The World of Gorrinth

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This is my little worldbuilding project for the moment. Gorrinth is a fantasy world based on our own ancient world, but with civilizations from many different time periods juxtaposed together and with prehistoric fauna such as dinosaurs and Ice Age mammals. It's rather like Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age.

I don't have a map of my world yet, but here are some drawings of people from my world:


Keshta is the World of Gorrinth's equivalent to Earth's ancient Egypt and Nubia. Their civilization, among Gorrinth's oldest, is situated along the floodplains of the Iteru River which bisects the Vast Red Desert. The Keshtans are a tall, slender black people with a relatively gender-equal, monarchical culture; their Pharaoh may either be a man or a woman. The Keshtan Pharaohs are revered as godlike descendents of the androgynous sun deity Khamun'Kaa and are traditionally buried in colossal stone pyramid-tombs after death. Their religion features a huge pantheon of deities which are a mixture of animal totems, the souls of distinguished ancestors, and nature spirits. Keshta is famous for its monumental architecture, particularly temples and the aforementioned royal tombs, but it also boasts advanced mathematics, medicine, and magic.


The verdant kingdom of Albion is the Gorrinthian equivalent of our world's Celtic culture. Its native population is white-skinned with red hair and green eyes. Once an assortment of quarreling tribes, Albion was united by the conquests of King Arthgur of Afalon, who was famous for wielding a magically powerful sword called Caledfulch. Most Albionese architecture is relatively small in scale, with wattle-and-daub huts being the most common house type, but the capital Afalon features a grand stone castle, and scattered around the countryside are ancient megalith circles where Albionese druids (priests) practice their liturgy. When going into battle, Albionese warriors stripe their faces with blue woad paint to make themselves appear more fearsome.


The frigid and snow-swept land of Midgard is a harsh and unforgiving landscape, so it is little wonder that the blond-haired, blue-eyed Midgardians, like their Norse analogs on Earth, are among Gorrinth's most ferocious people. Millennia of chronic intertribal warfare has honed them into a physically massive and robust race that is possibly Gorrinth's strongest. Since few crops can grow in Midgard's climate, the Midgardian diet is dominated by meat and fish; most plant foods can only be procured by raiding more southerly countries such as Albion. Although their frequent warring and raiding has earned them the reputation of uncouth barbarians, the Midgardians are not one-dimensional savages; they are excellent navigators and shipbuilders, have a rich mythological tradition, and many tribes have a quasi-democratic system of government based on the Althing (tribal assembly).

you should make comics

i dunno why but i miss that creedonia guy

Yeah, what happened to him?


Meluhha is a hot, dusty land save for the fertile banks of the Takkan River, along which a number of prosperous city-states have grown. Although each city is independently governed by its own popular assembly, the Meluhhans share with each other a relatively egalitarian culture, sophisticated public baths and sanitation systems, and an animistic religion featuring a powerful rainmaker deity known as the Rainbow Serpent. The Meluhhans are also famous for employing tamed stegodonts (a kind of elephant extinct on Earth) for manual labor.

Author's Note: Although Gorrinth's Meluhha is primarily based on the ancient Harappan civilization in Pakistan's Indus Valley, the physical appearance of its people and certain elements of their religion were inspired by Australian aborigines.

BIG image

A phylogenetic tree showing the genetic relationships between Gorrinth's various ethnic groups. In brackets are the Earth cultures which most closely resemble each Gorrinthian culture (for instance, Keshta is Gorrinth's equivalent of Egypt and Nubia). If renowned geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza were to travel across universes to Gorrinth and analyze the native genomes, he'd come up with a tree just like this.

[img][800:630]http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/309/e/c/the_world_of_gorrinth_map_by_jabrosky-d4f90r6.png[/img]
A tentative, as-yet-unlabeled Paint sketch of my conworld Gorrinth. As you can see, its geography was heavily influenced by that of our Earth's Old World. Too tired right now to make a legend, but for the moment, the brown streaks are meant to represent mountain ranges.

your women are very, sexual

Scantily clad women FTW.

Revised map of Gorrinth. Now with place names!

Interesting, I have a constructed world/Alternate Earth. Do you have any constructed languages for your people?

The main critique I have for you is that your civilizations mirror actual, real world civilizations too closely; this is just my taste though (have you ever heard of Mark Rosenfelder's Almea, because your conworld greatly reminds me of his?)

Your skill with vector graphics is most praiseworthy.

I personally find concultures based more or less entirely on a single Earth culture too formulaic for my tastes and, geopolitically, Gorrinth seems overly Earth like to me. Despite this, I am glad to see another worldbuilder besides myself.

I forgot to ask this in the last post: Could you explain why you directly borrowed the Sumerian term for the IVC, Meluḫḫa, for a concivs very much like the IVC?

Why not?

I will admit that drawing too heavily on real Earth cultures as I have done can limit your creative flexibility though, so you raise a good point there.

About the use of "Meluhha" for an IVC based conculture: In my opinion, it shows a lack of creativity (not to say you are not creative, just that it does not show it.) It would be the equivalent of Mark Rosenfelder deciding to call "Verduria" "Gaubrit", being that Verduria is based on Enlightenment/Renaissance France and Britain or M.A.R Barker choosing to call "Tsolyáni" "Maypashurdnauh", being that it is (mostly) based on Mayan Languages, Pashto, Urdu and Nahuatl. Of course, it is your personal choice and I have no say in the matter, nor do I have any desire to have so: I am just expressing my personal opinion as based on 2 of my favorite constructed worlds (with Tékumel of M.A.R Barker being my favorite.)

Out of simple curiosity, I wonder why you chose to have 2 European-based concultures yet just 1 African/Middle Eastern based conculture and no conculture based on a culture of an Indigenous American people. Or have you just not gotten to the Asante-based and the Inka-based, so to speak?

Finally, I am very happy, indeed, thrilled, to have another worldbuilder on WrongPlanet; even if our styles are quite different, I can still appreciate your creativity and especially your graphic design skills (I just paint, write about and draw things related to my conworld/Alternate Earth.) If you want to give your input my world and its culture (the latter known as the Sutimpotyk, by the way) or if you wish for my input on your projects, I would be most obliged.

Actually I was just considering redesigning the whole thing so that the geography and native cultures don't resemble those of our world so much.

That seems like a good idea. The way I went about designing my own Sutimpotyk was by taking elements mainly from Andean, Subsahelian African and Chinese civilizations so as to not feel to strongly of any single culture.

I have finally redone my Google site for the Sutimpotyk: Here it is, if you wish to look at it: http://sites.google.com/site/mbinhgany/home . I will have a look at your site right now myself.

BTW, your "Way of the Plains" story was very good: It dealt with the conflict of conservation vs. human survival quite nicely.