Rain World initially had an extremely mysterious setting, with Story Breadcrumbs indicating past lore. The additions of Monk and Hunter, despite being mere "Easy" and "Hard" Difficulty Levels, gave a small sense of timeline scale. Akupara Games' Downpour DLC created an elaborate, full-fledged changing world that is different depending on which Slugcat, purposed or not, visits it.
All spoilers are unmarked.
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Before Spearmaster's Journey
- The precursors of the beings colloquially known as Ancients constructed temples as holy sites to aid in transcending their mortal plane.
- The temples, now called the Depths, are buried underground in the wake of a new geological age.
- The Ancients, comprising the former dominant species of the world, seek to free themselves from the Great Cycle of resurrection. They discover the ability to ascend through the Depths via Void Fluid, but doing so requires release of one's animal urges, which were quantified fivefold.
- Frustrated by the difficulty of gaining the ability to ascend, many Ancients decide to construct many huge biomechanical supercomputers called Iterators, in the hopes that one randomly thinks up a solution to the great problem for all beings besides said Iterators.
- The structures built by the Ancients are varied. The ones explorable in-game initially consist of the following regions:
- Fancy residences within a lush jungle with a cream color scheme (Outer Expanse)
- A subway connecting a great length (Subterranean, and Outer Expanse's Sunken Pier)
- Plains with various crops guarded by carnivorous "Worm Grass" (Farm Arrays)
- A sewer system with parts dipping below Subterranean (Drainage System, and Subterranean's Filtration System)
- Warm-tinted crossroad tunnels with water pits below, created as drill sites for mining Void Fluid (Pipeyard)
- Towering, bright orange heights situating a Communications Array (Sky Islands)
- Neutral-toned flats with simpler landscapes (Outskirts, accessed from Outer Expanse by Facilty Roots)
- A greenish-colored factory with fair verticality to many rooms (Industrial Complex)
- Tall chimney stacks with high-up pathways (Chimney Canopy and its Gutter leading to Drainage System)
- Towers containing vats of green acid, risen from a set of junky caves and gorges (Garbage Wastes)
- A large cathedral with a sacred path to the right (Shaded Citadel and its Memory Crypts)
- A wetland-like system that churns water to support Iterator functions (Waterfront Facility and Pipeyard's Sump Tunnel)
- Two iterators: Looks to the Moon, the elder of the local group placed east of Waterfront Facilty; and Five Pebbles, constructed above Shaded Citadel against certain worshippers' will and connected to Chimney Canopy and Looks to the Moon, the latter via a set of cables called the Precipice
- And lastly, huge cities on top of Iterators and far above the clouds: Five Pebbles' reachable Metropolis, and a Miros Vulture habitat on Moon called Bitter Aerie.
- Because of the Iterators' water output returning as deadly rainstorms, any Ancients near Iterators are forced to reside on top of the superstructures.
- Many animals and plants are genetically modified for the Ancients' purposes, to varying yet ill-known degrees. Almost no eukaryotic organisms are untouched by this phenomenon.
- Desperate to end their eternity, the ancients eventually apply Void Fluid to ascend themselves en masse, abandoning the creatures they hoped to take with them. Some are held back by their attachments to the world, forcing them to persist as ghost-like Echoes, of which ten can be visited in-game.
- Sliver of Straw announces that a method can be used for other Iterators to ascend. She passed on without disclosing any other information, leaving her peers to scramble for what she found.
- Prior to their in-game campaign, the Spearmaster gives Five Pebbles the secret instructions of rewriting his own genome, causing him to accidentally create a cancerous infliction in his structure, called the Rot.
- Five Pebbles forces some Rot into a few caves of Garbage Wastes. Though such an outbreak cannot sustain itself forever, the Rot that remains stuck to Five Pebbles starts spreading to the structure's Exterior after Spearmaster's campaign...
Before Hunter's Journey
- The Spearmaster, sent by Seven Red Suns once more in hopes of stopping Five Pebbles' high water flow from damaging Looks to the Moon; dives through the western intake of the facility roots, and reaches Five Pebbles. Their message pearl extracted from their chest, they are angrily rebuked by Pebbles and booted from his chamber. The Spearmaster consults Looks to the Moon and is requested to send a new message from her, and they go to Sky Islands' Communication Array, revealing to the other iterators that Moon's collapse is imminent.
- Looks to the Moon's superstructure caves into the water below. Part of the Precipice snaps off, and a spherical protrusion falls off and blocks access to Moon's remaining leg (Struts).
- The Artificer, whilst traversing the older Garbage Wastes, loses both her children's lives in an escape from angry Scavengersnote . Grief-stricken, she sets off towards Five Pebbles, slaughtering Scavengers left and right whilst newly accompanied by an Ancient's citizen drone. Five Pebbles opens the gate to the Metropolis on top of his facility. The city holds the chieftain of the scavengers, as well as a unique Echo that admonishes Artificer for her vengeance, allowing her to seek her own closure nonetheless. Canonically, she kills the Chieftain and drives the remaining scavengers away from Metropolis.
- Some eastern areas on the way to Looks to the Moon change significantly, with Garbage Wastes and Shoreline becoming uninhabitable to Blue Lizards:
- Most of the remaining Precipice breaks off, fully separating Pebbles' Exterior from Waterfront Facility. Much of said Waterfront is also flooded, turning it into Shoreline and creating a path for Moon to be visited again, albeit with the poles creating a safe path down the wall (Luna) broken.
- Leviathans show up in Shoreline and Submerged Superstructure, the flooding kills the spiders and Yellow Lizards below Moon, Aquapedes evolve to wander the underwater tubes there, and some Eel Lizards enter Submerged Superstructure from Shoreline. Bitter Aerie's Blue and White Lizards become subspecies that evolve fur-like growths on their heads for warmth.
- All of the buildings in Garbage Wastes, except for the passages to Shaded Citadel and Shoreline, deteriorate — and the acid throughout the area becomes inert. Said region's atmosphere becomes grimier.
- Drainage System's and Shoreline's water fluctuations in many rooms either weaken or stop, and are gone from the latter region's entirety.
- The non-canon joke Slugcat called Inv or Enot has their timeline place internally coded to be between Artificer's and Hunter's.
Vanilla Rain World Time Period
- The Hunter is sent by No Significant Harassment to revive Moon using a Neuron Fly's slag keys, activating four nearby Neuron Flies in the process.
- With a Rot affliction limiting their time left in the world, the Hunter moves west and seeks enlightenment from the surrounding Echoes in an effort to ascend.
- Without the technology and training from Metropolis, the hardened Elite Scavengers fully cease to exist from the game world.
- Pink and Blue Lizards are removed from Farm Arrays and Outskirtsnote respectively, for the rest of the timeline.
- All remaining water fluctuations within Drainage System stop.
- The Gourmand scouts the area around Five Pebbles' can to bring various foods to its colony. At their request, Five Pebbles opens the gate from Subterranean to their homeland, Outer Expanse.
- The Slugcat colony in the Expanse hears a taller tale of Gourmand's ventures, with elaborate drawings in the home tree's walls and words of craftmanship never known to be truly feasible.
- While seeking shelter from a thunderstorm with their family, the Survivor falls from a bridge in Outer Expanse to its entrance to the Outskirts. Their sibling, the Monk, drops down as well in order to find them.
- The Survivor meets Five Pebbles in his chamber, and is guided to seek the Depths below Subterranean, in order to ascend from the Great Cycle.
- As the Survivor and Monk wander through, a few ecosystem changes occur:
- King Vultures permanently stop appearing in the game world.
- Within the pre-Downpour canon of Rain World, the colored pearls and their data fade away between the Survivor's and Monk's journeys.
- Eel Lizards and Caramel Lizards become more commonplace, with the former from Chimney Canopy's Gutter spreading to Drainage System.
- The Monk gives Moon two additional Neuron Flies from Pebbles, and forays through Moon's Submerged Superstructure, finding her tattered cloak and giving it to her.
- The Survivor and Monk leave the remnant ecosystem and reunite, either via ascension in the Void, or at their tree at the end of Outer Expanse.
After Monk's Journey
- The Rot spreads so much through Five Pebbles' facilitynote that the Memory Conflux and the area below it horrifically deteriorate, and he is forced to produce far more rain than usual, immensely shortening the daytime between rainstorms.
- As the rain strengthens, several non-hardmode creatures become unusually commonplace:
- Many Yellow Lizards in Five Pebbles' Underhang fall with its spherical protrusions into the Memory Crypts, and the species spreads to many regions, fully replacing Pink Lizards in Sky Islands.
- Blue Lizards sparsely spread to Drainage System and Garbage Wastes, but they disappear from Sky Islands and Pipeyard.
- Caramel Lizards and Eel Lizards become more common, the former replacing Green Lizards in Garbage Wastes and Farm Arrays.
- Centiwings also spread to Chimney Canopy, Farm Arrays, Industrial Complex, and Pipeyard.
- Aquapedes spread from Shoreline's depths to Pipeyard's Sump Tunnelnote .
- Jungle Leechesnote start appearing in Drainage System.
- Some of the froglike Yeeks spread from Outer Expanse to Subterranean and Farm Arrays.
- The Rivulet travels from the upper Drainage System to Five Pebbles' rotting can. They retrieve a Rarefaction Cell from the Linear Systems Rail within, and then swim through Moon's Submerged Superstructure to place the Cell into the Heart as a backup power source. Moon regains a limited amount of control over her systems, and she adopts Rivulet as a pet.
- Five Pebbles' structure succumbs to the Rot and collapses onto Shaded Citadel; it is torn in half. The singular region that results is dubbed Silent Construct (specifically the caves under Five Pebbles with emergency lighting). Shaded Citadel is no longer unilluminated and becomes Frosted Cathedral. The piece of Five Pebbles' structure that broke off to the left is called the Husk. To top it off, the location where Five Pebbles' puppet is visited is the only place that shares his name, due to him sharing Moon's weakest-ever state.
- With no fully active Iterators in the game world, strong rains are replaced with an ice age, bringing cold snowstorms. The following region changes occur as well:
- In the downpours' absence, jungle life grows through the tubes of Drainage System, rechristening it as Undergrowth. Mother Spiders, and by extension their "Coalescipede" larvae, move down from Chimney Canopy's gutter to this region.
- To reflect the passage of time and this overhaul of weather, all other accessible regions expect Submerged Superstructure are renamed. Outskirts becomes Suburban Drift, Industrial Complex becomes Icy Monument, Garbage Wastes becomes Glacial Wasteland, Pipeyard becomes Barren Conduits, its Sump Tunnel becomes Desolate Canal, Shoreline becomes Frigid Coast, Chimney Canopy becomes Solitary Towers, the Gutter below becomes Forgotten Conduit, Sky Islands becomes Windswept Spires, their Communications Array becomes Frozen Mast, Farm Arrays becomes Desolate Fields, Subterranean becomes Primordial Underground, and its Filtration System becomes Ancient Labyrinth.
- Within Downpour's canon of Rain World, the colored pearls and their data fade away between the Rivulet's and Saint's journeys.
- The ecosystem changes are more numerous than ever before:
- Most lizards gain horn- and/or fur-like growths to adapt to the cold.
- Green Lizards, Pink Lizards, Salamanders, Eggbugs, Squidcadas, and Noodleflies become extinct.
- Blue Lizards become secluded to Undergrowth and Five Pebbles' fallen underhang.
- White Lizards replace Blue Lizards in Farm Arrays/Desolate Fields.
- Yellow Lizards and Centiwings spread even farther and are more commonplace.
- Strawberry Lizards begin to appear in Industrial Complex and most of its adjacent regions.
- Eel Lizards and Aquapedes disappear from upper Shoreline's coldening waters.
- Without nighttime flooding, Eel Lizards, some White and Cyan Lizards, Snails, and Monster Kelp lack additional habitats to live crepuscular lives in.
- The light leaking into Frosted Cathedral causes the Black Lizards and smaller "Coalescipedes" to die out in all of Silent Construct.
- Outdoor wolf spiders become gray as a camouflage adaptation.
- Some Lantern Mice scramble from Shaded Citadel/Frosted Cathedral, primarily spreading to Industrial Complex/Icy Monument, eastern Subterranean/Primordial Underground, and lower-western Pipyard/Barren Conduits.
- Scavengers place lanterns all across the environment for their warmth.
- All of the Rot in Garbage Wastes/Glacial Wasteland dies, and it becomes dulled and weakened on Five Pebbles.
- Jungle Leeches spread to Glacial Wasteland.
- Yeeks appear more in their regions, and their accents turn blue to blend in with the chillier skies.
- Miros Vultures spread to all mid-longitude regions during blizzards.
- The Saint awakens in Windswept Spires, travels across the snowy ruins to meet all the Echoes, uses its newfound attunement to forcibly ascend the creatures and Iterators around, and ventures through a patch of Void in place of the Depths, called Rubicon. It rebukes the arrival of the Void Worm that normally brings ascension to beings, giving up its own ascension to become an Echo that repeats its journey over and over to bring a Fantastic Nirvana to the rest of the world, as the Void Fluid rises near the surface amongst the many Iterators collapsed by the wear and tear of time.
