One of my favorite world-design tire-kicks: making LOTS of characters, as if I were a player getting ready for a #Hammondal campaign. If I bump my head on questions and can't _finish_ a character to my satisfaction, those questions get added to the design workload. If a character feels "meh," I tweak the world design to give them more to play with.
Some of the characters might then become parts of the worldbook. Some may become pregens for adventures later on.
My vague, handwavy intent with #Hammondal is that I'd highlight about 23 forms of magic (so, about one per neighborhood), and I'm up to 25 and still going.
Which is fine. I'll probably end up with 40 or so by the time all the design is done, and then pick my 23 favorites for the per-neighborhood highlight.
I can never tell if this is "wasteful" or "good." But it happens every time, so, moot point. 😂
I sometimes envy the lighter job-set of a supplement city guide (which can build upward from a world already established), and also of city guides that can truly be village guides, because they can presume a narrow PC range.
#Hammondal has neither going on. That means it gets to be _more awesome_ ... but it does mean the climb is steeper. 😆 It has a lot more jobs to do, on every page.
The earlier guides I admire most walked similarly steep design terrain.
As #Hammondal develops it becomes increasingly asymmetrical in design. Same thing happens to all my books yet it surprises me a little each time. 😅
Like, each neighborhood is still a chapter. But the shape of each chapter is increasingly unrelated to how other chapters are structured.
A good sign. Symmetry is never my friend.
A bit of #Hammondal going from doodly to less-doodly.
Just playing with subtle changes to how I tone and texture the water.
(Plates like this one are the most that fit on a single page, so there will be three such plates in Hammondal's book, plus up to 23 neighborhood maps, zoomed and text-encrusted, plus a few others)
Many fantasy cities have been presented as campaign worlds, but they're usually _big deal_ cities, fantasy equivalents of New York, Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong, London, Cairo.
#Hammondal is a campaign world that's the fantasy equivalent of Livonia, Michigan or Parma, Ohio. Cities for which most people never spare a single thought.
And if that strikes you as intriguing, or even a little audacious ... I agree. 😆
S. John Ross