Re: Krynnspace

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Trampas Whiteman" <dragonhelm@??????????.net>
Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2006 6:23 AM

[snip]

>>* Humans: IIRC, there are three major human
>>civilizations (Ergoth, Solamnia, Istar); I kinda want
>>to give each a nice large "homeland" to grow into.  I
>>wouldn't mind adding Shou as well, because Shou are
>>supposed to be a minor SJ race but yet there haven't
>>been any real Shou colonies detailed anywhere.
>
> Istar is long-dead, struck by the fiery mountain during the Cataclysm.

I wonder if any Istarian space colonies would have been set up in 1480 PC or 
during the Age of Istar (Age of Might - 1000-0 PC)? It would be nice if 
Krynnspace used to have a spacefaring company of Istarian spacefarers that 
hunted down "evil" races during the "Extermination of Evil Races".

During the Silvanisti blockade of Istar the Elven Imperial Navy can blockade 
Krynn, making it impossible for the Istarian Space Navy to help Istar.

We could probably tie this (and the destruction of Zivilyn) in with the 
Cataclysm. We could put the largest mountain in Krynnspace on the surface of 
the pre-destruction Zivilyn. The mountain could contain a underground city 
built by the dark dwarves and the surrounding foothills could be occupied by 
ogres who raid human villages in the surrounding area. The Istarian 
colonists can team up with the local humans (who need a name) and following 
the Proclamation of Manifest Virtue the Istarians can arm the humans and 
launch an all out attack that ends in the genocide of both the ogres and the 
dark dwarves. They can then turn the mountain into a giant city dedicated to 
Istar.

At the time of the Cataclysm the mountain can be torn out Zivilyn and thrown 
at Istar.

This is the sort of historical event that I think can make the rest of 
Krynnspace feel more Dragonlance-ish, although I think that this would need 
a lot of work on it. One genocide shouldn't condemn an entire planet. The 
Istarian colonists would need to do stuff across the surface of a world that 
would probably have originally been a lot larger than Krynn is now.

I want to see the rest of Krynnspace have a DLish history that is filled 
with events similar to the things happening on Krynn. I want to see several 
waves of colonisation as different human nations rise to power. I want to 
see the Elven Imperial Navy tied in with local elven nations. I want to see 
curious kender explorers and greedy dwarven miners spreading out from Krynn. 
But just as much, I want to see others of their kind that already live in 
the rest of the crystal sphere. I want to see a few wizard towers and 
similar structures built on almost every planet. I want to see artefacts as 
powerful as the dragon stones or the greygem created, stolen or destroyed on 
the other worlds of Krynnspace. I want to see dragon wars and dragonlances 
on various planets. None of it should be the same as the stuff that happens 
on Ansalon or Talidas, but there should be parallels between the events that 
make any of them instantly recognisable to a Dragonlance fan.

More importantly I want to find out exactly *why* Orcs (and Scro) feel 
unwelcome in Krynnspace. The Unhuman War would be the best reason for the 
exclusion. As part of the Radiant Triangle, Krynnspace has a very important 
place within the crystal spheres. The Unhuman War could give us an Orc 
invasion of Krynnspace that decimates many of the elven races living on the 
worlds of Krynnspace. The orcs invasion fleet can wipe out elven navy bases 
on the Stellar Islands and destroy their colonies on Nehzmyth (which at that 
time could be a normal planet) and team up with ogres on Zivilyn to destroy 
the elven cities on that world. They can move onto Chislev and form an 
alliance with the giants to knock that civilisation back into the stone age. 
Before they get to Krynn they could be turned back and expelled from the 
crystal sphere. Groundling or space dragons could help turn back the orc 
fleet. (I'm not entirely sure of the dates, but I'm sure we could fit 
something in.)

>>That's what I'm thinking.  We think of Krynn's move as
>>a terrible thing, but really, we should look at it as
>>a gift.  Krynnspace is basically abandoned, leaving it
>>to us to muck with.  Applying a little common sense,
>>we could easily speculate the gods trying to recreate
>>Krynn in case its never found, and when they DID find
>>Krynn, well, look at it as them "moving".  What do you
>>do when you move?  Bring in the trashcan and start
>>pitching stuff.  And start giving away stuff you don't
>>want to move but is still good.  Apply the same here.
>>:)
>
> LOL!  Really, this is a gift of sorts.  Old Krynnspace (Reorxspace?) is
> ripe for development.  New Krynnspace is a myth for treasure-seekers.
> There's a campaign waiting to happen right there.

Reorx is probably the second most important planet in Krynnspace, given that 
Chislev has no government and Zivilyn's moons are relatively small 
societies. Reorx is dominated by dwarves, so that would put them in charge 
of the entire crystal sphere! I could see the sphere slowly being renamed 
Reorxspace.

(One "out of character" advantage to renaming the sphere Reorxspace, after 
Krynn is lost is that we don't end up with Old-Krynnspace and 
New-Krynnspace. We can also have a 3e Krynnspace that is set in the time 
before Takhisis steals the world and a 3e Reorxspace that is set in the 
future. The two names will help DMs and players work out which version of 
the sphere is set in which time period. We could then give Beyond the Moons 
a "Krynnspace" page that makes the crystal sphere a 3rd Edition compatible 
crystal sphere with Krynn still there and link to a separate "Reorxspace" 
page with an extended timeline showing the changes after Krynn and its moons 
vanish. That really could give *everyone* exactly what they want from 
Dragonlance and Spelljammer.)

> And from a Dragonlance standpoint, Krynn remains separate from the other
> spheres, though it can be added back in with some tweaking.

For now, we don't need Krynn, although if Dragonlance ever has a new 
storyline featuring contact with visitors from another world I take that as 
implying that its new location had been found out. The alien dragons who 
came to Krynn are the sort of visitor I'm talking about, although as far as 
I know none of them have left (to take news of their discovery elsewhere).

However, I'd like to use the rules of the new DLCS books (crunch) and the 
storyline leading up to Takhisis stealing the world (fluff) to enhance the 
small amount of detail that Jean Rabe was able to give us on the rest of 
Krynnspace and make it a 3rd Edition campaign setting that combines the best 
of Spelljammer with the best of Dragonlance.

I'd like to sift though the races of DLCS and convert others from Time of 
the Dragon and distribute most of them throughout the sphere. I'd like to 
give the races of Krynnspace access to most of the feats and prestige 
classes normally only available to Dragonlance players. I'd like the thing 
to be so good that Dragonlance Nexus and Beyond the Moons arm-wrestle each 
other to win the right to host the content! ;-)

>>Right now, I'm not worried about New-krynnspace.  But
>>yeah, it'd probably be barren.  But here, we've got a
>>nice clean slate to start over, creating a new world
>>in literally its birth, with favorite oldie cultures
>>starting over, building new cities and civilizations.
>>Like the Old West, it'd be a great place for
>>adventurers, merchants, and entrepenuers. :D
>
> Consider the Old West historically as well with ex-confederates making
> their way westward to find a new life outside of Union control (Firefly,
> anyone?), with Chinese (or another race of immigrant workers), and so
> forth.
>
> Okay, I think I'm all caught up.  This is some good stuff, guys.

You are probably right. The loss of the spelljamming ports at Palanthas and 
Imperial City have created a power vacuum that Reorx's four ports can't 
possibly fill. The elven colonies on Zivilyn's moons could become more 
popular as they are the civilisations closest to the sphere wall.

The large number of uncivilised areas gives any would be empire builder a 
lot of land to choose from. With displaced spacefarers from Krynn floating 
about I can imagine people trying to colonise some of those areas (in fact 
some of this might start to happen in the 40 odd years it takes the gods to 
rediscover Krynn and take the moons away).

Krynnspace has a lot of potential, but needs a lot of work to become the 
Dragonlance Crystal Sphere in my eyes. I think we need to go through the 
planets one at a time and give them all DL makeovers.

David "Big Mac" Shepheard
Virtual Eclipse Role Playing Club
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/virtualeclipselrp/links/d20_system_001071937434/Spelljammer_001071430476
http://www32.brinkster.com/virtualeclipse/