Major minor details

[alsih2o]

In my world the sun is a God. He is a messenger to the two moons, who are his sisters. Since he is a messenger or fetch boy to them he is always going back and forth. He rises in the north and goes south on even days and rises in the south going north on odd days.

What major minor details make your world different?

 

[Ibram]

Lets see...

Halflings are the decendents of Dwarves who were forced to flee to the lowlands when the Dwarven Kingdoms in the Grey Beard Mountains were destroyed by the High Lord of the Red.

Gnomes are the decendents of exiled Dwarves who abandoned their traditions to practice Sorcery.

Elves, Orc, Dwarves, and Humans were brought to the world by a now extinct race now known only as the "Golden Ones". All three were engineered by the Golden Ones to fufull a specific purpose (Elves were artists and assistants, Dwarves were workers and builders, Orcs were warriors) with Humans engineered to fufuill all those roles.

Elves and Dwarves are dying because the Golden Ones over engineered them, making their genome to rigid. Humans are safe because they were the last ones created, and buy that point much of the Golden Ones knowledge had been lost).

Orcs are the decendents of a nearly extinct race that once travled the stars, they were saved from extinction by vowing to become warriors for the Golden Ones. Their heritage has long since been lost.

Hobgoblins are also decendents of that race, with bugbears and goblins being offshoots of the Hobgoblin race.

 

[Crothian]

Orcs as far as anyone is concerned are extinct although in reality there are a few left but they are protected by the druids being an endangered species.

The moon has five phases: Full, Gibbous, Half, Crescent, and New. It takes thirty days for the moon to complete a cycle. Many cultures believe that the phases of the moon affect the behavior of everything. The New moon is said to have a calming effect. During this time creatures are more docile. This is the exact opposite during the Full Moon. Under a Full Moon weird things are said to happen. Creatures are also known to act strange. The new moon appears on the first of every month. The waxing crescent appears at the seventh, the half moon on the thirteenth, the three quarters on the nineteenth, and the full moon on the twenty-fifth. The moon then wanes very fast. The twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh it is gibbous, the twenty-eighth it is half, the twenty-ninth and thirtieth it is crescent. During the equinoxes the moon is always half full, waxing in the spring and waning in the fall. For both days of the summer solstice the moon is full. The moon and the sky are always completely dark during the winter solstice.

 

[Piratecat]

Clay, that's too cool. And I'm embarrassed that I'm totally blanking for my own world.

 

[Sialia]

Well, P'cat, there is the little matter of the sun going around Spira.


At least, according to Cadrienne's astrology studies.

I believe there was a second moon as well--the moon of Faerie, which is generally not visible because of its position, but whose course can be plotted by calculating the gravitational pull.

I think Cadrienne had a gift from the queen of faerie for drawing that for her, oncet 'pon time.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Months of 42 days, set by lunar cycle of 21 days

The fact that the god of justice is said to be missing a hand on one continent and missing an eye on the other.

The holiday for the god of trade is a The Sale of Iutar where everything is 15% off ! Players look forward to it for weeks, stocking up on magic items, made and found, and on the day frantically scour markets for the best stuff.

The holiday for the god of war is a somber remberance of fallen commrades

 

[Mouseferatu]

In my world the sun is a God. He is a messenger to the two moons, who are his sisters. Since he is a messenger or fetch boy to them he is always going back and forth. He rises in the north and goes south on even days and rises in the south going north on odd days.

What major minor details make your world different?

Man, my players would hate you.

My longest-running homebrew world, Selion, is roughly oval in shape (not unlike an egg), rather than spherical. It both rotates and revolves on a north/south axis. The sun rises in the north and sets in the south. There are east and west magnetic poles.

My players hated that aspect. They loved the campaigns I ran there (not counting the last, which I'll be the first to admit was so-so), but many of them could never get past that. My own take? This world was created by a pantheon of gods. It doesn't have to follow real-world developmental rules. Sometimes, I like designing a world that feels as real as possible. Sometimes, I don't. Most of the laws of physics in Selion matched the real world, and those that didn't were still consistant; I just refused to be bound by science with its basic structure, since there's no reason the gods would be so.

Incidentally, a vastly altered version of Selion became the setting of one of my yet-unpublished novels. It was spherical, rather than egg-shaped; some things feel more appropriate to RPGs than to novels. Sun still rose in the north and set in the south, though.

 

[Gez]

The campaign world, Edhel, was once known as Erdelane. In mythical times, it was sundered, cleft in two parts, which are now known as Edhel and Rhane. The silent 'h' in the names are subtle reminders of the hollow nature of both half-worlds.

Anyway, the world and its moon are twin planets, of equal size. Both have verdant continents, blue oceans, and white clouds.

As a result, the moon is much larger in the sky than in the real world. Tides are more impressive as well. Moonlight is blueish rather than silvery.

The Ethereal plane is replaced by several ethereal layers, one being close to the material plane, and then each other being farther and farther.

Each planet has its own ethereal layers. The Astral plane has one ethereal layer as well.

While a planet's material aspect is finite in size, its ethereal layers aren't. They are infinite and definitely non-euclidian. While every point in the material plane has a corresponding point in the closest Ethereal layer, the reverse is not true.

There are no outer planes. Instead, there are ethereal realms.

The gods worshipped by surface races live on the moon. As a result, clerics of all religion watch the moon at night, looking at the divine cities through telescopes. The day is for mortal activities (like mundane work) and the night for religious activities (like prayers).

There are no inner planes. They are, on the other hand, primordial dimensions. When you are in the dimension of fire, you do not move to another plane. Instead, you replace your perceptions of the three physical dimensions of space (you know, heigth, depth, width...) by three metaphysical dimensions of fire.
In effect, you see only one subset of matter and energy. In a way, it's like a 2D sectional view of a 3D object; except it's a 3D sectional view of a nD universe.
The geography of the dimension of fire does not mimick that of the material plane, since they do not use the same spacial "coordinate system." You can find one (or more) primordial plane for any energy or matter you can conceive, you just need to find three proper dimensions. That way, you can have a plane of vapor, or of sound, or of ligthning... You can even have a plane for a color, which will be made only of all things in the universe that are of that color.

Divine magic is separated into theurgy (god-based) and tellury (nature-based).

Everything in the universe is sustained by an energy known as leï. This leï exists in at least four different known phases. Depending on which phase it is in, leï is positive energy, negative energy, magical energy (the one you use, notably, to cast spells), or raw energy (a.k.a. force effect). So, while it is easier to heal someone by infusing him with more positive leï, it is also possible to "transmute" his negative energy into positive one, forcing part of his leï to change phases.
Also, it's the reason arcane and psionic spellcasters tend to have weak HD. They transmute their own life energy into spell slots.

 

[diaglo]

i placed a ring around Uranus.

 

[Umbran]

My longest-running homebrew world, Selion, is roughly oval in shape (not unlike an egg), rather than spherical. It both rotates and revolves on a north/south axis. The sun rises in the north and sets in the south. There are east and west magnetic poles.

Okay, I'm trying to get a picture here about what is happening.

The planet is egg-shaped. It rotates around an axis. Is the axis of rotation the egg's long axis?

The planet also revolves around it's sun. As it moves around the sun, is it's axis of rotation (mostly) perpendicular to it's motion? Mostly parallel?