So far we have established the hooks for our world, or at least the part of it that the action takes place in.

We have an archipelagic region of hundreds or thousands of islands, while the people who live there are balkanised into dozens of minor nations, none larger in size than a city-state, and the place is either on the verge of or plagued by major warfare.

Before delving into the look of the place, the cultures and races and nations, I am instead going to try and figure out why it turned out this way.  And for that I am heading for Chapter Six: History and Mythology.

There is no correct order in using the book so you can skip around the chapters like this, building it as feels best for you.

The first part of the chapter deals with designing the pantheon or pantheons for your setting.

It all starts with figuring out what pantheon type you have.  Is there one universal pantheon for you whole world, or does each major culture have their own one?  If so, do they have contact with the other pantheons, or do they overlap?  In that situation, there is a singular god of war, but he is known by different names in different cultures.

Our dice roll is 32 – One universal pantheon.  In this situation, all deities in the setting belong to a single pantheon, regardless of racial or social divisions.  Several gods may share responsibilities (or squabble over) important portfolios, such as war, leadership or love.

Now that we know the type of pantheon, we need to work out how big it is – small, medium, large or huge.  As we have one universal pantheon, it is larger than usual, so we add 25 to the d100 roll.

Our dice roll is 12 +25 = 37 – a medium pantheon.  This will result in a pantheon that will be smaller than the classical pantheons of Greece, Rome or the Norse, but still a reasonable number of deities.

So time to roll them up.

Our rolls give us 1 greater, 4 intermediate, 5 lesser deities, and 1 demi-god.  The greater god is most likely the head of the whole pantheon, while the sole demi-god gives us some interesting options.  Is he a new comer and the spark of the war?  The result of some illicit affair?  A great hero who has been rewarded for their deeds?

With the numbers of deities worked out, next is to work out how they all fit together. Are they a family, are they aspects of nature or elemental powers.  Perhaps they are merely stewards of the realm for a yet higher power, or a bureaucracy.  Or maybe they are a mix of organisations.

Our roll is a 90 – a mixed organisation.  To find out what exactly it is, I roll a couple more times – 12: familial and 62: natural.

Family pantheons are composed of one extended family, each with roles or portfolios generally related to their position in the traditional family hierarchy.  The Greek pantheon has a strong familial organisation.

Natural pantheons have major aspects of nature represented by the deities of the pantheons.  Portfolios found in this type of pantheon might include animals, plants, mountains, seasons, weather, seas, dawn or sunset, wind or even particular species (a bear-god, a wolf-god, etc).

The gives us a working base for the pantheon – a family of deities linked to the natural elements of the world.  I am still thinking that the demi-god is an outsider in some manner, one that might be at the heart of the troubles, and not of the natural elements of the world.

Our next step is to resolve how involved the pantheon is in the world.  It could range from oblivious, where they are completely unconcerned with the world, to direct, where you wouldn’t be surprised if you bumped into a deity in the local pub.

For out pantheon, we roll a 83 – meddlesome.

Meddlesome powers take interest in even the fairly minor events or situations concerning their followers, and the manipulation of their temples’ fortunes is the primary means of discourse (and field of rivalry) of the deities.  Moderately important followers receive advice and guidance, and the highest-ranking followers are in frequent communication with their patron.  Deities create avatars at will in order to interact with their followers and meddle with mortal affairs.

I’m getting a real Greek mythology vibe here, especially along the lines of the events of the Illiad and the Odyssey.

The last step is to work out the portfolios and alignments of the deities.

But that is for next time.

 

Lets start making a world.

As previously mentioned, it is going to be done using the World Builder’s Guide, a AD&D 2E accessory.

For those who don’t have a copy, I thoroughly recommend it. If you don’t mind it in PDF form, you can grab it fairly cheap over on DrivethruRPG.  There are always copies up on Ebay, but they come at a much higher price.

This first part is going to relatively simple – we are going to generate the World Hooks for the setting, a factor that is central to the entire design effort.

For example, Athas of the Dark Sun setting has hooks of a desert world, psionics, unusual magic in the form of defiling that has ruined the world and of course ancient, extremely powerful kings who ruled over a scattered handful of city-states.

The chart for world hooks given a number of categories, those being Climate or Landform, Sites of Interest, Cultures, Situation and Historical.

Climate or Landform can result in archipelago worlds, desert worlds, subterranean worlds or worlds with wild or unusual weather as examples.

Sites of Interest deals more with what the PCs in a setting will be dealing with; cities, dungeons, ruins, wilderness or the like.

Cultures establishes what the principle culture of the campaign setting will be like, based on real world cultures, such as Arabian, Barbarian, Renaissance or ever Seafaring.

Situation covers a wide range of factors that may influence the setting, such as if it is a dying world, or if there is an unusual technological or religious situation or if a deity plays an unusual active role in the world.

Lastly in Historical, were some past event has left a legacy upon the world.  There may have been crusades of mass migrations, or the primary culture is caught in a potent civil war.

When rolling up for a hook, you could roll just one, or you could roll for a number that could provide an interesting mix, even if at first they don’t seem like they could work.

For the purpose of this world, we are going to make three rolls.

So drum rolls please.

83 – Situation

88 – Historical

14 – Climate or Landform

For Situation we roll Warfare

For Historical we roll Balkanisation

For Climate or Landform we roll Archipelago.

That gives us an interesting picture of the world, and one that gels together nicely.  Not all rolls might work together so well.

So let us see what we have, using the descriptions given in the book.

Warfare: The primary culture of the campaign is locked in a cycle of warfare.  The conflict may be internal of external. Military expeditions, espionage and sabotage are a principle source of adventures for the heroes.

Balkanisation: No powerful empire has ever united the central culture of the campaign, leaving a world littered with hundreds of counties, baronies, estates, principalities and city-states.  Shifting alliances and strife between rivals and neighbours creates many adventure opportunities.

Archipelago: No large continents exist, only countless islands (Ursula K Leguin’s Earthsea is a good example.) Kingdoms could be limited to one island apiece, or multi-island trade empires could be prevalent.

From that we can start to get an idea of the region we are working with, of many islands, each independent, locked in struggles with each other.  It doesn’t mean the whole world is that way; in fact most of the world could actually be arid, with one large sea on which is scattered the archipelagos.

But it does give us a starting picture, that may include pirates and hidden treasure, sunken cities and shipwrecks, of wild storm-wracked seas.  Or maybe viking style raiders, of cold, grim islands with ruined towers of past ages upon them.

As we progress we will find out more about it.  Are we dealing with classical style triremes, or medieval caravels or even age of sail tall ships?  Are there those who have tamed sea monsters to aid their causes, or fly across the sea on carpets or dragons?  What races live there and how do they live?  Are there aquatic races who live beneath the sea, and how do they interact with the surface dwellers?

As we continue on, we will work that out.  And more.

In Part Three we take a look at the Pantheon.

 

Amongst my many flaws is that I’m a gamer.  One of the old school style.  As in pen and paper RPG gamer.

I’ve played many different systems over the years – and own even more.

One of my favourite was AD&D 2ed.  Yes, the one with THAC0.  I much preferred it to 3ed, but more of that on another day.  AD&D 2ed had one of my favourite world settings of all time, that being Dark Sun.  Again, something that I will discuss in more detail at another time.

Among the many accessories that were released for 2ed was the World Builder’s Guidebook.  Pretty much anyone who has DMed an RPG has thought about designing their own world and setting at some stage, and this book was designed to help that.

My copy of it has seen so much use over the years that it has become rather worn.  One of these days I am going to have to get a replacement that is in a little bit better condition.

The book goes through a step by step approach as to how to build a world, starting at the top and working down, or starting at the bottom and working up.  Or either starting in the middle and working in either direction.  There is no right or wrong way to do it – the book simply provides the tools for you to do what you want.

It is also crammed full of many handy charts that you can roll on to generator all manner of information for the world, for anything from cultures and religions, to racial make up of the world and even the type of world and the cosmology it inhabits.

The book is split into six main chapters.

Chapter One deals with approaches to designing your world – and the all important world hooks that make it up.  Are you designing from a character driven approach, a sociological approach, a macroscopic or microscopic approach or even a mix of then and others.

Chapter Two covers the Worlds and Planetology – designing the whole world, its size and shape, hydrography, tectonics, climatology and basic look.

Chapter Three covers Continents and Geography.  Starting with a continental sized region of the world, you fill in its landforms, its climate and weather, terrain, waterways, and where the main races of the region live.

Chapter Four is Kingdoms and Sociologies.  Starting with a single kingdom or region, you work out who the inhabitants are and their culture, their government and technology, the physical cartography of the region, such as cities and towns and roads, its population and resources and settlement patterns.

Chapter Five is Cities and Provinces.  There you start with a single city or major population centre, and its surrounding region, more details on its cartography, the populations and services available, and the monsters and ecology of the region, as well as any sites of interests for adventures.

Chapter Six is History and Mythology.  Here you can design the pantheons of the setting, the cosmology the world inhabits and the history of the world.  it isn’t quite to Dwarf Fortress level, but it is good for a starting point.

You can jump in at any of these chapters and design a world.

And that is what we are going to do over the coming weeks and months (though hopefully not years.)

In Part Two we deal with World Hooks.