Gamindustri is a world of friendly rival nations, watched over by beings known as Goddesses. Within, a country's fortunes rise and fall by the faith and loyalty of its citizenry, and destabilizing forces often exploit this nature for their own ends.
Type: Blossom The world of Gamindustri, as it exists in modern times, is a large continent set into a seemingly endless sea, with several smaller islands off the coast. While it appears to have normal celestial workings, like sunrises and sets, a moon, stars and even features analoguous to the Milky Way and nebula, mapping its actual scope and shape is difficult to do. Every so often, a new island will appear closeby to the mainland, but they often remain sparsely populated and underdeveloped. Almost everyone in this world lives on the primary continent, or the slightly smaller, Southern portion of it which contains the nation of Leanbox.
As far as can be practically discerned, it is primarily silicate rock with a layer of soil over it, with the temperature rising the deeper one travels until facsimiles of Earth's mantle and even core is reached, but once again, it can only indirectly be guessed at; it's primarily to allow the typical 'lava dungeons' to exist. One peculiarity is the tendency of otherwise natural geology to form glowing lines upon itself, in a manner that is vaguely reminiscent of traces on a circuit board. The effect is subtle and it has no apparent effect on the material's properties, perhaps a residue of the world's creation.
Another likely and more dramatic example of creation leftover is the existence of void spaces, which are pockets of the world that have taken on a more Tron-like aesthetic, with glowing symbols drifting around multi-colored tracks of light, though local aesthetics can vary. While they can certainly be disorienting, they are stable on long enough time scales for safe exploration, and do not seem to actively harm the immediate environment around their entrances. As they formed with the world itself, they can be a source of powerful relics, though also tend to be inhabited by creatures just as old, most not that friendly.
Planeptune: The city of purple, the image color of the nation, and its Goddess(es). Planeptune is the most like a modern Earth nation and city within Gamindustri, having a lively economy, a primarily happy population of service industry workers, and every convenience one could dream of in a developed country. Though its architecture, especially the central Basilicom, tends to a more near-future, arcology aesthetic, on the actual street level it remains personable and accessible. There is also extensive green space, stretching upon the relatively flat plains that surround the city. Perhaps by coincidence, and fairly or not, Planeptune is the 'default' city for the setting, and despite a sometimes flakey administration is seemingly always a last bastion in times of crisis.
Lastation: This nation is Planeptune's most direct competitor, and arguably its closest ally. Lastation is a country of extremes, with extensive natural areas, primarily forests and hills, being punctuated by factories and duct works. Within the primary settlement this theme continues, with little separating residential areas from the sprawling industrial complex that beats as Lastation's heart. Though not as fanciful as some of the other countries, the citizenry values traits such as entrepreneurship, hard work, and inventiveness, all of which are embodied in the rugged mixture. The rapid pace of change does lead to having more than its fair share of abandoned facilities, however.
Leanbox: Leanbox is a place that has experienced the most rapid growth and advancement, having existed as an agrarian blend of 19th and 20th century architectures, along with a castle for its administration, within relatively recent memory. At the present day, however, it has exploded into a worthy rival of Planeptune in the field of futurism, if not having surpassed it. Around the enormous central building, the city is built in a multi-level fashion to make the most efficient use of available space, with suspended roadways to further reduce clutter. Compared to the organic sprawl of the other countries, Leanbox is obviously designed to plan. Its productivity allows citizens a lot of leisure time.
Lowee: The most whimsical of the nations within Gamindustri, Lowee feels at any level of inspection to have been born from some fairy tale author's imagination, or perhaps a child's crayon drawing. The architecture is an ecclectic mixture of 16th to 18th century Earth analogues, frequently interrupted by more imaginative, anything-goes designs such as being designed like large, colorful mushrooms or pulp sci-fi rocketships. The people that live in Lowee tend to favor creativity over practicality, and it has arguably the most varied wilderness areas, from forests, plains and hills to even more bizarre formations such as archipelagos of floating islands. The climate is not unpleasant, but the land sees frequent snowfall that sometimes blankets the countryside in white.
Each nation that is founded within Gamindustri has an accompanying Goddess, whom is its combined protector, patron, figurehead, and mascot. Despite the name, however, they are most frequently incarnate as human beings within the world itself, and it would be difficult to discern they are more than that, from most objective measures. It also means that they are very much individuals, each with their own world views, personality, and ideals for how the world would be best run. At present, the Goddesses of each nation are on friendly terms with one another, though it has not always been that way, and the old rivalries still run deep. It can take surprisingly little to spark a more competitive stance between them, though none at current seem to have an appetite for open warfare.
Every so often, conditions are right within a nation that the collective will of its people can spontaneously give form to a new Goddess. Rather than supplanting the older, however, they are treated as younger sisters. While they are the same kind of being, these understudies are usually called Candidates to further distinguish them from the acting Goddess of the nation, though they are expected to fulfill many of the same duties. Once again, however, as they are all individual people, it is not unknown that a Candidate ends up being more reliable and hardworking than her senior.
Just as it can create entirely new Goddesses, the faith of their citizens is a very real empowerment to them. Though it passively offers some small benefit to overall strength and endurance even in their human embodiment, the primary benefit is to allow them to channel their divinity in order to bring their true forms into the real world, at least for a short amount of time. A Goddess that has fallen beneath a minimum level of support, that has lost at least a tenuous link to her nation, or unthinkably sees it fall into ruin, is unable to access either. They effectively become a normal, if strong, human being unless a more typical condition can be restored. Even in the best of times, the process can be exhausting, and it is typically reserved for emergencies. Only a fool of a Goddess would try to use it for trivial matters.
With connection to the Tree as a whole established via Vines in all the major cities, and a few of the dungeons, trade and commerce as well as general travel and some tech exchange have occured. Gameindustri tech usually runs on Share Energy, but is easily converted to run on Mana, Ki, Electricity or whatever other energy source that's extant in the receiving world. Gameindustri people are generall friendly to outsiders, welcoming them to their world with open arms, and offers of the latest games from their patron nation.
A subset of specialist augmentations, meant for the Scouting Guild to boost their effectiveness in battle can be applied to offworlders, these 'Plans' will adapt to the native ability set of the user, granting enhanced stamina, or more mana, depending on the Plan used. They also convey abilities specific to certain dungeons such as breaking barriers, or revealing hidden passages. 'Reactions' meanwhile, are used to generate useful items, such as healing potions or stamina improvers amongst others.. These will mostly provide a small number on use, then add the item to a general pool from which item shops can pull stock for purchase later.
Despite, or because of, all the inter-nation competition between Planeptune, Lastation, Lowee and Leanbox, outside companies may be able to insinuate themselves into the day-to-day lives of the nations citizenry. Whether their intentions are benign or belligerant is to be seen. Meanwhile, various factions on the outside of the nations scope, some ancient and some brand new, may approach offworld companies to forge alliances, again for intentions all their own. Groups like The Seven Sages, or The Gold Third, and even powerful individuals may task off-worlders for various means, both benign and belligerant.