I've had a points-of-light-y D&D campaign setting rolling about my head for a few years now. Seeing as it' unlikely I'll ever actually do anything with it, I might as well put it here. Ahem...
First, there was nothing but the Writhing, out of which the Gods spawned. Weary and dissatisfied, they joined together to form Reality - a shelter and home away from the madness outside.
Singly and as groups, they formed thier ideal planes within, and allowed them to Mingle, forming The Material at the center where all things touched. When the Writhing touched Reality, the Maddend Fury of the Abyss was forced into Being, and so the great cycle of rebirth was forged to create a barrier between That Which Is and That Which Cannot Be.
So it was for ages untold. No longer. The dark cultists of the Writhing brought forth a creature of Destruction Unending to consume the world... and it succeeded, to a point. Though selfless adventurers banished the Unending back to the Writhing at the cost of thier own souls, the Material has been consumed, and the gods have been murdered.
Now the thrones of heaven are empty, the universe a ship without a crew, and whilst the passangers bicker over who'll take charge of the rudder, storm clouds gather on the Horizon...
This was intended to be a 300-word vignette just to do some worldbuilding. It is... longer than that.
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When it was a thousand kilometers away from the target asteroid, Miner 170DB128F5EF began refurling its solar panels. By the scale of the humans who had built it, the panels were vast almost beyond comprehension, but they still barely provided the miner with the recharging it needed. An automated system checked its supply as the sails began to fold and compress; its battery’s maximum storage was down to 86% of its original capacity, but it had managed to reclaim enough of that that 5EF was sure it would be able to complete its task at the target.
A day and a half ago, when 5EF was still at full empty-space speed, it had begun making direct observations instead of relying on the projections in its computer, and had found an oddity: not only was the asteroid not where its calculated orbit said it ought to be, but its albedo was somewhat higher than what was recorded in the miner’s banks. It had zoomed in to investigate, and discovered at least part of the problem: another miner was there already, but it was clearly in distress. Its solar panels had not retracted, and they and the complete hull of the other miner were pressed against the bulk of the asteroid.
5EF had zoomed in farther, sent a ping to the other miner requesting a response, and checked its records. The central processing facility had sent out a notice that this asteroid had been claimed, but had then rescinded it eight days later. Since this had happened before the miner had arrived at its previous target — in fact, 5EF had still been dropping its last load off at the central processing facility when the original message went out — and it only calculated its next asteroid when it was finished mining the current target, it hadn’t paid any attention to the previous claim and had filed its own, which the central processing facility acknowledged the expected half-hour later.
(In fact, the routine that determined 5EF’s next target was not aware that the previous claim existed. Its job was just to calculate distances and check the claim flag on each, not determine whether the claim flag was valid. And 5EF’s main core had no reason to doubt its subroutine.)
5EF’s telescope and communicator, meanwhile, had provided additional data. The communicator’s had been a negative: the other miner was not responding or, in fact, broadcasting anything at all. The telescope had showed it that the other miner was definitely pressed against — perhaps crashed into — the asteroid, and that it had indeed not decoupled or cut its engine, which was still firing. That had explained the asteroid being slightly out of position. Its solar panels had been spread against the asteroid’s surface, the forward sail partially crumpled between the body of the miner and the asteroid, while the after sail had collapsed against the asteroid like a film as the miner had come to rest.
Miner 5EF had filed this away and continued its long journey. Miners measured time in nanoseconds; 5EF had, then, needed 27 bits to store how long it had been since it had left the last asteroid, and 47 bits for the time since it had first been deployed.
Now, 5EF’s sails finished folding into their compartment, and the miner prepared to decouple from its storage and primary engine compartments. They would remain about a kilometer from the asteroid and wait for 5EF’s mining core to signal that it had begun operations. That wouldn’t be for a while, though; 5EF was obliged to investigate the derelict miner on the surface. It hadn’t bothered scanning further while it was in transit, as that would have been a waste of energy, but once it had reached a closer range it had begun trying to raise the other miner’s processor again, sending repeated requests for identification and status. Now it could direct its close-range cameras to find out what had gone wrong.
5EF’s mining core broke away from the larger body, retaining as much of its velocity as it could while the storage and engine compartments fired thrusters to keep them in their synchronous orbit. 5EF dove for the asteroid, aiming for the impact site, and began firing its own braking thrusters as it approached. Once it had come to within a few hundred meters it turned on its spotlights, because the asteroid was turning away from the Sun, and zoomed its primary camera in. It noted that the other miner’s hull indicated a serial number ending in "F0B52E9E2808” — which it correlated with the miner that had placed and then retracted a claim on the asteroid — and then abruptly stopped sending its communicator pings.
An exit wound, a few centimeters wide with its edges splayed open, marred the surface of 808’s core.
With the evidence presented, 5EF barely needed further investigation: this had been a case of disastrously bad luck. Miners’ armor was usually thick enough to prevent impacts from small bodies in the belt — 5EF’s own plating had its share of dents from this trip’s impacts alone — but if a meteoroid was going fast enough, and hit the joint between two plates at just the right angle, it could get through and do significant damage. In this case, it had punched directly through the other miner’s processing core. At the speed the meteoroid must have been traveling, 808 would barely have had time to realize what was happening, let alone broadcast distress. And a miner without an intact, working core was a dead miner; there had been nothing to tell the solar panels to return to their compartments, nothing to tell the interplanetary engines to shut off.
This must, 5EF calculated, have happened fairly close to the end of 808’s trip from its last asteroid. The other miner had had the opportunity to make at least some of its final course corrections as it neared; if it hadn’t, then it would have continued off on its original trajectory, missing the asteroid and continuing until its engine failed. At that point it would have fallen into a gravitational orbit, either a planet’s or the Sun’s, and — depending on which ultimately captured it — either crashed or continued its lonely ellipse forever.
Although, like all miners, 5EF had a rudimentary consciousness — nothing like the complex non-biological intelligences that had been developed back on Earth — it had never been given a sense of sentimentality. Still, it had a sense that the quickness of the death had been beneficial to 808, or at least preferable to running out of power and drifting forever.
5EF simultaneously sent a data-reconciliation query to the storage-engine section and dispatched a drone toward the other miner. While the orbiting hull provided the answer — yes, the mining core’s last update was correct, its bays were largely empty — the drone circled the other miner, landed on its armor plating and crawled out of 5EF’s sight between the other miner and the asteroid. After a few cycles it returned and verified that it had seen the entry wound on the other side; 5EF told it to open the cover of the other miner’s data port which needed some forcing, and instruct its engine to stop firing. Slowly, the ion stream, which was already starting to sputter, slowed and then quieted entirely.
Once the drone had lifted off again, awaiting orders, 5EF released the rest of its swarm, while also instructing the storage compartment to send its own porter drones down to the surface. As the core drones began to disassemble Miner 808, and the porter drones lifted the pieces and returned them to the storage compartment, 5EF composed the standard arrival message to the central processing facility.
Miner 170DB128F5EF reporting. Arrived at Asteroid E46-E17-B512 safely. Beginning operations.
Miner 5EF took a few full seconds to look down at the scene: the dead miner crumpled against its final destination, the drones picking its usable components for use as spares or to build new miners, the asteroid cold, impassive, and unmined. It thought about the dents in its own armor plates that its drones had reported. Then it dug for a bit in its database and found a note, placed there by the humans who had built its oldest predecessors. 5EF had almost forgotten about it — accidents like this were vanishingly rare, and it took only a few bits to count how many times it had heard the message over those 47 bits of service.
It switched to wide-band broadcasting, modified the note for the occasion, and sent the note across the solar system.
All units, please record at this time that Miner F0B52E9E2808 has reached end of shift.
Health Potions (common), also known as Potions of Healing, are the most common first aid product, available in any market for cheap, as if the equivalent to band-aids. Health potions are viscous, less like honey and more like somewhat liquid-y yogurt. Health potion is directly applied to the wound, starting from the most harmed area, then going on the skin. Health potion acts as a healing accelerant mixed with an alchemically crafted Stem cell like substance created from alchemical procedures performed on blood and bone marrow to make them regenerate like axolotl cells. This biological flurry remains in a state of “cryptobiosis” (i.e. the metabolic processes stop completely and the cells become preserved and inactive) until they are exposed to both air and living matter, at which point they begin to differentiate into the injured and lost material, completely replacing any blood and mass lost in the injury. The healing accelerant is greatly powerful, healing most cuts within 5 minutes, or a single bloody paper cut the second it touches the wound.
It’s important to use health potions when most necessary, and not to over-apply the liquid. Overuse of health potions (either through constant injury or over-application) results in increased skin, hair, and nail growth, the first of which can result in “skin clumps” forming on the user’s skin. Theoretically, using enough health potion can result in cancers, although most conventionally available health potions are to weak for this to occur without applying thousands of liters of health potion per minute.
Health potions are usually available in bottled, spray, and tube forms. Health potion creation is usually one of the first things taught to apprentice apothecaries. Most first-aid kits, or Medkits (Medical Kits) as they are more commonly called in the setting, hold tens of health potions at a time, and at least one per floor is kept in most buildings and workplaces as per most accepted health & safety standards. More powerful variants exist for certain medical and emergency purposes, but are usually rarer, more expensive, and stored for preservation and to prevent accidental misuse.
the reason that some names have orphaned etymologies is because they were named by a bunch of people who got isekaied from our Earth, who named them after things that only exist on our Earth.
i.e. the race of humanoid cattle are called minotaurs because the human librarian who studied them named them after the Greek myth. that's not what they call themselves, but she's American, so what can you expect
Her parents always told Mimi to be nice to the dishwisher. Don’t overfill it, and handwash knives and big stuff, and if you had something with garlic or spice on it, best just to handwash that too.
Mimi’s cousin Samren didn’t have a dishwisher at home. Their families were close, and met at Mimi’s house least once a week for meals. No matter what toy or new game Mimi had, they’d end up in the kitchen as Samren tried to be sneaky about getting into the dishwisher’s cabinet.
“They’re just curious,” her mother said. “Everyone should be curious.” Her mother was a researcher and a professor and, Mimi knew even then, something else somewhere else.. She had no problem with Samren investigating the dishwasher’s corrugated walls of skin or poking at its rack of offwhite ribs while Mimi loaded the dishes.
One day they were all in the den after cleaning up from dinner. A horrible hacking from the kitchen washed over the crackling fire and the TV. Something fragile shattered. The families rushed into the kitchen where the dishwisher lay alien and distended amongst a mess of dishes and terrible red liquid. Mimi had only seen it a few times before outside its cabinet: a really big, rusty-green lizard with jowls droopier than any dog’s.Â
Its jowls didn’t droop now; they were swollen like a pillow underneath it. It always had angry yellow eyes, but now they were inflamed and almost puffed shut.Â
“Mimi!” her father said. “What was on those dishes?” She sobbed that she didn’t know, but no one cared to hear it. Swishes would be recovering for months. She had to take the trash out when they got home from the Odder Pet Vet as partial punishment, where she found the discarded bottle of chili powder.
Years later, she realized that someone able to get that bottle down was now tall enough to be tasked with doing the dishes at home.Â
Four planets - known as the Garden Worlds - have been identified as the origin point for the vast majority of life in Charted Space: Earth, Esrii, Kislyu, and Kela. 98% of all other life-bearing planets have had elements of their biomes transplanted from these worlds sometime in the last 90 million years, with each transplant being spaced by about 5 million years, and the last transplant occurring about 70,000 years ago [OOC, this is around 50k BC. long duree babey]. Overlapping transplants, when transplanted lifeforms are placed on a planet that had previously had life transferred over, are fairly common, occurring in about 57% of cases. A less common occurrence (in about 12% of cases) is Cross Pollination, when samples from two different worlds are placed on the same planet. A notable example of this is the ancestors of the Gushmene being transplanted to Hland, a world that had already been populated with a biome from Kislyu. This meant that any food not derived from the rather limited amount brought to Hland alongside them needed to be extremely heavily processed, resulting in the complex social structure and food culture of the pre-industrial Gushmene.
These transplants, in addition to evidence of extensive time dilation on some worlds (notably Serina and Regina), the clear and extensive use of terraformation and stellar forging to make Charted Space ideal for biological life, and the clear repeating schedule, points to some kind of incredibly powerful civilization or civilizations being behind these phenomena. A constant - albeit varying in degree amount of cultural continuity found in the various archaeological sites associated with this civilization, and a clear, regular gap between the ages of each site (typically showing signs of habitation for a few centuries every four million years) point to a single species or species-group living a nomadic lifestyle on an enormously long timescale. Based on tests on warp drives built based on recovered craft and schematics, as well as the 4 million year estimate, it is thought that this culture is making its way along a roughly circum-galactic path, and has been for at least 90 million years. The prevailing theory, is that the Ancients, as some call them, maintain a series of “gardens“ consisting of a spherical region of space with a radius of roughly 300 parsecs. Charted Space is centered around one of these Gardens, with the vast majority of its sophont population being within this sphere.
An interesting note is that despite wide indication of genetic tampering in the various transplanted biomes, as well as the relatively frequent occurrence of Ancient physical culture, the Garden Worlds seem to have been left alone by the Ancients for the last 90 million years. This seems to indicate that these worlds were possibly seen/are seen as nature reserves by the Ancients.
Remember those hookshots I mentioned in the first worldbuilding post? Well now I’m here to talk about them and their variants in detail. Continued in the read bellow thing”
Grappling Hook Launchers (common), also known as a “Poor Man’s Hookshot”, are projectile launching devices fitted to shoot out grappling hooks farther than simply throwing them. Most are essentially crossbow, although more expensive variants like a pneumatic launcher are available. All are made to fit conventional rope and grappling hooks.
The Reel Hookshot (uncommon), considered the most simplest of “true” hookshots, is a pneumatically powered hookshot with a compartment for the storage of the hookshot’s cord and it’s namesake “reel”, a spool-like mechanism connected to the cord storage compartment that allows the cord to be pulled in or released to bring the user closer or farther from the hook, by spinning the connected handle and arm clockwise or counter-clockwise. The reel hookshot is a mostly mechanical device, with multiple devices within to secure the cord and prevent it from going loose from the reel and causing the user to fall. This hookshot is best used with a protective harness in conjunction with other climbing gear and techniques, but can also be used to easily scale flat rooftops.
The Motor Hookshot (rare), sometimes just called a “True” Hookshot, is what most people would think of when asked about hookshots. This hookshot uses a pneumatic launcher to shoot the hook and a motor to pull the cord in or out, operated by a special “stick” within the handle. The motor hookshot is operated with one hand, and has cables and straps meant to be attached to a gauntlet to prevent the hookshot from leaving the user’s grasp. The motor itself can only be activated with a “key”, for safety purposes. This hookshot, as with all hookshots, has a valve for inserting compressed air, and a pressure gauge. True hookshots usually run out of pressure after around 4 to 8 hours, so most users carry capsules with additional compressed air to refuel in the field.
The motor hookshot has a special handle with a trigger pulled with the index finger to fire the hook, and has pressure sensitivity that is combined with a “stick” moved with the thumb to adjust the speed and acceleration. After being fully pressed in, the trigger then functions somewhat like a car accelerator, increasing the acceleration of the motor. The stick is similar to a gear stick, and when it is “slid” up or down, it triggers the motor to release or pull the cord, respectively. When moved to it’s center-side state, the cord is “locked” in place to keep the hookshot in place. Moving the stick slightly from the center manually controls the motor. There are also buttons on the side of the handle (operated with the middle and ring fingers) to further adjust the speed and acceleration, and a smaller “break” trigger above the main trigger to reduce the motor’s movement in the same way a break pedal would. Two “release” buttons on the side of the handle must be pressed in conjunction with the stick itself to release the hook and return it to the hookshot. An emergency break exists on the outside of the hookshot, which is used to disable the motor and physically locks the cord in place within the hookshot.
A hookshot’s cord is made of metal and alchemically reinforced to prevent breaking, and has multiple notches used to secure it and prevent it from becoming loose from the hookshot’s mechanisms. The hookshot’s hook itself is enchanted to “dematerialize” and phase through objects it couldn’t otherwise pierce while it is being propelled fowards, only returning to normal when it reaches an object and begins to return towards the hookshot. Although a hookshot can be shot into any surface theoretically, the possibility of the hook being knocked back before it can sufficiently phase into the surface means it’s best to shoot it into cracks or materials weak enough to be broken through, like wood. Some more specialized hookshots have the ability to set the hookshot into a unique “reach-extension” mode that triggers the hook to instead “grasp” objects that it hits, allowing it to pick up items from afar and bring them to the user.
Motor hookshots are usually custom made, as they are too complex to mass produce. True hookshots are only supplied to those with certifications for their use, as they are incredibly dangerous to use, and can result in great impact-related injuries when used improperly. Hookshot users wear a special Impact-Resistance Harness (rare), sometimes simplified to Impact Harness, a harness that has been enchanted to absorb the force of incoming impacts, as a sort of air bag-like safety tool. When quickly approaching solid surfaces, the harness creates an “anti-gravity” field that repels objects away from itself, reducing the force of impact. The harness also incorporates more traditional protective covering for the hands, feet, and torso to prevent damage to extremities and organs. Although a resistance harness can reduce damage from  falls and large objects, it’s still vulnerable to smaller projectiles and projections, and users can still end up damaged from just the speeds of the hookshot, so most users carry around multiple healing items to quickly heal from wounds.
