Last week’s “three-sentence challenge” is ready for your eyes to behold.
This week’s challenge is a little different.
You’ll note that it does not say “flash fiction.”
It says “worldbuilding.”
Here’s the deal. You and me, we’re going to build a world. Out of scratch. This is tabula rasa, and by smashing our faces against the screen and leaving upon it a gooey streak of blood and brain matter (aka “imagination grease”) we are going to birth a world out of zippity-zero-nada-nichts. From nothing to something, from chaos comes order.
We’re not going to do it all today.
We will, in fact, do it once a month. Every last Friday of the month for one year, or… until this thought experiment fails miserably and crashes into the mountains where it’s forced to eat its friends.
Sometimes we’ll be doing some straight-up worldbuilding, other times we’ll dig deeper and start telling stories set in this world. But before the stories, the world itself must be made.
What are the aims of this weird little experiment? I don’t even know. Part of it is just to see if we can build a world that is a place where fiction can live — can a series of strangers collaborate on a world in such a way to generate a seed bed where stories can grow and thrive? I don’t know. But I’m here to find out.
We’ll play in this crazy generative playground, see what happens.
Let’s begin.
These are the only things you know about Blackbloom.
First, that is its name. Blackbloom.
Second, it is a place where human and non-humans alike dwell.
That’s it. That’s all we know. Everything else is up in the air. Everything else is suspect. Nothing is canonical. All is apocryphal. Like I said: chaos. From chaos we shall draw a deep syringe filled with truth.
Today’s mission is for each of you to provide one aspect of the world in under 100 words. This aspect is a point of status quo: it defines the world as it is now. Not as it will become.
You might say: “It has two suns.” Or, “Water is a precious resource.” Or, “Two warring factions fight over the world’s largest city.” Define the reality as it is now. Define Blackbloom’s current existence.
You can say whatever you’d like. Given that so little is defined, you’ve nothing to build from — but also, nothing to hold you back. This is the act of creation, the weird Genesis of a made-up world.
Thus, feel free to be as creative as you’d like. As weird as you must be.
I will pick… we’ll say 10 of these, but if I see more that are really awesome, I’ll up to… let’s say “20.” That’s my job in all of this: to serve not as deity but rather as adjuticator.
I’ll pick those by the time the next Worldbuilding Challenge rolls around.
Which will be…
October 28th.
Now, get your pick-axes and encyclopedias.
Go nuts.
Create a world.
And welcome to Blackbloom.
Sparky says:
War once ravaged most of the civilized world, but now an unsteady peace apparently reigns. In reality however the world is always on the brink of annihilation. Ancient conspiracies, covert government agencies, rebels, rogue agents, archaic magocracies, religions, anarchists, media moguls, freed slaves, magic users of every stripe, techno-junkies and more all fight private battles for supremacy, far from the eyes of the public. Friends and enemies can be one and the same as alliances shift and need commands. Sharpen your blade, prep a spell or grab a gun, it’s all about to boil over.
September 30, 2011 — 12:24 AM
Natalie says:
There is no sun or moon, only stars. The world is lit by the flowers that bloom in the dark and glow with their own eerie radiance, but wink out if plucked. This is the way it has always been, but now the flowers are dying…
September 30, 2011 — 12:33 AM
Caro says:
I have always wanted to create a reality where wounds don’t heal. Scars and scabs don’t exist. Nor do plastic surgeons. It causes some people to be overly careful – many fewer daredevils – or at least they don’t last long. Wealth is displayed in blemish-free skin. But among the working class, sewn-up wounds and scrapes are accepted with a certain pride of survival.
September 30, 2011 — 12:48 AM
oldestgenxer says:
There is not one God, but several. They all have god-like power over their various dominions. They alone hold the keys to salvation both for the creatures and the planet itself.
But no one believes in them anymore.
September 30, 2011 — 12:58 AM
MrJohnfro says:
In Blackbloom you can make good money selling your flesh suit to a virtual intelligence. Sure sometimes people get hijacked, there’s the whole burn out thing, and god knows what they really did with your body, but it’s easy money. Some people even grow to like possession.
September 30, 2011 — 1:22 AM
Rachel says:
Here is my idea: Blackboom has terrible gale force winds that screech like a thousand banshees, combined with the music of one thousand bag pipes all being played in unison. Cat’s mating can not even compete with the utter head destroying noise of this chaotic and distorted breeze.
It can also be found on my blog:
http://verandahlookout.blogspot.com/2011/09/chuck-wendig-challenge-blackboom.html
September 30, 2011 — 1:25 AM
Pallav says:
The world is kept in orbit by the happiness of people. If the people are not happy, the days get longer and weather patterns get destructive. Happiness of people is a complete industry there. The sad ones are banished in dungeons.
September 30, 2011 — 2:03 AM
Lynna Landstreet says:
The surface of Blackbloom is almost entirely water, with only a few scattered outcroppings of land. The isolated island ecosystems are fragile, and can’t sustain much life; the settlements are all on the ocean, vast floating cities constructed of precious, hoarded wood and plastic from offworld. Nothing that floats is wasted here. The seas provide ample food – fish, edible seaweed and more – but also many hazards. Worst among them are the vast, night-dark algae blooms that give the world its name. No one knows exactly what happens to those caught in one, because no one has ever survived.
September 30, 2011 — 2:19 AM
LoveTheBadGuy says:
Blackbloom is inhabited by two types of beings: the People and their Shadows. Upon a person’s birth, their Shadow forms as a mere whisper of darkness, hovering by their shoulder unobtrusively. But the closer that a person comes to death, the stronger their Shadow becomes.
The Shadow’s strength and size indicates how long the person has left to live; during their final days, the Shadow becomes malevolent and powerful, wreaking havoc until its person passes. At that point, the Shadow ceases to exist.
But now the Shadows seem to be surviving long after their person’s death, and Blackbloom is darkening…
September 30, 2011 — 2:27 AM
Meagan W. says:
The Black Harvest is a recurring event; nine days of safety are guaranteed after each. It occurs at random, but there are always three signs that signal the approach: colour fades, turning everything grey. In this swirl of bleakness, one item vanishes from every household – usually one of little importance; easily misplaced. It will return called for by name. Lastly, the moon disappears from the sky. It leaves a ragged tear through which nightmarish creatures appear. Any left without shelter are killed. If the lost item is not recovered by that time, those inside are doomed as well.
September 30, 2011 — 2:54 AM
Dan Wright says:
Anybody can become a god; sure it’s a hard thing to reach apotheosis, and only a determined few make it, but it’s possible. After deification though, a god requires near constant worship to sustain itself. The more worshipers they have, the healthier their godhood is. However, when they’re longer worshipped, or the faith dries up, they can no longer sustain themselves and they descend into the abyss, a place of utter darkness where pain and despair reign supreme. Thus the gods are constantly interfering with the world and their followers to forever maintain their ascension in a never ending struggle for people’s faith.
September 30, 2011 — 3:01 AM
A.R. Williams says:
The world is dying. It began as a small speck of darkness from a miscast spell or science gone terribly wrong. The darkness grew and spread across the land consuming all in its path. It is known as the Darkbloom and it consumes everything. Neither land nor sea can stop the bloom and it continues to expand ever outward. People flee before it. Some to overcrowded lands of their neighbors, some to the oceans on huge vessels or beneath the waves, some to the winds in flying castles or fortifications sculpted out of clouds. Races war with one another hoping to gain precious living space. Finally, it is discovered that the Darkbloom, is not just a void–it has sentience. But what does it want? And what can placate it?
September 30, 2011 — 4:48 AM
Jim Franklin says:
Blackbloom is the only place where you can harvest the ‘Blackbloom lichen’, a plant that has the properties of both animals and plants. The lichen is so named because of its small oily black flowers. Although the plant can be processed in order to create drugs that vastly extend life, in its natural state the plant is deadly and it defends itself with a venom that can alter the genetics of its attacker.
September 30, 2011 — 4:55 AM
SchwarzTKD says:
On Blackbloom all species evolved to the point of sentience, plant life along with the animals. The humans that settled on Blackbloom found a world at war with itself, with predator races still hunting the prey. Humans, rather than conquerors, became mediators. They serve as ambassadors amongst the races, often at great personal risk. Soon after their arrival Blackbloom reached a fragile peace that has allowed civilization to develop.
September 30, 2011 — 6:43 AM
Lee Robson says:
Blackbloom is a world that parallels our own. While similar in many ways, it differs in one extreme way: their industrial revolution never ended.
The vast cities of Blackbloom stand tall against the heavens, their unnatural geometry providing strangely beautiful skylines, but also producing pollutants that are slowly killing the world and its inhabitants. Political wranglings seem to constantly slow the process of introducing new legislature to curb this, and it’s clear that money is the driving factor behind it. The rich, it seems, want to remain that way, no matter the cost to their fellow man.
With several cities locked in a “Cold War”, spy networks have weaved their way through various parts of society, all of them watching and waiting, but some of the agents have turned rogue and are determined to bring down and destabilize the cities through brutal acts of terrorism. However, the question of whether they are genuinely rogue or sanctioned by their own governments remains unanswered.
Several religions exist in the world, some worshipping various aspects of a single god, but some worshipping their own gods of science and technology – something which leads to fractures in the fabric of society, and sometimes even violence.
In some corners of this world, science and technology has been eschewed for ancient magicks, which some believe are the key to unlocking the secret history of the world. But who knows what nameless horrors they’ll uncover on their quest…
A race of bio-mechanicals also inhabit this world, but they serve as slaves to the humans. However, dissent amongst them is growing, and there is hushed talk of revolution…
September 30, 2011 — 7:15 AM
Lindsay Mawson says:
The crust of the planet is unstable. Earthquakes and tsnunamis are frequent so that inhabitants of Blackboom live in highly specific areas, and even then, while merely travelling on a road, the ground could give out under too much weight. Many people go missing on a daily basis, never to be seen again. Sometimes large buildings will collapse without warning, despite land surveys.
September 30, 2011 — 7:57 AM
Josin says:
Blackbloom was what they called the plume of smoke that started it all, like a negative photograph of a mushroom cloud erupting in the upper atmosphere. Those in charge tried to steer people away from using the term, believing that nicknaming the phenomenon would only heighten public panic, but it went viral, and soon, it was being seen in headlines the world over.
People flocked to the sight, snapping pictures and streaming video of the cloud hanging there, and so there were plenty of eyes watching what came next.
September 30, 2011 — 8:06 AM
Jo Eberhardt says:
I love this idea. I can’t wait to see where it leads.
—
Blackbloom is a world destined for destruction, caught in the gravity-well of the Star that gives it life. Each year, the planet’s rotation brings it a little closer to the sun (and the weather gets a little warmer). One day, a solar flare will hit Blackbloom and all life will cease. Flesh will burn, oceans will evaporate, and rocks will melt.
The question isn’t if this will happen, but when.
September 30, 2011 — 8:22 AM
Moreau says:
This place ain’t right. When you look up at the sky, do you see a lovely spattering of stars and galaxies?
Nope, you see the other side of the world. All of the land mass is an inverted sphere, cradled around a tiny dwarfish sun that squats in the middle like an enormous egg yolk.
What starlight there is comes from various enormous holes in the firmament of the world, if you were to fund a space program, you’d have to strap a drill to the rocket and point it downward.
One of the side effects of this is that people can’t seem to make wars last a very long time. People lose their convictions in the inherent ‘otherness’ of their opponents when they can look up and watch the horrible consequences of sieges and battles with nothing more than a telescope. People just seem more likely to recognise their similarities instead of their differences.
Another, perhaps more melancholic truth is that people don’t have an inbuilt sense of curiosity. Why build a boat and cross the ocean when you can see exactly where the other continent is already?
Progress and new ideas are slow, without meaningful conflict or justifiably distant frontiers there is no impetus for change.
September 30, 2011 — 8:45 AM
Rosie B says:
The letter combination ‘bl’ is present in 95% of all human surnames. Stuttering is socially taboo and stutterers are social pariahs.
September 30, 2011 — 9:09 AM
Lugh says:
Eighty years ago, an experiment returned some unusual results. Sounds, of a sort, that we could not detect normally. They were rhythmic and varied, like a whale’s song. It was clearly a language.
Six years ago, a bright young student cracked the code of the language. For the first time, we could hear what was being said, and send a message in return. The content of the speech was shocking, and overturned our ideas of what “life” was.
The cities were pretty surprised to realize we could talk, too.
September 30, 2011 — 9:10 AM
A.J. Zaethe says:
I think you opened Pandora’s box. Haha. Nice to see the comments and enthusiasm to world build. I think you will have to choose and select. And a note to all the contributor’s: Read what the others have put on here. It can help you to build off each other or give you more ideas for what you would like to see on this world. And one more thing. Think on a larger scale. Most of you are talking globally. It sounds like a single country on this. Start “selecting” smaller parts of the world and place some elements there. It will make the world more real.
September 30, 2011 — 9:13 AM
Matt Roberts says:
The world of BlackBloom is named after the huge flowers that grow in forest clearings. Sought after and feared – the plant can kill with its scent, but send drinkers of its nectar into hallucinogenic bliss. A religious group that rules nations, the Blacked Ones, elect their leaders from those who survive approaching the plant and drinking its nectar unaided.
September 30, 2011 — 9:20 AM
David 'Doc Blue' Wendt says:
In the first days, when the gods looked down upon all that they had created, their eyes settled on the second world on the right. As the single, burning eye of the son god illuminated the land, vegetation sprouted and grew, quickly covering mountain, plain, and valley without preference. Upon the prolific weeds, flowers budded, with ebon blossoms as dark as the pits of the underworld. Looking to her peers for agreement, the celestial namer dubbed the place Blackbloom and so recorded the name in the great book.
— From the Book of the Origin of Blackbloom, Chapter 1
September 30, 2011 — 9:30 AM
Shai Norton says:
The Others yield to the sea. It — some will call it ‘she’, as we humans do — made them, and so it is her obligation to feed and clothe them, and when she decides it is time, it is her right to end them. No Other dwells where the sea cannot reach. They think us mad for avoiding her intemperance.
September 30, 2011 — 9:30 AM
Richard D. Asplund Jr. says:
The methane seas on the southern most landmass are home to tribes of spiritually symbiotic humanoids that actively bond to the spirits of their ancestors granting a freakish kind of non-corporeal familial immortality – Which as a byproduct causes the elders to coerce the young against chastity to make sure their lines will continue even in times of mar or mass plague.
September 30, 2011 — 9:30 AM
tamiveldura says:
Blackbloom was so named for the pervasive black flowering plants that seem to thrive at every altitude. Humanity colonized. It was different, but what could you expect of an alien planet? Every day, civilization hacks away at the overtaking blackbloom, every night the bloom retakes some ground it lost. But there is something more calculating at work here. The blackbloom is a global sentient, and it is not pleased.
September 30, 2011 — 9:34 AM
Sean Preston says:
The ancient hive city of Thorn predates recorded history. Its stones never crumble, nor do its basalt walls show more than a few signs of battle when last they were overrun by the ever-persistent horde now known only as the Inheritors who wrested control from the complacent Descendants, driving them in turn down to the Dry Sea over a thousand years ago where they learned sand magic and survival. These desert nomads still look longingly up at the Silver Cliffs where once they ruled the whole of the high northern continent of Marang, knowing they can never go back.
September 30, 2011 — 9:38 AM
Hunter Hansen says:
BlackBloom, where the air carries sound for distances unnatural. Where its water is breathable. Where a Jupiteresque maelstrom rages evershifting, leaving BlackBloom’s denizens without permanent roots. Where gravity picks pockets of rebellion, deciding for itself whether to bend or break its rules.
September 30, 2011 — 9:45 AM
Shawn Westmoreland says:
The far side of Blackbloom’s planet is forever in darkness. It’s rotation has been frozen as it orbits a larger planet, much like our own moon. And much like our own moon, there are phases where the entire planet is in darkness. That’s when The Dark comes. That’s when the sane folk, the sane monsters even, hide.
September 30, 2011 — 9:59 AM
Jamie Wyman says:
Blackbloom is famous for its poison forest. To eat the fruit of these trees is death. The very touch of the bark renders citizens paralyzed. But, there are some who go willingly, for it is in this paralysis that they experience visions and commune with gods. The shamans of Blackbloom sacrifice their mobility and sanity to see the fate of their world.
September 30, 2011 — 10:02 AM
Anthony Laffan says:
Blackbloom is a place where the technologies and magics of various ages and lores compete for supremacy.
On a side note: Robin D. Laws did something similar recently, but this is a lot more free form. Looking ofrward to seeing how it plays out.
September 30, 2011 — 10:06 AM
Joshua D says:
In the world of Blackbloom, there is no death, there is life and there is unlife.
Upon death, the rare flower is placed in the mouth of the deceased. Three days later, brain function has returned and the person is alive once more, though they no longer grow older.
Those that can afford to pay for the Blackbloom may go about their lives again as they once did. Those who can’t afford the flower are revived to a period of indentured servitude until they can earn their freedom once more.
September 30, 2011 — 10:12 AM
Frank says:
The Oubliette are an ascetic order of humans that have shunned the Light, haven been given birth to in sunless, light-less rooms buried deep within the stone city where they live out their entire lives. No member of the order has ever seen the Light; which they so fear thanks to the strange properties the Light imbues on the shadows of other men. To the Oubliette: they are humanities last hope again the shadow – for they are the only men to have never cast one.
September 30, 2011 — 10:28 AM
Ben C says:
To outsiders, Blackbloom is a rouge planet. A protected celstial body that moves through a system, wreaking havoc with orbits, killing worlds. Inside, the inhabitants know only that every night the stars will be different, every day a different sun will warm them, and every so often a crazed stranger will appear with an impossible story of a growing blackness in the sky that consumed another world.
September 30, 2011 — 10:37 AM
Fitz says:
Deep under the surface of Blackbloom, two fluids course through stony veins. One, the raw heat of molten magma that occasionally erupts on the surface through volcanic activity. And two, the black cold of the ichor, pulsing and undulating, carrying magical energies along what scientists and practitioners of magic call ley lines. Along these lines, magic is possible. And when it erupts in a bloom of black upon the surface, it changes people and things directly touched in unexpected ways. It’s from this process that gods and monsters are born.
September 30, 2011 — 10:48 AM
Rich Magahiz says:
Blackbloom is the kind of place where nobody would look twice at a fedora-wearing trench-coated fellow knocking back martinis with a crumpled face slugbear draped with jewels. And if they decide to take a flitter down the vacuum boulevard, out past where the moneyed citizens build their compounds, nobody here would be inclined to go searching for them after a couple of cycles have passed. You don’t have to be running from something on Blackbloom, but it seems like most individuals are.
September 30, 2011 — 10:52 AM
Heather K. says:
If you look into the skies of Blackbloom, you would see a myraid of shifting clouds, a haze of lightly glowing mist that hovers several thousand feet in the air. It’s not smog, it’s the brush of other dimensions against the metaphysical skin of this lone city, locked and lost among time and space. If you were to look into the skies of Blackbloom you would see visions of worlds here and gone.
It’s usually why nobody tends to look up. Bit of a headache that.
September 30, 2011 — 11:05 AM
Stephanie M. Belser says:
Blackboom is a planet in a globular cluster that orbits the Milky Way Galaxy. As a result of that, for half of the year, the night sky is almost a featureless void, with only a thousand or so stars visible. The other half of the year, the night sky is so bright that one can read large print by the starlight.
Blackboom has four moons, though three of them are small and it takes a telescope to see that they are not fast-moving stars.
Humans are not the dominant intelligent species on Blackboom.
September 30, 2011 — 11:11 AM
Darlene Underdahl says:
It started in the misty past, in a warm greenhouse climate, on another planet. Humans only carried babies for seven months. A religious cult offered some of those children into the sea.
The children didn’t die. Suckled by emphatic seals and used to breathing in fluid, they grew into something more amphibian than human. They grew large. Puberty never occurred, so they demanded the continued recruitment of human babies.
Women bred during the annual blooming of the black flowers. With a solar revolution lasting ten months, their bodies were repeatedly amenable to impregnation when the flowers bloomed.
Men were unhappy.
Thanks for doing this, Chuck, it helps me play well with others, something I’m not known for.
September 30, 2011 — 11:15 AM
Toni in Florida says:
The planet’s surface is 90% water, with molten landmasses that pour toxic black fumes into the atmosphere. The fumes kill people, but they feed the indigenous flora and simple fauna. The native lifeforms convert the fumes into substances that grant near-eternal life and wellbeing on those who eat or drink of their essences. Only priests have ever visited the landmasses, to gather the quasi-magical plants and animals needed in the cities.
The vast majority of the population lives in cloud-based cities, far above the surface. Their primary source of income: servicing the far-ranging needs of passing spacecraft and their crews, people who view Blackbloom as an interstellar truckstop and rest area.
September 30, 2011 — 11:18 AM
Albert Berg says:
The most powerful group in Blackboom are the Gravity Mages. They are mutant humans, unable to reproduce, but endowed with the power to mold gravity to their will. They can enchant things to float indefinitely or make small objects impossibly heavy. Zen Djin, the greatest of all the legendary Gravity Mages was once said to have enchanted an entire city to unmoor itself from it’s earthly bonds and fly through the heavens.
The mutation which produces a Gravity Mage is 90% more likely to occur in males than females.
September 30, 2011 — 11:21 AM
Darlene Underdahl says:
Ooops, “empathic.” I guess “emphatic” could work as well.
September 30, 2011 — 11:29 AM
Judd says:
The gate we call came through to get here is a void in the sky, what humans call the Blackbloom.
The city took that name because during certain times of the year when the gate is pulsing with certain radiations, little black flowers bloom. Sometimes they bloom on walls or certain fields or religious buildings. Sometimes they bloom on beings.
September 30, 2011 — 11:45 AM
Amy Tupper says:
Decades after information shifted to the Cloud, almost all of the original forms had been buried in landfills. Gone were the papers, books, and discs of stories, movies, textbooks that contained the hard copies of engineering, law, and study of society and cultures.
Then a mad hacker altered Stuxnet. His creation spread across the world’s networks like wildfire, frying electrical components across networks and electrical grids. The world was left in figurative darkness. We couldn’t remember how to manufacture the components that tied everything together.
So when They arrived to help us, They found a world in chaos.
September 30, 2011 — 11:49 AM
Paige Snyder says:
Here’s hoping this doesn’t double up. It didn’t post the first time. Apologies if it does!
___________________________
The Sopari are an advanced amphibious humanoid species averaging about 2 feet tall when fully grown. Their skin is smooth and damp when out of the water. The females grow to be larger than the males and take on a mossy-green hue while the males are a light brown. The Sopari lay eggs guarded by the population’s Godem (harem of males). The females handle the hunting and exploration. They generally hunt in packs of six. They have recently made contact with humans on the planet.
The Sopari are found in the largest swamp of one of Blackbloom’s peninsulas called Murska.
September 30, 2011 — 11:53 AM
Miranda Cardona says:
In Blackbloom Gods walk among men, but are never recognized. In their wake there is chaos.
September 30, 2011 — 11:58 AM
JonathanTheBlack says:
Blackbloom is a dying world, rent by fierce dust storms and endless winters after a black fungal bloom dessicated the oceans. The survivors of the apocalypse drew strength from eating the black algae, cultivating it and in turn being “changed” by it.
September 30, 2011 — 12:06 PM
Mark Horejsi says:
Blackbloom is a terrible place.
It was mostly earth-like, so they decided to terraform it. Only something went wrong. An explosion ripped the crust right off the planet. A big piece of it is still up there; not quite orbiting, not stationary, just there. Sometimes it blocks the sun, and they say that it’ll come crashing back down soon enough.
After the planet cooled down, the wealth of minerals right there on the surface set of a mining boom. But anyone wanting to get rich risks air that will give two in ten people cancer, terrible volcanic events, and the aliens who got there first.
This is cannibalized from a setting I ran for a Firefly RPG campaign. Anyone interested in a little more can see the full flavor text in my blog, because any opportunity to re-use flavor text is something I can’t resist.
http://markh-blog.blogspot.com/2011/09/blackland.html
September 30, 2011 — 12:10 PM