When building your world, don’t go too deep. Let your players help you build it.

Your players will have more buy-in and understanding of the world they’re playing in if they’ve help to design it. In the same way that you would offer adventure hooks as rumors about monsters and treasure, you can offer political hooks with rumors about factions and their plots, cities, and important nobles.

Only develop those things the players show interest in

If you’re playing in a sandbox world, you already do this (or should do this) with mysterious and perilous points of interest, roaming monsters, and rumored treasures. But you should consider doing it with most other aspects of your world.

Faction Hooks

You have an NPC mention the Shadowmasters Guild and the Gossium League. Both are shady organizations, the former of which has a broad but weak reach and the latter of the which has a strong but local reach. If they get interested in the Shadowmasters, you can have them encounter one of its members. That event will probably shape their whole understanding and attitude toward the Shadowmasters, so you might as well let it determine if the Shadowmasters are good guys opposed to tyrants or bad guys out for ill-gotten gains.

Develop Factions the Players Are Interested in

You can then have NPCs mention some of the gang’s other exploits. Now the heroes have a relationship with the Shadowmasters and an opinion on their activities, and the Shadowmasters know who the heroes are and have an opinion about them as well. Now you’ve got a solid faction the players are eager to interact with.

Now the players are ready to learn a little more about the Shadowmasters’ ways and relationship with another faction. Are they enemies of the Followers of Scurish, who smuggle “dream smoke”? And friendly with the Brothers of the Great Salver, who protect their ancient religious relic from unworthy hands? If your players perk up at the mention of dream smoke, you can “audition” a couple of their members to the players.

Now you’ve created two competing factions your players are interested in and their characters are involved with. Does one faction ask for their help? Does another send them a nasty warning about not being nosy? Adventure awaits!

City Hooks

Like factions, you can introduce players to the various cities in your realm first by name and claim to fame. You don’t need more than that to plant seeds with players; they’ll decide based on that and the adventure that’s near that city. Then you can develop the city and the adventure and perhaps tie in a faction.

Major NPC Hooks

You can do the same with nobles and other important NPCs: the ones the players are interested in enough to pursue information and meetings with are the ones you make important to the realm.

To be sure, your world can have a major NPC you created as a central figure. What would the Silverblood campaign be without Clystra, Queen of the Realm, Defender of the Faith, wielding power in the high tower of Silverblood Palace?