#awdsetting

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many centuries ago, the globe's leadership peacefully coalesced under the Empress Ryoko Otonashi. there is no end of the earth her influence has not reached, no living being her mind has not touched.

she still lives on today, the forever-ruler of the AWD world, though she has remained silent and unreachable in the intervening years since her rise to power. few today have seen her, and none have spoken to her—she sleeps, soundly, as the seasons churn.

[SOME SPOILERS]

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A WONDERFUL DANGANRONPA takes place 400 years into the future, far past the lives of the characters you know and love. most recognizable figures from the official games have long since passed on. still...there are a few returning familiar faces.

some of those familiar faces i won't reveal for quite a while, and not without a Big, Big Spoiler Tag. but i can say that if you like Usami, she's still here. in fact, she's the Temporary Eternal Headmaster of Hope's Peak Monastery! robots, after all, don't age and die.

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(since i'll be using some of these terms in upcoming features...)

Shinetown: A term for settled and more-or-less “civilized” cities that still exist. Think New Vegas.

Wonders: The modern word for “Ultimates.” Since the student characters are all legal adults as we’d see them, they are not super high school level anything. The Monastery is more like a university.

Divine device: An artificial cybernetic implant, sometimes known as sacred regalia. The appearance of these can range across many aesthetics, from sleek and sexy to cyberpunk dystopian to retrofuturistic Fallout-esque configurations, depending on how much you paid to get it, and to whom. Lost body parts are common in the world of AWD, but divine devices less so. The protagonist has a divine device, as well as the Poet Wonder, the Speed Wonder, and the Gossip Wonder.

Saint(s): The now-deceased characters from DR1, 2, V3, now lionized over time. There are statues to almost all your faves at the Monastery...except for a few.

since i'm feeling nice, have, too, a few bits of vocab with definitions yet-to-be-revealed:

Blood complex

Otonashi factor

the "Graduation Song"

Monothralls

the Hephaestus Child

Sun Phase (and Moon Phase)

MILK

Ambrosia

and

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we've talked a lot about the characters of AWD, and its overall setting in time. but we haven't quite yet talked in-depth about Hope's Peak Monastery itself.

of course, there's only so much i can tell you that isn't a massive spoiler. still, there's a lot i can say, and i'll discuss more about it in the coming days, including inspirations as well as the hows and the whys. this is where you'll be spending a whole game, after all...!

to quote an earlier post:

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great question! thanks for the message.

and the answer is...you'll find out! same with Usami. it's a core part of the Central Mystery of the game. i wish i could say more without spoilers, but i cannot, alas. there is an answer, however.

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in A WONDERFUL DANGANRONPA, the students at Hope's Peak Monastery are not called "Ultimate" or "SHSL" anything, but rather "Wonder," e.g. the "Poet Wonder" or the "Clockmaker Wonder."

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depends. for Suzuran and Yuwa, it would cause severe pain and a pretty damn grievous wound, since their devices are partially embedded into the flesh. Kaname would probably die, since her device is the lower part of her skull. it's not covering her mouth/jaw: her original jaw is gone!

the rare exception is Senju, whose vending machine legs are kind of shitty knockoffs that she could pop off at any time if she chose. no one really knows how they work. they're very...jury rigged. in a pinch you could probably bonk a baddie over the head with 'em, though.

generally in the world of AWD, such disabilities are common, but divine devices less so. most people would not try to remove another's device out of awe, if not out of sheer human decency. of course, all that may change in a killing game...