Worldbuilding

In contrast to the traditional scholarly and literary focus upon geographical, mythopoetic and narrative, aesthetic and architectural, and historical elements of world-building, this essay will aim instead to unpack the value of culture, society, and politics to game world-building. These are dimensions that have been rarely analyzed by scholars, or considered fully in literature designed to aid the world-building creator. Nor have they often examined in behind-the-scenes media relating the process of game design to interested audiences. Nevertheless, they have been an inextricable and essential component of many of the most detailed video game world-building efforts to date, such as the Deus Ex, Bioshock, Command and Conquer, Crusader Kings, and Soulsborne series, and games such as Alpha Centauri (1999). However, their lack of physicality or easy presentation when compared to the traditional world-building elements —since political, social, and cultural dimensions of life tend to be complex, diffuse, actively enacted, or embodied— may seem harder to depict in a game than elements such as architecture or geography that are readily visually portrayed, and harder to relate in a design context to the interested observer. This essay is therefore designed specifically to unpack these three dimensions of world-building, relate their importance to the consideration of constructing densely-detailed video game worlds, and examine how these dimensions are constructed to intersect with gameplay and bring such concerns into the foreground of the player’s experiences. Exploring the work and its interweaving of the social, cultural, and political elements of world-building alongside core gameplay objectives, the essay will argue for a renewed interest within game studies in such elements of game design, the potential for new kinds of gameplay that can emerge from detailed simulation and presentation of these aspects, and their centrality to any comprehensive understanding of world-building in video games.

Landscapes evolve. Forests turn into cities, rivers change course and even mountains slowly erode. Perhaps it stands to reason then, that the landscapes of the fantastic evolve as well. In recent times, the evolution of the imaginary worlds found in speculative works of fiction appears to favour diversity and inclusiveness, keeping in touch with wider societal trends. This transition in fantastic chronotopes is extensively chronicled in the genre of Tabletop Role-Playing Games, or TRPGs for short. The present paper aims to examine the evolution of fantastical landscapes within the very influential TRPG genre through the combined framework of narrative and cultural theories. The settings of the most successful TRPGs, Dungeons and Dragons and World of Darkness, will serve as examples. The results will provide valuable insights into how and why the worlds of speculative fiction change over time, often in response to wider societal change.

The article is the first Polish attempt to provide a theoretical framework for a relatively unknown term ‘allotopia’, coined by Umberto Eco in essay Il mondi della fantascienza. However, instead of following rather poststructuralist Eco’s reasoning, the text proceeds with the deconstruction of the underlain dichotomy between real (natural, ordinary, known, empirical, realistic) and unreal (unnatural, extraordinary, unknown, counterempirical, fantastic) world — which is subsequently exposed as fundamental for heretofore fantasy and SF studies. Consequently, the paper encourages postmodern reading of those ‘allotopian’ texts that resign from supporting a colonial, two-world model in favour of philosophy conscious worldbuilding.

In: Marta Boni (ed.), World Building, Transmedia, fan, Industries, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, pp. 47-61.

Fantasy and Science Fiction seem to be crucial genres for techniques of transmedia storytelling, with notable contemporary examples such as The Matrix, Star Wars, Doctor Who, Lost, and Heroes. What does Fantasy/Science-Fiction offer as a structural or thematic framework for constructing storyworlds that cross multiple media? If world building is a key concern of transmedia storytelling (Jenkins), the nature of world-creating in these genres is pivotal, and certainly much more evident than in crime, mystery stories and even horror stories; in Science Fiction and Fantasy, in fact, the creation of detailed settings seems to be a structural necessity.
My contribution will focus on Science Fiction writing from a semiotic and narratological point of view, with particular reference to studies on possible narrative worlds and on enunciation. Firstly I will briefly summarize some key aspects of the theory of possible worlds with regard to the Science Fiction genre; on this basis I will tackle a definition of Science Fiction worlds before investigating more deeply their nature. Finally, I will explore the question of narrative transmission, both in regard to the first elements that allow access to the fictional world, and more generally in relation to the enunciative modalities of the genre.

El acto de contar historias forma parte inherente de nuestro comportamiento comoseres humanos. Desde tiempos arcaicos hemos sentido la necesidad de transmitir un relato, que, en definitiva, significa transportar a nuestro receptor a una nueva realidad. El objetivo de este ensayo es vislumbrar el modo en que la realidad en que vivimos influye en esa nueva realidad literaria. Para ello propondremos un análisis para obras literarias que pondremos en práctica mediante dos muestras escogidas del género fantástico (El Señor de los Anillos) y del género realista (Madame Bovary).

World-building in Dungeons and Dragons as an Environmental Experience

An ecocritical based analysis of the worldbuilding in Dungeons and Dragons, focused on the relationships between the concepts of natural and social environments, and the liminal spaces in between.

Faisant le pari que la connivence étroite entretenue entre jeu de rôle grandeur nature et engagement politique dans les pays nordiques n’est pas accidentelle, l’argumentaire de ce mémoire vise à aborder la question suivante : quels sont les éléments ludiques, structurels ou communautaires associés au jeu de rôle grandeur nature qui favorisent le développement ou le maintien d’une conscience politique chez ses pratiquantes ?
Le propos s'appuie principalement sur une ethnographie de six mois menée auprès de pratiquantes de jeu de rôle grandeur nature en Finlande.

Tolkien’s fictional world is not merely the backdrop for the unfolding
plot, but rather a ‘protagonist’ in its own right. The analysis of the places
visited by the Fellowship in the first part of the narrative (from Bag End
to Lothlórien) will illustrate the function of places in Tolkien’s work.
Their function is threefold. First, they primarily constitute his narrative
universe; second, the description of the habitat of a people is an
important instrument to characterise its inhabitants and supplements or
even replaces a straight-forward characterisation. And third, the
assignment of a ‘homeland’ to a people implies a tacit approval. In a
sense, the lack of a place of origin, of a ‘home’, points to a moral
deficiency.

Scholars of crime fiction continuously discuss what Nordic Noir series have in common, arguing that it is a genre, a brand and a style respectively. Instead, this article explores Nordic Noir as an atmosphere, observed through the concept of stimmung, and argues that affective world-building in TV-series should be analysed beyond matters of style and narrative. Based on an analysis of The Bridge (2011–2018), the article discusses the aesthetic and critical potentialities of attuning oneself to the melancholic world of Nordic Noir and demonstrates that the affective quality of a series impacts how its themes can be read.

En esta investigación de carácter exploratorio el autor analiza los elementos que definen el mundo ficcional de la historieta argentina de ciencia ficción "El Eternauta", para luego identificar su evocación en las expansiones narrativas y mediáticas más significativas realizadas desde 1957 a la fecha: las precuelas, secuelas y el desarrollo de historias de otros personajes en formato de historieta y a través de otros medios, como la radio e internet; la apropiación que hacen diferentes grupos de la figura del Eternauta y las comunidades que discuten e interpretan la obra; las adaptaciones, instalaciones, sitios web y otras narrativas de diversos autores que circulan en distintas formas mediáticas.

La tesis, a su vez, es parte de un proyecto más abarcador que incluye una plataforma digital que aporta contenidos a la investigación y alberga diversos recursos contextualizadores de la historieta: www.continum.com.ar.

Celem niniejszego tekstu jest przedstawienie spójnej propozycji metodologicznej dla interdyscyplinarnych badań nad światotwórczymi narracjami fantastycznymi w literaturze, filmie oraz grze wideo. Przedstawiona metodologia stanowi summę najważniejszych dla teorii światotwórstwa tez semiologii (encyklopedia kulturowa jako fikcyjne pole odniesienia), narratologii kognitywistycznej (storyworld Davida Hermana, transfikcjonalność i ksenoencyklopedia Richarda Saint-Gelaisa), medioznawstwa (pojemność encyklopedyczna narracji u Janet Murray), ludologii (worldness Lisbeth Klastrup) i badań transmedialnych (narracje transmedialne u Henry’ego Jenkinsa). Na podstawie tych wszystkich teorii wypracowany zostaje autorski model przedstawiający stadia powstawania i najważniejsze komponenty narracji światotwórczej, wraz z egzemplifikacją na podstawie trzech największych światów literatury, filmu oraz gry wideo, dowodzącą kluczowych dla całego rozumowania tez (1) o dokonującym się współcześnie rozszczepieniu świata narracji (storyworld) i pojedynczej, osadzonej w jego realiach reprezentacji diegetycznej (storyline) oraz (2) o integrującej funkcji encyklopedii danego świata narracji, wyznaczającej warunki dostępności dla każdej ze współmożliwych fabuł. W efekcie, tekst nie tylko przedstawia niecytowane dotąd na gruncie polskim koncepcje teoretyczne i filozoficzne (jak chociażby koncepcje Klastrup czy Saint-Gelaisa), ale i dowodzi słuszności ich adaptacji do studiów nad fantastycznym światotwórstwem, za którego analizą dotąd nie nadążała strukturalistyczna nomenklatura, paraliżująca refleksję interdyscyplinarną paradygmatyczną wykładnią świata przedstawionego i predefiniowanymi, inter-, a nie transmedialnymi, mechanizmami tłumaczenia go na języki odmiennych mediów.

The worldbuilding practices of science fiction authors have the potential to play a key role in society, given that they involve the design and depiction of complex, alternative realities set in the future. This potential is acknowledged by Transition Design--an emerging area of practice that melds futures-based narratives, foresight, and systems-thinking, amongst other disciplines. Transition Design goes beyond social innovation to envision radically new images of the future, and pathways towards more sustainable systemic states. To facilitate the design of and transition towards sustainable futures, this Major Research Paper introduces the Seven Foundations of Worldbuilding: a model that integrates a new superstructure of complex systems with backcasting methodology.

This thesis examines the relationship between sub-creation (fictional world building) and anti-modern sentiments in the fictional works of William Morris and J.R.R. Tolkien, with a particular focus on the pastness of those imagined worlds. Chapter one explores the stylistic and aesthetic elements of William Morris’s late prose romances, focusing on The Wood Beyond the World. Chapter two focuses on Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, looking at how both thematic and syntactic elements of the text evoke the past and highlight problems with the present. Chapter three synthesizes the readings from the previous chapters, looking more closely at the relationship between the nature of the two authors’ fiction and their ideological beliefs about industrialism and modernity. This thesis also discusses criticisms both authors faced, and highlights the ways in which their texts stand up to those criticisms.

There is no denying that transmedia storytelling has been gaining increasing attention in recent media, literature, and game studies. Introduced in Henry Jenkins’ famous (though not aspiring to be groundbreaking) book Convergence Culture (cf. JENKINS 2006), the term has already appeared—to recall the most notable contributions—in media (cf. DENA 2009; SCOLARI 2009), game (cf. KLASTRUP/TOSCA 2004; THON 2009), literature (cf. WOLF 2012), television (cf. EVANS 2011) and, last but not least, narrative studies (cf. RYAN 2001; 2004; 2006; 2014), becoming, therefore, a hallmark of contemporary participatory culture. This instinctive association of transmedia studies with everything labeled ›new media storytelling‹ may be, however, one of the term’s few disadvantages. After all, what was the third edition of Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), if not transmedial? Indeed, the work entails a fantastic story (the imaginary voyage of Hythloday), fictional world-building (the foundation of the island of Utopia), concept art (the woodcuts by Ambrosius Holbein), metafictional augmentations (fictive poems, dialogues, and letters), and even a facsimile of the imaginary alphabet. This is possibly why more universally attributed transmedia studies could follow the path marked by Richard Saint-Gelais’ concept of transfictionality (cf. SAINT-GELAIS 2007; 2011), Marie-Laure Ryan’s distinctions between transmediality and transfictionality (cf. RYAN 2013), or even David Herman’s notion of the whole transmedial narratology (cf. HERMAN 2004).

En muchas obras literarias de fantasía se pone énfasis en características que sugieren mundos ideados que no pertenecen a nuestra realidad pero sin embargo, para los personajes que viven en ellos, esas características irreales forman parte de su vivir cotidiano.
Las obras de Gabriel García Márquez tales como Cien años de soledad (1967), “Los funerales de la Mamá Grande” (1962), La Hojarasca (1955), La Mala Hora (1962), El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (1961), y Monólogo de Isabel viendo llover (1955), tienen en común un universo que los representa, esto es, un pueblo llamado Macondo, que fue inspirado por el lugar que avistó Gabriel García Márquez cuando era niño, hecho relatado en su obra Vivir para contarla (2002).

The concept of transmedia storyworlds unfolding across complex serial narrative structures has become increasingly important to the study of modern media industries and audience communities. Yet, the precise connections between transmedia networks, serial structures, and narrative processes often remain underdeveloped. The dispersion of potential story elements across a diverse collection of media platforms and technologies prompts questions concerning the function of seriality in the absence of fixed instalments, the meaning of narrative when plot is largely a personal construction of each audience member, and the nature of storytelling in the absence of a unifying author, or when authorship itself takes on a serial character. This special issue opens a conversation on the intersection of these three concepts and their implications for a variety of disciplines, artistic practices, and philosophies. By rethinking these concepts from fresh perspectives, the collection challenges scholars to consider how a wide range of academic, aesthetic, and social phenomena might be productively thought through using the overlapping lenses of transmedia, seriality, and narrativity. Thus, the collection gathers scholars from life-writing, sport, film studies, cultural anthropology, fine arts, media studies, and literature, all of whom find common ground at this fruitful crossroads. This breadth also challenges the narrow use of transmedia as a specialized term to describe current developments in corporate mass media products that seek to exploit the affordances of hybrid digital media environments. Many prominent scholars, including Marie-Laure Ryan and Henry Jenkins, acknowledge that a basic definition of transmedia as stories with extensions and reinterpretations in numerous media forms includes the oldest kinds of human expression, such as the ancient storyworlds of Arthurian legend and The Odyssey. Yet, what Jenkins terms " top-down " transmedia—that is, pre-planned and often corporate transmedia—has received a disproportionate share of scholarly attention, with modern franchises like The Matrix, the Marvel universe, and Lost serving as common exemplars (Flanagan, Livingstone, and McKenny; Hadas; Mittell; Scolari). Thus, many of the contributions to this issue push the boundaries of what has commonly been studied as transmedia as well as the limits of what may be considered a serial structure or even a story. For example, these papers imagine how an autobiography may also be a digital concept album unfolding in reverse, how participatory artistic performances may unfold in unpredictable instalments across physical and digital space, and how studying sports fandom as a long series of transmedia narrative elements encourages scholars to grapple with the unique structures assembled by audiences of non-fictional story worlds. Setting these experimental offerings into dialogue with entries that approach the study of transmedia in a more established manner provides the basis for building bridges between such recognized conversations in new media studies and potential collaborations with other disciplines and subfields of media studies.

Medieval Christians arguably lived in a 'real' world – a tangible place in which they lived, worked, loved, hated, and died – but through a process of world-building continually reconstructed it anew around themselves as the mythical land they called 'Christendom.' This was predicated first on reconceptualizing and then ultimately on removing (or attempting to remove) the non-Christians in their midst. In twelfth-and thirteenth-century England, Jews were the prime focus of such efforts, demonized and monsterized, and then expelled en masse. Still, it seems that every work that seeks to reconstruct England by othering Jews also undercuts its efforts by collapsing differences in time and space, so that England becomes everywhere, and the present moment becomes everywhen. This brief essay will consist of a whirlwind tour through the Hereford Map, tracing various vectors along its buckling surface, to and from that small, marginalized protuberance at the lower-left corner of creation – Britain.

Landscapes evolve. Forests turn into cities, rivers change course and even mountains slowly erode. Perhaps it stands to reason then, that the landscapes of the fantastic evolve as well. In recent times, the evolution of the imaginary worlds found in speculative works of fiction appears to favour diversity and inclusiveness, keeping in touch with wider societal trends. This transition in fantastic chronotopes is extensively chronicled in the genre of Tabletop Role-Playing Games, or TRPGs for short. The present paper aims to examine the evolution of fantastical landscapes within the very influential TRPG genre through the combined framework of narrative and cultural theories. The settings of the most successful TRPGs, Dungeons and Dragons and World of Darkness, will serve as examples. The results will provide valuable insights into how and why the worlds of speculative fiction change over time, often in response to wider societal change.

Στην παρούσα εργασία εξετάζεται η πρακτική της κοσμοπλασίας (worldbuilding), η χρήση δηλαδή καλλιτεχνικών μέσων (λογοτεχνία, οπτικές τέχνες κ.α.) για την κατασκευή και παρουσίαση κόσμων. Αρχικά γίνεται μια προσπάθεια να εντοπιστούν οι θεμελιώδεις συνθετικές αρχές που διέπουν την κοσμοπλασία. Οι αρχές αυτές εξετάζονται στο context της fantasy λογοτεχνίας, ως κατεξοχήν πεδίο εφαρμογής και ανάπτυξης της συνθετικής αυτής πρακτικής. Χρησιμοποιώντας παραδείγματα από δύο από τα πιο επηρεαστικά κείμενα αυτής της παράδοσης (το Σιλμαρίλλιον του J. R. R. Tolkien και το έπος της Γαιοθάλασσας της U. K. Le Guin), η εργασία αποσκοπεί να σκιαγραφηθούν εκείνες οι πλευρές που αποδίδουν στα έργα μια συγκεκριμένη «κοσμικότητα» (worldness), καθώς και οι συνθετικές αρχές που τις παράγουν. Στην παρούσα έρευνα υποστηρίζεται πως η κατασκευή κόσμων μπορεί να εννοηθεί ως μια συνθετική πρακτική που εμφυσά σε κατασκευασμένα σύνολα σαφείς εννοιολογικές συσχετίσεις και νοηματοδοτικές σχέσεις, οι οποίες δημιουργούν με το κοινό μια σχέση κατοίκησης. Με την ανάλυση των δύο παραδειγμάτων, επισημαίνεται ότι η κατανόηση αυτών των νοηματοδοτικών πλαισίων εκφράζεται μέσα από συνθετικά σύνολα (θεματικές σχέσεις, χωρικές διαμορφώσεις, μοτίβα αφηγηματικά και μη ...). Η κοσμοπλασία, ιδωμένη ως χτίσιμο ενός περιβάλλοντος βάσει κάποιων ιδεών και επανεξέταση αυτών σύμφωνα με τα συμπεράσματα που προκύπτουν από την κατοίκηση του εν λόγω περιβάλλοντος, αναδεικνύεται ως ένα χρήσιμο σχεδιαστικό εργαλείο.

Worldbuilding in video games is typically  associated with the creation of immersive virtual environments. In the independent puzzle adventure OneShot (Little Cat Feet 2016), however, worldbuilding becomes the game’s central theme in a highly self-referential manner. OneShot presents a multilay-ered universe in which not only characters and players but the game’s very code seem to move freely between  ontological  levels. Drawing attention to the aesthetics and mechanics of worldbuilding and deconstructing the architecture of its own game world, OneShot invites reflection on the relation between fiction and computation; the virtual and the actual.

This companion provides a definitive and cutting-edge guide to the study of imaginary and virtual worlds across a range of media including literature, television, film, and games. From the Star Trek universe, Thomas More’s classic Utopia, and J. R. R. Tolkien’s Arda,to elaborate, user-created gameworlds like Minecraft, contributors present interdisciplinary perspectives on authorship, world structure/design, and narrative. The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds offers new approaches to imaginary worlds both as an art form and cultural phenomenon, explorations of the technical and creative dimensions of world-building, and studies of specific worlds and world-builders.

This article looks at how futures studies can use storyworlds to address some of the challenges the field faces. It provides an overview of social constructionism, integral theory/integral futures, and sense-making in the context of the current evolution of futures methodologies. This article also examines the role of narratives generally and science fiction in particular in exploring and communicating about the future. An overview of what storyworlds are and how they have been used in science fiction and futures studies is followed by a pair of cases studies focused on two worldbuilding projects, one for the fictional world of Rilao and the other for the storyworld created for the 2002 film Minority Report. The article concludes with an analysis of how the worldbuilding process is compatible with social constructionism, integral theory/integral futures, and sense-making.

Increasingly, anthropologists, political theorists and philosophers are calling for imaginative and creative analyses and theories that might help us think and bring about an otherwise. Disappointment responds to this call by showing how collaboration between an anthropologist and a political movement of marginalized peoples can disclose new possibilities for being and acting politically. Drawing from nearly a decade of research with the global anti-drug war movement, Jarrett Zigon puts ethnography in dialogue with both political theory and continental philosophy to rethink some of the most fundamental ontological, political and ethical concepts. The result is to show that ontological starting points have real political implications, and thus, how an alternative ontological starting point can lead to new possibilities for building worlds more ethically attuned to their inhabitants.

Buy online: https://www.amazon.com/Disappointment-Toward-Critical-Hermeneutics-Worldbuilding/dp/0823278247/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512669155&sr=8-1&keywords=zigon

This study aims to evaluate the structures of Azeroth, the fictional built world of the World of Warcraft video game, as samples of vernacular architecture. Therefore, the scope of the study contains video game architecture, vernacular architecture, and structure samples from the mentioned video game. For the methods of the study, first, the storytelling and worldbuilding concepts are investigated. Then, the use of architecture in video games is analyzed in the light of pioneer academic studies. Moreover, the term vernacular architecture is introduced to name the structure of World of Warcraft as samples of it. The elements affecting the design of vernacular architecture samples are mentioned. Finally, in the case study, the settlements and the structures of the fictional races with distinct cultures, from the mentioned video game, are studied in detail. And in result, some unique determinations of mentioned game's use of architecture, in both video game architecture and fictional vernacular architecture terms, are proposed.

Recently, political anthropologists and theorists have attempted to address two interrelated concerns. The first is a seemingly widespread lack of motivation for participating in political activity. The second is a political and intellectual focus on critique, rather than on offering alternatives for possible futures. Addressing these two problematics is increasingly urgent in a time characterized by disappointment, anxiety, and precarity . . .

In this essay, I look at non-narratival world-building. I introduce the concept of critical world-building and outline my view of world-building as architecture. "World-architecture" then provides the basis for my analysis. I propose that the world-architectural way of reading a world would work just as well with worlds built in any medium, textual or non-textual, narrated or non-narrated. My first example shows how a collection of “lore” in a computer game or (in my case) a graphic-novel app can offer material for a scholar who analyses the world of the story. Then I turn to a world without any explicit narrative, using the illustrations from a Dungeons & Dragons rule book to show what they can say about the implied game world.

This paper first summarizes practices of an emerging design domain lacking definition in French language: narrative design, the design of fictional elements and other narrative assets. Worldbuilding, the creation of imaginary worlds, and “world-making”, the effective production of stories by its virtue, or the production of scenarios, documents and systems involved in cultural products development, predates game design and encompass a large set of techniques based on a variety of creative, theoretical and professional traditions. In addition, understanding how the production of scenarios, documents and interactive systems intertwine throughout the development of cultural products has become essential in order to achieve an aesthetic content appreciated by the audience and therefore expected in the competitive arena of video game development. For these reasons, in a second step, a formal approach for understanding what constitutes narrative design is introduced in order to guide members of the game studies and design research communities. The EST framework (Elements, Schemata, Transversals), a useful tool for fiction design, interactive storytelling and story-rich video game development, offers guidelines for criticism while being beneficial to iterative game design processes.
Keywords : design practice, video game design, narrative, fiction, game writing, transmedia storytelling, worldbuilding, framework.

This paper investigates two questions. First, why did Tolkien assign the Hobbits "a Mannish language of the upper Anduin, akin to that of the Rohirrim" (LotR, Appendix F 1130) as the first language of which we have some knowledge? Second, why does Tolkien deny the Hobbits a distinct linguistic identity and turn them into linguistic chameleons? (https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol40/iss1/11)

This practice-based PhD takes the form of a web-based archive of sounds and music from a parafictional seaside town in North East England called Seaton Snook, and an accompanying commentary. The archive features a wide range of individual sound pieces across a range of materialities, including artistic compositions, pedagogic compositions, recorded musical performances and field recordings. It also includes interviews and transcriptions, photographs of handwritten scores, and accompanying explanatory information. The project draws on Carrie Lambert-Beatty’s notion of parafiction (artistic practices that play in the overlap between fact and fiction) and Peter Cusack’s practice of sonic journalism, to investigate aspects of twentieth century and contemporary North Eastern English culture. More broadly, this project investigates how listener experience can be shaped by the stories we tell about musical works, the compositional process, and social and biographical aspects surrounding the work. The commentary first reviews a range of related artworks, to situate the work and to introduce the key concepts and frameworks. This section is completed with in-depth discussion of a number of noteworthy parafictional artworks – including case studies of works by artist Damien Hirst, composer Jennifer Walshe and filmmaker Peter Greenaway – and an assessment of the cultural and economic neglect of the North East of England. There follows an explanation of my methodology and an exegesis of my own compositions, drawing on language and frameworks established in earlier parts of the commentary. A creative approach to the exegesis is taken, in order to further demonstrate and explore the parafictional character of the main project. The commentary concludes with a discussion of possible further artistic and pedagogic outcomes of Seaton Snook.

The urge "to should" on others is an example of worldbuilding that Homo has engaged in since the very first meeting was held to discuss "What's for dinner?" This essay, in assuming that Egalitarian Revolution of the Paleolithic took place, argues that morality is one outcome of this worldbuilding bias, or preference, as a moral urge, and that this urge has no concept of, nor care for, "the good" and is not moral itself, merely that survival with this urge among us, urging us on. to should on (our perception of) others, allows us to construct social goods, among our other things.

DC Comics has produced several iterations portraying their most famous superheroes over the years. Their latest film, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, attempts to start a DC worldbuilding process to create a Transmedia universe that can match the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This essay discusses some components of DC's story world and how these flaws prohibit them to create a symbolic universe with meaning for the audience. The DC Cinematic Universe fails to consider Transmedia storytelling as a financial and narratological gain. DC is focusing too heavily on establishing the story world and meta-narrative in an accelerated pace, known as Hyper Worldbuilding.

The paper aims to analyse worldbuilding strategies in a variety of eutopian (predominantly in literature) and dystopian narratives (in literature, movies and video games), in relation to the world-centred analyse that disseminates in contemporary narrative studies. Consequently, the study derives two possible worldbuilding models from a representative number of utopian texts, that is (1) a typical for early modern utopias and modern imaginary voyages “portal-quest” model (world W1 → gate / journey → world W2) and (2) an emblematic for the most postmodern dystopias mo del juxtaposing the centre and the peripheries, that deconstructs the fi rst one in postcolonial perspective. Therefore, it becomes possible to compare worldbuilding foundations in so different a narrative like precursory 16th century Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) and 21st century video game Bioshock: Infi nite by Irrational Games – which subsequently encourages utopian studies to notice the most contemporary narrative achievements within the genre.

Tabletop Role-Playing Games (TRPGs) are storytelling games with a strong performative element. Since their inception in 1975, they have been directly tied to the literary genres of fantasy, science fiction and horror. TRPG sessions allow players to narrate stories within chronotopes inspired by staples of speculative fiction: the first and most popular game, Dungeons & Dragons, takes place within a pseudo-medieval storyworld while the second most popular game, World of Darkness, transforms the everyday world into a storyworld through the use well-known horror tropes. In theory, TRPGs present participants with an opportunity to create and perform their own ephemeral narratives within recognizable fantastical chronotopes. However, their worldbuilding contains the possibility to constrain narrative freedom. TRPG storyworlds were initially rooted in exclusively Western myths and narratives, while any other mythology, idea or cultural practice was presented as Other. Moreover, the games' efforts to create recognizable chronotopes reproduced certain clichés and often perpetuated the exclusion of certain groups from the landscapes of the fantastic. Thus, what Keen calls the genre's "power of implication" can limit the narratives players consider possible within a specific chronotope. However, while still influenced by the narrative constraints and conventions that accompany established storyworlds, players are still able to insert their own diverse narratives into otherwise clichéd landscapes and in the process, renew them. Moreover, the call for diversity in the fantastic genre as well as the globalization of culture in the age of the internet, has recently pushed TRPG designers into creating increasingly inclusive chronotopes, often upending existing worldbuilding clichés in the process. The proposed presentation aims to examine, through the intersection of narrative and cultural theories, how worldbuilding in TRPGs can become a factor for the further evolution of the fantastic genre instead of acting as a narrative constraint. This theoretical frame will be accompanied by examples from the continual worldbuilding of the most popular TRPGs. Given the significant influence of these storytelling games in the culture of the fantastic, this is an issue worth researching in depth.

The paper strives to adapt Bernhard Waldenfels’ xenology and so called ‘xenotopography’ for the philosophico-literary studies in fantastic world-building with a special concern of the ‘portal-quest’ model of fantasy and SF. Following Waldenfel’s remarks on the nature of post-Husserlian diastasis of our world [Heimwelt] and otherworld [Fremdwelt] and acknowledging the consequences of allocating one’s attitude towards the otherness in the symbolical borderland [‘sphere of intermonde’] in between, it is examined whether such a model can occur in the fantastic literature and what may be the consequence of xenotopographic reconsideration of its basic ontological premises. Additionally, the article offers an original xenotopograpfic model of worldbuilding which addresses three carefully chosen case studies of fantastic worlds from Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game tetralogy, Neil Gaiman’s Stardust and George R. R. Martin’s The Song of Ice and Fire. In the end, it is suggested that hitherto presented xenotopography gravely inspired a postmodern shift in the genres of fantasy and SF which results in more ethically conscious representations of the otherness and even more concise and alien comprehensive world-building.

The Conjuring franchise has dominated mainstream horror cinema in the twenty-first century. The success of The Conjuring inspired sequels and spin-offs (Annabelle and The Nun), each beginning further franchise strands. Annabelle: Creation tipped the franchise’s box office returns over $1billion, making it the third most successful horror series of all time and “a full-blown cinematic universe that any studio would envy” (Mendelson). At the universe’s centre is writer/producer/director James Wan, whose reputation has shifted from an uncomfortable association with “splat pack” horror as co-creator of the Saw series, to a blockbuster horror auteur (Bernard). Wan’s particular brand of contemporary Gothic, favouring demonic possession and haunted houses over shock and gore, connects the Conjuring franchise with other films including Insidious and Lights Out, and his involvement is promoted with each new instalment, anchoring every film to his original. This article charts the expansion of The Conjuring series, examining how its connected characters, narratives and aesthetics contribute to a worldbuilding approach which builds on its popular origins by way of Wan's status. This contemporary horror universe is marketed as a complex, evolving auterist creation weaved from a single, central source—and is deliberately distanced from the idea of a calculated, producer-led franchise.

Collaborative Worldbuilding for Writers and Gamers describes how writers can co-create vast worlds for use as common settings for their own stories. Using the worlds of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, A Game of Thrones, and Dungeons & Dragons as models, this book guides readers through a step-by-step process of building sprawling fictional worlds complete with competing social forces that have complex histories and yet are always evolving. It also shows readers how to populate a catalog with hundreds of unique people, places, and things that grow organically from their world, which become a rich repository of story making potential.

The companion website collaborativeworldbuilding.com features links to online resources, past worldbuilding projects, and an innovative card system designed to work with this book.