Worldbuilding 101: How Geography Shapes Humanity
A deeper look into the very foundations of worldbuilding, and how answering some very basic geographical questions can yield fascinating narrative results.
Welcome to the long-delayed followup to Worldbuilding 101: Cultivating a Culture! In this article, we’re going to deep dive into how geography shapes and influences the evolution of humanity, and how to this day we as a species are almost exclusively beholden to the geographic forces that surround us.
The ground rules (pun intended)
We’re going to explore geography as a facet of worldbuilding through the lens of an intrepid protagonist seeking adventure. Throughout this piece I’ll be dipping in and out of a narrative thread, investigating potential story ideas and hooks that come about organically simply due to geographic factors.
Also, when I say ‘Geography’, I’m exclusively referring to the narrow branch of Physical geography, which concerns itself primarily with the natural world around us. Things like the formation of mountains, rivers, the shape of the landscape, the forces at play that influence weather and other natural phenomena–that’s what we’ll be focusing on in this article. Human and technical geography are beyond the scope of this piece.
The four core components of geography
Weather
It had been raining for months. The village of Elm’s Brook was soaked through, every crevice filled, every exposed hay bale soaked and half-rotted. Oren had only experienced rain like this twice before, and both times the reavers had come.
Humanity, despite all of its modern technological advancements, is still completely beholden to the forces that drive our weather patterns. Throughout history, weather events have both been the cause of and the solution to strife of all kinds, and as a result it has earned its place as one of the fundamental elements of worldbuilding geography. Weather can, and does, influence almost everything we do: from the mundane (is it too wet to go for a walk today?) to the civilisation-ending (it hasn’t rained in years and all our crops are dying, is it time to abandon this land?)
In your writing, and in your preparatory worldbuilding, I encourage you to think about the following as starting off points, then dig deeper into each one as you answer them:
What kind of weather events are considered ‘normal’ in your hero’s world?
What kind of climate does it have? Use this climate table for reference.
How do your world’s inhabitants talk about the weather?
Imagine the weather of your world as its own character: are they more likely to be an antagonist, or protagonist? Why?
Now let’s consider some potential story hooks for our protagonist Oren in our example piece above. This could include:
The relentless rain has drowned their crops, forcing Oren to leave the safety of his village to find food.
The reavers come back, and it’s up to Oren to discover the secret link between the weather and their appearance.
The nearby river threatens to burst its banks, and Oren finds himself in a position of authority, helping fellow villagers escape the approaching flood.
As you can see, with just weather alone, you suddenly have rich material from which to generate ideas and prompts for your story. Have a play, and see where your imagination takes you.
Water
Marianne spent most of her waking hours of late sitting on the soft sand of the nearby beach, her eyes closed as she listened to the waves crash down upon the shore. She thought of the Alfather, and wondered what cruelty in His heart had driven him to place her people so close to water they could not drink.
Water is another crucial element to geography in worldbuilding. Not just the basics, such as where people get their water from, and how they gather it, but also from the perspective of place. Do your people live near a body of water? Is it a river, a lake, an inland sea, an ocean? Accessing potable water is the single biggest motivating factor for a society, and influences practically every decision they make.
Another aspect that lends to the importance of water is access to food. Water implies sea life, and sea life is an easy, readily-accessible source of food for a society. But water also implies the potential for irrigation, and fertile land ripe for sowing. Put simply, water is life, and a society cannot exist without it (unless you’re attempting something quite esoteric and metaphysical with your story, in which case then perhaps this guide isn’t for you).
When considering this aspect of geography, have a think about how you would answer the following questions:
Does your society live near a body of water? How has that influenced their cultural evolution?
Does your world have tides?
How do your people access drinking water?
Is drinking water abundant in your world, or is access restricted to only a few?
With these baseline questions established, let’s take a look at Marianne’s plight, and see what kind of hooks we can come up with:
Marianne is coming to terms with the decline of her people due to a prolonged drought, and she begins to question her entire belief system.
Marianne’s mother is a famed merchant ship captain who was presumed lost at sea when she was a young girl, but she firmly believes her mother is still alive.
On one of her trips to the beach, Marianne discovers a crusty old glass bottle with a roll of parchment sealed inside it.
Elevation
The air was thin up here, but Almo wasn’t bothered. Growing up in the Coldspun Mountains meant his body was well suited for this kind of trek. Adjusting his woolen pack, he gazed up at the towering spires of the dead wizard’s fortress and smiled, imagination running wild at the thought of what treasures lay within.
Elevation, despite the name, can sometimes be overlooked within the context of worldbuilding. However, it can play an important, perhaps even essential, role in the creation of your world and the people that inhabit it. In fact, one could go as far as to say that elevation should be considered and decided upon first, before weather and water, because elevation dictates both. For example, a society that develops close to sea level will likely have a more temperate climate than one that develops atop a mountain range. Or, a society that developed underground will have no weather events at all. Within a worldbuilding context the direction of influence is one-way: elevation influences weather, not the other way around.
If your society is close to or at sea level, then these questions will probably seem a bit basic (although I still encourage you to think about how you would answer them!)
How does your society acquire food and water?
What must your society do in order to contact and trade with other communities?
How does your society overcome terrain challenges?
What is your society’s relationship towards the sun (in other words, something they need to protect themselves from due to the thin atmosphere, or something they have no knowledge of due to living underground)?
Elevation is an interesting factor to consider when worldbuilding, in no small part due to the offbeat and fascinating story hooks it generates:
Almo is a ruin runner, a scavenger plucking his way through the carcass of dead civilisations. But his latest expedition turns out to be his most perilous yet.
During one of his journeys to gather fresh water, Almo encounters something he’s never seen before: a struggling group of undergrounders, fleeing an unknown danger.
Almo’s village is in need of supplies, so they send him to the low lands to barter for whatever he can afford. Misunderstandings and hijinks ensue.
Resources
It was a brilliant sun-drunk day, and Rin was playing hoopball with her brother Otto when she tripped on something hard and shiny and grazed her knee. Recovering quickly, Rin kicked the offending object in childish retaliation, only to hear a low thrum from under her feet. The old mining bot rattled back to life, tearing the ground apart as it emerged and towered over the young girl. With a deafening roar, it dumped its ancient cargo in a glittering pile by Rin’s feet, then powered down for good.
The last category we’re focusing on in this geography deep dive is Resources. In this category, a resource could mean almost anything. After all, basic stone was (and still is) considered a vital construction resource for most of human history. Animal skins are a vital resource in some parts of the world, for either survival, or creative purposes. When you consider resources in your worldbuilding ventures, consider the immediate world around the society you’re building. If there are trees, then it’s likely their homes are made from wood. If there are mountains, then they may have a thriving mining industry. These avenues of societal evolution are made possible thanks to the ingenuity of humans, and the overwhelming desire to both possess, and to share.
When contemplating the resources of your society, try answering the following questions:
What does your society covet as ‘rare’ and ‘valuable’? What do they perceive as ‘worthless’?
What is your society’s relationship with the immediate world around them? Do they exploit, harvest, tend, or ignore?
What resources must your society acquire in order to have its needs met, and how does it acquire them?
If we refer back to our young heroes Rin and Otto, let’s explore the potential story hooks that may emerge from this category:
Rin and Otto discover an old mining convoy that met a grisly end hundreds of years ago, thanks in large part due to the rare mineral they were mining.
To their amazement, Rin and Otto find a still-living tree, possibly the last in existence, and they resolve to do everything they can to protect it.
Otto is abducted by local raiders, and they demand payment in sea glass for his safe return. Rin must find a way to save him, or gather enough sea glass to pay the ransom.
And with that, we’ve come to the end of this worldbuilding lesson! Thanks for sticking around, and I hope you’ve gotten something useful out of it. If you did, I’d love it if you followed + subscribed, as there’ll be many more of these to come!