npbuilds World Bible — The Axioms
Everything in this world derives from constraints. Geography constrains civilization. Resources constrain technology. The fantasy system constrains what's possible. And the revelation architecture constrains what anyone — character or reader — knows at any given moment.
This skill holds the non-negotiable rules. Nothing produced by any other worldbuilding skill should contradict what's recorded here. When axioms change, they change here first, and everything downstream adapts.
Reference Library
references/world-axioms.md— the canonical rules as they crystallizereferences/revelation-layers.md— nested truth structure and revelation spiralreferences/faction-conflict-web.md— faction relationships, vulnerabilities, and triggersreferences/wrede-worldbuilding-taxonomy.md— Patricia Wrede's 58-subcategory master checklist (SFWA standard)references/onlyworlds-ontology.md— 22 element types for fictional worlds (the closest thing to a universal schema)references/generation-pipeline.md— the order in which world elements constrain each other (Dwarf Fortress / Azgaar methodology)
Core Constraints
The hard physics of this world. What works the same as our universe, and what doesn't.
Read references/world-axioms.md for the canonical rules as they crystallize.
What to Define Here
- Scale: How large is the setting? A single planet, a system, a sector, a galaxy?
- Travel: What are the distances and costs of moving between places? This single constraint shapes trade, war, culture, and isolation more than anything else.
- Communication: Can information travel faster than people? If yes, politics centralizes. If no, empires fragment. This is the most underrated worldbuilding variable.
- Resources: What's scarce? Scarcity drives conflict, innovation, and hierarchy. The thing your world fights over defines your world.
- Time: How deep is history? A world with ten thousand years of civilization feels different from one with three hundred. Deep time creates layers of ruin, myth, and forgotten truth.
The Rule of Consequence
Every axiom must propagate. If faster-than-light travel exists, ask: what does that do to borders? To trade? To war? To the concept of distance in a culture's mythology? An axiom that doesn't ripple through every layer of the world isn't an axiom — it's decoration.
The Fantasy System
The element that makes this world not-Earth. Whether it's called magic, technology-indistinguishable-from, a metaphysical substrate, or something with no analog — it must be systematic.
Sanderson's Laws (As Design Constraints)
- Resolution power is proportional to understanding. The reader must understand the system before it can solve problems. This means: define the rules before you use them narratively. Mysteries are fine; deus ex machina is not.
- Limitations are more interesting than capabilities. What the system can't do — or what it costs — creates the drama. Unlimited power is boring. Define the costs first, the abilities second.
- Expand what you have before you add something new. One well-explored system with deep implications beats three shallow ones. Go deep, not wide.
What to Define Here
- Source: Where does the power come from? Is it ambient, inherited, extracted, granted?
- Cost: What does using it take? Energy, sanity, lifespan, memory, something the world values?
- Limits: What can it absolutely not do? These limits are more important than the capabilities.
- Access: Who can use it? Is access democratic, genetic, economic, secret? This shapes power structures.
- Interaction with physics: Does it break conservation of energy? Does it operate within thermodynamics but from a different energy source? The answer determines how "hard" or "soft" the system feels.
Revelation Architecture
Not everything true is known. This section maps the layers of truth in the world.
Read references/revelation-layers.md for the full structure as it develops.
The Principle of Nested Truth
The world has a surface story and deeper stories beneath it. Each layer recontextualizes the ones above:
- Layer 0 — The Surface: What most people in the world believe. The accepted history, the common understanding of how things work. This is where most characters live.
- Layer 1 — The Cracks: What observant people notice doesn't add up. Inconsistencies in the official story. Things that work differently than they should.
- Layer 2 — The Hidden: What a few people know. Suppressed history, secret systems, the actual mechanics behind the surface. Power operates here.
- Layer 3 — The Deep: What almost no one knows. The foundational truth that, if revealed, would recontextualize everything above it. This is where the biggest narrative payoffs live.
Not every element of the world needs all four layers. But the most important ones — the fantasy system's origin, the true history, the nature of the central conflict — should have at least three.
Designing Reveals
A reveal is not just "the truth was different." A good reveal makes the reader re-experience everything that came before with new understanding. Design reveals backward: start with the Layer 3 truth, then build the layers of misunderstanding on top of it.
Faction Conflict Web
No faction exists in isolation. Every power group is defined by its relationships — alliances, rivalries, dependencies, and dormant hostilities. The conflict web maps these relationships as a graph of typed edges between faction nodes.
Read references/faction-conflict-web.md for the full structure. Key principles:
- Every faction has a vulnerability — the thing they need but don't control. Vulnerabilities drive alliances and create leverage.
- Every relationship has a surface and a reality — what's publicly visible vs what's actually happening. This maps directly onto the revelation architecture.
- Every relationship has a trigger — an event that would transform it. Triggers are narrative catalysts.
- Power vacuums are the most dangerous events in the world. When a major faction falls, every relationship shifts.
Civilizational Constraints
Civilizations don't exist in a vacuum. They are shaped by:
- Geography: Coastal cultures trade and explore. Landlocked cultures consolidate and defend. Mountain cultures isolate and preserve. Desert cultures adapt and move. The land shapes the people before the people shape the land.
- Resources + Fantasy System: If the fantasy system requires a rare material, whoever controls that material controls access to power. If the system is innate, power structures form around bloodlines or training institutions. The intersection of resources and the fantasy system determines the political landscape.
- History depth: A civilization with a long memory behaves differently from one that reinvents itself every few generations. Deep history creates tradition, orthodoxy, and weight. Shallow history creates dynamism, fragility, and freedom.
- Neighbors: A civilization is defined as much by what it borders as by what it contains. Isolation creates distinctness. Contact creates synthesis, conflict, and hybridity.
Tone and Atmosphere
The world isn't just what exists — it's how it feels. This section defines the emotional register.
Atmosphere Is a Constraint
If the world feels like Cowboy Bebop — melancholy, jazz-inflected, beautiful in its decay — then a scene of triumphant military conquest would feel wrong, even if it's logically consistent. Atmosphere constrains narrative as much as physics does.
What to Define Here
- Dominant mood: What's the emotional baseline? Melancholy? Tension? Wonder? Dread?
- Aesthetic palette: Not colors — sensory textures. Is this world chrome and neon, or stone and dust, or bioluminescence and silence?
- Relationship to the unknown: Does this world treat mystery with curiosity, fear, reverence, or indifference? This shapes how characters (and readers) encounter the unexplained.
- The weight of history: Does the past feel present (ruins everywhere, old myths still alive) or forgotten (clean surfaces, deliberate amnesia)?