Witchspace worldbuilding bible

A living document. Propose changes by pull request.

Tone

Lonely, wry and a little lawless. Space is enormous and indifferent; commerce is what holds it together. Humour is dry, never slapstick. Think frontier town with hyperspace: traders, bounty hunters, bored police and things in the dark between the stars.

Write flavour text like a terse ship's manual or a bar-room rumour, not a fantasy novel. One or two sentences; let the player imagine the rest.

The setting

• Eight galaxies, each with 256 star systems. Jumps within a galaxy go through witchspace, a hyperspace transit that is fast, mostly safe and occasionally not safe.
• Coriolis stations orbit most inhabited worlds and are the hubs of trade and law.
• Governments range from Corporate States and Democracies down to Feudal worlds, Dictatorships and outright Anarchies. The lower the order, the higher the profit and the risk.
• Economies run from Rich Industrial to Poor Agricultural. Goods flow from where they're made to where they're needed.
• Thargoids are an insectoid alien threat that can drag ships out of witchspace mid-jump. Nobody quite knows what they want.
• Police fly with beacons, a hull band and a transponder issued and keyed by the Galactic Co-operative. None of these can be bought, copied or painted on. A second-hand Viper is just a Viper, and no station, however corrupt, will mistake it for the law.
• Commanders are ranked from Harmless to Elite by combat record. Legal status is Clean, Offender or Fugitive.

Naming

• Star systems: the eight generated galaxies reproduce the original Elite's systems as a tribute (Lave, Diso, Leesti…). Their descriptions are ours to write. Never reproduce the original's planet descriptions. New hand-made places (stations, outposts, hidden systems, legends) need original names: short, alien-sounding, 2–4 syllables. Avoid real places, real people and systems from other games.
• Ships: original Elite class names are used as a tribute; new classes should feel like they belong (snake/animal names, "Mk" variants, blunt industrial names).
• Manufacturers: slightly old-fashioned company names, often two surnames.
• Trading companies: Hexon Holdings, Vorg Industries, the Carriers' Mutual and Wexley-Yorozu. See the trading companies. Inspired by real-world types, never real companies.

Content we'd love

• New ship classes that fill a gap (heavy freighters, mining tugs, courier boats).
• Hand-crafted landmark systems with a hook: a rumour, a hazard or an opportunity.
• Missions with a moral wrinkle.

Think something here should change? Say so on the ideas board, where others can vote it up, or email hello@witchspace.org.uk. If you code: this page is docs/worldbuilding.md on GitHub, open to pull requests.