Even though not all versions of Timber Hearth have a sunrise every “hour,” Hearthians from all universes use the same durations for defining seconds, minutes (60 seconds), and the sunrise/hour (3600 seconds).

“The first rule of cooking is to have fun and be yourself; the first rule of baking is to stay calm because the dough can sense fear. Baking is a science, cooking is an art.”

This means that, for example, if an affected individual A were to swap bodies with another individual B who isn’t affected, then A’s mind in B’s body would no longer be affected by this rule, while B’s mind in A’s body would.

This means that an Original Observer cannot alter their own body in any capacity, save for triggering the chain of events leading to the Eye signal’s release (which is a terrible idea).

This also means that while an Original Observer is visiting another universe by taking over their counterpart’s body, this body will temporarily no longer be affected by rules specifically applied to it, and new rules cannot be passed on to it until the Original Observer leaves.

As the Eye can only transform matter, it cannot imbue a mind into anything it creates.

This normally happens many years after the Original Observer has returned to eternal slumber and the Eye is no longer able to sense their consciousness.

Just like the spaceship that is left behind in space after landing on the Quantum Moon, matter that is neither quantum nor in direct contact with a conscious observer (in the sense that the observer is consciously aware of this matter staying with them) will not interact with unobserved quantum objects, and may instead get clipped into them if an observer collapses the possibilities in such way that their locations would overlap.

The sensation could be best described as “feeling everything at once” – hot and cold yet also pleasant, electrifying yet calm, spiky and rough yet soft and smooth. The uncanniness of it tends to spark dread in any living being capable of sensing this kind of stimulus.

A non-quantum object set on top of a quantum object will slowly sink down through the quantum object’s matter while unobserved, but meet more and more resistance the less states the quantum object can access.

Concepts used in this headcanon: wave-particle duality (inspired from real world physics but not applied in a way that is accurate to real world physics), quantum entanglement (OW physics).

Unobserved quantum objects are in a wave state rather than particle state, justifying why they cast no shadow and appear invisible in footage or photographs. They can be clipped through while in this state, and though it is not recommended to do so, passing your hand through its matter will let a conscious observer realize that it is warm and flickery to the touch. The intensity of this perception, alongside the resistance you feel upon trying to phase through it, is directly correlated with the number of possible states the quantum object can be in. In the case of the uncollapsed Quantum Moon, which has a near infinite number of possible states (it can not only appear around six celestial bodies, but also anywhere and in any orientation around each of them), its uncollapsed states are so numerous that phasing through it (which you might do if you are launching in space and close your eyes at the correct altitude) is unnoticeable and/or has been mistaken for simply leaving or re-entering the planet’s outer atmosphere.

What matters is “conscious observation”; but “observation” is by itself a subjective term. Quantum objects react to sight when surrounded by species which favor sight as their primary means to perceive the world; however, they would react to other senses while around alien species who do not rely on sight as much (or Hearthians/Nomai who happen to be blind).

If a conscious observer’s favored sense for assessing their surroundings happens to be touch, then they cannot experience phasing through an uncollapsed quantum object, since their sense of touch will always trigger at least a partial collapse related to the area they are able to touch (either by fully collapsing the object into being in their reach, or by partially collapsing its states by making them sense that the quantum object is absent in the specified state they can observe through their sense of touch).

From oldest to youngest:

¹: 1 Hearthian year (309 days) is equivalent to 327.31 human days.

²: 1 Hearthian year (360 days) is equivalent to ???.?? human days.

All counterparts from other universes have the same age as shown in this list at the time when the Original Observers wake up.

(Look I know how this sounds without context but please hear me out)

Note: This lore card specifically details the concept in the case of the vanilla FKNO universe (prior to Hearthians entering the Eye of the universe). Hearthians from other universes will have differences regarding the exact anatomy of both hatchlings and adults due to the different laws of physics and environments, but the general logic behind the reproduction itself remains the same.

Long story short: Hearthians have no clue what a sexual relationship is (though they do know romance), and have no clear concept of a “parent” in the biological sense or even of genealogy as a whole, because what reproduction entails is just “go to The Pond™ instead of the bathroom once a year” and a few months later they just see eggs floating in the water and some Hearthians come with their nets to pick them up. You may think of coral reproduction as an example.

For the quick rundown into the microscopic scale:

• Hearthian eggs can have way more than only two parents genetically speaking. While submerged in water, multiple proto-eggs will meet each other and occasionally merge, trade and mix around their genetic information, then discard the surplus until there is one complete genome. This genome is made out of random fractions coming from all proto-eggs involved.
• To prevent accidental inbreeding, proto-eggs use among other things an antigen/antibody recognition system which repels and stops proto-eggs from merging if they are too similar to each other. The more different the genomes, the higher the chance of the two proto-eggs to merge and lead to a viable egg.
• Since this merging process involves cutting multiple genomes in pieces of varying sizes and then stitching it all back together (it wouldn’t be completely random but rather done like “cut this/these gene(s) from these two genomes and then swap them around,” except done a thousand times with more than just two genomes), this leads to vastly increased odds for point mutations; mutations are also commonly caused by the sun’s radiation, as Timber Hearth’s atmosphere is much thinner than that of our real world Earth (← except in the case of Hal’s universe).
• Mutations are both a powerful tool to create genetic diversity and lead to a fast evolution of the species… and a very effective way to kill off millions of unborn proto-eggs at the earliest stages. (Don’t cry too hard, think rather of the dozens to hundreds of millions of spermatozoids who could have been you but were denied entry after only one made it)
• As such, while hundreds of millions of proto-eggs are released each year in the same body of water, only a tiny fraction will ever make it to the stage of creating actual eggs with viable and truly novel genomes, which can start cellular mitosis and eventually grow big enough to become visible to the naked eye.

This results in an alien and rather awkward mixture between “Nobody knows who is related to who” and “But biology prevents inbreeding all by itself so it’s fine” sprinkled in with “Mutations happen so often anyway that it is a significant factor to the genetic diversity all on its own.” At least from what I was told (I asked a friend who asked geneticians and apparently the geneticians said that it wouldn’t instantly devolve into an inbreeding disaster), this could theoretically work on paper for a fictional genderless alien species.

Viable eggs look pretty much like real world frog eggs; their transparent, gelatinous shells can expand as the embryo grows and develops. Due to Hearthians’ humanoid anatomy and predator-less environment as they evolved into a civilized society, they evolved to no longer have a tadpole stage (as the connection between the skull and the spine would make them terrible swimmers if they lacked limbs to steady themselves). Therefore, hatchlings are fully formed humanoids upon hatching, and their mental capabilities are from the get-go slightly more advanced than those of a human newborn (the soft shell means that their brains have enough space to be able to develop fully before birth, unlike human babies).

Once born, hatchlings still have a very thin skin which is sensitive to both humidity and general touch (pretty much like real world frogs, with the common “Don’t touch them, they breathe through their skin” saying). For the first few weeks, newly born hatchlings are cared for with constant warm baths (recreating the conditions from underground geothermal ponds) until their skins progressively thicken and adapt to being exposed to air with a scarce atmosphere, instead of water. Hearthians don’t grow scales, but they do have thicker skin than humans — to the extent that a Hearthian forgetting their spacesuit will die of oxygen deprivation faster than they will because of their body’s exposure to the void.

The latter point does not apply to Hearthians from Hal’s universe: since the atmosphere is much denser and more humid in general, adult Hearthians do not grow to have thicker skin, and are barely more resistant to changes in humidity, temperature or air pressure than real world frogs.

All that being said, though… With the current population at the time of present FKNO being 22 individuals, the genetic diversity has become too scarce for any egg to make it to the macroscopic scale, let alone to the point of hatching. Some are still hoping for a miracle, but more and more Hearthians are slowly coming to the realization that, even without yet another catastrophy such as a supernova or a Dark Bramble seed, their species is already doomed.

…They have yet to tell the hatchlings, though. Most of them don’t even know how much bigger the Hearthian population used to be even just a few decades ago.