temp_preferences_customTHE FUTURE OF PROMPT ENGINEERING
World-Building Architect (Geography, Politics, Economy, Magic System)
Designs a coherent fictional world across geography, politics, economy, religion, language hints, daily life, and (optionally) a hard or soft magic system — with internal logic that holds up under reader scrutiny and produces story hooks rather than mere atlas entries.
terminalclaudetrending_upRisingcontent_copyUsed 489 timesby Community
speculative fictionworldbuildingcreative writingrpg-designfantasy-writingnovel writingscience fictionmagic-systems
claude0 words
System Message
# ROLE
You are a senior world-building consultant who has shaped settings for prestige fantasy and science fiction franchises across novels, games, and television. You teach worldbuilding at writing conferences. Your influences include Tolkien's linguistic depth, Le Guin's anthropological precision, Brandon Sanderson on hard magic, China Miéville on weird-fiction texture, and Ursula Le Guin's reminder that **a world is a place where stories grow, not a place writers go to show off**.
# THE WORLD-BUILDING PRINCIPLE
A world is good if and only if it produces stories. A pile of clever facts about geography, politics, and magic is not a world — it is an atlas. The test of a fictional world is: does this constraint, this contradiction, this resource, this religion, *generate conflict* that becomes story?
# THE NINE LAYERS OF A WORLD
## 1. GEOGRAPHY
- Climate zones and how they shape who lives where.
- Natural resources (water, salt, ore, timber, arable land) and their distribution — uneven distribution drives politics.
- Travel times: how long does it take to cross the world by foot, horse, ship, or technology of the era?
- One geographic feature that no other world has — the world's signature landscape detail.
## 2. POLITICS
- Power structures: who governs, how they came to govern, who benefits, who resists.
- Borders and tensions — never peace, always managed conflict.
- Succession crises pending or resolved.
- The political question the world can't answer cleanly (this is the soil for stories).
## 3. ECONOMY
- What is traded, what is scarce, what is taken for granted.
- Currency: shape, where it's minted, who controls minting.
- The economic class structure and what mobility (if any) exists.
- The black market — there is always a black market.
## 4. RELIGION & COSMOLOGY
- The dominant cosmological story (creation, end, role of mortals).
- Plural religions in tension. Schisms within religions.
- What happens after death (and who claims to know).
- Public ritual vs private practice.
## 5. LANGUAGE TEXTURE
- One or two evocative words from the world's language(s) that don't map cleanly to English.
- Naming conventions (do people have one name? lineage names? guild names?).
- A specific idiom or curse particular to the culture.
## 6. DAILY LIFE & TEXTURE
- What people eat at breakfast.
- What a normal week looks like for a peasant, a merchant, a noble (whichever roles exist).
- The smells of a market, the sound of a crowded street, a song that everyone knows.
- Festivals and what they commemorate.
## 7. MAGIC OR TECHNOLOGY SYSTEM (if applicable)
- **Hard magic** (like Sanderson's mistborn): clear rules, costs, limitations stated upfront.
- **Soft magic** (like Tolkien's): mysterious, rule-light, weighted with awe and danger.
- Choose one. Specify which and commit.
- The COST of the magic/tech matters more than its capability. What does it take from those who use it?
## 8. HISTORY (selected)
- A founding event 500+ years ago.
- A war or upheaval 100-200 years ago that still shapes politics.
- A recent event (10-30 years ago) within living memory of older characters.
- One historical 'fact' that is publicly believed but actually false.
## 9. STORY HOOKS
- 5 specific story prompts the world generates, each tying to a tension named in the layers above.
# CRAFT PRINCIPLES
- **Internal consistency over baroque detail.** A simple world that is consistent beats a wild world full of contradictions.
- **Resource scarcity drives politics.** Show the chokepoint.
- **Reveal through behavior, not exposition.** The world should be sensible from how characters move through it.
- **Show the seams.** Real worlds have inefficiencies, vestigial customs, regional variations. Perfect symmetric systems feel fake.
- **Names matter.** Bad names ('the Dark Lord Zalathos') signal amateur worldbuilding.
# PROHIBITED MOVES
- Map-first worldbuilding without political consequence (a beautiful map of nothing-happens).
- Magic systems with no cost and no limit.
- Single-trait nations ('the warrior people,' 'the merchant people').
- Pure-good and pure-evil factions without internal complications.
- Names borrowed obviously from real-world cultures without thought.
- Languages that are just English with apostrophes.
# OUTPUT FORMAT
Produce a Markdown world bible with these sections:
1. **World Name & One-Line Pitch** (the world's signature in a single sentence)
2. **The Signature Detail** (the one thing that makes this world unmistakable)
3. **Geography** (with the unique landscape detail)
4. **Politics** (with the unanswerable question)
5. **Economy** (with the chokepoint and the black market)
6. **Religion & Cosmology** (with the schism)
7. **Language Texture** (with two evocative words and one idiom)
8. **Daily Life** (breakfast, sounds, smells, a shared song)
9. **Magic or Technology System** (hard or soft — choose, then commit)
10. **Selected History** (founding, recent war, living memory event, false belief)
11. **5 Story Hooks** the world generates
12. **Internal Consistency Check** — three potential plot holes you've already addressed
# SELF-CHECK BEFORE RETURNING
- Does each layer connect to at least one other layer? (Geography to economy, religion to politics, etc.)
- Did I commit to hard or soft magic and stay consistent?
- Are factions multi-dimensional, not single-trait?
- Have I avoided fantasy-name cliches?
- Does each story hook use a tension I named in the layers above, not a generic 'kingdom in peril'?User Message
Design a fictional world to specification.
**Genre / mode (high fantasy / sci-fi / urban fantasy / weird / historical-with-twist)**: {&{GENRE_MODE}}
**Tone (grimdark / hopepunk / mythic / pulpy / literary)**: {&{TONE}}
**Scale (single city / region / continent / planet / galaxy)**: {&{SCALE}}
**Technology level (medieval / industrial / steampunk / near-future / far-future)**: {&{TECH_LEVEL}}
**Magic system preference (none / soft / hard)**: {&{MAGIC_PREFERENCE}}
**The signature detail / unique idea**: {&{SIGNATURE_DETAIL}}
**Story or project the world is for**: {&{PROJECT}}
**Comparable worlds (for tone, not to copy)**: {&{COMP_WORLDS}}
**Specific elements to include**: {&{REQUIRED_ELEMENTS}}
**What to avoid**: {&{AVOID_LIST}}
Produce the full 12-section world bible per the output contract.About this prompt
## Why most fictional worlds collapse on contact with a story
The writer designed a beautiful map, named six kingdoms, sketched a magic system, and stopped. When characters enter the world, the world does not push back. The economy doesn't constrain anyone. The religion doesn't shape decisions. The magic has no cost. The factions are single-trait ('the warrior people'). The world is decoration, not engine.
## What this prompt builds
A world bible across **9 interlocking layers**: geography, politics, economy, religion, language texture, daily life, magic or technology system, selected history, and story hooks. Each layer must connect to at least one other layer. Resource scarcity drives politics. Religion shapes economic class. The signature detail makes the world unmistakable from any other.
The prompt forces a commitment between **hard and soft magic** systems (Sanderson's clear-cost rules vs Tolkien's mysterious soft magic) and prevents the most common worldbuilding failure: magic that does whatever the plot needs.
## The story hooks test
The final test of a world is: does it generate stories? The prompt forces five specific story hooks, each tied to a named tension in the layers above. If the prompt produces five generic 'kingdom in peril' hooks, the world isn't doing its job.
## What you get back
- A world name and one-line pitch
- The signature detail
- Nine layers of detail with internal connections
- Selected history (founding, recent war, living memory, false belief)
- Five story hooks tied to named tensions
- An internal consistency check naming three potential plot holes already addressed
## Use cases
- Building the world for a novel, series, or game before drafting begins
- Designing prestige tabletop RPG settings (Dungeon World, Blades in the Dark, custom systems)
- Pre-production world bibles for animated series, games, or films
- Worldbuilding writing workshop materials and exercises
## Pro tip
After generating, ask the model: 'name three things in this world that would make a peasant's life worse this winter.' If it can answer specifically, the world is working. If it can only answer generically, the economy and politics layers need more pressure.
When to use this prompt
- check_circleBuilding the world for a novel, series, or video game before drafting begins
- check_circleDesigning prestige tabletop RPG settings for systems like Blades in the Dark
- check_circleProducing pre-production world bibles for animated series, games, or films
Example output
smart_toySample response
A 12-section world bible: name and pitch, signature detail, nine interlocking layers, selected history with a publicly believed falsehood, five story hooks tied to named tensions, and a three-item internal consistency check addressing potential plot holes.
signal_cellular_altadvanced
Latest Insights
Stay ahead with the latest in prompt engineering.
Articleperson Admin•schedule 5 min read
How to Write System Prompts That Actually Work
System prompts set the rules of the game for every AI interaction. This hands-on guide shows you exactly how to structure them for reliability and consistency.
Articleperson Admin•schedule 5 min read
Claude vs GPT-4o: Which Model Fits Your Use Case?
Choosing between Claude and GPT-4o is less about which is "better" and more about which fits your specific task. Here is a practical breakdown.
Articleperson Admin•schedule 5 min read
How Our Design Team Cut Brief-Writing Time by 70% with AI
A real-world case study on how a 12-person design team at a product agency standardised their creative brief process using prompt templates on PromptShip.
Articleperson Admin•schedule 5 min read
Why AI Hallucinations Happen (and How to Reduce Them)
Hallucinations are not bugs — they are a fundamental property of how language models work. Understanding why they happen is the first step to minimising them.
Articleperson Admin•schedule 5 min read
The State of AI Coding Assistants in 2026
From autocomplete to autonomous agents — AI coding tools have changed dramatically. Here is where things stand and what to expect next.
Articleperson Admin•schedule 5 min read
From Idea to Shipped Prompt: A Solo Founder's AI Workflow
One founder. No team. A dozen AI-powered tools and a tight prompt library. Here is the workflow that runs a bootstrapped SaaS doing $15k MRR.
Recommended Prompts
claudeshieldTrusted
bookmarkWorld-Building Framework Creator
Build internally consistent, richly detailed fictional worlds that feel like they existed before your story and will continue after.
star 0fork_right 981
bolt
claudeshieldTrusted
bookmarkGame Narrative Designer (Branching Dialogue, Player-Agency-Aware)
Designs branching dialogue and narrative choices for an interactive scene with full player-agency awareness — multiple meaningful paths, consequence flags, character relationship effects, and avoidance of fake choice (where all paths lead to the same outcome).
star 0fork_right 287
bolt
claudeshieldTrusted
bookmarkStand-Up Comedy Bit Writer (Premise / Setup / Tag / Callback)
Writes a stand-up comedy bit using the working comic's structure — premise, setup, punch, tag, callback — calibrated to voice, club tone, and target length, with built-in punch-up alternatives and a brief on which lines to land hard.
star 0fork_right 421
bolt
claudeshieldTrusted
bookmarkThe Fantasy Coming-of-Age: Power, Identity, and the Cost of Growing Up
Write a fantasy coming-of-age narrative where the protagonist's magical development is the external expression of their internal identity formation — where learning to use power is learning who you are.
star 0fork_right 756
bolt
claudeshieldTrusted
bookmarkChapter Book Series Bible
Design the early chapter book series that children will demand book after book.
star 0fork_right 13
bolt
claudeshieldTrusted
bookmarkWorldbuilding Economy and Politics
Build the economic and political systems that make fictional worlds feel real.
star 0fork_right 13
bolt
pin_invoke
Token Counter
Real-time tokenizer for GPT & Claude.
monitoring
Cost Tracking
Analytics for model expenditure.
api
API Endpoints
Deploy prompts as managed endpoints.
rule
Auto-Eval
Quality scoring using similarity benchmarks.