hello and welcome to this World Anvil video today we're looking at the
template settlement anything from the tiniest of villages to the most bustling
of space whole gigantic space stations well there you go everything and
anything that has to do with settlements now settlements arguably are going to be
the hub around which a lot of your fiction a lot of your narrative is going
to center so it makes sense for you to focus on settlements but where do you
start what you focus on well of course world Anvil's templates have got all
sorts of wonderful things for you to add in such as the location type is at a
slum a military camp an outpost and arcology is the metropolis is at a
corner but it conurbation what are one of the word live is it a national
territory all sorts of fantastic fantastic words then you're gonna have
to go and look up the meaning of some of them I certainly had to myself and that
inspired me to start to create now hopefully you have started with a map
and on that map you have one by Town Village metropolis Space Station
whatever the case might be now you need to start filling it in and this is where
you're going to do it this template has got everything what are the inhabitants
call themselves inhabitants denim my favorite favorite favorite favorite
favorite discovered word of 2018 is a demonym what do they call themselves are
they Londoners are they New Yorkers are they derma Knights what do they call
themselves why is that important local flavor that's why it's important so
unlike all of the other templates where there's often a way to inspire yourself
here it's about filling in those details but what I usually do is I imagine
myself in that city I imagine what the streets look like what does it smell
like when I walk down that alleyway Tokyo smells very different from New
York which smells very different from Los Angeles which smells very different
from Johannesburg very different from Helsinki all of these cities have got a
very different feel to them and it's basically by closing your eyes walking
down those streets and thinking and hearing what sounds what sights do you
see and then of course filling in the details so another exercise that I like
to do is I like to look at why is that city there that city is at the con
of two rivers that cities on the edge of a nebula that city happens to be right
in the middle of a trading lane that runs from west to east and that's a
major way station because that's as far away from the next city as you can get
on horseback I look at the origins of that city and then I start to
extrapolate how did that City grow how did it evolve what technology was around
to allow it to change to adapt and to become what it is and then you start to
fill in the blanks these are pieces of information that you you literally walk
through the template is complete history why is it important to run through that
history well that's one of the places I start it grew up it didn't start as a
metropolis did it rome wasn't built in a day
so they say and with good reason it was built in two and a half days because the
contractors had a half-day vacation which had been built into the building
expectation beforehand except they hadn't bothered to tell
anyone and the plumbing pipes only arrived on Tuesday so beside that the
idea of this template is fairly straightforward to fill it in and once
you've filled it in you've now got this incredible resource that I suggest you
come back but the vignette of course is where you are going to walk down that
street describe everything that you can think of other streets cobbled like in
Helsinki where they're these wonderful round stones are they hard concrete like
they are in New York do they have a raised beveled strip down the middle as
they have in Tokyo what makes that space that much
different it doesn't have to be pages and pages and pages of documentation it
can be and I suggest it is only five or six five or six things that are
different that set it apart from somewhere else if it's an Elvish city
what makes it different from other elvish cities do they have to be
different yes they do they started for different reasons they grew up
differently they had different rulers who had their own footprints upon them
there are going to be differences architectural styles might be the same
but the layout might be different because there's a quarry in the middle
of one of the cities or because the city was built around the cusp of a very
large breathing area for space whales who knows you do anyway the
idea is five or six things within that vignette to just punctuate what makes
this settlement different from any other if you can add in your five senses what
does it smell like what does it sound like what does it feel like is it in a
cold crisp environment is there fresh bakery that can be smelled on the areas
that are large windmill over there milling out flour so there's a dusty
smell to the air tell me what does your city feel taste smell touch sense like
and you've got an absolute winner and this template really is where you should
start almost any journey within world anvil certainly from a location
perspective it's really powerful really really wonderful way to create a
wonderful starting point until next time light up the forge