Derse, also known as the Kingdom of Darkness, is one of the two kingdoms in the Incipisphere. Derse wages an unending war against the Light Kingdom, Prospit, striving for the destruction of Skaia. Derse has always been destined to defeat Prospit, forcing the players to kill the Black King on their own to prevent Skaia from being destroyed.
"Derse" is a portmanteau of "dearth" and "terse", which contrasts with the root of Prospit's name. The demonym of Derse is "Dersite".
Derse is a shadow-cloaked violet city planet that orbits Skaia from far away, outside of The Veil, and is connected to its single moon by a large purple chain. Derse is ruled by the Black Queen, and the planet is inhabited by black-carapaced citizens who resemble black chess pieces. A series of spires exist on Derse, one for each player in a session of Sburb. The tops of these spires contain the data from pre-entry Kernelsprite prototypes. As the players prototype their sprites, the spires activate and the prototypings are applied to the monarchy of Derse. Note, though, that only prototypings that occur prior to a player's entry into The Medium are stored in the spires of Derse.
The chain connecting Derse to its moon
The moon of Derse possesses a series of towers, one for each of the dream selves of roughly half of the players in any session. The other half of the dream selves reside in similar towers on the moon of Prospit. These towers contain rooms that very closely resemble the bedrooms of the players in their home world, except they are portrayed largely in a single color tone associated with the player - in Homestuck, the player's font color in Pesterchum; in Hivebent, the player's blood color. While Dersites are opposed to the players, there are rules against harming them before the war begins which Dersites have a natural instinct to follow. It has suggested that even if these rules are broken that attempting to harm them would be "tricky" suggesting some sort of defense. According to Dirk, the Derse dream selves are treated like "team mascots
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". Derse has tabloid newspapers that regularly libel Prospit.
Derse also has a prison system like Prospit. However, according to Caliborn
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Derse's form of punishment for crimes is much more severe, when compared to Prospit's "JOKE THEY CALL A SLAMMER". This may be exclusive to his dead session and Derse as run by the Condesce though, since pre-scratch Dad was held in a Dersite prison that could well be considered a joke. Alternately, due to Caliborn's odd standards (such as viewing even mild affection as disgusting, and finding hateful and disgusting things attractive) he may have assumed that the comfortable room was torture.
Similar to Prospit dreamers receiving visions from Skaia during a Skaian eclipse, the Horrorterrors' intents apparently become clear to Derse dreamers during a lunar eclipse
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, when Derse skirts the edge of the Furthest Ring.
Hierarchy
Monarchs
The Dark Kingdom has a King and a Queen who are the highest in command. The Queen has a Ring of Orbs (one orb for each player in the session) representing the spires on Derse. As long as she wears her ring, she is physically affected by the prototyping of each player's Kernelsprite, such that, for example, she gains tentacles and scars, loses arms, and sprouts wings corresponding to each specific prototyping. With each additional prototyping, the bearer of the ring gains additional power.
