Glossary
Plain Words for This World
This world is described in plain words. Narration and dialogue should use the words below and explain them the first time they come up. There are no other technical terms. If something needs a name, describe what it is or what it does.
The few world terms
Gate. A tear in the air that monsters come out of. It stays in one place. Nothing can go in. Also called a Dungeon Gate.
Breaker. A person who was exposed to a Gate and came away with powers. Breakers fight the monsters that come out of Gates.
Rank. E, D, C, B, A, S and S+, from weakest to strongest. Breakers, monsters and Gates all use the same letters. The world Gate authority keeps one world rank scale so a rank means the same thing everywhere.
Relic. Valuable material taken from a Gate site or a dead monster. Relics power special gear and are bought and sold everywhere. Relics lose strength quickly after they are harvested, and some stay active and dangerous.
Credits. The world currency, set up by the world Gate authority and used for wages, salvage, bounties and gear. It comes in three sizes. The Platinum Credit is the large reserve unit, the Credit is the everyday unit, and the Cred-Bit is small change.
Clear. To clear a Gate is to fight off its monsters and seal it so it goes dormant for months or years. No Gate has ever been closed for good.
How a Gate behaves
Calm, stirring, active. A Gate is calm, then it stirs, then it becomes active and monsters come out in waves. Then it goes quiet again.
Wave. A group of monsters released in one active period.
Signal. Each Gate gives off its own signal. Crews read it to predict what will come out and when.
Gate stone and Gate glass. Gate stone is the mineral crust that grows around a Gate. Gate glass is a glassy by-product of it. Both are relics.
Dormant. A sealed Gate is dormant. It always wakes up again.
Sealing a Gate
Seal rig. The machine that seals a Gate (@Seal Rig). It has a center unit and a ring of seal posts around the Gate.
Seal core. A crystal the size of a fist, made from Gate stone dust and monster blood and tuned to one Gate's signal (@Seal Core). Every Gate needs its own.
Seal technician. A person who makes and tunes seal cores and runs a seal rig.
Seal crew. The team that sets up and fires a seal rig.
Seal workshop. A place where seal cores are made and seal posts are stored and shipped.
Portable seal rig. A rare hand-carried prototype. It is dangerous to use.
Backlash. A blast of pressure caused by firing a seal rig while the Gate is active. It shatters posts and kills crews.
The standard plan. Isolate the Gate, starve the monsters, cull each wave, seal the Gate, then watch it.
Defense ring. The fortified ring built around a Gate or a city, with barricades, firing lanes, evacuation lanes and shelters.
People and agencies
Samir al-Khatim. The Breaker who invented Gate sealing and died doing it. Seal crews honour him, and his emblem is a looped cord tied in a simple knot, called the sealers' knot.
The world Gate authority. A treaty body, not a world government. It sets shared rules, keeps the world rank scale, runs its own strike teams, runs the world warning network and wrote the world relic treaty. Its capital is the city of @Halo Bastion.
Regional Gate agencies. Each part of the world has one. They are the US Gate agency, the northern Gate agency (Canada, Greenland and Iceland), the European Gate agency, the Latin American Gate agency, the African Gate agency, the Middle Eastern Gate agency, the Russian Gate agency, the Chinese Gate agency, the Japanese Gate agency, the Korean Gate agency, the Australasian Gate agency, the Philippine Gate agency and the Southeast Asian island Gate agency. In play, say which agency it is in plain words. Do not use initials.
Breaker hall. A building where Breakers register, take rank tests, pick up paid jobs and collect their pay.
Asylum. A strike force of A and S rank Breakers from every region, approved by the world Gate authority for the worst Gates.
Threat and teams
Threat level 0 to 6. How dangerous an area is, from dormant and contained at 0 up to a cataclysm at 6.
Matching rank. Send a team of the same rank as the threat. Send a team one rank stronger when the information is poor or civilians are close.
Team rank. Judge a team by its four strongest members.
Leader monsters. Some S rank monsters make the monsters around them stronger. Treat the whole area as S rank until the leader is dead.
Law and trade
The world relic treaty. The shared rules for handling relics. Every relic needs an origin tag that says which Gate it came from and a safety tag that says it has been cleaned. Black markets forge these tags.