TWIRLIP

[Bard]

The world of Twirlip, despite its name, rarely twirls. It is wrapped
securely in cables, suspended beneath the great icicle Dredungadrip,
swaying lazily over a void full of quietly swimming lights.

Dredungadrip, in accordance with its name, occasionally drips. This
is good, because there is no other source of water on Twirlip. This
is not so good, because when it melts too much, Twirlip will fall.

[Biscuitry]

(I like this idea, so I'm going to keep the ball rolling.)

Most of this water is collected either at the cables' many anchor
points as it
slowly trickles down them from the icicle above, or at the Tower On
The Hill
which sits directly beneath Dredungadrip's largest point. As the
single largest
and most reliable source of water on Twirlip, this drip site has seen
much
construction, which eventually culminated in the tower. From a
distance it
resembles a giant candelabra; with the recent addition of the seventh
arm, it
now collects nearly half of the water which falls on the centre of the
world,
with most of the remaining drip sites being too unpredictable in
location for
permanent structures.

This local concentration of usable water has led to the Tower On The
Hill's rise
as a centre of commerce and industry, as well as, some would argue,
blatant
corruption.

[Bard Bloom]

(Nothing good can come from a seven-armed candelabra!)

There are, of course, parties in Twirlip which oppose the Tower on the Hill.  The least powerful of these -- or, if they succeed, the most powerful -- are the Defiant Snippers.  This group of disenfranchised tinsmiths and tailors attempts to cut the cables that hold Twirlip up.  They intend to fray a cable or two to the edge of breaking, and scare the Tower into accepting their demands that they, not the Tower, controls the water. 

Not everyone considers this a wise approach.  But alternatives become few, as the candelabra grows.

[Terrycloth]

Of course, the Tower on the Hill is researching other methods of
increasing their water collection activities than merely expanding
their collection grid. A series of giant candles could serve to double
or even triple the rate of drip, once the warm air rose to the great
icicle. Obviously, this approach carries some risks, but no one can
prove that falling into the sea of lights will actually be *bad* for
Twirlip.

[Kylinn]

Due to the interaction of the cold radiating from the giant icicle and
the warmer, life-supporting air rising from Dredungadrip, the surface
of Dredungadrip is commonly covered in mist. Due to this constant
mist, the Dredungadripian's knowledge of what might lie above the
icicle is shrouded in doubt. Is there a giant ledge from which the
icicle hangs? Are there other icicles and worlds somewhere? All that
can be known is what is away from the mist, in the direction of the
Void Beneath. Much philosophy, and beer, has been spent on these
questions.

[Bard Bloom]

[You are an evil, evil ... um ... whatever you are.]

Although investigating the sea of lights /is/ an increasingly urgent question.  Muubrop the Magnificent, a scientist so wise that his saliva turns stones to walnuts, is building a telescope on the very edge of Twirlip to observe conditions in the sea.  If that doesn't work, it will be clearly time to invent a helicopter.

[Bard Bloom]

This mystery is not utterly immune to science!  A dozen gangs of brave explorers are making plans to climb the cables and learn about Dredungadrip!  Usually the plans are forgotten once the beer has been slept off.

[Rowyn]

The Arachnae, a race of two-armed, six-legged spider-people, live on
the cables and build their dwellings to hang from the undersides,
drinking the water that flows down them from Dredungadrip. Some
surface dwellers resent the Arachnae, blaming their use of the cable-
water for the unpredictablity of the water flow down them, and the
preeminence of the Tower on the Hill. Other surface-dwellers worship
the Arachnae, for they believe that the spider-people are the creators
and maintainers of the cables. Without them, the constant fraying at
the cables from the swaying of Twirlip would have caused the world to
fall into the sea of light eons ago. As evidence of this truth, the
Arachnae-worshippers point to sightings of the Arachnae on cables even
at the barren underside of Twirlip, where the spiders build no
dwellings -- what other reason to go to the wasteland, than to ensure
that the cables remain secure?

The Defiant Snippers engage in their work well away from any known
Arachnae habitations. Just in case.

[Biscuitry]

In practice, the Arachnae and the surface-dwellers largely leave each
other alone. No common language is shared between the two races;
indeed, neither has the vocal apparatus necessary to speak any
language used by the other. Emissaries from the Tower On The Hill have
worked to develop a common written language, but the going is slow
with no common spoken base language to draw from, plus the fact that
only a select few Arachnae even acknowledge the emissaries' existence.

Of course, theories (and beer) abound. Do the Arachnae exist as some
sort of hive collective, like bees? Or do most of them simply not care
about the surface dwellers? Given the somewhat... inebriated nature of
Twirlip's most prominent philosophers, however, the conversation tends
to wander after a couple of points have been made, usually to the
latest developments in beekeeping. Which variety of bees are being
discussed - honey-producing, racing or combat - varies depending on
the individual philosophers. Certainly, the biology of the Arachnae is
completely unlike almost anything else on Twirlip, casting some doubt
on the notion that they created the surface-dwellers in their own
image.

The Tower's aquacrats largely ignore both the philosophers and the
religions. They feel they can afford to.

[May Wasserman]

The sport of bee-racing is one of the most popular at Tower-on-the-Hill.
A permanent aerial course is set up between two arms of the candelabra,
consisting of a regulation mesh tunnel 20 yards wide and 500 yards long,
with pots of flowers refreshed before every race to ensure they are all
blooming. Competitors dye and paint their bees with bright, iridescent
patterns, and release them at the empty end. Depending on the type of
race, the winner is the one who (a) has the first bee to reach the
flowers, or (b) has all of their bees reach the flowers, or, in the case
of the very popular races which release berek-berek birds shortly after
the start, (c) has the most bees survive to reach the flowers.

[Bard Bloom]

The aquacrats make the most extravagant bets on the bee-races.  Fortunes have been won and lost -- but that was years ago.  Now the bets are more extravagant.  Last week, an unlucky disinterest for ponsry nectar on the part of the shiny purple bees condemned Lorquan the Wet to eschew all pronouns for the next year, on pain of one stroke of the lash for each one he accidentally uses.  He is considering having his mouth sewn shut, which will probably be less painful than talking.