Category: Fantasy

Worldbuilding Wednesday 12/18/19: The Best of
xxxxTwittersnips (Spells I)

The fun of creating randomly generated magic spells derives from trying to figure out what they do from two or three words. Sometimes it’s self-evident: Robe of the Gymnast. Other times, I need to think a little: Aelart’s Fairy Feet. This was inspired by a scene in the Angelina Jolie fantasy movie Maleficent, where one …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 11/20/19: Minor Magical Items

Some magical items are very useful to the recipient. Some are cursed, or useless. But more often than not they have a minor kind of magic, helpful in a certain situation. Here are some of those items.   Minor and Mundane Magical Items The Wizard Kift’s Small Dirt-kicking Satyr: A diminuitive statue of a satyr …

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Unsavory Satyr

Isn’t this guy a shady character! He’s got a buckskin and pointed ears like the mythical satyr but no hooves. Peter Paul Rubens, 1638. On display at The Prado, Madrid.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 11/13/19: Steampunk Characters

Steampunk as a genre got its start with The Difference Engine and The Diamond Age, both set in a alternate world Victorian England. So, it bears to follow that Steampunk characters have English language names that were popular during that time. There are no hippy names like Rainbow or Phoenix in Steampunkland, and neither are …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 10/16/19: Elfquest

Elfquest, created by Wendy and Richard Pini, exploded onto the publishing scene in the early 1980s. A graphic novel series about, basically, hippy Native American elves who ride wolves, it took the comic world and SF fandom by storm, kick-starting the indie comic movement while also growing out of the earlier adult comic movement of …

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Calligraphy

Calligraphy follows shapes and spirals. A shell (caracola) and a pear. A lively looking butterfly with personality. What does it mean?  

Stone and Sea

What happens to the people who Medusa turned to stone? Do they remain conscious over millennia, as continents sink and ocean levels rise?  

Worldbuilding Wednesday 8/21/19: Let’s Talk About Elric

Elric of Melniboné, that is. Elric was a creation of SFF writer Michael Moorcock and made his first appearance in 1961, in a novella titled “The Dreaming City” in the pages of Science Fantasy magazine. More stories followed later in the 1960s and eventually they were compiled, with added material and edits, into a a …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 7/24/19: The Best of
xxxxTwittersnips II (Characters)

Iconic female characters for SFF are hard to find… and by iconic I mean they will be easily known by any reader with a good knowledge of the field even if rendered by disparate illustrators. Elric of Melniboné, who was in last week’s post, is one: armored albino man with a sword. Molly Millions, who …

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Flaming Heart

My heart burns for you.