I’ve been asked a few times why I chose Basque families to settle the fictional town of Oria.
Honestly? It started as a way to avoid the usual suspects.
When I first began building the world behind Echoes of Oria, I knew I wanted the town to feel old—like really old. Not just in terms of buildings or traditions, but something deeper. Like the roots of the land itself remembered things. But when I started brainstorming cultural backgrounds for that kind of legacy, I kept running into the same stories—Celtic, Norse, Greco-Roman. All beautiful. All rich in myth. All everywhere already.
I wanted something different. Something under-used. Something that felt just a little off-kilter.
That’s when I stumbled across the Basque people.
I’ll be real: I didn’t know much about them at first. Just that their language was a linguistic mystery and that they were one of the oldest cultures in Europe. That was enough to send me down a research rabbit hole. And what I found? It was fascinating.
Stories of Mari, an earth goddess who lives in mountain caves and rides the wind. Rituals rooted in land and shadow. A cultural identity that refused to be erased, no matter how many empires tried. The more I read, the more it resonated.
So I imagined a caravan of Basque immigrant families arriving in the 1790s, crossing a brutal, unforgiving landscape in search of something better. By the time they reached what would eventually become Texas, only three families remained. They were worn down, grieving, and desperate. And then—they found it. An abandoned settlement. A strange grass-dome structure sitting on a hill, still intact, as if it had been waiting for them.
To the survivors, it must have felt like a miracle. A sign. They settled there.
But hardship didn’t stop just because they’d arrived. Eventually, one of the settlers—someone with just enough magic to be dangerous—made a bargain. One that brought prosperity… at a terrible cost.
That bargain still echoes through the stories I write.
The Basque influence isn’t just window dressing. It’s in the bones of the town. It’s in the protective charms, the hidden histories, the stubbornness of the people who call Oria home. It’s not a direct translation of Basque culture, but it is absolutely inspired by the spirit of survival, secrecy, and myth that I found there.
Sometimes the best worldbuilding choices come from a place of “I’ve seen this before—what else is out there?” And sometimes they lead you straight to something that reshapes your entire story.
Have you ever stumbled across something unexpected that ended up becoming a cornerstone in your creative work? I’d love to hear about it.