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Surprise Update: Appendices and Bonus Book
🕑 Added 2023-06-28 22:15:14 +0000 UTCHey, everyone! This would ordinarily be bonus content between books, but Amazon has accelerated my timeline by choosing Soulhome as one of its special deals for next month. I felt like it would be cruel to interrupt the climactic chapters with alternate content, so instead you're getting a special post now.
I'm hoping to get input on several things that might be of interest to readers:
1) There is a new soulcrafting introduction tutorial below in this post.
2) And a Nine Worlds tutorial right below that.
3) Both these tutorials as well as additional soulhome diagrams are contained within the ebook you'll find linked below.
I would love to get feedback on these before I upload them to Amazon. The soulcrafting introduction is meant to be easy to understand, so I'm looking for anything I may have explained poorly - it also aims for a snarky tone, hopefully not too much.
The Nine Worlds appendix is loaded with new lore. I started writing it as an introduction to help readers keep the different worlds straight, but ended up adding so many hints it may be more suitable to superfans. Lots to chew on if you like that sort of thing - you could accurately guess some of the redacted information.
The plan is to include these in the new edition of the first book. I've also added an appendix that has Theo's soulhome diagrams in a format I hope will be readable on all devices. Please check it out and tell me if it looks right for you, plus feel free to give feedback on what you like or dislike. If this works, I'll be including such tables at the back of every book to help readers keep all the details straight.
Okay, first the ebook with everything included:
https://mega.nz/file/noE3GQQD#XO1H_cl66bqZBQQkOIeMRUE9tIvpbjhoq70OMZ6XYbc
(Unfortunately, the tables look a bit screwed up from my end. I am pretty tired and I don't have time to figure out why the formatting is removing lines and adding random page breaks. =/) Now, for the rest of this post, the brand new appendices!
Appendix: Soulcrafting for Isekai Experts
This is for you, Earthers. Or Earthlings, maybe, but that sounds like aliens. By this point you've probably figured out that the Nine Worlds aren't alien planets, right? Well, I don't know if anybody is actually going to read this, but if you are, then let me help you figure out the rest.
I want to tell you more, particularly if you've met a strange cloaked man offering you an adventure in another world. You were probably expecting a goddess or Truck-kun, right? But I probably shouldn't throw out any more references, because you could be from anywhere. I'm writing this in English, and it should resist soul translation, but I can't guarantee our enemies won't decrypt it, so I won't say too much.
Just try to find me on Deuxan, at the head of the Mercury Court. This is to keep you alive until then.
Cantae
It all starts with cantae. You're probably half way there if you've heard of mana or qi or anything like that. One major difference: cantae doesn't just exist naturally in the air, it's only generated by specific objects. They call them sublime materials here. There are approximately a million of them, each with a ton of different properties.
Think of sublime materials like cantae batteries that come with special effects. One sublime material might be a magic tree that provides +10 cantae/second. Another one might be a magic rock that only provides 1 cantae/second, but it also makes you physically tougher, or a different one might make you stronger. Where does it do this? I'll explain soulhomes in a bit, give me a second!
If you have some cantae, you can burn it to make yourself stronger. This comes naturally, or it will with a little training. Just burning cantae you can make yourself several times stronger than a natural human, and far faster. You can also gather up your cantae and shoot it out in a bolt thing. Even the basic bolts are about as dangerous a handgun, at least that's my estimate, but if your opponent is burning cantae the energy will neutralize.
Just holding a magic rock isn't going to make you that much stronger. That's why people build soulhomes.
Soulhomes
Everyone has an internal space in their soul (once they've awakened, anyway, but that part's easy). With training you can literally walk around in there, or at least your spirit can. The main thing is that you need to pull sublime materials into your soul and use them to build a house, which is called your soulhome. This will be the core of your power.
First you'll want to build some rooms out of sublime materials that are particularly durable. They're not batteries, just construction materials to create spaces for you to fill. Imagine you have that magic tree in the middle of your room: now you aren't just getting 10 cantae/second, you can store hundreds or thousands of cantae for later use.
Whether cantae storage or generation is more important really varies by tier, so you'll have to feel your way through it. My recommendation? On each floor of your soulhome you want one great material that generates cantae (they're called heart chambers), then a bunch that grant a small amount while boosting you, then only a few that don't give cantae. That mix will usually sustain you through most fights.
(How do you get more floors? To expand your soul you have to go through something called ascension, and that will have to come later. Get one good floor first!)
Don't think that you can be lazy: soulhome construction follows all the logical rules you'd expect from a real house. If you build walls that have a bunch of holes in them, they'll leak cantae all the time. If you build shoddy walls, when stress is placed on them they might fall apart. You can build literally anything you can imagine inside your soulhome, if you can find the materials, but you don't want to build a bunch of random garbage.
Most principles of soulcrafting sound stupidly obvious if you say them directly. If one room has 10% more volume than another one, it can store 10% more cantae! Weak walls are worse than strong walls because they might fall down! Stone is a better construction material than leaves! Seriously, you can get most of the way there just thinking about things logically.
Some parts of soulcrafting are straight magic, though. Take doors and windows: you don't want all your cantae just flowing out of them, right? Now, they'll naturally leak less cantae than accidental cracks, but they still leak if you're not focused. That's why you want doors, window frames, that sort of thing. They'll keep your cantae inside until you want to use it. This is the part that you have to learn by feel: putting in the work making a hole into a formal entrance will make it function better.
Now, what do you put into your rooms specifically? Some people here will tell you that you need fancy themes, like rooms that could exist in a real house. You can do this if you want, but personally I think a lot of this is nonsense. Just put your strength materials together. If you think it's cooler or more natural to build a weight room, feel free, but it's not necessary.
What you want is for each room to have a unified theme. Say you want to throw fireballs: you need to find sublime materials that give off fire energy (it's pretty easy to tell). Don't just throw in water materials for no reason. This is pretty important: if a basic fire material has 100 strength, it will get a synergy bonus with other fire materials up to 125-150 or so, but if you throw in unrelated things both could be reduced to 75 or even lower. I made those numbers up, but the difference between lousy and excellent synergy is at least double strength.
Don't just stick a sublime material into a room and move on: you want to add secondary materials to boost the power of the main one. Say you built that weight room: constructing a nice stand for all your free weights will increase their bonus. You could also carve muscled dudes on the walls, or heck, paint big inspirational messages. The important things are that:
1) You use strong sublime materials for each addition.
2) Those materials connect to the theme.
3) The whole room makes sense to you.
4) The total power doesn't blow the room apart.
Point #4 is why you can't just throw in materials endlessly. Each one applies pressure to the room around it, and if you have too much, you might literally blow the roof off. This is another reason you want to build your walls as sturdy as possible. Building bricks might seem boring, but think of it as increasing your capacity for power.
All this secondary work improves the base strength of your materials by, I'd estimate, around 25% or so. That might not seem like a lot, but keep in mind that soulcrafting isn't some game where you can just level grind forever. You're going to be on each level for a while, and during that time, you'll really want to have built up every possible advantage for yourself. If you do it right, you'll be able to punch up at people higher "level" than you.
Training and Spiritual Skills
A big part of soulcrafting is theory, but don't think you can get away without training! If you want to be a powerful soulcrafter, you're going to have to put in more hard work than you ever have in your life. Blood, sweat, tears, all of that. You're literally building your soul after all.
On a mundane level, you do need to understand some basics of construction (Earth construction methods could be extremely useful to you here). But you also need to develop spiritual skills: think of creating bricks as building up spiritual muscles. At high levels this will give you superhuman construction abilities and you'll be carving things with machine level precision. It may not be as flashy as the boosts gained from sublime materials, but you should absolutely consider your spiritual skills as part of your stats.
My advice is that you should be decent at everything and a specialist in a few skills. Decide whether you want to have a greenhouse soulhome and develop spiritual gardening or a stone soulhome and develop spiritual chiseling. Whatever skills you choose, you're going to need to train them.
It should go without saying that you'll definitely need to do combat training if you intend to fight. The locals in the Nine Worlds have often been doing weapons training for five to ten years before soulcrafting, so you're behind! If you can shoot energy blasts or shrug off a sword, you can muscle through some encounters. You're going to want that combat experience and training when you fight someone who's your soulcrafting equal, though.
Speaking of those advantages, we need to talk about efficiency. Some think it's boring, but it can easily be the difference between life and death.
Cantae Flow
Now we're getting into the more advanced material, and I wish I could draw. I'd say this is feng shui stuff, but to be perfectly honest with you, I don't know what feng shui is. Maybe learning would have made me a better soulcrafter, I don't know.
Basically, you want your cantae to flow in smooth lines from a source (a heart chamber) to an exit (a door or window). This is easy to train: you can literally envision the power flowing inside you, moving through your soulhome, and pouring out into the real world. Now if you want, you could move it around in big loop de loops, but this would be stupid and pointless. Not only will that distract you when you should be fighting, the cantae "rubs up" against walls and slows down, which will weaken the flow.
Imagine one person has an efficient layout: heart chamber directly into a technique chamber, then directly out a window. Assuming you're well-trained, let's call this 100% effective. If you move your cantae through a pointless chamber, then around a corner for no reason, you might be only 80% effective. Say you're storing 1000 cantae... 80% efficiency means in practice you only have 800!
And that was just an example. I think, in practice, there's no floor for how terribly you can use your cantae. I've seen some idiots that are probably 25% efficient or so. You cannot possibly build enough soulhome to make up for such a weakness.
You can usually include enhancement chambers with almost no loss of efficiency. Let's say you're boring and want to make a Giant Punch technique. You can flow your cantae through a strength boosting chamber, then into your punching room and out a window. Going through an extra room might take you down to 95% efficiency, but if the boost in the middle is related to the technique, you'll be hitting a lot harder and it will be worth it! The more you train, the more elaborate formations you'll be able to hold in your head without losing efficiency.
Cantae flow gets really complicated and I can't explain everything here. Hopefully this introduction is enough to convince you that you need to be thinking about it. There are no warning pop-ups in soulcrafting! There is literally nothing stopping you from making the weirdest design, you'll just be terribly inefficient and then you'll be tapped while everyone else is still fighting.
Overall Strategy
Got the basics? I hope so, because this is a sheet of paper and it can't answer questions! Now that I've explained the fundamentals of soulcrafting, I want to offer some advice that might do you a lot more good than a few practical tips.
Remember this: soulcrafting is all about playing the long game. Somebody who builds their soulhome in a month isn't a genius, they're an idiot putting a trailer park in their soul. Even the basics require some planning, and if you want to be a strong soulcrafter, you will need to make some trade-offs for the long term.
Let's take a simple example. Somebody might offer you a sublime tree out of the box that will instantly make you 100 points stronger. If you get a seed for yourself and tend it, your tree could grow up to be worth 125 points or more. How do you tend it? Sublime water and sublime dirt, of course! Like I said, your natural logic will apply to almost everything.
But this takes time, so you need to be smart. Don't just grab the materials that feel strongest and build them into your soulhome as fast as possible or you'll end up stunted in the end. I told you that you can't level grind in soulcrafting, but it's even worse than that: a lousy house might not even survive the pressure of ascension and then you'll be worse off in every way.
I don't want to say too much... but I think the cloaked guy who shall not be named is intentionally creating weak soulcrafters. He'll offer you great power and make you feel like you're a chosen hero, but it's all a lie. He wants you to sprint ahead and exhaust yourself before the end of the race.
Why? I really wish I could tell you. All I'm sure about is that he doesn't have your best interests at heart. Almost nobody does. Merchants want to sell you their materials, soulcrafters see you as competition, organizations want you to be a controllable obedient soldier. The only person you can count on is yourself, and hopefully this guide will get you off on the right track.
You reach the heavens one brick at a time. Happy soulcrafting!
-
Appendix: An Overview of the Nine Worlds
This document exists for distribution among inter-world-capable members of [REDACTED]. Though its information is broadly valuable, and you are encouraged to disseminate the general knowledge in order to decrease ignorance in the Nine Worlds, the organization's more specific intelligence should be withheld. Not simply for reasons of secrecy, or to avoid self-inflicted injuries, but to avoid generalization.
If you have advanced far enough to be given this document, we trust that you will not fall victim to the tendency to paint an entire world with a broad brush. A traveler who visited a single location on each world could very well write a thousand different stories, each of them incomplete and in some way false. We offer this information only to allow you to orient yourself within our inter-world operations. It is essential that [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED].
Whenever your operations take you to a world, seek out information about the specific regions and cultures you will be interacting with. If you need basic information about the world itself at that point, you aren't remotely ready for operations.
General Information on the Nine Worlds
For those of us who travel between worlds as a matter of course, it is easy to forget that a great many (in some regions a majority) are not aware that other worlds even exist. Distribution of gates is irregular, so there can be thousands of leagues between them. Take care to view such regions neither as provincial backwaters nor as "pure" forms of a world.
Those who are completely unfamiliar may be under the impression that other worlds are simply distant lands. You no doubt know better, but do not fall into the similar trap of thinking of them as islands floating within the void. This may be sufficient as an explanation to reduce ignorance (despite the protests of some), but it is mistaken. The same applies to the distant fires of Ichil, the branches of Aathal, and all other metaphors.
In fact the relationship between the Nine Worlds is a mathematical reality that does not conform to a convenient analogy. Each world occupies what should be considered a different dimension, including some differences in fundamental laws. The conformity of natural laws goes beyond the purpose of this document. Simply be aware that each world exists on a separate plane that can be reached only by gates or weirkeys.
Note well that the Nine Worlds are not a cultural grouping within an endless expanse of worlds. The Nine are tied together by a web of gates that is, to the full extent of our knowledge, unknown anywhere else. There are no stable gates to other worlds and travelers from them arrive only due to incidents of dimensional instability. Infinite worlds may exist, but they are largely beyond our reach.
Rumors regarding whether the Nine were once Ten, or Twelve, should be directed to the [REDACTED] Department, or [REDACTED] Operations. For general purposes, please only spread the (accurate) information that the Nine Worlds have been stably tied together for millennia.
These disclaimers aside, we begin our guide to the Nine Worlds.
Aathal
We begin with the home world of the plurality of this document's readers as another ward against over-generalization. Would you be satisfied hearing that Aathal is a heavily forested world with mostly arboreal inhabitants? In this introduction there is no time to discuss every continent, much less your local branches. There is barely enough space to explain the general threats, much less the Endless Kelp, the deciduous vs evergreen wars, or the Dark Rainbow. Since we assume every agent is intelligent enough not to try to chop down people that look like trees to them, our goal is simply to provide basic advice on preparation.
Practical Concerns: Aathal doesn't have a particularly high number of diseases, but its diseases can be unusually virulent when they jump to mammalian visitors and physical soul translation offers little protection. For mammalian agents, in different regions you might be immune to all disease, constantly feverish, or fatally ill. Enhancement chambers or sustaining Immortality Conduits are strongly recommended.
Likely Threats: Local poisons are more dangerous than average, but a world traveler should already be taking sensible precautions. Be cautious of regions with poisonous pollen, flesh-eating trees with death roots, and communities with widespread fungal infections.
Existential Risks: [REDACTED] the Dark Judge is one of the largest threats in the Nine Worlds, but less mobile than others. In theory a conflict with the Eldest Root could destroy the entire organization, but the Eldest Root has been a stable ally.
Tatian
It's difficult to speak of Tatian due to the split inherent in the world. Those who arrive in [REDACTED] will find themselves greeted by cheerful villagers and guided through a pastoral landscape. Those who arrive [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED]. Flying over Tatian can produce the illusion that it is mono-cultural, but this is deceptive, as different regions bleed into one another. In general, travelers are not likely to confuse [REDACTED] for [REDACTED] and thus can react appropriately if they arrive unexpectedly.
Practical Concerns: None in [REDACTED]. If you enter at random and bring no violence, you are likely to be assisted by the local inhabitants or an organization called the Landguard, depending on your tier. In [REDACTED] it is recommended to depart, except for combat agents, who should [REDACTED REDACTED].
Likely Threats: None in [REDACTED]. Conventional warlords in [REDACTED].
Existential Risks: While there are two Aeon-class soulcrafters on Tatian, they are not considered likely to destabilize inter-world politics. However, should you encounter them, you should not antagonize the [REDACTED], as they are every bit as organized as the Landguard while presenting a much greater threat.
Arbai
If Aathal is oversimplified as "forest" then Arbai is "stone". The world has the least liquid of the Nine Worlds and the only forms of precipitation are hostile to most travelers. No doubt you are already familiar with Arbaian members of [REDACTED] and so you know they range from living stone to stone-like flesh, all highly adapted to the local environment.
The other stereotype about Arbai is that it is a world of scholars, and this is one of the few generalizations that holds true over broad regions. Arbaian cognition appears to have several fundamental differences from the average mammalian brain and so, while you should not make assumptions from scholars you know, Arbai truly will seem more academic than you may be expecting.
Practical Concerns: It may not be as dramatic as the great threats new agents think of, but simple hunger and thirst in Arbai have felled more unwary travelers than perhaps any other force in the Nine Worlds. Ignoring exceptional regions, Arbai contains limited food or water compatible with mammalian agents (and almost no soil for arboreal agents). Hub cities or large communities will have contingencies, but in remote regions, you could die of thirst surrounded by benevolent but helpless Arbaians.
Likely Threats: Aside from certain lethal sandstorms and regions requiring flight, Arbai is less likely to be dangerous to the prepared traveler than many worlds. This statement is true for the majority of locations and wildly untrue for the below exceptions.
Existential Risks: Arbai contains the City of [REDACTED], the single worst concentration of demons in the Nine Worlds. Aside from that, the [REDACTED] and its republic represents an ideological threat that would be highly concerning if it expanded more rapidly or showed signs of inter-world ambitions.
Ichil
The world of Ichil completely lacks a sun, so it is on average quite dark. There are several exceptions, such as the volcanic and bioluminescent regions, but none are likely to be mistaken for another world. This has generally led to the creation of more cautious cultures, though they range from insular to wildly xenophobic. Ichil is estimated to have the lowest population in the Nine Worlds and has the second most uninhabited regions (after Arbai).
Practical Concerns: Darkness is no less of a threat for being obvious. Most forms of life rely heavily on light for perception and it is essential for many arboreal species. Added to that is the difficulty of first finding and then being tolerated by any local community. Any agent with any risk of being thrown into a random world should make specific preparations for Ichil.
Likely Threats: Too numerous to list. One of the few general rules is that sources of light are extremely likely to be threats, whether traps or predators.
Existential Risks: Our organization has insufficient knowledge about the most dangerous entities on Ichil. For example, the Grand Titans represent a serious military threat but it is uncertain who controls them, possibly [REDACTED] or [REDACTED]. The being at the heart of the arctic region, possibly named [REDACTED], is one of the most insidious threats to the Nine Worlds while chained, and could be apocalyptic if free.
Deuxan
At a glance, Deuxan appears to be one of the most physically diverse worlds, with regions that will appear familiar to inhabitants of any other world. The inhabitants, both flora and fauna, have unusually high percentages of metallic compounds that are unique to the world. But the relevant factor of a visit to Deuxan will unquestionably be the local political body, referred to as a "court" in most regions. Their policies vary so widely that it would be wrong to generalize in the slightest. Deuxan has the highest number of continents in the Nine Worlds, and the most political fragmentation, so you cannot accurately predict what you will face if you enter randomly.
Practical Concerns: The traditional threat is a chain of political consequences, as most courts are vassals of higher courts, so events could rapidly come to the attention of world powers. In practice, almost every culture has methods for keeping such conflicts within reasonable limits. Except in hub cities, however, ordinary civility may not be sufficient to keep you on the right side of the law.
Likely Threats: All but the most accommodating cultures on Deuxan allow for some escalation, so you are more likely to face a lethal duel from the inhabitants than any sublime beast or demon.
Existential Risks: The [REDACTED] organization is one of the most dangerous inter-world entities working against us, possibly in league with [REDACTED]. Thankfully it is partially kept in check by friendly courts, which limits its ability to use fleshmaskers and other threats. Though likely not an existential threat, the Mercury Court led by the [REDACTED] from Earth also deserves scrutiny.
Fithe
Depending on who you ask, Fithe is a world of either dust or waves. Unique among the Nine Worlds, it has two dominant species that split the world between land and water. It has the largest aquatic population, even more than oceanic Aathali communities. The predominant interaction between these species is war, but that is only true for roughly 40% of the world. There are also substantial regions with cooperation, stable isolationism, or elaborate parallel cultures.
Practical Concerns: Most land-based parts of Fithe are within normal tolerances, but attempting weirkey travel under the water runs serious risks of drowning or being crushed by pressure. For those unable to fly, being stranded at sea is also a very real danger.
Likely Threats: Other than becoming embroiled in a local war, Fithe is not likely to offer immediate threats to a high tier soulcrafter.
Existential Risks: The empire ruled by [REDACTED] on the continent of Tymetron is a major threat, though curiously it seems opposed to [REDACTED]'s manipulations. If he ever leaves his current checked position, entire continents are likely to be lost. Aside from that, there are unsubstantiated reports of an Aeon-class beast or demon lurking in the deepest depths, which have never been fully explored.
Noven
As committed as our organization is to local knowledge, in the case of Noven if you asked the inhabitants about their world, bias would offer you a clouded picture. Due to unusual plate tectonics, it is dominated by mountain ranges and the majority of the population lives above the primary cloud layer. However, there is also a substantial population living beneath nearly constant cloud cover, and there are other regions where the previous patterns of mountains and clouds do not apply. Perhaps the only thing that can be said consistently is that Noven has more vertical space occupied than any other world.
Practical Concerns: Limited. Of course any world contains various threats, but Noven's are not particularly unique. Ichili or any other agents who dislike the idea of nine suns should be forewarned.
Likely Threats: The regions of Noven with the highest concentrations of sublime materials are unusual in their lethality. There are storms and earthquakes that could be dangerous to Authorities, for example. There are also rare events involving a conjunction of suns that could, in the right context, be fatal well above Authority.
Existential Risks: Though Noven contains a number of powerful regions, it has mostly handled its own problems. Even [REDACTED]'s manipulations have been less successful here than on other worlds.
Siata
Few would deny that Siata is unique among the Nine Worlds, by virtually any metric. The world is divided between regions of darkness and columns of light, both of which vary immensely in size between regions. Vicious storms travel outside the light columns and pound the land into mud, yet stop at the edges of the light. Investigation into the top or source of the light resulted in [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED] - further investigation is not recommended.
Practical Concerns: Large regions of darkness offer similar threats to Ichil, but with fewer predators and dangers. Unfortunately, the global storms represent a nearly inescapable threat. Unexpected arrival on Siata should be immediately followed by testing the atmosphere and locating the nearest column.
Likely Threats: If you are not stopped by darkness or storms, you are likely to find Siata a welcoming world. Those who call it pacifist are overstating the facts, but a violent death is less likely.
Existential Risks: Though Siata contains Aeon-class soulcrafters, they are among the most stagnant powers in the Nine Worlds and unlikely to cause major problems. That said, one of the dark regions contains the most dangerous bestial demon in our records. Encountering it is unlikely, but likely to be immediately fatal.
Slest
While it may be technically accurate to say that Slest is the least developed of the Nine Worlds, that elides the massive civilizations there. The unusual atmosphere allows insects on Slest to grow to unusual size and they have built social forms that differ from other regions. This is consistently true despite the wide variety of social systems found there. Unfortunately, the reputation of Slest as a dangerous world will be true in over 75% of locations.
Practical Concerns: Slest has few concerns that are not lethal threats. See next section.
Likely Threats: Slescan biology creates an unusually large number of entities with Ruler-tier strength, and they are likely to attack ruthlessly if you trespass on their territory. As much as we have warned against over-generalization, you can often assume that the sapient occupants will be hostile as well. Leadership of given regions are often Authority-tier and will attack in coordinated groups, so they can threaten almost all travelers.
Existential Risks: The methods that allow Slest to reach low levels of threat also make it less likely to reach the heights of power. The greatest threat in Slest is [REDACTED] the Dark King, who has been resident for years after his war with the Dark Judge. That said, the entity known as [REDACTED] is the most powerful local soulcrafter and, if given sufficient means, would be likely to invade other worlds.
Worlds Outside the Nine
A full chronicling of all information about worlds inconsistently connected to the Nine Worlds would involve a great many locations or individuals that have appeared once and never again, so it would not be of great use. Instead, this document will provide an introduction to other locations that may be relevant to your work.
The Chasm of Lamentations: A fragment of a world that either became entangled with the Nine or was once part of it. The conditions within the world are dangerous, including a river instantly lethal to anyone below Authority, but it has been tamed by familiarity. Many regions across several worlds wait until it intersects their world and then enter the Chasm to collect sublime materials via various methods. The Chasm has the most consistent movement pattern of the [REDACTED] world fragments.
Fury Slipstream: The most stable world fragment, defended by the sheer lethality of its environment. Though it is believed to contain immensely powerful sublime materials, the air itself is filled with burning energy that incinerates even beings made from fire from other worlds. Many in our organization would like to investigate it, but have not done so because the other inter-world organizations have not attempted to exploit the Slipstream.
The Plain of [REDACTED]: Notable as the largest of the world fragments, half the size of most continents. Its power is less concentrated than the others, but as a fragmentary world it includes many rare treasures. The greatest difficulty is reaching it, due to various factors that vary as it shifts between world.
The Library of [REDACTED]: Likely built by [REDACTED], extremely lethal due to [REDACTED] conditions. Potentially connected to [REDACTED], or at the very least a point of interest for [REDACTED].
(Note: Why do we even include the Library in the introductory document if we're going to redact so much of it? I move to delete it. - [REDACTED])
The World of the Lost: The home world of the beings behind the [REDACTED] as well as the House of the Lost on Fithe. It is the single least compatible world on record and even entering it is potentially lethal. Fortunately, the gates are painful to all sapient beings in the Nine, so few are likely to stumble into them. Exploration is discouraged; any work involving this world should go through the House of the Lost.
Earth: A world that appears to have no native cantae or demons, if reports can be believed. There are zero reputable instances of inhabitants of the Nine Worlds crossing into Earth, yet their natives arrive here with some frequency. The fundamental differences with this world may be due to [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED]. In any case, interaction is not recommended, as visitors from Earth are very likely being manipulated by [REDACTED]. See separate documents for how to deal with such incursions.
The Cleansed Lands: There's no sense in writing anything here that would just be redacted. If at any point you cross a gate and enter a primarily white world with a black sun, leave immediately and contact allies. No further information is to be shared, not out of secrecy, but because [REDACTED] actively tracks and eradicates information about this fragmentary world.
This has been an attempt to sketch the Nine Worlds in the broadest possible terms. Once you have grown comfortable with the scope required of your duties, please continue to study them as necessary. There's more than could be discovered in a thousand lifetimes, which is one of the reasons for our organization's existence. If we do not defend our shared interests, it is possible that no one will.
Comments
Sarah Lin
1) This guide is written by someone from Earth who has only been referenced, not appeared. The rewritten intro will make this clearer. 2) Yeah, this one ended up being more hint-heavy than my original plan. I am still considering a shorter version for inclusion in the first book.
Travis Smith
Thank you so much for the appendices! They are fantastic! Just some quick thoughts: 1. The intro to the soul crafting tutorial is rather odd. It’s written by someone we haven’t met within 8ish books (I forget the exact number) and it’s written as though it’s for people on Earth. Theo never encountered this guy so it feels like it breaks the fourth wall. Would it make more sense for it to be by Theo during his time on Earth? Maybe some ramblings in his journal? 2. I like the intro to the nine worlds, though it feels like the mentions of organizations and threats are more for the existing fan base than new readers. I agree with previous comments that maybe black bars instead of redacted would be more appropriate for the technology level within the nine worlds. I love the new content! Compliment sandwich over. :P
Tobias Begley
I have faith in you! I have a few guesses already :)
Sarah Lin
Glad you enjoyed it! I'm not just baiting here, so by the end of the series you'll be able to fill in all the redacted information.
Tobias Begley
I loved this! It was super cool to read. I'd love to see an unredacted version one day. The Library of [REDACTED] also makes me think of The Library Between Worlds, from John's books!
