I've been thinking recently about what to base the next series of articles about. After missing last weeks issue of the blog (I'm sorry about that by the way, personal life took over) I began to think about what I and some of my players have talked about before our sessions start, especially two of my players, one of which is a DM himself and the other of which is creating his own homebrew world for the first time.The player who is starting to create his homebrew world and I typically meet every week before the game and talk about the process of dungeon mastering. He is yet to run his own game but he wants to, and despite me telling him to ease himself in with a one-shot to start with, he seems determined to make his homebrew world and then run from their, and I, of course, will help him as much as I can.
Every person is different when it comes to creating there first homebrew setting. Some people struggle with some things that others may find easy and vise versa. For the longest time, I struggled with a creation myth to my game and I tend to struggle with influences from different countries in my campaign and different places , but by and large I could say I have patched most of the major leaks in my campaign to the point that it doesn't take on to much water and can sail....no I don't know where the ship metaphor came from either but id really appreciate it if you just ran with it.
We all have strengths and weaknesses, and I really do encourage all of you who read this, if you have something for me to cover in a later blog, then please leave it in the comments down below, but for now, we are going to start with the difficult subject of race.
Firstly, id like to say that you as the dungeon master should have final say on what races are in your campaign and what your players can play. The overly loud winings of a disgruntled player mad at the fact he cant player is 1/4 moon elf, 1/4 Orc 1/8 kenku, and 3/8 Goliath character is no concern of yours if you don't see that characters species working in the game then don't allow them to play it.
A quick point before we continue, I don't like the word race when it comes to talking about the possible inhabitance of a fantasy setting. The term Race to me refers to several groups of people that are all quintessentially the same but with some differences. However, the terms species I find to be a much better description of what we are talking about. There are some similarities between, dwarves and humans or elves and human, or Dragonborn and gnomes, but at the end of the day the differences vastly out the way the similarities, not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, sociologically, economically, morally and a variety of different "orally's" that define them as a people, vastly different from others you will find in your player handbooks.
Choosing the Species that you want to have in your campaign is a great place to start world building, and by asking yourself these question you can really start to find a great place for each of the peoples you want to include.
Where did this Species come from?
Where do they live now?
Are they a friendly people?
Do they have a significant personal history/ historical figure?
Are they a warlike people?
Do they openly trade with people?
Do they hold a significant place in the history of your world?
Are they a religious society?
What god/gods do they worship?
Are they an inventive people?
What did they invent?
What are these people known for?
There are a lot more questions you could ask yourself about a people in your game, but these 12 are a great place to start with how to develop a species in your world.
To see how I use these questions to help me, we'll now start with a species of people and I'll answer the first 5 of these questions the best I can.
We'll use the dwarves from my homebrew setting.
Where did this Species come from?
They were created by the god Moradin when he saw his sister Coriallin and Brother Pelor contributing their new peoples to the worlds they had just made. He honed them from the rock and thus they were born.
Where do they live now?
They live within the Crystalline Mountains, in mountain fortresses and cities embedded into the rock, and while some open-air villages and trading towns exist they mainly stick to Diamondizium (the capital city) and Hom Borhan, the anvil of the east, their main city for arms and armor production.
Are they a friendly people?
Depending on the race yes, they have a long-standing alliance with the human kingdom and have had embassies and sights of religious significance in the human capital of Aquafell for many years , and due to the their part in the events of the encapsulation (the event in my world that sealed all the dragons away in an impenetrable magical orb) they are on good terms with most of the mortal races due to the Dwarven clans mainly leading the great dragon hunts to find the last remaining dragons after the encapsulation. However, they are standoffish to Elves due to the time they spent in the Feywild while the dragons attack the mortal realm, but in recent years that frigid distance has now started to wane.
Do they have a significant personal history/ historical figure?
They have many figures of historical significance, The current King, King Pen'var for his role in the encapsulation, leading the armies of the mortal races and his decision to sacrifice the Dwarves greatest assent, the Giant fire primordial Hal'asire that once powered their great lava forges, was torn asunder to create the Orb of dragonkind to compel the dragons towards the trap laid for them , the dwarven people still resent this sacrifice.
Are they a warlike people?
The dwarven people have a saying, "to pull the chains", its often said a threat to someone who is annoying you, "Don't Make me pull the chains". This refers the Act of the dwarven army when leaving their mountain homes, would use the great forges to pull back the great 50 ft high doors to their fortress's open, to allow the armies to stand 10 men abreast in a file. While the chains have not been pulled in main years, they still remain connected ready to be pulled and the army's of the dwarves will always be ready for action.
I believe if you can answer these 12 questions about a people for your game, then you're ready to go with them, all you need to do then is design their cities and places to live and weave them into your game, each race has countless opportunities to bring different influence and flavour to your games , and I hope my advice here today has helped you bring them to the foreground.
Thanks again for reading guys, I'm hoping to continue this theme of advice for world-building, so if you have a question please leave it in the comments and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. If you've liked what you've read please don't forget to sign up to our email mailing list to be notified when a new blog comes out each week , and if you want to see me make an idiot of myself, please check out the Cardboard Arcade youtube channel and give us a like and subscribe it really helps us out .
So until next time guy.
Bye!
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