my_text_data/writings/fantasy_world.md

WORK IN PROGRESS

This is a description of an original fantasy world that can server as a framework for other works such as books or games.

General

The world tries to correspond to the real world in many aspects so that basic concepts stay the same: for example the length of day and year are the practically the same as in real world so that the in the universe the words "day" and "year" exist with the same meanings. The world also has one Sun and sky similar to the real sky so that it is easier to e.g. make fan movies without requiring editing of the sky. This friendliness to derivative art, simplicity and correspondence to real world is part of the general spirit of this work.

Canon: material in this text is only a guideline, and outline, a helper that should serve artists create specific works. Therefore, this text doesn't make any part of the lore canon. The official canon should only be derived from material present in the specific works. E.g. if some historical event is described in this text here, it's not canon yet; but when the event appears described in a book in a game from this universe, it becomes canon.

Universe

At the scale of humans the physics resembles our Universe closely, however the physical laws of the real-world universe /(energy conservation, relativity, quantum field theory, even Darwinian evolution etc.) don't necessarily apply.

The whole universe may consist of multiple worlds.

The Base World (TODO: some name?)

This world can be likened to a planet, although it's a bit different conceptually from the planets in our real Universe. From the point of view of the beings on this planet things look practically the same as on real life Earth -- there is Sun, Moon, stars, day, night, years and so on.

The geometry of the world is a sphere that's inside itself, i.e. a non-Euclidean space.

               ____a
           .-''    ''-.
          /S           \
         |     -''-b    |
        (     (    )     )
         |     '--'     |
          \_          _/
            '-.____.-'

a is an imaginary border sphere that is identical to b, i.e. b contains the whole a, including itself, and so on.

Gravity pulls everything towards this world border ab, i.e. there is accumulated solid matter alongside ab, forming kind of a hollow earth (inside which it contains itself) -- the word earth can be used within this world with the same meaning as it has in our real life. This planet therefore has two sides which form two surfaces:

• the outside: The outer surface of the planet, normal living beings live here, the environment is similar to Earth.
• the inside (also sky): The inner surface of the planet, hostile, appears as a sky to the outside world. Being on this surface is like being inside the world sphere. This world is taken to be uninhabited as it's extremely hostile, the surface is all just very hot black ash.

These two surfaces also have symbolic meanings: the outside is connected to life, light, water, while the inside is connected to death, void, darkness and fire. But while tempting to make the connection, this is not necessarily a good vs evil interpretation, the symbolism is perhaps more similar to the yin yang, i.e. the eastern philosophy of balance: both parts of the world are necessary and equally good in this sense. There are additionally two important terms:

• the singularity: The point at the center of the world sphere.
• the infinity: The space infinitely far from the center in all directions.

S is the Sun. The sun is a huge hot ball that's crashed and stuck in the inside wall of the world sphere (but doesn't go all the way to the other side), it shines on the outside surfaces. Stars are similar to the Sun but are much smaller, scattered all across the inside of the sphere.

The inside and outside are separated by a liquid layer of hot lava deep under ground and are moving (rotating) relatively to each other. This causes the sky to rotate around the outside world, allowing for Sun and stars to move above different parts of the outside world, creating cycles of days, years and so on. We will now talk about the movement of the Sun, but bear in mind the Sun itself isn't moving, it is the whole inside sphere that rotates.

The Sun doesn't just move along a circle over the sky, but follows a complex curve that over time makes it visit the whole surface of the sky and which doesn't create any privileged world axis tied to the Sun's motion. The cause of this movement pattern is not known. The Sun's path description follows:

1. At the first level the Sun rotates about an axis A1 at a frequency of one rotation per day. This creates the day-night cycle.
2. The axis A1 itself furthermore rotates about an axis A2, which is always perpendicular to A1, at a frequency of one rotation of per N days, where N is the number of days in the year. This creates the year cycle. Axes A1 and A2 together give rise to four points on the sphere without changing seasons, 2 hot (Sun always travels through the highest sky point). Let's call these two spots the hot spots.
3. Furthermore, the axis A2 rotates about an axis A3, which is perpendicular to A2, at a rate of one rotation per N years. This axis makes the hot spots move very slowly, following a great circle. This creates a cycle we can call an age, and which takes N years.
4. Furthermore, axis A3 rotates about an axis A4, which is perpendicular to A3, at a rate of one rotation per N ages. This makes the axis of hot spot travel rotate, and creates a long cycle we can call an epoch, which takes N * N years.
5. And so on until infinity, i.e. there is infinitely many of these axes, but the later axes are hardly noticeable as the rotations about them are extremely slow.

TODO: Moon (and its phases)

Formation of this world is not exactly known, but a speculation is that in the past there was an explosion in the singularity that threw fire in all directions while at the same time rain and ice came down from the direction of infinity -- the two elements met at the borders of the world and created an early version of the world as it is today; fire scorched the outside of the sphere, making it black, hot and devoid of any life, while rain coming from the other direction cooled down the earth, created an atmosphere, oceans and conditions for life. Sun and stars likely came with the fire from the singularity.

An important aspect of this space is that objects crossing the world border ab get bigger or smaller. I.e. if a man living on the outside surface would dig through the ground downwards, he would get to the inside world, i.e. come out of the "sky", then if he forced himself against gravity further inside (e.g. with a rocket) back to the ("smaller") outside world, he would have made himself bigger; a giant to other beings living on the outside. But this is practically impossible to do, though the world may have legends about it happening in the past.

There may potentially exist more world that are similar in structure, i.e. spheres as the one described here, possibly with differences like a big crack in the mantle instead of the Sun etc. -- each such sphere is kind of a world bubble inside the whole Universe of existence, they may be connected by some kind of "teleportation" or space warping. These world bubbles are also called planets in this Universe.

Races

TODO

• Humans:
• Orcs: Orcs are one with nature.
• Dwarves:
• "rhino" people?
• "eagle" people?

Magic

Magic is something like "the force". It has a physical explanation: there is energy everywhere, even in emptiness, and this energy is arranged in structures that are in balance, so the energy doesn't manifest itself under normal circumstances. Magic means manipulating this structure so that the energy is unleashed, like when a gentle touch can unleash a great force if it is applied to a heave object balanced in an unstable position.

Names

TODO