The Cosmology of the World in Draft

A Guide for Curious Mortals, Confused Priests, and Aspiring Bureaucrats of the Divine

In the World in Draft, the heavens are not governed by distant perfection but by seven very present, very meddlesome, and very forgetful gods. Their fingerprints are everywhere—on sunsets, on tax forms, on unusually aggressive cabbages. To understand the world is to understand them, or at least to accept that they meant well.

Here’s an introduction to the pantheon that shapes the world’s magic, mischief, and occasional accounting disasters.

🧮 Numeris — God of Accounts and Lists

If the universe had a payroll department, Numeris would run it—and misplace half the paperwork.

He invented the Great Ledger (allegedly), wrote numbers before inventing the things they counted, and remains the patron deity of people who thrive on order. Merchants adore him. Auditors fear disappointing him. Bureaucrats invoke him for courage before approaching their own filing cabinets.

Common oath:
“By Numeris’s missing receipts!”

✨ Luma — Goddess of Light and Dreams

The world’s muse, nightlight, and chronic forgetter of where she put the end of a rainbow.

Fire, stars, visions, inspiration—everything creative (and half-finished) can be traced back to Luma. Inventors claim her as their guide. Insomniacs pray for her to take the night off.

Common oath:
“Luma strike me with a half-idea!”

🍂 Thryme — God of Time and Seasons

Thryme keeps the calendars… which explains so much.

Missing days, oddly long months, misplaced autumns—he is responsible for the flow of time, even if he occasionally gets distracted and sets it down somewhere. Farmers appreciate him. Schedulers despise him. Night watchmen simply shrug and carry on.

Common oath:
“By Thryme’s broken clock!”

🌿 Veyra — Goddess of Growth and Decay

Life, rot, renewal—Veyra governs the great cycle. When she remembers.

Her creations sometimes lack endings: deathless weeds, fruit with no pits, entire species designed without any apparent off-switch. Vampires are widely rumored to be one such oversight, though scholars argue about this endlessly (and loudly).

Common oath:
“Veyra take it back to the soil!”

📚 Arielle — Goddess of Order

Arielle embodies law, structure, and the noble dream that everything should stay in its proper place.

Her flaw? She organizes the world so ruthlessly she forgets to allow for flexibility, which is why systems sometimes collapse under their own perfect design. Kings invoke her. Rebels curse her. Scholars maintain she has never forgiven dust for existing.

Common oath:
“By Arielle’s binding!”

🎲 Droll — God of Accidents and Odds

Patron of mistakes, coincidences, pratfalls, and unplanned romances.

Droll claims credit for everything unintentional—dice rolls, spilled drinks, entire kingdoms formed because someone tripped over a map. He boasts about mishaps he’s forgotten creating and forgets the ones he did on purpose.

Common oath:
“Droll take the dice!”

🌊 Naeros — God of Nature (Beasts and Seas)

Formerly two separate gods (who merged through divine clerical error), Naeros governs the wild and the fluid: forests, storms, waves, wolves, and every poorly thought-out creature roaming the landscape.

He forgets boundaries entirely—rivers overflow, storms wander, wolves show up in inconvenient places. Every hybrid creature is blamed on him.

Common oath:
“By Naeros’s misplaced tide!”

⚖️ The Balance of the Pantheon

Mortals often say the world works because the gods balance one another’s flaws… mostly by accident:

• Numeris & Arielle bring order, but too much of it.

• Luma & Droll inject chaos, creativity, and the occasional flaming disaster.

• Thryme & Veyra manage cycles, though not always at the same pace.

• Naeros does whatever he likes and hopes the others don’t notice.

The world is stable not because the gods are responsible, but because they forget in compatible directions.

📜 Where Does the Ledger Fit?

The Great Ledger—arguably the divine blueprint—is everywhere and nowhere.

It can manifest under temples, inside palaces, or behind bakery storerooms when belief, ritual, and paperwork align. The gods anchored it everywhere a little, then forgot to untangle the redundancy.

The God of Doors, a minor deity the gods forgot to erase, now guards it simply because it’s a door, and therefore his business.

This is cosmology at its finest: unintentional, complicated, and occasionally hilarious.

— Entry recorded in observance of celestial truths (pending divine amendments)
Signed, with ink smudged by starlight:
S.G., Keeper of the Wondrous Ledger