I have always wondered what was under the clouds in the game worlds. Even when you get close to some islands there will be space between said island and the clouds but when you look there you just see more clouds. I don't know if anyone had any theories or if kingsisle has an explanation.

The Swashbuckler on May 31, 2016 wrote:

I have always wondered what was under the clouds in the game worlds. Even when you get close to some islands there will be space between said island and the clouds but when you look there you just see more clouds. I don't know if anyone had any theories or if kingsisle has an explanation.

Tarlac Vane lvl65

I've always looked at Cool Ranch as sort of an example of what's going on down there. The elevators at the Junction Docks appear to take you to the valley floor... in fact, in many areas you'll see Scarakeets and Buffaloons flying over your head when you're there... but you can see those in other places too so there goes that theory. Maybe it's a canyon between mountains on a floating island which is weird in itself. Also, when you're sailing there are some areas where it appears you can see solid ground far below the clouds. Perhaps some day KI will send us down to "The Land Below" for questing of some sort. Can you imagine the vast amounts of lost booty to be found down there? Every ship we sink ends up below so if there is ground down there it must be absolutely littered with shipwrecks, and some of those derelicts might still have goodies in the wreckage. I'm up for some salvage runs in the down under.
From a scientific standpoint, data indicates there should be a solid mass down there somewhere in order for there to be gravitational pull... but then again, since when did science have anything to do with the Spiral? Gravity seems to be subjective in this universe.

(Post continued from previous)
My last post ended with me talking of convective clouds. Convective clouds are what give thunderstorms, rain showers, snow squalls and other rapid, (often heavy) precipitation. These clouds are turbulent and unstable.

How does this tie into the Spiral? Well, while sailing, I've noticed that the clouds that form in each world, withing the cloud layer are generally convective clouds. The formations I see most often appear to be Cumulus, Towering Cumulus, the occasional embedded Cumulonimbus, as well as straticumulus. These are all considered low level clouds because their bases tend to form anywhere from the ground surface up to 6500 feet. The cumulus clouds are all generally formed by different forms of lower level instability, like thermal updrafts. Straticumulus however, (which is the widespread fluffy sheet like clouds) require instability withing the lower atmosphere, generally formed by physical features such as buildings, forests, hills, valleys etc.

So, in order for these clouds to form, a couple of things must occur.
1) the water falling from the floating lands must pool somewhere into lakes/oceans.
2) there must be landmasses which absorb, release, and reflect the sun's warmth.
3) these landmasses must be irregularly shaped, giving rise to uneven heating and mechanical instability in lower atmoshpere.
4) these landmasses must be large enough to produce a significant gravitational force.

Therefore, I suggest that a separate landmass exists below the cloud layers of each world. This landmass is probably spherical, having all features associated with typical landmasses, and most likely acts as the core of each world.

Now, if these separate landmasses do exist are there separate distinct cultures that live on them, looking upwards wondering what exists above the cloud layer?

(It is possible that the water filled world of Celestia is one of the core worlds, with other floating landmasses above the world we explore)

I have read some great theories and here is mine

On one of my lower level accounts I was sailing in Coopers Roost Skyway and I looked down below at the colour of the skyway

If you actually go there and have a look it's yellow
Yellow like the clouds of Aquila
After all the birds do come from "back east"

So really each world is just held up by another world and so on

Monquista could quite easily be the world above Cool Ranch?

Of course I do remember Blind Mew stating there would be a puppet show explaining this

CdeWinter on Jun 1, 2016 wrote:

(ooh I love these questions, I hope I have enough room for my hypothesis)
So, what's under the clouds. Well, we know there must be something under the cloud layer, it can't simply be space or the void. Why? Gravity! (and a few other reasons) Clearly each of the worlds must have something that creates a gravitational force, and we know that this object is not the floating landmasses. We can all walk about on the landmasses without floating off, but the landmasses cannot be the only object responsible for gravity in the Spiral. First, water still flows off of the landmasses and falls into the sky. Second, destroyed ships will after awhile sink into the Aether. Both of these occurrences suggest that the world's gravity is caused by something below the cloud level.

So what is below the clouds. As way to describe what could be below the clouds, lest consider the features of clouds, and how they're formed. Clouds are formed when the air becomes saturated with water vapour. This is done by either lowering the air temperature to the saturation point (the dew point) or by raising the dew point to be equal to the air temperature. There are many ways that this can occur, such as daytime heating, orographic lift, night time cooling, and more. (However, all of these do require there to be sufficient moisture in the air for clouds to form.) The method of cloud formation that I think is most important here is Daytime heating.

Day time heating occurs as the sun warms the surface of the land, creating thermal updrafts which then warm up the air, and with sufficient moisture, create convective clouds. Convective clouds the tall fluffy clouds associated with warm summer days, thunderstorms, and such. These clouds are identified by how tall the cloud reaches into the sky.

(will continue the post, I'm running out of characters)

This post and the post after was most of what I learned in Science class from December to April.

CdeWinter on Jun 1, 2016 wrote:

(Post continued from previous)
My last post ended with me talking of convective clouds. Convective clouds are what give thunderstorms, rain showers, snow squalls and other rapid, (often heavy) precipitation. These clouds are turbulent and unstable.

How does this tie into the Spiral? Well, while sailing, I've noticed that the clouds that form in each world, withing the cloud layer are generally convective clouds. The formations I see most often appear to be Cumulus, Towering Cumulus, the occasional embedded Cumulonimbus, as well as straticumulus. These are all considered low level clouds because their bases tend to form anywhere from the ground surface up to 6500 feet. The cumulus clouds are all generally formed by different forms of lower level instability, like thermal updrafts. Straticumulus however, (which is the widespread fluffy sheet like clouds) require instability withing the lower atmosphere, generally formed by physical features such as buildings, forests, hills, valleys etc.

So, in order for these clouds to form, a couple of things must occur.
1) the water falling from the floating lands must pool somewhere into lakes/oceans.
2) there must be landmasses which absorb, release, and reflect the sun's warmth.
3) these landmasses must be irregularly shaped, giving rise to uneven heating and mechanical instability in lower atmoshpere.
4) these landmasses must be large enough to produce a significant gravitational force.

Therefore, I suggest that a separate landmass exists below the cloud layers of each world. This landmass is probably spherical, having all features associated with typical landmasses, and most likely acts as the core of each world.

Now, if these separate landmasses do exist are there separate distinct cultures that live on them, looking upwards wondering what exists above the cloud layer?

(It is possible that the water filled world of Celestia is one of the core worlds, with other floating landmasses above the world we explore)

this is the spiral and the spiral is magic so either the water comes from above the clouds or its just magic

CdeWinter on Jun 5, 2016 wrote:

Magic still follows rules and logic. And, even though the Spiral has magic does not mean that it lacks all natural processes. Magic is just another natural process itself, and is really just another science. Science is simply a specific knowledge of a certain process or phenomena.

I love your statement.

CdeWinter on Jun 5, 2016 wrote:

Magic still follows rules and logic. And, even though the Spiral has magic does not mean that it lacks all natural processes. Magic is just another natural process itself, and is really just another science. Science is simply a specific knowledge of a certain process or phenomena.

what logic does magic follow magic can make things float not logic magic can make portals not logic magic can destroy things with out anything ( solid and possibly not hot ) destroy things magic and change things ( non solid ) shape magic is not logic and I didn't mention the one million ways your wrong science also says that magic isn't logic magic does NOT follow logic at all

The Swashbuckler on May 31, 2016 wrote:

I have always wondered what was under the clouds in the game worlds. Even when you get close to some islands there will be space between said island and the clouds but when you look there you just see more clouds. I don't know if anyone had any theories or if kingsisle has an explanation.

Tarlac Vane lvl65

Turtles. It's turtles all the way down.

Blind Mew on Jun 15, 2016 wrote:

Turtles. It's turtles all the way down.

I must admit, I totally agree with this, and it was actually going to be my answer until I decided to go a bit more sciency. Following my heritage, North America is actually Turtle Island (since floats on the back of a giant turtle), so turtles make perfect sense.

Eelarc on Jun 2, 2016 wrote:

Depends on the worlds, I'll explain the worlds to the best of my ability

- Wizard City is shown in W101 as a singular floating island, with Bartleby on top
- Krokotopia is a bunch of seperated isles
- Wiz's Marleybone is visible from Westminster
- Mooshu is, just my thought, most likely not behind the massive door in Hamamitsu (due to never seeing said door in Wiz, and Mooshu in wiz doesn't have the pinkish skies)
- Dragonspyre is visible all the way from Avernus
- Celestia seems to be a mix, the islands/potential continents seem to be the skyway islands, while the areas we go to in Wiz are below the water (thus, under the skywater)
- Zafaria seems to be a singular hunk of rock, no seas in sight
- Avalon is the same as Zafar
- Azteca went explode boom aaagh
- Khrysalis seems to be 2 continents split by the sea (which we sail across in Wiz)
- Polaris seems to be the same as Khrysalis, I believe the Walrus come from 1 place, Bears from 1, and Pingouins from the other
- Darkmoor seems to be a hunk of rock
- Empyria and Mirage aren't in yet
- Grizz seems to be sky-continents, with Wiz's main areas being 2 (Northguard and connected areas, Wintertusk)
- Nobody cares about Wysteria and their pigs are snobbish, egotistical humanoid bacon
- The Arcanum is a space ship
- Monquista is a bunch of islands around 1 giant rock
- Valencia is the Machine and some islands around
- CR is islands around the 2 rocks that also are Junction and Arroyo Grande
- Aquila I've no idea about

Phule did describe the worlds (at the end of test) as Planetoids, no real hint towards the sky bit of each world
But what do I know about lore

I bet Celestia is actually like a planet.

looking at Celestia from the Celestia castle/house you can craft in the base camp.

I truly believe that if you squiggle, slide, sift and shimmy your way through the layer(s) of vapor, water and ice crystals you will find a parallel universe (running perpendicularly counter-clockwise(?) to P101's timeline) in which some poor cast-aside, left behind, scrap-metal 'cog-phan' wakes up in the cell, of a mysterious pirate ship.

This mechanical misfit must steel his/her fears and traverse into the unknown in order to save 'The Whorl' from the villainous pirates known as the Yarrrmada. The treacherous Yarrrmada is made up of a particularly dreadful Band of Brigands (aka, B.O.B.) consisting of a fierce fighting force known as The Dock-Quirks, led by the nefarious Captain Crutch. Crutch, along with members of his Common Corps-- Hooke, Fish-flop, Beacon and Cruel-- will stop at nothing to set adrift the young machine-driven marauder. Along the way our brave Gear-o meets many allies in his/her search to discover a forgotten/shrouded past, in a quest to bring DQ's (Dock-Quirks, not Dairy Queen) destructive control to a grinding halt.

...yeah, I think that's what actually lies under the clouds...it's gotta be!

ValkoorTheVictorio... on Jun 24, 2016 wrote:

I truly believe that if you squiggle, slide, sift and shimmy your way through the layer(s) of vapor, water and ice crystals you will find a parallel universe (running perpendicularly counter-clockwise(?) to P101's timeline) in which some poor cast-aside, left behind, scrap-metal 'cog-phan' wakes up in the cell, of a mysterious pirate ship.

This mechanical misfit must steel his/her fears and traverse into the unknown in order to save 'The Whorl' from the villainous pirates known as the Yarrrmada. The treacherous Yarrrmada is made up of a particularly dreadful Band of Brigands (aka, B.O.B.) consisting of a fierce fighting force known as The Dock-Quirks, led by the nefarious Captain Crutch. Crutch, along with members of his Common Corps-- Hooke, Fish-flop, Beacon and Cruel-- will stop at nothing to set adrift the young machine-driven marauder. Along the way our brave Gear-o meets many allies in his/her search to discover a forgotten/shrouded past, in a quest to bring DQ's (Dock-Quirks, not Dairy Queen) destructive control to a grinding halt.

...yeah, I think that's what actually lies under the clouds...it's gotta be!

Such an interesting tale, quite a spin on our timeline as we know it. Hilarious.

The misadventures of a defect clockwork soldier aside, I think you may be on to something. I do remember a story I once read, (which I cannot for the life of me remember the name of) where a main plot point was a rift that cut across dimensions. It suggested that worlds are stacked, where the seemingly endless sea of clouds and the great depths of the earth are in fact openings to other parallel universes, except flipped. Flipped as in, if you rocketed upwards through the clouds via this rift, you would find yourself plummeting down through the skies of another world. Except, in the case of pirates, it would be reversed. *Gasp* Perhaps these are what stormgates are?