An Example of a Commission request
This is an example of a commission request I'm doing(as of this writing) for the purpose of providing explanation for why a submission in this 'format' is helpful. There are elements that won't match my template, because that is more a suggestion than a requirement. also the commissioner is incorporating many of my characters, so the element of having to give character details is bypassed
The colored sections are the back and forth we had in the comments. my initial plan was to simply link to the google doc, but Google refuses to let me anonymize the commisioner, so I had to do this manually.
you will notice places where I come across as dictating how the story will go. that is something I am working at curbing. and for anyone reading interested in commissioning me. DO NOT LET ME GET AWAY WITH IT. it is your story, not mine. my suggestion have to remain nothing more than that. suggestions.
The colored sections are the back and forth we had in the comments. my initial plan was to simply link to the google doc, but Google refuses to let me anonymize the commisioner, so I had to do this manually.
you will notice places where I come across as dictating how the story will go. that is something I am working at curbing. and for anyone reading interested in commissioning me. DO NOT LET ME GET AWAY WITH IT. it is your story, not mine. my suggestion have to remain nothing more than that. suggestions.
World Checklist
World One: Role ReversalGralgalion as just a merchant. He HATES it, but this is a world where the Leadership did away with the Hunters right when he graduated from the academy. He still pilots the Viper’s Bane, because gods meddle.
Jeremy is an actual Navy Engineer, and gays aren’t persacuted on this Earth. Still Aethist, though.
Alex is a Pirate Captain with large alien crew, and of course there is a large shirtless policy when they aren’t in armed combat.
Tristan is a Halan Kelsarian who somehow found himself as part of Alex’s crew... and he thinks mind control was involved somehow, but he’s finding himself caring less and less if that was the case day by day.
[The Tiger Writes: do you see them in a relationship at this point, or is Alex still working on him to get to that point?]
[commissioner:They are in the intermission between book 3 and 4 of Tristan at the moment, only rolls reversed.
So there is sex, Tristan is being brainwashed and struggling to care that he is, and Alex is blissfully unaware he's falling in love.
Which, in Alex's case, he has a LOT of other sexual partners other than Tristan, but Tristan he has to work with.]
[The Tiger Writes: when you say that Alex has to work with Tristan, how to you mean it in this context? I kind of expect Alex has to with a bunch of the people on his crew]
[commissioner:I mean most of the rest of the crew is wrapped around Alex's finger/cock with just one or two brainwashing treatments. Tristan still showing signs of independence and self direction has Alex's attention.]
[The Tiger Writes: oh, I see, so it's more that he has to work 'on' Tristan, rather than with him.]
World Two: Mentally StableTristan lives an open life on his small little forest world, researching tech he sends reports back to his brother in Space Gov. Every few decades the tech drives up, however, and he needs to satiate his adrenaline rush to fill the downtime.
Alex once ran across Tristan during one of these amusement park binges, and he just couldn’t get enough of the alien. So he followed him across the galaxy.
Jackal met Alex in anger management courses, and they are good friends. The fact they’d meet up again when Alex needed a ride worked out great... as long as the great sex also keeps coming.
Tibs is Jackal’s adoptive younger brother, and the one who really runs the ship. As long as they can keep the books in the black he’ll be fine with this little detour.
World Three: Alter ElementJackal was assassinated by one of his father’s enemies before he got his element... Thankfully they used the right sort of poison, because he ended up getting Fever as his element. Which honestly, suits him just fine.
Tibs got caught up in an alchemy attack in the town before he got his first element. This wasn’t a corruption attack, however. It was potentia. Tibs comes out not just with Potentia as his element, but as a cleric.
Marlot is a Darkness Rogue that is definitely going to be able to keep Tib’s secret. Good with that lock pick, and favoring a fist fighting style like Jackle. Don’t say big guys can’t be thieves.
Trembor is a Light Archer who wouldn’t believe some of the things his team gets up to if not for seeing the light on their lips. His and Marlot’s relationship will happen, it just needs the work through the complications.
World Four: Super Predators[The Tiger Writes:this question just occurred to me.
what level of 'super' is meant here? the kind of stuff that can be explained by physical bodied being pushed well past their limits, or laws of physics breaking powers a la Marvel/DC? ]
[commissioner: (answer given over voice chat) they can break the laws of physic]
Marlot’s home town used some drugs on the farm animals, without really thinking about the consequences of that traveling up the food chain. All the men in Marlot's home town are bisexual and sexually aggressive... and also have some decent super strength, speed, and durability.
Trembor’s family, the gold manes, are generational supers and have been since the days they were kings. They take this power very seriously, whether they have enforcement jobs like Trembor or not.
Ralf is a mad scientist who works for black opts government groups to create supers.
Ryan is one of his projects, literally three other super canines stitched together in the effort to create a SUPER super.
[The Tiger Writes:does he have one head, or three?]
[commissioner: It's one head/skull. It's just that rather than a "normal" asymmetrical fur pattern, his head has been stitched together from three different skulls.]
World Five: Urban SupernaturalRyan is the son of Cerberus and a hound of the wild hunt, living on the mortal plane because the neighbors are too nosy on Tir A Nog, and Tartarus has terrible rent.
Ralf is the son of a muse, born when said muse visited Daytona Beach on spring break and inspired a few more pages to the Kama Sutra. The ferret literally can’t help but get new ideas.
Jeremy thinks he’s a totally normal person. He’s actually a powerful sorcerer who is going to be in a lot of trouble if he doesn’t master his awakening powers.
Gral is an angelic being who was sent down from the Heavens to watch, guard, and train Jeremy. Of course them falling in love and having sex was part of the divine plan, since the gods are horny.
[The Tiger Writes: is Jeremy human in that world, or converted into a furry?
never mind, it's answered in the chapter]
Storyboard[The Tiger Writes: is this set in one of the previous worlds or in its own?
Edit: okay, I see this is multiple of them at 'the same time']
Only have the first six chapters here. From there, I have no idea.
Chapter 1[The Tiger Writes:this would be a ship with fewer civilians, if only because Gral wouldn't feel he can do the best job protecting them.
I could also see him gathering other hunters who have been cut, or aren't willing to work for the military. he'd probably get the most religious of them.
what has the military done with the head Alpha? is she in hiding?
I could see Gral doing the best he can to uphold his duties, but as is stated there, without actual support, his actions would actually mark him as almost a halan himself in the eyes of the military, and therefore, the Federation]
[commissioner: The head Alpha would either be the Spreading Branch of this world, or went down in a blaze of glory. If she did go down in a blaze of glory, there likely would be some equivalent to Spreading Branch for the Hunters still out there.]
From Gral’s PoV, we get to see him stress about the stress of the legacy of the Hunters that is on him as the captain of the Viper’s Bane, the pressure from the religious faithful for him to fulfill the honor of his namesake, the impossibility of doing so without the support of the government, and the mounting costs of just keeping the Viper’s Bane afloat in space without government support. When you aren’t getting a pay check and rights to salvage are questionable, fitting the bills are hard.
He doesn’t even think it’s meddling that put Alix in a coma, just him failing as a captain to give his friend the best parts. He’ll head to the Earther space station to request the use of one of their engineers... and then he and Jeremy lay eyes on each other.
Things don’t go easy for Gral in the way of romance, however, as Jeremy is a military officer and disciplined enough in Earther military protocol to jump the bone of the hot Kelsarian captain he just met. He’s going to ship to do repairs, and when he gets back he’ll complain to the others about how distracting the hot captain is.
[The Tiger Writes: are the Earthers part of the Federation in this version? I could see them having made it in, since they wouldn't be hiding anything]
[commissioner: The process is likely just as far along as before. The Kelsarian's would still be the sponsor, and the fact that the Earthers worship no gods would be a factor in their favor.
If this was it's own standalone story, the actions between Jeremy and Gral might result in things still souring between the Earthers and Kelsarians, since saying no god worship and being OK with antigod ethnic cleansing are two different things.]
Before things can progress too far, pirates arrive. Showboating pirates, as Alex is on camera making declarations for both the station and the merchant ship to save some lives and just surrender to be looted. Before Gral or the station can respond, reality itself shakes.
Chapter 2Tristan is running through the forest, naked as normal for his morning exercises. He’ll be ambushed by a human man, also naked. The spar for a bit, sex happens, and then man goes off to his nearby home. In the window of said home, the man’s wife stars dreamily as she waves Tristan off.
[The Tiger Writes:do you have a sense of who that man his? or is he still the owner of Diny's Dinner?]
[commissioner: He's the owner of Diny's Dinner. Just couldn't find his name easily on with the first file chapter I checked, and wasn't willing to slow things down checking a half dozen other ones.]
After returning home and doing some work, Tristan eventually heads to town for his normal lunch. People greet him as Tristan, as they know who he is since this Tristan has nothing to hide. His father kidnapped and tortured him, he eventually killed him when he was an old enough adolescent, and then escaped to the stars with his brother.
His brother is now a major official in Space Gov, while Tristan just reverse engineers all the tech he can get his hands on and sells the analysis to both Space Gov and certain competitors. He still loves the forest despite the torture he received there, and has a need for adrenaline he can only suppress when the tech is flowing freely for his brain to pick apart.
So Tristan goes to the tavern, speaks to the couple of whom one of them he was just fucking a few hours ago, and things are very chill...
Then Alex walks in through the door, because he finally managed to find Tristan despite all the cyber security Justin has hired to put on Tristan’s location.
Jackal is also here, as he was not going to pass up a chance to check out the man who is good enough for Alex to only consider him a bed warmer. This attitude will not improve things, but it does mean Jackal will be present in the room when his ship contacts him about a space distortion wave that just hit the ship and is heading towards the planet any second now.
Then the ground itself shakes.
Chapter 3Tibs and Jackal are talking. Their team needs a new sorcerer, and options are hard to come by. That Carina lady is purity and a potential danger as she’s a follower of the Purity Faith and Tibs is a cleric in this world. The other option might be Don, but he’s a Mental sorcerer, giving him a hard time holding down a team as he’s useful but not flashy. Tibs thinks he just needs a bit of a push to live up to his potential, though.
Living up to potential is a big thing for Tibs due to Potentia influencing his personality as a cleric. He hasn’t given up training as a thief, but he also has Jackal training him as a fighter and is trying to collect amulets like a sorcerer. He has unfortunately had to accept he has no skill at ranged combat, so archer training is out of the question.
As a Fever Fighter, Jackal is very open for more sparring. Also eager for more other forms of activity, and often asks Tibs about other ways to unlock more of their bodies potential.
The other members of the group, the Darkness Thief Marlot and the Light Archer Trembor, join the conversation. The choice between having someone who might be a danger to Tibs to having someone who might be a burden to the team is a tough one... and before any answers can be made the ground shakes. People first look towards the dungeon, because of course they do, but then eyes turn to the sky.
Chapter 4Marlot and Trembor are sparing. Trembor has to hold back a LOT, as he’s lot stronger than his wolf. Which is OK, as Marlot also has a touch of super intelligence plus a sex drive that can keep Trembor satiated all day if they could afford to not work.
They have to work, however, and as usual they use the fight to think on their current case. Three different canines, all suspected to be supers but only two confirmed, who were chopped to bits and left to rot. The fact them having just enough parts to make two canines between all three bodies leaves the joke that the remaining parts were stitched together into a complete third body is made... but there is no way-
The wall only trembles a moment before shattering completely. A cloaked figure springs in and goes straight for Trembor. The lion is strong, but this newcomer is something else. Marlot isn’t going to stand by and let his mate get thrown around, but all he manages to do is pull back the hood... revealing a canine whose head has been stitched together from three other canines.
The stitched canine switches focus to Marlot, and restrains and runs off with him, not even bothering to knock him out before running off with him. Marlot struggles, but all he can do is watch his mate struggle to keep up.
Eventually a secret laboratory is reached, and here they discover black opts military, their boss,
[The Tiger Writes: do you have a sense of who that would be?]
[commissioner: For the sake of having as many returning characters for readers to recognize, likely the agent who talked to Marlot in the last chapter of the last book. This would let people speculate what Al's fate in this world would be.
If not literally her, it would still be someone from her organization, as this type of black opts thing is what they do.]and of course the mad scientist ferret doing all the real work. The ferret gets to work inspecting Marlot as the boss chides the stitched canine for not bringing back a Goldenmane.
Then the wall shakes, and Marlot’s heart skips a beat hoping it will be his love to the rescue... but when he looks, there are no broken walls, and all he sees is a sky that is... wrong.
Chapter 5Ryan is strolling through the streets at night, not expecting any trouble. His personalities are arguing about the best use of their time. Well, two of them are. The third is just watching, which is why it is the one who notices the surge of demonic magic.
The response, and they find a demon harassing a ferret and a feline. The ferret, Ralf, is struggling to get out a gun from a pocket that is way to small to hold a gun that big. The feline, Jeremy, is leaking magic that didn’t summon the demon but is certainly luring them in from the hells.
Ryan isn’t just a hellhound, but a child of Cerberus. So he has no problem with just one demon... but then another shows up... and then another. So, hey, cat? Either stop leaking mana or put some of it to use taking these things down so they stop treating you like an easy lunch.
Jeremy doesn’t know what to do... and it’s about this time that Gral descends from the sky like a guardian angel... which he is, so good form there. Demons are taken out, and leaving us with a hellhound and an angel staring intently at each other, waiting for the other demonstrate ill intent... which means none of them notice when Ralf finally gets the gun out and blows a massive hole straight though the side of the nearest sky scrapper. Thankfully an office skyscraper after hours, but still... think of the potential janitors...
So everyone struggles to get the ferret to put the gun away, then everyone is staring at each other much more calmly... and then the world shakes, and both Ralf and Jeremy say they didn’t do it. Then, everyone looks up at the sky.
Chapter 6Two of the Engineers, yes, those Engineers, are working at their consoles on whatever counts as a shared workspace for these unknowable entities. A tiger and a rat.
the rat will ask the tiger if he just sent a world creation engine to the recycling bin. the tiger says yeah, it was faulty, so he decided to start from scratch rather than fixing it. the rat says that that was the recycling bin he’s been storing all his junk world creation material. the tiger will shrug; it’s a quarantined system. Even if they react to each other, what is the worst that will happen?
That’s when the lights turn red and start flashing as a siren sounds off.
[The Tiger Writes: since the 'recycle bin' is a quarantine system, if feels like the whole story would take place in them moment between the conversation and the alarm sounding. as the people involved in the worlds would have put enough pieces together to come up with a way to break out and make this new universe real.]
[commissioner: While this entire scenario demands some incompetence from the Engineers, I'd like to think they have some common sense to have the alarms to go off BEFORE containment breach.
Something like "reality with dangerously incompatible magic systems" or "unauthorized reality is starting to expand beyond a solar system in size". Something that gives the two technicians something to panic and do something about OTHER than just spin doctoring this to their bosses to avoid being pink slipped.]
[The Tiger Writes: my thought was mainly because I didn't see the story surviving the engineers being directly involved.
but what do you see them doing once the alarm has sounded in regards to the worlds being merged?
[commissioner: My thoughts is that the two techs rush to stabilize the universe as quickly as possible, not out of care but because deletion is not quick and also not safe to do on something that is unstable.
So they halt the hyper expansion before we get something bigger than a solar system, and harmonize the five conflicting power systems. Once that's done, they can call in for reality deletion.
From there, one of two things happen.
Option One, one of the higher ups stops deletion and pulls a knee jerk experiment out of the mess to see how parallel versions of two different individuals interact with each other. They send the techs in there to make that happen, because delegation.
Option Two, someone in charge of deletion decides to delete everything connected to this faulty world engine, including the workstation with the techs still at their post. Here they need to enter the universe and stop the deletion process somehow to save their own hides.
A twist ending to option two would be it entirely being a simulation in and of itself of the Engineers wanting to see if their techs could defy them if motivated with their own survival.]
Further ChaptersI have NO idea. It was fun thinking this up, and having a minimum of two different versions of everyone is fun, each one happening on a variation of one of the involved parites normal homeworld. But we only have two space farers and four planets. So people interacting with each other would be small unless something strange happened in world assembly.
[The Tiger Writes: With a defective World Creation Engine thrown into the mix, the ways this could go are basically infinite. for the sake of 'simplicity' I could see each of the 'worlds' involved merging into one 'super world' with whatever is taking place in space now happening in orbit around that world.]
[commissioner: Another alternative would be it assembling into a mobius strip world, where not even simple kingdom peasants would be able to argue that something wasn't fucked up.]
Which it very well could have, BUT WHAT something is the question. Not to mention if it has an endpoint, or if it’s just a forever story.
[The Tiger Writes: you say you don't know what an ending could be, of if there would even be one, but do you have a sense if the ending would be leading toward a 'one world' where all the versions merge into a unique individual, or if it would be a stable world were each versions would co-exist?]
[commissioner: Stable version where each version coexists. Even at the small level, the world is big enough for there to be two of some people. Particularly when some of them aren't the same species as their twin, so loose of genetic diversity isn't even a concern.]
But still, here’s an idea to share to get it out of my head. Enjoy.
How Would Power Systems Merge (Part 1)So we have one world that works on definitive subatomic particle physics, one that works on essence, and three that work on definitive subatomic particle physics plus something extra. Also, at least two of those worlds have gods, and gods are a tricky thing for the Engineers and not something they want to let off the leash lest they lose control of their worlds.
The first thing to handle are the gods, and the easiest thing to do there is to shove all the gods into the fitting elemental domains and hope that muffles their influence. There’s a lot of gods, so some will be sharing domains. Some of the domains are a little obscure, though, so it’s not impossible some will be devoid of gods even with minor deities.
[The Tiger Writes: Gods in these worlds, before they get mashed together would depend entirely on how far the engineer version of you was along in creating them before they ended up in the bin. since entities usually most be put in place by them.
the way I've been approaching my version of this is that they weren't there, hence why the entity pulled their concepts out of people's imagination/subconscious. if we decide to go the route of them already being there, then the entity would take those preexisting systems and alter them for his needs.
in this new environment, the entity is a supreme being, although he is fallible. So existing gods couldn't simply "refuse him"]
[The Tiger Writes: this also applies to the elements.]
[commissioner: Hmm... this means I'm going to need to create an idea for why each world was created, why they ended up in the recycling bin, and at what point in the world creation process they were scrapped so I know how much information was there.]
Head count of the gods we have, there are the Kelsarian gods and Human gods fully present, with likely some of the gods of the rest of Alex’s crew also there. There’s also quite a few gods in the Urban Fantasy setting. So all of them gotta get bottled.
As for the underlying subatomic level... Getting the essence system to transfer into subatomic particles would be easy, but all atoms will still need to be jury rigged to behave correctly, not to mention making sure the special exceptions from the Super Predators and Urban Fantasy still work across the board. That’s a lot of junk data to brute force a solution, possibly enough junk data to crash the world with explosive results.
[The Tiger Writes: okay, this is a good point regarding how that world works, and yes, the entity would probably have to create/usurp the elements, but as a form of conversion system so this world isn't destroyed by the other's physic or it doesn't make the others unstable to the point they might be destroyed.
his goal is for everything to survive as close to what the people in those world know, but without putting himself in a position where he's always dealing with problems from that.
ultimately, in this, the entity is the people's ally, although he doesn't intend to reveal himself to them in any way]
Solution? If you are a super or are supernatural, you now have essence. If you have essence, you are now a super.
So how do these changes look on the other side.
Jeremy’s World: As seers, Thuruk (and maybe Jeremy) are going to gain essence. Likely void, but maybe dream. Xenial won’t gain one right away, but you know his patron will want to keep his favorite lover closer, so expect an audience to be arranged.
Tristan’s World: Absolutely nothing. Be glad the antimatter reactors still work. (Could say that last bit about Jeremy’s world as well.)
Tib’s World: All clerics are going to likely start hearing gods in their head along with normal compulsions. Due to their instinctive connection, clerics will be the first to notice that while the elements appear to be the same, something is different on their limitations.
Marlot’s World: Superpowers continue to work the way they did before, but the theming for some changes drastically. Those who experiment will suddenly discover they are capable of so much more. Also, the eyes are going to make being a secret super difficult.
R&R’s World: Anyone who was once a cleric of a god is now a cleric of the appropriate element. Magic users like Jeremy or half mortals like Ralf get bound to the appropriate element. Supernaturals are now dungeon made creatures with cores in their body, some of them large enough to be exceptionally deep dungeons if they were interested in the position.
How Would Power Systems Merge (Part 2)OK. I really liked the idea of things being crushed down to just two dimensions. Also, having done a reread of what you wrote, it’s looking like gods and magic is part of the world engine level of interface anyway.
So, if there were any deities in the world data, they were briefly merged down to normal reality when things went two dimensional. They were likely left on the normal 3D plane, leaving the World Engine to its own devices on the 4th plane right above normal reality... unless the 4th plane is time, in which case yay for retaining control of that dimension.
With the world engine running around creating gods to manage various little parts of the world, gods would likely be how it would manage those things. Here is what we’re looking at then.
And picking up the next day, I could ramble on, but having read your comments on the previous section I realize there is something WAY more important to draft out.
Why the Worlds, and When to Discard ThemWorld OneSo, world one likely had the personal motivation to do what was on the tin. AKA, reverse the power dynamic roles of Gral and Jeremy. Make one part of a mostly stable government that supported him, and the other part of a government that was slipping down a path of being influenced by powers from beyond the galaxy and was rejecting it’s chosen PoV character.
I imagine the entire Jeremy universe was constructed to test the waters in competing systems, aka opposed gods, so this would be framed to his bosses in just changing up one of the variables on the point of attack by the galaxy outsider forces to see if things would change if they attacked the stronger link rather than the weakest link first.
Of course, in the set up to go beyond his initial starting point, he realized that this version of Jeremy and Gral would likely not be together as the Jeremy had too many attachments to this Earth and Gral would never stop patrolling the line. So even if he could justify it to the bosses, he wouldn’t get what he wanted. So scrap bin.
This would be why the world consists of just the station and assorted star ships of the initial conflict. There are no gods, and certainly no planets.
World TwoWorld Two has a completely different love story that was altered. Namely how would Tristan and Alex’s love story progress if Tristan was, heaven forbid, a normal stable person despite his traumatic childhood. In this case it might even be motivated by how Tristan and Alex are inserted into so many different worlds, with the question being could their relationship happen if certain elements were missing.
We got the planet, we got the planet the reunite on, and we got the star ship that brought Alex there. Just need to expand the universe... and there we have the problem.
Which is where we get the problem. Aside from Justin being a part of Sol Gov, this world is just TOO fucking similar to the base world it was based off of. As impactful as changing these two might be, it wouldn’t change the universe enough to get the bosses to approve it, and what could he do to change things majorly that wouldn’t ruin his secret motivations for doing this world? Make EVERY psychopath in this galaxy a well balanced person? Well that would just be a utopia and CERTAINLY no way the bosses need another one of those.
So it hits the recycler with just a planet and a space ship in orbit.
World ThreeTwo worlds with love stories down, and the Engineers think it’s enough for that focus. Instead he starts doing a simple element inversion on the Dungeon Runners world. Flip people’s element to something that would fit for them but that they didn’t have in the original. And it goes well, with a lot of people converted. Khumdar is actually in there on the Path of Life, because of course he would.
Then he reaches the Church of Purity... and the only way that would work is if he flipped the entire church to Fever. That would impact Carina a lot, but not Khumdar that much so it might still work... and then while going through the Church’s ranks he runs across one of the alter egos of the Big Bad and he realize that if he’s doing this right he needs to alter their element as well, which basically overturns the whole world.
He has a lot of progress on this one, so he tries different things to maybe keep this one going. But it’s ultimately too much background work to retroactively rework THAT much history. So into the bin.
Due to the large work time, this world had the entirety of several towns from where Sto is working outwards. It also had all the elements, since that’s a simple copy paste, but their personalities are an odd mixture of one note and mutable at the same time, so not a concern.
World FourAt this point, he needs a win, so the Engineer starts working on a super power world using the Predation Civilization model as a base. It starts to go well. What starts as a small act of villagers steroiding up their farmers resulting in them getting super powers, eventually cascades to the concept of food chain super power, where predators are more powerful because they are eating the predators. Apex predator families, militaries trying to game the system both by creating very powerful heravores for predators to eat and having predators eat predators one way or another. By engineer standards this is golden.
Then he reaches one of the coastal nations with fishing as a major food source, and it all starts to fall apart. What about the fish? Or the insects. Or FUCK, what about the bateria? Why doesn’t this world have literal super pandemics? Even with some of the steps against disease taken in the Predation Civilization model, this is world might fall apart the second it was brought online.
So into the bin it goes, though at this point the stress is to the point he’s tempted to zero it out with his jaws and swallow the consequences. This one had one major nation (Marlot and Trembors) fleshed out, and several sections of others fleshed out, mostly their military. It fell apart the second he reached a fishing village, meaning the support for some of those militaries will be a bit weak, meaning they might be a problem.
World FiveHe needs to chill, get some comfort zone work going and screw grand designs. An urban fantasy world, secret societies of magic. Magical forces are divided between darkness and light, but it’s not a good and evil divide as there are good and evil forces on either side of the line. Mortals stand between, literally, and some can wield the power of both.
It’s all looking good... and then he runs into the problem of how in the world does the secret of societies of magic stay secret. Anything he tries to apply feels forced. He can try and go for a non-secret society version, but that would break the feel he’s going for. Better to start over.
So into the bin it goes. It has a few cities major cities cobbled together, but nothing resembling a whole nation. Also has a lot of magical creatures living in secret from the nonmagical people, but not much reason TO do so.
World SixDon’t worry, I’m not adding another one to the recycling bin. But you started the intermission with the rat working on something, only to have the supervisor ask why he didn’t have something on his desk. So I’m creating something here.
Modern magical setting. Keeping the darkness and light division, but the divide is not as clear. Some nations have one or the other as a ruling class, others have them mix. Big huge magic needs both darkness and light, though, meaning even the most racist rulers can’t get rid of all the creatures of the opposing polarity. Mortals are a bit more complex, as they can learn to use either, and sometimes one is born who naturally wields both... is that something to encourage or caste down? Depends on the nation.
That would be the world the rat Engineer was working on when the faulty world engine went into the bin.
Bonus WorldsNot that I expect it to impact the story at all, but it is implied that the Engineers are allowed personal worlds, and I can see the rat Engineer to have two.
One is a Labyrinth world, where the monster in the Labyrinth are actually manifestations of the stresses on the world engine, meaning the adventurers are helping debug and maintain their world as they kill things. It’s part of what impressed the higher ups to promote him to his current position, which feels a little silly to the rat since he considered it just a creative way to have multiple worlds in one.
The other is a simple personal pleasure world. An entire world of men and woman, who freely have sex because under normal circumstances they can’t reproduce on their own. Reproduction only happens when they have sex with a 15th dimensional being like the Engineers; this occurs with either men or women. Within the confines of the world an Engineer can freely shape shift, go invisible, or teleport. the rat is very selective in who he lets into this world, not because he feels connection to any of his lower dimensional children, but because recklessly advancing the time on this world or not advancing it enough between visits might result in problems.
World One: Role ReversalGralgalion as just a merchant. He HATES it, but this is a world where the Leadership did away with the Hunters right when he graduated from the academy. He still pilots the Viper’s Bane, because gods meddle.
Jeremy is an actual Navy Engineer, and gays aren’t persacuted on this Earth. Still Aethist, though.
Alex is a Pirate Captain with large alien crew, and of course there is a large shirtless policy when they aren’t in armed combat.
Tristan is a Halan Kelsarian who somehow found himself as part of Alex’s crew... and he thinks mind control was involved somehow, but he’s finding himself caring less and less if that was the case day by day.
[The Tiger Writes: do you see them in a relationship at this point, or is Alex still working on him to get to that point?]
[commissioner:They are in the intermission between book 3 and 4 of Tristan at the moment, only rolls reversed.
So there is sex, Tristan is being brainwashed and struggling to care that he is, and Alex is blissfully unaware he's falling in love.
Which, in Alex's case, he has a LOT of other sexual partners other than Tristan, but Tristan he has to work with.]
[The Tiger Writes: when you say that Alex has to work with Tristan, how to you mean it in this context? I kind of expect Alex has to with a bunch of the people on his crew]
[commissioner:I mean most of the rest of the crew is wrapped around Alex's finger/cock with just one or two brainwashing treatments. Tristan still showing signs of independence and self direction has Alex's attention.]
[The Tiger Writes: oh, I see, so it's more that he has to work 'on' Tristan, rather than with him.]
World Two: Mentally StableTristan lives an open life on his small little forest world, researching tech he sends reports back to his brother in Space Gov. Every few decades the tech drives up, however, and he needs to satiate his adrenaline rush to fill the downtime.
Alex once ran across Tristan during one of these amusement park binges, and he just couldn’t get enough of the alien. So he followed him across the galaxy.
Jackal met Alex in anger management courses, and they are good friends. The fact they’d meet up again when Alex needed a ride worked out great... as long as the great sex also keeps coming.
Tibs is Jackal’s adoptive younger brother, and the one who really runs the ship. As long as they can keep the books in the black he’ll be fine with this little detour.
World Three: Alter ElementJackal was assassinated by one of his father’s enemies before he got his element... Thankfully they used the right sort of poison, because he ended up getting Fever as his element. Which honestly, suits him just fine.
Tibs got caught up in an alchemy attack in the town before he got his first element. This wasn’t a corruption attack, however. It was potentia. Tibs comes out not just with Potentia as his element, but as a cleric.
Marlot is a Darkness Rogue that is definitely going to be able to keep Tib’s secret. Good with that lock pick, and favoring a fist fighting style like Jackle. Don’t say big guys can’t be thieves.
Trembor is a Light Archer who wouldn’t believe some of the things his team gets up to if not for seeing the light on their lips. His and Marlot’s relationship will happen, it just needs the work through the complications.
World Four: Super Predators[The Tiger Writes:this question just occurred to me.
what level of 'super' is meant here? the kind of stuff that can be explained by physical bodied being pushed well past their limits, or laws of physics breaking powers a la Marvel/DC? ]
[commissioner: (answer given over voice chat) they can break the laws of physic]
Marlot’s home town used some drugs on the farm animals, without really thinking about the consequences of that traveling up the food chain. All the men in Marlot's home town are bisexual and sexually aggressive... and also have some decent super strength, speed, and durability.
Trembor’s family, the gold manes, are generational supers and have been since the days they were kings. They take this power very seriously, whether they have enforcement jobs like Trembor or not.
Ralf is a mad scientist who works for black opts government groups to create supers.
Ryan is one of his projects, literally three other super canines stitched together in the effort to create a SUPER super.
[The Tiger Writes:does he have one head, or three?]
[commissioner: It's one head/skull. It's just that rather than a "normal" asymmetrical fur pattern, his head has been stitched together from three different skulls.]
World Five: Urban SupernaturalRyan is the son of Cerberus and a hound of the wild hunt, living on the mortal plane because the neighbors are too nosy on Tir A Nog, and Tartarus has terrible rent.
Ralf is the son of a muse, born when said muse visited Daytona Beach on spring break and inspired a few more pages to the Kama Sutra. The ferret literally can’t help but get new ideas.
Jeremy thinks he’s a totally normal person. He’s actually a powerful sorcerer who is going to be in a lot of trouble if he doesn’t master his awakening powers.
Gral is an angelic being who was sent down from the Heavens to watch, guard, and train Jeremy. Of course them falling in love and having sex was part of the divine plan, since the gods are horny.
[The Tiger Writes: is Jeremy human in that world, or converted into a furry?
never mind, it's answered in the chapter]
Storyboard[The Tiger Writes: is this set in one of the previous worlds or in its own?
Edit: okay, I see this is multiple of them at 'the same time']
Only have the first six chapters here. From there, I have no idea.
Chapter 1[The Tiger Writes:this would be a ship with fewer civilians, if only because Gral wouldn't feel he can do the best job protecting them.
I could also see him gathering other hunters who have been cut, or aren't willing to work for the military. he'd probably get the most religious of them.
what has the military done with the head Alpha? is she in hiding?
I could see Gral doing the best he can to uphold his duties, but as is stated there, without actual support, his actions would actually mark him as almost a halan himself in the eyes of the military, and therefore, the Federation]
[commissioner: The head Alpha would either be the Spreading Branch of this world, or went down in a blaze of glory. If she did go down in a blaze of glory, there likely would be some equivalent to Spreading Branch for the Hunters still out there.]
From Gral’s PoV, we get to see him stress about the stress of the legacy of the Hunters that is on him as the captain of the Viper’s Bane, the pressure from the religious faithful for him to fulfill the honor of his namesake, the impossibility of doing so without the support of the government, and the mounting costs of just keeping the Viper’s Bane afloat in space without government support. When you aren’t getting a pay check and rights to salvage are questionable, fitting the bills are hard.
He doesn’t even think it’s meddling that put Alix in a coma, just him failing as a captain to give his friend the best parts. He’ll head to the Earther space station to request the use of one of their engineers... and then he and Jeremy lay eyes on each other.
Things don’t go easy for Gral in the way of romance, however, as Jeremy is a military officer and disciplined enough in Earther military protocol to jump the bone of the hot Kelsarian captain he just met. He’s going to ship to do repairs, and when he gets back he’ll complain to the others about how distracting the hot captain is.
[The Tiger Writes: are the Earthers part of the Federation in this version? I could see them having made it in, since they wouldn't be hiding anything]
[commissioner: The process is likely just as far along as before. The Kelsarian's would still be the sponsor, and the fact that the Earthers worship no gods would be a factor in their favor.
If this was it's own standalone story, the actions between Jeremy and Gral might result in things still souring between the Earthers and Kelsarians, since saying no god worship and being OK with antigod ethnic cleansing are two different things.]
Before things can progress too far, pirates arrive. Showboating pirates, as Alex is on camera making declarations for both the station and the merchant ship to save some lives and just surrender to be looted. Before Gral or the station can respond, reality itself shakes.
Chapter 2Tristan is running through the forest, naked as normal for his morning exercises. He’ll be ambushed by a human man, also naked. The spar for a bit, sex happens, and then man goes off to his nearby home. In the window of said home, the man’s wife stars dreamily as she waves Tristan off.
[The Tiger Writes:do you have a sense of who that man his? or is he still the owner of Diny's Dinner?]
[commissioner: He's the owner of Diny's Dinner. Just couldn't find his name easily on with the first file chapter I checked, and wasn't willing to slow things down checking a half dozen other ones.]
After returning home and doing some work, Tristan eventually heads to town for his normal lunch. People greet him as Tristan, as they know who he is since this Tristan has nothing to hide. His father kidnapped and tortured him, he eventually killed him when he was an old enough adolescent, and then escaped to the stars with his brother.
His brother is now a major official in Space Gov, while Tristan just reverse engineers all the tech he can get his hands on and sells the analysis to both Space Gov and certain competitors. He still loves the forest despite the torture he received there, and has a need for adrenaline he can only suppress when the tech is flowing freely for his brain to pick apart.
So Tristan goes to the tavern, speaks to the couple of whom one of them he was just fucking a few hours ago, and things are very chill...
Then Alex walks in through the door, because he finally managed to find Tristan despite all the cyber security Justin has hired to put on Tristan’s location.
Jackal is also here, as he was not going to pass up a chance to check out the man who is good enough for Alex to only consider him a bed warmer. This attitude will not improve things, but it does mean Jackal will be present in the room when his ship contacts him about a space distortion wave that just hit the ship and is heading towards the planet any second now.
Then the ground itself shakes.
Chapter 3Tibs and Jackal are talking. Their team needs a new sorcerer, and options are hard to come by. That Carina lady is purity and a potential danger as she’s a follower of the Purity Faith and Tibs is a cleric in this world. The other option might be Don, but he’s a Mental sorcerer, giving him a hard time holding down a team as he’s useful but not flashy. Tibs thinks he just needs a bit of a push to live up to his potential, though.
Living up to potential is a big thing for Tibs due to Potentia influencing his personality as a cleric. He hasn’t given up training as a thief, but he also has Jackal training him as a fighter and is trying to collect amulets like a sorcerer. He has unfortunately had to accept he has no skill at ranged combat, so archer training is out of the question.
As a Fever Fighter, Jackal is very open for more sparring. Also eager for more other forms of activity, and often asks Tibs about other ways to unlock more of their bodies potential.
The other members of the group, the Darkness Thief Marlot and the Light Archer Trembor, join the conversation. The choice between having someone who might be a danger to Tibs to having someone who might be a burden to the team is a tough one... and before any answers can be made the ground shakes. People first look towards the dungeon, because of course they do, but then eyes turn to the sky.
Chapter 4Marlot and Trembor are sparing. Trembor has to hold back a LOT, as he’s lot stronger than his wolf. Which is OK, as Marlot also has a touch of super intelligence plus a sex drive that can keep Trembor satiated all day if they could afford to not work.
They have to work, however, and as usual they use the fight to think on their current case. Three different canines, all suspected to be supers but only two confirmed, who were chopped to bits and left to rot. The fact them having just enough parts to make two canines between all three bodies leaves the joke that the remaining parts were stitched together into a complete third body is made... but there is no way-
The wall only trembles a moment before shattering completely. A cloaked figure springs in and goes straight for Trembor. The lion is strong, but this newcomer is something else. Marlot isn’t going to stand by and let his mate get thrown around, but all he manages to do is pull back the hood... revealing a canine whose head has been stitched together from three other canines.
The stitched canine switches focus to Marlot, and restrains and runs off with him, not even bothering to knock him out before running off with him. Marlot struggles, but all he can do is watch his mate struggle to keep up.
Eventually a secret laboratory is reached, and here they discover black opts military, their boss,
[The Tiger Writes: do you have a sense of who that would be?]
[commissioner: For the sake of having as many returning characters for readers to recognize, likely the agent who talked to Marlot in the last chapter of the last book. This would let people speculate what Al's fate in this world would be.
If not literally her, it would still be someone from her organization, as this type of black opts thing is what they do.]and of course the mad scientist ferret doing all the real work. The ferret gets to work inspecting Marlot as the boss chides the stitched canine for not bringing back a Goldenmane.
Then the wall shakes, and Marlot’s heart skips a beat hoping it will be his love to the rescue... but when he looks, there are no broken walls, and all he sees is a sky that is... wrong.
Chapter 5Ryan is strolling through the streets at night, not expecting any trouble. His personalities are arguing about the best use of their time. Well, two of them are. The third is just watching, which is why it is the one who notices the surge of demonic magic.
The response, and they find a demon harassing a ferret and a feline. The ferret, Ralf, is struggling to get out a gun from a pocket that is way to small to hold a gun that big. The feline, Jeremy, is leaking magic that didn’t summon the demon but is certainly luring them in from the hells.
Ryan isn’t just a hellhound, but a child of Cerberus. So he has no problem with just one demon... but then another shows up... and then another. So, hey, cat? Either stop leaking mana or put some of it to use taking these things down so they stop treating you like an easy lunch.
Jeremy doesn’t know what to do... and it’s about this time that Gral descends from the sky like a guardian angel... which he is, so good form there. Demons are taken out, and leaving us with a hellhound and an angel staring intently at each other, waiting for the other demonstrate ill intent... which means none of them notice when Ralf finally gets the gun out and blows a massive hole straight though the side of the nearest sky scrapper. Thankfully an office skyscraper after hours, but still... think of the potential janitors...
So everyone struggles to get the ferret to put the gun away, then everyone is staring at each other much more calmly... and then the world shakes, and both Ralf and Jeremy say they didn’t do it. Then, everyone looks up at the sky.
Chapter 6Two of the Engineers, yes, those Engineers, are working at their consoles on whatever counts as a shared workspace for these unknowable entities. A tiger and a rat.
the rat will ask the tiger if he just sent a world creation engine to the recycling bin. the tiger says yeah, it was faulty, so he decided to start from scratch rather than fixing it. the rat says that that was the recycling bin he’s been storing all his junk world creation material. the tiger will shrug; it’s a quarantined system. Even if they react to each other, what is the worst that will happen?
That’s when the lights turn red and start flashing as a siren sounds off.
[The Tiger Writes: since the 'recycle bin' is a quarantine system, if feels like the whole story would take place in them moment between the conversation and the alarm sounding. as the people involved in the worlds would have put enough pieces together to come up with a way to break out and make this new universe real.]
[commissioner: While this entire scenario demands some incompetence from the Engineers, I'd like to think they have some common sense to have the alarms to go off BEFORE containment breach.
Something like "reality with dangerously incompatible magic systems" or "unauthorized reality is starting to expand beyond a solar system in size". Something that gives the two technicians something to panic and do something about OTHER than just spin doctoring this to their bosses to avoid being pink slipped.]
[The Tiger Writes: my thought was mainly because I didn't see the story surviving the engineers being directly involved.
but what do you see them doing once the alarm has sounded in regards to the worlds being merged?
[commissioner: My thoughts is that the two techs rush to stabilize the universe as quickly as possible, not out of care but because deletion is not quick and also not safe to do on something that is unstable.
So they halt the hyper expansion before we get something bigger than a solar system, and harmonize the five conflicting power systems. Once that's done, they can call in for reality deletion.
From there, one of two things happen.
Option One, one of the higher ups stops deletion and pulls a knee jerk experiment out of the mess to see how parallel versions of two different individuals interact with each other. They send the techs in there to make that happen, because delegation.
Option Two, someone in charge of deletion decides to delete everything connected to this faulty world engine, including the workstation with the techs still at their post. Here they need to enter the universe and stop the deletion process somehow to save their own hides.
A twist ending to option two would be it entirely being a simulation in and of itself of the Engineers wanting to see if their techs could defy them if motivated with their own survival.]
Further ChaptersI have NO idea. It was fun thinking this up, and having a minimum of two different versions of everyone is fun, each one happening on a variation of one of the involved parites normal homeworld. But we only have two space farers and four planets. So people interacting with each other would be small unless something strange happened in world assembly.
[The Tiger Writes: With a defective World Creation Engine thrown into the mix, the ways this could go are basically infinite. for the sake of 'simplicity' I could see each of the 'worlds' involved merging into one 'super world' with whatever is taking place in space now happening in orbit around that world.]
[commissioner: Another alternative would be it assembling into a mobius strip world, where not even simple kingdom peasants would be able to argue that something wasn't fucked up.]
Which it very well could have, BUT WHAT something is the question. Not to mention if it has an endpoint, or if it’s just a forever story.
[The Tiger Writes: you say you don't know what an ending could be, of if there would even be one, but do you have a sense if the ending would be leading toward a 'one world' where all the versions merge into a unique individual, or if it would be a stable world were each versions would co-exist?]
[commissioner: Stable version where each version coexists. Even at the small level, the world is big enough for there to be two of some people. Particularly when some of them aren't the same species as their twin, so loose of genetic diversity isn't even a concern.]
But still, here’s an idea to share to get it out of my head. Enjoy.
How Would Power Systems Merge (Part 1)So we have one world that works on definitive subatomic particle physics, one that works on essence, and three that work on definitive subatomic particle physics plus something extra. Also, at least two of those worlds have gods, and gods are a tricky thing for the Engineers and not something they want to let off the leash lest they lose control of their worlds.
The first thing to handle are the gods, and the easiest thing to do there is to shove all the gods into the fitting elemental domains and hope that muffles their influence. There’s a lot of gods, so some will be sharing domains. Some of the domains are a little obscure, though, so it’s not impossible some will be devoid of gods even with minor deities.
[The Tiger Writes: Gods in these worlds, before they get mashed together would depend entirely on how far the engineer version of you was along in creating them before they ended up in the bin. since entities usually most be put in place by them.
the way I've been approaching my version of this is that they weren't there, hence why the entity pulled their concepts out of people's imagination/subconscious. if we decide to go the route of them already being there, then the entity would take those preexisting systems and alter them for his needs.
in this new environment, the entity is a supreme being, although he is fallible. So existing gods couldn't simply "refuse him"]
[The Tiger Writes: this also applies to the elements.]
[commissioner: Hmm... this means I'm going to need to create an idea for why each world was created, why they ended up in the recycling bin, and at what point in the world creation process they were scrapped so I know how much information was there.]
Head count of the gods we have, there are the Kelsarian gods and Human gods fully present, with likely some of the gods of the rest of Alex’s crew also there. There’s also quite a few gods in the Urban Fantasy setting. So all of them gotta get bottled.
As for the underlying subatomic level... Getting the essence system to transfer into subatomic particles would be easy, but all atoms will still need to be jury rigged to behave correctly, not to mention making sure the special exceptions from the Super Predators and Urban Fantasy still work across the board. That’s a lot of junk data to brute force a solution, possibly enough junk data to crash the world with explosive results.
[The Tiger Writes: okay, this is a good point regarding how that world works, and yes, the entity would probably have to create/usurp the elements, but as a form of conversion system so this world isn't destroyed by the other's physic or it doesn't make the others unstable to the point they might be destroyed.
his goal is for everything to survive as close to what the people in those world know, but without putting himself in a position where he's always dealing with problems from that.
ultimately, in this, the entity is the people's ally, although he doesn't intend to reveal himself to them in any way]
Solution? If you are a super or are supernatural, you now have essence. If you have essence, you are now a super.
So how do these changes look on the other side.
Jeremy’s World: As seers, Thuruk (and maybe Jeremy) are going to gain essence. Likely void, but maybe dream. Xenial won’t gain one right away, but you know his patron will want to keep his favorite lover closer, so expect an audience to be arranged.
Tristan’s World: Absolutely nothing. Be glad the antimatter reactors still work. (Could say that last bit about Jeremy’s world as well.)
Tib’s World: All clerics are going to likely start hearing gods in their head along with normal compulsions. Due to their instinctive connection, clerics will be the first to notice that while the elements appear to be the same, something is different on their limitations.
Marlot’s World: Superpowers continue to work the way they did before, but the theming for some changes drastically. Those who experiment will suddenly discover they are capable of so much more. Also, the eyes are going to make being a secret super difficult.
R&R’s World: Anyone who was once a cleric of a god is now a cleric of the appropriate element. Magic users like Jeremy or half mortals like Ralf get bound to the appropriate element. Supernaturals are now dungeon made creatures with cores in their body, some of them large enough to be exceptionally deep dungeons if they were interested in the position.
How Would Power Systems Merge (Part 2)OK. I really liked the idea of things being crushed down to just two dimensions. Also, having done a reread of what you wrote, it’s looking like gods and magic is part of the world engine level of interface anyway.
So, if there were any deities in the world data, they were briefly merged down to normal reality when things went two dimensional. They were likely left on the normal 3D plane, leaving the World Engine to its own devices on the 4th plane right above normal reality... unless the 4th plane is time, in which case yay for retaining control of that dimension.
With the world engine running around creating gods to manage various little parts of the world, gods would likely be how it would manage those things. Here is what we’re looking at then.
- Jeremy’s world doesn’t have powers. It might have some gods who were crushed down to normal reality and left there, but without the engine backing them up they’d be a bit powerless.
- They do have antimatter reactors, though. And they’ll be looking to restock that somewhere. The sun is a solution, but do they have the equipment to harvest that or the time to build said equipment before time runs out.
- Was in bed last night when it hit me that I forgot about mentalists and seers. Thankfully mentalists are just superpowers. Seers, particularly with a confirmed on in Thuruk on the ship... that will be an issue. And there is no question Thuruk is on that ship; he is from a traditionalist family, and a colony no less, and just wants to be a hunter.
- Tristan’s world has even less powers, with any gods being questionable and likely just internal. I’m pretty sure they also have fusion power and overall just higher tech then Jeremy’s world.
- Tib’s world has the elements... and with the flattening of the dimensions those are just now EVERYWHERE. Which since they made up everything, should be just fine. We will have a problem of people effectively sacrificing themselves for audiences with the elements that just won’t happen. Will the world engine care?
- It will care about the dungeons, as those are just little pockets of existence where something intelligent is in control that isn’t something it created.
- Marlot’s world has superpowers... but no set rules on how they come about. So nothing big there aside from they might rule the world is left unchecked.
- Ryan’s world has magic that isn’t based on essence, which is complication one. It also had gods since we have muses, hellhounds, and angles. So... yeah. Lots of gods now powerless but god servants who might actually have more power then them. Also the whole magic that isn’t tied to essence will be a big deal.
And picking up the next day, I could ramble on, but having read your comments on the previous section I realize there is something WAY more important to draft out.
Why the Worlds, and When to Discard ThemWorld OneSo, world one likely had the personal motivation to do what was on the tin. AKA, reverse the power dynamic roles of Gral and Jeremy. Make one part of a mostly stable government that supported him, and the other part of a government that was slipping down a path of being influenced by powers from beyond the galaxy and was rejecting it’s chosen PoV character.
I imagine the entire Jeremy universe was constructed to test the waters in competing systems, aka opposed gods, so this would be framed to his bosses in just changing up one of the variables on the point of attack by the galaxy outsider forces to see if things would change if they attacked the stronger link rather than the weakest link first.
Of course, in the set up to go beyond his initial starting point, he realized that this version of Jeremy and Gral would likely not be together as the Jeremy had too many attachments to this Earth and Gral would never stop patrolling the line. So even if he could justify it to the bosses, he wouldn’t get what he wanted. So scrap bin.
This would be why the world consists of just the station and assorted star ships of the initial conflict. There are no gods, and certainly no planets.
World TwoWorld Two has a completely different love story that was altered. Namely how would Tristan and Alex’s love story progress if Tristan was, heaven forbid, a normal stable person despite his traumatic childhood. In this case it might even be motivated by how Tristan and Alex are inserted into so many different worlds, with the question being could their relationship happen if certain elements were missing.
We got the planet, we got the planet the reunite on, and we got the star ship that brought Alex there. Just need to expand the universe... and there we have the problem.
Which is where we get the problem. Aside from Justin being a part of Sol Gov, this world is just TOO fucking similar to the base world it was based off of. As impactful as changing these two might be, it wouldn’t change the universe enough to get the bosses to approve it, and what could he do to change things majorly that wouldn’t ruin his secret motivations for doing this world? Make EVERY psychopath in this galaxy a well balanced person? Well that would just be a utopia and CERTAINLY no way the bosses need another one of those.
So it hits the recycler with just a planet and a space ship in orbit.
World ThreeTwo worlds with love stories down, and the Engineers think it’s enough for that focus. Instead he starts doing a simple element inversion on the Dungeon Runners world. Flip people’s element to something that would fit for them but that they didn’t have in the original. And it goes well, with a lot of people converted. Khumdar is actually in there on the Path of Life, because of course he would.
Then he reaches the Church of Purity... and the only way that would work is if he flipped the entire church to Fever. That would impact Carina a lot, but not Khumdar that much so it might still work... and then while going through the Church’s ranks he runs across one of the alter egos of the Big Bad and he realize that if he’s doing this right he needs to alter their element as well, which basically overturns the whole world.
He has a lot of progress on this one, so he tries different things to maybe keep this one going. But it’s ultimately too much background work to retroactively rework THAT much history. So into the bin.
Due to the large work time, this world had the entirety of several towns from where Sto is working outwards. It also had all the elements, since that’s a simple copy paste, but their personalities are an odd mixture of one note and mutable at the same time, so not a concern.
World FourAt this point, he needs a win, so the Engineer starts working on a super power world using the Predation Civilization model as a base. It starts to go well. What starts as a small act of villagers steroiding up their farmers resulting in them getting super powers, eventually cascades to the concept of food chain super power, where predators are more powerful because they are eating the predators. Apex predator families, militaries trying to game the system both by creating very powerful heravores for predators to eat and having predators eat predators one way or another. By engineer standards this is golden.
Then he reaches one of the coastal nations with fishing as a major food source, and it all starts to fall apart. What about the fish? Or the insects. Or FUCK, what about the bateria? Why doesn’t this world have literal super pandemics? Even with some of the steps against disease taken in the Predation Civilization model, this is world might fall apart the second it was brought online.
So into the bin it goes, though at this point the stress is to the point he’s tempted to zero it out with his jaws and swallow the consequences. This one had one major nation (Marlot and Trembors) fleshed out, and several sections of others fleshed out, mostly their military. It fell apart the second he reached a fishing village, meaning the support for some of those militaries will be a bit weak, meaning they might be a problem.
World FiveHe needs to chill, get some comfort zone work going and screw grand designs. An urban fantasy world, secret societies of magic. Magical forces are divided between darkness and light, but it’s not a good and evil divide as there are good and evil forces on either side of the line. Mortals stand between, literally, and some can wield the power of both.
It’s all looking good... and then he runs into the problem of how in the world does the secret of societies of magic stay secret. Anything he tries to apply feels forced. He can try and go for a non-secret society version, but that would break the feel he’s going for. Better to start over.
So into the bin it goes. It has a few cities major cities cobbled together, but nothing resembling a whole nation. Also has a lot of magical creatures living in secret from the nonmagical people, but not much reason TO do so.
World SixDon’t worry, I’m not adding another one to the recycling bin. But you started the intermission with the rat working on something, only to have the supervisor ask why he didn’t have something on his desk. So I’m creating something here.
Modern magical setting. Keeping the darkness and light division, but the divide is not as clear. Some nations have one or the other as a ruling class, others have them mix. Big huge magic needs both darkness and light, though, meaning even the most racist rulers can’t get rid of all the creatures of the opposing polarity. Mortals are a bit more complex, as they can learn to use either, and sometimes one is born who naturally wields both... is that something to encourage or caste down? Depends on the nation.
That would be the world the rat Engineer was working on when the faulty world engine went into the bin.
Bonus WorldsNot that I expect it to impact the story at all, but it is implied that the Engineers are allowed personal worlds, and I can see the rat Engineer to have two.
One is a Labyrinth world, where the monster in the Labyrinth are actually manifestations of the stresses on the world engine, meaning the adventurers are helping debug and maintain their world as they kill things. It’s part of what impressed the higher ups to promote him to his current position, which feels a little silly to the rat since he considered it just a creative way to have multiple worlds in one.
The other is a simple personal pleasure world. An entire world of men and woman, who freely have sex because under normal circumstances they can’t reproduce on their own. Reproduction only happens when they have sex with a 15th dimensional being like the Engineers; this occurs with either men or women. Within the confines of the world an Engineer can freely shape shift, go invisible, or teleport. the rat is very selective in who he lets into this world, not because he feels connection to any of his lower dimensional children, but because recklessly advancing the time on this world or not advancing it enough between visits might result in problems.
