User:Theinfluencebehindtheemperor

Hi. I make countries. I've got this thing going that I've been doing for about 7 years. It grew out of an earlier project I started when I was about 8 or 9. I'd read the two series the Belgariad and the Malloreon by David and Leigh Eddings, as well as an attempt at reading the Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. I don't think I ever got through the LOTR but around that time I watched Peter Jackson's movies and read The Hobbit. I was quite keen on the idea of some fantasy world with a great adventure.

Out of this grew Tomorak, a fantasy world based, like Eddings and Tolkien, on a map. It was an ugly thing, drawn with felt tip pens on a reused piece of A4 paper. Naturally, my map was rather square. I had this country with expansive forests and a big river running down the middle. It was bordered by a suspiciously straight mountain range which divided the piece of paper in two. On the left-hand side there was a sprawling plain, in what I decided was a farming nation. There was no regard for climate nor any other geological consideration. I drew three more of these, and soon had the whole continent, which was christened Tomorak. This was soon joined by a second southerly continent. By this time I think I had a better appreciation for the climate, but it was still fairly primitive.

Around this time I read a novel, the name of which I have forgotten, based on a character who lived at some English manor and went off on some journey. The novel was written, I suspect, though I cannot actually remember, in the style of a diary. This novel I expect was actually quite boring, but I was inspired. With my tiny little notebook I started producing a diary. This diary ultimately resulted in the creation of a language. It was not a proper conlang, it was a cypher of English written by a 10 year old. I can't quite remember what the connection between the novel and producing a conlang was, but it certainly. This is the beginning of what became Peonese, the language of Peoanne, the first country I had made.

I was introduced to the Harry Potter novels one Christmas when my family purchased a box set containing all of them. I had already seen the first four movies but was not deemed old enough to read the books. The Harry Potter novels had a profound effect on me and shaped the next few years of my life. It was also around this time that I began reading a lot of fiction that had a great amount of influence on me. I had already proven myself a keen reader, but it was not until now that I began to really develop strong interests. I read the Charlie Bone novels by Jenny Nimmo, the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey, the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer, the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, Tomorrow When the War Began by Philip Pullman and the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. I also read a number of other books that had a lesser influence, Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, Journey to Tangiwai by David Hill, and the Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis. Many of these were introduced to me by my father, others at school.

Later on at high school my first girlfriend would introduce me to a number of books, the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan and of course Looking For Alaska by John Green. Amusingly, the introduction to Hank and John Green has perhaps had a greater effect on shaping my life than that first relationship. As I grew older, my interests moved away from the high fantasy of the Lord of the Rings and the Belgariad. Permitted to watch more television, my interest in science fiction grew. I had been an avid fan of Doctor Who since its revival in 2005, but I was also introduce to Star Wars, Avatar, Firefly, and The Terminator. Now much older (and admittedly ahead of the other half of my story), I began reading Science Fiction novels, The Mote In God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell, Ringworld by Larry Niven, I, Robot and the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov.

My new interests bled into my worldbuilding. I became interested in history. A book I had detailed each of the English and British monarchs since William the Conqueror helped spur interest in developing the history of my conworld. I became interested in detailing sports teams, music artists, elections. I drew copious numbers of maps and started branching out. A project set by a relief teacher had long before introduced me to the idea of architecture, and so I drew plans of castles and houses. I attempted to build things in lego. I came up with a whole fictional family set in the real world, I wrote a diary from the point of view of a character in Harry Potter. The thing that would really kick worldbuilding into a new gear, however, was the discovery of Nation States. I discovered Nation States and created Peoanne. I abandoned this almost immediately and forgot my password. I went off to a new school and developed a whole new set of interests. I made new friends, started playing football, joined a band.

The next summer holidays, I rediscovered Nation States. Unable to recover Peoanne, I created Hosbiarna, the first nation of the world that would become Dénimóne. After Hosbiarna followed Yulis and I was away. For a while I simply used Nation States as many others did. I engaged the raiding/defending gameplay. I joined a large region. Eventually I was persuaded to join a new region, The Federation of Dethklok 1000, named for its founder's favourite band. This is what shifted the focus from Hosbiarna to Yulis. While Hosbiarna remained behind at The East Pacific, Yulis became my main nation. I developed a history, beginning at the year 2012, which was simply the current year. I came up with a royal family, drew many maps, most of which have since been abandoned. I simply kept creating more history and began moving forward.

An important step in the worldbuilding was the discovery of conlanging. Now at high school, I was studying French, and rebooted the Peonese language from my first world. This was swiftly abandoned and I started again, although the name "Duclan", the Peonese world for Peonese, was borrowed. The first Dúclan was a poor copy of English and French. It introduced plenty of faux-exotic variants of English and French vocabulary, it displayed little actual understanding for how languages differ or even how they work. Very quickly it was retconned and became an earlier form of the language, the 1913 Dúclan. This of course, in retrospect, is yet another example of my naivety. I'm not sure how I expected language to change sufficiently in only a hundred or so years. I began work on a new version, now split in four, one for each of Yulis, Hosbiarna, Greckel and Jobein.

This endeavour introduced me to historical linguistics, which would lead me towards linguistics itself. My focus on the languages in Dénimóne briefly abated, as I became interested in our world's languages. I would soon return to the languages of Dénimóne. During this time I also developed a greater interest in history, and I started developing the history of Yulis and its surrounding nations. I tracked the history of its royal family, I drew historical maps and I began developing its government. This would introduce me to politics, which has been another important part of my life. I developed a political system, wrote a constitution and translated it (poorly) into Yulisian. I got carried away creating election results and the like. I now had centuries of history.

I was introduced to Mark Rosenfelder's books by a friend and this rekindled my efforts in conlanging and conworlding. I was already reasonably accomplished but Rosenfelder's books encouraged me to do things properly and I'm generally happy with the things I've made since. The process of conworlding always involves replacing old material but I now have a more coherent narrative