FW: Shield Space 3 A of Many

Shield
Your World
Shield appears to be a fragment of a planet at a 40,000,000-mile orbit with
a 30% inclination in regard to its top.  As Shield does not move around the
sun, the length of a year has been set to 337 days a year with no leap year.
This works out to 11 months of 28 days each and one month with 29 days.  As
a day on Shield is 26 hours long, not 24, this still works out to about an
Earth year.  (24*365=8760 hours vs. 26*337=8762 hours)

Shield is about 2000 miles in diameter or about 3.15 million square miles
(To compare, Canada is about 3.85 million square miles) with the bottom
forming a jagged cone about 3000 miles long.  The bottom except for the tip
is always in darkness.  Shield spins slowly so that the sun tracks around
the perimeter of the sky never setting (this position comparable to about 3
PM in the summer here).  The only variation in sunlight comes from the time
of day (this determines how much atmosphere light has to travel through to
get to you), the weather and the shadowing effect of mountains such as Mount
Nevermind.  This mountain is huge, soaring 150 miles high and 160 miles
across, poking right out of the atmosphere.  The shadowing effect is like a
second hand moving around a watch face.  There are no seasons, with the
ambient temperature being around 25 degrees Celsius and average humidity of
around 20% at Rockport.  A noticeable magnetic effect is that a compass's
North needle always points to Mount Nevermind.

The Great Lake is a freshwater body about 150 miles across (155,000 square
miles) that rings the base of Mount Nevermind.  This lake is fed from a
number of rivers, falls and springs that flow down Mount Nevermind into the
lake.  The lake bottom gently slopes downward by varying degrees to about 50
miles from shore on both sides.  Then it slopes or V's steeply, plunging
down to a mile deep at some areas.  The gravity plane of Shield is not flat
and this creates a phenomenon where the center of Shield is "lower" than the
edge due to the gravity plane "curving down" towards the center.  This
creates a small downhill effect.  The visual effects are bizarre as water
truly flows uphill "visually from a distant perspective".

 The Great Lake in turn supplies four major rivers running in valleys at
almost perfect 90 degree angles to one another.  These rivers feed a number
of tributary rivers and streams then end in large lakes at the base of the
Barrier Mountains.  These four lakes are referred to as the compass lakes
and individually as the North Lake, South Lake, West Lake, and the East
Lake.  Each lake is very similar in size, about 30,000 square miles (about
300 miles across against the mountain range by about 100 miles wide).  There
are of course a number of smaller lakes and ponds dotting the surface.

Overall, the inner lands of Shield are very rich in freshwater, which cover
about 20% of their surface area.  The outer lands have perhaps 3% coverage.
The Compass lakes were named arbitrarily and though the directions of these
lakes are used as reference points, the magnetic field of Shield will only
point a compass needle towards Mount Nevermind.

Shield is divided by a circular mountain range ringing the surface about
two-thirds or about 500 miles away from the Great Lake and referred to as
the Barrier Mountains.  The Barrier Mountains are steep and jagged and tend
to be from two to three miles high and merge into one another forming a
continuous barrier.  Though there are some passes, they all involve some
climbing and tend to be inhabited.  The landmass towards the edge of Shield
is referred to as the outer lands and of course, the land inside this range
is called the inner lands.  The outer lands have a surface area of about
1,420,000 square miles and the inner lands have a surface area of about
1,540,000 square miles.

About 80% of the inner lands are covered by dense deep jungle with the
ambient temperature being around 30 degrees Celsius.  These jungles are
anywhere from 200 to 1000 feet high, with massive trees growing into one
another to form huge self-reinforcing structures that in turn support other
plant life growing within.  The lower parts of some jungle areas are totally
dark as even sunlight is blocked out from above.  There is a massive and
diverse amount of life within the jungles.  Creatures from many of the known
Spheres and then some can be found here.  Unlike Earth jungles, the soil or
mud is very rich and very deep averaging about 30 to 100 feet or more before
transitioning to a clay or rock surface that is stable.  For this reason,
the jungles are considered treacherous as many large burrowing creatures
thrive here, such as Purple worms and especially Beaulets.  "The damn things
must breed like rodents," remarked a civil engineer pushing a road through
the jungle.  As such, it is very difficult to work and thus the growth or
establishment of crops, farms and population centers is slow, difficult,
dangerous and expensive.

The Outer lands are much drier with few bodies of water having an average
humidity of under 10%.  This area begins with forests and then transitions
to plains and then desert.  The temperature also varies a bit more in this
region between "day and night."  The very edge of the disc is chaotic at
best, mostly wind-whipped jagged chunks of rock with massive crevices (some
bottomless) make life here miserable.  As well, the atmosphere is thinner
and the temperature stays much lower averaging about 5 degrees Celsius.
However, some of the richest mineral deposits are to be found here with ores
surpassing 75% pure!  The distance from the edge of Shield to the Barrier
Mountains is about 260 miles.

Due to the nature of the terrain, Shield is divided into three distinct
weather zones.  The Outer lands, the Inner lands and Mount Nevermind.  The
prevailing winds in the Outer lands tend to blow spin ward or across the
land.  The air tends to be dry and gusts quite strongly at times with rain
being infrequent.

 The Inner lands are much different.  The air is humid due to the large
amount of surface water and has stabilized to a very regular trade wind
moving from the Barrier Mountains, warming and rising, losing its humidity
as rain over the jungles, hitting Mount Nevermind and losing more humidity,
flowing down its side and then flowing back over the Great Lake picking up
humidity again to the Barrier Mountains.  Rain showers are short but
frequent, rarely becoming stormy.  Lightning is frequent but is mostly
air-to-air, not air to ground.  The side of Mount Nevermind itself is always
wet with humidity condensing to rain that in turn creates rivers that flow
down to the Great Lake.

  Rain is infrequent at the base of the mountain itself and the combination
of slight wind and low humidity with little direct rain makes for a very
pleasant environment for humans.  Due to these conditions crop irrigation is
necessary but with the dependable breeze, windmills have been set up to pump
water as required.  The air pressure around Mount Nevermind is higher than
normal due to the winds and to the bending gravity plane.  This
high-pressure system is very pronounced at higher elevations where at 12
miles up the air pressure is about the same as you would expect at a
three-mile elevation.

Shield is primarily home to Humans, Gnomes & Kobolds, Humans having arrived
on Shield a scant 80 odd years ago and the Gnomes having been here tens of
thousands of years at least.  The Kobolds have been here even longer than
that with estimates based on archaeological digs to at least 100,000 years!

Ninety nine percent of the Gnomish population lives within the mountain
complex in Mount Nevermind, 12 miles up from the mountain base.  The city is
called
"The-place-where-almost-all-of-us-gnomes-live-except-for-a-few-and-is-very-b
ig-and-noisy-and-is-the-heart-of-culture-and-art" Just about every non-Gnome
refers to the city as Gnome Home.