And lastly some other stuff:
Miscelaneous lore bites
Flaming Eyes - They are actually larger creatures than what is visible, with much of their body just shifted “sideways” in the 4th dimension. When a flaming eye is “staring” at you for strange effects, what it’s actually doing is reaching out and touching you with the rest of its body.
Zombie Masters - They influence the intelligence of nearby zombies, working as a local processing power much in the same way that the brain blob is able to organize and co-ordinate blob monsters. The Zombie Necromancers have a similar effect as well, albeit at a much lesser degree.
Rat King - An interesting case interaction with a blob infection. Their behavior is not a typical reaction of smaller creatures, which usually either are too small for the blob symbiosis to have any effect, or are enlarged to giant sizes, and as such are rather rare.
Triffid “Queens” - TTheir name simply refers to their size, and they do not birth additional triffid creatures or act in any type of leadership position (both of which are handled, indirectly or directly, by the Triffid Heart). Instead these creatures are more similar to giant living bulldozers, and are responsible for destroying whatever landscape previously existed in an area prior to other triffids shaping it to the whims of the Heart.
Non Cataclysm lore
Deep Space Travel - The world of the pre-Cataclysm USA has maintained their ability to perform Earth orbit spacetravel, especially in dealing with low Earth orbits. However they have yet to reach any serious colonization of other celestial bodies or long distance space travel to the self-supporting extent, thus preventing the formation of any safe havens from the Cataclysm that such a colonization would create.
Long Range Teleportation - Long range focused teleportation is simply not possible in the vast majority of cases due to the increasing inaccuracy in location based on the distance you want to travel. There are a handful of natural locations where this is an exception, and the US took advantage of at least one of these (a location in deep space) to build their “Fortress of Solitude”. However in general transport over long distances between spots in the same dimensional area is simply not possible.
Time Travel or “Grand Reset Buttons” - The Cataclysm happened and it’s here to stay. There’s not going to be any time travel back to before it started, or giant big red buttons to push and undo everything. Even the idea of recreating the world of the past is a fragile one, and progression towards such a world is most likely to be stopped well short of anything that would approach the world before the Cataclysm.
Aliens - They don’t exist, or at least not ones from our dimensional area. That said with the variety of Nether denizens in existence it wouldn’t be too surprising to find out that at least some of our alien rumors are actually traces of the rare Nether denizen that stumbled into our realm, much in the way the foundation for a majority of cultist legends are formed.
Psionics - The human brain doesn’t have any special powers, nor is it going to gain any. Note that this boundary is largely confined to the human brain; Nether creatures and Horrors may have powers that appear similar to psionics (though many are not actually a psionic action, but are simply something that appears similar), and through artifacts a player may be able to tap into powers that can appear to duplicate some of the more commonly discussed psionic powers. Yet the player can never obtain such powers for themselves directly, regardless of how many mutations or alterations they accumulate.
References
References are fun things, and consistute one of the more fun sides of the game Cataclysm:DDA. However it is important to remember that in many of the more outlandish cases, their lore may not technically align with all of the Cataclysm lore outlined here. For example the “Granade”, while a very fun item to find, does not imply that the pre-Cataclysm USA had the ability to warp reality at will with pseudo-explosives. Nor doe the presence of the Thriller imply that secretly all zombies would be much happier dancing than trying to kill you. Yet in both of these cases finding them is a fun opportunity for the player to laugh, and they were both certainly fun for the developer that included them to write. So if you encounter such a rare object that clashes with a bit of the lore here, just repeat to yourself the magic words “It’s just a game, I should really just relax”.
On the other hand it’s important to note that over time some references can grow to become an actual part of the game, at which point they should be examined for ways to make the rules of the lore apply more consistently to them. For example many of the original zombies started out as references to Left 4 Dead, but now have the basic Cataclysm rules applied to them. Similarly the Mi-go and the Horrors both started out as references to the works of H.P. Lovecraft and Junji Ito respectively, but have now bloomed into their own factions in the world of the Cataclysm, and as a result, now attempt to fit somewhat more closely with the rest of the lore than they did when they were just one-off references.
The Grand Right of Retcon
As mentioned at the very start of this whole thing, as developers we reserve the right to retcon things from the past if we decide that they no longer fit with the lore, or if something else would simply be cooler. This is a natural progression, and is how lore develops and grows over time to constantly reach for new and exciting ideas, or justifies the inclusion of amazing features for players to enjoy. The web of the lore is not spun from glass, inflexible and brittle, but wove of rubber, able to stretch and shift as changes demand. And while there may be an eventual limit to how far the lore can stretch, like rubber that distance is often much farther than it would appear at first glance.
It’s also important to remember that, ultimately, the end goal of the lore is to make playing the game more enjoyable, and to make it easier to build further things to expand the world of the Cataclysm. Yet this is not necessarily a reason to justify the removal or addition of lore simply because a portion of the playerbase agrees or disagrees with it, as any developer will know, “any change will break someone’s workflow” and “you can never please everyone”. Thus new additions and changes to the lore should be considered both as a stand-alone and how their new thread will weave into the grand tapestry of the rest of the lore.
So don’t be afraid to suggest things, even if they seem like they would contradict things stated here! Hard work and Ideas are the two lifebloods of any open source project, and we developers can’t supply everything by ourselves. Many a glorious idea or change has been born through discussion between fans and developers, and the absolute worst you can be told in response to an idea is that we don’t think it fits well.