previous ⭒ dev log

A Year Later

Okay. I know what this looks like. It has not been a year since I've worked on this world — It's been roughly a year since I wrote about the work I've been doing. I actually did a lot of planning and plotting and even play-testing over the winter of '25 and spring of this year! I can prove it to you.

What I've Been Working On:

• The social structure of The Coven
• The religious structure of The Coven
• The political structure of The Coven
• The uniforms and displays of hierarchy in The Coven, and in the world they interact with
• The "evil" they oppose in the Realm
• Designing the world map - continents, oceans, mountains, some biomes; I have not gotten to smaller details yet
• Positioning countries on said continents
• Crests, flags, and colors associated with each nation
• Giving some basic political intentions and religious leanings to the major nations, including alliances.. and opposition

All of my work so far has been built out on my Notion! This way I was able to share relevant pieces of it with three different groups — one long-running campaign, and two one-shots. So far the best platform I’ve used for organizing materials & content. Plus I was able to email their support to disable AI on my end so that’s major to me. I’m still on the “I hate Gen AI with a fiery passion and want someone to blow up the data centers” train atm, and will be for the foreseeable future!

Some of the feedback I've received from players:

• The Notion docs are really organized (yay!)
• The worldbuilding so far is very whimsical~
• 'Magical Girls' make sense in the world how it's presented
• Creating a Velethane (magical girl warrior) is fun and satisfying, with a lot of customization & aesthetic options
• People were enamored with the NPC designs
• The creature encounters were spooky and somewhat challenging
• The pacing of encounters needs work
• The world info wasn’t fully available yet, so they had to be from the four available countries (Velethuil, Yesnith, Kasnijan, & Acquérelle)

Overall I’ve been so grateful for the many positive and constructive comments people have offered about what I’ve made! I’m just happy that anyone even showed interest in playing in this little hodge-podge world of mine. And man, every time I put together a group on Discord and they start to really *click* during the creation process, I get a rush of moonbeam magick in my veins. ;////;

Booklet Design & Curation

Figuring out how to design the booklets has been a challenge for me because there are just too many artistic directions I could go with the project. Initially my compendium mock up was what I can only describe as.. pastel minimalism? Part of that might’ve been the Canva effect (which I no longer use), but also I was just feeling a bit overwhelmed.

After brainstorming with Eira, we’ve decided to go in a completely different direction with the aesthetic and design and it suits the themes and the material WAY better. But that is for another log on another day~

What I can talk about now is how I was able to commission artwork from two of the players I met during the one-shots!


[ You can find Lex’s work on Instagram~ ]

Lex created artwork of the Adelidae (moth pixies) that reside on The Crescent Moon Isles and act as familiars to the Velethane. I gave a basic reference idea, and Lex brought her own interpretation of them into the designs, matching the overall aesthetics of the world building in moody, earthy color palettes. ♡


[ These are a couple of my first sketches; These are drawn on a base I found on DeviantArt ages ago. As soon as I find the original I will link it~ ]

Gigy helped work through some of my (very rough) sketches of Velethane uniforms to create designs that are actually so beautiful I’m in awe of them. ♡ This below is just one example of multiple iterations we landed on for the final books.


[ You can find Gigy’s work on Ko-Fi~ ]

All of the concept art and final pieces will be featured on this site and in the future compendiums.

There are parts of the booklets that I can do on my own, like basic graphic design and simplistic concept work. I know a lot of creators make everything themselves which is truly incredible, but I don’t see that for myself or this project. I don’t know that I’m capable of completing it in a way that I would be satisfied with, and proud of, if I did not reach out to amazing artists to feature instead. Just seeing the difference in quality from my sketches to Gigy’s concepts is enough proof for me that it’s the right call!

If you’re an illustrator or designer that’s into indie game making, hit me up in the comments or via email! I’d love to see your portfolio. :) arcanumalexandrea @ proton . me

Now I must shout out my husband for several reasons: His support of my crazy ideas, listening to me ramble about a fictional world for way too long, offering his two cents when I’m stuck, and making me tons of design assets for the booklets. I’m so lucky to have Eira in this with me! ♡ I can’t wait for y’all to see what he’s been cooking up too.

Together, our game development projects will be under the shared banner of “HyperFemme”, whereas The Magician’s Vault remains primarily for Eira’s craftsmanship. Though we will likely sell the finished compendiums in the Magician’s Vault shop (at least that’s the plan right now).

This has been the quintessential recap episode~

⟡ ALZ