(This is the Day 1 entry for the 30 day world building challenge being run over at tigforums.)
It was the world of a thousand names, Oed, Qusayma, Suevia, the mother world. For the inhabitants of Oed’s only moon, Lunem, it was heaven, luminescence, and the logical conclusion to an illogical life. It hung in the sky and lit the night up with a comforting hue. For the thirty thousand nine hundred and eight six million three hundred and ninety one thousand and seventeenth Lunem-man — coincidentally the first man to escape the immense gravity of the dense moon — Oed was to be his fate. In one of a billion possibilities, in a multitudinous-many-every-verse like his, the Lunem-man crashed landed on Oed, and awakened eight millenia later.
Oed is a terrestrial planet like most, it has oxygen, water, rich minerals, vegetation and animal life. It is also populated by many intelligent civilisations competing for these resources. The landscape of Oed is rich and varied. From high plains balanced precariously on thick naturally forming columns of sand-stone down to torrential rivers of fire near the planet’s core. There is an abundance of rich minerals most of which are mined and processed by the advanced species. The Mosa Of The Undergound, for instance, create sand-steel through a number of organic processes, which they use to build their impenetrable giant dome-nests.
Oed is extremely dangerous. The roads above ground are just as dangerous as the spidery intertwined cave systems. Creatures travel in daylight and night. They fly, scurry, burrow, slime, climb, and osmose. Early explorers to new parts of Oed would often be found dead in their make-shift fortresses, unaware of the matter-transcending capabilities of the Lyre. Oed is a vicious place, the air viscous with death.
Beware the creatures of Oed! The dangerous ___________ and the __________ are typical encounters on a midnight stroll. Without the proper training you will surely be made a meal of. — Excerpt from “The Mycologist’s Index”. (Edited by E)