Institute for Fictional Civilizations · Est. MMXXVI
The study of civilizations that never existed.
Games, novels, films and myths are our field sites. Their societies, faiths, ecologies and collapses are our subject.
07Departments
33Excavations
published
published
29Worlds
under study
under study
MMXXVIFounded
Featured ExcavationNº 0033
Excavation Nº 0033 · Mythosphere
The Tree at the Center of Every World
From Yggdrasil to the Erdtree, invented worlds keep planting a tree at their center. An excavation of the world tree and why its death ends every age.
- World
- Comparative, Many Worlds
- Period
- Bronze Age to present
- Status
- Active
The Departments
Seven ways of reading an imagined world.
Every Excavation is filed in one of the Institute's departments. Open a drawer to see what it holds.
The Register
Recent excavations
0033The Tree at the Center of Every WorldMythosphereMany Worlds● Active0032The Machines That Reinvented HumanityObservatoryNieR: Automata● Active0031The Stations That Became NationsAnthropologyMetro● Active0030The Wilderness That Rewrote Its VisitorsEcologiesSouthern Reach● Active0029The Church That Healed Its City With the Blood of GodsReligionsBloodborne● Active0028The Kingdom That Tried to Forget Its GodExtinct WorldsHollow Knight○ Extinct
The Institute's thesis
Fiction is not escapism.
Humanity keeps imagining other civilizations. The Institute studies what they reveal about power, belief, survival and ourselves.
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