Re: Places: Dragon Rock Map

From: "SUBSCRIBE REALMS-L tauster" <chefseehund@???.de>
Subject: Re: [SPELLJAMMER] Places: Dragon Rock Map

On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 20:25:25 -0000, David Shepheard
<david_shepheard@???????.com> wrote:

>>Thanks for the correction. I didn't remember this. Maybe the "known"
asteroids in The
>>Tears
>>should be listed on BtM. (For those who can't be bothered to look they
are: Dragon Rock,
>>The Cave, Journey's Legg, Eye of the Sky, The Citadel and an unnamed
castle).

>btw, do we know how many asteroids selunes tears comprise?

Both Realmspace and the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (3e) say "hundreds".

Realmspace does add: "Most of the asteroids are too small to hold the atmosphere required
by living and breathing beings. Several dozen however do have air envelopes which allows
for comfortable living."

As it later says that there is a "15% chance of finding an asteroid in the Tears of Selune
which is livable" and a "10% chance of finding one alredy inhabited" you could use this
number and "several dozen" to see what numbers you get:

dozens  habitable inhabited total
     3           36          24      240
     4           48          32      320
     5           60          40      400
     6           72          48      480
     7           84          56      560
     8           96          64      640
     9         108          72      720
   10         120          80      800
   11         132          88      880
   12         144          96      960
   13         156        104    1040

Some people mean a number between 4 and 7 when they say several but not everyone means
this when they say it. So we can't tell how many Tears Slade wanted to be habitable or
inhabited. However, I think he would have said a few if he meant less than four dozen, or
tens of dozens if he meant more than nine dozen.

Looking at the total number of asteoids, I think that 240 or 320 would be more likely to
be described as a few hundred than hundreds, so by the power of poetic licence I would
exclude 4 dozen habitable Tears and set the minimum number as 5 dozen.

So I'd take "several dozen" as somewhere between 60 and 108 habitable rocks (with
somewhere between 40 and 72 of these actually being occupied). Personally, I'd prefer
higher numbers (even if you are never going to document them all) as it makes the Tears
seem bigger, however any sort of numbers in the range would probably work.

By being a bit vague Slade has given the GM some flexibility.

>i´d prefer "many, with as much interesting asteroids as the dm needs".

I don't like wording like that as it is out of character. I'd rather have an in character
description that could be read to the players.

>while such wording gives every dm lots of freedom, one still has to
>determine an approximate number, because when a spelljammer approaches the
>tears, all they have to do is to look at the asteroid belt and ask "about
>how many rocks do i see?" to force the dm to show his colors.

>what about the following:
>"there are hundreds of asteroids, most of them without atmosphere. almost
>all of those who are inhabitable are occupied, the majority are simple
>farming asteroids catering to the needs of dragon rock or food merchants
>supplying other non-groundling- communities. that makes the tears one of
>the most-travelled areas of the sphere (for which we have to find a proper
>name yet *grin*)."

Your "...almost all of those who are inhabitable are occupied..." (this should have been
"...almost all of those that are habitable are occupied...") is not correct as Realmspace
establishes that only two thirds of habitable Tears are occupied (15% habitable - 10%
inhabited).

If you look at your copy of Realmspace again you'll realise that you missed out the
castle: "The unique feature of the Tears is that in their midst lies a castle, around
which the asteroids seem to slowly revolve."

This puts the unnamed castle in the most important place of The Tears, the centre.

You also, like Slade, have failed to properly describe the shape or movement of the Tears.
They are described as being in a straight line in old FR products and being a cluster in
Lorebook of the Void and Realmspace.

The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting comes to our rescue here with a description that
wasn't really needed for that setting, but is very helpful for ours:

"The Tears of Selune are a collection of hundreds of very small but bright celestial
bodies (asteroids) that orbit Toril in Selunes wake. The Tears act like any such bodies in
a Trojan point, meaning that they do not stay in one place but actually orbit around a
common centre in a whirlpool fashion. Viewed from above, the Tears appear to be a very
large disk of hundreds of assorted bodies, none of any remarkable size. The Tears are
visible as points of light like stars, too small for viewers to discern their actual
shapes."

FRCS then goes on to say:

"The individual orbits of the Tears are not exactly co-planar with the orbit of Toril
and Selune, but they are close. As a result their apperance in the night Sky of Toril is
that of a flattened ellipse of bright 'stars' trailing Selune by sixty degrees across the
sky, along the ecliptic."

Further down it says: "The first Tear rises or sets about four hours after Selune does.
Because it is so long the full set of Tears takes three hours to rise or set, from the
first Tear to the last."

This description gives us extra information that wasn't made clear before.

1) The Tears are not a *random* cluster they are a flattened disk. This allows ships to
gain easy access to all the Tears in the middle of the Tears.

2) As they are at a "Trojan point" and are following Selune, The Tears are at the L5
LaGrangian point.

Realmspace had inconsistent distances here desribing Selune as 183,000 miles from Toril
and the Tears, but the Tears as 183,000 miles from Toril and 100,000 to 183,000 miles from
Selune.

However, as an L5 (or L4) LaGrangian point forms an equilateral triangle with two bodies
(in this case Selune and Toril) both distances must be 183,000 miles.

3) As the Tears are at the L5 point you can work out what Toril and Selune look like from
them.

Each angle of an equilateral triangle is 60 degrees, hence the description of the Tears
trailing Selune by 60 degrees. But this applies equally to the view from Selune to Toril
and the Tears and the view from the Tears to Toril and Selune.

Because we know from Realmspace that Selune is tidally locked. We can infer that the Tears
are only visible from the trailing side of Selune. If someone was to lie on their back
(with their head facing the north pole and their feet facing the south pole) they would
see Toril to the right and the Tears to the left. Move too far east and you can see the
Tears but not Toril. Move too far east and you can see Toril but not the Tears.

Things might be a bit more complex in the Tears as individual Tears might tumble end over
end, but if you waited until your head was pointing north you would *always* see Selune to
the right of Toril. In fact this is one way that you could work out the direction of
north.

4) If you can work out the mathematics you can work out the diameter of the Tears. From
the surface of Toril you are 183,000 miles away standing on a planet that revolves once
every 24 hours and it takes three hours for the Tears to cross a fixed point (the
horizon).

Realmspace says that Selune takes 30 days to go around Toril (and the Tears would take the
same time) and you need to take that speed into account when you make the calculation.

Do we have any astronomers on the list that can work this out?

>>I think Slade should have addressed this issue to stop people like me
jumping to the wrong
>>conclusion when someone mentions Dragon Rock.

>agreed. but than, he _should have_ addressed many other things as well, or
>looked more carefully at existing lore...

As Spelljamer was a surprise success I bet that there were a lot of people at TSR that
were against it. I bet Slade wasn't given much time to make Realmspace.

I do think that Slade has mostly done a very good job and that the small problems we see
would have been eliminated if TSR had given him time to playtest and rewrite this product.
Do you think you could have done a better job? I don't think I could have. Anyway, what is
done is done. I think we should spend most of our time enjoing the good stuff.

>>Hmmm. It *is* technically possible to have two ports in the same place.
For example a big
>>river estuary could have a port on either bank. With both ports being
rivals.

>i don´t find you example difficult to imagine, but i don´t see a reason why
>dragon rock should - after your logic - have more than two PORTS: one on
>each side. well, there are reasons for a couple of additional ports: one
>exclusive board for the government, the EIN might have its own (but they
>might as well use the governments port instead of having to maintain their
>own), the 12 merchant families (though i don´t see the competition between
>them intense enough to account for 12 docks), perhaps some temples
>of "wildspace-religions", major trading houses...

That isn't 12 merchant *families* it is 12 traders who own Dragon Rock. I read that as
being 12 *people* that own Dragon Rock. The "government" would consist of these 12 traders
sitting down together and having a chat over a glass of ale.

>...but for most of them a simple dock should be enough. whenever more than
>one ship is present, it would be a simple thing to rent one of the hundred
>other docks and either (un-)load the cargo and transport it to the
>warehouse or wait until the occupied dock is free again.

Personally, I think that this *is* a bug and that Slade meant hundreds of docks instead of
hundreds of ports. There is a sentence that says: "Hundreds of ports allow ships to
dock..." I bet Slade or the editor said you can't put: "Hundreds of docks allow ships to
dock..." because it looks strange having the word dock twice. It is just a shame that they
didn't say it another way.

>>Once you accept the idea, think of it on a smaller scale. West Berlin and
East Berlin were
>>touching, but were run with different governments.

>very good example, but it doesn´t apply to dragon rock. there are two sides
>(which would account for 2 ports) but one government.

Realmspace doesn't describe the shape of Dragon Rock or say if it has sides. You must have
got that from thatotherguy's description.

The description also doesn't mention a government. It just mentions the 12 lawful good
traders that are very trustworthy. They could in theory all run one 12th of Dragon Rock,
but I suspect that they would work together, *because* they are lawful good and working
together would be more efficient.

>>So I suppose you could say that Slade *intended* Dragon Rock to be
hundreds of tiny ports
>>that are all competing. With each port would having its own employees and
management.

>i still think slade just messed up "port" and "dock"... ;o)

I think that as well, but as I said it *is* technically possible. Very unlikely but
technically possible.

>>However, I can't imagine that sort of thing *actually* working over any
period of time. If
>>there *were* hundreds of rival organisations competing for trade on a 10
mile rock they
>>wouldn't get much room for docks each. They would only be able to get a
small number of
>>ships into their docks and when a ship with a lucrative cargo came into
the area, they
>>would all want it to come to their port. I would think that at some point
someone would
>>undercut their competitors to get more business, starting a price war.
>>
>>The docks with the least amount of reserve gold would be knocked out of
business first and
>>would have to sell up to their competitors. Naturally, the people that
bought a bankrupt
>>port would want to dig tunnels to join it to their own port, because a
larger port would
>>be more efficient to run than two smaller ports. Eventually there would
only be a few
>>ports left.

>agreed. btw: it would be useful (if not essential!) to create list
>of "potential port- owners" for the map...

If Dragon Rock is "owned by 12  lawful good traders" then all it needs is 12 NPCs that fit
in.

There is one NPC on page 31 who is obviously meant to be one of the 12 lawful good
traders. A rogue neogi cleric of Torm called Brassons. Brassons owns a bar on Dragon Rock,
called Ocean's Wake.

A paladin or a cleric of a lawful good Realmspace deity could be put in there. You could
even put in one or two NPCs from other spheres. A dwarf, gnome or halfling would also work
as well as a human.

Incidentally, I think Brassons has the potential to be as iconic as Estriss.

>>I could perhaps believe a number of ports in the 2-20 range, with each dock
>>catering for different races, alignments or types of trade, because some
>>people might be
>>more comfortable going to a port where pirates, neogi or illithids were
>>banned.

>i was thinking along the lines of 20 ports, with still more small docks and
>warehouses, each operated by small businessmen who lease it to whoever
>wants to do business at the city, or has demand for store goods there.
>there might well be another 30 to 50 docks and warehouses.

Actually I think that the entire surface should be scattered with docks. As Dragon Rock is
owned by 12 traders they should each own about 1/12 of the docks. Each dock could be
operated by a dockmaster who is an employee of one of these 12 owners.

Every dock would need a name, just like streets need names. I would call the dock closest
to Brassons bar something like Wake Dock and put the bar on a street called Wake Street.

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/