Re: Krynnspace

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Trampas Whiteman" <dragonhelm@??????????.net>
Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2006 8:00 PM


> >Your "Dragonhelm's Guide to Krynnspace" is a great start, but we feel 
> >like
>>something is missing. This something is *mostly* Krynn and it's moons. But
>>the departure of the gods (something only said in your guide) is also a
> bit
>>of a problem, because it leaves a religious void.
>
> Well, the way the War of Souls describes it, the gods did move to the new
> location of Krynn.  However, these are gods we're talking about here.
> They can have a presence in more than one sphere.

Hey, sounds like you are coming around to my way of thinking. The gods do 
move to Krynn (from Krynn's point of view), but for all we know any of them 
could all be dabbling in half a dozen crystal spheres. In fact we could use 
that sort of thing with the history of Krynnspace. One of the gods of Krynn 
could use its churches elsewhere to build up an invasion force that helps 
tip the balance in its favour. If this was tied to something like the 
Unhuman War (and an orc invasion) or a spelljamming navy of undead* then the 
High God could step in to ensure that this sort of cheating is stopped. He 
could banish the gods from travelling to the normal outer planes to stop 
them seeking alliances that would destroy his sphere.

* = Krynnspace's crystal sphere blocks ships with undead crews. The sphere 
could have worked differently in the past.

(This would allow us to come up with an out of game explanation for any 
references to Krynn gods in the Planescape campaign setting and the return 
to the original DL cosmology.)

[snip]

>>In fact I've always been bugged by the fact that the only Krynn
>>constellations that ever get mentioned are the ones seen from Ansalon.
> I've
>>*always* wondered what is above the northern hemisphere. Hopefully someone
>>will eventually write something about Krynn's north and I'll find out. I
>>can't imagine half the sky being empty. There must be something up there.
>
> Excellent point.  I don't recall the Taladas products acknowledging this.
> Perhaps they're the same constallations since we're talking about the same
> gods, though some mystical phenomena allows the same constellations to be
> seen on all points of the world.  (Hokey, I know.)  Or, perhaps there's
> another set of constellations to represent the same gods.

I can't see identical constellations being seen in the north unless the 
northern hemisphere of Krynnspace's crystal sphere is a mirror image of the 
lower hemisphere.

If we wanted to have "another set of constellations to represent the same 
gods" then maybe we should go through the races of Krynnspace and give them 
new images of the existing gods. For example one evil god can be the Mind 
Flayer god and one evil god can be the Neogi god. This way we could invent 
another 21 gods who are really the existing ones in disguise (2 of these 
gods would need to vanish when Takhisis and Paladine go). And if we don't 
have enough races in Krynnspace then we could do things like make one of the 
"new" gods the unknown god of Cha'asii magic*. This magic is said to be a 
very old form of magic and it could be an art that was originally used 
throughout the crystal sphere by Cha'asii serving in the Elven Imperial 
Navy.

* = This is assuming that the 3e version of Cha'asii elves don't just have 
sorcerers instead of "Cha'asii Mages". A Cha'asii Mage seems to be part 
arcane spellcaster and part druid, so I'm hoping that they get converted to 
3e.

By the way according to SJR7 Krynnspace a new star appears in the sky 
whenever a hero dies saving someone else a new star appears. There are also 
apparently other constellations that randomly appear and vanish, sometimes 
in front of other people's eyes. Read pages 4 and 5 to see if it ties in 
with anything in the DLCS. I don't remember this being in any DL book so 
this might be an idea unique to Jean Rabe. We could always have bright stars 
form the constellations of the gods and dim stars form other constellations.

>>Thanks for confirming that. I think we will need to do the same thing that
>>the new DLCS does. That gives rules for now, but also talks about playing
> in
>>older times. We could easily do several versions of Krynnspace that fit in
>>with the Second Unhuman War, Living Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and
>>Dragonlance.
>
> There you go.

Have you ever read any of the Arcane Age stuff? I just stumbled onto the 
freebie TSR downloads recently and they have time travel rules in them. So 
we could create a Krynnspace of the past as well and let spacefarers land on 
Krynn and meet classic characters like Huma! Players could be sent backwards 
or forwards with Tasslehoff's time travelling device or stuff ripped off 
from Arcane Age.

>>That was good, but some of us thought it would be better to replace Krynn
>>with something of similar size. Krynnspace doesn't seem to work as well
>>without something there.
>
> My thought was that Reorx takes center stage without Krynn, but you can
> also replace Krynn with something new if you wish.  Or, you could go with
> the alternate Age of Dragons timeline in Legends of the Twins, where the
> world of Krynn is never stolen.

Eek! A parallel Krynnspace - that's Krynnspace meets Sliders! You said we 
shouldn't be Xeroxing Krynn, but it looks like someone already has! ;-)

Maybe we could tackle *that* crystal sphere later on. It would be fun to 
have a magical device that allows people to switch between the alternate 
worlds. You could scare players off of using the device by making some 
people (not the players) "not born" or "already dead" in the other universe. 
So a party flying a spelljammer through the dimensional portal could appear 
on the other side with key NPCs missing and unfamiliar ones in their place. 
You could also steal or swap half of the player's magical items or even 
change their PC's character class!

:-P

>>There might be seen as a problem from the Dragonlance end, but there is no
>>problem from the Spelljammer end. Spelljamming is an equal opportunity
>>profession. We don't care where people get their spells from. Anyone with
>>spellcasting levels can have equal access to Spelljamming.
>
> It wasn't such a problem in 2e, but the model of four types of magic
> certainly complicated things.  Maybe I just overthink it at times.  ;-)

I really can't see a problem at all. Helms can take spells from arcane 
spellcasters and divine spellcasters. They should really work well with any 
form of magic that has spellcasting levels (i.e. not innate abilities - that 
is the realm of the series helm).

All we have to do is decide what happens to the new types of magic when 
those spellcaster's leave Krynnspace. That isn't a problem for Spelljammer, 
although it might create hobbled spellcasters. All we have to do is make it 
crystal clear that hobbled spellcasters are not classes we encourage players 
to choose. If they knowingly want to roleplay a hobbled character then I 
think they would enjoy the challenge.

(We have a similar thing going on with Realmspace characters who use the 
Shadow Weave. They may or may not work elsewhere. Either way, its all more 
"fun" for the SJCS.)

>>(The Ether Sea still connects Krynn to other places, although I'm not sure
>>where it now is within the Ether Sea. However, if it took the gods 60
> years
>>to find it, I can't imagine it being the third crystal sphere down the
> local
>>phlogiston river. I can imagine the Planescape fans getting onto Krynn
>>before Spelljammer fans do. For now we are more concerned with what
> happens
>>to Krynnspace than what happens to Krynn.)
>
> It was almost 40 years, but I agree.  The gods didn't even find it
> directly.  It took a time-traveling kender to help re-establish Krynn's
> connection to time and space.
>
> And Planescape fans use terms like "berk," so I wouldn't worry too much
> about them getting onto Krynn first.  (kidding!)

I have previously wondered why planewalkers talk a bit like Dick Van Dike in 
Mary Poppins. They are mockney-cockney chavs from the other planes! ;-)

>>Part of that is working out if clerics of the Krynnspace gods and Wizards
> of
>>High Sorcery still regain their spells without Krynn's gods and Krynn's
>>moons. I've posted a possible work around in another post.
>
> The answer there would be no, since the gods provide both types of magic.
> This is seen at the end of Dragons of Summer Flame.

In that case we need the gods of magic to maintain a parallel presence in 
Krynnspace as well as leaving to go to Krynn. That might mean that we need 
three new moons to act as the focus for black, red and white magic. Mind you 
I suppose other moons could be made into the new focus points. Two of 
Zivlin's moons could be "stolen" and thrown into orbit around Reorx. That 
would give Reorx three moons and make it the new Krynn that we want. And we 
could do that without having to add anything new.

>>Forgotten Realms is really lucky. It got Kara-Tur, Maztica, Al-Qadim and
> The
>>Horde to bolt onto its empty areas and it gets much more PR from WotC than
>>Dragonlance does. At least Dragonlance is getting a film (even if it is a
>>cartoon and I won't get to see Lucy Lawless).
>
> Dragonlance survived largely due to the passion of its fans, which is also
> why there is going to be an animated film (with Kiefer Sutherland as
> Raistlin!).  The Dragonlance Nexus came about when Dragonlance was at its
> lowest point, and with the revival of the game line and War of Souls, it
> all led to Dragonlance being reborn.

Does Raistlin work for the "Counter Takhisis Unit" in the film? ;-)

I certainly think that Dragonlance Nexus is one of the stars of the fan 
websites. It probably helped WotC sell a lot of DLCS books. I hope that 
someday Beyond the Moons can help put Spelljammer back on the game shelves 
and into the cinema.

>>I'd like to help make a 3e Krynnspace if I can work out how to do that
>>without stepping on anybody's toes.
>
> I wish you the best of luck with that.  I'd volunteer to help, but I'm
> extremely busy with Dragonlance these days.  I also sorta feel like I've
> done my part already.
>
> If I can offer any advice or suggestions, feel free to e-mail me or ask on
> this list.

Thanks for the offer. Something that helps crossover campaigns can help both 
Dragonlance and Spelljammer. You have already worked out many of the 
problems. I agree that you should put most of your effort into looking after 
Dragonlance. It would be a shame for DL to get cancelled again and you are 
probably part of the team that is stopping that from happening.

If we keep plugging away until we have some actual content (to flesh out the 
other planets in Krynnspace and give them a more Dragonlance-ish background) 
then perhaps you can help us look for bugs that conflict with the DL side of 
things. That would be a way that you could *really* help us. Your comments 
have already helped a lot.

Plus perhaps you know of some obscure things on Dragonlance Nexus (that 
didn't make it into the DLCS) that could be "Xeroxed" and reused somewhere 
in Krynnspace. Your unwanted fluff could be used to knit us another couple 
of subraces or plot arcs.

:-)

The crystal sphere is so large that we should really be able to put in twice 
the amount of stuff that is already there.

By the way, while you are still here. Is there a reason for the change in 
the spelling of Palanthas? The DLCS doesn't seem to use the old name at all.

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/