Project Mainframe!

The Rain World AU created by Yourcrazyboyokris! In a boiling city preserved by the passages of time, a confused slugcat by the name of Scholar searches for both a pearl and their purpose, but finds more than they came for.

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New subregion! This one mainly focuses and themes around the purposed organisms designed for beauty, living in glass boxes.

Forgotten Gallery

A large structure created with the purpose of acting as a zoo or art museum of sorts. Glass boxes line the walls, containing beautiful creatures, some dead due to thirst or starvation, some plucked down to bone by other creatures, some alive, and some thriving. Many of these enclosures either have desperate scratch marks, usually containing weak or deceased creatures, while others are shattered, their inhabitants roaming the grounds. Nevertheless, all of the containers were made to contain nothing but their inhabitants, meaning no items, food, or entertainment can be found.

Creatures!

Rose lizard / getaway prevention system A lizard specifically designed to meet the ancient’s idea of beauty and elegance. Unfortunately, part of their ideas of lizard grace was sharp claws. Using a charge attack similar to a green or caramel lizard, they leap through the air and attempt to land on you and slice you with their claws. Getting sliced will temporarily weaken your speed and spear damage, but repetition results in random Hunter-like stuns, exhaustion, and sloppier crafting (Less durability or effect). This happens with all slicing and piercing creature attacks, and can be nullified by using self-made bandages or resting in a shelter. Getting slice damage inflicted too many times without treatment will make you drop to the floor out of exhaustion more and more often until you die. This way, even if you can escape from a creature’s grasp, you’re never going to get out without some damage. Rose lizards are typically very agile, able to keep up the same pace as the player.

Kintsugi moth

A passive creature in the form of a moth. There are multiple varieties of these moths, all ranging from any shade of black, white, and grey. These moths sport extravagant golden line patterns that swirl along their bodies. They are prey animals and will eat batflies, leeches, and plant life. They can usually be found flying around with food folded in their arms with the goal of storing large amounts of food in their dens to survive the harsh climate and little foliage, and they will drop these items when stunned. Unfortunately, they have heightened senses allowing them to hear and see you from a while away. Giving them food will raise your reputation with them, meaning they will sometimes drop you two food items that they consider a meal, which can unfortunately include leeches. Killing them will lower your reputation, and most moths will fly away immediately upon sensing your presence. Occasionally, their pupae can be found hanging a short distance from ceilings, looking like larger, taller green blue fruits. Grabbing and eating them will grant you 1 food pip, but taking one to your shelter and hibernating with it will result in two babies, each giving you 2 food pips. If an adult spots you carrying the pupae or newly-emerged moths, your reputation will drop by a large margin. Throwing an alive baby to an adult will raise your reputation by the amount lost +10. Infant moths cannot be found in the wild, due to them being kept in their guardian’s shelter.

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Apologies if the entries seem kinda random by the way! I’m just writing down what I already have and I was just going with my flow of thoughts to be honest :3

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Next up, something that’s gonna be REALLY important later ;3

Environmental Counterfeit Observatory / ECO

A highly complex simulated ecosystem designed to allow ancients nostalgia of the world they left behind with picture-perfect replications of the world before the iterators, ecology using Ai that perfectly captures the bodies and minds of most creatures, and to simulate what it would be like to be down there as any organism. It works like Safari Mode, where you can place your conscious mind into it to observe the surface’s inhabitants or see what it’s like to become one. Over time, much of its memory has been corrupted, but if used, can scan your mind for any previously-visited locations. Because of this, it can also be used to map new routes in any regions you find, learn the land and the creatures in it, and much more. Unfortunately, it isn’t without flaws. When Flare gets too hot, ECO will use protective measures to prevent overheating, turning off all simulations it is currently running in favor of focusing on cooling itself down. If it is being used at this time, your mind will be practically deleted, and will never return. Because of this, safety measures were put in place to immediately put your mind back into your real body once ECO starts to shut down. However, nobody was ever in ECO when it overheats, and the safety measure was made mostly in fear of the pain someone would be in once the cycle restarts. They never thought it would get rid of the cycles entirely. ————————————— But alas, that is but the description of its purpose. There’s still the entire voiding REGION >:3

Region

The part of ECO located in the city is only a small fraction of what it really is. In reality, it is constructed deep into Seven Red Suns’ superstructure itself, powered by a specialized rarefraction cell designed to power ECO and the surrounding cells inside the superstructure. That way, in the event that any rarefraction cells are damaged, it will absorb all power from the damaged cell in order to have the structure keep the same amount of power as before. This cell is heavily guarded by purposed organisms within the superstructure in order to prevent any harm from coming to it. The internals of the device are quite large, holding the mass amounts of information and projections and code needed to simulate an ecosystem. You can occasionally find the mentioned purposed organisms tending to its systems. Eventually, if you go deep enough, you will find it. A massive, donut-shaped room surrounding a black and blue sphere that dwarfs you in comparison. The sphere spins and rotates rapidly, with multiple blue particles floating out of the center. Four large wires connect to it, with two of them blackened and the others pulsing blue with electricity. Massive computers line the walls of the donut room, all seemingly running detailed reports on every part of the superstructure and city. The rooms are dark, shadowed by the brilliant blue light projecting from the cell through the glass window lined along the center of each room. Occasionally, a sun symbol will pop up on some of them, checking up on different things, before leaving. In the center of the room is a large switch lined with warning lights and symbols. This is where you enter the room from. To the left is a hallway of two rooms containing recorded logs from Suns and the ancients. At the end of the hallway is a lift and a switch. Pressing the switch will make the lift move upwards, making the screen fade to black, before returning, showing the lift rising and stopping at ECO’s main simulation entrance room back in the city. The lift is only there once it rises, and will otherwise just act as a bottomless pit. To the left of the lift room is two rooms with the same purpose and look as the right hallway, leading back to the entrance in a loop.

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The Scholar:

Your mission in this world sets you on a peculiar path of wisdom and trust. Is a forsaken city boiled by the sun, how will you adapt? You were created by Seven Red Suns for a strange purpose. They have tasked you to look around ancient ruins atop their city, Flare. You don’t know much about your task other than searching for colorful pearls within buildings, and are quite familiar with books. You write in a way only you can understand, and you document your journeys, as well as the flora and fauna surrounding you. SRS gave you a special amulet you wear as a necklace under your scarf, which allows you to press on it to give a notice to SRS that you found something of interest, or have a question. If you find an interesting pearl, you can hold it up to the hologram of SRS to let them read it to you. Their constant avoidance of telling you your purpose or what you are looking for in particular leaves you weary of them, but your other half believes they have good intentions. Like a fennec fox, you were designed to be smaller in order to withstand Flare’s little water and high temperatures.

Ability

Your knowledge and documentation of the land comes useful for your survival. By holding the up and pick up keys at the same time, you can change certain objects to your benefit. For example, you can change a blue fruit into a small water jug, which will let you scoop up water to drink later and loose five heat pips. You can also combine certain items to make something new as well, while keeping both properties of said items. For example, you can change a popped bubble fruit by carving two of them into boots to keep your paws cool on the hot ground, and then you can combine the boots with the corpse of a documented eggbug to make the boots move you faster. You can store these items on you if they are clothing items, or you can put one non-clothing item in your scarf for safe keeping. To use the crafting mechanic on an item or corpse, you need to document the creature or plant first. To do this, you need to meet two factors. 1: The target is within your line of sight (not obstructed by an object) and on the same screen 2: Stand still for 5 seconds without moving to write it’s entry. After doing these two things, the target will be successfully documented and will no longer need more documentation.

The (Rain) World

Flare is a large city with thermal energy being the main power source of the surface, and as such, the city amplified the heat from the sun to be more powerful, so the ancients could practically multiply and manipulate the heat energy into the required forms. However, after the mass ascension, the heat manipulation system broke past its containment area over time. The system shuts down at night and slowly rises over the beginning of a cycle until it’s at maximum power at noon. When this happens, harsh heatwaves will rush across the city, causing any creature to pass out from the heat, and soon enough, perish due to high body temperatures. A temperature pip bar will appear at the bottom of the food bar like in Saint’s campaign. You can cool down by going under roofs, going into water, or by touching cold things, but these methods get less and less effective as the cycle goes on. The passage of time throughout the cycle can be measured by the haze and mirage outside caused by the sun.

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Welcome!

This is a blog for my custom Rain World AU, Project Mainframe! This story dives into the city of Seven Red Suns and what happened to the city after the ancients left it behind, as well as a simulated reality and the mysteries it holds within. The story follows Scholar, a lost, resourceful slugcat traversing the boiling grounds of a city preserved in time, searching for a pearl at the request of their creator. The contents of the pearl? Scholar doesn’t know. But if they did, this story likely wouldn’t happen. Unfortunately, art will be rare since I’m… not the greatest :3 Mainly, it will be a writing project. Any fanart or mainly questions in the ask box are greatly appreciated, as your questions or suggestions may change the story! Happy reading!