Art by @wildegeist!

While most of the worlds I build explicitly have no gods –at best, powerful god-like entities– there is one where the opposite is true: Crundle.

Tarsweh, the creator-god of the Crundlean realm, is verifiably and undisputedly real. He is visible in the sky at all times, no matter where you are on the planet. But the funniest thing is that he doesn't actually fucking do anything.

Without even intending to, I have created the purest inversion of how most people treat capital-G God IRL:

instead of "we don't have any proof that he exists but oooh here's a bunch of miraculous inexplicable things he's done, probably"

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

edited to add this incredible piece by my friend @tolbachik-art!! thank you for this!!

Life, they say, finds a way.

When humankind sent some of their first interstellar probes, the Sojourner twins, to the neighboring Alpha Centauri binary star system, they had no idea what they would find. The Sojourners' predecessor, the Darwin probe, had already discovered complex life on a frigid moon in the Proxima Centauri system, showing humanity they still had much to learn about the cosmos. With the Sojourners, all bets were off.

The one thing they never expected to find, of course, was an abandoned alien megastructure -which was exactly what Sojourner 2 discovered orbiting Alpha Centauri B. Dubbed the Tellus Ring, after an ancient Roman goddess of the Earth, this thousand-mile-diameter, hundred-mile-wide ring orbits in a debris belt within the star's habitable zone. The ring rotates at the right rate to produce centripetal force just slightly weaker than Earth's gravity, equivalent to the gravity of a planet called Hemera -later discovered to be the origin point of the life present on the ring. Indeed, life thrives on the interior surface of the Tellus Ring, which is sculpted to bear landmasses and seas, under a halo-shaped sky kept in place by centrifugal force and five-mile-high walls on either rim. On Tellus, vast cities lie dormant; thousands of years more advanced than human civilization yet left to ruin and claimed by the nature that their builders had imported.

The discovery of Tellus changed humanity's understanding of the universe forever, and provoked countless questions about its origins that would only be answered with centuries of research and further interstellar exploration. The native people of Hemera, some eight or ten thousand years extinct by now, had a fondness for carrying their ecosystems with them wherever they went. This is evidenced by nearly a dozen terraformed worlds and hundreds of ecology-bearing megastructures scattered around known space, all overgrown and feral with the loss of their mysterious ancient wardens. It was recognized, relatively soon after human explorers arrived in the Alpha Centauri system, that Tellus was the sole surviving construct in its debris belt: the debris was, largely, parts of destroyed ringworlds and similar constructs. Similar destruction has been found in every other system once inhabited by the ancients, leading xenoarchaeologists to suspect a vast and cataclysmic war as the cause of their extinction. Yet, by some grace of powers unknown, some products of their great hubris still survive.

Time is a tricky thing to keep track of, especially across vast interstellar distances. Every civilization uses its own relative date system, its own years and days. These are the major ones found across known space:

Hyperspace Era (HE): HE is the most commonly used system, based on the Klex discovery of hyperspace. Although hyperspace technology has been invented independently by most major starfaring civilizations, and the Tel Azor actually discovered it 2000 years before them, Klex are ubiquitous in the known galaxy and their system is the one that stuck. Year Zero is (coincidentally) 0 CE / Current Year is 5244 HE

Before/After Death of Azor (BDA/ADA): Used by the Azoradi –by far the oldest living civilization in the known galaxy, although the surviving pockets of it are mere fragments of its former glory. The Tel Azor homeworld, for which their species is named, suffered a terrible catastrophe at the height of the civilization’s history, though none alive remember exactly what happened. The world still exists, but the now-nomadic Tel Azor speak of the entire star system being cursed. Year Zero is 1206 CE / Current Year is 4038 ADA

Solar Era (SE): SE is the second-most commonly used dating system, based on the founding of the now-faded Solar Reach. Most human-descended starfaring cultures still use this, even if only in academic context. Year Zero is 2500 CE / Current Year is 2744 SE

Aeryne Unity (AU): Another stellar civilization long faded from glory, the aarakocra of many ancient settled worlds still mark their dates from the founding of their ancestors’ Aeryne Confederation. Year Zero is 3002 CE / Current Year is 2242 AU

Age of Tiamat (AT): Dragonborn of the many worlds of the great Vayenir date their calendars from the empire’s founding. Unfortunately, the Age of Tiamat seems to be drawing to a close, as the empire crumbles from the combination of house infighting and ineffective defense against the rising Kreth Imperium. Year Zero is 3424 CE / Current Year is 1820 AT

Kreth Dominion (KD): The newest galactic power to arise in the known galaxy is the Divine Imperium of Hexath, more commonly called the Kreth Imperium. Though small, it is a belligerent and power-hungry theocracy. The Kreth worlds mark time from the founding of the Imperium. Year Zero is 4537 CE / Current Year is 707 KD

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.

The moons play a significant role in the various cultures and mythologies native to Sphaera!

In Temoran culture, the moons are called Kune (big) and Selene (small), and were created by the primordial forces of light (Aurin, the sun) and dark (Kas, the night) as a way to pass messages between them. Because Aurin never sleeps and Kas is forever asleep, the moons passing through their phases is said to be them moving between the waking and dreaming worlds: they start as "dreaming" (new) and pass through "waking" (waxing) to peak at "watching" (full) and then pass through "falling" (waning) to visit the dream world again.

In Orniikh culture, the moons are called Lukoh (big) and Lukah (small), or Father Tide and Mother Rain. The moons are the children of the Earth and Sky, and govern all the waters of the world. They are also the parents of the twin primary deities: Ori and Niikh, Brother Blood and Sister Breath, who chose to combine their powers and incarnate as all living things. So, in that way, the moons are seen by the Orniikh people as their spiritual parents!

The first citizen of the Moon was born on June 9th, 2044, in Apollo Colony (later Apollo City). Her name was Diana Mavandi-Castellano, born to Jason Mavandi (United States citizen) and Irene Castellano (Ecuadorean citizen), and her birth was a messy affair for the United Nations. Though born into both United States and Ecuadorean citizenship, her birth in Mare Tranquilitatus -literally on the Moon- begged the question: should little Diana be considered, legally, a citizen of the Moon? Or a citizen of the United Nations, broadly? What would that imply?