General information of fantasy world creation for role playing games.

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Creating a good fantasy world can be very difficult as there are a lot of things to understand in the way a world functions, impacts of weather, gravity, geology, populations and more can drastically alter the way your world works. That is why it is important to begin the process of creating a world by creating the basic structure of the fantasy world. A good place to begin this process is by thinking about the world in which we live, what is it you would change about it? Perhaps you would like to alter the gravity, making people lighter so that it is possible for them to fly with much more primitive technologies, and even with hand made wings. Such a world could explain a steam punk system, or even early types of flight in which armies of people used kite like gliders to launch themselves into the air for brief periods of time.

Another consideration is the average temperature of the world, is it entering or leaving an ice age? Is it rainier? More rain could be used to explain the presence of more creatures, dragons after all require a lot of food, and more rain would help prevent many of the famines that keep animals numbers down (this job would then fall to the predators). On the other hand famines can be great catalysis’s for change, the baby ice age of the 1300’s changed humanity greatly, and another mini ice age early drove the Germanic tribes south helping to destroy the Roman Empire. It is also now known that a similar event, though in this case a lack of rain drove the Mayans from their homes, bringing a powerful civilization to an end.

            The Sahara desert and many other places where quite different then they are now, at one time the Sahara was a lush jungle, over time however it changed into the desert we know to day. Deserts in our world are growing and expanding, whether this is occurring in the world you create or not can have a significant impact on the structure of that world. Large deserts have acted in many ways like oceans, with huge caravans passing through them to port towns on the edge of the desert, and bandits traveling through the centers to rob the traders. Campaigns in worlds with extensive deserts and rich resources could be much like a land pirate style campaign. Extensive forests in a fantasy world could act much the same way, with the dangers in the forest being fantastical creatures which impede travel to all but the most powerful groups. Thus requiring trade to flow through the forest in caravans, allowing the more powerful to lute in a lawless region.

            When creating a world there is no actual order of events in which you should move things, the natural flow of a world is for the geography to impact and determine the peoples potential life styles. However you may have an idea in mind for what kind of people you want so geography might come after. However as you build your world your geography can begin to impact many of the people you where less clear about helping you to form ideas about them. When ever you get stuck on your world one option is to create and think about geography and how a people would survive in that geography.

Low gravity-there are canons in Utah which have huge housed build on the walls, a low gravity world could allow such structures to grow massive and might even make the common form of city built up on the sides of trees which could grow more massive, mountains which would be less prone to collapsing, and other buildings which would be less bound by weight problems.

            So what could cause such low gravity? One of the more interesting options for fantasy worlds is to have massive caverns, huge pockets of air in the planet which decrees it’s over all mass while allowing it to retain its external size.

            Glaciers-The gold of an ice age presents many challenges, however as the creatures of the world are forced into tighter and tighter corroders, compotation for food increases, and so to does the size of the animals for safety, or to eat the other large animals.

            Pockets of safe area’s-Your world could have mountains, plains, hills and other geological features which work to make an area safer then others, allowing whole civilizations to exist which know little of monsters, magic, and the like.

Life on a Fantasy moon

            As we explore the far reaches of space with telescopes, searching for planets, we are finding many Jupiter sized planets or larger. While such planets cannot harbor life, many do have moon which likely could. Imagine what it would be like to have multiple moons which harbor life, all close enough to be reached via magic, or technology no greater then what we had in the 60’s.

            When you play rpg games such moons could help to create a constant array of new places for players to explore and new creatures for them to fight.