Mapping the Unknown: Worldbuilding Plains

Welcome to our Worldbuilding Wednesday! This series, Mapping the Unknown, focuses on creating your own world, and how best to make it believable while still filling it with wonder. It's a limited series meant to give advice to budding writers and worldbuilders about the best practices in developing your setting!

When creating your fantasy world, plains are often the quiet giants of the map—vast, sprawling regions that are deceptively simple but essential to both the geography and civilizations of your setting. Plains can be lush, fertile floodplains that feed empires, rolling grasslands where nomads roam free, or dry, open savannahs filled with herds of beasts and untold dangers. Whether they nurture life, serve as battlegrounds, or form the backdrop for untamed wilderness, plains are the unsung heroes of worldbuilding. After all, it's very easy to leave blank space on the map; much less so, to come up with ideas to make that blank space interesting.

Why do plains matter so much? For starters, fertile plains, especially those shaped by rivers, are the cradles of civilization. Rich soil and abundant crops allow societies to grow, trade, and flourish. Where there’s food, there’s power—plains often become the economic heart of kingdoms. The Fertile Crescent in the Middle East was the cradle of ancient civilization, but any region with plains providing fertile, nurturing soil has been the heart of new civilizations (the Indus valley is another good example).

But plains are also places of conflict. They’re places where the horizon stretches endlessly, where armies march, caravans travel, and nomadic peoples live in harmony with the land. Plains are natural crossroads—trade routes, migration paths, and invasion routes often cut across open lands. They are where armies clash and empires expand, their flat expanses offering little refuge but ample strategic importance.

The peoples who inhabit plains adapt to their vastness. Farmers till fertile floodplains and cluster around rivers, while nomads and herders roam untamed grasslands. Each culture is shaped by their relationship to the land, its bounty, and its emptiness. Speaking of emptiness: most fantasy kingdoms have a much lower density of population compared to today's world, so your plains will likely be lightly dotted by remote villages, with vast swaths of them being rarely visite. This is where ancient ruins or arcane wonders may hide in plain sight, as it were.

In Teidar, between the Virwald River in the east and the mighty Neviryl River to the west stretch the Plains of Belegair—a sea of golden fields and fertile plains. Known as the Breadbasket of Brightland, these lands are the agricultural heart of the kingdom, their bounty feeding cities, fortresses, and armies across the realm. Belegair is more than just farmland—it is a symbol of stability and prosperity. Its wealth sustains Brightland’s cities, its crops fill the storehouses of kings, and its farmers are the quiet backbone of the realm. Yet, its importance also makes it vulnerable. Erkanth covets its bounty, and during times of war, Belegair’s fields became battlegrounds as armies clashed for control of the fertile land.

To the south, once the Neviryl almost reaches the sea, it forms a natural border; on its southern shore lie the Plains of Irig, a vast savannah where golden grass waves like an endless sea beneath an open sky. Unlike the tamed, cultivated Belegair, Irig is a place of freedom, where the land is shaped not by farmers but by the nomadic Nurain—a proud people who roam the plains as they have for centuries. The Nurain have a culture steeped in tradition and harmony with the land. Skilled hunters, herders, and warriors, they live in kin-groups that move with the migrations of wild beasts, setting up temporary camps where water and grazing land are plentiful. The plains sustain them, providing herds to hunt, medicines from hardy plants, and shelter in the form of ancient stone outcroppings known as spirit stones. To the Nurain, the Irig plains are sacred—a gift from the spirits of the land. But the Plains aren't without danger. Outsiders see the nurain as primitive and foolish, and slavers hunt them down, since these exotic creatures fetch high prices for their strength and endurance. Although the naladain of the mountains have dwindled to extinction, before their disappearance they, too, raided the plains - seeking not the bounty of the land itself, but the flesh of nurain which they considered a delicacy.

When incorporating plains and floodplains into your map and story, consider the following: what roles do they play? Are they fertile farmland like Belegair, untamed wilderness like Irig, or harsh, windswept steppes? Furthermore, how do they shape the culture? Farmers, herders, and nomads have vastly different ways of life. A settled kingdom may rely on plains for food, while nomadic peoples may see the land as sacred and free.

What conflicts involve them? Plains are often contested regions. Armies march across them, kingdoms fight for their resources, and nomads defend their way of life from outsiders. Brigands and highwaymen raid farmsteads and ambush caravans on trade roads. Finally, what secrets do they hold? Plains may seem simple, but they can hide ancient ruins, burial mounds, and forgotten paths beneath their open expanse.

When building your world, let plains and floodplains serve as places of bounty and conflict, openness and danger. Whether they feed empires, shelter free-spirited nomads, or witness the rise and fall of armies, plains shape the people and kingdoms that depend on them.

Next time on Worldbuilding Wednesday, we’ll explore coasts and seas: the edges of your maps where adventure meets the horizon.

Until then, thank you for reading!