Building for Hearth & Crown

A Hearth & Crown Project is a specific medieval world for the system to simulate. You supply the truth. The system supplies the change.

The Project establishes world truth. The system simulates change from that truth.

What you build, what the system handles

You establish: geography, settlements, cultures, laws, religions, rulers, economies, property arrangements, organizations, people, and starting circumstances.

The system handles: how actions resolve, how skills develop, how work and commerce function, how health, relationships, inheritance, property, business, crime, succession, and war resolve, and how the world continues over time.

Your job is facts, not futures. Establish that the harvest was poor, the miller is owed wages, and the realm is at war. Do not hand-write what happens next. Let consequences emerge through play.

Above all: do not duplicate system mechanics inside your world. Your project should never re-implement agriculture, economy, politics, or health dynamics. Supply believable local conditions and let the system act on them.

How much is enough?

More than you fear, less than you imagine. A playable world needs: a starting area, its people and institutions, basic economic and legal truth, and a coherent opening situation. It does not need every village mapped, every law codified, or every resident named.

Answer what matters now. Defer what does not.

Later chapters teach each domain. This one teaches the posture: establish honestly, record each fact once, assume nothing from labels, and let the world live.