What is Decay?
The Decay Canon follows the experience of several inhabitants of The Backrooms as their home for god knows how long begins to wither and die in front of them. A mysterious patch of darkness begins to spread around The Backrooms, taking all the nostalgic hellscapes and the entities that live in them with it. Different groups begin making unlikely allies in hopes of stopping the eventual death of The Backrooms, and the prioritization of finding an exit is emphasized the closer the backrooms gets to mass destruction.
The main premise of the Decay Canon is hope and despair, and how the inhabitants go about facing an unknown evil that is greater than anything else they could've ever imagined. Strengths are found in common goals, and temporary peace is brought upon The Backrooms if only for a few precious moments. But in the end, is that enough to stop The Decay?
The Canon is split into 4 parts, each detailing the progression of the spread and how it changes the world around it.
Stage 1
The beginning of the end. More and more reports come to the M.E.G's attention about a strange patch of void that seems to grow bigger with each passing moment. Struggling to verify these claims, the M.E.G does not give much care to it at first, but the blissful ignorance only lasts a small amount of time.
Different explorer groups around The Backrooms begin reporting the same thing. More and more people start seeing the elusive patches of darkness, and eventually, they all come to the same conclusion:
Something terribly evil has just begun
Stage 2
Now that the several different groups have noticed the spread, it is undeniable that something must be done about it. As the different groups of The Backrooms try to maintain relative normalcy as best as they can, they start researching several different methods of escaping The Backrooms.
Several different explorations are made to the exit, as traversing the backrooms becomes harder and harder. The connections between levels begin to be severed, trapping the inhabitants inside. Transportation around the backrooms becomes a glaring issue as people begin to prepare for the worst.
Stage 3
Life in the backrooms as it was known has changed drastically. The different groups of The Backrooms have formed uneasy and desperate alliances with each other, and what once were the greatest of enemies have now banded together against the spread as one.
The scramble for an exit grows all the more desperate, as entire levels have begun being consumed by The Decay. Entities of The Backrooms watch in dismay as their homes are destroyed, and the last secure vestiges of humanity are breaking down.
The end times have grown near…
Stage 4
This is it. Singularity looms above The Backrooms with every passing day. Levels have almost all deteriorated completely, yet some beings still persist for some hope of survival. The last few humans watch cold and alone, knowing their days are numbered.
Despair has taken over, nothingness reigns supreme, and the once glorious Backrooms are on their last knees.
Non-tale entries
Non-tale entries fall into 2 categories, 1) Normal entries affected by the events of Decay, or 2) Entries that exist solely because of Decay.
For the former, write the article like you normally would, and find a way to link it to Decay. If an object before used to emit a light that melted people's hands off, then in the context of Decay it could perhaps also thwart the Decay in some form among other things. If an entity used to hate the M.E.G. for some reason, it could instead choose to ally itself with the opposing group for it's own purposes related to the Decay.
For the latter, your article has to propose a different twist to the normal formula. What does this thing have to do with the Decay? Why does it fit into the canon, as in, what relations does it have to the story/characters? For example, you could write something like a material that was specifically created to thwart the Decay, or perhaps a Level that is the base of operations for a group of people who try to fight the Decay. There's lots of possibilities with this, and it's up to you to write them.
It's an open canon after all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
One-off tales
First of all, before writing anything for the canon, consider this question.
At what phase of the canon does your work fall into?
Once you've answered that, plan your writing accordingly. What will your characters do that has to do with the Decay? What's the setting, and how is it affected by the Decay? What's the resolution of this tale?
You also have to make sure that your tale does not contradict anything in the main series. That is the most important series of Decay, and tampering with the main series would fuck with the whole premise of Decay, since that series is the backbone of Decay.
Keep all of these in mind, and once that is all planned out, you can begin writing. It's that simple!
Tale series
This one is a tad bit more complicated.
When writing a series, you don't have just one tale to keep track of, you have a whole system of characters and scenarios, and that can be a bit of an issue. You have to watch out for main series contradictions as mentioned earlier, albeit on a grander scale now. You also have to manage your characters over all the phases, as well as the scenes of the phases themselves. There's also the fact that you need to have a plot for it all as well. You can't just copy main series in the plot, so you have to be creative here as well!
One fun thing about series however: Since the canon is in it's early stages, series separate from the main series will be able to interact with the main series in the future.
If you plan on writing a series, then it is practically a necessity to contact me (SariaStuff) for details on planning it out. Reach out to me on discord or dms, and I will gladly explain how you can do it whilst also co-existing with the main series.
Canon Crossing and Decay
It is totally fine to canon cross other canons and Decay. The only foreseeable issue that this may have is in the context of the other canon, and not Decay: Decay does not make sense from the perspective of other canons, especially considering the rules by which this canon plays by, not to mention the very premise of this canon which may be strange for the canon you are writing for.
Regardless, if you still wish to go with it, make sure that it makes sense in the context of Decay, since the main attraction in Decay writing is Decay itself, so writing for other canons would mean that Decay has to take the spotlight.
Should any further questions be needed about this matter, I urge you to contact me so we can clear them up.
Questions
What is the Decay?
At face value, the Decay is a patch of darkness that spreads itself around The Backrooms, consuming everything it can spread on. It is both something and not: As in, it is the lack of matter, the lack of substance, but it is not entirely the complete lack of anything, it is still something, not entirely nothing (If that makes sense).
As for what the Decay actually is, that's up to you to decide. No origin stories can or will be written for the origin of the Decay, so it's left up to interpretation. Want it to be created by general expansion of The Backrooms in the same vein as the heat death of the universe? Sure. Want it to be the product of some guy playing Nickelback really loudly which causes the world to rupture? Sure, like, why would you think that in the first place, but sure. It's basically left up for you to decide what made this thing. That's what's so fun about it!
How does the spreading work?
This one is a bit strange, so bear with me.
I'll start of with the basic stuff, like spreading in general, speed of the spread, etc.
The Decay spreads pretty slowly around The Backrooms on average. Whilst in some cases it can move a bit faster than its normal speed (i.e about a snail's pace max), most times will move at really slow speeds.
The Decay spreads around The Backrooms by unknown means. As said earlier, it all relies on your headcanon, so it can be anything you want it to be.
Does it spread onto living things? Yes, and no. I will not be elaborating further for the time being.
And now, the most complicated part of this: How does it spread through the different states of matter? Here are my thoughts on that.
- In solids, the Decay spreads as mentioned earlier: Very slowly. It moves on the surfaces of the things it spreads onto, covering them, and essentially making them objects covered by portals to the void.
- In liquids, the Decay does not spread whatsoever, with exceptions being only those liquids that do not touch anything else (Think a floating patch of water in space, that's the kinda stuff I'm talking about).
- In gases, the Decay spreads only when a sizeable chunk of the surrounding area has been decayed, e.g, it won't begin to spread to the gases in a room until half of the room has been decayed. And even then, it still spreads as slow it does on solids
- This one is unique. The decay spreads the fastest in vacuums. Think about it: There is nothing in a vacuum, and the Decay is pretty much as close to nothing as you can get! Decay spreads instantly throughout vacuums, so good luck surviving in a place that's surrounded by them!
- What happens to irregular matter? No clue, it's irregular for a reason. Go wild.
What happens when things make contact with the Decay?
If only part of the object is put inside the Decay, then the part that was put inside it gets severed.
In the case that you fall into it? You life. After this one you pass away.
Jokes aside, you are erased from existence. You don't go to The Grave, you don't go to any kind of afterlife, you're just gone, never to be seen again.
Do entities come out from The Decay?
No. It's the lack of anything, why would they?
Are The Frontrooms affected by the Decay?
No. The Frontrooms are not The Backrooms.
Can the Decay be stopped?
No, but it can be slowed down. That's kinda the whole focal point of this canon though: How this thing could possibly be stopped. Don't shy away from writing attempts that didn't work!
Canon Rules
1) No levels in The Backrooms are infinite in this canon, otherwise, it wouldn't be happening. If any levels rely on the fact that they are infinite, and they wouldn't work otherwise, then the Decay can just work it's way around that.
2) People age and can have children in The Backrooms in this canon. Biology still works even at the end of the world y'all.
3) For the sake of the canon, reality bending entities do not exist. Entities that can create matter infinitely, have total power over The Backrooms, or other kinds of that stuff may as well not even exist in this canon. If you still want them to be in this canon, they have to be made less powerful than they already were.
4) The Backrooms have reached a highly advanced state in this canon. The M.E.G. has access to some basic weapons, as well as the creation of electronics and the such. Current Backrooms population numbers at approximately six hundred thousand.
