Warpriest

Drafting office · Sheet 01

Warpriest draws the curved paths things follow.

A thrown stone, a moon and a comet all follow curves that bend toward a larger mass. The same few rules shape every one of those curves. Warpriest is a small drafting office that makes those rules visible: illustrated field guides, a working orbit simulator, and figures where every dimension carries its label.

Open the orbit lab Read the field guide
A F Warpriest · Sheet 01
Fig. 01. Four orbits share one focus, F. Dimension A is the semi-major axis of the outermost orbit.

What the office makes

Three drawings, one subject

Each piece of work answers the same question from a different angle. Why does a curved path keep its shape, and what changes when the speed or the distance changes?

Fig. A

Field guides

Short illustrated explanations of curved motion. Each guide opens with one picture and one question, then builds the rule behind it one labelled step at a time.

Read the field guide

Fig. B

The orbit lab

A working simulator of four bodies around one sun. Set the speed, step through time, switch on the orbit paths and watch each body keep to its own ellipse.

Open the orbit lab

Fig. C

A glossary of terms

Period, focus, eccentricity and mean anomaly are defined in plain words. Each entry explains what the term measures before it gives the formula.

Go to the glossary

Working principles

How the office draws

Draw before describing.
A labelled sketch shows a relation faster than a paragraph does. We start with the figure, then write the text that matches it.
Name the model.
Every simulation rests on assumptions. The orbit lab states its own: two bodies at a time, no drag, and no bodies pulling on one another.
Keep units visible.
A dimension without a unit is a guess. When the unit is a model unit, the page says so, and no figure claims to describe a real system.
Leave room for the next question.
A good drawing leaves space around the figure. The pages point to one another where a reader is likely to want the next step.

Sheet index

Five sheets

  1. 01 Home

    The office, its purpose and the principles it draws by.

  2. 02 Orbit lab

    The simulator: four bodies, a speed control, a step button and the parameter table behind them.

  3. 03 Field guide

    Kepler's three laws with diagrams, and a glossary of the terms used across the site.

  4. 04 About

    Who the office is for, what it will not publish, and why it is called Warpriest.

  5. 05 Contact

    Write to the office with corrections, questions about a figure, and ideas for the lab.