How I Got a Worldbuilding Wedgie

… and you know, it might have been a good thing …

Mostly, this is just me chatting on about something obvious I suppose. But I thought there might be someone out there who writes or game designs who might need to read this to brighten their day. So, sit back, grab your favorite drink and let’s sit a spell as my relatives like to say.

Worldbuilding. Now that’s a heck of a word, isn’t it? Most people have a vague, squinty-eyed, “almost get it” understanding of what it means. But for a writer, and I mean anyone any kind of writing here from fiction to tabletop role playing games, oh boy is that one loaded word.

But I’m not going to chat on about the word. That’s what a dictionary is for and sure not Merriam-Webster, Oxford, or Collins. Nope, this is more about what that word can do when you run it down. Because, as I’m sure any writer will tell you…

…you will be running that sucker down and it will wear you out. But in a good way! At least for me it was.

My sprint of the moment is another creature for my setting Hoist the Colors. Specifically, a ‘wraith’. Now, in this setting they aren’t at all your garden variety spectral spook you might know, but that’s a topic for another time. What I’m talking about here is grabbing one topic to write lore, worldbuilding and all only to find you have unpacked so much more.

You see, I sat down to write about wraiths. I had an idea (…yep.. Famous last words…) and so took after running it down. Before I knew it, one writeup or article on ‘wraith’ turned into ‘wraith’ and about 4 child articles! Who knew wraiths could pop up like daisies?

My mind immediately went into a wild spiral. I’m writing too much. Oh no, this is too much, who will ever bother to read this (…it is for a tabletop roleplaying game setting… and later stories… after all…)? I did the wrong thing! It’s horrible! I need to just stop, this is a mistake!

Sound familiar? There lies the Worldbuilding Wedgie!

But, now hold the phone. Once I took a moment to catch my breath, I realized that maybe, some magic happened when I wasn’t looking. Ok, when I rolled a 1 on my perception check for the gamers among us.

You see, I started with wraith which led me to ‘types of wraiths’ (…like I said, I’ll get to that one another time…). Before it was all said and done, I’m hitting a good 4000 words.

But it was a good thing, for you see I ran down all those rabbit holes and found where they all went. Only to realize that sure, most of this could be covered in that main overview on wraith.

But! There was a lot I flat out had wrong because here I wasn’t hearing what a character had to say about wraiths, but a representative from each type of wraith (…if they form an undead union, I may be in trouble…). In hearing them, I realized that what I had started with was both a little bit right, but also a little bit wrong. It let me create four distinct threats for players to face in any game that might be created. A richer setting.

It certainly opened doors to a creature and made it far richer than before. Not to mention got me thinking about the rest of the ‘world’ and how it reacts in turn! Nothing is in a vacuum, right?

I think the lesson here is if what you worldbuild gets deep, don’t be afraid of it. Certainly don’t throw it away. Dig in. Sit with it awhile. It could be that your imagination has been wanting to have some words with you on that topic and you’ve got something richer to offer your readers (…or players if an RPG…) than you expect!

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- Kummer Wolfe