What are some good questions to ask yourself when you're world building?

[Moon_Dew]

I'm planning on making my own take on the Pokemon world but, having never really made any worlds before (characters, yes, but not worlds), I don't really know what to do.

I have the general idea of what my world's gonna be. It'll take elements from all across the Pokemon franchise, along with some of my own fanon, but the one thing that makes the world truly unique is the presence of the Origin gene. The Origin gene is an odd little gene that can be found in any Pokemon, and in a small percentage (between 5-10%) of humans. Not only does this gene hint at a humans and Pokemon having a possible common ancestor, but it also allows any human in possession of this gene to breed with Pokemon, resulting in a human/Pokemon hybrid (this is not going to be a fetish fic. While there will be references to human/Pokemon relations, as well as references to the sort of things that tend to happen when teenagers are allowed to travel across the world without parental supervision, this will be PG-13 at its worse.)

What I need to do is hammer down the details. Are there any good questions I could ask myself in order to help build this world of mine?

 

[Kutie Pie]

I'd start building it like this since the more questions you ask, the more you're going to think about it to find a solution or come up with even more nuanced questions:

Is there a lore for the Origin gene or anything else related to it to act as your foundation? What is the history that you want to leave behind as either bread crumbs, remnants of a bygone era to visit, or a mystery for the audience to solve along with the characters? Is it just background detail, or will it play a crucial role later on in the story? Is there going to be enough mystery for the audience to speculate about well up to the end because of open endings and loose threads for readers to explore themselves, or will you answer every little thing?

And then look at it through a biological lens. How does it work? Why is it so recessive in humans? Are humans with the Origin gene related or able to tie it down to a single common ancestor? How is it tested, and how soon can it be traced? What makes it fascinating and/or horrifying (the pros and cons)? Are Pokémon more in tune with this that they can tell if a human has the gene?

Speaking of biological, how do doctors and scientists go about handling the Origin gene? How was it discovered? Who discovered it? What was the cause for doing some research that led to the discovery? What did it do to the scientific world and how were they going to introduce this to the others? Is it confidential (kind of like an X-file), or just heavily debated? Is there enough biological differences in the human's immune system that makes medical practices a bit more difficult to perform should the person get sick? Maybe they don't get sick?

See the escalation? World-building is brick by brick, question by question. And it stems from one thing: What makes this different from the real--or in this case, the canonized Pokémon world?