Hi all,
Long-ish time lurker and Brandon Sanderson fan. I actually discovered him through the Infinity Blade novellas about fifteen years ago because I was obsessed with those iPad games.
I’ve recently finished writing my first fantasy novel and have started thinking about where to take the sequel. In the process, I’ve found myself revisiting a lot of the worldbuilding decisions that shaped the project, so I figured I’d finally make an account and post.
Before anything else:
What are noble gases?
In chemistry, noble gases are the elements on the far-right side of the periodic table. Helium, Neon, Argon, Krypton, Xenon, Radon, and Oganesson. They’re known for being unusually stable because their outer electron shells are already full.
That idea of stability eventually became the foundation for an entire fantasy world.
Worldbuilding
The setting is called The Shell.
The name comes directly from electron shells (hehehe). Noble gases are unusually stable because their outer electron shells are already full, and I liked the idea of a world built around that same principle. The people living there don’t know it, but their world was deliberately designed to feel complete. Because they're so stable and self-sufficient, nobody has ever traveled the world except for one explorer from over a century before the book's events, and the main character.
The Shell consists of six continents separated by vast seas. Rather than cultures naturally developing into what they became, many of their defining traits were intentionally built into them by the world’s creator, O.G. The book teases him as being called O.G. because he's the "original", but there's more to that as you will see below. He wanted each continent to reflect something about its corresponding noble gas.
1. Hent was inspired by helium. It’s the smallest continent in the world, and O.G. imagined it as a place of simplicity. Its settlements are modest and mostly wooden, and they like riding air balloons.
2. Novalcy came from neon. When I think of neon, I immediately think of signs and city lights, so O.G. designed Novalcy to be a place where entertainment and self-expression thrive especially through endless concerts. The continent experiences unusually long nights so they always use their neon lights.
3. Atoraiva was built around argon’s role in welding and manufacturing. O.G. wanted a continent defined by work and physical labor. Most of the heavy industry in the setting ended up there, and the average resident is just ripped as hell.
4. Kerrithe draws from krypton’s use in lasers and scientific equipment. O.G. designed it around efficiency and precision. It became the most technologically advanced continent, and I found myself repeatedly giving its cities glass structures simply because the image felt right.
5. Xhasenthor was inspired by xenon. Xenon appears in a wide variety of applications like propulsion systems in aircraft (which are used for ships instead in the book), and O.G. used that versatility as the foundation for the largest continent in the world. The world is your standard "kingdom", if you get what I mean.
6. Ruin was inspired by radon. Radon is unstable and radioactive, which immediately made it the outlier. O.G. never intended Ruin to support civilization in the same way as the other continents. It remains uninhabited, and most people in the setting know it only through the accounts of the only person to ever travel the world.
OK I PROMISE that this is just a coincidence, but I named it Ruin years as a rough idea before I ever read Hero of Ages. I'm a chemist and I had this idea in my college years lol. The connection came entirely from Radon’s instability and decay.
The creator of the world is a being known as O.G., short for Oganesson.
Unlike the other noble gases, Oganesson doesn’t occur naturally. It was first synthesized in a laboratory in Dubna, Russia, in 2002, and exists only briefly (around 0.89 milliseconds) before decaying. That detail fascinated me when I first learned about it.
In my setting, O.G. became a sentient being because the element oganesson was that powerful and the scientists didn't even expect it. He inherited the defining property of his element: decay. From the moment of his creation, he understood that his existence was temporary. However, he also discovered that he could create his own world and control its dimensional frame. Because time passes differently between realities, what measured as less than a millisecond in the world of his creation could stretch into centuries within a world of his own design.
O.G. is therefore not a deity who always existed, but the architect of The Shell and the force responsible for many of its fundamental design choices. The world exists because a dying consciousness chose to leave something behind.
Magic System
The magic system is called Valemancy.
The name comes from valency (hehehehe), which is basically the number of electrons an elements must gain or lose to be stable. I really did not want it to sound like Allomancy too, but Valemancy and valency was right there. (Vale is also a reference to this wind-based mage in a MOBA I play.)
The system revolves inhaling the noble gas particles and each particle allows different effects. The main protagonist, Cielo, can channel these because he's of Noble blood (get it, because noble gases hehehe).
Helium allows Cielo to float because, well, helium. Neon can allow him to locate someone and see them glow with neon colors. Argon, because it's used in welding, gives him a protective barrier. Krypton, known for laser systems, allows him to dash. Xenon allows him to heal because it's used in anesthesia. Radon, being used in tracking air mass quality, allows him to see all the noble gases around him.
One thing I always appreciated about Brando’s magic systems is that limitations matter. I’ve tried to do something similar. The body can only channel so much before exhaustion becomes a problem, and most users spend more time dealing with those limits than discovering new applications. He can also use them as long as there's enough of the noble gases. Unlike Allomancy, this doesn't have to be ingested but just inhaled.
At the climax of the first book, Cielo learns to channel Valemancy but doesn't fully master it. While writing those scenes, I kept thinking about Vin's progression as she learned Allomancy throughout Mistborn. Cielo ends up drawing upon multiple branches of Valemancy in rapid succession while pushing himself far beyond what should be possible.
He guides O.G.'s decay. Because if he didn't, O.G. will take the world, The Shell, with him because this is kind of like "unstable decay".
What’s Next?
The first book ends with The Shell being permanently changed and not as "stable" as it once was.
For the sequel, I’m debating how much to expand Valemancy. I don’t want to introduce a completely separate system, and the comparison I keep coming back to is like how duralumin was introduced in Well of Ascension.
That’s the direction I’m currently leaning, and I wonder if I should maybe use some of the other non-noble gas elements, or do Element 119 somehow.
For those of you who write hard magic systems, how do you decide when to add something new versus exploring what already exists?
Also, if anyone has attempted to build a fantasy setting around a scientific concept, I’d love to hear how you approached it.
Thank you! I'm also getting goosebumps that you mentioned ATLA! I literally mention it in my online blurb for my book (not in the paperback blurb though)