Location Seed: Happy World.

Based, more or less, on this.

happy-world-google-docs

Happy World

Type of City: Brigadoon/Carcosa

Population: Highly variable. Typically between 25,000 and 150,000.

Size: Variable. Usually roughly between 20 and 50 square miles.

Level of Technology: A range between the late Victorian and early Interplanetary era-equivalents.

It is said – although nowhere that a regular person might hear it – that every time the concept of an individual amusement park or carnival dies, the ever-shifting and moving city known as ‘Happy World’ will appear to draw in a piece of that doomed park unto itself.  Typically this means that when a carnival goes out of business, some of its buildings and attractions (and staffers!) somehow vanish in the chaos.  But Happy World will still come and do its harvesting if the park was never actually built in the first place. Dreams, reality, material, immaterial; it is all one to Happy World.

The inhabitants of Happy World typically either came along for the ride when their particular park was ‘eaten,’ or else they’re descended from someone who did; every so often somebody shows up from Offsite (which is how Happy Worlders refer to the rest of the multiverse).  Nothing in particular is stopping Happy Worlders from leaving, except of course that there’s nothing really encouraging them to leave, either.  As long as somebody is there to keep an eye on the rides and exhibits, the lights work and there’s always somewhere warm to sleep and the refrigerators and closets stay stocked with food and clothing, somehow. In other words… if you like working for a carnival, the atmosphere is not uncongenial.  If you don’t, Happy World doesn’t seem inclined to make you stick around.

Happy World is, naturally enough, an architectural and topological mess. Happy World has something resembling a sun, and something resembling a moon, but the actual time of day and year seems to depend largely on whether it’s thematically appropriate for any given location. Expect heat and sun at the waterslide, dusk and chill at the hayride, and quick climate changes as one walks.  And don’t expect to find the edge of the place, because there apparently isn’t one.  

The only fixed point in the entire facility is Welcome Town, which is laid out in the traditional circle of shops and restaurants centered around a fountain. Generally speaking, anywhere within Welcome Town is largely going to stay in the same place over the long term.  The immediate area around the fountain remains stable, and features what few institutions the inhabitants need to maintain a functioning society: a library, a small hospital, a couple of schools, a town hall with courtroom and very small jail, a post office, and so forth.  

But once you go more than two blocks or so along a side street, you’re on your own: if you know what you’re looking for, you can always get there using the various maps and signs posted at regular intervals (thus, you can reliably get back to Welcome Town at any time).  If you don’t, expect a nice long walk through all sorts of rides, exhibits, tableaus, kiosks, menageries, and associated curiosities. Not a few visitors from Offsite come solely to use Happy World as an amusement park.

Strictly speaking, Happy World does not default to being dangerous.  There easily are any number of ways to turn the city into a place of horror, but when it comes right down to it Happy World is a conglomeration of places where people went to have fun. So there is not going to be an atmosphere of menace in the background unless a gamemaster specifically wants it there.

But Happy World is always going to be deeply, deeply weird.  People come from Offsite to find curiosities and oddities there; a dusty, half-abandoned sideshow museum may have just the right item that somebody needs to complete his collection, or power her spell, or lift its curse. The general atmosphere is thus going to be about as spooky as you’d expect it to be.  You can find anything at Happy World, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll ever find it twice.  Also, neither the people nor the geography all come from one particular Earth. Alternate timelines, parallel dimensions, there’s one particular section where all the rides seem designed for six-foot beetles and the carnival barkers are six-foot beetles.  Perfectly civil six-foot beetles who will be happy to point you to the nearest bathroom, but beetles nonetheless.

One last note: nobody really knows if Happy World itself is alive, whether it’s owned by a powerful supernatural figure, or indeed anything at all about its purpose, true history, or ultimate fate. Some people suspect that the various mysteries will never be cleared up. Some others suspect that the various mysteries can never be cleared up…