overview_of_the_threshold [Threshold]

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===== Setting Overview ======

==== The Threshold ====

This is the Threshold between Earth and the next place, a better place. This is a place designed to be temporary, for people to pass through without roots, and this lends a certain liminal energy to the Threshold. The sky may be full of stars, but constellations are near impossible to follow, and there is no moon. Nor is there a sun, the entire plane is cast in a perpetual twilight, a darkness kept at bay by the neons and LEDs of the city (aside from the hours of curfew, where all falls to black). In the silence, you swear there's a quiet ringing, constantly playing on the wind, that hum you hear in an empty school. Things feel muted at times, disjointed, the Threshold echoes human lives, but ultimately it is just that, an echo. You may feel nostalgia under the streetlamp, but the glow it casts is never quite right. This isn't a place to dwell, and the entire government is built to guide you onward. It's something of a lighthouse.

It's not just an emotion, the muting; it's physical. You don't need to eat, sleep, drink, or breathe here. You do have a body, but it's not one capable of death. You can choose to eat, to imitate the habits of the living, and most people do -- it's comforting. But food doesn't feel as satisfying when there is no hunger to sate. There's a pang you'll try your best to ignore, with your senses dulled by death, you are left remembering the electric vibrancy of life. 

You can't die, so what happens when you are mortally injured? Accidents and violence happen, but worry not! If you are stabbed, or an arm is amputated, the wound will stitch itself back together, the limb will regrow. It might take a couple of days, and it certainly hurts. It does hurt. You won't die though, you just need to be patient! 

==== Block 2845 ====

Within the infinite plane of the Threshold, citizens are limited to life within a city block; yours is Block 2845. Here you work, reflect, socialise, live. There is no passing beyond its bounds. 

Mismatched buildings that barely adhere to physics reach far above your head. Some are accessible by door as you walk the narrow streets and alleyways, but you’re just as likely for a place to be accessible by a window five storeys up. Over the centuries, structures have sprung up based on the needs and preferences of our inhabitants. It’s a sweet concept, the Threshold literally adapting for the humans it encounters, but has lead to a full building of Victorian Gothic architecture stacked 10 storeys up on what was otherwise a 21st century skyscraper.

Even long after a person has ascended, the building that once served their memory remains, and with so many crammed together, there is no more space for new additions. This has lead to impromptu adaptions of places perhaps ill-suited for purpose, and it’s not uncommon to see scaffolding abandoned. Places are maintained at… varying qualities, but nothing has ever actually collapsed. They’re just less polished! A bit of peeling paint never hurt anyone. Of course, we don’t expect folks to be staying in the lower levels all that long, so you’ll soon be out!

Housing works on assignment, and changes regularly. Folk are always coming and going, so anything permanent is unnecessary, and if an Invigilator notices you really working on yourself, you’ll be rewarded with better accommodation on a higher floor (and the associated amenities, of course). I suppose it’s a bit on the nose, having you ‘ascend’ so literally, but we like to celebrate your efforts, and a bit of motivation rarely goes amiss! 

The settings you can access in game are altered depending on your place on the housing scheme, a ranking that will be released biweekly. This extends even to locations of vice, the illegal Snake Dens that are scattered across the heights of Block 2845.

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