Worldbuilding Question Archive

Occasionally, the Ministry of Role Play releases worldbuilding questions, things to get you thinking about your country and societies and hopefully get you to develop them further than you thought you could. This archive will keep a record of the ones asked.

---

---

What does autumn mean for your country? What happens in your country during autumn? Anything big? Do cultural beliefs or rituals (rituals can be basic daily things or cultural actions, not always big religious things) come with it? Anything unique with your specific ecosystem and nature?

---

---

What are a few important institutions in your country? By institution, I don't mean fancy schmancy "institutes", but more specifically "organizations or activities that are self-perpetuating and valued for their own sake".

They could be formal institutions backed by law and with rules, like the institution of military or democratic governance, or they could be informal institutions that are unwritten and unofficial, but still powerful in your society, like if a particular sport or etiquette serves as an important part of your society. These are just examples of some.

---

---

Does your country have a black market? If so, what are people paying for that they are not allowed to pay for? Are the goods and services they're paying for illegal under your formal institutions of laws and regulations or are they more wrong under informal institutions like cultural and religious beliefs?

---

---

What is something from your country’s history that your people look down upon? Was there anything they did in the past and think “We messed up back then”? Anything they distain from their country’s past? What makes your people think they’ve improved and are better than their past society? Could be something you also find bad or could be something you like that your people find bad today

---

---

What is something spooky that people associate with your country? A particular creature? A folktale? A legendary monster? A particular story? Rituals or beliefs of your peoples? A certain event? Maybe a odd or unsettling location? Strange phenomena? What do you have that make people spooked or associate you with spookiness? Doesn’t have to be supernatural as the real world has plenty of unsettling things, but yours might be

---

---

What is an urban legend from your country? Folklore can be made in any time period, even in today’s time. What’s a recently created belief or story that may or may not be real in your country? Could be simple like a warning against eating two foods at the same time or complex enough to have a plot and characters involved

---

---

How does your country treat the death of a person? This one could be lengthy, depending on what you come up with
• How do you dispose of the body? Burial, cremation, some other way? Why do you dispose of the dead in the ways you do?
• How do people view death? What do people do after someone dies? What customs might accompany those who mourn?
• How does your government view death? What laws follow the death of a person? Are there regulations with disposal? How does death affect those still living in concepts like debt or inheritance or ownership?

---

---

Ignoring the historical implications, Halloween exists in our RP world. Does your country celebrate it? Is it society wide, a relatively minor holiday, or only celebrated by a few? Does your country have anything unique about the holiday to your society that might not be part of celebrations in other countries?
If your country doesn’t celebrate it or it’s relatively minor, do you have any holidays similar to it or it’s themes?
(you don’t have to answer each individually. These are more suggestions to get you thinking about your worldbuilding)

---

---

Is your country a nuclear state? By that I mean do you have nuclear weapons?
If so, how did you go about getting them? What’s your population’s view on them?
How do you act internationally with them? Do you use their existence in negotiations and threats or no? Are you open about having them, deny having them, or are more opaque about it and don’t confirm or deny having them? Has your stockpile been growing, shrinking, or remaining the same?

If you don’t have them, why? What’s your population’s view on them? Did you chose not to have them? Are you technologically capable of having them? Did you have any in the past but have since either given them up or deconstructed them? Are you open about not having them, claim to have them despite having none, or are you more opaque about it and don’t confirm nor deny having them?

Again, these are more general ideas. You don’t have to answer each question individually

---

---

What is your country like in regards to tourism?

How open are you to tourism? Does tourism make up a large part of your economy? How accommodating is your country, government wise, business wise, and citizen wise, to tourists? How safe is it to be a tourist in your country?
What attracts tourists to your location? Climate? Monuments? Cities? Landscape? Events? Other?
How much of your tourism is vacations vs other motivations? Do people make pilgrimages to your country, whether secular or religious?
How much freedom do tourists have in your country? Can they explore wherever, restrictive in ways, or is it tightly monitored and curated?

These are just ideas to think of and you’re not limited to these

---

---

Big question: how does gender factor into your country?
Some things to optionally consider
- Firstly, does gender factor into your country?
- How does your country see the nature of gender? Is it rigid? Flexible? Fluid?
- Is there a binary? Are there more than two recognized in your country? Is there a number? Do you have gender?
- Are there gender roles? Does one gender have certain responsibilities while others have different ones? Do they share any responsibilities? Is there division in responsibilities at all? If you want to go into detail, what responsibilities do they each have? What can a person of one gender do that people of other genders can't do?
- Do any of the recognized genders have power in certain fields that others do not hold power in? What fields do they hold power in? Specific ones? All in general?
- Has the history of gender in your country changed over time or remained relatively consistent? How much of that change was internal? How much of it was due to foreign influence, whether through voluntary acculturation or through coercion?
- Where does gender and all it associations come from in your country? Does culture have a say in it? Religion? Economics? What institutions have a say in gender in your country and push it to be what it is?
-Are there competeing ideas of what gender is in your country? Are there different societies/nations within your country with different ideas relating to gender?

---

---

How does your country approach marriage? Another big one.
Some things to optionally consider
These will enter some sensitive areas.
- Does your country have marriage? Do they have an institution of societally recognizing relationships or are relationships a more personal matter?
- Why do people marry? Do people marry to be with a person they love? Do they marry in order to establish families and lineages (maybe more the pleasures of the latter?)? Do they marry to secure benefits like financial, health, etc? Do they marry because of social pressures, whether a religion promoting marriage or a societal push to be in a marriage or to try and fit in to societal concepts of how relationships work? How much attraction is in marriage versus it being more an arrangement for other purposes?
- Who is allowed to marry whom? Start with the obvious: what sexes and genders may marry? Does sex and gender factor into who is allowed to marry? But other things to consider: if there are social classes, can people intermarry between them? Between different ethnic groups? Between religions/backgrounds in that area? Can people within the same family marry? Who can and cannot marry?
- How does age factor into marriage? Is there a time in a person's life where they're expected to marry? Can someone go past that time? Is there an age where you're thought of as too old to marry or unlikely to marry? How young can one marry? How wide of an age gap can there be between marriage partners?
- Does your country engage mainly in monogamy or polygamy (marriage between two people vs more than two people)? If monogamy, how does your country see polygamy? If polygamy, how does your country see monogamy? If polygamy, can anyone be polygamous or is it limited to certain groups/genders/etc? Is there a limit to how many people you can marry, like bigamy’s limit of two partners? Is group marriage allowed, where three or more people marry each other all at once, or can you only marry individually?
- How is faithfulness approached? Is adultery illegal within your country? Can people, whether socially or legally, have relationships outside of marriage? How are extramarital relationships seen?
- How much choice do people have in marriage? Are arranged marriages encouraged? Tolerated? Discouraged? Do all parties (or any party) need to consent in order to be married?
- How is divorce approached? Can people divorce? How do people feel about divorce? Is it fine, wrong, or something else? Can you marry after divorce? Is there a limit to that? How does divorce affect ownership and guardianship, whether over who owns property, assets, etc or how parentship factors in?
- How are the rights of different people within the marriage approached? Are all involved spouses equal? Is coverture a practice, of a spouse surrendering their legal rights and obligations to another spouse? If divorce is possible, can any partner initiate it or can only certain partners initiate divorce?
- Is the government involved in marriage? Does your government encourage it? If so, does that include things like giving more property rights, financial benefits, inheritance, etc? How much does the government regulation of marriage affect the relationships and marriages of its people? Are there any rights or actions that non-married couples/groups may want that they can’t have due to not being married?

Ya’ll, this covers a lot of things you can consider, but marriage has SO many things to consider that I can’t list them all without making this almost an essay.

---

---

What was the last major development that happened in your country? Something that really changed things up
Could be as big as civil wars or revolutions, or something more like a technological implementation. Maybe a large social change occurred, some kind of economic situation, whatever it may be. Something that you think changed your country recently. Societies are not static, no matter how much fantasy wants you to think that

---

---

Does your country have a population of sapient animals? If so, what are the interactions like between them and others? What's the history of interaction between humans and the sapient animals that live within your country? Do humans and sapient animals intermingle or are they like separate societies within one country? What's going on in your country? Also, if it applies, is your country majority sapient animals? Same questions but non-human focused. What's it like ot be in a world where most other countries are human constructed?

If you do not have sapient animals, what does your country think of sapient animals from elsewhere? How do they approach interactions internationally?
(yes human are animals, but you know what I mean)

---

---

What is the strangest organism in your country? It might be an animal, but could be a plant, a fungus, some other kind of organism, whatever it might be. What kind of thing lives in your country that you think is the strangest? The weirdest? Most bizarre? What makes it so weird? Tell us about the organism and its weirdness.
and no, TERFs don't count

---

---

In the DSA RP world, our version of Christmas is called Jeb!mas. Can be all the same irl traditions, but instead based around the religion of Jeb!ism, our RP equivalent of Christianity

Do any societies in your country celebrate Jeb!mas?
-If you have it, do you call it Jeb!mas?
-How religious is it? Are celebrations mainly religious? Mainly secular? A more middle ground mix?
-What traditions accompany it? Any of the ones from irl? Any unique ones? What similiarities and differences are there? What kind of culture surrounds it? From decor to stories to characters to attitudes to customs to music, whatever.
-How widespread is it? Celebrated all across the country? Only in some places? Who celebrates it? Is it a recognized holiday that people get time off for? Or arre people possibly required to be off for it?
-When is it for you country? Is it December 25th or another day? Is it one day or multiple? Is it even in winter or a different season all together?
-Are there other holidays surrounding it, creating a holiday season? Is Jeb!mas the only holiday celebrated around that time? Is it the main holiday of the time or is it overshadowed by another? Is it its own separate holiday or part of a larger and longer one?

If you do not have Jeb!mas in your country (whether from lack of interest or even the banning of it), do you have any holidays similiar to it? What are those holidays like? Similiar questions to the above

---

---

What is your country like in regards to pets?
Some questions that can help you think
-How do your societies feel about pets? Do they enjoy having them? Are they questionable about having them? Do they think it's bad to have pets? Or maybe the opposite and it's largely encouraged to have pets?
-What reasons do your people get pets? Companionship? Protection, whether of people or property? Aesthetic and showmanship? Theraputic reasons? Cultural/Social pressures? Any other reasons?
-What animals would you usually find as pets in your country? Dogs? Cats? Fish? Any others that are popular among your people? Do you have any animals that are unique to your country that are also pets?
-Is there any government involvement with pets? Are there any laws regulating pet ownership? Are there any agencies that deal with pets? Are there any animals that are not allowed to be pets? Regulations on how to acquire pets? Any laws regarding how many pets you can own at once? Do you even legally own the pet?
-How do your people handle the death of a pet? Are owners encouraged to quickly move on? Are pets quickly replaced with new ones? Is pet loss considered near to equal to familial loss? Are there any rituals, whether secular or religious, taken after the death of a pet? How are dead pet bodies dealt with? Are there pet cemeteries? Are pets buried with their owners?

---

---

How does your country generate energy?
Where your country is in the world may limit or expand your access to and use of energy resources. Your climate, latitude, shore access, elevation, access to volcanos, etc, lots of things can alter what you got. However, we allow players to decide what resources they have, so do whatever you like here.
Some questions just to get you thinking
-Do you use nonrenewables? Examples such as coal, natural gas, petroleum, etc
-Do you use renewables? Those include solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, etc
-Do you use nuclear energy? Do you use fission power or has your country developed the ability to use fusion? How do you handle nuclear waste?
-Do you use any paranatural energy generation? Whether in use of metamaterials or using paranatural processes and actions to support your current energy generation?
-Do you use a combo of energy types? Does your country have any preference towards one over another?
-How does your country approach energy emissions? Do you give off a lot? Are you trying to limit your emissions? Have you reached net zero emissions, whether by not giving off emissions or by removing emissions while you give them off? What is common life like to have the emissions you have? Whether in transportation, home useage, etc
-Do you import any of your energy or do you generate everything within your own borders?
-How much energy consumption occurs in your country? Do your people use a lot of energy? Could be for heat, air conditioning, lighting, etc. What's the biggest uses of energy in your country?
-How reliable is energy generation and distribution in your country? Is your energy security good or does it face threats, whether from overreliance on foreign import, poor infrastructure, attacks on that infrastructure (terrorism? war?), energy supply manipulation, etc. Are blackouts common? Does everyone have access to energy or do some face fuel poverty?

---

---

How does your country feel about privacy?
Some questions just to get you thinking, among many you could think of
-Does your country see privacy as something to protect? If not seen that way, what is your country like? I ask that as most of us live in countries with privacy protections
-What aspects of privacy are protected? Is your individual privacy protected? Privacy of groups or organizations? Privacy on a societal level? How much privacy does the government have?
-Is the protection of privacy solely a social institution or is it also written into law? Is privacy a right? With that in mind, how much privacy do people actually have in your country?
-How extensive is surveillance in your country? Who does the surveillance? The government? Corporations? Other organizations? Private citizens? Who is surveilling who? And why? Do people know about it? If so, how much do they actually know or how much do they care? Do they support it?

---

---

What is your country's relation to astronomy? Not space exploration, but astronomy. This dispatch about our solar system may help
Some helpful questions to get you thinking
-What were the early beliefs regarding the universe and the sky? Did your people connect celestial objects with their spirituality and religions? Were they secular in their beliefs regarding the sky? What did they subjectively see when they looked out at the sky? Did these beliefs change? Were they abandoned? Maybe altered? Why did they change, or do we not know why? How did/do your people view their place in the universe?
-Are constellations a thing in your society, of connecting the stars to make them into images? If so, are they unique to your culture or were they imported by another culture's ideas regarding them? What constellations do you have? (we have no official star map so, honestly, you can make the stars look like whatever you want)
-How does the sky, if at all, affect time in your country? If space affects it, how do your people measure time? Do you follow the standard DSA calendar that's basically the Gregorian calendar? Do you have your own unique calendar? If it is based on celestial objects, which? The sun? The moon? The stars? Other planets near by? Multiple objects?
-When and how did your society start studying the sky? Did you develop tools to help study them? Did you create observatories to study the sky? More importantly, why? What purpose did studying the sky serve? Navigation? Time? Religion? Scientific pursuit? Pure curiosity?

---

---

What is your country's relation to space exploration? This carries on from last week's question about astronomy. This dispatch about our solar system may help you think.
Some helpful questions to get you thinking
-Does your country have a space program? Is this government run, a private program? Maybe a mix? Are there more than one? What's the goal? Just astronomy? Human/Sapient spaceflight? What are they trying to do?
-Does your country have any satellties in orbit around Delusia? What is it used for? Astronomy? Weather treacking? Navigation? Communication? Spying?
-Does your country have a space station? What is it used for? Research? Tourism? Space dock? Industry? Why would you have a habitable station in space?
-Has your country ever been to Danae, our moon? Why? Are you still there? What for? Do you have structures there? Habitable stations? Do any of your people permanently live there?
-Has your country ever physically explored beyond Delusia and Danae? Have you sent satellites to or pass other planets? Again, what for? Have you ever attempted to send someone to another planet?
-Has anything your country made gone interstellar? Has it left our solar system?
-How accessible is space to your people? Does anyone from your country go into space? Can only some people afford/be allowed to?

---

---

No culture is stagnant. As long as societies exists, cultures, the social behaviors and norms of a society, will appear, evolve, change, and fade. Can you give an example of a time when the culture of your society was changing? What was your culture like at one point, what was it like at another, and what caused that change in culture?

Could be small like new music trends, adoption of different foods, new story tellings, or could be larger like revolutions, language or religious shifts, how new large scale implementing of new tech, anything really

---

---

Societies are large and contain many opinions, a lot being controversial and dividing societies, whether a soft disagreement or enough to make people start throwing fists.

What’s something that’s currently going on in your country that’s controversial to your population? Not something taboo inherently, but something causing a lot of discussion and division, something with a lot of opinions

---

---

When creating a society in role play, something that should be obvious but doesn't seem to be common is consideration of architecture. Architecture is a major aspect of a culture and reflects on what a society is like. There's so many civilizations and time periods irl where their architecture is some of the first things we think of. So, let's reflect on that.

What is your architecture like?

Just some things to think about
-What are some common building materials? Why use that kind? Availability? Cost? Aesthetic? Structural integrity? Something else? Are they all within your country or do you have to import material?
-How tall can buildings be? Is there a set limit? If so, why? Is there a cost element to it? A legal element? Maybe a cultural element to height?
-What are the differences in materials and appearance between a lower-class, middle-class, and upper-class type house? Are there differences? Are certain features, like certain rooms, looks, functions, etc only found in some kinds of houses and not others?
-Are there any irl styles your architecture takes after?
-Do your buildings have to withstand anything special, such as torrential rain, hurricanes, frequent flooding, attacks of some kind, blizzards, earthquakes, searing heat? How do they do this? What design implementations are there that help against these factors?
-Are there any major architectual features that stand out as "This is definitely my country"? Any particular buildings that greatly reflect this to be recognized globally, like a Big Ben or a Taj Mahal or most Washington D.C. government buildings?

---

---

What do your people look like?

some topics to get your mind stirring
• Is your country ethnically homogenous or is there a diversity of ethnic groups? In this case, I mean in terms of groups with distinctly different looks. If diverse..,you might have a lot of thinking to do here
• What complexion do your people have?
• What hair and eye colors are most standard? Are there any that are rare enough that they’d stand out there?
• What is hair like there? Is baldness common anywhere? How is body hair treated? What do people think of beards? Are there any different standards with different groups or persons? What hair styles are common or uncommon?
• What’s height like? How tall or short are your people?
• Does gender factor into differences of appearance or is there not much difference between genders?
• What physical types and characteristics are currently fashionable? Like tan vs. pale skin, thick vs. thin, blonde vs. brunette, muscles vs. “dead poet”, etc
• Are there any visually unique physical features to your people?
• Are your people even describable in the same way as humans? Are your people human? If not, what do they look like? Do any try and emulate humans in appearance or do most not care to?

If you’re looking for a section on clothes, you can talk about that, but I’ll probably make that it’s own thing. For this, imagine all your people are naked

---

---

It’s St.Patrick’s Day, the day when people use an ethnic diaspora’s existence to drink. So, let’s ask about that.

What are diaspora like for you? This’ll be tricky cause of our consent RP system, so only talk about this in vague terms without mentioning specific countries unless other players have signed off on it

• How much of a diaspora of your people exists around the world? Is it a low number? A high one? Why have so many people left your country?
• Of your diaspora, how much do they cling onto their culture? Generally speaking, at least. Did a lot assimilate? Is there a strong homeland culture among your diaspora where ever they go? Or is there a new culture that’s blending of your culture with the diaspora’s new homes?
• How connected is your diaspora to your country? Do you reach out to them? Do many come back and visit? Do you encourage them to move back entirely?
• Are there holidays and festivities your diaspora celebrate abroad? Are these festivals strong or lightly celebrated?
• What about the people in your country who don’t come from there? How welcoming are you to other cultures in your borders? Do you encourage or even demand assimilation? Are you a melting pot of culture? A mosaic maybe? How open are your people to other cultures inside their borders?

There’s lots of ways to approach this question

---

---

We have officially sprung into spring, so let’s answer some questions about the budding season!

• Are there any holidays/festivals that are celebrating during spring? Do these have anything to do with the season itself? What kind of themes do they celebrate? Are there different areas in your country that celebrate a spring holiday that other areas don't? If so what factors contribute to only some people celebrating it and not all.
• What changes in nature does spring bring for your country? Is it a far cry from winter months, or much of the same? Are there any species of animals that migrate back to your nation in Spring. Are there any that come out of hibernation?
• Are there any rituals or traditions done around this time? They can be as mundane as ‘Spring cleaning’ to more official government events.
• Do any sports seasons begin in spring?

---

---

As times goes on, culture evolves and changes, and that includes fashion.

Tell me about two styles of clothing, one either an older style or a traditional one, and the other a modern common style. What differences are there between these two? When and why did styles change? How out of place is the older style if someone wore it today?

---

---

As today is a celebration of foundings, that’ll be what the question is

Tell us about the founding of your country

Could be lots of things.
• When was it founded? How old are you?
• Why was it founded?
• What was it like when it was founded? What conditions and pressures were there?
• Is your country an indigenous state, a colonial state, or a new regime replacing the previous? If the last one, how far back does your civilization go? How many iterations are there?
• How different is the modern state of your country compared to when it was founded?
• Get creative. Sure y’all can think of other things to lore dump about

---

---

If your country is run by a state, it’s extremely likely your government doesn’t have 100% transparency and they’re hiding something from the public. Could be corruption, covert operations that run counter to the public image, secret branches, unknown programs or experiments, how much money they spend on coffee, something they don’t want the larger world to know.

What’s something your government keeps secret from the public?

---

---

In honor of the highest holiday that is today: drugs

They're pretty common. Nearly every society has them in one way or another. They could be on the periphery of society from bad views of them, they could have an entire culture and market surrounding them, maybe you're even expected to consume drugs. They could be medicinal, recreational, over-the-counter, black market, anything. They could be a purely natural substance, whether from a plant, animal, fungus, whatever. They could be synthetic, made in a lab or through rituals using a wide variety of things. They alter you physiologically, mentally, emotionally, in many ways. Could be good, could be bad.

Tell me about the drugs in your country. What are their legality? What's the economy for them like? How do people view it and its takers? What drugs do you have? Do you have any special or unique ones in RP that don't exist IRL? What are they like?

---

---

In a culture, stories propagate and some become known to almost everyone. It could be in the form of folklore, ballads, novels, radio dramas, tv or movie series, anything. Some stories just really grab the culture.

What’s the most popular story/stories in your country? Is it ancient? Old? New? How do people feel about it? Is it recognized as purely fictional or is there some belief in it being true? What has been the effect it’s had on your culture?

---

---