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The Realms

An up-to-date overview of my 8 worldbuilding projects.

Edit: As of 2023, Diaspora [DSP] has been renamed to Astra Planeta [ASP]. As of 2022, Aedrynn [ADN] has been retired from the list, replaced by The Midnight Sea [TMS].

ASP | AV | OE | SPH | TMS | CDL | LOR | PR

In which the human species embraces its cosmic wanderlust and slowly, conscientiously, we venture out into the stars.

[ASP] The Astra Planeta universe is a hopeful exploration of humanity’s future within the local stellar group, as well as speculation on the history and ecology of nearby alien worlds, with equal parts scientific realism and social optimism. Humanity, and our extraterrestrial allies, still face hardships, of course –after all, the universe isn’t a particularly hospitable place– but the stories of Astra Planeta center on cooperating in the face of adversity and utilizing interpersonal differences as a source of strength against the unsympathetic cosmos.

In which humankind is suddenly and unceremoniously thrust into a bustling galactic super-civilization, and gradually discovers there is much more to both the past and future of our universe than we ever imagined.

[AV] The Arcverse is a fictional version of our universe that speculates on the myriad possible forms of intelligent life on other worlds, and the evolution of starfaring civilizations over vast spans of time and space. The project is strongly rooted in current scientific theory yet strives to maintain the look, feel, and tone of a soft-sci space opera, and is presented in a manner intended to inspire wonder at the vastness of our universe and the endless possibility contained within.

In which humanity, its genetic legacy splintered into millions of descendant species across the Orion Arm, seeks the grandest mysteries the universe yet holds.

[OE] Orion's Echo is primarily intended as the setting for a tabletop RPG campaign of the same name, using the Hyperlanes game system. This realm blends the scope and setting of whimsical planet-hopping science fiction with story elements of cosmic horror and mystery. It is built on a speculative vision of humanity's far future in the galaxy, both a science-fictional take on classical elements of D&D and a love letter to the Golden Age of science fiction.

In which a wide diversity of intelligent beings sharing the planet Sphaera trace their ancestry to a vast experiment enacted by an ancient and powerful civilization originally hailing from Earth itself.

[SPH] Sphaera is an Earth-like world within an universe parallel to ours, where magic is a force of nature with its own physical laws. Sphaera itself is verdant with fantastical organisms and cultures that seem pulled straight from legend. The project aims to subvert, invert, or uniquely explain many fantasy tropes with a more scientific angle; building up an expansive and diverse setting while retaining the feeling of coherent closeness typical of fantasy worlds.

In which a brave crew of explorers sails the Midnight Sea in search of danger, adventure, and most importantly fellowship -for no spacer is ever alone.

[TMS] The Midnight Sea is one of many names for the space between suns; that wondrous, endless, dark void that seems to beckon planetbound beings to reach ever further. A sea it is, in a sense: one must voyage far across it to find other islands of civilization, and strange things lurk in the starry deep. The Midnight Sea is a collaborative space fantasy tabletop game setting, derived from the Spelljammer supplements of Dungeons & Dragons in a somewhat haphazard attempt to link all of the major contemporary D&D and MtG settings together under our collective fanon.

In which the infinite potential of the multiverse is distilled into a cesspool of mixed realities, overseen by a perpetually-stoned quasi-deity and inhabited by beings beyond your wildest fever dreams.

[CRDL] Crundle is a planet-ish realm at the center of the "Crundleverse," a surreal puddle of existence that resides beneath Everything Else. The Crundleverse is formed and sustained by the mingling of magical energy that trickles down from every possible reality. As such, Crundle is a kaleidoscopic realm of non sequitur, a literal idea wastebasket; and the only way to cope with the absurdity of it all is to simply sit back and enjoy the weird.

In which a precious few intrepid, curious souls know the true nature of the ashen world they inhabit.

[LOR] Bleakworld is the working project title for the land of Lor: a barren waste inhabited by strange beasts and tenacious peoples. The project is an exercise in imagination on the part of the audience and an endeavor of meticulous ambiguity on the part of the author: everything in Bleakworld canon is worded extremely carefully to avoid giving away the true nature of the setting.

In which a group of friends discover their small town -and their whole world- is not what it seems.

[PR] Pinereach is a small town of about 500 people nestled comfortably in the Cascade Mountains of northern California, at the center of an elaborate web of unusual events that border on the supernatural. Pinereach is the setting and shared title of a weird fiction story project written by myself and four coauthors.

Galactic Standard is an Arcadian-based melting pot of various laryngeal languages from across known space. It is the de facto common language of the galaxy, since the Aehr (native Arcadian speakers) were the first explorers to chart the galaxy and make contact with the early-modern Milky Way’s various sophont species. The language is less necessary in modern times, what with the increasingly sophisticated neuromatic translators, but thanks to its prevalence over the last several tens of thousands of cycles, it remains the dominant interstellar vocal language.

The Galactic Standard alphabet is a 40-letter phonetic alphabet consisting of symbols for the phonemes of:

h (aspirate)

tʃ (postalveolar affricate)

χ (uvular fricative)

g (voiced velar stop)

q (uvular stop)

k (voiceless velar stop)

ks (velar sibilant)

s (voiceless alveolar sibilant)

ʂ (voiceless retroflex fricative)

z (voiced alveolar sibilant)

ʐ (voiced retroflex fricative)

j (palatal approximant)

ʎ (palatal lateral approximant)

y (close front rounded)

i (close front unrounded)

ɪ (near-close near-front)

ä (open central)

a (open front)

e (close-mid front)

ɛ (open-mid front)

o (mid-back)

ɔ (open-mid back)

ʊ (near-close near-back)

ɯ (close back)

w (labialized velar approximant)

φ (bilabial non-sibilant fricative)

f (voiceless labiodental non-sibilant fricative)

v (voiced labiodental non-sibilant fricative)

m (bilabial nasal)

n (alveolar nasal)

d (voiced alveolar stop)

rr (alveolar trill)

ɻ (retroflex approximant)

l (alveolar lateral approximant)

tɬ (alveolar lateral affricate)

θ (voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative)

ð (voiced dental non-sibilant fricative)

t (voiceless alveolar stop)

p (voiceless bilabial stop)

b (voiced bilabial stop)

Making an addition to this to include more info about the realms! These are the thumbnails I use to represent them:

And this is a homemade chart of the genres and methods of each:

The Realms

An up-to-date overview of my 8 worldbuilding projects.

DSP | AV | Œ | SPH | ÆDN | CRDL | LOR | PR

Keep reading

THISSSSS GOD YES THIS. I want more dumb, mundane scars in character designs. generally in character design scars are only used as backstory or character arc elements, but honestly? I have a lip scar where I split it with two powerful magnets as a toddler. I have a splotch where I spilled hot grease on my thumb knuckle. those scars are just as important because they remind us that we’re humans, fragile and dumb and somehow resilient.

in service of this I gave Zak (one of my oldest OCs, and one of my favorites) a big edgy scar that runs across the bridge of his nose and onto his upper right brow, just above the eye. he tells a different badass story about it every time someone asks, but he actually got it by whacking his face into an engine he was working under when his friend jokingly spooked him.

give me more dumb scars!!

scars in fiction: I got this trying to save my lover from an assassin- but tragically, I was too late. now I carry the mark of my failure with me always, and I can never forget~

scars in real life: so I was trying to open macaroni sauce with a paring knife

Writers!! Describe your current WIP(s) in the most boring way possible. I want to see this skdjfkdfhk

join the starship Free Spirit, we got

- unmedicated adhd

- autistic gamer

- living mood ring gecko stuck on the "righteous fury" setting

- looks like he could crush you, actually the ship's therapist

- touch-starved anxiety bird

- Spocktopus

- netflix and chill

- fully automated bullying machine

Describe your oc to me. Poorly.

Within our current understanding of reality and the multiverse, there is a theoretically infinite number of sophont species that have achieved the Hyperichon stage of advancement and have broken free of their Cycle. Though all have differing origins, these omni-beings are collectively called "Hyperichals," or more commonly "Drifters." Drifters exist outside the limits of the cosmos and can travel between universes at will. They have attained final and complete knowledge of physics, and have total mastery over the workings of reality through post-singularity thaumatech.

They are, in every sense, ultimate.

Individual Drifters no longer retain the biology of their ancestors, having transcended the limits of physical form, and can choose to manifest in whatever way they wish while inside a universe. Since Drifters have an entirely different relationship with time, it is possible (though rare) for a developing civilization to encounter their Hyperichal descendants, though they will likely never realize this unless they are explicitly told so.

In terms of society, there are a few paths a Hyperichon-stage civilization may take after ascendancy. Some believe there is still further to be known, and perform increasingly elaborate and esoteric experiments with the clockwork of reality. Most, however, choose to adopt or create a small, stable cosmos or cosmic network as their new ideal home, called a Haven. They harvest mass from dead universes to build, unlimited, inside their Haven, and maintain its entropy in a similar manner to how we maintain marine tanks or the air cycle in a spacecraft. A rare few Hyperichal civilizations are marauders, but these are the ones who have accidentally attained pseudo-Hyperichal status before they were ready and almost always destroy themselves in due time. True Drifters have no qualms with each other; they live in a post-scarcity eternity, where everything is infinite and forever.

In a galaxy of millions of cultures stemming from over a hundred sapient species, recreation is a vastly diverse pool of activities! Quintillions of beings across the stars spend their free time having fun in all manner of ways. Here's a brief collection of examples.

Most cultures have some form of recreational gambling, but Zaarcs are pretty fond of card games, and that fondness proved infectious to the wider galaxy. Their card set has six suites: suns, stars, moons, bolts, flames, and waves. Games played with this set include Sol-Hai (a bit like Alien Go Fish), Cerec, and Horizon Folly.

The galaxy is suffused with the Etherlink digital network and virtual games abound, but that doesn't make the real world any less appealing! Physical sports are alive and well in the modern galaxy, and particularly popular games include:

nulloball - dodgeball in zero-gravity

netrush - something vaguely like a cross between soccer, full-contact rugby, and trampoline sports

zem'hurut - a team-based martial arts competition from the Haalla Supercluster, sort of like lacrosse but with kung fu

chalban - a sport invented by the centauroid Pelmens of Dura which involves jousting and utilizes a (dull) javelin as the thrown scoring object

And of course, it wouldn't be a futuristic interstellar super-civilization without stupidly dangerous high-speed spacecraft racing! Racing is very popular among pilots and spectators alike; enough to have generated a pan-galactic aerospace expo that occurs every four cycles: the Galactic Pilot Convention. Zak is actually a minor celebrity in that circuit, and has a few awards from past conventions!

Arcverse fun fact:

Due to the vastness of gender across hundreds of sophont species and millions of cultures, the galactic standard vocal language has only one pronoun (+ its conjugates) for people of any sort. This is translated to English best as "xe," the pronoun for a being of undisclosed gender. Every single person in the galaxy is a "xe" to everyone else, including humans!

Spy's OCs: Zak Kaiyo

art by my good friend, the wonderful @wildegeist!

Realm: Arcverse Species: Tokaya Homeworld: Terotewaukia (Teroteaumia system) Age: 26 annua (29 Earth years) Gender (human analogue): cismasculine (he/him, xe/xen*) Height: 1.8 m Weight: 72.5 kg Occupation: Captain and pilot of the starship Free Spirit; freelance cargo-hauler; occasional mercenary; jack-of-all-trades [Suggested Listening: Burn Out Brighter by Anberlin]

Zakane "Zak" Kaiyo is the co-owner, captain, and pilot of the heavily-modified light hauler Aum Hara (otherwise known as the "Free Spirit") and the leader of a small band of freelance spacers that make their home aboard the ship. He's just one more spark in the great spiral; one more restless soul trying to make a living doing what he can in a galaxy that's always moving and yet always standing still. From the Tyrian Shallows to the Drift and everywhere in between, Zak and his small but loyal crew of misfits can be found anywhere something interesting is happening.

Zak's talented -albeit reckless- piloting skills earned himself and his copilot Arkto a spot in the Galactic Spacecraft Pilots Association Hall of Fame, having broken the record for the smallest crewed ship by mass to exceed 10 million times the speed of light with a hyperdrive. His performative stuntwork is also renowned, and he frequently attends the annual Galactic Pilot Convention.

Most of the "swashbuckling freelance ace pilot" tropes apply to this space hobo, whose personal creed is "do good recklessly." His confidence, determination, and cheerful sarcasm make for an extremely charismatic, if reckless, leader. He's very mischievous and likes to get into trouble, but can be relied on to get out of it as quickly as he gets into it… most of the time. Zak acts fearless but, go figure, this man has Attachment Issues. He hates the idea of getting tied down to one place or thing, yet at the same time he is fiercely protective of his crew. (Shhh. Nobody tell him.)

Zak's homeworld is a backwater: connected to the galaxy and participant in its affairs, but hardly anyone there actually got out beyond the system. He was constantly told that he ought to be happy on Terotewaukia, fixing up interplanetary haulers and maybe going to the outer moons of the system once in a while. He and his two best friends always wanted more. The three of them had plans to quietly fix up one of the written-off hauler derelicts on company time and get the hell out, making their way around the wild starry yonder to see what could be seen.

And then one of them decided they wanted to stay and settle down.

That was the last straw for Zak. As soon as the opportunity arose, he and Arkto (his other bff) took off in their souped-up light hauler and never looked back. But once they were out there... Zak came to realize that the galaxy isn't a really adventurous place.

See, Arcverse is a universe that everyone thinks has been more or less figured out. Galactic civilization has been around for something like a million years or so, and the Arcadian Order have been sort of running the Galactic Assembly for about that long (mostly because they got off their planet first and they do a pretty decent job of wrangling the rowdier civilizations with diplomacy). The entire galaxy is, broadly speaking, at peace. The clash of titans already happened; the fate-of-the-galaxy-level stakes were sorted out thousands of generations ago. All the major starfaring powers, while independent in principle, are constrained by the bureaucracy of the Galactic Assembly. There's mild internal turmoil —and there's always an underbelly— but it's still quite tame. There's a whole galaxy out there with lots to see but nothing to really strive for in it.

Zak Kaiyo is someone who desperately, fundamentally, needs to strive. He wants to live fast and die young in a galaxy where everyone lives at a reasonable pace and dies basically never. He exists to challenge the stagnancy of a world that's as close to utopia as it can reasonably be. Zak wants so badly to save the galaxy, but he lives in a galaxy that doesn't need saving. And that's tearing him to pieces.

I'd like to introduce you to Zak and his beloved towel. In essence: a standard bath towel made out of carbon nanotubes, textile battery, and smart fabric. Things this towel can be used for:

Toweling

Blanketing

Pillowing

Bundling

Wearing as a sort of shawl or head covering

Warming up or cooling down, depending on how you use it

Absorbing all kinds of polar solvent, including water

Deflecting rain

Deflecting small arms fire

Containing small explosions

Cutting things or people

Whipping things or people

Filtering the life support system fluid recycler (temporarily and badly)

Camouflage (temporarily and badly)

Waving down a rescue craft

Surfing the 'net

Playing DOOM

Needless to say, this towel is no longer under warranty.

Does your character use a legendary or iconic weapon? What is it? How reliant is your character on it?