Worldbuilding Weirdo

I'm a cashier at a large corporate dollar store chain (guess it with your friends!) and really my entire job comes down to being a stocker that primarily spends most of my time doing Not That and instead checking out customers.

But like, self-checkout is a thing. So why is my input necessary? Trust. I am being used as a guard to keep people from just taking stuff. But in an absolute collectivist sense, why can't people just take what they need? We live in a time of excess, so what if some people don't pay for, say, food or water. Water used to be free. Food is free if you grow it or hunt it yourself. Ultimately you're not paying for the calories, you're paying for the shape they're in. Likewise, they aren't paying me to cashier, anyone can do that for themselves, they're paying me because they don't trust someone unpaid to check out properly.

Many were doubtful about her invention, as neural networks (the last technology to be based on the human brain) had caused the single greatest economic decline in human history in 2031. Hawkins, however, continued with her project anyway.

In 2043, Hawkins released a report stating that she had replicated a mouse brain using an S.O.N. and placed it within a mechanical mouse body. The results proved that the machine was capable of replicating the actions of a living creature. Admittedly, a stupid version of that creature that had learned nothing and was effectively a baby, but a replication nonetheless.

The problem Hawkins faced was that the S.O.N., despite its name, needed to be given a basic structure to organize around. This took time, effort, and many man-hours carefully piecing together the network's frame. Eventually though, in 2052, Hawkins' team made a breakthrough.

"Like an onion?"

"...kinda, if the onion was made out of cake. Or if a layer cake was in the shape of an onion? What I mean to say is that between realities are non-realities, void, nothingness so nothing that we can't look at it because there's nothing to look at."

"The onion frosting?"

"The onion frosting. To people that have only experienced cake their entire lives, frosting is so unknown and strange that they can't even perceive it."

"In the case of frosting, sure, but in the case of non-reality, I can't say because I don't know what non-reality is. It explicitly *isn't*.

"A horrible existence, really."

"Without frosting? Yes. But in the case of non-reality nobody knows. It's unknowable by definition. As a concept, it just... *isn't.*"

"Unlike us, which *are*."

"Exactly."

"So, if we wanted to get through to another reality, we'd have to pass through something that isn't there."

"Pretty much."

"... Now I'm jonesing for a slice of cake."

Tuskr are humanoid rodent people that live all across the world. They are short folk, averaging 4'2" with a 6 inch degree of variation (excluding outliers). Their weight ranges drastically from bone thin to "I could bounce you like a basketball", though surprisingly these people don't have any issues regarding it.

3d6+Attribute. Characters have attributes ranging from -3 to +3, with 0 being the average. When you roll for a test, you roll the three d6 and add the value of the relevant attribute. This roll is also modified if you're using a certain skill.

Skills are just a Yes/No binary on if the character is good at it. A response of Yes represents them having training, fluency, talent, or just a certain knack for that skill. No means that they lack that special something. If you have a No in a skill (probably just represented by not having the skill listed or not having it bubbled in on your character sheet) then you instead roll (4d6k3)+Attribute. Basically, your roll four dice, find the three with the lowest values, and add those together with your attribute. This makes it so that people that don't know what they're doing have a harder time succeeding, but can still do it.

The Killopad tree is native to the equator regions of (insert world here), specifically in dense swamps. It has a massive trunk, upon which are multiple large branches that each support a single "leaf". This leaf is shaped like an earth lily pad, but with two key differences. One, they have a large lip along the edge that drops into spouts at two or three places. Two, inside the leaf is a dense network of sprouts and floating flowers. I say floating because the Killopad tree stores water in each of its leaves, allowing the water to trickle down their branches and down to their roots. The water helps cool their leaves and ensure a constant supply of fresh water, which is sometimes in low supply in the brackish bog they reside in.

During the rainy season, the leaves overflow, creating beautiful cascades down their sides. It's at this point that a local variety of fish takes advantage. This species is adapted to climb the tree, much like a combination of salmon and mudskippers. In the dense network of sprouts in the leaves, the fish find a place to spawn their young away from predators. While there, they also help pollinate the flowers, which will then sink under the water and begin to create a fruiting body.

When the fish spawn matures, they slide out of the spouts and into the swamp below. Their movements help to jostle the now ripe fruit from their stems, where the fruit will flow into the swamp to be eaten by the local fauna, excreted, and begin the cycle anew.

I currently work at a large chain store that sells cheap products of all kinds. I help stock shelves; I'm typically able to stock one u-boat of stuff per 4-hour shift (the amount that that is fluctuates, but it's a good estimate). I am not good at this job. My body is slow, fat, and generally unfit for physical labor as of right now. The employer expects me to get 6 u-boats done per shift. Nobody can get that done, and nobody, not even my boss, seems to care. That's fine.

My problem is that it's inefficient. If someone else was doing my job, they could probably get two or three u-boats done per shift. At the end of even a four hour shift, my body is sore. I spend a good chunk of time just trying to recover from the pain in my feet and lower back. That's not fair to me or my employer.

3d6+X, where X is an ability modifier. Adding more dice just makes the probabilities skew more towards the center, making dice rolls more average. I don't know if I like that, but it might be something that can only be determined through playtesting.

My thought is that any modifier you get is no more than +6, 5 for a maximum stat and an additional 1 for a temporary buff. That'd make it so that, on average, that character would roll a 17.

With the way that the probabilities work out I don't know what the standard for "a normal difficulty" would be. 8? 10? 10 is on the lower end of half and up...

In 2042 world governments finally decided that global warming was a major issue, however due to their sluggishness it had already ravaged the Earth substantially. The governments then decided to build Worldships, massive spaceships that are capable of sustaining a massive population. They loaded the Worldships with half of the human population and escaped to the asteroid belt...

Meanwhile, back on Earth, because all the people denying the science were gone, the scientists that remained were free to enact policies to help the Earth recover. All energy became green energy, and the planet slowly recovered, though never back to where it had been.

A thousand years later, Earth contacts the Worldships to let them know of the success, but finding that the Worldships are ruled by greedy dictators, disallow them to return to Earth.

Dunno what happens next. That'd be for an actual story.

Other notes:

The worldships are in the asteroid belt to harvest resources, and over the 1000 years are able to mine a substantial chunk of them.

Beds in Worldships are tiny, like they're just a small pod for you to get into and sleep in. Claustrophobes beware.