Episode 14: The Secret is in the Crust, Part One

You wanna know a writing secret?

First thing you do — before you do anything else — you write yourself three thousand words a day. Don’t shower, don’t shave, don’t read the paper, don’t turn on the TV (for God’s sake, never turn on the TV when you have writing to do) and don’t don’t don’t read your e-mail.

I made that mistake this morning, and now I’m gonna pay for it.

This really nice chap calls me up and says, "John, I really like your column a lot, but you haven’t talked at all about world development. How did you build Rokugan and Théah and what theories and/or techniques will you use when building Orkworld?"

You see, I was all ready to start talking about Ork shamen. Those wacky half-mad mute boys who speak in a silent language of body and hand motions. Those guys who are physical representations of the Ork word for "knowledge" that translates better as "secret". I was ready. Then, I read my e-mail.

And it got me thinking. Thinking about geography, plate tectonics, water deposits, river ways, forests, deserts, winter wastelands and soon enough, I had forgotten all about my beloved half-mad Ork Shamen and had my mind wrapped around writing up an Orkworld map.

So, nameless person who’s original e-mail I can’t seem to find (curse you, Trouble!), we’re gonna talk about World Building 101. At least, how Wick builds worlds. Should be a journey.

* * *

There’s a couple things you should know about before we go too deep. I want you to keep these in your head as we move along because they say a lot about how I design worlds.

1) Both Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock never drew maps for their worlds. The maps you see in their books were drawn up by fans and friends. They both had a rough sketches for the lands Conan and Elric were tromping around in, but neither had a hard grasp on the geography.

2) In the land of Middle Earth, Mordor is surrounded by a mountain range. A perfectly square mountain range. In the twenty-one years that I’ve been in this little community of ours, I’ve never heard anyone (and The Wick means anyone) complain about it. Not once.

Now, on to development.

* * *

One day early in the development of the L5R card game, Matt Wilson and I stood in front of a big white sheet and while he drew out mountains, coastline, rivers and plains, I put up names and territories. I’ve always been bad at geography (still am!), but I do know my politics. I developed political boundaries based on mountains and rivers and at the last minute, decided that the Crane Clan held a small portion of the Lion’s land in the north.

To this day, I don’t know what mistakes we made. It looks right to me. The mountains are set in ranges, they affect where forests and plains grow and places are colder or warmer because of them. There are a few fantastic geographical elements, but the whole place is, generally speaking, "geographically correct".

Quite frankly, when I was developing Rokugan, I put very little thought to the geography. Almost all of my attention was devoted to the myth structure of its history and culture. I put things in places that were friendly to the kind of story I wanted to tell.

Shinomen Forest, for example, is a huge monster forest filled with animal spirits and other nastiness. It’s a great place to go adventuring and its put right in a very inconvenient place on the map… where player characters have to either go through it, or spend a week or two going around it.

Beiden Pass is another great example. Rokugan is split down the center by the "Spine of the World Mountains", a great range of impossibly high peaks. The only way to get through the mountain range is through Beiden Pass. And, of course, three different Clans claim ownership of that little strip of land. It is the only way to get from Northern Rokugan to Southern Rokugan without going a few weeks (maybe even a month) out of your way. So, when you go through the Pass, you pay a toll to the Lion Clan (who own the North End) and when you come out, you pay a toll to the Scorpion Clan (who own the South End). That means everyone. Every noble, every merchant, every magistrate, every single person with koku in their pocket has to pay a toll or they don’t get through. Wars have been fought over and through Beiden Pass for centuries, for those who control it control the flow of trade in Rokugan.

Then, as our development progressed, Dave Williams asked me a pertinent question.

"Rokugan is one thousand years old?" he asked me.

"Yup," I answered.

"Literally?" he asked.

"Nope," I answered.

"But they believe it’s one thousand years old?" he asked.

"Yup," I answered.

He looked at me with a wry smile and walked away.

A lot of people have wondered "Just how old is Rokugan?" According to the history books, it’s almost exactly one thousand years old. However, we all know that a world doesn’t just pop into being; it develops over hundreds of millions of years, spending much of that time as molten rock, slowly cooling. Then, simple life comes into being, spending another few million years developing into something complex enough to figure out how to bash his buddy’s head open with a tool. Then, after a few more million years, he figures out that instead of using a club, he can develop weapons that kill from a distance. That’s how worlds develop.

Not Rokugan. At least, maybe not Rokugan.

But we’ll talk about that at the end. Let’s take a look at Théah.

* * *

They say that success has many fathers and failure is an orphan. Well, Théah has got a lot of fathers. Whether she’s a success or not… we’re still waiting to figure that out. But a lot of people had input on the development of Théah. A lot.

It all started with me and Jennifer, sitting at a sushi restaurant, talking about what I was going to do next. She suggested Restoration, I thought it was a great idea, we pitched it to AEG and they bought it.

This is where the fun begins.

First, development slipped right out of Jennifer’s hands because she wasn’t working for the company quite yet. So, D.J. Trindle and I started developing what would eventually become Théah. After many long talks, D.J. convinced me to do a "pseudo-Europe", a place that smelled like the continent across the pond, but had distinct differences. Suddenly, developing Théah became a kind of game. I read a whole mess of European history, discussed important events and people with D.J. (a guy whose library includes every book that Good Doctor Asimov ever wrote, so you know how well read this guy is), and started making a Fake Europe.

At this time, Patrick Kapera, Jim Pinto and Kevin Wilson started getting involved. We threw around tons of ideas for Théah, but in the end, we decided it should look like Europe, giving it a distinct familiarity. D.J. cooked up a 3D representation of plate activity to give us a guideline for geography and everything started moving.

In the end, we had a complete history from Théah’s birth all the way to the Year of the Prophet 1668. Just enough of Europe to make it familiar, and just enough of Théah to make it new.

Two worlds. Two very different approaches. Now you know the history, let’s talk a little bit about theory.

* * *

There are two ways to develop a world. The first is Historic, the second is Mythic.

The Historic approach is what we did with Théah. We made a 3D representation of her plates, we wrote thousands of words on history, we charted her populations, we knew her location in the solar system, we knew her weather patterns, we even knew entire civilizations that were born, lived and died before mankind even took his first step on the beach. Historic.

Rokugan, on the other hand, is Mythic. Rokugan is one thousand years old. Her mythology is correct: she was born from the gods. The Sun and Moon gave names to all the things in the world, and by naming them, gave them form. Sun gave birth to children, Moon ate them — except for one — and got his belly burst for his trouble. Then, all the Children of Sun and Moon fell to the world and became less than gods, but more than men. They formed Rokugan’s Clans and started a cycle that would climax one thousand years later.

Much of Rokugan’s history is impossible. That doesn’t matter. Myth isn’t concerned with Fact, it’s concerned with Truth. And, in case you haven’t figured it out, I’m much more interested with Truth than Fact.

(Sorry, Doctor Jones.)

* * *

I’ll talk about this in more detail next week. We’ll take closer looks at both Théah and Rokugan, how I chose to develop both into their current shapes and even spend a moment or two on how I’d do it differently. Then, we’ll talk about Orkworld and how I plan on developing her into shape.

Until then, I’ll be unpacking boxes and trying to meet my February writing deadline. I’m two weeks behind schedule because of this moving thing.

In the meantime, go check out Orkworld. I’ve got a new Pugg story up there. You do that and I’ll get cardboard dust in my lungs.

Take care.