Developing Post-Apocalyptic Worlds
- Marie Mullany
- 13 hours ago
- 3 min read
Recently, I’ve been immersed in creating a post-apocalypse world for a mermaid story, which has sparked a lot of thoughts about apocalyptic events and their aftermath. I previously made a mini series of videos on this topic, and I’ll link them here for anyone interested. However, after building my own post-apocalyptic world and reading John Gwynne’s Bloodsworn series—also set in a post-apocalypse—I wanted to update my reflections.
One of the most fascinating aspects of crafting a post-apocalypse world is considering how people respond to disaster, both immediately and in the long term. This reaction often depends on how cynical or optimistic you are about humanity.
Would people resort to robbing and harming each other, or would they band together and help one another?
It’s a question worth pondering as you build your world and one that I frequently found myself going back and forth on.
The world I’m building draws inspiration from Shadowrun, a role-playing universe where magic returns in cycles. Shadowrun is set after magic has recently re-emerged, bringing mythological creatures and races like trolls, fundamentally changing the world. In Shadowrun, the apocalypse happened about twenty years ago, so society has settled into a new, post-apocalyptic shape.
However in my mermaid story, magic returns to the world, and that’s where the book begins. The main character, Inez, transforms into a mermaid during a dive in the Red Sea. And then she had to deal with the fallout not just of her own transformation (which at first she thinks is a localized event), but also with the massive changes that magic and myth returning creates in the world around her.
This dramatic event led me to consider how people would react if confronted with mythological beings—mermaids, the Ghanaian Sasabonsam (which appears in later chapters), magic users, or dragons. Would people turn to religion in the face of such events? I believe some would. Would they accept mythological creatures? Some might, but others would react with fear and disgust, especially toward the stranger beings.
The mythological creatures themselves also face challenges. For example, I include a monster that is perpetually hungry and feeds off human life, killing with a touch. This monster was once human, transformed through no fault of its own. The natural reaction is self-defense (the thing is of course going to eat you!), but it raises interesting conflicts and questions about how people respond to the unknown.
How you think people would react depends greatly on your outlook, I think. Consider Lord of the Flies by William Golding, where the boys initially work together but eventually descend into violence. Golding’s view of humanity is quite cynical. In contrast, authors like Mercedes Lackey or Tamora Pierce, depict people banding together to overcome disasters.
As an author, your perspective on humanity shapes the themes of your post-apocalyptic world. It’s not just about what it says about you, but also about what you’re telling readers would happen in a disaster. The way people react in your world becomes a central theme, and it’s worth reflecting on as you build your story and I think it will have the greatest impact on the world you build.
If you think that people would band together, that they would help each other, that humanity would be kind, then your world 's reaction to mythological monsters should reflect that. If you think people would turn on each other and disaster would follow, then the post-apocalypse world becomes harsher and harder.
In the end, I probably fall somewhere in between these two extremes, as probably most people do. But it was the part of the world I struggled with most: how would people react when their lives were shattered and what does that say about those people?
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