When building a world, I like to know certain things about it. The length of days, the general types of environments, and even the gravity. I tend to get a little bit more detailed than most people probably would because I love world-building.  Some people might notice similarities to certain real world and/or fantasy things in Taeris. THIS IS INTENDED. When building a world it is very useful to keep general physics familiar to players (earth like qualities). If you make a totally foreign world (which I have made before, and is fine if that's what you are going for), you must explain every detail that is not like earth. This can sometimes get tedious and eat up playing time. For this reason, Taeris is similar to Earth for most physics.  Additionally, the land masses have similarities in Earth places. This gives me a quick reference whenever I need to make something, and a quick way to convey a lot of information to players without spending a lot of time. I also have a group of younger players, so I can use Taeris to teach them about real world places, science, and physics.

 You might have also noted some language similarities. Again these are intentional. If a player wants to name their character a traditional name, they don't have to consult me, they can pick the language that is similar to the Taeris counterpart and figure out a name on their own. For example, you can look up a Tolkien dictionary online and have a great, Taeris name for your orc if you want.  Additionally, for players that are interested in lore, the names can give meaning to areas, information that their character would know, but I don't have to tell them (For instance: Oh, I looked up that word on the internet an and the first part means "cold", and the last part means "lake", so it must be a deep lake, or one that is far north).

 Additionally, using known earth languages as the basis for words in Taeris gives automatic flavor to something without me needing to provide it. For instance, if I name a place Verte-Herbe, Verde-Hierba, Virhea-Ruoho, Zeleny-Trava, Kijani-Nyasi, Luse-Cao, or Green-Grass. Each of these mean the same thing in Earth languages, but they each give a different "feel" for the place, even if you don't know the translation. I can use that "feel" to provide a to of information without actually relating it to the players directly, thus saving time and moving things along much quicker. It's almost like a controlled, useful "meta-gaming". There are also plenty of places that are completely fictional, and the players would have to explore to become familiar with.  I have made worlds completely from scratch using totally fictional worlds and I considered this very seriously for Taeris. I had aspirations of being published, or selling this work at one point, and for that, it would need to be original. At this point in my life I doubt it will every be sold I went this route. I figured IF it every got to the point where I thought it might be published or sold, I could just rename stuff.