D&D 5E Worldship?

[Zardnaar]

Thinking of basing a game off Phantasy Star III an old JRPG from 30 odd years ago.

I don't need to recycle the games plot but may outright steal the setting.

Alissa III

Alisa III

The Alisa III (Japanese: アリサ3世) is the name of the world where Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom is set. It is not actually a planet, but a Palman spaceship made up of seven domed worlds. There are two satellites, Azura and Dahlia which are sometimes referred to as moons by Alisa III...

phantasystar.fandom.com

Basically the world is a giant space ship with 7 world's.

Each world is a done. To get between worlds you can find a greco roman temple and teleport or go through cave systems that are sci fi type tunnels.

Early in the game you have typical medieval type equipment, late game laser swords, plasma guns etc.

I'm not sure how big each world is but I'm thinking 100 miles to 500 miles each.

Pilot background for airships could be done but there's also actual spaceships to fly to the moons.

A few of the world are themed. Aridia is a desert, water world and ice world exist along with a wasteland.

It's been 1000 years since large major war and the pathways between the world's are mostly closed.

Technology has regressed at least in the PCs starting area.

The cyborgs are just replaced with Warforged.

So yeah thoughts on having a heavy sci fi themed. PCs don't get to start with the techno stuff but they can find it.

Eberron would be used. Races probably anything goes apart from flyers but most of them are mutants so odds are most are unique.

So any ideas with the very rough outline I've thought up?

 

[dave2008]

Sounds interesting. Unfortunately I don't have anything to offer at this time. My one thought: 100-500 miles per world is to small IMO, but I guess it probably doesn't really make a difference.

 

[Zardnaar]

Sounds interesting. Unfortunately I don't have anything to offer at this time. My one thought: 100-500 miles per world is to small IMO, but I guess it probably doesn't really make a difference.

Original game didn't really have large nation's it was more like city states.

It's ambiguous how big the domes are, each one theoretically could be a flat earth sized disc.

 

[Tonguez]

so the Worldship was intended to transport colonist to another planet?

I assume that the ship has a clear hierarchy and that the ‘Temples’ are Power centers. What happens if one of the Temples stops communicating with the others?

Did each of the domes have a particular function? (eg the verdant green dome was the Horticulture section growing food, the desert world is the engines etc)

Does the ship have engines and gravity generators? How are they maintained and what happens if they begin to fail?

What happens when the ship gets there? Whats the landing protocol and does anyone still know it?

 

[Zardnaar]

so the Worldship was intended to transport colonist to another planet?

I assume that the ship has a clear hierarchy and that the ‘Temples’ are Power centers. What happens if one of the Temples stops communicating with the others?

Did each of the domes have a particular function? (eg the verdant green dome was the Horticulture section growing food, the desert world is the engines etc)

Does the ship have engines and gravity generators? How are they maintained and what happens if they begin to fail?

What happens when the ship gets there? Whats the landing protocol and does anyone still know it?

Yes the ships are refugee ships. They had 400, 2 survived.

Logically they wouldn't be the size of a planet and each domes could be small I suppose.

The domes you start in has regressed to medieval type technology. Hierarchy has broken down, there's local monarchs and one town has pilots.

The surviving pilots and engineers are in different domes.

You had to unlock the teleporting "temples" and fairly early on you go through one of the caves and discover the next dome over has malfunctioning weather control systems.

I guess if the systems fail the ships are destroyed which happened to 398/400.

The game had 4 endings as your original character got married and you had the choice of 2 women to marry so 7 main characters total over 3 generations.

 

[Zardnaar]

The greco roman temple. In 5E terms teleport circle to the next dome.



And the world map with 3/7 domes.

 

[Mallus]

I love a good 'generation starship gone to seed' setting (ever since that TOS Star Trek episode).

The discreet, interconnected domes layout is nice as it gives you a fun topography to play with, also topography-as-cosmology, if some of the biospheres got mythologized into 'Heaven' and 'Hell' or different 'planes'.

But if you want airships to play a big part, that suggests a giant cylinder spun for gravity with aeronauts sailing the near-zero G along the spin axis. Maybe rings of tall mountains separating sections.

 

[Zardnaar]

I love a good 'generation starship gone to seed' setting (ever since that TOS Star Trek episode).

The discreet, interconnected domes layout is nice as it gives you a fun topography to play with, also topography-as-cosmology, if some of the biospheres got mythologized into 'Heaven' and 'Hell' or different 'planes'.

But if you want airships to play a big part, that suggests a giant cylinder spun for gravity with aeronauts sailing the near-zero G along the spin axis. Maybe rings of tall mountains separating sections.

Well in the original game they had a desert, ice and water world.

Another one was freezing but it was due to malfunctioning weather control device. It's what I'm fixing now as I dug up the GBA to play it again.

 

[Tonguez]

Well in the original game they had a desert, ice and water world.

Another one was freezing but it was due to malfunctioning weather control device. It's what I'm fixing now as I dug up the GBA to play it again.

there are ‘real’ generationship designs that include artificial seas to allow for irrigation and a proper water cycle (which also generates a sustainable, breathable atmosphere) but the main issue with such designs is weight.
One estimate for the smallest cylinder ship to support 500 colonist is 224 meters (735 feet) in radius and 320 meters (1050 feet) in length. The water to support it is 468 cubed mts but that effectively doubles the fuel weight require for propulsion.
However having only one dome be for water storage and then pumping it out to the others via canal-pipes and aerosol “rain” might mitigate the weight to propulsion issues. So a single water world makes sense and also justifies a desert world being one not getting/needing a directly pumped water supply.

I’m really liking this idea of the inhabitants having forgotten they are on a space ship and instead thinking they live in a magical world

 

[Zardnaar]

there are ‘real’ generationship designs that include artificial seas to allow for irrigation and a proper water cycle (which also generates a sustainable, breathable atmosphere) but the main issue with such designs is weight.
One estimate for the smallest cylinder ship to support 500 colonist is 224 meters (735 feet) in radius and 320 meters (1050 feet) in length. The water to support it is 468 cubed mts but that effectively doubles the fuel weight require for propulsion.
However having only one dome be for water storage and then pumping it out to the others via canal-pipes and aerosol “rain” might mitigate the weight to propulsion issues. So a single water world makes sense and also justifies a desert world being one not getting/needing a directly pumped water supply.

I’m really liking this idea of the inhabitants having forgotten they are on a space ship and instead thinking they live in a magical world

Played through the first generation, you rescue the princess and get married.

Some of the NPCs know rumors that their ancestors sailed the stars.

Really not sure how big the world's are but they have lakes, rivers and seas.

Generation 2 and 3 you meet the pilots and engineers. 2 of the world's are basically medieval, 1 a wasteland, 2 are harsh can't remember what the last two are. Think one of thems iverun with monsters.