Worldbuilding Day 6: Fantasy Races

The exercise for day 10 is not very applicable for my purposes. I am supposed to figure out the differences between various ethnic groups around the globe and how they developed and mixed. I am dealing with a small region and also have the additional issue of fantasy races, but I will focus on the various human populations in the region.

Humans in general have a variety of ethnicities and cultures equal to what we had pre-Columbian Exchange. There are three main sources in the region for human populations, and therefore characters. There is an indigenous population of fair-skinned northerners who have been there since before the ice began to recede. This group lived alongside the non-human societies that existed in the region, but there was not much interaction and exchange between these societies. The northern speak a language isolate, unrelated to that spoken by other populations in that part of the world.

In addition to the indigenous northern population, there are old trading settlements from the eastern federation of city-states. These settlements were mostly centered around resource extraction such as fish, furs, and lumber. Some of these people established ascetic religious retreats in the mountains. Eventually there was a discovery of gold in the rivers that sparked a series of gold-rushes, but most of these prospectors eventually returned to the city-states. The people from the city-states have a darker complexion and speak a related group of languages that have varied dialects between the various city-states. Their trade dialect is based upon the city-state which has historically been the strongest (and which I have not named yet).

Recently the region has come under the de facto control of the western empire (which currently does not have a name). They experienced intermittent war with other powers in their part of the world and have just in the last few decades finally become the hegemonic power in that part of the world. They are currently in a pseudo-magical-industrial revolution. The technology itself is not important at this point in developing the setting, but the fuel needed to power this revolution is. Large deposits of unobtanium which is used to power the applied phlebotinum were found in the region (placeholder names) and this has lead to new settlements and large scale mining operations. The people from the western empire are diverse as the territory they control is vast.

When addressing the playable non-human races, examples which were given in my earlier post on player races, all the choices available will be human merged with something else. Either they will be magically created races, like various shape-shifters or constructs created to fight an ancient war, bloodlines like aasimar or tieflings where the unusual nature does not always express, or not actually races per se but individuals that share something in common like the Godlike in Pillars of Eternity. Other non-human races exist in the world but for the setting of the megadungeon these will be non-player races.

Worldbuilding Day 5: The Map

Today's exercise is to draw 'The Map'. I get to cheat a little because I am currently just using a location I found on Google Earth that I feel fits the setting perfectly.

After deciding on the major features of the map I had to locate at least three places where their may be settlements, which I have indicated with red dots. This may actually be too many settlements involved with my megadungeon, because I want the focus on exploration and less on city politics and drama, which over the last few years I have had enough of.

I am considering changing this to a hex based map since there are already so many tools available to facilitate hex based adventures, but since I have this area available via Google Earth I may go with vector based travel. Looking at this map also gives me some indication on which areas should have different encounter tables, which can potentially be a series of post in itself.

Worldbuilding Day 4: Cataclysmic Events

Today's exercise looks at really big land features and what created these features. Three of the major features of the region are a mountain chain, a river valley with a large natural harbor, and an isolated plateau.

The mountains are the result of tectonic movement, just as you'd find in the world today. Their peaks are jagged because they are young mountains, pushed up by one plate colliding with another. This collision has also caused a series of volcanoes to form, along with hot springs and geysers.

The river valley is located between to mountain ranges, and was also carved out further by massive glaciation a thousand years ago. In my setting their was a colder phase in the climate more recently than their was in our world. There has also been a more rapid shift from cold to warm in the climate.

The isolated plateau is bounded on all sides by mountains. This isolates it from the weather coming off of the coast, by it also channels water into an area of flat ground that has difficulty escaping. This results in an area that is slightly warmer than the surrounding area, but it is also more swampy and difficult to cross.

One of the non-natural features of the setting is over course the megadungeon, a section of which is an abandoned underground city. The city was abandoned shortly after the climate began to shift, but why was it abandoned and why did volcanic activity in the region begin to rise again in the time since?

Worldbuilding Day 3: Mood and Setting

The exercise for today is to develop the mood and theme on the basis of four words: two adjectives, a noun, and a verb. My setting can be summed up with the words 'mysterious mountainous megadungeon mapping'. I would rather use exploration than mapping, but you can not fight the power of alliteration.

I am only supposed to pick one climate to express the mood of my setting, but this is a story about exploration, and dozen climates that I listed during the Climate & Variety day are coherent  to my vision. Over the last few months, and during a nice tropical vacation, I have seen some sights that I would love to include in a game, but they do not fit the concept of my setting. This match-up of climate with mood will help keep me focused on my design document principles.

Worldbuilding Day 2: the Physial Planet

Yesterday I wrote down several climates that can be found in the campaign setting. The exercise for today, which should be called Weather rather than Physical Planet, is to look at the weather that can be found in these climates and develop ten plot devices related to weather.

1. Bad storm at sea, players potentially shipwrecked
2. Snow-in traps players in a remote settlement
3. Sudden flooding along river sweeps away bridge
4. Dry-lightning starts a forest fire
5. Muddy conditions make tracking easier
6. Muddy conditions make roads useless
7. Blizzard closes mountain pass
8. Avalanche closes mountain pass during spring thaw
9. Summer cold snap catches travelers unprepared
10. Long winter nights allow beings that fear the sun to roam the surface

Worldbuilding Day 1: Climate and Variety

The first exercise in the Fantasy Worldbuilder guide is to look at a map and write down all the different climates I can think of. I already began this is a way with my Environs of the Megadungeon: Inspiration from Denali Wilderness and Environs of the Megadungeon: Lands of Ice & Fire. This is the list of climates I had originally brainstormed when I was writing out my design document (with the help of Wikipedia). I have given a real world example beside each climate type.


maritime temperate climate: Copenhagen or Auckland
maritime subarctic climate: mountains north of Vancouver
dry-summer maritime sub-alpine climate: Oregon coastal mountains
warm summer continental climate: Helsinki or Lake Tahoe
continental subarctic climate (taiga): Fairbanks or Helsinki
continental subarctic climate with extremely severe winters: Siberia
ice cap climate: Antarctica or Greenland
semi-arid climate (steppe): Mongolia or Wyoming Basin
subarctic climate: high Rockie Mountains
alpine tundra climate: Colorado
tundra climate: Jotunheimen

I am not concerned with the other climates that are found around the world because I am focused on a region. Sure, there are probably vast deserts and verdant jungles, but that is not relevant to my setting.

30 Days of Worldbuilding: My Take

I recently came upon Stephanie Bryant's website and her Magical World Builder guide that deals with developing a world over the course of 30 days. The premise is that you take 15 minutes a day to sketch out your world/setting. While intended as an aid for writing novels, I can see where it would be useful in the development of a campaign setting. I will spending 15 minutes each day this month dealing with one of the entries, in addition to whatever other posts I will be making over the course of this month.

Additionally, the middle of the month will bring us 5th edition D&D, and I expect to get a lot of ideas from that. So far the art work is looking solid and I like the idea of bounded accuracy keeping the truly gonzo elements of 3.X in check while getting rid of some of the stiffness and MMO-esque feeling that 4th edition had. I did like elements from 4th edition, but it felt more like a pen and paper version of Final Fantasy Tactics than a table top roleplaying game.