The April Foundry
Community, collaboration and creativity.
Concept
During the month of February, I promised myself I would write single-paragraph blurbs professing my love for a different video game each and every day. Not only did I rediscover some formative, forgotten gems from my childhood, but I also exercised something called “discipline”. Which, from my experience, is a term routinely brought up by ripped dudes in YouTube ads that want you to buy their testosterone product, so that you, too, can shed every ounce of body fat while consuming whatever you want, whenever you want. Alas, I remain un-ripped, however I discovered that the satisfaction from setting a creative goal, and accomplishing it, is transformative. In order to keep that ball rolling, I took the month of march to brainstorm new ideas and landed on a month-long worldbuilding endeavor, a la The April Foundry.
Design Intentions
The goals of The April Foundry are as follows:
Cultivate community activity and collaboration
Assist players in creating unique settings facilitated by descriptive writing and randomized tables
Determine themes, tones, geographical/environmental systems, social/political constructs, industry, conflict prevalence, supernatural phenomenon (if present), and inhabitant makeup
While potentially part of many continents/realms/planes, the focus will be on a individual section of the greater whole
d6 tables will be the standard for these prompts, but feel free to increase the die size if inspiration is flowing
System agnosticism
Participation
Personally, I plan on creating a post on April 1st, typing out the prompt and fulfilling the request below it, then continuing to update the draft until I post the completed version on May 1st. You can write it all in a notebook, record voices memos on your phone, jot it down with permanent marker on the inside of your high school locker, etc. Keep this exercise as public or private as you want. Make your setting as serious, whacky or depressing as your heart sees fit. Hell, you could even complete the whole exercise in one setting before March is even over. The only rule for The April Foundry is that you have fun and channel your creativity!
P.S. My brain loves to jump around to various aspects during the worldbuilding process and the order of this list reflects that. I’m calling it spontaneity and assistance in avoiding tropes, but you might call it chaos. Feel free to move the listed items around to better suit your creative process.
Join me and let us unveil our, potentially Frankenstein-ian abominations, come April 1st!
The Prompts
April 1 - Create a d6 table of biomes found in your setting.
April 2 - Choose one or two words and describe how they represent the tone of your setting.
April 3 - Describe how common, if at all, magic (or supernatural phenomena) is in your setting.
April 4 - Is your setting newly discovered or has it been mostly/fully explored?
April 5 - How advanced are the denizens in your setting?
April 6 - List two or more established industries in your setting.
April 7 - Create a d6 table of environmental hazards one might encounter in your setting.
April 8 - Describe whether conflict is prevalent in your setting?
April 9 - Describe one or two modes of travel in your setting.
April 10 - Does religion play a role in your setting? If so, describe the role. If not, elaborate on the lack thereof.
April 11 - Does your setting contain remnants of previous civilizations?
April 12 - List/Describe one or more races present in your setting.
April 13 - Choose one biome from your setting and create a d6 table of creatures that players might encounter while traveling over the terrain.
April 14 - Describe one significant event in the history of your setting.
April 15 - Create a d6 table of professions PCs/NPCs might have in your setting.
April 16 - Describe one or two regions/countries/states, or lack thereof, in which your setting is divided?
April 17 - Do your denizens exist under governing bodies? Describe the hierarchy in place. If not, describe the self-governed system in place.
April 18 - Is travel beyond the boundary of your setting possible?
April 19 - Imagine a city/settlement for your setting and create a d6 table of structures one might encounter while exploring the area.
April 20 - List/Describe one or more struggles the denizens of your setting might regularly face.
April 21 - Describe one dwelling in which a denizen might live.
April 22 - Create a d6 table of valuable, natural resources found in your setting.
April 23 - Describe one custom/tradition/relationship concerning death in your setting.
April 24 - Is adventuring/exploration an expected facet of life in your setting?
April 25 - Create a d6 table of weapons or tools a party member might carry while exploring.
April 26 - Choose or create a genre of music that might play during character creation.
April 27 - Create a d6 table of adventure hooks specific to your setting.
April 28 - List one or more of your inspirations (film, TV, art, music, etc.) for your setting.
April 29 - In a paragraph or two, give an elevator pitch for your setting to a pretend reddit user looking for recommendations.
April 30 - What have you learned about your creative process throughout this exercise?
Im in!
This looks fun and interesting! Now I just need to decide on a theme. (Horror or fantasy, the eternal question)