Patchwork World



A Patchwork World is a setting that is a composite of several different worlds, from cities to whole lands, usually brought together by some incredible power, like a Physical God or Sufficiently Advanced Aliens. May feature a Patchwork Map if the "sections" are placed together haphazardly. If some of the segments are inhabited, this usually leads to chaotic situations, especially if the cultures in the pieces are very different. Can be played for comedy or straight.

Compare Planet Eris, which could also be the justification for such a setting. May also justify the Fantasy Kitchen Sink, Anachronism Stew and so on.

Not to be confused with Patchwork Map, although such a map is a likely outcome of a Patchwork World. It also doesn't necessarily involve actual patchwork.

Anime and Manga

 * The Anime series Orguss takes place on a Patchwork World created from various alternate Earths after the explosion of a time-warping bomb.
 * In Digimon Adventure, Machinedramon's city is made up of parts of many major cities on Earth. Also, the Dark Masters arc turns the entire Digital World into a patchwork world of itself, with the world literally twisted, and separated into four zones that center on the aptly-named Spiral Mountain. Places that were once continents apart are now within walking distance of each other.

Comic Books

 * The Battleworld from Marvel Comics' first Crisis Crossover, Secret Wars, created by the omnipotent Beyonder from pieces of different worlds (including a town from Earth) to serve as the Arena for his superheroes vs villains battle.
 * DC Comics used to have a series titled Green Lantern: Mosaic, where a realm composed of pieces from various planets (again including an Earth town) was created by an insane Guardian of the Universe. Strangely, the other Guardians decided to keep it as it was (against the wishes of most of its inhabitants) as an experiment in interspecies coexistence.
 * The Gordanian Knot from Astro City.

Literature

 * Well World.
 * Everworld uses the word patchwork to describe itself, along with how it's easy to tell when they're passing from one deity's domain to another. This pisses off Jalil, the resident scientific-minded guy, to no end.
 * Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld stories take place on a planet with a bewildering array of cultures from Earth's history resurrected on the banks of a world-spanning river.
 * Gor is populated by people who were taken from Earth at different times in history - Romans, Norse, Native Americans, Africans, Gypsies Roma, etc.
 * In Stephen Baxter's A Time Odyssey trilogy, planets in pocket universe have mismatch of terrains brought from different times in the history as a museum.
 * In Animorphs, misuse of the Time Matrix, a device supposed to have been created by the godlike Ellimist(s) (Please don't ask) that can reshape, or simply allow a person to travel through, time and space at will created a world with parts of the homes of the three characters trying to control it.

Live-Action TV

 * The Fantastic Journey: An island in the Bermuda Triangle has a series of timezones, each with trapped groups of people from the past, present and future.

Tabletop Games

 * The tabletop RPG Rifts takes place on a future Earth where dimensional warps (the rifts of the title) have not only brought creatures and civilizations from other dimensions to Earth, but also chunks of land and pieces of other dimensions as well.
 * The Dungeons and Dragons setting Ravenloft is a demiplane made from pieces of different continuities of the Prime Material plane.
 * The setting of the Alara block of Magic: The Gathering was based on the idea: Five separate worlds ("shards" of one that was sundered in the distant past) reintegrate, causing considerable chaos.
 * Dominaria after the Rathi overlay.
 * GURPS Fantasy was set in the world of Yrth, which had a variety of Earth cultures brought to the planet by magical Banestorms.

Video Games

 * In Super Smash Bros Brawl: The Subspace Emissary, the Great Maze is made up of areas from the "normal" world that have been absorbed by Subspace Bombs.
 * In Ratchet and Clank, Chairman Drek's villainout plot involves taking chunks of other planets to built a new home for the Blarg...and then run it into the ground, forcing them to move to the next planet be builds, and so on.
 * Dissidia Final Fantasy has this as a byproduct of the war of the gods Chaos and Cosmos.
 * In Final Fantasy V, the two worlds are eventually melded into one.
 * Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World takes place in one of these, as a result of the events of the first game.

Western Animation

 * Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Eye of the Beholder". The planet Lactra VII had a series of different environments right next to each other, such as a desert next to a forest, each with appropriate animal and plant life. The Enterprise crew eventually discovered that they were deliberately created as part of an open air zoo.