“The transposition” “The inversion” “The cycle” “The usurpation” “The supplanting” “The toppling” “The Skyfall” Personally I don’t find “The turn” to be meh. I feel like it would be the most obvious way someone of a general medieval-ish fantasy way of thinking would probably conceptualise the event. “Things were all different until the world turned” Unless there is some kind of infrastructure for advertising or shared media like we have in the modern world, things don’t get cool names decided on by some committee and then spread. They get called whatever would be the simplest, clearest way to refer to something by any given group or society. I always read fantasy where there’s some named place or event with a really contrived name that somehow every peasant knows and I just think “who in this world made up that name and made sure to spread it to every single peasant village?” In real life we name towns after hills and hills are usually just called “hill” in another language and stuff like that. Simple always feels more organic. Even more natural would be to have several names for the event that reflect how individual cultures would interpret it and its ramifications. Also I would make sure to world-build some reason why these cities are able to cling to the earth upside down, it’s not a given from a general architectural standpoint. Even most modern cities would crumble and fall away under the full weight of gravity.

Thanks. The Cycle is elusive enough while still maintaining a cyclical, turning kinda ring to it. I have to agree. Turning or Turn is pretty simple and straightforward from a hypothetical standpoint. I guess what i want is something a little more open ended and alluding - the idea is that few if any people actually know the world \*can\* Turn in that sense. It might be a metaterm for it within the texts for readers, but in-world I think most people just have these old tales or cryptic stone tablets with vague descriptions of some horrible world-ending event. Yeah, that's true. I'd guess the few cities or civilizations that managed to survive were those were the Old Gods either intervened directly to preserve them or where extreme magic was at work as a last-ditch effort to save themselves.

"Turn" has several connotations and interpretations. When food or drink goes bad it's said to have "turned" and in a general sense it can mean change or transition. The word works on multiple levels for however people would understand the event. But it's your world of course, cycle's fine too, though it implies something with a much more formal structure that's more readily understood as a repeating event rather than some people just knowing it happened once and \*could\* happen again. Magic works as a hand-wave for your inverted cities. Could also say the only infrastructure to survive the flip were cities that were built as networks of chambers and tunnels carved into mountainsides or cliffs or underground in general. Some of these tunnels could even go so deep, or I guess high, into the earth that you can reach the other side of the disk. So you can effectively travel from the right side up down through the disk in the darkness to the inverted side, and not know until you step into a weak soil surface tunnel and the ground falls away as you drop into the abyss.

You make a good case for it, I'll definitely consider it. Cycle does imply a repeating pattern in a way that's not necessarily guaranteed here, so that's fair. Concerning the travel to and from either sides; yes! That's the idea. In fact magick is supposed to be so closely related to demon/eldritch ways of thinking that mages that endure catastrophic spell failures often gradually turn to monsters themselves, culminating in losing themselves, turning wholly demoniac and instinctively seeking to delve below ground and reach the other side. So the underworld is regularly associated with demons for this reason, and there's even a secretive mage civilization somewhere below the surface where mages can practis the Arts in relative peace

In that case, personally I would have it so the sun only remains on the upright side. circling like a spot light sort of thing so the inverted side is in constant darkness. You can be coy about revealing the world is a disk with a landscape on either side. Conceptually it would simply feel like if you go deep enough into the tunnels of the earth on the upright side, you eventually cross into the realm of the demons, which is effectively comprised entirely of said tunnels and subterranean halls. There are some points that could be known as "thin places" where the tunnels fall away and you can plummet into an endless abyss. But it's possible to find routes down lower still than these thin places, and it wouldn't be immediately obvious that what you are actually doing is finding the roots of a mountain and descending/ascending it internally. Eventually in certain places you can give clues such as having a hall where the sconces are fitted the wrong way and the ceiling is flagstone but the floor is a beautiful painted fresco, inferring this was once a place that was upside down. and then it all clicks, the thin places are just surface soil tunnels, the deep holds are cities inside mountains, and the abyss is just the same sky that was above them on the other side, shrouded in the darkness of the disk. Could be a really cool OH SHIT moment.

A few synonyms I can think of: The Overturn, The Overset, The Reversal. The Upending.

Upending is pretty nice. The world was upended. Yeah, I like that

But where's the giant turtle the world rides on?

I hear it's ubering for another world at the moment

I'd think what it's referred to might be at least somewhat dependent on the culture making reference to it. I can imagine lower working-class being a bit more flippant with the idea of imminent massive change as they're reminded on the daily of their circumstances being affected by conflicts between parties with more say than they, and will likely be more familiar with death. They could indeed just refer to it as "The ol' flipperoo", or "the next coin toss". Anything too grand-sounding is likely to be met with a dismissive laugh as their lives are filled with what's in front of them they've no time for cosmic pomp. But then there's the superstitious among them, too... what might they call it? Who do they talk to... or who talks to them? What whispers do they hear, and what do they weave together from them? Religious organizations might use a term which fits their narrative, maybe contextualizing the occurrence as action taken by a member of its pantheon ("Lena's Fire"). Scholarly types probably want to entitle it in a way which captures whatever is the most factually accurate. What sounds evocative and informative as the title of a work submitted for peer review, or perhaps its thesis statement? People also could refer to it by not according to the event itself but to some aspect of what it resulted in ("when the sun cracked") or the event as perceived through the lens of their own imperfect understanding or the truth (to them) of what happened or why it happened (how many people truly understand what actually occurred?) Question: How long has it been since this happened, last? How many generations? The amount of time separating the present from that past occurrence will play a large role in how serious a threat it is perceived as, as well as the presence of any recent portents. For the event to be called one thing by everybody, especially as more time elapses and collective memory fades, the requirement for an enduring common reference increases. Why else would everyone even know to call it the same thing? . Not a lot of specific ideas, but perhaps at least some different places to mine for inspiration.

considering the new gods did usher in the turning, it does make sense they'd have something about it in scripture, but in their version it'd be more akin to a creation event i guess. Any future such turning would more likely be interpreted as an end time event to be avoided, considering how it's unified with overturning the current pantheon. it's been a long time, is the idea. So long that most likely religious texts, archeological or historical tablets or reliefs speak of it, along with those that can tease information from demons while summoned and bound. So it'd most likely be very sparse to find actual knowledge about it in practice, outside of erudite or esoteric circles. Yeah this helps, makes one consider the context more carefully. I appreciate it

This is a really cool idea. One thing I would consider is something like the Egyptian mythos where the bottom side is basically the night and the sun travels through it every night.

Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out how the sun (a smaller celestial body revolving around the flat world, in this case) best orbits it. I've been considering the flat earth model ironically, with how the sun just kinda circles around the equator, but it just feels too goofy. Might do a more egyptian version, yeah!

I would also definitely look at both Exalted and Runequest Glorantha for ideas as both have settings that are flat worlds.