Category: Writing – Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding Wednesday 2/5/20: Transformers

Do you know American President Ronald Reagan is to thank for the success of the Transformers franchise? In the early 1980s Hasbro executives noticed a line of Japanese toys called the Diaclones, which were robots that transformed into vehicles. They thought the concept had merit, so the company licensed them to be sold in the …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 1/29/20: Minor Magic Spells

Oddball spells to use and abuse.   Minor and Mundane Magic Spells Lungs of the Jester: Allows the caster to tell jokes in a loud voice that carries over the noise of a crowd, and the jokes will always come out amusing. Olnatra’s Cold-blooded Pancake: Turns any normal-sized cold-blooded animal (reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects) into …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 1/22/20: Malls

In the recent hit Netflix Stranger Things the high school students hang out at Starcourt Mall to alleviate the boredom of their small-town lives. Though treated as an exotic element in the show, hanging out at the mall was, once, very common in the 1970s and 1980s. There was an element of snobbishness in it …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 1/15/20: Martial Arts Movies

Martial arts movies (kung fu in Hong Kong, wu xia pian in Mandarin) burst onto the international scene in the 1960s and early 1970s with the rise of charismatic actor Bruce Lee (he’s at the center of the pic above wielding nunchucks.) If you were not alive at the time, it’s hard to understand the …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 1/8/20: Nail Polish Colors

Cutex introduced the first commercial nail polish in 1916.  Amazingly, the formula was derived from nitrocellulose, a chemical used in automotive paint, another new innovation of the time. Before this, people made do with henna, or concoctions of wax, egg whites, and gelatine. No longer! A new kind of beauty salon was born, and a …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 1/1/20: Video Games

The names of modern video games share a certain something. They are vague enough to serve any kind of content, yet intriguing enough to pique one’s attention. They are abstract, yet speak of journeys and quests, battles, danger. They are mostly male and refer to male myths and archetypes. I present a list of randomly …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 12/25/19: The Best of
xxxxTwittersnips (Spells II)

I know it is Christmas and therefore this list should be something related to that. OTOH, who can resist a bunch of weird spells culled from my daily Twitter feed through 2019?   Magic Spells II Honoyin’s Screaming Toad: Makes an ordinary toad emit a loud scream when some event occurs (trespassers enter, a fire …

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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 12/11/19: Christmas Scents

This time of year holiday scents abound. There’s the usual Pine and Balsam, Gingerbread, and Sugar Cookie. But to really move sweet-smelling merchandise, novelty is required. Yankee Candles has one scent I like in particular called After Sledding. The name is memorable and brings up memories of playing in the snow, while the smell is …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 12/4/19: Birth Signs

One of the perks of worldbuilding is creating a zodiac, or set of birth signs, for your particular setting. The Western Zodiac* is the most familiar model and is named for the path the sun, moon, and planets take through the constellations on their journey through the sky. The constellation the sun is in when …

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