Knightfall
World of Kulan DM
The Plane of the Unseen Infinity has many things that set it apart from wildspace in the shell reality. Yes, it has the same sort of elemental and energy portals that one can find in wildspace. However, the main difference is size. Elemental and energy portals in farspace are as large as a dwarven citadel or elven armada, sometimes larger. These super portals are dangerous places and the space around where they form often has minor elemental or energy traits for hundreds of miles beyond the event horizon of the anomaly.
Black Holes
Black holes in farspace are the same thing as a black hole in the real universe. A black hole has super gravity that will suck in anything that comes to close to its event horizon. Black holes are invisible in farspace if nothing is feeding energy to the hole. However, many black holes form near a single star or binary star in spheres without planets. These spheres never have any sort of natural life living in them, although they could have at one point millions of years ago. Note that opening a portal into the flow can sometimes save a spelljammer that has been pulled over the event horizon. However, the portal must be opened toward the black hole in the hopes that the person controlling the helm can hit the portal before being sucked past it. (Many a foolhardy spelljammer captain has risked getting close to a black hole just to see if they could do it. Most of these captains and their crew have died in the attempt.)
Death Holes
Death holes are those places in farspace where a permanent link to a Negative-Dominant plane has formed. These deadly anomalies are invisible in the depths of farspace until it is too late. Death holes have gravity similar to black holes and are just as deadly. Once you have passed the event horizon, only a miracle or wish spell will save you, or a portal to the phlogiston. Those pulled into a death hole find themselves surrounded by millions of the death hole’s undead victims. These undead creatures are best described as spectral ghouls. They attack en mass and not even an epic character could hope to survive more than a few minutes before being expelled into the Negative-Dominant plane that spawned the death hole.
Effervescents
An effervescent is an anomaly in farspace where a permanent link to a Positive-Dominant plane has formed and is just as dangerous as a death hole. An effervescent’s gravity is in reverse. Energy from the Positive-Dominant plane is sucked into the depths of farspace. This reverse gravity well is like a colossal positive energy tornado. The effervescent buffets anything it touches with positive energy winds. These winds destroy life, as well as restore it. A person or object caught in an effervescent is exposed to so much positive energy that it literally explodes with life, destroying it in the process. Then the anomaly rebuilds the life it destroyed to the point where it destroys it again over and over until it spews the creature or object out. An effervescent is always visible in the depths of farspace.
Elemental Super Portals
Elemental super portals are very rare in the depths of farspace and unheard of within a sphere. These elemental super portals take different forms depending on which elemental plane formed the portal. Elemental fire super portals are often mistaken as rogue radiance or fire planets. Only when you come near the portal do you notice the swirling vortex of elemental fire spewing out from the portal. Elemental earth super portals form dense, mineral-rich asteroid belts orbiting the portal. These portals are rarely unoccupied. Elemental air super portals are the saving grace of those spelljammers that get lost in the depths of farspace. They appear as swirling balls of pure elemental air and are often mistaken for air planets or gas giants. Elemental water super portals are the strangest of the elemental super portals. Because of the nature of farspace, an elemental water super portal will have huge ice belts orbiting a central swirling ball of water encrusted with a thin icy layer. Note that elemental super portals are often the home of elementals and strange spacefaring creatures that have adapted to life near the portal (i.e. fire scavvers).
Raia Nomad Colonies
The durawood sailing ship-style spelljammers of the raia are a common sight amongst the spheres of farspace. These specially built spelljammer often travel tightly together and may even be lashed together with supports and netting. This allows the raia to move from one spelljamming vessel to another, as easily as a crewmember of a normal spelljamming vessel might walk across the deck. It is these joined ships that are referred to as a raia nomad colony. Often these colonies remain in one sphere for months at a time, trading with the local spacefaring community. Strangely, raia never take their ships to groundling ports-of-call. Raia durawood ships are an amazing achievement and are considered part of the colony, as a durawood spelljammer is basically a liveship.
Rogue Celestial Bodies
Sometimes a celestial body begins its formation in a sphere then breaks away from the sphere due to some unknown event. Any type of celestial body can become rogue, even a radiance or fire body. Most rogue celestial bodies are earth planets, which may or may not become comets depending on the size and speed the celestial body is traveling. If a rogue celestial body keeps its natural rotation and speed then it is possible that life might have formed on that world. Such life would be strange and even more alien in nature, without the light, energy and heat of a star. Of course, fire planets have there own light. A DM is encouraged to create strange luminous life forms for such a rogue world.
Two Spheres for Farspace
Designer’s Note: One of the spheres described in this section is farspace version of the Trademeet system that I created for my Arcanum of the Star campaign for the Dragonstar d20 Campaign Setting. And while the names are similar, the worlds in this sphere will be a lot different.
Billions of unique spheres exist within the farspace reality. Most of these spheres are similar to those found in the shell reality, except for the fact that crystal shells do not surround them. Spelljammer fans are encouraged to take what I have provided here, as a good starting point for a Spelljammer Campaign set in Farspace and add to it.
Allorspace: This sphere used to exist in the shell reality, until one of its inhabitants met the raia and exposed his sphere to the concept of there being different realities. Of course, that man is long dead and it took hundreds of years after his death before the sphere to shift into the farspace reality. But it proves the point of the arcane, that exposing the shell reality inhabitants to the concept of realities is a dangerous consequence of letting other races from the farspace reality enter the sphere reality. The Arcane Merchants’ Alliance actively discourages other races from making contact with shellers, including trade embargoes and the threat of military action. So far, none have risked the wrath of the arcane by attempting to shift another shell sphere to farspace.
Allorspace still survives and hasn’t changed much. It has four non-descript planets and an asteroid belt orbiting a fire star. Most of Allorspace’s civilization is located in the asteroid belt. The planets (small earth planets) are airless but not totally lifeless. The many crags and craters of these four earth planets are hiding places for vacuum-based monsters and gith pirates. Allorspace was named after the sphere’s primary, Allor (very large fire planet). Allor is what is known as a fire planet or fire star. These fiery planets are not like true stars (or radiance stars), in that they don’t give off dangerous radiant energy and that life is more likely to exist on the surface. Allor has such life in the form of a dwarf-like race known as the azer, originally from the Elemental Plane of Fire. These fire dwarves tend to keep to themselves.
Tradespace: Rumors abound of the home sphere of the arcane. Are the arcane originally from the farspace reality? If so, then this sphere might exist in your campaign. Tradespace has eight planets orbiting a true star — Des (very small earth planet), Marrilo (small earth planet), Arana (medium earth planet), Salor (very large true gas gaint), Juepet (small earth planet), Allin (very large air planet), Vaigo (very small earth planet) and Burrun (medium earth planet). It is said that the arcane were the only intelligent life to form in Tradespace. All of the planets in the sphere would be under complete control of the arcane and their allies. Arana is the home world of the arcane.
This sphere would be a hub of constant activity as arcane from all over the universe come home to Arana to report their year’s activities and profit to the ruling body of the arcane. This group is known as Arcane Merchants’ Alliance. It is believed that several servitor races are active members in this alliance. Could the raia be one of them?
Black Holes
Black holes in farspace are the same thing as a black hole in the real universe. A black hole has super gravity that will suck in anything that comes to close to its event horizon. Black holes are invisible in farspace if nothing is feeding energy to the hole. However, many black holes form near a single star or binary star in spheres without planets. These spheres never have any sort of natural life living in them, although they could have at one point millions of years ago. Note that opening a portal into the flow can sometimes save a spelljammer that has been pulled over the event horizon. However, the portal must be opened toward the black hole in the hopes that the person controlling the helm can hit the portal before being sucked past it. (Many a foolhardy spelljammer captain has risked getting close to a black hole just to see if they could do it. Most of these captains and their crew have died in the attempt.)
Death Holes
Death holes are those places in farspace where a permanent link to a Negative-Dominant plane has formed. These deadly anomalies are invisible in the depths of farspace until it is too late. Death holes have gravity similar to black holes and are just as deadly. Once you have passed the event horizon, only a miracle or wish spell will save you, or a portal to the phlogiston. Those pulled into a death hole find themselves surrounded by millions of the death hole’s undead victims. These undead creatures are best described as spectral ghouls. They attack en mass and not even an epic character could hope to survive more than a few minutes before being expelled into the Negative-Dominant plane that spawned the death hole.
Effervescents
An effervescent is an anomaly in farspace where a permanent link to a Positive-Dominant plane has formed and is just as dangerous as a death hole. An effervescent’s gravity is in reverse. Energy from the Positive-Dominant plane is sucked into the depths of farspace. This reverse gravity well is like a colossal positive energy tornado. The effervescent buffets anything it touches with positive energy winds. These winds destroy life, as well as restore it. A person or object caught in an effervescent is exposed to so much positive energy that it literally explodes with life, destroying it in the process. Then the anomaly rebuilds the life it destroyed to the point where it destroys it again over and over until it spews the creature or object out. An effervescent is always visible in the depths of farspace.
Elemental Super Portals
Elemental super portals are very rare in the depths of farspace and unheard of within a sphere. These elemental super portals take different forms depending on which elemental plane formed the portal. Elemental fire super portals are often mistaken as rogue radiance or fire planets. Only when you come near the portal do you notice the swirling vortex of elemental fire spewing out from the portal. Elemental earth super portals form dense, mineral-rich asteroid belts orbiting the portal. These portals are rarely unoccupied. Elemental air super portals are the saving grace of those spelljammers that get lost in the depths of farspace. They appear as swirling balls of pure elemental air and are often mistaken for air planets or gas giants. Elemental water super portals are the strangest of the elemental super portals. Because of the nature of farspace, an elemental water super portal will have huge ice belts orbiting a central swirling ball of water encrusted with a thin icy layer. Note that elemental super portals are often the home of elementals and strange spacefaring creatures that have adapted to life near the portal (i.e. fire scavvers).
Raia Nomad Colonies
The durawood sailing ship-style spelljammers of the raia are a common sight amongst the spheres of farspace. These specially built spelljammer often travel tightly together and may even be lashed together with supports and netting. This allows the raia to move from one spelljamming vessel to another, as easily as a crewmember of a normal spelljamming vessel might walk across the deck. It is these joined ships that are referred to as a raia nomad colony. Often these colonies remain in one sphere for months at a time, trading with the local spacefaring community. Strangely, raia never take their ships to groundling ports-of-call. Raia durawood ships are an amazing achievement and are considered part of the colony, as a durawood spelljammer is basically a liveship.
Rogue Celestial Bodies
Sometimes a celestial body begins its formation in a sphere then breaks away from the sphere due to some unknown event. Any type of celestial body can become rogue, even a radiance or fire body. Most rogue celestial bodies are earth planets, which may or may not become comets depending on the size and speed the celestial body is traveling. If a rogue celestial body keeps its natural rotation and speed then it is possible that life might have formed on that world. Such life would be strange and even more alien in nature, without the light, energy and heat of a star. Of course, fire planets have there own light. A DM is encouraged to create strange luminous life forms for such a rogue world.
Two Spheres for Farspace
Designer’s Note: One of the spheres described in this section is farspace version of the Trademeet system that I created for my Arcanum of the Star campaign for the Dragonstar d20 Campaign Setting. And while the names are similar, the worlds in this sphere will be a lot different.
Billions of unique spheres exist within the farspace reality. Most of these spheres are similar to those found in the shell reality, except for the fact that crystal shells do not surround them. Spelljammer fans are encouraged to take what I have provided here, as a good starting point for a Spelljammer Campaign set in Farspace and add to it.
Allorspace: This sphere used to exist in the shell reality, until one of its inhabitants met the raia and exposed his sphere to the concept of there being different realities. Of course, that man is long dead and it took hundreds of years after his death before the sphere to shift into the farspace reality. But it proves the point of the arcane, that exposing the shell reality inhabitants to the concept of realities is a dangerous consequence of letting other races from the farspace reality enter the sphere reality. The Arcane Merchants’ Alliance actively discourages other races from making contact with shellers, including trade embargoes and the threat of military action. So far, none have risked the wrath of the arcane by attempting to shift another shell sphere to farspace.
Allorspace still survives and hasn’t changed much. It has four non-descript planets and an asteroid belt orbiting a fire star. Most of Allorspace’s civilization is located in the asteroid belt. The planets (small earth planets) are airless but not totally lifeless. The many crags and craters of these four earth planets are hiding places for vacuum-based monsters and gith pirates. Allorspace was named after the sphere’s primary, Allor (very large fire planet). Allor is what is known as a fire planet or fire star. These fiery planets are not like true stars (or radiance stars), in that they don’t give off dangerous radiant energy and that life is more likely to exist on the surface. Allor has such life in the form of a dwarf-like race known as the azer, originally from the Elemental Plane of Fire. These fire dwarves tend to keep to themselves.
Tradespace: Rumors abound of the home sphere of the arcane. Are the arcane originally from the farspace reality? If so, then this sphere might exist in your campaign. Tradespace has eight planets orbiting a true star — Des (very small earth planet), Marrilo (small earth planet), Arana (medium earth planet), Salor (very large true gas gaint), Juepet (small earth planet), Allin (very large air planet), Vaigo (very small earth planet) and Burrun (medium earth planet). It is said that the arcane were the only intelligent life to form in Tradespace. All of the planets in the sphere would be under complete control of the arcane and their allies. Arana is the home world of the arcane.
This sphere would be a hub of constant activity as arcane from all over the universe come home to Arana to report their year’s activities and profit to the ruling body of the arcane. This group is known as Arcane Merchants’ Alliance. It is believed that several servitor races are active members in this alliance. Could the raia be one of them?
