Thanks for the pointer!

And speaking of Cyradon, I guess there are some conceptual parallels ... Anwyn is a little more "anything goes", right? The core story of Cyradon is pretty nailed down (you arrive and have to carve out a place for yourself), while in Anwyn, that part has already happened, and I guess now you're looking around to see what else is there to find.

In Cyradon, I wanted it to be a stand-alone small continent, but I was kinda over ruled on that. It was supposed to be they had arrived and set up, in the city where they arrived, and then started moving outward, but things kep being added to it

What I like best about Anwyn is that I got to do it all myself.

I started with the premise of "What if a mystic isle that disappeared and re-appeared every so often was actually there? and also, "What if the myths we knew were true, but mangled stories that changed over time?"

Hy Brasil a celtic island is thusly transformed into a city called Hyb Rasil  And the Tuatha De Danaan are actually the D'Anui from Tir Tuath......

And the Celtic otherlands thus become regions on Anwyn (which basically is the Celtic Otherlands).....

And since it was floating through the dimensions, it touched (and was colonized many times) many worlds and many peoples....

Then this group of gods found it, and said, "Hey! Let's fix it in one place (this likely took them a few centuries or milennia to do) and this process fixed the portals/Gates to the Esker Highlands. and on the opposite side of the spectrum, Ilthach has connections to the lower planes, while the Faeirie Mountains has connections to some of the upper planes, where the Fay come from....

Their final act was to gather these peoples and bring them together Most settled in Tir Tuath, the Odavi kept themselves separate, and they started building (or rebuilding cities that they had already found built but abandoned......  They set out to explore,  first sending their ships to get a feel for the size of their land (they soon found trying to simply sail away returned them back),

so they got the outer outline and once they have stabilized their own cultures, started exploring (a task for the young and foolish..... hence we do not have any 300 year old adventurers...

Reading FX, I have a few questions about Anwyn:

Anwyn is still a work in progress, BUT, you can ready what I have so far here ---> https://anwyn.firehawkgames.biz/index.html (there is a link to in the Novus Second Edition section on the left -- I should make that its own section... and thinking about it, likely will once I am done answering your questions....

this has not only everything I have written for it so far, but there are also maps of Anwyn and of the major cities....

The gods brought the 9 playable Kin to Anwyn - but what about the peoples from the bestiary like giants, goblins, redcaps, ogres and similar intelligent creatures? Have they been brought along? Or are they native to Anwyn (or have been brought there previously)?

Part of the history of the setting is that in certain sections, especially the Esker Highlands, there are hundreds, if not thousands or portals that open randomly, allowing creatures, peoples and things to come through. The 9 races are not even the first to settle Anwyn  There have been other settlements in the past, so there are plenty of ruins, but no telling who they were or where they come from.

It's the year 130 CE - does that mean that all the playable kin have been brought to Anwyn only 130 years ago? Or is the calendar based on some other event? 130 years seems really short, there shout be a lot of the long-living kins who lived the greater part of their lifes on the old world. Maybe something like 300 years would be better, also to have more "past" for the playable kin to explore? (I know that there's the past of other kin, but the characters are pretty much by definition disconnected from it.)

Yes, they were delivered to  Anwyn 130 years ago. Yes, elders from the more long lived races do remember their homelands (it was trying to get back to them  that caused some of the elves to try a ritual which failed and ended up creating the Grey Elves.

Part of the idea of the setting is that all of the races are disconnected from their pasts. There were others on Anwyn in the pasts before the deities (which are found starting on page 182 of Fantasy Express).

Part of the reason for it only being 130 years is that it allows for them to establish themselves, but still early enough that they have not fully explored their new world.

How Kitchen Sink is the cosmology? The gods aren't named, and there's talk of demons and devils (who seem to be separate categories of demons) - is it "all in", or is there a bigger picture about what, e.g., demons and devils actually are and how they relate (or not) to the gods?

They are named on page 182 of Fantasy Express. As for how Demons and Devils relate to deities, start looking on page 185, with the section on planar cosmology. I even have a nifty picture that I made...

By the way, the cosmology of the drifting continent that is linked to other worlds through portals that actually stabilize its protection bubble is kind of cool - it's very easy to picture and yet something I haven't seen done before quite like this.

I wanted something that was self contained (did not want to make a FULL world -- we did that when creating the Cyradon setting for HARP way back in the day, and I did not like the results - we ended up with too much backstory),

Ohhhh.. or what if I left gender out completely? Rework the descriptions to be neutral (i.e. not he and not she), then the player of just a Pregen fills in the gender themselves?

Like so...

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I think that's the best way to go! Most fantasy names could be male or female, anyway, and if you just leave it open, it's quite clear that anyone can just fill in the box (and their picture of the character) any way they want and that the sex of the character doesn't matter for gaming purposes.

EDIT: When describing pregens, you could also always go for a description in the 2nd person instead of the 3rd (you are a wood elf from the neighboring forests of Aelftyr ...), since the whole thing is a player handout, anyway.

Thanks for the explanation, that's understandable.
These days, I often just roll a die when designing NPC without a clear idea of whether they should be male or female ... I do think it's still relevant occassionally breaking up a stereotype or two, and that having more or less equal representation in RPGs can help; and I do think it's better if players who don't happen to be male don't get the wrong message that them wanting to play someone of their sex (or male players wanting to play female characters) are a "special case".

Maybe if you don't feel coomfortable designing female PC, you could ask some of your players.

And when I'm finally ready to get into the nitty-gritty of the rules with my reading, I'll make sure to join the Beta playtest group!

Okay, I'll be "that guy" and ask a quick question about the quickstart: I've only given it a cursory read as of now, but I took a closer look at the pregens, and ... why are all of them male? I mean, it's probably clear to that you can always change a character's sex, anyway, but why do the descriptions explicitly state the character being male in every single case?