Designing a Crystal Sphere

[Viktyr Gehrig]

(If this is in the wrong forum, I'm sorry. I have no clue where to put it.)

I love Spelljammer, but I don't love the whole "arch-setting" concept-- a giant meta-setting that links all of the others together. (We'll ignore, for the moment, what I'm trying to do to Planescape and Star*Drive.) So, I'm trying to design a setting that has most of the features I love about Spelljammer-- exotic worlds, ship-to-ship combat, and horrible alien threats-- without dealing with the things I'm less fond of.

So far, I've got the following ideas:

• There are several stars, each with its own planetary system.
• Most worlds can be described in one or two words-- "ice", "jungle", "clouds".
• There are five "idyllic" worlds, each based on a romanticized fantasy version of a region on Earth: Western Europe, Eastern and Southern Asia, Eurasia, the Americas, and Africa. These have slight variations on the standard races, as well as multiple human cultures.
• Most of the standard races exist on each planet, or at least each major planet. None of them have an identifiable homeworld.
• Non-standard races are rarer and only appear on certain worlds, and some are confined to a single world. Most exist on at least one of the "idyllic" worlds, however.
• There is a massive, artificial city-planet that was created centuries ago by powerful spellcasters.
• There are dozens, if not hundreds, of religions; the only thing they have in common is that divine magic works for them.
• The gods are distant and unknowable, if they even exist. Planar travel is restricted to the Transitive Planes and the Far Realm-- though very few willingly travel there.
• Pseudonatural corruption is very real and feared. Warlocks and Alienists draw their powers from the Far Realm, and others can be twisted by its influence. I want to use the Taint rules from Unearthed Arcana, and I need to design other "tainted" PrCs.
• There is an enormous gas giant, orbiting a dying star, that is suffused with pseudonatural energy. One of the moons of this planet is habitable, though it is always cloaked in darkness; this moon is the home of humans, drow, and many terrible things.
• The Gith races are a mysterious element; the Githzerai live in the Deep Ethereal. I want to run Incursion and Lich Queen's Beloved at some point.

I'm going to be running this with my House Rules-- Gestalt, some cinematic variants, some gritty variants-- but I want to make it accessible to people who play D&D according to the RAW.

I'm considering limiting access to some classes based on race and culture-- mostly which spellcasters come from which planets-- but I haven't decided yet. Some "universal" classes would definitely be available to every character.

So... ideas/comments? I'd especially like ideas for planets, power structures, or plotlines, but reading recommendations and criticism are welcome, too.

 

[Dragonhelm]

You might take a look at Practical Planetology, which had a bunch of new planets for Spelljammer. There are some interesting options there.

The Spelljammer mini-game from Polyhedron, Shadow of the Spider Moon, has a single system for Spelljammer, so that might also offer some ideas. It isn't true-to-form with the original Spelljammer, but there's a lot that could be mined from it.

That's all I can think of for now. Hope that helps.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Got both, actually. I'll give them another read-through, though, to see what else I can use.

Thanks.

 

[Samuel Leming]

Make sure you include space pirates. You could make them duergar with salty scots accents.


Sam

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Make sure you include space pirates. You could make them duergar with salty scots accents.

I was actually thinking that the "Underdark" planet would produce a lot of pirates, since just about everything there is evil-- and even "normal" pirates find it a useful place to hide because almost everyone else is afraid of being that close to the pseudonatural gas giant.

Good idea about Duergar, though-- finally gives me a reason to overcome my aversion to subraces.

 

[Andor]

[*]Pseudonatural corruption is very real and feared. Warlocks and Alienists draw their powers from the Far Realm, and others can be twisted by its influence. I want to use the Taint rules from Unearthed Arcana, and I need to design other "tainted" PrCs.

It's not quite the right sort of taint but there are rules for shadowlands taint and some tainted PRCs in the Rokugan sourcebook.

[*]There is an enormous gas giant, orbiting a dying star, that is suffused with pseudonatural energy. One of the moons of this planet is habitable, though it is always cloaked in darkness; this moon is the home of humans, drow, and many terrible things.

Read Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. No, seriously, you can be much creepier than mere planet sized tentacles.

 

[Grealis]

This thread I like, I've been thinking about this kind of a thing myself.. haven't played the setting since... early -90ties ish. Some thoughts of mine...

How big is the Spelljamming scene actually, are there a multitude of vessels constantly in space and do the worlds know about each other in general?

Some world could perhaps be a more backally brawling place housing lots of interstellar travellers, along the lines of Rock of Braal in Realmspace. Some world could perhaps be totally oblivious to the fact that other world inhabitants and races actually move from one world to another, but once they learn they become extremely xenofobic (a little like the good inhabitants of planet Crickit in the Hitchikers guide to the galaxy "trilogy").

-G

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Divine magic works, but the gods are distant and unreachable? Neat. Are they barred by the crystal sphere? Was it perhaps erected by some power relatively recently? So they have to work through worshippers and other intermediaries. That could lead to some interesting power struggles as religions try to find ways to "let the gods in".

What about living planetoids? Asteroids that move under their own motive power and devour spelljamming ships.

Who controls navigation? There could be a sole guild that has secret instruments to steer vessels. Everyoen - including pirates - gets Navigators from this guild. They are all incorruptible (or appear so) and stay above politics.

As to planets? Heh. That could be so cool. It would be really neat to have one that's the source of magic. You don't go there because of the raw spell energy floating around. But if you can get close in space, you can bargain with the magic elementals to learn new spells.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

It's not quite the right sort of taint but there are rules for shadowlands taint and some tainted PRCs in the Rokugan sourcebook.

Yeah. I'm still working this out. Wisdom penalties might fit, but Constitution penalties really don't-- the idea is twisted, horrible, and alien, not sickly and insensible.

I might leave mechanical penalties out of it-- except for "opportunity costs" like feat slots and class levels-- and handle everything in terms of interaction penalties and the occasional lynch mob. There's a reason the Elan hide themselves...

Read Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. No, seriously, you can be much creepier than mere planet sized tentacles.

I must confess I've only seen the movie-- but it's not the sort of creepy I'm looking for. And, really, not the sort of creepy I'm capable of pulling off in-game. I can do Children of the Corn or Pickman's Model-- and Gaslight or Fight Club on a really good day-- but I don't think I can pull off the kind of subtle emotional horror of Solaris.

Especially not with four guys that look at a cheesegrater and see a +2 equipment bonus to Intimidate and Gather Information checks.

In any case, the area around the gas giant is for more "survival horror"; when the aberration lords induce paranoia and self-doubt, it's usually somewhere else.

How big is the Spelljamming scene actually, are there a multitude of vessels constantly in space and do the worlds know about each other in general?

I'm torn on this one. I think I want at least one nation on each of the "idyllic" planets to maintain a spelljamming fleet, and I want most worlds to engage in some form of trade and politicking, but I'm not sure how busy I want the space between the planets to be.

Generally, I'm thinking the five major planetary fleets, plus a handful of much smaller private concerns-- groups like the Tenth Pit or the Pragmatic Order of Thought in the original Spelljammer-- and then the various adventuring vessels, which is the PCs and their rivals.

Some world could perhaps be a more backally brawling place housing lots of interstellar travellers ...

Yeah-- I'm seeing the big artificial trade outpost in this role, as well as major cities on the "idyllic" planets. Most other planets are going to have only small, local ports; they might be used to seeing extraterrestrials, but they're only used to one or two ships' worth at a time, and they might not have seen members of all the spacefaring races.

Some world could perhaps be totally oblivious to the fact that other world inhabitants and races actually move from one world to another, but once they learn they become extremely xenofobic ...

Hmm. I should really do something with this-- either in-game, or in the recent history just before the game starts.

Divine magic works, but the gods are distant and unreachable? Neat. Are they barred by the crystal sphere? Was it perhaps erected by some power relatively recently? So they have to work through worshippers and other intermediaries. That could lead to some interesting power struggles as religions try to find ways to "let the gods in".

I'm really thinking that they've simply never been close-- if they ever really existed at all. I'm intending to be deliberately vague on this issue, since I'm planning on having Clerics and Shugenja and Shamans all in the same setting. Also, if several mutually-exclusive theological and cosmological approaches to divine magic all work, it means I really don't need to provide details for hundreds of local gods.

I'm going to do broad brush-strokes on the major religions, maybe even drop a few names of specific gods, for the religions that have them-- and then leave it strictly alone.

I'm not even going to think about figuring out where Githyanki Blackguards get their spells from.

Who controls navigation? There could be a sole guild that has secret instruments to steer vessels. Everyone - including pirates - gets Navigators from this guild. They are all incorruptible (or appear so) and stay above politics.

Hmm. I see Navigation as something that at least one PC per party should have skill in. Otherwise, it'd like going into a dungeon with an NPC Rogue.

On the other hand... there could be some major, vital skill or service that a guild has monopoly control over-- probably not something the PCs need, or at least, nothing they need a lot of, but something that all of the big organizations need. They're supposedly apolitical, but none of the political people really believes it.

And that's assuming they're not infiltrated by Doppelgangers or Elan.

I'll have to think about this.

 

[Lazarous]

Especially not with four guys that look at a cheesegrater and see a +2 equipment bonus to Intimidate and Gather Information checks.

Forgive the off-topic post, but this brought such a wonderful image of my pc's running around town looking for information while displaying a cheesegrater prominiently that I burst out laughing. Consider this idea stolen .