The Lantern Hall
Painting: an ancient lexicon open on a carved lectern in a dark chapel of books, glowing runes and symbols lifting off its pages like fireflies.
TermGeneral term

Worldbuilding

The craft of inventing an imaginary world's geography, history, cultures, languages and ecology. Tolkien's languages and maps set the modern standard; roleplaying games made worldbuilding a hobby in itself, practiced by every Game Master with a campaign map.

The craft of inventing an imaginary world's geography, history, cultures, languages and ecology. Tolkien's languages and maps set the modern standard; roleplaying games made worldbuilding a hobby in itself, practiced by every Game Master with a campaign map.

Quick answers

What does "Worldbuilding" mean?
The craft of inventing an imaginary world's geography, history, cultures, languages and ecology. Tolkien's languages and maps set the modern standard; roleplaying games made worldbuilding a hobby in itself, practiced by every Game Master with a campaign map.

Nearby in the archive

Secondary world

Literature term1939

An invented world with its own consistent laws, which the reader enters imaginatively and believes in while inside. Tolkien contrasted it with the Primary World of real life and argued that making one well is a genuine art.

Conlang

Literature term

A language invented deliberately, with its own sounds, grammar and vocabulary, rather than evolved naturally. Tolkien built Middle-earth partly as a home for his Elvish languages; later fantasy and games have commissioned conlangs for extra depth.

Campaign setting

Tabletop term

A fictional world packaged for play, with maps, histories, gods and factions that a group can adventure in over many sessions. Published settings such as Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms and Eberron became franchises that spawned novels and video games.

J. R. R. Tolkien

Author1892–1973

An Oxford philologist who invented languages, then a world for them to be spoken in — and, with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, supplied the elves, dwarves, orcs and halflings of every roleplaying game since.

Hard & soft magic systems

Literature term2007

A hard magic system follows explicit rules and costs that readers understand, so characters can solve problems with it; soft magic stays mysterious and wondrous, like Gandalf's. Games need hard systems, which is why every RPG turns magic into rules and resources.

Subcreation

Literature term1939

Tolkien's term for the human act of making a Secondary world: the author as a sub-creator, working in the image of a greater Creator. It is the theological heart of his defense of fantasy.

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