Klayton 0:00

The hack that I use is a little controversial to some people. A very hard lesson that I had to learn about world building, especially when it came to um like designing Tarildor or designing Y'ya, was... the people are now clutching their pearls because... Welcome to The World Kiln Podcast, where we discuss everything in world building. I'm Klayton Korstjens, a worldbuilder of 30 plus years, from multiple D&D settings, including home to the eight-year-long campaign I DM, to my 25-year passion project book series.

Tim 0:42

And I'm Tim Harris, author of the Aelaryn Saga and passionate world builder consumer and designer. On this podcast, we'll share our ideas, our breakthroughs, and the lessons we've learned in our experiences as world builders.

Klayton 0:55

In this episode, we'll be discussing general world building topics. Starting with, "What is a good building hack you use?" Let's get into the build.

unknown 1:08

Okay.

Klayton 1:08

You want to go first or you want me to in this one?

Tim 1:10

You know what? I'll give it to you. What is a good building hack you

Klayton's Controversy

Tim 1:15

use?  

Klayton 1:15

Okay. Um, so, the hack that I use is a little controversial to some people. I don't really know how to how to word it, so I'm just gonna say it. Use other people's stuff.

Tim 1:32

Okay.

Klayton 1:33

Use it for inspiration. Okay. Now that I've said it and people are clutching their pearls,

Tim 1:39

how do you go about that without becoming the copyrights and all the other stuff?

Klayton 1:43

People are now clutching their pearls because I

Tim 1:46

Right? 

Klayton 1:46

said use other people's things. Let me explain my statement. Use other people's ideas as inspiration. As an example, going back to the previous episode, we were talking about um in our campaign, Illas.

Tim 2:09

Right, right, yeah.

Klayton 2:10

And how I used the the idea from Roger Rabbit and that um

Tim 2:16

and you made it your own.

Klayton 2:18

Yes, how I used that idea of the big gorilla behind the door at the club when Eddie Valiant's gonna go see Jessica Rabbit for the first time,

Tim 2:25

right?

Klayton 2:26

And you know, that big gorilla just blocking the doorway as he opens up. I literally took that idea and went, okay, I like that idea, and I was thinking of just you know, I'm developing the KROW, this secret underground, you know, infiltration and information gathering organization, and they're underneath this thing, and it's this secret, you know, passwords you gotta get, and all these things, and I'm like, and then I thought about, oh, well, they walk in. Well, it wouldn't be just, oh, they just walk in the door, I'm like. Oh,

Tim 3:01

they would be in awe of seeing this huge, eight -foot- nine, half ogre, half orc literally standing over them as they're coming in, like, holy crap.

Klayton 3:13

Yeah, like this big monstrosity. And I I took the the the idea from Roger Rabbit, and I'm like, okay, that's funny. I like that. I'm gonna use that. I had zero intentions of doing anything with them, just I took that idea. I'm like, I like that idea. But I didn't take that exact idea,

Nothing's new under the sun

Tim 3:32

right?  

Klayton 3:32

Right. It wasn't the gorilla bouncer. Um that's plagiarism. Right. Don't do that. Don't take literally take other people's ideas. Take them and use them for inspiration. Um it it goes into a whole concept of there's nothing new under the sun. Right? Everything's already been done. Just what's your take on it? You know, you you're... a very hard lesson that I had to learn about world building, especially when it came to um like designing Tarildor or designing Y'ya, was your stuff's already been done. Long before you did it. There's there are no new ideas, just new ways of implementation.

An example of inspiration

Klayton 4:29

 

Tim 4:30

Well, I mean, honestly, though, is there's gotta be newer ideas because honestly, some of your characters that you have in Y'ya, like they're not not originals. Like, say, where like where where would you get the inspiration for your Mydar? Like, that doesn't seem like something that was created prior to this. I mean, I get your elementals, and you kind of change how the elementals work, and you created how you know each one of them looked and all that stuff, and I get that, but you know, you you've honestly created new races and new creatures that honestly maybe they're a morph of something else that you created, but they seem completely new to me. So, in some cases, I feel like it's there are new ideas, there are new things that haven't quite been created that someone does find. Maybe not a lot, but where was your inspiration for those then? If you didn't create them yourself.

Klayton 5:39

I took them from Tolkien's Orcs.

Tim 5:42

You did I thought they were more cat people, so they are. But this is this is this is a perfect example of take someone's idea and make it your own. Um the concept of a created race that people didn't that people don't welcome, that people are leery of and they stay away from, and they kind of do their own thing, and but at some point in the past that they were this created thing. Now I took that one step further because also, you know, in Tolkien's world you have orcs and then you have the Uruk-hai, and then and they're kind of similar, but they're different, if that makes sense. The Uruk-hai were they were created by Sa- uh Saruman.

Klayton 6:31

By Saruman, right?

Tim 6:32

They're not actually they were that his that whole thing, the Uruk Uruk-hai, were actually a Saruman thing that he created from orcs mixing with something else. I don't remember what it was that I don't know if it was goblins or what, but he mixed that orc race with something.

Klayton 6:49

Well, I also sort of use that idea when developing the Mydar-Rei'a. Because again, it's there it's an it is a advancement, evolution, alteration, whatever you want to call it, of a pre-existing race.

Tim 7:10

So like your Mydar would be like the orcs, and your Mydar-Rei'a would be like your Uruk-hai. Is that what you're kind of getting

How to use inspiration

Tim 7:18

at?  

Klayton 7:18

Yes. Yes. Um I I could go into the whole history of it, but I'm not going to. That's just too long. Um when I was developing the Mydar, in my mind I was thinking about Tolkien's orcs and how that I'm like, oh well, that's cool. Well I could do this with that, change what they are, how they, you know, the concept of this created being that gets that has a nefarious start goes through this period of destruction, and then it's kind of left to their own devices. But there's still bad interactions, so people are always wary of them. But then you come fast forward to in Tolkien's world, you have the third age and the whole Lord of the Rings story and the Uruk-hai and all that stuff, and I'm like, oh well. There could there could be an evolution of the Mydar that were intentionally created as this siege weapon, as something that was designed to bring even more destruction than the original version, and hence the Mydar-Rei'a. So it's interesting that you pointed out that that particular race because that's actually a perfect example of taking somebody to some something that already exists and and using it as inspiration and making it your own. You know what I mean?

Tim 9:09

Right.

Klayton 9:10

Um, I'll I'll give you another example actually in in my world of Y'ya. Have I ever told you about the Bourdain forest?

Tim 9:20

Actually, no, you have not.

Klayton 9:22

Okay. So I'm gonna drop a little new lore on you here.

Tim 9:25

I love

Klayton shares Y'ya lore

Tim 9:26

it.  

Klayton 9:26

Um in you have you have the two main continents, right? Um uh Westlan, which is which is where the the book series takes place, where the Hundred Year War took place. There's three subcontinents that are all connected. You have Norterland, uh Ravalant, and then Thara, which is on the bottom. In Norterland, which is to the north, there is kind of borderline Norterland Ravalant. Um there is a massive forest of immense trees. Massive, massive trees, called the Bourdain Forest. This forest was originally planted by the Elder Giants when, before the Sundering, which created the the Middle Sea and split the main continent of Balantos into three into the into its different parts. Um there was another forest which was on the other end of the supercontinent. And in there were it was a massive forest of these massive trees that were the forest of giants. So think of a redwood to a giant. Okay. Now, I'm gonna bring this full circle to something you already know about. You read my original version of the book.

Tim 11:06

Right.

Klayton 11:06

Right. Do you remember Holl'moren?

Tim 11:10

Is that was that that but I feel like that was at the end of the book. There was a forest. No, that was the one, okay. That was the one after they found the I'm not sure what creature it was, that was in the water. And they went into the forest to find the griffon.

Klayton 11:30

It's the home of the griffons.

Tim 11:31

Yeah.

Klayton 11:32

Okay. Holl'moren is the home of the griffons. Do you remember the description when they're walking and in the middle of this forest was this massive tree?

Tim 11:42

I don't remember that. I do remember the two paths because they had to split

Klayton 11:46

Yeah, they split up 

Tim 11:46

going two paths.

Klayton 11:46

Okay, so.

Tim 11:47

So one went towards the witches, one went to the griffons.

Klayton 11:50

Yes. So Bayomir and company went to meet the witch sisters.

Tim 11:54

Right.

Klayton 11:55

Cenriyel and the others went to go meet with the griffons. The home of the griffons is Holl'moren. It is an immense, gigantic tree. The inside of it is hollowed, and that's how that's, and the griffons will travel up and down through there safely. So think of think of home. Think of Home Tree from Avatar.

Tim 12:21

Yeah.

Klayton 12:21

Okay, this huge, massive tree standing up.

Tim 12:25

It had this spiral up the middle 

Klayton 12:25

Right. So kind of like that, that tree, Holl'moren, was a gift from the elder giant, a seedling from the Bourdain Forest.

Tim 12:36

So that tree is literally what that forest is like?

Klayton 12:40

Yes.

Tim 12:40

Jesus.

Klayton 12:42

So it is a massive forest with these massive towering trees. And that one tree, the home of the griffons, a seed from the Bourdain Forest was given to the griffons by the elder giants, and it was planted there in the Forest of Iydu-Ran, which then created the Holl'moren, their home. Okay, so that tree. Now, picture a forest of these things.

Tim 13:10

Well, I would say as a as a human, you definitely can walk through that without any problems. You'd just be like, this is a huge tree here

Tolkien inspires Klayton's lore

Tim 13:18

and there.  

Klayton 13:18

Now I know it's a little bit roundabout, but I I'm painting this picture for

Tim 13:23

to get back to the hack that you were talking about.

Klayton 13:26

Yeah, to about about the not plagiarizing, but using it as inspiration, right? Because kind of for this whole episode, this this particular hack is kind of what I'm going to be talking about. I originally um had gotten inspiration about this huge tree from Lord of the Rings. Lothlorien.

Tim 13:47

I was gonna say it has to be Lothlorien's tree.

Klayton 13:50

Lothlorien.

Tim 13:50

I can't think of any other tree that was so that big.

Klayton 13:54

I I got this idea and I was like, oh, this huge tree that people live in. That I'm like, well, it would make sense that it could be used, especially if one of that size, right? You could have an entire civilization living inside of this tree up in its boughs across the top, because the canopy would be massive, right? Um the the tops of the trees and the branches, and well, but what if it's not a normal, what if it's not like a humanoid race? What if it's something that's more animalistic, right? Because we're talking about a tree. Well, what lives in trees? Birds.

Tim 14:37

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Klayton 14:55

What about griffons? So I I took the idea of having and it also fed the idea of the Bourdain Forest because Lothlorien is a forest. Right. Um but I'm pretty sure they didn't have that full forest, wasn't all those trees that are huge that you could live in, where like yours. I mean, you have a bunch of forests, but only that real one tree is worth living in. Again, you know, just like Sam wise got the seed that he could recreate for the Shire from that big tree. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. So that's and and that's just an example of another example of what I say when I say use other things as inspiration. Like there's so many good ideas out there, there's so many good takes on already existing ideas. Trying to create everything from scratch is exhausting. Because I've done that too. I'm like, oh, well, I now I gotta try and figure this out, and I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna figure I'm gonna try and figure this out, but where do I start? As opposed to going, oh, I saw this really cool thing.

Tim 16:07

How can I use that?

Klayton 16:08

How can I use that idea,

Tim 16:10

right,

Klayton 16:11

that concept, and apply it to my story in some worldbuilding fashion that isn't an exact replica, but conceptually similar. Does that make sense?

Tim 16:27

Yeah.

Tim's hack

Tim 16:28

 

Klayton 16:28

I'm curious. I'm curious, what about you? What about what

Tim 16:33

well

Klayton 16:34

hack do you have?

Tim 16:35

The hack that I would use uh kind of goes with the book. So one of the things that I kind of did was first, I would actually I I wanted some kind of magic system. Now that that kind of went from one thing to another and kind of morphed into more of an energy source than a magic source, um, and that is the ailerin crystals. So that became kind of the main concept. But from there, after getting kind of the magic processes, I kind of walked the main character and was kind of like, okay, how would that affect an ordinary person? How would them consistently having these crystals, these magical energy kind of crystals that you can mine and do all stuff, how would that affect a person on their normal day? Um and so you kind of build from there and go, okay, how would each person be affected by these different things? And not wanting to go too far into the book to make you know to make it so I've just kind of ruined it for everybody, but you know, you kind of walk them through, and then as that happens, then you start becoming you go through a normal day of how all of this affects it, and that's also how you kind of start out with in each one of the books that I'm doing is how does each one of those crystals affect people throughout the day? How does it affect a normal person? Um, in each one of these five, one of them affects this book, then as I go through each one, they're gonna affect people in a normal way. They're they because of things that are happening, um they start to kind of go out of control. Like the source of what they're doing, the the the the power behind them, uh starts to I can't say be corrupt, because it's not corrupt, but it starts to become stronger kind of in a bad way. Um and it affects everything in in the life. So normally they could be like, okay, this can help with growth. Well, after this specific crystal helps with growth, well, how does that affect things once it starts to it doesn't just help with growth, it's it has a whole cycle of life. Well, what's the cycle of life? Growth, decay, renewal. And how does that affect things if one of them's not working, right? So if something's not working properly, then it's not going to go through the full cycle of what it needs to, it's going to affect the world differently. So I kind of would say that one of the hacks that I did to kind of get through the whole section is see how something affects someone in a normal day. What is their normal day? And then how do these changes affect those normal people? Um so I can't say that there's anything extravagant like what you have or yours, but that's kind of what I did with my book is start out with the questions first, why? Like, why is all this happening? Two is what do you what did you want with this whole thing? Like my whole thing is I really like magic systems. So I always start with that, and then I kind of build myself off with you know, how would this affect this person in a normal day? And then start building into that and create a story from there.

Klayton 20:54

Have you ever taken inspiration for something? But then added something from somewhere else to create your own idea. You know kind of like fuse two ideas together to kind of create the nucleus of what you're gonna.

Tim 21:12

Yes and no. Like, I should say there there is a there is a book series that I am thinking about doing. And it didn't come out to start out with the way that I thought it was gonna start, but then it kind of morphed into and I I didn't mean it to start that way, but if you've ever seen The Wheel of Time, and you have um the main character, I am really having a hard time starting with his name, it starts with an R. But you know, he's like this guy that has magic that all the women have magic, or I shouldn't say they all do, but women have magic, and it corrupts And it corrupts males that do have it, and that's why they take out these males. Well, in this case, I kind of had something similar that goes along in that aspect of it. But in this case, it's based off of bloodline. And the thing is, is in this case, everyone has magic. Guys, girls, kids. You gain your blood powers and all that stuff, as you get older, it manifests. Well, the lower end, it could be something small. It could be something like I have the ability to create fire and I can use it for baking or keeping warm. But as you get, as say there's others that can have a higher bloodline than that, which can manifest to having the ability to kind of see the future in a way. Not necessarily see the full future, but you can see possibilities of the future, right? Or you could in some case control the complete weather. You know, you have the ability to do many different things. So, yes, I've I've I kind of look at something and see how different, like I've I think the part of it where I saw this was actually watching it on a show. So some kind of like you know, those daily I don't know what it's called, but daily motions or something like that. They have like these hour-long episodes that only go for like 10-minute episodes at a time, but it adds up to be in an hour, and they have these like almost C rated movie type things. If you watch some of those, sometimes they're really corny, but it's pretty interesting because sometimes they have some interesting magical systems and things like that, or things that you could watch, and so it kind of became an inspiration from something from there, and then as I was kind of forming it, and then I was like, Oh, this is kind of similar to the wheel of time in a way, but in this case, I also morphed it to be where there isn't one powerful person, but in this case, there will be one person that ends up being the highest level of bloodline, which is unseen of, unheard of. So it'll come down to why does why why is this person or this why is this person have this first level bloodline versus he was born with the lowest seventh bloodline? Why why does this person have it? And it'll go through the story of why it's relevant, why it's important, why, and and it's not like this person is automatically the strongest person. It's not like it manifests and it's like the like the strongest. He slowly gains it as he goes through the series to figure out what is the purpose, why is it all of a sudden happening to this person when it hasn't been there for thousands of years? Um, so to get back to what you were saying, yes, you kind of do take inspiration from different places and kind of make it your own and change it up a little bit and make it different things. So I have, and it does happen. Um sometimes it's not until you think about this, and then you're like, this is actually really close to this other one. Um that it even became a thing. So I didn't even think about it until after I started putting this together that it even came close to the say the wheels of time.

Klayton 26:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I like I like your illustration of you know a comparison that something similar draws your inspiration and you're able to flush that out. And it as you flush things out, like it pulls you further away from your original idea, but it doesn't change the fact that you were so inspired by it. Right. And I think I think there's a there's a stigma about it that and I by no means am I saying it's like this industry thing, and I'm that everybody's like, no, you shouldn't do that, everything should be created. No, I I've I've heard it from a lot of people. So I wouldn't exact I I wouldn't exactly call it I mean I wouldn't call it at all my idea, right? I because I've heard it from so many other people. But the idea of use other people's ideas and concepts as inspiration for your own. There's nothing wrong with that. That's how everything has come about, right? Something things didn't just appear for no reason. There was inspiration somewhere. I mean, Tolkien created the Elvish language from a book of Finnish grammar. Right? Yep. Um that to me is a really a really big hack that I like to use because it's helped me with a lot of things too. I've also taken a lot of inspiration from the Bible and stories from the Bible too. Um so yeah, I I I don't I don't know why people have such an issue with that. But I I think it's it helps out tremendously with a lot of creative creative development, as well as creative creative blocks too, right?

Tim 28:15

Because that's that's always a thing we experience is it's it's definitely uh a struggle. Because sometimes you just can't get you you get to a certain point and then things just stop. You can't you can't think, okay, what what's next, honestly? What what's coming next? I I kind of know where it's gonna end, but how to get there.

Klayton 28:38

So well, I think we're good. I think we we can wrap that up. Uh we want to thank you for listening to this episode of the World Kiln Podcast.

Tim 28:51

Please tell us your thoughts on what is a good building hack you use in the comment section.

Klayton 28:58

We'd love to hear the different methods, ideas, and techniques you use to build your worlds.

Tim 29:05

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Klayton 29:14

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Tim 29:26

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