When I give my players the "history" of my world, I usually present it as being told to them from a particular point of view, such as "according to scholars from Shurrea...". I try to give them the impression that what they hear might not be the "whole truth", and might even be false. This gives me a margin of error in case I accidentally contradict myself later, and I don't even need to come up with some details until/unless I come up with a neat way to relate it the current campaign to it.
the one time I gave my players an actual exposition dump, they were in the dwarven capitol, there was an event at the museum, there were tours sponsored by the museum to let outsiders know their history, how the city came to be and what led to it, and everyone was so drawn into the whole orcs vs dwarves aspect with the Orc Warlord's black axe still being on display upon the broken shield of the Dwarf Lord, I felt so rewarded at that point even though at the end of it all, it was an exposition dump, how you present the history of the places also matter so much. Your videos are def binge worthy before going back to writing! Much love from a forever dm
@@Zahlari I love the idea of a museum or some other thing that has the built in purpose of allowing exposition! I planned to use one for that exact reason in my current project because there are some things that are hard to organically address about the world so I figured "this character really likes to know things so he'd definitely want to visit a museum" and that has a chance of letting the information come through in a fun way. Plus whatever they don't interact with adds that layer of "there's a lot more left over" without having to actually write out every single exhibit (unless you want to 😎)
@@CleverFoxStudios The only exibit I went into detail on was the foundation of the kingdom and my players loved it so much, museums are awesome for whenever you want exposition without thinking it will be a heavy handed aproach, after all, the players could just decide "history is dumb" and ignore the museum and you just go to whatever other route you had planned, oracles are also great to give out hints and direction without a whole lot of clarity
I think something important to create BEFORE building history is a calendar! This way you have a timeline you attach the historical events to. Something that happened "400 years ago" is STATIC. (Still be 400 years ago next year.) Something that happened in the "year 319 after the law" is ALIVE. (Was 412 years ago last year, 413 years ago now, and 414 years ago next year.)
The VERY FIRST thing I did when I made my dnd world was make a calendar, which also had me make lunar phases and seasons-- They're nothing inordinate, but having two moons, one of which moves through its phases SUPER slowly at nearly the length of an entire year means there's a total lunar calendar I could whip up if I ever needed to; but even though it's not explicitly the basis of the current-day calendar you can feel that the fact they line up so close was definitely intentional by those who made it. I had to do this because the Foundry module that lets me have a time-of-day timer which I originally just grabbed for weather effects is bundled with a calendar, and I absolutely didn't wanna just yoink someone else's or use ours, god forbid. And honest to god just having one was such a powerful basis for my worldbuilding going forward. I strongly recommend it.
@@Nosmo90 It is an approximation. Similar to saying the Napoleonic Wars were 200 years ago. It is more useful to say the Napoleonic Wars were from 18 May 1803 to 20 November 1815.
I have three eras, the first ended via a war, the second via a natural disaster. I’m excited to use your tips to flesh out the recent and current history of my world especially for each nation
Excellent video. I love the method of listening to the players voicing possible events in the world, then incorporating those into history and upcoming adventures. I was inspired by Willy Wonka’s approach in giving hints and warnings, ultimately letting the children and parents do whatever they want. Consequences over constraint. When a player says, “we could do…” and I start taking notes. I typically do not write any lore or history in advance. I wait until the characters encounter it randomly or specifically ask. I’m glad you brought up point-of-view because that gives me wiggle room and can change details without worrying about continuity.
In the game I'm running right now it follows up 15 years after our last campaign. That ended with an invasion of the Infernal armies and wound up that the BBEG was actually trying to stop the invasion. He wound up sacrificing his life to close the gate. The world remembers it as the party saving the world(which they did, and they did beat him just didn't kill him) by killing the nefarious BBEG and closing the gate. Only a very small handful of people remember it correctly. In that same campaign they negotiated with a small faction of the demons to side with them and in return they were allowed to stay in the prime material. Nobody remembers this negotiation except the party and the demons, so there is a whole society of demons living in the world and nobody knows how or why.
I have 4,000 years worth of history in my setting. And I broke them into era's, War of the Gods, Artifact Wars, Guardian Era, Aetherial Flood. Each of these still effect the modern day of my setting, with the 2 most recordwd eras being the Guardian Era and oddly the War of the Gods era. Mostly because these 2 are the ones that actively had very powerful beings help keep track of the records whereas the Aetherial Flood and the Artifact wars were just individual people trying to keep track, and in the case of Artifact Wars, much of that history being destroyed
I was struggling to create a lore for the kingdom the PCs are playing in rn and this video came out exactly during another one of these painful worldbuilding session. Thanks man you saved my day.
I always get so lost trying to do overarching histories of large areas or even worlds. It's like, of all the possible things that could happen, why is this the one I'm choosing for now vs any other thing at any other time? Then I get stunlocked by indecision. 😅 As a result, I've been sticking to basing my campaign ideas off the general beats of 1-2 settings then tweaking things to suit my needs from there. The outline makes it so much easier on a beginner like me.
(You asked for this) My favorite lore for one of my worlds it’s transition from ancient past to distant past. This is only pieces as known by those who study it. Most hardly know these in full let alone the full truth. Originally this world belonged to dozens of races. A world shaking event left Elves and Gnomes and a few other groups alone on this world, all other peoples gone. Two thousand years passed and from out of nowhere a green hulking people later called orcs attacked. Though few in number their god Gromarok was fierce, slaying one of the two elven gods and the gnomish one. Most gnomes fled deep underground eventually making a new home there, some went north becoming a Kender like group. The silver elves fled west making a new home with their sister group, forest elves. Some decades later and Gromarok’s orcs ruled the continent. But one day humans and dwarves appeared almost out of nowhere. A war ensued for one week. By the end of the second day the sheer number of men and dwarves had decimated the orcs, hearing his people’s call Gromarok awoke. He fought the mortals alone for five days and nights before finally falling, splitting the eastern mountains where the orcs then fled. So many men and dwarves died (nearly 90%) that much history was lost as to where they’d disappeared to. The remaining scrolls of human history were soaked in the blood of the hills of bodies and rivers blood from those lost. They became known as the ‘Red Scrolls’ or the ‘Blood Scrolls’ which slowly were lost or crumpled away if not preserved. And from their more modern life began once again with humans and dwarves claiming the continent.
Perfect video. Exactly what we needed. I’ve been struggling with this for a long time and always got overwhelmed by adding far more than was reasonable to manage. Thank you.
I am currently reworking a world I developed back when I ran 2e AD&D games. Updating the history from then to new has been quite interesting. Thinking about what has happened since then and being able to put what the PCs back then did as part of the history has been fun. I like your take on simplifying things. I started converting things over before the announcement of the 2024 release and put it on hold until the core books came out so I could make it as current as possible once the campaign begins.
@TheFantasyForge I'm enjoying it. Being able to share this world with a new group of individuals will be fun on its own, but going through it in its new state for the first time for me will be exciting as well.
This reminds me about the DnD setting I'm making for my next game Kessifir, the land of elves, has always been guided by the dragons, as a gift from the gods. However, a city split away from the country and began growing in power, named Galdorfeya. They believed *they* guided themselves, not the dragons. With many powerful spellcasters gathered together, they attempted to raise their king to being a god, but failed, creating a magic catastrophe that swept across the continent, killing most life and converting what survived with the corruption of whatever sheer magic force they intended to enact. This marks the creation of Wilderfeya, which eventually became the Feywild, and why Kessifir is now a country flying amongst the clouds, where its continent of Amanrun used to be, before it became displaced within time. The king they wanted to become a god became *the* Archfey. (For this part I got inspiration from the Destiny series) The feywild operates differently from the rest of the world due to the principles and laws the Archfey has put into place, which directly affect reality due to their existence. For example, the most notable one is the Usurper's Principle, which outlines the importance of independence, the impact of failure, and the gift of life; those who practice the Usurper's Principle gain strength from those they defeat. A fey who tricks a noble into believing she is smarter and stronger than him actually becomes smarter and stronger than him. This ability to take over the power of others has also shaped history. An example of this is the Laitedath, which was a war amongst the humanoid races. A deal the Archfey had struck with the queen of Kessifir for peace created a duplicate of her, now termed the "Antithesis," which has the same power, but only the negative traits. The Antithesis joined the battle with no warning, and it took such strength to fend her back on her own, that all the humanoid kingdoms united in the effort, including many powerful heroes. The most powerful of these was taken control of by the Archfey in some way, replacing him in history, so that now the whole world believes the Archfey is the one who saved them. man am I yapping so much. Anyway, when the campaign starts, that hero is gonna be a central character brought back from the dead by the Archfey to mess with the party, in an attempt to study what reversing the Usurper's Principle does: becoming weaker when you are stronger, and stronger when you are weak. Also, this person doesn't know about any relations they've had with the fey, doesn't understand why nobody recognizes him, doesn't know his old party is long dead by about 500 years, nor why I will be choosing a person at random from the party to, to him, appear exactly the same way as his best friend.
If you can't tell, I have lots of lore and stuff built up. My current challenges include creating more settlements in Tergatis than just the main humanoid countries, filling out those cities, creating the Underdark (which in this universe is mainly inhabited by undead), and creating the many subclasses I intend, which is 1 for every class, or 13, which includes about 50 unique abilities. Am I killing myself with this workload? Maybe, but I got time, since I plan for them to finish my current campaign and a one-shot placed in Afivae before they actually start the campaign planned there
Thanks for this video! I managed to survive last sunday's session without, but this will definitely help as I expand on what it's already out! Definitely needed it at this time and already gave me some very much needed inspiration! Thanks for all the amazing content you keep providing, and happy new year to you and Tobias as well! ❤
In recent history for my players they’ve had a magical/ natural disaster occur only with 50 years or so of the campaign starting. I imagined the planes as tectonic plates, and in the shifting of those plates, the country their starting in has a huge rift opening to the Abyssal plane. Now for the past 50 years the citizens have been trying to figure how to keep the demons at bay and my players are learning that there is in fact a way to close the rift. It’s been quite fun
Thank you once again for another excellent video! This one was extra special because it taught me some new things -and- reinforced my confidence in the things I already have set in stone. My favorite historical creation of mine is almost certainly that in one world, prehistorical humans are extinct and high elves of yore are basically a protected, endangered species clinging on to the eugenic idea of preserving pure blooded high elves. And yes, the humans are extinct because of their own hubris and caused an extinction level event. Classic us.
The story and world I am building does not have an ancient history, because it is being set in what I call "The Tribal Age". It effectively is the ancient history that will be referenced in future stories along the timeline of my world.
Big help. Would shrink the length of years but overall excellent advice. Only because of school and books would someone know details of the last 100 yrs for instance. And then the accuracy is still based on who is telling the history
Love that modern history is where the past and present collide, that’s what happens to us all right now, I like that view cuz it helps me connect the dots of my world’s history and how players actually fit into the world!
In my d&d game I use the Forgotten Realm’s setting and the players are huge lore nerds for it so I pulled them to places where there’s like, no lore so I can make stuff up. My process was that I write down key points, take into account the lore, and go from there. Past events influence current ones in ways others don’t think about, even from massively far in the past- did you know The Oddessey is one of the most referenced pieces of literature in history?
One story that I am writing is really built on the history of the world - what the truth is vs what the assumptions are. I have an ancient history: how the lands that exist came to be as they are now, or at least as they have basically been for recorded history. This is the time period that any ruins would come from; and a special type of weapon comes from (it is a special type of sword made with the aid of magic, forged in a way now lost to time). I have recent history: the event that causes a significant bit of the conflict in the story; the occurrence has been distorted by those really responsible to smear their most powerful enemies. I have modern history: the "status quo" for the opening of the book. Customs, ingrained beliefs, current heroes, and new threats.
My approach consists of 3 steps: Step 1: Social & Technological Eras - Animistic Era - Man's first attempts at asking and answering questions about the world and their place within it. - Religious Era - The foundations of the society's core cultural aesthetics, beliefs and traditions. - Axial Era - The birth of philosophical thought which also leads to the organisation of religious thought. - Esoteric Era - The society's initial steps into the realm of scientific thought, however still influenced by traditional understanding (e.g. Alchemy) - Scientific Era - Self explanatory. This helps establish an image of the technological and scientific level of the world in which the story takes place. However, not all the world's societies will necessarily be within the same eras. Step 2: World History Timeline I create a world history chart in the same manner as the "Timeline of world history chart" from Useful Charts. This way I can craft a general view of the society's entire history, list important events and figures as well as showing the society's significance in comparison to other societies during certain time periods. This not only also ensures that my history remains consistent, but it also cement the idea of my world existing independently of my story. Step 3 is pretty much covered in this video regarding recent history as that is most relevant to the story's events, and differing and biased interpretations of history.
When I worldbuild I dont lore dump but rather write random tidbits, letters, reports, songs etc. Primary sources irl are usually hard to read. Why should my world have it easy!
What I like to do is leave the history in little items around the campaign. For example, there was an event in my campaign called the 1000 day siege, which is kind of the main pivotal plot point. I then created diary entries, tapestries, and other items, concerning different viewpoints on this siege. That way, if my players are interested in the lore of the campaign, they can read and interact with them, but if they don’t care I won’t force them to read it
My favourite history for my world is kinda two things that are tied together, there's the formation of the Kywan Empire which is basically my way of having a content with what was originally intended to be the base dnd races all speak common and use the same currency, and then there's the Kywan Rebellion which is when all the other 11 countries successfully regained control of their respective countries. The Rebellion is basically the big recent historical event for when I eventually run and what i love about it is it sort of leaves the entire continent in this state were they have to deal with now having to govern themselves again and it lends itself really nicely into explaining why places might have bandit problems that aren't being solved or shady guilds that used the Rebellion to gain more control in a certain town or something. TLDR; I'll never finish World building the scopecreeper got me
In my world there is super simple calendar system that everyone uses, but it is little different where your year 1 starts depending on your culture and politics. Each day has 24 hours a week 7 days month is 30 days and a year has 10 months making the year exactly 300 days. The most widely accepted year is 4080, in this year one starting after the end of the primordial age in a event called acending where the gods left and stopped directly interacting with the material plane. What followed was discovery of arcane magic and world left into chaos and vey little being known of that 2500 year period it ending in the founding of city of Rudus the largest city in the world. City of Rudus brought stability and order into a uncertain and chaotic world, it was a bescon of hope were people ran into like moths to a flame. A safe haven were magic was kept in controll through schools and laws. (Finally got this out of my system 😅)
Not doing D&D, but trying to write my first novel. Originally, it was just a story I made up and slowly built on to help myself sleep, but since it has become so large I gelt it was unfair to leave those characters trapped in my head. Ancient History: My story mostly takes place on a parallel earth. In this earth, there was never a mass extinction event, so all manners of ancient beast that we only know through fossil records still live. The humans simply refer to them as Timasers (monsters). Small villages would rise only to be destroyed. They had to deal with small predators, territorial herbivores, and even infestations of giant spiders. They know this history through word of mouth as well as blood scrying (using blood samples to see the last moments of the donor). A tribal leader by the name of Tiophian found a land bridge leading to a large island in the midst of a massive lake that was almost a sea. Enormous beast dwelt within the water but didn’t worry with a meal so small, so they remained safe to find that the island was only home to small pterosaurs and some wolves that paid them little mind. Tiophian returned to his tribe and sent messages to as many tribes as they knew and a great migration happened. Twelve tribes made it to what would be named the Island of Tiophianiar. The island, as big as it was, lacked many of the resources to advance technology, but eventually they learned magic in its place. Some credit this to The Lightning Bearer. He is a demigod in their religion. The truth is he was not a god of any sort. I want to use him as a nod to another story I wish to right that takes place on another planet. He was a guardian of a king. Their kingdom as well as another came together to destroy a spider cult. When the cultist teleported the queen away he got caught in the portal as well. His uniform became the official garb of Tiophianiar. Resent history: The pterosaurs became a problem when they associated children with food. The son of the chief of the Tiophian tribe lead a crusade to exterminate them from the island. Once done, nine of the tribal chiefs came together to design a magical barrier. After months of work, the entire island was free of dinosaurs. Afterwards, 11 of the 12 tribes came together to form the country of Tiophianiar. The 12th wanted to keep its independence and still has it in the modern day. The nine chiefs came to form The Council and elected Jusel (the leader who exterminated the pterosaurs) as the Tiophir (grand protector). This is when the first written histories begin. Nearly two thousand years later, a Tiophianiaran tried to teleport home, but accidentally created a portal connecting two ponds. One was a hot spring in Tiophianiar, the other was a pond in Norway. He explored this new world, even going on raids with Vikings. He returned with a human wife and was later made Tiophir. Many Tiophianiaran traveled to earth to form new lives in a safer environment. They discovered a with coven at war with a cult. The cult drained mana from people to extend their lives, killing the victim. Being a threat to both of them, they warred with the cult in secret for hundreds of years. Modern history: The current Tiophir, Diran, was selected at a young age. He was the most powerful and skilled sorcerer ever in Tiophianiar. Whenever The Council selects a new Tiophir, they meditate to search for future threats and select the best person for the job. They saw that demons would come from earth to attack the people. He created a human sized voodoo doll to trap the demon, but only managed to trap a subordinate demon. The true threat came though, stole the Tiophianiaran, and trapped Diran in the doll along with the other demon. It took the people to a pocket dimension where they could never die and tortured them for 400 years. Eventually, the demon trapped within the doll wanted free, so turned over control to Diran and he eventually found a spell to separate them. Without a body to go back to, he remained within the doll. Angry with Diran, the demon tried to destroy him, but he had outsmarted it and made it so that id he died, so would the demon. He talked the demon down and explained that he wanted to make amends for his mistake. The demons in this world are not like those from demonology, but are physical manifestations of human evil. This doesn’t necessarily mean the demon is evil. The demon hearing his intentions, aids him in defeating the demon, Malam. After, the demon took on a name in the Tiophianiaran fashion (Kerath). His people returned, Diran wished to “resign” but that would mean that he would have to be executed, but The Council insisted that he was the only one who could have saved them. There are people that still resent him for not preventing this from coming to pass. The main story picks up about 50 years later, when a human boy, Jonathan, accidentally enters Tiophianiar and ends up becoming Diran’s apprentice. Sorry for the long spiel. I don’t get to talk about this kind of stuff often. Been trying to upload this on another channel of mine as well as a few other stories, but I’m lazy. Lol
My most recent campaign has the recent historical event having been the climax of the last campaign, the players are loving seeing their actions and the consequences of what happened
I have a "big bang" event that is my ancient history for the players called the collapse. Bringing together planes of existence and forcing all these magical beings together into one material realm. From there the players have played era 1: where magic is new, undiscovered, the collapse was only around 1000yrs ago. Long lived races have a better memory of the mysterious event. Era 2: is the growing control of the magic in their world now. People are use to eachother. There's tensions amongst nations now more than against foreign races. The players have changed the landscape (literally they blew up a mountain) and it affects era 2. Era 3 will be a culmination of all their efforts set in the future for space exploration where there's the threat of an inter dimensional rift allowing monsters into the galaxy and destroying worlds. The players investigate a way to stop this, leading to a lost god of chaos that was banished. During the banishment it caused the planes of existence to merge together. If the players can stop it from escaping by sacrificing one of them, the god will have a chained avatar and the ensuing banishment will cause a second "big bang" resetting the universe back to era 1. If they can find a different way to defeat it (dm discretion) the god will be destroyed and the galaxy saved. All through out the campaign players get visions of the "past" (little hints that this is one big time loop and that they have failed before). It's fun so far. I'm enjoying their amazement.
Great rant slash advice. Over the past year I've put a lot of work into overhauling my personal setting, and that has included ripping it down to the frame and rebuilding. Part of that was to leave a lot of it unexplored, or vague. I love settings that are layered and complex, but I often overthought/overcreated bits of history that later impeded gameplay. So, now I follow pretty much this set of guidelines with a mythical past, a distant past, a recent past, and a modern past. The current campaign is set in a place that very much is influenced by the mythical and ancient layers, but remained relatively unremarkable until the recent and modern, and is especially now challenged with reconnecting to the rest of the world, and that clash of cultures and historical interpretations.
@@TheFantasyForge Honestly that's really cool to learn, if you don't mind my intrusion, haha. I've noticed you have a unique way of speaking that I've never been quite able to place, and I really think it adds to your avatar's presence, the... Dark Paladin? Soldier of the Wisp? I'm not sure what his implied lore is, but loving it the vibe. 👍
My personal favourite is always a civilisation-destroying cataclysm. I know. Everyone does it. It's a trope. But yeah... there are artefacts from before the cataclysm, but the actual history is lost. In my current campaign, the world has been shrouded in darkness for 1000 years. Everyone knows that "the Light War" was fought to prevent the dark, but was lost. Exactly who was fighting whom is unclear. Settlements fragmented and have become utterly centred on survival in a sort of post-apocalyptic manner, so a lot of history is lost, and nobody knows much of anything. It's saved me writing a whole lot of history! LOL
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When I give my players the "history" of my world, I usually present it as being told to them from a particular point of view, such as "according to scholars from Shurrea...". I try to give them the impression that what they hear might not be the "whole truth", and might even be false. This gives me a margin of error in case I accidentally contradict myself later, and I don't even need to come up with some details until/unless I come up with a neat way to relate it the current campaign to it.
100% I do the same! There's too many notes, at some point you'll make a mistake haha. Might as well help cover that
Great advice! Gonna use this on my campaign I’ve been brewing up.
the one time I gave my players an actual exposition dump, they were in the dwarven capitol, there was an event at the museum, there were tours sponsored by the museum to let outsiders know their history, how the city came to be and what led to it, and everyone was so drawn into the whole orcs vs dwarves aspect with the Orc Warlord's black axe still being on display upon the broken shield of the Dwarf Lord, I felt so rewarded at that point even though at the end of it all, it was an exposition dump, how you present the history of the places also matter so much. Your videos are def binge worthy before going back to writing! Much love from a forever dm
@@Zahlari I love the idea of a museum or some other thing that has the built in purpose of allowing exposition! I planned to use one for that exact reason in my current project because there are some things that are hard to organically address about the world so I figured "this character really likes to know things so he'd definitely want to visit a museum" and that has a chance of letting the information come through in a fun way. Plus whatever they don't interact with adds that layer of "there's a lot more left over" without having to actually write out every single exhibit (unless you want to 😎)
@@CleverFoxStudios The only exibit I went into detail on was the foundation of the kingdom and my players loved it so much, museums are awesome for whenever you want exposition without thinking it will be a heavy handed aproach, after all, the players could just decide "history is dumb" and ignore the museum and you just go to whatever other route you had planned, oracles are also great to give out hints and direction without a whole lot of clarity
I think something important to create BEFORE building history is a calendar!
This way you have a timeline you attach the historical events to.
Something that happened "400 years ago" is STATIC. (Still be 400 years ago next year.)
Something that happened in the "year 319 after the law" is ALIVE. (Was 412 years ago last year, 413 years ago now, and 414 years ago next year.)
Super great advice! I think I kind of touched on it here with having something to mark time, some event, but you put it in better words!
The VERY FIRST thing I did when I made my dnd world was make a calendar, which also had me make lunar phases and seasons-- They're nothing inordinate, but having two moons, one of which moves through its phases SUPER slowly at nearly the length of an entire year means there's a total lunar calendar I could whip up if I ever needed to; but even though it's not explicitly the basis of the current-day calendar you can feel that the fact they line up so close was definitely intentional by those who made it.
I had to do this because the Foundry module that lets me have a time-of-day timer which I originally just grabbed for weather effects is bundled with a calendar, and I absolutely didn't wanna just yoink someone else's or use ours, god forbid. And honest to god just having one was such a powerful basis for my worldbuilding going forward.
I strongly recommend it.
@@larsdahl5528 I don’t understand; wouldn’t it be 401 years ago next year? Or was “400 years” an approximation?
@@Nosmo90 It is an approximation.
Similar to saying the Napoleonic Wars were 200 years ago.
It is more useful to say the Napoleonic Wars were from 18 May 1803 to 20 November 1815.
I love "in the third year of the reign of queen so and so"
So you're telling me I did my world's history correctly? Damn. 😅 This has given me confidence
I'm glad it helped!
Lol! I know how you feel. I always let my confidence ebb, then I see videos like this and I’m like “hey! I do this too!”
I have three eras, the first ended via a war, the second via a natural disaster. I’m excited to use your tips to flesh out the recent and current history of my world especially for each nation
Excellent video. I love the method of listening to the players voicing possible events in the world, then incorporating those into history and upcoming adventures. I was inspired by Willy Wonka’s approach in giving hints and warnings, ultimately letting the children and parents do whatever they want. Consequences over constraint. When a player says, “we could do…” and I start taking notes.
I typically do not write any lore or history in advance. I wait until the characters encounter it randomly or specifically ask. I’m glad you brought up point-of-view because that gives me wiggle room and can change details without worrying about continuity.
Thanks for the love! Appreciate you taking the time to drop some kind words :)
Yup this is how I do it, either I come up with something or they do, but the threads between the pins are malleable.
In the game I'm running right now it follows up 15 years after our last campaign. That ended with an invasion of the Infernal armies and wound up that the BBEG was actually trying to stop the invasion. He wound up sacrificing his life to close the gate. The world remembers it as the party saving the world(which they did, and they did beat him just didn't kill him) by killing the nefarious BBEG and closing the gate. Only a very small handful of people remember it correctly.
In that same campaign they negotiated with a small faction of the demons to side with them and in return they were allowed to stay in the prime material. Nobody remembers this negotiation except the party and the demons, so there is a whole society of demons living in the world and nobody knows how or why.
I have 4,000 years worth of history in my setting. And I broke them into era's, War of the Gods, Artifact Wars, Guardian Era, Aetherial Flood. Each of these still effect the modern day of my setting, with the 2 most recordwd eras being the Guardian Era and oddly the War of the Gods era. Mostly because these 2 are the ones that actively had very powerful beings help keep track of the records whereas the Aetherial Flood and the Artifact wars were just individual people trying to keep track, and in the case of Artifact Wars, much of that history being destroyed
I was struggling to create a lore for the kingdom the PCs are playing in rn and this video came out exactly during another one of these painful worldbuilding session.
Thanks man you saved my day.
Always here to help! Good luck!
I love these videos! They always give me ideas the moment I start one and get me to thinking deeper about my world. Thank youuuu!
Glad I could help!
I always get so lost trying to do overarching histories of large areas or even worlds. It's like, of all the possible things that could happen, why is this the one I'm choosing for now vs any other thing at any other time? Then I get stunlocked by indecision. 😅
As a result, I've been sticking to basing my campaign ideas off the general beats of 1-2 settings then tweaking things to suit my needs from there. The outline makes it so much easier on a beginner like me.
(You asked for this)
My favorite lore for one of my worlds it’s transition from ancient past to distant past. This is only pieces as known by those who study it. Most hardly know these in full let alone the full truth.
Originally this world belonged to dozens of races.
A world shaking event left Elves and Gnomes and a few other groups alone on this world, all other peoples gone.
Two thousand years passed and from out of nowhere a green hulking people later called orcs attacked. Though few in number their god Gromarok was fierce, slaying one of the two elven gods and the gnomish one. Most gnomes fled deep underground eventually making a new home there, some went north becoming a Kender like group. The silver elves fled west making a new home with their sister group, forest elves.
Some decades later and Gromarok’s orcs ruled the continent. But one day humans and dwarves appeared almost out of nowhere. A war ensued for one week. By the end of the second day the sheer number of men and dwarves had decimated the orcs, hearing his people’s call Gromarok awoke. He fought the mortals alone for five days and nights before finally falling, splitting the eastern mountains where the orcs then fled.
So many men and dwarves died (nearly 90%) that much history was lost as to where they’d disappeared to. The remaining scrolls of human history were soaked in the blood of the hills of bodies and rivers blood from those lost. They became known as the ‘Red Scrolls’ or the ‘Blood Scrolls’ which slowly were lost or crumpled away if not preserved.
And from their more modern life began once again with humans and dwarves claiming the continent.
Perfect video. Exactly what we needed. I’ve been struggling with this for a long time and always got overwhelmed by adding far more than was reasonable to manage. Thank you.
I am currently reworking a world I developed back when I ran 2e AD&D games. Updating the history from then to new has been quite interesting. Thinking about what has happened since then and being able to put what the PCs back then did as part of the history has been fun. I like your take on simplifying things. I started converting things over before the announcement of the 2024 release and put it on hold until the core books came out so I could make it as current as possible once the campaign begins.
That's awesome! I love letting previous PCs live on in lore! Sounds like a fun project you have ahead of you
@TheFantasyForge I'm enjoying it. Being able to share this world with a new group of individuals will be fun on its own, but going through it in its new state for the first time for me will be exciting as well.
This reminds me about the DnD setting I'm making for my next game
Kessifir, the land of elves, has always been guided by the dragons, as a gift from the gods. However, a city split away from the country and began growing in power, named Galdorfeya. They believed *they* guided themselves, not the dragons. With many powerful spellcasters gathered together, they attempted to raise their king to being a god, but failed, creating a magic catastrophe that swept across the continent, killing most life and converting what survived with the corruption of whatever sheer magic force they intended to enact. This marks the creation of Wilderfeya, which eventually became the Feywild, and why Kessifir is now a country flying amongst the clouds, where its continent of Amanrun used to be, before it became displaced within time.
The king they wanted to become a god became *the* Archfey. (For this part I got inspiration from the Destiny series) The feywild operates differently from the rest of the world due to the principles and laws the Archfey has put into place, which directly affect reality due to their existence. For example, the most notable one is the Usurper's Principle, which outlines the importance of independence, the impact of failure, and the gift of life; those who practice the Usurper's Principle gain strength from those they defeat. A fey who tricks a noble into believing she is smarter and stronger than him actually becomes smarter and stronger than him. This ability to take over the power of others has also shaped history.
An example of this is the Laitedath, which was a war amongst the humanoid races. A deal the Archfey had struck with the queen of Kessifir for peace created a duplicate of her, now termed the "Antithesis," which has the same power, but only the negative traits. The Antithesis joined the battle with no warning, and it took such strength to fend her back on her own, that all the humanoid kingdoms united in the effort, including many powerful heroes. The most powerful of these was taken control of by the Archfey in some way, replacing him in history, so that now the whole world believes the Archfey is the one who saved them.
man am I yapping so much. Anyway, when the campaign starts, that hero is gonna be a central character brought back from the dead by the Archfey to mess with the party, in an attempt to study what reversing the Usurper's Principle does: becoming weaker when you are stronger, and stronger when you are weak. Also, this person doesn't know about any relations they've had with the fey, doesn't understand why nobody recognizes him, doesn't know his old party is long dead by about 500 years, nor why I will be choosing a person at random from the party to, to him, appear exactly the same way as his best friend.
If you can't tell, I have lots of lore and stuff built up. My current challenges include creating more settlements in Tergatis than just the main humanoid countries, filling out those cities, creating the Underdark (which in this universe is mainly inhabited by undead), and creating the many subclasses I intend, which is 1 for every class, or 13, which includes about 50 unique abilities. Am I killing myself with this workload? Maybe, but I got time, since I plan for them to finish my current campaign and a one-shot placed in Afivae before they actually start the campaign planned there
Thanks for this video! I managed to survive last sunday's session without, but this will definitely help as I expand on what it's already out! Definitely needed it at this time and already gave me some very much needed inspiration! Thanks for all the amazing content you keep providing, and happy new year to you and Tobias as well! ❤
i love your channel, it really helps me think about the things I have already created and things I haven't yet. thanks for all man
Thanks for taking the time to leave some love, really appreciate you saying that :)
In recent history for my players they’ve had a magical/ natural disaster occur only with 50 years or so of the campaign starting. I imagined the planes as tectonic plates, and in the shifting of those plates, the country their starting in has a huge rift opening to the Abyssal plane. Now for the past 50 years the citizens have been trying to figure how to keep the demons at bay and my players are learning that there is in fact a way to close the rift. It’s been quite fun
Thank you once again for another excellent video! This one was extra special because it taught me some new things -and- reinforced my confidence in the things I already have set in stone.
My favorite historical creation of mine is almost certainly that in one world, prehistorical humans are extinct and high elves of yore are basically a protected, endangered species clinging on to the eugenic idea of preserving pure blooded high elves.
And yes, the humans are extinct because of their own hubris and caused an extinction level event. Classic us.
I've actually been using these videos for worldbuilding and more for my book! Very useful.
The story and world I am building does not have an ancient history, because it is being set in what I call "The Tribal Age". It effectively is the ancient history that will be referenced in future stories along the timeline of my world.
This was great. Thank you
Thank you for the kind words!
Big help. Would shrink the length of years but overall excellent advice. Only because of school and books would someone know details of the last 100 yrs for instance. And then the accuracy is still based on who is telling the history
Love that modern history is where the past and present collide, that’s what happens to us all right now, I like that view cuz it helps me connect the dots of my world’s history and how players actually fit into the world!
Good advice. Thanks.
In my d&d game I use the Forgotten Realm’s setting and the players are huge lore nerds for it so I pulled them to places where there’s like, no lore so I can make stuff up. My process was that I write down key points, take into account the lore, and go from there. Past events influence current ones in ways others don’t think about, even from massively far in the past- did you know The Oddessey is one of the most referenced pieces of literature in history?
Well said and laid out. Too true, and something I have done without giving it too much thought. I need to think on it some more.
One story that I am writing is really built on the history of the world - what the truth is vs what the assumptions are.
I have an ancient history: how the lands that exist came to be as they are now, or at least as they have basically been for recorded history. This is the time period that any ruins would come from; and a special type of weapon comes from (it is a special type of sword made with the aid of magic, forged in a way now lost to time).
I have recent history: the event that causes a significant bit of the conflict in the story; the occurrence has been distorted by those really responsible to smear their most powerful enemies.
I have modern history: the "status quo" for the opening of the book. Customs, ingrained beliefs, current heroes, and new threats.
My approach consists of 3 steps:
Step 1: Social & Technological Eras
- Animistic Era - Man's first attempts at asking and answering questions about the world and their place within it.
- Religious Era - The foundations of the society's core cultural aesthetics, beliefs and traditions.
- Axial Era - The birth of philosophical thought which also leads to the organisation of religious thought.
- Esoteric Era - The society's initial steps into the realm of scientific thought, however still influenced by traditional understanding (e.g. Alchemy)
- Scientific Era - Self explanatory.
This helps establish an image of the technological and scientific level of the world in which the story takes place. However, not all the world's societies will necessarily be within the same eras.
Step 2: World History Timeline
I create a world history chart in the same manner as the "Timeline of world history chart" from Useful Charts. This way I can craft a general view of the society's entire history, list important events and figures as well as showing the society's significance in comparison to other societies during certain time periods. This not only also ensures that my history remains consistent, but it also cement the idea of my world existing independently of my story.
Step 3 is pretty much covered in this video regarding recent history as that is most relevant to the story's events, and differing and biased interpretations of history.
When I worldbuild I dont lore dump but rather write random tidbits, letters, reports, songs etc. Primary sources irl are usually hard to read. Why should my world have it easy!
What I like to do is leave the history in little items around the campaign. For example, there was an event in my campaign called the 1000 day siege, which is kind of the main pivotal plot point. I then created diary entries, tapestries, and other items, concerning different viewpoints on this siege. That way, if my players are interested in the lore of the campaign, they can read and interact with them, but if they don’t care I won’t force them to read it
That's AMAZING advice. Just doing that extra step makes it so much more real
My favourite history for my world is kinda two things that are tied together, there's the formation of the Kywan Empire which is basically my way of having a content with what was originally intended to be the base dnd races all speak common and use the same currency, and then there's the Kywan Rebellion which is when all the other 11 countries successfully regained control of their respective countries. The Rebellion is basically the big recent historical event for when I eventually run and what i love about it is it sort of leaves the entire continent in this state were they have to deal with now having to govern themselves again and it lends itself really nicely into explaining why places might have bandit problems that aren't being solved or shady guilds that used the Rebellion to gain more control in a certain town or something.
TLDR; I'll never finish World building the scopecreeper got me
Thats amazing! It's also a good name, Kywan rolls off the tongue!
In my world there is super simple calendar system that everyone uses, but it is little different where your year 1 starts depending on your culture and politics. Each day has 24 hours a week 7 days month is 30 days and a year has 10 months making the year exactly 300 days. The most widely accepted year is 4080, in this year one starting after the end of the primordial age in a event called acending where the gods left and stopped directly interacting with the material plane. What followed was discovery of arcane magic and world left into chaos and vey little being known of that 2500 year period it ending in the founding of city of Rudus the largest city in the world. City of Rudus brought stability and order into a uncertain and chaotic world, it was a bescon of hope were people ran into like moths to a flame. A safe haven were magic was kept in controll through schools and laws.
(Finally got this out of my system 😅)
Not doing D&D, but trying to write my first novel. Originally, it was just a story I made up and slowly built on to help myself sleep, but since it has become so large I gelt it was unfair to leave those characters trapped in my head.
Ancient History:
My story mostly takes place on a parallel earth. In this earth, there was never a mass extinction event, so all manners of ancient beast that we only know through fossil records still live. The humans simply refer to them as Timasers (monsters).
Small villages would rise only to be destroyed. They had to deal with small predators, territorial herbivores, and even infestations of giant spiders. They know this history through word of mouth as well as blood scrying (using blood samples to see the last moments of the donor).
A tribal leader by the name of Tiophian found a land bridge leading to a large island in the midst of a massive lake that was almost a sea. Enormous beast dwelt within the water but didn’t worry with a meal so small, so they remained safe to find that the island was only home to small pterosaurs and some wolves that paid them little mind.
Tiophian returned to his tribe and sent messages to as many tribes as they knew and a great migration happened. Twelve tribes made it to what would be named the Island of Tiophianiar.
The island, as big as it was, lacked many of the resources to advance technology, but eventually they learned magic in its place. Some credit this to The Lightning Bearer. He is a demigod in their religion. The truth is he was not a god of any sort.
I want to use him as a nod to another story I wish to right that takes place on another planet. He was a guardian of a king. Their kingdom as well as another came together to destroy a spider cult. When the cultist teleported the queen away he got caught in the portal as well. His uniform became the official garb of Tiophianiar.
Resent history:
The pterosaurs became a problem when they associated children with food. The son of the chief of the Tiophian tribe lead a crusade to exterminate them from the island. Once done, nine of the tribal chiefs came together to design a magical barrier. After months of work, the entire island was free of dinosaurs.
Afterwards, 11 of the 12 tribes came together to form the country of Tiophianiar. The 12th wanted to keep its independence and still has it in the modern day. The nine chiefs came to form The Council and elected Jusel (the leader who exterminated the pterosaurs) as the Tiophir (grand protector). This is when the first written histories begin.
Nearly two thousand years later, a Tiophianiaran tried to teleport home, but accidentally created a portal connecting two ponds. One was a hot spring in Tiophianiar, the other was a pond in Norway. He explored this new world, even going on raids with Vikings.
He returned with a human wife and was later made Tiophir. Many Tiophianiaran traveled to earth to form new lives in a safer environment. They discovered a with coven at war with a cult. The cult drained mana from people to extend their lives, killing the victim. Being a threat to both of them, they warred with the cult in secret for hundreds of years.
Modern history:
The current Tiophir, Diran, was selected at a young age. He was the most powerful and skilled sorcerer ever in Tiophianiar. Whenever The Council selects a new Tiophir, they meditate to search for future threats and select the best person for the job. They saw that demons would come from earth to attack the people.
He created a human sized voodoo doll to trap the demon, but only managed to trap a subordinate demon. The true threat came though, stole the Tiophianiaran, and trapped Diran in the doll along with the other demon. It took the people to a pocket dimension where they could never die and tortured them for 400 years.
Eventually, the demon trapped within the doll wanted free, so turned over control to Diran and he eventually found a spell to separate them. Without a body to go back to, he remained within the doll. Angry with Diran, the demon tried to destroy him, but he had outsmarted it and made it so that id he died, so would the demon.
He talked the demon down and explained that he wanted to make amends for his mistake. The demons in this world are not like those from demonology, but are physical manifestations of human evil. This doesn’t necessarily mean the demon is evil.
The demon hearing his intentions, aids him in defeating the demon, Malam. After, the demon took on a name in the Tiophianiaran fashion (Kerath).
His people returned, Diran wished to “resign” but that would mean that he would have to be executed, but The Council insisted that he was the only one who could have saved them. There are people that still resent him for not preventing this from coming to pass.
The main story picks up about 50 years later, when a human boy, Jonathan, accidentally enters Tiophianiar and ends up becoming Diran’s apprentice.
Sorry for the long spiel. I don’t get to talk about this kind of stuff often. Been trying to upload this on another channel of mine as well as a few other stories, but I’m lazy. Lol
My most recent campaign has the recent historical event having been the climax of the last campaign, the players are loving seeing their actions and the consequences of what happened
Imagine the world we'd build if we all worked on it together. Dare I say, it'd be more detailed than Elder Scrolls.
When presenting history, especially recent events, I always like to provide a couple of different "truths" for the players to dig into from each side.
Love it! Gives the world a sense of history when two people see the same event differently too
11:07 and RUINS for interpretation am I right? Oh but those ruins have rooms... for interpretation. And this room has runes... for interpretation...
Ruminate on runes in rooms in ruins of Rhûn
I have a "big bang" event that is my ancient history for the players called the collapse. Bringing together planes of existence and forcing all these magical beings together into one material realm. From there the players have played era 1: where magic is new, undiscovered, the collapse was only around 1000yrs ago. Long lived races have a better memory of the mysterious event. Era 2: is the growing control of the magic in their world now. People are use to eachother. There's tensions amongst nations now more than against foreign races. The players have changed the landscape (literally they blew up a mountain) and it affects era 2. Era 3 will be a culmination of all their efforts set in the future for space exploration where there's the threat of an inter dimensional rift allowing monsters into the galaxy and destroying worlds. The players investigate a way to stop this, leading to a lost god of chaos that was banished. During the banishment it caused the planes of existence to merge together. If the players can stop it from escaping by sacrificing one of them, the god will have a chained avatar and the ensuing banishment will cause a second "big bang" resetting the universe back to era 1. If they can find a different way to defeat it (dm discretion) the god will be destroyed and the galaxy saved. All through out the campaign players get visions of the "past" (little hints that this is one big time loop and that they have failed before). It's fun so far. I'm enjoying their amazement.
Great rant slash advice. Over the past year I've put a lot of work into overhauling my personal setting, and that has included ripping it down to the frame and rebuilding. Part of that was to leave a lot of it unexplored, or vague. I love settings that are layered and complex, but I often overthought/overcreated bits of history that later impeded gameplay. So, now I follow pretty much this set of guidelines with a mythical past, a distant past, a recent past, and a modern past. The current campaign is set in a place that very much is influenced by the mythical and ancient layers, but remained relatively unremarkable until the recent and modern, and is especially now challenged with reconnecting to the rest of the world, and that clash of cultures and historical interpretations.
It‘s honestly getting really creepy: you seem to create videos concerning precisely the questions I‘m asking myself right now. 😁
Thank you very much 😊
Totally not watching you...nice shirt btw
Lmao the whole fumble of “worlds that feel soft” bit lol
Not even on purpose LOL. It was painful to get through that part and I guess the editor kept it in LOL
2:50 "Softly built worlds"
Maybe "Soft-built worlds" like soft-boiled egg.
THAT's what it is! English is a second language believe it or not and sometimes I get caught up on that shtuff lol
@@TheFantasyForge Honestly that's really cool to learn, if you don't mind my intrusion, haha. I've noticed you have a unique way of speaking that I've never been quite able to place, and I really think it adds to your avatar's presence, the... Dark Paladin? Soldier of the Wisp? I'm not sure what his implied lore is, but loving it the vibe. 👍
@@drakarra Haha thanks for the love! I speak Spanish as my first language. And lore for Lore is coming soon!
Tfw when I've been doing it this way already without realizing it.
My personal favourite is always a civilisation-destroying cataclysm. I know. Everyone does it. It's a trope. But yeah... there are artefacts from before the cataclysm, but the actual history is lost. In my current campaign, the world has been shrouded in darkness for 1000 years. Everyone knows that "the Light War" was fought to prevent the dark, but was lost. Exactly who was fighting whom is unclear. Settlements fragmented and have become utterly centred on survival in a sort of post-apocalyptic manner, so a lot of history is lost, and nobody knows much of anything. It's saved me writing a whole lot of history! LOL
Of all the tropes, I love this one the most. Sounds really cool!
This video’s gonna be cool.
no you are
hi can you try BLOOD PAWN webnovel, and tell me your review on the novel , please sir
some people have here wild background stories. i wonder if the inhabitants of those "worlds" hate their god xD
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EARLY GANG!!!
4th view
Have you ever felt as if theres something missing in your life like your missing perpous in life or fulfillment or loved Jesus CAN and WILL give you that live joy and perpous for it say in
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Jesus loves you john 3;16 he is salvation come to him and be saved for we've all sinned and will go to hell but christ came so that who ever belives in him would not go to hell but be SAVED
Prayer for giving your life to Christ
Lord I recognise I am a sinner In need of the Savoir And I trust in the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Who is God come in human form to die for my sins And I confess my sins to you Asking for forgiveness Asking that you would make me a new creation and fill me with the Holy Spirit Lord I want to live for you from this Day forward Asking you would guide me To live and follow your commandments So I trust you Lord in Your life death and resurrection from this Day forward in Jesus name amen