My corner of the universe. Shield Space 1 of many

I'll send a few emails to keep the size down.  I have an intro as I do
things somewhat differently in my universe. I am cutting and pasting from
Word, so all the formatting is being lost. I'll try to tidy it up to make it
more readable

As follows:

The Universe(s)?
The universe you find yourself in is a vast place with its borders (if any)
yet to be found.  Unlike what you would expect, this universe is filled with
a gas-like substance called commonly referred to as Phlogiston.  There are
currents and eddies much like an ocean.  This gas is luminescent and glows
with many different colours, and is referred to as the Rainbow Ocean and
floating in this ocean are the Crystal Spheres.  The ambient temperature
fluctuates between 1 and -1 for the most part.

Travel between the Crystal Spheres is mostly accomplished via SpellJammers,
magically powered ships that can travel within the phlogiston.  Crystal
Spheres seem to cause the formation of currents from one sphere to the other
and SpellJammers can use these currents to navigate from sphere to sphere in
relative safety.  Currents flow in one direction and tend to form clusters
where a ship must complete a circuit to get back to its original sphere.
This can be as simple as A to B to C then back to A or may require a much
more complex route.  Many spheres have multiple currents associated to them
and of these, only a fraction has been discovered (at least by Humans).

Crystal Spheres are huge inclosing entire solar systems, as such its very
easy to miss just about anything on the surface of a sphere.  The phlogiston
limits vision to the point where by the time you can see a sphere wall its
surface appears perfectly flat and only a section of about 100 miles across
is visible.  There is no danger of slamming into a Crystal Sphere, as its
mass will drop any ship to tactical speed at about 100 miles from it (or
about one hour away).

Navigation is as much art as skill; currents look almost exactly alike in
their swirling colours and layers though different to the experienced eye.
Travel time is usually measured in days or weeks, as there are no reference
points to measure speed.  One can travel the phlogiston without using the
currents but this tends to be extremely dangerous as the chances of getting
lost are quite high.



Crystal Spheres
Crystal Spheres house what you would refer to as solar systems and the size
of these spheres are determined by the size of the planetary system inside
(or vice versa?).  These spheres consist of a dark unbreakable material that
does not generate a gravity field.  The illusion of stars in the night sky
are manifested in different ways if at all in different spheres.
There are a number of ways to get in or out of Crystal Spheres and different
Spheres may allow all or none of these methods to work.
1)      Some can be bypassed with a dimension door spell.  The traveller
blinks from one side to the other.
2)      A phase door spell or magical device that duplicates that spell
allows a portion of the shell to become         immaterial so a ship can
pass through.
3)      Naturally-occurring portals pierce the shell in various locations at
random spots.
4)      Some creatures are able to open portals.
Note: One cannot teleport through most Crystal Spheres.

Aside from suns, planets, and whatnot, most Crystal Spheres are also filled
with some sort of "gas" referred to as Ether.  Ether may well not be gas,
perhaps plasma, perhaps something else.  It is non-reactive chemically,
extremely thin and has no real effect on vision or movement.
Ether does not or cannot exist within a gravity well, (up to six times the
radius of a planetary body or within the air envelope of a ship or object.)

 Ether seems to transmit or control temperature within a Sphere where it
exists, thus the temperature of surrounding space is not necessarily the
same as a planet.  A planet could be of a higher or lower temperature
depending on a number of factors.  Though thin, Ether does create some drag
or resistance to movement.  The effects are immeasurable at low speeds but
increase exponentially, thus only slow-moving objects can "drift" through
space with no loss of speed.  (Slow being defined as Tactical speed 1 or 100
Miles per hour or less)  This does not seem to be an effect of friction, as
there seems to be no correlation between cross section of a ship and
required power to move at a given speed and streamlining has no effect on an
object's movement as well.  Mass does play a part of this drag phenomenon
however, thus small vessels can go substantially faster than big ones given
the same type of SpellJammer helm as mass vs. power plays a major part of
sustainable speed.

In addition, Ether reacts with the passage of any powered body in space by
creating a visible wake behind a ship that can last for hours.  This wake is
similar to the white streaks sometimes produced by jets and dissipates in
the same manner.  The faster the speed, the bigger and brighter the wake,
all ships at SpellJamming speeds produce this wake as a ship at SpellJamming
speeds needs to be under constant thrust to maintain its given speed.

Ether, just like a planetary air envelope, can manifest events referred to
as weather.  Examples include areas where the Ether is of a substantially
higher concentration creating true drag effects in these localized regions
affecting a ships speed and is referred to as a high-pressure system.

Currents can exist and disturbances referred to as Ether storms.  Ether
storms can be extremely large and powerful sometimes lasting for weeks or
even years and have been known to create vortices that are strong enough to
trap some ships and collect enough assorted mass to prevent strategic
SpellJamming speeds.

 This is a rare event and usually takes a long time to build up, allowing
ample time to leave the area.  These weather effects seem to be reduced by
the presence of mass and the more mass in a given area, the less chance of
Ether phenomenon. As well, enough collected mass will calm or even subdue
such a storm.  Planetary regions and asteroid fields do not experience any
of these effects at all.


Gravity works differently as it only exerts an influence for a distance of
up to six times the radius of a planetary body.  Nothing beyond that point
will be pulled down unless it drifts or moves into this limit.  Within this
limit though, Gravity works just as you know it.  Moreover, things that fall
too fast will toast quite nicely coming through an atmosphere.  Gravity
manifests itself as a binary fixed value.  All gravity fields are exactly
the same force (10 meters per second squared), referred to as 1G.  The only
exceptions are suns that seem to all have 10G fields, thus a rock 100 feet
across or a planet 10,000 miles across both manifest the same gravity.  A
body exerting a 1 G field will exert this exact value at the surface of the
body or at its edge of effect with no drop off due to distance except at the
end of its effect where the field simply stops.  There is no transition,
There is a 1 (or 10) G field or not.

Light is not as fast as in our universe with photons having true mass
(though slight) moving at about 30,000 KPS or 1/10 normal if you will.  This
works out to 67 million miles per hour.  For comparison, SpellJammer's move
at about one million miles per hour at strategic speeds.

This may be one of the reasons why chemical reactions, electrical
generation, explosions, gunpowder, etc work less than perfectly here -
because the photon has mass, and it takes energy to create this mass
(E=MC2), hence the energy available as directive force (i.e.: blast force)
is less.

There are "other" energies or forces that can be controlled and harnessed
referred to as magic.  There are different kinds and types of magic
available expressed as the different schools of magic use.

Another force to be reckoned with are Gods.  Gods in this Universe are
responsive to worship and respond directly or through their chosen agents
usually referred to as Priests or Clerics.  Just about all sentient beings
worship or follow some sort of a God.  As a god's presence and power can be
felt by its followers, there is no need of blind faith for the most part.

A God's power can only manifest in Crystal Spheres where it has a body of
worshipers and at least one temple is established.  This can even be a
Church in a ship with 100 or so followers aboard, ensuring that the
followers will never stray from the attention of their god, or its power.
God's rarely necessitate a choice between good and evil though often the
traits referred to as Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic play a large part of a
god's makeup and by extension that of its followers. So, if a God is Lawful
whatever, most if not all of its followers will be Lawful whatever.



Your History: (Yes, this was done about 5 years ago, I've even seen the
concept in a book about time travel since then..)

Humans came to Shield from Earth about 80 years ago in the Earth year 2001
in what is referred to as the Event.  A large dome of light and energy
appeared over the Pacific Ocean.  This energy dome lasted for about 12 hours
and was at least 100 miles across.  When the dome faded from view all that
had been inside was now on Shield.  A few large ships had been in the dome's
area of effect, these were Voyager of the Seas with 5000 people on board,
Wind Surf with 475 people on board, an AOE 6 Supply Fast Combat Support Ship
with 650 People on board, the Coastguard sailing cutter Eagle with 212
people on board.  As well, a number of small pleasure and fishing boats were
taken, as was one small freighter.  As a point of interest the Voyager of
the Seas and Wind Surf still exist today.  Thus, it came to be that just
over 6700 people found themselves on Shield.

 This proved to be a hard fact to accept, some committed suicide and others
committed mindless acts of violence.  The number of humans went down to
about 6500 before even encountering any of the inhabitants of this world.
And it did not take long to be noticed.

As the new inhabitants took in their surroundings and began to explore,
factions began to form as to what to do. Most were persuaded to bide their
time and let the military personnel do a thorough exploration.  The
reasoning was good, there was a very large reserve of fuel for the ships and
helicopters, The Eagle; a three masted 300 foot long sailing ship was a
great benefit, as was the Wind Surf once it had been refitted to work
without computer support as all but basic electronic devices had ceased to
function.  Food did not seem to be a problem; aside from the stores of food
among the ships, fishing proved to be quite good and the lake turned out to
be clean fresh water.

 However, one group decided that they were going to start their own colony,
as God must have put them here for that very reason, and they would forsake
technology.  This group did not even take that much with them and set up a
colony at the edge of the jungle.  As the weeks went by and nothing seemed
to go wrong the rest of the humans moved along.  Land, water, game, food
were all for the taking.

  Life was good, thus when the creatures came; they swept through the
settlement with total surprise and almost no resistance.  These creatures
came to be called Goblins, short green vile humanoids that had no problem
with killing and enslaving Humans.  The Goblins had been watching for weeks,
amazed at the lack of defence, weapons and skills.  The Goblins always made
sure there were food and supplies to be found close to the colony as the
Goblins did not want the Humans to find out just what was waiting for them
in the jungle.  The Goblins waited, and when the rest of the Human ships and
metal flying beasts left, the Goblins struck.

About 200 people got killed and the rest with a few exceptions were brought
back to Goblin lands as slaves.  The Goblins held nothing but contempt for
Humans.  As they saw Humans as weak and foolish, this was a mistake.  The
few Humans that did escape managed to make their way down the coast and
catch up with the rest of the "fleet". Though weeks had gone by, a scouting
force had no trouble backtracking towards the Goblin lands in the jungle as
the Goblins had made no effort to hide what was a very obvious trail.  After
some observation, it was decided that there would be a rescue attempt. This
went quite well; surprise, M-16s, flame-throwers and explosives vs. spears
and bows made the engagement very one-sided, about 200 people were
recovered, the rest having been killed and eaten.

 This freaked out the defacto Human leaders and it was decided to try to
exterminate these creatures.  As the Goblins' lair was underground and quite
large, all the exits that could be found were sealed except two.  Diesel
fuel was poured down one entrance and poison gas down the other. The
firestorm created a suction that drew the gas through the entire complex.
Most Goblins died except for a few that were able to make it to the exits
that had been missed.

Unfortunately, there was yet another humanoid race to deal with; these came
to be called Drow.  The Drow were shocked.  An entire Goblin clan of tens of
thousands had been wiped out in a day!  Not that they gave a damn about the
Goblins, but that this new upstart race had this kind of power was
unacceptable.  The Drow decided that Humans must be exterminated.  By the
time that decision had been reached however, a third race had stepped out
from the shadows, Gnomes.

The Gnomes were delighted not only by the destruction of the largest Goblin
lair known but by the ships and technology displayed.  After the Gnomes
found out how we came to be on Shield, they gave us the perfect place to
settle, Rockport.  With a decent expanse of level, fertile soil, and forest
leading to a large natural cavern, Rockport was called home.  The Gnomes had
been working this cavern to be used as a new city and much of the work to
level the ground and remove dangerous and loose rock on the cavern walls had
already been done.  The Gnomes also started the construction of docks for us
and about 2,000 Gnome troops showed up to finish what we had started.  They
wanted to destroy all the Goblins they could and knew where many of their
lairs were.  With a little help from us in the poison gas and explosive
department all known lairs were destroyed in a matter of weeks.  The Gnomes
also brought in a lot of building materials and other supplies and helped a
great deal, building and tunnelling with great skill and speed.  They also
shared almost all of their knowledge with us except in four areas.

 Humans had not yet clued into the fact that gods are real and that magic
exists.  It had not occurred to the Gnomes that Humans had no clue about
magic, as they thought that much of our technology was derived from magic.
As we had not shared information about our god, they thought that we were
just private about that aspect of our culture.

 The last bit of information regarded the Drow.  We had disrupted the
balance of power; by destroying the Goblins that had been the puppets of the
Drow, we had weakened the Drow's position.  The Gnomes were worried about
how the Drow were going to react to us but thought that we would be able to
handle it with all our "might" and there were a few thousand Gnome troops
charged with defending humans at all costs.

When the Drow hit, they hit hard.  The Drow were nothing like the Goblins,
they were smart, tough, well disciplined with good weapons and magic use.
They were not the push-over the Goblins were.  If it had not been for modern
weaponry, Humans would have been exterminated.  The real war lasted over a
year and all of the helicopters; the AOE6 supply ship and the Coastguard
cutter were lost.  We had rifles left but no ammo, no explosives etc. It had
been a very close thing and about half of humanity had been lost, down to
about 3300 people when the Drow were defeated.  The Gnomes had lost 12 times
that number and were still sending tens of thousands of troops into the huge
underground cavern system where the Drow came from.  The great Drow hunt, as
it came to be called, would last another 10 years.

The Gnomes did help enormously in the years that followed.  The fourth thing
that they had not shared was that we had fulfilled a prophecy.  A small
number of tall, wise powerful people would come to befriend the Gnomes and
this would be the start of the true Jihad.  The Gnomes had started to gear
up for a major war as soon as they saw us.  Their guilt and gratefulness
compelled them to help us as best they could, and in short order Rockport
truly became home.

The next ten years were spent building, learning, and exploring.  Rockport
was never more than a town, as the population remained low.  There was
enormous pressure on females to have as many babies as possible and they
were encouraged to have these children with different fathers.  The mix of
men and women was about 50/50 after the war and by AE10 the Human population
had reached about 3200 adults and around 4500 children.

As well, by AE (AE refers to the event where the humans were brought to
Shield) 10, magic had been discovered and many Humans had become
practitioners of this art.  The power of some gods had also started to
manifest itself through some people and groups started to coalesce among
these spiritual leaders.  This proved to be a great benefit as the healing
power of many "clerics" became quite helpful.

Things were going well, 11 years had passed with little trouble, and the
vast amount of help from the Gnomes, along with trading among some other
races such as the Kobolds, had forged a city.  A small city, but a safe,
heavily fortified, somewhat modern city.  Electricity was available and
goods could be manufactured as the AOE 6 machine shops had been salvaged and
set up in Rockport.  Gunpowder worked, but poorly and tended to have a shelf
life.  Our understanding of magic and the gods of this realm were also
coming together quite well.  There were indeed ways to get additional
information and wonders, by finding strange buildings and warrens with
strange creatures that seemed to enjoy killing for its own sake.  Many of
these sites came to be known as dungeons.

Then the Elves came in a SpellJammer.  Though demanding and arrogant, they
were a priceless source of knowledge, even telling of Humans in other
Spheres.  The fascination for Humans though was the ship the Elves came on,
a SpellJammer.  This ship could travel not only between planets but also
between stars!  However, the main component was the "Helm", a device that
could only be bought from the Arcane.  The Elves did do some trading with us
but would never sell us a helm and it seems never told anyone about us.  As
well, the Elves disapproved of our way of life and did not like the
industries that we were running.  Pollution is evil to an Elf and we were
far from the harmony of nature by their measure.

In AE 13, an Arcane ship found us (The makers of SpellJammer helms).  Though
the price was high, the Gnomes paid for a helm so humans could build a
SpellJammer of our own.  By AE 15, the first human SpellJammer ship was
built and christened the Nautilus.

As Humans visited a few crystal spheres, word spread that there was a Human
"homeland" It seems that Humans were a minor race with no roots and no home,
existing in the cites and lands of other races and in short order, tens of
thousands of Humans found their way to Shield.  Half-Elves also began to
immigrate to Shield as Elves have a great deal of contempt for their
half-blood brothers and as such Half-Elves were never able to exist within
Elven society and were never really accepted among other species, thus
Shield became a haven for Half-Elves.

The next 25 years was a time of explosive growth for Shield.  The population
jumped from around 8000 to about 500,000 in this time.  As the population
grew, the ability to support more and more industries allowed the
development of technologies that had been abandoned before.  Rockport became
a hub of commerce as Rockport could export just about anything it could
manufacture.  The city that had grown outside the cavern became known as
Freeport, and docking, warehousing, ship repair and construction were
established.  The fees collected from these endeavours and services made
Shield a very wealthy nation.

Around AE 40 the methane breathers were encountered and successfully
bargained with.  The methane breathers think differently than any other
race.  Communication had been impossible without using math as a common
language.  This turned out to be of enormous benefit to Shield.  Known by
many races, the methane breathers were feared by all, as their ships and
weapons just simply overwhelmed everybody else's including the Arcane.  The
methane breathers would simply take what they wanted from time to time with
no regard to anything else.  With Shield, they kind of learned the concept
of trade.  The methane breathers would leave their trade goods for ours.
Our goods consisted of food, pelts, art and such and their goods consisted
of potions, magic items, rare gems, and metals and the occasional Helm and
other SpellJammer devices.

These helms were priceless.  Able to move a ship faster with better
manoeuvrability and of a much larger mass than any other Spelljammer helm
known.  By AE 50 we had been given six such helms and had built six large
powerful war ships with them.  This proved to be a good thing as the tides
of war were coming to Shield.

The coming of the in-human wars brought conflict to man once again.  Though
Humanity tried to turn its back on this conflict between the Elves and the
Goblinoid races, both sides came to Shield.  The Orcs, attempting to capture
Rockport for their own, and the Elves demanding ships, troops, and
resources.  Though many Humans willingly joined forces with the Elves,
Shield as a nation did not.

This was not a war of black and white, good vs. evil.  The Goblinoid races
had legitimate grievances with the treatment they received from the Elves.
Things had been heating up for decades between the Elves and a number of
races that felt that the Elves were interfering in what was none of their
business.  The Elves, having appointed themselves the policy makers, and
police force of known space, often-dictated terms, and conditions totally
unfair to the Goblinoid races.

This of course had led to unrest and small groups fighting back as pirates
and terrorists, which in turn led to more oppression that led to open war.
The truth was that both sides had committed questionable acts against one
another and the leaders of Shield did not feel that they should enter a war
in which no side was right and of no benefit.

The Scro thought that Shield would be an easy target as we had so few ships.
What they failed to understand was the advantage that higher technology
brings.  Though we only had 6 capitol combat ships, the Orc fleet was
decimated.  Twenty out of 50 of the Orc's finest ships had been pounded into
junk before they could even engage what Shield called Starfleet.  Orcs (or
Scro) can be smart, they asked for a truce.

As the peace talks were progressing, a huge Dwarven citadel had entered
Shield space pursued by a Scro fleet.  The citadel ship had been badly
damaged and was now marooned in Shield space. As Dwarves were known to
Humans and had gotten along well with them in the past, the Government of
Shield offered them land if they wanted to stay, they stayed.  The
Government of Shield also made it a condition of the treaty that the Scro
and their allies would stop attacking the Dwarven holdings.

The Elves had won the war and had set up embargoes to many Goblin-kind
worlds preventing any SpellJammer technology access.  They resumed their
policy of imposing their will with even more rules.  This time, no one would
have the ability to stand up to Elven authority!  The Elves decided that no
one should be able to pose a threat again and started to dictate how many
war ships and standing troops any nation could have etc. Several worlds said
no and thus war was again raging through the Spheres.

  The Elves got a nasty surprise at Shield as the government of Shield
refused to surrender any ships or technology, the Elves decided to force the
issue and entered Shield Space with a large fleet consisting of over 200
ships.  Though we only had 10 capitol ships by this time, they were magical
and technological marvels.

 The Elves, arrogant and sure of their 20 to 1 ratio, just sought to
frighten us into submission, they got mauled instead!  The sheer firepower,
range and accuracy of the Human-designed weapons tore through the Elven
fleet.  Fully 20 Elven ships were destroyed before the Elves could even
react and ultimately only one Elvin ship was allowed to leave.

 This proved to be a huge boon as many of the Spelljammer helms were
salvaged from the wrecks of the once proud Elven armada.  As word spread,
more worlds revolted, for the Elves had lost much of their fleet in the
In-human wars and now had lost an entire fleet at Shield.  The Elves just
did not have the ability to project the level of force needed to prevent
this revolt anymore.

Though the Elven governments have signed peace treaties with Shield, there
is much animosity between Elves and the Humans of Shield.  Not only did we
destroy their fleet, they have a real problem with our technologies and
industries as well.