Cultures and Beyond (The Art of World Building) - Hardcover

Ellefson, Randy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1946995118 ISBN 13: 9781946995117

Publisher: Evermore Press, LLC, 2025

Synopsis

Creating a unique, immersive setting one culture at a time

A guide for authors, gamers, and hobbyists

Written to help fantasy and science fiction storytellers, game designers, gamers, and hobbyists,

CULTURES AND BEYOND (THE ART OF WORLD BUILDING, #3) is a how-to guide for filling an imaginary world with fascinating societies. It includes chapters on creating culture, organizations, armed forces, religions, the supernatural, magic systems, technological and supernatural items, languages, names, and various systems our world will have, from health, educational, legal, and commerce, to information systems. You’ll learn how to leverage real world cultures while making them seem original. Even those who’ve never invented a world will soon be masters as the author’s decades of experience walk readers through using pre-made templates that make world building faster, better, and easier to complete.

Invent interesting laws, crimes, and punishments that involve imaginary creatures or technologies, and learn how to leverage trial by ordeal and other judicial acts from Earth’s past. Determine how much education is available and what form it takes. Create currencies for different places while keeping them easy for your audience to fathom, plus learn how to determine the value to assign labor, materials, products, time, and more. Master the art of creating naming styles for different societies. Fashion new military groups in gritty detail. Dream up sensible rules for magic, its practitioners, the supernatural and what happens when things go wrong. Learn what kind of files you’ll need to create, how to organize them, and get jump started with a dozen free templates you’ll use again and again.

CULTURES AND BEYOND is the third volume in THE ART OF WORLD BUILDING, the most in-depth, multi-volume series of its kind.

Build better, faster.

About this title

About the Author

Author and world building strategist Randy Ellefson has written fantasy fiction and created fictional worlds since the 1980s. In addition to authoring the most detailed world building books available, he's the founder and lead instructor at World Building University, blogs regularly on the subject, and hosts a popular podcast. The Writer's of the Future contest has recognized his writing three times.

He has a Bachelor's of Music in classical guitar but has always been more of a rocker, having released several albums and earned endorsements from music companies.

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• Website ➜ fiction dot randyellefson dot com
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• Podcast ➜ artofworldbuilding dot com/podcasts

Edition details

• Publisher: Evermore Press, LLC
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1946995118
• ISBN 13: 9781946995117
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 465