Dungeons Against Humanity

Building YOUR World

How to fuck up a world real bad


Materials

  1. Large poster board
  2. One regular pencil per person
  3. As many d20s as you can legally lay your hands on
  4. Ten d10s
  5. Large flat surface
  6. Color pencils (optional)
  7. D&D 5e player handbook and monster manual, or online versions of same
  8. Cards Against Humanity
  9. 3-6 people

Step 1

Lay out poster board on flat surface. Dump d20s onto poster board; for a larger landmass do this slowly, for islands toss them out like a bride heaving a bouquet at her spinster cousin.

Take regular pencil. Draw an outline of the d20s as they lie. Islands are okay. Don’t move any of the dice yet. Don’t forget lakes and inland masses of water!


Step 2

Refer to key for biomes. When marking cities (18-20), be sure to pick up the appropriate number of adjacent dice to mark them as “farmland.” If you don’t have any d20s that landed on 18-20, then your continent is decentralized and tribal, with no primary ruler or government. If you have some anomalies, such as a desert right next to tundra, then obviously there are unnatural reasons for that anomaly. Maybe an ice wizard and a fire wizard are fighting over that land. It’s D&D, go wild.

Take a blue pencil. Draw rivers. If you put in inland masses of water like you were supposed to, streams probably flow into/out of there. Also, cities are usually built on a coastline or near rivers, so draw rivers passing through those cities. Tip: gravity is a thing. Draw rivers traveling away from mountains, not towards them.

If you have more than one capital on your continent, then you have more than one country on your continent and need to draw borders. Borders usually correspond to a natural obstacle like a river or a mountain range.

Take a brown pencil. Draw roads between your major cities within the borders of one country. Do they go through the mountains? Is there a pass, or a Mines of Moria situation happening? If your major cities are at opposite ends of the country, would it be faster to travel by water? If so, draw ferry lines. Is your continent peaceful? Then there would be a few roads between countries, too.

(Optional: spend two hours coloring in the different land features.)


Step 3

Take ten d10s, roll them. Refer to race key. That’s what races live on your continent. Write that down next to your continent.


Take 20 Cards Against Humanity. Those are all the things that happen in the First Age of your continent; remember that an “Age” is about 300 years.

  • Adapt whatever is on the cards to a D&D experience.
  • People listed on the cards become the major rulers and public figures of that age. What kind of ruler would Kanye West be? What influence would he have on the culture and politics of that time period?
  • Match dangerous-sounding creatures or conditions listed on the cards up to monsters from the Monster Manual. “A genetically-engineered acid-spewing assault turtle” can be a green dragon. “Fear itself” can be a sea hag.
  • Other things like “Rap music” help flesh out the culture of that area. What kind of country has “A zesty breakfast burrito”? A country known for its fine cuisine, that’s who.
  • You can throw one card back. Make it count.

Repeat for the Second and Third Ages.

Step 4


Step 5

At the start of each Age, roll a d20; if you roll 11 or above then your continent “develops.” Any cities become capitals (redraw borders!), any farmlands get expanded, and new cities develop in habitable areas.

Congrats, you have three Ages for a continent. You can now start building campaigns. Do you have strange creatures on the continent? Political intrigue? Evil sorcerers/gods/etc.?


BIOME KEY

20                  Capital city (+1 adjacent dice for surrounding farmlands)

18-19            Large cities (+1 adjacent die for surrounding farmlands)

15-17            Forests (*can be different types of forests)

12-14            Flat, grassy plains

9-11              Mountains

7-8                Hills

5-6                 Deserts

4                    Tundra

3                    Swamp

2                    Plateaus

1                    Terrifying barren lands; why are they barren?

RACE KEY

1                           Dwarf

2                           Elf

3                           Halfling

4                           Human

5                           Dragonborn

6                           Gnome

7                           Half-elf

8                           Half-orc

9                           Tiefling

10                        WILD CARD: choose one of the rare races (Aarakokra, Aasimar, Firbolg, Genasi, Goliath, Goblin, Hobgoblin, Kenku, Kobold, Orc, Tabaxi, Doggins, Catfolk)