History Main / Deathworld

** Then there's the various hidden enclaves of practically any sort of monster you could imagine, including but not limited to 15-foot tall carnivorous apes with six limbs and giant lions or hounds with ten limbs each.

* The version of Mars portrayed in the ''[[JohnCarterOfMars Barsoom]]'' books by Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs qualifies. Due to an ecological catastrophe in the distant past, the planet is a near-desert, with an atmosphere that is only breathable because of an eons-old "atmosphere factory" that almost no one knows how to fix if it breaks. Just about every type of fauna is carnivorous, and they're all huge. To make matters worse, in order to keep their populations under control, the various humanoid natives have a culture the causes them to exist in a constant state of perpetual warfare, consider assassination and kidnapping to be respectable and honorable professions, and fight duels at the drop of a hat. And the non-humanoid natives make many AlwaysChaoticEvil races seem friendly.\\
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Among those humanoid natives--the Green Men[[note]] who aren't particularly man-like, being tusked four-armed big-eyed giants[[/note]]-- ''one individual in a thousand'' dies a natural death. 98 percent are killed violently, and the remaining two percent voluntarily go on a last pilgrimage down a sacred river [[spoiler:where they are eaten, or sometimes enslaved.]]
** Then there's the various hidden enclaves of practically any sort of monster you could imagine. John Carter wanders into one that consists of a sort of intelligent arachnid puppeteer parasite with specially bred near-headless humanoid creatures that they use as bodies. Another time he finds himself in a city populated by people who can make anything they can imagine into a solid illusion. Any old apparently abandoned set of ruins could turn out to be the lair of some bunch you ''really'' would have been better off not meeting.
*** To get across just how tough the Green Men above are...they're nomadic. And they like to camp in any old ruins they happen to find. Those same ruins that might be the lair of some bunch you ''really'' don't want to have met.

* Don't let the colorful, 2D graphics deceive you--the randomly-created worlds of {{Terraria}} are Death Worlds, one and all. Killer slime can be found in the safest environments. Vultures, sharks, hornets bigger than you are, killer bats, and even piranhas await you above ground. Razor-sharp feather-slinging harpies inhabit the upper atmosphere. The underground is filled with skeletons, killer roots, vampire bats, and far enough down, demons. The hills and caverns are steep enough that you can die from fall damage just by traversing the terrain, not to mention the risks of drowning or falling into pits of lava. Meteors and Hellstone will burn to the touch unless you've built a charm to ward them off. Legions of zombies and enormous, disembodied eyes will pound at your door all night, every night. Eventually, an army of goblins will descend upon you with little warning. And every night has a chance for the Blood Moon to rise, increasing the number and might of the zombies, and turning even the harmless bunnies of the wilderness into walking horrors.

** In '"WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'', Cybertron has officially become inhospitable to Cybertronian life, forcing the Autobots to stay on Earth. [[spoiler: And then its ''untold millions of fallen Cybertronians'' get animated as cybernetic zombies by Dark Energon...]]

* ''LittleLennyPenguinAndTheGreatRedFlood'''s land of the eldritches, which is pretty much ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, a land chock full of EldritchAbominations. As an added perk, they can turn you into one of them. (And the experience is quite unpleasant.)

* The ocean. More than half the life on the planet lives in the water that covers over half of it's surface, and most of it is predatory. Coral reefs full of venomous creatures, where octopus and moray eels lurk within crevices, [[MalevolentArchitecture where the coral itself can kill]]. The open ocean is a realm where almost every animal is both a predator and a prey item, where they have to keep constantly moving, because staying still for even a moment can get someone eaten. Tidal pools, where stranded creatures eke out a living in an environment where the water they need to survive can drain out overnight. The deep oceans, utterly devoid of sunlight, as cold or colder than the coldest temperatures on the surface, exuding enough pressure to crush a human body several times over. Where animals have evolved to eat whatever they bump into, and traveling more than a few feet up or down could mean instant death. For a good illustration of just how hostile the ocean can be, just look to what happens when [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6M_XgiONoo there is a bloom in the krill population in a specific area of the ocean]].

A DeathWorld is a highly dangerous place, where simply ''going'' there is considered taking your life into your own hands. It could be from hazardous environmental conditions, such as an acidic swamp or poisonous fog, or from powerful native predators (Here there be Dragons, or worse, [[AlwaysABiggerFish something]] that ''eats'' them), dangerous flora, or even all of the above. It's like the entire place is deliberately hostile to human life. (Of course, if it's also a GeniusLoci, it just might be!)

!!Examples

* The New World in ''Manga/OnePiece'' could be considered one, as anyone who has been there then on refers to the first half of the Grand Line as "Paradise". Mind you, the first half is crawling with dangerous pirates, many of which have some pretty badass superpowers, [[SeaMonster seakings]], unknown and unpredictable weather phenomena, and of course, islands that are somewhat few and far between, and is thus itself considered a DeathWorld by just about everyone who hasn't been there or the New World. And even by Oda's standards it screws with physics! Islands that are consumed by perpetual fire, or plagued with storms where lightning strikes like a downpour, or a giant, floating one are some of the highlights from what we have seen thus far.

** And, since we're talking about HarryHarrison, there is the literally-named DeathWorld in ''BillTheGalacticHero''.

* Neal Asher's ''Literature/ThePolity'' novels feature two prominent Deathworlds: Masada, a low-oxygen world where just being outside without the proper gear is lethal enough, but it's inhabited by an ecology of nightmare creatures such as Hooders (giant millipedes armored like tanks, whose mouthparts literally disassemble you in tiny little pieces) ...and the planet Spatterjay, an aquatic DeathWorld where nobody knows how to swim because if you hit the water, chances are you're never coming back. Most creatures and humans on Spatterjay are infected with a symbiotic virus that gives them superhuman strength and regeneration... so that the local wildlife can eat you for longer.

* In David Gerrold's ''Literature/TheWarAgainstTheChtorr'' book series, the Earth itself is turned into a DeathWorld when mankind is forced into a fight to the death with an invading ecosystem brought from another planet. The fact that Chtorran life is naturally more competitive and voracious (coming from such a DeathWorld) doesn't help Earth's chances of successfully resisting the invasion.

** In ''The Science of Discworld'', the UU wizards quickly conclude that ''Earth'' is a DeathWorld, as the ridiculously-spherical planet keeps getting hit by rocks, frozen, or otherwise decimated every few million years. One of the wizards proposed something that could survive the various impact-related shenanigans that make planets such a bloody dangerous place to stay: a heavily armoured mile-wide limpet that ate whales.

* DavidWeber's ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' is full of DeathWorlds:

** In 1st & 2nd Ed and ''{{Planescape}},'' there's still the various elemental planes (such as Fire, which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin) along with deadly variants such as Vacuum, Ooze, Dust and Ash, as well as the seven lower planes. The settings were at least 2/3s DeathWorld and [[UpToEleven 3/2]] ''CrapsackWorld''.

** Dominaria itself spent some time as a DeathWorld during the ''Time Spiral'' block. The multiple disasters and near-apocalypses the plane had experienced (including, among other things, the above-mentioned Rathi overlay) had destabilized the fabric of reality itself in this plane. Numerous "rifts" appeared, creating highly unpredictable magical phenomena, bringing in strange creatures from other times (and even other time''lines''), and draining mana from the plane, ultimately threatening to destroy it--and, since Dominaria is the central plane of the Multiverse, all other planes as well.

* In the ''CommandAndConquerTiberium'' series, ''Earth itself'' has been turned into a DeathWorld due to the transformation caused by the ludicrously lethal yet economically valuable [[GreenRocks Tiberium]]--which in ''[=C&C3=]'' was revealed to be a [[spoiler:GrayGoo DepopulationBomb to weaken/xenoform Earth for the extraterrestrial Scrin's harvest]]. Unfortunately for them, [[MagnificentBastard Ka]][[AncientConspiracy ne]] had [[ThePlan other]] [[TransHumanism plans.]]

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' the people who might have come into contact with the fal'Cie are deported down to the main planet Pulse, which is supposedly a DeathWorld. [[spoiler:Though it turns out they were just put on trains to the next death camp.]] Late-game, you travel to Pulse, and learn that while it's covered in [[DifficultySpike very tough creatures]], it's not as hellish and horrific as Cocoon claimed it was.

Even in a LighterAndSofter DeathWorld like the Pokeverse, ''VideoGame/PokemonColosseum's'' Orre stands out in particular. First, it's based on real-world Arizona, which neighbors hellish California and Nevada. So, natural ''desert'' is the majority of the landscape. Second, if you think humans have it bad, wild Pokémon in Orre are said to be rarer than ''water'', and that's saying something given that the only flowing water in the Eclo Wastes is in Phenac City and Agate Village. Third, the place is a WretchedHive with the criminals in charge, and Cipher is top dog. Isn't it fitting, then, that the most {{Badass}} protagonist in the history of the series happens to come from this very hellhole?

* The eponymous planet of Kalevala in ''LegendOfKalevala'' is brimming with biomechanical creatures that are all trying to kill the protagonist, pits of lava and acid, and all sorts of spikes, bombs, and other hazards. Turns out [[spoiler:it's ''only'' a DeathWorld for the protagonist; he is inhabiting the body of a Kuririi, which everything on the planet has been ''programmed'' to destroy]].

* Although it [[WallOfText practically qualifies as a literature example]], [[Webcomic/{{Subnormality}} "A Christmas Eve in the Future"]] has a [[ShellShockedSenior Shell Shocked Spess Mehren]] visit a brothel, and the prostitute he hires asks him "What's up?" He proceeds to tell her a confessional story of his experiences in a psychic DeathWorld which will MindRape you in your sleep. [[http://www.viruscomix.com/page505.html Enjoy!]]

** It gets better. He has most of his critters forgo the whole 'chewing' bit even when they've got big teeth. When - not if, ''when'' - something in Felarya makes a meal of you, you don't get to die quickly when the jaws close, no. You get a nice acid bath that can take ''days'' to finish burning your flesh and bones down to nothing. When the only mercy a world has is that if you're lucky, you run out of oxygen before you can suffer too terribly, you know you're in a DeathWorld.

* [[GloriousMotherRussia In Soviet Russia]], environment destroys you, as Napoleon and Hitler learned the hard way. Certain regions of it are surprisingly mild as {{Death World}}s go, and Russians themselves find these spots rather nice to live in. However, most of it (Siberia, the taiga, the tundra, the swamps) is a bona fide DeathWorld featuring deadly frosts (Oimyakon, the Northern Hemisphere's coldest place, is here), literally man-eating swarms of vampiric gnats and huge bears (the Siberian brown ones are the size of American grizzlies, Kamchatkan ones are the size of kodiaks, and we don't even get started on polar bears) that do not fear man at all. And [[SwampsAreEvil swamps]], lots of them. Food comes from hunting and fishing, because this is permafrost country and no agriculture is possible. If that wasn't enough fun, the blistering summers are still there. It's called severely continental climate, and it's all about extremes. It's either hot as hell or cold as hell a thousand years before the Devil started the fire there. There's a reason why {{the gulag}}s there will suck to live in.

** Even Mount Everest is small potatoes compared to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K2 K2]]. Part of this is due to geographical conditions: whereas Mount Everest has routes that properly acclimated and equipped amateurs can use to ascend, climbing K2 is very technically difficult. In general, any altitude above 8000 meters on Earth would qualify as a DeathWorld, as the atmosphere is so thin that there is not enough oxygen in the air to permanently support human life.

* The planet in Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/{{Tunnel in the Sky}}''. It doesn't look too bad, at first. Swampy-jungly-foresty place, seems to have largish predators, but nothing TOO obnoxious for a high-school student. Didn't I mention that? This is your pass-fail graded final exam in PLANETARY SURVIVAL. Live to reach the pickup point, and you get a PASS. Oh, and to make SURE you can't cheat and read up on specifics of the place, this planet's just been discovered recently and all we actually know about it is that the environment won't AUTOMATICALLY kill you for eating, drinking, or breathing. Good luck! See you in a week!

* '''[[LandDownunder Australia]].''' This cannot be emphasised enough. See EverythingTryingToKillYou for some of the more unpleasant examples.
** ...depressingly, it doesn't kill the Cane Toad off or Rabbits or Foxes strangely, which are harmful to even AUSTRALIA'S extreme biosphere.

* [[GloriousMotherRussia In Soviet Russia,]] [[InSovietRussiaTropeMocksYou environment destroys you]], as Napoleon and Hitler learned the hard way. Certain regions of it are surprisingly mild as {{Death World}}s go, and Russians themselves find these spots rather nice to live in. However, most of it (Siberia, the taiga, the tundra, the swamps) is a bona fide DeathWorld featuring deadly frosts (Oimyakon, the Northern Hemisphere's coldest place, is here), literally man-eating swarms of vampiric gnats and huge bears (the Siberian brown ones are the size of American grizzlies, Kamchatkan ones are the size of kodiaks, and we don't even get started on polar bears) that do not fear man at all. And [[SwampsAreEvil swamps]], lots of them. Food comes from hunting and fishing, because this is permafrost country and no agriculture is possible. If that wasn't enough fun, the blistering summers are still there. It's called severely continental climate, and it's all about extremes. It's either hot as hell or cold as hell a thousand years before the Devil started the fire there. There's a reason why {{the gulag}}s there will suck to live in.

* ''FanFic/NobodyDies'': Australia is mentioned to be this post-Second Impact. ''FanFic/NobodyDiesSixAIsOneContinent'' takes place almost entirely there, and reveals why: the wildlife has severely mutated, so that even the ''sheep'' are enormous, carnivorous monsters (don't even ask about the platypi), the spiders and scorpions have become gigantic and sapient, the few humans left are either freakishly mutated or savages (or both). The sky is permanently covered in dark clouds that never rain, but constantly flash lightning. [[spoiler:And there's a dormant Angel underneath the continent, which became the source of all this nastiness after Second Impact spread some of ADAM's body to the area.]] The Reego (AI spawn of Rei Ayanami with a great love of violence) are sent to make the place safe again... namely, by depopulating it.

** Char is a SingleBiomePlanet of [[LethalLavaLand volcanoes]], which the [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Zerg]] have come to call a de facto homeworld to force natural selection and continuous badassery upon themselves. One soldier reports that "the planet itself joins in the killing".

* [[GloriousMotherRussia Russia]]. Certain regions of it are suprisingly mild as {{Death World}}s go, and Russians themselves find these spots rather nice to live in. However, most of it (the taiga, the tundra, the swamps) is a bona fide DeathWorld featuring deadly frosts (Oimyakon, the Northern Hemisphere's coldest place, is here), literally man-eating swarms of vampiric gnats and huge bears (the Siberian brown ones are the size of American grizzlies, Kamchatkan ones are the size of kodiaks, and we don't even get started on polar bears) that do not fear man at all. And [[SwampsAreEvil swamps]], lots of them. Food comes from hunting and fishing, because this is permafrost country and no agriculture is possible. If that wasn't enough fun, the blistering summers are still there. It's called severely continental climate, and it's all about extremes. It's either hot as hell or cold as hell a thousand years before the Devil started the fire there.
** The North Caucasus region of Russia is a place that has long been affected by widespread violence (both criminal and political), corruption, terrorism, kidnappings, lawlessness, and poverty. Currently considered a ongoing war zone most governments have placed this area high on the do not travel list.

** Yet these are relatively mundane locales compared to Daemon Worlds, planets utterly corrupted by the warping influence of [[TheCorruption Chaos]], where reality is reforged on the whims of daemons and the laws of physics are guidelines at best, the results looking something like a collaboration between H.R. Giger, Heironymous Bosch, and M.C. Escher. Despite being the home turf of the LegionsOfHell and the fact that some planets may be [[GeniusLoci literally trying to kill you]], a few foolhardy explorers brave the [[NegativeSpaceWedgie Eye of Terror]] and search these worlds for ancient relics, for many are former [[SpaceElves Eldar]] homeworlds lost in the warpstorms of the race's calamitous Fall. [[FateWorseThanDeath The ones that survive probably wish they hadn't]].

* In the ''CommandAndConquerTiberium'' series, ''Earth itself'' has been turned into a DeathWorld due to the transformation caused by the ludicrously lethal yet economically valuable Tiberium--which in ''[=C&C3=]'' was revealed to be a [[spoiler:GrayGoo DepopulationBomb to weaken/xenoform Earth for the extraterrestrial Scrin's invasion]]. Unfortunately for them, [[MagnificentBastard Kane]] had [[ThePlan other plans.]]

** Char is a SingleBiomePlanet of [[LethalLavaLand volcanoes]], which the [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Zerg]] have come to call a de facto homeworld. One soldier reports that "the planet itself joins in the killing".
** Zerus, the real Zerg homeworld, was very similar when the [[{{Precursors}} Xel'naga]] first got there, but by the time we see it, it's a lush jungle world. Filled with Primal Zerg organisms that have spent the intervening millenia fighting each other and evolving. And unlike the Zerg under the Overmind, they don't have a HiveMind--each and every Primal Zerg is [[ItCanThink a sentient, sapient predator dedicated to killing and evolving]].

** Even now, Earth would be this for any visiting species: Every breath of our air is filled with thousands of bacteria and viruses, sufficient to kill anyone with an immune system not adjusted to them, not to mention allergens like pollen, mold spores, pollutants, etc, and the same goes for our water. The average HUMAN will get ill if the water they drink is not purified, as there are very few places where a river, lake, or stream is not contaminated with chemical runoff at worst, or fish feces at best. Most animals contain some sort virus, bacterium, or parasite that can cause serious harm to your body if you eat their meat without serious preparation, and the same is true of our vegetables. Only fruits can, in most cases, be eaten without preparation, although that might be infested with insects or mold as well. We feature a large number of carnivorous predators, many of which are so fierce and successful at killing that most prey species have evolved only one successful survival mechanism: run like hell. A distressing number of lifeforms are poisonous, some of which are distressingly small and easy to overlook until they bite you. The same is true of plants, some of which can, if you ingest them, kill you in less than a minute. No wonder extra-terrestrials haven't visited earth: how would they survive ten seconds here?

* The upcoming film [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZIt20emgLY "After Earth"]] has [[WillSmith Will and Jaden Smith's]] characters crash-landing on a "class one quarantine planet" where everything has evolved to kill humans. Which turns out to be earth.
* ''Film/AfterEarth'': Earth has become one.

* The Earth itself was pretty much this for much of prehistoric times. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_the_Earth#Ocean-free_era And in the future]] it will be that again [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_the_Earth#Red_giant_stage before things get even worse.]]

* The Earth itself was pretty much this for much of prehistoric times.

* The ocean. More than half the life on the planet lives in the water that covers over half of it's surface, and most of it is predatory. Coral reefs full of venomous creatures, where octopus and moray eels lurk within crevices, [[MalevolentArchitecture where the coral itself can kill]]. The open ocean is a realm where almost every animal is both a predator and a prey item, where they have to keep constantly moving, because staying still for even a moment can get someone eaten. Tidal pools, where stranded creatures eek out a living in an environment where the water they need to survive can drain out overnight. The deep oceans, utterly devoid of sunlight, as cold or colder than the coldest temperatures on the surface, exuding enough pressure to crush a human body several times over. Where animals have evolved to eat whatever they bump into, and traveling more than a few feet up or down could mean instant death. For a good illustration of just how hostile the ocean can be, just look to what happens when [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6M_XgiONoo there is a bloom in the krill population in a specific area of the ocean]].

---->'''Avernus''': Giant fireballs from the sky. \\

'''Maladomini''': Breathing kills you.\\

* Creator/JRRTolkien's ''TheLordOfTheRings'':