Dispatches from the Realms – December 22, 2025
You Meet in a Tavern
Welcome back, wanderers.
Since our last gathering, the worlds of Other Worlds Than These have stayed busy — new music has emerged, stories have deepened, and the game room has grown louder with fresh adventures. Here’s a glimpse at what’s been unfolding across the soundscapes, story realms, and game rooms — from long-awaited releases to quiet signals still stirring beneath the surface.
Paths Through the Realms
Seasonal Gifts from the Highways
We’ve made it to Christmas week, and there’s still time to grab a gift for someone you care about — or to treat yourself to something special from the realms of Ambient Highways.
From now through January 2nd, 2026, I’m offering a 15% discount on select Ambient Highways physical products in the shop.
Use the code: HOLIDAY2025
You’ll get 15% off:
Ambient Highways Vinyl
Ambient Highways CD
Ambient Highways Poster
Ambient Highways T-Shirts
Note: Bundle options are excluded from this offer.
You can browse all the eligible items here:
Ambient Highways Collection: https://shop.owtt.net/collections/ambient-highways
Tales Shared Along the Road
Before we venture too far into our own realms, I like to pause here and shine a lantern on a few fellow travelers — creators who stand as Allies across the worlds of sound, story, and play.
One of the first journeys we took together in Reviews from the Aural Realms was into The Precious Dark by David Helpling & Eric “the” Taylor — and it deserves a special place here along the road.
Since that write-up, The Precious Dark has gone on to earn some well-deserved recognition:
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It landed the #5 spot on the NACC 50 Best Chill Releases of the Year, a chart drawn from over 300 college and non-commercial stations broadcasting new instrumental music out into the universe.
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It also reached the #10 spot on Echoes’ Best Albums of 2025 — a huge nod from one of the most respected voices in ambient and atmospheric music.
https://echoes.org/2025/12/08/extended-echoes-the-best-of-echoes-2025/
It’s always a joy to see music like this travel far beyond our little corner of the realms.
The road is always better traveled with good company.
Prove Life Wrong
Prove Life Wrong™ continues to be my way of wrestling with the hard stuff — the weight of expectations, the pace of the world, and the strange paths life throws us onto. It’s about refusing to let circumstance write the ending, even when everything feels like it’s moved on without you.
Sometimes Prove Life Wrong™ isn’t about brute force or stubborn endurance — it’s about finally listening when that quiet, persistent voice inside refuses to be ignored.
Prove Life Wrong: When the Work You’re Meant to Make Finally Calls Your Name
This piece digs into that turning point where the “someday” work — the project, art, or calling you’ve been circling for years — stops being optional. It’s about recognizing when life has handed you enough signs, enough nudges, and enough close calls that you can no longer justify putting your true work on the back burner.
There’s another Prove Life Wrong™ chapter already forming — a story about just barely making it home from a long work trip a couple of days ago, and what that brush with exhaustion and circumstance had to say about priorities. I’ve decided to hold that one until after the holiday season, when there’s a little more room to breathe… and to listen.
If you’d like a tangible reminder to keep pushing back, you can also find the Prove Life Wrong™ Collection here: https://shop.otherworldsthanthese.com/collections/prove-life-wrong
Rise. Build. Thrive.
And as always… Prove Life Wrong™.
From the Studio
The studio has been anything but quiet lately. New signals are emerging, stories are deepening, and the threads between sound and story are pulling tighter with each release.
The Awakening (EP) — Act I Begins
This past Friday, December 19th, marked an important milestone: the release of The Awakening (EP), the first act in a much larger narrative project called The Infinite Weave: Epica.
If Whispers of The Witch (The Haunting) and Remote Isolation (The Silence) have felt like scattered signals up to this point, The Awakening is where those threads begin to pull together. It’s the opening movement of a multi-act story — a convergence of music, lore, and symbols that will unfold over time as more of The Infinite Weave: Epica is revealed.
If you haven’t stepped into Act I yet, you can listen on your favorite platform here:
🎧 Listen to The Awakening (EP): https://owtt.lnk.to/theawakeningWE
The Infinite Weave: Epica
You may have seen the announcement in a separate email, but let me share with you what The Infinite Weave: Epica is all about.
At its core, The Infinite Weave: Epica is a story-driven, cinematic music project told across multiple acts — a larger narrative that The Awakening (EP), Whispers of The Witch (The Haunting), and Remote Isolation (The Silence) are all a part of. It’s a world where symbols, relics, and whispered phrases carry meaning, and where each track is both a standalone piece and a fragment of a much bigger tapestry.
The project follows threads of mystery, destiny, and consequence — how a single choice, a single voice, or a single fracture in the Weave can echo across realms. Some of those threads surface in the music, some in the accompanying lore and artwork, and others will appear in future projects that connect back to Epica in surprising ways.
The Awakening (EP) marks Act I of that journey — the point where the quiet signals you’ve been hearing finally start to reveal the shape of the story behind them. More acts (and more clues) are already in motion, and over time, you’ll see how everything you’ve heard so far fits into one interconnected Weave.
You can read the full announcement for The Infinite Weave: Epica here: Announcing The Awakening and The Infinite Weave – The Music of Keith Richie
The Infinite Weave: Epica – Official Vinyl & CD Kickstarter Trailer
To support the full journey — including Vinyl and CD editions of The Infinite Weave: Epica — I’ll be launching a Kickstarter campaign in the near future, targeting mid-January to early February. The goal is to create physical releases that feel truly special: collector-worthy editions that honor both the music and the mythology behind it.
As part of that, I’ve put together an intro trailer for the campaign — a first look at how the music, the lore, and the physical editions all connect within the Weave. It’s the best way to get a feel for the scope of the project and where Act I: The Awakening fits into the larger story.
The campaign won’t be limited to just standard Vinyl and CD options. I’m also planning additional tiers, including things like:
Companion booklets that dig deeper into the symbols, phrases, and narrative threads behind the music
Bundle options that combine album, artwork, and printed material into cohesive collector sets
Other ways to experience The Infinite Weave as more than a listening experience — as a world you can explore
I’ll share more details (and the official launch date) soon, but for now, the pre-launch page is live. If you’d like to be notified the moment the campaign goes live, you can follow it here:
Kickstarter Pre-Launch: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/owtt/the-infinite-weave-epica-vinyl-and-cd-release
Reviews from the Aural Realms
Through Reviews from the Aural Realms, I continue wandering through the soundscapes of other artists — exploring the stories, emotions, and moments that live between their notes. This time, we’re celebrating the Holidays.
Holiday Songs by El Drifte
A rough-edged, big-hearted spin on the season, Holiday Songs walks the line between celebration and reflection. El Drifte brings a rootsy, lived-in honesty to the holidays — equal parts barroom warmth, road-weary storytelling, and the kind of late-night honesty that only seems to surface when the lights are low and the year is almost over.
A gentle, wintry vignette, On a Cold Frosty Morning feels like watching the world wake beneath a soft blanket of snow. Kori Linae Carothers leans into her gift for delicate, cinematic piano — letting simple, expressive phrases bloom into something quietly luminous. It’s introspective without ever feeling cold, capturing that fragile, in-between moment where the day hasn’t quite begun, but the light is already changing.
Another voice will rise from the Aural Realms before long — perhaps it’s already calling.
And if you’re an artist wandering these realms and would like your own music to be featured in a future review, you can learn more about my Review Services here: https://owtt.lnk.to/servicesWE
From the Table
Not all stories are written — some are rolled. Around the table, laughter, chaos, and fate still intertwine as dice carve out legends one critical success (or failure) at a time. This is where the realms come alive through shared imagination, and where The Old Bard continues to spin new tales.
Plotting the Next Runes of Ruin Session
First up: Runes of Ruin: Secrets of the Forgotten Vault. I still need to lock in the date for the next expedition, but rest assured — the vault isn’t done with you yet. I’ll be announcing the next game soon so those eager to return (or join for the first time) can claim their seat before we descend once more.
Keep an eye on upcoming sessions and grab a seat here:
https://owtt.lnk.to/ror
Whiskey & Worldbuilding – A New Adventure on the Horizon
Behind the scenes, a new adventure has been taking shape during a couple of late-night “Whiskey & Worldbuilding” sessions — the second of which I shared a photo of just last night. I’ve been sketching out this next story while sipping some fine fantasy-themed whiskey from Quest’s End (you can check out their realms here: https://findfamiliarspirits.com/pages/fantasy-realm).
These sessions have quickly become a ritual: maps, notes, half-legible ideas in the margins, and the slow unfolding of a world I can’t wait to bring to the table. I’m planning to record some of these worldbuilding sessions in the future — not always with whiskey in hand, but likely under the same banner: Whiskey & Worldbuilding.
I’m strongly considering using that as the ongoing title for these peeks behind the curtain. Let me know what you think — would you like to see more of that process shared?
Thornwood’s Shadow – Still Stirring
And yes… I know. I keep saying it. But it’s still true: the next episode of Thornwood’s Shadow is coming. The past couple of months, I’ve just been rolling with disadvantage a bit too often to get it over the finish line, but the story hasn’t gone anywhere. The Briarlands are still waiting, the threads are still tangled, and we will return to them as soon as the dice — and life — are a little more kind.
From the Game Room
Not every journey needs spellbooks and starships — sometimes it’s a controller, a keyboard, or a clacking arcade stick that opens the next portal. In the Game Room, I share what’s been happening over at Maestoso Gaming — the new home for my gaming content, unboxings, and digital adventures.
The Empire Strikes Back
The disadvantage rolls haven’t just hit the tabletop — they’ve clipped my gaming time too. Between travel, life, and all the prep work for The Infinite Weave: Epica, I’ve been pulled away from video games more than I’d like. But that’s something I fully intend to correct this week.
Recently, I managed to track down one of my all-time favorite Atari 2600 games: The Empire Strikes Back. I finally had a bit of time to sit down with it last weekend, and it was like stepping straight back into childhood — that familiar hum of the 2600, chunky pixels, and relentless AT-ATs marching across Hoth.
I’ll be recording a new “Let’s Play” video sometime this week, and you can bet this classic will make an appearance. If you’d like to catch that (and future retro and story-driven gaming content), keep an eye on:
Maestoso Gaming site: https://maestosogaming.com
Maestoso Gaming on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@maestosogaming
More adventures from the Game Room are on the way.
Coming Up
The turn of the year always feels like standing at a crossroads — and this time, there are a lot of paths about to open at once.
In the studio, the focus now turns to what comes after The Awakening (EP) — more clues in The Infinite Weave: Epica, and the final steps toward launching the Kickstarter for the Vinyl and CD editions in early 2026. You’ll be hearing more about tiers, bundles, and those companion booklets very soon.
On the Prove Life Wrong™ front, there’s another chapter waiting in the wings — the story of just barely making it home from a long work trip, and what that close call had to say about limits, priorities, and listening when life tries to get your attention. That one will surface once the holiday dust settles.
At the table, the next Runes of Ruin session will be set, the new Whiskey & Worldbuilding adventure will move from notes to something playable, and Thornwood’s Shadow will finally get the attention it deserves.
And in the Game Room, you can look forward to that Empire Strikes Back Let’s Play and a return to more regular Maestoso Gaming content — retro, atmospheric, and firmly tied into the larger Weave.
Plenty of doors are about to open.
Until the next door opens
The wheel keeps turning.
Thank you again for being part of Other Worlds Than These — whether you come for the sound, the story, the game room, or the strange in-between places where all three meet. Your presence, messages, and encouragement continue to breathe life into everything I create.
If you’d like to help keep these realms growing, there are many ways to lend a hand — from joining the Patreon to sharing posts, streaming the music, visiting Maestoso Gaming, or exploring the full list of support options here:
🌐 https://owtt.net/support
See you in the next clearing…
and we’ll palaver a while.
Rise. Build. Thrive.
And as always… Prove Life Wrong™.
Long days and pleasant nights,
— Keith Richie
Maestoso – Gunslinger of Sound | The Old Bard
