Gary Gygax’s World Builder 2nd Printing is SOLD OUT. This book is being reprinted as “Gary Gygax’s World Builder Revisited” with new Castles & Crusades content to compliment the Lejendary Adventure material already supplied. A release date has not been determined but should be in 2008.

From the halls of the mightiest publisher to the door of the most dedicated gamer this second volume in the Gygaxian Fantasy Worlds series marshals a veritable host of information for the game designer. Unburdened with flavor text this tome is a collection of militantly organized definitions, lists, tables and charts with an army of information from the mundane to the extraordinary.

Game designers, professional or amateur, find an arsenal of trees, herbs, armor, weapons, terrain features, and much more, as well as new weapons, armor, magical gems, spell components and herbs for the d20 system. The World Builder covers outdoor settings, indoor living settings, merchandise with a completely illustrated armor and weapons section and everyday facts from the government structure to the tensile strength of rope. The depth of information gathered in Gary Gygax's World Builder is Legion.

What the world builder IS: This is a book containing many types of lists; some of these are random generators (body parts, personality, room decorations and more). Some are simply defined, such as arms and armor, shields and helms. Some have been organized with a dictionary-encyclopedic entry. Others have random dice tables applied to them. The illustrated armor/weapons section is followed up by a four page chart for d20 rules that give all the damage, AC bonus, and so forth for most of the unique (non PHB) armor and weapons covered in the text. This book is advantageous when creating a campaign setting. It is a diverse reference, aiding in creating geographic features of continents, or government structures, the titles of a kingdom's nobility, or when sitting down to create detailed locations for adventures; the contents of dungeon rooms, or laying out terrain features in the surrounding wild. The herbs (250 types by magical property), gems (with magic spell associations), and precious metals sections give you magical effects, definitions, and so forth. There are lists of crimes (now more than just pick-pocketing is illegal). There are also charts for material strength and hardness so you can more accurately portray the effects and strengths of differing woods, stones, gems and other material (tensile strength of ropes). 60 different traps. 50+ occupations for craftsmen. A random chart for generic spell effects. Stock-in-trade, Geographics, and Dwellings: Flesh to add to a world. Why lists of stuff? World building in a fantasy game has much to do with describing the surroundings of the player characters in great detail from the mundane to the bizarre. This book facilitates this important facet of design.

What the book is NOT: It is not a how-to manual. The World Builder is Volume II of a world-building series detailing the typical "Gygaxian Fantasy World" and is a "descriptionary" giving the designer and the writer a plethora of information he/she can use to grant the fantasy setting of his choice greater verisimilitude. The world builder in many areas is organized in a hierarchal fashion. For example, the fantasy cities section lists first all of the different sorts of buildings common to such a setting and then breaks that down into construction materials, and then into architectural elements, then further down into window and door types and styles, and then moves into interior design. Interior deals with everything from the ceiling to the floor, and lists "things" for reasons of placement in actual adventure locations, arranged by room type. Torture chamber, wizards lab, etc.

Gary Gygax continues compiling years of labor and love and bringing it to you the gaming enthusiast in this the second volume of the Gygaxian Fantasty Worlds.