My worldbuilding resources

My world building is erratic at best. I go from making random maps to Word articles to whatever suits my fancy at a given moment. But in my erratic pursuit of fantasy world building I have found a couple of things that I always have, and now will, refer back to. Two of these I have used for a while now and one I just recently discovered online. If you have anything you could contribute to this, especially a 5e version of my first entry, I would love it. Thanks!

A Magical Medieval Society, Western Europe by Joesph Browning and Suzi Yee of Expeditious Retreat Press

This is my foundation book for building my world. It gives great background on the manorial system, religious institutions, rulership, economics, warfare and how the inclusion of magic would effect each of these institutions. It also gives rules for generating towns and kingdoms along with their economic systems but keep in mind that the generation sections of the book are not built for 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons but I think for 3rd edtion or even Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. So keep in mind that using this for 5th edition world generation mechanics might take some heavy adjustments.

Donjon (https://donjon.bin.sh/)

This is another staple that I use for world building. Specifically I use the demographics generators on this site for city and town demographics. It also has a number of generators specific for 5e which can be useful as well for those without another source of generation. Donjon also has map making generators that could be used as a framework for the more detailed maps made with the Profantasy line of products.

https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator

This is the best random city generator I have found. It is awesome for laying out the blueprint for cities that can be created at a higher level of quality and color with the Profantasy software. I have recently started using it to lay out the underlying ideas for most of my city maps.

http://www.lostkingdom.net/

I recently found this worldbuilding site while searching for information on medieval architecture and construction. There are a number of articles here that provide decent online resources for the basics of medieval worldbuilding. I believe it may even be fairly new and active. I will be watching the site closely for new information.

Comments

  • I forgot to add Fantasy Grounds. I am a current Ultimate License owner and can testify to the awesomeness of the tools that this site has for adventure construction. The way they interface the 5e books in their deluxe packages has made it easy to create just about anything you might need for an adventure. It also allows for easy integration of your Profantasy software created maps. It takes a pretty big financial investment to get the full use out of this tool though so it might not be for everyone.
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