# Skybreach: Lore Thread

This post documents the basic world rules for the Skybreach lore. All implementations, parallel universes, lands, avatars, fanfiction, and official lore must follow this thread to be canonical and accepted into the metaverse.

The thread is purposefully kept light so that branches that come off it can be as creative as they need to be. Think of the Lore Thread as a big spine from which little branches grow into their own stories, but they share a common _thread_.


In the above diagram, you can see a Lore Thread, the main storyline, one that connects all others in some way. In addition to chronicling the history of Skybreach, the Lore Thread dictates the basic rules of the world (e.g., gravity, magic, technology level, etc) and allows room for *branches* to expand further upon that foundational structure.

Branches can come in three forms: a solitary side story, branching side stories, or side worlds - worlds that exist alongside the main one in Skybreach, but are separate in theme, mechanics, or lore. Each post-genesis branch needs to be voted in by the _World Governance_ (WG) of Skybreach (see [original post](https://url.rmrk.app/meta) for info on WG).

A one-off side story is like a sidequest in a game. Think of a specific place in a game, or a book that a character can find in the game's world.

A branching side story is like a sidequest that can expand based on people's interactions with it. Sometimes it will be instanced (i.e. the world state only changes for the player interacting with the story), sometimes it will be global, like players influencing the world if certain conditions are reached (the result of a quest is a burned down building, which burns down for all players). Branching side stories are mini-evolutions of the world.

_Screenshot from the Project Zomboid game_

Finally, Sideworlds are entire sub-games inside of Skybreach. These have their own storyline loosely connected to Skybreach, but can dictate some of their own rules, within reason, and evolve on their own as long as they periodically "check in" with the Lore Thread by merging storylines or having characters cross paths, etc. The worlds need to be aware of each other through the main lore thread, but can have contradictory lore.

An example of a sideworld is [Phala World](https://twitter.com/PhalaWorld/status/1483807693080907780?s=20), a metaverse by Phala which could have its own storyline. Another example is an entirely separate sky island being added into the Skybreach genesis world, and opening up a whole new map area.

_Shout-out to the amazing Phala team who are helping with RMRK's pallet development!_

## Lore Thread

Before continuing, please feel free to read the intro story: [Broken Sun](https://hackmd.io/@tmZI-bUXSeuiJsiJr_9Z8w/S1HS9tOZc).

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The following are cliffnotes to keep in mind while considering the lore of Skybreach (also covered in Broken Sun):

- races of Skybreach originate on the planet they knew as Jord (from Jörd, earth).
- four races existed: Humans, Gnomes, Kanaria, Dwarves.
- magic was illegal, to be used only by Kanaria when absolutely necessary, and by Dwarves in crafting of magical items as sanctioned by Kanaria, but Humans played with it a bit too much over the centuries, pushing the limits of safe magic use.
- this destabilized Jord, to the point of ruination. A spell, known as the Last Spell, was prepared to teleport every sentient creature to an uninhabited planet called Navis, along with basic resources. This planet exists on the other side of the sun known as the Broken Sun.
- the spell goes wrong and tears a rift in spacetime, causing a brief merger of past, present, and future in one place. The anomaly breaks Navis apart as different versions of itself overlap, and the planet is stuck in a gravitational anomaly where the different time periods of the different races merged, bringing into one location future-dwarves (Chunkies), present-dwarves, future and present Kanaria, etc.
- the gravitational and time-space anomaly creates fragments of Navis floating around where Navis should be, creating Skylands, floating islands that are in effect pockets of the real Navis from different time periods in the galaxy's lifespan.
- Skybreaches appear from time to time, phasing in new Skylands, sometimes annihilating existing ones, sometimes just floating solo, sometimes floating solo and eventually merging with another, etc.
- these skylands float around, connect, crumble apart, discover each other, go to war, and differ wildly - some are from the post-universe era and entirely cold, others are from when the Broken Sun was young, and are engulfed in fire, etc.
- the 9 master sorcerers are the 9 super founder Kanaria. They will "control" 9 initial thematic skylands in certain ways, mainly by exerting influence, getting physical advantages while in their own natural biome (fire bird in fire, water bird in water, etc...) and passively earning Haberger tax from these lands.

## How to Evolve Skybreach Lore

The nature of Navis and its chaotic physical and temporal position make almost any story possible.

Think of Navis as a place in which the different time periods of all these different races meet. From our (the observer's) perspective, this is chaos. But from the perspective of each different race, this is what happened:

- future races: the Last Spell worked... almost. From the perspective of a certain race, only their respective race was teleported over, optionally along with select members of other races. They never learned what happened to those left behind, but they continued living and evolving, sometimes for thousands of years. The Last Spell interrupted their future timeline and brought them back into the past, meeting in this massive junction of evolving chaos.
- present races: the Last Spell worked, but they did not end up in the locations they targeted because the planet broke. Therefore, those that survived are scattered across the skylands, soloing, forming gangs, or building entire cities.

If you feel like writing a cyberpunk story, you can: the future-humans evolved in that direction and have now merged with the other races that got teleported along with them.

If you feel like exploring a fantasy setting, you can send your party of Dwarf, Gnome, and Human on a quest to find a Legendary Kanaria who loves to rain down fiery death on all who pass near its skyland of fire.

If you feel like you need Elves, maybe humans evolved into elves in a certain (or long enough) timeline, and you can also bring in Orcs and other creatures as part of the universe if we take into account that the time-space merger affected parallel universes where Jord was actually inhabitated by different races entirely.

Only the following elements must be respected and fit within the narrative of all the evolving lore for it to be considered for canonization:

- the origin planet was Jord, with its capital city Nu
- the destination planet was Navis
- both orbit the Broken Sun on opposite ends
- there are other orbiting fragments of the sun, some still burning, others - those that were ejected further out - long cold and uninhabitable
- magic is outlawed, but very much alive, the Last Spell did not drain it
- resources are scarce and most races have only what they took with them at the time of a breach, so while you can do something like build a rocketship to explore a cold fragment when writing a Human-centric story, consider that there may not be enough fuel to propel a ship and they might need magic to power it, etc.
- as new breaches appear, they bring in a different time and place from Navis, perhaps from a different parallel universe too (they will also later connect to external metaverse projects, growing the entire universe). This means that, because they are fragments of the world, they can bring along interesting artifacts like whole buildings or parts of them.

A forum to discuss all the Lore things is coming soon, stay tuned.