What is a star?

[TwinBahamut]

In my own pet cosmology, the stars are the shining gemstones that form the powerful boundary which protects the order of the Cosmos from the encroachment of the Chaos Beyond. Each star is protected by its own dragon, and they are all ruled by Bahamut the Zodiac Lord, who controls the destiny written in the heavens.

"Shooting stars" are understood by the scholars of the world to not be actual stars, but are in fact the broken remnants of dead planets falling to the world below. The scattered asteroids and shattered worlds that wander the Cosmos are ruled by Tiamat the Void Empress, and their hidden movements are considered to be potent omens of her terrible will.

Meanwhile, the world people live upon is considered to be just one of the 27 inhabited planets that dwell in the vast sea of darkness between the Shining Sun of Creation and the Twilight Sun of Destruction, the two lands created at the beginning of time where the gods reside.

Real world physics? That can be bent to more imaginary ends...

Edit: To perhaps explain a bit further... The Cosmos is a massive ellipsoid the size of a solar system, with the two suns (one bright, the other dark) at its loci. There are 27 planets (each inhabited), and large quantities of other material floating in space. A massive current of energy flows from the Shining Sun to the Twilight Sun, and each planet passes through this current once each year (at the beginning of Spring, typically a period of holy days where the year's calendar begins). The stars rest in the outer edges of the sphere (a lot like our solar system's Kuiper Belt and scattered disc) and beyond that is the Elemental Chaos (it can be presumed the current Cosmos was at one point just another part of the Elemental Chaos). Each star is small enough to be handled by humans (if you can get it away from its Star Dragon), but incredibly bright and magical.

 

[Shemeska]

Nice idea.

That's the explanation for stars in Golarion's cosmology.

It's also a conveniant way to perhaps explain why it pretty much nukes vampires

 

[Rechan]

Stars = The Language of Fate. The past and the future is written in the heavens, there to be decoded.

Stars are the remnants of a dead god.

Stars are imprisoned entities, that can see the world from their far off prison.

Stars are other planes. Instead of being "Out There", in terms of distance, they merely represent the different planes. If you're in one plane and you look up, you can see the other stars, including the star that represents where you were.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I have used some various different ones:

-Stars are well, Stars. They are the same as they are in our world.

-They are a illusion crafted by the God-Machine upon the outer-most layer of the Artificial World. The Stars however have not changed in thousands of years for they are simply a snap-shot of the stars that once shown above a world that no longer exists.

-Stars are actually the various Dominions scattered about the Astral Sea. All other properties that make up the night sky are a distant image of something in the Astral Sea.

-Stars are the souls that have descended to the after-life, they now are beacons of light shining bright till all those that were close to them have followed their beacon and joined them in the after-life.

 

[Relique du Madde]

Stars are stars. The planes are infinate so is space. To travel to another world you need a spell jammer or a space ship. That is assuming you don't take a short cut through the planes and then are lucky enough to find a gate key to another planet.

That is ignoring the very fact that everyone believes they are crystals which holds a portion of the souls of the dead.

 

[Nyeshet]

The Ancient Greeks believed that initially the sky was utterly dark. Most stars were placed in the sky by deities - eternal fires forming patterns that represented things they wished to be remembered (rather akin to a burial mound or monument). However, I believe they had a different interpretation for the starts of the zodiac (although I may be wrong in this).

But once you determine what stars are consider this: to the ancient greeks the only real difference between a star and a planet was that a planet was not fixed in its position in the sky. Indeed, as I recall, the term they used for planet came from a word meaning "messenger."

Also, consider that the constellations - and the planets that move through them - were long used by astrologers to determine the will of the gods and the fates of various people, places, and events.

Don't forget comets, known to some ancients as 'bearded stars'. They were viewed as stars that - for unknown reasons - were no longer affixed. Something so against the natural order was seen as potentially calamitous - thus the often negative reputation such had for much of history.


As for myself, I've considered using the crystal sphere idea. This would state that at the outer edges of the solar system (or geo system, depending on your setting) there exists a 'solid' crystal wall, into which are embedded numerous eternal fires - the stars.

Another idea is to use something akin to real world physics - ie: the stars are huge spheres of some type of fiery element, of which the sun is the nearest.

 

[Storminator]

= Shemeska] Originally Posted by Shemeska View Post
Stars are the end result of permanently open portals to Positive Energy plane.

...which makes black holes permanently open portals to the Negative Energy plane.

Nice idea.

There is no Anode Plane, nor a Cathode Plane in my cosmology!

PS

 

[Tigerbunny]

I needed to answer this question for a character background, and what I came up with is that the vast majority of stars are catatonic gods, the relics of a war in the heavens. Every so often one will recover and wake up, but most are functionally dead or at best insane. Some warlocks learn to tap into their sleeping minds and wrest power from them.

There are also the 13 True Stars, the first sentient beings in the universe, who are chained to the Wall at the rim of the universe to ward off Those Outside.

 

[Aristotle]

I have a homebrew, which I've yet to actually run, where the world remains round (although it is actually the lifeless body of the first god/entity encrusted with elemental matter) and orbits the sun. The sun is little more than a portal to the elemental chaos; from which all creation sprang. Stars are souls. There is a large, but finite, number of souls that continually take on life, die, and return to the heavens to await their next cycle of life. That concept is central to the rest of the setting...

Shifters are reincarnations that have retained echoes of former bestial incarnations. Karma is thought to dictate both how long your soul waits to return and what forms it can take when it returns. And mystics read the stars and gain insight from their patterns.

 

[Atomo]

In my homebrew campaign, when the gods battled the primordials, they separated the Astral Sea from the Elemental Chaos... The Sun, the Moon and each one of the planets is a dominion of a good in the sky.

Stars are "candles" lighted to remember the multitude of ancient gods that perished in the battle against the primordials.

The "nine traitor gods" (the archdevils) are the gods that stood at the side of the primordials on the battle. The gods jailed them in the Nine Hells and erased their celestial representation for no mortal venerate them again just looking at the night sky.

Comets are bad omens because they subvert the celestial order... The most accepted theological theory is that comets are "emissaries" of Erebus, the king of primordials and Lord of Chaos. Erebus is chained inside the Earth by the gods... When he attempts to free himself and break the chains, the earth moves with his strength... so, a earthquake.