Brian Walker on cultures, outsider POV, and the “less is more” approach to worldbuilding
In this episode of Richardson’s Rubicon, I’m joined by fantasy author Brian Walker to talk about one of the hardest parts of speculative fiction craft: building cultures that feel real without turning your story into a textbook.
Brian’s starting point is simple, and slightly provocative: most attempts at “totally novel” cultures collapse into complexity the characters cannot realistically navigate, or into something readers cannot emotionally parse. His solution is to keep cultural design readable, and to let difference show up through consequence, behaviour, and friction, not paragraphs of explanation.
That ties neatly into his novel Spirit of the Plain (Book 1 of The Unnamed trilogy). The story revolves around the Forest Plain, a vast enchanted region that has resisted settlement, farming, and military crossing for centuries. People have tried to tame it. They have failed. And that one world rule shapes everything: politics, wealth, borders, trade, and the ethics of expansion.
What we cover
- Why “less is more” is not anti-worldbuilding, it’s pro-readability
- Using outsider characters as “window characters” into a culture
- How to show cultural difference through daily rules and taboos
- The Yurbo: large nomadic clans living inside the Plain, guided by spirit talkers
- Greyhaven: wealth, protection, and what it means to benefit from an untameable frontier
- A prophecy-driven attempt to break the Plain, and why that is not automatically heroic
- A naming-based magic system, explained with a programming-language analogy
- Hard limits on magic (and why limits make stakes believable)
- Gunpowder and early firearms in a fantasy setting, plus an eastern cultural influence
- Non-human peoples and the decision to turn “wolf men” into displaced people, not monsters
- Naming conventions across cultures, and why that matters on the page
- Top-down worldbuilding, maps, and the reality of cutting huge amounts of lore
Worldbuilding facts and “rules that bite”
The Forest Plain’s enchantment does not just feel mysterious, it enforces boundaries. It blocks settlement, agriculture, and the movement of armies, and it punishes violations in physical, immediate ways.
The Yurbo survive there as nomadic clans, relying on spirit talkers who commune with the Plain and guide movement and decisions.
“Breaking the Plain” is framed as an expansionist goal, not a neutral act. Ending the enchantment is tied to colonisation pressures and the likely destruction of an existing way of life.
Magic is structured around naming, with lost knowledge over time. The old mage tradition once knew more names, and modern practitioners operate with reduced capability.
Firearms exist (early-stage tech, not modern), which forces magic and tactics to coexist instead of magic automatically dominating every conflict.
Naming conventions vary by culture and can signal lineage and belonging, giving instant social meaning on the page.
Links
Book: https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Plain-Unnamed-Book-1-ebook/dp/B0DTSQM437/
Brian online: https://nairbful.com/