DM Tip: World-Building (1/2)

Albeit a *tad* later than I expected, here’s my second post about making the most of your Dungeon Master (DM) experience. If you haven’t had a chance yet, take a peek at my first article, Know Your Audience, by clicking here. Since there is so much to discuss about world-building, I’m going to split this topic into two separate articles. For readers DMing in a Sci-Fi setting, I’ll give fair warning that most of this content addresses a low-tech Fantasy setting, but I hope you can still gain some helpful tips along the way.

Now, to the good stuff. Before crafting the finer details of the story your players will experience, you need to develop the setting in which your players’ characters inhabit. I’m talking about the macroscopic level here, we’ll discuss setting-creation on a smaller scale in a future post. This first article covers building a world from scratch, since it’s the form I’m most familiar with. We’ll discuss using preexisting content or materials next time.

Create Your Atlas

First and foremost, you need to determine the geography of your new world.

1. Is it identical to Earth with some quirks here or there, or is much of the planet covered with land, where water is a scarce and treasured commodity?
2. Does the planet have one massive Pangaea-esque continent or multiple land masses separated by some harrowing divider (oceans, fissures, poisonous gas fields, etc.)?
3. How are these landmasses shaped? I saw an interesting idea about dumping your entire dice pool across a play-mat and drawing the continents around the various clusters of dice. I like to take real landmasses (like the entirety of Canada) and tweak them with photoshopping software to give my players a blend of familiarity and peculiar.
4. What is the topography of your world? Are there many mountain ranges spanning across the horizon, large sections of forests or woodlands for the Fey to run about, or leagues of plains for large farming communities? You can have all these things, or none of them, on each of your landmasses to give your world a unique character on its own.

Populate Your World

Once you have a general world-map established, it’s time to build the societies that inhabit it. If you took the time to fully flesh out Question 4 above, this part can come to you easier than you might imagine. You can play into the well-established Fantasy racial tropes (Dwarves live in mountains/caves, Elves live in forests and woodland areas), or subvert them in new and intriguing ways.

Perhaps your Humans now live in subterranean settlements (ala Gurren Lagann) and the Dragonborn have established dominance over the surface realms, or the Gnomes and Elves have begun turning your planet into a woodland paradise, overrunning the farmlands and mountains with fey magic.

No matter how you spin it, developing your societies will begin to establish the borders and boundaries that divide your continents and create the underlying tensions that live in any great story.

Establish Your Deities

This part, in my opinion, is where you spend either the most or least amount of your time in the process. Most Fantasy settings use a Pantheon of gods and goddesses, but you could also take a monotheistic or duo-theistic approach as well. To spend the least amount of time on this process, use a pre-established Pantheon (Greek/Roman, Norse, Egyptian, Dungeons&Dragons, etc.) or deity system. Using real Pantheons can be great for alternate-reality/historical settings, but can be a bit confusing when dropped into a world entirely different from our own. Wizards of the Coast has had years to refine their exhaustive list of D&D gods and goddesses, and I would recommend checking out that list here.

If you want to really give your world it’s own 100% authenticity, develop your own Pantheon. You could use the list linked above as a starting point, but then think about the following

• What is the name of your deity?
• Does the deity have nicknames (The Chain-breaker, The Ferryman, The Titan)?
• What is his/her alignment?
• What does he/she control (Water, Thievery, Fire, Magic, War, Metal, etc.)?
• Who typically worships the deity?
• Does he/she have a Favored Weapon (Use this if you’re playing Pathfinder or D&D 3/3.5e)?

Answering these questions should provide you a solid basis for each unique god and goddess you create for your world.

Build Your History

The last piece of unique world-building is to establish the history of your world. This is typically where you spend the 2nd most amount of time (or the most if you’re using preexisting deities) in this entire process. To truly give your world depth, and help establish your players’ role in the world, you want to build a deep reserve of history and lore for each of the sections listed above. Again, address the following questions for each of your societies

• How have your deities interacted with the mortal races in the past?
• Have have each of the races interacted with each other?
• What current wars, treaties, or alliances are in place?
• Who are major historical figures? What did they accomplish?
• What major events (technological advancements, political struggles, past wars, revolutions, etc.) have shaped each of the societies?
• Are there any famous relics (weapons, armor, objects of note) the players may encounter?

In closing

Building your own world can take a long time to do correctly, but the payoff is incredible. You can host countless stories in this setting, spanning across various points in your world’s history. As a DM, I’ve found the most enjoyment from watching my players shape the history of my worlds in countless ways.

However, there is something to be said for creating stories in a world that’s already been built. Watch for my next article when I touch upon how to plan your stories in pre-built worlds (like the Forgotten Realms of D&D fame)!

Blessed be,

Matthew Wulf

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