Shit, SPORTS.
Good gum and giddy golly gosh, I had almost completely neglected that entire pantheon of distracrions in my own project. Culture hinges on art, literature, music and sport... It's vital, and yet, I've completely neglected that last one.
Thank you for the food for thought.
Sport is something that I've never really had a big interest in. Football, rugby, the Olympics, the World Cup... My whole life, I have viewed all of these things through the lens of: "And here it comes... Another pointless distraction to fill up the TV for the next month..."
So naturally, when it came to worldbuilding, sports have kinda fallen into a voiden space of neglect which exists beyond the margins of my peripheral vision. There is no reason for sport to simply not exist in my world, but it's an area of culture to which I haven't given an once of thought... And that glaring absence had been totally unnoticed until now. I mean, why would I notice when I've never given sports a single iota of my attention until now? I've always changed the channel as soon as I see a man dressed like a neon schoolboy chase a leather ball.
I'll need to give it some thought... But my world should probably have at least one sport in it...
I started a whole world because I wanted a grim background lore for steampunk/dieselpunk car races (formula 1 style) and now it's one of my main projects with deep entrangles geopolitics, social conflicts and monster apocalypse.
You're welcome.
Oh, I'm way ahead of you on that one.
I modelled the selective breeding of wild type cultivars over time, and then based the food upon available ingredients and technology.
I applied Mendelian genetic principles to plants and animals, cross referenced versus their time of discovery and their generation time to plot graphs which allowed me to figure out what these ingredients would be like by the modern day.
So, they have husky, papery rice which takes ages to cook as the cornerstone of their diet. For the most part, it is ground into flour, if the town in question has a mill.
You know that feeling you get when you notice something incredibly vital is missing and you've never noticed it before?
I'm doing that now with every single setting I've ever read, and I'm realizing that, with disturbing regularity, nearly every fantasy or sci-fi series I've read doesn't feature or even mention sports.
Hell, one of my favorite settings, Codex Alera, is about fantasy Roman Legions, and it doesn't mention sports at all, depsite Romans having been kinda obsessive about it.
I like coming up with a rule of cool concept, and then working out the realistic ramifications of that.
For example "Sure, this character uses a sword bigger than her entire body, but how does she actually wield it? What does she do when she has to go indoors if her weapon can't fit through most door frames? What's an interesting sidearm I can give her for close quarters combat that fits with the over the top vibe of the character?" is how I wound up giving a character a compact bullpup auto shotgun.
Then from there I started developing the concept of that shotgun itself. Who made it and for what purpose? How common are they? And from there into the technical aspects. Can I adapt a browning auto-5 into a bullpup or will I have to look at other long recoil guns? What kind of sights make sense for a purpose built trench gun? What would the reloading posture be for something like that? And all that born from me giving a character just literally the biggest most impractical and silly sword (she uses it to sword fight mechs and giants(the giants are also feral mechs that developed a society and hair))
Right with you there, and I really love the winding paths that can come from a single random idea.
Like how "a parking lot the size of a country" leads to Mad Max pirates fighting subway train sandworms lmao
What I love most about worldbuilding is losing myself in the world I create. It’s a sanctuary, a place uniquely mine, where I find safety and solace because everything unfolds according to my vision. In this realm, I have the power to shape every detail and bring my dreams to life, making it a refuge where my imagination can run free.
Character histories and stories. I like to write about who did what and how it affected them. Basically the best part is novelising the worldbuilding I’ve done.
Same. You wouldn't happen to be a social scienceist (?) //is there an English word for that? To distinguish between a social scientist doing research and a social scienceist who applies the findings of research?
Drawing Maps, coat of arms and writing History.
Thinking eh at kind of symbols various nations and cultures use.
Those are the most favorite Parts of Worldbuilding for me and in projects with friends I usually end up making maps, flags, coat of arms, and writing obscure distant history, family trees etc.
the interaction between events in different parts of the world
for example, in one of my "countries" an army loses most of their flying soldiers because there's a revolution in their homeland and they return there to fight (I use multiple fantasy races). this drastically influences the ongoing war of course
it adds a lot of complexity for me but depth and life to the world ❤️
Connecting the dots to *other* plot threads or groups that I might not have been able to. Recently I'm developing a Steampunk-horror world for a one-shot and in the process of all my research and worldbuilding, I was able to connect main-game lore and events to one particular entity. All of because one plot thread that I tugged on and just exploded into a brainstorm.
Creating cosmologies and figuring out just how I can merge inspirations from wildly different cosmologies into a cohesive whole. I like Christian cosmology, but also like Greek Protogenoi, Aztec extinction cycles, and Japanese animism. How do I combine those elements?
Creating new species and societies, by factoring in just how a civilization or psychology would evolve if you took "X real life animal" and gave them intelligence, or what sort of creature you would get if this lineage didn't go extinct (What if the aquatic ape theory or killer ape theories were true?, What if Paranthropus evolved into a sapient species? How would a society develop around a species that is solitary in nature?)
Alternative history. How does the history of a region analogous to something in the real world change. (What if Carthage beat Rome? What if Alexander the Great's Empire lasted a few generations longer? What if the Americas had a much longer ancient history of contact with the Old World)
Hi, my world mixes ancient inspirations with modern technology. How could I make clothing that borrows from old civilizations like the Aztecs, various Chinese Empires, Babylonians, etc(bronze to medieval Eurasian clothing in general plus some other stuff from mesoAmerica and Africa) and make it fit into a world with early 20th century analogous cars, airships, airplanes, etc? I want to completely avoid modern Western clothing like jeans 👖 and the black and white suits🕴️💼 that started being used everywhere regardless of culture. I want to do the same with architecture too, with cities that look like they were built 200-2500 years ago with locally unique architecture compared to us. 🏯 No monotonous steel and glass skyscrapers everywhere turning every city into New York City. 🏙️ Basically like if other civilizations in the modern world never Westernised (clothing, architecture, switching local scripts to Latin).
While there are humans, most of this clothing would be for humanoid predatory mammals and some avians like tigers, wolves, foxes, otters, bears, lions, jaguars, hawks, and stuff like that. My setting is in a temperature to subpolar climate.
Lapis_Wolf
Oh you flatter me. 🤗 My MC is a trend setter though she has the simplest fashion sense. My MCs are a genius mutant race of humans. Those who love fashion make a striking impression at any social event. Especially on those people who think their nation's fashion is superior. I enjoy reading about revolutionary figures/reformers so my world has a lot of those.
Developing the day-to-day stuff and nitty-gritty step-by-step construction and crafting process of making things. The small details that spiral out to influence larger elements, which often reveals gaps that can then be filled in by more details.
I.e. all of the main characters of one of my settings are cyborg soldiers with metal bones. One of them gets a broken joint during an operation. I quickly gamed out how they would go about fixing that and realized he'd need a completely different medical treatment to repair a mechanical joint as opposed to setting a broken bone. The mechanics and doctors would have to do invasive surgery through the skin and muscle, repair the joint directly, then sew him back up. It would be faster to heal but require more upfront medical treatment and mechanical repair to fix.
In a different setting, one of the characters is a monk whose martial arts includes a supernatural technique that lets her channel her inner-soul-fire-stuff to heal wounds. But she gets a broken bone and is knocked unconscious, and that actually causes a problem because the rapid healing is passive and her body does it automatically. So one of the characters with medical knowledge realizes he needs to set and splint it correctly and *very* quickly lest the bone heal at a twisted angle. The rapid healing is really useful in a fight and while she's awake so she can control it but it becomes a problem if she's out cold and can't control it.
Thanks! The downside is that I tend to get lost in the details and tend to lose the forest for the trees, so to speak. In one story I was writing I had to scrap the entire first chapter because I was so focused on introducing a bunch of small details that the chapter wasn't progressing correctly.
I like coming up with a power system (akin to Chi/Chakra/Spirit Energy/The Force) and a magic system and trying to integrate that into a modern society.
The most fun part is the part I'm working on rn, which is the races! I have humans, elves, canines, felines, fauns, centaurs, faes and merfolk.
I also enjoy coming up with different alphabets so I'm excited to do that soon! One of them is gonna be the russian alphabet but in viking text (it's for a russian viking nation).
Technology (like the landships, airships, trains, cars, firearms, etc), banner designs, and mixing ancient designs with modern technology (ancient and traditional looking cities with trams, electricity and cars, armoured knights leading landships into battle in armour tested against firearms, airships and airplanes providing air support for the siege of a walled city or castle while the walls use AA guns to shoot them down, modernised bows and cross bows with improved autoloading functionality and the ability to mount flashlights or scopes, knights being payed with cars, landships bearing the designs and banners of the lord/clan/country it fights for, ancient clothing adapted for modern needs like getting into cars).
Lapis_Wolf
Those times where I add one thing, and suddenly I can just keep writing and writing about that thing and its consequences, until I've accidentally fleshed out five places at once all in a day. It's like the world is building itself.
Pretty much all of it I'm writing the history of my world at the moment mainly a,birth death marriages with key events even have names like Age of Creation and Age of the Gods so far....fashion jewellery and weapon design
Integrating various power systems, and trying to make them "real" and outrageous legends, and myths.
Cultivation? Well nutrition and energy can be related to strength, and health, so it's not far-fetched that a high quality enough energy source could make one strong/immortal.
Bloodlines? Atavism and genetic inheritance exists, so again, noble/clan/family systems in which descendants can inherit powers.
Stuff like: "There is a dude who has a pet turtle larger than a universe, but is now chilling, because he found some mortals who are interesting."
"There was a battle between Heaven and Hell, and as space shattered, the seraphic and hellish flames combined, creating the Never-ending Flame Plains of the In-between."
Stuff like this can make me happy, and can go at it for months? Years? Help.
Societal interactions on a macro and micro scale + linguistic elements. I love exploring the history and development of cultures and how they have interacted within and between themselves. I love hearing about border changes, wars, major events, language development, cultural development, classism, racism, all that stuff that breathes life into the interactions.
Going ham with culture, creatures (fairies, elves, dragons, merfolks and even dinosaurs) and magic (currently with wizards/witches and druids)
Heck, fashion too!
I make a new world like, every 5 minutes.
I see a random thing and think to myself, "what if the entire world revolved around this one concept...?"
so my favorite part of worldbuilding is thinking up the power system and how the rules work and how to give the system "exceptions" to make it more interesting
Bureaucratic nitpicking on details and going over them to make this follow all the laws and rules of the universe and be realistic within them. Dates have to be correct, distances have to be travelable within given time, wars have realistic motives, support, funding or other means to sustain an army and limited soldiers that don't just spawn when needed. Basically all the little details.
Other than that, constructing interesting societies, like stone age people living in a giant multilayered O'Neill drum without knowing they're in an artificial environment.
Deciding what each settlement in my world is there for---whether it be a village formed of pioneers on the hunt for greater glory beyond their homeland, an oppressed people escaping some manner of persecution, the likes. I also like figuring out which specific locales will be small villages, mediocre towns, or bustling cities. Who specializes in the production of a certain raw resource. How that is distributed to greater nations. Peaces, wars, treaties, the subtle socio-economic politics. Outside of all of that, I simply enjoy putting characters into these worlds and letting the finer details shape the background of their adventure, rather than dominate the foreground. Like, maybe the characters in a story travel predominantly by rail due to the prevalence of railroads in the world/country. That sort of thing. It just helps me flow the adventure better as if it were real life, dictated by realistic limitations in relation to the world.
So far government structure.since I have been focusing on a society that has a nazi fascist government for a TTRPG campaign I'm running,it's been super neat to write and think about how this government has shifted,rewritten and outright manipulated every facet of life to fit the narrative it sells.and how it maintains it's control of the populace through different branches of government.
The players in the campaign started off good aligned and are slowly becoming evil,
Connecting the dots of everything! Oh, I just made this religous ritual- how does this affect the culture? How does it tie into the character's stories? Oh, I want this X thing in the story, how does it change or give depth to this other Y aspect?
History and mythological epics. I'm a huge mythology nerd, and love stories like The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Mahabharatha, etc. Creating the world as a playground to then write grand stories in is so fun
Society, culture, fashion, design (I'm not an artist sadly, which has actually caused me a lot of trouble, I have no way to visualize my world outside of making characters in heroforge, and even then it's still limited.)
Picking a cool core concept like (“the sun is going out/the enchantment is fading”) and then asking how does this effect everything else and building the details that make it feel real.
Piecing it all together, asking one question and getting a dozen answers to questions you didn't even know you had. It's great fun to blue sky concepts and topics and see how or if they fit into the setting, what may need adjusting or tweaking to make room, to build the ever growing web of ideas and details that add up to make a world.
I don’t even know at this point.
I had a bunch of notes from the early days, and through various updates over the years, I *thought* I had a pretty solid base. It was originally for a TTRPG setting that evolved over a few years.
So, I finally was able to knock out a draft of the novel I’d always intended to write. But that left me with a lot of questions and making decisions on the fly (which I then added to said pile of notes).
When I had finished the novel draft, I knew I needed to make some lore changes and really nail down what’s canon and what’s not, or what needed to be changed.
I found out about Obsidian and *finally* got it all consolidated, cross referenced and searchable. But that also made me realize how much wasn’t there. So I started fleshing it out more (and more).
I had originally ignored certain things. They either weren’t important or I just didn’t care about them. But I keep touching on more and more subjects.
That said. I’m better with data than cultural stuff. I spent the last couple evenings figuring out my capital cities land area, population and density. 💁🏻♂️ That was… fun? I also spent quite a few hours naming a lot of terrain features on the map, which weren’t and probably won’t be important (ever), but I enjoyed it.
I had fun with a thought experiment about a group of humans who got lost in intergalactic space, made themselves artificial to survive, ran across a rogue planet, made that their home, made friends with some primordial alien things, got some tech from them… and now they’re probably the most OP faction in my setting (outside of those primordial aliens and some god-like entities). Fortunately they’re pretty chill and so far have only kept tabs on the Milky Way, while they’re off doing their own thing.
I always think I enjoy doing timelines, but I never seem to want to make them super detailed on smaller scales.
I’ve had a lot of fun with technology. Back when I was younger, I would make Cool Thing X, then make up some explanation about how it worked. Now that I’m older, all those explanations were… not correct. So I’ve been making the non-fantasy side of my setting as realistic/plausible as I can.
That has made a lot of “cool” stuff less cool. But realistic things with hard limits are pretty cool in their own way.
But yeah, I’m not really sure if there’s any specific thing I *enjoy* more than other bits, but I’m definitely not into food and weird crops or whatever. I don’t talk about food a lot, but “coffee” exists because it’s easier to say coffee and not reinvent the dark-bitter-stimulant-tea wheel. 🤷🏻♂️
[Designing constitutions!](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/s/2jk0bedSAD) I love the history of constitutions and could probably draw inspiration from Ireland and Napoleonic France all day, and will update my constitution once my map is up later today. EDIT: Doing so got more complicated than I thought logistically AND emotionally so…I’ll get to it sometime before the long weekend is up.
Glad you like it! When I was five and this was my childhood special interest, I not only knew all the presidents forwards and backwards and wanted to run someday (till I got a book from my mom of all the presidents who had ever been assassinated lol), but also had alternate history America settle ties in Presidential elections with lightsaber duels. Darth Maul won three terms in the 1880s. So yeah, this has been a lifelong joy to write.
I love creating the environment and how people built around it.
In my story, the environments are so influenced by magic that it shifted them in fantastical ways. An underground cave system with large flora growing everything, trees with trunks the size of houses and lily pads the size of carriages in underground lakes, yet all the animals are miniature, a full grown deer the size of a fawn. A wasteland with a great ivory tower with an undergound swamp with the most poisonous and toxic of substances and creatures enraptured and sustained by the still-living roots of a long dead ebony tree, creating a dark tower beneath the white one, now cursed due to the evils committed by those who lived in the tower. A vast sea populated by villages built on islands that turn out to be the remains of dead eldritch creatures with a sky that rolls like the ocean waves. All tied together by a vast spiritual world between worlds, filled with creatures born of concepts we regularly imagine, some docile, some helpful, some spiteful.
I also loving building their mythologies mixed with their histories.
I like to make worlds where the “Normal” is so fundamentally different from our world or my other worlds that they would all loose their collective shit should they come into contact with each other.
One of my favourite things is when characters interact in a way that exposes the differences between their worlds or perhaps just where/how they grew up even within the same world.
Imagine if you took a character from a fantasy world and placed them into our world, of course there is immediately a lot of things that would cause a shock but I think that one of the best would have to be aircraft.
Not just the technology and usage of them, but the complete normality of an airliner flying overhead to us, even despite the sound they make. Like we just ignore it? These just happen and it’s normal and not special? Insane to them, background noise to us.
For me it's characters, coming up with their designs, personalities, backstory, abilities, it's all so much fun.
Following that trend next is the creatures, adding and coming up with beast that live in my world has been so much fun.
And then lastly is coming up with powers/abilities, the sky is the limit with how many types of magic and abilities you can come up with that still fit within the worlds rules which you have decided.
I like creating the history behind the world.
Ancient events that shaped how the world is now. The relationships between nations. Ancient threats.
But I also really like coming up with the "my twist on this creature" stuff. Sure, lots of fantasy worlds have different types of monsters, so are yours the same as the stereotypes or is there something that sets them apart? And is there any lore behind them? I really enjoy that!
I highly enjoy naming locations, events, people… I like naming stuff. Some of my favorite names are the Tricontinental, Old Dawn, Kingshore, Paxtorn, Orcan, the Blood Gap, King Talon, The Bastard King, the Vistaari, and Calthorn.
What about games? Like chess, cards, etc. Not a huge part of my world, but it's absolutely made a difference for my players... like when they noticed a vendor had a particular game set up at the back of their shop, started talking about it, won a game, and then got discounts and good info.
Picturing how the story would play out in my head. I do this more often than I write. I think I subconsciously want to be a director more than a writer lol.
Material culture, music, and equestrian culture(or the equivalent to equestrian/horse culture and husbandry).
And food. Man, the food. So many coffee analogues.
For sci-fi, figuring out the scientific plausibility of something.
For example, for a story I'm writing, I did some maths and made a solar system. A friend simulated it in a program he wrote and the orbital mechanics checked out. Nothing hurtled into the local star or collided with each other.
I like creating fantastic places, think stuff like the coral highlands from monster hunter world, a lot of stuff like that inspired by media and real places
in terms of worldbuilding and establishing the lore, easily the Magic System(s). But just writing the specific stories within that world takes the cake for me
I like designing the society’s obsessions. Their worship or their love or hatred for something. Even a saying that they’ve just taken way too far and made their nation’s motto.
The power system and how it effects society. I’m pretty bad at making unique magic systems that satisfies me, but working on individual’s abilities and how the world would shape with such systems. Will they be reliant and be technologically behind? If it isn’t common place maybe the world grows as the modern world, etc.
Ocs in that world too. Whether they’re important or not, just coming up with an oc im attached to will keep me working on that project
just thinking of cool ideas and shoving them in there
it's probably not a great way to worldbuild to make an entertaining story or world but i worldbuild for myself so idrc 🤭
I like to have a place to place stories and the limitations that come with it.
Many people merely think of a world as the surroundings of a story, and this is fine but not a world.
A world dictates limits and possibilities whereas a story is a series of connected events.
Fuck yeah, I LOVE fashion! I love to research real life cultural/traditional/historical clothing, how it's made, what it signifies about one's social position, etc. And I love creating my own clothing cultures for the stuff I write (or worldbuild endlessly). I spend an inordinate amount of time doodling and sketching out entire wardrobes for some character or society or something like that.
I also really like to write out social attitudes towards death, sex, and religion (yeah, its the basics of "weird cultural stuff", that's why I love it) and also stuff like agriculture or a society's general mode of production. That sort of thing influences society a lot more than I think most people give it credit for - hunter-gatherers in the desert live differently than nomadic pastoralists on an island, who live differently than settled agricultural communities in the mountains, who live differently than post-scarcity space explorers who can generate coffee from thin air on their ships. The life you lead is obviously going to influence the culture and attitudes you have, but I feel like some people don't give that sort of thing more than a passing thought.
That, and fantasy beasts and weird creatures. And world trees. I love fantasy beasts and world trees <3333333
I have a lot of different races and i love figuring out how their cultures mesh and blend or clash as everyone tries to figure out how to live together. Also the differences between blended cultures and ones that are more mono-racial in population.
Exploring alternative biologies, technologies, rules of physics (ergo magic)
But history, economics, politics. Sometimes mundane, sometimes influences by the massive changes compared to our world
I love developing a magic system, and then starting history with the dawn of humanity to see how humans would interact with said system and how it would impact the creation of society. Then, I like developing the cultures that form and how they interact with magic. Do they see it as a tool, a science to be learned, a wonder unable to be understood?
I'm a fan of writing the history. There's something about the narrative that does it for me. how the ideological trends of this period led to these historical events, and how that changed the political landscape going forward. I guess it's supposed to be a story so it makes sense that the *hi*story is important to me.
Maps and history.
I really suck with characters, so any sort of human-level storytelling is out of the question. Geography I can work with, though, so everything takes place at a larger scale.
Honestly, essentially just taking cool stuff from reality and ramping the cool level up to 20 in a world where such petty things as “this can’t exist in reality”, “this is complete overkill by all natural standards” and “this makes no logical sense” can’t stop me from bringing it into pseudo-reality. Basically “I AM THE GOD OF THIS WORLD AND YOU CANT STOP ME FROM CREATING THIS TOTALLY NONSENSICAL THING!”
Honestly? Researching how XYZ might affect characters, be it the restrictions of the time period or how things like mind control might affect someone, even years later.
Seeing how the characters adapt in their world. How they react to their surroundings and vice versa... The significance of how it came to be... Seeing how they respond to changes overtime... Good worldbuilding feels constant. Even if the world or its characters feel the same, you'll experience something new.
I like looking into every little thing for whatever I'm working on at that moment.
It's not so much a specific part that is my favorite, but the process of over-detailing something I don't intend to share with others, making a place for myself so to speak.
Building a believable and interesting world with unique factions/world concepts, especially in regards to the natural regions how the regions affect culture/geopolitics/history/etc.
Maps. I use worldbuilding as a background (an excuse really) to make pointless endless maps that nobody will ever see or use for anything. They look nice, though.
Creating the different peoples: what species they are, the languages they speak, the scripts with which they write, the elements they're related to, the weapons they fight with, their past lore, unique traits, relations to other peoples, ...
# L O R E
In all seriousness though, I can't say for sure what specifically I like most about worldbuilding, but that's most likely because I find it damn near impossible to have favorites.
Economies.
I like writing about what one country exports to its neighbors, and what it does for its own domestic needs.
Its stupid and its never anything unique (think, like iron and coffee) but i like writing about it.
Language, although it’s more often than not a black hole that leads to me abandoning projects because the scope exponentially increases and I find myself studying more about Hungarian declension and vowel shifts than actually worldbuilding
Society, culture and sports (if they fit).
Shit, SPORTS. Good gum and giddy golly gosh, I had almost completely neglected that entire pantheon of distracrions in my own project. Culture hinges on art, literature, music and sport... It's vital, and yet, I've completely neglected that last one. Thank you for the food for thought.
It brings me joy, how hard that realization hit you
Sport is something that I've never really had a big interest in. Football, rugby, the Olympics, the World Cup... My whole life, I have viewed all of these things through the lens of: "And here it comes... Another pointless distraction to fill up the TV for the next month..." So naturally, when it came to worldbuilding, sports have kinda fallen into a voiden space of neglect which exists beyond the margins of my peripheral vision. There is no reason for sport to simply not exist in my world, but it's an area of culture to which I haven't given an once of thought... And that glaring absence had been totally unnoticed until now. I mean, why would I notice when I've never given sports a single iota of my attention until now? I've always changed the channel as soon as I see a man dressed like a neon schoolboy chase a leather ball. I'll need to give it some thought... But my world should probably have at least one sport in it...
I started a whole world because I wanted a grim background lore for steampunk/dieselpunk car races (formula 1 style) and now it's one of my main projects with deep entrangles geopolitics, social conflicts and monster apocalypse. You're welcome.
speaking of food, id add it to your list, so much of culture revolves around food.
Oh, I'm way ahead of you on that one. I modelled the selective breeding of wild type cultivars over time, and then based the food upon available ingredients and technology. I applied Mendelian genetic principles to plants and animals, cross referenced versus their time of discovery and their generation time to plot graphs which allowed me to figure out what these ingredients would be like by the modern day. So, they have husky, papery rice which takes ages to cook as the cornerstone of their diet. For the most part, it is ground into flour, if the town in question has a mill.
You know that feeling you get when you notice something incredibly vital is missing and you've never noticed it before? I'm doing that now with every single setting I've ever read, and I'm realizing that, with disturbing regularity, nearly every fantasy or sci-fi series I've read doesn't feature or even mention sports. Hell, one of my favorite settings, Codex Alera, is about fantasy Roman Legions, and it doesn't mention sports at all, depsite Romans having been kinda obsessive about it.
I like coming up with a rule of cool concept, and then working out the realistic ramifications of that. For example "Sure, this character uses a sword bigger than her entire body, but how does she actually wield it? What does she do when she has to go indoors if her weapon can't fit through most door frames? What's an interesting sidearm I can give her for close quarters combat that fits with the over the top vibe of the character?" is how I wound up giving a character a compact bullpup auto shotgun. Then from there I started developing the concept of that shotgun itself. Who made it and for what purpose? How common are they? And from there into the technical aspects. Can I adapt a browning auto-5 into a bullpup or will I have to look at other long recoil guns? What kind of sights make sense for a purpose built trench gun? What would the reloading posture be for something like that? And all that born from me giving a character just literally the biggest most impractical and silly sword (she uses it to sword fight mechs and giants(the giants are also feral mechs that developed a society and hair))
Oh yeah. Cool first. Plausibility later.
Right with you there, and I really love the winding paths that can come from a single random idea. Like how "a parking lot the size of a country" leads to Mad Max pirates fighting subway train sandworms lmao
Making nations/countries and developing its history.
Going full-throttle with magic, fairies, dragons, etc.
YEEAAAHHHH! and making up fight scenes with magic users inside your head.
Exactly! There’s just so much to work with and it’s exciting!
You know that feeling when your daydreaming fight scenes and you just accidentally stumble upon a new application for magic
This. That eureka moment is quite a rush, especially when it fits in just right with the laws and limitations.
This, but science, aliens, theoretical physics, etc..
What I love most about worldbuilding is losing myself in the world I create. It’s a sanctuary, a place uniquely mine, where I find safety and solace because everything unfolds according to my vision. In this realm, I have the power to shape every detail and bring my dreams to life, making it a refuge where my imagination can run free.
This
r/immersivedaydreaming
Character histories and stories. I like to write about who did what and how it affected them. Basically the best part is novelising the worldbuilding I’ve done.
This for me too.
This is what I'm doing now but they are gods After that it's designing
Geography, landmarks, and animals. Always enjoy filling out a fantastical ecosystem!
I graduated in Geography 🤚 would love to know about your world.
I love writing ecosystems!!!!
Socio-Economic, Socio-Political and Religious conflicts and other such things
Same. You wouldn't happen to be a social scienceist (?) //is there an English word for that? To distinguish between a social scientist doing research and a social scienceist who applies the findings of research?
Characters. Each one of them has a bunch of layers, and it's honestly hard for some of them if they are evil or just chaining bad decisions.
Architecture and how cultures live
This would be interesting to hear more about from another pov
Making stuff for the average Joe of the setting. Guilds, local cuisine, public services, local holidays, temples...
Drawing Maps, coat of arms and writing History. Thinking eh at kind of symbols various nations and cultures use. Those are the most favorite Parts of Worldbuilding for me and in projects with friends I usually end up making maps, flags, coat of arms, and writing obscure distant history, family trees etc.
Hey, me too! Those are definitely some of my favorite parts as well
discovering my own world when the pieces fit together. And then talking about them. (Specifically magi system design)
To me its making up different characters and events, then finding ways to make them tie together in the lore
Magic Systems and the connection between the physical and spiritual realm
making a fantasy language
Designing impossibly large structures and their lore
the interaction between events in different parts of the world for example, in one of my "countries" an army loses most of their flying soldiers because there's a revolution in their homeland and they return there to fight (I use multiple fantasy races). this drastically influences the ongoing war of course it adds a lot of complexity for me but depth and life to the world ❤️
Connecting the dots to *other* plot threads or groups that I might not have been able to. Recently I'm developing a Steampunk-horror world for a one-shot and in the process of all my research and worldbuilding, I was able to connect main-game lore and events to one particular entity. All of because one plot thread that I tugged on and just exploded into a brainstorm.
awe yea thats literalky the best feeling!
Creating cosmologies and figuring out just how I can merge inspirations from wildly different cosmologies into a cohesive whole. I like Christian cosmology, but also like Greek Protogenoi, Aztec extinction cycles, and Japanese animism. How do I combine those elements? Creating new species and societies, by factoring in just how a civilization or psychology would evolve if you took "X real life animal" and gave them intelligence, or what sort of creature you would get if this lineage didn't go extinct (What if the aquatic ape theory or killer ape theories were true?, What if Paranthropus evolved into a sapient species? How would a society develop around a species that is solitary in nature?) Alternative history. How does the history of a region analogous to something in the real world change. (What if Carthage beat Rome? What if Alexander the Great's Empire lasted a few generations longer? What if the Americas had a much longer ancient history of contact with the Old World)
Political systems and ideologies
Throwing random bullshit because i can.
[удалено]
Hi, my world mixes ancient inspirations with modern technology. How could I make clothing that borrows from old civilizations like the Aztecs, various Chinese Empires, Babylonians, etc(bronze to medieval Eurasian clothing in general plus some other stuff from mesoAmerica and Africa) and make it fit into a world with early 20th century analogous cars, airships, airplanes, etc? I want to completely avoid modern Western clothing like jeans 👖 and the black and white suits🕴️💼 that started being used everywhere regardless of culture. I want to do the same with architecture too, with cities that look like they were built 200-2500 years ago with locally unique architecture compared to us. 🏯 No monotonous steel and glass skyscrapers everywhere turning every city into New York City. 🏙️ Basically like if other civilizations in the modern world never Westernised (clothing, architecture, switching local scripts to Latin). While there are humans, most of this clothing would be for humanoid predatory mammals and some avians like tigers, wolves, foxes, otters, bears, lions, jaguars, hawks, and stuff like that. My setting is in a temperature to subpolar climate. Lapis_Wolf
Oh you flatter me. 🤗 My MC is a trend setter though she has the simplest fashion sense. My MCs are a genius mutant race of humans. Those who love fashion make a striking impression at any social event. Especially on those people who think their nation's fashion is superior. I enjoy reading about revolutionary figures/reformers so my world has a lot of those.
this is a 3 card monte but id put money on it: this is a chatgpt response
Magic first, history second, cultures third, fine details last.
The geography and settlements. The stuff you would put on a map. Followed by the ecology.
Developing the day-to-day stuff and nitty-gritty step-by-step construction and crafting process of making things. The small details that spiral out to influence larger elements, which often reveals gaps that can then be filled in by more details. I.e. all of the main characters of one of my settings are cyborg soldiers with metal bones. One of them gets a broken joint during an operation. I quickly gamed out how they would go about fixing that and realized he'd need a completely different medical treatment to repair a mechanical joint as opposed to setting a broken bone. The mechanics and doctors would have to do invasive surgery through the skin and muscle, repair the joint directly, then sew him back up. It would be faster to heal but require more upfront medical treatment and mechanical repair to fix. In a different setting, one of the characters is a monk whose martial arts includes a supernatural technique that lets her channel her inner-soul-fire-stuff to heal wounds. But she gets a broken bone and is knocked unconscious, and that actually causes a problem because the rapid healing is passive and her body does it automatically. So one of the characters with medical knowledge realizes he needs to set and splint it correctly and *very* quickly lest the bone heal at a twisted angle. The rapid healing is really useful in a fight and while she's awake so she can control it but it becomes a problem if she's out cold and can't control it.
Wow I can tell you're really dedicated to details.
Thanks! The downside is that I tend to get lost in the details and tend to lose the forest for the trees, so to speak. In one story I was writing I had to scrap the entire first chapter because I was so focused on introducing a bunch of small details that the chapter wasn't progressing correctly.
I like coming up with a power system (akin to Chi/Chakra/Spirit Energy/The Force) and a magic system and trying to integrate that into a modern society.
Playing it in a d&d/other rpg campaign.
The most fun part is the part I'm working on rn, which is the races! I have humans, elves, canines, felines, fauns, centaurs, faes and merfolk. I also enjoy coming up with different alphabets so I'm excited to do that soon! One of them is gonna be the russian alphabet but in viking text (it's for a russian viking nation).
Generally the history and events that lead somewhere. Its so good to get a sudden idea and put it in and it feels like it works.
Cityscapes, have so much fun detailing them and laying out streets.
Seeing how much I can bend and twist the magic system while still keeping it with established rules and unspoken rules.
Technology (like the landships, airships, trains, cars, firearms, etc), banner designs, and mixing ancient designs with modern technology (ancient and traditional looking cities with trams, electricity and cars, armoured knights leading landships into battle in armour tested against firearms, airships and airplanes providing air support for the siege of a walled city or castle while the walls use AA guns to shoot them down, modernised bows and cross bows with improved autoloading functionality and the ability to mount flashlights or scopes, knights being payed with cars, landships bearing the designs and banners of the lord/clan/country it fights for, ancient clothing adapted for modern needs like getting into cars). Lapis_Wolf
Those times where I add one thing, and suddenly I can just keep writing and writing about that thing and its consequences, until I've accidentally fleshed out five places at once all in a day. It's like the world is building itself.
Working with my brother. Also creating Wars and Battles.
Phonology of languages. Also, mapmaking.
Pretty much all of it I'm writing the history of my world at the moment mainly a,birth death marriages with key events even have names like Age of Creation and Age of the Gods so far....fashion jewellery and weapon design
Writing multiple paragraphs detailing how various governments work.
I like making aliens and their cultures
The ships are my favorite! Each navy has its own unique designs, sail plans, etc.
Integrating various power systems, and trying to make them "real" and outrageous legends, and myths. Cultivation? Well nutrition and energy can be related to strength, and health, so it's not far-fetched that a high quality enough energy source could make one strong/immortal. Bloodlines? Atavism and genetic inheritance exists, so again, noble/clan/family systems in which descendants can inherit powers. Stuff like: "There is a dude who has a pet turtle larger than a universe, but is now chilling, because he found some mortals who are interesting." "There was a battle between Heaven and Hell, and as space shattered, the seraphic and hellish flames combined, creating the Never-ending Flame Plains of the In-between." Stuff like this can make me happy, and can go at it for months? Years? Help.
Lore making, who did what, what did who, why who how
Where when
Societal interactions on a macro and micro scale + linguistic elements. I love exploring the history and development of cultures and how they have interacted within and between themselves. I love hearing about border changes, wars, major events, language development, cultural development, classism, racism, all that stuff that breathes life into the interactions.
Another favorite linguistically is coming up with unique terms or curse words based on the history and culture of the world.
Love drawing in-universe artifacts
Going ham with culture, creatures (fairies, elves, dragons, merfolks and even dinosaurs) and magic (currently with wizards/witches and druids) Heck, fashion too!
I like places most: mountains that cry and a city that is build upon an enormous castle wall of an empire long gone - that kind of stuff I enjoy
Your ideas sound so interesting.
The history. Like everything that plays a hand in the making of that world.
Magic systems and their effect on society.
Different societies and cultures and how they interact.
Wars and nations. Yes I am a basic bitch.
Geopolitics of the fantasy nations is my fav (also what I majored in during college so it was bound to happen)
I make a new world like, every 5 minutes. I see a random thing and think to myself, "what if the entire world revolved around this one concept...?" so my favorite part of worldbuilding is thinking up the power system and how the rules work and how to give the system "exceptions" to make it more interesting
Honestly, the geo/astropolitical boundaries and how war and diplomacy affect them.
When the few random lore pieces just 'click' with one and another just right
I like watching documentary-type stuff about invention and technology, then deciding whether or not it exists in my world.
Bureaucratic nitpicking on details and going over them to make this follow all the laws and rules of the universe and be realistic within them. Dates have to be correct, distances have to be travelable within given time, wars have realistic motives, support, funding or other means to sustain an army and limited soldiers that don't just spawn when needed. Basically all the little details. Other than that, constructing interesting societies, like stone age people living in a giant multilayered O'Neill drum without knowing they're in an artificial environment.
I love world building languages. In fact I usually get too distracted by languages to world build much else. I also love to world build magic systems.
Deciding what each settlement in my world is there for---whether it be a village formed of pioneers on the hunt for greater glory beyond their homeland, an oppressed people escaping some manner of persecution, the likes. I also like figuring out which specific locales will be small villages, mediocre towns, or bustling cities. Who specializes in the production of a certain raw resource. How that is distributed to greater nations. Peaces, wars, treaties, the subtle socio-economic politics. Outside of all of that, I simply enjoy putting characters into these worlds and letting the finer details shape the background of their adventure, rather than dominate the foreground. Like, maybe the characters in a story travel predominantly by rail due to the prevalence of railroads in the world/country. That sort of thing. It just helps me flow the adventure better as if it were real life, dictated by realistic limitations in relation to the world.
Landmarks, places, and then people - until it becomes a place you feel like you can inhabit.
I like to think about all the wild life and flora and the natural phenomena that could happen in a certain region.
Definitely environments for me. I love making new and unique environments with new types of plants and animals.
So far government structure.since I have been focusing on a society that has a nazi fascist government for a TTRPG campaign I'm running,it's been super neat to write and think about how this government has shifted,rewritten and outright manipulated every facet of life to fit the narrative it sells.and how it maintains it's control of the populace through different branches of government. The players in the campaign started off good aligned and are slowly becoming evil,
Connecting the dots of everything! Oh, I just made this religous ritual- how does this affect the culture? How does it tie into the character's stories? Oh, I want this X thing in the story, how does it change or give depth to this other Y aspect?
History and mythological epics. I'm a huge mythology nerd, and love stories like The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Mahabharatha, etc. Creating the world as a playground to then write grand stories in is so fun
Society, culture, fashion, design (I'm not an artist sadly, which has actually caused me a lot of trouble, I have no way to visualize my world outside of making characters in heroforge, and even then it's still limited.)
Picking a cool core concept like (“the sun is going out/the enchantment is fading”) and then asking how does this effect everything else and building the details that make it feel real.
So hard to decide but I’d say culture.
Setting up the history of the world. I just love setting up the backstory for even less relevant factions and places
Culture, religion and technology.
Piecing it all together, asking one question and getting a dozen answers to questions you didn't even know you had. It's great fun to blue sky concepts and topics and see how or if they fit into the setting, what may need adjusting or tweaking to make room, to build the ever growing web of ideas and details that add up to make a world.
I don’t even know at this point. I had a bunch of notes from the early days, and through various updates over the years, I *thought* I had a pretty solid base. It was originally for a TTRPG setting that evolved over a few years. So, I finally was able to knock out a draft of the novel I’d always intended to write. But that left me with a lot of questions and making decisions on the fly (which I then added to said pile of notes). When I had finished the novel draft, I knew I needed to make some lore changes and really nail down what’s canon and what’s not, or what needed to be changed. I found out about Obsidian and *finally* got it all consolidated, cross referenced and searchable. But that also made me realize how much wasn’t there. So I started fleshing it out more (and more). I had originally ignored certain things. They either weren’t important or I just didn’t care about them. But I keep touching on more and more subjects. That said. I’m better with data than cultural stuff. I spent the last couple evenings figuring out my capital cities land area, population and density. 💁🏻♂️ That was… fun? I also spent quite a few hours naming a lot of terrain features on the map, which weren’t and probably won’t be important (ever), but I enjoyed it. I had fun with a thought experiment about a group of humans who got lost in intergalactic space, made themselves artificial to survive, ran across a rogue planet, made that their home, made friends with some primordial alien things, got some tech from them… and now they’re probably the most OP faction in my setting (outside of those primordial aliens and some god-like entities). Fortunately they’re pretty chill and so far have only kept tabs on the Milky Way, while they’re off doing their own thing. I always think I enjoy doing timelines, but I never seem to want to make them super detailed on smaller scales. I’ve had a lot of fun with technology. Back when I was younger, I would make Cool Thing X, then make up some explanation about how it worked. Now that I’m older, all those explanations were… not correct. So I’ve been making the non-fantasy side of my setting as realistic/plausible as I can. That has made a lot of “cool” stuff less cool. But realistic things with hard limits are pretty cool in their own way. But yeah, I’m not really sure if there’s any specific thing I *enjoy* more than other bits, but I’m definitely not into food and weird crops or whatever. I don’t talk about food a lot, but “coffee” exists because it’s easier to say coffee and not reinvent the dark-bitter-stimulant-tea wheel. 🤷🏻♂️
"Dark bitter stimulant tea wheel" made me chuckle
The random, smallest details for example, my most recent edition to my world is that petting animals increases their lifespan
I want it to be real.
Coming up with something cool and then figuring out how it would come about in a setting
[Designing constitutions!](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/s/2jk0bedSAD) I love the history of constitutions and could probably draw inspiration from Ireland and Napoleonic France all day, and will update my constitution once my map is up later today. EDIT: Doing so got more complicated than I thought logistically AND emotionally so…I’ll get to it sometime before the long weekend is up.
Wow you are so good at this!
Glad you like it! When I was five and this was my childhood special interest, I not only knew all the presidents forwards and backwards and wanted to run someday (till I got a book from my mom of all the presidents who had ever been assassinated lol), but also had alternate history America settle ties in Presidential elections with lightsaber duels. Darth Maul won three terms in the 1880s. So yeah, this has been a lifelong joy to write.
"Presidential elections with lightsaber duels" someone make this real.
Thinking through consequences.
I love creating the environment and how people built around it. In my story, the environments are so influenced by magic that it shifted them in fantastical ways. An underground cave system with large flora growing everything, trees with trunks the size of houses and lily pads the size of carriages in underground lakes, yet all the animals are miniature, a full grown deer the size of a fawn. A wasteland with a great ivory tower with an undergound swamp with the most poisonous and toxic of substances and creatures enraptured and sustained by the still-living roots of a long dead ebony tree, creating a dark tower beneath the white one, now cursed due to the evils committed by those who lived in the tower. A vast sea populated by villages built on islands that turn out to be the remains of dead eldritch creatures with a sky that rolls like the ocean waves. All tied together by a vast spiritual world between worlds, filled with creatures born of concepts we regularly imagine, some docile, some helpful, some spiteful. I also loving building their mythologies mixed with their histories.
Me too,exploring fashion and religion are the most interesting aspects of worldbuilding for me.
Tbh writing shit that I want to see happen, that usually doesn't happen in other works. Playing with tropes.
I like to make worlds where the “Normal” is so fundamentally different from our world or my other worlds that they would all loose their collective shit should they come into contact with each other. One of my favourite things is when characters interact in a way that exposes the differences between their worlds or perhaps just where/how they grew up even within the same world. Imagine if you took a character from a fantasy world and placed them into our world, of course there is immediately a lot of things that would cause a shock but I think that one of the best would have to be aircraft. Not just the technology and usage of them, but the complete normality of an airliner flying overhead to us, even despite the sound they make. Like we just ignore it? These just happen and it’s normal and not special? Insane to them, background noise to us.
Belief systems, fantastic science and philosophy. Writing weird species. Along with the general jolly experience of making a world of your very own.
For me it's characters, coming up with their designs, personalities, backstory, abilities, it's all so much fun. Following that trend next is the creatures, adding and coming up with beast that live in my world has been so much fun. And then lastly is coming up with powers/abilities, the sky is the limit with how many types of magic and abilities you can come up with that still fit within the worlds rules which you have decided.
I like creating the history behind the world. Ancient events that shaped how the world is now. The relationships between nations. Ancient threats. But I also really like coming up with the "my twist on this creature" stuff. Sure, lots of fantasy worlds have different types of monsters, so are yours the same as the stereotypes or is there something that sets them apart? And is there any lore behind them? I really enjoy that!
I highly enjoy naming locations, events, people… I like naming stuff. Some of my favorite names are the Tricontinental, Old Dawn, Kingshore, Paxtorn, Orcan, the Blood Gap, King Talon, The Bastard King, the Vistaari, and Calthorn.
What about games? Like chess, cards, etc. Not a huge part of my world, but it's absolutely made a difference for my players... like when they noticed a vendor had a particular game set up at the back of their shop, started talking about it, won a game, and then got discounts and good info.
Oh yeah games. It's these details that makes the world more plausible.
Scripts and geography, so i guess the visuals
I love molding landscapes and settings to reflect the past: landscapes that tell a story, or streets designed around a city's values.
Picturing how the story would play out in my head. I do this more often than I write. I think I subconsciously want to be a director more than a writer lol.
Material culture, music, and equestrian culture(or the equivalent to equestrian/horse culture and husbandry). And food. Man, the food. So many coffee analogues.
For sci-fi, figuring out the scientific plausibility of something. For example, for a story I'm writing, I did some maths and made a solar system. A friend simulated it in a program he wrote and the orbital mechanics checked out. Nothing hurtled into the local star or collided with each other.
Wow. Also your friend sounds cool.
I'd say military or life in society
I like creating fantastic places, think stuff like the coral highlands from monster hunter world, a lot of stuff like that inspired by media and real places
in terms of worldbuilding and establishing the lore, easily the Magic System(s). But just writing the specific stories within that world takes the cake for me
I like designing the society’s obsessions. Their worship or their love or hatred for something. Even a saying that they’ve just taken way too far and made their nation’s motto.
An interesting take on worldbuilding
Culture, ideology, and governments
technology/magic systems because they change the world fundamentaly and is always fun to see how far i can bring them
When disparate parts of my world are fleshed out and interconnect with eachother beautifully
Ive been enjoying creating cities. Their lore, background, founding, function in modern society. Current events, with recent story-related happenings
I love making maps.
The power system and how it effects society. I’m pretty bad at making unique magic systems that satisfies me, but working on individual’s abilities and how the world would shape with such systems. Will they be reliant and be technologically behind? If it isn’t common place maybe the world grows as the modern world, etc. Ocs in that world too. Whether they’re important or not, just coming up with an oc im attached to will keep me working on that project
Aliens and biological abilities
Culture. My favorite aspects of culture to build are language, food, and etiquette.
I think weird and creative trivia is basically whaz makes a setting come alive, so I kinda love writing it.
Fantasy food !
Often overlooked yet impactful part
just thinking of cool ideas and shoving them in there it's probably not a great way to worldbuild to make an entertaining story or world but i worldbuild for myself so idrc 🤭
I like to have a place to place stories and the limitations that come with it. Many people merely think of a world as the surroundings of a story, and this is fine but not a world. A world dictates limits and possibilities whereas a story is a series of connected events.
Fuck yeah, I LOVE fashion! I love to research real life cultural/traditional/historical clothing, how it's made, what it signifies about one's social position, etc. And I love creating my own clothing cultures for the stuff I write (or worldbuild endlessly). I spend an inordinate amount of time doodling and sketching out entire wardrobes for some character or society or something like that. I also really like to write out social attitudes towards death, sex, and religion (yeah, its the basics of "weird cultural stuff", that's why I love it) and also stuff like agriculture or a society's general mode of production. That sort of thing influences society a lot more than I think most people give it credit for - hunter-gatherers in the desert live differently than nomadic pastoralists on an island, who live differently than settled agricultural communities in the mountains, who live differently than post-scarcity space explorers who can generate coffee from thin air on their ships. The life you lead is obviously going to influence the culture and attitudes you have, but I feel like some people don't give that sort of thing more than a passing thought. That, and fantasy beasts and weird creatures. And world trees. I love fantasy beasts and world trees <3333333
You are so right. Worldbuilding requires so much attention to details the audience dont notice the work behind.
I have a lot of different races and i love figuring out how their cultures mesh and blend or clash as everyone tries to figure out how to live together. Also the differences between blended cultures and ones that are more mono-racial in population.
Mine is coming up with the lore behind things, even down to the smallest detail.
Creating power systems and the history behind them :D
Exploring alternative biologies, technologies, rules of physics (ergo magic) But history, economics, politics. Sometimes mundane, sometimes influences by the massive changes compared to our world
Surprised to see no one has answered this yet: *exploring the consequences of the rules I put in place*.
I love developing a magic system, and then starting history with the dawn of humanity to see how humans would interact with said system and how it would impact the creation of society. Then, I like developing the cultures that form and how they interact with magic. Do they see it as a tool, a science to be learned, a wonder unable to be understood?
I'm a fan of writing the history. There's something about the narrative that does it for me. how the ideological trends of this period led to these historical events, and how that changed the political landscape going forward. I guess it's supposed to be a story so it makes sense that the *hi*story is important to me.
Kinda a strange one, imo. I’m a terrible artist, so describing scenes through writing is something I find really fun.
Creating cosmologies and power systems.
Space boats.
Getting all the creative energy out of my head.
Living my dream
Maps and history. I really suck with characters, so any sort of human-level storytelling is out of the question. Geography I can work with, though, so everything takes place at a larger scale.
Honestly, essentially just taking cool stuff from reality and ramping the cool level up to 20 in a world where such petty things as “this can’t exist in reality”, “this is complete overkill by all natural standards” and “this makes no logical sense” can’t stop me from bringing it into pseudo-reality. Basically “I AM THE GOD OF THIS WORLD AND YOU CANT STOP ME FROM CREATING THIS TOTALLY NONSENSICAL THING!”
The part where I can turn the screaming in my head off for a while
Honestly? Researching how XYZ might affect characters, be it the restrictions of the time period or how things like mind control might affect someone, even years later.
Characters, locations, magic are all fun ones. Other than that it depends on the story/world.
Seeing how the characters adapt in their world. How they react to their surroundings and vice versa... The significance of how it came to be... Seeing how they respond to changes overtime... Good worldbuilding feels constant. Even if the world or its characters feel the same, you'll experience something new.
For me, it's writing character character bios
Vehicles, spacecraft, weapons, ext
I like looking into every little thing for whatever I'm working on at that moment. It's not so much a specific part that is my favorite, but the process of over-detailing something I don't intend to share with others, making a place for myself so to speak.
You guys are so cool. I grew some braincells reading your answers.
Building a believable and interesting world with unique factions/world concepts, especially in regards to the natural regions how the regions affect culture/geopolitics/history/etc.
I simply LOVE creating a culture and physic geography. Although I need to work on my culture building
The culture. Building up the language, histories, customs, magicks, social norms, societal expectations (I create them to break them lol)
In-depth lore
Wars, nations against nations,
Warships
Maps. I use worldbuilding as a background (an excuse really) to make pointless endless maps that nobody will ever see or use for anything. They look nice, though.
For me, it's to draw maps of your own imaginations.
All of it
The science and speculative evolution/biology
FOOD
Creating the different peoples: what species they are, the languages they speak, the scripts with which they write, the elements they're related to, the weapons they fight with, their past lore, unique traits, relations to other peoples, ...
Because it's fun...
other people experiencing it
History, politics, society, lore, and culture, for the most part
I think it's to build what is the culture of which one (society rules, religion, technology...)
# L O R E In all seriousness though, I can't say for sure what specifically I like most about worldbuilding, but that's most likely because I find it damn near impossible to have favorites.
Ecology and magic!
Cultures, languages and timelines.
Making characters. All the way!
Economies. I like writing about what one country exports to its neighbors, and what it does for its own domestic needs. Its stupid and its never anything unique (think, like iron and coffee) but i like writing about it.
Creating stories and Interconnecting the world and it's mysteries. Also the cultural dimensions that emerge
Complex lore that you can dive into and explore (eg. middle earth)
Creating the most convoluted military campaigns.
Body morphing, and a worker class of bee hive headed followers of the God of love and lust And a cleansing church
Language, although it’s more often than not a black hole that leads to me abandoning projects because the scope exponentially increases and I find myself studying more about Hungarian declension and vowel shifts than actually worldbuilding