Last year’s A-Z Blog Challenge was almost successful (21/26, I got as far as ‘U’), but I petered out before the end.
This year I figured I’d try something a little more straightforward, applying a familiar process and get myself back in the habit of writing.
I’ll create a new pantheon for a roleplaying game setting. I don’t have a setting in mind yet, but I’ve found that developing a pantheon gets me quite a bit of world building fodder. Everything happens for a reason (even if that reason is “weird things happen sometimes”). As I create each deity I try to find their place in the world, to describe what their followers might be like and how a deity like this could come about.
- The Shu-Shi pantheon led to an unexpected halfling culture.
- The Goblin pantheon led to three goblin tribes with different cultures and beliefs.
- The Elemental Tetratheon gave me four distinct cultures.
The Elemental Tetratheon had an idea I wanted to explore (namely a pantheon with four distinct groups, each centered on a particular element), but otherwise I really went into it with no preconceptions. The halfling pantheon name came out of trying to find a title starting with ‘S’ for the 2015 A-Z Blog Challenge (‘comfortable’ became something in Chinese I anglicized as ‘Shu-Shi’) and led to a fantasy medieval Chinese halfling culture.
So, I’ve has some success with this approach. I really have no specific plans in what this pantheon will look like, and thus will probably be as surprised as my readers at what I end up with.
Let’s find out, shall we?
Oh! I am really looking forward to this one!
I’m glad to see you here. You’re a staple of the scene and that you’re interested in the topic makes me feel good :)
Hmmm…. I do a lot of world-building for writing, so this sounds interesting.
A is for Anthropophagus
Sounds very interesting and an unique theme for the A to Z challenge! It is way beyond me with what I know about computers and designing any programs for them :) Have fun with it and I hope you get through all the letters this time around!!
betty
https://benchsnotebook.blogspot.com/