Hot Wet Planet Edit Meaning

1.

A collaboratively created fictional world with a cross-genre blend of pulp heroic fantasy, steampunk, and retro sci-fi, with erotic and romantic elements. Originally concieved as a roleplaying setting with a shared background used by GMs in multiple gaming groups in both Australia and Japan in the late 1990s, Hot Wet Planet grew to include writers and graphic artists among those sharing in the continued development of the overall setting. It has been used in both online play-by-post roleplaying threads and by dice & paper TRPG groups. The overall concept was not originally called Hot Wet Planet, but had no name, as it was only a shared theme and fictional universe that came to have common similarities despite which GM was running a game set in this fictional universe. The naming of the setting as Hot Wet Planet didn't occur until late 2001 when the first online play-by-post versions of the setting were begun. Currently there are four different versions of the game & setting online, and a webcomic set in the same fictional universe is planned (but may, or may not eventuate).

The most common shared aspects of the setting are;

# a vast jungle planet with nearly constant rainfall in many regions and very high humidity.

# dinosaur-like lifeforms

# deadly plants and animals

# larger than normal insects

# gigantic scale trees and land features in comparison to what humans on Earth experience

# an environment particularly harsh on clothing and high technology, requiring some ingenuity for the survivors to adapt.

# transformation/changes to the human survivors that make them, or their descendants not quite "human" in the sense of their thinking, culture, and abilities.

# exotic cultures developing due to the very big differences between the world's environment and that of Earth.

# a great many mysteries in the background waiting to be discovered or solved by the main characters.

# references to Celtic and Japanese mythology, legends of past civilisations, and out-of-place artefacts, hinting of humanity being older than current mainstream science accepts.

First early example was "Pearl" - a gigantic jungle-covered world settled by the survivors of a lost slower-than-light starship that was intended to go to the colony planet of Montana but was diverted after a mutiny onboard. "Pearl" was the name that the colonists first used to describe the hot wet planet because of the constant cloud cover made the world appear a lot like a white pearl when viewed from Space.

See fantasy, roleplaying, steampunk, faerie, celtic, japanese