The Backrooms

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If you're not careful and no-clip out of reality in wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, and endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you…

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Summary

The Backrooms originally came from a post on 4chan in the /x/ thread, describing an endless maze that one could be trapped in if they were to no-clip out of reality. Since then, the Backrooms has gained immense popularity and became part of Internet culture, popularizing the aesthetic of liminal spaces and expanding into various forms of media, such as video games and creative fiction websites, who have introduced new ways of evolving the Backrooms' original concept, such as Levels and Entities.

Power of the Verse

The various characters of the Backrooms vary drastically in power due to the collaborative nature of the wikis. Levels of the Backrooms vary immensely in size, going from some being only on the scale of a few small rooms to realms beyond comprehension. The weakest entities can get as low as 11-A, with the stronger ones ranging from Tier 10 to Tier 1. Some, however, are Unknown, possessing mysterious abilities that make up for their strength. Metafictional aspects come into play with the introduction of narrative spaces, endless ontological levels that exceed the confines of the Blue Channel, and the authors of the Backrooms universe, who utilize the Database to bring forth anything imaginable. The verse ultimately peaks at High 1-A, as even the likes of the authors are mere puppets to the forces beyond themselves, The Pillars.

Terminology

Terminology tends to be different depending on the Wiki. But for simplicity's sake, the terminology used will be based on the Wikidot version.

Levels form the very framework of the Backrooms. They are what makes the Backrooms, well, the Backrooms, a massive set of liminal spaces. Levels somehow connect to one another and vary in size and danger. They may have bases, outposts and communities, that live in those levels. Levels are organized in 3 categories, which are as follows:

Normal Levels: Those levels are the classic ones. They vary in danger and in size, and also generally are the easiest to find, connecting themselves to other normal levels more than the other types.

Unnumbered Levels: Unnumbered levels, as the name suggests, are levels that, for a variety of reasons, cannot or simply don't have a number. Often times, it's because giving a number to it would not make sense, a prime example of such being the Blue Channel, which is the void outside of all levels of the Backrooms.

Sub-Layers: Sub-Levels are technically levels within levels, and share the same characteristics of the levels they are within. They are different from Rooms, where Rooms are locations that are way too small to be considered entire levels, but both share the common trait of being a Sub-Layer. Sub-Levels are listed as positive decimal places (ex 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, etc.).

Some levels are said to be living and sentient beings, such as Level 30.

Every level has a survival class difficulty, which generally ranges from 0 to 5, with Class 0 levels deemed safest, and Class 5 levels being the most dangerous to explore. There is also Class ?, for levels who have an unknown survival difficulty. Some levels have their own survival class difficulty.

A few mysterious classes are as follows:

Class Aleph: Unsafe. Time Dilation. Undocumented Entities.

Class Mirage: Psychological torture, Reality-Warping Geometry and Deceptive Influence.

Class Integral: Important Files, Varied Reality and Documented Phenomena.

Class Amended: Unsafe and Unsecure, Undocumented Entities, Altered Files.

Entities are described as anything living that isn't a person. They reside within the Levels of the Backrooms (but some of them exist beyond them entirely) and tend to be dangerous, although kind and benevolent entities are not unheard of. Entities have unique behaviors, habitats and physiological needs. Although some closely resemble creatures from the real world, otherwise known as the Frontrooms, others look like things never seen before.

Unnumbered Entities are entities that, for a variety of reasons, cannot or just simply don't have a number. They typically showcase unique properties and behaviors that can't be understood.

Objects are simply tools, weapons and other goods that can be found in the Backrooms. They differ from entities, since entities are alive, while objects are not. Objects tend to possess anomalous properties and can be dangerous, but some are key to the survival of wanderers in the Backrooms.

Phenomena are strange and incomprehensible occurrences within the Backrooms, ranging from phasing through matter to even time itself slowing down or speeding up. They are irregularities that defy the laws of physics.

Canon and Scaling Rules

The Backrooms do not possess a definite canon. With its immense gain in popularity, its original concept has evolved, which has expanded into different collaborative fiction websites, animated series and video games. Indexing only takes into account official material such as wikis, popular and well recognized YouTube series, video games, etc. Individual collaborative wikis of the Backrooms would follow the same rules as the SCP Foundation on this wiki, where both the original/article canon and extended stuff are united for profiles. Many wikis are part of a shared multiverse through the existence of the Middlesorts.

A list of Backrooms wikis can be found here