Worldbuilding Wednesday #1: Creation Myth


I am excited to join with the link-up this week, but I don't think I'm far enough in my worldbuilding to think about transportation yet. So I'm beginning here by submitting the work-in-progress creation story for my world. One of the larger difficulties I've run into is coming up with good names (for people AND places). Where do you get your inspiration for names? Are the names I've chosen here too complicated? (Other thoughts on the following submission are welcome, too.) 

Here, too, is a rough, incomplete, and likely-to-be-changed map of my world:





[Beginning still needs fleshed out, but: gods overcome with plague – last to survive are the Sebestri siblings. Dying grandfather gives them each a handful of seeds to plant so another race will grow and take over where the gods left off. Sebestris put the seeds in their pockets and run as fast as they can, thinking they can escape the plague and continue living as they always had. Maybe they could even plant the seeds and raise a crop of slaves to care for them since they no longer had parents and didn’t really know how to do any work for themselves. But they ran so far and so fast that before they knew it they fell off the edge of their habitation.] 

They fell a very long way, through darkness and wind and chaos, to land with a fatal crash in the water below all that was. Their bodies lay there, partly submerged and partly above sea level, tangled and heaped over and around each other, until they eventually transformed[decomposed?] into land of a (mostly) fertile nature.

The seeds of humanity never left the pockets of the Sebestris, but took root where the carriers fell. The roots drew sustenance both from the lifeforce no longer claimed by the slain siblings, and from the ground where each now lay. Thus the tribes of the seven lands were born.

One of the siblings, Monsighe, fell on his side, so that one of his pockets lay submerged in the sea, while the other remained high in the air and became a mountain known as Mt. Grimeni. The mountain soon had a twin from the elevated backside of Frosketta who fell behind her brother, face-down in the water. The twin mountain is called Mt. Mostracea. Other, lesser, peaks eventually grew around these, but the two remain the most prevalent in the             range to this day. The mountains proved a rougher area for the seeds to grow, so the fruit they brought forth had a harder shell; this race of RACE 1 grew strong and solid, but short. Possible to mistake as part of the rocky landscape from a distance, their skin was a color between grey and brown, rough to the touch and difficult to pierce. Isolated by their geology, the RACE 1 kept to themselves and, because they were little-known to outsiders, they have long been feared and readily left alone.

Monsighe’s submerged pocket brought forth an altogether different set of circumstances. The abundance of moisture caused the humans’ roots to develop a fungal coating that sealed in the necessary nutrients to produce life, but also provided some of its own. The Nelsmarsh at the foot of Mt. Grimeni thus birthed the race of magic-wielding RACE 2/WIZARDS. They alone possessed magic, so they, too, were somewhat feared by the other races, but they were also sought out when extraordinary help was needed. With the aid of their special abilities, the RACE 2 had the means to become the most broadly traveled and well-learned of all the humans. And so they did. 


[This is still far from finished, but I am strapped for time! Still to come in my creation myth: Five more races (one for each Sebestri sibling); beliefs regarding what happens when humans die.]

Comments

  1. Oh wow! What a cool concept! It's a bit hard to see the names in the image, do you have list with them on? From what I can see, I like your names and they seem easy enough to pronounce, which is great for readers!

    As far as naming things, that is a hard one! My first world I created I started with names from other languages or baby name books with meanings that I wanted associated with the land formations. Then I created some languages and from there many of the location names are derived from there while some still have their original names. I've always loved drawing maps and making up place names, but I try to say the words out loud to see how they sound or if they were too hard to pronounce. My next work-in-progress I've used many root words in our own languages such as Latin and mixed and matched them to create the words I want. Happy writing!

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    1. Thank you! I hope to get to language creation, too - I like the idea of picking names in advance based on meaning and then translating them into the new language. I took the picture of my map this morning in poor lighting - I will try scanning it and including it in my next submission. I'm working on a "name bank" too. Thank you so much for your input!

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  2. Your creation story is very interesting, and definitely something I'd love to see more of one day when you've got it polished up!

    When I need names that haven't 'revealed' themselves to me (in a sense), ChaoticShiny.com is one of my go-to places. They have tons of generators, and many of them have parameters you can put it in yourself so that things will be cohesive with what you already have.

    On language creation, I'm a HUGE fan of the Language Construction Kit at http://zompist.com/kit.html.

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    1. Thank you so much for the resources and feedback! I'm looking forward to being a little more put-together after this post; I have been thinking about the creation story for a while but had not yet written it. It kind-of just came together for me when I was putting it together for this post! Now I think the other elements will be a little easier to map out.

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