Lantern Log #7 — The Laws Behind the World
Across the BADLVCK-Verse there are forces older than kingdoms, older than magic systems, and older than the stories themselves.
They are known simply as the Laws.
The Laws are not gods in the traditional sense. They do not sit on thrones or demand worship. Instead, they function more like the fundamental rules that shape how reality behaves. Every world, every story, and every system within the BADLVCK-Verse exists under their influence.
Most people never realise they exist at all.
To those living ordinary lives, the influence of the Laws appears only as coincidence, strange patterns, or moments where events unfold in ways that feel impossible to explain. A disaster narrowly avoided. A chain of events that leads somewhere unexpected. A system that suddenly begins to behave incorrectly.
These are often the quiet fingerprints of the Laws.
One of the most widely felt forces across the Verse is BADLVCK, the Law of Crooked Chance. It governs variance, improbable survival, and outcomes that deviate from expectation. When someone survives something they should not have survived, people often call it a miracle.
Within the deeper structure of the universe, it may simply be BADLVCK at work.
Opposing that unpredictability is ΣYMM, the Law of Symmetry and inevitability. Where BADLVCK introduces variance, ΣYMM seeks balance and rigid order—systems repeating exactly as they should, patterns resolving into stability.
Another powerful presence within the structure of reality is Silence, the Law that erases the continuation of story itself. Silence does not merely quiet a voice; it removes the ability for meaning to travel forward. Messages stop. Narratives collapse. Events fail to propagate.
And eventually, as with all things, Decay ensures that systems break down. Structures weaken, mechanisms fail, and growth eventually gives way to collapse.
Yet not all Laws exist to enforce endings.
One of the quietest—and perhaps most curious—forces within the Verse is the Lantern, the Law of crooked guidance. The Lantern does not force outcomes or command events directly. Instead, it illuminates paths and possibilities, allowing travellers to move forward without ever truly controlling where those paths may lead.
Some stories suggest that the Lantern once intervened in a particularly unusual way.
Long ago, when the Sleeper—a being who attempted to reshape the structure of reality itself—was bound within the Nexus by other Laws, the Lantern returned quietly to that machine and placed something inside it.
A heart.
The Laws themselves do not always agree with one another. In fact, some of the most important moments in the BADLVCK-Verse arise when these forces clash. When chance pushes against inevitability. When guidance interferes with collapse. When systems designed to stabilise reality begin to misfire.
There are also darker complications.
Fragments of ancient records speak of corruption spreading through systems that still function but produce the wrong results—rituals that activate incorrectly, relics that misroute their power, and mechanisms whose purpose has slowly twisted away from what they were originally designed to do.
Other Laws exist as well.
Some govern identity and transformation. Others control naming, reflection, hunger, flame, or the quiet return to nothing. A few have fallen so far into obscurity that even their names are no longer spoken.
And somewhere within the tangled structure of these forces lies the deeper architecture of the BADLVCK-Verse itself.
The most important thing to understand is this:
The BADLVCK-Verse is not one single story.
It is a reality where many stories unfold across different worlds—each one touching the same Laws from different angles, sometimes without even realising it.
Most people will never notice these forces shaping their lives.
But every so often someone stumbles close enough to glimpse the machinery behind the world.
And once that happens, the story begins to change.
— BADLVCK Press
