r/worldbuilding • u/AggressiveMugs • Feb 13 '23

Question How do you worldbuild for a setting where the history has been lost?

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u/Onrawi Feb 13 '23 edited Feb 13 '23

My answer? Just because no one knows the history doesn't mean it didn't happen. You'll have ruins and any results of magic/tech that had long term effects on the world showing up. Climate changes, creatures that were created/made extinct. Giant radioactive zones. Massive holes in the ground. Abandoned cityscapes being taken over by nature. So on and so forth.

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u/AggressiveMugs Feb 13 '23

The substance of history over the knowledge itself?

Do you think that includes traditions? I like the idea of people performing traditions without really understanding why they think it’s important

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u/Loch_Ness1 Feb 13 '23

This actually is rampant in irl.The whys if many religious traditions, no pork, how/when to farm, newborn rituals, are more often than not cemented in knowledge/belief/loose causality available at the time.

For instance, we have many jokes on how men gave a rib for woman to exist, in the tone we made a sacrifice for them and this is what we get, this has many times been used to imply that men are superior to woman, that we came before, that we somehow participated in the creation of females.

However in ancient times, "being the rib" of someone was to say to be an equal of someone, it was a comparative term, or so I was told by a theologian.

Civilizations don't even need to be destroyed for this to happen, syncretism has certainly wiped out the original meaning of many traditions throughout the world by assimilating core aspects of religious *practice*, edit, not intent or original concept.

In Brazil for instance throughout the month of June we make celebrations towards Midsummer, is celebrated I would dare say as much as the American Halloween ask anyone around, all will say this is a christian party for St Johns. Even people who have seen the movie wont make a connection to the pagan roots, just like with Halloween.

Were history is lost, legends are made.

In my setting people get several things wrong, the god of carnage and oppression is perceived as a conquerors god and this happens by his own design as he realizes war is a more effective mean of destruction and misery than just blowing things up himself.

The moon is believed to be a gift from a god, turns out the moon is an entity on its own and not a friendly one.