Worldbuilding Workshop I: Sourcing Inspiration

Surely, someone famous at some point has said that “inspiration can come from anywhere.” Most great creators get their ideas from elsewhere, after all. Nothing new under the sun, great artists steal, etc. There’s a lot of sayings that promote iteration in media, and I am perhaps one of the biggest proponents for that approach. When it comes to creating a game, a world, or a story, I leave no stone unturned for inspiration.

My most personally cited example, leading all the way back to the beginning of my current worldbuilding project, began with a simple pun. Back in 2015, when fleshing out parts of the world to start a campaign, I had been into Magic: the Gathering. Anyone who played the game back then might remember the contemporary block/set of the time: Kaladesh. Kaladesh is unique in the MtG multiverse for having a substance/energy source known as aether. At the time, I was laying the foundations for the most technologically advanced place in the setting. I decided to take a page from the lore of Kaladesh to explain why one specific landmass was so much more advanced than the others.

I could have just ripped that concept wholesale and used it in my setting as-is; however, I believe the iteration of an idea to be equally important to, if not more important than, the source. Something that struck my brain at some point during the process of iteration was the idea that this substance needed to be harvested and refined. For a part of the world that focused on aesthetics and themes like dwarven architecture, steampunk, and apocalyptic wastes, I thought it would be most appropriate if it was much like coal in our world: mined from the earth. Thus came the term, “aether ore”.

The pun was not the source of the idea, but it did convince me to keep the name, and, once again, iterate on it. This substance, even when unrefined, can be freely transmuted into any element or combination of elements. Essentially, when it comes to its (al)chemical make-up, it can be “either-or”.

The foundation for an entire nation’s economy, politics, and culture can revolve around something as simple as their energy source. This one singular idea sprouted many others, such as the Aethertech Corporation, a megacompany founded on refining the ore and using it in new technologies; then came the Aethertouched, individuals blessed by the god of invention and the forge, able to transmute the ore with merely a thought. It even sparked a war between gods, fighting over control of the substance when it first manifested.

There are many more mysteries and points of lore about aether that tie into some of the deepest secrets of the setting. It should be clear by now that one singular idea or source of inspiration can be the catalyst for many others. The effects of this substance, its properties and its uses, the legends and lore surrounding it, all of these laid the foundations for what my setting is today. No idea is too small, or too silly, if you work with it and refine it well enough.