How do you worldbuild a country?

[Skybreaker Sin K'al]

How do you worldbuild your countries?

I like to assign each country an animal (or plant) and make them a flag; this really helps me flesh out the cultural characteristics. What do you do?

 

[Orc Knight]

The flag comes later, if I manage to get to it at all. Usually starts with a character from there and then get's based off from there and continues to change. I'll use Zukal as an example, started out with the character Zara and it being her homeland. It's turned into the only truly powerful human nation in the world, running as a magocracy in the heart of a savannah and has grown to include a lot of technology that even out does the dwarf technology. From airships to golems. The griffon is their primary symbol of choice, because they eat elves and trolls (humans too, but they don't care), and also use it as a good part of their air force. So any flag they have is usually going to have manner of griffon on it.

The tech edge also grew into their alchemy and push for pure the human form and using monster races as second class citizens or slaves. The Magocracy as the rulers and the Arch-Mage and known by going around bald and tattooed like their founding Goddess, the first Hedge Witch. Which comes with even more history I'll not put down here. They used to have five floating cities and five city states outside of the capitol, which is Zukal. Since the Lich Wars they only have one floating city left, a small fleet of airships and only like three classed as actual warships and several of city states are trying to gain a measure of autonomy from the primary city as their territories are not threatened from the outside but the inside as the monster races start to revolt as they can't be controlled anymore, despite it's almost police state at times.

So as of now, I have a country that's on the edge of revolution, trying to keep control as the world changes around them. And Zara has became a magic rifle toting tech head who doesn't want to go back to the country. There are a few other things in it, like them keeping out all non-humans as much as they can and dealing only in trade outside if they have to. And drow that keep slipping through the Golem Network to get inside the city anyways. Showing the cracks to humans who don't worry about it.

And that's kind of Zukal and how I built it up.

 

[skip.knox]

I cheat. My world is an alternate Earth, so I already have the countries.

I have, alas, rather shot myself in the foot with my WIP, for my heroes venture into the center of the earth, where they find a lost civilization, so now I have to invent some cultures. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I'm not sure starting with a totem would help me much. I know I have gnomes, duergar, and drow, and I have assigned a socio-economic role to each. They map to the tripartite medieval divisions of those who work, those who fight, and those who pray, except instead of pray I have rule. The gnomes work, the duergar fight, and the drow are the tiny minority ruling. This is a civilization in steep decline, so there's only one city, with scattered farming communities, and heavily threatened borders (with monsters).

I already have some notions about each of these three peoples, based on their Surface counterparts, so that helps. From there I try to do as little world-building as possible, as I want to keep everything flexible until my characters actually arrive. I prefer to have plot drive the world-building as much as I can.

 

[ThinkerX]

Starting to sound like Skip did his share of AD&D back in the day.

I'd also point out that given the changes magic and your various stories inflict upon the timeline, worldbuilding entire countries from near scratch on the surface is inevitable.

 

[skip.knox]

Starting to sound like Skip did his share of AD&D back in the day.

Second Edition, dude.

 

[Skybreaker Sin K'al]

Second Edition, dude.

Hey, isn't that the one where the monster manual looks like it was drawn by a nine-year-old? Or was that third?

 

[Skybreaker Sin K'al]

I cheat. My world is an alternate Earth, so I already have the countries.

I have, alas, rather shot myself in the foot with my WIP, for my heroes venture into the center of the earth, where they find a lost civilization, so now I have to invent some cultures. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I'm not sure starting with a totem would help me much. I know I have gnomes, duergar, and drow, and I have assigned a socio-economic role to each. They map to the tripartite medieval divisions of those who work, those who fight, and those who pray, except instead of pray I have rule. The gnomes work, the duergar fight, and the drow are the tiny minority ruling. This is a civilization in steep decline, so there's only one city, with scattered farming communities, and heavily threatened borders (with monsters).

I already have some notions about each of these three peoples, based on their Surface counterparts, so that helps. From there I try to do as little world-building as possible, as I want to keep everything flexible until my characters actually arrive. I prefer to have plot drive the world-building as much as I can.

You could have Kuo-Toa to inhabit the underground oceans?

 

[Miles Lacey]

I found it was easier to use earth land masses and islands but I put in the same sort of vegetation that these places would've had during the last Ice Age. Obviously the areas that had ice and desert environments would be almost uninhabited, the areas with tundra would be sparsely populated and the areas that had temperate and tropical vegetation would have much larger populations. Then I put cities, towns and villages where they would most logically go for either strategic or geographical reasons. As I begin to work on the culture, politics and history of the country the flag will take shape.

By using real world places it makes it easier to keep things like distances and travel times more realistic.

How much detail I put into each country depends upon its importance to the story.

 

[ThinkerX]

Second Edition, dude.

You and me both. I have older stories (ok, snippets of older stories) that read like AD&D modules. Can almost hear the dice rolling...

Hey, isn't that the one where the monster manual looks like it was drawn by a nine-year-old? Or was that third

Probably 1st. But, that said, I have 'built' a dozen plus 'worlds' through the decades, and most began as AD&D settings. Then, I realized that the typical game 'world' was almost always a mere *part* of a world, and not a very big portion at that, so I took to combining the settings. Distilled the number down to 'two and a few odd pieces.'

Principle nation of the principle world is a sort of pastiche assembled from the old AD&D 2nd Edition 'Historical Reference' books combined with a pile of stuff of my own invention. That nation, Solaria, is a sort of 'Rome that never fell,' (well, almost) with provinces that have Greek, Roman, Celtic, Middle Eastern, and (barely) Norse influences, all reunited by a Charlemagne type character a few generations prior to the period most of the stories are set in.

Another nation, Cimmar, located across an ocean from Solaria, is very roughly patterned after Scandinavian Russia.

Ultimately, while my game based worldbuilding provided a base upon which to build, the nations didn't come to life until I began writing stories set within them. This is a key element of worldbuilding, often overlooked by newer authors: stories as worldbuilding tools. In my case it was multiple short stories in the 'Challenge Section' of this site.

 

[Skybreaker Sin K'al]

The main reason I posted this thread originally was because I have a nation in the 5th Continent of my world called Vahren. I'm having trouble, in my 1930s setting, keeping the fantasy elements. I want the people of this nation to have a strong cultural identity, but I also want there to be quite a lot of problems with their philosophy. Thanks for the advice, Thinker. I'll write into it and see what I can do.

 

[cjthibeaux]

What are their belief systems? A world or culture revolves around a belief embraced by its people. I like delving into a backstory for how the place came to be. What is yours? How did Vahren become a nation? Who are its heroes? What is it's mythology? If fishing is its main source of food then a fish can be considered sacred and an emblem on its flag. As in the Game of Thrones, each sigil bears a story. What are the fears of the people living there? If you build a world just to create something exotic, it can fall flat. Give it a reason, does not have to be logical, beliefs are often bigger than life and defies logic. Having some sort of evolution of belief also gives your world more depth.

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Titania talks about the land failing in agriculture because of a dispute between the Fairy Queen and King. This is a belief, people needed to have a reason for what is now called a mini ice age in Europe. Find a way top add stories to Vahren's mythology. I built a world in my novel, The Dragonglass Bowl with stories attached to them. It makes for a more colorful setting for your story. Take time to do this.

Belief systems often have to do with how a people perceive the afterlife, even in the modern age. They either believe in a God/Gods or they are atheistic. This will influence how they live and hence their world. That is kind of the skeletal structure of world building. Once you have that, you can start to flesh out the culture and practices.

Good Luck.