Re: Myth Drannor in space...

While reading the adventure seeds an idea struck me, inspired by
Disney´s “Treasure Planet”. It picks up the following original idea:

“… Mirror rose to dominate an empire that stretched across the entire
sphere.  Treasure ships laden with loot from dozens of colonies flowed into
Mirror's bulging coffers.  …“

It remains unclear to me whether Mirror dominated the sphere (“Mirrorspace”
in the following) military or economical. I assume the former alternative,
for when the domination was a military one and Mirror was the ruler of
several “tributary” planets (or  asteroids, worldlets and other habitats),
the idea works better than in a truly peaceful environment where resources
could be pooled to crush any threat against the spelljamming economy as it
arises.

THE LEGEND

Known throughout Mirrorspace, one group was feared in particular. They were
fast, deadly, seemingly invincible and had many names. Some called
them “Mirror- Men” (and thus, indirectly blaming the spheres capital for
collaborating with them), others “Gate- Raiders” or “Portal- Pirates”. They
had problably several dozend other nicknames, but these three stuck most
and survived till this day.

Mirrorspace experienced heavy spalljamming traffic, due to it´s well known
and rich capital. The rich and noble had a neverending hunger for new
luxuries – the rarer, the better. Wizards and clerics needed exotic spell-
components, gnomish inventors and dwarven forgers demanded strange
materials. Mirror was famed for it´s magic items, which were highly sought
after throughout the known spheres. Up to this day wizards sometimes  find
the famous arcane “stamp” of mirrors artificers (1) woven into arcane auras
when identifying old magic items found in wildspace or the phlogiston.

Another reason for the extensive spelljamming traffic was the fact that no
pirates endangered the ships. At least, officially none existed…

Every month or so, a new wreck was found adrift in the sphere. As a rule,
all evidences seemed to point at sudden attacks, catching the ships
completely unaware. None of the wrecks had helms or other means of moving
at spelljamming speed (like orbi, for example) left. While the atmospheres
of the ships were not poisoned and no clues of killing magic were found
(besides the common fireballs or lightning and other magicks that seemed to
have been used by the defenders), those ships never had any living being on
board that survived the catastrophe, not even plants.  Curiously, none of
the numerous dwarven citadells or elven ships in the spheres were ever
attacked (2). Every wreck was left totally lifeless and devoid of bodies,
but otherwise more or less intact, apart from the battlemarks by spells and
ship-to-ship combat. The majority had holes at the ships bottom, which lead
to the conclusion that the “Doom from Below” (another surviving nickname)
employed the strategy of ramming the ships from below.


THE TRUTH BEHIND THE LEGEND
(and more rumors…)

A group of Mirrors nobles founded a small but powerful spelljamming pirate
flotilla. The initial reason was boredoom: the founding members were all
spoiled sons (and a few daughters) of noble houses who could have
everything they wanted. Many young nobles became merchants and sailed the
stars, others became fighters and founded their own mercenaries groups. To
a handful, the only thing more exciting than becoming a pirate was becoming
a pirate Captain. They were the ones with whom the history of the Gate-
Raiders began.

They started slowly, only hiring the best crewmen money could buy. Not long
after their reputation began to grow (which was after a dozend successful
raids in one year), the whole sphere was looking for them. Decoy ships were
used to attrackt them, and finally one ship was caught. After the
interrogation (which involved arcane and psionic mind-reaming) the noble
families were embarrassed, for they had had no clue that their children
were involved in piracy, and used their influence to avert harm from them
and their names. They made the following proposal to the ruling council:
The open piracy will be stopped, and no more raids will occur. Instead the
ships will be used to pursue Mirrors not-so-well- known objectives, acting
to carry secret diplomats, sabotage teams, or sometimes “recovering” cargo,
which meant the same good old piracy for which the culprits were accused of.

The plan was well thought out – so well that after a probation period of
less than six months the counsil of Mirror supported the Gate- Raiders with
powerful magic items, increasing their efficiency. The founding members
were still in command of their ships, and now had the backing of the
government. After some hiccuping, the stream of coins (and tradebars,
jewels, magic…) started to flow anew, and after several years, the captains
started a new project: they pooled their considerable ressources, hired a
team of powerful mages and artificers (the latter mostly gnomes) who began
to construct what turned out to be the probably largest artificial gate in
modern history thoughout the known spheres. It was rumored that several
wishes were included in the construction, carefully worded to (among
others) “find ships carrying rich booty worth raiding”.

It was said that the gate could locate such ships on its own, and enable
the Gate- Raiders to come upon those ships totally unexpected. Most of the
time, the gate transported the pirates below its prey, somehow intercepting
those ships who were moving spelljamming speed, which resulted in a sudden,
unexpected stop. The next step was usually to use dimension door- or
teleport- spells to transport a small shock-troop beside the helmsmen- who
was killed at once. The resulting chaos was used to overwhelm the crew.
Surrendering enemies were imprisoned, got their mind psionically erased and
were sold in different spheres (or planes?) as slaves. Some powerful
induviduals were even employed by the pirates.

The gate was located on a remote hollow asteroid (3), far from the used
starlanes. It housed the new headquater of the group, which was again built
very slowly and carefully for not attracting attention from Mirrors
counsil. Again, the endeavor succeded. Every captain owned a controlling
device for the gate,which came in many forms: some where pendants or
spelljamming helms, one was said to be the ship of the captain itself,
another was a spell directly linked to the captain- who was key herself, in
a way.

During Mirrors fall, the Gate was used to evacuate the families of the
founding members and parts of the government (those parts who knew about
the existence of the group, that is) together most of their riches. Where
they were brought remains a mystery up to today. Throughout Mirrorspace,
several caches of riches were discovered that were worth a kings ransom. It
is assumed that at least two of them were hastily packed away during the
fall, never to be reclaimed again by their owners.

Unknown to the founding members, several of the mages that constructed the
gate created controlling devices of their own. They were not limited to the
inside of Mirrorspace but could go to every known location in the known
spheres - and to some (or all) outer planes as well, as a lich (probably a
former wizard who was involved in the project) told a bold seeker who found
the undead after searching for more than three decades for clues to a
certain artifact created in mirrorspace. Apart from the lich, no
other “master- gatekeys” resurfaced in the last five centuries, but in the
last three decades stories of “gate-raids” are told again…


FOOTNOTES

(1) We need a symbol for Mirror. The location of the sphere is up to
today well- known, and it stands to reason that some kind of symbol or flag
survived the centuries.

(2) The reason for this: the pirates wanted to prevent divination by
spells like “speak to dead”, “speak with plants” or “stone tell”. All dead
bodies were taken and destroyed (or sold to necromancers), the ships
stripped of any plants.  [I don´t know whether or not “speak with plants”
could be used to “ask” the ship´s wooden components. This of course would
put holes into the aforementioned theorie.]

(3) Alternative location: somewhere on the inside of Mirrorspace´s
chrystal shell. Ideas or objections?


tauster