When it comes to designing a fursona, most people focus on appearances, which makes sense. But, as with any character design, fursonas can have a surprisingly deep world behind them. Afterall, your fursona has to live in a world somewhere and their life would tell a story. But how was their story?
A story does not have to be written. A picture can tell a thousand words, after all. If you have made or commisioned multiple arts of your fursona, how did each of them relate? Were all the arts of your sona related to each other? Did they overall tell a continous story?
Your fursona may have a well-developed story overall, just a simple backstory, or not at all. That’s fine, but even then, there are still a lot more things to consider with the world your fursona live in. The world your fursona live in should theoretically have a rule; some elements of worldbuilding.
And every fursona have a different world behind them: some people make every species in their sona’s universe match the size of their wild counterpart, meaning that bear anthros are much larger there than rabbit anthros, while others make every species much more similar. So while a rabbit is smaller than a bear, the difference isn’t as big (perhaps the size differences are closer to human vs another human, instead of irl bear vs rabbit). Another element is smell: some give their sona, especially dog fursonas, better sense of smell, while others never mention about this detail.
So what about your fursona? What other notable worldbuilding details did you put in your fursona’s world?
For me at least, my raccoon fursona doesn’t really have a rich backstory or a story in general. She is a transgender raccoon girl who is socially awkward, always curious but also anxious. She is mostly left alone by everyone around her as nobody understands her and she doesn’t understand anyone.
Aside from that, she also lives in a wold where everyone is plantigrade. There are no digitigrade anthros even for digitigrade species like dogs, mainly out of preferences and a lack of drawing skill. Everyone also has similar sizes. While bears are bigger than rabbits, the differences aren’t significant.
One interesting thing is that regular, feral animals are also present in my sona’s universe. They are indistinguishable from real life animals and mostly coexist with anthros. Anthros and ferals are completely different species, even if they’re based on the same species.
Overall, I think my worldbuilding looks generically similar to your average anthro universe worldbuilding. What do you think?
I think my 'sona would be cheating because:
- He originated from an RP with friends,
- That RP was initially set in a fanficified take on an estabilished universe, and
- That RP is still going and a lot of time is spent collectively worldbuilding the universe, borrowing from several pieces of fantasy and other pop culture ephemera we enjoy.
Thus he has a lot of worldbuilding to and around him. :P
My sona, Eon, is a D&D character turned sona, so I feel that sentiment.
We finished the campaign he was in a few months ago, and he was, bar none, the most fun I’ve ever had playing D&D. And yes, that is as a fighter (albeit an Echo Knight but still, the class is known for being super bland).
One of the most fun chars I have in DnD is a Raccoon Rogue, who is also a martial class.
… And half of his gimmick comes from being “the Sokka”. The only regular dude in a party of magically gifted weirdos.
But he doesn’t enjoy 'sona status.
The Count, my Fursona, originated as a char for a medieval MLP-themed RP(G) which used a custom system. He was briefly a warlock as we switched to D&D but then we switched back to a soft system though he kept some of his warlocky features, the more fun ones. The universe he is in, while inspired by that one episode that shows the medieval times of the My Little Pony universe, before the three pony races unified, also borrowed heavily from Legacy of Kain, Dark Souls, and a dozen other fantasy serieseseses.
Sloan doesn’t really have much in the way of a backstory. He’s basically just me as an anthro serval (well, with some slight body-shape alterations as well. We’re both around the same size but Sloan’s a bit more pear-shaped), living in a furrified fictional analog to the real world albeit with a degree of toon physics to it (since I enjoy the various toony shenanigans the furry fandom gets up to), some magic (to facilitate those toony shenanigans), and a lot less conflict (mainly because I want an escape from how hostile things have become IRL).
Sloan’s world is inhabited by basically a vast mix of species seen in the furry fandom. Real world animals, mythological creatures, fandom species, 'mons and other pop culture species. The various species are roughly human-sized but with more extreme height variance being common - anywhere from 3-9 feet is possible. There are also very rare instances of macros in that world, usually either the result of magical or scientific experimentation gone wrong or a freak mutation, although some natural ones exist as well. To keep the world from being destroyed by, for example, a rampaging planet-sized jolteon girl (if you know who I’m talking about, you know who I’m talking about), the hard limit for these macros is around 500-600 feet tall, basically low-tier kaiju-sized.
Species are digitigrade or plantigrade depending on what their basis is, though with some variation - for example, Kitsune are plantigrade even though foxes are digitigrade.
I come from a background of TTRPG campaign writing, so it’s become second nature for me not of writing characters but writing worlds. Yes, I have characters in that world, but most of my effort goes into making coherent histories, geographies, and cultures, which I then wrote Un into.
The best way to describe my world simply is like a futuristic hi-tech version of the world from Pixars Onward. A magical hi-tech world, which was super fun to build due to it being so against the normal worlds that you build. I went out to make a world that was as flexible as Un is, which was a super fun challenge.
my sona is just a silly little squirrel guy, he has no backstory whatsoever
I do think that the canon reason for plantigrade legs in your universe being you can’t draw digitigrade is pretty funny, I like it!
As a hard sci-fi enthusiast, my universe is set only a few hundred years later. Anthros are just a consequence of nano-biotechnology advances allowing people to design, print, and inhabit the bodies they want -be it biological or synthetic-, and are a minority of the total “human” population. However, I tend to focus my attention to stations and habitats colonizing and exploiting the rest of the solar system, and the furry / human ratio is much closer to 2:1 off of earth. My bet is the type of person who is willing to leave their human form behind isn’t far removed from one who is willing to leave their planet behind as well- and with interstellar travel in its infancy, even leaving their system behind is possible.
From transistorized conciousness to commodified nuclear power, the furry thing is just one part of my universe. But it’s an important one, as it allows people to adapt to their environment while they adapt it for us all.
I do think that the canon reason for plantigrade legs in your universe being you can’t draw digitigrade is pretty funny, I like it!
Well it’s more of a meta-canon fact, but I do prefer every anthro characters to look closer to each other. I like to think every anthro species in my sona’s verse as more of a variety/race than different species, kind of like different dog breeds than different species.
This includes giving all of them the same walking style. And to be honest, making all digitigrades plantigrade looks better than making all plantigrades digitigrade (also, it’s easier to make the leg a simple single shape, like animal crossing).
