Worldbuilding Leylan: Ether

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Welcome to project Leylan; an ambitious worldbuilding concept in the making. Currently, only the basics have been fleshed out, but the aim is to fully enliven the world with a deep and rich history and feel. You can look up the world and its current progress here, powered by Worldanvil.

Rather than throwing out another nation, as I did yesterday, I thought I’d share some of the foundational principles about the world of Leylan. It is important to understand that Leylan is alive, it is a conscious being the size of a planet. Born out of random fluctuations in the void, Leylan is fundamentally terrified of being reclaimed by the void around it (look up the Boltzmann brain if this is nonsense to you. It might remain so afterwards, but just go with it). This article on ether explains how Leylan uses this… ‘stuff’… to keep the void at bay, while not having to be completely isolated. It also touches upon how ether becomes corrupted, and, briefly, how humans train themselves to use it. There are mentions in this article that will make no sense whatsoever without context, you can gleam the gist. Take a look if you’re interested.

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Worldbuilding Leylan: A Beginning

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This is the first publishing of my small-time project, the worlbuilding of Leylan. You can read about the world here, where you will also find a link to its www.worldanvil.com site. For now, only the basic skeletal structure has been put up, but I intend to flesh it out slowly over time, and release some of the articles here for anyone interested in this kind of stuff. Using worldanvil has allowed me to think of worldbuilding in an entirely different way than before, and I hope it’ll help me be more consistent in my writing.

As a first taste, let me start out with a short article about one of the major countries, that of Freeheed, which is predicated on the idea of ultimate freedom (the name is rather descriptive, yes). Let me know if it seems at all believable, or if its missing something important.

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An Admission of Failure

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I write this, not for the, presumably, few people who might read this when it is released, but rather for posterity, and myself. Running into a wall with my writing made me give up and hide away. Coming back was hard, but I decided I did not want to feel like a failure. The only way to live with failure, I believe, is to admit its existence and move beyond it. This is by no means a revolutionary thought, nor does it indicate any kind of personal character. It just is what it is.

So, let me admit that I failed. My project fell onto the ground and I was unable to pick it up. Instead, I distracted myself with something different, and aimed to complete a portion of that before returning. The result are the 46 chapters of Rattus Rex, a story about disease and pestilence — not the best topic in these difficult times. I don’t intend to promote it much, but will be releasing it on a few novel-sites, just to see how it does.

While I let that story stew, I have started a worldbuilding project which I think will let me avoid the problems that ultimately led me head-first into disaster in my Divine Construct series. See, I wrote my worldbuilding in notes, but never fully spelled out what I wanted, the mechanisms I needed for it to work, and thus logical problems kept popping up. This time, I intend to flesh out the underlying mechanics before I throw myself fully into the writing.

I will be releasing articles from my worldbuilding from time to time, and see how it goes.

The problem with reincarnation in novels – a critique on the fundamentals of a plot device

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While the title might be seem provocative, I’m really not out to take anyone on, or belittle the works of genres I very much enjoy myself. I do, however, a have a teeny, tiny quibble that I keep thinking on whenever I stumble upon an interesting story with a reincarnation-device employed.

So, I’ll be discussing two types of reincarnation mechanics, either as a character being reborn, or a character returning to an earlier version of themselves.

To be honest, I’m probably going to later discuss the issues between these kinds of stories as well, but for now let’s stick to reincarnation, shall we?

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Lost childhood glamour – Review of “Epic”

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Introduction

“Epic” was my first foray into the LitRPG genre as a child, although I doubt the term applied back then, and I remember the story very fondly. I recently took the opportunity to reacquaint myself with “Epic” through the audiobook, and have thus compiled this little review for my own amusement – as well as, hopefully, yours.

Summary – no spoilers

Epic is the story of Eric and his friends from the Hope-district, living in a world where all violence has been denounced ever since the colony was founded by human pacifists leaving a war-torn Earth behind. Instead of violence, this society relies on the RPG known as “Epic,” which is also their monetary system and the ruler by which talent and societal class is measured.

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