Mythical and magical creatures are a staple of the fantasy genre, sometimes as obstacles for heroes to face, sometimes as healers and dispensers of wisdom, sometimes fulfilling roles both stranger and more mundane. If you decide to include such beasties in your world, what are they doing there? And how deep you delve into the biology and ecology of these creatures? Do you need to make them make some sort of scientific sense, or can everything be covered by "it's magic"?

We also recap our Seattle WorldCon experience! So listen to hear about our panels, our amazing outfits, and losing a Hugo Award, again.

[Transcript for Episode 163 -- With thanks to our scribes!]

Fantasy religions often feel like reskins either of ancient Greek or Norse pantheons or of the medieval Catholic church. But what more interesting choices can we make when we're building faith within an invented world? Deva Fagan joins us to explore some of the options! How your people envision deities, the afterlife, and the very bones of the universe can illuminate a lot about their overall values and how they self-mythologize their place in the world.

It's not all just cosmology, either: religion can touch so many other parts of a world, from government and power structures to idiomatic language and metaphors. Religions are also things that live and change: How can cults, schisms, and syncretism not only help you create a world that feels more diverse and lived-in, but also maybe give you some plot and character hooks?

[Transcript for Episode 162 -- Thank you, scribes!]

Our Guest: Deva Fagan writes fantasy and science fiction for all ages. When she’s not writing, she spends her time reading, doing geometry, playing video games, hiking, and drinking copious amounts of tea. She is the author of several books, including Rival Magic, Nightingale, The Mirrorwood, A Game of Noctis, and The Delta Codex. She lives in Maine with her husband and their dog. You can find her online at DevaFagan.com.

Deva's List of Cool Fantasy Religions!

Dragon Age Watership Down by Richard Adams Hannah Kaner: Godkiller Lois McMaster Bujold, Curse of Chalion N. K. Jemisin: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (And Dreamblood duology) Robert Jackson Bennet: City of Stairs Little Thieves (YA) Margaret Owen A Psalm for the Wild-Built Becky Chambers Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (Earthseed, god is change) The Burning Kingdoms by Tasha Suri The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

In this episode, we're taking a closer look at something we refer to a lot when we're talking craft: the on-ramp. Which is to say, at the beginning of your book, as you're introducing your world, how much stuff can you throw at your reader how quickly to get them up to speed? And how much is too much and might cause a reader to get bounced right out of the story?

Your readers come in with a lot of assumptions and expectations. Your job as the writer is to adjust those expectations, particularly with your ideal reader in mind. Sometimes, that means choosing which battles you're going to fight when it comes to how much worldbuilding you actually include on the page and how you introduce vocabulary and concepts.

[Transcript for Episode 161 -- Thank you, scribes!]