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Perfect worlds don’t need heroes, and they certainly don’t need adventurers. Functioning kingdoms do not need to hire mercenaries to do the jobs of soldiers or a police force, civilized areas do not need a half-dozen heavily armed warriors acting as caravan guards, and very few hamlets or villages are threatened with slavery and death in a happy countryside. By the needs and conventions of the game, D&D worlds have to be seriously flawed, and even kingdoms ruled by a kind and just king must have their problems. Even campaigns built around delving into forgotten ruins seeking treasure and magic suggest a non-utopia based on the fact such a dangerous occupation is appealing, which says that there are few safer ways of earning that wealth. After all, the life of an adventurer is

The dominant element in fantasy campaigns tends to be nations, be it tiny city-states like the city of Greyhawk, or massive continent-spanning empires like the Five Nations of pre-Last War Eberron. Expansive and detailed nations are a staple of fantasy worlds and separate fantasy from the vague unnamed kingdoms of fairy tales.

This is the Fifth Part in a series on fantasy world building

Chapters

Below are links to the other chapters in this series.

Introduction

Part 1: The Hook

Part 1.5: Factors

Part 2: Conflict

Part 3: Geography

Part 4: Races

Part 5: Nations

Part 6: Room for monsters

Part 7: Deities

Part 8: Cities

Part 9: Factions

Part 10: History

Part 11: Economics

Part 12: Culture

Part 13: Starting

Chapters

Introduction

Part 1: The Hook

Part 1.5: Factors

Part 2: Conflict

Part 3: Geography

Part 4: Races

Part 5: Nations

Eventually, when designing a new fantasy campaign world, you’ll want to map things out. For many this is just doodling on paper or in Photoshop or turning to a campaign cartography or fractal mapping program. But let’s look a little deeper at maps and charting your world, to avoid some of the common pitfalls and mistakes.

This is the third chapter on a series on world building.

Chapters

Below a links to the previous chapters in this series

Introduction

Part 1: The Hook

Part 1.5: Factors

Part 2: Conflict

Part 3: Geography

Part 4: Races

Part 5: Nations

Part 6: Room for monsters

Part 7: Deities

Part 8: Cities

Part 9: Factions

Part 10: History

Part 11: Economics

Part 12: Culture

Part 13: Starting

All stories are driven by conflict. Fiction is driven by narrative conflict and games are driven by the conflict between either the players at the table or – in the case of most RPGs – between the GM and the players, be it directly or indirectly.

This is the second chapter on a blog series on World Building.

Chapters

Below a links to the previous chapters in this series

Introduction

Part 1: The Hook

Part 1.5: Factors

Part 2: Conflict

Part 3: Geography

Part 4: Races

Part 5: Nations

Part 6: Room for monsters

Part 7: Deities

Part 8: Cities

Part 9: Factions

Part 10: History

Part 11: Economics

Part 12: Culture

Part 13: Starting Zone

Part 14: Player's Guide

Conflicted

In D&D, much of the

The is the first part on my new series on world building. In the introduction, I discussed Top-Down and Bottom-Up design, as well as some of the pros and cons of each.

Today I’m going to discuss “The Hook”.

Chapters

Below a links to the previous chapters in this series 

Introduction

Part 1: The Hook

Part 1.5: Factors

Part 2: Conflict

Part 3: Geography

Part 4: Races

Part 5: Nations

Part 6: Room for monsters

Part 7: Deities

Part 8: Cities

Part 9: Factions

Part 10: History

Part 11: Economics

Part 12: Culture

Part 13: Starting Zone

Part 14: Player's Guide

The Hook

Every new campaign world needs a “hook”: a concept or theme on which to base the world and differentiate

This is the start of a new series discussing world building and the creation of campaign settings.

With 4th Edition winding down and many new campaigns looming on the horizon, ready to start when 5th Edition officially launches (or there's enough playtesting material) I imagine many DMs are thinking about where they'll set their campaign, what world they want to play in, and the nuances of creating their own campaign setting.

This blog series is designed to offer advice and suggestions on the art of world building. Each blog will discuss an element of design, and I’ll also demonstrate the advice by loosely designing a brand new world just for this blog.

Chapters

Below is a list of chapters (to be edited into links when I continue this series)

Introduction

Part 1: The Hook

Upon the end of the Dawn war, the elemental forces of the universe began building anew from the damage that had been done. 

  One of the worlds they created was Findaelin, creating a metal cored world with a high gravitational field to stave off the solar wind from the young star they built it around. 

  After building the world's mass and it's elements, they began to experiment with new chains of amino acids and protiens in the turbulent atmosphere and oceans, created by using the four fundamental forces of the universe and shocking particles together in the primordial ooze, to create self replicating life.

  Setting in motion the process of evolution amongst the primitive life forms, the elementals guided the formation of the young world to