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For anyone reading this after or before watching, always remember: less is more. There's a lot of "pieces to building an empire" in this video and they're all great, but don't think you need to include or care about every piece. Honestly, only take a few pieces that feel the most useful for your story and focus on those. Remember: less is more. Especially in story.
That is of course correct, yes. This is something that applies to almost any writing or worldbuilding advice and cannot be emphasized enough. In the end, this is just an attempt to provide a good foundation for anyone interested in including empires. What actually is needed is always a matter of the story and the one telling the story 🙂
My story takes place on the border of the empire. The empire sets the standards of the setting, but only soldiers and a few other agents play active roles in the story.
People get bored reading history (mostly me... and I have adhd) all the advice and tips you gave was a real eye opener. It got me hooked until the end, this is really helpful and the best video I've seen in this channel yet.
Thank you for that feedback - really appreciate it 🙂Glad to hear the video was interesting for you and able to showcase some aspects of how an empire and its background can actually enhance the engagement of a story. Obviously, this is a very comprehensive overview, and you don't need to go into every element in excruciating detail 🙂
Im at 1:34 and so far I like where this is going. One of the first thing I made for my empire was the fundamental ideology of its inception and that intun informed my decisions when making up the rest.
Glad to hear others are recognizing the importance of a solid foundation as well. And I obviously hope that the rest of the video was to your liking too 🙂
Aside from the fact that this is a great video, I wanted to shoutout the images you use, they are very nice! I do hope if you use the work of an artist that you give them credits in the description
This is literally where I'm stuck at in my world building phase. Making sure my Empire and Kingdoms are all ruled in a way fitting their culture and beliefs. Adding magic is tricky though because there is three magical schools followed based around religions I made. Two of them are legal but one is only legal through supervision. Everyone is born capable of all three and magic is considered very dangerous by all races. Thus if you are a powerful mage you are more likely to be feared then supported unless you are with the Church. Especially the Elven Order. If the Elven Order permits your use of magic then no one can stop you from using it unless you comit a crime.
This will be useful. In my campaign, the setting takes place adjacent to the biggest empire of the world and there are two smaller empires in the ocean. I had based them off of historical empires which helped me avoid the obvious issues. This video did give e a lot of ideas that I could explore to make the setting and the adventure more interesting
One example I had was if teleporting is possible what kind of restriction would that entail for immigration. How would governments handle this, would they setup a teleportation restriction and how would they enforce it. If they can would they ban it and how. What kind of story would someone be able to tell. What are the reasons to ban it, you could say Drugs and trafficking is a lot more common. Also how possible is it to do, can anyone do it, is there a limitation, how many can one person teleport 1, 2, 3 or 1000. What would research be like if they could study it just because it’s magic doesn’t mean it can’t be studied and understood.
It depends on how deep into world building you want your magic system to get. Magic the Gathering planeswalkers completely break a magic system until they're fighting each other. Hence why Nicol Bolas would be on the the level of greater gods in d&d since he's a 35,000 year old planeswalking dragon with telepathic abilities on the level of an elder brain. You see how deep and complex it can get?
Thank you for this Great video, I learned a lot from it today. Just one question : "Is it possible for a fantasy empire to have 2 or 3 types of Governance all together ?!" for instance a theocratic gov that gets corrupted by the elites and turns into a olig which the theo leader lives like a monarch king (I know it's messed up 😄).
It absolutely is possible, yes. There have been real-world examples with multiple types of government combined in a sort of "hybrid approach" 🙂 Even your example works quite well based on the initial premise, because when one government type crumbles, it is not unrealistic for remnants of that government to survive, maybe even be merged into whatever takes over. You also create lots of potential tension this way. Theocrats could clash with oligarchs, or the monarchs does everything in their power to try and regain actual authority... So if the historical background of your empire supports the final outcome - then I don't see why that shouldn't be something you can write and execute upon in a great way. I hope this helps somehow 🙂
So i have a question as a newer writer mostly writing for dnd for me a friend's. I wonder what you fine folk might think of a younger world where there isn't so much of a government, but a slew of tribal hierarchies. Mostly comprised of fishing villages and mining villages. Leaders could be made up of strongest warriors and smartest seers leading them into the future. With other tribes also trying to raid as thier source of provisons leading to very brutal economic problems among the tribes so gold would have less value then deeds or honor might have? (TLDR Is my dnd viking campiagn sounding fleshed out enough.)
Now from my POV: A tribal society based on strength, wisdom, and raiding is historically authentic. Also, the idea that reputation and deeds matter more than gold makes perfect sense in this context. After all, in small communities where everyone knows each other this is quite common. Based on these few details, I don't see why this shouldn't work. Personally, I often loved focusing on less epic settings as well, especially early on. That's why I often had the groups I DM'd for start smaller adventures on a village level rather than epic world-ending threats to be defeated 🙂
The world I currently work on has the following quirk: Unused mana crystalizes out of the air and can be used in all kinds of ways in magical rituals, to create magic items and what have you. However, there was a demonic invasion a couple of generations ago, so the mana of the game world is tainted by the abyss. This means any creature coming into contact with the tainted crystalized mana mutates into a demon spawn or becomes an undead if not buried in hallowed ground or burned. Now what does that mean for my game world? 1) Crystalized mana is a valuable resource and thereby a universal currency. 2) Adventurers are in constant high demand to collect these crystals and fight demon spawn to keep pockets of civilization safe'ish. 3) The land gets more dangerous the farer away you get from a place that purifies (or at least collects) the crystalized mana. That can be any town or a druid circle protecting its forest or even some kind of holy place where divine intervention constantly purifies the mana in its surroundings. With this established you already have a great corner stone for just about anything in the world. i. E. peasants are dependent on priests and mages to create a safe environment while the former need to create safe zones because without them even basic things like food production are impossible. This makes magic talent very valuable and basically anybody with enough magic power to purify crystalized mana is treated like nobility. Some are feared others are cherished. It all depends on if the local group of "nobles" exploits their power over society or not. All of this already gives me a lot of plothooks and we have barely scratched the surface of how a society like this would work, what caused said demonic invasion, how it was driven back, etc. etc.
My empire is going to die a horrible death. And I’m actually excited to write it when I get there. I know it sounds unorthodox but it’s part of the story that I’m aiming to tell.
I know the feeling - it is a different scenario for me right now (not an empire but a character). As much as it is going to be painful though, I'm really looking forward to write the scene of their death. It's just part of the story that I need to tell 🙂
Some isekai utilize like jobless recarnation did create history and a lot of worldbuilding they have different races kingdom and even languages and magic like telepotation it just myth or theory it not impossible to form magic
@@quezmiz736 Shadowrun is of course an entire franchise that has a lot of this baked into it somehow. "His Dark Materials" could also be something that might be interesting to check out in that regard 🙂
Final Fantasy has several iterations where magic or mana functions like fuel to power stempunkesque machines including walking tanks with guns, airships or trains which then can be used by people with no magical affinity whatsoever.
One thing that I’m tired of is the “evil empire” trope. I prefer to use a holly roman empire that relies in soft power and religious authority working as a force for good and order vs the local evil oligarchies.
The most egregious and fundamental mistake like 99 % of writers make is in not understanding what makes a noble house/family. These things NEVER EVER only have a Man, Woman and Child as the whole family and is one of the things I majorly dislike about Dune. These noble houses are akin to very complex corporations with the head of the house as basically the CEO, but there is also the board of director's equivalent, usually in the form of an elder's council with each holding a portion of power over their respective "departments". There was barely ever the time where noble houses completely vanished because you JUST killed the CEO and his family. If that is all you accomplished the noble house will simply appoint a different CEO from all the other family branches and continue. Historic noble houses made it a point of having a lot of descendants because through war, intrigue, accidents and child mortality rate, they'd be accustomed to lose a decent number of children. You either have to completely exterminate the whole bloodline which is supremely difficult but more often than not you usurp their powerbase or means of income. Some surviving family members do not matter at all if you've taken all their strongholds and lands.
I don’t like the “diluted” part of failing bloodlines. In our world, mixing breeds or bloodlines strengthens and not weakens. I think the more historically accurate “incestuous” is a more compelling and believable flaw. In an inverse world, incest wouldn’t be a taboo, it would be a requirement, a theme, a lesson and a cautionary tale. If you don’t impregnate your siblings you’re actively ruining society. While that IS interesting, it is also pretty tasteless and far too counter culture for me.
The "diluted" example here was actually meant more in the sense of a pure magical bloodline for example, where the addition of "outside" blood of course would diminish the potency of the magical inheritance. Otherwise, you are correct that biologically - at least as far as I'm aware - there are numerous examples that proof that mixing breeds etc. strengthen the overall bloodline :-)
@ I understand! I love your videos and I appreciate all you do! You’ve helped me immensely in getting unstuck in my writing. My comment was just a simple musing on that particular part of the video :)
![On Worldbuilding: How do Empires Work? [ Fire Nation l Roman l Mongols ] PART 1](/img/n.gif)
If you're on your own writing or worldbuilding journey, make sure to sign up for my free weekly newsletter which is packed with practical advice and strategies on key elements, from character development and plot structuring to creating immersive fantasy worlds: thetaletinkerer.com/newsletter
Bro made an entire political-socio-eco-geo course and I am here for it
For anyone reading this after or before watching, always remember: less is more. There's a lot of "pieces to building an empire" in this video and they're all great, but don't think you need to include or care about every piece. Honestly, only take a few pieces that feel the most useful for your story and focus on those.
Remember: less is more. Especially in story.
That is of course correct, yes. This is something that applies to almost any writing or worldbuilding advice and cannot be emphasized enough.
In the end, this is just an attempt to provide a good foundation for anyone interested in including empires. What actually is needed is always a matter of the story and the one telling the story 🙂
My story takes place on the border of the empire. The empire sets the standards of the setting, but only soldiers and a few other agents play active roles in the story.
People get bored reading history (mostly me... and I have adhd) all the advice and tips you gave was a real eye opener. It got me hooked until the end, this is really helpful and the best video I've seen in this channel yet.
Thank you for that feedback - really appreciate it 🙂Glad to hear the video was interesting for you and able to showcase some aspects of how an empire and its background can actually enhance the engagement of a story.
Obviously, this is a very comprehensive overview, and you don't need to go into every element in excruciating detail 🙂
Im at 1:34 and so far I like where this is going. One of the first thing I made for my empire was the fundamental ideology of its inception and that intun informed my decisions when making up the rest.
Glad to hear others are recognizing the importance of a solid foundation as well. And I obviously hope that the rest of the video was to your liking too 🙂
This is perfect in my story I have a large empire which I have spent years on and would love adivice and tips on
So, your idea of using crystalized magic as currency just solved a problem I had with crafting in my world. Thank you.
Glad to hear I could be of help - best of luck with your story/world 🙂
Aside from the fact that this is a great video, I wanted to shoutout the images you use, they are very nice! I do hope if you use the work of an artist that you give them credits in the description
At around 14:40 you talk about taxes and possible corruption by those who collect them. You just described the story of Robin Hood! 😁
Isn't that a story you can find in many other stories when you look closely enough? 🙂
This is literally where I'm stuck at in my world building phase. Making sure my Empire and Kingdoms are all ruled in a way fitting their culture and beliefs. Adding magic is tricky though because there is three magical schools followed based around religions I made. Two of them are legal but one is only legal through supervision. Everyone is born capable of all three and magic is considered very dangerous by all races. Thus if you are a powerful mage you are more likely to be feared then supported unless you are with the Church. Especially the Elven Order. If the Elven Order permits your use of magic then no one can stop you from using it unless you comit a crime.
This will be useful. In my campaign, the setting takes place adjacent to the biggest empire of the world and there are two smaller empires in the ocean. I had based them off of historical empires which helped me avoid the obvious issues. This video did give e a lot of ideas that I could explore to make the setting and the adventure more interesting
Glad to hear that there were some things in the video that could help / inspire you. Good luck with your campaign 🙂
One example I had was if teleporting is possible what kind of restriction would that entail for immigration. How would governments handle this, would they setup a teleportation restriction and how would they enforce it. If they can would they ban it and how. What kind of story would someone be able to tell. What are the reasons to ban it, you could say Drugs and trafficking is a lot more common. Also how possible is it to do, can anyone do it, is there a limitation, how many can one person teleport 1, 2, 3 or 1000. What would research be like if they could study it just because it’s magic doesn’t mean it can’t be studied and understood.
It depends on how deep into world building you want your magic system to get.
Magic the Gathering planeswalkers completely break a magic system until they're fighting each other. Hence why Nicol Bolas would be on the the level of greater gods in d&d since he's a 35,000 year old planeswalking dragon with telepathic abilities on the level of an elder brain.
You see how deep and complex it can get?
Thank you for this Great video, I learned a lot from it today. Just one question : "Is it possible for a fantasy empire to have 2 or 3 types of Governance all together ?!" for instance a theocratic gov that gets corrupted by the elites and turns into a olig which the theo leader lives like a monarch king (I know it's messed up 😄).
It absolutely is possible, yes. There have been real-world examples with multiple types of government combined in a sort of "hybrid approach" 🙂
Even your example works quite well based on the initial premise, because when one government type crumbles, it is not unrealistic for remnants of that government to survive, maybe even be merged into whatever takes over.
You also create lots of potential tension this way. Theocrats could clash with oligarchs, or the monarchs does everything in their power to try and regain actual authority...
So if the historical background of your empire supports the final outcome - then I don't see why that shouldn't be something you can write and execute upon in a great way.
I hope this helps somehow 🙂
@@TheTaleTinkerer This Absolutely helped thank you very much and please keep up the great content you make 👍
@@TheTaleTinkereryeh like holy roman empire and polish lithuanian commanwealth
So i have a question as a newer writer mostly writing for dnd for me a friend's. I wonder what you fine folk might think of a younger world where there isn't so much of a government, but a slew of tribal hierarchies. Mostly comprised of fishing villages and mining villages. Leaders could be made up of strongest warriors and smartest seers leading them into the future. With other tribes also trying to raid as thier source of provisons leading to very brutal economic problems among the tribes so gold would have less value then deeds or honor might have? (TLDR Is my dnd viking campiagn sounding fleshed out enough.)
Now from my POV: A tribal society based on strength, wisdom, and raiding is historically authentic.
Also, the idea that reputation and deeds matter more than gold makes perfect sense in this context. After all, in small communities where everyone knows each other this is quite common.
Based on these few details, I don't see why this shouldn't work. Personally, I often loved focusing on less epic settings as well, especially early on. That's why I often had the groups I DM'd for start smaller adventures on a village level rather than epic world-ending threats to be defeated 🙂
The world I currently work on has the following quirk:
Unused mana crystalizes out of the air and can be used in all kinds of ways in magical rituals, to create magic items and what have you. However, there was a demonic invasion a couple of generations ago, so the mana of the game world is tainted by the abyss. This means any creature coming into contact with the tainted crystalized mana mutates into a demon spawn or becomes an undead if not buried in hallowed ground or burned.
Now what does that mean for my game world?
1) Crystalized mana is a valuable resource and thereby a universal currency.
2) Adventurers are in constant high demand to collect these crystals and fight demon spawn to keep pockets of civilization safe'ish.
3) The land gets more dangerous the farer away you get from a place that purifies (or at least collects) the crystalized mana. That can be any town or a druid circle protecting its forest or even some kind of holy place where divine intervention constantly purifies the mana in its surroundings.
With this established you already have a great corner stone for just about anything in the world. i. E. peasants are dependent on priests and mages to create a safe environment while the former need to create safe zones because without them even basic things like food production are impossible. This makes magic talent very valuable and basically anybody with enough magic power to purify crystalized mana is treated like nobility. Some are feared others are cherished. It all depends on if the local group of "nobles" exploits their power over society or not.
All of this already gives me a lot of plothooks and we have barely scratched the surface of how a society like this would work, what caused said demonic invasion, how it was driven back, etc. etc.
Thank god. Got a throne to inherit and have no idea what to do with it
My empire is going to die a horrible death. And I’m actually excited to write it when I get there. I know it sounds unorthodox but it’s part of the story that I’m aiming to tell.
I know the feeling - it is a different scenario for me right now (not an empire but a character). As much as it is going to be painful though, I'm really looking forward to write the scene of their death. It's just part of the story that I need to tell 🙂
Vaugris will Not Fall!
What Majority of Isekais lack. Everything is Japanese centric, the people, other races, other species.
Some isekai utilize like jobless recarnation did create history and a lot of worldbuilding they have different races kingdom and even languages and magic like telepotation it just myth or theory it not impossible to form magic
Most can't even put their cities near rivers. Its not even about being japanese centric, they just lack basic worldbuilding principles.
21:25 Any examples/references for this type of literature?
You mean where magical and technological elements are combined somehow? 🙂
@@TheTaleTinkerer Yes!
@@quezmiz736 Shadowrun is of course an entire franchise that has a lot of this baked into it somehow.
"His Dark Materials" could also be something that might be interesting to check out in that regard 🙂
Final Fantasy has several iterations where magic or mana functions like fuel to power stempunkesque machines including walking tanks with guns, airships or trains which then can be used by people with no magical affinity whatsoever.
@@TheTaleTinkerer thanks i'll check them out
Every Empire eventually crumbles
Doomer
Sometimes it breaks and becomes whole again
What if the story is about a doomed empire? :D
Yes many dont understand that your Loreneeds a bit complex Realism.
One thing that I’m tired of is the “evil empire” trope.
I prefer to use a holly roman empire that relies in soft power and religious authority working as a force for good and order vs the local evil oligarchies.
Brown Lisa Clark Donna Williams Joseph
The most egregious and fundamental mistake like 99 % of writers make is in not understanding what makes a noble house/family. These things NEVER EVER only have a Man, Woman and Child as the whole family and is one of the things I majorly dislike about Dune. These noble houses are akin to very complex corporations with the head of the house as basically the CEO, but there is also the board of director's equivalent, usually in the form of an elder's council with each holding a portion of power over their respective "departments".
There was barely ever the time where noble houses completely vanished because you JUST killed the CEO and his family. If that is all you accomplished the noble house will simply appoint a different CEO from all the other family branches and continue. Historic noble houses made it a point of having a lot of descendants because through war, intrigue, accidents and child mortality rate, they'd be accustomed to lose a decent number of children.
You either have to completely exterminate the whole bloodline which is supremely difficult but more often than not you usurp their powerbase or means of income. Some surviving family members do not matter at all if you've taken all their strongholds and lands.
I don’t like the “diluted” part of failing bloodlines. In our world, mixing breeds or bloodlines strengthens and not weakens. I think the more historically accurate “incestuous” is a more compelling and believable flaw.
In an inverse world, incest wouldn’t be a taboo, it would be a requirement, a theme, a lesson and a cautionary tale. If you don’t impregnate your siblings you’re actively ruining society. While that IS interesting, it is also pretty tasteless and far too counter culture for me.
The "diluted" example here was actually meant more in the sense of a pure magical bloodline for example, where the addition of "outside" blood of course would diminish the potency of the magical inheritance. Otherwise, you are correct that biologically - at least as far as I'm aware - there are numerous examples that proof that mixing breeds etc. strengthen the overall bloodline :-)
@ I understand! I love your videos and I appreciate all you do! You’ve helped me immensely in getting unstuck in my writing. My comment was just a simple musing on that particular part of the video :)
The bureaucracy meatriding was questionable
Plotting, here is a man that knows its beauty.