Worldbuilding 101

‪The thing I get the most praise for in my writing is world building. Thought ‬I’d make a list of things that make or break a believable world. 

0 Lets tell a story

I’m going to be using a real-world example to illustrate everything you need to know about worldbuilding. 

We’ll be talking about the kidnapping of Duke Wilhelm the Stupid of Geldern. 

This guy was a Teutonic Knight in the Crusades, a prominent one. In order to secure his claim on the town of Dodrin, the Count of Cammin agreed to kidnap the young Duke on behalf of the King of Poland, Jogaila. 

Jogaila was increasingly antagonistic towards the Teutonic Order. He blocked the passage of crusaders going to Prussia through Poland, so they had to take a detour through the very small Duchy of Stolp. Despite its size, it had not one, but two dukes. Both were approached by Jogaila to block the passage there as well. 

The Teutonic order threw bags of money at the dukes and also promised them the town of Dodrin if they ignored Jogaila. Given Jogaila didn’t have any money to his name, the dukes took the Order’s money and promised to allow crusaders in. 

Which is where the Count of Cammin comes in. 

So Wilhelm heads through and gets ambushed by the Count and 40 noblemen. Two of his traveling companions are killed in the fray and he gets carried off to Falkenburg. Outraged, the Order demands the dukes immediately go rescue him. However, one duke is away and can’t be reached. The other duke looks at the situation and nopes out of existence. 

Fuming, the Order cancels their winter crusade (they plan these things like parties) and have to go get Duke Wilhelm back. 

Now let's zoom in on Wilhelm. Wilhelm, having been taken prisoner, gives his word to the Count that he will remain a prisoner until released on terms beneficial to all parties. The thing is that Wilhelm is into this weird ideology called chivalry. 

Oh, and he’s also a rules lawyer. This is important. 

So, the Order lays siege to Falkenburg. It takes 3 days, but they capture the city. Lives are lost, both among the knights and innocent civilians. The Count flees to Poland in the chaos. They find Duke Wilhelm. 

He refuses to be rescued. 

He tells his rescuers to he’s staying put until they find the Count to release him from his sacred oath. He stayed in the dungeon, right where they found him. The astonished crusaders finally give up and go back to the Grand Master like uhhhh what now

The Grand Master was at a complete loss for words. The Count couldn’t be found and absolutely no one wanted to get involved in the drama. Couple of months go by and finally he sends an army out to kidnap his own knight back. He reasons that if Duke Wilhelm is forcibly taken, still in chains, then he would have kept his oath. 

So yadda yadda yadda, lay siege to Falkenburg AGAIN, go up to the Duke, hogtie him, bring him all the way back to Teutonic HQ annnnd

He requests to be sent back to Falkenburg, because he’s very skeptical of the Grand Master’s reasoning. 

Dying internally, the Grand Master grants his request. 

So the army takes the Duke back in chains, lay siege to Fallenburg, toss him back in prison and then leave. At this point the other crusaders are like “maybe he just dies there” but the Grand Master knows their reputation is on the line now. 

At this point, the Grand Master remembers “oh fuck, the Bishop of Pomesania promised the safety of crusaders passing through the Baltic coastline, which includes the Duchy of Stolp”

So he writes a letter to the Bishop. The Bishop finds the Count and ALL 40 noblemen and gently reminds them that each of them will be excommunicated for violating Church policy unlesssss

The Count frees Duke Wilhelm from his oath. 

The Count IMMEDIATELY frees Duke Wilhelm from his oath. 

Duke Wilhelm gets on his horse and finishes his journey to Prussia to go on crusade, his reputation intact. 

So, what did we learn from this? 

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1 All history is messy and stupid

Writing a history that is far too logical doesn’t account for human nature. We come to strange conclusions, get misinformation or just make plain incorrect decisions. 

While Point B can be reached through Point A, what’s to say it doesn’t detour through Points Z, Y and S? 

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2 People of the same culture/religion/ethnic group can have serious conflict

This is one people tend to forget a lot. Big or small, people who may share some macro traits or ideology may not agree on the meaning or importance of those topics. Even looking aside from the Count and Duke being Christains, look at the Duke and Grand Master. 

The Duke’s ideology on how to be a good knight is the driving force of the conflict. This conflicts with those of the Grand Master’s. YET, they are clearly ideals the knights think they should ascribe to. So while they are astounded by him not allowing himself to be rescued, they allow him to not be rescued because he has a compelling argument for why it’s the right thing to do. 

Even if it’s—objectively—stupid. 

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3 This world is bloody and violent

There is very casual sieges and violence. The way they conduct warfare is familiar. We can extrapolate without being told that warfare is extremely common. 

Think of the people killed during the siege(s) on Falkenburg or the kidnapping of Duke Wilhelm. In the latter case, there were absolutely no consequences for their deaths. What does that say about those 2 in particular? What does that say about a world that allows unjustified death (against Church policy) to go unpunished? That Duke Wilhelm cared nothing for those who perished to save him? 

It says that your life doesn’t matter unless you’re nobility. And nobility may not care about those of a lower station. 

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4 The Church has power that crosses borders in this world

We learn here that the Church does not care about geopolitical borders. All supposed Christains are subject to their authority, but that they have rules and laws which function as a shadow Empire extended across all Christain rulers. 

Interestingly, instead of exerting control by holding people to their pledges (like Duke Wilhelm would be swayed by), their most dire threat is to RELEASE their control of an individual through excommunication. 

What does that say about the consequences of leaving the Church? What does it imply about the type of control they exert? With conflicts over geographic areas between warring kings, why do they let this independent nation function in their lands, land they’re willing to fight and die over? 

Those all have interesting answers! 

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5 The town of Dodrin is important, but not really

Two dukes were willing to ignore their king and a Count was willing to raise an army for it. Yet, when things got heated, both dukes decided it wasn’t all that important afterall. 

Lots of people were willing to do some sketchy things for this place, so it’s important, but why? 

Does it matter to the story as to why? 

No. 

That wasn’t the point of Duke Wilhelm the Stupid. It was a catalyst, not a cornerstone. Sometimes, you don’t need to explain why something matters. The fact that it plays a prominent role can say more about it than any explanation can do justice to. 

This is the mantra of worldbuilding: show don’t tell. 

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6 Nature creates people, people create society, society creates culture

All of these events were driven by people. Every one of them had goals, desires, history. They were complicated, but each one of them helped define the cultures of this world. 

Those cultures helped define how they reacted to their situations so they could still be accepted by their societies. The Duke refused to be rescued so he was seen as chivalrous. The Grand Master had to rescue the Duke to save face. The Count freed the Duke so he was not shunned for being excommunicated. 

Worlds are driven by people, but also by the world itself. The only path to Prussia was through Stolp or Poland. With Poland barring crusaders, they had to go through Stolp. It created an opportunity for this to happen by accident of geography and a complicated history defining the borders and alliances of those regions. 

But you knew that without having to see a map just by way of the story being told. 

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7 Not everyone has encyclopedia knowledge of their world

Part of this story was purely people forgetting old promises. No one knew about the Bishop’s promise. Not the Count, not the Duke, not the King and not even the Bishop until he was reminded. 

None of these players had any idea. 

Expecting people to know the entire history of their world and how it functions is ridiculous. A world is bigger and fuller when characters can say, “I don’t know.” 

8 Worlds are not explained by those who are part of them

Let me ask you: Did it ever occur to you during the course of the story of Duke Wilhelm the Stupid that I never explained what a ‘crusader’ was? 

I didn’t need to. 

It is part of a shared mythos you, the reader, and me, the author, have. You can imagine a crusader in shining armor. I never needed to tell you what one was. If I had, you would have likely considered it pedantic. 

Trying to explain what one is gets into messy, barely understood history about a really embarrassing low point of humanity. But it’s such a common word that people in Western cultures grow up knowing it. It’s like trying to explain what a square is to someone who has never encountered a rectangle. You can do it, but it takes some time and isn’t something you normally need to think about. 

When writing your worlds, understand what you can’t explain. 

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And that’s it!

I hope you enjoyed this retrospective on worldbuilding. I might try to do more stuff like this in the future. It was a lot of fun to explain what you can learn from real but obscure history without needing to be told.