>>717854083
>Good lore is filling out the world with tidbits that you didn't know was even a thing.
I think I like this description. It's about adding texture to a world but filling in details that might not be worthy of plot spotlight but still may be interesting to a player who wants to put the microscope on the game world.

In Xenoblade 2 there's an area called Tantal. Tantal is an isolationist nation struck with frigid cold. Crops barely grow and everyone is forced to huddle around a single city. When you get there you notice most of the shops in the city are closed and boarded up. And you hear that it's like this because the low crop and resource yield makes it impossible for legitimate business owners to keep the lights on. Especially when black market trade dealers eat up what little money remarks at marked up prices?

>Wait black market dealers? I thought Tantal didn't allow outsiders in? How are there black market dealers openly selling goods in town

Because the black market dealers bring in food and supplies that Tantal itself can't produce. So much of it that both the King and the knights look the other way so at least there's some food in town. It would've been easy to just say the Switch can't run that much movement but the lore makes it more interesting and gives the town character. Also notice that the whole kingdom is floating? Why don't these weirdos just put their kingdom on the surface? Because as Tantal got colder and colder, for other reasons the game explains, they couldn't keep from being literally buried by the encroaching ice. And when you go to the bottom, you can see the ruins of old Tantal down there. It's not just ruins for no reason.