hopefully in the next one.
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