Worldbuilding is something I've always tended to struggle with as a DM when it comes to delving deeper than the surface-most elements (in fact I have very few complete worlds, because I tend to get bored and/or frustrated with the process rather quickly), so I'd be very interested to hear a bit about how other DMs go about the process and ways to make it easier and less overwhelming. I know advice for worldbuilding is widely available but its quality varies and I just like to get as many viewpoints as possible, so feel free to sound off below! Any aspects of worldbuilding are welcome as areas of discussion: cultures, magic, mythology, history, geography, politics, you name it.

It helps to have something to base it on.Durnis was based off a variety of animistic believes mixed some classic ancient cataclsym fears.The pact worlds was based off the pact.The hesphitomatchy was based off greek mythos and robots.

Other people,some extra time,homebrew skills,and some solid online tools wrap up the tool.

Nothing is official until the players know about it. Feel free to adjust lore to better fit the plot you have running.

keep it short and sweet. People tend to have short attention spans so only bring up lore briefly and when’s it’s important for the story.

I worldbuild villages and cities first as the player tend to meet with them. Then kingdoms rise from the cities as I consider how they expand.

Yeah I tend to do the same, but I frequently encounter roadblocks in trying to figure out just how to expand on the area around the nice little town I just finished and how it fits into the wider world.

Quote from GrizwoldTheGoblin >>

Yeah I tend to do the same, but I frequently encounter roadblocks in trying to figure out just how to expand on the area around the nice little town I just finished and how it fits into the wider world.

 Trade is the key. If it supplies food then theirs a city nearby. If it trades ore or stone then it can be farther away. If it’s a crossroad town then politics over which city it allies with.

also the main plot can help. Bandits being sent by a lord? Orkish tribes threatening to over run the frontier so the players need to get help from (city name here)

also geographically tends to flavor stuff. Desert areas have little village but they are built around water pools. Mountain block stuff and provide ores. Plains tend to have a lot of towns

As a DM, depending on how much your players like to dig into your lore, you can get away with surface level design and hint at something deeper while actually there nothing. If they want all the lore, then you're f$*%ed ;)

As for concrete advice. Like stuffattackknightofrando said, it helps to take inspiration from already existing cultures, religions, events, etc... Though there's nothing wrong in copy pasting cultures, religions and so on into your setting if you want it, my advice would be to look at what aspect you like in what you're copying and putting that into your world. Maybe you like how the Roman Military works, so you can take the basic principles of it and put it into the military of one your kingdom but with aspect that are specific to it.

I find it difficult to give general advice on such a broad topic. One thing I'd like to add though is: you can do anything you want with your world and anything can be a source of inspiration. Depending on what your player expect, like/dislike and your taste, don't be afraid to copy other settings if you like certain aspect. And to not burn yourself out, ask yourself how much something needs to develop and stop one step above (so you have a little something just in case). Other than that, unfortunately world building is work and a lot of work the more you want it deep and consistent (depends greatly on the setting and story obviously).

I might not be the best when it comes to more traditional fantasy worlds, since I tend to build worlds that are very... bizarre and nontraditional, but here's what I largely focus on. You definitely want to think about the theme of your world. If it's dark and gritty, the more "comical" aspects of D&D should largely be absent. Such as... modrons, for example. They're weird and funny and dopey and definitely don't fit into such a setting. Same goes for much darker things not fitting into light-hearted worlds.

Also, magic and technology level. For me the two tend to go hand in hand, since logically in a fantasy world more readily available magic would mean much quicker technological development. If your world is low magic or low tech, it doesn't make a lot of sense to have big floating islands or constructs everywhere. Of course, that doesn't mean there can't be big floating islands or constructs, but there's got to be some sort of reason for their existence that people would logically seek out, as they are an anomaly.

Also, something I like to focus on is environment. This works best for smaller settings that are part of a larger world, but what type of environment do you want your players to find themselves in? The geography of the setting will largely shape how its inhabitants live, and the world the players will find themselves in.

Finally, landmarks. Landmarks are incredibly important to me, and I try to include them in all of my settings. I define a landmark as a place, series of places, or area in the world that does not move, or moves very little, and is out of the ordinary for an ordinary world like ours. They could be man-made, or natural, but they have to serve some purpose or have some effect. An example would be the Mournland in Eberron, or Mythals, or planar gates, or areas where the feywild or shadowfell bleed into the material plane. All of those work as landmarks, and they are very important in defining your world.

Here's an example of my own: The Wild Waste. Its theme is pretty dark and gritty, and as the title suggests, western themed. Everyone in the Wild Waste has some darkness following, some secret, something in their past they're trying to escape. Fiendish and undead influence is super high too. The magic and technology levels are quite high, as there are guns, and trains, and magical devices that allow a train to create tracks wherever it goes, and mechanical steampunk grafts and prosthetics. The environment is very important to the setting, as the whole thing takes place in an untraversable desert with sand so fine it's impossible to walk in. Also, it's populated with giant carnivorous mole whale monsters. And as for landmarks, the setting revolves heavily around them as well. There are wastebones, gigantic stone skeletons of dead beasts that provide the only ground in the entire setting, so towns have to be built upon them and in them. There are pylons, which burn a magical resource that adds ambient magic to the air, allowing the aforementioned magic train devices to work. Finally, a landmark that stretches over the entire setting, there are no gods in the Waste, no way to contact them or get power from them.

As you can see, by defining these few bits, I've hopefully given you a decent idea of what my setting looks like, and you can do that with yours as well.

Thanks Humbug, that's actually quite helpful (especially the landmark stuff).

I'm about to start running a new campaign with a new homebrew world. I'm trying to keep things open and flexible so it can work with a yet undeveloped plot that I'm intentionally only building one or two sessions ahead of actual play. The idea is to not waste effort if/when the players decide to do something or go somewhere I didn't plan for them to. I have general locations planned, like a semi-steampunk city built into an active volcano to utilize the geothermal energy, a highrise metropolis built onto the sides and limbs of giant trees in an ancient forest, mountaintop civilizations only accessible by airship because the lower altitudes of that continent are filled with toxic gas vents, etc. All settings I think could be fun and exciting to base various adventures from. I'm tossing around ideas for ways these wildly different realms can interact, be it politically, economically, on a national scale or that of individual travelers, merchants, adventurers, etc. Creating at least a few NPCs and landmark locations/organizations/events for each area. Filling in just enough sand in the proverbial sandbox and leaving a few tools lying around to be ready to build a pretty sandcastle just before the party arrives, whenever they get around to that particular place, with features customized based on what the plot looks like at that particular moment.

Try to come up with something that makes sense and is original  (Or a new spin on something that makes the world really interesting. If it's fairy tales and stuff that's not as important, and we all know what fairy tales are like. I mean the sense part. Fairy tales are messed up). A lot of villains have more interesting ideas than "Yes! Let us take over the world! Control! Power! (more)" If you're stuck on that idea, and you want your villain to try to take over the world, don't just put it plain out there, or make a more interesting way of them doing it. My villain is in the feywild, drawing people in from the material plane since they'll be weaker there, in an unfamiliar, dangerous place that the villain knows well. I'm still working on my villain, just started my new campaign, and I'm thinking about him wanting a certain wondrous item highly guarded in the material plane that is very powerful but has a surprisingly simple solution to destroying it (that I haven't thought of yet). I'm not sure if this advice is hypocritical or not and I'm honestly not too good at world building but I hope this could help.

ALSO: for myths/stories, think of something you want your players to do. Like going into a cave. Say one of the locals really likes the lore, and tells the PC's a few things about the cave. 1: it is said the wood elf (name) slayed the first dragon there. (name) was a renowned wizard born in a lowly town harassed by its nobles, where (name) was teased and bullied.The nobles also sacrificed the villagers to the dragon to save their own skin. After he slew the dragon, the nobles fled from the village, expecting (name) to seek after them in revenge. Since the wizard was a goodnatured person, he let them run, angry and grief-engulfed he was (because his sister, who had gone missing days before, the reason for his journey, had been killed by the dragon), and though the losses were great, the town rebuilt and thrived because of (name)'s brave deed.

2: it's a landmark, and the local wants to show the PC's around

3: there are unhatched dragon eggs inside the cave, waiting to hatch in a small corner of the cave.(eggs are grey and the nest color is dull, so it can hide easily) OR the wizard is still alive OR both and the wizard kinda regrets his actions, for now the baby dragons will either starve or get hunted down by the now ferocious town and he takes them in in hopes to befriend them

Quote from Surival_island >>

Try to come up with something that makes sense and is original  (Or a new spin on something that makes the world really interesting. If it's fairy tales and stuff that's not as important, and we all know what fairy tales are like. I mean the sense part. Fairy tales are messed up). A lot of villains have more interesting ideas than "Yes! Let us take over the world! Control! Power! (more)" If you're stuck on that idea, and you want your villain to try to take over the world, don't just put it plain out there, or make a more interesting way of them doing it. My villain is in the feywild, drawing people in from the material plane since they'll be weaker there, in an unfamiliar, dangerous place that the villain knows well. I'm still working on my villain, just started my new campaign, and I'm thinking about him wanting a certain wondrous item highly guarded in the material plane that is very powerful but has a surprisingly simple solution to destroying it (that I haven't thought of yet). I'm not sure if this advice is hypocritical or not and I'm honestly not too good at world building but I hope this could help.

ALSO: for myths/stories, think of something you want your players to do. Like going into a cave. Say one of the locals really likes the lore, and tells the PC's a few things about the cave. 1: it is said the wood elf (name) slayed the first dragon there. (name) was a renowned wizard born in a lowly town harassed by its nobles, where (name) was teased and bullied.The nobles also sacrificed the villagers to the dragon to save their own skin. After he slew the dragon, the nobles fled from the village, expecting (name) to seek after them in revenge. Since the wizard was a goodnatured person, he let them run, angry and grief-engulfed he was (because his sister, who had gone missing days before, the reason for his journey, had been killed by the dragon), and though the losses were great, the town rebuilt and thrived because of (name)'s brave deed.

2: it's a landmark, and the local wants to show the PC's around

3: there are unhatched dragon eggs inside the cave, waiting to hatch in a small corner of the cave.(eggs are grey and the nest color is dull, so it can hide easily) OR the wizard is still alive OR both and the wizard kinda regrets his actions, for now the baby dragons will either starve or get hunted down by the now ferocious town and he takes them in in hopes to befriend them

 not sure if that last part actually helps with coming up with stories; sorry about that (you could use that if you'd like)

Start small, then work your way into a wider setting as your players discover it. Use the stuff in the DM's guide to help you out. Or, if you're like me, write out a massive world with 5000 years of history, then watch your players never visit any of it, ignore or forget all the stuff you do tell them, until you end up trashing it and start playing in the Forgotten Realms. (LOL). James Haeck wrote an awesome series on here about worldbuilding, don't know if you've seen it: https://www.dndbeyond.com/tag/worldbuilding.

Just my two cents, everyone on here said it much better then me.

Thanks Legolas, I'll be sure to check that series out!

I start with a map.

Water flows downhill.  You would be shocked how many worldbuilders get carried away and forget to check this detail.  I've seen water flow into the mountains, and down the other side, away from the ocean.

Rivers never split as they go downstream, except to go around sandbars and stuff.  They always come back together and never split much.  If there is a significant divergence in the river flowing downhill it screams MAGIC!!!

Population centers always favor growing up near rivers and streams, or the coast but where fresh water is available.  This is two-fold.  The city needs fresh water.  The approach grade will gently rise and descend with the water grade making travel to-from easier.

Main roads follow water grades, but not coastlines.  For coastal travel, there may be a road, but it isn't an "important road" because travel would be easier by boat/ship.  Other than that, roads follow trade routes.  Roads especially lead into and out of choke points.  If there is a bridge over a river, roads lead to the bridge.  If there is a pass through the mountains, roads lead to the pass.  Bridges over rivers are a big deal.  You will find almost none of these near the coast where wide rivers are still navigable by sail boats.  If there is a bridge over a river, there will be a settlement there, because the road traffic will draw so many visitors there.  In some cases there may be a ferryman, and this can be a component of a plot.  What does the ferryman know?

OK, so you drew up your terrain and dotted the world with some cities.  The major cities will have roads connecting them.  But about every day's travel there will be a town, and every half-days travel there will be a village or hamlet.  Almost any settlement will have a blacksmith, even if it is a farmer that does a little smithing on the side.  There may not be a tavern or inn.  Adventurers may have to sleep in a barn in the loft.  They would probably prefer that to setting up their whole campsite.

90% of the world is agrarian, so you'll be passing loads of farmhouses.  If the farmers can't survive, the kingdom dies.  A lot of resources in D&D worlds would be dedicated to keeping farmers alive and productive.

Threats are generously sprinkled over the map.  Minor threats are more frequent near the boundaries of civilization.  Major threats generally need to be further from civilization or there is an active open war going on.  Interesting things are sprinkled over the map; old towers, abandoned and derelict towns, forgotten libraries and archives, sites for cultic rituals, ancient portals believed to have been forever sealed.  These need to be generally speaking outside the boundaries of settled lands.  Journeying to these places is an adventure in itself.  The party will need food, water and supplies; probably carts which could mean hireling animal handlers.  These things cost money.

Interesting worlds have different cultures to interact with.  Imagine Turkey (Constantinople) around the end of the first millennia.  With commerce coming into Europe and going around to Egypt and East to India, there must have been some wild stuff to see.

With all this "roughed in" come up with factions and decide the factions goals and resources.  Most factions do not have to be at odds with most other factions.  There might be a small rivalry between factions for members, because once you join a faction you are committing much of your free time, and possibly your "professional time" to working for that faction.  Wouldn't another faction simply appreciate that work for their cause instead?  But some factions will be directly at odds with one another.  A faction can be the Guildsmen of Corinth or they could be the Nation of Drow.  These conflicts fuel the story that create things for the party to do.