Geography & Locations

Give play enough ground to stand on: places, how they lie toward each other, and what traveling between them honestly takes.

What to establish

• The starting region: terrain, water, climate, what grows and grazes.
• Settlements and important locations: where they are relative to each other, not exact coordinates.
• Roads, paths, rivers, crossings, and known hazards — as context, not as a graph of nodes.
• Travel relationships: which journeys are easy, which are hard, what the seasons do to each.

A lane between two villages matters when someone travels it, not as a permanent structure. Do not build a route system; describe geography and let journeys follow from distance, terrain, season, method, and condition.

Locations

A location is a physical place where things happen: a mill, a market square, a ferry, a hall. Create locations play will actually use. An ordinary home, field, stall, or shrine may simply serve its purpose — no secret, no hook required.

Good builder question

How would someone get from here to there, in this season, with these means? If you can answer that for the journeys play will attempt, your geography is sufficient.

You usually do not need...

...every road, river, hamlet, or exact distance. Relative position and honest travel judgment carry further than any survey.