The first fantasy fiction I ever read that included a pantheon of gods integral to the story was David Eddings’ The Belgariad. Eddings follows classic polytheism in many ways, with the gods being related (a father and seven brothers). The gods were involved in the creation of the world. They scheme against each other, use [...]

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Polytheism is common in fantasy fiction, likely due to its roots in the mythology of cultures that worshiped a pantheon of gods. Not all fantasy worlds include deities (or spirituality, for that matter), and those that do have their own unique twists. This series will look at the use of gods and religion in fantasy [...]

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I finished reading through the 4E Player’s Handbook last week. 4E introduced some significant changes in mechanics from the previous edition of Dungeons and Dragons. There are a lot of good reviews of the core rules, but seeing as this is a blog about writing fantasy fiction, I wanted to take a different tack. D&D [...]

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I’ve made reference to the “dwarf-elf-orc cliche” in a couple previous posts, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to explain what I mean. There’s two parts to this concept. The first deals with the interpretation of these fantasy races. The second encompasses the the fantasy trope of good and evil races. Going back to [...]

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Today is the last day of the May 2008 Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy blog tour, featuring the Mindflights webzine. The editors’ vision for Mindflights is to provide quality science fiction and fantasy stories that respect “traditional values and Christian principles.” However, their submission guidelines reveal they aren’t interested in “works that appear to function [...]

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