A World A Day?
As other people are doing "Something23", typically, Dungeon23, where they design a new room for a mega-dungeon, I decided to try doing a world a day -- create a paragraph or two to describe worlds discovered by BREACH or others, but which are not written up in detail. We'll see how long I can go, as "finishing things" is not really, well, my thing.
Originally, this was just on one page, but a week in, I realized that would rapidly become unreadable, as would finding new entries if I wanted to do any categorization. So now, I am going to revise this so even the simplest of worlds gets an article, which I can expand later if desired.
January
Trilobite Tidepool 1/1/2023
A Cambrian island in a stormy sea.
Furnace Creek 1/2/2023
The sun is red; the seas are dead.
Emerald Dunes 1/3/2023
A desert of green quicksand, torn by flesh-stripping sandstorms.
Wertham 1/4/2023
Imagination has been outlawed.
Thoth 1/5/2023
An alchemical accident sets Egypt on the path to gunpowder and the early iron age.
Gormenghastly 1/6/2023
An infinite castle, infinitely abandoned. Or... is it?
Archipelago 4 1/7/2023
It was the perfect 'beach party' world... until they tested the water.
Carrotopia 1/8/2023
A world remade by vanished gods... to produce carrots for a vanished empire.
Tunguska 2 1/9/2023
When the imperial powers of the early 20th century die in a day of fire, new imperial powers battle to replace them. (What, me cynical?)
Kaiju-3 1/10/2023
A giant electric squid just rampaged through London. What, again? Whatever. Hey, who won the game?
De Forest 1/11/2023
Transistors -- and other semi-conductor based components -- just don't work. The world runs on vacuum tubes, slide rules, and long division.
Moreau 1/12/2023
The Great War rages, fought by patchwork men and sapient beasts.
Ahab-2 1/13/2023
The whales have had enough.
Alexandria 1/14/2023
The steam age began around 100 AD.
Morlock 1/15/2023
The underbelly of... something, a maze of pipes and passages, guarded by relentless foes.
Lightning Crystals 1/16/2023
Technicolor sands, constant storms. 0/5, do not recommend.
Gloaming 1/17/2023
The sun is forever just below the horizon, and the creatures of the night fear it no more.
Chicken Coop 1/18/2023
Get an industrial deep fryer. And a coffin.
Dino-Rome 1/19/2023
Romans. Dinosaurs. What more do you need?
Archipelago-2 1/20/2023
Algae. Jellyfish (barely). What less do you need?
Houdini 1/21/2023
Magic has returned, and the Roaring 20s are louder than ever.
Bibliophile 1/22/2023
A media-lovers paradise.
Astor 1/23/2023
The Titanic misses an iceberg, and man walks on the moon in 1957.
Haley-2 1/24/2023
Comets were often seen as portents of doom. They were right.
Gloriana 1/25/2023
In the year 1776, the colonies begin rebellion against Queen Elizabeth I.
Logan 1/26/2023
A bioweapon kills anyone over 25. The world belongs to the young.
Atlantis-1 1/27/2023
When the Mediterranean was dry, civilization thrived.
The Floating World 1/28/2023
A mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a thousand worldlets.
Slushball 1/31/2023
The world froze at the dawn of life, and never thawed.
February
The Mudpits 2/1/2023
A pocket universe where a relaxing retreat has seen better days.
Rigid 2/3/2023
Bad news: No cell phones, hand calculators, or disposable syringes. Good news: No rayon leisure seats.
Corvid 2/4/2023
The mammals lost. The birds won.
The Jade Sphinx 2/6/2023
A giant statue, alone in the desert.
Tranquility 2/7/2023
A question from the heavens, crying in vain for an answer.
Gibson-4 2/10/2023
A strange mineral creates the 'brains' for personal robots at the turn of the 20th century. What could go wrong?
Conestoga-2 2/11/2023
Same spot. Different timeline.
Cyberiad 2/12/2023
Harold Godwinson slays William at Hastings with a monofilament sword...
Ahab-1 2/13/2023
The first Fictive Worlds discovered.
Bard 2/14/2023
The Bard, barred.
The Glass Ravine 2/15/2023
A ruined mining complex, revealing the scope of an ancient war.
Yeti Mountain 2/16/2023
Just what it says on the tin.
Sargasso-3 2/17/2023
A lost fleet in a lost world.
Inca-3 2/18/2023
The Not-So-Little Ice Age Allows for Incan Expansion
Reptilian Redwoods 2/19/2023
A meteor misses; life continues to find a way.
Sauria-2 2/20/2023
A meteor doesn't miss, but the mammals still didn't make it.
Butterfly Museum 2/21/2023
Exactly what it says on the tin.
Armageddon Minus Five 2/22/2023
Five years to the end.
Song-1 2/23/2023
A chance discovery during the Song Dynasty gives China iron airships and an expansionist Empire.
Skating Rink 2/24/2023
A frictionless maze.
The Wall 2/25/2023
A shrine to ancient and forgotten... kings? Gods? Heroes?
March
Summerisle 3/1/2023
Will King Charles III botch the solstice executions? The Sun is there!
Russian Territories 3/2/2023
Russia never sold off Alaska, and controls the Pacific coast down to San Francisco.
RUINs 3/3/2023
A collection of RUINs (Radioactive, Unknown Inhabitants)
Churn 3/4/2023
A Bridge over troubled... something.
Yggsdrasil 3/5/2023
A lifeform the size of a continent, with civilizations in its branches.
Luther 3/6/2023
England fell to Spain in 1588.
Darwin-1 3/7/2023
By the shores of the Topeka sea, life flourishes. Is humanity long gone, or did it ever exist?
Tourist Trap 3/8/2023
Come visit exotic Earth! Mostly Harmless!
Kermit 3/9/2023
Hop on over!
Slugland 3/10/2023
Mmmm.... slug bacon....
Rustfields 3/11/2023
The ruins of the machines of war, sans corpses.
Atlantis-3 3/12/2023
Under the sea, under the sea...
Fracture-1 3/13/2023
Two Worlds, One Cup
Romero-5 3/14/2023
Zombies, for Sale or Rent
Infinite Worlds, Finite Resources
Over the years since the
Breach Stabilizer came into wide use, many worlds have been discovered. Only a small percentage have been explored to any extent. Many simply get a notation of what's visible through the breach, possibly with some additional insight provided by drones, if they survive. Sometimes, an explorer will jump in, wander a few minutes, and come back. It's certainly true that breach site conditions rarely reflect the world as a whole, and that vast and interesting realities may be filed and forgotten because a breach opened into a barren or uninteresting locale. Resources being what they are, though, it's often not worth supporting a full expedition to travel a hundred or more miles in an unknown direction in search of more, not when there are so many worlds that are known to contain useful phenomenon but which remain grievously under-studied.
Some worlds are very, very, intriguing, and demand deep exploration, such as Thoth, but they are pending appropriately-skilled teams. Some, like Wertham, might have been better explored if they were among the earlier worlds discovered, but now, they are 'dog bites man'. Some have known risks outweighing the rewards, such as Emerald Dunes, while others have risks still being assessed, such as Archipelago 4.
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