Worldbuilding II, Gods and Culture 

"When you wont take off you clothes and walk outside exposed, thats a mores.🎵🎶

I love the demystification of what a DM really does. Talking about the philosophies of being a Dungeon Master outside of the actual process by people who we hold in high esteem, like Matt Colville, causes us to romanticize what is really going on. Which is by no means Matt's fault, it is just what we do as people. We think "Matt's face is on the screen so he must have something I don't;" but here he is with MS word and an internet browser open, just letting thoughts flow and inspire each other into ideas. Thanks Matt for doing what you do and for not only showing us how to improve, but to be confident in what we are currently doing.

oh my god this makes me wanna play a Riojan rogue so bad. Someone that does a lot of planning for his robberies, knowing it is something he shouldnt do and then, to appease the gods after his robberies betting it all in a game of chance, just to make his prize legit in the eyes of the gods.

Now I'm thinking about the implications of a society where a duel can erupt anywhere at the drop of a hat. Riojan furniture would probably be famously sturdy so it doesn't get destroyed by a fight's collateral damage. Perhaps the rich bring a fencing mask with them everywhere. Perhaps having a second sword (in case you are disarmed of the first) is looked down upon as overpreparing, but some swordsmen duel-wield them to cover up their shame. "This is not my 'backup sword', it's simply my style to overwhelm my opponent with twice as many blows."

Ideas: Goddess/Saint of bureaucracy, accounting and planning: Minutia. A duel or challenge is referred to as “Being called before the mast”. Riojans spend many years at sea, so duels abode ship occur/start at the main mast. In a town, it would be at a central flagpole or monument. “Gods, man. I cannot turn this down. I have been called before the mast! What would the Gods think of me?!” Fear to rise to a duel is called “failing to empty your scabbard”. “Procusio was a coward, having left his scabbard full, and was struck down for his lack of commitment.”

"In the end, the Wheel will turn," or simply, "The Wheel turns," could be a phrase to indicate that everyone gets what is coming to them. The inverse is probably true, as well. It is a phrase to used when both times are good and when times are bad to indicate the ever-changing tides of fate. Perhaps an expletive is, "By the Wheel!". A lamentation could be, "Break, oh spoke, so that the Wheel may miss me yet."

I like the idea that Riojans call someone (or an organization of someones) who acts shady "Folconian" and having that as a common word in their vernacular.

I like your Pantheon-building method more than my own. When developing a Pantheon I was trying to conceptualise the gods from a blank slate and then build a culture around them, but it really felt like there was a disconnect or a need to try and fit all the gods in that I’d made. Working in reverse is great because instead I can build my world from my mind and then fit the gods in where they feel most suited. So much better! Thanks, Matt.

The god of Cowardice should be depicted as showing as much skin as possible to display the fact that they have no scars. In the same token, all other god depictions should have at least one scar to contrast this.

I have to say this really resonates me. I've been working on a worldbuilding in which two existing cultures (e.g. Korea and Egypt) and I felt really reassured hearing both that I use some similar strategies and all the new techniques I can use. It's honestly awesome and exciting

Something I thought of that I thought you might like has something to do with muses in relation to writers block. Maybe the Riojan's have a phrase like "bless you" for when we sneeze to cast out demons, but instead it's like a creativity eating Krampus; for example "Thieving Itus!" something of that nature.

I seriously love the Riojan culture you made, i'd love to see my carefully planned players who avoid conflict and risk go to a culture all about passion and impetuous action. especially the part where they look down upon the "Bean counter" I imagine they receive a pouch of coins and passingly feel out the weight of the pouch rather than count it out coin to coin during a mercantile exchange.

Matt, you’re getting me out of my head and into your head, helping me see the world in a completely different way. I love it. Thank you so so much!

I feel like riojan society has kinda hecked up self preservation instincts "I wanna be a noble because nobles get to be stabbed and stuff"

I have to say Matt, I love how you manage to make the culture feel alive. It’s really has the spice of life, that makes it all so real! Thank you so much for sharing your process

Thanks for taking us through your meticulous process of generating the culture and gods. I love how your focus is the thread tying everything together to make a believable group of peoples.

Oh man, this is fun. Already thinking about how the Coward desired Fortune but feared Lord Nobility to the point that instead of challenging him to battle, he aided in Folco's planned identity switch. To avoid confrontation personally, he moves to the background of someone else's planning.

The god of Cowardice could have been a lynch pin in Folco's plan and he didn't follow through. Cowardice could also mean not speaking your mind or speaking with truth. The expression "making a lot of noise or saying very little". A more "street" way of saying it is "speaking like a duck" or as my grandmother says "talking like a sausage" (she's Italian).

Just one little comment i want to make, i have a Setting in which a massive multi-nation sized area has been completely covered in buildings over time. Many of which were abandoned as population centers shifted and so the vas swathes of "wilderness" are all urban ruins. A popular saying in that area called Huánn is "Nobody's homeless in Huánn."

Someone in the comments recommended looking up Lombardic names and boy it's too bad he didn't see that suggestion, they are awesome.

you know all i can think of while watching it is how good matt is at wizarding around word. God i wish i were that good at word.

Wine is fermented over the course of years, so there would be plenty of wine from many years, during harvest festival.

I love Gary Gygax's Extraordinary Book of Names. "As far as I know, Gary Gagax didn't write anything in this." He wrote the foreword, and he is credited as one of two editors.

Love how you're treating etymology Matt! It doesn't have to be a constant expose but it is neat when it's introduced at certain times. Some players don't really care but I feel the majority of players appreciate that level of detail the DM has taken in their world.

The Riojan mindset about passion and about planning reminds me about a german literary movement we had called "Sturm und Drang" (roughly storm and urge). The main charcteristic off the protaganist in those plays are that they are driven by ther passion and act dirctly and without realy thinking far ahead. Riojans would probably like those plays.^^

"No one watching this would get up from their computer, take off all their clothes, and walk down the street naked." Hold my beer.

i like the idea that the god of cowadess got his title from a discourse he had where he thought he had backup but was setup by the god of treachery and ended up folding when he realised he was alone

"Don't pull your thang out unless you plan to bang." - Old Riojan Proverb

I like listening to him talk. i wish he would write a book set in his dnd world and then read it to us.

Love Matt putting in a pitch for conlanging consistency! Or at least naming consistency, which ultimately has the same origins...

Matt, consider Etruscan names if you're trying for ancient-sounding gods for a medieval Italian culture. For an ancient Iberian name, look at Celtiberian and Tartessian.

I liked having this play in the background while I was working on my own setting. It was like having a fellow creator doing his things along side me.

I love having the Extraordinary Book of Names! It also goes into the naming conventions of different languages.

I love that I have basically the same process. It's reassuring that I'm not the only one who thinks this deeply about a subject that most players will not engage with to that degree. In twenty years, the only tangible benefit I've ever derived from this kind of effort is that players who are motivated to engage with the world (beyond their own stories and adventures in it) can ask questions, and because I wrote all kinds of stuff, I can answer them pretty convincingly, at a moment's notice, even for questions I haven't specifically considered or detailed. That helps verisimilitude, but you know, most players never ask.

Just a random note, I really liked watching your thought process of kind of word association around 45 minutes in when you were thinking aloud about gods for nature, revelry, wine-making, etc. I like word association exercises, I think they're good for thinking abstractly and stretching the brain, so I just thought that was fun :P

"Unrequited." Thanks for the new word, Matt! 🥰

Hey Matt! Love what you're doing! I've actually seen the original "Cardsharps" painting in the Kimble as I live in Fort Worth. Keep up the good work

I love the idea of etymology in a world setting. It's a minor detail that I appreciate.

Loving the streams, Matt! Love the novels and seeing the setting growing is a lot of fun. As for the god of nobility thing, I suggest making him the god of kingship or rulership, like Odin or Teazcatilipoca. They embody the feudal hierarchy because they are ruler of the divine kingdom, and their authority flows down to mortal rulers through divine mandate. He should embody all the kingly virtues the Riojan believe in, so the nobles bask in the reflected glory of the god of kingship through the feudal ties they have. He’s won every duel ever, he trusts to fortune and boldness, he never backs down and has a whole series of stories where he’s won absurdly bets. Like Zeus and his trysts, someone says “I bet you...” etc etc something outlandish, and a stranger reveals himself as the god and says “I’ll take that bet!” Cue wacky hijinks.

Due to many Riojan following their passion and heart, I would imagine that there would be children conceived in these "forbidden" relationships. How are these children treated? Are they demonized or scorned? Or are they thought of as the height of Riojan ideals and families would literally fight (and sometimes kill) for them? How would a child who grows up in such an environment feel? Would they feel they are merely a trophy on display to the world or would they feel pride in their innate fortune under the circumstances?

These videos are great material for a new DM, Matt! Inspiring me to creat depth on my setting. Please release those notes when finished, it will be a real life and time saver :DDDD

Why does everyone ignore how long this takes when they make the "1 hour prep for 4 hours of gameplay" guides? This is what I had and still struggle with, especially when Matt is the only one who showed the true face of "prep". This is the real "prep", folks...

Skinflint is a good replacement for Miser. "A person who spends as little money as possible." It's unique that few people know it, and once the giggle factor leaves, it leaves them asking what it really means. My online gaming buddy uses it as his gamer tag, and I had to google what it meant. It was rewarding learning a forgotten word for penny-pincher, essentially.

I am really loving the Culture and gods thus far in fact i may want to borrow/steal this for my own campaign sometime and i will be rewatching this again at some point to help inspire me to create my own culture sense i have always wanted to have multi cultures in my campaign.

This video demonstrates how to develop a sound backdrop for your campaign and people in it. Both the thought process and mechanical act of writing can cement the ideas and characters of groups of people, places, etc. And ultimately when you are pressed by your players to do some improvising, or don't have all the prep time in the world these elements really start to shine though because as the DM you already know the setting, the people, and how they behave and can do them justice on the fly.

The more I hear about Rioja, the more I think they would be the ones to invent and love picaresque literature/storytelling, or have a picaro-esq folk hero/saint: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picaresque_novel The core tenants of the picaresque: 1. A picaresque narrative is usually written in first person as an autobiographical account. 2. The main character is a person of low character or social class. They get by with wit and rarely deign to hold a job. 3. There is no plot. The story is told in a series of loosely connected episodes. 4. There is little if any character development in the main character. Once a pícaro, always a pícaro. Their circumstances may change but they rarely result in a change of heart. 5. The pícaro's story is told with a plainness of language or realism. 6. Satire is sometimes a prominent element. 7. The behaviour of a picaresque hero or heroine stops just short of criminality. Carefree or immoral rascality positions the picaresque hero as a sympathetic outsider, untouched by the false rules of society.

It's an old video that I've only watched right now for the first time, but thank you a lot for having posted it, Matt. This is what has been missing from my setting and I had never realized that up until now.

This was pwrfect for World Anvils current Guild Challenge! Thanks Matt!

Enjoying the wine of last year's harvest. Could be a sacred practice as you celebrate the new harvest with the fruits of the old

Folco ... also renowned for enticing Amadeus to "rock" him ...

I like to think that the Riojans would say something like, “your blade does not speak the words from your tongue.”

I live for this, Matt. Please, never let this end.

"No one watching this is suddenly going to get up from their computer, take off all their clothes, and go walking down the street." You underestimate me, sir.

In some stories and campaigns set in fantasy, the gods created humanity. I have always admired & adored the stories and campaigns (in fiction) where the gods were created BY humanity, either as examples to aspire to or as scapegoats (or even judas goats!) for humanity's baser vices. This is a key component to create verisimilitude in a fictional world, to me.

It's good to see how a professional writer has trouble with "restaurant" too. I literally had to use spell check for this comment. Enjoy hearing the concepts, thanks for putting it out.

Could the lover also be the goddess of tempests? The fury of a woman scorned in the throes of tempestuous love could have become many a sailors end. Resulting in an idea of the captains of ships courting the sea or being married to the job less the lover become jealous.

I know this is an old video, but I just wanted to say that just watching the first part was so useful and has given me amazing ideas (that is, ideas I'm really excited about developing) for the setting i'd like to create. Basing the pantheon on the culture is genius, and in hindsight it seems so obvious to do that, because the gods embody the people's values and vices. Thanks so much, I feel I can now write a decent, believable pantheon and I keep getting new ideas for it 😁 ( I would share but worried someone will steal it lol )

This was very inspiring, thank you.

Not how I would do it and not how I did it. still very helpful I'm learning more about my settings cultures and their connections to the gods because the stream is making me think in those terms which previously I did not. Thanks Matt !!!

For older Germanic names, you might want to look at characters from Beowulf or the Elder (Poetic) Edda. They are recognizably Germanic, but not much like later German names in many cases. (And of course make changes for difference if that seems like it would make sense.) ETA: For "miserly", you might also consider "stingy" or "niggardly". The latter is from Middle English, the former from the 17th century. For more a colorful synonym, try "cheeseparer".

Time to watch evil Matt make some evil gods

Re: Extraordinary Book of Names and historicity. It's actually pretty dire as far as Portuguese, Spanish, and Japanese names go. I don't know enough Italian to weigh in there. For a fantasy setting I guess that won' matter, but there are weird options in that book.

Second video in series... could you add the first one to the Worldbuilding playlist, so I can share them both (and follow ups) more easily, pretty please? :)

Hey Matt. Loving these videos. You've gotten me thinking on how I view religion and realized I have a very cynical view of religion when it comes to my homebrew settings. Gods in my setting are either fake, manifested from the self, monotheistic, driven by logic or brought from the mortal stalk. And I think how the mortal realm examines higher powers is how they, as a society view the trends of the day. It seems like we're opposite with how we view our gods (gods influence society vs society influences the gods) I know if I had the chief god be the god of nobility, for example, would be the current kings blood relative, or even them-self and that they would have a "marriage" with the goddess/god of fortune. Similar to a mandate of heaven, and it would tell you that this society believes in control of the highest class.

That callout to Xenegos felt good.

I love these world building streams and watching the development of Rioja. But I find the Riojan aspiration of travel, trade and commerce to be incongruous with their disgust for planning. I am not certain that a nautical voyage with blatant disregard to logistics is a feasible. Or survivable. Certainly Riojans can't trade without book-keeping and ledgers. The overall impression is a destitute and volatile society chiefly concerned with passion and romance. Anyway, not that Matt would ever read this comment, but just my two cents.

You know Matt. Wouldn't it be even more fun if in reality Falko DID "win" but made the plan so good, that his brother is now forced to live that inautenthic live, scheming while trying to get his position back! Maybe all of that is known, but since it doesn't fit their beliefs, everyone keeps pretending! That would nicely play with the duplicity of strongly disliking planning and bean counting and on the other hand the need to metodiculously plan when sailing - winds, tides, travel time to get somewhere etc.

Is Part One Not On RU-vid? The Playlist Notable Starts With Part 2. EDIT: No, I See Part One Recommended On The Side. It Should Probably Be Added To The Playlist.

Hey matt, and comment section. I understand Orden is probably in a late renaissance era, but I wanted to gauge your opinions on Gods and their tales being based on people and their exploits. Perhaps taking inspiration from ancient Egyptians culture here. Ive always been a fan of the God-King/Knight that has become detatched from the mortal fabric through their sheer awesomeness.

@Mathew Colville you talk a lot about passions, art and plays. I picture the Pantheon of riojaun to be a ball or a masquerade. with the gods wearing masks, and tricking each other. Ripe with intrigue.

I honestly enjoy the sound of the keys tapping... this is vaguely instructive ASMR for me. Is that weird? Sorry if that's weird.

"And wine consumed" maybe they have to drink up the old wine of a particular type that is meant not to age (like Rosé) to prevent misfortune toward the new pressing?

A young person going to sea to “grow up” could use the phrase “Lick my salts”. A grown up person could be referenced as “salted”; someone who has tasted the salts of many seas and foreign lands and thus has “licked their salts” Example: The young carpenter was nervous. The maiden’s father was a built like stump, wide and sturdy. The younger man thought he was prepared, his workshop was busy as of late and surely his built up wealth would appease the old sailor. But the man could not stop himself from shrinking as the older one strode towards him with crunching footfalls. The carpenter opened his mouth to proclaim his merits and fortunes, but his voiced failed him. “Father-“ the girl began. “You are not salted,” her father growled. The old man stared unblinking into the eyes of the other, “Go. Go lick your salts, and then ye’ may return.” The man turned away from the boy, “Only then may you spill ale at my table, ne’er before.”

This sounds a lot like a city I've been planning to include in my campaign, and I'm likely going to steal many of these ideas to help bring it to life! I would certainly love to play DnD in this kind of setting, and I hope my players will too.

What I'm doing when naming things is take a name from an actual language and tweak it a bit. So I have a country which was the frontier of a Romanesque Empire, so the names of the people and towns are German and Latin (since the empire fall and the populace there was German analog, even if it didn't fall because of a barbarian invasion. It was a province in the process of romanization)

I also imagine the Rioja might have a saying that points to the "follow your heart" mentality. Like "May your compass always point north." "And you my friend." Maybe adult Rioja have to design a compass pointing north that gets tattooed on their dualing hand when they come of age.

An interesting way I have of creating Deities names is by google translating the 'virtue' into three/four languages (atm i am using Welsh Gaelic Celtic and Latin) then Frankenstein-ing those words together into a name for the Gods/Goddesses. Eg. Creation- you get 'crear'/'creacion; in Gaelic and 'cread' in Welsh so the Goddess of Creation is Creara (might change the spelling at a later date to further separate it from the English word)

I'm not sure I understand why you keep suggesting that places like Italy and Spain are not part of Europe. Do you mean the UK?

The God of Travel, an explorer, would be the lover of nature. He conquers her and sows his seeds. And one of his children could be the Goddess of the Vine. And maybe her name is Rioja. This would be a genealogy back to the Gods and why They even bother with Riojans. And maybe they’d say things comparing each other to wine (your wine is too sweet - innocence, gullibility). The God of Travel could be the son of the God of Noblility, and therefore heir to the throne. He would be off learning a trade when the Treachery God (his Uncle?) attempted to trade places with the God of Nobility. Maybe the Lover wanted to be with the Noble, so she made the Treacherer fall in love with Fate. This wasn’t real love, he sought to control Fate. His envious love caused him to seek the place of Nobility. Cowardice, husband of Love, was supposed to die in Nobility’s place, but backed down in the last minute. That is how the great Noble God of old died. Maybe the Traveller was supposed to return home, and upon finding out about this tragedy, the Lover, his real mother, made him fall in love with Nature, so he would never know about what happened.

A turn of phrase might be "You'll find yourself across the sea." Or out at sea for the duality and drawing on the hate of planning. A god of Travel could also be one of independence.

Maybe I’m insane for this, but all of my fantasy names are created through my constructed languages and were actually evolved over time, so that’s another way to come up with plausible names.

Why not have the Cowardice and Love gods related in some manner? Like a version of Romeo and Juliet where the Cowardice did not show up for the fake suicide and Love wakes up having to go on with the thing they were "suiciding against". Maybe under a scheme of Treachery or for a whim of Fortune.

Where did you get the book of names please, Matt? Oh! Also, I got a thought when you mentioned that, to Riojans, wine-making is akin to alchemy: maybe the growing process is inherently magical or involves the arcane in some way, such that their wines have the qualities of potions. Maybe even going so far as to say that Riojan wines ARE their healing/ other potions? Different grapes yielding different effects, perhaps? Feel free to run with/ completely ignore this btw :)

I think if I made a Riojan it would be a swashbuckler with 3 levels of battlemaster for manoeuvres. Using a rapier of course. If possible I'd get booming blade so I can attack and move back forcing the opponent to move towards me to attack. Then use the brace manoeuvre to get a reaction attack with another sneak attack. The build would revolve around footwork and specialise in 1 on 1 duals. I would lament at my companions making excessive plans and gamble when possible. While I could use a shield I probably wouldn't as defence isn't his style, better to rely on his reflexes and skills. He would probably wear a big hat too.

Hey Colville, the name of goddess of love could be Amata, it translates to Loved.

A lot of time what I’ll do to get unique-sounding names is to mix elements of two languages together, like taking common Irish-Gaelic phenoms and arranging them like Japanese kana, or ascribing different vowel forms to certain consonants depending on the word like in Hebrew, and then taking the names from one of the languages and permuting them using that system. There are nearly endless possibilities that way. It’s just one method though.

Not sure if he came up with one (only had time to watch 1/2 the vid) but a phrase he could use for leaving home/ growing up could be "Wetting your hair." Which is short form of "Wetting your hair with the salt water of life." This ties in to the "sea folk" type setting.

This stream inspired me to think about how the view on the gender of gods and people changed for my city-state. I know that the past century, the city-state was led by a queen for the first time in it's history and because the city-state was led first by sailors and second by traditionalists, I imagine that at the time, it must have been a source of consternation. One of the ways the common folk would talk about her is comparing her to Pandora and similar female characters and creatures betraying the gods and mankind. To solve this, she encouraged her clergy to recast these mythological figures as disguises for a Loki-type character, so she could control the narrative. She 'exposed' this trickery through a mock-temple called the Homotheon (Temple to the Same Good) and funding playwrights reimagining the famous myths with this Loki character as a man masquerading as women, also known as "Pandor". Over time, these Pandor-plays cast Pandor as a sympathetic character who is confused by his nature and this recast Pandor as a trickster god to a god of transformation, one's true nature and theatre. The Homotheon unintentionally became a meeting place for people who felt their true nature was not determined at their birth, be it werecreatures or 'other-spirited' individuals. In short time, this was adopted by the general populace, with further influences from tribal cultures outside the gates. These ideals are nebulous to commonfolk, but a serious discussion among theologians. The amusing side-effect of these schemes of the Queen is a small minority of commonfolk believing she was a man, despite giving birth to the current King.

So excited to watch this!

Rioja is a French restaurant in Denver. It's good and expensive, I suppose not ridiculously so, but it's no Olive Garden either.

I find this stream very funny because I also have a Venice/Italian inspired country in the world I'm making...and they are cynical, greedy and love elaborate schemes :D

Art and Love/Passion could go together. When I hear this I think of these paintings that had famous muses associated with them. Love doesn't always have to be wonderful; it could be more grey than exclusively "good" or "bad". It makes me think of the famous painting, the Suicide of Lucrezia by Lucas Cranach the Elder.

8:00 I like to think of the names and words of my analog cultures as a palette by which I can paint my story's culture.

It sounds like a slightly souped-up version of Italian Renaissance xD I was wondering, though: if Riojan society is so centered on the individual, how do they wage war? Are they feared for their guts but not for their discipline? Are their companies ruled with the iron fist of taking command by duel and keeping it by duel?

Hey Matt, could the goddess of unrequited love have been the intended for the “Lord” god, and the “Lady” goddess was switched into the honeymoon suite by the god of treachery, thus “sealing the marriage” the god of cowardice would have seen this occurring and said nothing, earning his title?

Ah man! I know you've mention you're creating a completely new thing but... man, when you were talking about Riojans loving wine... I thought... spot on!!! ahahah, did you look that up or was just coincidence? We love our wine... sometimes going crazy about it (check wine battle of Haro). Loving this :D

I just took one of the pantheons from the Player's Handbook (Dragonlance) and just fit them into the world. Is this wrong in any way? (I know it's a book series and plan on reading it)

Isn't the "provocative" saying earlier ("Dray your sword or I'll scar a coward" or some such) a bit contradictory to the one that enters later about the absence of scars "How many scars do you have, I see none. Are you a coward, lady?" With these to statements in mind wouldn't the first fit better if it was something like "Draw your sword or by ______ I shall be the first to scar this coward!" Also, currently writing my own campaign and these are helping a lot. Even if its just something to have in the background while I'm writing.

I would imagine Riojan culture would hold to a polychronic concept of time: the default interpretation for any statement of time is somewhere around the stated time, not the stated time exactly. For example, if one Riojan were to ask another Riojan to meet them at time X, they could show up an hour or two late and nobody would bat an eyelash, even if they were late because they double-booked the appointment with someone else--and if the asker were a foreigner and got mad that the Riojan didn't show up "when they said they would," the Riojan would be more confused at why this jerk was angry at them than apologetic. In the Riojan's mind, they did nothing TO be sorry about. This is actually more common world-wide than the monochronic idea of time most English speakers work on.

Perhaps The God Of Cowardice Knew Of A Plot On Somebody's Life, But Feared The Plotter (Probably The God Of Treachery), And Thus Didn't Confront Him About This? Not Sure If This Works With The Riojan Idea Of Cowardice, But It Does Seem Like An Interesting Idea To Me. EDIT: After Watching Farther In The Video, This Idea Could Work Well With Your Idea Of Having The God Of Nobility Dead, Perhaps He Was The One Who's Life Was Plotted Against.