I'll be posting 'tutorials' or 'tips' from my side of doing art. Absolutely go to the greats on youtube and everything to see how things are done properly, but I hope that I can give some interesting insights of my own.
How To Build A Fantasy World With Cola, Pen and PaperIngredients: Coke (or any drink that stains. Wine works great I hear), Paper and Pen.
Step 0: Randomly generate the map name
I typed out adiohfou gob
and came up with
Adio - Land of Dead Gods
Step 1: Spill coke
Step 2: Use intuition to draw out major landmasses.
After it dries it looks like this
Step 3: Fill in details and add names as you wish
Step 4: Build lore
Now that I have this map before me the lore comes itself. I'll make my pitch now.
Adio - The Land of Dead Gods
Spoiler
The name actually commemorates the Creation Story of this land. In order to fight off A Grand Evil so beyond concepts of darkness and bad that all the gods of the land sacrificed themselves to destroy It. Thus, the inhabitants of this land can live on. Adio is a prayer and a rememberance of this great deed.
Adio Magic System
After the gods left, spellcraft has been reduced to weaving mana from nature itself.
There are various schools of thoughts as to how this works and which is more effective, but the canonical reason (As in I'm telling you) is that The Caterpillar God, an evil god decided he would lower himself so that his followers always had access to his power without any of the other gods knowing.
He sacrificed three quarters of his mana and weaved it into the fabric of the land unnoticed, which cursed some of the land when too strong but otherwise became the basis for mana in the whole land. Without this deed humans would have no way to tap into magic, as magic could only in ancient times be accessed by supplicating the many gods that roamed the land.
Kingdoms
In Adio, there are 2 Major Kingdoms worth mentioning. 1. Akamonia and 2. Oruk (The 3rd, Hopt was destroyed by an unknown disaster and is so haunted by ghosts, demons and other creatures no one knows exactly what happened there. Even Fineus failed to discover what happened there.)
1 Akamonians are a human race that uphold the values of The Dragon Goddess Akako. She was a dragon who breathed golden flame that burnt eternally - in fact the last flame still burns in a temple at the heart of the Akamonian kingdom.
Heirarchy
Their domain is highly clerical and religious, with constant triple-check systems that enforce absolute discipline and forsight. Typically, there is the Main office, the Higher office and then the Shadow office.
From Government to Church to School Systems this three-tiered system presents itself everywhere.
In all cases The Shadow Office is always staffed by two kingdom-trained assassins who deal solely in death or life-long imprisonment. If the Higher Offices in place cannot prevent corruption then the Shadow Office steps in.
Fineus
Though now a highly aesthetic warrior race, Akamonians are travelling merchants and documenters at heart. Fineus is their national hero: He's the only man to have travelled the length of the continent to and fro without dying, circumventing the catepillar pass, the Ruins of Hopt and reaching even the Elf Gate before age and the importance of his carried documents prompted him to return with all the things he had seen and mapped. All future advancement owes itself to the pioneering states of Fineus.
Basics
Akamonians are olive skinned, but their dominion is so great there are other colours within their races. Of note is when albinos' appear, they are revered as holy clerics and typically scouted by the religious sides of kingdom.
Akamonian warriors are knights that depend on steelwork embued with 'holy' runes.
Akamonians have precise language and speak very fast.
Akamonians believe strongly in prayer despite the knowledge that the gods are gone. It is in every aspect of their daily life and part of their orientation in the world.
2. Orukians
I got lazy. Sue me they're orcs. Basically.
Heirarchy
Orukians have a caste-based system that shuffles every 4 years where a great battle royale takes place and new blood rises to the top. Only special outsiders such as wise men, craftsmen and honoured heroes are left alone. Otherwise every man, woman and child is forced to fight or yield to another, with the severity of servitude wholly dependent on the victor.
Gladrider
Gladrider was an Orukian who fell in love with an elf and left the land. His whole family was massacred and eternally shamed, until he returned with a glowing sun-stone that grew an entire forest on the once rocky plans of the land of Oruk.
The Orukoru forest is a sacred land full of beasts that the Orukians hunt for sport and for food. Their diet had mainly consisted of cannibalism and fish at first until then.
Gladrider also constructed the Babylon pass (it's in perfect alignment with a magical leyline that passes through the Elf Gate that crosses the continent up to Fineus's arm. While Fineus's arm is on the right place, it's constructed with the wrong alignment, an unfortunate fact as this leyline is a magical defence barrier if constructed properly.)
Basics
They are basically orcs in appearance and clothing style. They speak the same tounghe as the whole land, but just deeper. Their art expresses itself in silent dance and stone-craft. Their martial arts focuses on good armour and guantlets spiked elbows, knees and feet for killing strikes and blows. They can jump 10 times their height and are hell to fight against, but their exposive energy exhausts them if they overdo it.
Orukians praise all the dead evil gods, but know that they are not around.
Orukians equate honour to life. Even words can injure someones' honour.
Some places
The Witchery, The Wizards' Catacomb and The Wizards' Tower all refer to a singular Hermit of the name Hyl. Hyl is the first trained wizard who comes close to the nature of spellcraft and magic on the world. He also investigated the reason why there are no elves on the world, and went as far as building a Twoer near the Elf harbour, the famed place full of strange magicks and dangerous technologies - its greatest feature being a port build for gigantic ships that obviously sailed away.
The Wizard travelled far through the land and Fineus met him once during their journey. The two were very friendly on a scholarly basis, but neither truly understood the other.
In his old age The Wizard left clues around the continent that lead all those intelligent enough or skilled in spellcraft to find his gigantic home and library at The Witchery. There, a group of witches have taken it upon themselves to teach the magic arts and use the library for good.
The Wizard is said to have left north to build a necropolis for himself (Canon explanation: He's been messing around with magic so much when he dies he'll unleash a curse in the area. The Catacombs are now full of demons and wraiths.)
The Devils' Mouth
A Volcano and a strong source of mana
Tower of Insight
Tower is a misnomer, because it goes underground to a chamber lighted with dull crystals and a brackish shallow lake. Here, the acoustics and smell are enough to trigger 'eye opening' hallucinations as reported by several travellers. However, not so bad enough that one cannot leave when they wish.
Not many people visit the place, as the nearby Ruins of Hopt are too dangerous to circumvent.
Elf Gate
Canon: The Elf Gate was built by the Elves to seal off the Adio continent in the East from any massive invasion. It's connected to the reason they built the massive ships and left the continent altogether.
And I've made my pitch. It goes on and on and on. The more I think about things the more details come up in my mind, and I haven't even really labelled that much in the story, let alone started working on the characters. Don't bother too much reading what I've written down, but with this simple method you can have a map and a world ready to go. Maps are powerful things