For some GMs, it is enough to create adventures for your players that are unique to your game. For others, every detail will up for grabs, as some GMs strive to create content all the way to the foundation of their games. If you want to know how to create a homebrew setting, this guide will allow you to create details for your gameworld that will engage your players and enrich your experience as a GM. I'm including examples from my homebrew world so you can see how details like these can add to your game.
The rule you want to follow with creating your homebrew setting is to establish first what you want your players to experience and aim all your efforts at that goal. For each detail, you should be asking yourself, "How does this express the world I'm creating?" And as you write those details, you should be aware of how they cumulatively create a sense of the world.
What does this mean? Well, let's say you wanted to create a survival horror world where getting by is not guaranteed and magic threatens to blot out all life. When building materials for this world, you do not want to step away from that idea for too long. It would be a mistake, for instance, to decide that the gods have a relationship with humanoids characterized by blessings and support. For your survival horror world, it doesn't make sense to have a source of positive influence from powerful beings that could negate the effect of the horror. Or perhaps you want your survival horror to be marked by support from only the gods, and their attempts to help only add to the horrors of the world. But whatever you choose, it must be consistent.
For my homebrew world, which I have run about ten games in, I wanted to create a world that was very similar to traditional D&D so that first-time players would have a good introduction to the world without being led too far from the basic formula. (I run a lot of games with first-time players--I'd estimate that I have taught about 50 people to play D&D over the last decade or so. So this is an important consideration for me.) I also wanted my world to be rich in opportunities for roleplaying, so I created lots of small details about the way everyday life operates; I included a unique calendar, a section on recreation and culture, and a basic history of political events that would concern most citizens of the world. And I wanted a few details that make my world unique, things that take the traditional D&D formula and offer new ideas about how the world functions. To this end, I split humans into two distinct bloodlines and created a new set of rules for how dragons work. I'll share the dragon rules soon, but for now, you can look at the whole (somewhat lengthy) system reference document I've created for my gameworld.
I'm going to go section by section on this document and address why I made certain choices and offer advice on how to make those choices for yourself. The value of this system reference document (SRD) for the purposes of this article is that when I wrote it in a flurry of activity and inspiration over a decade ago, I considered every element of common life and included sections on each to describe the world; if you write your own versions of each section, you'll have your own comprehensive guide to life in your world.
Let's dive into the SRD. The first thing to know about my world is that it is made up of a collection of islands. The main island--the biggest one known to humanoids, and where almost all the adventures have taken place--is called Evanoch, and it was once home to elves, dwarves, orcs, halflings, and gnomes (no humans). It is a large island, rich in diverse geography. I wanted Evanoch to be a sort of grab bag of anything you could want from a D&D setting, so I built it so that it contains essentially every D&D idea out there: there are ancient kingdoms, new bustling villages, magical forests, mighty mountains, coursing rivers, wild beasts, and lurking evils. Evanoch is like a slice from the D&D cake--you get to have a little bit of everything when you play there. But this also offers the advantage of being able to do very specific things and still fit in the world; Evanoch is big enough to offer a bit of everything. To make a map of your campaign setting, follow these instructions.
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| Take your map and name all the relevant geographical features. |
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| Then add cities where they're likely to pop up and name them as well. |
But what about the humans? Humans come from two neighboring islands: Fanin and Dalton. Faninites are peaceful, naturally-minded humans; when they arrived in Evanoch, they mated with the elves to create half-elves. But Daltoners are imperialistic and bigoted; when they arrived in Evanoch, they tried to take the island continent over for their own financial gain. (They were thwarted by a coalition of gnomes, dwarves, and halflings, whose territories were threatened.) Fanin is a small, snowy island from which humans immigrated for better climate and agricultural opportunities; Dalton is a larger but still small rocky island from which humans immigrated for resources to feed their home empire. Naturally, because of their respective histories on Evanoch, Faninites are regarded as non-threatening, but Daltoners are almost universally despised. Because no one can visibly tell the difference between the two, many treat both lines of humans as potential threats.
Why develop two distinct human bloodlines? Why keep humans off Evanoch until somewhat recently? As I said above, I wanted my gameworld to have specific differences that enrich storytelling. When I ran my D&D podcast back in 2010, my players all played humans, and they spent much of the game dealing with and joking about human-centric racism. It opened an opportunity to make the world a more concrete and real place. I also wrote this because I don't like the way that D&D is human-centric. Half-elves are assumed to be half-human, and the same goes for half-orcs; players treat humans as the default. And default isn't interesting. Let's face it: humans are kinda boring as they're written in most fantasy worlds. So I spiced up the human options. By placing humans on Evanoch only in recorded history, I created a sense that the world is still young and developing, and that humans are somewhat late to the party of grand civilization. It creates a social hierarchy that I can play with for stories as my games go.
When I first wrote this SRD, these were the three islands that made up the whole world. I would later add two other islands: Ramsey, a western-style island where adventurers take on the roles of cowboys, and an unnamed island which is massive and treacherous, home to swarms of every dangerous magical beast around. I created both of these in order to accomplish something specific. I wanted a wild west setting, so I added Ramsey to the world as a colony of Dalton--the dusty, surly Daltoners seemed the best adaptation of cowpokes. I also wanted a home for all the magical creatures I so rarely put in my world. I don't like to populate Evanoch with scores of magical beasts and dragons--I like a somewhat grounded game where when a magical beast appears, it is a special moment. So creating this nameless continent covered in magical beasts gave me a place to put them. I even stipulated that occasionally random magical forces teleport creatures from this island onto Evanoch as a way of explaining where they come from when they do appear.
So even though Ramsey and the wild continent were not originally part of the plan to characterize the world, they still fit into what I was trying to accomplish. Ramsey is harshly realistic in a way that rivals or surpasses Evanoch, and its system of social hierarchy is different enough that players will notice. The unnamed continent expresses classic D&D setting information, but in a way that contains it and allows me to run my game the way that's best-suited for my games. SRDs are living documents, so you'll end up adding to them after you've "completed" them--just be sure that what you add keeps the spirit of what you've already created.
On the topic of writing things to explain standard D&D conventions, one of the first details I created for the history of Evanoch was the "Treaty for Universal Currency." Have you ever just thought about how everyone in a D&D world has finely-minted coins no matter where they are in the world? It always struck me as strange that each race had agreed to forgo individual currencies from their respective kingdoms. I wanted to clear that up in my world. So as a decision made to unite the divided racial kingdoms, I had a historical movement towards a common currency. This is an example of how you can use a homebrew setting to align everything with what makes sense to you: keep the detail you want, but create a reason for its existence.
Along similar lines, I devised the "Common Worship Charter," which states that anyone can practice their religious faith anywhere without consequence. It had struck me that worshippers of racial deities would be shunned outside of their own kingdoms, and people who worshipped non-traditional deities would be left out in the cold. But if a player chose to be a worshipper of one of these forbidden deities, their experience as a player could be compromised. Allowing for the possibility that some NPCs would be judgmental either way, I wanted people in Evanoch at large to be accepting (at least legally) of most faiths. With both the currency and religion tweaks, I aimed Evanoch at being a world where it's easy for a person to get into the world as they see fit and ignore details which don't add anything to the story.
No homebrew world is complete without at least a little bit of history. I suggest coming up with at least three major events in world history to give some flavor to your world. For mine, I selected two great wars and a peace treaty. For the first war, I thought I would tap into a classic D&D trope: the conflict between elves and orcs. So I created the War of Kraal. Between the elven and orcish homelands is a great desert called the Kraal Desert. In that treacherous desert, elven and orcish forces fought for nine years in a costly war that killed over half the populations of each kingdom. I decided that about half of the population would suggest how costly the war was--women and children would have to be fighting as well for these numbers to be fitting. This war happened about 500 years ago, which is to say within living memory of a number of elves, so some of this conflict is still fresh for the elves.
This war was followed with a treaty. A halfling named Caspian Ardor called a meeting of all the leaders of Evanoch's kingdoms and called for an end to kingdom rule, which he felt was the motivating factor behind the wars. As a result, after some diplomacy, the kingdoms were disbanded, making way for a gameworld where individual towns could become more diverse and have their own political issues that were not decided by racial politics. I wanted this detail to be true because I like the idea of each settlement having unique issues and I didn't want the tenor of any given campaign to be decided by which capital the players were nearest to.
The final historical event is something I developed years after creating the SRD. I developed what I call "the Magic Wars." I'm a student of history and I'm a bit obsessed with the American Civil War; I like how an ideological issue divided people across the country and forced them to fight for what they believe in. I wanted a similar issue. So I wrote that about 30 years before the current campaign time, a war broke out over the issue of regulation of magic. Some wanted free magic use, others called for regulated magic, and still others demanded the abolition of magic. Each according to their views fought a guerilla war that over two years claimed 80,000 lives, the result being that unregulated magic would be the way of the future. Thus, within living memory of all but Evanoch's youngest people was a conflict that called people to determine the future of magic in the world. Tensions are still sore with some, and there are towns existent who forbid magic in any form. This not only creates an interesting dynamic for spellcasters in the world, it also establishes limits on how much magic appears in any given setting, which contributes to my desire for a more low-magic world.
Now that we have the basic shape of our world, with a rough map and some major events and details, it's a good choice to get a sense of who lives in your world. I highly recommend determining your demographics along three lines: race, religion, and profession. These will allow you to understand what life is actually like and how many people live in particular ways. Here's what I determined for Evanoch:
Racial Demographic:
Elves: 15.9% (162,500)
Orcs: 8.2% (83,800)
Gnomes: 17.6% (178,900)
Humans: 20.4% (207,100)
Daltoners: 13.2% (134,200)
Faninites: 7.2% (72,900)
Dwarves: 15.6% (158,400)
Halflings: 12.7% (129,000)
Half-elves: 9.6% (97,300)
Except for orcs and half-elves, most of these groups are about 15% of the total population. This means that there's about an equal chance of running into any given race when you're out in the world. I chose to make orcs less plentiful because of the War of Kraal and half-elves less plentiful because the interaction between elves and Faninites is historically new. Faninites themselves are less populous than Daltoners because there are relatively few of them, and Daltoners came en masse to colonize the continent. What matters here is that you know as the GM that your distribution of races is consistent throughout your game and that it gives you ideas about how to represent the population of your world.
Professional Demographic:
Trade: 16% (162,700)
Manufacturing: 8% (81,400)
Health/Education: 3% (30,500)
Farming: 23% (233,900)
Mining: 11% (111,900)
Forestry: 9% (91,500)
Politics: 4% (40,700)
Religion: 5% (50,900)
Arts: 2% (20,300)
Military: 13% (132,200)
Other: 6% (61,000)
Religious Demographic:
Pelor: 16.0% (162,400)
Boccob: 1.0% (10,200)
Corellon Larethian: 8.6% (89,000)
Garl Glittergold: 5.2% (52,900)
Gruumsh: 6.8% (68,900)
Moradin: 8.3% (84,200)
Nerull: 2.0% (20,300)
Wee Jas: 2.6% (26,200)
Yondalla: 4.1% (41,700)
Ehlonna: 9.2% (93,500)
Erythnul: 1.9% (19,400)
Fharlanghn: 4.7% (48,200)
Heironeous: 3.6% (36,200)
Hextor: 1.8% (17,800)
Kord: 5.7% (58,100)
Obad-Hai: 5.2% (52,600)
Olidammara: 2.4% (23,900)
Saint Cuthbert: 7.7% (78,500)
Vecna: 1.8% (18,400)
No Devotion/Other: 1.4% (14,600)Religion is the least necessary of these three demographic measures. I did it largely because I use deities in my games a fair amount and I wanted a sense of how each god is followed. (I'm a big fan of Neil Gaiman's American Gods and I've toyed with making each god's power equivalent to how many people believe in them, so this measure is especially helpful.) The key with religious demographics is determining a broad sense of what people believe in. The racial gods are big in Evanoch as kingdom rule is still a thing of the recent past; evil gods tend to be pretty minimal, and Pelor ranks highest of all because I've determined that Daltoners worship a twisted version of Pelor who requires sacrifice to rise as the morning sun. This can also help when making NPCs--associating them with a deity can be a good way to establish their values, and knowing how rare their beliefs are characterizes them as well.
The next section in my SRD is about races. A lot of the information in this section is either directly from a version of the D&D Player's Handbook or is a slight twist on that information. This includes vital statistics on each race as well as physical appearance details. But I've also included sections on the culture of each race, including values, governmental workings, education, and what their music sounds like. This information is among the most precious to you as a GM. What makes the races different in D&D is often characterized by the physical differences and a broad caricature of traits (orcs like to fight, dwarves like to drink, elves are snobby). But you can do so much more with it. Consider some of the details for halflings:
Halfling culture is extremely secretive, but is generally consistent from region to region. Halflings tend not to associate with other halflings, though there are a few regions (secret to the non-halfling world) where communities of halflings exist. Halflings regard war as a waste of effort and life, and have long been publicly opposed to its continued existence. The Treaty of Caspian Ardor is one extremely illustrative example of this mentality. Because of the lack of a halfling homeland, and because of the independent nature of most halflings, there has never been a war involving a halfling army. While most halflings opt toward chaos and live in whatever society they find, those who are more suited to law often live in cooperative communities with other halflings. The halfling “capital” city is called Curagon and is located in the depths of the Heronal Forest in the center of Evanoch. Within the capital halfling city, which has been legally decreed as a city for all races, there is no system of government. Complete autonomy exists for every person, and individuals solve disputes as they see fit.
Education for halflings typically consists of world history, world languages, world literature, intermediate sciences and mathematics, martial arts, and other races' cultural education, plus religious studies. Halflings value assimilation into other societies, and disdain those who create unnecessary conflict. Art is not a pursuit of any but the most dedicated halflings, who are often the subject of ridicule by other halflings, who see the effort as wasted time. Music, however, is given a great respect by halflings. Music in halfling culture is a blend of mathematical and organic composition, with extreme experimentation occurring. This experimentation extends to instrumentation, and all manner of invented instruments appear frequently from halflings. Rhythm, melody, and lyricism all play intricate parts in the careful construction of halfling music. With this music comes equally inventive and complex dancing from all members of society.
In order to gain the respect of a halfling, one must show their ability to blend in to their surroundings and create a living for themselves, be it an honest living or not. The most highly respected halflings are those who survive comfortably without depending on the work or help of others. The idea of earning one's own keep is a standard by which many halflings measure their success. Males and female halflings are on generally equal ground, though more respect exists for female halflings than for males within halfling society. The ability to be totally self-dependent enters into the child-bearing process, so most children grow up with only their mother's care. At about the age of ten to fifteen, halflings are generally abandoned by their parents so that they can learn to be self-sufficient. At this point, halflings usually create a name for themselves. A halfling typically has one or two children during their lifetime, and pregnancy lasts for 16 months. Halflings are well-liked by most every race, but well-trusted by none. Halflings dislike the orcish tendency to violence, and the elven and gnomish propensity for loyalty to a cause, but are hostile to no one.
In this passage, we have a lot of information about what makes a halfling a halfling. Halflings don't think of having a homeland, so they focus on improving life wherever they live. They are peaceful people who disassociate from warlike tendencies. They prize autonomy and are maternal in nature. Their music is wildly creative and is the object of much critical affection. These are details that provide flavor to all manner of moments in your game: a halfling soldier is an anomaly, a dependent halfling would be ashamed of themselves, a halfling musician is unconventional and complex. These are details which inform every halfling character you inhabit. If you can act out these details in a meaningful way, your players will take note of what you're portraying and will notice when halflings behave in similar or different ways depending on context. And if you have a profile like this for each race, you'll have dozens of opportunities to roleplay the ways your world works and engage your players.
The next section in the SRD is on culture. We've already written about the unique cultural identities of each race, but now it's time to think about society as a whole. I've addressed several subsections which I recommend considering: violence, communication, recreation, drugs and alcohol, and cuisine. Let's address them one by one.
Violence: We've already written that two major wars have occurred in living memory for some of Evanoch's citizens. We know that such bloodshed as was caused led to the abolishment of kingdom rule for fear of greater violence. And we know that most races view violence as a means of last resort. So Evanoch as a whole resists violence. The information I've written on violence has to do with what happens with weapons on a day-to-day basis: how normal disputes are resolved, the pattern of handing down a familial weapon, and the etiquette of keeping a weapon sheathed unless you intend to use it. You should use this section to determine societal views of violence but also the ways that violence is expressed--are people barbarian-like and wild, or calculated and vicious, or somewhere in between? Are people prone to challenging each other to duels? What do people think of soldiers at large? What matters here is that you understand what an NPC is likely to do if a player character draws a weapon on them.
Communication: This can represent a whole range of information. In my SRD, I dedicated this section to detailing a courier service and the first newspaper, both of which are directly connected to how information is dispensed in Evanoch. With a courier service, I allow an option for players to communicate over great distances quickly (although for a price). This also means that NPCs can communicate about the players quickly given the right situation. At the same time, a newspaper allows me to broadcast information to my players. I can create an entire newspaper as a document, or I can simply note that a certain article catches the eye of my players. By keeping newspapers relatively rare, I can make what papers do exist extra special since it's a new form of communication. The key is that however you describe methods of communication in your world, you must keep them consistent. If you establish that people can use magic to communicate instantly over great distances, your enemy NPCs are capable of this too, and that can affect your players' chances at success in their goals.
Recreation: What do people do for fun in your world? Is it like American frontier life, where needlepoint and horseshoes were the main forms of entertainment? Is it more like medieval Europe where great banquets and feasts featured ridiculous performers? In Evanoch, I wrote that there is a great deal of popularity behind card games, particularly Three Dragon Ante (a real card game published by Wizards of the Coast). I make a note of reading habits and library archives because the printing press is new and books are undergoing a great awakening in the world (which allows me to create books as documents for my players). But I spend most of this section explaining a sport I made up called candleball. Candleball is like 2-on-2 soccer, but where the goalie is stuck several feet away from the goal and the players use their hands. It gains its name because the game is played for the duration of a candle burning. I thought this was a fun detail, as it adds a serious sport to the world but takes into consideration the reality of a medieval kind of world. None of my players in any campaigns have really engaged with candleball in any real way, but I like knowing that I could describe kids playing the game outside a small town when the players walk by. The vital thing about recreation is that you have an answer for what people do with free time. Unless you're writing a world where no one has any time to do anything fun, you definitely want to characterize recreation.
Drugs and Alcohol: Many players get into the tavern scene in D&D and other TRPGs. I've had players who want to consume every crazy beverage they hear about, and I've had players who take great enjoyment in roleplaying getting drunk. And let's face it: historically speaking, people drank alcohol instead of water because it was more reliably safe. So mix it up with the drinks! I created a few types of unique alcohol for the world: hollop, an elven drink distilled from a vegetable called jaswop, and crindlin, a halfling drink distilled from the sap of the keskit tree. This doesn't have some serious purpose or anything grand behind it; it's just a way to expand details and allow the players to roleplay a bit. And that's especially the drive behind having created several drugs to exist in the world: roleplaying. I created four types of drugs: kalvyr, a hallucinogen; vivara essence or "tree breath," a calming sedative; jinsertia crystal, a stimulating and adrenaline-stoking drug which makes the user violent; and woadgrass, a mild sedative which activates dormant parts of the brain. There are fairly obvious analogues to these drugs in the real world, but what matters is that they are unique to this world. I have had players seek out specific drugs in order to roleplay the effects of the drug, and that's actually a really exciting way for players to engage with the world. The key with drugs and alcohol is that you offer options to your players, so try to make your details as distinct as possible.
Cuisine: Just as many players obsess over what drinks their character is drinking, many players obsess over the food their character is eating. I've written that a menu at a tavern can be exciting for players; consider what you can do by tailoring the food served to the player characters to the chef who made them. If you know that Faninites cook hearty, filling food, you can have the Faninite chef in the tavern bring the players thick stews and dense breads. Again, as with the drugs and alcohol section, you're doing less work here to serve your overall view of the world and more to create opportunities for roleplaying and a more detailed world. I also, just for fun, added to my SRD that there's a franchise of taverns all across Evanoch that seeks to maintain high standards of cuisine at each location, so they train only half-elves as chefs and only dwarves as barkeeps at a special culinary institute. I wrote this detail thinking it would be fun to have a chain of taverns that would be recognizable to travelers, and while I still like the idea, I've never added a tavern like it to my narration. Part of that is that I forget about this detail, and part is that it's more fun to have unique taverns across the map. What matters, though, is that you create information about food that keeps the game fun and allows your players to get invested in details.
These are the sections I created for my SRD, but you could expand into other ideas. You might consider a section on the arts and what is currently in and out of fashion in various fields. You might also have a general academics page, where you determine what beliefs are currently held in philosophy, science, and economics. It might benefit you to create a section on what technologies are available and how easily they are accessed. You may wish to describe migration patterns, current political issues, or cultural disagreements. Any of these are great ideas, and they'll allow you to create an evermore specific image of your world. But don't think you need to have dozens of pages answering each of these questions. The goal with an SRD is not to have a strict grasp on how everything will always be, but instead to give yourself room for inspiration from what you've established. Orson Welles said, "The enemy of art is the absence of limitation," by which he meant it is easier to create something when you're working within the boundaries of an idea. Use your SRD to give your boundaries to create something inspired.
I include in my SRD a section on the calendar. I have always had an issue with the Gregorian calendar--I hate that months are different lengths and days of the week don't relate to the numbers in a month--so I wanted to create a calendar that made sense to me. I created ten clean months of three weeks each (nine days to a week), which means every 4th of a month is on the same day of the week as the 4th of every other month. There's an extra three days left over at the end, which become a festival of celebration and renewal. I created names for every month and day of the week. I also created a host of holidays for each category of people in the world, which can be great to spice up a game with some festivals. A tip to GMs who want to create their own calendars: it's a fun detail to include, but don't do it for your players' engagement--do it for your own satisfaction. Players will never get involved in new days of the week or months any more than they'll learn to tell time on a clock with 17 hours per day. Time is a reference point we take for granted, and it will take a truly committed group of roleplayers to take time to learn the difference between Anacia and Atholia.
I ended my SRD with a glimpse at current politics. This includes issues specific to each of the nine biggest cities in Evanoch (creatively nicknamed "The Big Nine") as well as the current leadership and how they're faring. This can be a good place to develop plotlines from issues or to create information about what life is actually like in your world's biggest cities. If you refer to my SRD, you'll notice that there is much more detailed information for some cities than others. That's because I've run games in those cities, and the player characters have done things to change leadership in those cities. Thus, I have more information on specifically what's going on in those places than in others.
This brings me to perhaps my favorite thing about having a homebrew setting: the ability to place multiple adventures in the same world. I've shared before about campaigns that I've run, and both Talon Gorge and Torga of the Big Nine have had their leadership completely changed. Talon Gorge was a kingdom turned into a democracy; Torga changed its multi-chamber government's leadership across the board. (You may notice Ringsdale is rich with information as well--I was briefly planning a campaign there but discarded the idea; however, the development of the city remains.)
These changes don't just exist in the SRD. A few of the players in the Torga campaign had been players in the Talon Gorge campaign, and they got to witness as news of the fall of the king reached them across the continent. A few characters from the Talon Gorge campaign traveled to Torga and became embroiled in the new story. I've run two other games in places geographically near to Talon Gorge, and both have heard of the fall of the king and the resulting change in government. I even added that a few nearby smaller towns changed to democratic leadership in the wake of Talon Gorge's change. This is just one example of the changes a campaign can have on future campaigns.
When the Torga campaign ended, I rewarded each player character with a grand change similar to a wish spell. The campaign's steady monk went to help establish safe policing practices that went into effect across the continent. The scrappy wizard was granted dragon form, becoming one of the canonical dragons in the world. The human ranger who had fallen in love with an orc was granted the ability to have children. (According to D&D, orcs are too violent to converse with humans, so how could they have children aside from as a product of sexual assault? I prefer to write that what the game calls half-orcs are just orcs, which are friendly enough to be a standard race. As a result, this player character was father to the first half-orc baby in history, and henceforth all races gained the ability to procreate. This of course radically changes the world's future and develops strong feelings in the people of Evanoch, which goes back to creating a world rich with opportunities to roleplay.)
So get out there, create your homebrew setting according to what you need from it, and get to writing details to make it a full, real world. All you need to do is consider the kind of world you want to offer your players, and soon you'll have an entire world to summon up for all kinds of adventures.
Coming soon: a list of campaign ideas and how to run them, how to improvise encounters, and how to describe details in your game. Until next time, happy gaming!
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