[David Johansen]

I think a simple hex map and gazetteer would be the right way to approach a Dungeon Fantasy world.

I'll try and find time to draw something up.

My thought is that in the middle of the map is The Crucible, an area of semi arid plains that lie between five warring nations. Around the outer edges of the map. To the north: impassible mountains. To the south: impassible oceans, to the east: storm tossed trees. To the west: impassible mountains impassible oceans, and storm tossed trees. Perhaps the dungeons should have a maze of twisting passages, all the same.

The two major nations would be human. The minor ones elves, dwarves, and orcs or hobgoblins whichever's less barbaric and more militant. Other races are found in the mountains and so forth.

The history of the world begins with the ancients, who's cities got covered with silt in a great flood that wiped them out a long time ago. Each race had an epoch they dominated the lands before declining to current borders. The dwarves came south out of the mountains. The orcs came west out of the mountains. The elves came across the oceans and out of the woods to the west. There's probably an indigenous race. The undead are stirring in the desert but aren't yet a major power.

How's that for relatively basic and generic. It's tempting to go to a really balkanized world with more general settlement periods. Which would people prefer?