You ever hear the story about pots?

It goes like this: a teacher tells one group of students they will be graded on how many pots they make in a pottery class, while another group will be graded on the quality of one pot. At the end of the semester, the best pots all came from the group being graded on number, rather than quality.

It’s a parable about quantity vs. quality, about how spending time focusing on the qualities of a single product may hamper your growth, while experience and failure can be excellent teachers. It’s about getting wrapped up in details as opposed to finishing your art and moving on. It’s beloved by all art-teachers and life-coaches and people who love quippy parables over the ugly trench-warfare of creating art.

That said, this is one of those parables that can be twisted to mean different things by adding or removing details. When I say “best pots,” for instance, what do I mean? The ones with the shiniest glazing? Most resistant to breaking? The ones voted best by the class? The ones the teacher liked the best? Adjusting or defining the term can really change the message.

The Imperial Vessel-ship Blessing of Harvest was cold. It was an odd feeling for the Bulquis Renner Torvis, who had commanded entire military campaigns from its marbled interior.

Usually the ship was quite comfortable, cool at worst. The Velvet’s winds were rarely too hot or too cold. The old Priest-sailors considered such temperatures as ill omens.

Renner stood on the Royal Balcony, staring out over the railing down towards the pale white of the Fifth World. He had heard many years ago that beyond the Aspectured Wall, the strange people named their worlds. He had thought it was an odd idea, and time had not mellowed his opinion. Perhaps, he thought, the idea held more merit when there were more than five worlds.

Only slightly shorter than an average folk of the Myriad Worlds, the Imwii are, as a group, a most cordial and welcoming people.

Their physical similarity to the folk of the Arcwhite Kingdoms has led many scholars to assume the Imwii are distant cousins to the people of Arcwhite. Others believe this is no more than convergent evolution, while others call this belief a form of physio-centrism.

Imwii are generally believed to be a young people; their society’s history goes back only a few thousand years before available records vanish. There have been countless alternatives floated — the Imwii are offshoots of the Arcwhite people, they are from a different plane of existence, they were created by a new deity to serve some hidden agenda, and more — but general consensus is that the Imwii people simply didn’t bother evolving until recently.

The Archonarcheans are, without a doubt, one of the most feared people across the Myriad Worlds. At least, they have been, though most of their historical threat has been suppressed in the more recent years, due to the natural progression of time and fading of memory.

Rest assured, for those of us who were alive at the time, there is nothing more terrifying than the looming black-clothed presence of a group of Achonarcheans walking down the street.

For you will never see fewer than two at once. Archonarcheans are perhaps pathologically adverse to solitude or independance, especially in relation to their own. They are recalcitrant, and thickly accented in their speech. There have been many attempts throughout the years to translate the Archonarchean language, but for obvious reasons, they have been unhelpful and the efforts proven fruitless.

Of all the folk across the Myriad Worlds, I felt the greatest trepidation about writing of the Euili. While a great deal of scholarly work has been done on the Euili and their culture, virtually none has a more layfolk value. I even attempted to coordinate an interview with an Euili for this book. From such different lands we were, and such different worlds within those lands — I dare say the lowliest Euili are of a higher station in life than even our Countiers and Countesses — that conversation was a constant struggle.

If you have never seen an Euili, feel not alone, for they are among the rarer folk of the Myriad Worlds. As a people, the Euili are nearly uniform in shape and size, enough so that those who are not Euili can find themselves in great confusion when asked to differentiate — a confusion that is not shared by the Euili themselves.

Of all the known races, the Zyth are the ones believed to be the first race of all the Myriad Worlds to travel the Velvet. Evidence of ancient Zyth societies have been discovered on multiple different worlds dating back to before the first Golden Howdah left the ground. There is contrasting evidence with the Insect-folk, of course, but little is reliable when it comes to these hard-skinned folk.

As a people, the Zyth are tall and wide-jointed. Their necks are thicker than their limbs, and crane up and over like those of a Herankadil. Their faces have been compared both to the feline and the porcine, while I myself must interject to say that there is a distinct chiropterine shape to their hairless heads and ears.

The mouth of the Zyth is often cited as the most alien aspect of the Zyth, being vertical in orientation and framed by flexible bony ridges and covered by two mobile lips. The prehensile movement of these “teeth” has made the phrase “a Zyth’s smile” a common idiom for something that illicits vicarious terror or discomfort.

The Esquin, as a people, tend to defy precice definition. This is not only because of their deep and varied culture, distinct and diverse, but also because of their awkward relationship to each other.

Esquin, similar to the Aspanighoraji, tend to avoid others of their own kind. While their behavior can range from disgust to casual dismissal, the fact remains that it is rare to see more than one Esquin in a single place.

Dissimilar to the Aspanighoraji, there is no mystery why this is the case. The Esquin are a mildly psychic people, able to observe the mental and emotional states of other beings to varying degrees of precision. Among other Esquin, however, these innate abilities become much sharper and absorptive.

The Empire was a house. Like all good houses, it protected all inside from the storms that raged, from the beasts who hungered, and the dark night that crept closer every hour.

But for a house to be a good house, it needed many things. It needed a strong roof overhead, and a strong roof needed mighty walls and braces. Walls could not stand without a solid foundation and steady floor to stand upon. A good foundation made for good walls, which made for a good roof, which made a good house.

This was the Empire; a house that would stand for Ever and Always. The foundations of every House were the servants. Their work kept the walls of Nobility upright. The Nobility collected the tithes and taxes from their subjects, and used them to raise and support the roof of the Church and the Ever Lord Himself. This was how it had been explained to Navin, how it was explained to children across the Empire.

Rim-runners is a colloquial term and mis-translation of their name for themselves, the Likvaree.

As a people, the Rim-runners are remarkably diverse, showing a greater spread of shape and size than any other people in the Myriad Worlds. It is not uncommon for two Rim-runners to be so different as to appear to come from two separate species entirely.

The Rim-runners hail from a wide and verdant archipelago in the ocean of Jlich, not seventeen leagues from the Port City of Dwynacha in the Waglenpine. Their culture is a mix of humility, exploration, and fierce devotion to their Wai, a world best translated as something between family and nation.

Of all the wonders of the Myraid Worlds, none have retained their mystery more than the Aspanighoraji (pronounced ah SPAN ih go RAJH ee).

The Aspanighoraji are beings of remarkable physical diversity, such that there are few common traits among their people. They are always large and vaguely serpentine or annelidine in the torso. Some have wings, some do not. Some have tiny feet all along their bodies, others do not. They have multiple limbs, or none at all. Some even have faces in their mouths. They alone of all the beings in the Myraid Worlds have five eyes and this is the only sure way of divining who or what is an Apsanighoraji, though there is at least one reliable recorded instance of an Aspanighoraji shifting its body so that its fifth eye was hidden on its back.