Your favourite fantasy world?

[Ink_alpinist]

Dear Kellerica, I also love Earthsea!

I have just read the third volume "The Farthest Shore", first published in my country this year. And man, her dragons are really something, half beasts and half gods! And the whole underworld dusty and empty, the variety of cities and climates. Her world has some vivicity doesn't it? You said you prefer your worldbuilding baked with a good story, I remember reading Ursula herself was also like this. She would unravel her world as Ged would travel and land in its shores. I guess mapmaking could be like that also. Do you feel like that in your creative process?

[stubbzord]

I also have a soft spot for Phantásien (Michael Ende: The Neverending Story). When I was reading the book as a child I so desperately wanted to enter this world just like Bastian did and I also love the original ideas like the colour desert Goab and the house of Aiuóla.

[KMAlexander]

Mine would be Miéville's Bas-Lag.

[Astrocartician]

I have to give another vote for the Map of Middle-Earth by Christopher Tolkien.

What is it about that map? It is not the most artistically well done fantasy map. Any time spent looking at the ones on this forum will confirm that. But to me it has a special way of capturing magic and mystery. It is as special to maps as The Lord of the Rings is to fantasy novels.

[aleyeah]

My favorite world would be the Known World of A Song of Ice and Fire, which includes both Westeros and Essos, among other lands. I particularly enjoy how all maps are created by the maesters of the Citadel and are presented as in-universe documents, so we'll never know how reliable they are. Like how older maps used to be, before we had satellites and everything.

[dpitchtheauthor]

The Northern Skies serires by leo carew has a world called Albion

[nickisnixed]

The maps done by Deven Rue and Andy Law for the second critical role campaign are awesome!

[Lelentos]

call me self centered, but my favorite fantasy setting is the one I wrote for my D&D game. Most of my creativity is poured into that setting either writing for the game or a novel in the same setting I one day hope to publish set 100 years before the game.

But, my favorite fantasy settings from minds more brilliant than I are those that are steeped with lore and logic, when you can see the result of a few simple rules in every bit of worldbuilding. Brandon Sanderson does this amazingly in the Stormlight Archive, the world is plagued by this periodic storm that decimates anything in it's way. There is no grass, but budding bits of greenery that hide when vibration is felt. The animals that eat the buds are made of hardened carapace to weather the storm. The humans build these sturdy buildings out of stone that have no doors or windows on the storm-side, etc etc. Every detail of that world can be traced to it's founding principles.

[theycallmethecaptain]

What's your favourite fantasy setting, everyone? Keep in mind I'm not talking about fantasy stories, just the background universes. For me it's probably Westeros or Faerun, though I have some gripes with both of them.
I often do encounter fantasy stories that take place in a shoddy universe, and that just puts me off. Then there's shoddy stories in a really good universe, which is rare but it happens.

I love more popular settings like Lord of the Rings and Warhammer 40k, but my personal favorites are The Elder Scrolls, Berserk, and Robert E. Howards Hyborean Age. Although it may not be considered as greatly written, but where the Elder Scrolls gets really insane and far from conventional fantasy is the best, for example Michael Kirkbride's work in Morrowind. Berserk and Dark Souls are tragic and dark but the way they draw from medieval Europe is really awesome. Id say Robert E Howards work has had the greatest influence on me and the writing I've done for my dnd setting. I grew up on all the 80s classic fantasy and books so I'm in love with that whole aesthetic.