#black nerve

[snugglesquiggle]

still amuses me that the perfidious mind controllers and the bugs who jailbroke their brains to be unhackable are called "projectique" and "distortique" in black nerve. absolutely no etymological thought behind that suffix, just pure mystique.

[snugglesquiggle]

A key insight for understanding the termite civilization in Black Nerve is that, although it's tempting to look at their towering mounds and autonomous constructs and devices that defy replication, and assume them some antecedent to modernity (only even more advanced in the depth of their understanding and engineering) this could not be farther from the truth.

The termites were a bronze age civilization that scrambled to space in a span of a single century. The fundamental driver of their societal progress wasn't technological innovation, it was miracle-working.

They discovered how to magick up what they wished from processes they didn't understand. They relied on that and invested everything in it. And in the end, the fact that didn't understand it — that they weren't technologically advanced at all — is why we speak of the termites in the past tense.

[snugglesquiggle]

"hey squiggle, why dont you write stories in any of the new settings you've been cooking up" because i haven't yet worked out enough worldbuilding to comfortably render scenes - what if there's a whole dimension of daily life and common knowledge i didn't account for?

"what about black nerve, haven't you done a ton of worldbuilding for that one" because there's too much worked out to comfortably render scenes - what if there's a dimension of established fact i forgot to account for?

[snugglesquiggle]

i still get fucked up thinking about the lost race of termites in my fantasy setting.

This place is a testament. Part of a history of testaments. Look upon it. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture. Sending this message was important to us. We had many children. Our works were beautiful and our triumphs were many. Nothing is left. This is not a test of honor. No mercy or persuasion is possible. Nothing will survive. We have failed and you are in danger. What exists is dangerous to us. This message is a warning about danger. The danger is still present in your time as it was in ours. The danger lies above you and throughout the sky. The danger is an emanation from the moon. The danger is in the form of black nerve. The danger is unleashed if you manipulate black nerve substantially and persistently. The danger increases as your culture advances in manipulation of black nerve. This practice is best shunned and left unexplored.

[snugglesquiggle]

every so often i smile remembering the lore where the final boss of black nerve can add three ones and get four

[snugglesquiggle]

whenever i think about working on the black nerve roleplaying game again, i gaze into this maze of my creation and my steps tremble

[snugglesquiggle]

Thresholding Across My Personal Multiverse

Read the full article on my neocities page.

What is a Thresholder? 

Thresholder is a fantasy series by Alexander Wales. The premise is simple: chained isekai. You step through a portal into another world, then a book’s worth of plot happens, then another portal opens, and you get to keep some of the powers and loot you earned from the plot. In each world, you’ll find allies among the locals, some power unique to the world, and sooner or later you’ll encounter another person who stepped out of a portal, just like you.

Except they’re not like you. If you believe in equality, they’ll think it’s acceptable to do the bidding of slavers and bigots. If you fancy yourself a free market entrepeneur, they’ll be a communist who wants to saddle your efforts with labor law and insidious union talk. If you see no issue with eating meat (if “in this world, they butcher and eat animals” doesn’t even occur to you as a observation to make), then you’ll meet a vegan willing to treat carnists with that same callous regard.

Even if the differences aren’t philosophical, you just won’t be able to stand them. They’ll be reckless if you’re careful, blathering if you’re quiet, and don’t even ask their opinion on pineapples on pizza.

You can‍ ‍—‍ must‍ ‍—‍ suppose there’s an intelligence behind the portals. (A guardian of the threshold, if you will). Of all the uncountable places in the multiverse, they’ll plop you down where there’s air to breathe and proteins that don’t prion‍-​ize your biology. The people will speak your language, they’ll probably even be human.

If it can select for all that, of course it can select just the wrong person, whom you’ll have no choice but fight‍ ‍—‍ kill, even. And if nothing else, they will have been through more portals than you, and it came to blows in every world. Why wouldn’t they expect you to be the same as all the monsters and wretches they’ve faced before? Why would they even give you the chance to explain? The portals can turn anyone into a thresholder.

After all, the next portal won’t open until one of you beats the other. If you find yourself in a world of post‍-​nuclear desolation where acid rains from the sky, the only chance of seeing air conditioning again is to kick some ass.

What Is the Squiggleverse? 

Thresholder is inspired by jumpchain stories. Jumpchain usually focus on established franchises. It’s an exercise in a particular kind of power fantasy‍ ‍—‍ what if you could get Naruto ninja training and have a Star Wars lightsaber and team full of Pokémon beside you? How unstoppable could you become after five jumps?

Thesholder is all original worlds, though. (And quite creative ones, I’d say.) Still, it’s the sort of premise that invites you to imagine your own worlds, your own adventures‍ ‍—‍ and I dare say it makes for more interesting hypotheticals to consider than your average jumpchain. Certainly the engine for ever‍-​escalating conflict keeps things moving.

I’m not sure how far most get in those sort of daydreams, though I know of at least one Thresholder fanfic. Personally, coming up with weird and magical worlds is something I’ve spent a good fifth of my life seriously pursuing. I think I’ve gotten pretty good at it, but if nothing else, I certainly have something to show for it.

So, I decided this could be an interesting exercise: how would my original settings stack up as thresholder arenas?

But first, a gesture at ground rules. The number of worlds I’ve “properly” “written” about is rather modest‍ ‍—‍ half a dozen, or more depending on how you count. But there’s a plenty of settings I have detailed notes about it despite having never committed to final draft prose.

I’d be remiss to include the (frankly underbaked) setting of And the Darkling Reefs Abide yet neglect the much more mechanically interesting world of, say, Running Out of Skin & Time.

Will I be dedicating paragraphs to every figment I’ve had a fleeting thought about? No. The loose standard I’m operating off of is I’ll list a setting if I could (or better yet, have) given a thousand word‍-​long rant about its lore purely off the dome. Not rigorous, but ultimately, who cares.

More importantly, if the idea is that I could talk at excessive length about any of these worlds, how do I stop this document from being exponentially excessive in its own length?

I’ll just have to cleave to the essentials of each world. A brief description of its look and feel, and then a rundown of what sort of powers you’ll gain and what sort of dangers you’ll contend with. (In the case of worlds that have changed substantially throughout their history, I might note when there’s distinct “eras” to consider.)

This page will mostly be protracted exposition about my own magic systems, intercut with occasional commentary on the worldbuilding implications of the grand spell. Let that be a warning or invitation according to taste.

Now, let’s get on with it.

...However, I think posting thousands upon thousands of worlds to tumblr is a questionable idea. I don't want to keep this post updated with typo fixes and further edits, and I have a cute little footnote system that tumblr can't support at all.

So you can read the rest on my site.

<p>Thresholder is a fantasy series by Alexander Wales. The premise is simple: chained isekai. You step through a portal into another world,

[snugglesquiggle]

i was only able to stop myself from instinctively siding with the imperial hegemony in my setting when i changed the worldbuilding to be like "what if they outlawed necromancy & other crooked arts"