Fantasy world - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A fantasy world is a fictional universe

Fictional universe

A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....

used in fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

novels and games. Typical worlds involve magic or magical abilities and often, but not always, either a medieval or futuristic theme. Some worlds may be a parallel world

Parallel universe (fiction)

A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...

tenuously connected to Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

via magical portals or items; a fictional Earth set in the remote past or future; or an entirely independent world set in another universe.

Many fantasy worlds draw heavily on real world history, geography and sociology, and also on mythology and folklore.

Plot function

The setting of a fantasy work is often of great importance to the plot and characters of the story. The setting itself can be imperiled by the evil of the story, suffer a calamity, and be restored by the transformation the story brings about. Stories that use the setting as merely a backdrop for the story have been criticized for their failure to use it fully.

Even when the land itself is not in danger, it is often used symbolically, for thematic purposes, and to underscore moods.

History

Early fantasy worlds appeared as fantasy lands, part of the same planet but separated by geographical barriers. For example, Oz

Land of Oz

Oz is a fantasy region containing four lands under the rule of one monarch.It was first introduced in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, one of many fantasy countries that he created for his books. It achieved a popularity that none of his other works attained, and after four years, he...

, though a fantasy world in every way, is described as part of this world.

Although medieval peasants who seldom if ever traveled far from their villages could not conclusively say that it was impossible that, for example, an ogre

Ogre

An ogre is a large, cruel, monstrous, and hideous humanoid monster, featured in mythology, folklore, and fiction. Ogres are often depicted in fairy tales and folklore as feeding on human beings, and have appeared in many classic works of literature...

could live a day's travel away, distant continents were necessary from the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

onwards for such fantastic speculation to be plausible, until finally, further exploration rendered all such terrestrial fantasy lands implausible.

Even within the span of mere decades, Oz, which had been situated in a desert in the United States when first written about in 1900, was relocated to a spot in the Pacific Ocean.

An early example of the fantasy land/world concept can be seen in the One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), where places of which little was known, but where the occurrence of marvels was thus more credible, had to be set "long ago" or "far away". This is a process that continues, and finally culminates in the fantasy world having little connection, if any, to actual times and places. A more recent example of a fantasy land with definite connections to the actual world is Austin Tappan Wright's Islandia

Islandia (novel)

Islandia is a classic novel of utopian fiction by Austin Tappan Wright, a U. C. Berkeley Law School Professor. Written as a hobby over a long period of time, it was posthumously edited down by a third by his wife and daughter, and first published in hardcover by Farrar and Rinehart in 1942, eleven...

. Islandia's remoteness and aura of mystery, as well as its preservation of an arcadian

Arcadia (utopia)

Arcadia refers to a vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature. The term is derived from the Greek province of the same name which dates to antiquity; the province's mountainous topography and sparse population of pastoralists later caused the word Arcadia to develop into a poetic byword for an...

society, are explained by means of a law which allows only limited contact with foreigners.

Dream frames

Dream world (plot device)

Dream world is a commonly used plot device in fictional works, most notably in science fiction and fantasy fiction. The use of a dream world creates a situation whereby a character is placed in a marvellous and unpredictable environment and must overcome several personal problems to leave it...

were also once common for encasing the fantasy world with an explanation of its marvels. Such a dream frame was added to the story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...

for the movie version; in the book, Oz is clearly defined as an actual place. H.P. Lovecraft made active use of the dream frame, creating elaborate geographies accessible to humans only when they were asleep and dreaming. These dream-settings have been criticized, and are far less frequent today.

This change is part of a general trend toward more self-consistent and substantive fantasy worlds. This has also altered the nature of the plots; earlier works often feature a solitary individual whose adventures in the fantasy world are of personal significiance, and where the world clearly exists to give scope to these adventures, and later works more often feature characters in a social web, where their actions are to save the world and those in it from peril.

Common elements

The most common fantasy world is one based on medieval Europe, and has been since William Morris

William Morris

William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...

used it in his early fantasy works, such as The Well at the World's End
The Well at the World's End
The Well at the World's End is a fantasy novel by the British artist, poet, and author William Morris. It was first published in 1896 and has been reprinted a number of times since, most notably in two parts as the twentieth and twenty-first volumes of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in August...

. and particularly since the 1954 publication of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...

. Such a world is often called "pseudo-medieval" – particularly when the writer has snatched up random elements from the era, which covered a thousand years and a continent, and thrown them together without consideration for their compatibility, or even introduced ideas not so much based on the medieval era as on romanticized views

Medievalism

Medievalism is the system of belief and practice characteristic of the Middle Ages, or devotion to elements of that period, which has been expressed in areas such as architecture, literature, music, art, philosophy, scholarship, and various vehicles of popular culture.Since the 18th century, a...

of it. When these worlds are copied not so much from history as from other fantasy works, there is a heavy tendency to uniformity and lack of realism. The full width and breadth of the medieval era is seldom drawn upon. Governments, for instance, tend to be uncompromisingly feudal-based, or evil empires or oligarchies, usually corrupt, while there was far more variety of rule in the actual Middle Ages. Fantasy worlds also tend be medieval in economy, and disproportionately pastoral

Pastoral

The adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...

.

Careful world-building plus meticulous attention to detail is often cited as the reason why certain fantasy works are deeply convincing and contain a magical sense of place.
Heavy and faithful use of real world setting for inspiration, as in Barry Hughart

Barry Hughart

Barry Hughart in Peoria, Illinois, is an American author of fantasy novels.- Background :Hughart was born in Peoria, Illinois on March 13, 1934. His father, John Harding Page, served as a naval officer. His mother, Veronica Hughart, was an architect.Hughart was educated at Phillips Academy...

's Bridge of Birds
Bridge of Birds
Bridge of Birds is a fantasy novel by Barry Hughart, first published in 1984. It is the first of three novels in the The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox series...

, clearly derived from China, or Lloyd Alexander

Lloyd Alexander

Lloyd Chudley Alexander was a widely influential American author of more than forty books, mostly fantasy novels for children and adolescents, as well as several adult books...

's use of real world cultures such as Welsh for The Chronicles of Prydain
The Chronicles of Prydain
The Chronicles of Prydain is a five-volume series of children's fantasy novels by author Lloyd Alexander...

or Indian for The Iron Ring, make the line between fantasy worlds and alternate histories

Alternate history (fiction)

Alternate history or alternative history is a genre of fiction consisting of stories that are set in worlds in which history has diverged from the actual history of the world. It can be variously seen as a sub-genre of literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction; different alternate...

fuzzy. The use of cultural elements, and still more history and geography, from actual settings pushes a work toward alternative history.

Conversely, the creation by an author of an imaginary country—such as Ruritania

Ruritania

Ruritania is a fictional country in central Europe which forms the setting for three books by Anthony Hope: The Prisoner of Zenda , The Heart of Princess Osra , and Rupert of Hentzau...

or Graustark

Graustark

Graustark is a fictional country in Eastern Europe used as a setting for several novels by George Barr McCutcheon. Graustark's neighbors, which also figure into the stories, are Axphain to the north and Dawsbergen to the south....

—does not automatically transform that imaginary country into a fantasy world, even if the location would be impossible in reality owing to a lack of land to contain it; but such Ruritanian romance

Ruritanian Romance

A Ruritanian Romance is a story set in a fictional country, usually in Central or Eastern Europe, such as the Ruritania that gave the genre its name...

s may be pushed toward the category of fantasy worlds by the introduction of, say, witches and wise women, where it is not clear if their magic is effectual.

According to Lin Carter in Imaginary Worlds: the Art of Fantasy
Imaginary Worlds: the Art of Fantasy
Imaginary Worlds: the Art of Fantasy is a study of the modern literary fantasy genre written by Lin Carter. It was first published in paperback by Ballantine Books in June, 1973 as the fifty-eighth volume of its celebrated Ballantine Adult Fantasy series; it was the only nonfiction entry in the...

, fantasy worlds, by their nature, contain some element of magic (paranormal)

Magic (paranormal)

Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...

. This element may be the creatures in it (dragon

Dragon

A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...

s, unicorn

Unicorn

The unicorn is a legendary animal from European folklore that resembles a white horse with a large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead, and sometimes a goat's beard...

s, genie

Genie

Jinn or genies are supernatural creatures in Arab folklore and Islamic teachings that occupy a parallel world to that of mankind. Together, jinn, humans and angels make up the three sentient creations of Allah. Religious sources say barely anything about them; however, the Qur'an mentions that...

s and so on) or the magical abilities of the people inhabiting the world. These are often drawn from mythology

Mythology

The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

and folklore

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

, frequently that of the historical country also used for inspiration.

Constructed worlds

Fantasy worlds created through a process called world building

World Building

World Building can refer to:* The New York World Building, the tallest building in the world from 1890 to 1894.* The Sun Tower in Vancouver, British Columbia was known as the World Building until 1924....

are known as a constructed world. Constructed worlds elaborate and make self-consistent the setting of a fantasy work. World building relies on materials and concepts taken from the real world.

Despite the use of magic or other fantastic elements such as dragons, the world is normally presented as one that would function normally, one in which people could actually live, making economic, historical, and ecological sense. It is considered a flaw to have, for example, pirates living in lands far from trade routes, or to assign prices for a night's stay in an inn that would equate to several years' income for a farmer.

Furthermore, the fantastic elements should ideally operate according to self-consistent rules of their own; for example, if wizards' spells sap their strength, a wizard who does not appear to suffer this must either be putting up a facade, or have an alternative explanation. This distinguishes fantasy worlds from surrealism and even from such dream worlds as are found in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...

and Through the Looking-Glass
Through the Looking-Glass
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a work of literature by Lewis Carroll . It is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...

.

Examples

L. Frank Baum

Lyman Frank Baum was an American author of children's books, best known for writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...

, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...

and its original sequels. He was one of the few authors before Tolkien to use consistent internal geographies and histories to enrich his world

Land of Oz

.

J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...

created Middle-earth

Middle-earth

Middle-earth is the fictional setting of the majority of author J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place entirely in Middle-earth, as does much of The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales....

, probably the best-known fantasy world today. He introduced several revolutionary concepts to fantasy fiction popularized the idea of intricately detailed fantasy worlds. He wrote at some length about the process, which he called "sub-creation".

C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...

, author of The Chronicles of Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven fantasy novels for children by C. S. Lewis. It is considered a classic of children's literature and is the author's best-known work, having sold over 100 million copies in 47 languages...

which takes place primarily in a magical land called Narnia

Narnia (world)

Narnia is a fantasy world created by C. S. Lewis as the primary location for his series of seven fantasy novels for children, The Chronicles of Narnia. The world is so called after the country of Narnia, in which much of the action of the Chronicles takes place.In Narnia, some animals can talk,...

. A colleague of Tolkien, their fiction worlds share several key elements.

Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett

Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...

created Discworld

Discworld (world)

The Discworld is the fictional setting for all of Terry Pratchett's Discworld fantasy novels. It consists of a large disc resting on the backs of four huge elephants which are in turn standing on the back of an enormous turtle, named Great A'Tuin as it slowly swims...

, a large disc resting on the backs of four huge elephants, which are in turn standing on the back of an enormous turtle, as it slowly swims through space.

J. K. Rowling

J. K. Rowling

Joanne "Jo" Rowling, OBE , better known as J. K. Rowling, is the British author of the Harry Potter fantasy series...

, author of Harry Potter created the clever twist on a wizard world and our world

Harry Potter universe

The fictional universe of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series of fantasy novels comprises two separate and distinct societies: the wizarding world and the Muggle world...

.

Andrew David Gray, creator of The World of Raekasa, a world that would fall under modern fantasy.

Fairytale and comic fantasy

Fairytale fantasy

Fairytale fantasy is distinguished from other subgenres of fantasy by the works' heavy use of motifs, and often plots, from folklore.-History:...

may ignore the normal world-building in order to present a world operating by the same logic as the fairytales from which they are derived, though other works in this subgenre develop their worlds fully. Comic fantasy

Comic fantasy

Comic fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy that is primarily humorous in intent and tone. Usually set in imaginary worlds, comic fantasy often includes puns on and parodies of other works of fantasy. It is sometimes known as Low fantasy in contrast to High fantasy, which is primarily serious in intent...

may ignore all possible logic in search of humor, particularly if it is parodying other fantasies' faulty world-building, as in Diana Wynne Jones

Diana Wynne Jones

Diana Wynne Jones was a British writer, principally of fantasy novels for children and adults, as well as a small amount of non-fiction...

's Dark Lord of Derkholm
Dark Lord of Derkholm
The Dark Lord of Derkholm is a fantasy novel written by Diana Wynne Jones, which won the 1999 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature. It takes place in a parody of a high fantasy world similar to that first explored in Jones' humorous guidebook in the Rough Guide model, The Tough Guide...

, or the illogic of the setting is integral to the comedy, as in L. Sprague de Camp

L. Sprague de Camp

Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction and fantasy books, non-fiction and biography. In a writing career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and notable works of non-fiction, including biographies of other important fantasy authors...

's Solomon's Stone
Solomon's Stone
Solomon's Stone is a fantasy novel written by L. Sprague de Camp. It was first published in the fantasy magazine Unknown Worlds for June, 1942...

, where the fantasy world is populated by the heroic and glamorous figures that people daydream about being, resulting in a severe shortage of workers in the more mundane, day-to-day industries. Most other subgenres of fantasy suffer if the world-building is neglected.

The retreat of magic

Rather than creating their own fantasy world, many authors choose to set their novels in Earth's past. In order to explain the absence of miraculous elements, authors may introduce "a retreat of magic" (sometimes called "thinning") that explains why the magic and other fantastic elements no longer appear: For example, in The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...

, the destruction of the One Ring

One Ring

The One Ring is a fictional artifact that appears as the central plot element in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy novels. It is described in an earlier story, The Hobbit , as a magic ring of invisibility. The sequel The Lord of the Rings describes its powers as being more encompassing than...

not only defeated Sauron, but destroyed the power of the Three Rings

Three Rings

In Tolkien's legendarium, the Three Rings are magical artifacts forged by the Elves of Eregion. After the One Ring, they are the most powerful of the twenty Rings of Power....

of the elves, resulting in their sailing into the West at the end of the story. Larry Niven

Larry Niven

Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...

details the idea in The Magic Goes Away
The Magic Goes Away
The Magic Goes Away is a fantasy short story written by Larry Niven in 1976, and later expanded to a novella of the same name which was published in 1978...

, as an allegory for a modern-day energy crisis

Energy crisis

An energy crisis is any great bottleneck in the supply of energy resources to an economy. In popular literature though, it often refers to one of the energy sources used at a certain time and place, particularly those that supply national electricity grids or serve as fuel for vehicles...

. A retreat can also be used as a plot device in a non-Earth setting, such as the diminishing of the Spirit-skills in Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Zilpha Keatley Snyder is an acclaimed author of books for children and young adults. Snyder was awarded three Newbery Honor Book awards for The Egypt Game, The Headless Cupid and The Witches of Worm. Since 1964, Snyder has completed 43 books...

's Green Sky Trilogy

Green Sky Trilogy

The Green Sky Trilogy is a series of fantasy novels by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, originally published between 1975 and 1978 by Atheneum. The books feature illustrations by Alton Raible....

.

A contemporary fantasy

Contemporary fantasy

Contemporary fantasy, also known as modern fantasy or indigenous fantasy, is a sub-genre of fantasy, set in the present day. It is perhaps most popular for its sub-genre, urban fantasy.-Definition and overview:...

necessarily takes place in what purports to be the real world, and not a fantasy world. It may, however, include references to such a retreat. J. K. Rowling

J. K. Rowling

Joanne "Jo" Rowling, OBE , better known as J. K. Rowling, is the British author of the Harry Potter fantasy series...

's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a 2001 book written by British author J. K. Rowling about the magical creatures in the Harry Potter universe...

explains that wizards eventually decided to conceal all magic creatures and artifacts from non-magic users.

Role-playing games

Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...

, the first major role-playing game

Role-playing game

A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...

, has created several detailed and commercially successful fantasy worlds (called "campaign setting

Campaign setting

A campaign setting is usually a fictional world which serves as a setting for a role-playing game or wargame campaign. A campaign is a series of individual adventures, and a campaign setting is the world in which such adventures and campaigns take place...

s"), with established and recognizable characters, locations, histories, and sociologies. The Forgotten Realms

Forgotten Realms

The Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers alike as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setting for his childhood stories...

is perhaps the most extensively developed of these worlds. These elements of detail can be a large part of what attracts people to RPGs.

Many established fantasy writers have also derided Dungeons and Dragons and the fantasy fiction it has inspired due to its influencing new writers toward reading the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual
Monster Manual
The Monster Manual is the primary bestiary sourcebook for monsters in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It includes monsters derived from mythology, and folklore, as well as creatures created for D&D specifically...

instead of studying the original literature and mythology from which modern fantasy literature has sprung.

Due to the fuzzy boundary between fantasy and science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

, it is similarly difficult to make a hard-and-fast distinction between "fantasy worlds" and planets in science fiction

Planets in science fiction

Planets in science fiction are fictional planets that appear in various media, especially those of the science fiction genre, as story-settings or depicted locations.-History:...

. For example, the worlds of Barsoom

Barsoom

Barsoom is a fictional representation of the planet Mars created by American pulp fiction author Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote close to 100 action adventure stories in various genres in the first half of the 20th century, and is now best known as the creator of the character Tarzan...

, Darkover

Darkover

Darkover is the focus of the Darkover series of science fiction novels and short stories by Marion Zimmer Bradley and others published since 1958. According to the novels, Darkover is the only human-habitable of seven planets orbiting a fictional red giant star called Cottman...

, Gor

Gor

Gor , the Counter-Earth, is the alternate-world setting for a series of 30 novels by John Norman that combine philosophy, erotica and science fiction...

, and the Witch World

Witch World

The Witch World by Andre Norton is a long series of fantasy novels set in a parallel universe where magic works and, at the beginning of the series, is exclusively performed by women. The series combines many traits of high fantasy and sword and sorcery. It begins with what is now called the...

combine elements of both genres.

The Elder Scrolls series of computer role playing games are also known for their great scope and depth, and while using many known fantasy stereotypes such as dwarves and elves, this universe handles them in a unique fashion.

External links

Bardic Web - A community for writers collaborating on original speculative and non-speculative fiction, worldbuilding, mythos creation and character development. No fanfic.

The Santharian Dream - Creative, cooperative fantasy world building in the style of J.R.R. Tolkien. An epic, constantly evolving fantasy world on the web since 1998.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.