Building The Wenderweald 1

Creative constraints and 6 truths about my new setting: The Wenderweald

I’m starting a new quest: a world-building project.

Now, I’m fully aware this is a self-indulgent effort. Any DM worth their salt knows that players will never see most (maybe any) of their world-building. They know, too, that no one wants to hear the DM prattling on about fictional, unpronounceable places and people.

We do that enough for ourselves.

To mitigate those pitfalls, I’ve come up with 3 constraints for this project:

1. Make the player-facing content first

2. Fill the emptiness with mystery

3. Define the limits with events

With that settled, I’m starting The Wenderweald not In The Beginning…but with what I, the player, know about it right now with more places and people to discover.

Here are the 6 truths of The Wenderweald, starting with a central event:

I. The Wytching poisoned the land long ago

The Wytching came neither from us nor the gods but left us both thin and desperate in these lands. Soon after, the wytches were born and learned these black forests and jaundiced bogs are conduits for their mercurial power.

II. The gods are away on The Great Hunt

Our gods are in The Umbral Vale hunting a formless dread known as Hernogrir. It brought The Wytching upon us when it dammed the divine waters and flooded The Wenderweald with magic.

III. Magic is a disease known only to the wytch.

Alchemists and physikars claim to use magic, but true wytches are born of it. It is a sickness in their blood that can spread to those desperate enough to seek the wytch’s power.

IV. Wenderfolk fear and covet the wytch

We exile the wytches born among us. And when wytchery spreads in our towns, we descend into violent mobs to drive them out. And yet, we rely on the wytch for healing, protection, and their far eye into the future.

V. Demons of The Vale are drawn to the wytch

The full moon swells The Umbral River, driving the children of Hernogrir from The Vale into The Wenderweald. They feed on our blood until they find a wytch who will guide them back home in exchange for new magic.

VI. Crusaders steward the realm for absent gods

The Knightly Orders marshal on Gideon’s Reach, compelled by The Neven Prophecy to purge the demon and the wytch from our lands. They are charged to hold back the dark until the gods return from The Great Hunt.

The Wytch and Their Tombtree

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There’s more to come for this project.

But the hard part — the beginning — is finished at least.