Blocky Cluster

= Canon = The Blocky Cluster is a location outside the Box Wastes where certain characters emerged from and/or retreated to on exiting relevance from war. It generates massive quantities of paizohl, using the ability of the modular divinemetal blocks to generate materials or attain properties based on shaped forms in order to construct worlds. As creators, shapers, and users of paizohl items can influence the meaning-form to large extents, the Blocky Cluster has an extremely wide selection of genres and cultures crafted across baseplates (large floating islands-in-skyvoid with connections to magical properties) and their solar-system-like skyboxed subsea dominions. Many teleporters and long-distance ships are used to travel between baseplates or establish new connections, though some subseas have been access-suppressed and inhabitants extracted due to nuclear issues or extremely unfavorable meme-physics. New baseplates and subseas are generated relatively often, so the sea itself is expanding. Baseplates tend to expand or 'self-upgrade' over time (including the generation of new inhabitants), so some particularly old and elaborate baseplates biased toward landscape expansion rather than structural power resemble actual continents in scope.

Specialized respawn-based technology heavily influences culture, allowing for otherwise horrific deathgames to be a harmless pastime and deathmatches to be relatively trivial to recover from. Immense hacking-control systems have been installed and supported by various powerful witches and domestic narrators to prevent godmodders from taking advantage of the unavoidable amounts of local respawns and reality modularity available, so it is not really relevant to this game save as external commentary, offshore trading, training, and the occasional mercenary it is totally okay to murder extremely since they'll just respawn at home later. Certain powers with access to appropriate travel methods run paizohl-product heavy trading empires with the occasional respawner, as well as selling huge quantities of weapons whose model-standard lethality and forms of harm can be tested to comedic levels of precision in FPS games and such. It is thus possible for people who are not currently game-relevant godmodders and such to enter and exit with access to the correct travel methods, but it is likely to be little more than 'that foreign place' due to strong meta-layer protections and certain defenses making external army-raising impractical.

Polities
The Iael faction of Tei Isfuriel is the largest external faction interferent in the Blocky Cluster, though certain traders in the Box Wastes have various outposts, fallbacks, and business continuity plans in the area on the level of major cities. Domestically, the Blocky Cluster is highly fractitious and many areas are either completely wild bit-pieces with no normal inhabitants, inhabited only by not-very-territorial natives, expressly neutral sport-fighting grounds with little worth conquering or building onto, or commanded by petty factions fighting for control over a few baseplates in neighboring subseas. Major powers with control of several baseplates and subseas include:


 * the Azalea royalty: powerful bioengineered celestial-spiritual artillery casters, who latched onto and acquired conventionally many rich and powerful chemical manufacturers, farming centers, resource generator tycoons, spaceship manufacturies, and various other logistically critical places. This created an alliance of industrial wealth and superior firepower that has endured for only a few generations, but become anchored in the public consciousness. By combining breadbaskets and major factories with elegant and significantly equipped people capable of both causing and resolving nuked seas, they have become both too essential to casually discard and too formidable to make bids at conquering. Most governance is left to individual baseplates to resolve, though there is a federal board of directors that handles international affairs and what few laws constrain the nation. Their banner is a yellow central vertical stripe over a blue background, roughly forming a shield shape, but it is generally used as a badge, flag, or ID card matter and formal dress code is whatever the particular party wants it to be. King Solun Gale is the current leader of Azalea, and Celuna Gale has made a name for herself as the Witch-Princess of Bombs after an incident involving a castle made of explosives.
 * Nyura: the central baseplate of Nyura proper is a supercontinent-sized ocean-ringed fantasy world beset by eldritch abominations. It hosts several magic systems, spirit-generating sleeping gods, kaiju, kaiju-hunting mafia, and a large supply of government-supported adventurers able to project its will reliably. The continent is divided between several governments that do not see eye to eye and in practice most of them are heavily dominated by Tei Isfuriel due to the influence of Matthew Kingsley and Lord Liebschen. Much international relation is a series of patsies and envoys trying to deal with internal issues first. Mostly, this consists of city states stabilizing mega-dungeon complexes and constraining the major monsters around the north pole. This is accomplished by adventurers with the aid of the local Eicer people, concept fairies, and Xerran energists. When acting with something resembling global unity, the United Nyura symbol is an orange circular background with a dark grey X over it. Most of the Nyuran secondary baseplates are small islands expanded by the work of their conquerors into expedient positions.
 * Grand Decade Authority: a power moreso themed for its military-industrial complex and soldierly aesthetic than its actual military practice. While its soldiers are well-trained, its Senate is currently divided between several poorly-defined parties that are trying to optimize and improve the fairly-okay internal support welfare network for their citizens before so much as actively advancing on anyone not attacking them first. This results in the GDA at best having several tense standoffs and shared-use agreements with the GCCC over wargame baseplates as a mix of sport matches and legitimate military supply. At worst, it has led to being stuck in defensive fights inverted to response conquests over whatever small-baseplate petty king tries to crush the Authority with a serious invasion. Fancy uniforms are considered a major element of GDA culture. Soldiers agreeing to follow a field commander or captain for voluntary assignment is a surprisingly well supported model, with external ordering being for designating specific missions or wartime rapid staffing. The GDA on average possesses more 'mad science' or 'futuristic space technology' baseplates compared to the other major factions, which has influenced both their population (high-density futuristic cities) and technical understanding of non-paizohl non-magic-centric engineering (though of course, plenty of magic systems are still present and merely aesthetically cloaked). 'Protopia before conquest, uplifting in colonization' are words to live by for most of their logistical policy, so they tend to heavily entrench and invest in infrastructure all over the place. Its favored colors are dark grey with pure blue fabrics for personal gear, with red as ship decoration, cyan as an energy effect with green or yellow secondary colors. The GDA flag is left third red, middle third dark grey, right third blue, sometimes with a white eagle stamp on light grey circle as a seal in the middle third.
 * Gakuen Club Council Coalition: Mostly an 'incredibly anime' leadership of the Student Council over a series of overpowered characters, and a bunch of slice of life small-town to medium-city baseplates having thrown together a bunch of local organizations into something resembling an ad hoc administration. Relatively laissez-faire, it is a federation of relatively theme-focused baseplates who outsource their defense to small teams of marked-power defenders as a military and a more standardly-armed police force. These forces are often local to each regularly-inhabited subsea and larger baseplate. Most constituent baseplates are centered on their own cultures of construction or exploration of the naturally generated features of their baseplates, so it is notable primarily for its size as a faction and strange cohesion from relatively isolated participants. For official uniforms they tend to wear blue jackets over yellow or pink shirts (technically any pastel works, red tie with white diagonal stripes optional) and blue pants. The GCCC uses a five-petal cherry blossom symbol as an insignia on varying colored banner depending on baseplate (the capital platforms of Academy City use a blue background). The dominant magic system used in Gakuen is Solving, the magic of using one mundane skill as magically able to abstract and solve any other task at a roughly equivalent level of capability with some other magics added in an interpretive self-established viewpoint world. This results in being able to pull out viable workforces and militaries from otherwise specialist geeks because their hobbies can be directly translated into other skills.

= Proposed Canon =

= Otherworlds = (supported by DTN side S and wider context) the Blocky Cluster is an unsubtle expy of Roblox, or at least a specific subset of historical roleplays and building games thereof.