Purpose
The purpose of this page is to cover what Binaka is all about and my reasons for working on it. It was originally created as a response to the
World Anvil 2020 Summer Camp Prep Callenge 1. Going forward, this page will be an overall summary of where I am, with separate articele discussing specific events (see the sidebar).
Summary
Binaka is an overarching world that covers multiple genres through its multiple ages. The first age is a magic-heavy genre where everything is powered by magic. The second age is a tech-heavy genre, where technology (as we on 21st centry Earth perceive it) is the driving force. The third age is a sort of tech genre, but where the technology is bio-manipulation and bioengineering. The fourth age is a classic fantasy genre world, with some magic and fantasy creatures, driven by the bio-manipulation of the previous age. Each age (except the fourth and current age) ended with some sort of apocalyptic event. The first age ended with the banishment of magic, the second with a nuclear war, and the third with a planet-wide virus. The gods who originally created the world intervened to one extent or another: fighting powerful wizards and eliminating magic at the end of the first age, ensuring that some humans survived the nuclear war at the end of the second, and manipulating the world-ending plague at the end of the third to help bring back magic.
Motivation
I have two reasons for building this world. First, I'm just having fun making a fictional world. Second, I'd like a place to run role playing games in. Since my interests in alternate worlds include both technology and fantasy, I wanted a framework within which I can include both. Hence the ages of Binaka.
Genre
As mentioned above, Binaka covers many genres. If the post-apocalyptic times between ages are included there are up to seven or eight genres. However, for the foreseeable future I intend to stay mostly within the light-magic traditional fantasy of the
Fourth Age. I expect there to be brief forays into the other ages when I need to describe things created in those times.
Scale
Binaka is an entire world, with multiple ages of wildly different civilazations to boot. However, most of my development so far and for the foreseeable future is within the fourth age and the
Two Continents. There is at least one other continent, but I haven't explored it here, or even in my thoughts.
For individual events, I'll include a separate page, linked in the sidebar.
To Do
I doubt this world will ever be done. However, some specific short to medium term goals are:
- Finish implementing Summer Camp 2020
- Finish Summer Camp 2019
- Do Summer Camp 2018
- Switch all units of measurement to metric. I have been using the Englesh Imperial units as that's what I'm most familiar with, having lived in the USA all my life. However, metric is more universal and the only reason I don't use it is I don't have a good of a picture of what, say 2 cm is versus ⅞¨.
- Rewrite the Binaka landing page. I've never been happy with it and I want to move it to more of a meta page.
- Define the magic system. It's functional description (Magic in the Fourth Age) is currently very hand-wavy and restricted to the fourth age.
- Make greater use of timelines, specifically for the Kaushan and Tinaul qī Narat and the Shiŗoshodai, as I have hand written timelines for much of those places and people.
- Spend more time on the CSS and such. I've got half a theme.
- Add more images
- Add maps. I have a map for the Eastern Principalities, but haven't uploaded it yet.
- Add more dates and the like.
I'd like to implement a calendar. Unfortunately, the primary calendar used throughout the known regions of the world is a hybrid lunar/solar calendar. It has a fixed number of days in the year (probably taking care of leap days), but the "first day" is based on lunar phases, and so the "first" day of the year is usually preceded by a variable length month that is part of the same month as the last month of the year but sized (in days) in order to keep the first day of the year aligned with the lunar phases. I believe this breaks the current calendar system on World Anvil (and just about anywhere else).
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