The Seven Levels of Worldbuilders

Summary

The video reframes the “seven levels” as skills worldbuilders develop, not a ranking of fictional worlds. More lore, a bigger map, or a thicker wiki does not automatically make a setting better. Creators may be strong in some areas and weaker in others; the framework is meant to help identify strengths and choose what to develop next.

The central progression is from generating ideas, to grounding them in knowledge, connecting the parts, creating story potential, understanding people, tracing consequences, and ultimately combining all these abilities with consistency.

The Seven Levels

1. Creativity and Idea Generation

Creativity does not require inventing something wholly unprecedented. It often comes from reshaping familiar ideas, combining influences, or presenting an existing concept from a fresh angle.

A useful balance is to make a world familiar enough for audiences to understand, while giving them something distinctive to discover. Creativity is often the initial hook that makes people curious about a setting.

Examples discussed:

• Discworld turns a deliberately absurd premise—the world on elephants standing on a turtle—into a rich setting. Its personification of Death makes a familiar figure feel fresh.
• Lord of Mysteries combines influences such as Victorian aesthetics, horror, secret societies, Tarot, gods, and monsters.
• Made in Abyss uses a compelling central mystery—a vast, dangerous abyss—to invite exploration.

2. Knowledge

Worldbuilders should learn about the subjects they choose to feature. Research need not cover everything; it should match the setting’s focus.

Understanding history, warfare, politics, religion, economics, geography, or culture helps make invented worlds more convincing. For instance, a story involving non-magical sieges benefits from understanding how difficult fortified castles were to capture.

Knowledge is learnable: curiosity and a willingness to research can expand a creator’s tools.

Examples discussed:

• The Black Company is praised for its attention to the practical experiences of soldiers, including supplies, contracts, casualties, and sustaining a mercenary company.
• One Piece explores government, corruption, colonialism, and the ways power structures manipulate people. Dressrosa is used as an example.
• The Wheel of Time is cited for distinct cultures shaped by their histories, including the Aiel.

3. Cohesion

Cohesion means making the world’s elements interact so that the setting feels like a connected place, rather than a collection of unrelated ideas.

A common weakness is dividing a map into neat cultural or racial boxes. In a world with migration, empires, and long histories, cultures and populations would often mix. Worldbuilders can ask what happens when borders, religions, economies, and people meet or conflict.

The video uses The Elder Scrolls and Runeterra as examples of settings whose regions can feel strongly separated or defined by one dominant identity. It notes that video games may have practical reasons to emphasize clear regional identities.

4. Narrative Design

Narrative design is not simply writing a story; it is creating a world with conditions that can generate stories.

Consider where tensions, ambitions, institutional weaknesses, rivalries, and mysteries could lead. Conflicts should feel like they could emerge naturally from the setting, rather than existing only because a plot requires them.

Leave unresolved questions and room for future events. If everything is settled and explained, the setting may have little space for new stories.

Examples discussed:

• Warhammer 40,000 contains numerous factions and ongoing conflicts, making the setting a source of many possible stories.
• Forgotten Realms offers locations, factions, ruins, and mysteries that support adventures and original campaigns.
• A Song of Ice and Fire supports stories across multiple periods and perspectives because its dynasties, history, and political tensions extend beyond any one plot.

5. Empathy

Empathy in worldbuilding means understanding why people act as they do and how they experience the systems and events around them.

People are not simply good or evil; they have different interests, histories, fears, and reasons. Even harmful decisions should make sense from the decision-maker’s perspective.

Cultures become more believable when the people within them hold differing views. Conflicts feel more human when the audience can understand multiple sides without necessarily agreeing with them.

This differs from knowledge: knowledge concerns how systems work; empathy concerns how people live within those systems.

Examples discussed:

• Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings (the title is misrecognized in the subtitles) depicts characters whose mistakes and flaws are understandable.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender develops empathy for Zuko and shows the people behind the Fire Nation’s conflict.
• Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End explores how different experiences of time shape relationships, grief, regret, and memory.

6. Consequence

Consequence means following events forward and considering how decisions affect the rest of the world. Actions do not occur in isolation: a ruler’s death might trigger a succession crisis, and a new trade route might enrich some cities while weakening others.

Major events should change things. If a war, decision, or political shift leaves no lasting effect, the world can feel static.

Consequences should be both surprising and understandable in retrospect: neither arbitrary punishment nor a convenient reset, but results that follow plausibly from what came before.

Examples discussed:

• Fullmetal Alchemist centers on the lasting effects of the brothers’ attempt to bring their mother back, with consequences that shape both their lives and wider events.
• Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea shows personal consequences through Ged’s encounter with the shadow, which affects his life and character.
• Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn traces later problems and historical developments to earlier decisions. Victories, as well as failures, have lasting effects.

7. Mastery

Mastery is not a separate secret ingredient. It is the ability to combine the other six skills consistently and effectively.

Reaching one level does not mean every earlier skill has been mastered. Worldbuilders can create strong work while still having weaknesses, and there is always more to learn.

The narrator’s suggested examples of creators who approach mastery are J. R. R. Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, and Steven Erikson, with George R. R. Martin and Brandon Sanderson also mentioned. The narrator stresses that these judgments are subjective.

Overall Lesson

Worldbuilding is a craft that develops through practice and learning. The seven levels offer a way to diagnose what a setting might need: more imaginative ideas, deeper research, stronger connections between its parts, clearer story potential, more human perspectives, or more meaningful ripple effects.

The strongest worldbuilding brings these qualities together so the world feels engaging, connected, inhabited, and capable of continuing beyond any single story.

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Speaker: The video’s narrator and host from Large Lad Studios; no other speaking guest is identified in the subtitles.
• Sponsor: World Anvil, described by the narrator as a tool for organizing worldbuilding materials.

Works and creators used as examples or references:

• Terry Pratchett — Discworld
• Lord of Mysteries
• Made in Abyss
• Glen Cook — The Black Company
• Eiichiro Oda — One Piece
• Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson — The Wheel of Time
• The Elder Scrolls
• League of Legends / Runeterra
• Warhammer 40,000
• Dungeons & Dragons / Forgotten Realms
• George R. R. Martin — A Song of Ice and Fire and its adaptations
• Robin Hobb — Realm of the Elderlings
• Avatar: The Last Airbender
• Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
• Fullmetal Alchemist
• Ursula K. Le Guin — Earthsea
• Brandon Sanderson — Mistborn
• J. R. R. Tolkien
• Steven Erikson
• Real history, mythology, folklore, religion, and ancient epics, mentioned as sources of inspiration for fantasy worldbuilding.