Shared World - Crossovers

How do we make all the stories feel like they have a shared setting?  We build in crossovers - all kinds of crossovers.

World words:  We have quite a few setting specific words when you look at it - country names, place names, people names, and of course swear words.  The more we use these words in a natural way, the more real the setting feels for all of us (and hopefully the reader)

Powers:  These are our ‘gods’ (such as they are) and naturally they blend in to stories across the setting.  We try to keep the powers present but not too interventionist; and never directly.  They act through agents and their faithful.  This keeps the ‘big players’ from killing the stakes and tension in a story; killing off one of the powers isn’t likely to happen, but there’s nothing saying you can kill off one of their agents.

Easter Eggs:  We try to include something from other stories inside of every story that’s currently being made.  A lot of these are small - mentions of news from other parts of the world, or stories told in taverns, or even a comet seen in the sky.  

Crossover side characters:  These are more challenging, partly due to trying to capture the essence of a character somebody else created in your own work and style, and also because of time and geography.  Galhadria is pretty big, so a character from one side of the continent won’t just pop up on the other side a week later (without some pretty major reasons and capability, at least).  These don’t happen often, but we do enjoy them when they happen.

Crossover major characters:  The most challenging crossovers because they require a lot of planning and active participation of two authors, usually while both works are in progress.  This is a pretty big investment in time and effort, but worth it.