Worldbuilding from Square One part III

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Returned from the Void
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Urban Fantasy, High Fantasy, Epic Quest, Sci-Fi, Time Travel and World Hopping, Steampunk, Action/Adventure, Modern Drama, Mystery, Slice of Life, Romance, and many more.
This is my personal method of worldbuilding from square one. Others may have different methods, or may do things in a different order; there is no wrong way to worldbuild and these exercises are not intended to imply that one way is 'right' and the others are 'wrong' or 'inferior'. The intent is to share one fairly generic method in the hopes that it will help other structure-oriented worldbuilders find a method that works for them.

  1. Naming and Concept
  2. Mapping and History
  3. Culture and Technology
  4. How It Works
  5. Tying it All Together

This is where, in my opinion and experience, you get to have the most fun with your worldbuilding! I know this bit is called "culture and technology", but we're going to look at Technology first, for reasons that will become apparent in a minute.

Technology:
This title may make you right away think of gears and trucks and hovercrafts, but remember that technology refers to "the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry". If we broaden the term 'scientific knowledge' to be substitutable for magical things too, this opens up "technology"in a huge way
  • An enchantment that makes a broom sweep without a person moving it is technology
  • Steampunk-style jetpacks and crystal-powered guns are technology
  • Cars, hovercrafts, and hydraulics are technology
  • A water pump is technology
  • A screwdriver is technology
A good way to start with the culture of your world, is deciding what level of technology is available to them. My personal favourite way to answer this question is a gauge of convenience; how much work is required to achieve everyday tasks with the use of common technology? Does the average home maker grow, harvest, prep and cook their own meals, or do they have robots/enchantments/other mechanisms to do that stuff? Is technology pretty hi-tech, but only available to the upper classes? When you get an idea for what level of technological comfort the general populace live at, you can have a more informed way to start building their

Culture:
Culture is a huge variety of things, from sports and entertainment to food, traditions, expressions and phrases, preferred weaponry, religion, and many more things! If you need places to start, I recommend going to the Exercises portion of this guild and using the Culture filter. Spend as much time as you want on this, and have fun with it! Create things that are part of everyday culture, special-occasion things, taboo things, funny things! Don't think you have to do your culturebuilding all at once, either; culture permeates many things, virtually every part of worldbuilding affects it. Don't be afraid to tweak your culture as you continue to build your world.
 
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