Best products from r/worldbuilding

We found 61 comments on r/worldbuilding discussing the most recommended products. We ran sentiment analysis on each of these comments to determine how redditors feel about different products. We found 344 products and ranked them based on the amount of positive reactions they received. Here are the top 20.

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u/HatMaster12 · 5 pointsr/worldbuilding

This is an interesting idea, especially for those worldbuilders like myself who have worlds heavily grounded in realism.

I think it’s safe to say that the more “realistic” you make an aspect of your world (“realistic” here meaning closely reflecting how the concept existed in the real world), the more believable it will appear to your readers. However, the more in-depth you create it, the more it will come to resemble your influences, to the point where the two concepts are virtual copies of the other. It’s simpler to copy intricate details than recreate them. This is good in a world based in realism. Details will be ordered and logical, allowing you to accurately model real world conditions. If you accurately want your Roman-inspired army to remain supplied in the field, it’s best to copy Roman military logistics.

Of course, if you want to have every detail of your setting exactly as it appears(ed) in reality (which is technically impossible), you wouldn’t be setting it in a constructed setting. It is then equally important to determine why you are creating a fictional setting in the first place. What makes you want to create a fictional locale? Do you like not being bound by history, and the freedom to create events as you wish? Do you like creating new sciences, technologies, or ideas? Use why you wish to create a fictional world to make your setting unique, not, in your words, a “rip-off.” In other words, copy intricate details from reality (such as the process and reasons for inflation in a bullion-based currency system), but allow yourself to be influenced by multiple influences or periods when creating macro-level concepts (like religions). It is important though to construct these ideas in a manner that the society at large could logically exist. The whole must be greater than the sum of its parts.

This is only one perspective. It is perfectly fine to realistically model all major elements of a society off it’s historical or contemporary counterpart. Guy Gavriel Kay has written a number of successful novels set in historically inspired fantasy settings, like Byzantium in [The Sarantine Mosaic] (http://www.amazon.com/Sailing-Sarantium-Book-Sarantine-Mosaic/dp/045146351X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405480068&sr=8-1&keywords=sarantine+mosaic) or Muslim Spain in [The Lions of al-Rassan] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Lions-al-Rassan-Guy-Gavriel/dp/0060733497/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1405480129&sr=8-5&keywords=guy+gavriel+kay). The settings of both very closely mirror their historical counterpart, yet enough aesthetic aspects are changed to create a feeling of difference, of uniqueness. If a certain period or society truly inspires you, there is nothing inherently wrong with your setting being strongly influenced by it. After all, what constitutes a “unique rendition” of a topic from a “rip-off” is ultimately a matter of personal taste.

u/mikelevins · 1 pointr/worldbuilding

Solaria


If you can imagine it, it's a society.

Genre: Far-future solar-system-centric science fiction.

Summary: It's 7,000 A.D. Thousands of years ago humanity was nearly wiped out by its own inventions, the intelligent machines. Fortunately, the machines that were designed to like people won the ensuing wars and helped to rebuild human civilization. Those machines have since developed millions of times faster than human beings, and they inhabit vast civilizations that are all but invisible to the human realm, but that surround, permeate, and defend humanity's descendants.

The inhabitants of the human wildlife refuge are nevertheless vastly more advanced than our own civilization, having long since mastered robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and genetic engineering to such a degree that trillions of our descendants and their creations have colonized every accessible surface on all the celestial bodies of the solar system. Those trillions of intelligent beings form millions of societies made up of humans, talking animals, intelligent, self-aware robots, pure-software intelligences, and hybrids of every combination you can imagine.

People in the human realm are practically immortal. Aging is optional and people normally make safety archives at regular intervals that can be restored if accidents kill their originals. Psychological factors lead most people to choose to leave the human realm after a few centuries, either becoming pure-software entities or, in some cases, actually choosing to die for personal or philosophical reasons.

There are no races as we understand the term--or, rather, physical appearance is as easily controlled as fashions in clothing, so that there are nearly as many 'races' as there are people. Genders are also fluid and optional. Even species has lost much of its meaning, because intelligent persons can choose to be re-embodied as almost anything they can imagine, and because ancestral humans long ago found ways to transform pets, livestock, wild animals, and even plants into thinking, speaking persons.

If you can imagine transforming a person into something, or transforming something into a person, then there is probably an orbital city or an asteroid somewhere populated with those things.

Themes: Identity; relations among dissimilar intelligences; what makes us human and humane; what we can change or give up and still be people; the vastness of the solar system; what to do with immortality.

Further Reading:

  • The Wolf Itself
  • The Return of the Angel
  • The Golden Way


    Ymra


    When the Fair Folk are away, the mortals will play

    Genre: Wry noir in a high fantasy world that is flat and perhaps infinite.

    Summary: About a thousand years ago the most powerful court of Faery in the world got too big for its britches and trespassed on the last remaining artifact left in the world by the gods that created it. When they did, they awoke the dragons that had, tens of thousands of years before, retired into the deep places of the world and pulled the landscape over themselves like blankets to form mountain ranges. The dragons rained down mountains on the cities of the Faery court, driving those cities into the sea and breaking Faery power forever.

    Into that power vacuum the mortal races have swarmed for a thousand years, spreading far and wide across seas once dominated by the power of the faeries. They've carried their distinctive cultures to new places, built new cities and kingdoms, traded in new ideas and imagined new possibilities.

    But not all the courts of faery were shattered; just the most powerful one. The other courts remain, and so do other magical powers, including fragments of broken gods, monsters from ancient days, and the wretched, fallen, and terrifying remnants of the destroyed faery court. Moreover, dragons still sleep in the earth, and when a dragon dreams, cities may fall and populations tremble.

    Themes: Exploration and discovery; family, friendship and loyalty; human folly; how to be honorable in a world that isn't.

    The Crossroads


    If you don't like this world another will be along in a picosecond.

    Genre: Satirical urban science fantasy

    Summary: The good news is that there really are parallel universes--billions of them, at the very least--and that there are ways to cross into them. The bad news is that science turns out not to exist--at least not the way we thought it did.

    Science is based on the assumption that reality obeys a set of reliable fundamental rational laws of nature. It turns out that's not true. Oops.

    It turns out that reality is fundamentally chaotic, but that will, emotion, and imagination can influence how it behaves. We've gradually convinced ourselves that science describes a universe of natural laws by constructing such a vivid cultural narrative about science that we've persuaded the universe to behave that way--at least near our civilization.

    The trouble is that our universe is just one of billions or trillions. Not all of our neighbors have fully committed to the rationalist narrative. Some of them are still busy with more chaotic alternatives, or they've invented their own more magical narratives.

    What's more, there are ways to poke holes in the walls between worlds. Maybe you don't want to do that. You never know what might come through.

    Also, the news that magic can actually be made to work isn't necessarily good news. If you can teach the universe to behave rationally, it turns out you can also teach it to behave irrationally, given some creativity and a little determination.

    So of course there are various organizations devoted to the project of suppressing magic, in order to keep the universe safe for reality. Well, and, truth be told, a lot of them really just want to keep people from finding out how to do magic. To some extent that's because your typical powerful wizard is more comfortable if there aren't too many competing wizards around. But, perhaps more importantly, too many powerful wizards have a way of unraveling reality, and who needs that?

    If you ever wondered why wizards and superheroes only seem to show up in genre fiction, not in reality, well now you know. It's because a bunch of killjoy wizards and shadowy government agencies are keeping a lid on the fun for your own good. And that's why troublemakers like the Merry Pranksters and the Twilight League need to be locked up once and for all.

    Themes: Flexible reality; absurdism; conspiracy theories; comic and tragic heroes and villains; satire.

u/Sunderlore · 2 pointsr/worldbuilding

Hi! Not normally a commentator, but I found this entire exchange very gripping. I too am currently thinking very hard about these ideas of civilisation, albeit from the opposite angle. I am trying to figure out a way to make orcs that aren't just proud warriors and aggressive strongmen. Indeed, I am trying to figure out a way to make them quite human, but still opposed to what you might call "civilised" life, presumably nomads. I am considering making the very word "orc" to be a slur not used other than by unsympathetic characters who might just as easily suggest it's their "nature" to be "warlike" and "savage", basing such claims on rhetoric like "everyone knows" and "it's a fact" and not on the people they actually speak of. But you can see how this can easily backfire: if anyone of a minority finds they can too easily identify with the culture I've made up and applied the slur to, then I might myself be spreading racist ideas. And that's not what I want, really.

So for that reason I just wanted to reach out and offer you some recommendations.
Crash Course World History has an episode based around a book exploring the same ideas of civilisation that you are. Might be worth a look?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyzi9GNZFMU
And also, if you felt like an academic read, there's a very interesting essay by Helen Young, with an entire chapter around how orcs are depicted. A lot of fine points about race gets brought up in there, I thought it was a pretty good eye-opener.
https://www.amazon.com/Race-Popular-Fantasy-Literature-Interdisciplinary-ebook-dp-B013RC62JA/dp/B013RC62JA/ref=mt_kindle?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=
As for your troubles, I'd recommend doing a lot of what might not feel like fantasy reading. There's a lot of stuff on cultural appropriation out there, which is often relevant when people wind up drawing connections you never meant to make. It's a heck of a fine line to walk: trying to be imaginative, engaging and respectful at the same time. But I also think it's a fine line as in, I admire you for trying to adress this. To that end here is a very nice, very calming first blogpost:
https://medium.com/@nettlefish/cultural-appropriation-for-the-worried-writer-some-practical-advice-ac21710685e3

And a wast primer on cultural appropriation in general:
http://writingtheother.com/cultural-appropriation-primer/

I think, to succeed with this story it will just take what it always takes to write something: a good sense of empathy and a lot of research. You'll need to know the pitfalls in order to outsmart them. I hope some of this might help with that. Also wish I had a more concrete advice for you, but I'm in the same place, just trying to figure out how to navigate this stuff.

u/J_Webb · 7 pointsr/worldbuilding

Someone would be able to tell a story of a species and its development in a world-building setting. In fact, I have a book here at my desk side that does that. Medea: Harlan's World by Harlan Ellison. It is a book that I would recommend to world-builders interested in science fiction or speculative evolution. It is an anthology collection set on a fictional world's moon, and it follows the development of fictional species and alien cultures. Humans exist within the setting, so don't expect an entirely alien setting, but it is still interesting. As an anthology, it contains a set of stories, although world-building was a core aspect in the creation of Medea.

Although Medea was born out of world-building, only the first 100 pages focus upon the world-building content itself. The other 300+ pages contain short stories by various science fiction authors. But within those first 100 pages, Medea is able to describe the with great detail the world, its species, and its characteristics. It also contains a written concept seminar in which the authors collaborate their ideas and concepts. It is a great behind the scenes look at the world-building that was performed.

I am not discouraging anyone from world-building and writing simultaneously. I am also not discouraging new writers or authors from thinking outside the box. I hope it does not come off sounding as such since world-building is something I promote to those interested in creative writing. I am just suggesting that the world-building and the writing balances out, with one holding priority over the other where appropriate.

One could even split up the world-building and the writing. The Dungeons & Dragons franchise is able to do so. It has the campaign guides, which focus on the world-building of the franchise. There are also novel series written by authors such as R.A. Salvatore, which focus on the stories of the franchise.

The recent The World of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, Elio Garcia, and Linda Antonsson is another good example of world-building holding the priority. Where George R.R. Martin holds the story in priority in the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, world-building holds the priority in The World of Ice and Fire.

Edit: I should also state that my advice should be taken with a grain of salt. As I mention in the initial post, I world-build as a hobby. I have never tackled writing a proper story or novel.

u/tinyporcelainehorses · 3 pointsr/worldbuilding

They were both done in photoshop. Photoshop CS2 is effectively free if you don't have it - i don't have the link to hand, but a quick google should help you out.

Draft one was done using this guide, and the linked brushes etc. I obviously feel like I can do a fair bit better now, but it was a great starting point.

For draft two, I bought a wacom drawing tablet/stylus for my computer, and pretty much drew on that as I would by hand. I also had this book to help, and it's invaluable as a general mapping resource - it's clearly for someone working at a much closer scale than me, though.

The main thing I'd stress when doing maps digitally is saving EVERYTHNG on separate layers. It makes it very easy to move around and edit each individual thing in a way you really can't with pen and paper.

u/Slippy302 · 62 pointsr/worldbuilding

The Virtual World of Circus:

In 2045, the planet has a new global superpower - the virtual Universe known as Circus. Accessible in seconds from anywhere on Earth, Circus is everything that modern VR wishes it could be - a fully immersive fantasy experience where everything looks, feels, and tastes completely real. The virtual landscape is composed of hundreds of disconnected "zones," which can be as large as a dozen miles across or as tiny as a studio apartment. Each zone has been developed by users into a unique environment, from cyberpunk metropolises, to lavish casinos, to jungle tree-house hamlets, to idyllic island resorts.

But Circus is more than a game - it is an autonomous nation with its own economy, fashion, industry, politics, exchangeable currency, and law. The GDP of Circus has surpassed Finland's, and its money - called "credits" - trades at better rates than the Japanese Yen. By 2045, the concept of a virtual world has evolved, so that it is no longer simply a place to live out fantasies; it is a gathering place, a home, a place to go to work, or fall in love, to become wealthy, or famous, to drink away the sorrows of the day, or build an empire.

The Bazaar (Depicted left), Lakeside, and Musi's Cottage:

Two of the important zones in the virtual world of Circus include a virtual metropolis called The Bazaar - which looks like a cyberpunk version of Tokyo and is the most densely populated section of the virtual Universe - as well as the luxury resort getaway of Lakeside, a paradise playground open exclusively to members of the virtual uberwealthy and elite. There are also "private" zones, like Musi's Cottage, accessible only with the permission of the zone's moderator or owner. These zones are only available to users who are willing to pay large sums of money to rent them. Customization costs extra.

---

The Story of the Novel:

When the creator of the powerful virtual Universe, “Circus” is murdered, LAPD detective JULIAN AMBROSE delves into the virtual world to find the killer and uncover the global financial conspiracy behind his death.

---

THANK YOU for all the support for the art and the worldbuilding discussions I've posted here over the past few months. The encouragement and excitement of this community is amazing, and there are so many amazing creators here to celebrate. (One of my particular favorites is Vaporsea!!) I'll definitely keep you guys posted on everything going on! If you want to check out the graphic novel, you can preview a few pages for free on the eBook Amazon page here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SBX93J9

Ask anything you want! :)

EDIT 6 A.M. PT: Sorry guys, it looks like the Golden Apple site has SOLD OUT their copies of Bluefall for the moment, so I've removed the hard copy order link. If you're interested in getting a paperback of Bluefall, please send me a direct message -- you can just write "Bluefall paperback" -- or shoot an email to info@bluefall.tv and I'll let you know as soon as more become available! You can also follow Bluefall on any of the social media pages I've set up @bluefalltv, as I'll be posting updates there too.

EDIT 9 A.M. PT: Spoke to the owner and Golden Apple is going to accept more orders to be shipped after a signing later in September! Putting the paperback purchase link back since the order option is back online: https://goldenapplecomics.com/products/bluefall-gn-vol-1?_pos=1&_sid=c6b21c302&_ss=r

u/ThomasEvenor · 1 pointr/worldbuilding

A similar idea has been used by Pierre Bottero, a French novelist who unfortunately passed away in 2009. I grew up reading his books and he is one of the reasons I write fantasy.

Most of his novels take place in a secondary world called Gwendalavir, or are related to it in some ways.

In Gwendalavir there are people who master The Art of Drawing (L'Art du Dessin in French). They are called Drawers (Dessinateurs). Drawers have the ability to "manifest things by creating mental images of them". Their creations are called Drawings (Dessins). They are usually not eternal and tend to quickly disappear.

In order to Draw, they mentally travel through The Imagination (think colourful and magical spiritual dimension) by using Spires (think whorls), which are "lanes/roads" inside the Imagination. The farther a Drawer goes into the Imagination, the clearer the object they want to create becomes. The more complex the Drawing, the farther one needs to go inside the Imagination to actually bring it into reality. And the farther you go into the Imagination, the more physically taxing it gets.

A Drawer's power and his ease to Draw is determined by three characteristics: Will, Creativity and Power. These three must be as equal as possible in terms of proportion, and overall strong for a Drawer to be powerful.

The novels were originally written in French and there is no English translation I know of to date. But, a graphic novel adaptation of the first tome of the first trilogy was published in September:

https://www.amazon.com/Quest-Ewilan-Vol-World-Another/dp/1684053250

Most of what you should know about The Art of Drawing and the Imagination is explained in the first book, so you may want to take a look. I personnally really like the idea, Bottero used it wisely and made it very coherent and consistent. There are many creative things to do with such a concept when you put rules to it. Hope it will give you some insight. :)

Cheers mate, and good luck!

u/DominoFinn · 55 pointsr/worldbuilding

STRONGHOLD

"Strength in Unity."

The bastion of all civilization in Haven, Stronghold rests in the center of the Midlands. Ninety-foot walls protect this teeming Roman metropolis from outside invaders. The petrified carcass of the titan Orik, kneeling but unfallen, is a daily reminder of the city's victory... and vulnerability.

Nicknames

The holy city, the jewel of haven, the core city, the white city

Population 800

200 (city watch, centurions, legionnaires)

400 (players)

200 (general NPCs)

Leadership

Stronghold is the main seat of power for the saints in Haven. Their control is tenuous after a couple of challenges to their rule, but a competent city watch and standing army keep the peace. Saintly leadership confers player protection and access to the hub.

Art

Original art for me by Juuso Laasonen

---

This is a fantasy map with a twist. Stronghold is the core city of Haven, an MMO that people get uploaded to after they die. It's an online afterlife where you can level up and collect loot.

My goal was to make Stronghold feel like an RPG town based on ancient Rome. When a dead player first gets uploaded, a saint greets them in the Pantheon, which is sort of the game's command center. The angel statues in the forum run security against rogue players and hacks. Otherwise, it's just a bustling marketplace, with potion shops, blacksmiths, etc.

The Arena is a replica of the Colosseum. It's where players can wage "safe" PvP battles. The Circus is more of a spectator venue for shows and the like, while the Pleasure Gardens are an expensive super spa with spanning libraries, pools, VR rooms, and whatever your heart desires. Hey, when you're dead you've got to spend your silver somewhere.

There are various player neighborhoods like Hillside, and public spaces like the Foot where players train and trade and hang out. There are lots of "undiscovered" sections of the map as well, like the slums, the prison, and the industrial district. And no RPG town would be complete without a mysterious locked tower that hasn't been opened since the Dragon Wars. ;)

For those curious, this is a book series called "Afterlife Online." If a link's allowed: r/http://www.amazon.com/dp/B071WF4414

u/Korrin · 1 pointr/worldbuilding

I don't, sorry, but I'm talking about like actual anthropological or historical textbooks. I'd start by asking her about the world she wants to write about, whether it's your standard medieval European fantasy or something else, and what kind of story she wants to tell.

Like if she wants to tell a story about a rise to the throne it might help her to have the biography of a famous king or queen or ascended to the throne despite the odds being stacked against them.

But something that talks about the daily lives and customs of the people who lived during that time is usually a safe bet/interesting read too.

Of course, you could always fall back on actual writing books too.

Orson Scott Card's book on how to write science fiction and fanasy is the only actual book about writing/world building I've ever read. It was pretty good from what I remember, but I read it years ago.

u/Fireclave · 1 pointr/worldbuilding

This might be overkill to suggest, but you might be interested in the book "Guns, Germs, and Steel", by Jared Diamond. It's an archaeological exploration of causes behind why power, wealth, and technology became so unevenly distributed around the world. It explores factors such as environment, resources, agriculture, and culture. It's certainly good food for thought for these kind of questions.

u/kpmcgrath · 2 pointsr/worldbuilding

Edit: this should be in the SF thread. Whoops!

I'm trying to stretch some political-setting muscles in a setting I have stewing on this topic. It's tiring to have the same old political systems - a huge and awesome part of the Radch series, for exampe, was the unique take on fascist imperialism. I'm fascinated by polystate political systems, and hope to create an imperial metastate with a subordinate representative democracy of client substates as a sort of constrained version of Weinersmith's model. Vast diversity, under a technically united political system that does what it can to keep all of humanity under a united front.

Humanity can be united front but still exceptionally diverse. I hope to have genetic subspecies (adaptation to new environments like superearths, acoustic planets, or low-gravity asteroids) and political diversity with monarchies, communes, corporate syndicates, and theostates all tied loosely together under Imperial control.

u/Chilangosta · 2 pointsr/worldbuilding

Two of my favorites, from two of the all-time best science fiction writers:

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card

World-Building by Stephen L. Gillett and Ben Bova

Both look at it from more of a writing standpoint, but they're great resources for RPGers or hobbyists too.

u/Jafiki91 · 3 pointsr/worldbuilding

Well the most important thing is to just have fun with it. After all, it's your world.

You don't need to fully understand every aspect of a world in order to create one. Just have a general idea. Also you can ask any questions you may have and the community here will be sure to help you out. And if something is really stressing you, just take a break from it for a while. Work on something else and an idea may come to you.

That said I found this book to be incredibly helpful when I started out with world building, and it still is.

u/jdrake3r · 2 pointsr/worldbuilding

If I've understood you, you are looking for a survey style text on the creative process of world building, and not books that facilitate or inform world building itself.

It looks like the following may fit your specification: Fundamentals of World Building. Or, though more role playing focused, the Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding.

Also, though I'd bet you've already seen it, Wikipedia has the following overview Worldbuilding.

u/FaerFoxx · 5 pointsr/worldbuilding

The Planet Construction Kit is a great resource for worldbuilding, covering almost all aspects of society and general setting from cosmology to biology, history, culture, religion, technology, map making...

http://www.amazon.com/Planet-Construction-Kit-Mark-Rosenfelder/dp/0984470034/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286906911&sr=1-2

Its companion book, the Language Construction Kit, is an invaluable resource for creating conlangs if that was of any interest to you as well.

http://www.amazon.com/Language-Construction-Kit-Mark-Rosenfelder/dp/098447000X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268637297&sr=1-1

u/Smokey9000 · 1 pointr/worldbuilding

Not sure on what the link policy is on this sub but this book is what im using to help draw maps and its got a few different ideas that i found helpful for someone with no artistic ability whatsoever like myself

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1440340242/ref=yo_ii_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1

u/hexalby · 2 pointsr/worldbuilding

As someone that has much of this problem as well all I can say is reading books or following courses on writing fantasy.

Personally I really appreaciated the two books from Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game if anyone does not know him) which are: How to write science fiction and fantasy and Characters and viewpoint.

There are also uploaded on Youtube the lectures held by Brandon Sanderson (MIstborn) which are free to watch and great to get abearing on writing. Here's the most recent one.

u/[deleted] · 1 pointr/worldbuilding

Medea: Harlan's World, great extrapolation of this, with a lot of good short stories by excellent sci-fi authors, edited by Harlan Ellison. Perhaps a bit dated now, but overall very well done.

u/giftedearth · 1 pointr/worldbuilding

Try this book: "What If the Earth Had Two Moons?". It's one of those what-if type books that revolves around how Earthlike planets in non-Earthlike situations would be possible and what life would be like. I actually generally recommend it for scifi stuff - it's very interesting and indepth. You want an Earthlike planet with a thicker crust? Well according to this book, the crust would periodically melt, and life would have evolved to know when the crust is thinning and thus when to run like fuck away from that area of the continent.

u/alexanderwales · 3 pointsr/worldbuilding

If you want some space opera antics, you might want to try Singularity Sky by Charles Stross. A humanoid species known as The Festival descends on a backwater repressive pseudo-medieval world and complicates everyone's lives by giving away high technology to anyone that entertains them.

u/feor1300 · 42 pointsr/worldbuilding

> Islamic Spain.

I know of one book that used this, The Lions of Al Rassan by Guy Kay. An excellent read if you're interested.

u/RafaelHohmann · 2 pointsr/worldbuilding

Of course!

​

The first book is here:

https://www.amazon.com/SunRider-Book-1-Saga-ebook/dp/B074BPCGBF

​

Let me know what you think and thanks for the support!

u/hard_twenty · 1 pointr/worldbuilding

The City in History, by Lewis Mumford
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0156180359/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_XyJ5wbJ5GVJMG

According to this guy, one important turning point in a settlement during the Middle Ages was when it was given the right to build its own walls. You had to have permission from the monarch to do that.

Lots of generally useful information about cities in this book.

u/herdiegerdie · 3 pointsr/worldbuilding

I found Orson Scott Card's book on writing science fiction and fantasy to be illuminating.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Science-Fiction-Fantasy/dp/158297103X

He has a chapter on world building and devotes a chapters to key aspects of writing within an established world. It's a quick read.

u/The_OP3RaT0R · 2 pointsr/worldbuilding

The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding is very good. Pen and paper RPG oriented, but applicable to all media.

u/1nsider · 1 pointr/worldbuilding

I agree with your assessment. I've been flipping through The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding and at least Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook seems to fall into the less is more category unless the situation explicitly calls for it. Keith Bakers essay is in the history camp however. Its probably wrong to call any one element the MOST important - characters have to damn come close though. Be it a novel a game or campaign.

u/NotModusPonens · 2 pointsr/worldbuilding

You may want to read the Planet Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder.

u/AWanderingFlame · 3 pointsr/worldbuilding

I'm building conlangs for my world, but I lean heavily on Mark Rosenfelder' The Language Construction Kit and the program Vulgar which is currently on sale.