Many Worlds Collective Charter

Last updated: October 14, 2026

Who we are

Many Worlds Collective is a worker cooperative that makes tabletop games. Our members own the collective together, share in its decisions, and share in what it earns. We are organized this way because we reject an industry that puts profit over people. Large publishers underpay the people who make their games. They sell outdated and harmful views of the world, including racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, and ableism, when those views sell. They take ideas from marginalized communities without credit or pay. We are built to do the opposite, and this charter is how you hold us to it.

What we do

We make games. We design and publish tabletop games, including Einsol's Razor, Outrunners, and Einsol's Spark. We also build the Orrery, our platform for running games. The Orrery includes a virtual tabletop and the Game Masters Notebook, works with any tabletop system, and has a free tier for Game Masters who are starting out.

We support independent creators. We share what we know about making games, from design and writing through layout, publishing, and funding. Our guides, templates, and workshops are free. Services that take our members' time, such as layout, editing, and consulting, are paid, with sliding-scale pricing so small creators can afford them. The Orrery's system builder lets creators bring their own games to the platform.

We will fund creators through mutual aid. We plan to create a nonprofit that provides direct support to independent creators. This is a future plan, and we will announce it when it begins.

What the collective owns

The collective owns its games and the Orrery. Members share in the value of everything they help build.

Many Worlds Collective was founded by Mimic, who created the world of Adamah and its games, built the Orrery, and gave them to the collective so that they would belong to the people who make them.

Who owns what

Independent creators own everything they make, including work we help them build. When we consult on, edit, or lay out a creator's project, the project stays theirs. Systems creators build in the Orrery belong to them. The Orrery stores and displays a system only so it can run, and that permission ends when the creator removes it.

Work members make for the collective belongs to the collective, and every member shares in its value. Work members make on their own time, outside collective projects, belongs to them.

Freelance artists keep the copyright to their art, and the collective holds a permanent right to use it in our products. Art depicting the characters and places of the collective's worlds cannot be used elsewhere without the collective's permission. Writing set in the collective's worlds belongs to the collective, so the Archivist and the world's keeper can protect that world's canon. Freelancers are always credited, and they can always show the work they made for us in their portfolios.

When we commission art through a marketplace, we confirm before ordering that the terms let the collective use the art in its products. We credit those artists and allow them to show the work in their portfolios, the same as any freelancer. Every artist we commission, directly or through a marketplace, confirms in writing that the work is made without generative AI, and we review sketches as the work progresses. When a marketplace's terms transfer the copyright to the buyer, the collective holds the copyright to that piece.

Community creators own the original material they publish under our community license. Our worlds and our games remain the collective's.

How we protect our worlds

Our games are set in a multiverse of worlds. Adamah is the first, the home of Einsol's Razor, Outrunners, and Einsol's Spark, and the collective may build or adopt other worlds over time. Each world's canon, themes, and story are protected.

Mimic serves as the first Archivist. Saga serves as the first keeper of Adamah. The Archivist is the navigator across the whole multiverse: they keep the worlds consistent with one another, hold every world to our Cultural Coding Principle, and make sure the worlds make sense narratively. The Archivist approves any work that touches how worlds connect or the rules that join them. The official canon is the record the Archivist maintains, which is currently kept in Notion and will grow as the multiverse does.

Each world has a keeper. The keeper knows their world best and has final say on that world's canon, including which work adds to or changes it. Anything that reaches beyond a single world and into the shared multiverse goes to the Archivist. The Archivist and the First Heralds help each keeper develop their world. A keeper must be a member of the collective. The Archivist names each keeper, and the members approve the keeper by simple majority vote. A keeper leaves the role by stepping down, by leaving the collective, or by removal. A keeper can be removed only for reasons listed in our operating agreement, after a warning and a chance to respond. The Archivist or any member can propose the removal, and it takes a two-thirds vote of members. Removal as keeper does not remove someone as a member. When a keeper leaves the role, the Archivist names an interim keeper until the members approve a new one.

The First Heralds are a council with one representative from each department of the collective. Until every department has its own representative, all members sit on the First Heralds. They work with the Archivist to keep the worlds' stories and narrative consistent across the multiverse. On questions that reach across worlds, the Archivist has the final say. When the Archivist is unavailable, the First Heralds make the decision together. The Archivist must be a member of the collective. The Archivist names a successor, and the members approve the successor by simple majority vote. The Archivist can be removed from the role on the same grounds and through the same process as a keeper, but removal takes a three-quarters vote of members. When the Archivist leaves the role, it passes to the approved successor. If there is no approved successor, the First Heralds choose an interim Archivist until the members elect a new one by simple majority vote.

The Archivist's powers can be changed only with the Archivist's consent or by a unanimous vote of all other members. The collective cannot sell or license any of its worlds to an outside company without the Archivist's consent and a two-thirds vote of members. Every member agrees to these terms before joining.

Worlds brought in from outside

A contributed world is a world its creator built before joining the collective, as its sole author, and brought into the collective. Adamah is a contributed world, created by Mimic before the collective existed. A contributed world comes in through a written contribution agreement that records the original material as it stood on that date, and the members vote to adopt it. Anything a member or contributor creates while working for the collective, including new worlds and work on existing worlds, is collective work and is never a contributed world.

The collective owns a contributed world while it holds it. The creator is credited as its creator permanently and is the first choice to be its keeper. If the creator leaves the collective, the world stays with the collective, and the creator keeps a permanent license to use their original contributed material. If the collective ever wants to sell or license a contributed world, the creator gets the first offer.

A contributed world reverts to its creator if the collective voluntarily dissolves, or if the collective does not publish or actively develop the world for three years. What reverts is the world itself: its setting, names, lore, and canon, including canon the collective added. Art stays with the collective and its artists, and our mechanics remain under the ORC license. A creator removed for the serious conduct listed under Membership loses their license, their first offer, and their right to have the world revert.

Affiliated studios

Sometimes another studio wants to work with us while staying its own company. An affiliated studio keeps its own name, its own focus, and its own work, and it joins us on two levels.

The people who do paid work for the collective become members, the same way anyone else does. They earn the same salary, they get one vote, and their membership comes from the work they do, not from money they put in.

The studio itself stays a separate company. It works with us through an affiliated studio agreement, which covers what we license to them, what we build and host for them, and how we share money. The studio does not get a vote. Only members vote, one member to a vote, as always.

Anything a studio brings in from outside stays theirs. Our worlds and systems stay ours, and we license them to the studio under the agreement. A studio's agreement says how long it lasts, how either side can end it, and what happens to the license, the worlds, and anything we host when it does.

We write a new agreement for each studio, but the rules here stay the same for all of them.

How we pay the people who make our games

Every member earns the same yearly salary, no matter their role. Our goal is a salary of $75,000 to $80,000 for every member. Members set the actual salary each year in the budget vote, raising it toward that goal as revenue grows, and it stays equal for everyone at every stage. Full time at Many Worlds Collective is 32 hours a week. Members who commit to part-time work earn the salary in proportion to their agreed time. Profits the collective distributes to members are divided in the same proportion. Each member agrees on their commitment with the collective, and we plan work so it fits inside the hours members commit.

Before the collective earns enough to pay everyone, founding members record deferred salary at a startup amount, and the collective pays it back as revenue allows. The total deferred salary the collective can owe is capped. The founding members set the startup amount and the cap together in a written founders' agreement, which also covers work done before the agreement is signed. We will publish both figures once they are set.

Every artist and writer who works with us as a freelancer is paid a fair rate. We publish our rates on our website, so anyone considering work with us knows what they will be paid before they agree to anything. We never ask anyone to work for exposure or without pay, and we never require unpaid overtime to meet a deadline.

How we price our games

Many of our digital books, PDFs, digital adventures, and first tier Game Master aids are available on a pay-what-you-can basis. Buyers of our physical products can also fund community copies for people who cannot afford one. Money should not decide who gets to play. When you buy something from us, it stays yours. We will never lock purchased content behind a subscription.

What you can make with our games

Our community license lets fans create, publish, and sell their own material for our games, as long as they credit Many Worlds Collective. Our game mechanics are released under the Open RPG Creative License (ORC), and our setting, characters, names, and art remain Reserved Material. The worlds we build are meant to be built on by the people who play in them. Community work set in any of our worlds is not official canon unless the Archivist and that world's keeper approve it.

Who our games are for

Our games are made for everyone who sits down to play them. Our worldbuilding follows our Cultural Coding Principle, and we do not build our worlds on stereotypes of real people. We hire writers and artists from the communities our work depicts. We work with sensitivity readers, pay them fairly, and credit them in our books. Our art shows a wide range of bodies, skin tones, genders, and ages. Players set their own character's pronouns and identity, and those choices never carry a mechanical penalty. Our books include safety tools for the table. We design for accessibility, including colorblind-safe design, readable layouts, and screen reader support in the Orrery. When we make a mistake, we correct it publicly and say what changed.

What we will not do for money

We do not use generative AI in our books or our art. Our work is made by people.

We will not lower anyone's pay to raise our profit.

We will not publish content that demeans real groups of people because it would sell.

We will not take investment that gives outside investors ownership or control of the collective.

We will not sell the collective to a larger company.

We will not sell data from the people who use the Orrery.

We will not put advertising in the Orrery.

We will not use predatory pricing in the Orrery, such as paid randomized rewards or features that give paying players an advantage over others.

We will not partner with companies or sponsors whose practices conflict with this charter.

How we make decisions

Members share decisions about the direction of the collective, and each member has one vote. Members vote each year on a budget, and purchases inside the approved budget do not need another vote. Full member votes decide admitting and removing members, starting a new game or major product, changes to pricing policy or pay rates, changes to this charter, and any purchase outside the budget that is above the spending limit. Project leads make creative choices within their projects, as long as those choices follow canon. They also hire freelancers within their project's budget, set schedules and task assignments, and make purchases within their project's budget, and purchases outside it up to the spending limit. The spending limit starts at $250 per purchase, and members can change it in the yearly budget vote. Canon decisions belong to each world's keeper, and to the Archivist for anything that reaches across worlds.

Membership

Anyone who does paid work for the collective, including freelancers, is a contributor. A contributor who works steadily for the collective for six months becomes a candidate and learns how the collective runs. Candidates become members by a simple majority vote of members. During the collective's first six months after it formally registers, the founders may admit the first members directly by majority vote of the founders, without the six-month contributor period; after that founding window, the normal contributor-to-candidate path applies to everyone. Each member buys one membership share at an amount the members set together. Members pay it over time from their pay, and founding members can have it subtracted from their deferred salary. The share is kept small so it never keeps anyone from joining, and it is returned to a member when they leave.

Members can be removed only for reasons listed in our operating agreement, after a warning and a chance to respond, and by a two-thirds vote. Removing the Archivist as a member takes a three-quarters vote instead of two-thirds. Harassment, sexual harassment, assault, hate speech, and theft or fraud against the collective are handled differently. A member accused of any of these is suspended immediately and loses access to collective work, spaces, and member rights. Once the facts are confirmed, the member is removed by a simple majority vote.