More from MotP

You know, Manual of the Planes is a wonderful book. Here's some ideas I
pulled from there for making up some cool wildspace hazards and encounters.
Done right, these can feel like a good "Next Gen" space weirdness episode.
**
Stuff from the Ethereal Plane fits in pretty nicely. Try throwing in an
Ether Cyclone if you want to whip them to another sphere far away. Or, a
Curtain of Vaporous colour. What if the only way to get to a sphere was
through the Ethereal Plane? What would Spelljamming across that, or another
plane, involve?

Gates to other planes can take any shape. A volcano floating in the void?
Where's that magma coming from? A whirlpool of water drifting along would
make a good planet, and if it were stocked with water elementals, or other
such creatures....

Stuff from the Astral Plane also mixes well with Spelljammer. Color pools,
and the psychic wind would make encounters that would throw the PCs for a
loop.

Here's some planet types based on the Quasi and Para-Elements.

Smoke: Same as an air world, but not breathable... clouds of it drifting
through wildspace would be a serious navigation hazard, and destroy air
envelopes.

Magma: Makes a good "sun" type for worlds of light-haters. A dim, angry red
sun in the sky would make for an oppressive, alien setting.

Ooze: Could either be a swamp world, or simple mud. The Ilithid homeworld
in my campaign will probably be oozy.

Ice: Pretty obvious. Just don't combine it with the cube shape and you
won't be lame.

Lightning: Not very hospitable, but makes a neat-o sun type as I said in an
earlier post. What other types of radiant materials besides fire is there
to make a sun out of?

Radiance: In my campaign, this is the most common primary type. In systems
where the sun is not a Radiance body, Orcs, Beholders, Ilithids, etc don't
suffer any penaltys for exposure to light. Fire bodies in my campaign are
dimmer than radiance bodies, more like red giants.

Minerals: A purely Mineral world would be paradise for Dwarves. Perhaps an
old legend of a world made of every kind of mine-able substance there is...

Steam: Venus? Or, if it was a "steam giant," what kind of creatures would
live there?

On the subject of my spreadsheet, thanks to all who wrote and asked for a
copy, I sent them out a few days ago. I hope they all work. If anyone else
would like a copy, I found I can save them as Excel 3.0, 4.0, DBF, DIF, and
SYLK.

I've had another idea for it though. Perhaps instead of rolling random
element types, it could roll random terrain types from the "Wilderness
Survival Guide." It would then be up to you to map it out...

Speaking of mapping, if anyone needs to whip up planets quickly, and has a
computer nearby to use while DMing, you can use two modules from After Dark
2.0 on a Macintosh quite effectively.

First, use the "Terraform" module to draw some random continents for you,
and do a screen grab (in System 7.x) with command-shift-3. Open the picture
with TeachText, SimpleText, or your favorite PICT supporting paint program,
and copy out what you want and paste it into the After Dark "Globe" module.


That's it! You now have a way-cool, new, planet to show them.


RAM

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