Publisher: Kobold Press

Publication Date: March 29, 2022

Game System: RPG Essays

Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding, Volume 2

Learn to Build Worlds with Titans of Fantasy and Tabletop!

Middle-Earth, Faerûn, Westeros, Eberron, The World of the Wheel, Exandria … these richly-detailed fantasy worlds have captured the imaginations of legions of fans worldwide. These settings offer worldbuilding that launched a thousand—or a thousand thousand—dreams.

Whether you’re worldbuilding because you want to write the next Game of Thrones; intend to build a rich, vibrant world to enthrall the players of an upcoming tabletop RPG campaign; or you’re just curious to find out how all these creators did it, the Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding, Volume 2 puts a team of master world-architects at your side.

Featuring practical essays and roadmaps for the intrepid worldbuilder to follow, this anthology shows you how to:

  • create a pantheon of gods
  • incorporate technology into your fantastical environments
  • build great settings that look beyond our own history and cultural expectations
  • design a world in just 30 minutes
  • leave space when building a world so the characters can help bring it alive

The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding, Volume 2 features 18 stars of tabletop roleplaying games and fantasy fiction, such as Gail Simone, Keith Baker, Veronica Roth, Ken Liu, Kate Elliott, Mike Shea, Tobias S. Buckell, Shanna Germain, James L. Sutter, Jeff Grubb, Gabe Hicks, the Dungeon Dudes (Monty Martin & Kelly McLaughlin) and more.

What worlds await? Let’s find out!


Table of Contents

Introduction
John Joseph Adams

Airships and Dragonbone Barons:
Developing Magical Industries

Keith Baker

Weave Your Worlds Thread by Thread:
A Guide to Diverse and Inclusive Worldbuilding

Coral Alejandra Moore

Good Gods!
Designing Unique Deities
James L. Sutter

The Marketplace Microcosm
Ashley Warren

It’s This Meets That:
Using Comparables to Inspire Your Worlds

Banana Chan

Spiral Campaign Development:
Building a Campaign World in 30 Minutes

Michael E. Shea

Six Hot Takes on Worldbuilding for Roleplaying Games
The Dungeon Dudes

The Worlds We Adore
Gabe Hicks

Technology as a Set of Story-Telling Tools:
Or How We Can Learn to Build a World from Herodotus
Ken Liu

First Came the Word
C.L. Clark

Hamster Trek:
The Nature of Co-operative Creation
Jeff Grubb

Building a Physical and Social Landscape
Kate Elliott

Growing Your Worlds Organically:
How to Build an Immersive World Your Audience Won’t Want to Leave
Andrea Stewart

Worldbreathing and the Importance of Space
Rajan Khanna

Deep Time on Middle-Earth:
Layering in Time and Change for More Effective Worldbuilding
Tobias S. Buckell

The Topography of Verisimilitude,
or, What Walt Disney Taught Me About Worldbuilding
Gail Simone

Break the World to Make the World:
Eschewing History and Cultural Norms to Create Unique Settings
Shanna Germain

Revel in Revelations:
Worldbuild Efficiently with Fictional Religions
Veronica Roth