worldbuilding in the process

The new magic stops working after three days and every spell uses proprietary runes.

The new magic stops working after three days and every spell uses proprietary runes.

And you know, I thought it was a fair question, so I said that if you eat enough troll meat, you start getting troll-y. And then I went further and just treated it like troll flesh is a general contaminant - if you eat enough troll, you'll turn into a troll, but if you bury enough dead troll flesh in a forest, the trees will start growing in strange ways, and will scream and heal and bleed when you hit them with axes.

I liked this idea. So as we played further, I just played around with the idea of Troll Origins, and I came up with something sort of like the Odyssey, but instead stealing Helios's cattle, it was Hathor's, and the horrible, awful, unending immortality was her curse of the army that pillaged her lands. A god of healing does not condemn you to die, she condemns you to live.

And then I got this fun idea for maybe the king that led the army is still kind of alive in the troll taint. Like a sort of literal fisher king. The kingdom is sick because he is, literally, the kingdom. The trees that bleed, bleed his blood and their screams are his screams. He is both the faintly green bear running down the mountain and the faintly green deer and there is no way past this without suffering. He is the entire ecosystem, and he eats nothing but himself and he dreams nothing but death and yet still, on and on and on and on, he lives.

Anyway they're traveling next session so I'm throwing this shit at them. I already have some gross ideas for like. Describing everything like it's a body (flowers red as blood, white as bone, pink as meat, grass fine as hair) then finally throwing horrible living things at them. Trees that grow eyeballs that turn and stare at them, or flowers with teeth instead of petals and trolls that speak in long dead tongues about how they wish they'd never tried to rob a god.

(a worldbuilding roast. with love.)

So. You’re building a fantasy world, and you’ve just invented: → Three types of ceremonial jewelry → A spice that tastes like cinnamon if it were bitter and cursed → A holiday where everyone wears gold and screams at dawn

Cute. But that’s not culture. That’s aesthetics.

And if your worldbuilding is all outfits, dances, and spice blends with vaguely mystical names, your story’s probably going to feel like a cosplay convention held inside a Pinterest board.

Here’s how to fix that—aka: how to build a real, functioning culture that shapes your story, not just its vibes.

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🔗 Culture Is Built on Power, Not Just Style

Ask yourself: → Who’s in charge, and why? → Who has land? Who doesn’t? → What’s considered taboo, sacred, or punishable by death?

Culture is shaped by who gets to make the rules and who gets crushed by them. That’s where things like religion, family structure, class divisions, gender roles, and social expectations actually come from.

Start there. Not at the embroidery.

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2.🪓 Culture Comes From Conflict

Did this society evolve peacefully? Was it colonized? Did it colonize? Was it rebuilt after a war? Is it still in one?

→ What was destroyed and mythologized? → What do the survivors still whisper about? → What do children get taught in school that’s… suspiciously sanitized?

No culture is neutral. Every tradition has a history, and that history should taste like blood, loss, or propaganda.

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3.🧠 Belief Systems > Customs Lists

Sure, rituals and holidays are cool. But what do people believe about: → Death? → Love? → Time? → The natural world? → Justice?

Example: A society that believes time is cyclical vs. one that sees time as linear will approach everything—from prison sentences to grief—completely differently.

You don’t need to invent 80 gods. You need to know what those gods mean to the people who pray to them.

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4.🫀 Culture Controls Behavior (Quietly)

Culture shows up in: → What people apologize for → What insults cut deepest → What people are embarrassed about → What’s praised publicly vs. what’s hidden privately

For instance: → A culture obsessed with stoicism won’t say “I love you.” They’ll say “Have you eaten?” → A culture built on legacy might prioritize ancestor veneration, archival writing, name inheritance.

This stuff? Way more immersive than giving everyone matching earrings.

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5. 🏠 Culture = Daily Life, Not Just Festivals

Sure, your MC might attend a funeral where people paint their faces blue. But what about: → Breakfast routines? → How people greet each other on the street? → Who cooks, and who eats first? → What’s considered “clean” or “proper”? → How is parenting handled? Divorce?

Culture is what happens between plot points. It should shape your character’s assumptions, language, fears, and habits—whether or not a festival is going on.

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6. 💬 Let Your Characters Disagree With Their Own Culture

A culture isn’t a monolith.

Even in deeply traditional societies, people: → Rebel → Question → Break rules → Misinterpret laws → Mock sacred things → Act hypocritically → Weaponize or resist what’s expected

Let your characters wrestle with the culture around them. That’s where realism (and tension) lives.

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7.🧼 Beware the “Pretty = Good” Trap

Worldbuilding gets boring fast when: → The protagonist’s homeland is beautiful and pure → The enemy’s culture is dark and “barbaric” → Every detail just reinforces who the reader should like

You can—and should—challenge the aesthetic hierarchy. → Let ugly things be beloved. → Let beautiful things be corrupt. → Let your MC romanticize their culture and then get disillusioned by it later.

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📍 TL;DR (but like, spicy): → Culture is not food and jewelry. → Culture is power, fear, memory, contradiction. → Stop inventing spices until you know who starved last winter. → Let your world feel lived in, not curated.

The best cultural worldbuilding doesn’t look like a list. It feels like a system. A pressure. A presence your characters can’t escape—even if they try.

Now go. Build something real. (You can add spices later.)

—rin t. // writing advice for worldbuilders with rage and range // thewriteadviceforwriters

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🕯️ download the pack & write something cursed:

What DO they eat? I don't mean the spice, though that's interesting for trade relations. I mean are they agricultural? Pastoralist? Forest gardening? Fishing? A magic-based system of sustenance that never existed IRL? What's the climate like? How long do they need to store food to make it through the year? How much latitude do they have before famine? What are the horizontal and vertical lines of association people form as a safety network for a bad year?

What's the weather like? What's the landscape like? Where, in what shape, and out of what do they build houses? Are there earthquakes, tornados, floods that they need to make their houses resistant to?

What's the wildlife like? What do they hunt and eat, what hunts and eats them, what do they consider sacred, what did they domesticate? What do they feed to the domesticated ones and how does this align with their own sustenance? Who can afford to keep, or not keep, animals? What do they have a symbiotic relationship with? What animals are pests and what animals hunt them? (Note: this includes bugs and birds)

How easy is it to find metal? Which metal? How easy is it to find stone? Clay? Wood? Other fuel? Sand? What's the most abundant/easy to grow resource to make fabric out of? What unique/rare resources do they have for trade? How easily defensible is the territory?

What food is considered low class "last resort before famine"? How does the wealthy/ruling class distinguish itself? What technology do they have? (Note: magic that actually works is technology) What's the demographic dynamic (dying out, boom-bust cycle, growing, stable)? How many children do they have and how many of them die? What trade/diplomatic links do they have? How much of the land is inhabited and by what principle? (Ie just the coast, fertile valleys with mountains in between, desert oases, along rivers, etc)

How widespread is literacy? How expensive are books? What do they use for non-book casual writing and how expensive is that? Do they have public education and for whom? How urbanized are they? How much do they use currency vs barter vs guy economy? ("I know a guy")

There's so, so much that forms a culture out of where they live and what they eat. You won't invent a truly interesting and deep culture without starting with how it grows out of the land it lives on. Aesthetics you can slap on top however you want, invent or steal, as long as they go on top of a solid foundation.

And that is where you can REALLY mess with worldbuilding. What about a subterranean culture that hides from deadly conditions on the surface? What about a seafaring culture that forms floating islands out of connected ships? What about a tree-dwelling culture that uses magic to ensure they have everything they need? What about a culture that actually legitimately needs blood sacrifice to appease deific neighbours? Building houses out of seaweed, wood, stone, clay, bones? Dragon riders, dragon tamers, dragon allies?

Most of what's in the OP is determined by / arises from the material conditions I've listed here. Oh, it's not RIGIDLY determined, there's still plenty of degrees of freedom, but lots of options get cut off as nonsensical. It's EASIER to build a society that hangs together if you start with what they eat. It doesn't matter what you call their staple grain, it matters where and how they grow it. The personality and relationships of their gods literally DESCRIBE their climate. Most religious/sacred customs are a form of passing on agricultural/hygienic/ecological/historical knowledge. Most aesthetics are based on what local materials are available+cheap to make pretty with.

Author note: The purpose of these homebrew mechanics was initially to make combat more dynamic, engaging and easier to track on DM’s part by removing the AC, modifiers and need to keep note of NPCs’ stats. It has become part of the original Crystalnest system, but still can be used as an alternative combat system for dnd-like ttrpg.

Combat initiative

Note: You can use your preferred home rules for setting up the initiative and freely skip this part.

At the start of the encounter determine which side has an advantage.

If neither side is taken by surprise, each side rolls d20 and the side with higher total sum starts the combat.

Players decide their action for the round and proceed in the following order:

Movement only (“Sprint” movement action) 

Ranged attacks (bows/crossbows/projectile weapons/thrown improvised weapons [Note: Don’t toss the dwarf])

Melee attacks (brawl/melee weapon/improvised melee weapon [Note: This system does not separate weapons to “common/military” but instead by a categories such “daggers/swords/axes/ etc”])

Magic users

Note: The order between players can change in the next round.

Actions during the round

Each character during the round has the following actions (unless the status states otherwise ie. character being prone, unconscious etc)

Movement (1 per round)

Character can move to a distance equal their speed in squares/hexes (further as “movement ponts’’) [Note: after finishing movement all unspent “movement points” will expire until the next round]

“Sprint” action: 

Gain 3 “movement points”

Gain 1 opportunity on a dodge roll when being attacked during this round (roll 2 “dodge dice” and pick the better result)

Lose 1 active action (further as “action point”) for this round

“Hold position” action: 

trade the full amount of the “movement points” to gain 1 extra “action point” for themself or one or the allies in this round

Active action (get 1 “action point” on beginning of each round):

Interact with objects, change weapon, prepare a reaction etc spending 1 “action point”

Attack

A roll of an “attack dice” against the target's d20 roll, the target must be in distance for the weapon. 

Author note: the weapon damage is “1 hit” or equal to “attack dice”, depending on whether you use tally marks or hitpoints for your NPCs during combat.

Example: Rog the Paladin attacks kobold with an axe. Rog’s player roll d20=14, game master rolls d20=11, Rog hits the kobold for 14 damage.

A Natural 20 (20 on d20 roll) is a critical role and doubles the damage.

Character is “engaged” if an enemy is next tile to them and neither of them are hidden by any means

Attack dice:

Weapon w/out proficiency, improvised weapon  - 1d12 (no special features)

Brawl - 1d12

“Engaged” characters cannot use ranged attacks and must either move or change weaponSpellcasting

Author note: This part is under construction at this stage, please, use your preferable magic system, with target’s AC substituted for a d20 roll for targeted damage spells.

When being attacked

When PC is being attacked they can either Dodge, Block or just take the damage.

Taking damage

When failed to deflect the attack the Player roll d100, and if the number below or equal their armour Protection score they receive half the damage.

Dodging

A roll of a “dodge dice” against the attacker's d20 roll, the “dodge dice” is determined by the armour

A successful Dodge allows to move to any unoccupied adjusted square

A fail will result in taking damage

Blocking

A roll of a “block dice” against the attacker's d20 roll, the “block dice” is determined by the shield type

A successful Block allows to push the attacker (if close) to any unoccupied adjusted square

A Block roll equal to the Attack roll in melee combat allows for Parry:

Roll for Attack, any hit counts as Natural 20

A fail to Block will result in taking damage

💎 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗺! Marksman’s Cloak
Wondrous item, rare (requires attunement by a ranger) ___

While wearing this cloak, you can concentrate on a second ranger spell you cast while also concentrating on “hunter’s mark”. If you are forced to make a Constitution saving throw to maintain your concentration, you make only one save for both spells: if you fail the save, your concentration ends on both spells. If you’re only concentrating on “hunter’s mark”, your concentration on it can’t be broken as a result of taking damage. ___

You fix the Hunter’s Mark issue of the 5.5 Ranger by letting all Rangers concentrate on another spell at the same time. (Or just remove concentration from Hunter’s Mark and get done with it.) Not by giving a nice cloak to one of them.

You fix the “I can’t damage anything in the undead-infested dungeon!” problem of the 3.5 Rogue by letting all Rogues sneak attack undead. Not by giving a Truedeath Crystal to one of them.

There’s this weird trend in 5e (and 5.5) homebrewing spaces, where additional items, feats and subclasses are cool, and we can never have enough of them, but houserules are scary and unfashionable. A Bag of Magic Items sounds like a gift of shiny toys, while a Bag of Houserules sounds like homework, right?

But I want to push back against it, because that’s just a trick of the mind. Houseruling a complex system like 3rd Edition or Pathfinder CAN be nightmare (ah, but did you consider how this new rule will interact with these other 3257 interconnected rules?), but tweaking 5th Edition is a piece of cake. Learning a new houserule and adopting it is also easy. And in many cases it’s simply a better solution than introducing a bunch of new items and feats.

You know, the "disturbingly too tall and inhumanly proportionate trickster entity that masquerade as an elf but any other elf think there's something wrong about him even if they can't pinpoint what and who would help people or send them the wrong way where they will die just to see where it will lead the story and who's also known as a few different entities while also being Nameless"