I need D&D planets.

Viktyr Gehrig · Mar 31, 2011

I'm going to be running a Spelljammer campaign soon, and I need help building my Crystal Sphere. I'm foisting most of the world-building work for the main planet on my players-- they come up with character backgrounds and cultures, and I build the world around them-- but I want to have a good selection of ready-made planets for them to explore once they get their hands on a ship.

I've already decided I'm going to use Athas-- with some modifications-- as a planet, and a large swamp planet populated with reptiles, and the Mushroom Kingdom, but I'm at a loss for where to come up with more.

Hopefully, I'd like to have 8-10 good ideas.

I'm using all of the standard D&D races and goblinoids, most of the Spelljammer-specific races, Thri-Kreen and Xixchil, and both Gith races. I'm open to incorporating more. There will be psionics, and I'm hoping to keep the magic level at standard AD&D levels.

Anyone have good recommendations?

Whisper72 · Mar 31, 2011

Well... one could throw in all the various published worlds/settings as worlds:
- Mystara
- Dragonlance
- Eberron
- Faerun
- Hollow World (for a Dyson Sphere...)
- Maztica
- Kalamar
- etc.

Especially the less well known ones can be fun to use. Forgot the name, but there is also that 'world' with two basic antagonists, one side is barbarians and the other some type of necromancers...

You could also 'rip off' ideas from these published worlds and blow them up big time / expand them into planet sizes:

Eberron makes for several planet ideas: Xendrik as a planet, the 'main' continent as a world, the badlands as an 'evil planet', the mournland as an entire planet, Sarlona as a planet

Or even expand the Sharn idea into a planetwide city world

Other theme's for planets:
- a world of floating islands with aerial races
- a water world, no land whatsoever
- blasted 'rock' world where all civilization is placed in the Underdark because the surface is too hot / too many storms / whatever
- an idyllic / eden like world (maybe only on the surface / during the day, during the night, the nasties come out of their shells and destroy all they meet, that is the real reason the world seems idyllic / a world untouched by civilization: civilization never got a chance to flourish...)
- a dark world where it always rains / there are always clouds: supports very little vegetation and animals, mainly oozes, fungi etc.
- a living world: the planet itself is a living organism. It sleeps most of the time, during which times it's weird dreams enter the dreams of visiting sentients providing strange visions, feelings of dread etc. (maybe even prophetic?) When the world organism stirs, the whole planet trembles, changes and shifts... hands and mouths may appear attacking visitors...
- a dead world. Once civilization flourished. For some unknonw reason, everybody died... some force (a disease? some alchemical gas? a spell / magical influences?) is still at work. People who stay on this world are slowly dying. At first losing int / wis points (per hour or per day, depending upon how sever you want to play this), then str / con points, dying at 0 con... (maybe with or without 'save against' effect)

Just some quick random thoughts...

Gilladian · Mar 31, 2011

When doing planets, try to stick to a theme (such as your "swamp world"). Don't try to pack a huge number of different races and cultures in one place.

How about a gas giant planet? It should have some sort of resource everyone wants, but has no "surface", just floating platform stations. It could be populated by intelligent "whales" and "sharks" and schools of piranha-like creatures.

An elemental fire world. Lava everywhere, soot, darkness, heat, maybe a very thin atmosphere. Populated mostly by para-elementals, intelligent electrical storms, etc...

An ice-moon, with a buried ocean under a mile of glacier. You could have a whole civilization of mer-type folk who never see the surface. Every creature could have its own light generation source (neon?). Long tunnels through the ice could connect huge oceanic regions.

Stormonu · Mar 31, 2011

I'd also raid Star Wars and Star Trek for planet ideas. Some of the ones that might fit (after downgrading them to medieval worlds)

Dantoonie - An abandoned world of ruins
Coruscant - A world covered in one huge city
Genosis - A world populated with insectile hive-cities
Yavin - A jungle world with mesoamerican ruins
Endor - A forest moon with primative bear-like tribes
Kamino - A world of water and storms
Naboo - A world coinhabited by a peaceful land-loving race and a near-xenophobic aquatic race
Alderaan - Jewel of peace and beauty

You sound like you've already got something like Tatooine and Dagobah...

Beyond the published D&D worlds, you can always do a google search for people's campaign worlds and use some of their ideas for alternate worlds to visit.

Man in the Funny Hat · Mar 31, 2011

Spelljammer Atlas

That should give you a few ideas.

Diamond Cross · Mar 31, 2011

Actually Athas has some sort of unique properties that make it completely inaccessible to Spelljamming.

Goonalan · Mar 31, 2011

Why don't you simply use some of the planets that exist in our own multiverse, like-

Gorm- with its iron continents that float on seething lava seas, constantly scorched and scarred by twisting 1,000 mile high fire storms. The cities of Gorm are built on great plates which constantly scuttle- atop a million, legs, wheels and other modes of transport across the terrible ferous plains- trying to keep ahead of the scouring flame.

Kuklat- the ice planet, a giant snowball, marred only by 'The Scar', a trench six miles deep and one mile wide which circumnavigates the globe like a belt or girdle- the only hospitable place on the planet.

Wyrdul- a battered ball of rock missing nearly a third of its previous mass- clearly hit by something titanic at some point in the past. Home to nothing much save savage swamps which hide beneath them ancient Aztec-like ruins and the ghosts of over a ten billion souls snuffed out in seconds.

Or any of the other places...

Cheers Goonalan

nedjer · Mar 31, 2011

Great thread with some great ideas; but I'm slightly disappointed as I was kind of hoping for an RPG spin on Mars planets.

Maybe coating the planets in that fizzy stuff they put on Terry's chocolate oranges these days.

Diamond Cross · Mar 31, 2011

Well, here's a list of planetary systems found by NASA:

List of planetary systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mercurius · Mar 31, 2011

Are you familiar with the Spelljammer supplement [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Planetology-Spelljammer-Module-SJR4/dp/1560761342/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1301589924&sr=8-3"]Practical Planetology[/ame]? If not, pick it up right away - it includes outlines of a bunch of worlds as well as guidelines for creating different types of worlds.