MotM: Grey Coin

Just in time for summer camping season...came up with
this one while reading the MC Annual III.  It occured
to me that much of the Fraal equipment looked to be
camping gear...and then it dawned on me...the CAMPING
TRIP FROM HELL! :D  Its a pretty silly moon, but was
fun to write! :)

Adam

Grey Coin
Tiny (C) Flat Earth
Climate: Temperate
Orbital Position: Lunar Track #9
Day Length: 18 hours
Year Length: 120 days
Native Races: Fraal, minotaurs 

This moon appears like a great, gray coin flipping
through the void.  Flat lands at the edges rise to
high mountains at the center, on both sides of the
coin.  A thin ring of mist surrounds the planet’s flat
edge, as well as cloaking much of the highlands.

Grey Coin is a flat earth world with a high metal
content that gives it is color.  The land at the edges
of the “coin” is rolling hills and plains, which rise
in height to stark, imposing mountains and plateaus at
the center.  The overall diameter is 120 miles and 10
miles thick at the center.  

The moon is the home of a band of wayward Fraal,
beings from another time and plane.  Wild, chaotic
magic transformed their coin-shaped spelljammer into a
moon, leaving them marooned with no way of contacting
their home.  

Seasons are very mild, almost unnoticeable on Grey
Coin.  The lowlands are dry and hot, receiving little
rainfall.  The highlands are shrouded in thick clouds
that produce dew and sometimes rain.  Rivers flow from
the mountains to the gravity plane, where they vanish
in a series of cascades into the mists that surround
the moon.

Landmarks
The Crack: This two-mile-deep canyon drops right into
the metallic underdark of Grey Coin.  The Crack is
about 2,000’ wide at the top and narrows to barely 10’
wide at the bottom.  Numerous outcroppings make
maneuvering in the Crack all but impossible.  Despite
this, the Crack is the easiest way to reach Grey
Crack’s underdark.

The Pod Tree: This enormous, silvery tree is over
1000’ tall and has branches that radiate out for over
2,000’.  Fruit-like pods hang from its branches.  Once
a pod ripens, it bursts open, spewing forth a new
monster.  Though the Fraal find this remarkable tree
fascinating, the abundance of nearby monsters keeps
them from studying it.

Signaling Desert: This desert is so named because of
numerous drawings on the desert’s floor that are
visible only from wildspace.  The Fraal created these
drawings years ago as an SOS.  They imparted the
drawings with psionic qualities, possibly to make them
detectable across planar boundaries.

Native Creatures 
Gray Coin is inhabited by a number of unique
creatures, gathered from across several planes.  Most
of these creatures are one of a kinds, so thus when
they die, they are forever gone from Gray Coin.  A few
have bred true and menace all travelers.  Vegetation
ranges from similar to open plains to jungle, but all
plants have a gray tinge to their coloration.  Other
than this odd color and sometimes unusual shapes, the
plants are no different than standard (or monstrous)
plants.

Gray Coin is an excellent place to introduce strange
monsters, such as those from the Far Realm.  Examples
include bloodsippers, dharculus, gibberlings,
neh-thalggu, and wystes.  The Fraal collected a number
of creatures for their experiments from a number of
worlds.  The creatures escaped, of course, not long
after the Fraal were stranded.  Use of templates to
create variations on standard creatures would be
appropriate in the environs of this moon.

Guide to Groundlings
The mysterious Fraal rule Grey Coin from cities in the
highest peaks.  They are visitors from another plane
of existence, stranded here by accident.  That
accident left them without access to most of their
mystical devices and left them in a barbaric state. 
Things have improved since that dark day.  Tribes of
minotaurs worship them as gods, doing manual labor the
Fraal cannot and protecting them from harm.  

The Fraal occupy about a dozen major cities.  A Fraal
city is a cluster of disc-shaped, silvery buildings
toped by domes.  Fraal are minimalists and own few
possessions, so thus their homes appear stark and
barren.  They use psionics to fulfill many daily
tasks, eliminating the need for many tools.  The
youngest Fraal has the abilities of a 1st level psion,
while their eldest sages are as strong as 15th level
psions.  Fraal heavily favor the psion class over
other psionic classes, and have no abilities in any
magical class.  

Some younger Fraal are psionic warriors, forming
‘guilds’ to protect their society.  The guilds
commonly conduct raids to clean out local dungeons to
keep monsters away from the cities.  These guilds are
very good at dungeon-delving, surprising those that
view Fraal as frail, weak, and utterly lacking in any
combat abilities.

The other major race on Grey Coin is the minotaurs. 
The same accident that stranded the Fraal here changed
some of their specimens, hundreds of bovines, into
minotaurs.  When the two races met, the minotaurs
remembered the Fraal as vivisecting demons, and feared
them greatly.  They worship the Fraal, doing their
bidding much like how umber hulks serve their neogi
masters unquestionably.  The minotaurs are treated
well, much like favored servants and slaves, and the
two races have entered into a symbiotic relationship. 


Minotaurs are the muscle of the Fraal.  Most are
fighters or barbarians of some skill (1-6 levels of
either class).  Martial-class minotaurs often “tank”
for guilds, soaking up attacks from monsters to spare
weaker Fraal psions from harm.  Some minotaurs display
a spark of psionic ability (1-4 levels of psion or
psychic warrior).  Like the Fraal, the minotaurs of
Grey Coin have no arcane or divine magical talents.

A smattering of other races can be found as well,
although they are generally guests of the Fraal.  A
few mind flayers have met privately with Fraal elders,
to see what they can gain from them in exchange for
passage home.  The mind flayers likely do not have the
means of getting the Fraal home, but are instead
trying to exploit their situation for gain.  Recently,
a group of flump has arrived and genuinely wants to
help the Fraal get home.  The flump have clerical
abilities the Fraal have never seen before, and are
proving an invaluable asset in regards to healing.

Resources and Trade
Grey Coin has abundant sources of strange metals and
alloys, much of which lies under a mile of rock and
soil.  It even has an entire underdark of metallic
chambers and caverns, all have since been abandoned to
roaming monsters from other planes.  Additionally, the
Fraal have countless crystals and gemstones,
unidentifiable but have remarkable beauty and
properties.  Though utterly non-magical, some crystals
can perform seemingly magical feats, such as
projecting illusions, exploding into fireballs when
crushed, or allowing special Fraal carriages to fly. 
The Fraal do not give these crystals out freely, only
trading them away when they must.

Ports of Call
Rosewell (small city, 6,000): Named for its well that
draws water that smells of roses, Rosewell is the
finest psionic university in the sphere.  It was
established by the Fraal after they encountered
spelljammers.  They sought a trade of psionic talents
to learn plane-hopping techniques that might lead them
home.  Though their efforts have not yet proved
fruitful, they have learned many psionic techniques
that were unknown to them, and have caused an
explosion in the number of psions throughout the
sphere.

Horn de Diablo (small city, 8.000): The largest Fraal
community is found on top of this high plateau.  The
mountain is perfectly circular and rises almost
straight up to a flat top, over 1,500 above the
surrounding land.  The walls are so steep and smooth
that the only practical means of reaching the city is
via flying.  It also sees the largest number of
spelljammers, and thus has numerous docks to handle
ships up to the size of a hammership.  

History
On a world far removed from the Known Spheres, an
ancient race known as the Fraal were grappling with a
most pressing crisis: their youth were enthralled in
games of illusion.  Such was the extent of their
addiction that some even perished from malnutrition
and exhaustion.  Concerned elders feared time-honored
Fraal traditions, such as leaving cryptic runes in the
crops of primitive worlds, mutilating large bovines,
or even the vivisection of primitives would be lost. 
After much contemplation, the elders came upon an
idea: use one of their moon-sized flying discus ships
to take the young on a nice, long, character-building
voyage into one of the more primitive planes.  By the
time they got back, they would be free of the
addiction and mature enough to rejoin proper Fraal
society.  At least, that was the plan.

>From the start, the voyage was beset with problems. 
Some adolescents smuggled small, portable illusion
devices.  Others constantly complained or bickered
with siblings.  The ship was stranded on more than one
plane when the drives failed and required repairs. 
The worst, however, happened with the ship entered the
sphere it is currently located at.  It struck a wild
magic zone.  The strange energies of the Fraal mixed
with that of the wild magic, causing the ship to not
only cease functioning, but much of their metallic
devices were turned to stone, dirt, and other
primitive materials, permanently stranding the Fraal
with no way to contact their homeworld for assistance.

After the accident, the innumerable living experiments
escaped their cages, running rampant through the
corridors of their ship.  The Fraal were forced to run
for their lives, taking shelter in the mountains,
where they eked out a miserable existence.  Their
first bit of luck came when they managed to gain the
services of minotaur bands.  The minotaurs had been
ordinary cows and bulls prior to the accident, which
transformed them into minotaurs.  The superstitious
minotaurs were easily convinced the Fraal were their
masters, and the Fraal gained an important source of
labor and body guards.

Satellites
Third: A small city of crystalline towers has been
built upon a hemispherical grey stone slab that is
just under 2,000’ in diameter.  At one time it served
as a scout vessel for the Fraal, but it too was
altered by the magic and rendered inert.  It was
abandoned as useless, although recently the Fraal have
considered reclaiming it and putting a spelljamming
port there.  Third is haunted by monsters and needs to
be cleared before any such efforts can begin.

Bibliography
Spelljammer: Dungeons & Dragons in Space
Monstrous Compendium Annual III


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