Worldbuilding Guide

Detailed Guides

Some topics have their own pages that serve as a more detailed out-of-character overview for contributors and curious players. These include: Diegetic Books. Calendar of Vendrith. Language Guide. World Scale

Narrative and Content Themes

Things we love to see in Vendrith.

Old wounds affecting the present and future.
The Sanitorium and the Crusaders worming their way into most conflict in some way or other.
Fun inter-party dynamics, relations, relationships, rivalries, etc.
Broadly happy endings, really. At least for longer games it is what feels best.
Endings about the necessity of letting go, of the old, of all that can’t last forever.
Addendum: the world doesn’t need to be saved, but temporary respite and meaningfully saving some amount of lives and inspiring others through it is great.
Small steps to make the world a little less cruel.

Meta/Gameplay Themes

Drowning and fall damage, apparently.
Unironically, dangerous environments are great!
Terrain that matters in a fight.
Setting up enemies and their abilities, weaknesses, strengths that can be used against them on later occasions.
Concepts from fantasy and the pathfinder world/rules, but with a twist.
Ability to only have partial success, or, to fail and survive still.
For the above, ability to flee from losing battles.
NPCs and communities you’ve aided helping the party back in times of need.
Fun seasonal (and even non-canon) oneshots!

Inspirations

Greater

High Rollers and Critical Role.
Divinity Original Sin 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3.
Ace Attorney, Columbo, Professor Layton & Attorney of the Arcane.
JRPGs in general for much of the vibes.
Terraria. Especially for biomes and bosses.
Calamity mod included for the above.
Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, dungeon, ancestry & world designs.
Elder Scrolls lore, certainly.
Monster Hunter!! Lovely aesthetics and vibe.
Chrono Trigger!!!
Hyper Light Drifter.
Disco Elysium.
Fullmetal Alchemist.
JJBA. Villains and character design.

Lesser

My Hero Academia, I watched it for 10 years of my life.
The Witcher.
A Short Hike, Paradise Marsh.
Pokemon series for region designs.
Final Fantasy for creature designs.
a little bit of Age of Wonders 4.
Deus Ex series for urban design.
Sly Cooper and Hitman games for stealthy stuff.
Monsters Ate my Birthday Cake (musical tone).
FTL, for potential travel system homebrew.
Night in the Woods.
Thaumcraft, Botany, Opus Magnum (magic systems.)

Cautionary topics

Topics which are allowed but usually need to be done in a sensitive way, including checking for player’s lines and veils and potentially using content warnings for your sessions or articles.

Torture, chattel slavery, severe harm to children and especially sexual violence need to be handled thoughtfully. Remember to check for your players’ lines and veils (aka sensitive topics, that need to be excluded entirely or handled extra carefully) before running a campaign, or a session with a new gruesome topic.

Historical anachronisms

In the end, this is a game, and the point is that we have fun. But as a setting Vendrith is more enjoyable and interesting if we can leave certain modern anachronisms at the door, and try to enrich ourselves in what the world would really be like - drawing much on our own world’s premodern times, feudal and classical.

Some things to leave at the door

There’s a lot of things we take for granted in the modern world, but which really doesn’t exist in a fantasy world such as Vendrith. Let’s start with an important one.

People do not identify with a ‘nation.’

Many feel loyalty to the rulers who promise to protect them, and can of course engage easier with those who speak a shared language, but one is not automatically born into such a grand community as a nation. One’s ties to the local village, sharing specific traditions, language and religion, being of the same class and the lineage of one’s parents is much more important than which ‘borders’ one were born into.

Similarly, you must rethink your assumption of ‘citizenship’ and borders.

Human rights or expectations of welfare or healthcare from states are not a thing. Modern business organisation is not a thing. Modern army structure and planning is not a thing. Mass consumer markets are not a thing. Atheism in our world and time’s sense is not a thing.

Not everyone has money. Few are educated. Not all speak the language of merchants and politics. Many stay at home or near home most their lives.

The many lives of Vendrith

The average person is either a farmer or a labourer. Some become merchants or adventurers, and get to earn money and travel the world. Some become clergy, mages or scholars, one of the few who get to be educated and spend their lives learning. Many abled men (and some women) have served as conscripted soldiers, levies, at some point in their lives. A very few of these prove themselves and are allowed into retinues or private armies as professional solders, perhaps rising to become royal guardsmen or mercenary captains. Those with family origins in royalty or other important families are nobles are on top of the world, and are the most frequent buyers of the services of adventurers.

Farmers and labourers.

Levies and soldiers.

Merchants.

Adventurers.

Clergy, mages and scholars.

Nobles and royalty.

When pushing the envelope

When one does end up pushing beyond the standard feudal experience, there are certain precautions and aesthetics one can adopt to make it more fitting still.

Restricted topics

These are topics with specific visions/rules that need to be kept in mind.

Underdark-style realm. You are free to make specific underground areas, but avoid making sweeping implications for the underground of the world. There is no confirmed equivalent of an underdark in the current worldbuilding of Vendrith.
Deities. Almost always have big implications, be cautious and do consult with Ilija.
Divinity and Mantles. Must remain mystical.
Firearms. Need to largely stay the domain of Crusaders, and any non-godpowder alternatives to them (redpowder, air-rifles) need to remain niche.
The Great Silence. The Titans no longer communicate or interfere with the world directly. Miracles can and still happen, but there is still no confirmation that 1) the exiled Titans are watching, or 2) the exiled Titans can communicate with us still.
The World Fleece. It must remain mysterious.
Travelling the cosmos. Extraplanar travel is arduous, and all but a few planes are extremely poorly documented. There are specific dangers/difficulties to travelling ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’ (see Great Flow).
What’s south in Eydwin? There is more land, but we do not know it well. The world remains centred on Iduria.
What’s Deeper in Horiza.
The Elves. Remain a people who’s formula still remains lost, and most attempts to make elves can only make something akin to automatons.
Living Elves. They are not known to age like most, but their bodies still decay and die depending on the environment they endure. Therefore very few elves still remain (rare ancestry), and those who do usually have memory issues around the hightower civilisation days.
Downfall of the Hightowers. It’s not an unknowable topic, but nobody has an exact thesis on why their downfall happened.
Automatons. Are still rare, and different from maker to maker, region to region.
Horiza as a whole. Gonna stay Ilija’s domain, I think.
Flying Ships are rare, cumbersome, costly and fragile. Read the page and consider which situations they can make sense in.
Socialist/democratic revolutions. Please remember this is set in the equivalent of (late) feudal times.

Reserved/banned topics

Some topics are entirely reserved for Ilija to deal with, often those relating to major and potentially world-shaking plot-points. These include but are not limited to:

Any possible return of the Titans.
The invention and distribution of world-changing technology, such as non-divine firearms, machines that would trigger an industrial revolution, and engine-running vehicles. Note that these may be fine to include on individual bases, such as those of a mad inventor, but it needs to be stressed these are in no way practical enough in production or utility to irreversibly change the world.
The Horizan Precursors.
A plane that is like the Aether from the famous minecraft mod.

This is an inexhaustive list. Use your brain, and consult with Ilija if you have doubts.

Fantasy Thesaurus

Here’s a dictionary of words you can use in your texts and campaigns to make it feel more old-timey and fantastical - feel free to add any suggestions yourself, or add a header for one you’d like suggestions for.

Criminals

A scoundrel, a blackguard, a cutpurse

Raiders

Marauder

Armies

Host

History

Yore (the past), the lore, the tradition (“the tradition states”), the epics (stories),

Ethnic Group

Tribe, Clan,

Country/Nation

Realm, lands, homelands, ancestral lands, province, kingdom, princedom, duchy, sultanate, domain, imperial domain, royal domain,

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