Natural History Museum of Biomes

Overview

The Natural History Museum of Biomes is a planned museum complex dedicated to documenting the natural world of The Forgelands and beyond. Where the Hall of the Ancients preserves what civilizations made, the Museum preserves what the world itself is: its biomes, terrain, flora, and natural systems, presented as full-scale living exhibits.

Purpose

Andy's expeditions have crossed more distinct biomes than most players will ever see, and much of that landscape exists nowhere near the settled districts. The Museum will bring representative sections of each biome into one place: a glass-roofed jungle wing, a frozen peaks gallery with genuine powder snow, a dripstone cavern reconstruction, and a mangrove wetland fed by a managed water system.

Current Status

The project is in early planning. The exhibit list is drafted at twelve wings, and block palette studies for the jungle and badlands wings have begun. Site selection depends on the Grand Rail Line route, since the Museum is intended to be a destination stop on the network.

Field Notes

The hardest design problem is honesty. A biome exhibit that is too tidy stops being natural history and becomes landscaping. Current thinking is to build each wing slightly overgrown, with field notes posted on lecterns as if a researcher had just stepped away.

The Agrarians have offered seed stock for the botanical collections. The offer is under consideration.