Tinderkell Insights 01: The Messy Fun of Worldbuilding

Welcome to the first Creator Insight! As part of the Patreon relaunch, I wanted to dedicate this initial series of posts to the multi-year journey of making the world of Tinderkell. This is here to share my personal experiences with creating the project and hopefully provide something interesting or helpful. We’ll start by revisiting the original ideas back in 2018.

1. Generic/Bad beats Non-Existent.

Tinderkell started from a couple of drawings of a character named Landylyn, a warrior in a dark fantasy world. I was originally into grimdark and edgier themes, so I used Landylyn to further explore this type of genre. Though I personally think my old work lacked depth and originality, it existed. And that’s all that was needed to start.

2. Make it Mid so you can Make it Good.

As I drew Landylyn more, ideas of her world began to take shape: A medieval war-torn country steeped in civil strife, with her at the center. This country would eventually be known as Qoth. She herself would grow up here, embodying the harshness of this world as a young, small individual, teetering on the edge of becoming a monster in her struggle to survive.

 Qoth was a place of power-hungry nobles locked in competition, marauders roaming the countryside, cannibal rabbits, ruled by a mad queen with a third antler growing into her brain. Hearing these ideas, you can basically predict that the Queen ends up being usurped at the end by our brave protagonist. (Nearly all of these ideas never came to fruition.)

So of course, after a few years of cooking with these concepts, you end up with Tinderkell: Siltria… A story that does not take place in Qoth nor feature Landylyn as the protagonist… How did this happen?

3. Let Curiosity Lead You!

As I expanded Qoth and Landylyn, more questions started to emerge: What was the world like outside of Qoth? What were people in different nations like? How did Qoth interact with those beyond her borders? Did they wage war or trade?

As time went on, the answers to those questions became more fascinating than what we started with originally. Like Siltria.

The entire setting of Tinderkell: Siltria was based off a name made up on the spot from a random sketch.

In the next Creator Insight, we’ll dive more into how the world of Tinderkell expanded beyond Qoth’s borders. Thanks again for the support and hope that you found this interesting!