A sample story bible

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I’ve provided this simplified example based on my heroic fantasy novel Chords, with the goal of giving you a more concrete example of what one might look like. Keep the overall structure, or modify and adapt it to meet the needs of your specific story!

Characters

(Simplified to show only the three protagonists.)

Characteristics	Bram	Gareth	Margrethe
Gender	Male	Male	Female
Age at start of story	About 25	About 30	17
Hair type and color	Straight, glossy black, cut short to ears	Wavy dark brown, down below ears	Wavy golden-brown, falls to shoulders
Eyes	Deep blue	Dark brown	Dark brown
Someone I imagine they look like	Keanu Reeves (body type but not face)	Lyle Alzado	Sandra Bullock
Height and weight	5’10”, 170 lb	6’4”, 220 lb	5’6”, 130 lb
Handedness	Righthanded	Righthanded	Righthanded
Fighting style/weapon	Wiry and fast; relies on finesse more than strength; prefers something like a saber or saber and dagger combination. Sees fighting as a necessary evil, best avoided if possible. Prefers not to kill.	Powerful and surprisingly fast for his size, bulls through a fight but can also fence; prefers something like a heavy bastard sword. Considers combat and killing no more important or stressful than defecation.	Complete amateur, relies on surprise (unexpectedness of a female warrior in this very patriarchal culture); only knows how to use a dagger or knife. Horrified by what she learns of herself in combat.
Literacy	Reads and writes fluently	Reads slowly, writes clumsily	Reads and writes fluently
Verbal quirks	Tends to speak more formally, fewer contractions	Highly informal speech, many contractions (especially “bro”).	None notable
Temperament	Very slow to anger, which becomes a slow burn more often than loss of control.	Easily angered, often leading to violence.	Angers most easily when she feels patronized; then, she gets very angry indeed.
Origin/backstory	Knight from a respected family in the middle tier of the nobility, moving up through the military ranks until he gives up that career. Strong family ties now ruptured, much to his sorrow.	Mercenary, the bastard son of some long-disappeared father and dead mother; has “attachment issues” in consequence.	Child of single mother, sold to the palace in Volonor rather than being allowed to starve or sold into prostitution; mother long dead, and she has mixed feelings about this.
Unusual possessions	A signet ring that he received as first son and inheritor in his family.	None	None

Story world

Climate and terrain

Roughly western European, with warm and relatively dry summers and cold (often snowy) wet winters.
Vegetation is mostly deciduous forests and lush grasslands with rich agricultural land in the east and horse breeding and herding in the western grasslands. (But not Mongol or Plains Indian—much more European.)
Travel entirely on foot, by horse, by horse-drawn carriage, or by various forms of barge or boat. Very little paving, though roads near big cities are often maintained relatively well. Travel between major cities takes several days (horsemen with remounts or post stations riding rapidly) up to several weeks (wagons and people traveling on foot). See the map for details.
Major north–south mountain ranges that run right into the ocean. This mean that east–west travel is limited to several mountain passes that cross these mountains and that can be (with more or less ease) defended against invaders from an adjacent kingdom.

“Races” and fantasy creatures

Humans are central to the story in the eastern lands and are spreading into the west, where they have come into conflict with the Goblins. As the humans came from a single small civilization before that civilization ended (see below), they went through a bit of a genetic bottleneck. As a result, those we meet are phenotypically fairly homogeneous (somewhat like the cliché of medieval Europe rather than the more diverse reality). Though their “race” is not specified, it’s fair to assume (based on the cultural and other descriptions) that they are almost exclusively “white” Europeans, with only some variation. This is purely a simplification, since this is my first novel; it is explicitly not a desideratum.
Tolkien-style Goblins are being pushed every further to the west, and no longer have anywhere to go—if they were willing to go. With their backs against the wall, they’re now fighting a war for their existence against the Humans. Though there are elements of Islam vs. Christianity and Plains Indians versus British settlers, this is a metaphor for heedless colonialism in general, not a direct reference to either of the two historical examples.
Tolkien-style Elves exist exclusively in woodland areas, and are only encountered (briefly but significantly) in book 2 of the trilogy, Jester.
Tolkien-style Dwarves exist, but will not enter into the trilogy. They are mentioned for “color” in Jester.
There is unquestionably a “demon” world of powerful and generally malign spirits, some of whom can be summoned. Its relationship with the story world is unspecified at this point in the worldbuilding; will be described in detail in the third book, Ambassador (not yet written).
No classical fantasy creatures (giants, dragons, ogres, trolls) currently exist in the human lands.

History and culture

About 150 years before the story begins, a magical catastrophe occurred that destroyed the old lands of the Humans and forced the survivors to flee across a great western ocean. Arriving in the new world, they spread like kudzu, driving the older races (Elves, Dwarves, Goblins) out of the lands that were suitable for human agriculture. At the time of Chords, the Goblins are starting to fight back; the other races are largely trying to ignore the humans and hope they’ll go away.
At the time of the cataclysm, all sorcerers were killed or left behind to punish them for their role in the catastrophe. A different class of magic user suffered the same fate, but it’s not clear how they were different or why they were persecuted with even greater vigor than the pure sorcerers. This is simply taken as a matter of history by the humans in Chords. An explanation is hinted at in Jester, and a full explication is provided in Ambassador (not yet written).
The human component of the story world is, on the surface, a traditional medieval patriarchy with women strongly subordinated. However, Margrethe’s part of the story in Chords, plus some details that Bram and Gareth see but don’t really notice, suggest that’s an overly simplistic view. It’s worth noting that the men are not reliable narrators, particularly of the women’s experience.
At the time of the story, the conflict between the Goblins and Amelior has begun to grow from a forever war dominated by guerilla raids and episodes of terrorism by the opposing sides into a full-blown war that threatens Amelior’s survival, thereby precipitating the events in Chords.
All humans speak the same language (having come from the same small region). The non-humans speak their own languages. Elves are master linguists, and speak pretty much all languages, including the Human tongue. Goblins speak only their own language, though some may have a smattering of Elvish or Dwarvish. Dwarves who trade with humans speak the Human tongue.

Religion

Humans have no religious belief whatsoever, not even vague terms such as “the gods”; instead, the seemingly ubiquitous tendency of humans to create religions has been replaced by a kind of consensus ethical code with heavy feudal overtones and loyalty rather than religious duty at the center of the belief system. This unusual arrangement is simply taken as a given in Chords, with a hinted-at explanation in Jester, and a full explication in Ambassador (not yet written).
Goblins have a god who is very much influential in their lives in the form of a religious theocracy.
Elvish and Dwarfish religions exist but don’t enter into the story, other than a brief glimpse of Elvish beliefs in Jester.

Magic

Magic is implemented by the control of energy that comes from different sources and that is gathered and channeled by means of different methods. Human magic tends to draw energy from the magic user themself, supplemented sometimes by energy from the ambient environment. It is based on spoken or chanted spells that let the mage gather and shape power.
Non-human magic includes the human form, but sometimes relies heavily on external sources (e.g., gods, devils, other living beings).
Magic is outlawed in the human lands, and apart from powerful individuals such as kings who have their own (very carefully concealed) mages, there are only a few hedge witches and wise women with primitive magical skills.
Goblin magic is primarily by priests or shamans who channel power provided by their god.
Elvish magic tends to be integral to the body and mind of the individuals, though some are more powerful sorcerers than others; that power can be mustered through a simple effort of will, sometimes accompanied by somatic components (e.g., gestures such as gathering or throwing motions). Elves draw their magical strength from nature, and particularly from the moon.
Dwarvish magic does not enter the trilogy, but tends to relate more to shaping natural inorganic things (e.g., iron, crystals, gems).

Technology and human physical setting

Human technology is late iron-age, and completely pre-industrial. There’s no “chemistry” as such, other than for such things as transforming iron into steel, tanning leather, and brewing and distilling alcohol. Castle design is highly advanced; urban design, not so much. Medical science [sic] does not exist, and mostly takes the form of proven folk remedies passed on from generation to generation. Much of it works well, but it very much has limits. Agriculture is still done by horse, ox, and human sweat, but is productive enough that it has begun to support a merchant class that exploits the efforts of farmers (particularly in Belfalas). Military technology is late-medieval (e.g., good armor and weaponry, but no gunpowder or other explosives).
Goblins are primarily early medieval, with poor-quality steel and subsistence agriculture, most often in subterranean caverns rather than on the surface. They hunt for a lot of their meat, including the occasional unfortunate Human. They’re not stupid; they just haven’t undergone the same winnowing and selection pressure caused by warfare that have pushed human technology forward. They have no medicine, as such; the wounded either live or die. As a result, they tend to have robust immune systems.
Elves are, as is traditional, pained by iron, and thus have developed something parallel to the late iron age in terms of effectiveness, but using other alloys. Elves are few enough in number that they can survive based on hunting and gathering, supplemented by small kitchen gardens and a few larger fields (e.g., for wheat equivalents), orchards, and vineyards. Elvish medicine relies on extensive herbal knowledge combined with magic, and is therefore highly effective.
Dwarves are masters of anything metal, and treat it as much art and worship as a product. They do sell their products if suitably bribed, but these sales are rare, expensive, and involve highly valued items. It’s not clear what Dwarves eat at home, since there are no reported signs of agriculture, leading to rumors among humans that they consume rock and excrete iron ingots. Dwarves don’t appear to be injured, despite their ferocious weaponry and skill in the use thereof, so it’s not clear whether they have medicine. (I jest. They are injured and can be killed, and they do have reasonably competent healers. And no, they don’t eat rocks. That’s just human slander.)

Economics

Non-human economies aren’t relevant to the trilogy and therefore aren’t described here.
Human society is dominated by small businesses, largely centered around a family or group of friends. There are no large “enterprises” or industries, although there is a small but growing merchant class that acts as middlemen between craftsmen or farmers and the consumers of their products.
There is much barter, but there is also a well-established system of coinage that originated in the old world (see “History and Culture” earlier in this document). Thus, coinage is largely consistent between the different human groups, although 150 years have passed since arrival in the new lands, leading to the usual currency changes (e.g., debasement of the currency, creation of new coins with different values). There’s no fiat currency (e.g., paper bills whose value is supported by a hoard of gold), though there are occasional IOUs created by merchants or debtors.

Main political entities

Amelior in the west is a still feudal-style kingdom, locked in a war for survival with the Goblins, who they would be happy to exterminate.
Ankur and Volonor in the east are monarchies, but moving slowly along the road to becoming constitutional monarchies. They will be important urban story loci in Chords and both Chords and Jester, respectively.
Somorrah is a kingdom, paying tribute to Volonor but plotting to secede. A corrupt and sleazy town that probably would collapse without its strong tyrant king. Will not be foregrounded in any part of the trilogy.
Belfalas is a sprawling major agricultural town that has long burst through its walls during its expansion. In rich farmland, it’s the main source of crops for most of the human lands and particularly for Amelior. Formerly a kingdom, but the royal family is long dead, and the city has evolved into a system with a ruling council composed of merchants and ancien régime nobility in a sort-of-friendly power struggle.