Tag: Narniabuilding

Worldbuilding Wednesday 9/10/25: Aslan Cakes (Narnia LXXIV)

If you had all the money in the world, wouldn’t you want an Aslan-shaped cake for your next celebration?   Aslan Cakes Royal Roar A red velvet cake sculpted in the form of a three-dimensional lion’s head with interior layers of mascarpone cream. It is covered with yellow and gold fondant airbrushed with lifelike details. …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 9/3/25: Narnian Commoners (Narnia LXXIII)

A while back I speculated on what Narnian female names might have been like, drawing from names that were given to Victorian-era English girls. Since there’s a paucity of names for human Narnian commoners I came up with another list, shown below. (This is a sore point with me. I don’t like to be reading …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 8/20/25: Let’s Talk About the Splendour Hyaline (Narnia LXXII)

“It’s like old times,” said Lucy. “Do you remember our voyage to Terebinthia—and Galma—and Seven Isles—and the Lone Islands?” “Yes,” said Susan, “and our great ship the Splendour Hyaline, with the swan’s head at her prow and the carved swan’s wings coming back almost to her waist?” “And the silken sails, and the great stern …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 8/13/25: Caravan Stops of Calormen (Narnia LXXI)

Cavaransies have existed for thousands of years along trading routes in India, the Middle East, and North Africa. They provided travelers a place to eat, rest, and restock their supplies. Usually they were set at intervals along the road, the spacing calculated by the time spent in a typical day’s travel. Many of them were …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 8/6/25: Foods of Archenland (Narnia LXX)

Like the Seven Isles, not much is known about Archenland. In the books it serves as Narnia’s steadfast ally,  a typical Medieval European country ruled by humans that lacks the magic ** and the Talking Beasts of Narnia. It figures most prominently in The Horse and His Boy. Lewis gives it a few quirky details, …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 6/15/22: Queen Swanwhite’s Descendants (Narnia XXXII)

As I wrote in my previous post, Queen Swanwhite is something of an oddity, in Narnian terms. The reader hears about her only through the comments of another character, unlike, say, Ram the Great and King Erlian, two other characters the reader never meets but receive a mention from Lewis-the-narrator with the authorial weight that …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 6/8/22: Narnian Magic (Narnia XXXI)

I haven’t heard much about campaign settings based in Narnia, as opposed to those set in Middle-Earth. Something about Narnia resists this, either the religosity,  or the set-in-stone nature of the plot. But if someone did, here is some magic that might be used there.   Narnian Magic for an RPG Cry of Bacchus: Allows …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 6/1/22: People of Calormen (Narnia XXX)

I’m going to start off this third Summer of Narnia with this Pauline Baynes illustration from The Horse and His Boy that I just found. I assume it wasn’t included in the American edition of the books, because I don’t remember it from my childhood. It shows the moment when the Narnian entourage, headed by …

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