Temple

Situated on the most southern-west side of Main Street. Shapeshifts into any House of Worship, past/present/future, on any given day. Why the architecture changes is an anomaly. The caretaker of this property now runs it as a place where any may worship, no matter their deity or lack thereof.

Housing

The houses on Olamina Street have been utilized as living quarters. Most have a roommate or three, as there is always safety in numbers. Supplies stored in homes are considered private property.

Main St. Storage

Storage consists of most buildings on Main Street, save a few. Supplies stored here are considered communal.

Medical bay

A set of two houses on the west side of Main Street where all medical supplies are stored, and then used in the structured quarantine quarters. The person who largely did the work on this project wandered off past the Edges one night. They had been complaining of headaches, and were never seen again.

Garden & Waterpump

This plot of land is on the east side of Main Street. The garden is volatile in its fluctuations of time and growth - seeds may pitch into harvest overnight, and rot hours later. Food harvested may not match what was planted - or may not be edible at all. A well has been recently completed, and provides a reliable source of cool, clean water when the Housing Division is out. It must be pumped by hand. An easy place to socialize or get the day's gossip.

Workshop

These buildings are on the southern end of Main Street. A place to fix things and tinker with parts. Scavengers may stop here to sort out their finds, make trades, and collaborate on projects.

Red Berry Barn Destroyed

The barn is on the southern end of town, past Main Street, right on the border of the town and the environment. A good place for housing any living creatures for research and potential husbandry. Larger equipment may also be stored in this building.

LANDING PAD

When the Cut opens, this is where vehicles will actually land. This is a slightly elevated platform, surrounded by a low concrete barrier. It has been designed with white stones that glow when the Cut activates, to warn the townspeople of an impending arrival.

BOOSTER/ALARM & SHELTER

This building has several facets: the shelter is the bottom level, which is meant to be an emergency gathering place for town residents to protect them from dangerous events. An alarm tower has been placed above it, which residents can activate to warn the town of danger. This alarm can be activated using electricty or a hand crank. Atop the alarm tower is one of several boosters around town which help improve the communication signal back to TNC.

THE CUT

Created by the Painted Dogs, the Cut is a reliable road between the City and the Glitch. A vessel that can withstand interdimensional travel is still required to pass through the Cut. When the Cut opens, ships will pass through and settle on the Landing Pad.

heartwood tree

One of two matching trees - the other lives in the City. The two trees will grow to communicate with one another over time. The Heartwood Tree was planted and watered during the final expedition to the Glitch, involving a ceremony which included all residents of the Glitch and all Expedition members.

jan faucher library

TBA

Infrastructure

• Minimal electricity; unreliable

• Limited phone service; short-wave radios and walkie-talkies will function.

• Running water; mostly reliable

• Heat and cooling; unreliable

• No natural gas

• No gasoline

• Bathrooms in homes work via force-flush. However, two public "outhouses" have been built near the edge of the town for the collection of waste for fertilizer and other purposes. These outhouses are close enough to be in range of the Edges, so there is some risk in their use.
  

Remember

the Edges will come right up to the very limits of the map, but will come no further. Many days, the Edges will be very far away, and the Glitch will be fully landscaped. Other days, the town will be completely surrounded by blinding white nothingness.

What is the Glitch?

This unstable dimension is a fold in reality – which keeps folding, and folding. Its environment changes on a regular basis, and it feels no obligation to make sense. Time might stretch or tighten, weather systems will change within minutes, crops that were seeded yesterday might be ripe and on the verge of rot today.

When new people arrive in the Glitch, the space changes again – so every person who lands there, every expedition that arrives, destabilizes the space further, both adding and Taking away from it. These realities will pile on top of one another layer after layer, fusing into a messy, illogical, dangerous space.

The Glitch feels like a simulation, like a world that is not fully programmed, or where the data has begun to corrupt.

Survival is the main goal in the Glitch. Ensuring that you have enough to eat, that you don’t die of exposure, and that you don’t go mad are your top priorities. There is safety in numbers. Stay close to your fellow explorers.

Where is the Glitch?

The Glitch is currently accessible via “The Cut,” a paper-thin slice between the City and the Glitch. The Cut is hidden in the cañón that separates Hollow Heights from Gemsbok Glade.

How does my OC get there?

Your OC cannot walk directly into the Cut. They must travel in a vessel capable of surviving interdimensional travel – currently, the only approved vessel belongs to the Painted Dogs. Soon, a “public transit vehicle” will be created to allow non-expedition travel between the realms.

In the past, Black Tower Corp. and Ethan Kindle sponsored expeditions manned by the Painted Dogs in an attempt to map the space, learn how it functions, and provide a means of escape for members of the Glitch.

How does my OC find out

about the Glitch?

There are several ways your character could conceivably learn about The Glitch:

• News spreads fast in The Nameless City: they could learn about it through word-of-mouth gossip or standard media outlets.
  

• All four expeditions have shared their findings publicly.
  

• If your OC lives in Hollow Heights, they could conceivably visit the Floating Shelf and see the Rift, which has been sealed over with a massive glass pane. This was a previous method of accessing the Glitch, and locals will tell stories about it.
  

What is day to day life like?

To provide a focal point for the players to interact, there is a small town in the Glitch that does not change: there will be empty houses to sleep in, with beds. However, heat, cooling, water, and electricity are not guaranteed to be functional. Be prepared to find clean water, cook over open flame, and focus on surviving the elements. The buildings in the town are not immune to change, but they won’t disappear.

The Glitch does not support slice-of-life play such as opening businesses, having jobs, meaningful currency, etc., barter, and scavenging is the rule here, but compassion and ethics are more likely to get you what you need than a trade. Make allies freely and try to avoid creating enemies: after all, they’ll be stuck with you.

Due to its ever-shifting reality, psychic damage is high in the Glitch. If you are writing in this space, you are agreeing and committing to your character experiencing psychic damage on some level. (It does not need to be permanent.) For a list of horrible things you can play with to have happen to your OC/your group, see the end of the document.

What can we assume is

safe to scavenge?

Because new realities layer themselves on top of one another over and over again, unexpected items can be obtained by scavenging. This can be a good way to get food, clothing, and survival amenities, as well as strange and unexpected benefits. The mods will “loot drop” lists of items that your characters will be permitted to have scavenged.

Is anyone currently living

in the Glitch?

The Glitch has a few “local residents” that have been trapped there for some time – they arrived in ways similar to how our OCs arrive in TNC. No one was born in the Glitch. This is a place with a very low population – imagine less than 10 current residents when your OC arrives.

Animals are just as unpredictable and strange as the landscape itself: one day the environment may be barren, one day it may be overpopulated. There may be animals spliced together from two different universes and other horrors, or animals that subvert their expected species behavior (ie; edible bees, fish that fly).

How big is the Glitch?

It cannot be measured. The static core, the town, is five city blocks long, with storefront facades and homes, like a pleasant mainstreet in an idyllic 1960s suburbia. However, these storefronts are not functional, there are no businesses operational – they are used for storage and shelter only. These businesses feel perfectly abandoned.

Anything outside of this core is variable: the edges of the environment fade into bright-white nothingness, sometimes very abruptly. Sometimes the edges are right at the end of mainstreet, and you will be stuck in the town unless you want to risk walking into the nothingness. Other days, the edges are very far away from the town, and the landscape is filled with the layered reality of the Glitch. You could walk for hours and never find the edge. These are the good days to scavenge.

How do the Edges work?

The “nothingness” areas of the environment are referred to as the edges, because this is where the world turns into bright-white nothing. Think of when pixels begin to drop in a video game, or the endless sprawl of nothing when Neo is introduced to the training room in the Matrix. The edges move, expanding and contracting. An OC who gets trapped in the edges might find an oasis to help orient themselves and stay overnight, but the amount of time it lasts will be unpredictable.

Does the TNC universal translation still work?

Generally, yes – not because this environment is ruled by the logic of TNC but because without it the entire roleplay would devolve into focusing on how to communicate with your fellow writer. Unlike in TNC, written languages may appear strangely or may not translate into an understandable language.

If my TNC OC goes to the Glitch, how long will they be gone?

Who's to say! the time frame could range from two weeks to being permanently stuck there. (Or so they think.)