Behind the Screen: Cultural Queries Part I

Welcome to the first of a tips and tricks series I'm calling Behind the Screen. Not the most imaginative name, but it fits.

This first series deals with creating cultures for worldbuilding. There are dozens, if not hundreds of guides out there on the internet but all the same I thought I'd share my thoughts on the topic. One of the most important, and in some respects least looked at, aspects of creating a fictional world is devising the cultures that reside within it.

In most homebrew settings that I have seen, the designers fall into a trap. It is an all too easy trap to fall into and it is one that I have gotten caught in more than once. Heck, I would be surprised if there wasn't an example or two in this very blog. The trap is to copy and paste a real-world culture into a fictional world. Sure, there are examples of cultures like the Dothraki from Game of Thrones that don't, but I'm not talking about million dollar entertainment projects.

Cozmology: Zarth, the God-Corpse

     The easiest plane to reach after the River of Dreams, the only entities that are regularly conjured to the Material Plane are fire elementals. Despite an inability to communicate with the natives, enough has been gleaned from the rare resurrected person and interviewing other outsiders to paint a picture of the plane.

     The first thing to be understood is that Zarth is massive, as can be expected of the corpse of a god. The most knowledgeable outsider interviewed, a demon under Zorutsok called Tarnathak, described traveling from ankle to knee as having taken him more than a year of traveling without pause. This considers difficulties due to terrain and his ability to outrace a warhorse. When asked why he had traveled to Zarth in the first place, Tarnathak’s reply was a toothy grin.

Languages in the Green Coast

Dozens of languages are spoken throughout the Green Coast, and most languages have distinct regional accents and even full-fledged dialects. Though the lingua franca is Aethron, frequently called the Common Tongue or Common, most races have their own languages that they prefer to use when with each other. In addition to the civilized races, the savage races have a myriad of languages and the races that live under the ocean waves also possess their own, unique means of communicating.

Green Coast Calendar

Even with much of the Green Coast’s history lost to time, a ­long and storied history has been recorded. Though several groups claim to have created it, most scholars agree that the current calendar was put into widespread use by the priestesses of Aelma. Each year has 367 days divided into 11 months. Each month has either 33 or 34 days, split by 7-day weeks.

The first month of the year, Chazron, begins the day after the summer solstice. The following months are Aesto, Noth, Dartos, Moros, Lethis, Krynik, Estas, Vorn, Aras, and Lystmel. Chazron, Dartos, Estas, and Lystem have 34 days while the remaining months have 33. Like our world, a week is seven days, though the names for the days of the week differ: Firstday, Mythday, Valeday, Wheatday, Stormday, Aleday, and Lastday. Below you will find a calendar for the current year: 1097 of the Age of Northern Expansion.