# Software for world building?



## Black Dragon

As a fantasy writer, one of the most rewarding things is populating your new world with races and cultures.  As the world grows larger, keeping track of your creations can become more challenging.

Can anyone recommend some good software for this purpose?  I've been using a word document for this, but it's becoming unwieldy.

Also, can anyone recommend map making software?

Thanks.


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## kjjcarpenter

There are none that I know of personally, Antonio. I've been at it for almost five years now, and yes, the note piles get increasingly bigger and continuously unorganised as you go along—although I suppose for you i should supplement the term "note piles" for word document. Call me paranoid, but I think any compilation of ideas on the computer is risky, I stick to exercise books and paper. Technology is too unreliable for me. Don't let that discourage you though.

What I see as the best way for your world building is to buy an A4 folder with plastic sleeves, and make each sleeve something different. Characters, Places, Religions, etc. I guess this falls under do what I say, not what I do, mine are just piled into a plastic crate for resource, haha!

As for map making, I'm not sure on software, but it wouldn't give you the result you want anyway. Follow this link: http://www.brodt.dk/peter/maps.html I found this guide years ago and used it for a map I made for a role play many years ago; it provided fairly decent results. It's time consuming, but you will be proud of your work once completed.

Hope this help.


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## Black Dragon

kjjcarpenter said:


> Call me paranoid, but I think any compilation of  ideas on the computer is risky, I stick to exercise books and paper.  Technology is too unreliable for me.


 
My paranoia has taken me in a different direction.  When I was growing  up my father shared a cautionary tale.  A former colleague had spent  over a decade in graduate school, but never finished his Ph.D.  This  fellow had spent years laboring over his dissertation, and had  accumulated countless binders full of research.  Moreover, the  dissertation itself was nearly 3/4 written.  But then disaster struck,  and his house burned to the ground.

This was back in the days before desktop computers, or even  word-processors.  Only one copy of his dissertation existed, and it was  gone.  He could never muster the will to start again, understandably.

When I started writing my first book, I took this story heart.  Every  day I saved the document to my hard drive and to a CD.  With each  completed section, I emailed it to myself and stored it on a mail  server.  And once a month I burned another copy to CD and mailed it to  my parent's house.  My goal was to always have a copy of the manuscript  stored digitally in three separate geographic locations.

And JUST IN CASE the technological apocalypse came and computers  vanished from the earth, I printed each completed section and stored it  on my bookshelf.  Thankfully the worst never happened, and the book was  finished without incident.

These days I'm a bit more laid back, albeit only slightly.  At the end  of each day I email a copy of my work to a gmail account for storage.  I  then keep another copy in a folder on Dropbox.com, so it is  automatically synchronized across my two computers.  And finally, still  in anticipation of the apocalypse, I print copies of each chapter and  store them in my office at the university.  You never know... Road  Warrior could be a prophetic warning from the future.


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## kjjcarpenter

Now that is a tragic story for the ages. I remember after I finished the first draft of my novel my laptop died. Luckily I had sent a copy to my friend to have a read through weeks before—he never touched the thing—and saved me from pulling out my hair, more than I already was. There were missing parts I needed to fill in, but it was doable. I could imagine this colleague's experience would trample my little tale. One can only imagine the feelings that encompassed him at the time, and even to this day.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't have to worry about all these setbacks. But it's a harsh truth, isn't it? You've give me a good idea about transferring my notes to a gmail account, though. Probably the smartest suggestion I've heard thus far—sounds more appealing than the plastic crate sitting under my bed. The only problem I have with the internet is, well, it's the internet. Although extremely unlikely, the fear of my material being stolen always looms in the back of my mind.

Also, I assume both yourself and Antonio are professors? Makes me feel very amateur! Haha.


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## Greybeard

kjjcarpenter said:


> I found this guide years ago and used it for a map I made for a role play many years ago; it provided fairly decent results. It's time consuming, but you will be proud of your work once completed.



Thank you for directing us to this guide.  It looks like a workable process.

Have you heard of Autorealm?  I toyed with it a year ago, but didn't get far.  It has promise.


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## kjjcarpenter

Had a look at AutoREALM. Looked interesting. I'm sure if you wanted to get a basic map across, this program could assist you in doing that, maybe for your own referencing purposes. Doesn't look like there's much detail though, and it seems fairly choppy. But for a free program it does it's job.

In saying that, I'm terrible at drawing maps for cities. Although I don't think I will ever go into exact detail with a city's layout, leaving it more to imagination, AutoREALM seems to do that nicely. If I ever decide to map out a city, I will definitely consider using it.

Nice find!


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## Black Dragon

Thanks for the recommendations, guys.  While searching on this subject I came across a program called Campaign Cartographer.  It isn't free like Autorealm, but it does look promising.  Check out this review:

Campaign Cartographer 3


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## Black Dragon

kjjcarpenter said:


> Also, I assume both yourself and Antonio are professors? Makes me feel very amateur! Haha.



Actually, I am Antonio.  I was using the "antonio" account for testing, and was still up in the air about which moniker to use on the forum.

Antonio del Drago is my pen name, and also the name that I use for fencing in the Society for Creative Anachronism.  I will continue using this writing articles.

On the other hand, Black Dragon has been a moniker that I've used on forums since the early 90's.  Back then I ran a dial-up BBS called Realm of the Dragon's Eye which was very successful for it's time.  So when I started this forum, I couldn't resist using my old name.  I guess nostalgia has won out, since I can't bring myself to stop using it.

In order to clear up any confusion, I've merged both accounts into Black Dragon.  

And yes, we're both college professors.


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## kjjcarpenter

Campaign Cartographer is definitely a step up from AutoREALM, but for that price I think I might pass on it and go with a more traditional approach of creating maps by hand. CC doesn't have the look I want from a map; doesn't have that organic feeling I love about Tolkien's maps. Too digital for me—once again with my loathing for technology. Still a very nice program for someone willing to spend the money and the time learning how to use it. If anyone ends up purchasing it, definitely leave your own review, I'd love to hear another impression.

And thank you for clearing up that, BD! I must say you have a very refined pen name. I took a lazy approach to mine, it is merely the user name you see here: KJJ Carpenter. Somewhat boring compared to yours! I applaud you for that.


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## Legerdemain

Ha ha!  Tony, your avatar is now it's own entity!  Beware the creation of the creator!  Oh, and I have not found any good software other than a printer and hardcopy backups.  I HATE this method though.


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## Seth

I'm using Evernote for all my writing needs - it's quite handy, or at least I like it. It's a note-taking program which allows you to organize all your notes in different folders, you can also paste images / html into notes as well. Very easy to navigate, and you can synch your notes online as well so no fear of hdd failure devouring your creation. 

It costs like 20$ or something, but there's also a free version which is exactly the same as full version but has a limit of like 30mb/week that you can upload with synch or something - never was a problem for me since I only use text and some lowres jpgs for my writing anyway.


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## Black Dragon

Seth said:


> I'm using Evernote for all my writing needs - it's quite handy, or at least I like it. It's a note-taking program which allows you to organize all your notes in different folders, you can also paste images / html into notes as well. Very easy to navigate, and you can synch your notes online as well so no fear of hdd failure devouring your creation.


 
Hi Seth,

Welcome to Mythic Scribes!  I second your recommendation for Evernote, although I haven't been using it for this specific purpose.

Rather, I've been using Evernote to keep track of story ideas, revisions notes as well as possible topics for articles.  It's wonderful how it synchronizes between computers.  I also use it on my Ipod Touch.

What sort of projects have you been using it for?  Novel, stories?


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## Seth

Hi back at you!

Been googling around the web, saw a forum post that got my curiosity, and here I am... 



Black Dragon said:


> What sort of projects have you been using it for?  Novel, stories?


 
Pretty much all my writing, really. The novel I'm working on currently has a folder of its own, another folder for my exercises, general stuff that needs writing down like shopping lists and obscure song names I don't want to forget is in yet another one, a few folders for random works in progress and translation things I do, etc. The fact that it's all accessible from my mobile as well makes it all the better, and it's really tons more convenient than trying to sift through 3478347 word documents or, god forbid, paper folders - at least for me.

Would definitely suggest it to anyone who does any kind of writing at all, diaries / blogging, journalism, novel writing - anything really; especially if you've got a smartphone or a web-enabled laptop that you carry around as well.


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## Dwarven Gold

Seth said:


> Hi back at you!
> Would definitely suggest it to anyone who does any kind of writing at all, diaries / blogging, journalism, novel writing - anything really; especially if you've got a smartphone or a web-enabled laptop that you carry around as well.


 
Evernote note can be useful.  But I thought the Iphone interface was confusing.


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## Mythos

I asked this same question on the NaNoWriMo forums, the organization. Here's what they said: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3921119


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## Hans

For the most part I use simple TeX files. Easy to edit and to search.

To organize the history of my world I wrote my own program. I know of a few people other than me, that used it, but I never got any feedback. So I guess it's not useful for anyone but me. I still find it very useful, but I have a strange view on software anyway.


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## Derin

Myrrdin said they used tiddlywiki as a note organisation tool for worldbuilding a few days ago. I normally practice the "nearest scrap piece of paper" method of note organisation, but I gotta say this program is pretty good. It'll be great when I learn to use the damn thing properly.


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## Telcontar

I use a program called Hexmapper from time to time. It can be a good deal of fun, and has a bunch of features that I haven't really explored.


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## Neseri

I haven't tried it myself by I hear that Scrivener is a great way to organize things like this.  They have had a Mac client for awhile now and I believe the Windows client is very close to release.  I use PageFour, which is has significantly fewer features than Scrivener, but also has a free version as well as a paid version.


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## myrddin173

I'm looking at that Hexmapper program right now and I must say, I am very intrigued


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## Derin

Telcontar said:


> I use a program called Hexmapper from time to time. It can be a good deal of fun, and has a bunch of features that I haven't really explored.


 
Interesting. I've always been a pen-and-paper map person, but if I need a digital map I just draw one in something like RPGmaker. I'll have a look and see if this one's superior to rpgmaker.


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## Telcontar

It should be noted that, while the default 'hex tiles' are drab and ugly, you can customize the sets to something far more attractive. I have a set made by someone else (I have only a smidgen of artistic ability, myself) which makes my maps look very nice indeed. I don't remember where I got it, but no doubt a few google searches will turn something up.


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## Derin

Is there a way to customise hax sizes? I measure things by days it takes to travel and I can't get the hexes to match up nicely.


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## Ophiucha

Mythos said:


> I asked this same question on the NaNoWriMo forums, the organization. Here's what they said: Worldbuilding and Organization | National Novel Writing Month


 
Haha, I was like the second person to reply there.  (mistress.ophiucha on NaNo, gents, add me)
Anyway, as I said there, my method is a private blog. I use tumblr - just because that's my favorite blogging service - but anywhere with tags will do. I basically just have a post for everything of note. Unique minerals of Molusk, political sects, character profiles, bestiary, etc. Then I tag them up. For instance:

 - Theodore's Character Profile. #tags: theodore, character profile, elf, immortal, royal father
 - Elf. #tags: bestiary, elf, theodore, bartholomew, archibald, gertrude, etc., etc.
 - Immortal. #tags: politics, immortal, theodore, bartholomew, archibald, meredith
 - Royal Father. #tags: politics, royal father, theodore, archibald

So, basically, if you click 'theodore', the posts for his character profile, elf, immortal, and royal father will come up. If you click 'elf', you will get the bestiary page for elves, as well as the character profiles of all elven characters. And so on and so forth. It is pretty easy to do, particularly if the blogging site of your choice has some sort of mass editor (so you can go back and re-tag several posts if you add something). It works on the same idea as a Wiki, but with less coding and more of an 'index' feel than just clicking between pages (though you COULD also just hyperlink pages between one another, if you felt like it).


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## Heavy Thorn

I created a forum, with different categories and subforums for different worldbuilding aspects.  As for maps, I'm not very good at drawing anything else, but I can do a decent enough map.


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## SeverinR

I use a town/city builder to populate a town, it includes hours of operation, who is in the stores at certain times, menus, entertainment schedules etc.
I wonder if names are repeated so I might change individual names that are used in a book.

http://www.mathemagician.net/town.html

I did a quick thorp,

Tavern Noble Marzipan- open 9am to 12pm
menu-roast goose 7 silver peices

Entertainment-Jankin Petras human male bard;personality: gambler and forgiving.

This program provides it all.  From a thorp to a large metropolitian city.

I make all my important characters but for a clerk the char interacts with this will do.


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## AmericanCrime

Personally, I prefer to use a private MediaWiki stored on a thumbdrive.
I feel very comfortable with the program layout and syntax.
And generally think it's perfect for world-building and conceptual organization.

In keeping with the wiki-oriented vein. There's also this program called "WikidPad" Which is basically like a text-editor with wiki-like functions integrated.


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## Evilyn

Black Dragon said:


> My paranoia has taken me in a different direction.  When I was growing  up my father shared a cautionary tale.  A former colleague had spent  over a decade in graduate school, but never finished his Ph.D.  This  fellow had spent years laboring over his dissertation, and had  accumulated countless binders full of research.  Moreover, the  dissertation itself was nearly 3/4 written.  But then disaster struck,  and his house burned to the ground.
> 
> This was back in the days before desktop computers, or even  word-processors.  Only one copy of his dissertation existed, and it was  gone.  He could never muster the will to start again, understandably.
> 
> When I started writing my first book, I took this story heart.  Every  day I saved the document to my hard drive and to a CD.  With each  completed section, I emailed it to myself and stored it on a mail  server.  And once a month I burned another copy to CD and mailed it to  my parent's house.  My goal was to always have a copy of the manuscript  stored digitally in three separate geographic locations.
> 
> And JUST IN CASE the technological apocalypse came and computers  vanished from the earth, I printed each completed section and stored it  on my bookshelf.  Thankfully the worst never happened, and the book was  finished without incident.
> 
> These days I'm a bit more laid back, albeit only slightly.  At the end  of each day I email a copy of my work to a gmail account for storage.  I  then keep another copy in a folder on Dropbox.com, so it is  automatically synchronized across my two computers.  And finally, still  in anticipation of the apocalypse, I print copies of each chapter and  store them in my office at the university.  You never know... Road  Warrior could be a prophetic warning from the future.



Its always better to be safe than sorry..I learnt this the hard way. The other night I was sitting at my lap top working on my novel which I have been writing for the last two years (I work full time so it's a long process) when my puppy jumped up on me knocking my cup of coffee out of hand and onto my lap top. The whole thing just turned itself off and now does not work at all...Luckily I had backed my novel up on my USB 2 days prior but I had still lost two evenings worth of work which I had written some really good scenes but worse still, I lost all my research for the past two years! I burst into tears and my boyfriend had to spend the next hour comforting me, now I print out my research and back that up as well. One good thing has come out of it though, I had gotten so lost in the research that I was not writing as much, now I have written more in the last few days than in the past month.


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## Author T.O. Goodwin

Character Keeper is a good one for characters as for mapping I have always drawn and illustrated my own maps. Sorry wish I could help more but good luck and may the road always rise up to meet you.


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## Dark Huntress

I have used Fractal Terrains and Campaign Cartographer but didn't like the results plus they both had a learning curve. I spent so much time learning how to use them and ended up not using the maps I created. Don't get me wrong, they are both very useful but for me the best tools I have found for map making are graph paper and a pencil.

Photoshop works well too but I didn't really need all of that to make a map that only I will see.

As for backups, I use Evernote. Never have to worry about losing my notes.


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## Graham Irwin

This may sound funny, but the computer game Civilization IV has an excellent world-building tool. I've used it myself!


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## Steerpike

Something like Scrivener or Liquid Story Binder could serve as a good organizer for world building.

When I make maps (usually for pen and paper gaming; sometimes for stories), I generally use GIMP. You can find all kinds of tiles online that people have prepared for use with various commercial mapping programs, and you can easily take those tiles and use them in GIMP to create a map.


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## Privid

In case you have an iPad or iPhone, I found Trunk Notes to be a fabulous application. It works like a wiki, with bracket linking and very simple, text centric, distraction free formatting that lets you build complex documents despite its relative simplicity. Check it out on the App Store, it's 3€. Though I still haven't fully transcribed my world digitally...


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## Telcontar

Graham Irwin said:


> This may sound funny, but the computer game Civilization IV has an excellent world-building tool. I've used it myself!



This is totally true. Civ V as well - there are lots of mods for the map-generating aspect of the game, and some of them produce very interesting results. I could see someone generating the map and using cheats to 'reveal' the end product right away in order to get ideas.


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## cris2507

I have CC3 (Campaign Cartographer) and am starting to get to grips with it. Can I throw two ideas into the mix?
1) Are there are any experienced CC3 users on these forums who might be able and willing to occasionally advise we who struggle with technology?
2) Might it be possible to find a space on these forums to swap ideas on CC3 and even post examples of maps produced with it?
regards
Chris


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## Svrtnsse

I've used CC3 to make two maps but it's long enough ago that I don't really remember how it was done. It's a lot like a CAD program though so having some experience with that will surely help. I do remember that when starting out I was directed to the Cartographer's Guild which is a forum specifically for drawing maps. It may be worth your while to check that out.

As for world building I'm using an online wiki from Wiki communities for everyone! -- Wikia.com. Unfortunately there's quite a lot of ads on the site (as it's free), but so far it's been handy for keeping all the information about the world in one place. It's a public site though so it has the drawback/advantage of anyone being able to read it. I imagine it would be possible to set up your own wiki locally on your home computer if you want to.


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## Aosto

I've done work with GIMP for map making, well mostly height maps for use in Blender 3D. I dabbled in game design for a spell, never took off with it but figured out a few tricks. Anyway, GIMP is good for just about anything visual, and if you want to make it full fledged 3D and walk around your world then I would suggest learning a 3d design program such as Blender, also free. 
As for organizing notes and the like, I store it all on Google Drive. I get easy access to it from my android when on the go, and can add to it when necessary.


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## danr62

I do my writing in Google Docs (Drive) so that I can get to it from any computer I want to use. I might decide to start backing that up to something like Dropbox just in case.


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## Aosto

That's the beauty of cloud computing is the ability to easily backup your data. I use both google drive and dropbox. I love that I can have a folder on my desktop to both where I just mirror my data to. I store all my resources as well as a handful of ebooks on them.


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## Dan

I haven't done a lot of in-depth world-building, so my advice should be taken with a pinch of salt.

My current approach (for writing) is to create a single spreadsheet in Google documents, which has multiple forms inside it; everything from the timeline / history, to characters and locations, to details such as the names of ships in a fleet, the amount of cannons it can carry, plus men, and so on, and everything will be compiled into this one spreadsheet across a dozen forms. 

Of course back-ups, copies and so on will be made. I estimate the file to be tens of megabytes, but that is manageable with modern computers.

I figure doing this allows me to have an organized document of clearly defined properties, along with clearly labelled tabs for individual lists, and everything searchable in one central location*.

I'll reply in a few months in regards to whether or not this actually works.

*I say central location, but since you can use links in spreadsheets I can actually have documents separate, for example a major character will have a dedicated document in which everything is kept that is too long for a spreadsheet box.

That may, or may not become a problem later on. I shall see.

------------------------------------------------------------

As for the art side I run Linux, so sadly no Photoshop (Will not use a vm or wine for PS), but I have a number of awesome applications that do the job;

Blender - Great for a number of various things. I typically use it to create 3D models, either for reference (floor plans, or an complex structure), or for further use in a 2D application (To use as a base for a matte painting for example).

MyPaint - (imo) The best painting application. So easy to use. So many amazing features. It is what I design my maps, castle plans, and so on in. Great application.

Gimp - I use it just to add text, I don't really like the overflow workflow too much.

------------------------------------------------------------

EDIT: I'm also using an awesome (free!) program called yWriter. It allows me to write my book, with chapters, scenes, and so on. And on top of that offers a dozen very handy features specifically for novel writing; like having a character list, a location list, an item list - all complete with sections for writing names, tags, descriptions, bio's, links to images, and so on. Nice.


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## JadedSidhe

Oh, I am so going to burn for admitting this. 

Create A World can be used for creating a map/world. You have to have Sims 3 to use CAW. There are a lot of free mods and terrain paints, etc, almost anything you'd want. And there is a great community, Mod the Sims 2, that has extensive information/forums/mods base to help with using and modding for CAW.

As for the writing, I frequently send what I've written to myself and my best friend. I love OneNote and have used it extensively for ideas, histories, outlines, pictures, etc. 

I have downloaded ywriter and I'm tinkering with it. Definite possibilities there.


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## chinookpilot77

I've used campaign cartographer for a few years now, very easy to use.


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## Lunaairis

I use a program called Masterplan, its originally meant for D&D and other roleplaying but it has a great encyclopedia feature which you can add as many articles or categories as you want. It also allows you to put in a fantasy calendar, plot organizer and apparently make maps, But I rather use Photoshop for that. It also has some other features but I just use the encyclopedia, plot and calendar features. 

 I believe they have an add-in option for people who want to program something into it.

 its also free, google it or go here:  Masterplan


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## Lawfire

Masterplan looks pretty sweet. I wish they would have had something like that 20 years ago.


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## Varamyrr

For those interested in creating an entire world in 3D: Bryce 7 is free to download, for both Mac and Windows. For more info, feel free to check out:
What is Bryce


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## Whimsical

I've used yWriter for note taking and story organizing. It's free. yWriter5 - Free writing software designed by an author, not a salesman

For brainstorming, I like FreeMind Main Page - FreeMind


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## Aosto

Varamyrr said:


> For those interested in creating an entire world in 3D: Bryce 7 is free to download, for both Mac and Windows. For more info, feel free to check out:
> What is Bryce



I am certainly going to check this out as soon as I set my desktop back up. I'm a blender fan, but it's not very intuitive. I also like using gimp for a lot of my stuff.


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## Allerion

Hello, I know this thread is a little out of date, but perhaps if you're looking for a good world-building setup you might be interested in this web-app currently in development. http://www.teriyeri.com]TeriYeri.


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## Gurkhal

To be honest I find the best software to be my mind and everything else is just a choice of medium in regards on how to express it. But if you're looking for some medium a couple of good ones have been suggested so far.


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## Homicida

I use Autodesk Sketchbook, which I got with my Bamboo tablet.  I also use 3ds Max If I need a good 3d representation.

Hope this helps.


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## Giant

I have used the Fractal Mapper program in the past. They have a free version you can download. This enables all the map making features, you just can't save the map. But this lets you mess around with the program and see if it something that may suit your needs.


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## JadedSidhe

Even if you can't save the map, you could at least do a screen capture.


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## Jadon Baldwin

Terrachronica has been a good help for me on the computer. It took a bit to get a handle on it, but it's a really good organizational tool for me. Mindly (an app) has been a good one too.


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## TheMirrorMage

Used to use a free program called The Guide until I bought Scrivener and switched to that. Both have basically the same functionality when creating an encyclopedia for your world, but Scrivener has a few more formatting options, is probably more user friendly and has other functions. For example, they both allow hierarchical "tree" sorting of pages and internal/external links.


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## Thoras

TheMirrorMage said:


> Used to use a free program called The Guide until I bought Scrivener and switched to that. Both have basically the same functionality when creating an encyclopedia for your world, but Scrivener has a few more formatting options, is probably more user friendly and has other functions. For example, they both allow hierarchical "tree" sorting of pages and internal/external links.



I haven't used Scrivener yet, but I just checked it out at it seems pretty damn sweet! Just wondering, is it a one-time cost for a license or is a yearly cost? I have been googling for a while now and every page that pop up answers everything but my question


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## TheMirrorMage

Thoras said:


> I haven't used Scrivener yet, but I just checked it out at it seems pretty damn sweet! Just wondering, is it a one-time cost for a license or is a yearly cost? I have been googling for a while now and every page that pop up answers everything but my question



I believe it's a one-off payment


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## evolution_rex

I don’t think software for world building in general has been made, and if there is I have a feeling it’d be more on the limited side. You’re better off having a mixture of word documents, spreadsheets, map making programs and whatever else might be required.

I think what you might actually want is premised formats which I’m sure you can find.


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## Saigonnus

Whimsical said:


> I've used yWriter for note taking and story organizing. It's free. yWriter5 - Free writing software designed by an author, not a salesman
> 
> For brainstorming, I like FreeMind Main Page - FreeMind



I use ywriter as well, but only for the writing itself and the characters. It is easy to use and free. 

For world-building and organizing places and cultures I actually use PowerPoint. Like OneNote (which I have tried and didn't like) you can have text, pictures and HTML links. If you know how to use it (I still have to figure it out), you can even make a table of contents at the beginning, so you can immediately jump to whatever section you want to look at. I have one for each of the worlds I create and others for societies, or scenarios I want to work with.


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## stormydale

I have been using something called worldographer. It's free to use, but premium unlocks features. I went ahead and bought it when it was on sale. They do hexes, but have tools to soften them so that it looks more realistic. Also, you can create custom designs for it.


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## World Anvil

I am really dubious about replying to this post, but this is really why we ever created World Anvil, so I would say
So I would say come and give us a try 

If you are interested into caraftography
- Inkscape
- Fantasticmapper
- Hexographer

If you are into RPGs you can also check
- DungeonFog


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## Yora

A pencil and paper is an incredibly versatile tool for designing maps, economies, political systems, or anything of that kind. These things develop in very messy ways that are very difficult to fill into blank spaces on existing sheets. A blank paper on which you can arrange and erase things as you go is the most useful tool in my experience.


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## SergeiMeranov

If you're just looking to create a world, then I find these mapmaking tutorials to be helpful:

Link to Map-Making Tutorials for GIMP and Photoshop

There is also this:

Link to various generators.  Though it looks like he took out his medieval world generator.

As far as the history or other worldbuilding items, I usually just use various word documents.


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## rktho

For mapmaking, Inkarnate is free and online.


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## TheKillerBs

rktho said:


> For mapmaking, Inkarnate is free and online.


It's free if you don't intend to use it for commercial purposes. If you do intend to use it for commercial works, you need to pay a licence.


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## Tevaras

Good day Black Dragon, 

unfortunately this is not free and does not include map generation (you import images as maps which you can then add points of interest) but (from memory) it does allow creation of notes and cross reference links for places, creatures, organisations, towns, plot arcs, etc. . Is actually intended for those running a role playing game, but generating and keeping track of plots, characters, and places for players should be fairly similar to what you need for a book . Buy Realm Works

Have a look at the tutorials before you decide to buy: Realm Works Tutorial Videos


Good luck,


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