#fantasygenre

 You've decided to destroy civilization in your fantasy novel? Sucks to be your character. Now let's make their situation a little better or worse but at the least unique, practical, and resourceful. 

Use What's Left Behind: The end of the world doesn't mean the end of human ingenuity. Think of what materials survived your apocalypse and how to reuse them. Crumbling skyscrapers can be reinforced and turned into vertical communities, or broken-down cars can be transformed into steel-tough barricades. Old school buses or train cars? 

The Importance of Defense: Your characters aren't the only ones who have survived. Threats lurk everywhere. Design shelters that have built-in defenses. Your skyscraper community may have drawbridges between floors, or your train car home can be easily detached and sped away in case of danger. Remember the secret exits!

Incorporate the Natural Environment: Trees, caves, and mountains offer robust options for post-apocalyptic shelter. A hollowed-out hillside, for example, provides cover from harsh weather and is easily defensible. Make sure the natural element isn't in a highly radioactive environment. The trunk of a massive, ancient tree could house an entire family. Underwater habitats in the middle of a lake or an ocean? 

Reinvention of Basic Utilities: How will your characters access fresh water, dispose of waste, or maintain a consistent food supply? A river or rainwater could be cleverly directed and filtered, or a salvaged solar panel can provide electricity for a makeshift greenhouse. Composting toilets aren't glamorous, but they get the job done. I may be too used to modern comforts because that last one is a big ew.

Adapting to Your Apocalypse: If you have a nuclear winter scenario, consider shelters with radiation shielding and heat sources. Alien invasion? Consider camouflage or underground dwellings. Zombie outbreak? Elevate your shelters; zombies can't climb! Well, I hope your zombies can't climb. If they do, you may be a sick unhinged person. Keep it up. Makes for better fiction.

Remember, It's Home: This is where your characters will spend a lot of time. Personalize these spaces to reflect the inhabitants. Maybe one character is obsessed with salvaging books, so there's a small library corner. Perhaps another is a mechanic, and there's a well-stocked tool area. Little details will make your post-apocalyptic shelters feel more like home. Or not. A lack of home-related details could add to a sense of impermanence. Having to pull up and run a lot, maybe leaving things behind in your haste, adds to the suspense.

No long ending paragraph today. Have fun writing!

Synopsis: When Fey hears the haunting strains of a violin, she's transported to a magical kingdom called Arcadia through a watery portal. She discovers that it is in peril. The Holy Tree, which sustains all life in the kingdom, has gone missing, and without it, Arcadia will crumble. Along the way, Fey meets Feme, a brave and loyal ally who becomes her closest friend. She sets out on a perilous quest to find the tree and save Arcadia from destruction. Fey navigates treacherous terrain, and learns the secrets of the land's past. She discovers that the magic that once flowed freely in Arcadia was coveted and fought over by those who sought power, leading to a devastating war that nearly destroyed everything. Now, Fey and her companions must unravel the mysteries of the past and the present to save the kingdom. With richly drawn characters and a vividly imagined world, this is a tale of adventure, magic, and the power of friendship

So i know its so weeb of me to do this but imagine SolHwi in an ISEKAI setting

i wanna make headcanons of this omg is anyone interested

its spicy if they have to escape from there

for reference:

Fantasy is a genre characterized by its mythological creatures, references to magic or unexplained miracles and its exploration into humanoid races who walk the line between humanity and beasts. This post will explore how to create your own fantasy race with all your much-needed instructions on how to assemble your species with all the teeth, horns and extra appendages properly attached or it'll guide you on how to build on pre-established fantasy races to craft a new interesting creature to explore and build upon.

This post will cover: How to build upon pre-existing species How to craft your own species

Fantasy species should not justify your genre; this means that in the context of your story the inclusion of a fantasy race should someone add to your story and enrich your world. When you narrow down your field of focus to a select number of fantasy species you can put more care into their existence and use them to effectively make your world feel fuller and more lived in. Take the time to analyse how their inclusion will affect your story, do the characteristcs and visual appearance of this species fit within the bounds of your setting? If you do choose to include a fantasy species how can you add to its lore, modify others understanding of it?

Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, Gnomes, Tieflings, Centaurs the list is never-ending and each of these fantasy species has a pre-determined set of characteristics associated with them, twisting these characteristics or simply building upon the pre-set design will make these species although largely unchanged feel more unique and their inclusion intentional. Take the characteristics of your chosen species and alter them, increase the range of their personalities and influential cultures or alter their physical characteristics, take the features of a fantasy race and emphasize them or replace them, give them fins, electrical pulses, horns, tails to aid them in combat etc. By employing these changes you have new impactful imagery and you also inevitably open up further questions on the history of your race, how did they gain these features, is this species an extension of humanity or something entirely different, are they born through magical means and what is their relationship with magic.

The fantasy races that are deeply intertwined with the fantasy genre are not meant to stay in a clean, organized, unaltered state, they are yours to toy with to change and alter to best fit your ideas and the story that you're trying to tell. Change them till they reach the point of no return and become something else entirely.

One skill I've learnt to embrace is building on 'comfortable features' take the pre-determined characteristics of a fantasy species and reverse them, revel in the opposite and the unrefined.

Most fantasy species are animals or ideas humanised to a certain extent or are extensions of humanity, elves are almost an extension of the positive or idolized aspects of humanity, wisdom, beauty, longevity, peace you could choose to humanize light or stray away from humanization entirely and have a species of intelligent non-humans.

When developing my story I decided to take the elven pre-set and alter them slightly, I darkened their skin, removed the elongated ears, gave them black teeth and altered their history and thus creating a species that was far enough away from the initial source material that I could call them my own. It's important to before you begin drafting/including this new species in your works to practise including them in the narrative, how do their advantageous characteristics and negative characteristics affect how story decisions are made, their fighting style and survivability. Does descriving their multiple limbs and complex anatomy break up the flow of the narrative and feel unnatural when included in a passage. Do they have a different region of origin, how have their characteristics influenced their history?

Your creations should be defined by writing.