WesterosCraft categorizes each project using four project types, each suited to a different scope and builder experience level. This guide covers what each type involves and who can lead it, the statuses a project moves through, and how larger projects break down into Plots, Mini Builds, and Districts.
Project Status
Each project has a status tracking where it is in its lifecycle. You can filter by status on the Projects page to find where you can contribute, whether that's claiming plots in an active project or finding an available one to apply for.
- Not Started: the location is defined but no one has applied to lead it. Available for application if you meet the requirements for that project type.
- Available: the project was started but not finished, or completed but outdated. Open for updating, fostering, or a redo. Fostering means taking over an abandoned project from a builder who left — you go through the same application process as a new project, but your plan focuses on what you're changing or updating from the original.
- In Progress: approved and actively being built. You can contribute by claiming plots, applying for Mini Builds or Plots, or volunteering to help the project leader. Most building opportunities come from in-progress projects.
- Blocked: can't start yet. Common blockers include waiting on adjacent projects, needing terrain work from the terraform team, or requiring more complex updates. Blocked projects aren't open for application until the blocker is resolved.
- Completed: finished and given final approval. Completed projects are reference material for regional styles and quality standards. Study the completed projects in your region before applying for your own.
Immersion Projects
Immersion Projects are independent builds that fill empty spaces and add life to the world, ranging from small to large. They might include roadside inns, small camps, farms, ruins, or natural features like caves. Unlike Canon Projects, which are defined in the source material, Immersion Projects are your own creative vision placed where the map needs something but canon doesn't specify what.
Requirements
- Rank: Full Builder (completed probation)
- Approval: One Warden from your region
Canon Projects
Canon Projects are significant locations from George R.R. Martin's books: castles, towns, and the seats of major and minor houses. They form the backbone of the map, the landmarks that make Westeros recognizable, and they range from minor keeps mentioned briefly in the text to substantial regional seats.
A Canon Project is your opportunity to interpret the source material, fill in the gaps Martin left unspecified, and create a living, believable location.
Requirements
- Rank: Full Builder
- Experience: Either two Mini Builds as a contributor to other Canon Projects, OR one Mini Build and one Immersion Build
- Approval: One Warden from your region
Server Projects
Server Projects are canon locations of exceptional significance. They're places where major events occur or Great House seats central to the series, like Winterfell, Storm's End, Dragonstone, Harrenhal, The Eyrie, Highgarden, and similar locations readers instantly recognize.
What separates a Server Project from a Canon Project comes down to size, scope, and quality control. Server Projects are larger, more complex, and held to stricter standards. They sometimes have multiple project leads working collaboratively and require significantly more rigorous pre-planning and review.
Requirements
- Rank: Full Builder
- Experience: At least two completed Canon Projects. Server Projects are not for first-time project leaders. You must have proven competency in planning, style, and execution.
- Application: Follows the typical Project Application flow, with significantly higher expectations for depth of canon research, quality and comprehensiveness of tests, realism and feasibility of plans, and understanding of the location's significance.
- Approval: Two Wardens, your regional Warden plus one other. If no Warden is available for your region, two Wardens from other regions must approve.
Planning a Server Build
Server Projects demand more than typical Canon Projects in several ways.
Pre-planning phase. The planning phase is significantly more rigorous: exhaustive canon research, more testing than usual, and detailed planning beyond rough layouts. Multiple revision rounds can happen before final approval. This heavy emphasis on pre-planning catches problems early, before construction begins.
More rigorous quality control. These locations represent WesterosCraft at its best, so standards are higher: more regular check-ins during construction, multiple Wardens involved in oversight, stricter canon interpretation, and an expectation that everything is polished, not just completed.
Canon scrutiny. Every detail faces intense review for book accuracy. If the books mention specific architectural features, colors, materials, distinctive elements, or layout and historical details, your build must incorporate them accurately. There's minimal creative flexibility on canon-specified details.
Community attention. These builds draw more eyes. Readers have strong opinions about these places, and your work will be scrutinized not just by staff but by the entire community and beyond.
Flexible scale. Some Server Projects benefit from slightly increased scale to capture their grandeur and allow for appropriate detail. It's project-specific. Not every Server Project needs it, and some locations benefit from a complete rebuild with fresh perspective rather than an update. When the books describe great halls hosting hundreds or towers standing impossibly tall, modest scale adjustments help capture that feeling. The goal is to evoke these places as readers imagine them: a massive hall should feel massive to a player walking into it.
City Projects
City Projects are Westeros's major urban centers: King's Landing, Oldtown, Lannisport, Gulltown, White Harbor, and Mance's Camp. These are the largest and most complex projects on the server, requiring sustained community coordination over months or even years.
Unlike other project types, where one or two builders lead, City Projects demand a layered leadership structure and ongoing community participation. They're collaborative endeavors at a scale beyond what any individual or small team can accomplish alone.
Requirements
- Rank: Full Builder
- Experience: At least two completed Canon Projects
- Application: Same format as Canon Projects, with significantly higher expectations for depth of canon research, quality and comprehensiveness of tests, realism and feasibility of plans, and understanding of the location's significance.
- Approval: Two Wardens, your regional Warden plus one other. If no Warden is available for your region, two Wardens from other regions must approve.
How They Work
City Projects follow a fundamentally different process from other projects because of their scale. It's built to handle thousands of structures.
Phase 1: Foundation Work
Before any plots open, leadership establishes the framework that will guide hundreds of future builders.
- Style guides define the city's architectural identity: core design principles, regional influences, historical evolution (older vs. newer districts), and the distinctive features that make the city unique.
- Gradient guides show how building quality transitions across the city.
- House examples are fully built and furnished for each class level and district type: low-class dockside warehouses and slum dwellings, middle-class market shops and residential houses, high-class merchant mansions and noble residences.
- Specialized plots and Mini Builds cover unique areas: guild buildings, religious structures, government buildings, markets, taverns and inns, industrial areas, and defensive structures.
This foundational work is critical. With dozens of builders eventually contributing, these guides keep everyone on the same page and reduce feedback sessions. City Projects can take years, and keeping everything cohesive is vital to the project's survival.
Phase 2: District Development
Cities are divided into manageable districts, each with its own character. Grouping builds by district type helps focus the styles each one includes. Some examples:
- Dockside: warehouses, fishmongers, sailor taverns
- Markets: shops, guildhalls, merchant homes
- Slums: overcrowded housing, poor construction, like Flea Bottom in King's Landing
- Working residential: craftsmen, laborers
- Wealthy residential: merchant homes, minor nobles
- Noble quarter: great houses, mansions
- Religious district: septs, monasteries
- Industrial: smithies, tanneries, workshops
Districts can themselves be organized as a Server or Canon Project. In King's Landing, for example, the district containing the Red Keep and the Great Sept of Baelor would be treated as a Server Project; in Lannisport, the Casterly Rock district would be planned as one.
Each district gets a district lead responsible for quality and coordination, specific style requirements building on the city-wide guides, plotted areas ready for builders to claim, and clear boundaries with transitions to neighboring districts. Districts develop sequentially or in clusters, not all at once, so lessons learned early improve later ones.
Phase 3: Community Building
Because City Projects contain many times more structures than typical projects, they rely heavily on organized participation.
- Community Build Days are scheduled events where many builders work simultaneously. They create momentum impossible to achieve individually, build camaraderie and shared investment, allow real-time coordination, and generate visible progress that keeps people involved. These are coordinated in Discord.
- Frequent approval cycles catch issues early. With so many people building at once, small deviations compound quickly, so more review cycles than other project types keep quality under control. The Wardens and the city lead(s) make frequent but short check-ins to active districts.
- Ongoing style refinement happens as the city takes shape. Style guides evolve based on what's working, new house examples are added for unanticipated situations, successful innovations become standards, and problems are corrected systematically.
A City Project is considered complete when every district is fully approved.
How Projects Break Down
The key distinction is project vs. plot. A project — whether Canon, Server, City, Immersion, or a Mini Build — involves non-trivial planning and layout work: defining boundaries, coordinating builds, and seeing a location through from application to completion. A plot is an individual building within a project. It doesn't require planning overhead; just the build itself.
Larger projects break into smaller units using Plots, Mini Builds, and Districts. How they nest by project type:
- City Projects → Districts → Server or Canon Projects → Mini Builds / Plots
- Server Projects → Canon Projects → Mini Builds / Plots
- Canon and Immersion Projects → Mini Builds / Plots
Plots
Plots are individual buildings within larger projects. They're the smallest unit of work on WesterosCraft and where most builders spend their time.
Plot types. Plots can be classified using utility blocks that signify class (lower, middle, upper), profession (baker, blacksmith, etc.), or special (septs and other unusual structures that don't fit standard categories). These classifications help builders understand what to build and help project leaders organize construction.
Plot access. Plots usually come in two kinds:
- OPEN plots are available to any builder, including Apprentices. These are straightforward buildings that follow established patterns within the project, and most plots in a typical project are open.
- SPECIAL plots are ones the project leader wants someone to apply for: structures that need closer oversight, more complex planning, or specialized skills, like keeps, septs, unique landmarks, or large buildings critical to the layout.
Project leaders mark access using utility blocks placed above each plot. Standard practice is to mark SPECIAL plots explicitly, with unmarked plots defaulting to OPEN unless the project leader specifies otherwise.
Mini Builds
Mini Builds are sub-projects within a larger project, used to organize bigger parts of it: holdfasts, mines, quarries, lumber camps, small hamlets, or other points of interest. They're large enough to require planning and coordination but operate under your Canon Project's umbrella. Unlike Plots, they need planning and layout work beyond a single simple structure.
Examples of Mini Builds:
- Holdfasts: small fortified manor houses for minor knights or landed gentry
- Mining operations: quarries, coal mines, or iron mines with worker housing
- Production sites: lumber camps, charcoal production, fishing villages
- Hamlets: clusters of 5–10 houses forming a small settlement
- Religious sites: small septs, godswoods, or waypoint shrines
- Infrastructure: mills, bridges with toll houses, ferry crossings
Districts
Districts break City Projects into manageable chunks. A single district can contain Server or Canon Projects within it, and districts usually hold dozens of Plots and Mini Builds. You must have completed and led at least one Canon Project before leading a District, unless you're co-leading with someone who meets that requirement.