My Fellow Sectorians,
What a difference a year makes. Those were the words I had hoped to open this year’s State of the Sector address, and I’m glad to be saying them now in earnest.
Last year’s State of the Sector address was pretty bleak on many counts. I’m happy to report that where there was uncertainty before, I now have clarity and direction. I know what I want Sector M to be, and I’m finally at a point to start actualizing on various projects that have been waiting in the wings for too long. It’s an exciting time at Sector M.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at where Sector M is now and where it’s going.
This Is What I Do Now: I left my full-time job back in June. I mentioned in last year’s State of the Sector that signing on with that job was one of the hardest professional transitions I’d ever made. As it turned out, it didn’t get easier. In fact, it became increasingly obvious as the first part of the year wore on that it just wasn’t for me. To be clear, I think the job I had could be a dream come true for the right person, but I was most definitely not the right person.
I took a cruise in May, and I found myself standing on a beach in Grand Cayman. (I wrote more about this moment in this blog post.) I had an instant of clarity that day, and I have been working toward that goal ever since. For years, I’ve wanted to focus on my games, novels, and other projects. Now that’s what I do. While I’m averaging many more hours per week than at a regular office gig, I wake up wanting to get to my keyboard to start working each day. I’m healthier and whole lot happier than I was before. My schedule is my own again, and the only real problem so far has been scheduling actual days off.
Exhibit/Experiential Writer: I’ve mentioned before that I’ve worked on exhibits for the Perot Museum. Well, I just finished the biggest project for the Perot in my years-long history with them. Coming in March of 2026, and just in time for the World Cup, say hello to Soccer: More Than a Game, an exploration of the science behind the world’s most beloved sport. This was an incredible experience, and I hope to do many more like this one in the future.
My love of museums is something I’ve talked about for many years on this blog, and I love the kind of exhibit and experiential writing that goes into them. So, if you run a museum and need a writer, hit me up.
Novel(s) in the Works: I just finished the copyedits on my military sci-fi novel. Now that I have a manuscript ready for release, I’m getting the layout, cover, and audio version of the book sorted out. I don’t have a firm release date yet, but I’m hoping that it will be in the first half of the year. More on that one as news becomes available.
At the same time, I’m preparing my epic fantasy novel to go to my developmental editor. (I’ve commissioned a map for it and everything!) I would definitely like to release both novels in 2026, but these things can take time, and I want to do it right. These books, and certainly the characters in them, have been with me for years, so I would rather wait and release them when they’re ready rather than try to rush to get them out the door.
I’m also finishing up on a trilogy of short cyberpunk novels that I’ve mentioned here a time or two. Originally one big novel, it became clear that the story was too large for one volume. The novel was naturally segmented into three books in any case, so they will now each be separate releases. If they catch on, I may release them as one single, collected volume. In any case, I will likely not publish the first of this trilogy until they are all ready to go. That way, I’ll be able to release them in relatively quick succession.
Convention Support: Many moons ago, I worked for a game company. As part of the job, I went to conventions such as San Diego Comic Con, Gen Con, MegaCon, and a bunch of other ones, big and small.
Truth be told, I’ve missed it.
This year, I plan on making official Sector M convention appearances. I’m not sure how many I’ll go to at this point, but I hope it is a fair few. The first one I will attend is Gamicon in Coralville, Iowa, March 6–8. Others I will announce here on the Sector M blog as I confirm them.
That leads me to my next point…
Sector M Newsletter: The Sector M blog has been how I’ve been conveying information about upcoming projects and so forth for a while now, but the traffic here can be really uneven, and visitors may just be dropping in for my opinions on fantasy dwarves or strange headcanon, never seeing the updates. In short, traffic to the blog is largely passive. I need a solution that’s more active, one that will beam all the pertinent information directly to those who want to hear it.
So, I will be creating a Sector M newsletter. It’s already in the works, and I hope to launch it at the end of this month. It won’t replace the updates I post on this blog, but it will be a monthly distillation of everything that Sector M is doing on all fronts, from games to conventions, books to future projects. When the newsletter is ready to go, I’ll announce it here so that those interested can sign up.
Artificer’s Guide Addendum: In 2025, we launched The Artificer’s Addendum, a supplement to our flagship book, The Artificer’s Guide to Magic Items. This free downloadable PDF is a set of clarifications, examples, and errata from the original book, along with some extra thoughts and reasonings behind certain design decisions for those who are curious.
While most supplements are along the one-and-done model, this supplement will be occasionally updated with new information, FAQ sections, and material. My intent is to eventually put my thoughts on how to convert The Artificer’s Guide rules into the 2024 D&D rules set, though I think the core ideas of my book are still viable even after the release of Eberron: Forge of the Artificer.
Sector M’s First Kickstarter: I mentioned this last year in this blog. Sector M Games has been working on development of a cyberpunk-themed board game. I’m doing the pre-work to get everything in place for a Kickstarter campaign later in the year. My initial thought is October, but a project this size has a lot of moving parts to it. I will be writing a developer’s diary on Sector M’s Patreon, so another great reason to join it! If you enjoy cyberpunk or board games (or, ideally, both), you’ll want to take a look when the time comes.
2026 Blog Posts: Overall, I was much better about delivering blog posts on time in 2025 than I was the year previous. I want to continue that trend in 2026. Of course, life can (and often does) happen unexpectedly, so I’m hoping that the following release dates will be pretty solid. They are:
Looking Ahead
I have never been happier with the progress Sector M is making on all fronts more than I am right now. Full stop. While the path I’ve chosen is a challenging one, and definitely not for the faint of heart, what I’m doing now is what I believe to be my first, best destiny.
Star Trek fans may be familiar with that term. If not, it’s something that Spock says to Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Spock notes that Kirk’s first, best destiny is commanding a starship. “Anything else,” he notes, “is a waste material.”
Telling stories for my tribe of fellow geeks and nerds, as well as making cool stuff for the aforementioned geeks and nerds, is what I’m build for — a far better fit than I was for the regular corporate 9-to-5 gig. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that path in life, but it’s just not for me.
So, if you’d like to support what I do, please take a look at the aptly named “Support” tab above for a listing of Sector M products and offerings. In particular, I would like to build my presence on Patreon this year, so please take a look at what’s going on over there. If you’re in a place where you can support original stories, games, and geeky fun (that use zero AI), consider supporting Sector M over there.
In closing, I would like to wish everyone reading this a happy New Year! Stay strong, stay true, hold your loved ones close, and pursue your dreams like you have afterburners strapped to both of your feet. Zoom, zoom!
See you around the Sector!
Si vales, valeo.
-MC
Years ago, when my oldest took a class in game design, I helped him with his final project. Specifically, the project was a board game that needed to demonstrate the essentials of theme, mechanics, and playability. We decided early on that we wanted a cyberpunk-themed game, complete with mohawks, cybernetic implants, and ninjas (of course).
Our style of game would be a combination of action/adventure and exploration. The way you would win would be in the vein of victory rush games that rely on completing challenges and meeting objectives in this dark, futuristic, and often sarcastic world.
(One note, I’ve put some cyberpunk artwork throughout this post. This art is part of my general mood board, but they are not official concept art for my game. They are just a way to show you something of what I’m going for visually. I’ve noted the artist where possible.)
We were able to put together the very basics of just such a game, though it wasn’t enough to fully play. We had a lot of fun with the development, though. In the process of putting it together, it occurred to us that we had hit onto something with it. I started developing it further (even after he got an A+ on the project), seeking to create a fully playable game.
Then the pandemic hit. While I did do some development and limited playtesting of it in fits and starts during that time, getting people together to play it became problematic for obvious reasons. Little by little, I was getting the game to a state where others might enjoy it. I’m happy to say that in the last two weeks, we’ve moved a few dozen parsecs toward that goal.
Last week, I traveled up to Waterloo in Iowa to visit a group of friends who are some of the biggest board game fans I’ve ever encountered. Among them is my friend R.J. The two of us used to work together many years ago at Score Entertainment. If you ever ripped open a booster pack of the Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Yu-Yu Hakusho, or InuYasha collectible card games back in the day, that’s the company I’m talking about.
R.J. and I sat for several hours during this trip going over the instruction manual I’d put together line by line, tweaking and refining the language for clarity and playability. Then we put the game to the test, seeing how it would hold up. The two of us played multiple two-player games in which R.J. won every single one. In fact, of all the games I played during that week, I didn’t win a single one of them! One was close, however, so close that it came down to a single die roll, and the deciding roll was failed by only a single pip. (I needed a three or better on a D6, and rolled a two.) So close!
While this track record might normally be cause for concern — in that the folks in Iowa were better at the game I created than I was — it just reinforced that I had come to the right place to put this game through its paces. It also meant that the gamers in residence were picking it up fast enough they could immediately get up to speed and start knocking it out of the park.
There were some really tense and cinematic moments. One in particular involved a hacker, a cyborg, a ton of security turrets, the game equivalent of a nasty UNO Reverse card, and the timeliest of timely sixes showing up on a D6 roll. This is what I had been hoping to see — people enjoying the game I created, and let me tell you there’s almost nothing like it.
This was the eponymous Battle of Waterloo, and it was glorious. This battle was not one of cannon and soldiers but mechanics and user experience. Far from a historic defeat, I came away with pages of notes and tweaks for the next iteration of the game. While I still need to address a few things and give some playable characters a much-needed shot in the arm to balance things out, this trip told me that I was actually closer to a releasable game than I could have hoped. I’d say we are approximately 80% of the way there at present.
With all that in mind, I plan to start putting things in order to run a crowdfunding campaign, likely on Kickstarter, for this game next year. It will be the first board game under the Sector M Games banner. There are many things that might affect this timeline, but I will start seeking estimates on what it would take to get this game off the ground and into the hands of players who might want it.
I also plan on doing a periodic developer’s diary on my Patreon in the lead-up to the crowdfunding effort, as well as some reveals (including the name and other good stuff), so if you would like to check that out, give it a look. My Patreon can be found at:
In the meantime, I have a ton of notes to go through and calibrations to make. I would like to give a personal and heartfelt thank you to those who were a part of the Battle of Waterloo. They are: R.J., Caroline, Justin, Mophat, Andrew, Holly, Britt, and Ace. Additionally, I’d like to thank the Dallas-based playtesters that helped get me this far. They include: Travis, Dave, James and Rob. All of you are getting special shoutouts in the acknowledgements section when this game comes out.
Definitely watch this space as more information becomes available. In the meantime, I’ve put together a 1-hour playlist on YouTube for your cyberpunk listening pleasure. Give it a listen! And if you have suggestions for what else should go on it, send recommendations my way.
As I said before, the Battle of Waterloo, or at least my version of it, was a success in my book. And unlike Napoleon, my Waterloo is not an end but a beginning. I can’t wait to show you all what I’ve been working on!
Thanks for reading!
My Fellow Sectorians,
If you read my last post of 2024, you’ll know that my creative victories for last year were fairly sparse, particularly on the literary side. Overall, it was a pretty mixed bag, though there were some real bright spots along the way. Let’s go ahead and discuss it all, the proverbial good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Bad News
I thought I would change it up and deliver the bad news first. So, let’s go ahead and get this out of the way.
A Swing and a Miss: Early in 2024, an interesting opportunity presented itself. One of the Big Four publishers was interested in one of my fantasy manuscripts. It was sent on submission and we waited…and waited. Months passed with no news, but publishing is not a game for the impatient. Finally, the editor in question simply stopped communicating with us. It’s frustrating, as it has taken years to get to this position only for the editor to essentially ghost us. But, there is actually a mark of distinction for an author in having a project ‘die on submission.’ It means that you almost got there, as the next step would have been a book deal. Next time, if I can just achieve one step higher, I should be on better ground. As is the case with publishing, it’s nothing until its something. Back to square one.
A Shifting Situation: In addition to the copious amounts of personal strife this year, I also changed jobs around mid-year, and it has both been one of the most difficult professional transitions of my career and quite unlike anything I’ve ever done. Between that and some other potential employment issues with my family, the stress and lack of mental bandwidth pulled me out of my regular writing schedule. I couldn’t find my way back to one until the middle of November (more on that below). So, as a result, I have very little to show on the fiction side of things. Almost every goal I made last year failed, and I’m not sure when I will be able to circle back around to them again. I made marginal progress on the sci-fi novella I mentioned in the last State of the Sector address, but even that eventually hit a brick wall. If there is good news, it’s that the holiday break has seen a renewed fire in my veins when it comes to my fictional stories. We will see how that fares now that my holiday break is over.
Sector M Store is Closing: I will be closing the Sector M store in February. I won’t delete it entirely in case there is ever a renewed need for it. Unfortunately, it requires a decent amount of maintenance and costs to keep it running, and sales of any Sector M merch have effectively flat-lined. So, I will renew all the designs that are currently available for the time being, but I plan on shutting it down on Saturday, February 1. So, if there are any designs that appeal to you, now would be a good time to seize upon them. You can find the Sector M store here.
Sector M Games’ Future Uncertain: This year, we published two titles on the DMs Guild, The Artificer’s Guide to Magic Items and The Knights of Solamnia Revisited. Both have been well received by the community, and both were featured in the DMs Guild’s weekly newsletter. I did have a manuscript for a third installment for the DMs Guild, but it’s looking like that will need to be shelved for the foreseeable future. With so much uncertainty in my family’s situation, my disposable income (which I use to finance my game projects) just may not be available for some time to come. My philosophy for these supplements has always been to make them as good as possible, and I want to stick to that. So, I would much rather hold off on projects until they can be approached with high standards than try to rush something out. If anything changes on this front, I will make a special update post here on the blog to let everyone know.
Wavering Blog Deadlines: As a writer, I like to meet my deadlines consistently. My track record with 2024’s blog posts was…troubled, particularly as the year wore on. I still delivered all twelve as intended, but I found myself having to adjust publication dates, sometimes by a few weeks to fully deliver them. I will attempt to be more consistent in 2025, though many of the same factors that caused those delays are still in play. For this next year, here are my target dates for new blogs each month. Of course, there could be some wiggle room, but here’s the schedule I’m going with right now:
The Good News
Okay, I know that was a lot in the way of bad news. Trust me, if it was difficult for you to get through, it was equally hard for me to write. It’s not every year that the wheels just come right off of almost everything. In light of all the things that went wrong or just didn’t materialize this year, it makes the bright spots shine all the brighter.
The Blog’s Best Months: Traffic on this blog has definitely picked up in the last couple of years. I’m now getting traffic in a week that might have taken a month or two before that. I think part of it is regular updates, in my case at least once a month. I’ve had this blog since May of 2013, and as far as I can tell, October, November, and December of this year were the three top months it has ever had. I know that many blogs tend to specialize and be mainly about one thing. This blog is a sort of potpourri of museums and history, nerdy/geeky stuff, writing topics, and just the odd things running through my mind. Thank you for coming back and checking it out. If you are a regular here, I strongly encourage you to follow this blog so you don’t miss a post. (There should be a pop-up when you visit that you can click on to do this.)
DMs Guild Releases: As I stated above, we released two titles on the DMs Guild in 2024, one in January and the other in November. The Artificer’s Guide to Magic Items is the more expansive of the two, and it is available as either a downloadable PDF or as a hardcopy format (if you get the hardcopy, you also get the PDF version for free). The other title, The Knights of Solamnia Revisited, is for fans of Dragonlance, and it’s only available as a PDF. I do intend to follow up on both of them with some FAQ and example PDFs that will be available as a free download. That is in the works, though I’m not sure at the time of this writing when they will be ready for release. In any case, if you haven’t picked up a copy of either/both titles, check them out. I’m proud of how they turned out.
An Unexpected Wizard Story: As is often the case, when I’m deep into writing another story, I invariably have intrusive ideas for other stories. As I struggled (and ultimately failed) to maintain the thread of that sci-fi novella, I had an idea for a fantasy novella that followed up on the aftermath of one of my fantasy manuscripts. I finally resolved to start drafting it about the middle of November, and the story just came pouring out at the keyboard. My average number of words per hour more than doubled for each writing session, which tells me that I was truly dialed into it. Even with the holidays, which can be murder on a writing schedule, I’m happy to say that I finished the initial draft at 11:30 p.m. on December 31. So, if I accomplished nothing else on the fiction side in 2024, I was able to begin and end this novella, which clocked in at just under 27,000 words. Of course, it’s a hot mess right now, but one of my projects for January will be getting it into a readable state for my beta readers.
The Road Ahead
Normally, this would be the section where I would outline my goals and projects for the new year, but I am at something of a loss for the moment. I’ve finished the wizard novella, and I’m now at loose ends, at least at the time of this writing. Until I know more about how this year will unfold, and the possible ramifications it will have on my family, it’s difficult to make any long-term plans at this moment in time.
I have that partially completed sci-fi novella I could try to finish, or I could revisit the cyberpunk novel I have about two-thirds complete (both have a special place in my heart, even if I had to put them down). Or, I could try something completely new. I haven’t decided yet, though short-to-medium fiction has its appeal since there’s less time involved per project, usually between a couple of weeks and a couple of months. I wish I had a definitive answer, but the road ahead right now is too foggy for me to see.
Rest assured I will land on something. I scarcely want to have another year creatively like 2024 if I can help it. If 2024 has taught me one thing, it’s that we’re here for a shorter time than we think. I feel that I have barely scratched the surface of the stories I want to tell. If I’m going to make an honest go of it before my time is up, I need to stay focused.
So, it is my hope that if I can turn my situation around, I’ll be able to open the State of the Sector 2026 Address with the words: What a difference a year makes.
Until then, I wish you all a new year filled with the realization of dreams and solid metaphorical (as well as literal) ground beneath your feet.
See you around the Sector!
Si vales, valeo.
-MC
Dragonlance.
That one word is so incredibly evocative to me. I have written previously on how I found the Dragonlance Saga, and what it means to me both as a reader and author of fantasy. I cannot understate how much of an influence it has had on my life since its first discovery.
But, perhaps I’m burying the lede here. The fact is that I’ve always wanted to be a contributor to the Dragonlance mythos. Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer ways to do that nowadays. When I read Shadow of the Dragon Queen, something really struck me: the treatment of the Knights of Solamnia, by far one of my favorite aspects of Dragonlance.
I fully expected the Knighthood to be represented as a fighter subclass. It turns out, joining the Knighthood, as well as your status within it, really came down to a feat choice. Besides the fact that feats in 5e are (in theory) optional, I expected membership within the Knighthood to require more — and be more — than just a mere feat choice.
I was also puzzled by the Shadow of the Dragon Queen’s progression within the Knighthood. You could make up a character who could become a Knight of the Rose by 4th level without ever having been a part of the Orders of the Crown or Sword, all because of their feat choice. Or, you could achieve the orders out of their established order.
This didn’t strike me as lore friendly. If a Knight of Solamnia wants to become a Rose Knight, they should always start off as the lowest order, the Order of the Crown. After they’ve been there for a certain amount of time, and sufficiently proven themselves, they would then have to petition to join the Order of the Sword and be successfully inducted into its ranks by the other Sword Knights in charge.
Only after they were a Knight of the Sword could the knight in question repeat that same process to eventually enter into the Order of the Rose. Rose Knights wield incredible political and military power, and that status should only come after they have proven themselves worthy throughout their career. I don’t think that makes sense at 4th level.
So, I decided to do something about it, and the DMs Guild was the answer. As I said above, I’ve always wanted to contribute to Dragonlance, and so that’s exactly what I did. I created a digital game supplement, The Knights of Solamnia Revisited, the second title released under the Sector M Games banner. In it, I explore what it means to be a Knight of Solamnia, how to role-play as one, and what your progression would look like.
At the center of this progression is a tiered, interconnected fighter subclass that would allow players of a Knight of Solamnia to make their journey from Crown Knight to Rose Knight as their level progresses. Of course, a knight could also make a full career as a Crown Knight or Sword Knight, and there are definite advantages to doing so.
Using these rules, the earliest you could gain the benefit of being a Sword Knight is at 7th level, with Rose Knight benefits kicking in at 10th level. Considering that most campaigns only run to between 10th and 12th level, it means that attaining entry into the Order of the Rose would come towards the end of the campaign, which makes much more practical sense. If you are able to game beyond those levels, this supplement goes all way the up to 20th level for all three career paths. You could absolutely have a party with a 20th-level Crown, Sword, and Rose Knight in it, and each one would function differently from each other and be powerful in their own right.
The Knights of Solamnia Revisited does present a more-powerful-than-average subclass, however, but if ever it was needed, it’s against the backdrop of the War of the Lance. Because the Solamnic Knights are the world’s premier military organization, they also get access to feats that other fighters don’t. This will allow them to really do the heavy lifting as a martial character in a Dragonlance campaign, especially in one where the odds of encountering a dragon at lower levels is virtually guaranteed.
The world of Krynn naturally lends itself to epic storytelling, so the Knights of Solamnia get some extra punch with a bank of general feats that any Solamnic Knight can take, as well as Order-specific feats that allow you to customize your knight to fine-tune your build and character ethos.
While DMs are encouraged to tamp down on these extra feats if they feel it would unbalance the party, consider these two things:
On the first part, with the exception of paladins, most martial characters struggle to compete with spellcasters in terms of overall effectiveness. This divide is only exacerbated as levels get higher. While character builds and player ingenuity can narrow that gap significantly, martial characters (again with the exception of paladin) rarely get their due. The need for fighters to be able to really bring it is particularly needed in Dragonlance where the challenges the characters will face have a smaller margin of error.
On the second point, the original Heroes of the Lance consisted of ten main characters: Raistlin, Caramon, Tika, Tanis, Sturm, Laurana, Tas, Flint, Riverwind, and Goldmoon. I don’t know about you, but most games I’ve played in the last few years have been lucky to have five people at the table, if that. With fewer players, it means that each character in the party will need to pull their own weight if they are to survive in the rugged world of Krynn. This supplement was meant to address those points, and more.
And just to make a good thing better, Miguel Coronado III has returned as the artist for this project, giving his own artistic take on the Solamnic Knighthood. He’s the one who did the incredible artwork for The Artificer’s Guide to Magic Items, and the pieces he created here are a veritable feast for the senses. The images here, aside from those noted, are all by him.
At the moment, I don’t have a firm release date, but we are close. The layout is in great shape due to the inestimable talents of Natalia Holmes, who is also an alum from The Artificer’s Guide. All that remains is a few minor tweaks and another professional once-over to make sure all is good to go before release. [Update: The Knights of Solamnia Revisited is available now on DMs Guild here.]
So, if you’ve enjoyed The Artificer’s Guide, are a fan of Dragonlance, or both, check out The Knights of Solamnia Revisited, now on the DMs Guild!
Thanks for reading!
The Sector M 