You want to create an original fantasy setting. Maybe it's for the novel of your dreams, or an epic D&D campaign*. What you don’t want is to spend an eternity designing an entire world before you can start writing stories in it. You need a worldbuilding guide that can get you to a setting you can use quickly.
We promise, you don’t have to learn orbital mechanics, plate tectonics, or evolutionary biology to build a believable fantasy world. (I mean, you can, but you don’t HAVE to...)
Fantasy worldbuilding offers the biggest blank canvas in existence: your imagination. That’s incredibly appealing—and it can be so creatively satisfying!
But it can also feel overwhelming.
In this worldbuilding guide, we're going to walk you step-by-step through the basics of fantasy worldbuilding using World Anvil’s Agile Worldbuilding method.
- We'll start from "I have a cool idea" and help you capture your inspiration.
- We'll build a solid foundation for an original setting, with natural story potential.
- We'll give you a framework and checklists to worldbuild in a purposeful way.
- We’ll outline common mistakes to watch out for, with tips to avoid them.
- We'll also link to resources to help you stay organized and motivated.
Why Worldbuild?
For writers, good worldbuilding can be the keys to success for your book, game, movie or anything else! For dungeonmasters, an immersive homebrew world makes your players feel deeply connected to the game, because their choices have real impact. And as a creative human being, worldbuilding is just good for your mental health.
So let’s get started!
What is worldbuilding?
Worldbuilding is the process of creating an imaginary world or fictional setting, with its own internal logic, rules, history, geography, cultures, and systems. It's commonly associated with fantasy and science fiction, but applies to any creative work that takes place in a setting distinct from our reality.
At its core, worldbuilding involves thinking through details like:
- Physical characteristics - geography, climate, cosmology, how the world literally works
- Societies and cultures - languages, customs, religions, social structures, governments
- History - how the world came to be as it is, past events that shape the present
- Rules and systems - whether that's magic systems, technology, economics, or natural laws that may differ from ours
Good worldbuilding creates a sense of depth and immersion, making a fictional setting feel lived-in and believable. It doesn't require explaining every detail, but it is thought through enough that the world feels coherent and consistent.
While it's essential for speculative fiction, worldbuilding happens in any fiction that creates a specific sense of place or cultural context, even contemporary or historical settings.
The Four Types of Worldbuilding Settings
Some experts divide worldbuilding into two types: “second world” and “real world.” We find it’s more helpful to use four main categories. When you understand which type of world you’re building, you can focus on the essential elements central to that type.
There are a few questions that must be answered for each one, so it’s good to know them from the start.
Second World
Second World settings are entirely different realities, built from the ground up. Terry Pratchett's Discworld and Westeros from A Game of Thrones are examples of this type. When creating a Second World, you’ll establish everything from scratch, including the fundamental rules of reality. This type is what most people picture when they hear the term “worldbuilding.”
Portal Fantasy
Portal Fantasy involves characters traveling between our Earth and another realm. Classic examples include The Chronicles of Narnia, and Alice in Wonderland, or stories of being whisked away by the fey folk. Contemporary readers may recognize this pattern in Isekai stories, which follow the same basic structure of crossing between worlds. Ready Player One is a sci-fi example, with the Oasis acting as the Other World.
Secret World
Secret World settings place the extraordinary within our reality, but hidden from ordinary view. The supernatural elements exist alongside the mundane, concealed from most people. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Percy Jackson, and most urban fantasy settings are examples of this in fantasy, while Men in Black and The X-Files are science fiction examples–aliens living among us, kept secret from the general public.
Alternate Earth
Alternate Earth settings start from our world… and then take a hard right turn somewhere in the past, present or future. This divergence point–a moment where history branched out differently–is the hallmark of the type. Fallout, The Expanse, and Star Trek all reimagine Earth’s future. Steampunk and alternate history like The Man in the High Castle reframe the past. And worlds where supernatural or speculative elements aren’t hidden are alternate Earths, as well.
If you want more guidance, we have a video on these 4 blueprints of worldbuilding. It includes where to start, and what you can leave until later!
The Agile Worldbuilding Approach
Some experts go into a level of depth, complexity, and detail that is overwhelming (and frankly unnecessary) for most creators. Others offer one-size-fits-all worldbuilding checklists that make a lot of assumptions, and often lead to a setting that feels a mile wide and an inch deep.
Those are guides for creating A WORLD.
This is a worldbuilding guide for creating YOUR WORLD.
We call our method Agile Worldbuilding. It’s a process for purposeful, focused worldbuilding that will get you to a believable setting you can actually tell stories in with no wasted effort.
And best of all–it’s a fun, creatively-satisfying process all by itself.
Step-by-Step Worldbuilding Guide
Step 1: The 5 Minute Brain Dump
Your 5 minute brain dump will be a series of bullet points capturing the most important, high-level information you know about your setting. This is the most important information, the core stuff of your worldbuilding.
Answer these questions:
- What’s the hook of your setting?
- Why are you creating your setting?
- What genre(s) describe your setting?
- What is the tone of your world?
- And what do you want your audience to experience?
By getting this down first, you’re creating a set of guidelines to help you make decisions about where to focus your worldbuilding. You’ll capture the “big picture” ideas that excite you, and create a snapshot of what you hope to achieve–and why.
Step 2: Scope & Special Properties
Next, you need to get a clear idea of how big your setting is (the scope), how your world is different from earth (special properties), and how those aspects will impact the people who live there.
You’ll start with your active worldbuilding area–the place where your story begins. No novel or game takes place in an entire universe all at once. Focusing on the starting location of your story or campaign will help you worldbuild what you need to tell your story, rather than getting lost in worldbuilders disease.
Even more important, it’ll make your setting feel richer. By limiting the width of your setting, you’ll build a deeper, better thought-out, and more focussed world setting. That doesn’t mean you can’t expand more later. Your world can grow naturally as characters travel to new places for new adventures!
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the infinite possibilities of creating a setting, and this step is an important guard against that.
Ask yourself these questions:
- What excites you about worldbuilding?
- How much travel is necessary for the kinds of stories you’re interested in writing?
- How quickly can people travel?
- What’s a standard area for your type of genre or story?
Next, it’s time to define the rules, or special properties, of your setting. Some of the most interesting settings draw us in because of one - or a few - unique Rules of the World.
So to finish this step, describe how your world’s natural (or supernatural) laws are different from earth. In general, the Rules of your World fall under three categories: Natural (or supernatural) laws, futuristic or unusual technology, and unusual geography
Ask yourself these questions:
- How localized or global are the effects?
- How does it look or manifest?
- How does it affect plants and animals of your world
- What problems or benefits does it create for people?
Step 3: Places in your world
Now you’re ready to start defining the places your characters live in more detail - the regions, cities and buildings where your story takes place. You’re going to do that by noting (in bullet points), the general geography, a few important landmarks, and three settlements.
General Geography (for the active area, answer)
- Special: What non-earth-like geographical features are in your setting?
- Terrain: What’s the general “lay of the land” of your active worldbuilding area?
- Environment: What is the climate or environment like in your active worldbuilding area?
- Biome: What is the ecosystem & habitat like in your active worldbuilding area?
- Resources: What natural resources are found in your active worldbuilding area?
Landmarks (for each one, answer)
- How does this landmark look and feel?
- How was this landmark created?
- What special properties does it have?
- What can (and can’t) survive here?
Settlements (for each one, answer)
- What's the name of your settlement?
- How big is this settlement?
- What’s the purpose of this settlement?
- What's the surrounding geography like?
- What's the tone or vibe here?
- What does “a roof and a meal” look like?
Step 4: People of your world
People are the driving force behind our stories and settings, but worldbuilding groups of people can be tricky. Cultures and species are complicated. And it's hard to know what to prioritize. So let’s break it down!
First, we need to decide what we mean by “people.” When you’re creating different groups of people in your world, it usually comes down to species and cultures. Without getting too technical, there are three standard approaches to this in worldbuilding:
- Many Species: Like D&D’s Forgotten Realms, Star Trek, Star Wars, and Elder Scrolls, these settings have multiple species, sometimes called “races”.
- Many Cultures: Have some strange species, but the main conflict is how the cultures interact. Examples include A Game of Thrones and Avatar: the Last Airbender.
- Only Human: A human-only setting, but there’s rich variety between the different groups of humans, including their capabilities, like Dune or Elantris.
Once you know what kind of people you’re creating, ask yourself the following questions:
- Who used to live here–and what did they leave behind?
- Who lives here now–and what are they like?
- What do your people need, and need from each other?
Step 5: Your focus points
One of the most difficult things in worldbuilding is remaining focussed! It can be overwhelming, and you can waste time developing aspects of your world that won’t help your stories or games. Haphazard worldbuilding runs the risk of a world that feels shallow or disconnected. That kind of world doesn’t add depth to your stories.
That’s where focus points come in. Here are just some examples of focus points:
- Rule of Law / Government Presence
- The Natural World
- Wealth Distribution
- Technology Influence
- Magical Influence
- Religious Influence
- Species, Race or Class Relations
- Political Factions
- Agriculture & Trade
Choose 3-5 focus points for your setting. Pick the ones that are most interesting to you, and best support the kinds of stories you want to tell. This will concentrate your worldbuilding efforts, allowing you to dive deep into elements relevant to your stories and interests.
Here are a few videos that might help you narrow down your choices:
- Worldbuilding creatures
- How trade shapes your setting
- Avoiding Overpowered Technology
- Creating Unreliable Magic Systems
- How to worldbuild religion
- 5 Common Mistakes with Fantasy Races
- Worldbuild a Fantasy Culture
Step 6: Conflict & current events
Current affairs make your world feel dynamic, active, and most importantly, bigger than just your main characters. These points of conflict and drama can be used as a major plot point, a side quest, or a background element.
Create 5 current events that affect your starting location. Use focus points as inspiration! The Agile Worldbuilding method is designed so each step builds on the previous ones!
Here are some examples:
- A faction has declared war against a major power, interrupting trade
- Smuggling is on the rise, both criminals and law enforcement are seeking recruits
- Countries are scrambling defenses, making alliances, and sending out spies
- Humanitarian organizations are arranging relief missions
- People stuck behind the blockade are willing to risk it all to escape
Notice how the large scale events (war) can have more localized trickle-down effects. That’s layered, purposeful worldbuilding! This example could work for many different genres, but they shouldn’t all be negative. Creating a palette of light and dark adds variety to your world.
Just a note: some people want to jump straight into current-day conflicts, and figure out the history later. This approach is often easier if you’re new to creating fictional worlds. Some worldbuilders choose to worldbuild their history BEFORE their current events, because history shapes what happens next in our world. If that’s what you prefer, swap this with Step 7.
Step 7: History, Legend & Myth
Every world has a past, the reason it became this way. And worldbuilding a timeline of your world’s history will pay dividends in terms of depth, reason, flavour and story for your setting. History makes worldbuilding feel “real.” It gives present-day events context and weight.
Consider the “people who lived here before” you created in Step 4, and the Focus points you created in Step 5 for inspiration. Then create three historical events (as bullet points), then two events that happened as a consequence of each one.
And if you want to go into the deepest past, beyond history to legend, our video on How to Use Mythology in Worldbuilding is a good resource.
Step 8: Inspiration & Motivation
Worldbuilding an original setting is a big endeavor. So take a moment to consider ALL the things that excite you about your creative project - both the intrinsic aspects that are personally fulfilling and exciting, and the extrinsic things that motivate you - like compliments from your players, or great feedback from your beta readers.
Write those down. They’ll provide motivation to keep going, and remind you why you started in the first place.
Common Worldbuilding Mistakes
We’ve covered a lot, but here are a few things to watch out for as you start building your world.
“Worldbuilder’s Disease”
It’s important to remember that the setting should support the story. It’s easy to let worldbuilding become a form of procrastination by endlessly building out elements that don’t serve your story or game. Your focus points, and your 5 minute brain dump, can help keep you on track!
Inconsistent rules
It might be your magic system, or how technology works, but readers and players will notice if the rules of your world are inconsistent. That’s why we tackled those early!
But it also might be ignoring the logistics of your world. If you establish the travel time between two cities is three days, don’t have characters magically show up in less than one (unless you actually have teleportation magic, and they have access to it!)
And don’t forget the social rules of your world–if you’ve established two groups as mortal, “shoot on sight” enemies, a character from one group shouldn’t approach the other without a really compelling reason!
Shallow worldbuilding
You can and should draw inspiration from real life, but be wary of leaning too heavily on tropes and stereotypes; that can lead to shallow worldbuilding. It can also happen when you try to cover too much ground.
This is another reason focus points are helpful; they free you to go into detail on a few things, which creates a sense of depth. Our video on Snow Globe Worldbuilding is a helpful resource for this problem.
Infodumping / Bad Exposition
You’re probably really excited about all the cool details of your setting. But think twice about when and how you parse that information out to your readers or players. Nobody loves an infodump!
Reveal information naturally, as it becomes relevant, and avoid “maid and butler” dialogue. For more on this, we have two videos covering how to do worldbuilding exposition right–and common mistakes!
Ready to Learn More?
Whether you’re an experienced writer or gamemaster, or just starting, we hope this has been a helpful worldbuilding guide. Creating an original fantasy setting is an amazing creative outlet in its own right, and a valuable skillset that adds depth to your fantasy novels, and stakes to your homebrew campaigns.
If you’re looking for a powerful platform to keep your worldbuilding organized, connected, and beautiful, consider World Anvil!
Sign up today–we offer a free worldbuilding course that expands on the material we’ve covered here.
