Garlicia

History

Garlicia is the ancestral home of the Garlickins, a stout, dwarf-like species whose workshops echo with constant grumbling and astonishingly good engineering. Their first sand keeps wore hand-folded copper seams that flexed in the heat; the oldest still carry their prized green patina. According to the planet’s entirely fictional founding legend, two rival smiths refused to work on the same side of a bench. Their opposing hammer strokes inspired the horizontally opposed boxer engine: balanced machinery, permanently unbalanced tempers. The Great Clove Council later sent flat-four blueprints through a wormhole to Earth, tucked inside a folder labelled “Perfectly Normal Human Engineering.” A diplomatic cover story called the result independent invention. Garlicians call it their least convincing disguise, especially whenever a Subaru rumbles past. Garrett, an Earthside Subaru WRX driver, has since been declared an honorary son of Garlicia and keeper of its unofficial terrestrial embassy: whichever parking space he has just occupied.

Economy

Garlicia trades repairable engine assemblies, precision copper coils, reclaimed body panels, and turbochargers inspected by three mutually suspicious grumblers. Its workshops accept credits, quality tools, or an exceptionally good lunch; a borrowed 10 mm socket is treated as a sovereign debt. Rally tourism and coachwork apprenticeships keep the gravel routes busy, while the Great Clove Council taxes unnecessary revving to fund quiet mornings. Garrett’s honorary ambassadorship pays in workshop tea and unsolicited tuning advice.

Rainbow Road IAS

Joined in Show Year 7 · The Green Patina Rains. At the Hand-Folded Coachwork Show, Garlickin mechanics repaired a tour convoy’s damaged panel, demonstrated their balanced flat-four, and grumbled through the entire standing ovation. Château Verdigris became Garlicia’s official Interdimensional Auto Show stop; its open garage now welcomes visiting cars and reserves an honorary bay for Garrett’s WRX.

A fictional calendar kept by the Rainbow Road IAS. Year 1 begins with the first passage through the sandcastle on the beach in 1999; years count completed journeys inside its pocket of eternity, not elapsed Earth years. Local seasons identify each world’s first gathering. These histories belong to Leonida Larry’s imagined multiverse.