THE ESOTERIC COSMOGONY
On the Wizard and His Lair
I am the wizard, you may call me Mordecai. You may have met my counterpart the bard, who goes by Mortaki. I make the magic, and she weaves it into stories for others. Though it may appear otherwise at times, we are the same person.
This section of the site is essentially the inside of my brain made HTML. It is the place I put any ideas (experiments), prompts, inspiration, and anything else that catches my attention. It is probably stuffed full with things that are only barely related, but that's how my brain works.
It houses all my worldbuilding projects, my conlangs, lore logs for games I play, random story ideas I have, things I want to do on my site, things I'm currently interested in, quotes I really like, and sites I think are really cool. It is where I make all the magic that goes into my stories and where other people's magic inspires me.
I call it the Esoteric Cosmogony not just because that's an awesome name (though it is), but because of what those words mean. Esoteric means "only known to a small group" and cosmogony means "theory of the origin of the universe". This is the origin of universes only known to me, and now, you.
On Navigating the Lair
Because I use technical magic terminology in my research notes, an outsider may have trouble navigating my study. This guide will help clear up any confusion. You certainly wouldn't want to wander carelessly down here...
Header
* WIZARD: where you are currently, click to refresh
* BARD: takes you to the index page where the bard, Mortaki, resides
* TOMES: takes you to the library of recommendations cultivated by the bard
* SCROLLS: takes you to the archive where the bard keeps her stories
Left Sidebar
* BARDIC LORE: where I document the inner workings of the bard's stories (lorebooks)
* MYSTIC TONGUES: guides on how to understand languages I've created
* PLANAR ORBS: various ttrpg things I've made (wip)
* CUBIC WISDOM: game logs for the various block games I play (wip)
* ECHOES FROM THE VOID: quotes I have taken a liking to
Tabs
* ANNOTATIONS: these are short entries to let you learn more about my lair; my buttons and exit links are here!
* EXPERIMENTS: these are ideas that are not yet ready for the bard to work with; they need work to be proper stories
* DISCOVERIES: my changelog and to-do list
* TREATISES: resources that helped me make my site and other things
Right Sidebar
* CURRENT RESEARCH: these are things I am currently interested in, studying, or taking inspiration from
* STRANGE LOCALES: these are interesting places I have visited
On Neighboring Mages
Any good wizard knows more than a few magic-makers. As such, here are a list of wizard, witches, sorcerers, warlocks, and other mages that I have encountered. The bard has graciously provided a button to share with any passing mages (don't hotlink, I will break it by moving this button and not even on purpose):
Friends
: the art-chemist, NinAcTiON of NinAcTiON's Lab
: the warlock, yavi of the faescape
: the necromancer, TACKYVILLAIN of TACKYVILLAIN ON-LINE
Coven Memberships
« 
// Vanilla Chai »
Mages of Inspirations
codename: mordecai
A story based on our very own wizard where he lives as the only magic practitioner in the world. Or so he believes.
codename: the middle of everything
A man runs away from all the things that haunt him by becoming a teacher in another country. There, he finds family, community, and a historian he can't help but fall in love with.
codename: mortaki
Mortaki saved the world once, though she doesn't remember it. Now, she wanders, looking for fragments she has forgotten in a world that's forgotten her. A story that asks, "what happens to our heroes after they've won?"
codename: witchcraft
A worldbuilding project based on a modern setting where supernaturals hide amongst humans. In this world, magic is both a science and an artform and witches are known as master wielders of it.
codename: the guild
A homebrew campaign meant to be optimized for oneshot-like sessions that are still part of a long-term campaign/narrative. Meant to be able to play without full party present.
codename: the world fair
A homebrew campaign based on the Chicago World Fair.
Recent Breakthroughs in the Grimoire
Changes To The Lair
oct 2025
- launched writer webring
- joined cozy drinks webring
- added some badges and buttons to index page
sept 2025
- new bardic work: "why I'm not afraid of ai as an artist"; an essay
- new bardic work: "love's lament"; a poem
- new bardic work: "disrespectful"; a poem
- added new buttons to Mages of Inspiration in the Neighboring Mages annotation
- new grimoire entry about the making of the questbook
- did some work on the Shora lorebook (nowhere near finished lol)
- added pdf versions of redhanded chapters
- added some noodles to the experiments tab: mortaki and the middle of everything
- new library arrival: Shadow of the Hegemon by Orsin Scott Card (read this years ago lol)
- library book updates: reviews and summaries added for Red Rising and How to Lose the Time War
- libary manga updates: reviews and summaries added for Honey Lemon Soda, Sasaki to Miyano, and Spy x Family
- new bardic work: "bloodshed"; a poem
- entered testing phase for the writers webring
- did some rearranging in the lair: experiments and annotations have now swapped formats
- added new experiments: the guild and the world fair
- made new site button to better match current index page
aug 2025
- made brand new index page
- made brand new wizard page
- made in browser reader for redhanded
- set up guidebook for the both conlangs (not filled out)
- set up lorebooks for shora and redhanded (also not filled out)
- updated redhanded chapters one, two, and three
- set up the grimoire (for documenting my learning process and essays)
- brand new library set up; you can now see covers for books and manga and each fandom has its own shelf for fanfiction (some shelves still need to be made)
- new bardic work: The Ruse; it now has its own page
- "noodles" have been moved to the experiments tab (still a wip)
Experiments To Be Conducted
- witchcraft lorebook
- more shelves for the library
- more recs for the library
- witchy html/css template
- game logs for minecraft and vintage story (cubic wisdom)
- homebrew campaigns for D&D (planar orbs)
- how do automatic rss feeds???
- a digital closet maybe? some sort of fashion page
- add more mushrooms to index page
- grimoire entry about learning languages?
- writer's webring
- red handed ch 4
- the ruse ch 2
Arcane Tools
What I use personally to make my site.
- Milanote for inspo boards and establishing theming
- VSCodium for my code editor (used to use Notepadd++, which is also good)
- Neocities for hosting main site
- Bear Blog for hosting the grimoire
- Libresprite for making my button
The Web-onomicon
What I used to learn what I know now.
- MDN Web Documentation for learning the basics of HTML/CSS (apparently people find this hard to decipher as a beginner; if that's the case for you, try W3Schools)
- HTML/CSS Cheat Sheet for learning iframes specifically
- Sadgrl's guides for random HTML/CSS tidbits I couldn't find elsewhere
- a lot of browsing personal sites and using Inspect Element and View Page Source if I'm being honest lol
- currently using this for learning javascript but it's not working too good; not because it's a bad resource, because I don't get along with javascript on a personal level :)
Bardic Devices
What I use to write and plan the bard's stories.
- Writemonkey 3 for editing pieces I wrote on paper
- LibreOffice for writing directly on my computer and formatting things edited on Writemonkey
- Obsidian for compiling worldbuilding notes and lore
- a commonplace book for brainstorming and writing down random notes/plans/ideas
- a notebook specifically for longform writing
- Ruff, a notetaking app I use when my commonplace book is unavailable for whatever reason
- a rich text to html converter that I use to make my stories readable in browser
- Google Docs when I'm collaborating with another writer or have someone proofreading my work.