The World of Emris

If you’re hoping to see the kind of world-building that goes into the creation of my stories, here’s an excellent example from my story The Last War (in progress). If you’re merely curious, or hoping to get another glimpse into this brain of mine, the following will be of interest to you as well.

Before I dive into any of it, however, you (especially you writers) should know that most of what I will chronicle in this article is not explicitly said, or is mentioned only in very small and dismissive pieces throughout the story. This world I created is wonderful and exciting (though I say it myself), but the world my readers see is so much more exciting to them because they built most of it themselves after spring-boarding off of the little information I surreptitiously give them throughout the tale. That’s what I aim for, anyway. I’m myself am still developing the skills of subtle exposition and determining what is and isn’t crucial information to the story.

With that said, what follows is still an important part of the writing process, even if most of what’s written here doesn’t make it to the final draft. I needed to take the time and effort to carefully consider many aspects of the world I was making so that the story I wrote could function consistently and believably within that structure. Further, having it all thought out, and even written out, made it so much easier to see which pieces of information would prove necessary and which could be left unsaid or merely implied. So, here is a sample of the kind of things I consider when creating a world.

Emris is a created planet, home to magic, marvelous creatures, and lots of adventure. I think the origin of this name is obvious, but in case it isn’t… the famous wizard Merlin was also known as Emris, though I suspect it was spelled differently. The world of Emris has a vast collection of races, and this is an important feature of both the world and the story. Most of them are not, however, entirely new races, but are instead a conglomeration of various races from numerous branches of mythology and legend. The important races, on the other hand, are perhaps limited to the race of men, the race of wizards, the race of fairies, the race of elves, the race of dragons, and the gypsy-kings (for the first book, anyway).

Other distinguishing factors include the world’s two suns: the lesser sun and the greater sun. The lesser sun is significantly smaller than the greater sun and burns blueish-white hot. The greater sun is more like our own in size and color and its light isn’t as intense as that of the lesser sun’s. The lesser sun rises first, with the greater sun rising three hours later. The two suns share the sky for eight hours before the lesser sun sets, leaving the greater sun in the sky to alone light the remaining three hours of the day. The nights last for 14 hours and are exceedingly dark because Emris has no moons. A dust belt lights the sky with a glorious display of multicolored streaks for three nights out of every month and is their equivalent of a full moon. These are called Sky-lines. It is revealed late in the book that human children born during the Sky-lines are always cursed ones.

Due to the lengthy days and duel, bi-colored suns, the plant life on Emris tends to be exotic and vibrant, with an exceedingly wide range of colors. The landscapes also tend to be extreme. If there is water in the area, vast, thick and vivacious forests grow. If the land has no water, deep, wide and dangerously barren deserts bake under the twin suns. This makes travel difficult, and there are vast stretches of unexplored and/or uninhabited territories. This is what allows the humans to remain hidden, and creates the divisions of culture, thought and values that plague relations from city to city, even between representatives of the same race.

Likewise, the adaptations in the animals and sentient races tend to be unique and bizarre, such as the elfish race and its branch races, which developed the ability to create personal shade which follows and surrounds them like auras or clouds. Most races are also darker in skin, under-earth dwellers or night time creatures. Most centaurs, for example, are black, and the few that aren’t are, well, albinos, in consideration if not in fact. The human race remains one of the few fair skinned, daytime, ill adapted races, for their adaptive abilities were hampered by the near genocide of their race two hundred years before, in addition to a stubborn tendency unique to humans towards changing the environment, rather than themselves. The cursed of their race, however, are night time dwellers.

Each race has its own governing system, but all the races relate to all the other races based on the perceived quality of that race. This is the main reason for the dominance that the wizards exercise, for a single wizard possesses vast and various powers, earning him and his race high regard from all. The dwarves can also claim great respect, for though the race as a whole lacks magics of any kind, they are long lived, exceedingly strong and very difficult to kill. In addition, the race’s history is riddled with heroic characters and deeds, which is truly what earns them their position. By comparison, had the human race not been forgotten, their race-wide defeat at the valley of stars would most certainly have reduced them to the respect level of a slave race, from which recovery would only have been possible through war or miraculous advances of knowledge or skill. Before that, though, the human’s innate ability to become as strong as they pleased, their heroic tendencies, their tenacious determination, and the occasional magically skilled individual would have and did earned the race high point, such that in FWW many supported the humans because they thought that the human race deserved to rule in the wizard’s stead.

In order to keep the peace, each livable area on Emris is allotted to a particular race for care and control. All the races are allowed to live in any area, but they must answer to the controlling race of that city and the wizards, who chose to claim no one piece of land for themselves, but are the universal rulers of all. Fairy’s landing, the city closest to the last human colony, for example, is considered Fairy territory, so in that city, the care and control of that city is the responsibility of any Fairy or wizard who is in the city. Some races have opted to control no land so as to avoid the responsibility and hassle that comes with such a position, like with the elfish and vampiric races.

Besides the wizards, the race whose job it is to keep peace and care for the spaces outside of easily livable areas are the Were-cats and Giant ferrets, collectively called Gypsy-kings. Due to the extreme conditions on Emris, the amount of uncultivated spaces above ground is close to 80%, meaning that in order do an adequate job of controlling these spaces, the were-cats and giant ferrets do not settle down or build homes, despite their unique ability to handle the less hospitable places on Emris. This fact gave rise to the term “gypsy-king”, which manages to be both derogatory and respectful. Both races are very low on the racial hierarchy, for though both race’s survival ability is off the charts in addition to natural prowess in both hunting and fighting, their constant travel and earth-beaten appearance tends to make loners out of these races, and loners do badly in any society. As a result, the chances of seeing a gypsy-king in a city are next to none, such that in some cities, rumors have arisen that the gypsy-kings are a myth.