Made This Cuz I Found The Original Image Funny

On stars, guardians, and Rain World’s cosmology.

One aspect of Rain World lore that’s asked about quite a lot but normally never gets satisfying answers is the topic or Rain World’s space/universe/cosmology. Despite first impressions though, there’s a lot more it than meets the eye, so I thought I would compile most everything we know about it.

For one, to get it out of the way, Rain World isn’t on a planet, and its universe is fundamentally different from our own. This is something Joar has talked about on occasion.

He also said on an earlier dev log how Rain World functions more like a fantasy world where it doesn’t hold much relevance than a real sci-fi like planet.

“Oh, another thing - Rain World isn't a planet lol Cheesy Or I guess it might probably be on a planet, just as Lord of The Rings, Sex And The City, Zelda and Frankenstein's Monster are probably technically on a planet, but just as in those examples the planet aspect isn't really relevant at all. Rain World is more of a fantasy world or a dream world, not somewhere you can go in a space ship ~”

But even if it’s not incredibly relevant, it’s clear a lot of thought was put into Rain Worlds fictional cosmology, this was even mentioned by James.

So, that being said here's what we know about Rain World's cosmology in game.

The biggest indicator of Rain World's unique cosmology is that the Farm Arrays deep pink pearl just mentions celestial spheres, which are aspects of older cosmological models.

"This one is just plain text. I will read it to you. "On regards of the (by spiritual splendor eternally graced) people of the Congregation of Never Dwindling Righteousness, we Wish to congratulate (o so thankfully) this Facility on its Loyal and Relished services, and to Offer our Hopes and Aspirations that the Fruitful and Mutually Satisfactory Cooperation may continue, for as long as the Stars stay fixed on their Celestial Spheres and/or the Cooperation continues to be Fruitful and Mutually Satisfactory." ...May Not as long as the Stars stay fixed on their Celestial Spheres Grey Hand, Impure Blood, Inheritable Corruption, Parasites, or malfunction settle in Your establishment."

More subtly, there's also a mention of the ground colliding with the sky.

"If you leave a stone on the ground, and come back some time later, it's covered in dust. This happens everywhere, and over several lifetimes of creatures such as you, the ground slowly builds upwards. So why doesn't the ground collide with the sky? Because far down, under the very very old layers of the earth, the rock is being dissolved or removed. The entity which does this is known as the Void Sea."

You could chalk this line up to flowery language, but considering the presentation of the rest of the dialogue, it sounds more like an actual aspect of this world.

We know from the Chimney Canopy echo that the sun rises.

"From within my vessel of flesh, I would perch upon this spot to observe the rising of the sun."

And from the top of The Wall we can see the moon and stars (confirmed to be stars by Joar in the previous screenshot, instead of satellites or something else) , which are green!

So, what does this all mean? I think we can entail a few things with what they've given us.

For one, the mention of the ground colliding with the sky implies some sort of firmament, which isn't an unusual concept in the general realm of celestial spheres.

But on the topic of celestial spheres, the pearl actually isn't the only place we see the concept. Guardian halos are very similar to depictions of celestial spheres, and also astrological clocks.

You can make of this as you will, perhaps the astrological references being tied to guardians could hint at the nature of karma, but there isn't much to really delve into that idea.

For what it's worth, celestial spheres are also core concepts in Gnosticism, which Rain World is heavily inspired by. I explain it more in this post about Void Worms, but for a quick synopsis in Gnosticism there are seven planetary spheres, and an eighth above them; the planets and stars are fixed to their spheres. These things just further cement the fact that celestial spheres seem to be a key aspect of Rain World's cosmology, and it would also likely imply it's universe follows a geocentric model.

For a bit of a more out-there theory, people have pointed out how the view atop the wall stretches really far, going far beyond what we could see on a spherical planet like Earth, which has led some to theorize that the world is also flat.

But what is probably the most important aspect of Rain World's cosmology is the nature of dust. Dust builds up, and the bedrock of the world is eaten away at by the Void Sea. Civilizations rise and fall into the sea as new ones are built above it. Many, including myself, believe that the world exists in a sort of state of equilibrium. The world is dissolved from the bottom, then that falls back on the world as dust; even in the final moments of the game we see dust suspended in the void sea depths.

And hey, even void worms are described as being star-like.

"Oh, interesting. This is a diary entry of a pre-Iterator era laborer during the construction of the subterranean transit system south of here. In it they describe restless nights filled with disturbing dreams, where millions glowing stars move menacingly in the distance."

Cyclical, recursive, something else entirely? We can never really pin down the true nature of Rain World's cosmology, but the things we do get hint at something strange and unique. It's such an interesting aspect of the lore, and it seems like Videocult will continue to make mysterious cosmologies in their future projects...

Happy pride month!!! Your favourite usurper of Wasp Kingdom is now a trans girl :3

INSCRYPTOBER WEEK 3: OUT OF BOUNDS

I had a lot of ideas for this one, but since it took me a little longer than expected to draw this one, I decided to just do this one.

I always wanted to do a drawing with James but I didn't have any good enough ideas, this week's theme was perfect for that, one of my favorites so far

Eu tinha muitas ideias para este, mas como levei um pouco mais de tempo do que o esperado para desenhá-lo, decidi fazer apenas este.

Eu sempre quis fazer um desenho com o James mas não tinha ideias boas o suficiente, o tema dessa semana foi perfeito para isso, um dos meus favoritos até agora.

sorry for the bad english

I love how the Wasp King is introduced as this regal, imposing, super powerful figure you cannot beat and then the further into the game you go after that point, the more you realise everything about your first impression of him was a lie.

The title of “Wasp King” is already suspicious given that wasps don’t have kings and the game is usually more accurate than that with the other kingdoms. And then you have confirmation that he indeed is not an actual king but usurped the queen’s throne (also when you buy his theme from Samira you see it’s literally titled The Usurper)

Then it’s heavily implied he’s not an actual wasp either

And you find out that actually, once you have some protection against fire, he is indeed beatable, implying he probs was a pretty average bug when not relying on fire magic

And when all is said and done and you look through his bestiary entry, you find out his name is literally a pun on “hoax“

I’ve commented before on the whole symbolism behind him still wearing the rags he had from before under his royal cloak. Like royalty is a disguise he put on to hide the nobody that he was.

Hoaxe never got any respect as himself so he made up his Wasp King persona to force everyone into respecting him no matter the cost

I really hate that so many people can't tell a difference between "lost media" and "commercially unavailable media".

Like there's a TV tropes article that calls the SNES Lion King game "lost media".

No? We have ROMs and there's carts on ebay?

But it's no available in the Nintendo Switch store, so it's "lost media".

Like, don't get me wrong, the fact that there's so many games (especially Nintendo console games!) that you cannot legally purchase right now is definitely a problem, but it's a mostly separate problem from lost media, which is where there's no archived versions anywhere, and it's potentially completely lost.

Idk some of my drawings

i did the thing

I've noticed a lot of games I like have things to say about immortality so I decided to make a list

Bug Fables: How are you going to get the immortality? How do you plan on handling the consequences of your actions? Is it worth it? Did you think anything through at all?

Hollow Knight: You can't be immortal. Don't try. It just makes more problems.

Everhood: Do you want to be immortal? NO YOU FUCKING DON'T. ENJOY NOTHING FOREVER.

Mad Rat Dead: Why do you want to be immortal? You should really have a reason. Otherwise, it's kinda pointless.

Rain World: People can have different opinions about immortality! Just try not to make too much of a mess, or you and/or everyone else has to deal with that forever.

I do wish there were more species under Hymenoptera that produced honey in the sheer abundance that a select few honey bees do so we didn't have to rely on them for the harvesting of honey, or even that just keeping other, native insects in such a way that is beneficial to those species and the wildlife around them was more viable for someone to just Do.

Really, I love the idea of beekeeping conceptually as something that can keep a particular species surviving and actually thriving, but it's only fully ecologically viable in the locations where those species... Are from. Otherwise the honey bees (typically European honey bees, Apis mellifera) will create an imbalance in other ecosystems, outcompeting native bees (and other nectar and pollen feeders!) and spreading diseases to them. They're undeniably important to crops, I'm not saying they're just so horribly bad, I love honeybees the same as any other Hymenopteran, but unfortunately often people feel like honey bees are the only option when that is just not the case.