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Lore and Backstory Reference
I made this page to keep the Game Design Document a little cleaner and more focused on information directly relevant to the game itself. I have a ton of lore and backstory that could be useful but I don't want it making a mess of the official Game Design Document so I've created this page specifically for that type of information. -Ryan
The Divine Texts as interpreted by the Church
Divine Text I – Creation of the World
These are meant to be individualized lore nuggets found and read one at a time as the church's interpretation of the 'scrolls of light' which are ancient altars found in churches or something like that. They are meant to seem bloviated and biblical as if the church wrote them to sound spooky to make people think it's divine or something. It's still a work in progress too, details can certainly change. - Ryan
- Once our world was a lawless place in an endless empty plain resting beneath a great void, where dwelt no living thing until the Architects raised a cradle of mountains around the land and built the blue sky. The Architects then called upon the life-giving power of Galungawa and gave the land reason and purpose, and thus our world, Wudragar, the first of the nine worlds, was born.
- When they saw that Wudrugar was flourishing, the Architects built eight more worlds in the same fashion and called them Lisfarin, Ylgwyl, Gwyndol, Gremdalor, Winri, Tak, Zirzor and Zo; and together the nine worlds comprised the great nation of Faerark and thrived in harmony and abundance; yet still the Architects sought to calm the restless plain beyond. Calling upon the life-giving power of Balumbawa, they gave the endless plain reason and purpose, and they called this place Galgathar.
- The Architects saw the living creations of Balumbawa inhabiting the once barren land of Galgathar and they were pleased and intended to build their great kingdom there, but Chaos sent from the void an orb of metal which touched Galgathar with a great fire and sickness that corrupted and angered Balumbawa and turned its creations into demons who sought to unmake the nine worlds of the Architects.
- To save the people of Faerark from the demonic forces of Balumbawa, the Architects sealed the Divine Gates at the ends of each of the nine worlds, never to open them again, and the great nation of Faerark was no more and the nine worlds became forever estranged.
- The disciples of the Architects righteously followed their Divine Teachings for many generations after the fall of Faerark, and Galungawa rewarded them with abundance and long life until a scourge of blasphemers and heretics rebuked the Divine Teachings and tried foolishly to destroy the scrolls of light which contained them, but the righteous people of Wudragar stood against the heretics with sword and spear and the world came to be ruled by Chaos for a dozen generations until Galungawa became restless and the sky became hostile and the soil infertile.
- When an impoverished farmer named Boarheart saw that his field was barren and his animals were starving, he begged Galungawa for mercy and salvation for the embattled soul of Wudragar, and Galungawa was merciful and sent unto Boarheart a blessing in the form of a glorious violet fowl whose immense feathered tail shone with ever shifting colors he had never before seen, and the fowl looked into his bewildered eyes and spoke a language his ears had never before heard yet his mind understood: ‘Boarheart, scour all of the regions of this world and seek the ruined temples and salvage from their depths what remain of the scrolls of light which contain the Divine Teachings of the Architects of old and with their great wisdom calm the restless spirit of Galungawa and unify the people of Wudragar, lest the land should eventually become death.’
- So Boarheart left his farm and embarked across the lands of Wudragar and for sixty-six years searched for the scrolls of light until he had found each of them and learned to understand the words of the Architects inscribed therein and taught them to people who would become his disciples and go unto their own tribes and villages and share with them the revelations of the Architects.
Adderlily: A carnivorous vine that contains the ‘berserked’ gene. Some varieties are poisonous.
Bandit: Human enemies who come in many varieties. They are wanted by the law or have been deemed heretics and criminals for their misdeeds and untrustworthiness. Their having been ostracized from society gives them no choice but to pursue a life of dastardly crime, making them some of the prime targets for the Deputies. The player will find no shortage of bandits in the land of Wudragar. They may swordfight using movements similar to the player's.
Landlouse: Landlice are parasitic arthropod type creatures who carry the ‘berserked’ gene. They are small, quick, carnivorous and aggressive in their larval form when they hatch from their eggs which are carried in the bodies of adult landlice. When fully mature, adults develop fertile eggs asexually and then bury their entire head in the ground (like a tick does on skin) and start drinking nutrients straight from the soil. This can kill plants and trees and may sometimes destroy crops or gardens. As it drinks it grows and will more than quadruple in size before its death at which point it will explode into goop and its eggs will drop, hatching quickly and releasing multiple aggressive larva at once.
Scuttler: Scuttlers are the descendants of people who became ‘berserked’ long ago. Over time berserked humans were mostly eradicated on the surface world but many had been driven into the deep, dark and unfathomably huge cave and maintenance tunnel systems beneath the bubbles. For thousands of years they have lived and reproduced and writhed in the darkness below the bubbles, evolving and changing genetically to reflect their berserked and deranged state physically as well as mentally. They are blind as their eyes are not needed in the dark but they can hear and smell exceptionally and are very fast when climbing or ‘scuttling’ though dark caves.
(0X – 1200X) The first bubble was originally built to protect the ancients from the harsh environment of the outside world. It was a carefully balanced enclosed ecosystem to house the ancients while they terraformed the world outside. They released a synthetic terraforming life force to transform the harsh ecosystem and climate of the planet outside the bubble. Its intent would be to quickly grow, spread and evolve to do whatever it had to do to get the planet to a habitable state for humans in a relatively short timeframe. It would create analogs to low level life forms such as moss, mold, worms and fungi that would evolve to take whatever complex shapes they needed to produce the organic materials and gases necessary to build a healthy atmosphere and reach the desired climate across the entire planet.
For some time, the ancients lived peacefully inside the first bubble while their terraforming artificial life force constructed their intended future habitat outside. They went on to build eight additional bubbles to accommodate their growing population and flourishing natural ecosystems that would eventually become a network interconnected by an underground transportation system. Everything worked well for many centuries and the bubbles thrived for quite some time, but one day the people and animals inside them started getting sick and dying or in some cases becoming ‘berserked’, causing them to turn a dull shade of purple or gray and become enraged and uncontrollably violent.
As the plague swept the bubbles, terrifying bugs and dangerous monsters started appearing and the ancients came to a frightening realization: the synthetic life force outside the bubbles was manifesting hostile lifeforms that were attacking the human and animal life inside the bubbles. The life force that was supposed to efficiently create a world perfectly suited for humans had instead become its own separate evolutionary force in direct competition with humans and it was trying to eradicate their entire ecosystem and genome. It had evolved rapidly and unpredictably to be malevolent against them.
(1200X – 3200X) Having no other choice, they retrofitted the bubbles to be stronger with thicker walls and more advanced systems to keep out the hostile life and sustain the life inside for much longer than originally planned (they did this by combining the life and resource of one of the bubbles, Zo, into the other eight, an event known as the Assimilation of Zo). For a very long time they continued to live in relative peace in the eight remaining bubbles as they researched and fought and tried different strategies for taking back control of the synthetic life force outside but as centuries wore on it became difficult, expensive, and often dangerous to run missions outside or even to travel between bubbles. The bubbles became increasingly isolated from one another and started forming their own identities, each one having its own unique problems and gradually forming its own opinions, beliefs and culture. With the bubbles becoming increasingly individualized and unrestful they began turning on each other, grasping for control over power, technology and resources, having disputes and small wars amongst them. Some attempted to shut themselves off from the network entirely while others engaged in terrorism or espionage, making power grabs, launching attacks through the gates or via the train. Eventually there was no more communication between bubbles. A given bubble would have to be sealed and isolated completely or it would succumb to war or to the hostile life force outside, either way eventually becoming defunct.
Over the course of millennia, the bubbles gradually deteriorated. Some were destroyed from the inside by their own citizens squabbling and damaging the eco-balance of their bubble irreparably or over consuming its resource. Others were destroyed by outside forces beyond their control such as seismic or volcanic activity, or a breach by the hostile lifeforce outside.
(3200X – 8000X) As the bubbles aged, they would show wear and tear which would be continually repaired and maintained by advanced automated technological systems operating at every level of the bubbles’ complex infrastructures, but as the technologies themselves aged the bubbles couldn’t properly repair themselves or keep their precariously balanced ecosystems healthy. For thousands of years each bubble became defunct here and there for one reason or another until there were only two left, Wudragar and Ylgwyl. These are the two we will explore in this story.
In the forgotten age the ancients built a complex society that spanned the eight interconnected bubbles that remained after the assimilation of Zo. They were a scientific people who operated at a high degree of efficiency and their society was fairly prosperous, peaceful, and comfortable for most people in spite of the looming malevolent force of their own creation locked outside their network of artificial habitats. For centuries citizens could freely travel between the bubbles, exploring their various ecosystems, visiting friends and family in different bubbles and trading goods and resources. The underground train system was the heart and soul of their society, allowing fast, free travel for citizens of every bubble. Life in the bubbles was luxurious and citizens were healthy and long lived.
The ancients rarely got sick or died of diseases known to modern man. They had largely modified their genetics, eliminating many diseases and almost all cancers. They also had advanced medical machines that could cure or treat many things that they couldn’t fix genetically and artificial wombs that allowed them to better regulate their populations without need for pregnancies. People could live to be 200 – 300 years old if they were health conscience and healthcare was considered fundamental to life in the bubbles, as was education.
Because they were educated and long-lived, they were able to maintain and even gradually advance their technology for almost 2,000 years within the safety of the bubbles, but they were never able to claim the outside world and eventually their progress stalled. Many bubbles started developing system failures and people or machines who knew how to solve such problems were becoming scarce or non-existent in some bubbles. As time wore on and resource was consumed, life in the bubbles grew hard. It was at this point that the first of the bubbles started becoming defunct. Ecosystems were starting to fall out of balance in some bubbles and famine resulted. As the bubbles’ ecosystems became increasingly strained, major automated systems began failing in certain bubbles at which point the first of them became defunct, with two more following in rapid succession.
‘Wudragar’ is the tentative name of the first world we explore in this story and may be referred to as Wudragar or Bubble1 since it is essentially our game's "World 1". 'Wudragar' is the church's name for Bubble1 and the oldest known surviving name for it, though the ancients probably would have called it something different. It is one of only two bubbles that have survived up to the point at which our story takes place.
When the first three bubbles failed (leaving only five functioning) and the age of great despair had begun, the citizenry was panicking and widespread response to the failing bubbles was harsh and reactionary. Radical political forces rose up and took hold in several bubbles and war was breaking out. As a result, Wudragar (Bubble1) sealed itself off from the rest of the network, shutting down their train access, barricading the train depot and gates and ceasing all transmissions to other bubbles, never to interact with them again.
In spite of the best efforts of the leaders of Wudragar to maintain power and keep their scientific traditions intact, interest in the old ways was waning with time. Technologies were failing, some becoming lost to time as people were forgetting how to repair or operate the machines and the basic nature of the technology wasn’t clearly understood by very many living people anymore.
The last few generations of leaders and scientists in Wudragar that still believed in the old ways and saw the importance of keeping their world sealed away from the world outside built megalithic structures to surround and seal off technological components that were key to interfacing with the bubble’s security systems. These structures were designed to be difficult to navigate and impossible to penetrate by force and full of traps and dead ends to keep random people or bandits or even future governments from messing with the ancient technology for fear that someone unworthy of such responsibility might someday foolishly open the gates or activate the train and let the evil in.
Eventually the unified scientific traditions of the Home Bubble gave way completely to different interpretations of the ancient writings. Some people had come to see these ancient stories about a society living in bubbles to escape a malevolent evil force as ancient superstition or mere fairy tales, while others had come to see them as religious writings and sacred texts. Others still saw the powers of the ancients as abominable magic and their mathematical symbols as dangerous incantations.
The world inside the Home Bubble had become divided and this division led their small society to splinter into various even smaller factions. For hundreds of years these factions waged disputes and wars on one another, the bubble always dividing into new territories with ever shifting borders. It was at this point that a new power arose, a religion based around a belief system that would gradually become the dominant religion of the people of Wudragar, The Church of Galungawa.
There had been numerous religions over the years based on the ancient writings; some viewed them as holy texts and tried to preserve them while others saw them as the works of devils and witches and tried to destroy them, thus many texts were lost and many were hidden in ancient temples and caves.
After centuries of war and reckless squandering of resource the home bubble fell out of balance with harsh weather changes and famine and the people grew fearful that their world was ending much like their small sister worlds from their ancient legends. The Church of Galungawa seized on this opportunity to take power, whipping up a movement based around restoring order and returning to the old ways as they were written about in ancient times. This became a popular idea and the Church was able to gradually take control of the large majority of Wudragar through religious influence by gaining the zealous and widespread support of civilians and militia groups from various factions who would be conditioned by the church to violently destroy opposition and dissent. This scouring went on for centuries and was remembered by many as a brutal and horrific war but was deemed by the Church as ‘The Great Salvaging’, and incidentally it did ultimately lead to the restoration of Wudragar under the rule of the church.
The Church believed that following the old writings was the only way to fix their broken society and restore balance to their small world (and they were technically right but not in exactly the way they thought). Going near any ancient structures or fooling around with ancient artifacts was made illegal and was highly punishable. According to the ancient writings, the old Temples housed divine artifacts that allowed the Ancients to control the state of the world or call upon the power of the old god Galungawa to open the Divine Gates that had been sealed to keep out Balumbawa, the Great Evil. Should these gates be opened and this evil let in, it could destroy their world.
Most people couldn’t read the ancient language and only the Church had the legal authority to decide who was qualified to interpret the ancient texts. The citizenry would read from Church approved interpretations of the texts cobbled together from surviving ancient scrolls of light (the Scrolls of the Elder Boarheart) and tablets that were in the Church’s possession. Any groups that operated outside the Church or challenged its power were deemed illegal heretic groups and considered enemies of the Church.
At this point in time the people of Wudragar had no memory of the nature of the bubble or its technology or the world beyond, and no understanding of the scope of events referenced in the ancient writings. Very few questioned the size of the world anymore as most people were peasants or farmers and didn’t travel. Those who were wealthy enough to travel still could only do so by primitive means and most people didn’t have the gear to scale the mountains and cliffs surrounding their world, and the dense forests and swamps had become dangerous and wild, and so their society had become fairly rooted into the temperate and more easily traversed regions of the bubble. The climate had mostly stabilized in those regions and the weather was usually fair. The land was becoming fertile again and farming was becoming more prolific, and with time most of the average citizenry came to see the Church as having saved their society from the failing climate. The common civilian saw life under the Church as simple, fair and comfortable and so the teachings of the Church would continue to be the primary basis for their society for a very long time to come.