What about a space-time travel machine that brings players to otherwise inaccessible biomes from different time periods, each of which holds something significant to a character?
Examples of characters and potential themes surrounding eras:
Willow: 1692, Salem Witch Trials
Wes: 1920s, silent films
WX-78: 3078, robot supremacy
Winona: 1960s, feminist movement or woodstock
Wickerbottom: 1300-1600, Renaissance
Wigfrid: ~800s, Vikings
Woodie: 40,000 BC, caveman era
Wurt: 3,729,432 BC, Prehistoric age, dinosaurs
Wolfgang: 1930s, circus
Webber: 10,000 AD, during the reign of arachnocracy
Warly: 1793, the French revolution
Wilson: 1780-1840, the Industrial revolution
Wendy: 14th century, gothic era
Maxwell: 1300 BC, ancient Egypt
Wormwood: 600,000,000 BC, only plants!
Wortox: Year ⛤ψ⛧, welcome to hell
If not, then please at least let us fight the arachnocracy riding our velocirexes at the base of our pyramids of doom. 