Settling the Issue of Settlements

How to make Interesting and Lively Settlements with accompanying articles.

I've read a lot of Settlement Articles. Over 600, to be slightly more precise. I don't regret it, but Over two years of Summer Camp Sponsorship has granted me with a unique perspective in what creates an interesting, well-established, and well-rounded settlement.

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Building Your Settlement

The First Question you need to ask yourself when establishing a settlement is this:

What Purpose does this settlement serve in your World?

Why is this settlement, out of all the cities, townships and outposts you could talk about, important to your readers or players? What does it add to your world other than another spot on the map? An honest answer to this question (And no, 'I needed an article for Summer Camp, while an honest answer, not the best one from a worldbuilding perspective.) makes all the difference in creating your settlements.
From here, you ask the three Key Questions that need to be answered, each with further details:

Who Lives Here?

Why Did they Come Here?

Why Do they Still Live Here?

There are other questions that are naturally asked, of course, but these three will help fill out the basics of your settlement no matter if it is a lonely research outpost or a thriving metropolis, or anything in between.

Who Lives Here?

A Settlement is nothing without its people. Consider carefully who is living in your settlement. Where did they come from? What backgrounds do they have? Are they Wealthy and influential, or refugees scraping to get by? Are they first-time settlers, or immigrants seeking a new life?

Avoid having multi-race demographics unless your settlement is large enough to reasonably accomodate several distinct districts or boroughs. We here on earth are ONE race and we can't get along with each other, it's unreasonable to expect seven fantasy races to inhabit one city without racial profiling or discrimination. If your city does have multiple species living within it, consider both architectural needs that must be met for various species, and when each species started living in the city. Use real-life inspirations like Chinatown in [City of Choice] or The many districts of New York City.

I also reccomend avoiding specific numbers in terms of population unless your world has a regular census and/or that one odd guy in town that just likes counting people. Small details like this can make or break immersion and the 'beliveability' of your settlement.

Why Are They Here?

What attracted your original settlers to this spot? Usually this can be anything from a valuable, harvestable resource to simply having the water and fertile soil needed to support a permanent settlement. If it's an organization with a particular goal, what is that goal? What will they do once they have achieved it?

As a rule, even if you do not reveal to your readers/players the source of the creepy noises in the well or Why No Ones Goes Past The Gate, You as the author/creator need to know. That's what notebooks and secrets are for. For your settlements built to explore a frontier or research something unknown, at least have an idea of what they are going to find. This gives you a framework to work off of for suprises and twists.

For the more established settlements, what attracts new people to the settlement? Alternatively, what external forces push or pull inhabitants to your town? Settlements are rarely built on deserted islands, and even those will be reaching out for contact with others. 'Isolated village that keeps to itself' is a type I saw Far more frequently than I wanted to. Who are they trading supplies with? What are they trading? Who are they at war with? Why? How do the inhabitants feel about the war?

Why Are They Still Here?

If the mines dry up, the town dies. The same goes for Farmlands in Famine and Gold Rush Towns without a source of Gold. What keeps a settlement alive long after it was originally established? For places that have come under siege, had forcible changes in power or are just unpleasant to live in, what keeps or prevents the inhabitants from uprooting and starting somewhere else?

Speaking from experience, A small town whose one source of income dries up will often find another export or industy to specialize in. My hometown turned to ranching and logging after the gold mines mostly dried up. It's okay for smaller settlments or outposts to be dismantled or left abandoned, especially if the land is no longer habitable.

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Time to Dig Deeper

Now that you have (hopefully) answered your three basic questions, it's time to get into the meat of your settlement; Everything else! Government, Architecture, Imports, Tourism, and even the local Natural Resources are all factors that can and should be considered when building your settlement. Thankfully, you don't have to build from scratch! Use resources like [A] [B] [C], and even real world inspirations to give your settlement its foundation.
Unless your settlement is built to be illogical (and I've seen a few) the Settlement should be grounded and, to a very small extent, boring. People live here after all, and a high life of adventure isn't for everyone. Jim just wants to go to his day job cutting back the ever-growing hedge, not go triapsing through it with a sword. Settlements are, at heart, where people settle. They set down roots and aren't inclined to move. A good settlement has a bit of sprawl to it, like your suitcase once you've been in a hotel for a few days and you've gotten comfortable.

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Ready to start writing your article? Check out the article block below for Part II!

When have I said too much?

Remember: You don't need to use every field given to you in the template! They are there to give you ideas and inspiration. You may notice that many seasoned worldbuilders here create entirely custom pages purely out of the Vingette block.
As a Rule of Thumb, don't explain in detail what can be imagined with a simple prompt. If you have a medieval village, for example, I don't need to be told about the thick stone walls, the muddy marketplace, or the clothing of the people; 'Medieval Village' does most of the heavy lifting for me. The same goes for multiple time periods in history; If we know the basics of what it looks like, we dont need to read it.
The More you say, The Less you should say about it. The Less you say, the More you can say about it. Keep in mind that certain parts of the template like History and certain Geographic Features or Buildings can be given their own page, if you have enough to say about it.

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When have I not Said Enough?

This being said, your reader still needs a foundation for their imagination to build on. If your world has a particular World Feature that drastically impacts the setting like architecture that gets more bizzare the further you get from the city center, or a thick fog that shrouds everything outside the city, this needs to be explained at the TOP of your article.
When you describe your settlement, you want to explain what makes it unique and different from other settlements. Phrases like "unlike other settlments in the region" or 'In Contrast to their neighbors" not only sets the tone of your settlement, but also helps build the world around them and give a framework. This works in reverse too, for phrases like "Similar to their sister city to the north" or "As fitting for a mass-produced population center..."

Excellent Examples of Sublime Settlements