December: Ready, set...
Cloud Empress prelaunch, new cover, adventure pamphlets, and worldbuilding grid
Prelaunch page is live
Cloud Empress will launch on Kickstarter Tuesday, January 17th, and run until early February. Backers in the first 24 hours will receive a special thank-you reward for your pledge. Follow the Cloud Empress prelaunch page to be notified when we go live!
New Cloud Empress Cover
I’ve partnered with graphic designer Eric K Hill (Hull Breach Vol. 1, Abilities Considered Unnatural, and The Cleaning of Prison Station Echo) to bring Cloud Empress’ look to the next level. Here’s a first glimpse at what we have been working on:
With the Cloud Empress cover, we wanted to evoke the aesthetics of classic 60’s and 70’s science fiction and science fantasy titles while reflecting new ideas, innovations, and themes featured in Cloud Empress. Cloud Empress is also planned as a multi-book campaign setting for the Mothership RPG. All Cloud Empress covers will share visual elements making them recognizable at a glance in the Mothership catalog. Thanks Eric for the amazing work!
Adventure Pamphlets
I’m not good at keeping secrets, so it’s been excruciating hiding this amazing Cloud Empress collaboration. The world of Cloud Empress will be expanded with five adventure pamphlets! In addition to the Cloud Empress books, I have also commissioned five adventure pamphlets from five different writers. The adventure pamphlets will be available in a bundle during the Cloud Empress Kickstarter.
I’ll share a lot more in the next two months, but my amazing collaborators/adventure writers are: Alfred Valley, Joel Hines, Kienna Shaw, Sebastian Yūe, and Sam Leigh
Each author has written some amazing work (I will brag their writing soon).
The goal of the adventure pamphlets is to expand the world of Cloud Empress in new and unexpected ways. I can’t be the authoritative voice for the world to come alive. For Cloud Empress to be a success, it should be a shared world where wardens, writers, and artists are empowered to create their own stories, characters, and adventures.
Cloud Empress Actual Play
Speaking of the world of Cloud Empress coming alive, the podcast Nobody Wake the BugBear will release an actual play sessions of Cloud Empress in January on podcast apps and YouTube. The production value on this actual play is phenomenal and the sessions should show the weird and dangerous world of “the Hereafter.” Just look at this incredible animated teaser!
Worldbuilding Axes
Finally, I’ve been ruminating on how tropes impact worldbuilding. What are my common complaints when bouncing off the world of a new book/game/show etc.?
That a world uses too many tropes, making the experience feel far too familiar
That a world has far too many unique elements for me to easily explain or ground the experience in my lived reality. (Complaint number one happens far more often than complaint number two. )
These complaints primarily center around familiarity or the use of familiar and unfamiliar elements.
Familiar worlds: use many tropes, recognizable elements, or reused ideas
Unfamiliar worlds: feel unique, original, have novel ideas, concepts, and characters. (There are very few truly new ideas, so novelty is often created from the combination of existing ideas.)
Note: as something becomes more popular, its audience will become more familiar with that world. Popular media also produces a wave of unintentional and intentional imitations further familiarizing audiences with aspects of that world.
I’ve started to think about another axis, by which to think about worldbuilding though. Complexity.
Simple worlds: often have a single central conflict, few moving pieces, and often lack nuance, factions are easily identifiable, there is the presence of true evil and true good. What these worlds lack in facsimile to the real world, they make up for in the ease to explain. In many cases, simple worlds are created for younger audiences.
Complex worlds: Have many moving parts, there are likely several parallel conflicts and most conflicts cannot be resolved easily. There is usually no “true evil” and characters motivations are complicated.
So here’s a quick map I made (don’t hold me to these placements) of some popular settings ( I excluded TTRPGs for the time being):
Let me pull out some examples from what I have mapped to explain.
Most Marvel movies I categorize as simple and familiar. I grew up reading comics so I have a long history with superhero tropes. Something like 8-10 Marvel properties come out each year, so I have seen a ton of these films. Nearly every movie centers around saving the planet or universe through the use of physical violence.
Let’s compare that to the Metal Gear Solid series, which I categorized as complex and unfamiliar. I’ve played the Metal Gear Solid Games for over 20 years and it’s still difficult for me to explain what is going on). I’ll give it a try, (spoilers for Metal Gear Solid 2 ahead). MGS 2 is an elaborately staged simulation by the patriots (a secret cabal of world leaders) to stop the former president of the united states (a rapidly clone of Solid Snake) as a way to create another soldier of Solid Snakes ability. The game’s themes directly address the dangers of nuclear proliferation, a postmodern discussion of reality, and masculinity. There’s a reason MGS2 has jokingly been referred to as, “the game that launched a thousand blogs.” The central trope of Metal Gear Solid is a government operative on a stealth mission. Hideo Kojima, also makes numerous attempts to unmoor his players.
I’m comparing these titles not to say that one is right and one is wrong. I generally think that some balance of familiar tropes and complexity creates a story players have both the time and interest to engage with. The level of complexity and familiarity also can be hidden (more on that in a future newsletter). Everyone’s experience with a media property will be informed by their history. Sometimes we want to challenge ourselves with unfamiliar ideas and other times we may want something that feels familiar. Simple ideas/worlds can be made complex by different authors, look at Andor and Phantom Menace for example. Simple morality tales with black-and-white values can also inspire us to take brave actions.
Practical advice when creating a world: Think about your audience’s expectations, your creative goals as an artist, and ways you can present a world through the affordances of the media you are creating.
A quick test for a to determine where your world might show up on the complexity and familiarity graph, ask yourself:
How quickly can I explain my world to a new player?
How quickly can I explain the conflict(s) in in world to a new player?
Thanks so much for reading this newsletter! I’ll be back next month for the launch of Cloud Empress!