Lore Development

---
name: lore-development
description: Develop coherent world lore with causal history, cultures, institutions, beliefs, conflicts, and constraints that support stories and gameplay.
---
# Lore Development

Use when expanding a fictional setting beyond isolated facts.

## Procedure
1. Establish the setting's existing canon, themes, physical rules, and narrative needs.
2. Build lore through causes and consequences: geography shapes resources, history shapes institutions, beliefs shape behavior.
3. Create tensions and contradictions that produce story rather than encyclopedic completeness.
4. Distinguish objective setting facts from in-world beliefs, propaganda, myths, and incomplete knowledge.
5. Check new material against established chronology, factions, technology/magic constraints, and character knowledge.
6. Record reusable canon clearly enough for other writers and designers to apply consistently.

## Quality gate
Lore should create usable constraints and opportunities for stories, characters, and play, not merely add names and trivia.