When I created Wolfery, thinking of the background story, I wanted to make it open for any type of roleplay. Now, with the realm growing, it is probably a good time to share my initial thoughts about the Rift. We don’t have to stick to this story though! Even I have not been entirely consistent in my RP in regards of the Rift. But it may be a good starting point.
We have the background story, but it is intentionally very vague. Let me add to it a bit.
Realities
First, let’s make clear some terminology;
A reality is not the same as a dimension. A reality is the the container in which dimensions and all of its rules may exist. Some realities may have dimensions, others may not. Anything that exists is bound by the rules of the reality in which it exists; be it dimensions, magic, gravity, etc.
Not only physical things, like places and people, are tied to the realities in which they exist, but also more abstract notions like time, memories, history, etc., are included. While you may travel between dimensions through portals and other means, retaining your body and your memories, there is no plausible way1 to travel in between realities, as things from one reality may not make sense in another reality. The only thing that theoretically could cross the boundaries of realities is the consciousness (a.k.a. the RL player).
While realities may be very different, they do have one common trait; they strive to make sense within its own set of rules.
I often tend to incarnate RL things such as servers, updates, network issues, players, etc. into my roleplay. And a reality is the RP incarnation of a Mucklet realm. When we have multiple Mucklet realms (Cyberpunk, Vampires world, Wizarding School, etc.), each of these realms will be their own “reality” with their own story, completely detached from Wolfery.
The nature of the Rift
The Rift being mentioned is a catastrophic event on the level of realities, an event which has torn chunks off from existing realities, leaving these ripped out fragments “drifting” in the void. None of this can be seen or easily measured. The fact that we even have knowledge about it is highly questionable. It is like faith; we cannot measure God, so we cannot prove the existence or non-existence of the Creator. All we are left with is faith.
The creation of Wolfery
In one of the realities there was a curious being, a scholar of a very questionable pseduo-scientific branch of meta-reality studies, who got some unexpected result data from his obscure sensors. If he (if it was a he at that time) interpreted the data correctly, it would be the very proof he had been looking for; the existence of other realities!
Based on the readings, which seemed to indicate both sourced realities and disconnected reality fragments, he built the core. If all went according to his theories, this device would be able to attach to one of the unattached sources needed to sustain a reality, using it to create an attraction - like an inter-reality vortex - that would allow these drifting disconnected fragments to lump together.
Exactly what would happen after that was beyond the knowledge of this being, so a decision was made to build the device at a remote location, in an abandoned building on a rock jutting out at sea, far from any other living being.
The experiment was a success!
But as the rock by the oceans attached to a secondary source, it caused a tear of the reality in which the device existed, ripping it out of its own existence. Though, not before long, another fragment attached; a small little train station with an old station master named Tom. A park came next. A hostel. And a small street.
As the artificially created reality started to grow. The haphazard mixture of fragments didn’t seem to fit all that well. However, realities share one common trait; they strive to make sense. Slowly the tears of the fragments started to heal and grow together, creating history, creating memories, creating sense, leaving only faint scars of inconsistencies. Eventually, even those scars left from the tears would also fade.
The wolf, the form this being got in this reality, does not remember all of this. History and memories are part of the reality, and may just as well change to make itself understandable. But for the reality to make sense of the device still existing in that small town, some memories still needed to remain.
Implications of Wolfery’s creation
New places with old history
Because memories, time, history, etc. all are part of a reality, there is nothing that prevents a recently attached fragment (place or character) to have a history that goes before the moment when the fragment attached.
The non-passing of time
Time works differently in this artificial reality in comparison to how time worked for each individual fragment. Each fragment ended up locked in time, letting some places have perpetual daytime, others to be locked at dawn, and some to have actual passing time. This is one of the scars where the reality has tried to heal from the inconsistencies of its parts. Eventually, the scarring will fade, and the locking of time will be as natural as gravity for those existing within it.
Removal of places
Just like a fragment can attach, it may also detach. What memories it leaves behind depends on the way it tears off. Some parts may tear off clean, leaving no trace of it ever having existed. Others may create ugly tears that reality will heal with its own history of how it came to disappear.
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1 Actually, in theory it might be possible through reality tearing, but let’s skip that for now.