World Building, Part 4: Culture

World Building

A starting point for Culture

A bit of a continuation from yesterday's post

Last time I mentioned how including numerous cultures in a work can add depth and variety that makes improves the work (or it could detract from the work if done poorly).  To add to my world, one of the first decisions I made when I ultimately began the project was that it would start in a forested valley 'somewhere' beyond the borders of the more civilized parts of the world.  While the valley once was the center of an ancient civilization, wars between both mortal and immortal beings left the valley abandoned except by the few who felt it was their duty to remain and protect what had been left behind, while the rest moved on.

The people that still lived among the ruins are part of a culture I referred to as 'the Faithful' because they had chose to remain in and protect the cities of their ancestors, while 'the Exiles' were the ones who moved on from the Valley and chose not to cling tightly to their past in order to accept a new future.  A third culture, that I refer to as 'the Forsaken,' were on the wrong side of the aforementioned wars, and were driven away by the victors.  The latter two cultures I will not be discussing this time, but that they come from the same origin culture is important.  The Faithful are the predominant culture in the valley save for one village of refugees from a Exile town that was integrated into the valley and has a mixed cultural identity.

The Valley.

The Faithful are called such for they were (and still are) the pious citizens of a civilization that revered a Sun God, among others, in a henotheistic/polytheistic manner.  When the god of Night, Sun's brother, decides he wants to be king of the hill, a terrible war rages across much of the world.  Now this isn't a spoiler (you learn about this in the first few chapters) but the Night God loses, and the Sun God vanishes, assumed to have died stopping the Big Bad Night God by trapping him 'in the Path between worlds.'  The war, however, left the valley a mess and a city in ruins and a whole lot of smaller settlements uninhabitable without the infrastructure maintained by said razed city.  So the Faithful go native and become a more simplistic culture, hunting and gathering, in order to protect what's left of their ancestral home.  But what if the Big Bad comes back?

That is where the group that gives us the title of my book comes from:  The Pathkeepers.  Tasked with watching for signs of the Big Bad's return, the Pathkeeper philosophy is the driving force behind the valley culture.  And they became the stuff of legends across the world as stories of their (sometimes alleged) deeds filled taverns around the world.  But in truth they were a simple people.

The valley culture is sustained by hunting local wildlife and harvesting as much edible flora as the valley can sustain.  Without the infrastructure of a large city or civilization, the level of technology is somewhat primitive in certain ways, such as clothing being all animal skins, and yet they can still make more refined things like flax linen and tools (when they have the resources).  They also do not keep themselves completely separate from the larger world, except to keep potential threats out of the ancestral lands.  Instead, members of the culture are encouraged to leave the valley to see the wider world.  Divided into separate villages overlooking different ruins, the culture differentiates between the village in the skills the village needs the most, such as one village exists floating on a lake, and spear-fishing and swimming are skills they value more then others in other villages like archery or hunting on foot with a spear.

I could go further into explaining the culture and the Pathkeepers but that feels like I'm spoiling learning these things along with the protagonist.  I will instead leave you with some early artwork from which the symbol for the Pathkeepers evolved from.  This was of course from Graey Erb, Earl_Graey on DeviantArt.  Be sure to check him out at www.GraeyErbIllustration.com, or on DeviantArt.com.  I'll write a post further explaining the evolution of the image some other time.  I don't want to spoil anything before the book is even finished being written!  Thanks for reading!