The Empire Worldbuilding Masterclass You Can’t Miss

the land was just the seed of a possbility, an experimental chunk of aether inserted through the mortal reality. A few would embrace this... "magic" as they called it... and cultivated great wonders from its potential; others would notice the seed from afar and label it "anomaly", their intentions varied and commonly wavering between curiosity and extermination. A few would understand this omen for the truth of the matter: change. No longer were these motes of life bound solely by their physical limitations, for now and forevermore they would partake of the quintessential essence that was life, the very "magic" of creation. That moment of rebirth was pure, the aftermath... well. We shall all bear witness to that.

Yes many dont understand that your Loreneeds a bit complex Realism.

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

Bro, why u got boobies?

Vaugris will Not Fall!

What if the story is about a doomed empire? :D

Thank god. Got a throne to inherit and have no idea what to do with it

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Npc.. did you capture bbeg? No we killed him...
Npc.. fk..
Why...
Npc:his peaple will just reserect him... and he will be extra pissed now.
Pc:reserect?
Npc. Yes? You think you have the only cleric able to cast true reserection.. thats why we said capture.. are you guys stupid?

What Majority of Isekais lack. Everything is Japanese centric, the people, other races, other species.

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.

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 😄).

The bureaucracy meatriding was questionable

Bro made an entire political-socio-eco-geo course and I am here for it

Every Empire eventually crumbles

Should challenges arise gradually at first, then amplify through ripple effects? Eg, the climate becomes increasingly hot and dry. Droughts and heat waves become more frequent. In these conditions, Reptilians outclass mere humans.

Plotting, here is a man that knows its beauty.

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.

This is perfect in my story I have a large empire which I have spent years on and would love adivice and tips on