Let's Build A World

24 days ago, I started the ADW wiki. It was a wonderful way to become familiar with Dungeon World and the incredible things created by the greater online Dungeon World community. But I find myself starting to stray from chronicler to creator. That isn't really the place for it. It was time to create a companion wiki that would be about the DW setting and campaigns that I want to start working on, inspired by the genius of Jeremy Sandberg, Mark Tybalt and so many others.

I allowed myself a framework, a couple very vague facts about my setting before presenting anything to the players. These are things that had been stirring in the back of my head and starting to seep in and color a couple of entries in ADW. I added them to the framework to remove them from there. I started with #1 and #2.

1. The World Is Flat

2. There Is A Sun & The Moon

And with that? I went looking on google for a flat world map to inspire me. Then I found what became the basis of my cosmologial map and immediate went to work on making some minor cosmetic alterations. Then I got to work on this diary entry and came up with four more world building principles which would shape my pre-game world building. I wasn't going to let myself have more than seven and they had to be very broad and not take away from letting the players help me shape The Known World.

3. Alignment Is Cosmologically Important

4. There Are Supernal Entiies Whcih Are Different Than God

5. The Known World Should Be The Regions From Born Of The Soil

6. The Known World Is Where The Four Core Races Live & Travel

7. There Are Few Cosmological Regions Beyond The Known World Outside Of Death's Realm- Except Something BAD

The actual world map within my cosmological map, I decided would be kind of a template in how the Known World was shaped. One big continent, which could be completely sailed around. Lots of coast. At first the "sea serpents" were irrelevant but as I took a look at the continent and then realized there were three of them, colored differently and forming a bit of a triangle, I was inspired. There is story there. But its not time to write it, just note that it exists so it can be explored later. Four pillars support the World Dome. I let myself do just a little bit of story-noting there.

1. These pillars are significant.

2.They don't touch the continent, which is more centrally located.

3. The platform underneath them is Death's Realm, the Underworld quite literally.

4. They are the Black Gates which players glimpse when taking A Last Breath

And one last detail from my cosmology map needed be noted. The world? Its leaking a little. A little water is seeping through and spilling out. And to my storytelling mind?

1. The seepage is BAD

2. The seepage is why The World is In Peril

3. The seepage is how the Void works its way into The World.

4. The Void that works its way into The World is how Extra-Planar Creatures called Demons make their way into The World.

I don't let myself explore demons beyond that, except for one thought that shot into my brain before I could stop it: Demons don't have "forms" because they are Void. They have to have forms almost instantly when they enter The World. This happens one or two ways:

1. A demon creates one fast out of a basic element- hello elementals

2. A demon is summoned by a spellcaster into a living creature or physical object.

I drew up a new second outline called What Characters Know and created seven things to be true about the world from the standpoints of the characters themslves. In brief:

1. Its a flat world and nobody has ever sailed to the edges and returned alive. I established that it was dangerous to sail completely outside the sight of land beyond a captain's spyglass or crow's nest but ships had made it as far as 7-10 days sailing towards horizons and return.

2.  There are the four core races and characters can come from terrestrial regions (the open sea and depths of the earth don't count) and I created one that isn't on born of the soil because its a region of heavily civilized city-states where Nature (or her spirits) are no longer supreme and attunement isn't possible. There isn't any kind of creature there that druids won't encounter somewhere else though.

3. I established there are three "savage" tribal races (orcs, goblins, sahugin). All seven of these race -can- interbreed but its not always good. I did not make notes about lycanthropes or cambions/tieflings but both were there in the back of my mind. I established that there is a spoken/written language all seven races comprehend and can use, though with thick accents and dialects. But all seven -can- make themselves understood.

What characters don't automatically know is anything about the Depths. The Depths are going to be a version of the Underdark. The Depths are influenced by the terrestrial world above, the Underworld belovw and the Surrounding Void  It is not protected from the Void the way that the World and the Underworld are.

4. There will be at least six deities, one for each domain in classic dungeon world. The players get to create those.

Time for a world map!

I made a quick sketch in my favorite image software, not trying to mimic my cosmology map land mass except in very general shape. I've decided not to lay out where my regions are. Instead,I whipped out The Perilous Wilds and started working on region almanacs. beginning with The Blasted Wasteland

I am world building, not story building. I have decided that for me and this wiki, this Almanac Template works best. It does not include discoveries or dangers per se. There isn't anything in it that players can't see or characters can't simply know without needing to Spout Lore- but it does provide a list of things within the region that characters could Spout Lore to detail more about should they want to.

Tags

 * Climate: [Select Climate]
 * Terrain Type: [Select Terrain]
 * Political Borders: [Select Political Borders]
 * Danger Level: [Select Danger Level]
 * Alignment: [Select Alignment]
 * Other: [Select 2-3 + Resources]
 * [Other 1]
 * [Other 2]
 * Resources
 * [left blank]
 * [left blank]
 * [left blank]

Races

 * [Region] Dwarves
 * [Region] Elves
 * [Region] Goblins
 * [Region] Halflings
 * [Region] Humans
 * [Region] Orcs
 * [Region] Sahugin

[Region] Beasts & Monsters
20-30 Beasts & Monsters that fit the climate and terrain type. Elementals and Dragons included; Undead and Demons excluded. Its a whim to do it that way.

[Region] Areas
I am going ahead and creating four areas within each region using TPW's Region Table to get good names. But I'm not adding in any encounters, mapping them or descriping there. They're just names that me and the players can weave in when its a good time to do so.