The Worldbuilder’s Tavern

This season, we're introducing a new type of bonus episodes for our patrons: worldbuilding workshops! In these episodes, the hosts pick an element of a world and build it together. You can use whatever we build for your own stories, or take the questions we ask and build your own.

These monthly bonus episodes are exclusive to our Patreon, but the first is free for everyone to listen to!

The questions we asked about building a magic system:

In this episode, we're talking about superpowers, secret identities, and characterization in the Netflix show The Umbrella Academy.

Season 3 is coming! We've added a couple new segments and will be talking about worldbuilding through the lens of genre.

In this episode, we're talking about humour, character arcs, prologues, pirate mythology, and more in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

In this episode, we're talking about mechs, feminism, disability representation, and more in the novel Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao.

In this episode, we're talking about nanofibers, science as a weapon, and supercomputers in the TV show 3 Body Problem.

In this episode, we're talking about science gone haywire, confusing vs. interesting worldbuilding, and tension in the TV show 3 Body Problem.

In this episode, we're talking about sense of place, metaphor, mythology, and symbolism in the movie Song of the Sea.

In this episode, we're talking about writing a story based on a theme, age categories, oppressive systems, and utopian societies in the novella Pet by Akwaeke Emezi.

In this episode, we're talking about factions, over-the-top worldbuilding, and retro-futurism in the TV show (based on the video game) Fallout.