#space fighter

Junior Spaceclaw moodboard

Requested by: @veeins

Howdy folks, hope you are well. Or at least, doing better than you were five minutes ago. If not, I do hope you are feeling better soon.

I wanted to focus this particular post on a bit of a glimpse on some of the creative projects I'm working on, not just Nýúlfur but a few other bits and pieces I've got on hand. I've got a lot of hopes and dreams on projects, but there are currently three different stories/settings that I'm working on directly. I've posted this on Twitter/Bluesky before, but I figured I'd do something a little bit more in depth here!

Those three projects are Nýúlfur itself, the novella The Ship of Aurora and the larger Arcbots Project. These are my current Phase I, II and III respectively. And for good measure, here is some of my own art on those projects!

So, Nýúlfur is my main project, and is slated to come out on the 30th of October 2025 with it's first volume, The New Wolf. It is a story focusing on an alternate version of 2020, taking place after a deadly disease known as the Retrovirus spreads across the world. As discussed before, this leads to the emergence of wolven monsters called Ferals. But there are also the titular Nýúlfur who are working on the sidelines and the mysterious Organisation behind. It's a story I've worked on in some form or another for over ten years, but for a wide range of reasons I've never got it out of the door, ranging from going through the publishing minefield, constant self-doubt and a desire to do this story as best I could. In the end, I've decided that I didn't want to sit on it anymore, and now I want to get the story out to the wider world.

Nýúlfur might seem like a post-apocalyptic story with a focus on werewolves (and it is), but it's a little deeper than that. It focuses alot on themes that feel especially important to bring up today, including standing up to hatred, learning to trust others and seeing the great histories and picture behind current events. Given what the state of the world is like now, it feels more fitting than ever to get Nýúlfur out.

Okay, this is very much a placeholder title from an old bit of artwork, but this will almost certainly get replaced in time. The Ship of Aurora is a much smaller, but still pretty important project of mine as part of Phase II.

The central theme of The Ship of Aurora is the Ship of Theseus paradox. The basic idea is this, you replace a ship's rotting planks for new ones. Once you replace all the planks, is it still the same ship? The Ship of Aurora is that but in space, and further still, there are AI thrown into the mix. Identity serves as major part of the story, with how different characters can and don't support said identities throughout. All whilst there is an egotistical plot running in the background.

Aurora is a story more built around its character interactions compared to the more epic scale of Nýúlfur (even though there are very important character interactions in that story whilst Aurora has some pretty big set pieces itself), and there is a little bit of overlap with LGBTQ+ content. So if you happen to lean that way, you should find this story to resonate pretty well! Furthermore, whilst Aurora is a shorter story that I hope to publish traditionally, I am leaving elements in place to leave it connected to a wider setting.

And now for Phase III. Arcbots takes another contemporary issue: Namely the emergence of 'AI' (or what they really called, LLMs). But Arcbots is a bit more than that.

Set in the world of Arkaris in the year 1990 AC, the story takes place several decades after the Great Revolutions, a major series of political crisises, revolts, rebellions, revolutions and wars that were triggered by the rise of automation, advanced 3D-fabricators and critically, the emergence of the Adaptive and Regenative Combat Systems or ARCS, better known as Arcbots. Sapient combat machines that are able to reconfigure themselves on the fly, rendering most forms of warfare obsolete overnight. In this world, humans and Arcbots are paired into cooperative dyads, Arcbots protect the humans and the humans grant the Arcbots their weaponry.

This is not a world like ours though, many different governments and societies have formed in the wake of the revolutions from socialist nations to mega corporations, to authoritarian capitalist states to anarchist communes and finally, the wild mix of different hybrid states. This story focuses on a human and a recently reawakened Arcbot as they work as mercenaries in the shadow of a Cold War between an alliance of hybrid states and a global superpower...

Arcbots is a bit different from Nýúlfur and Aurora. Like the former, it will have a serial novel release, something that I am currently planning out with some detail. However, this will not be the only component of Arcbots. I am also working on a tabletop wargame set in Arkaris! It focuses on controlling a single bot with alot of customisation options, fighting battles against other Arcbots and their human partners. Fabricate your Arcbot, choose a faction and fight in quick battles with alot of tactical depth! I'm aiming to get both the serial and the game out at the same time, so keep an eye on this space!

So, that is a bit of a glimpse of my current projects. I do have some other stuff in the back of the den when it comes to settings. Such as Kili Kingsley, Constellation, Everborn and Space Carrier Audacity... but, well, depending on what happens in the future, you may see those in time.

Either way, I hope to show you those three settings soon!