Origins

This is a set of prompts for creating or expanding cultures and kith within a setting with some depth, hopefully avoiding the curse of the planet of hats, or the racist, bioessentilist trappings a lot of fantasy games fall into.

By collaboratively answering these prompts, the group at the table will have generated a bunch of locations and cultures with particular, unique traits.

The Culture and Kith Worksheet is inspired by and expanded upon SabreCat's Cultures and Kith..

The Worksheet

1. My name is (name).
2. My people are known as: (self referential name of the community)
3. Which others may know as (a common form or two for other people to refer to you).
4. We are: (type of community, a village, a city, etc)
5. Which is known for (Unique or abundant feature or resource)
6. And for (Cultural trait, historical event, achievement, form of organising)
7. People tend to think of us as (Cultural or personality trait)
8. Which is just a stereotype. I feel I am more (Personal trait) than most of my kin.
9. My (Ancestors, parents) were/are (kith)
10. I've inherited from my them the extraordinary ability of (fantastical feature)
11. and also (other fantastical feature)
12. People with my heritage are often (Any number of features, physical and cosmetic)
13. But you can tell me apart from most by my (Distinctive physical feature or features).
14. At home we are (numerous, few, hidden, travellers)
15. Among many (2 or 3 numeous other kith)
16. with some (2 or 3 less numerous other kith)
17. which give our people (cultural or practical quirks and adaptations ),
18. but sometimes (tensions and challenges).
19. Back where I am from, we often eat (yummies)
20. wear (fabrics, colours, shapes, patterns, etc)
21. and our language(s) is/are (types of sound, cadence, spoken, gestures, etc)
22. We have a tradition of (Regional practice) which I (do faithfully, refuse to do, do differently…)

Implementation

The tricky part in implementing this procedure is in fluidity. I wouldn't want it to feel like you are writing a school paper.

On the other hand, given that the other mechanics are quite light, perhaps we can get away with it.

That said, there are ways in which these prompts interact with other mechanics.

As an example, in a game where characters are expected to relearn, rebuild, or even create who they are, you may want to present these prompts when they meet someone from their culture or kin, or when they gain memories of pieces of their selves.

Design Guidance: I highly recommend that this worksheet is competed by all players as a group, going over each paragraph and telling the others about their choices.

Presentation

You may bring this worksheet to players as a separate sheet to fill in or in the back of the character sheet.

The method I lean towards the most is to embed this in the front of the page together with other elements and fields.

This would prove even more interesting if players could fill in the fields with different colours for quick identification.

Additional Prompts

You may create promopts that are specific to the genre and setting you are playing in.

Some, like the prompts below invite players to create a kind of short backstory for their characters:

• what trades have you leaned and why?
• what skills did you pick up thanks to it?
• what unlikely skills did you have to pick up for it?
• what unrelated skills you managed to learn in spite of it?

The prompts below seem to imply that things went wrong and the characters may be in trouble:

• why did you leave home?
• how did you end up here?
• what follows you from there that you are trying to ecape?

Other promopts may push players towards defining and creating the supporting cast, or their wants, needs and drives.