WorldbuildingWednesday - Shops & Markets

Welcome to today's #WorldbuildingWednesday post! For those of you new to this series, I'm @oblivioncubed (sanguinehaze on twitter). In this series of posts, I break down what Worldbuilding means to me, how I build a setting, why I choose to build what I do, and hopefully provide you some inspiration to use in your Worldbuilding.

My world - Trothguard - is a setting I've created as a catch-all location for any tabletop RPG games I run, so everything I build is filtered through a lens of 'how will this improve the game for myself and my players?'.

Today we're going to look at Shops and Markets!

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Many of the previous WorldbuildingWednesday posts have been structured as a high-level guide to Worldbuilding, as I want to provide some good resources for anyone out there who might be looking to jump into Worldbuilding but don't know where to start. Today I'll be providing both some guidance, and showing some of my own work - since shops and markets are something I think are really fun to build for my tabletop setting, and are a microcosm of the cities, countries, or cultures of the area or the individual shopkeeper. They're a really useful way to show your audience a surprising amount, in a very small area!

Now, my setting is a mid-to-high-magic medieval fantasy for my D&D 5e Tabletop games, but regardless what genre or tech level you're writing for I think that shops and markets will still tell us a lot. Think about what you personally consider a marketplace to be like, and what you consider a shop to be like. With so many of us scattered across the globe, I'm sure there's a pretty good variety of what image that conjures in your mind. Some of us are probably thinking of crowded in-door malls, while others are likely thinking of open-air markets with stalls or something similar. Maybe it's more like a farmer's market, or even just a road-side stall. Or, maybe it's something like floating boats on a river. There are many unique and interesting types of markets throughout the world, so take inspiration from them!

Just as you may imagine different cultures and communities in our own world having different markets and shops, so too should your fictional world. Smaller towns will probably have some differences from big cities, and areas that are much more rural might even have something like small trading outposts, or regular caravans that pass through.

So, for Markets, consider the people you're building this for. What is their culture like? What's the geography like where they live? What's the climate like?

When you've answered these questions, it'll give you a good idea about what things to integrate into the market you're building. Cultural values might inform how much space the market takes up, and how much space this provides between shoppers... or it might influence when it is open, or what is traded there. It may even change the customs around how you interact with the shopkeepers - the culture might value bartering and haggling, or certain types of greetings, etc.

Geography and climate will help you understand what kind of buildings make sense for your shops. Jungles, mountains, and plains might have very different market areas, even if their individual shops are all similar styled buildings. The type of building material most popular will probably be very different in a heavily wooded area than it would in a dry/desert area or predominantly rocky area. Cold climates will probably trend toward indoor markets, and wet climates may trend toward covered areas or at least covered stalls. Warm climates might value being away from buildings that block the wind, or have plenty of shades. Each of these climates will also provide you some ideas of what kind of goods might be popular to sell at various times in the season.

Another crucial aspect of making a market or shop is knowing what goods are sourced locally, and what goods are not. Items that are produced locally or are in high abundance might be more prolific and cheaper to purchase. A place that produces salt will probably have cheaper salt. Areas with no locally sourced way to make glass might not have it available for the common people, making it a status symbol for the wealthy.

In my own world for example, on Avensol Isle the City of Avendale is a producer of both glass, and salt. While there are many places that make glass, they are known to have one of the highest quality salt mines on the continent, and as such they export a lot of the salt they produce - but it's still available to inhabitants of the city at a much cheaper rate than anyone on the mainland. The markets in Avendale are predominantly open-air squares. In the central area, individual shopkeepers set up a variety of stalls for perishable goods/good and various trinkets, while around the outside of the square a number of permanent shops have set up indoor or semi-indoor services.

Which brings me to the next thing I love about markets and shops - Naming shops!

I'm a big fan of including puns, easter-eggs, and fun references in my world. My players are all fairly well read and they seem to enjoy it as well - so when I create a new shop, some of the time I decide to drop easter-egg references. One example is the shop in Avendale: "Homer's Oddsies & Endsies"; which is a nod to Homer's Odyssey. The shopkeeper is named Homer, and he runs a collector's shop and creates little tinker-toys. He also does a bit of smuggling on the side. Another example of fun names in the same city is "Illia's Arms & Armors" which is a nod to The Iliad.

I the pun names or references are a ton of fun, and it gives me fun ideas to use for how the shopkeeper acts and even what they sell. Now, this probably works best in tabletop settings - I imagine writers wouldn't necessarily want to have such obvious references to existing works - but if you're running a tabletop game, and you know what kinds of books / movies / shows your players like... try and make little easter-eggs based on those! Your players will find it super fun.

If you have fun shop names in your world, please drop me a comment and tell me about them! If you aren't a Hive user and you're reading this from my Discord links or Twitter links, feel free to message me on those platforms as well! (@SanguineHaze on Twitter, and SanguineHaze#7826 on Discord).

Happy Worldbuilding my friends! That's all from me today!

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Thank you for reading today's #WorldbuildingWednesday! I hope this has provided you with some inspiration!

If there's something else you'd like to ask me about, please do so! I will make every effort to answer it next Wednesday.

WorldbuildingWednesdays - Prior Posts:
0: Introduction to WorldbuildingWednesday	10: Economy & Currency
1: Starting the World	11: Creating Governments
2: Kingdoms, Factions, and Notable People
3: Creation Facts and Creation Myths
4: Shaping History
5: Myths & Legends
5.a: Player Visions (Supplemental)
6: Gods & Lesser Deities
7: Creating Cultures
8: Making Religions
9: Building Cults