Owen wrote something about game developers sharing enough direction/information with writers for them to accomplish their assignment without assigning more reading that they would be writing. Owen specifically said preferences and feedback and the more you give them to read the less likely they will go through it all.

In that vin we’re going to borrow a technique from the video game industry called level of detail and its used in 3D games to ensure you can see all of the detail on the screen for your immediate area, but does not try to keep in memory or render all the detail for areas farther away unless you actually go there. Sometimes this glitches and far away mountains aren’t visible on the horizon until you get closer. In this test I’ll try to give a high level overview of one of our species, then several more levels of increasing detail. If the writer sees enough to know that’s not what they want they didn’t read any more than the bare minimum to come to that conclusion.

Katar – level 1

The Katar are a species of Lion-men, they were a desert nomad people on an arid world that have spread to 8 star systems. These ancestor worshippers have a code of honor, are bound by ancient traditions and are very pragmatic. Katar males are taller and heavier than humans and Eldred.

Themes: Duty to self vs the people, change vs the old ways, survival vs adversity.

Katar – level 2

The lion-men are sexually dimorphous with males being larger than females. The pragmatic people venerate life and nature, have a traditional of hospitality as well as honor dueling. The oldest military academy grew out of a dueling school. There are two main schools of sword fighting, brute force and finesse with favored swords the great claw and long claw for each appropriately. The needful blade is an all purpose camp knife carried by all Katar for things you wouldn’t use a sword for.

Military service is a preferred career for males, government and technical careers for females. Katar projectiles weapons are gyrojets which launch rockets from their pistols and rifles, these caseless and nearly recoilless weapons are perfect for the desert and zero gravity combat environments.

Themes

• Old samurai stories dealt with duty to your lord, clan and then yourself, but the hero inevitably fell in love with his lord’s betrothed in forbidden love that would have brought dishonor on both the lover’s clans and the ire of the shogun. A Katar’s duty is to the good of the people, the good of their clan while personal concerns and accomplishments are a distant third.
• Going from a solitary species to an interstellar one with alien neighbors; women in non traditional roles the military they already occupy test pilot and transport pilot roles but not combat pilot or boarding marines; changes to military doctrine from hard charging to tactical and from tactical to small unit tactics.
• Surviving the desert, being tracked by a dire mountain lion, surviving after ejecting from a fighter over hostile territory.

Katar – level 3

Katar marines practice power armor equipped ship boarding actions, armored assault and a range of other combat operations.

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The homeworld is the first of many freeworlds and is the most traditional, each of the successive offworld settlements has become less bound by the old ways with the 7th open to alien visitation, the 8th world settlement was established from the beginning to be a trade world with many alien cultures represented.

Planet	Star	Gravity	Spaceport	Terrains	Industry
Il Tassan	Yellow dwarf	1.23	Ground and Orbital	Desert, Mountain, Jungle, Ocean	We make history
Il Saba Mohen	Pale Yellow	1.12	Ground and Orbital	Forest, Mountain, Plains, Ocean	Old world craftsmanship
Il Fenna	White standard	1.23	Floating and Orbital	Islands, Ocean	Aquaculture, fishing
Il Mahab	Binary (Pale Yellow, Yellow dwarf)	1.34	Ground and Orbital	Forest, Mountain, Ocean	Megafauna, right hand proteins
Il Kesh Fa	Trinary (Red, Red dwarf, Red)	1.3	Ground and Orbital	Plains, Mountain, Ocean	Orbital Mining, Alien Artifacts
Il Ku Hesh	Pale Yellow	0.92	Ground and Orbital	Forest, Mountain, Ocean	Mining
Il Taksha Mett	Red	1.4	Ground and Orbital	Jungle, Mountain, Ocean	Orbital Shipyards
Il Fasha	Binary (Orange, Red dwarf)	1.1	Ground and Orbital	Desert, Mountain, Ocean	Markets

Katar – level 4

More detail on different facets of the history and specific places and equipment.

Katar – level 5

There’s a 50 page book coming out.

For all my writer and game designer friends, I’d really like to know what you put in your story bibles and world building, or what you wished was in those things and wasn’t there.

If you have any feedback about this post or our books please feel free to contact us.

Paul

Evilrobotgames at Gmail.com