Thread: The Trainer's Worldbuilding Manual (Episode 2: Religion)

Welcome to The Trainer's Worldbuilding Manual! If you've ever wanted to build a fantastic world (or the fantastic counterpart of an existing world) for a story, this is the place for you.

The Table of Contents:

Introduction and Contents (you are here)
Episode 1: Counterparts vs. Original Worlds (by LightningTopaz)
Tips and Tools of the Trade
More Helpful Resources (by SeleneHime)
Native American Mythology Resources (by Godo-kun)
Episode 2: Religion (by Sarcastically Insane)
Military Resources (by Drakon)

The guide will be updated on a regular basis, so check back to see the latest advice and tips.

If you have some worldbuilding advice, tips or tools to add to this guide, drop me a PM and let me know!

Episode 1: Counterparts vs. Original Worlds


When you set out to write a fantasy story, you usually have to create the world your story is set in from scratch. This can be a daunting task, as you have to consider:

--How Earth-like your world is (or if it is a parallel Earth)
--How far it diverges from our world (if it is a parallel Earth)
--Geography
--History
--What flora and fauna populate it
--What the beings are like (and their own histories, cultures, etc.)
--If magic is present, what it can and cannot do, and what role it plays, if any.

And that's only for starters!

Fortunately, in the fanfiction realm, you have another option--create a fantastic counterpart of your canon of choice. Since most of the nitty gritty of worldbuilding is done for you in this case, all you have to do is tweak your target canon to fit more into a fantastic setting.

For example, let's consider Yoso, the fantastic counterpart of the Pokeworld I created for Pokemon: The Magic of a Melody and its two prequels. When I started creating Yoso, I envisioned its cities and towns as counterparts to an existing place in Pokemon. I knew they wouldn't always be in the same location as their real Pokeworld counterparts, but their names would reflect which place was its counterpart:

Pallet Town--Masuliro Town (from masul, which is Korean for magic, and iro, which is Japanese for color)--the whole thing means "magical color" or "color magic"
Viridian City--Hijau Town (Hijau is Indonesian for "green", and viridian evokes something green)
Viridian Forest--Luse Forest (Luse is Chinese for "green")
Pewter City--Hopea Town (Hopea is Finnish for "silver")

As you can see, each place's name reflects where it would be in the real Pokeworld--but this isn't always the case--Yoso is actually a conglomeration of the five main regions, so somewhere with a counterpart in Shinou could be close by somewhere whose counterpart is in Johto.

Next episode, we will talk more about names and magic.

Tips and Tricks of the Trade:

Here is a list of generators and other things to help you build worlds:

Google Translate Handy if you want to generate a name that means something
Seventh Sanctum THE definitive generator site
SFWA Worldbuilding Questions (everything you need to ask yourself when building a world from the ground up)
Chaotic Shiny (some very clever generators here, including a ballad generator that I used to generate songs for Brock to sing)
Serendipity (Great for character and place names)
Yafnag (another good name generator)
A nice collection of other resources (thanks, Valentine!)

If you find a worldbuilding resource worth posting here, let me know!

I may be able to help you out with the world building resources, although two of them will have to be file attachments. Others are helpful websites I've found here and there:

(EDIT: Weird ... It isn't letting me attach the files ...)

Names & Language-
20,000 Names
BabyNames.com
Character Names/BabyNames.com
Behind the Name
Medieval Names

World Building -
Fantasy World Building Questions

World Building Checklist (See Attachment)
- Something I put together last year, and have been tweaking for a couple months. Although it seems very simple, once you fill it out, it can get quite detailed. There's more to learn about your world than you think, when you ask questions differently.

World Building Questionnaire (See Attachment)
- Although not something that I made, it was sent to me not long ago. It provides a similar use as the above, and asks more questions in a different manner.

Character Building -
~ Mary Sue Tests (Helpful estimates)~
The Universal Mary-Sue Litmus Test
The Original Fiction Mary-Sue Litmus Test
[url]

Helpful Essays, Articles, and Rants -
Capturing Fantasy
The Craft of Writing Fiction
Strange Horizons

FARP
General - Covers everything from world building, character building, to poetry and on.

Hate Mary Sues? Don't we all! Part I
Murdering Mary Sue

Liymaael's Fantasy Rants (New)
Liymaael's Fantasy Rants (Old)

Misc -
Peter's Evil Overlord List
Holly Lisle's Official Author Homepage

TVtropes
Yes, TVtropes. If you don't get too distracted, it becomes you best friend. Fun and informative.

Thanks for the post--I'll add it to the contents

I don't know if this could help anyone, but I found a site that has most of the present Native American Tribes'/reservations' mythology, if anybody would like to use it for reference (like me) First People of America and Canada - Native American Indians. Turtle Island. Legends, Treaties, Clipart.

All right, I will add it to the contents and get to writing a new post for this soon

Thanks, Sarcastically Insane!

Episode 2: Religion



So you’re writing something, and you need some divine intervention. Or maybe you decide a character that’s just plain awesome needs to be worshipped, but you need to add some depth to it.

Well, this is Sarcastically Insane’s guide to building a religion from the ground up. Let’s start with the basics:

Polytheism or Monotheism?

Pretty simple question: In the religion(s) of your story, do they worship a single deity or more than one? Generally speaking, older civilizations had polytheistic beliefs- think Greeks, Romans, Celts, Vikings, Egyptians… Basically anything you know as ‘mythology’ and not ‘religion’ probably has a more than one god. Monotheism was basically limited to Judaism. Most of this guide is about polytheism.

Now, onto the different possibilities from Poly- and Monotheism. In Polytheism, you can have as many gods and goddesses as you want, each having a different job, and having a convoluted family tree. Polytheistic pantheons also make it easier to show the gods as more human-like; the Greek gods, for example, were generally more concerned with getting some booty than doing their jobs, and the Norse pantheon was pretty hell-bent on causing mayhem. Since most of us are human (I hope), it’s easier to write characters that are as human-like as possible, and easier for readers to sympathize with. For example, say a major character in your story is a god that has fallen out of favor with the pantheon’s leader. Maybe he shanked the wrong mortal, maybe he yoinked the wrong goddess, but he screwed up. We can all sympathize with screwing up and getting punished. We can also sympathize with gods and goddesses falling in and out of love, getting into arguments, and defending family ties- it’s something we all do.

On the flipside, a monotheistic deity is almost always all-powerful. They know everything, they control everything, and they can do anything. The reader isn’t expected to sympathize with them- they’re expected to see why characters revere them above all else. There isn’t much to write on them- they’re generally good, because otherwise they would always stop the hero in his tracks, unless he’s a villain protagonist. They’re generally more-or-less hands-off, since deus ex machina does not an entertaining story make.

How mainstream is the religion?

Now, this may be a major shock to some of you, but there are multiple religions in the world! Crazy, right? Beyond that, not everyone is religious- some are simply lax in their beliefs, others don’t believe in anything at all. Now, in your story, this translates to a few questions; is the religion mainstream? Does it have any ‘rival’ religions? Are there derivatives of it, like the Abrahamic religions? What is the general view on it- for example, a religion of people worshipping stuffed bunnies probably isn’t going to get as many followers as a religion that reveres a series of gods that regularly come down to Earth and knock atheists’ windows in before starting full-scale wars with each other because somebody switched the lager and NyQuil. On a similar note, if a religion preaches free candy and world peace, they’re going to be more liked than the religion teaching HELLFIRE AND DAMNATION as the best you can hope for in the afterlife.

The deities themselves

In designing a deity, you have a few things to think about. First, what they preside over- it may be a single thing (fire), a string of related things (storms, water, lighting, the sky), or a whole slew of whatever (wild boars, the color purple, bad music, old people, war, not kicking strangers in the crotch). Second, their personality; generally it matches what they preside over (in cases 1 and 2) or their most defining thing (case 3). For example, Hermes, the Greek god of thieves, was a pretty amazing thief himself- as in ‘steal Zeus’s thunderbolt and not get blamed for it seconds after being born’ good. He was also playful, and generally a pretty cool guy.

On the other hand, they’re also people, and shouldn’t be flat characters- take Ares, god of war. He was big, bad, and the biggest bully ever known. Get the upper hand in a fight and he’ll turn tail and run like a little girl to Daddy. Gods have personalities.

Three, appearances- this follows the same general rule as personality. To demonstrate, I’ll take a page from Percy Jackson, where Ares is shown as a Hell’s Angels-like biker with flaming hair, sawed-off shotguns, and a motorcycle that would make the Ghost Rider envious.

The deities getting things done

Okay, so you have a deity or pantheon. That’s great. Now, do they regularly make appearances, getting wasted at rock concerts and trashing penthouse suites? Or have they been missing for a while, making it a bit more ambiguous if they were ever there? Or is anyone even sure they existed in the first place, because nothing ever mentions them really doing anything?

The answer varies from religion to religion. In most modern religions, the last major thing happened 500 years ago at least. However, in some mythologies, the gods walking up to someone and testing their faith was believed to be an everyday occurrence- the Greeks decided to play it as safe as possible by making it law that one must show hospitality to strangers bringing gifts, for twofold reasons; one, the head honcho of the gods, Zeus, presided over hospitality, and two, that creepy old guy who’s eyeing your wife just might be a god and decide to zap/drown/burn/crush/eat/stab/set you aflame because you’re being a jerk to him.

The afterlife

Most religions have an afterlife, whether it be Valhalla, where booze and fights are your reward, a fluffy cloud heaven, where peace is just awesome, or the Sumerian afterlife, where you’re screwed to an eternal grayness of suck :D! There are infinite possibilities for an afterlife, depending on what kind of culture the religion is from. It could be reincarnation, it could be eternal booze-fueled adrenaline testosterone poisoning awesomeness, or it could be an eternal grayness of suck :D! Generally, it takes the best (or best moral) aspects of life and distills them into eternity (which shows how much Ancient Sumeria sucked).

Conversely, many religions have a Hell-type afterlife, as well. It could be anything from not getting boozed up for eternity, being forgotten by the living, wandering forever, hellfire and eternal torment, or an eternal grayness of suck :D!. Usually, this is because either a) you didn’t follow the tenants of the religion, or b) you screwed something up, like a Norse warrior dying without a weapon in hand, or a Spartan not dying in combat. Some hells are custom fitted- for example, in Dante’s Inferno, gluttons have food forced down their throat for forever.

How accurate are the followers’ ideas?

So you have a great pantheon. It could do with a little fleshing out, but it’s a good start.

Now you start writing the myths that the followers of the religion believe in. And you set up two deities as at each other’s throats 24/7, always one-upping each other, and definite mortal enemies.

Then they get together in a scene, and their personalities bounce off each other, and you end up writing them like a couple in a tiff. You think, ‘Oh no! I have to rewrite all those myths-‘

Nope. Not all the myths you write have to be explicitly true for your universe- remember, most of them are ‘written’ by the people in your universe. They get things wrong. Remember, they’re myths, and it’s okay to have them be a little wrong sometimes. Think of it as a constant fanfiction by hundreds of people that tries its best to keep continuity. People are going to mess up a little here and there with the truth, and others are going to extrapolate. As long as the myths are grounded in truth, more or less, it’s okay.

I've used this site as a reference for a ton of firearms info: Weapons - modern fire arms.

Tips on Writing Military Science Fiction - Reference for assorted military science fiction (and general military) topics.

Department of Defense - Officer Rank Insignia - Reference for ranks of all officers in US armed forces

Department of Defense - Enlisted Rank Insignia - Reference for ranks of all enlisted personnel in US armed forces.

Granted, these links may not be appropriate for a Pokémon fanfiction but I like to combine modern military tech and Pokémon.

One more thing I forgot to mention on myths; they're great writing practice. You vary your style between them, test out character archetypes, play with ideas, and plenty of other things. They can be as short or long as they need to be, and be as absurd as you want.

@Drakon: Might come in handy for brainstorming an imagined military, so into the contents it goes.