Nathan Mangion: Building Worlds, Cultures, and Lore
Nathan Mangion (aka Vorropohaiah) has been building worlds since he was a kid. D&D campaigns, short stories, you name it. And for the last fifteen years he’s embarked on an epic and ambitious quest: to build an planet from scratch. Every map in the world of Elyden has been hand drawn by Nathan, and to go with these insanely beautiful maps, he’s created extensive histories, myths, cosmogonies, and more. When I asked him about his creative process, how he approaches worldbuilding, and his take on how storytelling and worldbuilding intertwine, he had a ton of wisdom to share.
For starters: Sweet, salty, or both?
I love salted caramel, so why not both?
Okay, rapid fire question number two: You’re heading to a deserted island. You can have one gadget, one snack (or drink), and one person to bring along. What and who are you bringing?
Gadget: Assuming there's no access to the internet, probably a kindle with a solar charger.
Snack: Is this just a one-time thing, or an infinite supply so long as I'm stuck there? Either way, given that this may be the last civilized meal I'm going to have in a while, a Double Egg McMuffin.
Person: Ray Mears or Bear Grylls
Okay, okay, onto the worldbuilding ... How would you define worldbuilding? What elements do you think are crucial to creating a world?
I think worldbuilding means different things to different people. To many world builders, the creation of the world is the goal and to others it's just a means of achieving a believable world to base their creative endeavors within. Authors need to worldbuild, even when they're writing something based in the real world, so there's different degrees. But in a broader sense I define it simply as the creation of a fictional world; akin to what Tolkien did with Middle Earth. This includes devising a world, cultures, histories, geographies, and so-on. And this is more in-line with the type of worldbuilding I do.
You draw insanely beautiful maps and write incredibly detailed histories and mythologies. How did you get into creating worlds? Do you have a background in art or writing?
It’s something I’ve been doing since I was young. I have often been a GM (Game Master), which required me to create all kinds of settings for the games to take place in. And then years ago, I started writing a novel and it quickly became apparent that I needed to flesh out the world, and that’s when I began creating Elyden. One of the most important things I needed was a map to determine distances between features and landmarks. At first worldbuilding progressed at a healthy pace, dictated by the needs of the story, but it didn’t take long for me to realize I enjoyed worldbuilding more than writing.
About five years ago I got more serious about making maps and took a Photoshop course. At first they were average fantasy maps. But as I advanced the world’s technology to be in a place of post-industrialization, I developed a more modern aesthetic for the maps, and that’s what you see me post today.
I am still writing though. I've written lots of lore for the world and some short stories too, most of which remain unrevealed. I've been working on a new novel for some time, although I’ve been putting off finishing it. I'll get it done one day, I promise 🙂
Tell us more about it Elyden. In the Elyden Directory you describe it as a planet in decline and in a state of decay. Maybe this is just me, but it sounds like a prediction for what Earth will look like if we don’t get a handle on climate change—minus the elemental forces and Demiurges. How does Elyden compare to Earth?
A big part of worldbuilding is researching. Many hours are spent digging through the most obscure tidbits of history, general facts, and obscure knowledge. And researching is even more necessary for worldbuilders like me. The simple placement of a mountain on a map has various repercussions. It affects rainfall, what mineral wealth lies buried beneath the surface, and so on.
In a similar vein, when you’re placing a large city on a map you need to consider the logistics of that city being there. Giant empires with massive palaces and sprawling cities need vast quarries to mine their building materials. A well-fed city needs a multitude of grain, pork, chickens, eggs, mutton, timber, concrete, etc. to function. Every soldier in an empire’s great army needs to be armed—that's a lot of leather and metal. All of these resources need to come from somewhere and it became apparent to me that all these cultures needed a lot of resources to function.
To build Elyden I started off researching resource depletion in the real world, and then I applied what I’d learned to my fantasy setting and cranked it up to eleven. As a consequence, Elyden is covered in the spent strip mines. Forests have been stripped of their wood so people can farm, which over time and mismanagement leaves the earth barren and unable to sustain life. Its seas are polluted and lifeless through over-fishing. Not exactly the type of escapism that most people would go for, I’ll admit, but it can be seen as a warning to what awaits us if we don’t change our real-world resource consumption.
What are some of your favorite peoples, places, gods, or legends that you’ve created?
I'd have to say the mad Demiurge Vorropohaiah, whose name I've taken as my screen name on the internet—at least it means I don't have trouble finding a username that hasn't already been taken! To cut a long story short(ish), the Demiurges (Ashterath, Rachanael, Arimaspi, and so on) were twenty-two worker gods created by an unnamed deity to make the world of Elyden and its universe. It was meant to be a paradisial realm for twenty-two immortal races. The Demiurges created the perfect realm for these immortal races, but...
As creators and shapers of matter, the Demiurges continued shaping Elyden, eventually destroying the perfection they had initially built. The immortal races became corrupted and turned mortal. The Demiurges punished. They were stripped of their powers and forced to lead the mortal races created through their actions. One of these Demiurges was Vorropohaiah, who slowly went insane after losing his powers. His children, the ropohaii, came to worship him as a god and built great monuments in his honor.
All these digital maps are 100% hand-drawn (which is amazing!). What does your creative process look like? How long does one of these maps typically take to make?
The maps are made in Photoshop, but there is no procedural generation involved. I created a black and white world map to use as a base for the regional maps. I then pick a region of the map, zoom in and crop it to create a particular nation, and build on top of it. The topography is done one layer at a time, all by hand. Once those are done I flatten the image and add things like roads, icons showing cities and areas of interest, and label them. As I label the map, I add the name to my world encyclopedia, noting the population and any other pertinent notes.
It usually takes about four months to create a map for my Patreon, though this also includes making a flag for all nations shown on the map, histories for the regions, and national data (populations, languages, currencies, imports/exports et.), as well as the aforementioned regional notes for the encyclopedia.
You’ve written short stories to go with many of the places you’ve created. What tends to come first: the map or the stories?
Originally it was the stories. Nowadays the maps have taken priority. Although, I do write flash fiction pieces that are set in places on the map I've made to help convey some of the regional history. I’m slowly working on a rewrite of a novel that takes place in the world, as well.
Where do you draw inspiration from?
I'm a very visual thinker and consume a lot of art-based media. Some of my favourite artists include Adrian Smith, Brom, Chase Stone, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Hieronymus Bosch, Ian Miller, John Blanche, John Martin. Karl Kopinski, Paul Bonner, Pete Mohrbacher, Stephen Tappin, Tony DiTerlizzi, Wayne Barlowe, William Blake, Zdzislaw Beksinski.
I love pouring over atlases. It's amazing how every time I look at a page on an atlas I come across new features—either a piece of geography, or the name of a feature or city—that inspire my own maps. Whenever I have room in my budget I buy an atlas! My favourite atlas, (which I have yet to get a physical copy of) is the 1968 Pergamon World Atlas. It was way ahead of its time and has top-notch, hand-made topographical maps.
A map of the Mediterranean Sea from the 1968 Pergamon World Atlas.
I also pull inspiration from movies and documentaries. Whenever I watch something, I have a Google doc open so I can jot down notes. Whether it’s some interesting fact from a documentary or a piece of worldbuilding from a movie or TV show, it’s fascinating what I extrapolate and use to further shape Elyden.
What is the end goal for this Elyden? Is there an end goal?
Nowadays the goal is worldbuilding in and of itself, though a distant target I have is to collect the maps together into a physical atlas/encyclopaedia with artwork, background lore, and perhaps fiction based in the world of Elyden. If not that, at least making a PDF atlas available to those that have been asking for it over the years!
Something more ephemeral is the completion of my first novel, which will perhaps justify all the years I have spent worldbuilding—not that I'm necessarily looking for justification. The maps themselves are extremely enjoyable to make and have brought me into contact with many people across the world who I would otherwise have never met.
