How It All Began - The Origin Of The Creative Director & The Cosmic Vessel Project
The Leap That Created Cosmic Vessel
When Cosmic Vessel first began, it was not a fully formed project with a clear roadmap, polished systems, or carefully planned production pipelines. It started much smaller; a loose collection of ideas, themes, mechanics and questions that initially had no real structure or long-term direction. Over time however, as creativity flowed and discussions evolved, those disconnected ideas slowly began to connect together into something much larger than I originally expected. But this was never a simple process.
Creative projects rarely develop in a straight line, especially ones with this level of ambition. Ideas constantly change. Systems are redesigned. Entire concepts are discarded and rebuilt from the ground up. Some of the strongest parts of Cosmic Vessel only exist because I was willing to question earlier ideas and keep pushing them further.
This blog post exists to share some of the things I have learned throughout that process; the challenges faced, the lessons still being learned, and the principles I constantly try to stay true to while developing the project.
More importantly, I hope it offers some insight and encouragement to aspiring creatives, modders, writers, artists and developers who may be trying to build something ambitious of their own. Because for me, Cosmic Vessel became far more than just an idea. It became proof that creativity, collaboration and persistence can slowly grow into something much bigger than you ever expected it could be.
The Ideas I Never Shared
For most of my life, creativity existed privately. For around sixteen years I spent my time creating game ideas, class concepts, spells, mechanics, stories, quests, characters and entire worlds inspired by the games and media I loved most. I constantly found myself asking “What if?” and then trying to imagine how that idea could become something real.
I created mods for games whenever I had the chance, often working on them quietly by myself or with a friend simply for our own enjoyment. They were rarely small projects either. Even back then I was always trying to create entirely new experiences that transformed the games we loved into something different.
When Warframe first began growing, I spent a huge amount of time developing ideas for the game and eventually earned an invitation into the Design Council, something I remain incredibly proud of to this day. Looking back, moments like that probably should have given me confidence in my own creativity, but they never really did.
Most of my ideas ended up scattered across forgotten Word documents, abandoned folders, forum posts buried beneath thousands of others, or simply lost to time entirely. I rarely documented things properly unless I was collaborating with somebody else. Creativity was always something I did because I loved it, not because I believed it would ever lead anywhere meaningful.
The reality was that I had no portfolio, no public body of work, and no proof that my ideas had value beyond my own enjoyment. I knew I had creativity and passion, but I never truly believed that was enough. A large part of that came from fear -
Fear of criticism.
Fear of failure.
Fear of being judged.
Fear that my ideas were not good enough.
Fear that I would put something into the world only to realise I was never capable of achieving what I imagined.
Creativity can feel deeply personal because in many ways it is a reflection of yourself. When somebody criticises something you created, especially something vulnerable or meaningful to you, it can feel incredibly difficult not to take that personally.
Being both Autistic and having ADHD also meant my mind is constantly fighting itself. I over-analyse everything. I struggle to let mistakes go. I often write myself off before I even begin, and if I am not invested mentally in something, I shut down. I always feared doing things incorrectly, and worried about how my actions might affect other people. For years, those fears stopped me from taking the leap properly, and they sometimes still do. But that's OK, because not everything has to happen at once.
I started countless projects that never went anywhere because I came dangerously close to finishing them, only to become terrified that they would not live up to what I hoped they could be. So I would quietly abandon them before anybody else could decide that for me. Looking back now, I realise how much creativity I kept hidden away simply because I was too afraid to let people see it.
The Moment Everything Changed
In 2023 I became seriously ill with meningitis. It completely changed my perspective on where my life was heading. I lost my job, my health suffered badly, and for the first time in a long time I was forced to stop and think about what I actually wanted from my future. I realised something very quickly. If I did not try now, I probably never would.
For years I had worked jobs that never really suited how my mind worked creatively. I respected the people around me who thrived in those environments, but deep down I always knew I wanted something different. I wanted to create stories, worlds, mechanics and experiences. I wanted to make things that excited people the same way games had excited me throughout my life.
Around that time I decided to make a small custom class mod for Baldur’s Gate 3, mostly just for myself to enjoy during a playthrough with friends. I genuinely expected it to take a few weeks before I moved on to something else. But unlike previous projects, this time I did something different.
I asked for help.
I had previous experience modding Divinity: Original Sin 2 and understood how Larian’s toolkits worked, but Baldur’s Gate 3’s systems were significantly more complex and honestly, I was not fully confident I could tackle them alone. So I made a post asking whether somebody would help me. At first somebody did, and for a while progress moved quickly before things eventually fell through and the project stalled. Normally that would have been the point where I quietly gave up again. But this time I didn’t.
Instead, I decided to post about the project again elsewhere, this time on Reddit, a platform I had barely used before. I had heard all the horror stories about posting creative work online and honestly expected people to ridicule the idea or simply ignore it entirely. Instead, people responded positively. Not only that, people wanted to help build it.
That was the moment Cosmic Vessel truly began.
As more people joined the project, the ideas evolved rapidly. Other creatives started seeing possibilities I had never considered before. Their perspectives, skills and passions transformed the project into something far larger than my original idea ever was. Ironically, almost none of the original version of the class still exists today. But the core feeling behind it does and honestly, I love that.
Letting go of old ideas allowed something much stronger to take their place.
The Reality of Building Something Ambitious
One of the biggest misconceptions about creative projects is that ideas are the difficult part. They are not. Execution is the difficult part.
Ideas are exciting because they exist in their perfect form inside your imagination. Turning those ideas into something functional, cohesive and achievable is where the real challenge begins.
Over the course of developing Cosmic Vessel, hundreds of ideas have been redesigned, rewritten or removed entirely. Mechanics, subclasses, visual concepts, systems, narrative directions and entire pipelines have changed repeatedly as the project evolved. Some ideas were easy to let go of. Others were incredibly difficult. But over time I realised something important; exciting ideas are not always good ideas.
Sometimes something sounds amazing in isolation but completely clashes with the wider experience you are trying to create. Sometimes a mechanic creates unnecessary complexity. Sometimes a visual direction breaks immersion. Sometimes an idea simply does not fit anymore once the surrounding systems evolve.
That process taught me one of the most valuable lessons I have learned creatively: Everything needs intention.
Something being “cool” is not enough on its own. If something exists within a larger project, especially one focused on immersion and storytelling, it needs to feel like part of the same whole. Otherwise it becomes disjointed.
When I experience games, stories or films, I analyse everything constantly. Characters, themes, mechanics, environments, dialogue, symbolism, emotional consistency, pacing; all of it fascinates me. There is a reason I wrote my university dissertation on human behaviour and profiling patterns. I have always been deeply interested in understanding why people connect emotionally to certain experiences.
And I think audiences can absolutely feel when something lacks intention.
They may not always consciously understand why something feels disconnected, but they feel it emotionally. That is why consistency across narrative, gameplay, visuals, atmosphere and music became so important to Cosmic Vessel as development progressed. That does not mean there is no room for spectacle or fun ideas. Of course there is. But if immersion and emotional connection are your goals, those ideas must support the wider experience rather than overpower it.
This mindset allowed me to become far more comfortable with iteration and criticism. Failure stopped feeling like a definitive end and started feeling like an opportunity to learn. If something failed, then there was something valuable to gain from understanding why it failed.
That shift in mindset changed everything for me creatively.
Creativity Does Not Grow Alone
The single biggest thing Cosmic Vessel taught me is that creativity becomes far stronger when shared with other people.
For most of my life, creativity was something private. Cosmic Vessel changed that completely. Seeing talented people voluntarily dedicate their free time to this project has been incredibly humbling. Knowing they believe in the vision of the project and genuinely enjoy working on it means more to me than I can properly put into words. At some point the project stopped feeling like “my mod” and became something much bigger than me. That was both exciting and terrifying.
I realised very quickly that collaboration is not simply about collecting ideas endlessly. Projects need structure, direction and final decisions or they collapse into chaos. But at the same time, creativity needs freedom to grow. Finding that balance has been one of the most important leadership lessons I am still learning every day. Leadership in creative spaces is not about pretending to have all the answers. It is about listening, adapting, supporting people, accepting your own flaws and constantly learning alongside the team around you. That matters deeply to me.
Life is already stressful enough without creative projects becoming another source of pressure. Cosmic Vessel is entirely volunteer-driven and the people involved are giving their free time because they genuinely care about what we are building together. Because of that, I always try to ensure the project remains enjoyable first and foremost. Yes, progress matters. Yes, structure matters. Yes, deadlines and direction matter.
But people matter more.
Some of the strongest ideas in Cosmic Vessel only exist because other people challenged my original concepts and elevated them into something better. Creativity does not emerge from nowhere. Every idea is inspired by something that impacted you previously, whether consciously or subconsciously, and collaboration allows those inspirations to evolve even further. I would never have reached this point alone. And honestly, I would not want to.
What I Want Other Creatives To Understand
If there is one thing I want anybody reading this to take away from my experience, it is this:
Do not let “what might” stop you from “what could”.
If you know in yourself that you truly love creating something, then you owe it to yourself to try. Not because success is guaranteed. Not because everything will magically work out. Not because you will suddenly stop being afraid. But because you will never know what could happen unless you allow yourself to take that first step.
I still doubt myself sometimes. I still overthink things. I still worry whether I am capable of achieving the things I want to create. But I have learned that confidence often comes after action, not before it. And more importantly, I have learned that you do not need to do these things alone. The moment you start sharing your creativity, you begin finding people who connect with it and understand you through it. Some of the strongest friendships and collaborations in my life now only exist because I finally stopped hiding my ideas away.
Even failure became something different once I allowed myself to see it as part of growth rather than proof that I should stop trying.
Take a step back.
Look at your idea at its core.
Ask yourself what excites you about it.
Then take the first small step. Not the entire staircase, just the first step. And if it excites you enough to keep going, chase it.
Cosmic Vessel means everything to me now. Not just because of the project itself, but because of the people behind it and what it represents for all of us creatively.
I hope one day this project stands as proof of what passionate creatives and modders are capable of building together, even without traditional industry backgrounds or huge resources behind them.
And for me personally?
I hope it is only the beginning.
Ash
Creative Director & Project Lead