• Fantasy map articles
  • How to draw maps
  • Map resources
  • Worldbuilding Framework

Worldbuilding School

An online resource for building imaginary worlds.

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About the Worldbuilding School

Worldbuiding is the creative process of building imaginary worlds. It’s exceptionally fun whether you’re doing it as a hobby or for profit.

The WorldBuilding School is an online resource teaching authors, artists and game designers how to build their own imaginary worlds.

Are you a story writer, a games designer or interested in fantasy worlds? Then The Worldbuilding School is for you.

“Everyone dreams about where they would like to live, what they would like to do with their time, how things could be better than their current situation. Some dream of how the world could be better and what that would look like. Others dream of completely new ways of running society, alternative political systems, new economies.” – Keri Smith, The Imaginary World Of (your name here) pvii

In the above quote Keri Smith beautifully sums up why we build worlds. That we do this because we dream of a place that is our own, that we control. Some people call this “their space”, others might refer to it as “their universe” while here we call it “our world”.

Help for your world

At the Worldbuilding School you’ll find articles to help create your own world. The articles range from step-by-step tutorials to discussions and essays about worldbuilding.

Worldbuilding is a huge topic, so don’t worry if you get stuck, confused or infuriatingly frustrated at your world. We’ve all been there.

Here are a couple of guides to keep you moving:

7 Key Skills of Worldbuilding

The Worldbuilding Framework

The Author’s Guide To Drawing Maps

It all started in 2005

The idea for this website was birthed in me way back in 2005 when I began to develop my main story world.

I couldn’t find a central place for people like me who are interested in worldbuilding. Also, while there are a lot of great articles relating to the subject, few of these articles are written in an easy to digest way. This can be for a number of reasons.

  • Bad website design.
  • Written for print rather than web so it’s hard to read online.
  • Bad layout i.e. few headers, ugly typography, blocks and blocks of text with no white space.

So I launched my first ever blog on blogspot called “Original Worlds” and wrote a couple of articles on the subject. It wasn’t until 2009 that Original Worlds was rebooted as the Worldbuilding School using WordPress.

It is my aim, through The WorldBuilding School, to provide easy to digest worldbuilding tips, guides and tutorials.

Most importantly I hope you will stop for a while and help to build a fantastic community of WorldBuilders.

Thank you for visiting,

Nate Smith
Founder

Become a Patron!

Write for us

Do you love worldbuilding? Would you like to write for the Worldbuilding School?

Register your interest and I’ll send you more info about how to write for us.

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Do you need a world map for your novel or campaign?

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Popular Posts

The Author’s Guide to Drawing Maps

22 Great Map Resources and Tutorials

The Worldbuilding Framework

How to generate random rettain using Photoshop

Adding tectonic plates to your world map

Articles on Brandon Sanderson

Worldbuilder’s Article Hunt #2

Author's Guide to Drawing Maps

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About Nate Smith

Nate is the founder of the Worldbuilding School. It's his goal to make worldbuilding easier for the many people who build their own imaginary world - whether it's for fun or profit. As part of this goal he uses his skills in Cartography to draw maps. Read More…

Coming Soon!

This is where I hint at the projects, articles and reviews I’m working on:

  • New Resource Library – LIVE!
  • World Anvil Review
  • Dawn of Worlds Review – LIVE!
  • Triangle of Worldbuilding
  • Worldbuilding Monthly Newsletter

 

About

The WorldBuilding School is dedicated to helping authors, role players and games designers build their own imaginary world. Learn More.

Bring Your World To Life

Products

  • Write for us
  • Advertise with us
  • Affiliates
  • Worldbuilding Library
  • Vancano’s Map Generator
  • Author’s Guide to Drawing Maps

Resources

  • Worldbuilding tools
  • Worldbuilding guide
  • Worldbuilding resources
  • Worldbuilding Framework
  • 7 Key skills of a master worldbuilder
  • Fantasy map icons

Copyright © 2021 | Nate Smith | Privacy | Cookies | A Worldbuilding Colab project.

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