First Threads in the Tapestry

Written By Johnny ONeal

By Meric Moir

We are now officially three months into Plotweaver development! Sort of. Let me explain.

Plotweaver as a concept started at roughly the same time as the Cosmere RPG. As Cosmere broke records on Kickstarter, Plotweaver became even more likely. Then, at a design summit in December 2024, the Cosmere team talked more about what Plotweaver could look like.

It was in August of 2025 that we really started to put words on the page. The first step was our vision document process. The team was small and pulled from the Cosmere RPG: Johnny, creative director; Fischer, lead designer; Max, consulting designer; and me, lead writer. We met every week and laid the foundations of our three settings which (at first) we just called Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Modern. We also worked together to concept our meta setting, the Tapestry.

PLotweaver Slide 1

Art by Jean "Mœbius" Giraud

Staffing started in September, and interviews went through October. We talked to a ton of really exciting and talented people in the TTRPG industry (people who I personally hope will all contribute to Plotweaver in one way or another in the future). We also had a little heartbreak, as two people we invited to the team were hired away by competitors! They’re going to do awesome things where they are, and we wish them the best.

That brings us mostly to November. We’d brought in this awesome team, which you can check out on our newly updated Team page, and we wanted them to build on and challenge our initial vision documents. November was for Folio, December/January was for Codex, and January/February was for Grimoire. (Special shout out to James Mendez Hodes who pitched the codenames!)

Here’s what our development process looked like:

  • Comment on the vision doc

  • Brainstorm meeting to discuss the vision doc

  • Writing assignments to pitch new content or dive deeper into ideas

  • Brainstorm meeting to discuss assignments

  • Comment on assignments

  • Vertical slice design to model ideas in Plotweaver

  • Team playtest to try out the design assignments

This initial phase of design is just about done. Part of the reason we took this approach was to live the Plotweaver ethos in our team. We want to empower creatives to explore amazing ideas in TTRPG gaming, to collaborate, to share ideas, and to create awesome things.

Plotweaver slide 2

Art by Wiktor Kozyra

Kienna and Dylan will co-book lead Project Folio, I’ll book lead Project Codex, and Mendez will book lead Project Grimoire. As book leads, it’s our responsibility to take all of that brainstorming and writing and initial design and combine it, refine it, and turn it into a super cool game for you to play. Fischer, Max, and Nat will support through design and keep us consistent (as well as compatible with the Cosmere RPG), and a whole new roster of names will join us over the next few months as we bring in artists, graphic designers, editors, and of course, more writers and designers.

I hope you’re as excited as we are!

Johnny ONeal