The Dark (Lumius)

The Dark is a world of light. It bleeds from the stones and the sky and everything except the shadows is overexposed and bright. It is known as The Dark because that's where people and plants hide and what they seek in the universe. At “night”, the sky is white with black dots which are the stars. Plants live in the darkness of caves or in permanent shadow portions of the world. The only resources that do not give off light are the biotic ones. There is a type of bacteria rather like those that live in deep caves that give off their own light, except in this world they actually absorb it. Known as “Darks”, they are used in the way that lights would be used, except they create areas of darkness rather than areas of brightness. The bacteria live around the mouths of caves, abundant in The Dark. They are mined but grow back fairly quickly. The bacteria also is capable of living in low light conditions – such as other world, and is sought after for special purpose lighting and so on.
The caves that the Darks are mined from vary in quality. Some Darks die after a short period, so their field of darkness fades away. Others that live deeper in the caves only dim the light rather than consuming it, being less exposed to the constant light conditions. Of course, the more distant the cave the less likely it is to be mined, so the Darks that live on these mines are the most sought after.
The Dark is also home to a small range of quite dangerous beasts which manipulate the light as weapons in their struggle for survival. There are great flying creatures like manta rays that glide across the sky, shadows falling beneath them. In their shadows they see their prey, and circle relentlessly, swooping down with gapaing jaws once their quarry is found. There are a number of small rodent sized creatures which while virtually harmless on a single basis (such as when out foraging), are particular vicious in numbers and swarm over any threat. Most of the plant life of The Dark contains trace portions of the light-consuming bacteria, allowing it to live in the over-bright environment. Forests and such do exist and throw vague shadows onto the ground, where tiny hair-like grasses and flowers grow. These provide fodder for the rodents, which feed the Mantas as well as many other small carnivourous animals. For the most part, the animals are to be found alone, as since they absorb light, they are obvious in the brightness around them and become easy prey. They are tetchy, cautious and wary of their greatest enemy – the Mantas, who rule the animal kingdom here.
Most of the life here is underground, with extensive caverns and chasms provide dark sanctuaries for creatures. There are bats, who like the rodents find safety and force in numbers. There are large ants, the size of footballs, which march through the darkness without need for eyes, sensing vibrations, building and excavating new tunnels through to the underground world. Like a terran colony, the ants mostly ignore the goings on of those around them unless they pose a threat to the hive or queen, in which case will fight to the very last. The rocks of the deep mines also have absorbed latent light energy, which if manipulated in the correct way (vibrated at particular frequencies) can be used as an energy source or a light source. Of course, this doesn't last forever and as with the Darks, the deeper, father mines contain better quality samples.
The Dark has no civilisation, it was a world without primate life before its discovery. Resource hungry races found their way here via the way, and have set up various shanty town in the explored area of the world. Their imported materials block the light totally, which means imported building materials are highly sought after commodities in this world due to their scarcity. The towns themselves are as if in a blizzard – outside the light bleeds into everything, so the towns appear as dark hulking shapes. Between towns, Darks have been affixed as markers, symbolising the road to take. There is no magnetic pole here, so compasses are useless. The only way this world has been populated is by striking out in dangerous expeditions and setting up camps or new towns as resource rich areas are found.
The capital of The Dark is Lumius, sprawling down a chasm wall in its permanent shadow and away from the soft point (the doorway to The Way). Lumius is a market town with vendors who shuffle good in or out of the world. There is of course a tarif for transporting good one way or another, and various ways of bypassing these taxes. The city is policed by the corrupt Guardians of Darkness, a glorified organised crime syndicate and major player in the Tarif system. It is their expressed duty to keep the citizens safe from the dangers of the world (such as a rare Manta attack), and their unexpressed duty to see that those moving between this world and the Way are properly taxed.
As with many other worls, there are other soft points, some which lead to the Way, others which link directly with different universes. Their locations are carefully gaurded secrets by the individuals or syndicates that have discovered them, because of course they become their own system of smuggling goods in or out under the noses of the Guardians of Darkness. These soft points are far from Lumius, in dangerous parts of the world.