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Month: July 2025

Symphony of Cultures

Symphony of Cultures

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I have a contract in hand for this project, and the design is starting to come together nicely (although there is a ton of work to be done), so it’s about time that I pulled the tarp off of it.

As of this month, I’m working on (part of) a new book, with the working title of Symphony of Cultures. This is conceptually a “sequel” to Architect of Worlds, and it’s essentially going to be a book of tools and design sequences for building alien species and alien cultures for interstellar fiction. Ad Astra Games will be publishing it. The objective is to have it ready for release in about a year, in time for next summer’s big conventions. We’re aiming for a book that’s about the same length and heft as Architect of Worlds – that is, about 192 pages of rules, worksheets, and scientific/historical/literary background.

I’m not the sole author for this one. Ken Burnside intends to write at least a short section. We also have a third collaborator who has both gaming chops and considerable relevant expertise in evolutionary biology – honestly, they’re likely to end up writing more of the final draft than I do.

Prior art that might be relevant includes the various Traveller animal-design rules, the old Digest Group Publications release Grand Census, the alien-design rules in GURPS Uplift, and the Civilization tabletop and video game franchises.

The intention is to have a “short” design sequence, something a writer or gamer could complete in an hour or two, generating a “planet of the week” for a piece of fiction. There’s also going to be a “long” design sequence, that would take a lot more work but would help the reader generate the whole evolutionary and cultural history of an alien society in detail. That “long” sequence is where a lot of the scientific and historical mojo is going to be applied.

At the moment I’m drafting an initial design for a major portion of the “long” design sequence, and giving some thought to what the “short” sequence might look like. I’m hoping we can actually start writing big chunks of material by this fall. We may be looking for beta readers and “playtesters” at some point, so feel free to drop me a line if you might be interested in that. I probably won’t be posting portions of the draft here, as I did during development of Architect of Worlds. We’re on a much shorter development cycle for this one, and it has a publisher from day one, so we’ll be working through Ad Astra’s usual playtesting pipeline.

Should be an interesting project, though, and I’m looking forward to making it come together.

Automation for “Architect of Worlds”

Automation for “Architect of Worlds”

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It took us a lot longer than it probably should have – I can attest that other things kept grabbing higher priority – but Ad Astra Games and I have agreed on a general policy for anyone who would like to build a computer application to implement some or all of the Architect of Worlds design sequence.

The policy is sitting in my Google Drive, at this link. Ken Burnside and I have agreed on what’s in this document.

You’ll notice that Ken is interested in hosting a full implementation of Architect of Worlds on the Ad Astra Games site, as a convenience for writers and gamers who might want to use the design sequences without having to plow through the book by hand. Developers who would like to talk to Ken about submitting a design proposal are welcome to email him at Ad Astra Games – be sure to use the subject line “Architect of Worlds Automation Design Proposal.”

Supplemental Khedai Hegemony Map

Supplemental Khedai Hegemony Map

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Another piece of cartography for the “Human Destiny” space-opera setting, related to the physical map of the Orion Arm neighborhood I posted a few days ago. This one is a simple “subway map” detailing the wormhole-bridge connections between interstellar cultures in the vicinity of Sol.

The idea here is that galactic civilization expedites travel between cultures (which are otherwise likely to be years apart even given the available FTL drives) by setting up wormhole bridges between them. The termini of these bridges aren’t placed in densely-populated star systems, in part as a hedge against an ambitious local culture deciding to capture and possibly destroy their local “stargates.” Instead, they’re usually placed in nearby red-dwarf systems that lack significant native life. Then the culture in charge – in this case, the Khedai Hegemony – fortifies the local system and builds way-stations to facilitate through-traffic.

Here’s a link to this new map’s page in my Ko-fi shop. It’s free for monthly subscribers.

New Khedai Hegemony Map

New Khedai Hegemony Map

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I’ve just completed and posted a bit of cartography related to my “Human Destiny” space-opera setting. This is a new version of a map I did back in 2018, describing (in this case, a small section of) the Khedai Hegemony, the empire that conquers Earth and uplifts humans into galactic society in the mid-to-late 21st Century.

I actually plan to produce two more maps detailing this setting as of the early 24th Century, since that’s where a lot of the stories I’ve already written are set and where the proposed roleplaying-game treatment will focus. I don’t have a timetable for finishing those, although I suspect it won’t be long.

Here’s a link to the map’s page in my Ko-fi shop. It’s free for monthly subscribers.