Worldbuilding Workshop

This is meant to be a resource for world building, in the form of a series of tutorials on how to build and flesh out a world as well as an assortment of handy links.

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #11: Example World B

Intro This is an example of how to develop history for your world. This tutorial will demonstrate a “building backwards” method for when you know what your present looks like and want to figure out what came before; if you’re interested in how to build history forwards from something earlier on, take a look at the example for World A. 

As noted in the other example, I’m going to start placing the examples under a “read more” break because they can get quite long. Enjoy!

Deciding Priorities: This world makes a good candidate for using a building backwards method because it’s (a) further along in its in-world development as a baseline, and (b) already has a clear story and trajectory going on. If your world is fairly early in development - which is to say, there isn’t much that came before what it is now - then it doesn’t make much sense to build backwards. Most of the time folks already have a sense of the current state of their world in mind, though, so usually this is the method you’ll be using.

Check Your Notes: This is the “what do we already know?” stage of the process, and crucial for a building backwards process. In summary, there are several culturally distinct and largely autonomous regions, each with their own traditions and forms of complex government. Many of these regions have relationships with one another; some friendly, others less so. This is also a world in which gods (and other supernatural beings) manifest and meddle at times, sometimes quite directly and others less so. The world is roughly earth-sized, which means that distances have the potential to be quite great in relation to the speed of an average person walking. There’s a lot more detail, of course; but that’s the basics. I’ll pull in more details as they’re needed. 

History from Culture One of the things I noted in the tutorial is that the more similar two culture are, the more likely they are to share common roots; and the more different they are, the less likely. This region breaks down into a few fairly clear groupings; Region #1, Region #2, and Region #3 are quite similar, and Region #5 and Region #6 are quite similar; but Region #4 is quite different from all of them. Of the regions, it bears the closest similarity to Region #3, which can be attributed both to proximity and to the suggestion of more influence than with any of the other nearby regions.

This suggests that there was once a coastal-and-woods oriented civilization on the northeastern side of the continent (regions #1 and #2), an agrarian civilization on the northwestern side of the continent (#5 and #6), and an inland nomadic civilization in the northern central part of the continent. There are enough similarities to suggest that regions 1 & 2 and regions 5 & 6 share a common civilization in their history; and, given that 1 & 2 are coastal cultures, it’s not unlikely that people from that region sailed and settled the regions that would become 5 & 6 long ago. Some of their cultural drift can be explained by separation by the central section of the continent and time passing.

Another factor to look at is how multicultural each region is within itself; a high amount of cultural variance suggests a great deal of migration in and out or else changing hands many times throughout history, whereas a certain amount of homogeny suggests that there has been less of either (though that doesn’t preclude the possibility of that group having colonized or migrated elsewhere). The two regions with the highest degree of cultural variability are Regions 1&3. Each of those is for different reasons - 

Region #1 will, I suspect, owe a great deal of its multicultural background to a long history of sailing, exploration, and trade. This also suggests a history that has been less about imposing its own cultural values on others - though that does not preclude wars or colonial ambitions. The sort of cultural diversity displayed by this region also implies a large influx of people from other places - which suggests that there is something to be gained by moving here. In this case, wealth, trade, connections, and good weather. 

Region #3 owes its particular variant of multicultural influence to being an “in between” sort of place - the kind of place that people travel through to get to somewhere else. This is the sort of region that can’t afford wars and has to work to stay on everyone’s good sides as much as possible - which probably means avoiding choosing sides as much as possible. This implies a very different course of history than Region 1. 

Connecting the Dots Based on the above, let’s outline a timeline. Given the amount of cultural differentiation that’s happened in the cultures with similar roots, let’s start back, oh... 800 years. Region 1-2 has had basic boating technology for a while now, but has started developing something truly seaworthy. Early on, it sends boats out to explore; some go north along the coast, some go south. The boats that go south return a year later bearing all sorts of goods and tales from place they have only ever heard of through long trade routes up the continent, but never seen themselves. The boats that go north do not return. They were unprepared for the harsh storms that brew in that part of the ocean; some ships sank, and others were wrecked in Region 5-6.

Meanwhile, Region 4 is much wider than it is today - more like 4-3-8 - and engaged in its own internal politics and issues. Being a nomad riding society, they cannot feasibly expand into either the rainforest to the south or the vast swamplands to the east; so instead they are engaged in political intrigue, intermarriages, and trade alliances to gain control of these regions through other means. This is a time period when many clans are united under a single leader; but this does not rule out clan-to-clan conflict, and there is a great deal of political intrigue to manage here as well.

Occasionally, there is conflict between Region 4-3-8 and Region 1-2. The former will look to invade the latter, or the latter to push the boundaries of settlement into the former; but by and large Region 4-3-8 has bigger problems to worry about and mostly doesn’t bother with its smaller coastal neighbors. This establishes Region 3 as a place that traded hands between both of these groups many times and has had to play the role of go-between since before its existence as it is now.

Over the following 200 years or so, things change. Region 1-2 has mapped and established safe sea routes that are used for trade and to bring wealth -and resources - back to the region. Region 5-6′s colony on the northern coast has grown into a full stretch of coastal towns and cities; they initially went unnoticed by Region 4-3-8, but had to establish strong centralized leadership early on in order to keep their claim on the region; resulting in a monarchy variant of some sort. By this time, Region 4-3-8 has fractured into several clan federations who continue to vie for control over alliances and one another. One of these federations approaches Region 1-2 with a proposal: use their resources to help beat out their rivals, and the federation will give over control of territory that is still settled by the descendants of its people. With some convincing, Region 1-2 agrees.

The conflict that follows is messy, and there is not a clean victory. It ends with the federations disbanding into many smaller clans. Region 1-2 says that it has fulfilled its end of the bargain and wants what was promised; the clans involved in process argue that they did not actually emerge victorious, and thus Region 1-2 has not fulfilled its end of the bargain; and another war breaks out. Region 3 is taken from Region 4-3-8 by force, and connected up with roads and military outposts in order to keep control. This is the foundation of the warlord government that will develop in Region 3 over time.

Meanwhile, Region 1-2 has supplanted some of Region 3-4-8′s old alliances - particularly in Region 9. This is part of what turned the conflict in their favor and caused the disbanding of the federations - some of them lost their backing. Region 1-2 is beginning to drift culturally: Region 1 is becoming not just a hub for trade but for diplomatic endeavors as well, while Region 2 maintains a much quieter crafting culture as it builds the ships for Region 1. What’s more, Region 1 was involved in the brunt of the fighting with the federations; Region 2 was mostly sheltered from this conflict, and as such was not shaped by it in the same way. 

Region 5-6 continues to develop on its own, and takes advantage of the federations breaking to snap up more territory for itself. More wars and skirmishes result, and for a brief time cause a small group of clans to band back together again; but ultimately it ends in a stalemate. Somewhere around the 300 years mark, Region 1-2 sends another set of ships along the northern side of the coast - these stronger and more able to weather the storms - and discovers the civilization that has developed from the shipwreck survivors. There is cultural distance by now, but a willingness to cooperate - so long as it is as equals rather than vassals. 

150 years later - so 450 years past the beginning, and 350 years back from the present - Region 1-2 has continued to grow and prosper. Or - Region 1 has, at any rate. Region 2 is left out of the broader wealth and decision-making of the region; and given that the crafting of Region 1′s ships and goods are done by it, this does not sit well with Region 2. What follows are a number of crafters’ and guild wars; waged mostly not by armies, but rather through economic and cultural means - boycotts, trade alliances, propaganda, etc. There are of course a number of smaller scuffles, and assassination as a tool falls into favor; but after some time, the situation is resolved by giving Region 2 more autonomy in exchange for certain economic agreements. This is where the two begin to become more their own regions, though there’s a long way to go yet. Meanwhile, Regions 5-6 is running into its own problems. There is a succession crisis that is both practical and idealogical in nature; and two candidates both claim to be the true ruler of the region. As such things often go, a war - and perhaps a series of smaller wars across the next hundred years or so - are fought, and through this fighting two separate regions are established. Each one follows one of the possible candidates for rulership, and their cultures develop and drift according to the differences in values that were in play. Once a few generations have gone by and no one is left living who remembers the original crisis, relations between the two regions calm down and they mostly leave well enough alone. This brings us to 250 years or so in the past.

There are of course a number of smaller historic events happening all this time - historic storms, plagues and fires, new inventions, clashes between worshippers of various deities (and perhaps at times within the worshippers of the same deity), the rise and fall of particularly popular or infamous figures, migration of cultural groups to other regions due to war and conflict, and so on and so forth. You can get as granular and specific as you like; I’m staying more general because 800 years of history is a lot and this is only meant to be an example, but those are a few examples of other types of historical events you may want to consider. In any case, you probably get the idea by this point; and once you have the basic outline like the above, you can go back and work out more of those smaller events as well.

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This has been the “working backwards” method. If you have any requests for the next tutorial, let me know; otherwise, it’ll likely be some sort of day-to-day cultural topic like food, art, leisure, etc.

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #11: Example World A

Intro From this point on, I’m putting the example tutorials under a readmore so that they’re not taking up as much space. This will be an example out how to outline history, using World A; specifically, I’ll be using this world to demonstrate the sequential method I outlined in the tutorial portion.

Deciding Priorities: World A is an odd one to start with because it’s not one that lends itself well to history. It’s a world that roots itself quite firmly in the present, and the beings that live in it are by and large not ones to keep records of history. So I’ll likely be doing a bit more outlining than I would have done on my own, for the sake of providing an example. I’ll use this one to demonstrate the sequential development method, since that’ll work best here.

Check Your Notes: One of the other reasons this world lends itself well to sequential building is because it’s a late hunter-gatherer to early agricultural world so far as technological development goes. That’s quite early on in a world’s history. Societies are mostly structured as villages of extended familial bands rather than broader governments (with a couple of exceptions). That said, historical development in any world you’re making doesn’t need to reflect that of the real world - and because of the underlying metaphysical traits of this world, that applies here. Like I said above, it’s a world that roots itself firmly in the present and in terms of internal logic has less need for history than we do; it also has less need to progress the way we think of progress in terms of technological and civic development. These are all things to keep in mind.

That said:

Where To Start As mentioned above, most of the societies in this world are in a late hunter-gatherer to early-agricultural phase of development. What ties these regions together are similar cultural and environmental features rather than any sort of overarching government. There are the Seelie and Unseelie fey in the Misty Moors, who dislike each other; the humans in Region #3, who get along well with the Seelie; the humans in Region #4, who are at the moment largely isolated; and the elves in Region #6, who are hostile to everyone. 

So where does this go? One of the forces that tends to drive people to change is the existence of an outside threat. This can be anything from an outside invading force to severe changes in environmental conditions. Another force that has the potential to drive large changes is significant technological developments: writing, metallurgy, large sailing ships, etc. Often these sorts of development hinge on the discovery of a new resource, or on discovering a new way to use an existing resource - or, at times, a combination of both. 

That gives us options. You can pick one you like most or that feels like the most likely option; or, you can forecast them and pick the one that seems most interesting to you. For sake of example, I’ll demonstrate forecasting.

Natural Changes: As potential for large threats go, sweeping environmental change is quite possible for this world. There are two primary candidates: one is weather, one is geologic. In the case of weather, because this part of the world is at such a low latitude, a Great Freeze of some kind is very likely; this would drive most of the societies at lower latitudes up to warmer pastures - which, in this case, means that humans and elves move up into the Misty Moors. This has a great deal of potential for conflict between the Fey and Mortals, and is a possibility that stands to force some cooperation between the Unseelie and the Seelie.

The other possibility is geologic: a massive earthquake, or perhaps the emergence of a new volcano. Given that, in this world, the core of the planet is made of mana - and thus rocks are incredibly magically powerful - the fallout from such a thing is most likely to be a long-term positive despite short-term destruction. Based on the tectonic plates, either an earthquake or a volcano are most likely to occur along the northernmost side of this region - which is to say, in Unseelie territory. This likely results in an empowering of the Unseelie, who then turn that on the Seelie; who may in turn seek shelter with humans. This has the potential both for conflict and common cause - in that the greater contact with Fey will likely result in humans both fearing and hating them more, and learning from them and intermingling more. 

Invasion: Without the factor of a natural change - as above - the most likely source for any sort of invasion or large-scale conflict rests with the elves. One possible branch of this is looking to wipe nearby fey out as a way of proving themselves; another possible branch of this is expanding into less inhospitable territory, and thus looking to conquer humans. Both would not be out of the question either. 

Technological Changes: Because most of the magic in this world rests in the bedrock, a technological change to do with stone, metal, or gems is the most likely to result in a big change. The most obvious candidate here is metallurgy, because that’s the path we took in the real world: and in this world, that likely develops into the potential for magical weapons. Another less obvious - but perhaps more interesting - candidate is glassmaking. Glass would be inherently magical as well, and paves the way for technology to do with lenses and far seeing. Any of these technologies are likely to develop with mortals rather than fey. The “where” of it becomes more interesting from there: in that humans have the most access to the physical resources in either case, but the elves are more likely to discover how to craft both by dint of being magic-users and because of their emphasis on skill. 

None of these are mutually exclusive, of course - it is possible for more than one of these to happen, either simultaneously or in sequence. One of the things that is important to remember about this particular world is the importance of Fate; and the way that fate drives cycles in the world. As such, “most realistic” has little to do with it - it’s more about what makes sense for the world, and in this case the world is one possibility in a self-aware cosmos trying to understand the nature of life, and in this case the cosmos looking to understand the nature of life from the perspective of emotion.

What Happens Next Given the above, the most likely event to happen first is the invasion of the elves. Their emotions are strong - stronger than humans’ - and they have a great deal of reason to feel anger towards both humans and fey. Most likely, the world gives the elves a prophecy that it is their time to cause hurt in return for the rejection they were dealt; and the elves invade.

In the state that humans are in - so many scattered villages - this does not end well for them. The elves have a more organized society, access to direct magic, and an emphasis on honing skill; the advantages that humans have are numbers and greater physical ability, but those will only do so much without an ability to organize them. Many humans are killed; those who are not are likely colonized by the elves, which may take many forms. Other humans likely flee to the fey woods and the moors, which is likely to instigate another crisis amongst the fey on its own. Some humans are likely killed by the fey in turn; in other places, alliances are formed and lines are drawn against elves. From these alliances are likely to come more elves - born outside of the budding empire - who are in turn possibly either killed, leave to join the empire, or else become their own way of being. The conflict lasts for some years; then, eventually, settles out.

With the new lands that the elves have conquered, they gain access to new resources. Farming, plants, and agriculture is one facet of this; metallurgy and glassworking, as noted above, is another. This technology is likely kept and developed away from humans, who are involved in the labor to acquire these materials but not to craft them; and then used by the elves to enforce any boundaries between themselves and humans in society as whole. Humans are not stupid, and most likely work to steal this technology or else develop it themselves; but not before - 

Because each generation has its own prophecy in this world, it’s time for a new one. This one comes in the form of a volcano that erupts on the borders of Unseelie territory. The Unseelie, empowered, wreak havoc on the Seelie fey on the southern end of the Misty Moors and keep pushing into what are now elven conquered lands. This is a threat that the elves will not suffer, but most likely cannot stand up to; and, with the humans having stolen metallurgy and glasswork with intent to use them, the elven empire likely dissolves both from the inside and the outside at once.

This ends one of two ways. Either the empire crumbles into chaos as elves fight unseelie and humans and seelie, and the Unseelie end up on top; or, the conflict forces Mortals and the Seelie to work together. Touching back on this world as a way to understand life and emotion, the second option seems the way to go. 

Humans and Seelie is an easy alliance to make; and, with elves having lost their hold on humans, humans are able to use that as a great enough threat to the elves to force an alliance with them as well. Most of all, it seems likely that the key here is the elves: not the empire, but the elves born outside of it. By nature of being like but also unlike both sides, they have the potential to become intermediaries in ways that make the whole process work. The Unseelie are pushed back, their access to the source of the problem - the volcano - must be cut away somehow eventually, and life settles back into something that resembles where we started: only, a few steps ahead. This time, we have new resources and technologies; and this time, there is a greater organization and interconnection to it all; and this time, there is a greater understanding between Fey and Elves and Humans - for now.

After That... You’ve seen the process above; from this point, it is essentially rinse and repeat. What are the big factors that are most likely to induce a big change? Which ones are the right ones, and how do they play out - and how does that change the situation? You follow the trail for as long as it leads, until you find a place you want to stop for now and spend a little more time in; and that’s where your story comes from.

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So that’s the sequential method. I’ll demonstrate working backwards to construct a history in the next example with World B. 

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #11: Outlining History

Intro I received a request (a long time ago, by this point) to write about how to go about constructing a world’s history. The request is as follows:

Can you write more about how to develop a history for your cultures? And how much is adequate for a good story/campaign? You mentioned time altering things in the last one, and changing empires and migrations can create reasons for the spread of peoples, religions, cultural elements, and political forms. Great series!

Thus, without further ado: history!** **Disclaimer: This is one I might have otherwise waited longer to do, because it can be a bit fiddly compared to a lot of other aspects of world building. If you’re following these tutorials while building your world, you may want to wait on this one ‘til later!

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There are a few ways you can approach writing your world’s history. Which one you pick depends mostly on how much you have written about other parts of your world so far. If you have a lot decided-upon already, you may want to start by working backwards; if you’re still in the process of deciding what you want your world to look like, you may want to work sequentially instead. There are other ways as well, depending on what role history is going to play in your world - I’ll outline them each below.

Working Backwards In most cases, you’ve probably already got a fair amount about your world decided, whether it feels like it or not. Maybe you’ve already got a larger map with the major cities and borders marked out, or you have a sense of the cultural time and place you want parts of your world grounded in (example: the classic Tolkein-esque fantasy setting being medieval western Europe); either way, you’ve got a clear image of what your world looks like and the standards of everyday living. What you want to do is start from there and, well, work backwards to write your history.

The first question when looking backwards is, of course, what do you already know? Look back through your notes. What’s your cosmology - how did the world and its people come into being? Did they come to be slowly over time, evolving from prior species and working through their stone age (or equivalent) and onwards - or were they manifested as they are now, with or without cultural and technological assistance from another source? Consider how long it’s been since your world was populated, where they started from, and where they have ended up. That will give you some sense of the distance that you’re looking to fill.

If you have places that you’ve already established - particularly cities - take a look at those as well. Which one is the oldest? Which one is the newest? What order were they built in, and by who? Are they still controlled by the same cultures that founded them? If not, when did they change hands - and how? This can go for other locations, too: dungeons, the local dragon lair, a major spaceport, a pirate hideout, you name it. You can go through the same process with other things too: a major trading company, a secret order, a ruling bloodline or house, an ancient and powerful being, you name it. Figure out what order everything that exists now came in, and write those out in an outline to get a sense of which things started to come into being during the same time period. Are there any patterns? Jot those down.

The other thing to consider is the question of prerequisite. What needs to have happened in order for things to be the way they are now? If your world has a ruler or government, that had to be founded at some point. If your world is spacefaring, they must have acquired or developed the technology for that at some point. If two countries or cultural groups are enemies, something must have happened to spark that enmity. Consider what the basic prerequisites for your world in the current day are, decide how long ago they happened, and note that down with your locations. As a rule of thumb, for determining age: dynamics that are more settled have been ongoing for longer; and dynamics that are still shifting or subject to change are more recent. This isn’t always the case, but it’s a good “when in doubt”.

Once you have major places and events sorted in order relative to one another, look for clusters - groups of events that all seem like they happened in the same time period. Do they share a history? Did the same thing instigate multiple events? Did one of these events lead directly to one of the others? Trust your gut - if it says yes, then yes; if it says no, leave it be for now. Look also for any big gaps - if there are long periods of time between clusters of events, why? Either decide why nothing of importance happened during that time, or fill them in with the little steps that bridge the point between the older event and the newer one. Continue to fill in the gaps until you’ve got something that looks roughly like you want it to for your world.

Sequential Development If you’re working through a process of building your world from the ground up - perhaps literally - you may want to develop your history sequentially instead. That is to say, starting at the beginning and building out from there, and following that development wherever it leads. This one tends to work less well if you’ve already got a clear idea of what your world looks like right now, although it can still be done even so.

As always, the first question to consider is what you already know. The species and rough cultures you’re working with can be a good place to start, since that influences all that follows. Based on those factors, you’ll want to start with determining early population centers - I’ll write on that more extensively in another tutorial, because that’s a doozy - and working a bit with the development of early civilizations. How fast do they develop? Do any of them get wiped out, through war or disease or natural disaster? Where do the survivors of these fallen civilizations go, and what impact do they have on wherever they end up? Consider all the empty spaces on your map - who’s going to start to reach out to those first? Are the settlers deliberate expansion attempts from a civilization - or dissidents from it? What is their reason for moving into these places? Play with the dynamics of early civilization and see what survives. 

Survival is not the only factor to consider: for those civilizations that hang on for long enough, change is a factor as well. Cultures don’t simply stay the way they are for hundreds of years; they change, in a myriad of ways. As they expand, for example, they may need to adopt new ruling structures that suit a larger domain. Or as they develop new technologies or discover new resources, a culture will adapt to and incorporate (or vehemently reject!) those discoveries. As other cultural groups move through the area - the remnants of fallen friends, or invasion from enemy forces - a culture will pick up pieces from other cultures, particularly those most relevant to the point of contact. Is the primary contact between two cultures trade? Then expect that influence to come in the form of aesthetics, transportation, and status. Is the primary contact more like an incorporated population of refugees? Then the influence may come in the form of family structure, religion, or holidays. Consider how that change may ripple out to the larger culture - will it be celebrated? Suspect? Spurned? By whom, and why? What follows, and what changes?

Sequential history development is really a matter of following these questions through to their natural conclusions. Moving from early civilizations into middling ones, there are other factors to consider. What cultural origins are no longer relevant? A culture may have had its origins in herding, but if herding is no longer necessary (or possible), what will creep in to fill its absence?  What changes are necessary to accommodate an increase in population, or physical territory, or changes in the landscape and climate itself? There is also the matter of the influence of prior history itself - for example, we would never have had the Italian Renaissance without the efforts of Arabic scholars translating old Ancient Greek works; and Rome always aspired to be Greece, even if its vision of Greece was deeply distorted by its own cultural lenses. What do the people now think of the people who were? What do they even know about them? Do they look down on them, do they idolize them, are they merely confused by them? These questions change culture too.

If you ever find yourself in a place of not being sure where things go next - if there’s not a clear sequence, or your world has become too stable - introduce something radically different. Natural disasters in their many forms are always good candidates; so are plots and conspiracies, sudden deaths of important figures, first contact with a perviously-unknown Other - you get the idea. Something to shake things up a bit, and something that there isn’t an immediate or obvious solution to. History is, ah, exciting (or rather, chaotic), despite historians’ best efforts to paint it in as dull a manner as possible - and full of crazy things and crazy coincides on even the most sane of days. 

The last thing to consider as you develop is to think beyond merely events. People are an easy example - who drives these changes? Who will become the important, storied figures of history whose tales and influence survive long past their deaths? Locations, too - what new locations will arise, out of discovery or opportunity or necessity or tragedy? Artifacts is another; what are the important artifacts that come out of this history, and what happens to them? Who owns them, and what do they gain from it? Stories is another good one, especially as civilizations move into ideology as a primary motivator - what stories from their past are these civilizations striving to live up to - or avoid at all costs? 

Keep going until you reach the point in your history that you’re ready to settle at, whether for your own story or game or interest; then flesh it out in more detail. And, of course, you can always go back later to fill in more things as necessary.

Spiderwebbing This is a method you may want to use if you already have a few key historical moments in mind - the fall of an empire, the assassination of a political leader, the arrival of a prophet, the theft of some holy jewels, you name it. Spiderwebbing is similar to working backwards, but involves “spidering out” from several key points rather than from simply the current state of your world. With spiderwebbing, you look at each event and then spin your history a little forwards and a little backwards - what had to happen in order for this event to come to pass? What are the consequences from this event, both immediate and long-term? You can then draw the before and after out a little longer and a little longer until you connect the major events of your world into a chain of its history. Once you’ve got the chain, you can build off details as needed to support the chain and fill in the gaps. How did these events impact or affect those who weren’t directly involved? What was going on elsewhere in the world? 

Final Considerations If all else fails, consider the factors that motivate changes in history. Need is a big one; people will go to great and even desperate lengths to obtain the things that they need. Want is another big one; people are also willing to go to extraordinary lengths to obtain things that they want, and the more resources they have to do it with, the greater those lengths can be. These things don’t only have to be resources; they can be power, agency, and knowledge can all be needs and wants too. Values is another big one - how do you ensure that you continue to pursue the values of your culture? Do you try to spread your values to others - and if so, how? What do you do if your neighbors practice values directly counter to your own? What if it’s your own people who reject these values? Mystery is another one, particularly if your species is like humans - what is left to be discovered? What remains unknown? What happens if we try x, y, z?

How Much History Do You Need, Anyway? This one harkens back to the fundamentals of world building - which is to say, consider what purpose you’re building your world for. If the story that you’re telling is ultimately one that has little to do with history, there’s no need to go all-out; what you want to develop may resemble a list of historical fun facts more than it does an actual outline, and that’s okay. On the other end of it, if the history of your world is absolutely integral to the story you’re telling now, you’re going to want to go deep. If your world is static - that is to say, not being influenced by anyone besides you - then you can afford to develop a little less now and add more later as you need; but if your world is dynamic - that’s to say, there are others who will influence it as well - you’ll need to make sure you put in just a little more work up-front than you think you’ll actually need. Lastly, of course, there’s the matter of fun; if you’re having fun with it, there’s no reason to stop before you’re tired of it. 

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Next tutorial could go in a couple directions. Either it’ll pick up where the last tutorial left off and go into day-to-day aspects of culture, or it will deviate back into the fundamentals of civilization (as per the note towards the beginning of the Sequential Development section up there). Or, as always, if someone has a specific topic request, I’ll happily answer that instead.

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #11: Example World B

Intro As with Example World A, starting with this set of tutorials, I am going to continue to tighten my focus to a handful of regions in each world. Which regions these are may shift a little depending on which ones are most useful to demonstrate a given tutorial; likely it will probably tend to be a core few.  

Going Over Notes: This world has a pantheon of 13 major deities, each with their own portfolio of domains, which are humanlike in nature and capable of manifesting on and influencing the world directly. This world also hosts a variety of other supernatural entities - demons, fey, spirits, etc - as well as creatures known as “the Dark Ones”, to which the gods are directly opposed. Luck is a major force in this world, as is another force akin to karma. Magic is accessible to everyone in this world, and is commonplace. For a more detailed reminder (there’s a lot for this one that I couldn’t fit in), you can go here.

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Region #1: Warm Coastal Region This is a region with high population density and a great deal of influence from other regions and cultures; because of this, it houses a plethora of traditions associated with each deity. There are place of worship not just for each deity; but for regional variations of each deity under different names, with variations their portfolio, and with worshippers belonging to a variety of sects with different practices of worship pertaining to these deities. It is a multireligious region, particularly in the major city central to it; however, religion is far from central to the daily lives of most people here, except for those who are themselves ardent worshippers or priestesses and priests. Most of the activity around religion in this region comes around during major holidays of those particular deities.

Holidays are generally major events in this region; each deity has a variety of holidays attributed to them - some major and some minor - and the major holidays can take the form of several-day-long festivals or carnivals during which guilds work to put on elaborate events, presentations, dedications, etc. The guilds are not religions entities, but contributing to these carnivals is seen both as a kind of charity and as a way to try to one-up other guilds and jockey for influence. 

Regarding other beings: demons, spirits, fey, etc are relatively uncommon in this region due to the dense population. These beings tend to favor more open, wild space and don’t fare as well in more developed areas. 

Lastly, magic is commonplace in this region. There are certainly some laws about practicing certain kinds of magic (eg, disruptive) within city boundaries, and other kinds of magic (eg, interfering with dead bodies) period. It is not regulated by any guild but rather by common law; and, as with forms of worship, because this region is so multicultural there are many traditions and magical practices that exist within the region.

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Region #2: Wooded Region

All deities are also worshipped here; however, the relationship between deity and worshipper is much more individual. Rather than shrines tended directly by priestesses and priests, there are places dedicated to particular deities which worshippers can go to and leave small offerings, make prayers, take oaths, and the like; they can come and go as they like, and can generally assume a certain amount of privacy while at these spaces due to the relatively few people in a given village. 

There are priestesses and priests of these deities. Rather than be tied to one place, they instead travel around to maintain these much more informal shrines. They also hold counsel with villagers who ask for it, perform rites associated with the deities, and otherwise deal with the more face-to-face matters of religion demanded by their particular deities. They may or may not lead holiday celebrations, but individual villages may lead their own celebrations without the help of priest/esses as well. 

Other entities and beings are still not common in this region; there are several spirits and fey who live within the region, mostly in older and deeper parts of the woods where people do not often go; but demons are all but nonexistent in this place. 

Magicians follow much in the footsteps of priestesses and priests: it is not uncommon for them to wander from village to village and offering their services (for pay, of course) to anyone who needs or wants them. Some villages may also have magicians who stay in that place, particularly if the magician is also a crafter who works in a workshop. Magic used for crafting is more common in this region than in others, mostly because of this region’s emphasis on crafting. Because of it, magic here tends to be slower and subtle rather than flashy and showy; it’s seen as something you work and shape the same way you might work wood, or clay, or metal. 

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Region #3: In-Between Region Magic in this region - while not in any way outlawed, save certain practices - is something that its practitioners hide from most people in their daily lives, and reveal only to close confidants. This is because magic can be the edge that you need in order to get one up on an opponent or competitor; and it doesn’t pay to have your competitors know that you can cast magic at all, much less how proficiently and what types you favor. In a region where travel is a constant necessity, it’s also advantageous to conceal your magic in case of a surprise attack by bandits or the next fife’s soldiers - giving no sign of your proficiency with it can also give you the extra edge needed to slip away mostly intact to live another day.

When in private amongst trusted confidants, magic is often used superfluously and as much for entertainment as anything: levitating your guests’ glasses off the tray and into their hands, refilling their drinks with arcing streams pulled forth from the wine bottle, etc. Performing magic is a sign of trust, but also something not remarked upon when done unexpectedly - it is polite to (figuratively) look the other way and act as if it is wholly normal.

It is also normal to keep “court magicians” on hand; a given fife may employ anywhere from one to a dozen skilled magicians to perform various tasks as needed by the fife. These magicians do not hide their ability to perform magic, but rather use it as a shield: they are given a great deal of status and deterrence, and many people stay out of their way out of fear rather than any particular taboo. In this place, someone who is comfortable broadcasting their abilities is someone to be feared indeed - because it means that they are strong enough in their abilities for that to be a better deterrent to competition than being wholly unknown.

Religion in this region is somewhat more regimented than it is in the prior two locations. It is not uncommon for the ruler of a fife to have a separate room, chamber, or building set aside for the construction of an elaborate shrine dedicated to the family’s patron deity. Those who live under a fife’s rule are generally expected to pay at least cursory homage to that deity, though this varies by fife and its rulers’ expectations. These buildings are also common in city spaces, where a given city may have separate buildings dedicated to a handful of different deities. It is not uncommon for there to be regular rites of worship depending on the deity, whether it be praying before dinner or fasting every final day of the week or attending a sermon or ritual held in that deity’s honor. Holidays are less important here, and any festivals surrounding them are shorter - lasting the whole day, but no more.

Particularly notable here are Keada the Fool and Odlain the Pilgrim. Shrines to Odlain dot the roads up and down the countryside; these are travelers’ shrines and much more informal. It is not uncommon for priest/esses of Odlain to wander the roads as well, helping out travelers as necessary. Keada, on the other hand, is rarely spoken of openly - despite being one of the major deities worshipped in this region, and this region being one of the places with the deity’s largest following in this part of the world. It is not uncommon for worshippers of Keada to have secret signs and symbols they use to communicate their allegiance with each other, and pretend to have pledged themselves to another deity entirely otherwise. It is for very much the same reason that magicians hide their abilities: the worshippers of Keada are powerful, and it does not do to broadcast your powerful connections in a place like this.

Lastly, other beings: demons, spirits, fey, etc are more common in this region than the other two, because it has more of the empty spaces that these beings favor. Along long empty stretches of road where one might encounter occasional lone travelers is ideal; similarly with places tucked away just off the road that only the foolish will come to investigate. Because of this, there are cultural norms against stepping out of sight of the roads; and being caught outside at night when traveling - and thus having to make camp - is a dangerous business. There are many inns and hostels along the road for this reason, as well as sanctuaries established by the Pilgrims of Odlain to provide safe harbor for travelers caught far from town.

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Region #4: Open Plains Region Relationships with deities in this region have much more to do with oaths and pledges than holidays and worship at shrines. It is common to invoke the name of the deity with the aspect you wish to call on - Ragnok the Warrior before raiding an enemy group or playing a sport, Calwain the Mother before giving birth or undergoing treatment for an illness, Sersei the Giver before courtship or making a trade deal, and so on. Calling on the deity is thought to bring that deity into the space to judge what happens next; success is thought to bring strength to the deity and earn good will with them, and failure is thought to be the ill judgement of the deity and is often followed by some form of penance or making it up to them. This may take the form of fasting, self-flagellation, or giving up possessions for the deity depending on the deity and task in question.

It is rare for people to pledge themselves to individual deities here - they simply call on the ones they need when they need them. A particular band may have a “priestess” whose job it is to serve as a more direct intermediary between the deity and a person or group; but this priestess or priest is almost always secular, though they may be better at connecting with or reading the will of some deities than others. These people do not have to be magicians, but often are powerful ones in their own right; though they are by no means the only magical practitioners in a given band, they are generally the most experienced or masterful ones. 

Magic is treated like any other skill here: if a child shows an aptitude for it, that amplitude is encouraged by having them compete with other children in sports and games designed to strengthen their ability. It is not hidden, and is seen as selfish not to share it with others - and especially not to use it for the benefit of your band, both in good times and in times of danger. Magic tends to be very active and physical in this region, and take place as a quick action rather than a slow practice or spell. 

Like Region #3, this is a region where many demons, spirits, fey, etc are scattered across the landscape. Depending on the individual being and band, a given being’s “home” may be given a wide berth and avoided by any band in the region; or a given band may build a relationship with the being by giving them gifts or offerings from time to time. Though these beings are generally opposed to deities, this does not stop people from worshipping those deities; each relationship is seen as merely that - a relationship - and met on its own terms. 

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These are only broad strokes. I would have liked to develop some specific holidays, sects, and so on for each region; but space to do so is limited and I will instead flesh those things out further in other tutorials. 

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #10: Example World A

Intro Starting with this set of example tutorials, I am going to continue to tighten my focus to a handful of regions in each world. Which regions these are may shift a little depending on which ones are most useful to demonstrate a given tutorial; likely it will probably tend to be a core few.  

As a reminder (the “going over notes” step): the primary supernatural forces underlying this world are the world’s magical core; magic itself derived from emotion and instinct; the strong presence of Fate; the strength of Chance as fate’s counterbalance; and the presence of fey in the world. The actual post on it can be found here, if you would like a more detailed reminder. 

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Region #3: Humans There are two primary influences on this region in terms of the supernatural. The first is the farming culture, and thus the way the culture in this region is heavily influenced by the seasons; the second is that it shares its only border with the region filled with Seelie Fey. The other influence comes in the way that magic works in this world; in that humans, because they are on the higher end of the food chain, have a difficult time with direct magic and must rely on indirect methods to practice magic at all. Because of the structure of this region - many independent villages that don’t rely on one another to make decisions or live under the influence of one overarching ruler - the actual religions and magical practices will vary some between villages. However, there are a few core ideas that permeate through most of them, and that’s what I’ll cover here. 

The first is a sense of order and structure in the world. Most humans in this region do not have an overarching sense of fate being a major influence in their lives, per se; but they understand that there are structures in terms of the seasons, and in terms of the phases of the moon, and in terms of the constellations in the night sky - and that these things are inevitable and cannot be changed by mortal hands. Many villages in this region have rites that celebrate and acknowledge the passing of the seasons or other milestones such as the harvest. These tend to involve the entire village and take the form of giving gifts to the world - the best grain, the slaughter of a cow, etc - in hope for mercy during the upcoming seasons in return. These celebrations are usually led by the head of the village, sometimes in concert with the village caster.

Some regions may mark these celebrations by passing of the stars, sun, and moon; others may mark them by the first frost or the first blooming flowers - but the core of the celebration is the same. In nearly all cases, there is no concept of a god or goddess or any deity with a particular will; there is no figure of worship, merely the world. Its will is perceived as being diffuse and not embodied in any particular person or place.

Many people, however, worship the Fey. Because of the fey’s ability to perform magic - and because the Seelie Fey tend to be kind - it is very common for people in this region to leave out gifts for fey too, especially in places they are known to frequent; and to ask for help or advice in return. Fey are not seen as deities, but rather powerful beings with capabilities far beyond humanity’s. Some humans may build relationships with particular fey, and may come to know them more as people; this is particularly common with traders who trade for resources that they fey have with the few who understand that concept as humans see it. 

Lastly, magic: it is common for a given village to have a single practitioner of magic. Most of this magic comes in the form of herblore and alchemy; as such, this person tends to also be the village healer, particularly since the set of tools to do so is the same. This is passed down through long apprenticeships with a chosen successor, and is a highly respected position within a village. It is very uncommon for a village practitioner to also be the head of the village: rather, they are often seen as a legitimate counter to the village head when it is needed. Any other particular requirements of the person - age, sex, rites of passage, etc - vary highly village to village, as does the name of the position.

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Region #4: Humans This region has many of the same primary influences as Region #3. The primary difference is that, because of the climate, this region has very little farming - and thus not the same attachment to the seasons as a force of order in the world. Instead, most of the region relies on fishing, hunting, and herding - and as such, the primary sense of order in the world comes from death, and from the duality of long winter nights and long summer days. As such, there are few seasonal markers or celebrations; some regions may have practices that mark the longest day or longest night of the year, but no more than that. 

Instead, the primary form of worship comes in the form of sacrifice - usually in the form of sacrifice of livestock, sometimes in the form of performances simulating human sacrifice (actual human sacrifice is extraordinarily rare and generally taboo), and sometimes the form of ceremonial hunts performed in honor of a particular occasion. These occasions tend to be community events: marriages or partnering, death of a community member, birth of a child, adulthood ride of passage, and so on. These people, too, also perform rites to try to placate the elements; but it is less likely to be tied to season and more likely to be tied to weather and necessity. 

The people in this region also do not have or worship deities; however, they may embody certain forces - storms, darkness, the ocean, etc - into various beings. Many of these started as stories - the kind of stories you tell children so they won’t go wandering off at night - that grew somewhat beyond the bounds of story; many of these beings do not exist at all, except for those that are based off of encounters with particular Fey. People in this region are somewhat more wary of the fey than people in region #3, and are less likely to have a direct relationship with them; most relationships are based off of interacting with these storied beings and attempts to placate or to ward them away from a village’s bounds.

Lastly, there is magic. Because plants do not grow well here, there is little magic done with herbalism; instead, most of it is done with stone. Most of this involves stacking stones or creating stone structures using particular types, shapes, etc; or making charms and talismans out of particular stones to lend properties to the wearer. Magic is treated with suspicion in this region, and fewer people practice it; it is common not to have a magic-worker at all living in one’s village, and people who do practice it are generally distrusted on the premise that they may be evil. This comes partly with people’s experience with fey being less direct and more as dangerous and hostile beings; and partly with the experience of a harsher world to contend with in general.

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Region #6: Elves This region in particular has a curious intersection of influences on their beliefs in the supernatural. Part of this comes from their mixed fey-human heritage, which gives them much easier access to magic than humans but much more limited abilities than fey; part of this comes from their longer lifespans, which allow them to see the ebb and flow of Fate and Chance in the world more clearly; and part of it comes from their cultural relationship to their heritage - which is to say, a heavy rejection of humanity and fey both. 

I have stated previously that amongst elves, magic is viewed like any other tool: useful in the right hands, but dangerous if used improperly. Those who practice magic are often not fully trusted by others; however, it is also a skill that can be mastered, and a masterful practitioner can gain a great deal of respect from other elves as well. Not all elves are capable of performing magic equally; those elves who have more fey in their bloodlines tend to have more powerful magic.

Unlike humans, elves are capable of casting magic directly - and thus do not rely on indirect tools like plants and stones, but can do much more creative and flexible work when given reason. The source through which they access magic is through the strength of their emotions and intuition; many have also learned methods to increase their abilities by meditating or performing other rituals on stone outcroppings (either natural or built specifically for this purpose). These rituals are not religious, but practical only.

Elves do not practice any religion, and in fact tend to actively reject the notion of it. They prefer to take matters into their own hands; part of their emphasis on creating skilled individuals comes from actively leaning into chance and the possibility that any given person might have a chance to change things and to defy fate (which they see most often as cruel, if necessary - another piece of baggage from their rejection of both fey and humans). One role that elves have which neither humans nor fey do is that of prophet: those who hone their skills towards predicting the ebb and flow of fate and writing down prophecies of what is to come. Some do this through skill, and others through magic; in either case, this skill is highly valued amongst elves, as is the foresight that it brings.

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Region #2: Seelie Fey Last, but not least: the interaction between fey culture and the supernatural. This one is interesting because fey are, to the other inhabitants of this world, one of the supernatural elements in it; and some of the below deals not with just how fey view the world, but also how they respond to how the world views them.

Fey, as stated before, have an intimate relationship with magic: they live and breathe it, and rely on consuming magical energy in place of food and other forms of sustenance. They can cast magic on a whim - often literally - which is drawn from impulse and deep emotions. There are no rules when it comes to casting magic, nor customs: fey do whatever they please, much in the same way that any person in the real world has a particular laugh or a walk unique to them - the variations are as many as there are individual fey. 

Seelie Fey, because they consider themselves caretakers of the world, tend to use their magic in ways that they see as beneficial to both the world (and the current flow of fate) and to the things living in it. This may take forms that seem odd to us: for example, mesmerizing a deer so that the wolf hunting it can nab it without chase - and return later to feed it to her cubs. Seelie Fey also often try to work beneficial magic for humans (and, at times, elves - though they encounter them less often and this is generally much subtler), particularly those in Region #3 - though this is, of course, much easier when they are moved to do so out of pity for the humans’s situation. Of course, this beneficial magic takes the form of what the fey feel will be beneficial - whether asked for or not, and whether they understand the situation or not. Many mishaps come from this kind of misunderstanding, and it is the source of many of the conflicts that arise between fey and other beings.

Seelie Fey do not have religion, nor enduring traditions surrounding magic, because of their highly individual nature. Many dislike the way that Unseelie Fey practice magic, this does not develop into codified practices or dogma. There are no other supernatural beings, and they do not believe in any; Fey, Seelie or not, are the the group that sees the world most accurately for what it is, because of the way their nature is intrinsically tied to it. 

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Because of the nature of this world, practices around the supernatural are highly variable even within regions; and, all in all, tend to be very simple with few concrete rules. This also comes from the complexity of the societies it is drawn from: because these societies tend to be simpler and smaller-scale, so do their supernatural practices. 

That’s all for this one - as always, World B will be very different in each of these regards.

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #10: Supernatural Forces and Culture

Intro This is a tutorial on how the practice of magic, religion, or other supernatural forces can shape or be shaped by culture; and how different cultures perceive and understand those things separately from the objective truth of those forces. 

Check Your Notes Before starting work on this part of building your world, it’s a good idea to check your notes. Refresh yourself on anything you’ve written so far on magic, the divine, or other supernatural forces; as well as any culture notes that are relevant to those forces. Now is the time to edit any of those if you need to. As you build your world you may find that earlier ideas didn’t end up panning out, or that you misremembered something and built things off of it after that. This is normal, and checking and retroactively editing things for consistency is good to do on a regular basis. If you want to do any editing to these things, now is a good time - then continue.

Awareness of the Supernatural After you revise your notes, the first thing to consider is what different cultures can actually percieve of different supernatural forces. If certain phenomena can only occur in certain parts of the world; if supernatural events only occur during particular times of season or century; how different forces manifest, and why; all affect your cultures’ ability to understand what is going on. 

Conversely, there are many things your cultures may not be able to notice. For example, if magic is a finite pool but that pool is very large, your cultures may believe that it is infinite and not go looking for the mechanisms by which that pool is replenished - because they have no reason to believe that it is. If your deities have secretly manifested on your world in the guise of heroes and been catalyst to historic events, your culture may understand that as the work of mortals rather than anything relevant to your world’s pantheon. Look at both what your cultures can see and what they can’t, and start to draw their conclusions from that.

Cultural Twists The next factor to consider here is your own culture’s day to day life and what they have exposure to. If you have a culture that is entirely landlocked and unable to access the ocean, they may not know that an ocean deity exists. Or, they may ignore the ocean aspect and understand the deity by other aspects instead (death, time, travel, etc). This applies to magic too: if particular substances are used to practice magic but those substances don’t occur naturally near a particular culture, they may have never known that magic existed at all. 

Similarly, two cultures may understand the same thing very differently. If your magic works through force of applied will, a culture that has an extensive war or sports culture may understand magic as a work of physical exertion and a force that a person outputs; whereas a culture with a heavy emphasis on language and writing may understand magic as something that is cast by being written onto scrolls and the power is in the language itself. Neither of these is wrong, per se, but both lead to differences in casting technique and what the culture is likely to use magic for. 

Geography and Politics Once you have a sense of what is generally known, not known, and understood by people in your world, consider geography. Religion and other supernatural practices often do not follow the same boundaries as political boundaries - it’s plenty common to either find a single practice that is widespread and crosses many borders, or variations upon variations on practice within a single political border. Culture matters here more than politics; culturally similar areas are more likely to not only have similar practices, but also to share those practices with each other. The more culturally diverse a region, the more diverse forms of practice may be.

There are exceptions to this. For example, if you have any theocracies or magocracies - any form of government which is steered by adhering to a supernatural tradition - a particular form of practice may be mandated within the borders of the region. Even without there being such a governmental system, certain practices may be actively banned within a region for being too dangerous, blasphemous, or morally objectionable. Of course, this doesn’t mean that there’s no one who practices in a contrary way in either of these situations; just that whoever it is will likely be practicing in a secretive way, and there won’t be very many of them. 

Conflicting Practice Religious, supernatural, and/or magical practices in your world don’t exist in a vacuum. In places where the edges of two different and conflicting traditions meet, or in places where many traditions operate within a relatively small space, they will change. There are a couple different ways this usually goes - which is to say, by sharing or by force.

Force is the easy one. Our real world has seen its fair share of religious wars and large-scale conversion efforts, and most people have some sense of what that looks like. It can take the form of wars in which one group tries to dominate the other; in these cases you will often find places of practice (be they religious buildings or mage schools) refitted to the conquering practice and laws made to limit the influence of the practice that was supplanted. It can also take the form of proselytizing, in which individual people organize without the force of a government to try and convert as many people who do “other” practices as possible - violently or nonviolently.  

Sharing is the friendlier way this tends to happen, and is more likely the more cultural or circumstantial similarity there is between differing groups. Sometimes sharing results in each side adopting some of the customs of the other - holidays, rituals, ingredients, or the like - and creating a local variation on the practices that is its own unique thing. Sometimes sharing results in a new practice entirely springing forth from the participating practices as people draw from the most relevant pieces of each practice to make something new. 

Time is another factor that can change a practice. All practices change as time goes on - because the culture shifts, because certain ingredients are no longer available or newer ones become accessible, because certain phenomena no longer happen, and so on. Consider how time and cultural interactions will have affected supernatural practices in your regions; no practice is a monolith, especially those which are most widespread.

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Next will be an a tutorial on more about culture - both day-to-day culture and how to integrate the last few tutorials into your local cultures. 

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #9: Example World B

Intro This world, as usual, will be a much better example for building your standard fantasy world than World A was, for the tutorial on government an on others. I will use a couple different methods of building governments just to demonstrate examples of how to come up with these things. 

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Region #1: Warm Coastal Region This is a region with a small physical area but a high population density and a lot of resources moving through. It’s a trade city with a lot of money flowing and a lot of access to unusual services and goods, and thus the government needs to be able to support all of that. A lot of the day-to-day trade affairs are governed by guilds; there are many major guilds in the city - for shipbuilding, carpentry, theater, blacksmithing, dyers, bakers, you name it - and individual guilds will tax their members for funds by which the guild operates. Guild members are expected to abide by certain rules about where they can conduct their business, who they can conduct it with, etc; operating in a craft without belonging to the guild is not quite illegal but heavily penalized. In return the guild will help protect them and their families and support them in some situations - especially legally but in other ways, including monetary ways, as well. The guilds have a lot of power in the city, and while they do not run it and nor are the guild masters de facto on the ruling council, they have a lot of weight to throw around if they choose to. They also compete heavily with one another (and within themselves at times) and are not beneath sabotage and subterfuge in order to get an edge.

There are two portions to the actual rulership of the city: the council and the regent. The council does most of the heavy lifting; they do the proposals, the research, the wording of the decision or law, etc. The regent then approves or disapproves the decisions and signs off on them, although the regent can be overruled by a 8-1 vote. The council and regent are also in charge of adjudicating major crimes (minor crimes are usually dealt with by city law enforcement, who answer in turn to the regent). Regency is hereditary through a family member chosen by the current regent and approved by the council (does not have to be a child); councilship is not hereditary (though the same family will often find their hands on the seats) and can be any of the upper-class members of society. Candidates are nominated by guilds and other powers around the city, including the regent, who serves as a tiebreaker in the ultimate vote on new council members.

Region #2: Wooded Region Because of the widespread smaller-scale communities and the cultural disinterest in large-scale stratification, government in this region tends to come down to individual villages. Generally villages will have a town meeting every week which is open to anyone who wants to come; during the meeting everyone has the opportunity to discuss issues with other townsfolk, say their bit or present their own perspective, and then the yes or no of the issue is determined by a simple majority vote. There are several city officials who are in charge of running, conducting, and mediating these meetings; they are the closest it generally comes to any kind of ruler. They are also the figures who, in times of crisis, will be sent as “diplomats” to speak to other towns or villages and come to an agreed-upon course of action. These figures are usually people who have been active in the town meetings for a long time and shown interest in the job, who are then brought in as trainees until someone is ready to retire (or the population grows such that they need another person to fill the job).

Region #3: In-Between Region This region operates in a somewhat feudal system governmentally speaking. There are a number of fifes which are ruled by various nobles or warlords; this land is governed by the owner, whose rulership is hereditary. Generally the more land and resources a noble has, the more power they have; as such, land wars between fifes are fairly common. If you live on the land belonging to a fiefdom, you are assumed to belong to that fief and subject to its laws; for more travel-oriented jobs, such as trading or barding, it is common for people to pledge themselves to a particular house who then becomes the patron of that person and funds their ventures (so getting a house to accept your pledge is a big deal). Fiefdoms can negotiate with other fiefdoms to make alliances, trade or land deals, fund armies, etc - all the larger decisions that require some degree of coordination.

Region #4: Open Plains Region This region is essential rule by local warlords. Bands vary widely in size from 20 to hundreds of people, and bands may merge or split as it becomes politically or economically necessary. The headperson in charge of an individual band is whoever has enough sway to keep control of and manage it well; this is often hereditary, although traditions vary somewhat and in all bands there inevitably comes a time when the next blood relative doesn’t have the skills necessary to take care of the band, at which point they are usually usurped by someone who does or the band splits off to follow a rival. Marriage between bands is common as both a way to keep inbreeding from becoming an issue and also as a way to cement alliances and other agreements; it is traditional for the member of the more powerful band to join the less powerful one as a sign of good faith. At times there will emerge warlords who have the drive and skill to bring many bands together into their own and create something more like a dynastic period under a single ruler; this also tends to break apart eventually, though that time can vary to the rulership of a single headsperson to many, many generations.

Region #5: Cool Coastal Region Unlike the other regions so far, this region is actually ruled by a monarch and a centralized state. Individual towns and people pay taxes, the wealth goes back to the monarch who distributes it across various projects throughout the region. The rulership is hereditary to some extent, although it usually passes within the same family rather than from parent to child; the monarch nominates an heir and their advisers and other notable figures (like a representative from a particularly large city) confirm or deny the nomination.  Aside from taxes and any state projects that are local, there isn’t much day-to-day interaction between communities and the government; mostly the communities regulate themselves however they see fit, usually a combination of selecting a community member to be the headsperson (usually an elder or married couple of elders) and town meetings.

A cultural note on the monarchy in this region: unlike in our world, the position comes with very few bells and whistles. The vast majority of people don’t know who the reigning monarch is and don’t particularly care except in passing; there’s little glory or personal wealth attached to the position, mostly just a sense of duty. If a particular monarch starts to step outside the lines on cultural norms, it’s usual for their advisers to stage a quiet coup and things essentially go on as they were. 

Region #6: West Coastal Region Like region #5, this region is ruled by a monarch. Unlike the previous region, the power structure is much more stratified, top-down, and rigid; the throne usually passes from parent to child, comes with a lot more glory and power and wealth, and is paid more direct attention by common folk. Rulership is usually done by a married couple; the man’s (King’s) purview usually includes collecting taxes, running the military, and making trade agreements. The woman’s (Queen’s) purview usually includes distributing crown resources and overseeing legal or judicial affairs. The two work together on projects that fall under both their purview, but otherwise work independently - hence one of the important traits that people look for in their rulers is a good marriage, because a bad one will tear the country apart. 

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Up next will be a tutorial on religion and magic and how those play out in different cultures (rather than the reality of divine forces in your world, which was covered in the metaphysics tutorial). 

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #9: Example World A

Intro This is the first example for the tutorial on government. This example has the advantage of including several non-human groups, particularly ones who operate in a very different way that humans physically and mentally both. So if you are dealing with such a species, this is a good example to take a look at. 

For this one in particular, it’s important to remember the role that fate has in this world. Many of these styles of governing rely and derive from the fact that there is an external force imposing order on all of these groups, cultures, and people, and are much looser systems than would work in the real world. 

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Region #1: Unseelie Fey As stated in previous tutorials, fey are very individual in this world - especially so in this region. It’s a very every fey for themselves, fey eat fey sort of place, and cooperation does not come easily or often. That being the case, there is no structured government to speak of. That is not to say, however, that it is anarchy here either, though it may look like it at times. In this world, even for fey, there are rules; and this is a world governed by fate, which is law in its own way and law that even fey cannot escape. In this case, however, it’s less “government” and more like “your free will doesn’t count anymore” - and fey will find themselves doing things they’re actively trying to avoid, because they don’t have a choice in it anymore.

The singular “rule” in Unseelie society is essentially “There are no rules”. The enforcement of this rule mostly comes in the form of mob justice: fey will tend to group together to destroy an individual who tries to impose rules or order of any kind on others, and may seek out and torment individual fey who maintain any kind of rules for themselves for being deviant. Decisions are made on an individual basis through individual negotiation, and precedent has no power over further decisions. If an individual doesn’t get what they want out of an agreement, they simply refuse to engage with it.

This kind of “government” would not work for humans or human-like creatures, for many reasons. It serves mostly as an example of how governing can be very different for non-humanlike species and in a context unlike earth (i.e. where there is an external force that can exert order when necessary).

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Region #2: Seelie Fey Like with the Unseelie Fey, this region of Seelie Fey does not have any kind of established rules or codes, nor official “government” to speak of. Individuals do as they will, and other individuals can choose to attempt to punish them or not. Fate is, of course, an ever-present force, and like with the Unseelie it is less a matter of choice and more a matter of inability to do otherwise - but the Seelie are usually somewhat more willing, and thus (usually) suffer less for it.

Unlike the Unseelie, Seelie society tends towards cooperation much more often. This means that it is not uncommon to have groups of fey called to the same place, or who choose to go to the same place, and debate as a group the correct course of action. In situations such as these, it is the voices of the majority and the most powerful who make the decision, and those who disagree will often go along with it anyway. There is no rule about this - a seelie fey could choose to walk out if they liked - but it is the way the culture tends. Precedent only matters in that some fey may have memories of previous situations and have some memory of how they turned out before - if not concrete memories, then merely feelings. But it doesn’t factor in in any strict legal sense. 

Like the previous “government” style, this would not work for humanlike creatures or in an earthlike world. It is again an example of how governments might function with very different parameters. Furthermore, it’s an example of how essentially the same situation and kind of being involved can result in two different forms of “governance” because of differences in culture. Aside from culture, seelie and unseelie fey are essentially the same; but their approach to their organization is very different, and different enough that they cause each other grief over it frequently.

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Region #3: Humans As stated previously, there is no overarching government in this region; instead, each village is its own individual place, and follows its own rules. Generally - and there can be deviations - the structure is that if there is a man that most of the village likes and trusts to be a good leader, he is the head of the village. There is no official vote taken, nor official position granted; what this means is that people in the village will start coming to this person with disagreements, proposals, and questions, and this person will have the responsibility of answering them. If this person doesn’t want the job, he simply refuses to answer the things people come to him with, and they will bring their thoughts to someone else.

If the village is in agreement, this man will generally be called the head of the village. If it is not, and there are instead two or three different men that different groups within the village favor, then the title won’t be used until one of them emerges as a lead to the other two. Situations like this usually sort themselves out over time; oftentimes there is intricate social politicking that goes on with each trying to overshadow or undercut the others. Sometimes there is outright bloodshed in an attempt to eliminate one side or another. Sometimes (and probably least frequently), these “leaders” will come together and sort out an order or hierarchy amongst themselves and either all but one will step down or they will consult with one another for difficult decisions. 

No one has to bring their problems to the village head, of course; people are free to make their own decisions. However, someone may - if they feel that some kind of retribution is necessary - lodge a complaint with the village head, who will have to drum up public support in order to do anything about it if something significant must be done. The head is not the sole decider of justice in cases where there is a crime, and those who decide on their own often quickly lose their position. Rather, they function more as mediators and advisors to the village than an official. There are norms that exist rather than any codified rules - things like “it’s not polite to kill people” and “if you take someone’s things then it’s your own damn fault if you get hurt when they try to take it back”. These rules change over time as the culture of the individual villages changes. 

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Region #4: Humans Like with the above region and as stated before, this region is also a series of unaffiliated villages who each conduct their own affairs. Unlike the previous region, the government structure is more official: there is a council of all of the elder men of the village who mediate and make decisions that will affect the entire village or that cannot be solved by the parties involved. The council will choose to “bring in” a man when they feel he is of a proper age; and all men are eventually included in this, even heavily disliked ones. There is no rule requiring this, but it just “isn’t done”. 

Usual procedure in these villages has become that the council will hear a series of problems in the first part of the day, then debate them privately throughout the day. No decisions are made that day; instead they are made the following one, in order to allow time for reflection. The other unspoken purpose of this is to get input from other members of the village; the elder men will often discuss issues just as anyone else might discuss their day, and other members - particularly the elder women - will have a chance to give their input this way. During debates, if there is something that concerns a particular subsection of society - the herders, for example - sometimes the council will ask members of that group to essentially “testify”; they will ask them questions relevant to the matter, usually without telling them what exactly is being debated, and then sent away once there are no more questions to ask.

As with everything else in this world so far, for the most part there are simply norm of “it’s not done” rather than rules. However, this region is the most likely to actually have any kind of codified law; it will generally be passed down orally rather than written, and decided to be made a rule by the council and then announced to the village. 

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Region #5: The Feywood This region is very unlike the previous two fey regions because it actually has a structured government. The Feywood has a version of the classic “Fey Court” that is sometimes used in literature and folklore in the real world. There is a King and a Queen and a court - though these are not bound by gender roles. Amongst the fey, these roles have little meaning; they are respected, and a fey may be more inclined to follow the will of their rulers because of this respect (almost more like a Pope IRL); but they are also welcome to tell their King or Queen to stick it up theirs. Rather, these roles mostly have to do with mortals and how the fey deal with them.

The role of the King is to essentially allow or deny access to the wood by mortals. If a mortal is found wandering in the woods where they shouldn’t be, often they will be captured and brought to the King, who will decide what should be done with them. If a mortal wishes to bring a petition to the fey or ask a favor, they would seek out the King as well. The role of the Queen is somewhat more nebulous; the Queen’s role could essentially be defined as PR. A Queen will go out and show mercy, provide help, and reign in fey who are causing problems. They can also veto the decision of the King if they wish to take a particular mortal under their protection instead. As for the Court - the fey court is made of members who come and go, but is usually made up of powerful fey who are interested in partying with the King and Queen for a while. These fey share their wisdom and knowledge and help inform what the King or Queen does next - if there are rumors of something ill afoot in the north woods, the rulers and court may find their paths straying there next. 

The King and Queen are also unique in that they are one of the few fey that are able to choose agains the current of Fate if they so choose. All other fey are intimately bound to this; but a King or Queen of the wood can understand that a thing is Fated and decide not to follow it. There is a price for this ability, however: Kings and Queens are also one of the few fey that die of old age. They may live hundreds of years, but near the end of their “time”, they will start to age and wither away very quickly, and then die. Successors are not chosen by the current Queen or King; usually they are not “chosen” at all. Rather, a fey will hear a call (usually sourced from fate), and if it follows it, will find itself the new ruler. It could theoretically happen to any fey - there is no difference in species. It is the title which bestows the differences upon a fey, not their birthright which determines their ability to hold the title.

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Region #6: Elves Elves have one of the most hierarchical societies of any other region in this area. There is a ruler, who can be either sex; this person is chosen by methods to be described shortly, and both resolves issues that are facing the region at large and may also pursue their own agenda. There is a capital city that they rule from. The ruler may also have a number of consorts, who are often also advisors and can make decisions in the ruler’s place if they are away or indisposed. Beneath the consorts there are a number of what are essentially “nobles”; these nobles are usually figures of great renown or with great feats under their belts, and who are extremely skilled in their area of study. Nobles hold no official position in the court, but use their influence to enact various pressures on the ruler either on their own or by getting support from others. None of these positions is determined by blood; rulers are chosen by their people and nobles, consorts are chosen by the rulers, and nobles come and go as individuals rise to fame and fall from it.

When a ruler dies, often what happens is a number of nobles will nominate themselves to be the next ruler. There are series of tests and tasks performed, through which nobles will attempt to prove their worth; many will go on great quests to prove their fitness as well. As nobles begin to fail or fall out of favor, they will often put their support behind one of the other nobles instead. Throughout all of this, the common people watch and may choose to throw their support behind rulers as well. Eventually it usually comes down to a duel of some sort between the last few contenders - which may be combative, or may be a debate or other feat. These are highly public and a great spectacle for everyone else. The winner becomes the next ruler, and the remaining nobles pledge fealty and surrender some of their resources in order to ensure that they are in no position to usurp the ruler.

Within a village, usually the eldest member is in charge of making decisions - much like the ruler is on a larger scale. Sometimes a village member will become very skilled and renown for that skill; oftentimes, if they achieve status of a noble through this, they will leave the village and head to the capital to pursue position there (if they have a mind for politics, anyway - not all of them do, but many people will treat them like a noble anyway). Nobles are often de-facto advocates for their village and their village’s interest, so it is within the interest of a village to try to raise as many highly-skilled individuals as possible. Other people outside of a village, especially from those villages who do not have a noble, may flock to another’s noble instead and put their support behind them instead. 

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As you can see, the government structures in this world are highly influenced by its metaphysics: they are very focused on individual choice and agency, and are in some cases about as far away from collectivist as you can get and still have a society. They don’t depend on rules, but instead on cultural norms, and as such are more moldable than most governments are. This means that enforcement of these rules comes from consequences from the societies themselves rather than an executive force - a dangerous situation in the real world, but which is able to function in this one because of the underlying metaphysics with fate and magic. Age, memory, and skill are also major themes in determining status that thread through all governments in this world - you can see those themes repeated over and over again. 

World B, because it lacks these underlying mechanics, will be very different - and also much more familiar. They’ll be up next.

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #9: Government

Intro There are a couple of ways to go about building a government: the simple way and the complex way. As with all aspects of worldbuilding, if a particular element in the world is largely unimportant to what you’re creating it for, always feel free to take the simpler or easier way and move on to something more worth spending your time on. If detailing out the government is not beneficial to your story or world, then take the simple way and move on with your project. If it’s more important, then it’s worth taking time to put more thought into it.

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Government: The Simple Version This version is pretty easy. It mostly involves looking at forms of pre-existing government and picking a type for each governing entity of your world. There is a list here that I like very much that sums up many kinds of governments in a couple sentences. Beware: brevity often comes at the price of accuracy. That list is a useful starting place, but if you aren’t sure or want the government to factor just a little more into your world, then it would be wise to take some time to do just a little bit more research into that government. Only, of course, with the depth that you need - if all you need is a paragraph of expansion, sure; if you need a more in-depth explanation of the cogs and gears of it, that’s fine too. The wikipedia article on Forms of Government is a good way to expand on things to whatever degree you require.

There are a few basic things to think about when choosing a type. One: culturally similar locations are likely to share similar forms of government. Not every government in your world has to be its own unique type; you are allowed to have regions that have roughly the same governmental structure. Two: consider any cultural norms or history you may have already fleshed out or have some sense of for your region. Cultures with a high emphasis on individuality or collectivism, or on authority or egalitarianism, are likely to adopt governmental structures that reflect this. Three: cultures with very different governing styles are likely to have a certain amount of clashing or tension between them, and that can influence the geopolitics of your regions.

Government: The Complex Version This version of government-building involves designing a form of government from scratch. There’s a good chance that whatever type you end up designing will to some degree resemble a form of government in the real world; that’s fine and to be expected. We in the real world have had thousands of years and countless civilizations to experiment with how we organize and govern ourselves. The benefit to doing this anyway is that you have a better understanding of the more intricate workings of your government - which, for any setting that includes a certain amount of political intrigue, is important. It also allows for adding features not traditionally part of real-world governmental forms as needed or desired.

Below are a number of things to consider when designing a government, and aspects of a culture that tend to factor in.

-Size: The bigger a population a government is governing, the more complex that government needs to be. Conversely, the smaller a governed population is, the simpler its government can be. Part of this has to do with how face-to-face a government can be conducted; if your government is on the scale of a village, then everyone can meet and discuss issues fairly easily. If your government is on the scale of several cities then you are going to need layers of representatives to communicate changes and requests and carry out orders. Physical space matters too; a very small population scattered over a very large area still limits access and often requires representative to act on behalf of everyone who can’t travel. A large population in a very tight area can still interact with one another much more easily.

-Access: Who has what kind of access to decision-making can vastly influence the operation of a government. This element considers not just physical access but also elements of social status, gender, age, profession, family ties, and other aspects of identity. Many cultures in our history have limited governing access only to the men, or only to the elders, or only to those  who are children of the previous ruler. The perspectives that those cross-sections of your population bring to rulership will affect not only what kind of government you end up with but what kind of governing that government does.  Who is allowed to help make decisions? How many of them? Who isn’t, and why?

-Cultural Values/Norms: The values and norms of a culture greatly impact that culture’s perspective on governance. In the real world, people who believe that children’s job is to obey their parents without question often also believe in more authoritarian types of government, because they have a value basic to both of those that involves obeying authority. Cultures that place more emphasis on community are likely to favor governments that reflect that; cultures that place more emphasis on the individual are in turn more likely to reflect that. Cultures that believe in honesty are more likely to have transparent kinds of government; cultures that believe in privacy are more likely to tend towards government conducted with more secrecy. Consider how your society works on a daily level and what it prioritizes, and how that will factor in to its government.

-Transitions of Power: This is a bigger one to consider than one might expect at first. The difference in structure between a government in which the current ruler determines an inheriter from their children, versus one in which any common person can run to be elected, versus the next ruler is chosen by a council of the entire region’s priests is very significant. It also asks the question of how often transitions of power happen, how long they take, and what is involved in doing so (a large coronation celebration vs. an election season vs. praying to the gods for guidance). This is also affected by whether the ruler is an individual or a council or group - and in that case, whether a government changes all its rulers at once or if it happens in a more steady fashion.

-Resources: There are ways in which resources and what kinds of resources a region has access to can affect government. Sheer quantity is an obvious one: a larger government is going to require a larger amount of resources in order to stay running, so a country with very few resources is likely to have a simpler government. This also includes how a government accesses those resources - be it taxation, tribute, mandatory service, or the like (and how they are obtained and enforced). It is also often true that in situations in which access to a resource means access to power, that those who are involved in obtaining that resource are also able to influence the way the government works. These can be both physical resources (such as the EIC setting up an offshoot government in India to collect spices) and people resources (such as Venice and the power that traders wielded because of its importance in the economy). There are undoubtedly other ways that resources impact governance; hopefully, you will find the ones relevant for you as you design. 

-Divisions of Power: There are many aspects to a society, and even in cases where there is a single ruler that doesn’t always mean that said ruler is in charge of all things. Historically, religion is an excellent example of this - there is often some kind of high religious figure who decides what happens in that venue. In the current day, this can also be seen in the way that there is both a PM and a parliament in some countries, or how in the USA the executive/legislative/judicial branches are separated. There are plenty of other aspects in which government may be involved - magic, trade, warfare, espionage, diplomacy, etc - that may not always be in the purview of a single person. Figuring out what the important organization parts of your society are and who is in charge of that thing, and how that person or people relates to people in charge of other things, can add another layer of depth to your country.

Some final notes. One of the things you will find about governments throughout the history of the real world is that they have a habit of changing over time - be that in sudden, violent upheavals or gradual change that response to the growth of a population or the discovery of a new resource or other region. Oftentimes there are holdovers from previous forms of government, and adding those in as flavor can be interesting and add more depth to your society. It also means that if something in your world has influenced a government in your world to the point of necessitating change, it can change. 

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In terms of the order of the next few tutorials, I think I’m going to focus on the kinds of things that novice or casual world builders tend to consider first, because they’re some of the easiest, simplest, and most-relevant-to-most-projects aspects of worldbuilding. This one was on government; the next few should be some order of religion, trade/industry, demographics, and so on. The kinds of things that can ultimately be described with a few quick labels once you know what you’re going for. After those are established I’ll move into subjects that are less universally pertinent - things like cuisine, holidays, architecture, etc. As always however, if you are more interested in a particular tutorial sooner rather than later, use the ask box to request that topic and I’ll bump it up in my writing queue.

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #8: Example World B

Intro This is the example tutorial for cultural basics for World B. As with Example World A, because I am starting to get more in-depth with the examples, I am going to need to start to limit how much I am fleshing out due to space and time constraints. As with the other example, I’m going to focus on developing regions 1-6 from here on out. Because this world is largely human and doesn’t contain different species, the divides between regions aren’t going to be based in species; this makes them somewhat more arbitrary, or at least less obvious. I will try to do some talking about why the divides are where they are in this one, since they don’t follow the regional environment divides laid out some tutorials back.

Region #1: Warm Coastal Region

This region is largely coastal and centers upon the small mediterranean region within its borders. It is long and narrow because a great deal of its everyday business centers around ships, which specializes it towards that rather than things that will help it control and maintain large amounts of inland territory. Its northern border is decided by the river in that region; its southern border essentially by distance from the mediterranean region. 

This region is the most populous of all the regions in this area. There are several rather large cities, mostly at the ports or along major roads that connect them. Trade is a major focus economically, and its culture reflects that: an emphasis on people skills, hospitality (but not too much!), a highly stratified social and economic hierarchy defined by wealth, business and the baggage of efficiency and contract that comes with it, etc. There is also a great deal of cultural mixing and diversity here because it contains major ports, so there is a lot of mixing, experimentation, and sometimes clashing of ideas and ways of doing things. It also picks up a particular personality from its environmental context: it is hotter and drier than the surrounding regions, so it tends towards a more relaxed “attitude” during afternoons and summers. The primary values of this culture are productivity, wealth, reliability, responsibility, and hospitality.

Region #2: Wooded Region

The boundaries of this region are mostly defined by the boundary of the woods, the river that runs through its center, and the peninsula that no one else has access to that gets lumped in with the rest of it. This one is one of the few that’s fairly easy to figure out.

Culturally, this region is much less “uptight” than many would consider the culture of region #1. Life happens at a slower pace, with a much more “things will happen when they happen” attitude than a heavily structured, scheduled existence. It is less populous area as well, having fewer and smaller cities and tending rather towards smaller communities on the scale of large villages. People here tend to either be loggers or crafters - particularly crafters who focus on woodworking, such as making furniture or ships or art pieces; or who focus on paper making and paper-related arts like books or paintings. Having a craft and getting good at it is respected, as is developing your own style within that craft. The primary values of this culture are patience, creativity, community, and discipline.

Region #3: In-Between Region

This region has somewhat odd boundaries. In part, it is defined by rivers - on its northern border and the reach of some of its western border. Part of its southern border is defined by ocean access; ocean access grants access to a degree of mobility and kind of resource that is worth working to get, and this region did. Otherwise, it is defined by the regions around it and what space they do or do not feel is worth fighting over.

Like region #1, the economy of this region is defined by trade; however, it is a very different kind. Region #3 is defined by being the “middle-man”; they are the gatekeeper between primary resources and places where those resources are crafted, and the place where a lot of trade passes through but does not stay. As such, one of the biggest factors in this region’s culture is not pissing off its neighbors and staying friendly with everyone. Most of its industry tends to focus on “service” rather than “goods” - shipping services, guard services, inn keeping, tour-giving, accounting, etc. They end up being the “face” for a lot of other people, and as such have a dual value on pleasantness and self-preservation. Within their own culture there is an understanding that everyone is on their own and can’t expect help from anyone else if something goes wrong. There is also a certain competitiveness that underlies the pleasant, uniform facade - because if you’re not the best (or most convenient), you’ll be left in the dust. Primary values of this culture include friendliness, perceptiveness, self-preservation, negotiation and connection-making, caution, and hospitality.

Region #4: Open Plains Region

The borders of this region are mostly defined by rivers and the western coast. Its southern border is defined by the place where the flat stops and the hills start.

Culturally, this region is very different from #1, 2, and 3. It is a place with a lot of primary resources and a lot of people who would like to take advantage of them, so it is very militant as a matter of survival. If it cannot defend itself then its resources and people will be deeply exploited, used, and discarded - so it defends itself. It is a very open region with a widely-spread population; there are very few permanent settlements, and most groups are nomadic in order to make best use of the space. This is further facilitated by the large presence of horses, which serve many important roles in the functioning of society - transportation, beasts of burden, war machines, wealth, and companionship. The culture is very aggressive because of the need to act quickly to address any kind of problem; giving ground on anything is seen as a sign of weakness. If external threats were not so large, there would be a great deal of in-fighting between different groups in this region; however, because of the persistent threat, there is an understanding that if you leave others alone they will leave you alone and no one gets their time wasted. Primary values of this culture are protection, freedom, aggression/passion, strength, endurance, physical prowess, and loyalty.

Region #5: Cool Coastal Region

Borders of this region are defined by the coast and local rivers - fairly simple. Realistically speaking I don’t know that the very narrow southern tip would survive as part of region #5 rather than getting absorbed into #6, just because over time unless there are really serious natural barriers the borders of countries, states etc tend to get rounded off - but it can happen, so I’ll go with this for now.

This region and region #6 are more closely associated with each other than with any of the other regions. Both of them are primarily geared towards farming and fishing of various types, and both are mostly composed of either towns as major hubs of activity or spread out, rural populations. Region #5 has its particular focuses on herbs, root vegetables, leafy green vegetables, and shellfish; its coastline is largely expansive mud flats and slough, so it’s an excellent place for all kinds of shellfish-hunting. Culturally, this region and #6 are alike; things are done at a slow, measured, but productive pace and usually on an established daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly rhythm. Everyone knows roughly what they’re going to be doing every day for the rest of the year, and what their neighbors are going to be doing, and what their families are going to be doing, etc. It’s usual for there to be a division of labor within a household, but no rules about which sex has to take up which task; children are expected to help their parents at their tasks from an early age, and may elect to help either one as needed. Distinct from region #6, region #5 tends to have more festivals and celebrations throughout the year; major milestones such as marriages, births, weddings, etc are celebrated more often and more extensively, and such things are seen as large community affairs. The primary values of this culture are predictability, reliability, family, community, productivity, and groundedness.

Region #6: West Coastal Region

This region’s borders are defined mostly by coast - it has the highest proportion of coast to inland boundaries of any of the regions outlined here. The exceptions are its eastern border, defined by the river; and its southern border, defined by the parallel between the bend in the coastline and the furthest tip of the river.

As described above, culturally speaking, this region is very similar to region #5. It has its primary cornerstones in agriculture and fishing. It differs somewhat from #5 in this regard in that this region does a lot more farming of grain crops - wheat, oats, barley, etc - and a lot more fishing in place of shellfishing. The work in this region is thus somewhat harder, or at least more tedious, and lends itself to a somewhat harder, less easygoing attitude about life in general than is found in region #5. In this place you do your work, you get it done, and if you get it done fast and right only then do you get to take some time off - until tomorrow anyway. In this region, labor tends to separate itself along “harvesting” vs. “processing” lines; the men tend the fields and harvest the grain, or sail the ships and catch the fish; while the women separate grain from chaff and grind it to flour, or debone and smoke or salt the fish, etc. The different sexes tend to spend most of their days gathered together with other members of their own, working together in work communities while the children are gathered in their own spaces and out from underfoot of the adults. The primary values of this culture are productivity, community, contentment (in terms of, you take what you get and don’t complain), commitment, and grit.

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #8: Example World A

Intro This will cover designing cultures from at least one group of all three species in this world: fey, humans, and elves. Because we’re starting to go into more detail I’m having to narrow the focus; just like we went from one world to an entire continent, I’m now going from one continent to one region within that continent. It will be the southern third, as seen below.

Due to space I can only go into brief detail with each of these. In further tutorials I will narrows the focus even more to just a couple; but it’s important to flesh all of these out with the basics so that there’s a sense of the context that the detail of individual cultures can exist in.

Region #1: Fey

The northern half of the moors here are home to a type of fey that would be classified as “unseelie” fey. Culturally, fey are very individual; day-to-day life is not governed by laws, but rather the feelings and whims of individual fey. “Unseelie” fey tend to manifest this in a way that emphasizes competition, and competition that tends to turn nasty at that: tricks, pranks, sabotage, and bloodshed, all for the cause of outcompeting your opponents and leaving them scrambling in the dust. For these fey, the wiliest ones live the longest, and thus as a whole being cunning and devious is valued - and coveted - highly. Long-lasting bonds are more often made out of jealousy or mutual hatred than out of friendship, and enemies are generally much easier to come by than friends amongst the unseelie. As a whole they also have a long-standing hatred of the seelie fey to the south, and have been known to temporarily join forces to pull some kind of ill-willed “prank” on their neighbors.

Due to the nature of the moors upon which they live, these fey tend to favor misdirection and hidden things over brute force. The moors are full of plants that cause visions, sleep, and loss of sense of time; gates and thresholds that lead to feyspaces; and a lot of fossils, which among other things are going to give off a lot of memories. It’s a much better use of magic to be clever with these elements and use them to turn your opponents upside-down than to blast them to smithereens - and a use that requires more cunning - so that is what the unseelie here do. They hoard stones from which to “feed” off of the magic they give, and around these hoards craft a safe place they can also use to sleep (often filled with traps for possible invaders); the stones they generally prefer are fossils, because they feed on the memories left there too.

Region #2: Fey

The southern half of the moors are populated with a kind of fey classified as “seelie”. Like the unseelie fey (and indeed all fey), seelie fey are highly individual and don’t live their day-to-day life following particular laws or codes - just whim. Unlike unseelie fey they don’t have a strident sense of competition and indeed much more inclined to benevolence; they see themselves as caretakers of the world and its creatures. This is not to say that they have no conflicts - quite the opposite, as any two entities with good intentions can still get in one anothers’ way. There are an assortment of rivalries that have developed over time, but they tend to be tamer and centered around pranks with little intent of causing actual lasting damage or harm. They certainly do cooperate as well; some have hidey-holes like the unseelie in the northern marsh (but they aren’t as heavily trapped), but others will line communal areas with rocks to serve as a place to rest and rejuvenate for any who pass through. These areas are the inspiration for the stone labyrinths and circles that are built by non-fey (more on that later).

Fey in this region prefer to feed off of more normal gemstones rather than fossils - they find that the memories contained in the fossils tend to impact them in unpleasant ways and come with a lot of “baggage” that other stones don’t have. Their interaction with the landscape is also different, though just like the unseelie they also live on the misty moors; rather than using it primarily as a tool to undermine others, they simply use it as a way to control their own space. If there’s something they don’t want to interact with, they simply slip away. If there’s something they want to watch without being seeing, they use the mists to do so. Sometimes they will harvest some of the herbs there to exchange with humans for unusual gemstones; sometimes they will allow humans to do the harvesting themselves, if they have a particular tolerance or like of a particular person. 

Region #3: Humans

The humans who live in this region are generally farmers and herders. They tend towards hardy stock in both cases - goats and sheep for livestock, and hardy root vegetables and grains. Oxen mostly exist as draft animals, and keeping horses or poultry is unheard-of. Most of the rhythms of the year are ones determined by the crops and harvest, as well as the harsh winter storms and long days and nights near the solstices. There is very little time for leisure; what time isn’t spent planting, harvesting, and preserving is spent repairing tools and building houses or sheds or fences (if you are a man), or spinning yarn and making clothing (if you are a woman). Leisure tends to look like evening gatherings in a communal barn with plenty of ale and a big fire.

The community structure generally looks like lots of independent villages. There are no large cities, nor any capitals; individual villages may be friendly with each other, but rarely do they share any kind of official alliance or common governance. Generally there is a particular man with the community’s respect who becomes head of the village; if he is suddenly incapacitated, his wife is allowed to take over for him until a suitable replacement is found. Some villages also deviate from this structure - this is just the most common format. 

Region #4: Humans

Crops do not grow particularly well in this region, especially the southern and coastal areas. Instead, this region is much more reliant on fishing and hunting in the ocean for resources. Some livestock - mostly heavier yak-like creatures that can withstand the cold - are kept as well as a supply of hide, milk, and meat. The fluctuation of day and night is even more stark here than in Region 3, and the weather harsher; some times of year are too stormy to be outside, especially in a fishing canoe, and people mostly keep to themselves inside. These elements are somewhat less severe on the eastern side of the region, where there is instead a greater reliance on gathering as well as woodcutting (most of which is used as fuel, for boats, or else traded north in exchange for food). 

As with Region 3, the community structure is as a number of small, unaffiliated villages without any kind of overhead government. Individual villages themselves are generally ruled by a small council of the village’s eldest men. Division of labor tends to fall in favor of men doing the fishing-related tasks and women doing the herding-related tasks, with both helping to strip carcasses and preserve the meat and other resources. The elder women are in charge of care taking of children and domestic activities. Leisure is taken during longer periods of heavy storms, mostly in the form of crafting competitions or storytelling.

Region #5: Fey

Even though the Feywood is several distinct pieces environmentally speaking, it’s one single region culturally speaking. Here the fey aren’t divided into seelie/unseelie; they are neither particularly benevolent nor terribly malicious - just prone to mischief, especially on wanderers-in to their woods but on one another. They also take great delight in taking the forms of animals (if they are able to do such things) and confusing the animals as well. The Feywood is also distinct in that space and time do not always work in a linear or steady fashion, and the wood is constantly phasing in or out of the fey realm to some degree. This is no issue for the fey, for whom the woods and the realm are sometimes one and the same, but poses problems for other beings. 

These fey are more prone to the antics of classic woods fey - which is to say, lots of parties and lots of indulging in various pleasures. These are the kind of fey who will seduce you one way or another and keep you there for a hundred years while you don’t age a day. They are very individual as with all other fey, and hold no particular cultural roles depending on age and sex and so on - except for the queen and king and their ladies and lords. These are not titles based on sex - you could have a male queen or a third/other gendered king - but more like roles that are filled. They have more to do with dealing with mortals than they have to do with internal fey politicking - sort of more like diplomats. Respected, but not bound to by the other fey of the feywood.

Region #6: Elves

The elves of this region are outcast from all the other regions, and very closed-off in turn. Trespassing humans are often killed; trespassing fey are usually not greeted quite as harshly, but usually there are an assortment of wards erected to keep them out in the first place. The landscape is very cold and very harsh; almost all food comes from hunting, especially larger mammals like walrus and whale, but also caribou and regular fish. Houses are usually half tunneled into the icy ground (using magic), and half built up from found stones or snow and ice. There is very little difference in gender role between men and women; usually it is only relevant in courtship, and even then only in the nuance of give-and-take. 

There is a hierarchy amongst the elves that is based primarily on age and secondarily on ability to perform - usually magical feats, but great hunters or fishers can also rise to high social standing. Magic is treated much like any other tool - useful, but potentially deadly when used wrong and to be treated with caution. Magical things and people who use them are often treated with a certain level of suspicion and never fully trusted by the rest of the community. 

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Those are the basics for the cultures in this region of the continent. It is unfortunately unlikely that I will flesh out other regions, because I want there to be as much context for explaining and describing as possible, which necessitates working on the same area the whole time. 

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #8: Culture Basics

Intro This is where we start laying down the foundation for different cultures. Essentially it means taking all the pieces that we know about so far - weather, climate, local resources, metaphysics, species traits, etc - and stringing them together to form some basic pieces of a culture. Once the basics are down we’ll expand on them, subject by subject, in future tutorials.

Picking a Spot Before you can string those pieces together, you’re going to need to pick a place where your culture is situated. If you want to just pick a general region on the map for now, that’s fine; if you want to start plotting out where a couple cities and towns are, that’s fine too. Do what works best for you and for the world you’re designing. I’m going to very briefly go into some of the conditions to consider when picking a spot; I’ll go into more later on when I talk about cities.

If you’re going to have a culture or civilization with a population of any size, there are several things that it is going to need. These are all, predictably, access to basic needs. For beings that work like you and me, that’s going to include a renewable source of fresh water, adequate food, and adequate shelter-building materials. This is why many cities are built along rivers - that provides the source of fresh water, as well as protection and a good trade route. Keep in mind also that these terms are very flexible. You can meet all of those needs with rushing, just-melted rivers down from the mountains, and fertile valleys with woods and mountain nearby; but you can also meet those needs with ice and seals and whales and more ice and bones and pelts. Civilizations can pop up even alongside extreme conditions - all it means is that, when you build those civilizations, you will have to consider the impact of those conditions very carefully in order to maintain suspension of disbelief.

Keep in mind that if the beings your civilization is made up of have other needs not listed here, you will need to consider those as well. Similarly, if your beings don’t need fresh water, then you don’t have to factor that in when pick a spot for your culture to be located, and in fact might want to take advantage of that and build it someplace that most other beings can’t access.

Which brings me to the last point here: competition. If you are building multiple cultures, and if they all have similar needs profiles, and if they are all relatively close together, there is going to be a lot of competition over the best spots. That fertile river-mountain-valley I described up there would be the best thing you could come across for many groups. However, if different groups have different needs profiles, that sorts some of the competition out all on its own - one group might want the desert and the other might want the river valley and they are both happy to let the other have what it wants, because it doesn’t need it.

The Turning of the Year To begin: once you’ve picked a spot, consider the environmental factors that are going to impact that culture, both short-term and long-term. I generally prefer to focus on long-term first because it has its own impact on short-term factors, but you can go in whichever order you like.

One of the biggest long-term elements is the seasons. Seasonal variations impact what kind of weather your culture will be up against, when they can grow and hunt and when they can’t, when and how long their lean periods and their plentiful periods are, when they are crafting and when they are gathering, how long the days and nights are and thus when work can and can’t be done, and so on. Consider what each of the seasons are like for your culture and what work can be done and has to be done during each one. Consider the limitations on that work as well, and also consider the limitations on day-to-day life. If your culture is populated with diurnal beings who also live near one of the poles, some months of the year are going to have abundant daylight and others will have little-to-none; it will be very difficult for them to work outside during the latter. If resources vary from season to season - hunting is good in autumn but not in winter, or the silk moths only spin cocoons during the spring - that will affect the times of year for those tasks and the ones that follow. If seasons and resources are relatively stable the whole year long then your culture has more flexibility about when it does its tasks. 

The seasons, and the weather in them, will also have a large impact on the kind of tools, shelters, and rhythms of life your culture has. Some cultures are nomadic by necessity; the berries that grow far up on the mountain are best harvested in the summer, but the fish that swim up the stream further down do their migrating in the spring, and the autumn brings the best game fowl in the woods. So you move around as needed. Or perhaps water sources dry up and come back different times of year, and you need to move to find water. Or, for permanent settlements, weather will matter a lot. If winter brings fierce thunderstorms then you are definitely not going to want to build in low spots, and if it rains for months on end then if you use wood as a building material it is going to rot. Stone is better. On the other hand, if the storms bring high winds but little water, you’re going to want to bunker down in those low spots and avoid the high points that will catch the wind.

Climate matters as well. If the climate in question is generally very hot (so far as your species is concerned), the culture may have made some room to avoid the heat. Perhaps, as in the real world, there’s a break during the hottest part of the day where people rest rather than work. Or perhaps the hottest season of the year is reserved for sitting around and attending to leisures, and the rest of the year involves building up resources so that people can afford to do that (admittedly, that happens more often with cold and snow, but it could conceivably happen with heat as well). 

Geological phenomena are also good to keep in mind. Areas with a lot of earthquakes will need to build shelters that can withstand those, or else are meant to fall and cause a minimum of damage. Volcanoes mean being careful where you build your settlements, but also means access to different sorts of resources. If you live in the mountains, rockslides and mudslides are a factor in where you set up. 

Resources Some aspects of this have already been touched on in the tutorial about resources, so it might be worth looking back there to round out what you pull from here. That tutorial was mostly about cataloguing what kinds of resources each region of your world does and does not have; this will be more about the basics of how those resources get put to use. 

Food is a good place to start. From the resources you’ve listed, pick out the ones that are most accessible; also pick out the ones that carry the most reward (ex: bison might be difficult to kill but it comes with a lot of meat, fat, bone, hide, and organ that can be used for many purposes). These are most likely going to be the foundations of food for your society. Then take a look at how they’re obtained. Are they foods that can be farmed, or must they be gathered? Are they animals that must be hunted, or perhaps trapped - or can they be herded? Generally, any society that leans heavily towards agriculture is going to have to be stationary; and any society that leans heavily towards hunting, if that which it hunts is heavily migratory, is going to have a nomadic component. If there are seasonal components to the accessibility of certain foods or foods in general, consider that. Consider also how preservable these foods are, and what kind of preservation technology is available to your society. All of these things are going to shape your society and how it goes about its business from a far earlier point than most factors.

Nonedibles are important too. Take clothing, for example. If you have a society with access to a lot of textile plants (cotton, flax, etc), then that is going to affect not just what they wear but also how their society is structured to obtain those. Or perhaps they have a lot of access to animal textiles (wool, silk, etc) - again, that affects both what they wear and how their society obtains that. Or perhaps they have access to neither, and most clothing is made out of leather - that puts a big focus on tanneries rather than weaving, and more emphasis on herding or hunting than agriculture. What materials are accessible for making tools out of? Structures such as buildings or walls? For turning into fuel to make light, heat, or cooking? 

Take a look back at that list of local resources, and sort out which ones are the most difficult to obtain or difficult to find; then sort out which of the resources they don’t have locally are at all obtainable. These things are going to be your society’s luxury resources, and the things that are used by those who have to distinguish themselves from those who have not. After basic needs are met and are being met consistently, and after basic comforts and leisure is met and being met consistently, these are the things that people will seek out. First individually, then as a society reaches stability, the society as a whole. 

Otherwise, take a cursory look at the resources that haven’t been used and consider what role they play in your society. Not all resources have to be used. You could be sitting on a huge deposit of iron and not make use of it, either because you don’t know how, don’t have the means, or don’t consider it important enough or worth going after. Other resources may have a role in between staple and luxury goods, to do with leisure or trade or simply with social stratification. Think about what they’re used for, and why. Think about what’s missing, and how to fill it. 

Morphology Next, consider the species that makes up your culture. If they are for the most part similar to humans, then you can assume that culturally they are relatively similar to humans. If they are something very different, you have extra work to consider.

Take, for example, a species with very keen eyesight; one with an incredible ability to distinguish color and pattern, and the ability to see very far and clearly. Cultures of this species might value art and artistic skill very highly, or might place a large emphasis on hunting, because it makes use of their skills. Or perhaps they devalue art because they are so sensitive to it, and prefer plain functional things to decorated ones. On the other hand, if your species is blind, then their idea of “art” is going to be very different from ours; the physical appearance of things isn’t going to matter one whit, but the way that it feels may become immensely important in a way that it simply isn’t to humans in the real world. Same too with the way that things are shaped to allow sound to travel clearly and far. Music could be highly valued; or perhaps silence is far preferable because people need to be able to navigate the world, after all, and excess noise is rude and uncivilized. 

This is just the senses, too. What kind of leisure activities will something with very much or very little strength and agility prefer? What kinds of resources and crafts might become available to them but not others, or be unobtainable?  What will their talents turn to, and what will they turn away from? How will a short-lived species perceive or handle the changing of the seasons? How will a long-lived species deal with cataclysmic events that change patterns of the world they have become so used to? Which traits are important to them, and which are not; which traits do they use to distinguish themselves from others of their species, and which are unimportant? These things can all vary culture to culture; they needn’t been the same for all cultures of your species. That’s the beauty of culture - many worlds that exist within one.

If your species is much more human, however, one can assume they have roughly human tastes and preferences. That’s not to say that makes it easy - if you look at the real world with all its cultural diversity through time and space, you know, it really doesn’t narrow things down that much. There are a few key pieces about human perceptions that you’ll want to include in the culture, however:

Sex: Division of labor is something that gets talked about a lot in regards to gender in culture. Which resource-gathering tasks belong to the women, and which to the men? What is considered “womanly” and what is “manly”? What role does each sex have in the social side of society and in the community? 

Age: One that is talked about less, but is no less important, is age. How does your culture treat its elderly? What of its children? At what point does a child become an adult? What tasks are you expected to fulfill during each phase of your life? What are you and are you not allowed to do because of your age? 

Aesthetics: What does your culture consider beautiful? What is ugly? What is the ideal for your culture, and what is undesirable? This counts both for beauty in the form of people and beauty in the form of cultural outputs - art, music, architecture, textiles, color, and so on. 

Outlook: Consider the impact the world has on your species’ outlook. If their environment requires them to hole up for long winters then they are likely to place a heavy emphasis on community. If the elements are harsh and prone to undoing your hard work, a certain pragmatism is likely to follow. If resources are minimal, then you take what you get and don’t complain (or else you stab others in the back to get more); if they are plentiful, then there is enough to go around (or else you hoard them to get the most).

Religion: What does your society believe in? If your world has deities, then do they worship the whole pantheon, or just one or two deities in particular? What is their interpretation of these deities (perspectives on a weather deity will be very different in a mediterranean climate vs. a temperate rainforest climate...)? If there is magic, what do they believe about how magic works and its role in the world, or in their society? Your culture doesn’t have to be right about it, either. Just because you know the truth doesn’t mean they do. 

Final Notes Lastly, this is a reminder to use common sense. If you are building a culture and can’t figure out for the life of you how they meet their food needs, then after you’re double- and triple-checked any available options, you may just need to move the culture to the nearest habitable location. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work; and if it doesn’t work, there can’t be much suspension of disbelief. 

This is also a reminder to keep in mind what’s important for your culture and your story. If it’s not important for either, your time is best spent making a few quick notes and moving on. If the farming practices of that culture are integral to its functioning or the plot of your story, however, then by all means take the time to flesh it out thoroughly. Not all cultures have a religion that matters to them. Maybe you’re making a culture that doesn’t care about luxury goods. Just because the information is here doesn’t mean you have to use it - and just because it’s not here doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. Follow what you need, and if you don’t know it, go after it and learn it.

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Tutorials could go all kinds of places after this. These are only some basics about cultures; as I said at the beginning, each of these elements and more will have their own, more thorough, tutorials in time. If there is a subject you would like covered sooner rather than waiting for whim to produce it, ask and ye shall receive. 

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #7: Example World B

Introduction This world, unlike World A, is composed primarily of humans. Furthermore, because it is a more normal setting, there is little need to adjust the traits of humans to suit the world they would have evolved out of. This begin the case, I’ll go a little more in-depth with adaptations that humans manifest in general, as well as building some more supernatural beings.

Humans  To reiterate what I said in World A’s example, there’s no point to changing humans drastically if you want them to still be human. If you want to make three-horned, bat-winged, stone-skinned, brimstone-reeking humanoids then be my guest, but human is not a terribly descriptive word for them anymore. Gargoyle or imp might be more apt. If humans had, say, innate shape changing abilities in your world and could take on those traits but could also take on a myriad of others then they’re not gargoyles, they are still human - just with a little extra magic. The line gets a little fuzzy but you do the best you can. 

Since there’s little to build here, I’ll go into the impact that climate has on the morphology of humans. Most people know about skin pigment by now, but there’s a lot more than that.

-Pigmentation: This affects not just skin pigment but also hair and eye pigment. In general, people from hotter climates with more sun exposure are likely to have darker pigmentation, whereas people from colder climates with less sun are likely to have lighter coloration. This has to do with the amount of sunlight people need to absorb in order to stay healthy.  -Noses: Noses tend to be different shapes depend on how hot and humid your climate is. This is because part of the nose’s job is to essentially humidify the air coming into your body before it hits  your lungs, which helps reduce disease. People in humid climates tend to have wider nose shapes because they don’t need it as much, whereas people in dry or cold climates tend to have narrower nose shapes.  -Hair: How straight, wavy, or curly hair is is also affected by climate and again by sun exposure. If I recall correctly, the more wave or curl hair has to it, the more likely you are to live in a climate with a lot of sun exposure, because the shape of the hair helps protect you from too much sun. -Height: This one has less to do directly with the kind of climate you have and more to do with the environment that results from it. If you live someplace with a lot of trees and/or brush and thicket, it is not advantageous to be tall. Thus people in that kind of environment tend to be shorter so that it’s easier to navigate it. Whereas people who live in open climates with very little cover tend towards the taller side. -Build: Build will have to do to some extent with how much heat you need to keep or lose. Lithe builds are not suited well to very cold climates - you’re more likely to freeze to death than someone with a bulkier or stockier build. The same build would be much more helpful in a hotter climate where you need to lose a lot of heat, whereas a bulky build is going to hold on to that heat more and increase your chances of overheating.

Keep in mind that these are only tendencies - this is not an end-all-be-all. People come in a lot of different shapes and sizes not just across populations but within them. If you want your world to work a different way, then go for it - these are just pieces from the real world, at least so far as I understand them, and I am by no means a physical anthropologist.

Keep in mind also that people migrate. Just because your civilization is far up north doesn’t mean you can’t have people with wavy hair or darker skin - people trade, and people migrate due to choice or circumstance, sometimes singly or by family and sometimes in small or large populations. It can be fun to play with populations migrating over time and what it says about an area if the unexpected pops up. Same with heritage, especially when it comes down to individual characters. 

Keep in mind also the health impacts that being in a foreign climate are going to have. If you’re from a humid climate and move somewhere cold and dry, you’re going to be much more prone to respiratory infections than the people around you. Similarly if you’re very pale and go somewhere with a lot of sun and heat, you’ve going to burn a lot faster and harder than everyone else. If you’re writing a travel narrative with long quests over the whole continent, it’s worth putting some consideration into the impact that your characters’ morphology has on them as they travel.

Supernatural Beings Now to build some supernatural beings that exist in this world. It will include both what “role” they play in the world’s supernatural ecosystem, so to speak, as well as some basic features of their morphology. I don’t want to get too in-depth here so that there’s room to develop them more later.

Angels: Angels are the servants of all the deities, whether good or evil. Each angel is attached to a particular deity and serves out that deity’s will as needed - whether as a messenger, holy warrior, or bringer of visions. Angels can vary highly in their physical appearance and are certainly not always humanoid; angels of Vysikar, for example - the god of the sea - often appear as fish. They don’t require the basic physiological necessities that mortals do - food, sleep, or even breathing - but they do need a connection to their deity, otherwise they wither and fade at about the rate that someone starves to death. Any traits that they have, such as strength or agility, will vary widely from angel to angel and what form they take, but they are always highly magical and tend to have superhuman traits in several areas.

Demons: Demons are rare and very powerful; they are always their own and not attached to any deities, but a particularly powerful one could give a deity a run for its money. Sometimes they are worshipped or treated as deities in their own right, and gain a certain amount of power from that. They do “feed”, after a fashion; not food, but by consuming in other ways. Power, wealth, willpower, mortal blood, you name it. But they have no need to eat “food” the same as we do. Neither do they “sleep” as we do, but they do need periods more like hibernation or undisturbed rest when they are not feeding adequately. Individual demons vary highly in form, but each one is unique, and like angels they are generally highly magical and have many superhuman traits.

Devils: Devils are much weaker than demons. Unlike demons they tend not to have a “home” or “lair” that they operate out of, but wander free across the landscape bringing misery to all they encounter. They often make “deals” with mortals - the idea of selling your soul to a devil would be very relevant here, as would getting into a fiddling contest with them. But they are also happy to go around causing curses, nightmares (a night hag would be a kind of devil in this world), and assorted woes. They do need to eat - generally by draining energy from others - but don’t need to sleep. Once again they are very magical creatures, but don’t have nearly as much in the way of supernatural traits as demons or angels. They are very cunning and may have senses that humans don’t, such as sensing magical presence or seeing perfectly in the dark, but generally differ little in their physical capabilities. They are mostly humanoid with some animalistic or distorted elements.

Fey: This is one I especially wanted to get to in order to demonstrate that different mythological beings can vary widely story to story. Fey in this world do not function as they do in World A. Here they are much more connected to nature and much less connected to magic than they are there. Fey here tend to be tied to a piece of land - a section of stream, a stand of wood, a particular rock or glade, etc - that is “their” place to caretake and guard. Inside their place they are powerful magically, but they weaken and wither very quickly if they ever leave or are taken from it. They live a long time but are not immortal - a thousand years or so. They can indeed have offspring by accident and with other beings. Fey, like any of the other supernatural beings here, differ widely from individual to individual in the particular form and abilities they manifest.

Spirits: Spirits are a big one in this world. They come are many types - ghost, haunt, poltergeist, etc. Spirits are generally not left behind by people who have died - in fact, this is very rare - but instead spawned by other forces in the world, such as chance or fate. They generally happen either when one of these forces is very off-balance, or when one of them is particularly present in that time or place. They do not always take physical form (at least, visible to the human eye - other creatures may be able to sense them), but may remain an amorphous presence throughout an area. Other times they may take the shape of something more familiar - human, animal, or other - if it is relevant to their existence.

It may have become very apparent by this point that most of the supernatural beings here are highly unique from individual to individual and vary widely. This is due to the nature of the world’s metaphysics; partly due to the power of names, partly due to the huge influence chance and karma has over fate, and partly some other as-of-yet-undescribed elements. 

As one can imagine, given the highly variable nature of supernatural beings in this world, it can be hard to tell if what you’ve run into is a devil or an angel or some kind of fey etc. They are often mistaken for each other and havoc can ensue rather frequently. There are a set of rules that those who are aware of them can use to tell each kind apart, but that’s for a later post. 

Enough about here - on to the next tutorial.

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #7: Example World A

Introduction This world is going to have three species: humans, elves, and fey. To begin, the map as we last saw it, and a list of which territories are which: 

Humans: 3, 4, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14. Elves: 6, 8. Fey: 1, 2, 5A, 5B, 5C, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14.

Humans Humans in this world are going to be essentially the same as humans in the real world. This is a very intentional choice; generally, when writing something for a world, you don’t want to take something from the real world and change what it means. If I were to make a species called “humans”, except they all had prehensile tails and hooves and green hair, why am I calling them humans? Better to stick to a frame of reference that someone viewing your world will understand.

The couple notes I need to make about humans as a species are in relation to forces that don’t exist in our world - that is to say, magic. Humans in this world have a fairly low propensity for magic. They can do it to some degree, but only with a lot of training and only at a very low efficiency. The best you could really hope for is about as powerful as a hedgewitch, which is about right since most of the magic done by humans is very ingredients-based anyway. 

Secondly, there are a couple of tweaks I need to make to human physiology based on the presence of magic in this world. When talking about the environment, I said that because of trophic levels, creatures lower on the food chain would have much higher magical abilities, and creatures higher on the food chain would have less but also have developed extra physical abilities in order to compete with magical creatures. This means that humans are going to be slightly tougher and stronger than they are in the real world. Not significantly so, and not at all outside the range of what we might be able to expect out of someone who spends their life building strength; but that the average person will have the same degree of strength and toughness that someone who does train regularly might have, without having to actually do so.

Fey Physiologically, fey are very different from humans. Previously, I mentioned that they don’t need to eat and sleep the way that humans do. Instead, they get their sustenance by consuming magical energy directly, and can thus feed directly from even the rocks of this world if they wish. Their ability to sustain themselves comes from a constant exposure to magic: it’s less that they feed by putting things in their mouths and chewing, and more that they’re constantly processing energy taken in much the way that plants process sunlight. This in mind, were fey ever to wander into a very low-magic area, they would weaken and die very quickly. More quickly than humans would starve to death - about three to five days or so, and thus more along the lines of how quickly a human would die of thirst. Fey also do not need to sleep or breathe the way that we do. They can enter a waking dreamlike state in order to do all the things that dreaming does for the brain, but only need to from time to time (once a week or so). 

Fey also live forever. They are not truly immortal, in that they can still be killed through injury or starvation or sickness; but assuming that none of these occur, a fey does not have a natural end to its lifespan, and does not age physically. This means that reproduction is very difficult, and never happens by accident; any attempt to reproduce takes a great deal of effort and intent on the part of the fey involved. How fey reproduce is fairly nonstandard; there aren’t necessarily just male and female fey, and you don’t necessarily need to have multiple fey involved to make offspring happen. It’s almost more a huge investment of magical energy and time and emotion, and less a physical act (though it can be that as well - and many fey will engage in physical acts for the pleasure from it, even if it doesn’t result in offspring). Because of the difficulty of making children, children are considered very important by the fey and cherished deeply; and fey will sometimes kidnap human children as well if they are unable to make a child on their own. 

Fey’s lifespan also impacts how they think. They have a very short attention span, and most of their memory is very short-term. Their long term memory is made up not of actual memories that they can recall for the most part, but rather emotional imprints from important memories that incorporate into fey folk’s generally intuitive decision-making process. Fey tend to do things for reasons that even they don’t understand, and among the many reasons for this is this emotional imprint that is their form of past memories and experiences. Older fey are more powerful because they have deeper emotional imprints, and thus a greater capacity to cast strong magic. 

Lastly, notes on magic. Fey are of course able to sense magic - strength, type, and source - since it is their source of nourishment. The form that a fey’s magic takes varies greatly and can change as a fey’s emotional imprints and to some extent environment change, so their senses and other aspects of their perception and thought process are widely variable and can shift as they do. 

Elves In this setting, elves are the offspring of humans and fey. This includes not just half-and-half but one quarter/three quarters etc - so long as traits of both species manifest, you are considered an elf. Many hypothetical generations down the line someone may be considered human or fey again, but this is very rare due to cultural reasons which will show up later.

The traits that elves take from humans include their rough size and shape, their unchanging form, and their general cognitive abilities. However they are, in terms of strength, agility, and other physical abilities, they are about on par with real-world humans. From fey, they take the ability to do true magic and a much longer lifespan - 700 years or so at the very oldest. Thus their niche exists not in being very good at one thing but in being versatile. 

Elves also take more subtle traits from their forebearers, which make them in many ways alien to either group. To humans, elves seem intensely connected to nature; possessing of extraordinarily deep emotions; mysterious, unfathomable, and timeless; and fragile. To fey, elves seem slow to change; more like children than mature beings in their own right; and in many ways naive and slow to perceive their world. 

This begins to drift into the realm of cultural rather than the biology of each species, and that’s a different tutorial - so let’s move on.

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #7: Populating Your World

Introduction In whatever medium you choose to tell the story of your world, odds are that its story is being told through the eyes of sapient species. In many cases, this species is humans - in which case, there is no more work to be done on this count, and you can move on to the next tutorial. However, if you are intending to create species instead of or in addition to humans to populate your world, there are an array of traits to consider that will greatly affect the kinds of cultures they develop. 

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Basic Physiology This constitutes the basic physical traits and form of a species. Most sapient species so far as worldbuilding goes are humanoid, breath air, and require food and sleep. That makes a fairly easy default to work from. However, should you wish to deviate from the norm here, there are a number of basic biological features you can modify:

Body Shape: If your species are not wholly or normally humanoid, then what other traits do they have? Do they have something as simple as a tail or a third arm? Are they a sapient species of animal, and have the body thereof? Do they even have a body - are they, to pull from Douglas Adams, a hyperintelligent shade of the color blue? Thinking outside the box can produce some interesting results here.

Sleeping: Does your species sleep? If so - how much do they need to sleep and how often? Do they dream? Are they diurnal, nocturnal, or do they follow other patterns of sleep? If your species does not sleep, then how do they rest and recover themselves instead?

Eating: What kind of diet does your species have? Do they have a complex cocktail of nutritional needs, a la humans? Or can they subsist off of a single input of energy, much as plants photosynthesize? How much food do they need to consume? What is poisonous to them? What kinds of flavors can they perceive, and do they prefer? 

Breathing: Most species just breathe the air of the world they live in, but it’s worth mentioning that one can easily elect to have water-breathing species who will “drown” on land much like fish. Or lava-breathing species. Or species who live in the deep underground and only breathe sulfur - etc etc. 

Species Traits Species traits moves from the land of physiological basics and into the land of features that mark them as distinct from other similar species. This often constitutes survival strategies - for example, one species trait that humans have is an extreme capacity for endurance; we are built to literally run other species to death, not out of speed, but out of sheer persistence. Another trait that humans have is that a broken limb won’t kill us - it’s slow, but we have an amazing regenerative capacity. However, humans also have deficiencies in some traits - for example, our skin is pretty flimsy and not great at deflecting damage in the first place. We are also a diurnal species, so we don’t see in the dark well. The following is a basic list of traits you can consider in terms of where your species falls on the trait spectrum. For all of them, you would want to consider both the average and the extremes - how much will an average member of your species be able to expect out of these traits, and how much would an extraordinary member with a great deal of training be able to achieve?

Strength: Pretty basic. 

Agility: Includes flexibility, dexterity, reflexes, and speed. 

Toughness: Includes ability to withstand damage, recover from damage, tolerate extreme conditions such as heat or cold, and ability to deal with things like poison or disease.

Intelligence: Not only how much, but what kind. A species that has high social intelligence is going to look very different from one with high problem-solving intelligence. 

Senses: Includes not just the base five - vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell - but also temperature, balance, electricity/magnetism, etc. Consider that this not only includes sensitivity, but ability to discern between a variety of stimuli - in vision, for example, being able to see in the dark, or see many colors that humans can’t normally see. 

Other: This includes things like magical traits if you are situated in a magical world, empathy or psionics if your world has those forces, etc. Essentially, factor in the nonphysical factors of your world, because they can manifest as traits in your species as well.

Sex, Reproduction, and Lifespan This particular aspect of biology has been singled out because of the huge impact it can have on a species. A great deal of our time and energy as humans is spent on activities that theoretically lead to reproducing - attracting a mate or mates and bonding with them. Life as we know it follows this pattern of attempting to foster a subsequent generation, and while you could certainly design a species that doesn’t follow that pattern, it will be culturally very different from anything we recognize. This web of genetic inheritance comes in a few forms.

One that many people forget about are different sexes. Humans, generally speaking, have two - men and women. Because of the biological differences between these two sexes, cultures tend to assign them very different roles in society - though what those roles are vary culture by culture. If, however, your species only had one sex and was capable of reproducing with literally any other member of its species (or, alternatively, all on its own), that kind of cultural differentiation may not exist. In the other direction, if you elect to have more than two sexes involved in the making of children, that complicates the social dynamics of a species and also makes room for even more kinds of cultural differentiation. Or, consider that your species might change sex over time - there are some species in the real world that do this, and there are no rules saying that your species can’t naturally shift sex over the course of their lifespan as well. You can play around with this in other ways as well - maybe your species is a neutral sex through childhood, and later in life make a conscious choice about which sex they want to be. All of these can have a great deal of interesting cultural fallout that can be fun to build around regarding gender and gender norms.

How reproduction actually works can impact a culture hugely as well. For example, imagine if we laid eggs instead of giving live birth. It would suddenly become difficult, if not impossible for us to move around while in the process of childbearing, because a clutch of eggs needs to be kept still and in particular temperatures/conditions in order to survive to hatching. You can also consider seasonal or circumstantial fertility in here - humans are fertile any time of year, but some species are only fertile during particular seasons (as it is, human females are only fertile during particular times of month); if this is the case, that will affect your species’ culture heavily. Other circumstances, such as food availability or exposure to particular substances, could trigger fertility as well - which would make plentiful food a necessity, or make that substance very valuable and possibly highly controlled. All of these things can impact cultural sentiments and rituals surrounding romance and sex, which are in and of themselves a big part of many cultures. 

Then there is lifespan. Your lifespan hugely impacts your perception of the world around you. Consider the difference between a species that lives fifty years and one that lives two thousand years - a ten-years war will be a full fifth of the world that first species has ever known, and will likely form a huge impact on its perceptions and culture; but for that second species, it’s barely a blip on the radar, and it has probably seen these kinds of conflicts come and go many times. This impacts both individuals and how individuals process the flow of time and of unexpected or significant events in their lives, and also how cultures perceive milestones and how quickly or slowly their culture will shift over time. Furthermore, this also affects childhood and gestation - the longer a creature’s lifespan is, the longer their childhood and before-birth stages are going to be. This will change all kinds of norms about childhood, rearing a child, about caring for someone who is childbearing, and so on. 

Neurology Neurology in this case has to do with the way your species, because of differences in its neurological biology, is going to perceive the world differently than humans. This can be something as simple as saying that (for example), because the species in question has a lot of super sensory abilities, a large portion of its brain is devoted to processing those stimuli and thus it’s lacking in departments like capacity for social bonding and critical thought. But this doesn’t necessarily just have to do with the balance of the actual brain structure either.

For example. Consider again the lifespan issue. If you have a species with an incredibly long lifespan, what kind of memory-making and storing capacity is it going to have? Is it going to have a good short-term memory, but a poor long-term memory - perhaps not being able to remember well beyond the last couple hundred years? Or conversely, is it going to have a bad short-term memory because it’s built to get rid of too much mundane/useless stimuli, but a very good long-term memory for those more significant stimuli and events? You can also consider its perception of time. For the above species that lives fifty years, a day means a lot more than it does to something that lives for two thousand - with may in turn affect its attention span, its perception of the flow of time on a small and large scale, and so on. 

You can also consider how integrated the processes of the brain (or other thinking structure) are. As humans we are capable to some degree of thinking both analytically and emotionally at the same time, or at the very least switching between them fairly quickly. It’s not difficult to imagine a species that cannot switch quickly and easily, and has to rest in a particular “mode” of thinking for a while - right now it’s in intuitive mode, right now it’s in fight or flight mode, right now it’s in processing mode. On the other end, something which has its thought processes highly integrated would be, while difficult, interesting to write. Or you can go a physical sense - maybe because of the way your species’ brain is set up, it can do totally separate things with its left and right hand and keep track of them in its mind, or read two different pages at the same time in its left and right eye. 

The possibilities are pretty endless with this one. If psychology and neurology is your thing, might want to do some research and see what kinds of interesting things you come up with. Social capacity, emotional processing, sensory processing, abstraction capacity, etc, etc...

Species Balance When you are building your species, it’s important to keep in mind some kind of balance. While you could make a species with incredibly exaggerated traits in all dimensions - high intelligence, magical capacity, strength, speed, perception, and so on - stories of all kinds, even real-world history are built on conflict - and a species that doesn’t have to worry about much actually harming it isn’t going to make for a very interesting species to exist in your world. Part of what drives change and history and innovation is the fact that a species encounters difficulties and has to figure out a way to deal with it. 

You can also think about trade-offs here - what is really helpful in one scenario can be a real hinderance in another. If your species lives primarily underground, it may have an ability to detect very slight tremors in the ground to feel what’s in the area around it. If you then put that species on, say, the beach, it’s going to become very confused because its primary way to navigate has been taken from it, and it probably doesn’t have great eyesight either. Alternatively, a species that lives primarily in the trees is going to probably have very long limbs and a strong grip - think monkey - but is going to have a terrible time if it needs to run across, say, open grassland very quickly. It will tire out in short order and likely not be able to move very fast in the first place. Consider what makes sense for the context surrounding your species - environment, food availability, etc - and how that may pose problems in scenarios outside its comfort zone.

Multiple Species/Competition The last piece of this is to consider how species balance, not just within themselves, but against other species as well. One of the odder pieces of Tolkeinian-descended mythology is that elves are superior to humans in almost every sense, and yet humans are not only still around but very plentiful. Why? In terms of competition between species, wouldn’t the elves have outcompeted humans a long time ago? Many world builders explain this piece by bringing in birth rates - in that it is very difficult, and very rare, for elves to have children, whereas humans breed pretty much like rabbits, and that’s why humans are able to survive in competition with an otherwise fairly objectively superior species. There shouldn’t be a clear “winner” amongst your species spread - unless, again, it has to do with the lore of your world, in which case, do whatever makes sense and have at it.

The point being, if you are going to make a variety of species, make sure they don’t all have super strength unless that’s just a trait of your world. If one has super strength but little agility, another has incredible sensory abilities but little toughness, and a third has a lot of toughness but little social inclination, all three of those species are going to be able to survive in places and ways where the others can’t and thus establish themselves and compete within their environment. Consider also how some species may have ended up working together closely because they can cover each other’s flaws - or ended up in conflict because they can exploit them. 

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Next tutorial could go all kinds of ways. It may have to do with the basics of constructing cultures from all the factors mentioned thus far. It may have to do with something else. We’ll see!

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #6: Example World B

Introduction This world is actually a much better example for Tutorial #6 than World A was, because a lot of the relations going on in World A are rooted more deeply in magic and species differences than in actual needs and wants. This world is also going to be pretty much exclusively human in terms of its population, so differing biological needs are not going to come into play as much. With that - on we go.

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This world is a lot bigger than World A was, and this particular continent is very big. So it has more territories marked off than World A does. However, because this world has more technological development, each of those territories is a lot larger than each of the ones in World A. For example, Territory 4 here is only a little smaller than the entire continent being worked on in World A. Granted, Territory 4 is full of lots of nomadic groups, so it’s not being governed in any centralized fashion, but we’ll get to that later.

Resources and Deficits

As before, I’ll list off the resources and deficits of each location. I have edited some things that I said previously because, as I was tallying up resources, some things clearly needed to happen or not happen.

Territory 1

Resources: Fish, Shellfish, Pearls, Wood, Fruits, Vegetables, Wheat, Livestock, Salt, Copper.

Deficits: Gold, Silver, Iron, Gems, other Metals.

Territory 2

Resources: Wood, Furs, Fruits, Berries, Herbs, Mushrooms, Fish, Nuts.

Deficits: Livestock, Grains, Metals.

Territory 3

Resources: Limestone/Shale, Fish, Wheat, Barley, Leafy Veggies, Livestock, Clay.

Deficits: Salt, Metals, Spices.

Territory 4

Resources: Horses, Antelope/Game, Iron, Grasses, Herbs, Dyes, Roots, Berries.

Deficits: Salt, Fish, Fruits, Nuts, Spices, Wood.

Territory 5

Resources: Salt, Fish, Shellfish, Blubber, Game, Root Veggies, Leafy Veggies.

Deficits: Wood, Iron, Nuts, Spices, Gold, Gems.

Territory 6

Resources: Salt, Fish, Livestock/Game, Wool, Oats, Rye, Sapphires.

Deficits: Wood, Nuts, Spices, Iron.

Territory 7

Resources: Game/Livestock, Root Veggies, Hardy Fruits, Furs, Fish, Salt.

Deficits: Other Veggies, Grains, Wood, Metals, Gems.

Territory 8

Resources: Cotton, Corn, Wood, Fish, Salt, Fruits, Veggies.

Deficits: Metals, Gems.

Territory 9

Resources: Wheat, Barley, Herbs (Medicinal), Shellfish, Fish, Spices, Sugar, Gold.

Deficits: Wood, Stone.

Territory 10

Resources: Coffee, Spices, Wood, Nuts, Fruits, Herbs (Medicinal), Iron, Gems.

Deficits: Roots, Veggies, Grains. 

Territory 11

Resources: Corn, Fish, Peppers, Wood, Spices.

Deficits: Fruits, Nuts.

Territory 12

Resources: Barley, Veggies, Tea, Wood, Salt, Fish, Livestock, Gourds, Silver, Iron.

Deficits: Fruits, Berries, Gems.

Territory 13

Resources: Gold, Gems, Cotton, Fish, Livestock, Herbs, Wheat, Woods, Fruits, Salt, Sandstone.

Deficits: Wood, Metals, Gems, Nuts, Leafy Veggies, Roots.

Territory 14

Resources: Silk, Wood, Berries, Fruits, Herbs, Fish, Oats, Flax, Tin.

Deficits: Iron, Gold, Spices, Livestock.

Territory 15

Resources: Sapphires, Copper, Tin, Fish, Herbs, Berries, Birds, Granite.

Deficits: Wood, Grains, Roots, Livestock.

Territory 16

Resources: Wood, Berries, Fruits, Nuts, Fish, Salt, Livestock, Roots, Flax, Furs.

Deficits: Gems, Gold, Silver, Iron, Spices.

Territory 17

Resources: Fish, Marine Mammals, Barley, Oceanic Goods, Roots.

Deficits: Spices, Gold, Silver, Gems, Wood, 

Territory 18

Resources: Livestock, Herbs, Fruits. 

Deficits: Berries, Veggies, Metals, Gems.

Territory 19

Resources: Moonstone, Sandstone, Game, Poisons, Seeds.

Deficits: Grains, Fruits, Nuts, Livestock, Vegetables, Textiles.

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Trade Regions and Brief Notes on Relations

On this continent there are three major trade systems - the northern one, central one, and the southern one, with the former and latter separated by the middle in the rainforest, mountains, and swamp. These are not entirely independent, however; ship technology is such that the two can trade with one another fairly easily, although as with all ship goods, that trade will be very expensive and risky.

Northern System - Territory One is the major power here simply because it controls the best ports and thus most of the wealth of the area, as well as being able to provide for its own food needs. It is on good terms with Territories Two/Three. Territories 5/6 get along well, and Territory 4 is mostly on its own. Territory 4 is important in that it’s the major source of iron in the region, and Territory 3 is the most friendly and able to trade with them on that count. There is definitely a system of trade up here, though people are always looking to twist things to their own gain and conflicts will erupt from time to time - especially against Territory 4, with people trying to get the iron deposits under their own control. The exception here is Territory 7, which tends to stick entirely to itself and doesn’t get involved in anyone else’s affairs.

Central System - This entire system is made up of territories that basically keep to themselves. There isn’t much interest in trade, and there isn’t much interest in warring. This is heightened by the fact that the terrain in this whole area is by and large difficult, which makes either of those activities... well, difficult. However, these goods are highly desired in the northern system especially, and there are often less-than-friendly attempts to gain these resources. Some trade has been established to keep this from happening particularly frequently, especially between Territory 3 and Territory 9 - the latter of which supplies most of the gold that is used in the northern system’s currency.

Southern System - Due to the scarcity of some food types (thanks to the hostility of the environment - deserts and water scarcity), there is a lot more warring that happens between different systems. Territory 19 in particular is the type that will happily kill you for trying to mess in their affairs, and they are generally avoided by the others. Most trade here relies on personal connections rather than large companies or businesses, so it’s slower and smaller but it does exist. In general this whole region is much more decentralized than the northern one - again, due to having to move around a lot to obtain resources - so all relations come down more to individual groups than large-scale ones.

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That’s it for now - again, things will make a little more sense as cultures get developed from here. 

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #6: Example World A

Introduction Some things to keep in mind for this world. For starters, size. To refresh your memory, this world is about 1/3 the size of Earth, so distances are a lot smaller. However, it isn’t very technologically advanced and it’s sparsely populated, so territories still have to be fairly small all things considered. That’s why there are so many of them.

Secondly, some notes about what lives here. This world is populated, first and foremost, by fey. And fey biology does not work like human biology, at least in this world. Eating food is something done more for pleasure than out of necessity; fey still eat, but they get most of their nourishment from the magic inside things. So they will eat rocks if they feel like it. Plants and bugs and such also. The point being that in terms of trade, areas populated more heavily by fey are not going to need the same kinds of import/export that one might find in the real world. There are some areas that are populated by humans and by other species - those connections will look a little more familiar. I have noted which ones are populated primarily by what.

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First thing’s first - I’ve gone ahead and divided up Continent A into an assortment of territories. I have also colored them slightly so that they may be more easily distinguished. 

Now to go through and, in a brief word, list things they have a lot of and things they don’t have a lot of. Oddities will be explained as we go.

Area 1 (Unseelie Fey)

Resources: Fossils, Limestone, Herbs (Medicinal and Edible), Mushrooms, Assorted Gemstones, Berries.

Deficits: Metals, Spices, Staple Crops.

Area 2 (Seelie Fey)

Resources: Fossils, Limestone, Herbs (Medicinal and Edible), Mushrooms, Assorted Gemstones, Berries.

Deficits: Metals, Spices, Staple Crops.

Area 3 (Humans)

Resources: Gold, Gems, Fish, Furs, Wool, Livestock, Barley, Ry, Oats, Root Vegetables, Flax, Legumes, Salt.

Deficits: Metals, Spices, Lumber, Leafy Vegetables, Fruits.

Area 4 (Humans)

Resources: Gold, Gems, Furs, Fish, Oil/Blubber, Ivory, Lumber, Wool, Livestock, Salt.

Deficits: Metals, Grains, Spices, Leafy Vegetables, Fruits.

Area 5A (Fey)

Resources: Wood, Nuts, Fruits, Gems, Herbs (Medicinal), Gourds.

Deficits: Grains, Root Vegetables.

Area 5B (Fey)

Resources: Wood, Nuts, Fruits, Berries, Gems, Herbs (Medicinal and Edible), Furs.

Deficits: Grains, Metals. 

Area 5C (Fey)

Resources: Wood, Nuts, Berries, Gems, Furs.

Deficits: Grains, Metals, Fruits, Vegetables.

Area 6 (Elves)

Resources: Gold, Fish, Oil/Blubber, Ivory, Furs, Salt.

Deficits: Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, Wood, Metals.

Area 7 (Humans)

Resources: Fish, Shellfish, Fruits, Berries, Leafy Vegetables, Wood, Barley, Furs, Wool, Livestock, Silver, Gold, Gems, Stone, Metals.

Deficits: These guys drew a jackpot. They basically are only wanting for versions of things - species of fruit they don’t have, or particular roots they don’t have, etc.

Area 8 (Elves and Fey)

Resources: Rice, Fruits, Nuts, Spices, Herbs (Medicinal and Edible), Feathers, Iron, Copper, Silk, Wood.

Deficits: Salt, Oceanic Goods, Gems.

Area 9 (Fey)

Resources: Tin, Fruits, Nuts, Tea, Clay, Porcelain Clay, Silk, Wood.

Deficits: Oceanic Goods, Iron, Salt, Gems.

Area 10 (Humans and Fey)

Resources: Wheat, Corn, Cotton, Wood, Livestock, Yams, Rice, Clay, Salt, Fish, Shellfish, Gourds, 

Deficits: Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Gems.

Area 11 (Humans)

Resources: Rice, Fish, Shellfish, Spices, Wood, Salt.

Deficits: Metals, Stone, Gem, Livestock.

Area 12 (Humans)

Resources: Cotton, Silk, Fish, Shellfish, Rice, Fruits, Nuts, Salt, Iron.

Deficits: Gems, Gold, Silver, Livestock.

Area 13 (Fey)

Resources: Iron, Lead, Bison, Legumes, Root Vegetables, Volcanic Rock, Herbs (Edible).

Deficits: Grains, Fruits, Nuts, Gems.

Area 14 (Humans and Fey)

Resources: Iron, Bison, Horses, Volcanic Rock, Root Vegetables, Herbs (Edible).

Deficits: Grains, Fruits, Nuts, Gems. 

Area 15 (Unoccupied)

Resources: Granite, Diamonds, Silver, Furs, Metals, Gems.

Deficits: Plants of all kinds.

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Trade Regions and Brief Notes on Relations

Due to natural barriers, there are three different mini systems of trade, and for the most part those systems cannot access one another. The first system consists of territories 1-6; the second system of territories 7-12; and the third of territories 13 and 14. 15 is, of course, the barrier that separates them all. I will go ahead and outline some basic notes about trade within those systems, with more fleshing out to follow later (because this is also starting to get into cultural stuff, which I haven’t gone into yet).

System One - The human areas tend to play well together mostly out of mutual hatred of the fey. If they didn’t both have to deal with the fey, they would very likely be warring all the time (and they already still do from time to time). Luckily for both of them, they border on the Seelie Fey area (not that that’s luck - we’ll get to that in culture), so there is a little bit of trade between the Seelie Fey and the humans (more in Territory 3). Humans general steer clear of the fey wood, but there is definitely exchange between the Feywood and both of the Feyfen territories. The two Feyfen territories tend not to get along well, and the Feywood will trade within itself. Territory 6 hates both the humans and the fey and refuse to trade with either of them.

System Two - Everyone in this area is cautiously open to one another. There isn’t as much open warring, but there isn’t as much open trade, either. Territory 7 doesn’t need to trade with anyone if it doesn’t want to, but it will sometimes get hold of spices or exotic goods. Territories 12 and 11 - both the exclusively coastal ones - get along well. Territory 7, because it has the resources to do so, is the one most likely to reach into the other trading systems. 

System Three - Everyone has roughly the same resources and they hate each other. 13 and 14 war not only with each other but also with themselves, and it’s not a happy time up there. They are very distrustful of outsiders, and the few times that Territory 12 has made it up there, they’ve been slaughtered immediately. 

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I’ll cut it off here - I’m looking forward to expanding on the cultural stuff going on in these different regions, because what’s going on up above will make a little more sense once I can. On to World B, and then to hopefully on to cultures.