Re: My corner of the universe. Shield Space 1 of many

----- Original Message -----
From: "Clint Whelly" <Clint.Whelly@?????????.ca>
Subject: [SPELLJAMMER] My corner of the universe. Shield Space 1 of many

> 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.

This reminds me of what my physics teacher used to tell me off about. You haven't actually
said what units of temperature you are using. I would guess that you are using Celsius
as -1 Fahrenheit is very cold and -1 Kelvin does not exist. If you don't want to mention
Celsius then you could say that the ambient temperature fluctuates within a degree of the
freezing point of water. Mind you, you might think that the scientific concept takes away
from the fantasy and try for a more philosophical and less scientific explanation.

> 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.

Is it these currents that are called "the flow"?

Spelljammer should be written without a capital J in the middle of it. I know it looks
like a big J on the logo but that is just the graphic design work. Capital letters in the
middle of words are a modern invention used by people that want to turn normal words into
trademarks. I think that it really jars you out of the fantasy though when people do this
in Spelljammer. I'm sure people are bored with me saying this about sphere names with
capital letters in them, by now.

By the convention with the word "Spelljammer" is to only capitalise it if referring to The
Spelljammer (the big manta ray shaped ship). When referring to other spelljamming ships,
spelljamming helms the word isn't capitalised. I'd also use Spelljammer with capitals when
referring to the campaign setting (or write Spelljammer Campaign Setting for clarity). TSR
print the word in all caps with a registered trademark logo at the end whenever they are
referring to the campaign setting. Personally I think that SPELLJAMMER (R) is jarring as
well and don't like it.

You have also capitalised Crystal Spheres. This should only be done if you are referring
to
the adventure of that name, otherwise crystal spheres should be used. Don't forget that to
a character in the Spelljammer Campaign Setting, "crystal sphere" is just part of the
universe in the same way that moon or planet or sun is.

> Many spheres have multiple currents associated to them
> and of these, only a fraction has been discovered (at least by Humans).

This should be "...only a fraction have been discovered...".

> 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).

I think this should be your second paragraph as it would be better to establish what
crystal spheres are and how big they are *before* discussing movement between them.

> Navigation is as much art as skill; currents look almost exactly alike in
> their swirling colours and layers though different to the experienced eye.

You definitely need to move that paragraph above this one as you are coming back to
navigation in the phlogiston after leaving it. Coming back to this paragraph, there is
something a bit jarring about the first sentence. Firstly I'm pretty sure that the
semi-colon should be replaced by a colon. Semi-colons replace clauses like "and" and
"but". Colons are usually used to separate two related sentences. Double check this. Maybe
a comma after "layers" could improve it, but I think a rewrite would be better. I think
the readers eye might flow over it a bit easier if it said something like:

"Navigation is as much art as skill: currents look almost exactly alike with their
swirling colours and layers, although an experienced eye can see the difference."

> 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.

I think that you should reverse the order of these two sentences. The last one in the
paragraph deals with currents (the same topic as the first sentence) the middle one deals
with travel time (a different subject). I also think it is worth saying something like:
"The time taken to travel between spheres is usually measured in days or weeks..." because
at the moment it isn't clear what time you are measuring.

> 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?).

By the way "solar system" refers to the Sun and its planets. In science other systems are
all called "star systems" so this does sound wrong to my ear. However, given that
Spelljammer has stars and suns as different types of objects you can't use "star systems".
Maybe you should stick with planetary system. It is what they use in the Concordance.

By the way the Concordance also calls a crystal sphere a crystal shell. You write crystal
spheres a lot in this and it might be easier on the eye if you alternated between crystal
sphere, sphere, crystal shell and shell.

According to the Concordance a crystal sphere is usually twice as large as the orbit of
the outermost planet. I would expect that the rule wouldn't hold true with a place like
the Astromundi Cluster. I would expect that some bits of the destroyed planets would move
outside the previous orbit of the outermost planet. Although I suppose it is possible that
some sort of force keeps the asteroids and rubble from crossing the half diameter limit.
(I actually spent ages looking for something about planetary distances in the Astromundi
Cluster Boxed Set recently to check this and couldn't find anything in it to expand on the
rules in The Concordance.)

The "(or vice versa?)" looks wrong to me. Maybe I just don't like question marks in the
middle of sentences. Did you write this because *you* were not sure if the rule worked the
other way or because you want to state that in your game *characters* don't know which way
it works. If you meant the second way, I think that it is better than what TSR wrote.
After all if people can't work out what crystal spheres are made out of, how could they
work out if the sphere controls the size of a system or the system controls the size of
a sphere. I'd probably rewrite that bit to say something like:

"Crystal spheres house planetary systems. Their size is determined by the system within
them: they are almost always at least twice the size of the diameter of the outermost
planet. It is not known if the sphere controls the size of the system or the system
controls the size of the sphere."

> The illusion of stars in the night sky
> are manifested in different ways if at all in different spheres.

Stars are *not* an illusion in most spheres (although there might be some spheres where
they are illusions). Stars are usually real objects that people can touch. (Many people
seem to make stars portals to the plane of radiance so they are not exactly safe to
touch!)

> 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.

You missed one out. In some spheres the stars themselves are portals between the inside
and outside of the shell. If you move the bit about stars below this section, the reader
will have already been introduced to the idea of portals. You could then say something
like:

"Most crystal spheres have stars on their insides, although there are some spheres that
don't have any stars at all. What exactly a star is differs from sphere to sphere. In some
spheres they are gigantic gems. In other spheres giant towers on their inner surface
support bright fires that burn on their roofs. Some stars are portals connecting to the
plane of radiance, while others are portals that connect to the outside of the sphere.
Other stars may be something else entirely. Obviously a captain needs to know exactly what
he is doing before trying to fly his ship into the heart of a star because flying into the
wrong kind of star would vaporise his ship and crew!"

I'm going to carry on in another email as this is getting a bit long.

David "Big Mac" Shepheard
Virtual Eclipse Role Playing Club
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/virtualeclipselrp/links/d20_system_001071937434/Spelljammer_001071430476
http://virtualeclipse.aboho.com/