From Perihelion to Pierside: Two Ways to Build a Fictional World that Feels Real
World-building is about creating a logical engine that makes a world feel like it existed long before the reader or players arrived and will continue long after they leave.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to build fictional spaces. As someone who’s run TTRPG campaigns and fancies themselves a writer, I spend a lot of time creating worlds. For me, world-building isn't just about drawing a map and naming some mountains; it’s about creating a logical "engine" that makes a world feel like it existed long before the reader or players arrived and will continue long after they leave.
The Two Philosophies
In this series, I’m going to be exploring world-building through two diametrically opposed lenses. I believe that by understanding both, you can find a balance that works for your specific project.
The Top-Down Method: The Concept of the "Enneaverse"
Imagine a world where the lines between myth, legend, literature, and history are blurred. We’ll look at how the world outside your window functions when Sherlock Holmes was the one tracking Dracula through the fog of London, or how a 13th-century zombie outbreak could fundamentally alter the history of Japan and the Greenwood. For years I have been developing this world, but it all started with the idea that all the “stories” we grew up with were true. Zeus walked the Earth, as did Hua Mulan, Arjuna, and thousands more through the millennia. The majority of these were thought to only be myths and stories, but came to be publicly acknowledged in the 1930s. Not only were the 1930s when global mass media began to form, but structurally it allows me to play with characters from the public domain and give a nod to the fact that comic books revolutionized the idea of the modern myth.
Starting with that concept, I’ve been able to dial down, creating moments and character interactions up and down the timeline, and then threading connective tissue between some of them. One of those threads, which I will discuss in depth in an upcoming post, stretches from 1500 BCE in Minos to 1944 CE in the Ardenne Forest to 1970 CE and the dark side of the moon. Not to mention an exciting pitstop in Sicily in 1942 CE!
Very early on in my world-building I created a thread that runs the entire spine of my timeline, and so the Enneaverse was born. Inspired by secret societies and super-teams, I imagined a group of individuals coming together in times of need to save the world, over time the group evolved from reactive defense to proactive vigilance, and not always to the benefit of mankind. I will delve into their roots in future posts, but I settled on there being Nine of them, hence the Enneaverse (ennea being the Greek prefix for nine).
The Extrapolative Method: The Rise of Azir-Nahrun
This is the "micro" approach. I start with a single, grounded premise: a legendary river-junction trade city that rose from a lonely caravan ford into the wealthy, cosmopolitan crossroads between two rival empires. I recently did a research paper on the transmission of religion along the Silk Road and I was fascinated by some of the cities that grew up along it. I wanted to explore the collision of economic, political, and religious systems in a fantasy setting. Thus is born Azir-Nahrun. Azir-Nahrun is a far newer creation, a lot of the world building in going to do will be as I explore it through this project.
Great trading cities like Venice, Samarkand, Malacca, and Timbuktu thrived because they occupied strategic chokepoints: narrow seas, river mouths, caravan crossings, or major ports where goods naturally converged. To support this commerce, they usually developed flexible legal systems that protected contracts and merchants, along with semi-independent governments that allowed commercial elites significant power. Trade also made these cities deeply cosmopolitan, drawing foreign merchants, sailors, bankers, and diplomats from many cultures. Because information about prices, markets, and politics was as valuable as cargo itself, successful trade cities cultivated vast intelligence and communication networks. Their wealth required protection as well, leading to strong navies, convoy systems, or fortified harbors to deter piracy and rivals. Over time, sophisticated banking and credit systems emerged because physical coin alone could no longer sustain the scale and speed of the international trade.
I am going to pull on the successes (and failures) of the great trading cities of our history to explore what Azir-Nahrun brings to its world.
What to Expect
In the coming months, I’ll be breaking down these methods with specific examples, checklists for your own projects, and deep dives into the historical, literary, and mythological inspirations that make these worlds feel authentic.
Whether you’re a GM looking for more depth in your campaign or a writer trying to bridge the gap between a cool idea and a coherent setting, I hope you’ll find something here to help you create your own world.
Next Time
We’re going to go Top-Down. We’ll start with the Enneaverse and start to see how to handle a world where every legend is true.
