A worldbuilding checklist is an ideal tool for anyone looking for more structure when it comes to the process of making a fantasy world.

The process of creating worlds is a complex area of fantasy writing. With so much to cover it’s easy to become lost in details that you may never use in your story or novel. It’s equally possible to miss things out.

That’s where the likes of a culture checklist can come in.

In this guide, you can download a free worldbuilding list. We also look at the benefits of using one before looking at questionnaires that may provide more writing prompts. Lastly, you can find a bunch more articles on creating worlds that you may find useful.

Choose A Chapter

  1. What Is A Worldbuilding Checklist?
  2. Download A Free Worldbuilding Checklist
  3. Why Use A World Building Checklist?
  4. How Do You Develop The Culture Of Your World?
  5. How Do You Create Your Own Worldbuilding List?
  6. How To Develop Your Worldbuilding Checklist
  7. Key Questions To Cover In Your Worldbuilding List
  8. Learn More About Creating Worlds

What Is A Worldbuilding Checklist?

A worldbuilding checklist is a list of items or tasks that you need to consider when creating a fictional world. It can be used to keep track of the different elements of your world, such as geography, history, cultures, races, languages, religions, politics, economy, magic, technology and more.

The checklist can be tailored to the specific needs of your world, whether it’s for a novel, a roleplaying game, or a video game. It can include items such as creating a map of the world, determining the climate of different regions, deciding on the natural resources available, creating a pantheon of gods and goddesses, developing religious practices and rituals, and more.

The purpose of a world building checklist is to help you keep track of the details of your world and ensure that you don’t miss anything important. It can also help you stay organized and focused on your worldbuilding goals, and it can be a valuable reference tool as you work on your story or project.

Download A Free Worldbuilding Checklist

To help you create fictional world, I’ve put together a free worldbuilding checklist that you can download by clicking the link at the bottom of this section.

My checklist has been designed with the benefit of experience. I’ve created many fantasy worlds, invested hundreds of hours doing so, and found this to be the most logical method.

worldbuilding checklist

It’s also comprehensive. It covers both the physical makeup of your fantasy world, like oceans, rivers and climate, and also the key cultural considerations, such as politics, laws and language.

Click Here To Download A Free Worldbuilding Checklist

Why Use A World Building Checklist?

The reason for using a world building checklist is simple: to help keep organised.

It feeds into one of the hardest parts of creating worlds, and that’s keeping it all in order. Very quickly you can find your notes spread over various notebooks and documents on your computer. One time, in a creative stupor, I scrawled a fantasy map on the inside wall of my writing shed.

When the time comes to include details, you may find yourself scrambling for that page, knowing that you’d scribbled it down somewhere and cursing yourself for not remembering where.

But with so much to focus on, it’s natural to forget a few things. Working through a checklist simply ensures that doesn’t happen.

How Do You Develop The Culture Of Your World?

One of the hardest parts of worldbuilding is the cultural setting. The main reason for this is that there are so many of them, as you can see in the image below. That’s why I created this worldbuilding culture checklist (downloadable via the link in the section above).

worldbuilding culture checklist

As you can see, cultures consist of everything that isn’t physical. In other words, everything that’s created by man or whatever sentient beings live in your fantasy world.

This isn’t an exhaustive list either. Rather, it’s one that contains the fundamental considerations, the things that will breathe life into your world.

From here, you can go off on tangents that are relevant to your story. For example, other countries in your world may have unique differences. For example, they may have a stringent legal system that bans magic, or another nation could believe in creation myths and the importance of social status.

Natural resources can also impact culture. For example, the prevalance of gold could mean it’s a part of daily life, but different countries may have never seen the shimmer of gold. You can also explore foreign relations between these different nations.

And you don’t need to define things in absolute detail. For some cultural settings, you may only include a line or two, but for others, like civil rights for example, you may write much more about them. The same is true for the likes of what people eat, technology levels, social structure and so many other things.

This will be the case even more so if this cultural consideration is relevant to your story.

You also have the impact of significant historical events within your world. Certain events have the power to change a world in monumental ways. Just take World War One and Two.

worldbuilding checklist

Examples Of Cultural Questions

  • What are the dominant religions or belief systems?
  • What languages or dialects are spoken?
  • What are the key festivals, holidays, and ceremonies?
  • How do different social classes or castes interact?
  • What types of art, music, and literature are valued?
  • What are the customary dress and fashion styles?
  • What traditional foods and cuisines are prevalent?
  • How do family structures and gender roles operate?
  • What forms of government and political systems are in place?
  • What educational systems and forms of knowledge transmission exist?
  • How does the society view and interact with magic and the supernatural?
  • What are the common pastimes, sports, and recreational activities?

How Do You Create Your Own Worldbuilding List?

I always recommend trying things out for yourself; things tend to stick in your mind a bit better. And another reason is that every writer, one way or another, devises their own methods of writing, one that suits their personality and style best. So I encourage you to have a go at making your own world building checklist.

It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, only practical. It all depends on your style and what makes you feel comfortable. For me, I use a spreadsheet. I know some people who use whiteboards. Other people write short stories as they go. Some commission artwork for more visual inspiration.

Here are some tips on how to create your own worldbuilding checklist:

  • Decide on the format for your checklist. You can create a checklist in a word processing program, such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs, or use a spreadsheet program like Excel.
  • Determine the categories of information that you want to include in your checklist. This can include geography, history, cultures, races, languages, religions, politics, economy, magic, technology and more.
  • Create a list of items that you want to include in each category. For example, under the “geography” category, you might include items such as “create a map of the world”, “determine the climate of different regions”, “decide on the natural resources available”.
  • Organize the items in the list in a logical order. For example, you might want to start with the general information about your world and then move on to the more specific details.
  • Create a key or legend for your checklist, to explain any abbreviations or symbols you use.
  • Review and update your checklist regularly to keep it current and accurate.
  • Consider adding a deadline to each item, this will help you to keep the pace of your worldbuilding process.

Remember that a checklist is just a tool to help you organize your ideas. You don’t need to stick to it strictly so feel free to change and adapt it as you go.

How To Develop Your Worldbuilding Checklist

If you’re looking to develop an entire world, or simply want to define it better, one of the best ways to achieve that is by using questionnaires and worldbuilding prompts.

These prompts direct your focus on key areas of worldbuilding, such as on magic systems, politics and the types of food that people eat. They can be incredibly helpful. You can take for granted all of the little details that you need to define. Food is a great example. We can easily become lost in the grant machinations of our story, but neglect to even mention the main food that everyone eats, or what your main characters’ favorite foods are.

You may think this isn’t important, but it is. Little details show your reader that the world is alive. That people exist within it. And key to showing these myriad lives are the things we enjoy in our own lives—foods, drink, the games we play to kill time or for entertainment.

As an example, in my novel Pariah’s Lament, I made brief mention of a game that a group of children were playing in a town square as a character walks by. A number of different book reviewers included this in their reviews as a detail that brought the world to life.

So I would certainly add these more specific details to your worldbuilding list. And if you’d like to check out more prompts or questionnaires, check out my guide below. You can find questions on pretty much every aspect of creating a world.

Click Here To Learn More About How To Start Worldbuilding

Key Questions To Cover For Your Worldbuilding List

There are some key questions you can begin with when it comes to developing your world. These questions and prompts can feature on all worldbuilding lists and serve as the foundation for the secondary worlds we create. Here they are:

  • What are the key geographical features and climates of the world?
  • What is the origin story of the world?
  • What is the history of the world, including major events and conflicts?
  • What are the dominant political systems and forms of governance?
  • What are the prevalent religions or belief systems, and how do they influence society?
  • What are the main languages or dialects spoken, and what is their significance?
  • How is the society structured in terms of social classes, castes, or hierarchies?
  • What technology or magic systems exist, and how do they impact daily life?
  • What are the cultural practices, traditions, and values of the society?
  • How do different species or races interact, and what are their unique characteristics?
  • What economic systems and trade practices are in place, and how do they shape interactions?

Learn More About Creating Worlds

Below, you can find more guides on creating worlds in the fantasy genre that you may find useful:

If you have any more questions about using our worldbuilding checklist, please get in touch.

Richie Billing
Latest posts by Richie Billing (see all)