A former co-worker (with whom I had shared a passion for gaming) unexpectedly phoned me at some point in 2014 to ask me for help.
He wanted to set up a Minecraft server and was working with a developer, but he needed help with the frame narrative. I have never played Minecraft, so he had to explain it a bit more in detail. Also, he wasn’t entirely certain what kind of world he wanted to create. I told him to give me a couple of weeks to think about it. So in the end I came up with the idea of two parallel worlds connected by gateways that could be discovered after a certain level, through quests.
And I figured that the best way to provide what I thought he wanted, was to draw a rough sketch and outline a basic cosmology that could be used a base for quests and so on. This is one of the drawings I did for the mirror worlds I came up with, with explanations regarding classes – one evening in a pub while out with friends. I also sent him the below “creation myth” for the worlds. I figured some duality based thing would work but didn’t want it to be based on opposition like good vs. evil, so I took a “two sides of the same coin” approach.
The header image is the map as made by his partner. It was the last thing I heard about the entire project. Not sure if Lux and Nox really came to be in the end.
A long, long time ago, when he was still young, Father Time had two children, and although they were twins, they couldn’t have been any more different. Their names were Light and Darkness. They loved each other dearly, but could never do anything together and their playing caused destruction: for nothing could be in light and in darkness at the same time. Seeing this, their father bound them back to back, so that they would always look in opposite directions. And everything that was, was either bathed in light or in darkness, depending on how the brothers turned and faced Creation, the endless work of their father.
So it came to pass that Time began to plan the creation of a new world. His children wanted to help so Time allowed them to design the world that was to be and they worked hard at it. They planned it together and they each worked their lump of clay, but alas! because they were back to back, and perhaps because they were so different in nature, the parts that each of them made did not match the other parts. And both Light and Darkness cried bitter tears, for only one world could come to be. And Time considered for a while, but was loath to choose one child over the other. So in the end, he took both crude shapes of worlds and attached them back-to-back, much in the likeness of his children.
And since, both worlds exist in the same place, and none knows of the existence of the other, and they are called Lux and Nox. And Time made this world spin, so Light and Darkness can look upon both realms. And the history of the two worlds is known to but a few scholars, the Keepers of Time. Most inhabitants of the two worlds worship either Light or Darkness and loathe the other, unaware that both have had their contribution in the making of all that is. But they know nothing of this and consider the other realm to be but a myth, though adventurers do seek out the passageways to cross the border.
