Survey Bureau · Public enquiries
Straight answers for anyone standing at the door: what this world is, how filing a build works, and what you're allowed to build.
Section 01
Longlight is a shared factional (fiction based on real world facts) world for scale modelers, diorama builders, kitbashers, and miniature painters. It's set in the year 2127, about forty two years after a single bad day destroyed all advanced electronics. The world rebuilt to roughly late-1900s technology. Builders set their models and dioramas in this world, then file them with the Registry so everyone's work adds up to one big shared record.
The Registry is the in-world institution that records what survives and what gets built, and it's also our real website. When you finish a build, you file it, and it gets a serial number and a page in the record. Think of it as a gallery with a story wrapped around it.
Two longtime modelers and friends, filed in the record as Surveyor One and Surveyor Two. The Registry is small on purpose. It's run by people who build, for people who build.
Section 02
Every filed build gets a unique serial. It records the build type and your member number, so your work is always traceable to you. You get your member number when you sign up, and it's yours forever. Members are numbered in the order they join.
Go to My Work and open the build. To change its name, place, description or main photos, choose Edit build. To show new progress, choose Add an update — an update needs a photo, a sentence, or both. You can edit or remove your updates later. Your serial number and QR code stay the same either way.
Nope. Longlight is a community project, story, and set of core world guidelines that help all modelers participate in the way they want to. Have an existing build you want to create a story around and add to the Registry? Go for it. Want to scratchbuild a model that speaks directly to the Longlight story? That's awesome too.
In the future, we hope to offer kits, books, and content for sale based in the Longlight world, so stay tuned.
The home scale is 1/35, because, well, that's what the Founders mostly build. But the Registry files builds in any scale. If your world is 1/48 or 1/72 or studio scale, file it. The story matters more than the ruler.
Yes, and honestly this is one of the best ways to start. That half-finished tank on your shelf becomes a rebuilt farm hauler. A civilian truck kit becomes a courier rig. Longlight is a world made of old machines kept running, so kitbashing is highly encouraged. And as long as you provide even a small story reference to how your creation fits into the world, it's a great Longlight piece.
A build can be filed as Concept, In Progress, Completed, or Gone Dark. You don't have to wait until something is finished to file it. And Gone Dark is our way of recording builds that were destroyed, lost, or scrapped, because in this world, things that are gone still deserve a record.
Nobody knows, and that's on purpose. Modules are salvaged old-world Longlight power units whose function is deliberately undefined, so you decide what yours does. If you build a Module into your rig, the story of what it does is yours to tell. Every module glows soft green while it holds power. That glow is what we call the Longlight.
No. The Longlight glow is rare in the world, and it should be rare on the tables too. Most working machines in 2127 have no glow at all. A build with no green in it can be deeply Longlight. But want to add lights and make things glow green? Go for it!
Especially you. Longlight was made on the belief that the best storyteller beats the best builder. A simple model with a real moment in it will always out-file a flawless model with nothing to say.
Section 03
There are ten factions in the world, from the salvage crews of the Scrapers to the Archivists of the Keepers. Factions are information about the world, not something you choose when signing up. Explore their histories, beliefs, and styles for inspiration. Your builds can borrow from any part of Longlight.
Personal and fan use is free under our open license. You can share, remix, and build on the world as long as you credit it and don't sell it. If you want to make commercial products set in Longlight, contact us about a direct license. The short version is, build anything, sell nothing without asking first.
Yes, please. The world is built to be added to. Name your settlement, invent your salvage crew, write your surveyor's field notes. The only rule is add, don't contradict. Build on what's recorded rather than rewriting it.
Yes, that's encouraged. Borrowing places, routes, and marks from other filed builds is how the shared world grows. Credit their serial in your field notes. We call it answering a build, and it's the highest compliment in this community, and the honorable always credit their fellow community members.
Thirteen or older to hold an account. Younger builders are welcome in the world through a parent's account.
The Rules cover what makes a build Longlight, the Field Guide defines every term on file, and the Founders can be reached directly.