Once we discuss fantasy worldbuilding, most individuals think about excessive fantasy or epic fantasy. Possibly it’s as a result of we are likely to romanticize the previous, particularly the medieval interval. Nevertheless, don’t overlook modern fantasy! City fantasy is a massively standard style, in fiction and tabletop RPGs. However city fantasy worldbuilding has its personal distinctive parts and challenges. 

In city fantasy, the on a regular basis meets the supernatural. Tales are set in cities, the place legendary creatures coexist with acquainted environment. Constructing a convincing city fantasy world entails mixing the strange with the extraordinary. On this weblog publish, we’ll dive into the artwork of city fantasy worldbuilding, providing insights for each aspiring writers and fashionable gamemasters. 

Be a part of us as we romanticize fashionable actuality to craft an city fantasy setting your readers or gamers will need to mentally inhabit – and discover each darkish nook.

What’s City Fantasy?

City fantasy is a fantasy subgenre that mixes fantastical parts of plot, character, theme, or setting with a largely-recognizable world—combining the acquainted and the unusual. Such parts could exist secretly or could happen brazenly. 

City fantasy usually blurs the traces between darkish fantasy, supernatural horror, and gothic romance. The earliest cited examples of standard “city fantasy” are Stephen King’s Carrie and Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire within the Nineteen Seventies, though most fashionable readers would take into account these books horror. 

Which is understandably complicated! City fantasy usually contains parts widespread in horror fiction – vampires, werewolves, witches, and demons. Typically these beings are villainous monsters, however simply as usually they’re tragic, darkish heroes. City fantasy additionally usually contains parts from conventional fantasy and delusion, like fey creatures, dragons, and wizards.

City fantasy can be usually conflated with paranormal romance, which is equally set in a contemporary world with magical parts. The overall rule of thumb in fiction is that if the romance is the inextricable foremost plot, it’s a mystical romance. If there’s a romantic subplot, however you could possibly omit it and nonetheless have a useful story, it’s city fantasy. 

Bear in mind, style is essentially a advertising and marketing software, useful for getting the fitting e-book or recreation into the fitting arms. It’s not a tough and quick set of mounted guidelines.  

City Fantasy Worldbuilding: The place to Begin

The largest problem with worldbuilding in city fantasy is deciding which parts of the actual world to maintain, and which parts of a fantastical world so as to add to keep away from a kitchen sink fantasy. 

There are just a few key choices you’ll must make early on that can have broad ripple results by means of your city fantasy world. These are the useful cornerstones of your setting, which makes them an ideal place to begin worldbuilding. Considering by means of these worldbuilding questions rigorously will enable you to keep away from having to make main adjustments later. 

As you construct your city fantasy setting, take into account what tone and temper you need to set. 

• Are you attempting to evoke a way of darkish angst, or cozy marvel? (The Underworld motion pictures and Studio Ghibli are each city fantasy, simply wildly completely different vibes).
• How harmful is your world for strange folks? Is that completely different for magical beings? 
• Is magic hidden or public? If public, does magic carry privilege or persecution?
• Has the presence of magic altered technological development?
• Do magic and expertise work collectively, or cancel one another out?  

These choices are important in conveying the temper and tone you need in your city fantasy setting. This can be a state of affairs the place utilizing World Anvil’s worldbuilding meta might be massively useful in honing your premise and making a centered, coherent world. In case you haven’t, take into account making a World Anvil account to get entry to those useful prompts and templates. 

Anatomy of an City Fantasy Setting

Let’s discuss assembly reader and participant expectations! While you pitch an city fantasy recreation or novel, you’re setting some expectations in place. Realizing the widespread tropes lets you meet them. Even if you wish to subvert these tropes to keep away from cliche, realizing what they’re is important to do it skillfully. 

Many city fantasy settings embrace some or all of those tropes and parts:

Gritty Realism

The hire continues to be due, vampires or not. City fantasy tends to give attention to blue-collar characters struggling to get by, and infrequently their preliminary motivation is cash or debt. 

Underdog Heroes

No one expects your foremost characters to win. Together with them. In the event that they wield unfathomable energy (and so they usually do) they both don’t understand it, can’t management it, or are forbidden from utilizing it. 

Episodic Plots 

Monster-of-the-week books that slowly construct an overarching mythology. This subgenre lends itself nicely to serial fiction, internet novels, and RPGs, letting you shroud your uber plot in thriller (aka, till you work it out).  

Messy Relationships

There’s a 100% likelihood your foremost character will fall for somebody they’re expressly forbidden to like, and a 75% likelihood of a love triangle… with an equally problematic particular person. 

Metropolis as Character

City fantasy borrows closely from movie noir, and that features moody, atmospheric cities that stay and breathe. (Within the case of N.Ok. Jemisin, fairly actually). 

Secret Worlds

City fantasy usually retains the magical, mystical and legendary hidden from the mundane. Sustaining this “masquerade” a secret is one other wealthy supply of battle and drama. 

Superior City Fantasy Worldbuilding

Writing city fantasy isn’t the identical as writing medieval or historic fantasy. There are each parts you need to use to your benefit, and particular issues you might want to be careful for. Listed below are just a few next-level methods that can assist you construct your city fantasy setting and convey it to your readers and gamers:

Viewers Surrogates

A personality who isn’t acquainted with the key magical world serves as a handy exposition software, permitting you to introduce quirks of the setting in a extra pure feeling means. In fiction, that is usually a personality whose supernatural talents manifest unexpectedly. 

Portmanteaus

In case you’re going to make up phrases for issues that don’t exist in the actual world or conventional fantasy, portmanteaus are your buddy. They are typically self-explanatory and simple to grasp from context. 

Analysis

In case your fictional world is not less than 50% our precise earth, you must get the small print proper. City fantasy usually calls for extra analysis than second-world fantasy to make it really feel genuine.

Know-how

It’s essential to think about what expertise degree your city fantasy world incorporates, and the way that expertise interacts with magic. Has magic changed electrical energy? Has it slowed the event of technological gadgets? 

An City Fantasy Studying Checklist

Studying is a good way to grasp a style and get impressed on the identical time! This city fantasy studying record begins at first and contains all kinds of examples. 

• Moonheart, Charles de Lint (the primary city fantasy novel)
• The Dresden Recordsdata, Jim Butcher
• Rivers of London, Ben Aaronovitch
• American Gods, Neil Gaiman
• Ninth Home, Leigh Bardugo
• Lifeless Till Darkish, Charlaine Harris
• The Metropolis We Grew to become, N.Ok. Jemison

City Fantasy Video games: ttRPGs to Strive

And for gamemasters, there are a number of RPG techniques and settings designed for City Fantasy video games. Some include a default setting, however most encourage you to create your individual.

• World of Darkness (Vampire the Masquerade, and so on.) – Play as a monstrous hero (or hunter) in a contemporary metropolis. This narrative recreation challenges gamers to carry on to what stays of their humanity. In case you love the Underworld motion pictures, Common Horror or Anne Rice, that is your recreation. 
• Metropolis of Mist – Common individuals who achieve supernatural powers linked to legendary alter-egos in a magical noir metropolis. This recreation leans into investigatory adventures, as you unravel hidden truths. Followers of Fables and As soon as Upon a Time will get pleasure from this tackle city fantasy. 
• Trendy AGE – A model of the Journey Sport Engine (AGE) designed for contemporary play, this can be a versatile system for something from the Industrial Revolution onward. In case you desire gameplay that’s extra like a conventional ttRPG, or need to create an authentic and distinctive fashionable setting, this can be a good selection.
• Monster of the Week – Do you need to be a Winchester? Right here’s your shot! Monster of the Week is a narrative-driven Powered by the Apocalypse recreation impressed by episodic TV reveals like Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X Recordsdata.
• City Shadows – A political city fantasy recreation wherein mortals and supernaturals vie for energy in a modern-day metropolis. In case you like labyrinthine intrigue and scheming, and luxuriate in tales like Constantine, The Dresden Recordsdata and John Wick, this is perhaps the sport for you.

The mixture of contemporary expertise and magic might be mechanically difficult to steadiness in fight. Consequently, many techniques lean extra into roleplay and fewer into “cube play” for city fantasy campaigns.

Now Seize Your (Enchanted) Hammer… 

Whether or not you’re weaving spells within the coronary heart of a contemporary metropolis or discovering historic secrets and techniques beneath the town’s floor, let your city fantasy world come alive. The fragile mix of actuality and magic is what makes this style really pleasant. 

Whether or not you’re a author in search of to craft your subsequent city fantasy novel, or a gamemaster hoping to dive into an city fantasy marketing campaign, do not forget that a magical fashionable world might be simply as wondrous as a medieval one. In case you’re wanting to take your worldbuilding expertise to the following degree, take into account trying out World Anvil. This highly effective software is a must have useful resource for writers and worldbuilders, providing a structured and interactive method to develop and share your distinctive settings.