Do We Need A New World? [Worldbuilding Series, Part 1]
March 2025 Newsletter
Do We Need A New World? [Worldbuilding Series, Part 1]
Escapes
One summer afternoon in 1998, I watched my children learn how to make fake blood packs so they could appear wounded when jabbed with a menacing sword held by the gallant knight standing with them in our kitchen. My kids were enthralled. (They still are today when I mention this scene to them.) Imagine…a knight sharing his secrets and tricks of his trade with you.
This scene occurred as I was preparing for a weekend Renaissance Fair held at our farm in Maine, almost 30 years ago. The tall man with his black shiny hair pulled back into a ponytail while enchanting our kids was preparing for a joust. He would be riding one of two black, sleek horses as he charged towards his partner, who would also be astride a sleek, black horse, in a performance of gallantry and sheer terror. Held on our hay field at the back of our farm, the jousters careened towards each other as they held long lances with one hand and their reins with the other. Occasionally, a lance appeared to graze the arm or leg of the opposing knight, or they ended up off their horses in combat. All this commotion often resulted in the piercing of one of those kitchen-made blood packs that had been earlier constructed in our kitchen.
And, we firmly believed that we were not on a 20th-century farm in rural Maine. Our kitchen had been transformed into what felt like the backstage of a theater, actors anxiously rushing to don their costumes, makeup sending clouds of colorful powder into the air. We were in a world of theater performers about to transform the world outside into a 16th-century Renaissance English Manor.
So when my classmates that I’ve been taking, offered by Odyssey Works, were assigned a worldbuilding exercise this month, I felt curiously at home.