Worldbuilding: A Deepness of Time

In an earlier post I mentioned the modern world ought to have more monsters, not less. But that doesn’t mean you have to make your monsters of modern origin. Places with old history, places with deep time, are an excellent source of potential monsters. Think of them as being like refugia; gingko trees surviving in temple grounds, coelacanths and chambered nautili in the deep seas. If conditions change, if humans mess around just so, if The Stars Turn Right, something could emerge from these last refuges and spread like monstrous wildfire.

The problem then becomes figuring out where, in your world, has this deep time, and what might be hiding there. I vote for checking where people find RL weird species. Places like sinkhole caverns, acid hot springs, and other extreme environments. Or if you want something a little less exotic, remember that mountain chains functions a bit like islands separated by elevation and temperature instead of water. And the Appalachians, in particular, are older than fish.

…No, not speaking metaphorically. The mountain chain originated in the Ordovician. The end of the Ordovician is when we think jawed fish finally developed. Before that you had lamprey-like critters. The Appalachians are literally older than fish.

The Roman Empire? Older – and part of the mountain chain’s in bits of Scotland and Europe, so yeah, they saw that. The rise of mammals? Older, definitely. The extinction of the dinosaurs? The mountains had been through at least three major extinctions before that.

In fact, depending on where you are, the mountains are older than dirt. Glaciers scraped it all off New England, so until that Ice Age ended there was nothing but shattered rocks. For twelve thousand years plants and soil recovered, yet it had no earthworms. Until Europeans got there. Which means we’ll never know all the forest species that used to exist there, dependent on centuries-deep leaf litter. Think about it.

Even into the modern era, the Appalachians have swarms of plant and animal species found nowhere else. They’ve served as refugia through several ice ages, dinosaur-hot temps, and whole continental breakups and rejoinings. Every event brought a fresh wave of species to the mix. What we see today is what survived.

Pick a spot in your world. Think of the broad sweep of events you want to have had happen there. Did a river change its course? Did a new port develop? Did some bored demon lord open a pit to the Abyss thousands of years ago, and anyone who delves too deep in the caves might rouse something better left sleeping?

Places are characters in your story, too. They have personality. They have history. Give your world backstories with deep time. I guarantee you’ll find your monsters!