D&D Next Worldbuilding Module:
The players have generated their D&D characters. Now you will be generating your own D&D World.
Step 1) Run the players through our introductory D&D Next adventure.
Step 2) After completing that adventure, pick another dungeoneering adventure. Either make your own dungeon using the instructions and tables provided elsewhere in this DMG, or choose from many low-level adventures available from any number of publishers. Assume that these locations are within a day's walk from each other. Repeat this Step until you feel ready to map the local wilderness.
Step 3) Get a piece of paper and draw a map showing where all those dungeons are located, along with any villages that were featured in those adventures. Place them according to your own whim. Yet all these should be within a few miles of each other, since the PCs haven't started wilderness exploration. See sample cartographic styles and symbols.
Step 4) Give the PCs a copy of the map, and let them explore the wilderness as they visit other dungeon adventures that you place on the map.
Step 5) Send the PCs on an adventure off the edge of the map, either to another dungeon, or exploring, or to a city adventure. Tape another sheet of paper to your original map. This city might become a sort of home base for the characters.
Step 6) Taking this two-sheeted map, draw a line which will serve as the boundaries of a country that encompasses what the PCs have explored so far. Name the country. See table for name-generation.
Step 7) When you're ready to send the PCs beyond this country, make a wider map showing where this country is located. Draw a continent or sub-continental region however you wish. See sample maps of continents from existing D&D settings, such as the Flanaess, Faerun, the Known World, the Savage Coast, and others. Pick and choose countries from various D&D Worlds to make your own World. Make up names and/or take names from published sources.
Step 8) As the characters progress, let them explore those countries. Place our mid-level adventures wherever you wish.
Step 9) Eventually send the characters on a sea adventure. Add the islands from that adventure to the map wherever wherever you wish.
Step 10) Send the PCs to another continent. Add that continent to your map.
Step 11) Draw a world map. See the small sample maps of the D&D Worlds of Oerth, Krynn, Toril, Aebir, Mystara, Athas, Aebrynis, Pelinore, Ptolus, Iomandra, etc. Name your world (which was previously called "The World"). See table for generating a planet name.
Step 12) Now that you have a world map, and the characters are reaching higher levels, start compiling a Setting Book. See the table for generating a Campaign Setting name (if different from the name of the planet). Design a logo. See our history of D&D Campaign Setting logos.
For more, please see our upcoming Worldbuilding articles in Dragon Magazine, our Worldbuilding web articles, and the upcoming Worldbuilder's Guide. By the end of the WBG, you will have a PDF Campaign Setting book that approaches or exceeds the qualities of our own professionally published settings. We will have an officially-designated website called the World Serpent Inn, where all DMs may post a link to their Worldbooks. This will be for homebrew settings what the official fansites are for the published D&D Worlds.