In this video, CGP Grey lays out four criteria which determines whether or not an animal can be domesticated:

• Feedable. You need a bunch of grass to feed one cow, but you’ll need a bunch of cows to feed one tiger. So you domesticate herbivores, not carnivores. (And the herbivore shouldn’t be a picky eater.)
• Friendly. Whether carnivore, herbivore, or omnivore, you need an animal that isn’t dangerous, panicky, or both.
• Fecund. You generally want animals that breed a lot, and you absolutely need animals who will breed in captivity. They also need to reproduce frequently enough that you can selectively breed them to effect over the course of a single human lifetime.
• Family Friendly. Animals that have a social hierarchy lend themselves to domestication because we can exploit those instincts in order to herd them and lead them.

You can cheat a little bit around the edges here and there, but you basically need all four of these things to be true in a single animal in order to make it a candidate for domestication, which is why — despite there being thousands and thousands of animal species on this planet — we’ve only domesticated about fifteen or so.

(We can also domesticate plants, but for the purposes of this essay I’m largely going to ignore that.)

When it comes to worldbuilding, however, something interesting happens in fantastical settings: Magic can bypass — often trivially bypass — these barriers to domestication.

For example, in the real world we could never domesticate bears: They’re feedable (in practice, up to 90% of a bear’s diet is actually planet matter). They’re fecund (having litters of two to six cubs every couple of years). They have a family hierarchy you could hypothetically take advantage of (positioning yourself as the Mama Bear).

But it’s just too easy for humans to become tasty bear snacks.

With magic, though, you could employ charm or even dominate effects to avoid becoming a bear snack while selectively breeding your captive bear population for tameness so that, eventually, you would no longer need to use the magical effects.

This is also a good time to briefly discuss the difference between taming an animal and domesticating it: An animal is tamed when it is behaviorally conditioned to safely cohabit and even work with humans. An animal is domesticated when a population becomes genetically modified to have a predisposition towards and advantage for humans.

So with some fantastical elements of magic, alchemy, or genetics, you can just bypass this entire discussion by waving your hand and saying something like, “I’ve magically altered the creatures so that they and their descendants are instantly predisposed to humans.” But, in my opinion, taking the longer path has a distinctly different feel to it — it feels more societal, rather than mad scientist. (Your mileage may vary.)

In any case, you can see how magic and megafauna can give food security that historically didn’t exist for our ancestors; mitigate the risks from otherwise dangerous animals; or, as with the bears, make them subservient in the absence of a natural hierarchy.

Magic could also speed up breeding cycles, but that’s not even necessary if your fantastical setting includes long-lived species. Elephants take too long between generations for a single individual to selectively breed them and reap the benefits? Not if the breeder is an elf.

EFFECTS ON THE CREATURE

At this point we’ve more or less given ourselves permission to take advantage of the entire animal kingdom, simply asking ourselves how a domesticated (and/or trained) version of that animal might prove useful:

• Mercenaries with war bear auxiliaries.
• River barges pulled by domesticated dolphins.
• Zebra mounts.

With a sufficiently decadent civilization, it doesn’t even have to be that useful, just aesthetically pleasing:

• Hummingbird messengers.
• Giraffes bearing noble palanquins.
• Songbirds providing orchestral performances.

As we’re considering these almost limitless possibilities, it might also be useful to keep in mind the effects that domestication can have on the animals themselves: We made pigs larger, engorged cow udders, and added almost ruinous amounts of fluff to our sheep. So you can always ask yourself, “What if this… but more?” (Or less, if that’s appropriate.) Not just zebra mounts, but zebra ponies and draft zebras, too.

It’s also notable that the mere act of domestication itself can apparently have an effect on a creature’s appearance. For example, in the mid-20^th century Soviet scientists began a multigenerational experiment (still ongoing) to domesticate wild foxes. They did this strictly by selecting the tamest foxes in each generation and breeding them.

Selecting for tameness alone, however, also resulted in the domesticated foxes gaining:

• curly fur
• multicolored coats
• floppy ears
• shortened, curly tails

So could we imagine domesticated bears with floppy ears and curly hair? Yes. Yes, we could. And absolutely should.

EFFECTS ON THE WORLD

When you introduce a fantastical domestication, deepen its connection to your setting and fully integrate it into the campaign world by coming up with at least three distinct impacts the domestication has. For example, domesticated chickens mean:

• Chicken coops exist where they’re raised.
• Eggs are served at breakfast.
• Criminals were punished by tarring and feathering them.

And that’s obviously barely even scratching the surface, but if domesticated chickens didn’t actually exist, it would give us a good start at reflecting their presence in the world (even in scenes where there are no chickens directly present).

So if we had merpeople domesticating sharks, we would want to similarly have:

• Necklaces made from shark teeth as a popular fashion item.
• A military academy where shark-riders train and bond with their mounts.
• Shark races with circuits running through underwater grottoes.

And so forth.

NON-HUMAN DOMESTICATION

On that note, let’s remember that we’ve defined a domesticated animal as one that has been genetically modified to have a predisposition towards and advantage for humans.

But in a fantasy world, humans aren’t the only species capable of domesticating animals.

Thus, for example, our merpeople domesticating sharks in ways that land-bound humans would never be motivated to do.

What would dwarves find uniquely useful? Perhaps a bioluminescent worm to serve as their light and tunnel companion?

What about a lich? What needs do the undead have that humans do not? Or vice versa?

And we’re not limited to humanoids, either. If dragons decide to start domesticating stuff, what does that look like?

And, in fact, are the sapient species just what you end up with when the gods domesticate for their needs?

“Okay, we need something that breeds like a plague and has a predilection for idolatry.”

How deep does this rabbit hole go? And if fast-breeding populations are what the gods need, how nervous should the human kingdoms be about the new lapin-folk migrating from the Great Plains? Have you noticed that Artemis isn’t answering as many prayers as she used to?

If you went back in time, there would be plenty of differences you’d expect to see, but there would also be a lot of differences that would take you by surprise. (As L.P. Hartley wrote, “The past is a foreign country.”) I suspect that for most, one of these would be the sheer number of people who were scarred.

Specifically, scarred by smallpox.

Smallpox was a truly terrible disease. Thirty percent of those who caught it would die. Those who survived would almost certainly be marked with distinctive, pock-marked scarring on their skin. Many would be blinded. (Before smallpox was eradicated, 90% of the blind had been blinded by smallpox.)

I have two points here.

First: Vaccinations are good.

Second: Our view of the past is lilied by the Romantic paintings and Hollywood glamour through which we typically view it.

Can we take advantage of this when we’re worldbuilding?

Of course we can!

To start, if your game is set in any kind of pre-modern era (whether in the real world or otherwise), you can just make a point of including smallpox scars in your descriptions of NPCs.

More than that, though, you can use the inspiration of smallpox scars to introduce completely fantastical elements into a setting. For example, we could run down the list of D&D diseases and simply brainstorm the distinctive scars they might leave in their wake:

• Cackle fever could leave some of its victims with rictused atrophying around the corners of their mouth, locking them into a permanent laugh.
• Some of the victims of demon fever could be left with pale, reddish-grey hair.
• Even those who recover from slimy doom might have damaged sebaceous glands, resulting in their sweat having a thick, gelatinous quality.

(Not every disease, of course, leaves permanent scarring. You don’t need to overdo it here. A little can go a long way while also being more effective than a cavalcade of disease-signs.)

But that’s not all!

Look around your setting and ask yourself what other fantastical elements could leave their mark (literally) on the characters?

This is exactly what Frank Herbert does in Dune, for example, by having large amounts of Spice stain the iris and sclera, resulting in the distinctive blue “eyes of Ibad.”

So we can similarly imagine:

• Survivors of a werewolf attack having claw-scars marked silver from the dust sprinkled in them to fight off lycanthropy.
• The drug spacers take to prevent bone loss having the side effect of causing their iris to lose color, resulting in spacers being referred to by the slang/slur “white eyes.”
• Those living in an antimagic field developing chalky, flaking skin.

What type of mana-scar does a magic missile leave? Is it the same or different than a prismatic spray?

What about a wound inflicted by an elemental?

Does repeatedly jumping through a stargate leave a mark?

Something else to consider is what non-human scarring looks like. For example, Amazon river dolphins are born gray-skinned, but often look pink because (a) their wounds heal pink and (b) they fight each other so much, their entire bodies are usually covered in scars.

• Does an elf sunburn the same way a human does? Or does their skin turn a metallic copper or silver instead?
• Can serpent people lose (and regrow?) their tails like geckos?
• Would a tabaxi exposed to the sulfurous atmosphere of Avernus see its fur change color?
• When a tiefling is injured, do their wounds heal with a slightly more demonic/devilish appearance?
• Does a magically healed wound heal perfectly? Or does it leave a distinctive mana-scar? (Could the appearance of this scar differ depending on what type of magic was used?)

Tangentially, flamingos are pink because carotenoids in the brine shrimp they eat turn their feathers pink. So you can also invoke the effects of strange or limited diets.

Scars are badass and every scar tells a story — either about the character with the scar, the world as a whole, or both.

We’ve previously discussed how religion in D&D has long defaulted to “modern Christianity, but with a pagan god slotted in for Jesus.” This is, of course, because the religious experience of most people playing the game and writing for the game is limited to Christianity (with a smattering of Greek or Norse mythology).

What may be slightly less obvious is that basically the same thing is true for D&D nation-states.

“Wait a minute,” you say. “D&D has queens and dukes and stuff! That’s not modern!”

Sure. But much like you’ve got cruciform churches filled with priests and bishops worshipping Zeus or Crom, so, too, are the kings and duchesses of D&D often just a patina of medievalism draped across a nation-state which is fundamentally structured according to a modern, post-Treaty of Westphalia understanding of what a nation looks like and how it operates.

Here are a few things you might recognize in “medieval” D&D kingdoms:

• standing armies being large and common;
• a “city watch” that looks just like a modern police force;
• “feudalism” in which literally everyone is a free citizen;
• neatly drawn borders that precisely account for every scrap of land.

Now, to be clear, you can look back at history and find a variety of antecedents for each of these things. And D&D, of course, is not literally medieval Europe (with plenty of reasons why it logically shouldn’t be). So there’s nothing inherently “wrong” with this synthesis that not-so-coincidentally looks just like the modern polities you’re familiar with, and you could justify it in any number of ways.

But what IS true is that this synthesis is incredibly limiting, particularly if you’re just subconsciously defaulting into it as a straitjacket because it’s the only way you know the world to work.

DRAW FROM HISTORY

Obviously the first thing you can do here is broaden your palette. You won’t be trapped in the structure of the modern nation-state if you learn about a lot of alternatives. Here’s a completely arbitrary list I’ve personally found useful:

• Roman Hegemony. Republic, Imperial, or Byzantine. Going with all three will also give you the benefit of seeing how structures of political power can shift over time.
• Renaissance Italy. In many ways, of course, this is just an extension of Roman government along a different branch. But looking in detail at the myriad ways in which the Italian city-states experimented with government form and function (including the Vatican) is a great way to really understand how mutable government can be, even within societies which are otherwise broadly similar (in terms of culture and technology).
• Feudal Japan. Also known as the shogunate. For me, personally, this was the historical deep-dive that taught me a lot about feudalism by looking at how a different-but-similar system worked. (But you need to find a source that won’t just draw direct, vapid parallels with European feudalism, which can be a common trap here.)
• Incan Empire. And, if you’re willing to dig a little deeper, the pre-Incan civilizations that initiated the use of khipu (knotted cords) for the recording of debts and transactions. Spanish colonizers crushed this civilization, but it’s a fascinating window into a very different way or organizing and thinking about society.
• Ancient Greece. Somewhat similar to Renaissance Italy, in that its city-states provide a bunch of directly juxtaposed examples. While you’re mucking about in this era, you might also want to take a peek at the Persian Empire as another alternative to the Roman-style of hegemony.

For this to be effective, though, you’ll need to really dig deep into the actual political structures of these societies. Probably deeper than many general histories will provide. (Although something like a Cambridge History will probably get the job done.) And there’s no clever shortcut here: You just have to do the research.

FANTASTICAL STATES

The other limitation here, of course, is that this historical sampling — whatever form it takes for you — will only be looking at governments and nations as they exist in the real world. There’s nothing wrong with copy-pasting from history, but it can certainly be a lot of fun to embrace the fantastical nature of a setting and invent societies that have never and perhaps could never exist in the real world.

Some questions to think about:

• What happens when your political leaders can live for centuries or even millennia?
• If the gods can literally speak to you (or even walk among you), what effect does that have on temporal political institutions?
• What does “monster power” look like? In other words, what effect does it have for a dragon or lich to rule a nation? Perhaps even more interesting would be to ask what it looks like for multiple dragons or liches to do so.
• How does the underground nature of a dwarven nation affect their understanding of political power?
• On a similar note, in the real world the territory of a nation has been assumed to be not only the surface of the land, but everything beneath it. How do the many layers of the Underdark affect the perception of the nation-state and the application of political power? What are the conflicts that result when there are different opinions about this?
• What affect do magic and/or fantastical technologies have on the organization and application of power in a nation-state? For example, could readily available teleportation lend itself to a proliferation of non-contiguous states?

And so forth. Once you really start digging in here, you can find all kinds of marvelous ideas that will makes your setting utterly unique and special.

THREE FORMS OF DOMINATION

When playing around with ideas like this, it can be useful to have some sort of theory or framework that can organize your thoughts and maybe give you some dials and levers you can experiment with. For this purpose, let me quote at length from David Graeber and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity:

Does that mean that property, like political power, ultimately derives (as Chairman Mao so delicately put it) “from the barrel of a gun” — or, at best, from the ability to command the loyalties of those trained to use them.

No. Or not exactly.

To illustrate why not, and continue our thought experiment, let’s take a different sort of property. Consider a diamond necklace. If Kim Kardashian walks down the street in Paris wearing a diamond necklace worth millions of dollars, she is not only showing off her wealth, she is also flaunting her power over violence, since everyone assumes she would not be able to do so without the existence (…) of an armed security detail.

But let us imagine, for a moment, what would happen if everyone on earth were suddenly to become physically invulnerable. (…) Could Kim Kardashian still maintain exclusive rights over her jewellery?

Well, perhaps not if she showed it off regularly, since someone would presumably snatch it; but she certainly could if she normally kept it hidden in a safe, the combination of which she alone knew and only revealed to trusted audiences at events which were not announced in advance. So there is a second way of ensuring that one has access to rights others do not have: the control of information. (…)

Let us take this experiment one step further and imagine everyone on earth drank another potion which rendered them all incapable of keeping a secret, but still unable to harm one another physically as well. Access to information, as well as force, has now been equalized. Can Kim still keep her diamonds? Possibly. But only if she manages to convince absolutely everyone that, being Kim Kardashian, she is such a unique and extraordinary human being that she actually deserves to have things no one else can.

We would like to suggest that these three principles — call them control of violence, control of information, and individual charisma – are also the three possible bases of social power. The threat of violence tends to be the most dependable, which is why it has become the basis for uniform systems of law everywhere; charisma tends to be the most ephemeral. Usually, all three coexist to some degree. Even in societies where interpersonal violence is rare, one may well find hierarchies based on knowledge. It doesn’t even particularly matter what the knowledge is about: maybe some sort of technical know-how (say, of smelting copper, or using herbal medicines); or maybe something we consider total mumbo jumbo (the names of the twenty-seven hells and thirty-nine heavens).

(…)

In terms of the specific theory we’ve been developing here (…) the three elementary forms of domination — control of violence, control of knowledge, and charismatic power — can each crystallize into its own institutional form (sovereignty, administration, and heroic politics). Almost all these “early states” could be more accurately described as “second-order” regimes of domination. First-order regimes like the Olmec, Chavin, or Natchez each developed only one part of the triad. But in the typically far more violent arrangements of second-order regimes, two of the three principles of domination were brought together in some spectacular, unprecedented way. Which two it was seems to have varied from case to case. Egypt’s early rulers combined sovereignty and administration; Mesopotamian kings mixed administration and heroic politics; Classic Maya ajaws fused heroic politics with sovereignty.

We should emphasize that it’s not as if any of these principles, in their elementary forms, were entirely absent in any one case: in fact, what seems to have happened is that two of them crystallized into institutional forms — fusing in such a way as to reinforce one another as the basis of government — while the third form of domination was largely pushed out of the realm of human affairs altogether and displaced on to the non-human cosmos (as with divine sovereignty in Early Dynastic Mesopotamia, or the cosmic bureaucracy of the Classic Maya).

And, in case it’s not clear, the thesis here is that the modern nation-state generally finds a way to institutionalize all three forms of domination.

(I do recommend grabbing a copy of The Dawn of Everything and reading the whole thing. It’s an excellent book.)

What’s particularly useful here are the three pillars:

• Violence / Sovereignty
• Information / Administration
• Charisma / Heroic Politics

To create a new nation, all you need to do is broadly explain how it asserts control over one or more of these pillars. With the broad outline established, you can then drill down into the details at your leisure. This makes it very easy to craft bespoke societies. Fantastical societies, of course, simply flow from the expedient of making one or more institution based on the magical elements of your world:

• The vampire princess who monopolizes violence through her slavish spawn. (What are the formal ranks of the spawn and how are they determined?)
• The magocracy whose bureaucracy is built around the nine arcane colleges. (Over which spheres of temporal life do each college wield control?)
• The wyrmling warlords who feud and compete for the loyalty of dragonborn clans. (By what feats is the greatness of the wyrmlings judged?)

The possibilities, of course, are limitless, and even moreso as you begin combining pillars in different combinations.

The really great thing? You can use these three pillars as a cheat code for creating novel societies even if you’re only passingly familiar with historical nation-states. All that research we talked about? It will still be invaluable if you do it. (Knowing more stuff never hurt anyone when they set out to create new stuff.) But the three pillars of domination are a functional shortcut for worldbuilding.

One final thing to note is that describing a first-order society is not to say that the other elements are completely absent from society: Charismatic military leaders are likely common in a sovereign state of military clans. Heroic wyrm-kings will have scribes. What we’re looking at, however, is when those forms of power become institutions.

A BRIEF DIGRESSION ON HEROIC POLITICS

Of the three pillars of domination, the first-order societies which seems to be most alien to modern Westerners (i.e., almost everyone reading this), is heroic politics. So let’s take a moment to clarify what those look like.

Useful touchstones here might be Beowulf and the Iliad. These are “primitive” societies which crystallize around charismatic leaders who prove their “worth” through deeds – venturing forth on profitable raids, hunting mighty beasts, boasting and drinking, engaging in formal duels, competing in games, offering sacrifices, etc. (This sort of thing seems particularly relevant to pulp adventure games like D&D, where this is just the sort of thing PCs are frequently doing.)

The “selection process” by which these leaders are chosen can range from the informal (e.g., Robin Hood drawing merry men into Sherwood) to the extremely formal (e.g., democratic elections carried out in accordance with a formal constitution). Similarly, the traits which are seen as “desirable” will vary by society and circumstance.

THE INTERACTION OF SOCIETIES

Your world will likely see a mixture of first-, second-, and third-order societies. For example, there might be a hub of well-established civilization filled with third-order societies (institutionalizing violence, administration, and charisma), but as you journey out into the frontiers you’re likely to see less formal first- and second-order societies.

Historically speaking, you may also see a third order society (e.g., the Roman Empire) collapse or contract, leaving first- and second-order societies in its wake (e.g., King Arthur emerging through heroic politics as Roman sovereignty in the British Isles breaks down).

These first- and second-order societies may be referred to as “barbarians” by the writers of “civilization,” but they’re probably doing the same thing to other third-order societies, too. Your tribe is always doing things in the best way possible; the other person’s is a bunch of superstitious, unenlightened bumpkins. (The reality, of course, is more complicated than that.

In fact, “incomplete” first- or second-order societies are often balanced by another society in the region based on another of the three pillars. To quote, again, from Dawn of Everything:

Throughout much of history, grain states [second-order sovereign administration states] and barbarians [clan-kings; i.e. first-order heroic politics] remained “dark twins,” locked together in an unresolvable tension, since neither could break out of their ecological niches. When the states had the upper hand, slaves and mercenaries flowed in one direction; when the barbarians were dominant, tribute flowed to appease the most dangerous warlord; or, alternatively, some overlord would manage to organize an effective coalition, sweep in on the cities and either lay waste to them, or more typically, attempt to rule them and inevitably find himself and his retinue absorbed as a new governing class. As the Mongolian adage went, “One can conquer on horseback; to rule one must dismount.”

Often these choices of society are deliberate — simultaneously an embrace of your own way of life and a rejection of the other way of life. (“Lowlanders are all soft! When the shadows return, they will be plucked just like the ripe fruit of their orchards!”)

In addition to regional proximity, these societal forms can also oscillate through time. For example, when sovereignty would break down in Ancient Egypt, the political organization would swing towards the heroic politics of local warlords who would continue overseeing the complex administration of society.

These kind of frontier societies and/or periods of societal breakdown are, of course, the perfect environment for the points-of-light/pulp adventure of a typical D&D campaign.

Want to create an entire world?

Sounds intimidating, doesn’t it? Particularly if you look at published campaign settings: Hundreds, often thousands, of pages dedicated to describing a fictional reality. Your first session is on Saturday! You don’t have time for all that!

Of course, you don’t need to do all of that to start gaming in your own setting. A detailed breakdown of the dialects spoken on the Triskan sub-continent might be really fun to explore, but are probably not strictly necessary for a new campaign taking place in the Sasharran archipelago.

But what’s the minimum amount of stuff you’ll need before the game begins?

In my experience, three to six pages.

Let’s break down what those look like.

THE MINIMAL PREP PACKET

Start with 1-2 pages of broad detail about the world. The goal of this high-level summary is to provide context for whatever local scene your campaign will end up starting in. The exact nature of what this overview looks like will vary based on the setting, your preferences, and probably the campaign you’re planning.

For my first D&D 3^rd Edition campaign, for example, I wrote one page summarizing the five major empires of the Western Lands (one paragraph per empire). Then I wrote a one page timeline of the setting’s history.

For an urban fantasy campaign, on the other hand, you might do one page on the true nature of magic and another page on the major fey factions.

Whatever this content ends up needing to be for your campaign, though, keep it to no more than two pages.

Tip: Make sure to include a calendar, if the setting needs that sort of thing. You’ll want to be able to talk about the passage of time in concrete ways.

Next, what do the players need for character creation? In D&D, for example, this includes the gods (because clerics need to pick their deity) and languages (because everyone needs to pick those). So do another 1-2 pages on that.

Finally, we’re going to aggressively zoom in and focus on the local setting. Obviously, you’ll need to start by deciding where the first adventure of the campaign is going to be set.

• A major fantasy metropolis?
• A village on the edge of civilization?
• A lunar space station?
• A lich-infested Rome?

Exactly what you’ll be prepping here will depend on the exact nature of the setting, but once again your goal is 1-2 pages of broad context that will give you a foundation for developing and improvising as needed.

Some things that are often relevant:

• Enough detail to describe local navigation. For a city, this might be a breakdown of neighborhoods. For a village, it might be the local roads (where do they go?) and terrain features (the Old Forest, the Trollfens, etc.).
• Who is politically in charge? Whether that’s a local authority (e.g., the mayor) or a distant one (e.g., Tsarist border patrols periodically pass through the region).
• What are the local factions? These might be businesses, criminal organizations, social organizations, ethnic groups, civic institutions, etc.

Your goal here is not to be comprehensively encyclopedic. It’s okay to say “there’s a city council,” for example, without specifying every individual councilor. Or to name one or two councilors while leaving the rest as a tabula rasa for later development.

Check to make sure that you’ve provided common resources that the PCs will go looking for. In D&D, for example, that would typically include:

• The local store(s) where they’ll be able to buy supplies;
• An inn or other place for them to stay; and
• A tavern, as a default social destination and/or rumor distribution center. (PCs just love going to taverns.)

A quick way to make your setting feel unique is to look at the essential functions being provided here and, instead of using the generic solution (general store, inn, tavern), coming up with creative and unusual solutions. For example:

• There is a strange, steampunk machine in the middle of the village. Insert gems or precious metals and it will deliver, within 2d12 hours, the items you request.
• The village doesn’t have an inn, but the PCs can find beds in the abandoned — and very, very haunted — military barracks on Blood Hill.
• The locals socialize in a dreamhouse or nobhill, gathering at night in their dreams while they sleep.

With these three parts in place, you’ll have your 3-6 pages of prep. From this point forward, the setting will continue to expand as:

• The players create characters and you/they need to start answering specific questions about where they’re from, etc.
• When you create your first adventure.
• When you create your second adventure.

And so on.

MAPS

While working on this initial material, you may find it useful to do some maps. To keep things brief, I have a couple of tips for this.

First, if you can get away with NOT doing a map, skip doing the map for now.

Second, if you’re doing a map, keep it sketchy and try to keep it at roughly the same level of detail as your minimal prep packet.

For example, when I did the first map for my Western Lands campaign I sketched a coastline, a couple mountain ranges, and the borders of the Five Empires. I eventually added regional maps with more detail, but I was still using that original map with very few additions more than ten years later.

You need less than you think.

THE PLAYER PACKET

The other thing to note is that the 3-6 pages you’ve written up can almost certainly, with perhaps just a teensy bit of editing, double as the players’ briefing pack for the setting.

Not only does it cover everything they need to know, it’s conveniently almost the exact length (5 pages) that I generally find to be the maximum amount of extracurricular reading I can rightfully hope that players might be willing to do before our first session. (Or, failing that, it’s short enough for them to parse at the table.)

THE FIRST ADVENTURE

An important thing to understand is that none of the material I’ve talked about here is part of your first adventure. What you need for that first scenario is separate from this foundational setting material.

If you’re a first time GM trying to figure out what your scenario should be, you might want to check out:

• Prep Tips for the Beginning DM
• Prep Tips for the Beginning GM: Cyberpunk
• How to Prep a Module

There are a wide variety of scenarios you might choose to launch the campaign with. Regardless of what type of scenario it is, though, it’s virtually certain that it will add more detail to your setting. For example, if it’s a murder investigation involving the Hephaestus Corporation… well, you’ll be adding a lot more detail about Hephaestus to your faction notes.

This is good! As I mentioned above, your homebrew setting will naturally expand through the scenarios you run in it. This is, in fact, the most efficient and arguably the best way to build a setting.

Of course, the amount of setting material you’ll need to prep for this initial scenario (and later scenarios) can vary quite a bit. For example, if you’re setting up a hexcrawl for an open table campaign, then you’ll prepping A LOT more setting material before the first session. If it’s a simple 5-room dungeon, then you might be adding very little.

Either way, you’ll have taken your first steps into a brand new world.

Your world.

Today we can watch tournaments staged by skilled stuntmen, but the heart of the sport is missing, the intense competition for personal glory: They can never recapture the real enthusiasm of the medieval original, the excitement of spectacle in a world where colour and pageantry were a rarity, the genuine danger of the fighting. The joust and its ideals belong to the glories of the past, to the pages of medieval manuscripts, and above all to the imagination, which alone can recreate these extraordinary festivals.

– Richard Barber, Tournaments

To understand the tournament, you must first understand the medieval world which gave it birth: It was a place of brown, gray, and limited colors. It was a life of eternal toil and struggle. Music beyond folk performance was a rare and precious entertainment. Rich colors and large musical performances were luxuries enjoyed by the elite few.

So it is of little surprise that tournaments – and the festivals which accompanied them – were the most popular of affairs: Events which were anticipated by every level of society, and which drew their audiences from miles away. In contrast to the reality around them, tournaments presented a self-contained world of excitement: A dangerous and skillful sport. Bright colors. Pomp and pageantry.

But tournaments were more than mere crowd-pleasers: They were central events in the lives of the aristocracy. The ideals of the tournament were the ideals of chivalry, and the skills of the tournament were the same skills demanded of the knighthood which stood at the center of the feudal order. Tournaments were political and social events of great importance – and, at times, their stakes were literally matters of life and death.

Considering that tournaments now stand in the public consciousness as one of the most vivid images of medieval life – immortalized in tales from King Arthur to Ivanhoe to A Knight’s Tale – it should come as no surprise that they can play a role in your D&D campaigns. As backdrops for adventure – or as an adventure in themselves – you can bring all the excitement of the tournament to your gaming table.

HISTORY OF THE TOURNAMENT

A number semi-legendary accounts exist of the first tournament: Some say that it was held in the fabled Coliseum before the Emperors of Rome. German chroniclers claimed that it was Henry the Fowler, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 918 to 936 AD, who was the first sponsor of the tournament. Still another tale leads us to King Arthur’s court. Perhaps the most believable account ascribes the first tournament to Geoffroi de Purelli (who did, in fact, author the earliest surviving set of tournament guidelines).

Most of these accounts are the result of medieval scholars attempting to fill in a history they did not know. The truth, however, is that pointing to the “first tournament” probably has more to do with drawing a line than finding an innovator.

In short, the tournament evolved out of a variety of primitive arms-training exercises and exhibitions. Perhaps the most important line that can be drawn between the older forms and what would later become known as a tournament was the development of the couched lance as a weapon of war: Mounted knights charging down upon their foes with this braced weapon could wreak havoc previously unimaginable to the medieval mind… but only if they could execute and recover from charges as a coordinated group. As a result, the couched lance led to the rise of new mounted formation tactics. These tactics, in turn, led to the need for group training. Group training led to group practices. And these practices would eventually become the tournament as we recognize it today.

The oldest occurrence of the word “tournament”, however, was not applied to the formal affair of jousting we associate with the term today. Instead, it was applied to the melee: A rough and tumble affair, scarcely removed from actual combat except that its goal was to capture instead of kill. (Captured prisoners would typically be subject to ransom, just as they would be during times of war.) Later, “safe areas” would be introduced as a place for recuperation and socialization during the competition.

In this form, as scarcely more than unregulated brawls, the tournament was often banned by church and king alike – in no small part due to the tendency for any tournament to result in injury and death. Despite these perpetual secular and religious bans, the tournaments continued to be extremely popular, and knights would often travel to other kingdoms in order to escape the bans and compete.

This explosive popularity can be explained, in part, by the symbiotic relationship which arose between the tournaments and the emerging genre of courtly romance fiction. Courtly romance fiction idealized the chivalric virtues, particularly as they were demonstrated at tournaments. As the romances met with success, the popularity of the tournaments grew. And the popularity of the tournaments, in turn, caused the popularity of the romances to grow.

The romances also resulted in the first “superstars” of the tournament world. Tourneyers such as William Marshal (a knight of low birth whose prowess at tournament led him to become Henry III’s Protector of England) were made famous by the tales of their deeds in tournament. At the same time, tourneys became a means by which an unlanded knight could gain wealth without the stigma of trade.

This combination of wealth and prestige soon led to tournaments being given their first degree of respectability: In 1194, England’s Richard I issued a decree which specified five authorized tournament sites in England. The decree also required knights to seek charters in order to start an compete in a tourney. In short, the decree (a) formalized tournaments, (b) imposed a set of reasonable regulations on procedures, and (c) earned the king a new source of income on the fees charged for the charters.

Although not imitated in form (which, coincidentally, meant that England’s tourneys assumed an independent existence from those on the continent at the same time that England’s kings were earning a special renown for their willingness to compete in tourney), the substance of the decree was quickly adopted elsewhere: The continent soon gained a similar measure of respectability and control as a result of the example set by England, and the expectations of the growing romantic and chivalric traditions.

This respectability and regulation, in turn, led to an abandonment of the bans which had dogged the tournament’s history to this point: Most kings had already embraced the sport, while the Church (somewhat pacified by the reduction in fatalities and maimings) knew better than to fight its popularity. By the end of the 13^th century, the tournament was a fully integrated part of European life – and its practitioners were not only famous, but powerful. Indeed, when Richard I’s heir – King John – died, he left a minor as king… and William Marshal as regent.

Over the next three centuries, the tournament enjoyed the height of its popularity and success. Its popularity drew larger and larger crowds, and what had once been an informal brawl grew into a formalized and regulated sport – the pastime of nobles and the entertainment of the masses.

Eventually, however, its own success signaled the tournament’s demise. The need to entertain spectators led to greater and greater attendant pageantry, elaborate settings, and heavily developed themes. In time, the tournament was reduced to little more than a staged event or equestrian ballet.

Already in decline, the tournament was finally finished off as the changing nature of warfare rendered it completely obsolete.

HOLDING A TOURNAMENT

Historically, tournaments were held either by nobles or (more rarely) by the governments of the free cities. This was a matter of simple practicality: These were the only people who could afford the great costs associated with the staging of a tournament. In a fantasy setting, of course, these limitations do not apply: Imagine the tournament which could be staged by a dragon with his horde. Or a celestial might sponsor a competition to find a true hero. A band of famous adventurers might establish a tournament to mark their retirement, funded by years of treasure hunting.

Tournaments were usually held during the afternoon, with the morning spent on ceremony on preparation. Exceptions, of course, were known: Nocturnal jousts, example, were magical affairs of torchlight and shadow. And most tournaments ran more than one day.

The size of a tournament could vary greatly, and the largest were surprisingly massive affairs. When the Black Prince celebrated the birth of his eldest child, for example, the record shows that 154 lords, 706 knights, and more than 18,000 horses participated in the accompanying tournament.

The arrangements for some of the larger tournaments could be a matter of years: Invitations were, literally, sent across the continent. Lists needed to be constructed. Proclamations containing the tournament’s rules needed to be issued and posted. Travel arrangements and lodgings needed to be arranged.

As Celebration: In many ways, a tournament was nothing more than a very large party. And, like a party, it was used as a means of celebration. Tournaments were frequently held to celebrate births, betrothals, marriages, funerals, birthdays, coronations, holidays, victories in war, executions, knightings, and any other occasion meriting note. Tournaments were also frequently held as a way of welcoming important guests. In particular, royal entries (when a king entered a town in his domain) were frequently marked with a tournament. In some cases, the tournament became a celebration of itself. For example, a tounament was often held in honor of the “first joust” of a nobleman’s son.

As Challenge: Tournaments, both formal and informal, naturally lent themselves as a means of challenge. Often these challenges were friendly affairs (although played up with mock drama), simply providing an excuse for the tournament to take place in the first place. In other cases, however, a challenge could be of deadly import. Tournaments were used to judge feuds. “Jousts of War”, using unbated weapons, were sometimes held between hostile countries. Indeed, even during certain sieges, the historical record shows that knights would ride out of the besieged castle, engage in jousts with the attacking forces, and then be allowed to return to the castle.

As Sport: Whether as general competition or martial practice, the tournament was – above all – a form of sport: With spectators, scoring, and prizes. Tournaments associated with festivals were almost always of this type.

Whatever the primary reason for holding a tournament may have been, there were also ancillary benefits to be gained: Nobles who sponsored tournaments gained favor with the crowd, and cities reaped the profits which those crowds brought in attendant trade.

TOURNAMENT EVENTS

Today the terms “tournament” and “joust” are used almost interchangeably, but the reality is that a tournament was actually made up of a wide variety of martial events. In fact, as noted above, the earliest tournaments were held before the sport of jousting was invented.

Melee: The melee was a mass combat. Knights either fought individually or were grouped into two or more teams, depending on the form of the tournament. (Whether or not forming alliances as part of an individual melee was acceptable also depended on the tournament’s form.) In some cases, knights fought with partners. The goal of the melee was to capture other knights, who would be ransomed.

In its earliest form, the melee was essentially a war game. It was fought with a variety of weapons, over a field that could extend for several miles. The boundaries of the field were seldom marked, instead being defined vaguely, usually by a reference to two or more towns – for example, “the tourney to be held between the towns of Teugan and Seinoe”. The only formal limits were the fenced-in areas which served as refuges in which knights could rest or rearm in safety.

In time, the damage and injury wrought by these early melees (crops trampled, roads torn up, knights accidentally killed, etc.), combined with the growing desire to have the proceedings more easily observed by a gathered crowd of spectators, began to curtail the expanse of the event: The field became of a more limited size, whose boundaries were usually marked clearly be a fence. This, in turn, led to a reduction in the number of participating knights, and this usually led to a further refinement in which only a single type of weapon would be used.

In later years, as the size of the field and the number of participants continued to shrink, the melee would evolve into individual competitions such as the duel and jousting.

Jousting: Jousting is the classical tournament event, and eventually became the centerpiece (and sole event) of most tournaments. In its most basic and earliest form, the joust simply involved two mounted knights with couched lances: The knights would charge towards each other in an attempt to knock their opponent off their horse. Each charge was known as a “pass”.

In this early form of the joust, the goal remained the capture of the opposing knight: A dismounted knight would typically draw his sword, and would seek to similarly dismount his opponent. The competition did not end until one of the knights had either yielded or been rendered unconscious.

Over time, refinements were added: The idea of capturing an opponent was quickly abandoned, and the goal became the dismounting itself. Typically a set number of passes would be run, and points scored for various accomplishments (see sidebar, below). This allowed the introduction of the tilt – a wooden bar which ran the length of the field and provided a guide for more successful passes. Eventually counter-barriers were added to either side of the tilt, which helped to prevent horses from veering away from the tilt.

Archery: Archery competitions were typically run by elimination. In the early rounds, the competitors would fire from a set distance, and the least accurate archers would be eliminated from the next round. In the later rounds, as the field narrowed, the distance would be increased. Typically, when the field had been reduced to two or three archers, the competition essentially became a duel, with the distances from the target slowly increasing, and the archers forced to match the accuracy of the other or face elimination.

Duel: Unlike the fencing duels into which it would evolve, tournament dueling was conducted in full armor with combat weaponry (although the swords were sometimes wooden). In some cases the goal was literal subdual – with one knight battering the other to unconsciousness or to yield. More typically, however, the duel was fought to a certain number of “hits”.

Endurance Test: A variety of endurance tests (swimming, climbing, running, etc.) were also common at tournaments before the joust became preeminent. These tests were always run as individual events.

Ponte: In the event of ponte the participants were armed with club and shield, and formed into companies. This was a city-based sport, not a knightly one, and the companies were frequently based on the various districts of the city holding the event. A general combat would then be held, with various means of elimination for the participants. Eventually, two additional forms also evolved: In the mazzascudo the club and shield evolved into a single kite-shaped, pointed shield (also known as a mazzascudo) which was used to both thrust and parry. The battaglia de’sassi added the lanciatori, who threw stones.