Worldbuilding Blogfest Day 1 – The World of Catalyst

January 28, 2013

(Quick note: My fantasy novel, Catalyst, is in the final round of NaNo Virtuosos! Would you please consider voting for me? More info in this post.)

So today kicks off the Worldbuilding Blogfest, hosted by Sharon Bayliss. Please pull up a chair, grab a cup of tea, and welcome to my head!

Day 1 – Geography & Climate

I will admit, I was not planning on doing worldbuilding for Catalyst/The Undoing Chronicles for this blogfest. I had thought, initially, that I would be doing something for my Father Time WIP (no, that is not going to be the permanent title :D), because I’d like to get that in at least 1st draft form by the end of 2013.

Then I realized there is still way too much I don’t know about the world I’ve set up in The Undoing Chronicles.

Especially considering that what I thought was going to be an epic problem in a single country in the plot line . . . is now turning into something world-wide. Yay stories taking over! *thunk*

So, without further ado, here is the world of Catalyst:

This is the first map I’ve drawn out for it . . . and I suck at drawing mountains. Hence the “mountains” titles :D. Hubby laughed at my map *pouts*. I also don’t own a scanner, so sorry if the picture’s hard to see at all.

The Kashtophim Empire – The Kashtophim have a thing for power. And genocide (hence what Catalyst is about). They like square buildings, and cobbled streets, and want to be immortal. The empire is large, and encompasses a few different climates, but the area I’m currently concerned with (Kimtha, the capital city) is a moderate climate with defined seasons. The summers are mild, and the winters are cold, but not always harsh.

Sconnela – Sconnela is home to the mountain people. They broke off from the Kashtophim around the same time as the Empire was established, and claimed the mountains. The climate is harsh – the air is thinner, the summers cooler, growing food is harder, but it’s made them resilient. They also control the main water supply to the continent (that’s a giant spring-fed lake up top-and-center on the map), and I have a feeling that’s going to play into Book 2 of Undoing . . . somehow.

Eroiam – There has been little official contact between Eroiam and the Kashtophim Empire. Any contact has been related to espionage, but the Kashtophim do know that the Eroiamites are very clever. They tend to be inventors, and philosophers, etc. The best locks come from Eroiam. Climate-wise, it’s similar to the Kashtophim Empire, though it doesn’t extend as far south.

Lyzen, Anellic, In’la – I really just slapped these on the map, because I knew I needed a few more countries (*slaps character upside the head* Thank you, Zareja, for specifying that there were at least two countries between the Kashtophim and the Eroiamites!). Most of them will have similar climates, but the In’la will be the desert-country. The Anellic are mostly traders, and the Lyzen . . . well, they’re just going to end up getting caught up in a bunch of things they don’t want to because they’re a land-locked country.

(I would like to mention that in the time it’s taken me to draw the map and then write this blog post, my husband has declared my map “stupid” and has started to re-draw it “better”. And it really is better. Just not finished. *pokes him*)

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