Create a Homebrew Campaign | #7: Working Your PCs into the World
Introduction
In the previous lesson of my homebrew campaign creation course, I went over the process of writing copy for your players. We added details about our setting and the first arc of the campaign to a document that we could then send to our players. This document is created to enable our players to create characters that will mesh with the world and will serve the plot of the first arc in our campaign. After you wrote the copy for your players using the advice in that course, you should have sent that documentation along to your players so that they could create characters for you to work into the world. That’s exactly what we’ll be doing in this session, so you should start off by pulling up the characters your players made for your campaign!
To make this course happen, I had two of the players in my current campaign create backstories for me using the copy I wrote for Elzveir. They were generous enough to take the time to read my document and provide some interesting character ideas to me in response. I’m going to read through those and sample what they wrote to start writing these characters into my homebrew setting. If you’d like, you can read what my players sent me by going to the bottom of this post and downloading the resources associated with this lesson.
So, with player character responses in hand… let’s get started.
Breaking Down the Backstories
The first thing that we need to do with the backstories we were sent is pull the parts of the backstories that contribute to the world. These are the backstory aspects we’re going to work on in this course, so you’ll want to grab those and isolate them. The rest of the backstories that were provided by our players will be reviewed in detail for the Character Arcs lesson of this course, which is about six lessons ahead of this one. So, go ahead and review what your players sent you and pick out the parts that are going to help flesh out your world.
I received two characters from my players. One of them is Ruven, a high elven rogue, and the other is Philetius Cornel, a human wizard. Ruven is a well-traveled young man who hails from no place in particular but has specific memories of a lawless town called Creaky Dream that lies between Hendek Canyon and Kurugin. The other character, Philetius, lived in a log cabin somewhere in Adaisole, but often visited the town of Wallneq’s Gorge for supply runs.
You’ll note that neither Creaky Dream nor Wallneq’s Gorge is a place on my map… yet. This is exactly what I wanted from my players! Details about a place that is definitely in my world, but that I don’t know about, myself. This is how your players can help you build out your world from beginning to end.
I’m also going to take time to note down other world elements my players wrote about, here. Any shops they visited, groups they’ve encountered, etc. Each of these is an element that I need to include in my world to help flesh it out. You should do the same with the backstories provided by your players. Go ahead and take time to do that now, comprising a list of everything you need to add to your world.
I have found the following items from these two backstories that I need to add to my world:
Creaky Dream
A lawless town that rests between Hendek Canyon and Kurugin. It’s filled with ruffians and criminals alike, serving as something of a safe haven for them… if Creaky Dream can ever be considered safe. No one dares try to tame this town, as such an attempt would likely cost the lives of many, many good soldiers. So instead, this wound is permitted to fester. So long as the vile inhabitants of Creaky Dream stay isolated to this town in the middle of nowhere, what harm do they pose?
Wallneq’s Gorge
A small town in Adaisole where supplies are frequently available. Not many choose to live in the region of Adaisole, but those who do tend to depend on Wallneq’s Gorge for supplies and socialization. This town is named for the canyon strait that runs alongside it, which contains waters from the ocean several hundred feet down from the great wall of stone atop which the town is constructed. Despite how high up the town proper is, Wallneq’s Gorge is a port town… you just have to dock at the bottom and carry your wares up several long, rickety steps.
University of Central Elzveir
In Caggoz, the capital of the Gurkiza region, there is a grand university where many come to study finance, trade, and other matters of business. Philetius is one such individual and excelled among his peers at the university. The University of Central Elzveir has produced many merchants, accountants, and scribes in its several years serving the people of Elzveir and it seems to be poised to continue doing so for many years to come.
The Soggy Sausage
A seedy, grimy tavern-turned-brothel that is operated by Ruven’s brother, Arnwyn. The Sausage is built in the ill-regarded settlement of Alamei, which lies in Yuri near the southern border that is shared with the swampy region of Bozul. The Soggy Sausage is by no means a popular attraction, and everyone insists they’ve never been, but… well, someone is giving it business.
Other Backstory Details
My players have also generously provided me with additional information in their backstories, beyond these four locations that I listed previously. They have given me the names of different people that they know or are connected to in some fashion. I’ve extracted those details, too, and will be using them to work on NPCs who populate the world. I’ll be talking about a couple of them in next week’s course, when I go over shops and notable inhabitants, as at least a few of the people that my players mentioned live in Kessit and may even be involved in Kessit’s first arc!
Settlement Information and Points of Interest
Now that you have pulled basic details from the backstories of your players, it’s time to work those details into your world. My players gave me two new settlements to work on, so I’ll be filling out the settlement information form for Creaky Dream and Wallneq’s Gorge, just like I did for Kessit! In addition, I have another town, Alamei, that needs a settlement information form completed so that I can add The Soggy Sausage to it! Then there’s also the University of Central Elzveir, which needs to be added as a point of interest to the form that I have for Caggoz, the castle town in Gurkiza.
Presuming that you are running a full campaign with at least three or more players, this could potentially be a lot of work for you. Go ahead and fill out the relevant forms (I’ll provide links you can use to acquire them if you don’t have clean copies anymore) for the settlements and points of interest your players have given you, as you did for the town that we worked on together in third and fourth lessons of this course. Fill them out in their entirety, including geographic details, government rules, etc. Try to put as much thought into these settlements as you did into your first one--you’ll be glad that you did!
What’s Next?
Don’t toss the backstories to the wind! We have more to do with them. First, you should have a list of all of the named characters your players gave to you. If any of them are relevant to our first arc, you’ll want to take time to note that down so that you can call back to them in next week’s lesson, in which we will be going over the shops and notable inhabitants related to our first arc’s setting. Then, in a few weeks, we’re going to have a session in which we talk about character arcs for our campaign. These are multi-session, long-form story arcs that use the backstories provided by our players for their characters to promote growth, interest, and depth in our overall campaign. These arcs will be specific to each individual character, so you’ll want the backstories your players gave to you in order to draft these arcs!
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this course! Once you’ve finished up the settlement information forms that you began as a result of your player backstories, you should have several settlements that are fleshed out and ready to play already! We’ll add more details to them as time goes on, particularly next week when we talk about shops and notable inhabitants. If you think your settlement is great now, just wait until it’s populated! You can check out the lesson on shops and notable inhabitants next Monday.
In the meantime, it would mean the world to me if you’d support me! The best way to do so right now is to subscribe to my YouTube channel, but you can also follow me on social media (links will be down below). I’m most active on Instagram, so if you’re hoping to interact with me, that’s the best place to do it!
I appreciate your time and I can’t wait to dive into shops and inhabitants, next week. Actually, I’m even more excited about writing the character arcs with these backstories--I already have some ideas! We’re going to have to wait a bit for that, though. Until then… bye!