this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2025
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For depth in world-building I use a rule I call "Y-cubed". (I got it from somewhere else but can't recall the source anymore.)
For every detail you make, you ask the question "Why" three times.
So a village the characters have reached stop all work every 77 days for a festival. Why? It celebrates an ascended local hero who saved the village from a magical blight. Why 77 days? It took 77 days for effort for the blight to be defeated. ... And so on.
This is a rapid way to both build depth in your setting quickly, as well as inspire possible mysteries and intrigue for investigation later.
A slight modification works also for giving NPCs depth.