: Re: How can I effectively research for a high-fantasy setting? When you write in a modern day setting, you research the culture, climate, location and history of that setting. You can do the same

@Fox6458700

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The main thing with High Fantasy or Super-tech science fiction is internal consistency and analogy.

Since you will be dealing with stuff that has no real world direct matches, figure out how the magic/tech/psionics/etc. (I will just use the word, "magic", to represent all of this) work in your story. Make sure they are either consistent or purposely inconsistent (with how/why well thought out). Then think of what kind of world would create that magic or be created by that magic. How would life be affected by magic or affect magic (or effect magic :-) ). How would societies be affected?

As a shortcut, you could pick current or historic societies as the base society that you then modify. If you want the story to be approachable and easy to research (as well as taking the very well tread path) base the society off of medieval Europe or Ancient Rome. If you want to do a lot of research, pick a group like the Inuit. Then figure out how things will change due to the magic.

Then use real world analogs.

If magic is rare and only has a few wizards throwing fireballs, look at historic sword/spear/bow with canons combat. If everyone has a couple of one shot ranged spells, look at the musket era. If combat magic is relatively common, look at WWI. If everyone has trained dragons, move it up to WWII.

For general society, is magical light common (gaslight era or electricity). Can magic be used to speed up crafting? then look at the industrial era.

In general, look at the effect of the magic not the method and find effect analogs that you can reference.

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