Fantastical Biology – Part Nine: Fantasy Insects
Shambralyn Baker
Insects represent more than half of all known living organisms on our world. They’re found in nearly all environments, even in the ocean. And yet, it’s so rare to see…
worldbuilding
Thinking About Food In Fantasy
Victoria Hooper
Food is an essential part of life, but it’s also so much more than just sustenance – food is power and politics, culture and setting, pleasure and identity. Food will…
Sinking Into The World
Aaron Miles
In the fantasy genre, many writers love to indulge in worldbuilding, they may have produced stacks of files, papers and (of course) maps before they’ve written the first chapter. While…
Two Characters Walk into a Bar…
Nicole Singer
What is it about bars, pubs and taverns that makes them so darn fun to read about in fantasy? I don’t know about you, but I get a gleeful little…
So What’s The Fuss About Campaign Cartographer?
Adrian Faulkner
The map has been a feature of many a fantasy novel for over a hundred years. Whether it be Tolkien’s Middle-Earth or George RR Martin’s Westeros, fantasy fans have poured…
Setting as a Character
Ryan Howse
One of the joys of writing second-world fantasy is the ability to create your own world. You can set up spectacular vistas, ancient empires, mysterious ruins, or whatever else you’d…
Fantastical Biology – Part Eight: Fantasy Diseases
When creating a believable fantasy world, we often focus on things like politics, religion, culture; but there’s a tiny (microscopic, in fact) detail that can flesh out a story world…
Slavery in Fantasy
Geoff Matthews
The subject of slavery became a hot topic on the forum for a few days in June and July. It began with a forum user’s quandary: On one hand us…
So What’s The Fuss About Scribbleton?
One of the things we all love about great fantasy novels is the worlds they create. Indeed, for many of us, great worldbuilding is one of the major factors in…
Fantastical Biology – Part Seven: Fantasy Biologists
So far this series has focused on animals and habitats, exploring anything from the relationships between predators and prey to the deepest parts of the ocean. But what is fantastical…
Fantastical Biology – Part Six: Fantasy Creatures & Urban Living
Wildlife isn’t the first thing that might come to mind when you think of the city, but lots of animals make their homes there. Things are no different in fantasy…
Worldbuilding: Creating Bestiaries and Fantastic Monsters
B. Pine
A well-defined bestiary is a must for every fantasy world, unless the creator plans to stick to mundane animals identical to realistic fauna, or there are no animals or creatures…