On the maddness of Bardic Web...

Today's introspective is about Mythos and WorldBuilding. I often stop to wonder how, as a group of writers at Bardic Web (http://bardicweb.com) we passed from role-players to writers with an almost obsessive passion for creating entire worlds around the characters that we write. Perhaps the catylst was how protective of the characters themselves we became. Pouring blood, sweat and tears into your main persona takes alot out of you and it became the norm to ask that noone else speak or act for the character you had worked so hard to create. It is a huge faux pas to put words in someone else's mouth, or to write the outcome of an action for them.
Natural progression led to creating a history – where were they from? Who were they really, and why? The places and people of their imaginary past became solid, linear. Personality quirks and traits were explained by past experience and culture.
The snowball effect, I suppose, created entire planets populated by many races. We find ourselves writing innummerable characters to express many different facets of the worlds we've created. They live within vibrant cultures in rich enviroments springing from creative imaginations. Providing detailed mythos allows others to step into those worlds, to write confidently with a codex of information at their fingertips.
What is the gravity like? The weather? What is a person likely to find on the menu at an Inn? What sort of taboos does each culture have? Who am I likely to meet?
Whether just a guest, or given the privelege of writing a character within someone else's Mythos – the roleplay and writing is more fun simply because of the quality of detail – giving the writer a broader canvas of expresion in a Fantasy enviroment without leaning on copyrighted materials such as Tolkien or other published works.
Best of all – fanfic free fiction gives us the opportunity to self publish.
There is a method to the madness of Bardic Web – one only has to grab hold of the threads to start weaving the tales of their imagination.