Locate Portal conversion - Was: Whatever happened to the 3.5e conversions to the Spelljammer Spells?

This email has been split into three, as I wanted to address phlogiston 
rivers separately.

>> >> > Dreamer wrote:
[snip-snip-snip-new subject]
>> As most campaign settings describe the sky as black, I would say that
>> most
>> inner sphere walls should be black or very dark. From the inside you
>> would
>> be looking for a shimmering dot on the sphere wall.
>
> That does assume it is visibly distinguishable, and again is
> something that probably varies from sphere to sphere.

Can you see Pluto with your unaided eye?

No, right. So lets apply the same ruling to portals:

There sphere wall is usually twice as far from a sphere's sun as its 
outermost planet. I've already shown that you can't see an object as dim and 
small as Pluto for less distance than between the Sun and Pluto, so in 
Terraspace you would have to travel beyond Pluto before seeing a portal with 
the unaided eye.

That is an important thing to think about, because it means that no person 
on a planetary body will ever see a portal (and take note of its location). 
It is *possible* that a person, with a spyglass, on an outer planet of a 
sphere, might be able to spot something (but I think that is a small 
possibility).

It is possible that some sort of organisation could go closer to the sphere, 
discover portals and create a "Celestial Almanac", listing their locations. 
Here is a shopping link to a real-life celestial almanac, so you can get an 
idea what might be in a SJ one:
http://www.blackwell.co.uk/jsp/welcome.jsp?isbn=0071396578&source=3256451697

Perhaps in SJ the Celestians could create and produce copies of these - we 
could then call the book the "Celestian's Almanac" (pun is intended). (In an 
off topic note: changing the name would stop this in-game book and the TSR 
supplement called "The Celestial Almanac" coming up on the same search 
engine results.)

There could be several people compiling almanacs of certain small area's of 
the sphere (don't forget the area is so big, nobody could cover it all). 
Organisations could either work together (and share information) or compete 
(and hoard information). A SJ celestial almanac, would need to be hand 
written, and would probably be expensive or hard to obtain. People who are 
members of guilds or churches with almanac's would be able to visit a place 
where they could inspect a copy and take notes.

> Fun spheres where the portals move around, only open a few days,
> or even hours, at a time...

An interesting thing to do with a sphere would be to have portals and stars 
move relative to each other (either the stars move and the portals stay 
still or vice versa). Anyone trying to compile a celestial almanac would 
find that the portals were drifting in a fixed direction at a fixed rate 
(perhaps they orbit the sun as if they were planets in that orbit).

If you decided to use my suggestions for portals and phlogiston rivers (see 
other message) then random portals would cause problems getting along 
phlogiston rivers. Perhaps a river could come in to one of, say - six 
portals, but the flow could hop randomly from one to another as each opens 
and closes in turn. Portals could have phases (a bit like the moon) and 
could open and close on a regular cycle.

Alternatively you could have a fixed number of portals, and make every newly 
created portal cancel out an existing one. A sphere could start off with 100 
known portals, but every time a new ship arrives with a passage device one 
of those portals could be moved (and rendered unknown) to the inhabitants. 
As this would inconvenience spacefarers within the sphere they could impose 
a high tax on passage devices or create portal spells.

Another option for portals is to use "shadow portals", these would be real 
shadows - rather than anything to do with the Plane of Shadow. Each of the 
spheres planet would create a shadow on the sphere wall (although a small 
planet may not be able to totally eclipse the sun). These shadows could 
become your portals. They would move around the sphere (mostly on the 
ecliptic) at different rates and would occasionally pass over each other.

>> If groundling sailors can use dolphins to locate tuna, perhaps some sort
>> of
>> wildspace/phlogiston creature could be used to locate portals.
>
> I like this idea! Portal Pilot fish! Another good reason to have
> a druid SJ. Or, one of those usually unpopular monster-making
> wizards!

The fish sound good, but you could also use some sort of predator that eats 
space fish. Perhaps there could be a "Space-Sealion" ("Spacelion"?) that 
lives on asteroids and swims to the phlogiston to feed. A "Flow Turtle" is 
another possibility, living in the flow, but travelling to an asteroid 
(after the breeding season) to lay its eggs.

At certain times of year, large swarms of Flow Turtles could head towards 
the sphere wall, while being rapidly picked off by Scavvers. Spacefarers 
could see off any predators in order to follow the turtle to a portal it 
knows instinctively. It could prove for some interesting encounters as the 
players would have to avoid startling the turtle and making it flee 
somewhere else.

>> > Maybe we should throw in standard magic items, like the Portal
>> > Compass (obvious function), and the Portal Lantern, which shines
>> > a big circle of light on a shell, which then acts as a portal?
>>
>> We should convert magical items and the rest of the campaign setting, but
>> lets finish the spells first.
>
> Yes, but some fore-thought about what items spell be enchanted
> into may be useful (though not normally mentioned in the spell
> specs), and items can substitute for not knowing the spells.

We really aught to split this discussion off if you want to take it further.

Your Portal Compass, does what I see the Locate Portal spell doing (see my 
other email), so perhaps you can make them using that spell.

The problem with your portal lantern is that as you move towards the sphere, 
you would change the circle (and the portal). You need something that works 
like a flash bulb.

>> > I also always thought things like Air Candles were an obvious
>> > addition to SJ, given reasonable alchemy. (Obvious problems in
>> > the Flow! [grin] ) This might fit the 3rdEd style of various
>> > standard alchemical items for common sale. "Getting a bit stuffy
>> > in here, lads. Shall I light another candle?" [grin]
>>
>> Good idea, although "Incense of Air Purification" might sound more
>> realistic.
>
> Air Candles are RW tech:
>
> "Oxygen Candle: a mixture of sodium chlorate and iron, typically
> enclosed in a metal housing, which smolders at 600degC, producing
> iron oxide, sodium chloride, and approximately 6.5 man-hours of
> oxygen gas per kilogram of candle."
>
> copied from appendix B, "glossary", of "Lost in Transmission" by
> Wil McCarthy (c) 2004.
>
> Try googling!

Wow! Didn't sound real, but now you say it, it rings a bell.

>> A more mundane way to provide clean air is to use plants. Druids and
>> rangers
>> would be very good at choosing plants that can live onboard ship.
>
> I think when I looked at the numbers you needed an awful lot of
> plants!

If you dock with asteroids, rather than landing on planets, the underside of 
a ship is available for plants. You could perhaps find some sort of 
non-aggressive moss and turf the bottom of a ship. I'm not sure what you 
would get, but even if it only provides 1 man/day of air per day, that would 
still effectively let you have an extra crew member for free.

> Maybe a more efficient "Air Plant", which has a metabolism partly
> based on magic, one large plant per ton (120 man-days of air),
> might make sense. Gardener becomes a very important crew role!

It could be magical, but it could just as easily be a supernatural ability.

>> When we
>> get around to air I think we should switch from "tons" of air" to
>> "man/days"
>> of air (to get rid of the 1 ton lasts 4 months equasion). Instead of
>> saying
>> a Hammership displaces 60 tons of air we could say it displaces  7200
>> man/days of air (60tons x 4 months x 30 days). A GM could then subtract 1
>> man/day for every crew member (each day). If any crew died it would be
>> easy
>> to stop subtracting them from the total remaining air.
>>
>> Things like your Air Candle could add a fixed number of man/days to a
>> ships
>> atmospheres. Plants could also refresh the atmosphere at a rate of
>> man/days.
>>
>> We can still touch on tons to assist people making new ships saying
>> something like: "every ton of ships mass displaces enough air to last 120
>> man/days".
>
> I would agree with all this.
>
> The candles would give almost exactly 3 man-hours per pound
> weight of candle, so a (standard?) four pound candle would give a
> man-day.

If it is that easy for you to provide stats, I must be onto a workable idea.

[masive snip - you didn't reply to any of this]
>> "Freshen Air" is a more logical spellname than "Create Air" becuse fouled
>> or
>> deadly air is still air and takes up just as much space as fresh air. I
>> might be tempted to use both this and Create Air (with create air gating
>> in
>> extra air from the plane of elemental air - obviously that would stop it
>> working in the flow). A "creation" spell would be useful for the
>> occasions
>> when you are somehow put into a vaccum (Mystaraspace is a place where
>> Freshen Air wouldn't help).
>
> If there is too much air for the ship's gravity to hold, then the
> excess will drift away. If you create more air, you want to make
> sure it is the bad air that is lost, not the new stuff!

I know. So continual casting of Create Air will create air pockets in 
wildspace. They could eventually drift into a planet and be absorbed into 
its atmosphere. Alternatively, the air might cause a drain on the Elemental 
Plane of Air. Planewalking spellcasters on the Plane of Air may have their 
own "Recall Air" spell that sucks air back where it belongs.

> I suggested Trasmutation rather than Creation as you could argue
> that it should not need quite so much magical power (spell
> level), and carrying rock (a hopefully inexpensive but dense
> material) that is transmuted into the same mass of air would seem
> to make sense.

Cleaning the air up can count as Transmutation, but creating air that wasn't 
there before is almost certainly a Conjuration (creation) spell. As I 
already said it *might* even be seen as getting air from the elemental plane 
of air.

> I've also seen people with air-scrubbing alchemy (and presumably
> spells) which help by removing the carbon dioxide from the air,
> though they don't add any more oxygen.
>
> Maybe a Sewage-to-Rock spell might be useful, so a ship doesn't
> waste any material?

And why do you want to retain mass? You don't need ballast. On a small 
basis, you might be able to grow plants in treated sewage, purified with 
some sort of spell ("Deck Tomatoes" perhaps).

> Of course, doing a Rock-to-Bread spell, later... [grin]

Ug! There is a thought I didn't need to have.

[snip]
>> Sorry to nit-pick, but Domains are a *fundamental* part of the third
>> edition
>> rules for clerics.
[snip]
> Soory, I mis-said myself. I'm not suggesting the silly idea of
> changing how clerics work in 3rdEd SJ. I was thinking more of
> limiting detail on School Specialisation for wizards.

Again, I have to nit-pick, as school specialisation effectively creates 
another eight spellcasting classes (with one bonus school spell/level and 
different chances to learn spells). If someone is playing a diviner and 
wants to know if a particular SJ spell is a barred one (or one they have 
bonuses to learn) they will expect to see this in the spell lists. It 
doesn't take up much space to do this - see the HTML SRD spell list:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spellLists/sorcererWizardSpells.htm

All we have to do for wizard schools is order spells by spell level and then 
by school. Why are you complaining about this? It will take about 10 minutes 
to do and won't take up much room in the "Player's Guide to Spelljammer". I 
can't see a problem.

[snip - everything has been addressed except the Wu Jen]
>> >> (OK, Warmages are probably not strictly necessary, but they're easy.
>> >> Wu
>> >> Jen
>> >> would be a bit more work.)

I didn't notice the Wu Jen. It leads me onto a big SJ problem - what to do 
with Shou Lung and the Kara-Tur imported material. WotC have not brought out 
a Kara-Tur update for 3rd edition. In fact they have done worse - released a 
3rd edition "Oriental Adventures" after carefully purging all Kara-Tur 
references and replacing them with one of their trading card backgrounds.

:-(

With the Forgotten Realms being a "supported product", WotC have not 
appointed an "official website" as they have with the out of print settings. 
Because they are not maintaining Kara-Tur (and Al-Quadim, Arcane Age, 
Maztica, and Hordelands) I'm not sure where to look for 3rd edition 
conversions. I also don't have the original Oriental Adventures book, so 
don't have a starting point for classes like the Wu Jen (which should 
*really* be available in SJ campaigns).

I think Shoe Lung (as well as Tinker Gnome society and their wildspace 
inventions) might need to be something we address in a second edition of the 
Spelljammer PDFs.

David Shepheard
Watford - UK