Rain World headcanons? (Spoilers included!)

[mmm crunchy celery]

Any personal headcanons? I personally headcanons Gourmand as Survivor and Monk’s grandpa. I also used to headcanon Nightcat was their grandparent/Gourmand’s mate because it would have been a cool family relation, but considering the Watcher DLC coming I’ve pretty much discarded that as it’s more unlikely. Would love to hear some of your own!

[mothmayo]

Pretty random but I always like to think Arti and Hunter are the last descendants of a more carnivorous relative of slugcats, close in the same way horses and zebras are. Also, like to imagine Survivor has a descendant in the later campaigns, not Rivulet, but Saint. Thought it'd be fun lorewise to have a critter of mild importance have a descendant of mild importance (in a different direction this time).

[guyaoun]

I do have headcanons about the game, and a lot of theories, so here are some of my headcanons.

I think the "stars" we see atop the wall aren't real stars. I first got this idea because of how the wall is always night at the same time when just a short walk away it's blooming day. That, combined with the fact we never see the sun anywhere in the game made me pretty certain that the "stars" and daylight probably aren't actually from a star the way they exist IRL.

Something else i've thought about a lot is the origins of the Scavengers. One of the pearls in Farm Arrays indicates that the Ancients may have used farm slaves, the Scavengers are very common in the Farm Arrays and Scavengers very frequently use the Ancients' writings and some wear masks similar to how the ancients did. So, considering all this it doesn't seem far fetched to me that Scavengers may have been Ancients or artificial creatures that were used as slaves and eventually roamed free when the civilisation of the Ancients dissolved. We do know some ancients were not fond of ascension...

Another headcanon I have is that the Slugpups we see Artificer take care of in her flashbacks may be adopted. After all, they share none of her abilities and have entirely different colourations, so my personal theory would be that she just found them similarly to how hunter and survivor can find pups after gourmand's food quest is completed.

[Keffol]

very strange one. but in a way, after millennia of attempting to escape the cycle, saint can manipulate it, visiting past cycles or even future cycles.
Personal little headcannon but more of an AU entry here, but saint visits past cycles with other slugcats that are far from their homes; in whatever journey it could be in, The saint visits, helps them in tight situations or gives them company for a while.

[Adeetale]

when characters die they restart the cycle in an alternate universe, and there are infinite universes of every cycle, and ascending removes all alternate universes with you in future cycles

[guyaoun]

Originally posted by Adeetale:

when characters die they restart the cycle in an alternate universe, and there are infinite universes of every cycle, and ascending removes all alternate universes with you in future cycles

Honestly this first part about the many alternate cycles is strongly implied in the canon, with the dialogue one gets in saint's ending if one ascended LTTM or 5P and the general way we see the world works. The two iterators both describe that Saint "ascending" them is a dream they have from an outside cycle connecting with theirs, that cycle being the one of the Saint' echo. In gameplay, we can see this in that for example, if survivor kills a lizard, survivor won't ever see it again but from the lizards perspective it's still alive. Another example would be Artificer's pups, who are dead in her reality but the nature of the cycle ensures they are alive somewhere else. All of this strongly implies that each creature has it's own cycle, unique to it's perspective. So the only part of your headcanon that doesn't have much justification for it would be the last part about alternate universes being removed.

[pinkus]

i always felt like gourmand was survivor and monk's uncle. i like to think that all of the bodily fluids for every creature are black, like the inside of a lizard's mouth. also noseless watcher

[VimVim]

my headcanon is that downpour isn't canon

[guyaoun]

Originally posted by VimVim:

my headcanon is that downpour isn't canon

AndrewFM said Downpour is like an official parallel universe to the main game. So, you are technically correct in that Downpour is a seperate canon from the base game.

[Jevmen]

my only headcanon is vanilla, the few little well made things downpour adds like Undergrowth are overshaded by how much they ret-con vanilla elements to fit their story which isnt even remotely as good as vanilla to begin with

[Arock]

The corruption is "inverted" karma. Daddy long legs and those like it have the highest karma symbol on their heads. Which could mean they were originally going to be something like the guardians, who also have the same karma symbol on them, but because Pebbles miscalculated (either by himself or because of an interruption) the guardians he was breeding/creating became inverted and corrupted.

[Syzygy]

That the scavengers are the same race as the ancients, but they refused the void fluid / ascension.

[Jevmen]

Originally posted by Syzygy:

That the scavengers are the same race as the ancients, but they refused the void fluid / ascension.

that would be a devolution tho, did they get stupified or something and un-learn everything from their own culture?

[blanche]

the game itself is an iterator simulation

[guyaoun]

Originally posted by Jevmen:

Originally posted by Syzygy:

That the scavengers are the same race as the ancients, but they refused the void fluid / ascension.

that would be a devolution tho, did they get stupified or something and un-learn everything from their own culture?

The scavengers still have similar culture to the Ancients. They use the same symbols to communicate, they value Karma flowers and mark the places that hold echoes. The main thing that really differentiates them from the Ancients is that they use little technology, but this may also be a cultural development (We know from the Sky Islands and Undergrowth echoes that there are/were Ancients with a deep love for the natural world) or perhaps a way to reach closer to ascension by being less materialistic. And they value pearls, which we know to be how Iterators (and Ancients) store data.
May I also point your attention towards the Chieftain, who has a Citizen ID drone?

[Jevmen]

Originally posted by guyaoun:

Originally posted by Jevmen:

that would be a devolution tho, did they get stupified or something and un-learn everything from their own culture?

The scavengers still have similar culture to the Ancients. They use the same symbols to communicate, they value Karma flowers and mark the places that hold echoes. The main thing that really differentiates them from the Ancients is that they use little technology, but this may also be a cultural development (We know from the Sky Islands and Undergrowth echoes that there are/were Ancients with a deep love for the natural world) or perhaps a way to reach closer to ascension by being less materialistic. And they value pearls, which we know to be how Iterators (and Ancients) store data.
May I also point your attention towards the Chieftain, who has a Citizen ID drone?

Anobody can use the drone tho, is not exclusive to the chieftain, even other creatures.

Also scavengers couldnt have descended from the noble benefactors because they cant even talk, the usage of sign language and draws is a behavior creatures like elephants and monkeys exhibit when a brain overpowers the body, which doesnt happen with parrots.

Also the farm arrays pearl mentions some field scavengers so there is a posibility they coexisted at some point as different things.

Assuming that they just learnt the meaning of 4-5 words by communicating with the iterators is a more realistic outcome than doing mental gymnastycs to say they evolved from them

There is so much simple info that contradicts such fact, the iterators said their creators were gone forever, i think if some were left behind it would have been very different.
The game and devs talks about overlapping civilisations burrying each other, such as the benefactors building literally on top of the long gone ancients who we know little about "like a heap of so many sticks" the survival of the benefactors would diminish this message and contradict the devs intention.
The scav culture has nothing to do with the benefactors, they are materialistic and like shiny orbs as if they were magpies, moon points they dont care about the content inside tje pearls and often damage them to make chains.