GrimGlory: WorldEmber 2025 Preparation

Welcome to Grim Glory, a fantasy world caught in the starting throes of the Age of Humanity, but will it be a Golden Age or a Dark Era? Only time, and the actions of the Player Characters, will tell.

I've been putting off actually creating my own campaign fantasy world for...about thirty years now. Despite being a tabletop roleplaying game editor & designer during the heyday of 3rd Edition (3.5), I haven't actually done much tabletop roleplaying since leaving the industry. Now, I'm hoping to actually make friends, host local & online D&D games, and

Ironically, despite having worked on both Dragonlance and Sovereign Stone, and growing up playing with all the 2nd edition worlds (Dark Sun and Ravenloft in particular), I don't like playing in other people's sandboxes... when I'm perfectly capable of creating my own. Grim Glory is just that. My own personal sandbox that I get to share with my friends - and apparently the entire internet if I'm putting it all up here on WorldAnvil.

My one solid oath is that absolutely NO Generative AI will be used, whether it's for art, maps, or writing. Heck, I don't even like MSWord's autocorrect or editing, because at least 75% of the time, it's wrong! I'm currently teaching myself to draw, paint, and all that, embracing the Old School methods, and I paid for an Inkarnate subscription, so might as well use it, right?

Anyways, let's get this preparation started!

Primary Focus

My primary focus for December is creating the "Player's Handbook", defining the primary races/species, classes, magic, and what makes Grim Glory "unique" amongst the countless fantastical realities that exist out there, even if it's going to end up an amalgamation of ideas "borrowed" from some of my favorite worlds, I need to twist them in my own way to make them "mine" - and be able to explain that in a way that players can understand!

Writing Goal

I'm setting my goal at 25,000 words (aiming for 50k) despite the fact I'm also writing a novel that has nothing to do with this world, dealing with the holidays, and planning my "author stuff" for 2026. Shoot for the stars, man!

Preparation

Review or Collect Your World Inspirations

I just finished filling this out in my Meta section, but I'm going to be a bit more specific now.

Sword & Sorcery is my first love, pretty firmly rooted in growing up in the 80s. Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan the Barbarian, the He-Man and Thundercats cartoons, even Star Wars which is just Sword (Lightsabers) & Sorcery (The Force) in Space. Throw in comic books and graphic novels (particularly once I discovered Wendy Pini's Elfquest) and I've been a geek as far back as I can remember.

Epic clashes between good and evil and the pulp art that accompanies it! Frazetta, Vallejo, Bell, Brom, Easley, Elmore, Parkinson, Caldwell, and so many others.

Then my father bought me the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy for Christmas when I was about 11, and I was lost to Dungeons & Dragons forever. Dragonlance Adventures and Leaves from the Inn of Last Home were my first "gaming" books, before I even bought the 1st edition books, and I've been creating worlds ever since.

Blasphemy of blasphemies here, but while I loved fantasy, I could never get beyond The Hobbit - so, beyond the fact that he's unavoidable as an inspiration, I don't actually count JRR Tolkien as an inspiration . Lord of the Rings trilogy just didn't thrill me as much as the various Forgotten Realms & Dragonlance novels did, and then, in my teens, 2nd edition was blazing ahead full steam, and Dark Sun & Ravenloft captured my imagination...at least until Vampire the Masquerade came out. Then, like most moody teenage geeks, I shifted from heroic fantasy to grimdark gothic fantasies, Mary Shelley and Byron over Tolkien any day, and yeah... here we are now, thirty years later.

I'm a military veteran that's lived all over the world, so I tend to try and think "globally" in my worldbuilding, incorporating elements and mythologies from around the world, trying to skate that thin edge between respecting the cultures I'm drawing inspiration from while creating something "new" that'll fit into my fantasy setting.

Of course, the rise of anime and manga over the last thirty years plus has helped keep the inspiration flowing, probably far more than recent American stuff. More recently, I've gotten into reading LitRPG novels, and particularly fell in love with the works of Matt Dinniman (Dungeon Crawler Carl) and Michael Chatfield (The Ten Realms, Emerilia, Four Horsemen).

Refresh Your Author Page for New Readers

Finished and updated!

https://www.worldanvil.com/author/OldWolfChris

Create a Moodboard for Your World

A quick mood board I threw together, complete with a Logo in Process...

Review or Set Up Your World Homepage

It's rough, unpretty, and still figuring things out here, but it's a start!

Review Your Category Tree

Work in progress! It's there! See! But still getting it organized and set-up the way I like, as I figure out how to use WorldAnvil and refresh myself on 5th Edition rules.

Postscript!