Death World: Difference between revisions

== Films ==

* ''The Angry Red Planet''. Space explorers land on Mars but instead of intelligent life, they're constantly attacked by monsters. When the survivors leave, they get a message from actual Martians, telling them never to return (possibly implying that the attacks were fostered on them on purpose).

* Quite probably the ultimate example in film is [[Peter Jackson]]'s version of Skull Island from ''[[King Kong]]''. Featuring [[Big Creepy-Crawlies|the Invertebrates of Utterly Horrific Dimensions]], prehistoric terrors and the most grotesque imaginable (not to mention dangerous) evolutionary offshoots -- often multiple representatives of them -- in virtually every scene.

* The Fire Swamp in the book and film ''[[The Princess Bride (film)|The Princess Bride]]'', featuring spontaneous bursts of fire, Lightning Sand, and the [[Rodent of Unusual Size|R.O.U.S.]]

{{quote|'''Westley''': It's not that bad.

'' '''Buttercup's''' expression makes it clear that in her opinion her true love is stark staring mad.'' }}

* The jungle inside the board game in ''[[Jumanji]]'', down to the plants.

* ''[[Soldier]]'' is set on a planet which, while almost a vacation spot in comparison to most examples here, has lots of poisonous snakes and insane winds.

* ''[[Star Wars]]'': Yoda's chosen refuge of Dagobah is nobody's idea of a vacation destination (at least nobody who isn't a Jedi Master). Then there's Tatooine and Hoth... According to several Expanded Universe sources, Felucia is no walk in the park either.

* The asteroid in ''[[Armageddon]]'' is not only airless, it's covered in big jaggged evil-looking spikes and regularly spews forth masses of gas and rock designed specifically to kill intrepid astronauts.

* The film ''[[Signs]]'' features one of the most dangerous death worlds in existence. 60% of the surface is covered by a fatal, skin-dissolving acidic liquid that also permeates the atmosphere, frequently falling from its skies like rain. All the local flora and fauna are suffused with the acid, with the crowning example being a sentient apex predator that bleeds, spits and excretes the substance through the skin through physical activity. {{spoiler|For those of you who haven't seen the film, the substance is water and the planet in question is Earth. It's not a death world to ''us'', obviously, but [[Weaksauce Weakness|the alien invaders were another matter]].}}

{{quote|'''Alan Grant:''' That's just great. Here we are on the most dangerous island on the planet and we're not even getting paid.}}

 

** His ''[[Nightside]]'' books have the Nightside, which pretty blatantly follows this trope. John Taylor, private detective, even warns against going there an annoying amount of times in the first book, ''Something From The Nightside''. {{spoiler|Considering, though, that the girl he was warning, Joanna Barrett, was an illusion to draw him into the Nightside, his warnings didn't do much good but to inform the reader.}}

** In his ''[[Deathstalker]]'' series the planet Shandrakor fits under this. Everything is trying to eat everything else, even the vegetation. The fact that they're also constantly rutting due to their extremely shortened life expectancies makes it even worse.

** In [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' novel ''Horus Rising'', Space Marines founder on a planet they name "Murder". Inhabited by ferocious and incredibly fast aliens, and trees that [[Weather Dissonance|summon storms]]. If a Marine had not been horrified by the way the aliens threw dead Marines on the trees to eat, and blown up some of them, thus discovering that they caused the storms, they would never have managed to escape. Keep in mind that each and every one of those [[Space Marines]] is a genetically engineered [[Super Soldier]] trained [[The Spartan Way]] and wearing [[Powered Armor]]. If ''they'' can't get off the planet alive, any normal person would probably be lucky to last five seconds.

** In Gav Thorpe's ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' novel ''13th Legion'', several of the worlds they are thrown on are death worlds, including a [[Single Biome Planet|jungle world and an ice world]]. (Or is that [[Futurama|two gangster worlds and a cowboy planet]]?)

** ''Death World'' is also the name of an Imperial Guard (Catachan) novel by Steve Lyons. It takes place on a death world with a flavor of {{spoiler|[[Genius Loci]] .}}

* Neal Asher's ''Polity'' novels feature two prominent Deathworlds: Masada, a low-oxygen world where just being outside without the proper gear is lethal enough, but it's inhabited by an ecology of nightmare creatures such as Hooders (giant millipedes armored like tanks, whose mouthparts literally disassemble you in tiny little pieces) ...and the planet Spatterjay, an aquatic [[Death World]] where nobody knows how to swim because if you hit the water, chances are you're never coming back. Most creatures and humans on Spatterjay are infected with a symbiotic virus that gives them superhuman strength and regeneration... so that the local wildlife can eat you for longer.

** The homeworld of the Idirans is described as one of the nastiest places in the galaxy. The Idirans are naturally incredible [[Badass|badasses]] and biologically immortal without needing genetic engineering or cybernetics, thanks to hefty pressure from the other monstrous species of their homeworld and its unhealthy background radiation.

** Another featured "death world" is quite literally so. The native civilization wiped themselves out long long ago and it is now left as a memorial of sorts, protected by an [[Energy Being]] which is dangerously selective about who can visit the surface. Apparently there are many worlds like this, though most people are smart enough to stay away from them and their protectors.

** Then there's the various hidden enclaves of practically any sort of monster you could imagine. John Carter wanders into one that consists of a sort of intelligent arachnid puppeteer parasite with specially bred near-headless humanoid creatures that they use as bodies. Another time he finds himself in a city populated by people who can make anything they can imagine into a solid illusion. Any old apparently abandoned set of ruins could turn out to be the lair of some bunch you ''really'' would have been better off not meeting.

* Most plant life on [[Cyteen]], in [[C. J. Cherryh]]'s ''[[Alliance Union]]'' [[The Verse|'verse]], is basically a cross between cottonwood and asbestos, and is full of alkaloid poisons and heavy metals to boot. Go outside the precip towers' envelope without protection and you die quick; get a smaller exposure and you die later from lung cancer. The animal life, at least, is slow and stupid. The original colonists started [[Terraform|terraforming]] measures, which they pulled the plug on fast when an anti-aging drug was derived from local biology.

** ''Redliners''. Burned-out, over-wrought veterans with more than a few ill deeds on their consciences are sent along to safeguard a group of purely-civilian colonists on a new world. They were warned that the planet had dangerous wildlife, but {{spoiler|it turns out to be an enemy base gone wrong, of sorts -- the entire biosphere is a weapons system that evolves itself in response to the defenses (proactive and otherwise) that the protagonists devise}}. See [[When Trees Attack]] for examples.

** The world of Bellevue in ''[[The General]]'' series Drake co-wrote with [[S.M. Stirling]] is only partially [[Terraform|terraformed]] and the native fauna is highly dangerous.

*** And the planet itself in that trilogy is ''already'' a Death World (at least for humans). Tarrant just made his bit of it [[Up to Eleven|even more extreme]].

** And in ''The Madness Season,'' the Tyr homeworld is a paradise -- two months out of the year. The rest of the year, its extreme ellipsoidal orbit causes the entire planetary surface to either become a hellacious volcano landscape or an icebound crust of death. Any animal that wants to survive is forced underground, where they eat each other for the rest of the year.

* In David Gerrold's ''[[War Against the Chtorr]]'' book series, the Earth itself is turned into a [[Death World]] when mankind is forced into a fight to the death with an invading ecosystem brought from another planet. The fact that Chtorran life is naturally more competitive and voracious (coming from such a [[Death World]]) doesn't help Earth's chances of successfully resisting the invasion.

* This is revealed to be the fate of the [[Future Imperfect|legendary human homeworld]] of "Dirt" in the ''[[The Stainless Steel Rat]]'' [[The Verse|'verse]], due to changing orbit.

* The eponymous planet in the [[Stephen King]] short story ''Beachworld'' was covered in a sort of living sand that hypnotized people and worked its way into any machinery.

* In ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'', we have both the Blight and the Aiel Waste.

** In ''[[wikipedia:Tuf Voyaging#Guardians|Guardians]]'', a misunderstanding leads to a war between colonists and an alien planet's ecology, as in ''Deathworld''.

* [[Anne McCaffrey]]:

* The planet Kolnar from McCaffrey and [[S.M. Stirling]]'s ''[[The Ship Who|The City Who Fought]]''. A volcanic, radioactive, heavy gravity nightmare world, in orbit around a sun with a spectral category of blinding. Colonized by a particularly nasty group of prisoners, they evolved into nigh-unkillable superhumans. It's no help that said natives have a nuclear war once every generation - and they get their weapons-grade nuclear material by ''hunting'' a creature best described as a jet-propelled submarine with fangs. And that's one of the nice critters on the planet. The natives' planned response to being infected with a pathogen which causes debilitating, but not lethal effects in many of their number is to deliberately infect the rest of their population, and kill anyone who becomes ill.

* [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]]'s ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'':

** The Dead Marshes.

** Mirkwood, full of giant spiders and poisonous squirrels.

** Most of the parts of Mordor the heroes have to go through to get to Mount Doom.

* [[David Weber]]'s ''[[Honor Harrington|Honorverse]]'' is full of [[Death World]]s:

** The prison planet nicknamed Hell, which isn't all THAT bad a place, except for the subtly different biochemistry of the local flora and fauna. '''All of it'' is instantly poisonous for humans to eat--besides one native equivalent of the potato. ''That'' tuber merely leaves those who eat it with the (treatable) equivalent of brain damage -- and then you'll still die of vitamin deficiencies.

** On one world, native bacteria eat ''chlorophyll'', making colonists starve by destroying all their crops?

** Even two of the three habitable planets from the heroine's home system weren't particularly healthy. One ([[Fantasy Counterpart Culture|a local equivalent of Scotland]]) had a really vicious climate and most of its land was mountainous, and their sort-of-Ireland (her birthplace, that is) was a [[Heavyworlder]] (1.6 ''g'') with a year thirty-six months long and ''lots'' of [[Everything Trying to Kill You|pretty nasty wildlife]].

* In the first section of ''War Against the Rulls'' by A. E. Van Vogt, the protagonist is stranded on the planet Eristan II with an ezwal (a clawed, fanged, six-limbed, three-eyed, three-ton apex predator with a genius-level intellect and telepathy) after the starship carrying them is shot down. The ezwal sneers at the offer of aid made by the protagonist, who knows something about the planet, and goes off on its own. Less than an hour later it comes running back and practically begs for help.

* The [[The Underland Chronicles|Underland]] jungle. Scratch that, the entire Underland may count. Besides the humans have to deal with intelligent races of [[Rodents of Unusual Size]] and [[Big Creepy-Crawlies]]. This isn't to mention the earthquakes, volcanoes, eyeless plesiosaurs, giant squid and the occasional plague outbreak. Good thing the humans have the [[Giant Flyer|bats]] on their side -- otherwise they probably would have been goners long ago.

* In [[Stephen King]]'s novella and movie ''The Mist'', much of New England becomes a Death World of savage alien beasts.

** ''Face of the Waters'' takes place on an aquatic example. The entire planet is water and a few floating "islands" of coral, inhabited by invincible rammerfish, mouths that can swallow islands whole, orifice-invading eels, and worse. The only actual land is the Face of the Waters, a hunk of bare psychic-radioactive rock that possesses whoever comes near it. The humans face all this with Bronze Age level technology, since there's no metal or trade on the planet.

** This trope could have been '''very easily''' instead named ''Planet Of Death'', after his 1960 novel. With such wonderful things upon the 'Let me eat you first' carnivorous flora-covered landscape like quicksand-like pits that are actually incredibly intense forms of acid and razor-toothed, flesh-eating birds, this is a place where ''literally everything that you see'' has one thought on its mind: '''it wants to eat you.'''. [[More Dakka|After the heavily-armed explorers]] are wiped out to all but the last two men, they have the following conversation before they get the hell outta there:

* In the ''[[Lensmen]]'' novels by [[E. E. "Doc" Smith]], there are more than a few such worlds. The worst of the lot is Trenco. The ''entire atmosphere'' liquifies at night and vaporizes again within a minute of dawn. The calmest winds are only about half the speed of sound; the bad ones are much worse. Sheet lightning is constant. The ultra-powerful magnetic field interacts with the magnetic-field-amplifying substances in the atmosphere and the sheet lightning to generate ''space warps'' that prevent light from traveling in a straight line for more than a few yards. ''Every living thing'' is mobile and carnivorous (one scene has a plant being eaten, the plant eater being eaten by a carnivore, and the carnivore being eaten ''by the original plant'', all at once!). And this is leaving out the fact that the plants of Trenco naturally produce ''thionite'', a narcotic about a trillion times more powerful than crack cocaine. Lovely world ...

** Valeria, homeworld of the Dutch-descended, vaguely Boer-inspired [[Space Marines|Valerian Marines]], probably also qualifies. In the original novels we don't learn much more about it than it being hot, humid and having [[Heavyworlder|roughly thrice-Earth-standard gravity]]. A [[Expanded Universe|much later RPG sourcebook]] elaborates: it's also heavy on volcanic activity, hence full of noxious fumes and harsh weather, as well as singularly hostile wildlife. The [[Badass Army|Galactic Patrol]] has a major hostile environments training camp there.

** [[Shatterpoint|Haruun Kal]] may to take the cake. The majority of the planet's "surface" is uninhabitable due to hugely toxic clouds, limiting humans to one giant mesa. This mesa is covered in thick jungle and dotted with dozens or hundreds of active volcanos. Most of the animals, from the big cats and wolves down to the monkeys, are carnivorous and good at it -- the only major herbivores are grassers (easily the size of a minivan and named for their habit of eating clearings in the jungle) and ankkox (gigantic tortoises with armored tail-maces). The locals' equivalent of sheepdogs are giant armored predators with hide thick enough to shrug off a lightsaber, which may kill you. There's the usual mix of incredibly deadly and disgusting parasites and fungi, some of which can eat through any metal circuits, even ''inside a gun'' or, say, your aircar. Which will--wait for it--''kill you.'' Even the plants are sturdy and tend to be covered in thorns. If you chew Thyssel Bark, you increase your likelihood of contracting fever wasps which will, if not caught, send you into ''gibbering madness'' by literally eating your brain before the eggs they've [[Your Head Asplode|laid in your head hatch]]. And even if nothing biological kills you, the volcanic gases, lava, and "death hollows" (low points where toxic gases pool) still might. The Korun, humans native to Haruun Kal, are all force-sensitive presumably because anyone not force sensitive died very quickly. The Haruun Kal equivalent of the death penalty is "tan pel'trokal," translating to "jungle justice," where you're left naked and unarmed in the middle of the wild jungle. Of course, because of [[Darker and Edgier|the nature]] of the story set there, the [[Humans Are Bastards|humans]] living there manage to be ''[[It Got Worse|worse]]''. Haruun Kal's other claim to fame, besides making a good sporting attempt at everyone's life, is that it's ''[[Badass|Mace Windu]]'s homeworld''.

** Also, Mustafar anyone? [[Lethal Lava Land]] much?

* [[H. Beam Piper]]'s ''Four Day Planet'' has Fenris, generally considered the second worst place to live in the Milky Way. It has ludicrous temperature extremes, and a vast array of downright unpleasant wildlife (that is also lethally poisonous to eat, although if you were [[Too Dumb to Live|dumb enough to eat a tread-snail]], you had it coming). The economy is based around ''whaling'' a gargantuan sea monster that has to be hunted using military-grade ammunition, and while the beastie is being cut up, the people doing the cutting have to have support fire from ''machine-gunners'' to make sure everything else in the ocean doesn't get itself a meal. (The ''worst'' place to live is Flourine-Tainted Niflheim, The Planetary Hell, which has an atmosphere made of inordinately reactive fluorine; it's not an example, since the only thing actively trying to kill you is the air...okay, that is pretty unpleasant).

* Ket in ''[[Animorphs]]: The Ellimist Chronicles''. The surface is covered in lava and poisonous gases. The Ketran death penalty is applied by sending someone to the surface. An alien scouting party that lands on Ket wanders around for hours on the surface in environment suits, before one of their scouts accidentally crashes into a [[Floating Continent]] miles above the ground.

** The Land has the Sarangrave Flat. It is a seemingly typical swamp, perfectly natural and good like all things in the Land. However it ''also'' the home of all deadly and poisonous things.

** In the ''Second Chronicles'' the whole land becomes this under the power of the Sunbane. {{spoiler|Every five days randomly the Land gets a years worth of Drought, Rain, Disease, or [[Body Horror|Fertitily]]. The people need to use the [[Blood Magic|Sunbane]] which causes it to survive.}}

* Rather like the [[Alan Dean Foster]] example of "The Damned" series listed above, Christopher Anvil wrote a novella titled "The Gentle Earth," or something similar. The invading aliens came from a world that basically lacked weather or tectonic movement. They thought concepts such as "winter" were human superstitions ... until they experienced blizzards. And ''then'' they learned they'd parked their headquarters in an area nicknamed "Tornado Alley"....

* The world of the ''[[Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'' seems to fall into this category. From the pervasive presence of [[Sealed Evil in a Can|poorly sealed demons]] to ravenous wildlife to casual butchery among the citizenry, safety is a delusion anywhere on the world and in its Warrens. Perhaps the clearest example of how dangerous the world is lies in the fact that ''dust'' may actually be undead soldiers waiting for a reason to reform and kill something.

* Literal deathworlds exist in the world of the ''[[Myst]]'' franchise, and play a role in the novels. These are linking books that teleport the user to places utterly inimical to life, such as a planet with a molten crust or ''the heart of a sun''. There is a reason the D'ni make their initial assessment unknown/potentially deteriorated ages in a heat-resistant, airtight, radiation-proof spacesuit with a light-blocking faceplate that automatically pulls the user back after two seconds in the age, returning to a fireproof sealed decontamination cell. All of these safety precautions turn out to be necessary (and effective) the very first time such an assessment is made in ''The Book of Terahnee''.

* An [[After the End]] United States has become this in the [[Long Running Book Series]] ''[[Deathlands]]''. Literal acid rain, clouds of radioactive and chemical junk, pyrotoxin smogs, fetid strontium swamps, 200-mph winds, kill-crazed mutant monsters and the general fact that most [[Humans Are Bastards]] in this [[Crapsack World]].

* The monster-infested main setting of [[Mortasheen]] '''''is''''' this, with the creator even mentioning that "[the setting] has enough deadly exponentially replicating organisms that ''they just cancel each other out''. "

* This is the official term used by the Imperium of Man in ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' to designate [[Single Biome Planet|Single Biome Planets]] of this description. They're [[Crapsack World|depressingly common]], but any native populations are automatically prime recruiting stock for the Imperial Guard or Space Marines. ''[[Rogue Trader]]'' characters who hail from a Death World get some serious stat bonuses, because even the biggest wimp from that planet still survived to adulthood on a world seemingly crafted to kill them. Some examples are:

** Fenris, a world that is exclusively [[Grim Up North]]. Its elliptical orbit takes twice as long as Terran standard and means that its long winters freeze almost the entire planet, while its summers bring lava flows and tidal waves as the planet passes close to its sun. The land is constantly changing, making permanent settlement impossible, and its resources are so meager that its population must war amongst itself to survive. Other claims to fame include kraken, dragons, and wolves the size of tanks. The [[Space Wolf|Space Wolves]] wouldn't have their homeworld any other way.

** The [[Warhammer 40000|Salamanders]] hail from Nocturne, a planet which undergoes constant earthquakes, is covered in ash deserts, and has largely reptilian lifeforms called dragons. There are only seven cities which do not undergo seismic activity, called the Sanctuary Cities. Every 15 years, Nocturne's moon Prometheus begins to exert its gravity on the planet, causing the already high seismic activity to go into overdrive. It then spends some three years undergoing an ice age where the planet is covered in frozen tundra. There is a reason the Salamanders fight more to preserve life than kill enemies. They know how precious it is.

** Yet these are relatively mundane locales compared to Daemon Worlds, planets utterly corrupted by the warping influence of [[The Corruption|Chaos]], where reality is reforged on the whims of daemons and the laws of physics are guidelines at best, the results looking something like a collaboration between H.R. Giger, Heironymous Bosch, and M.C. Escher. Despite being the home turf of the [[Legions of Hell]] and the fact that the planet may be [[Genius Loci|literally trying to kill you]], some foolhardy explorers poke around Daemon Worlds, as many are former Eldar homeworlds swallowed up by the warpstorm spawned by the race's calamitous Fall, and still contain ancient relics. Few survive, [[Fate Worse Than Death|none survive intact]].

* The jungles of Lustria in ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' are everything nasty about the Amazon with the added benefit of [[Lizard Folk|Lizardmen]] whose [[Mayincatec]] culture is fine with human sacrifice. The Dark Elves' homeland of Naggaroth is a shadowy, bleak continent whose native wildlife includes hydras and cold ones (flesh eating dinosaur-like creatures), and with sparse resources that force its cruel inhabitants to turn to piracy to survive. And worst of all, of course, are the Chaos Wastes, the polar regions around a gaping hole in reality that leads straight to hell.<br /><br />The entire world has since to this with a huge infusion of raw magic into anywhere they could stick it. Now it's anyone's guess whether that forest consists of normal trees or EVIL DEATH-TENTACLE TREES OF HORRIBLE TOXIC DOOM. You don't want to know what some of the other terrain pieces are like.

** The ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' has one of these in the form of the Underdark, a ''massive'' underground realm full of all sorts of things that want to kill you. If it's nasty and it's murderous, it probably lives here--indeed, half the reason Drow are so tough is because they spend half their time fighting some of the nastiest things ''D&D'' has to offer, and the other half fighting the other inhabitants of the Underdark.

** ''[[Eberron]]'' has a lot. First there's Khyber, its underdark [[Follow the Leader|stand-in]]. Then there are certain planes of existence (Xoriat, the plane of madness, Shavarrath the Battlefield, Mabar, the plane of death, etc...) and some evocatively named regions of the mortal world: the Shadow Marshes, the Mournland, Frostfell, the jungle continent of Xen'drik & the Demon Wastes.

Before its biosphere collapses?

No, before its ''[[Planet Eater|entire planetary mass]]'' is eaten by inhabitants. }}

** The Lower Planes. Besides the infestation of devils, demons, and other nasty things, 3.5 makes them quite literal death worlds. In several senses. The Abyss' colloquial description is "Too horrible for conventional wisdom to comprehend" (one of the random things you can encounter on its infinite layers is an ''ocean of insects'', for example), and the Nine Hells of Baator are all actively trying to kill you in some way shape or form:

{{quote|'''Avernus''': Giant fireballs from the sky.

** Limbo, the dimension of utter chaos. While most of it is just boiling 'nothing specific' that only takes form when subjected to conscious will, there is a large island of stable land floating there too. It is a jungle and an extremely deadly one - since chaos-infused creatures acquire [[Healing Factor]] by default, any predator living there has to be all the more deadly. And the constant mutation gives evolution more chances to get the 'ultimate predator' right than seems believable. Not that the local plants are any better...

** And, putting all the rest of the examples to pitiful shame, you have the Far Realm. Try to imagine a place where Lovecraft's [[Cosmic Horror|Cosmic Horrors]] would not only originate from, but would be the most basic form of life. Now remove everything even remotely resembling the laws of physics, in any possible way. Now make it a billion times worse than that. You're not there yet, but you're starting to get the basic ''concept''.

** Phyrexia is pretty much a techno-organic hell, complete with nine spheres, each with its own charmingly bloodthirsty hazards. [[wikipedia:Phyrexian|The Other Wiki]] has a pretty detailed description.

** Grixis and Jund, from ''Shards of Alara'' are death worlds. Grixis is similar to Phyrexia: cut off from green and white mana, the sources of life, it's a dying world infested with armies of the living dead, which fight furiously over the limited (and dwindling) supplies of life force, and even that apparently tastes like stale water or air. Jund is a world cut off from blue and white mana, the sources of order, and is a wild, volcanically active jungle filled with canyons, dragons and similar beasties on the top, and everything trying to kill you on the way up or down. On the bright side, the life magic is strong enough and the food chain is so horrifyingly efficient that there are no undead.

 

== Video Games ==

* The world of [[Fallout]] features giant ants, murderous mutants with mini-guns, scarce food and radioactive water.

** ''Fallout 3's'' Capitol Wasteland is the worst version shown so far. The ruins of DC are filled with homicidal mutants. The sewers are home to insane (and different) mutants. The outskirts are held by [[Always Chaotic Evil|Raider tribes]]. On top of this, all food and water is radioactive unless put through time-consuming purification; the one source of clean water is being used as a delivery device for a bioweapon.

* Chiron, a.k.a. Planet of ''[[Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri]]'', has an environment highly toxic to humans and animals, predators (including aquatic and aerial forms) with [[Psychic Powers]] and [[Body Horror]] modes of reproduction and, incidentally, is semi-sentient and not very fond of humans or other unassimilated sentient thought. And then there's that whole "accidentally killing off all life on its surface every few million years" thing. It's actually a pretty nice place... while it's asleep. Too bad you show up when it's starting to come out, as it were, of REM.

* The planet Malta in ''[[Freelancer]]'' has Cardamine floating in the air; breathing that stuff is the in-game equivalent of breathing heroin. (It even gets into your genes, making the addiction permanent for you ''and'' all of your descendants.) In the same system, the planet Carinae seems idyllic, but its local biology is extremely poisonous to humans. Leeds, meanwhile, is so goddamn polluted their people lose their senses of smell and taste within 6 months, Pittsburgh is an inhospitable ball of sand and stone, while winters in New Berlin last an entire year and reach temperature similar to the ones in the Antarctica.<br /><br />Still, these places are a walk in the park compared to one of the unlandable earth-like planets. Said planet is hidden in a radioactive nebula cloud, but the planet itself is almost ridiculously Earth-like, right down to having massive biodiversity. It's even described as a Paradise. It just has only one tiny problem regarding human settlement. All the life--both the animals and plants--have a chemical that's quickly and 100% fatal to humans. Humans wisely decided not to attempt colonization.

* The ''[[Unreal Tournament 2004]]'' Onslaught map simply called Red Planet is a weird hybrid. It's a planet without a sun, but the entire planet somehow radiates its own red light constantly. According to the map description, the effect drives a man insane within 18 hours. Thankfully (or not), you won't live that long...

* The planet Kaduna 3 in the hybrid [[Interactive Fiction|IF]] game ''Gateway'' is one of these. It has spiky plants whose spikes shoot at you if you as much as breathe at them, worm-like creatures that cling to you the moment you depart your ship and will gnaw your space suit off if given enough time, and other plants that grow so quickly that you'll die if you stay in one place more than a few turns. And then there are the spiders and snakes...

* [[Wild Arms]] has the numerous incarnations of the planet Filgaia. While its level of Death World-ness is variable, it is always a steadily degrading world that's mostly unfriendly, if not downright hostile to human life, usually thanks to environmental catastrophes or wars. Wild Arms 3's Filgaia is especially bad, as all the oceans actually ''dried up'' (there's nothing but endless sand formations left, which strangely behave a lot like water), water is awfully rare, nasty flora and fauna are everywhere, there are titanic monsters running around some locations (including one that systematically attacks anything that goes faster than a horse in its territory and wrecked many trains already) and several ingame sources hint that the environment is too far gone for anything to help: even nanotechnology is useless by now.

* The Wasteland from ''[[Billy vs. SNAKEMAN]]'' is an expanse of Death World made of ninja villages blown up by the [[Rule of Cool|sheer awesomeness]] of their leaders. The ''safest'' parts of even the outskirts of The Wasteland can be described as "Like the Sahara but the sand is poisonous". Near the center, sunlight occasionally spontaneously focuses into a laser, homicidal unicorns are perpetually searching for new victims, and the ''corn'' will eat you if you're too slow.

* Char in ''[[Starcraft]]'' is a [[Single Biome Planet]] of [[Lethal Lava Land|volcanoes]], which the [[Horde of Alien Locusts|Zerg]] have come to call a de facto homeworld. One soldier reports that "the planet itself joins in the killing". Zerus, the real Zerg homeworld, was very similar.

* ''[[Borderlands]]'' brings us the wonderful planet of Pandora, which resembles many peoples idea of Hell. Days that are 90 hours long, seasons that are ''7 years long'', at least five wholly unique species of omnivorous creatures perfectly willing, and capable, of bagging humans, almost no natural food, ditto water, massive heat, horrendous weather, {{spoiler|a completely frozen area with active volcanoes}}, a population of untold numbers of angry ex-convicts, armed to the teeth, [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|and finally, midgets]]. The local plants get in on the act as well. One inhabitant experimented with rolling herbal cigars from the local flora. The result? Death from massive internal bleeding.

* The Deep Roads in ''[[Dragon Age]]'' ''Origins'' are pretty awful thanks to the literal [[Demonic Spiders]], the Deepstalkers that erupt from the ground en masse without any warning, the hostile ghosts and out of control Golems in the lost thaigs, and Darkspawn. Lots and lots and ''lots'' of Darkspawn. Everywhere. Even if you somehow evade all of those, the only way to avoid starving to death is to eat Darkspawn flesh since nothing else is readily available. Assuming the Taint doesn't kill you outright, this ''will'' turn you into a Ghoul. Then you'll die in a few years anyway thanks to the Taint. In the Dwarven Noble Origin, the death penalty applied to you is being sent into the Deep Roads with nothing but a sword.

* Earth in ''Darksiders'' is a perfect example.

* Parts of [[Runescape]], and a few dimensions that can be gotten to with portals from [[Runescape]], are Death Worlds:

** The Wilderness, with all its volcanoes, dragons, haunted graveyards, evil spirits, and absolutely everything trying to kill you. To make matters worse, it's a player-versus-player area, and player-killers can be even more deadly than the monsters.

* Planet Ortega in ''Space Quest III'' requires wearing special underwear to survive the intense heat.

** There are only three planets in ''Space Quest V'' that require you to beam down onto the surface as part of the storyline. Of those three, one of the planets has a toxic atmosphere requiring the use of a rebreather. All of the other planets in the game have conditions so hostile that you will die immediately upon beaming down to them.

* ''[[Escape Velocity]] Nova'' has Cunjo, named for its top predator. Auroran warriors sometimes hunt them for bragging rights.

** The Auroran capital worlds also qualify: ridiculous levels of pollution from extreme overpopulation makes them uninhabitable outside of arcologies.

** Then there are the Kvrk-Chrk themselves, who consider awake and screaming a FLAVOR, have carapaces that would put a tank to shame, and can rip any other species to shreds effortlessly. The aforementioned extremes on their planet makes them essentially immune to all but the most extreme forms of weaponry (and even the most extreme might only annoy them briefly). Among their other quaint customs is, when visiting a neighbor, ripping off one of their own limbs to offer as a snack. They also consider all other intelligent lifeforms "chatty food". They once declared war by taking a defenseless colony ship and brutally butchering the crew, then broadcasting recordings of the slaughter on all channels, promising that this would be the fate of every other species in the galaxy. The only reason they didn't wipe out the competing empires is because they found out the hard way that being unparalled engines of annihilation on the ground doesn't help too well when the guys you're fighting against can annihilate entire systems with a single shot from a stellar lance several lightyears away.

* Although it [[Wall of Text|practically qualifies as a literature example]], [[Subnormality|"A Christmas Eve in the Future"]] has a [[Shell Shocked Senior|Shell Shocked Spess Mehren]] tell a confessional story of his experiences in a psychic [[Death World]] which will [[Mind Rape]] you in your sleep to a prostitute. [http://www.viruscomix.com/page505.html Enjoy!]

** Alternia. This is a world whose inhabitants are nocturnal because ''zombies'' wander around during the day. This is a world where the fauna are so vicious, 13-year-old children are expected to be combat-capable. This is a world where the only significantly large body of water is inhabited by a [[Eldritch Abomination|very large thing]] that must constantly be sacrificed to to prevent it from [[Brown Note|using its psychic powers]] on the whole populace. This is a world that serves as the training ground for a [[Proud Warrior Race]] that practices [[The Spartan Way]]. Thankfully, the protagonists from Alternia are sufficiently [[Badass]].

** And then there's Eridan's planet, which is even worse. Between all of his consorts going on a homicidal frenzy, and Eridan shooting anything that moves, even the most hardened [[Badass]] trolls were afraid to set foot on the [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Land of Wrath and Angels]] for more than a few moments.

 

== Real Life ==

* The Amazon Rainforest was here; you're all small-time. Damn near everything from the plants to the bugs to the water is actively trying to kill you.

* The highlands of Papua New Guinea. It's not TOO bad if you know what you're doing (like the locals) or have their help. However, the Japanese tried going through it to capture Port Moresby after their invasion fleet turned back after the Battle of the Coral Sea. An estimated 75% of their forward fighting troops were killed, wounded, or became ill, and over 60% of the total force didn't make it back to their starting point.

* [[I Don't Like the Sound of That Place|Death Valley]]. [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]].

** On a related, but much smaller, note: Mount Everest. If you're a strong-lunged mountain climber, you'll need an oxygen mask to avoid losing your mind in the thin air and walking off a cliff; if you're a regular person, you'll suffocate before you can get the mask on. It's also got unpredictable snowstorms, and if the cold doesn't kill you, it'll freeze your toes off--literally. Have fun!

* [[Glorious Mother Russia|Russia]]. Certain regions of it are suprisingly mild as [[Death World|Death Worlds]] go, and Russians themselves find these spots rather nice to live in. However, most of it (the taiga, the tundra, the swamps) is a bona fide [[Death World]] featuring deadly frosts (Oimyakon, the Northern Hemisphere's coldest place, is here), literally man-eating swarms of vampiric gnats and huge bears (the Siberian brown ones are the size of American grizzlies, Kamchatkan ones are the size of kodiaks, and we don't even get started on polar bears) that do not fear man at all. And [[Swamps Are Evil|swamps]], lots of them. Food comes from hunting and fishing, because this is permafrost country and no agriculture is posssible. If that wasn't enough fun, the blistering summers are still there. It's called severely continental climate, and it's all about extremes. It's either hot as hell or cold as hell a thousand years before the Devil started the fire there.