|
|
Now available!If you read the print Language Construction Kit, or read it online, you must have asked yourself, "This is fantabulous, but what about everything else besides language?"Ask no longer! Thanks to Yonagu Books, the Planet Construction Kit is here now. It has meaty chapters on everything from where to put your climate zones to how to devise religions to how swordfighting works to why robots need emotions... everything you need to make a plausible world that isn't the Standard Fantasy Kingdom or the Standard S.F. Federation. 
|
Table of Contents
E-Z Fantasy World Test — Answer a simple questionnaire to generate quadrillions of different cultures
Storytelling — The basics of stories: what makes a history worth reading and why you must let things go wrong; common mistakes
Astronomy and Geology — How to choose a star, how to set the parameters for your planet; how to decide on climates— with excursions into ringworlds and exotic physics
Biology — Designing humanoids and more exotic aliens; robots and monsters; why you should get beyond orcs and dragons; how to feed your people and how that affects their culture
History — Creating an interesting history, from a two-line summary to an outline to an entire historical atlas
Culture — How to create a culture: culture tests, governments, law, economics, travel, sex and marriage, clothing, architecture, money and prices, and more
Religion — What belief systems are for; what people believe and do; what they fight about
Magic — How to do magic, whether a tech-like magic system or a numinous and mysterious discipline
Technology — The missing dimension in fantasy: how technology develops
War — Make your people fight! Everything from how to win a sword fight to why nomads terrorized peasants to what makes a good general; with sections on fantasy and futuristic warfare
Making maps — How to make beautiful and effective maps
Illustrations — Pictures make a world come alive, but you can’t draw! Not to worry, you'll learn the basics here
3-D Modelling — Go a step beyond and learn how to create 3-D models of your world
Further reading — An annotated reading list
Details
The Planet Construction Kit is the same size as the LCK (6" x 9"), but about 20% longer— 371 pages. It has to cover a lot of ground!The list price for the print edition is the same as the LCK, $14.95. (Amazon often puts its books on sale, thugh.)
The new Kindle edition is $6.25.
Supplementary material
I'll post supplementary information here, and there will be more to come. To start with...
