Cosy Up Your Campaign - HullaBailu
Cosy Up Your Campaign: Worldbuilding and Accessories for Autumn
I've teamed up with Angeline, from Step by Step Worldbuilding to bring you a guide to cosy worldbuilding and autumnal accessories to go alongside. Angeline is a UK-based author, mapmaker, and worldbuilding expert who helps storytellers create rich, imaginative settings for their books, games, and creative endeavours. She’s spent over a decade writing fantasy worlds filled with magic, mystery, and mischief, and now she creates helpful books and tools to teach others to do the same.
First, over to Angeline, with tips and tricks on cosy, cinnamon-spiced worldbuilding - perfect for Autumn.
Some campaigns are built around epic quests and dangerous, ancient prophecies. Others are full of warm drinks, slow conversations, and quiet moments of wonder.
Cosy fantasy has been quietly building up its popularity in both fiction and gaming. It’s less about slaying monsters and more about baking pies, fixing broken things, and uncovering a soft, slow-burning mystery along the way. These are the kinds of stories where nothing explodes (except maybe a pudding!) and the biggest danger is running out of cinnamon.
And the best part? That low-stakes, vibe-heavy approach doesn’t just live on the page or in your campaign notebook, it can be felt across the table, in the little details that make your game world come alive.
Building a Cosy World
If you’re looking to create a world that snuggles your players like a warm blanket, here are a few ways to bring that comfort and charm into your worldbuilding:
Start Small
Instead of entire kingdoms, build a single village or a forest path. Make it rich with sensory details; crunching leaves, foggy mornings, the smell of honey bread rising in a clay oven.
Gentle Tension
Not every problem has to be world-ending. A traveller arrives with a haunted violin. A child in the village hasn’t spoken in weeks. The old well is running dry. Let curiosity guide the story.
Embrace the Seasons
The best cosy stories feel seasonal. Candlelight, knitted shawls, tea-stained letters, apples picked fresh from the orchard. Think about how your world shifts from one season to the next, and what rituals go with them.
Cosy Characters
Not everyone’s a warrior. Think apothecaries, innkeepers, amateur cartographers, moss collectors, lantern-lighters, or lost poets. These are the people who hold the heart of your setting.
Use What You Have
Cosy worldbuilding thrives on small details. Instead of building something new and expansive from scratch, take a location or character you’ve already created and give it a twist. What’s changed since the last time your players visited? Has the bakery burned down? Has the tavern owner been replaced by his suspiciously cheerful cousin?
How to Craft Wonder and Woodsmoke - buy it here!
How to Craft Wonder and Woodsmoke is your guide to building cosy fantasy worlds that feel like home. Whether you're dreaming up sleepy villages, crackling hearths, or markets full of handspun charm, this book will help you capture the warmth, magic, and quiet heroism of the genre. Packed with worldbuilding prompts, creative insights, and atmospheric detail, it's perfect for writers, GMs, and creators who want their stories to smell faintly of nutmeg and woodsmoke.
You can find out more about her work and services at stepbystepworldbuilding.com
Autumn Accessorising
You’ve curated ultimate cosiness for your world - for your players to snuggle up in, your readers to sink their toes into. But you deserve comfort and cosy, too! Here are some HullaBailu accessories with all the vibes of crunchy leaves and pumpkin spice:
Animate Objects Beanie
The humble beanie is a simple pleasure brought back into style by the brisk wind and crispy air of October. Not only is this forest green beanie super warm and comfortable - it also features two iconic mascots of Autumn, the pumpkin and the toadstool, and they’re dancing in a cloud of magic and brown leaves. Cute!
Buy me dice & tell me I’m pretty Unisex Sweater
There’s nothing quite like cosying up in a soft and luxurious sweater when the temperatures start to drop. This sweater is a rich chocolatey brown (cinnamon hot chocolate, anyone?) and embroidered in a soft pastel pink. It serves, of course, as a public declaration of your love for dice and compliments - and stylishly so.
Red toadstool mushroom hat
Appropriate for both your Halloween party and your Sunday household chores, this crocheted mushroom hat is the whimsical, cottagecore headwear of dreams. If classic red isn’t your vibe, there’s a black ‘ink cap’ inspired rendition - or simply get in contact about a custom hat and we can bring your fantasy fungi visions to life!
Myconid monsters physical stat postcard
If you’ve got a hankering for some autumnal art with which to adorn your walls - these myconid monster stat postcards will do just that and provide you with some cute lil guys to bring into your cosy campaign. And if the spooky aesthetic doesn’t match your cosy village of bakeries, plant shops and cafes - simply adjust them to look like your favourite whimsical toadstools, instead.
Custom character commissions
Planning your cinnamon-scented world of damp bonfires, apple pies, and knitted blankets, and need art for your NPCs - or are you a player in such a world, excited to visualise your character for the first time? Email me, or message me on instagram about character commissions - and if you mention the article and tell me your favourite thing about Autumn in the message, I’ll honour a cheeky 10% off the final price.