Worldsmiths | Fantasy World-Building Resource Book

#9: House/Home Styles

Here are some questions to consider when thinking about house styles or home styles. Mostly about what kind of building/living situation it is which would reflect the level of technology of the world, the financial status of the person, and what kind of person is living there.

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What is the home like?

Home can be anywhere and the character doesn't even have to have a designated house. If the home is not a designated place, it might help to think about what the living situations are like.

Home can be on the streets, in an abandoned house, or even underwater, in space, underground, or in the sky. Home can be anywhere you want.

I separated "home" from "house" because you can have a home on the streets, but not live in a house.

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What is the house like?

The house is when you start to think about types and styles. Log houses, teepees, igloos, tents, RVs, apartments, mansions, castles, palaces, cabins, caves, tree houses, and so on. There are many different styles of houses.

Look up "List of House Types" on Wikipedia for a list of types of houses that real people live in if you need real-world inspiration.

You might like to consider the financial status of the person living in the house. Maybe in your world, the rich can afford a house of crystals, but the poor live in tents and move from location to location. 

On that note, a related question is next.

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What does a city look like vs countryside?

You might think about how populated it is. Maybe how easy it is to get around the roads. If the roads are narrow or if there are any roads at all. Are there a mixture of house types in the city?

If you want, take a moment to describe the city and countryside as if you are writing a guidebook for curious outsiders.

Also, you might consider the government.

In our world as we know it, in many places, there's racial issues surrounding living situations as well as financial divide. So, it can get rather political as to how the city and countryside look like. You might need to consider your government (#8: Government) and population/diversity (#10: Population & Diversity). Of course, only if you need this for your story or want to think about it for fun ;)

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Other Topics to Visit

The #3: Divided Lands & Borders,  #4: History, #27: Era of Inspiration, and #33: Building Material plays into this. Also, #5: Climate plays a part in this, doesn't it? :O Wow, climate can affect everything. So many other topics are affected by climate.

In EXTRA FUN STUFF, there's a fun exercise. It's the "What can you see when you get home GAME". It's an exercise where you imagine you are standing outside the house and you are walking into it and describing all that you see (if there are stairs, what each door leads into, and how to get to MC's room). At last, you describe what you see when you look out the window from MC's room (if they have a window).