The Region, part 1

December 15, 2022 at 1:59 AM

Originally posted on Cohost, archived in October 2024.

Starting off here, let's take a high-level look at the region where our set will be based. I'll be using Kevin Crawford's Worlds Without Number for this stage, which has really detailed procedures for building a fantasy world. Let's get started!


WWN is a fantasy setting that assumes a deep past of lost magic and seems to integrate some Dying Earth sci-fantasy elements as well. I'm following the instructions pretty faithfully, but will make some light modifications. In particular, WWN assumes the needs of a tabletop campaign: a lot of detail where the players start, rough outlines to be filled in later everywhere else. For a set that covers the whole region, we instead need a middling level of detail pretty much everywhere. Magic color identities and evergreen mechanics also require specific themes (need unnatural harmful things to fill out black) and content (gotta have creatures that fly), so we're a little more constrained than WWN might anticipate.

Major Features

We start by rolling six major geographic features in the region:

  • Jagged mountains. A new or resharpened mountain range forms a barrier in the region. The mountains are young, tall, and likely cast a substantial rain shadow.
  • Jungle. A classic adventure-worthy jungle of wild, semi-alien flora and fauna.
  • Megaplex. The ruins of a single huge ancient structure stretch for endless miles.
  • Scrub desert. These often appear on the leeward side of mountain ranges. Borders will often be grasslands or savanna.
  • Swamp. A sinking river, lake margin, or wet coastal delta forms a vast bog in this flat land.
  • Ancient farmland. A huge stretch of land was re-engineered for optimal farming.

From that list, we can pretty easily infer a geography, with the two wetter biomes separated from the scrub desert by jagged mountains. I was originally hesitant to produce maps of the region, since a Magic set doesn't call for a map, and because mapping frames how you think about the world in a certain way. However, later steps of WWN worldgen really do expect spatial relations between places. As a compromise, I've taken a very abstract approach:

blocky map with jungle and swamp in the west, separated by mountains from scrub desert, bounded west and south by ocean

Next, I want to integrate the megaplex, which I think will go well in the desert. I also have an image of a magical college or a city built on an island in the middle of a caldera as an anchor location for UR. (AN: In the process of editing this post I learned that the island in Crater Lake, notable caldera, is actually called Wizard Island. I'm taking this as a sign that caldera islands are universally understood as wizardly.) Between the scrub desert and the ocean I placed some savanna, which seems like a natural transition. I'm still not sure where "ancient farmland" will go, so I'm holding off on placing it just yet.

previous image with a blue oval added to the center of the mountain range and marked "Caldera City/College", "savanna" inserted between the scrub desert and the ocean, and "megaplex ruins" in the desert

In WWN the next step is to start working on nations/factions operating in the region, but first I want to take inventory of how Magic color pairs might fit into this geography. In Magic, colored mana comes from specific types of land, so there should be some degree of correspondence between colors and terrain types. And designing for limited requires each of the ten color pairs to have it's own feel and themes, so the pairs are the most relevant color identities. There's probably some risk of this overdetermining the rest of our worldbuilding, so I'll treat it as a one-off exercise to identify where there might be gaps.

previous image with pairs of Magic color symbols added as described below

Most of these are freebies, treating the jungle area as green, the jagged mountains as red, the swamp as black, and the ocean as blue. I marked the central caldera as UR as planned, and assigned RW to the eastern foothills between the scrub desert and the mountains. Savannas have a history in Magic, and are typically associated with GW. There's one natural pairing, BR, which I didn't place yet, mostly because I think "swamp mountain" needs some more consideration.

The other two unplaced color combos are WU and WB. There are a couple options to consider. We could add some drier land around the swamp area and create a WB zone ("plains swamp"), for example. The current map also doesn't have any oceanic islands, which might work well for WU. They also might not be associated with major geographic areas - a single violently oppressive and/or haunted city might anchor WB, for example.

This post has probably gone on long enough already, so let's pause here. Next time, we'll generate the major nations/polities and think some more about color pairs.

#worldbuilding#worlds without number