Kronos's d20 Stuff
Thomas Bowman
First Post
Venus is Earth's twin, the only thing wrong with it is that its too close to the Sun and it spins too slowly, everything else is a result of those two facts, the greenhouse effect, its lack of oceans, its lack of a magnetic field, off all the planets in the Solar System, only Venus has a mass that approaches Earth, it has 0.9 times Earth's gravity, which means in D20 terms, you can pretty much ignore the gravity. I think Venus in the future might be a habitable planet, if we spin it up, it will have a magnetic field, if we shade it, its sulfuric acid clouds will rain out and be absorbed by the ground, We can react hydrogen imported from the outer solar system, with its mostly carbon-dioxide atmosphere to produce water and limestone.
Venus can one day be a lovely planet, fully deserving of its name, but before we terraform it in actuality, we can first terraform it in simulation. With a sophisticated enough simulation, we could make it seem indistinguishable from the real thing if we model the physics right. On the other side of the coin, what if we're living in a simulation right now? Imagine a multiverse of simulated worlds, one where magic works. Imagine another simulation where magic doesn't work, only pure physics laws are simulated, and oh by the way, it appears we are alone in the Universe within this simulation, it could explain the Fermi Paradox. The reason we can't detect extraterrestrial civilizations is because this simulation was built specifically for us, and so it has gone on for thousands of years. Our astronomers searched the heavens for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence and found nothing, and wondered why there was nothing. Was it because we aren't looking hard enough? Was it because all civilizations when they reach a certain level of advancement wipe themselves out. Or is the Universe we experience only a simulation created by something else, lets say a vast computer existing somewhere in the real universe that we know nothing about? What if their are other simulated universes, running side by side in parallel to our own. Universes with different laws, some with magic, and what if someone hacked into our universe and created a breach into another universe? Maybe a wizard of a god from the other universe created this breach into our own.
This is the goddess responsible for the breech, an avatar of the goddess anyway, the goddess herself is the living planet, she keeps the planet living, maintains the cloud cover to shield the planet's surface from the Sun, she is a lot of things, there are at least three other gods in this universe, Gaia, Apollo, and Ares, that makes two women and two men. Aphrodite is chaotic good and Ares is chaotic evil, these are functions of their portfolios. Gaia is a neutral goddess of nature. Apollo is a Sun god, he sees everything, and offers prophesies sometimes. Gaia is sometimes cruel and harsh, Aphrodite has a soft spot for mankind. Ares appreciates mankind as well, he likes to see men fight! There are other gods and goddesses who don't have planets, but these four are the major ones.
Thomas Bowman
First Post
I already have a thread, its called "Venus World" check it out. I've had a number of variations on this idea. My first was to rearrange the entire Solar System, and make every world habitable, someone convinced me that maybe this is an over reach, so now I am down to our Solar System with Venus and Mars as habitable. I am thinking of calling them "Legendary Venus" and "Legendary Mars" To distinguish them from the real Venus and real Mars of our Solar System. The legendary versions of these planets include swamps and dinosaurs for Venus, and canals for Mars. There is a legendary Earth as well, it is still in its middle ages, there have been a series of plagues on Legendary Earth, this is Gaia's doing to keep the ecology in balance. There have been a series of plagues in Europe which have prevented the scientific revolution from happening, and which have kept the Earth's population down, thus more in balance with nature and to the goddess Gaia's liking, I did say she was cruel. Aphrodite is more "human friendly" though a major portion of her portfolio is about nature as well. Aphrodite has a nickname for Gaia, she calls her "Grannie" because Gaia is her grandmother, there is a bit or rivalry between these two.
Ah, I'll have to look for that thread. Yeah, working on a whole solar system is a bit of a stretch to start with, 3 planets is manageable. Once they are complete, you can add in things like Mars' moons, maybe something with the asteroid belt.. then move onto Mercury or Jupiter (or at least its moons).
Thomas Bowman
First Post
To terraform all the planets requires about three stars, and building shells around the gas giants so they have surfaces to terraform. Basically I made Mercury a moon of Venus, Neptune became a Moon of Jupiter, and Uranus became a Moon of Saturn, this puts all the planets within the life zones of various stars. The stars I used were our Sun, Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B, and for extra credit I terraformed the new extrasolar planet recently found to be orbiting Proxima Centauri, known as Alpha Centauri b and named it Minerva. Our inner Solar System was transferred to Alpha Centauri A, as that is a star just like our Sun only brighter, so thus has a wider lifezone that I can fit Venus, Earth, and Mars comfortably into while preserving their spacing from each other. Since Mercury is a Moon of Venus, that also is terraformed, and I terraformed the Earth's Moon as well.
The problem is there are some well-developed ideas for Venus and Mars through legends of antiquity, there is not the same for the other planets. The Solar System has to be completely rearranged and planets moved to different orbits around different stars to make this work.
Going back to just Venus and Mars requires less suspension of disbelief. Venus can stay in its orbit, it has 100% cloud cover now, and about as much light reaches Venus' surface as reaches the Earth's surface on a cloudy day. Most of the light gets reflected back into space by the cloud tops. The problem is, Venus has to be very hot to have such a cloud cover naturally.
To terraform Venus, we need to substitute water clouds for sulfuric acid clouds. The water clouds are just like over Earth, only some supernatural power has to arrange those clouds to completely surround Venus all the time, to reflect most of the light back into space, so the planet's surface does not absorb that light and reradiate it as heat which gets trapped in the atmosphere turning it into a super hothouse that it is now. I think water clouds are a great way to protect Venus from too much light, just got to prevent those clouds from parting, every day is overcast with clouds everywhere except on the summits of the highest mountains. Aphrodite has been turned into a weather goddess to accomplish this task, and since her lifeforce is bound up with the life of the planet, this is a form of self-preservation for her.
The problem is there are some well-developed ideas for Venus and Mars through legends of antiquity, there is not the same for the other planets. The Solar System has to be completely rearranged and planets moved to different orbits around different stars to make this work.
Going back to just Venus and Mars requires less suspension of disbelief. Venus can stay in its orbit, it has 100% cloud cover now, and about as much light reaches Venus' surface as reaches the Earth's surface on a cloudy day. Most of the light gets reflected back into space by the cloud tops. The problem is, Venus has to be very hot to have such a cloud cover naturally.
To terraform Venus, we need to substitute water clouds for sulfuric acid clouds. The water clouds are just like over Earth, only some supernatural power has to arrange those clouds to completely surround Venus all the time, to reflect most of the light back into space, so the planet's surface does not absorb that light and reradiate it as heat which gets trapped in the atmosphere turning it into a super hothouse that it is now. I think water clouds are a great way to protect Venus from too much light, just got to prevent those clouds from parting, every day is overcast with clouds everywhere except on the summits of the highest mountains. Aphrodite has been turned into a weather goddess to accomplish this task, and since her lifeforce is bound up with the life of the planet, this is a form of self-preservation for her.
Thomas Bowman
First Post
Naturally, I'd have to assume that Aphrodite would be interested in visitors from another world, since she opened the gate to her world that brought them here. The only question I'd have is how they would interact. I don't want her getting too involved of course. She has a Crystal palace on the summit of the tallest mountain, Mount Maxwell on the continent of Ishtar. When the visitors of our Earth circa 2078 AD get sucked through the gate, they find themselves in the vicinity of this mountain, they are in an airship that looks like this:
It enters the atmosphere of Venus this way:
And it exits the atmosphere of Venus this way:
Here is a size comparison chart:
This is the Mothership that awaits to take the astronauts back to Earth at the end of the Mission:
The rocket on the underside of the airship only gets them into a low orbit around Venus, and the real Venus, not the Legendary Venus.
This is the underside of the airship and also the place where the astronauts are supposed to live while they are exploring Venus, it is very cramped quarters, I believe the crew numbers two.
These are the objectives of the Havoc mission.
and this is what the crew cabin looks like from the inside.
Naturally they are not expecting to discover a gateway to a parallel universe, when this happens they are totally unprepared. they end up closer to the ground. The first thing they have to deal with is the balloon does not have as much lift in an atmosphere composed of nitrogen and oxygen as one made mostly of carbon dioxide. They are going to have to land it immediately, the mountain peak with the crystal palace is the closest place they can land at. The gondola becomes damaged when it hits the ground, the balloon is ruptured. The astronauts climb out of the gondala finding themselves on the side of a huge peak, it is cold, the Sun is bright, so the put on their goggles and ascent to the Crystal palace at the top, as the ascend, it becomes warmer, which might have something to do with the fact that this mountain is an active volcano. The two astronauts come to the front door of the crystal palace, the push on the door and it opens, they enter a hall of mirrors, and pass a hall of various Greek gods and goddesses with inscriptions denoting their names in Greek. There is a table with food on it, the astronauts find a kitchen next to the dining hall, further exploration reveals some bedrooms, the astronauts look around for their host, yet she doesn't reveal herself. A bit later the astronauts return to their ship, they get their radio working again and are able to establish intermittent contact with the mothership through the gate. Hauling the radio up to the crystal palace, they inform Mission Control of their current situation. Aphrodite watches her "guests" without revealing herself, she wants to find out as much about them as she can before making direct contact with them. She brought them here, they have technology she hasn't seen before, she feels that her world could use it, especially considering developments now going on Legendary Mars.
It enters the atmosphere of Venus this way:
And it exits the atmosphere of Venus this way:
Here is a size comparison chart:
This is the Mothership that awaits to take the astronauts back to Earth at the end of the Mission:
The rocket on the underside of the airship only gets them into a low orbit around Venus, and the real Venus, not the Legendary Venus.
This is the underside of the airship and also the place where the astronauts are supposed to live while they are exploring Venus, it is very cramped quarters, I believe the crew numbers two.
These are the objectives of the Havoc mission.
and this is what the crew cabin looks like from the inside.
Naturally they are not expecting to discover a gateway to a parallel universe, when this happens they are totally unprepared. they end up closer to the ground. The first thing they have to deal with is the balloon does not have as much lift in an atmosphere composed of nitrogen and oxygen as one made mostly of carbon dioxide. They are going to have to land it immediately, the mountain peak with the crystal palace is the closest place they can land at. The gondola becomes damaged when it hits the ground, the balloon is ruptured. The astronauts climb out of the gondala finding themselves on the side of a huge peak, it is cold, the Sun is bright, so the put on their goggles and ascent to the Crystal palace at the top, as the ascend, it becomes warmer, which might have something to do with the fact that this mountain is an active volcano. The two astronauts come to the front door of the crystal palace, the push on the door and it opens, they enter a hall of mirrors, and pass a hall of various Greek gods and goddesses with inscriptions denoting their names in Greek. There is a table with food on it, the astronauts find a kitchen next to the dining hall, further exploration reveals some bedrooms, the astronauts look around for their host, yet she doesn't reveal herself. A bit later the astronauts return to their ship, they get their radio working again and are able to establish intermittent contact with the mothership through the gate. Hauling the radio up to the crystal palace, they inform Mission Control of their current situation. Aphrodite watches her "guests" without revealing herself, she wants to find out as much about them as she can before making direct contact with them. She brought them here, they have technology she hasn't seen before, she feels that her world could use it, especially considering developments now going on Legendary Mars.
If you don't want to have Aphrodite interact directly with the players, you can use emissaries. Such as humans who've lived on Venus, maybe have them slightly empowered with extra abilities. Occasionally have Aphrodite speak directly, cryptically, through such emissaries once in awhile.
Thomas Bowman
First Post
That's an idea. Well basically we're dealing with two astronauts in a crashed airship, which was never designed to land so it has no landing gear. Aphrodite knows the world they come from has no magic, it has technology instead, Mars is also a high tech planet, and Aphrodite has had a falling out with her one time boyfriend, who it seems may be bent on conquering the Solar System. The Earth in this parallel universe is technologically backwards, Gaia spends a lot of her time in a deep slumber, as the Earth required very little maintenance, Venus on the other hand, is a constant draw on Aphrodite's power, she has to maintain the constant cloud cover, to keep Venus from becoming a super-hot house due to its closer distance from the Sun, she has had a little energy left over to open up this extra-planar gate, but the one thing her world lacks is a technological base, but she has discovered that the Earth in the Universe next door has such a technological base.
After building a base on the Moon, and sending humans to Mars, the Earth has finally gotten around to sending humans to Venus' upper atmosphere, which is the only place on this planet that they can survive. The original mission of the 2 man crew was to investigate meteorological phenomena and to control robots on the ground from an airship, they weren't expecting to get sucked into an extraplanar vortex, once they did, they lost contact with Mission Control, the mothership was left in orbit around the planet, through that they relayed back to Houston what happened, but it will be at least another year before they can mount a rescue mission. The airship was damaged in the crash, and the astronauts lack the means to repair it, at least not without help. Aphrodite basically lets them wander around her prime material home, while remaining invisible so she can observe them, and she feels that maybe these two aren't ready to deal with a goddess just yet, so she holds back for a time. The astronauts eventually climb down from the mountain after they discover some mountaineering equipment in Aphrodite's residence, and they stumble upon a village, and perhaps get themselves in trouble.
That is the start, eventually NASA sends another mission to the planet, this time they send a ship designed to land, land on the peak, and set up a base at the crystal palace, chemical analysis determines that its made out of diamond. At this time agents of Ares set their plan into motion, ships from Mars arrive, and troops are deployed, the locals put up a fight and a war begins. Troops arrive from Earth, and a series of battles begin, after all, there are three habitable planets in this Solar System, and the Earth is looking to set up colonies, and Mars is considered a military threat.
That is how I envision the campaign developing.
After building a base on the Moon, and sending humans to Mars, the Earth has finally gotten around to sending humans to Venus' upper atmosphere, which is the only place on this planet that they can survive. The original mission of the 2 man crew was to investigate meteorological phenomena and to control robots on the ground from an airship, they weren't expecting to get sucked into an extraplanar vortex, once they did, they lost contact with Mission Control, the mothership was left in orbit around the planet, through that they relayed back to Houston what happened, but it will be at least another year before they can mount a rescue mission. The airship was damaged in the crash, and the astronauts lack the means to repair it, at least not without help. Aphrodite basically lets them wander around her prime material home, while remaining invisible so she can observe them, and she feels that maybe these two aren't ready to deal with a goddess just yet, so she holds back for a time. The astronauts eventually climb down from the mountain after they discover some mountaineering equipment in Aphrodite's residence, and they stumble upon a village, and perhaps get themselves in trouble.
That is the start, eventually NASA sends another mission to the planet, this time they send a ship designed to land, land on the peak, and set up a base at the crystal palace, chemical analysis determines that its made out of diamond. At this time agents of Ares set their plan into motion, ships from Mars arrive, and troops are deployed, the locals put up a fight and a war begins. Troops arrive from Earth, and a series of battles begin, after all, there are three habitable planets in this Solar System, and the Earth is looking to set up colonies, and Mars is considered a military threat.
That is how I envision the campaign developing.
