I can’t stand cultivation, progression, wuxia and xianxia fiction written by Americans.
The blurbs describe fantastic adventures in exotic lands. But the setting is America, plus some elements of foreign culture and geography glued on top. The characters are Americans with funny names. The dialogue is American, occasionally peppered by foreign phrases.
I don’t see worlds of wonder populated by natives. I see Americans in America.
America is a melting pot. It absorbs the culture of the world and boils it down into a monoculture founded on American ideals and American values. The only foreign elements that remain are the most distinctive and superficial: architecture, clothing, cuisine, out of place in a land far from their origins. Mindset, worldview, values, the intangibles that make a culture unique, are completely obliterated. Such is the culture of America.
This is not the culture of the rest of the world.
A close reading will reveal that the authors did not do their research. They do not treat other cultures and other peoples with respect. The worldbuilding lacks authenticity and organic development, the characters do not reflect the time and place they supposedly live in, even the dialogue is indicative of twenty-first century America. The authors merely cut and pasted just enough elements so that they can claim that their story is ‘inspired’ by some foreign culture. They do not honour the source material; they are simply chasing the latest hot trend on Amazon.
When I read a book billed as a fantasy story set in a strange world, I expect to read about that world, not 21st century America transplanted in a vaguely alien setting. And yet, every time I crack open a fantasy novel these days, this happens. This speaks of parochialism, narcissism, and cultural decline.
My mission is not to accelerate the fall of culture and feed off the rotting corpse. My calling is to create a new culture, and lay the foundations for a revival, a revolution, a renaissance. With this in mind, I set out to study how the grandmasters of the past built their worlds, and applied those lessons to Saga of the Swordbreaker.
Geography
When building a world, begin with geography. Everyone and everything in the setting is shaped by the environment around them, in gross and subtle ways. To have a clear sense of the culture, you must have a clear sense of the geography in which it exists.
Start with geographical zones: frigid, temperate, tropical. This determines the climate, which in turn governs what kind of life flourishes in the area, or whether life can even exist. Then move on to the finer details: elevation, humidity, access to water, soil fertility, seasons. And toss in any counterfactual or fantastic elements as necessary: the existence of magical rocks, blessed springs, a wall of storms that isolate an island, etc.
Go into as much detail as you need for the story—and no further. Few people would be interested in the exact amount of rainfall in a specific region. They would be far more interested in a story of a wanderer struggling to survive in an arid desert. Focus on developing the geographical elements that influence the characters, the plot, the societies, and flora and fauna.
Li Ming, the protagonist of Saga of the Swordbreaker, comes from the Zhongxia Republic. Zhongxia occupies a lush, subtropical zone, richly-fed with rivers and lakes. The temperature is high, and so is rainfall and humidity. Mountains, rivers and forests are abundant, forming the natural borders of states and societies. The terrain to the south is hilly and cramped, while to the west are vast open plains. The country enjoys four seasons, though snow is rare and usually seen in the north.
Ghazan, the deuteragonist, hails from the Yue Homelands. Grassland steppes dominate this region. Precipitation and humidity is barely sufficient to support tough grasses and bushes. Forests are few, found along natural rivers and lakes, or at the foot of mountains that enjoy high snowfall. Beyond high mountains lie rolling deserts. This landscape sees weather extremes, with winter spanning half the year.
The Chinese term fengshui means wind and water. It is a recognition of the profound impact of the environment on a person, especially wind and water. In the following sections, we will see how this is so.
Society and Culture
Human build societies in response to their environments. Different environments give rise to different cultures. After you create the geography of the setting, think about what kind of society would survive in such a setting, and what that society would value.
Zhongxia is a rice culture. To grow rice, a society would need to emphasise cooperation, planning, and hard work. Rice farming is labourious, far more labourious than farming dryland crops like wheat. It takes an entire family, clan, even a village, to grow rice. Therefore, conformity, harmony and strict enforcement of social norms is of utmost priority: anyone who fails to carry out his tasks could ruin the harvest for everyone, and anyone who is upset at someone else could sabotage the entire village by pursuing a petty vengeance.
The Yue Homelands is the exact opposite of Zhongxia. Agriculture is nearly impossible in the steppes. Instead, the inhabitants resort to nomadic animal husbandry. Livestock literally represents life to the Yue people, and so they will use every part of an animal. Livestock must wander from pasture to pasture to avoid exhausting the land. A culture founded on wandering from place to place would prioritise freedom of movement, open skies and unspoiled land. Villages and towns will be loosely-knit—after all, the inhabitants will be scattered over the expanse, and may barely see each other—but individual families will enjoy tight bonds because they need to cooperate to raise the herd. This in turn allows for greater freedom of individuality than Zhongxia, but not necessarily so much so that it threatens the family. The harsh winter and lack of crops and fruit-bearing trees demands survival skills and self-reliance. And from there, it’s just a short hop away to a desire to conquer new lands, better suited for human habitation and survival.
When you understand the values of a society, and how its geography shapes its values, you understand how the characters will think, talk and act. From here you can add the local colour.
The cuisine reflects the foodstuffs available in a setting, as well as local tastes. A metropolitan city will enjoy international flavours; a town near a spice-growing region will liberally season their food with spices. Architecture is an adaptation to local geography. Societies that experience high snowfall will build houses with steep arches, so the snow can easily slide off. Singapore builds void decks into public housing flats to harness the cooling power of the wind. Clothing reflects local materials, fashions, values and environment. Desert societies favour loose clothing that protect from the sun, while snowy regions will adopt furs and thick leathers for survival.
In a fantasy or science fiction environment, think also about how the counterfactual elements of the story would shape the society. In Matthew Schmidt’s The City and the Dungeon series, the economy of the titular City is based entirely on the crystals and loot harvested from the Dungeon—and this occasionally leads to massive and sudden inflation and deflation, inability to exchange crystals into foreign currencies, and other such hassles. A space colony will by necessity be more authoritarian and communal than a terrestrial one, because the society is inherently fragile: failure to maintain life support or bulkhead integrity will swiftly lead to habitat collapse.
Ecological Adaptations and Interactions
At this stage, we are discussing how people and other living beings look like—and by extension, what they can do. Established species in an ecological niche are adapted to their environment. This rule applies to humans and non-humans alike.
Humans who live at high altitudes have larger lungs and are more efficient at transporting oxygen to muscles. The Bajau people, who gather food by free diving with spears, have enlarged spleens, and can hold their breaths for extraordinary periods of time. Natives of hilly and mountainous regions will develop strong leg muscles and tendons from constantly walking uphill and downhill. Populations in equatorial regions will naturally develop higher amounts of melanin than populations in temperate and frigid environments.
The same applies to plants and animals. Tardigrades can endure some of the most extreme environments known to man. Giraffes have long necks, allowing them to feed on vegetation that shorter herbivores can’t reach. The triceratops developed long horns for defence against predators.
Living beings shape the environment and are shaped by them. The tietou in Saga of the Swordbreaker are six-legged goats with skulls as hard as steel. With their steel skulls, they force out competing herbivores and predators in any area they settle in. They aren’t usually dangerous to humans, but they have huge appetites. They could ravage large tracts of farmland, then quickly move on. Left unchecked, this could ruin farmers and cause ecological collapse.
At a higher level, think in terms of ecosystems. Living things do not exist in isolation. Every living being occupies an ecological niche, and interacts with other beings all around them. Even hinting at these interactions will create greater depth to the world.
A nomadic tribe relies on hunting to survive, yet is mindful to ensure the continued survival of their preferred prey, and so place strict limits on the number of prey animals they harvest, and enforce taboos against large-scale hunting methods. Monsters live in an ancient forest, but for centuries they have kept to their habitat and rarely harm humans—until the humans of a nearby city decide to expand into the forest. The manga series Delicious in Dungeon hints at ecosystems within the world’s dungeons, while the game Risk of Rain is centered on a slugcat, a creature that is near the bottom of the food chain, in a world with its unique ecosystem and weather effects.
Language and Communication
Growing up in a multilingual society, language is an element I am keenly aware of. A society’s language expresses the essence of that society: its values, its way of life, its worldview. The very language you speak shapes your brain, as seen in this study of Arabic and German speakers. In the same fashion, the way a character speaks reflects their personality, their history, and their society.
The constant snark, casual defiance and forced informality so common in modern fiction flow from the insidious influence of Joss Whedon and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Fictitious characters who speak like that reflect a small slice of modern-day Hollyweird. Such dialogue creates the illusion of wittiness, cool and casualness—especially in scenes when it isn’t called for. Outside that setting, people talk much, much differently.
The lingua franca of Saga of the Swordbreaker is Mandarin. Other languages exist, but it is the language that Li Ming talks and, most importantly, thinks in. This has profound effects on the entire story.
Standard Chinese is the Beijing dialect of the Sinitic language. As the prestige dialect, it is the language of emperors and ministers, scholars and saints, poets and priests. Educated speakers are concise, poetic and elegant. Even when commoners talk about themselves, you can still hear this echo of grace, in the idioms and compactness of dialogue. To speak Chinese is to speak with the weight of three thousand years of history.
Written Chinese is based on ideograms. Every ideogram is constructed of radicals. The radicals give the meaning and pronunciation to the word. By writing a word, you are writing the meaning of the word. The radicals and the ideograms may change, but the meanings do not change. If you know how radicals were written in the past, you can read ancient texts. And if you know what a radical means, you can discover the true meaning of words.
Chinese is a tonal language. Many words sound like many other words. Therefore, words are usually clustered in two- or three-character phrases. Words themselves refer not to a single discrete meaning like in English, but to a group of related concepts. The surrounding characters, and the sentence, creates the context to interpret the meaning of the words. This signals a society that is heavily reliant on contextual cues for communication—and opens the door to wordplay through homophones.
Li Ming expresses all these, in word, thought and deed, in Saga of the Swordbreaker. He learns how old words were written in the past so he can read historic texts. He studies the context of a situation before he speaks, and when he speaks, he makes references to poetry and classics with grace and ease. Though he is capable of acting independently, more often than not, he takes into account the perspectives of others.
As a martial artist and a meditator, Li Ming speaks in the language of violence—precise, controlled, overwhelming violence. Other people from other professions speak differently, mirroring their history, training and culture. It should go without saying that dialogue should communicate the essence of the speaker—his worldview, his background, his state of mind—but that is an art lost to many modern writers.
70 to 93 percent of communication is nonverbal. In this light, think about the body language that a society would adopt for communication. Different societies will have radically different methods of communication. Japanese bow for just about every occasion. Urban Americans like to press up close to people. Gongfu salutes communicate respect and humility—or a challenge, depending on how it is delivered.
Religion and Metaphysics
Humans are religious animals. We are driven to discover a higher meaning in our existence. Religion—and lack thereof—plays a critical role in the history of mankind. When crafting a religion in a story, think about how religious expression shapes society.
A lonely pilgrimage through arduous terrain requires the believer to dig deep into himself, shed everything that he is not, and discover a higher truth. Animism leads naturally to respect for the environment, and fear of unseen spirits. A religion that emphasises ritual purity through cleansing with salt and water will create a society that emphasises hygiene, such as Shintoism in Japan. Ancestor worship entrenches traditionalism in society, since to honour your ancestors is to honour the wisdom and the norms they have transmitted for generations.
When fantastical elements come into play, consider also how these influence society and its people. How does magic and technology fit into the religious scheme? Do gods, angels and/or demons exist, do they interact with humans, and how do religions reconcile them with doctrine? How is this expressed in everyday life?
In Kyoto, it is not unusual to find tiny nooks carved into the outer walls of private residences to house a statue of a Buddha. Altars to Chinese Daoist gods are a common sight at major bus interchanges and coffee shops in Singapore. Religious iconography is everywhere in downtown Bangkok, and devout believers bow their heads and make a wai as they pass. Chinese people often arrange their homes and workplaces according to fengshui principles, and organise major events on auspicious dates. In medieval Europe, holidays are holy days, set aside for prayer. Little details like this add colour to society, and speak to the attitudes of its people.
Law, Politics and History
Now at last we finally talk about the human forces that shape the story.
Societies have a past which informs the present, and the present informs the future. When working on a society, think about how it got to where it is when the story begins, and how it will evolve into the future. Laws, politics and history exert the most overt and immediate influence on the characters and setting. Where all the above is usually implied, modern stories make this element explicit in the text. As above, you only need to go into enough detail that is relevant for the story, but when it does show up, it should be memorable.
Saga of the Swordbreaker is set in the era of the Five States and Ten Corporations. This is an allusion to the Five States and Ten Kingdoms period of Chinese history. Most modern readers will be familiar with a China that is a single contiguous entity, so I drew reference from an older history—a China fractured by politics yet united by culture. Despite the tumults of war, and indeed because of it, the people of this world maintained their links to their past. They know where they came from, and they preserve their traditions in their own way. This gives rise to a tradition of cultivation spanning over three thousand years—a tradition optimised for transforming cultivators in mind, body and spirit, explaining how the characters in the story are capable of extraordinary feats.
Li Ming visits the Five States during his journey in the rivers and lakes. They have their own political systems, their own culture, their own way of life. From the legalistic bureaucracy of the Zhongxia Republic to the laissez-faire mercantilism of the Central Plains, Li Ming has to adapt to them. But standing above the Five States are the Ten Corporations, whose hand is felt everywhere in the world.
Which is also a violation of traditional Chinese thinking. In Daoism, the best government is a government that is invisible, acting in harmony with the Will of Heaven, seeking the highest good for everyone. This tension between politics and philosophy informs Li Ming’s inner conflicts.
Culture and Subcultures
A culture is a way of life influenced by the dominant subculture, yet also a distinct modality. This being a xianxia story at heart, let’s discuss in terms of the rivers and lakes.
Ancient Chinese culture had strict social structures. Few people had the opportunity to escape the circumstances they were born in, and more often than not, they were scholars who passed the Imperial exams and secured government positions. The rivers and lakes, by contrast, is a world of freedom, whose inhabitants freely travelled from place to place, relying on their wits and their swords.
They had to. They were outcasts. The inhabitants of the rivers and lakes were beggars, street entertainers, martial artists, bodyguards. Chinese society and religion frowned on the ways of war. Religion denounced weapons as omens of evil, while civilians viewed warriors as brutes and bandits (not without reason, either). Regular people could count on their communities to help them. The denizens of the jianghu only had each other. Theirs is a loosely-knit community governed by its own rules and customs, but every member possessed a streak of individualism.
The jianghu is a dog-eat-dog world. Power is the only currency that matters. The powerful are honoured, the weak are devoured. Commoners believe themselves powerless, and bow meekly to the whims of the rivers and lakes. With the mortal authorities unable or unwilling to intervene in the affairs of the jianghu, the jianghu polices its own affairs. This reinforces the negative perception people have of the jianghu. Many commoners may admire the jianghu, but they lack the courage or the foolhardiness to dip their toes in it. At the same time, the jianghu draws on religious teachings for guidance, especially cultivation. Governments and corporations seek to recruit cultivators to draw on their power—and, more than that, control them to ensure that they will serve their purposes.
The jianghu is a milieu within the Five States and Ten Corporations. It is a part of them, and yet also apart from them. Members seek freedom, wealth, glory and power, and the easiest way to achieve these goals is to serve the Five States and Ten Corporations. Society places the cultivators of the jianghu on a pedestal, celebrating them without aspiring to become like them. Cultivators may despise the workings of the Five States and Ten Corporations, yet they are interdependent on them.
Different social groups have their own subcultures. When creating your own, bear in mind that subcultures do not exist in isolation. Describing the interactions between different cultures makes both vivid, memorable and authentic.
Putting It All Together
The astute creator-reader will discover that in the process of worldbuilding, themes and conflicts rise organically from the setting. From this flows characters and plots. The setting, story and the characters are woven together in a seamless whole, with not one element feeling out of place.
Li Ming and Ghazan are both scions of their respective civilisations. Li Ming embodies the courtesy, courage, and ethics of the Xia people. Ghazan is the descendent of warriors, seeking freedom, individuality, open grounds, and fresh conquests.
Li Ming is the paragon of the jianghu as it aspires to be. Ghazan is the embodiment of the jianghu as it is. Li Ming embraces the archetype of the protector-poet, who views martial arts as a means to defend those around him, and as a vehicle for growth. Ghazan is the essence of the warrior, who expresses his will through combat and victory, for whom cultivation is simply a means of becoming a better warrior.
Every significant interaction between them isn’t just a clash of personalities. It is a clash of cultures. Within the martial forest, they are the greatest men of their generation. And together, they will discover what it means to be invincible under heaven.
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