Worldbuilding with Dane of War

Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary world, sometimes associated with a fictional universe.

There are two schools of thought for world-building, top-down and bottom-up, as well a combination of these two (“top-down-bottom-up“). Top-down and bottom-up design are two strategies used for information processing and knowledge ordering. These are also equivalent to “macro-to-micro” and “micro-to-macro” approaches to scale change employed in various scientific disciplines, where macro is the large scale and micro the small. The world-building guidelines for Dungeons and Dragons use the alternative terms outside-in and inside-out respectively.

In the top-down (or macro-to-micro) approach, the designer first creates a general overview of the world, determining broad characteristics such as the inhabitants, technology-level, major geographic features, climate, global history, and other details of strategic importance. Once this is complete, the details of the world are developed by gradually focusing on smaller and smaller details, such as continents, civilizations, nations, cities, and towns.

A world constructed using this method is generally well-integrated and the individual components fit together in an appropriate manner. However it can require considerable work before enough detail is completed for the setting to be useful at a tactical level, such as for use in creating a story.

The second method is the bottom-up (or micro-to-macro) approach where the designer begins with a focus on one small part of the world, possibly with a few elements, not necessarily consistent, needed for fictional purposes. This location is given considerable detail, adding in important facts about the local geography, culture, social structure, government, politics, commerce, and history. Many of the prominent locals are described, and their interrelationships determined. The surrounding areas are then described in a lower level of detail, with the information growing more general and less detailed with increasing distance from the focus location. Later when the designer needs to use other parts of the world, the descriptions of these other locations are then enhanced.

The benefit of a bottom-up approach is the almost immediate applicability of the setting. The details pertinent to a story or situation are rapidly developed, and the information can be used without waiting for the remainder of the world to be detailed. The draw-back of this approach, however, is the world is designed in an unfocused manner and the setting can develop inconsistencies on a global scale.

There really isn’t a right or a wrong approach to worldbuilding, as long as the basic elements are there. And the basic elements are where a lot of designers fall flat.

My personal approach is to start with just one continent, and build up from there when needed. I generally do not give my players access to the knowledge about everything – for the first, elements of surprise are good. For the second, I usually don’t know what I’m going to do.

So when I sit down to design things out, I take a piece of paper and draw a rough sketch of how I want things to look. When all this drafting is done – it goes into Fireworks MX for the finishing touches.

The key points that I focus on are geology, climate, hydrology, and civilization.

• Geology is the study of the composition, structure, properties, and history of the planet’s physical material, and the processes by which it is formed, moved, and changed.
• Climate refers to the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elements in a given region over long periods of time.
• Hydrology is the study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water throughout the Earth, including the hydrologic cycle and water resources
• Civilization is a certain kind of development of a sentient society, characterized by advanced agriculture, long-distance trade, occupational specialization, and urbanism.

I feel that these are the most important elements in world building, whether your world is shaped like a polygon, populated by Orcs, or shares an orbit with a “twin” planet.

Geology:

First, draw tectonic plates however you want, and keep in mind which way they move with big arrows. Draw the arrows and fault lines in pencil.

Then, continents – wherever you want – the big ones don’t matter. Put the continental outlines in pencil for now.

Look at where the bits of continent touch fault lines. Bits ramming face-first will have huge mountains. Bits pulling apart will have large amounts of lava, or at least bits of hot earthen interest like volcanoes. Bits rubbing sideways will have smaller mountains, a handful of volcanoes, and plenty of tectonic activity.

Where these lines are in the ocean, similar things will happen. Face-on, big mountains, archipelagos and such. Apart, huge trenches and volcanic islands. Across, a few volcanic islands.

Then consider your continental movement. Where plates move together bits rammed each other a long time ago, so make the continents look a little awkward. Where they pull apart there’ll be continental drift, so make it look like an eroded puzzle piece pulled off and stick a heap of islands in the middle.

From there, change the penciled bits to look more aesthetically pleasing and utilitarian, then pen them on.

Climates:

The middle of the map is going to be hot and wet and have monsoonal rain. The edges of the map will be colder and possibly drier and have more regular rain.

Pick a direction for the wind to generally blow from the water to the land in each continent, or more than one if that’s how you want it. Watch it go all the way to the nearest lot of mountains. Bits ocean-ward of the mountains get regular rain. Bits ocean-ward of mountains and on the edge of the mountains get lots of rain. Bits inland of the mountains get little rain. The bigger the mountains the more significant this is, so if you’ve got molehills it won’t matter, but if you’ve got Andes-sized mountains just sitting there one side will be lush and the other a desert. The further inland you are – even if there are no mountains – the drier it gets.

Once you’ve got this down, put your general greenery in place. Wetter in non-equatorial areas means more dense forestry. A little dry means less dense forestry. Dry dry means African-style scrub plains. Very dry means desert.

For equatorial areas, wet means rain forests, drier means jungle areas, dry means flat but with still more trees and very dry means scrub deserts.

Once you’ve got these down change them for aesthetics and utility then pen them in.

Hydrology:

Rivers go from mountains to the ocean. That’s it. The more rain on your mountain (the closer to the coast and the higher the mountain) the bigger the river will be. It should have tributaries from that mountain and other mountains on the path flowing into the main river, which meanders however you want it to but generally away from high ground to low, to the ocean, where just before the ocean if it’s really big it forms a delta.

Bits along that river can have canyons and such for geographical points of interest. If the river doesn’t make it all the way to the ocean because it’s too far or it goes inland into the deepest part of the place without escape, it forms either a big salt lake or a marsh, depending on your climate or preference.

Civilizations:

Work out your capitals first, because most historic civilizations were based on one capital with many small towns around it.

Civilizations are based on people in groups. Groups of people like nice things. Nice things like resources. It all goes hand in hand.

Critical resources include:

• Water. You will never ever see a city without water. Most or all of your major cities should be on major water sources that are not the ocean. You can have non-riverine towns supplied by wells, but because water is so critical, it’d better have things like plenty of trading routes or gold mines.
• Food. You need at least two supplies of food, preferably more.
• Forests, because timber makes houses.
• Quarries, because stone makes very nice houses. Quarries will be located in or very near to mountains.
• Mining. Gold, copper, silver… you name it.

Once you’ve stuck your major cities where the most of these combine, stick towns in the next best areas and villages in the next. Remember the rules of travel. Farmers (which is practically everyone in preindustrial times) have to move their goods via wagons. There will be a village, formed around a market at most twelve hours from any one point of the populated part of your territory.

There will be towns every three days’ travel, for major trading excursions. Cities should be rare and only where there’s useful stuff. Keep in mind it’s okay to have national areas that have no villages in them, because no nation ever uses all the ground because some of it just isn’t that useful.

Trace paths from all your towns to their main cities. This will be where villages are often located since trade is very important. Trace paths from all your major cities to each other, put lots of towns on them. Make the paths wander if you have to, because people would rather spend an extra day or two traveling to know they’ve got a safe night’s rest as often as possible. Whenever there is a city to city path on a national border, put a small trading town there. Whenever three or more city to city paths go near each other make them converge and put a city there, a trading city. Simply put: more paths = bigger city. A 4/5-plus-path trading city will rival your capitals, and depending on what you want to do plot-wise will most likely be a capital itself.

Culture:

Just remember three things when designing a culture. It will be influenced by, above all else:

1. Economics – The resources available and even more significantly unavailable will have a huge effect on the path and the speed of cultural development.
2. Geography – The physical home of a people will be crucial in determining what their nature is, and how they develop, especially technologically. It’s probably the most important technological influence on people until they learn to change the geography itself. Climate, too, is critical here.
3. History – The history of the people is of utmost importance in determining what they are, and is an area in which you have more freedom than the others. Just remember that when making history the neighboring civilizations are crucial.

That’s it! Good luck and have fun with your new world.

For further information and resources, you may want to check out ProFantasy Software, OCAD, and Medieval Demographics Made Easy.