Have you ever wanted to do a worldbuilding course? Ever thought “I need help from the professionals – a real worldbuilding professor”? Well, never say we don’t give you nice things! Today we’re sharing the Worldbuilding Course from THE Professor of Worldbuilding, Dr. Trent Hergenrader. Trent teaches at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, one of the most groundbreaking creative institutions in the USA! And we’re here to give you the skinny on what this worldbuilding course delivers,

What’s included in the Worldbuilding Course?

Trent’s short video course includes topics which expand on his book —Collaborative Worldbuilding for Writers and Gamers, published by Bloomsbury.

This video series gives you the tools you need to get started with collaborative worldbuilding! Of course, you can use most of these tools for your individual project too, but the more the merrier, right? As Trent puts it, our imagination is fueled by our experiences. More people collaborating means more experiences to draw ideas from!

But what else will you learn in this course? Well, for starters, he gives you some amazing advice on the whole worldbuilding process, starting with the foundation and ending with the story. Picking the foundation is extremely important —if you don’t, you risk having inconsistencies, or a world that contradicts itself! Then, you’ll have to work on your world’s structures, that is, how your world is organized. Think about governance, economics, social relations, and cultural influence.

And we’re only halfway through the course! Every video is five to eight minutes long, and the advice is absolutely amazing. I mean, it’s coming from a professor, what else would you expect?

Who’s the Professor teaching this Worldbuilding Course?

Professor Trent Hergenrader is a GM and a published writer. His works have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, Black Static, Weird Tales, as well as The Best Horror of the Year #1!

But most importantly, he’s a LEGIT Professor of Worldbuilding at Rochester Institute of Technology, in New York, USA! Isn’t that the coolest job ever? He’s been working on creative writing pedagogy and game-based learning for a long time, and he’s an expert on collaborative fiction writing.

In fact, he’s so cool that we’ve interviewed him in our Worldbuilding Podcast! You can catch up on our interview with him on our YouTube channel too—lots of insightful advice and an amazing complement to the video course!

….and Trent’s favorite Worldbuilding Toolset?

You guessed it, it’s World Anvil! Trent reached out to us to ask if he could include World Anvil in his Collaborative Worldbuilding book, which he uses for his own Worldbuilding courses at RIT. Each year he helps students learn the art and craft of worldbuilding using the World Anvil toolset and his own book —and they make an awesome pair! Honestly, we’re still nerding out that someone as awesome as Trent uses and enjoys World Anvil!

Ready to get into some worldbuilding action? Well, before you watch the courses, make sure you’ve created a free account on World Anvil so you can put all that good worldbuilding advice into practice!