“In the center of the Centralized Confederacy of Telgora, where the Border and Peaks Rivers split, near the middle of the rolling grasslands of the Great Plains, stands the capital city, and independent state, of Cobra’s Hood. The city rises from the grasslands like a serpent poised to strike.”
Worldbuilding is an incredible, endless endeavor. There are hundreds of video essays, and regular essays, concerning the formation of everything from towns to universes for stories to take place in. I’ve attended Zoom lectures on worldbuilding, including a fabulous one that highlighted the fact that we all worldbuild, even in our day to day lives. Decorating an apartment, setting a table, choosing an outfit, and picking a job are all types of worldbuilding, literally building a life and a place and a scene for a story, the story of our lives, to take place in. But when most of the people I know hear about worldbuilding, they hear about it in the context of writing stories. Even then, they usually understand that to mean fantasy stories.
As I chug through NaNo and prepare for the release of the next book in the Freedom and Control series, I can’t help but dwell on the world that kicked off this latest and longest stretch of writing: Telgora. That’s not actually the name of the world, in all honesty I don’t think I have named it, but it is the name of the country most of the story is set in. I’ve written a little before about Telgora on this blog, and the processes which got me to where we are today with it. It’s an old concept that’s taken many forms, from a steampunk city to a sprawling empire, holding stories about merchants and stories about teenagers going to a school for Dragonriders. Most all of these concepts have coalesced into Telgora’s current form. What I wanted to focus on for this post was Telgora’s capital city: The Grand Capital City Under the Cobra’s Hood, alternatively Cobra’s Hood or just the Hood. How we got here, what it looks like now, and where it could be going in the future!
I like to be candid about a lot of what goes into my writing, or at least I’m trying to be candid, because I feel like that’s the best way to help others one, accept their own ideas and, two, see how this kind of thing happens out there in the “real” world. If that sounds pretentious… yeah… but I don’t know how else to say it. You’ll see in a minute how unpretentious it really is.
Why? Well… how was Cobra’s Hood first born? In high school my friend group well in love with Nationstates, an online text-based game about building and running a country, because we were the cool kids and nothing was going to stop us from living our truths. Naturally, I founded Telgora. Some of us got really into the worldbuilding elements of the game, and this was encouraged by the setup process of the game itself. We needed to pick a national animal for our countries, and I picked the cobra. I loved snakes, I thought cobras were cool, and they would make for an interesting national animal. The thing is, growing up in America with the bald eagle stuck on each and every thing, it seemed natural to me that Telgora would likewise feature cobra and snake symbols everywhere. While the national motto of Telgora even then, as it is now, was “For Gods and Profit,” there came another motto, an homage to Rikki Tikki Tavi, one of my favorite childhood stories.
Those of us who’ve been reading the Freedom and Control series are already quite familiar with it, especially those of my good friends helping me edit the future books. In case you’re not, here’s a snippet from the upcoming Another Time:
“Isenhartz turned to see the flag of Cobra’s Hood flapping wildly in a fresh breeze.
Scarlet.
A mocking, black and white smile.
Those golden characters catching the fading light.
Look and be Afraid.”
From there it only made sense what the Telgoran would pick as their capital, an homage upon homage. They would spread their hoods (a Telgoran expression borne of this decision adopted through the books) against anyone who threatened them, and their capital would represent that. Telgora’s capital, the first named state and city in the country I was creating, would be Cobra’s Hood.
Now we’ve seen an in-moment decision to give my fake country a national animal in a video game turn into the naming of their capital city, a symbol for a people, a battle cry for their culture, and a theme for the books. It’s amazing how much that last one has influenced my writing. Through the Freedom and Control series, fear remains a recurring theme. While my characters battle through the choices relating specifically to freedom and control, they find themselves dogged not only by the fear of those things around them, but also what lies within themselves or what whispers from their pasts. I don’t know if the story would be remotely the same without that, especially because it goes on to drive so many character motivations, both for the arguably better and arguably worse.
Eilatek’s own opening gambit relies largely on her ability to command respect through fear. Isenhartz is chased by the fear of his legacy. Fezharek is afraid for her family. Zhaekota acts the way he does because he’s afraid of losing control.
Of himself or the country? Well, we’ll see.
All because of a cobra. All because they live in the shadow of Cobra’s Hood.
And that’s before we get to the new characters.
One of the admitted things I’ll forever be disappointed with in the speed of the story in A Place I Have Never Been. It is action-heavy, and plot heavy, and the characters don’t get much of a break. But I like to think my writing is improving. My editors and beta readers think it is, at any rate. One of the things, therefore, I am looking forward to in Another Time and future books in the Freedom and Control series is old characters finding time to be themselves and new characters offering fresh perspectives on this world I’ve built and love so much.
To that end, another snipped, and another piece from Another Time where we delve deeper into areas of Cobra’s Hood yet unseen:
“Zhaekota and Tanya descended into laughter as they walked further towards Downtown. The high buildings of Cobra’s Hood’s midtown gave way to older, shorter structures of carved stone and brick. The crowds, kept back by the glaring Chancellor’s Guard, thinned. Paved sidewalks turned to a blend of cobblestone and old stone slabs. Trolley tracks crossed the roads and paths and random intervals. Carefully spaced streets devolved into a twirling mess of alleys and narrow corridors. The angular influences of Kahoto architecture disappeared, replaced by the sweeping, curved edifices of old Telgoran styles. Zhaekota felt like he was stepping back in time.”
Or this section from a still-being-worked-on draft of a future book (subject to change at will):
“’I do. It’s not like I don’t have other reasons not to feel alone, though. It comes with this place.’ He swung his hand around the office. His eyes lingered on a spot beside his desk, and he stood. ‘Here, look at this.’
She followed him in a steady step to a wide, arching window overlooking Cobra’s Hood. She peered over his shoulder, then stepped forward and pressed her hands and then forehead to the glass, trying in vain to take it all in at once. She saw the willowy plumes of train smoke, scaffolding climbing the buildings damaged by errant artillery and dragon fire, the antlike specks of people walking around Hood Square and down narrow avenues. The afternoon sun gave the entire cityscape a warmth she’d never thought she could feel in the capital before. It was enchanting.
His chuckling broke her reverie.
‘It’s the curse of an office like this,’ he said. ‘To have everybody know you and be known by nobody. To see everything like this, but from a distance, and always through a barrier. Before I was in the Central Council, I had more friends than I do now. Even when I was just a Councilmember. But the office isolates…’”
I think what I like most about where this is going in the future is the increased sense of Cobra’s Hood being alive, and by extension, the feeling of life growing through all Telgora. If there’s anything I want to write well, and if there are any lessons being learned in this little self-publishing endeavor I am undertaking in writing the Freedom and Control series, it’s a living world. Cobra’s Hood was the first big step in the right direction, and as I wander its narrow old neighborhoods with characters scheming or stand proud in the capitol besides fiery speeches and debates, I feel like I’m getting closer to it. That my characters are more living in the world I’ve made for them. I like that feeling, and the closer I get to really feeling it the more I am appreciative of the weird, going on seven or eight year journey it took to get here.
But it was, of course, Zhaekota who so perfectly captured everything I wanted Cobra’s Hood to be, who noticed the minute details filling out the city that consumed him. There will be more to read in Another Time, to be sure. But I leave you with his musings on a city named for an animal chosen for a video game that grew to be shorthand for true Telgoran power and fear:
