Re: Krynnspace and Palanthas spaceport

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Asa Benjamin Winkler" <abwinkler@???????????????.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 6:20 PM
Subject: Re: [SPELLJAMMER] Krynnspace and Palanthas spaceport


> On Feb 6, 2007, at 12:44 PM, Rian A. McMurtry wrote:
>
>> I suppose.  I didn't like the Palanthus entry, either.  For a world  that 
>> is
>> supposed to be even more isolated than other groundling societies, the
>> Palanthus entry seemed...TOO SJ.
>
> There is also the question of, if the economy of Ansalon is steel- based, 
> why spacefarers aren't simply hauling as much steel as their  vessel can 
> carry to Palanthas, and exchanging it pound-for-pound  (both sides thereby 
> thinking that they got an incredible deal) for  gold.

Steel is definately an issue that we need to deal with. We already know that 
the gods of Dragonlance (in my opinion the gods of *all* Krynnspace) are 
very controlling, so it would be easy for us to deal with steel in some form 
of divine intervention.

> There is the question of how far away the nearest source of  steel is, but 
> any reasonably organized merchant concern would have,  given the profit 
> prospects, established an entrepot system to cut  down the shipping 
> distances involved.

I would suggest that the DL rules on steel apply to the *entire* crystal 
sphere. That way Krynnspace itself does not pose a risk to the economy of 
Krynn and importation of large quantities of steel is a lower risk. If all 
of Krynnspace has an economy of iron pieces it also makes the crystal sphere 
feel more in keeping with the DL setting.

We could lower the risk even more by dealing with steel at the border of the 
crystal sphere. The gods could either block ships from opening portals, 
teleport excessive quantities of unworked steel away or transform it into 
something useless.

Alternately we could invent some sort of wildspace monster that is attracted 
to steel and have it attack importers. I think that some sort of wildspace 
dragons would work well here as they would tie in well with the 
dragon-nature of Dragonlance. I can easily imagine some sort of dragon with 
a lair filled with iron!

Add in a bunch of hurdles like this and the profits of iron-running don't 
seem so attractive.

> The universe is big enough to  absorb a flood of Krynnish gold, but it 
> would seem that the economy  of Ansalon would suffer devastating inflation 
> within a matter of a  few years - or would be forced to remonetarize on a 
> gold standard as  its comparative value with respect to steel rose.  (This 
> would cause  a specie drain of gold from outlying areas into large trade 
> centers,  possibly causing localized *deflation* and thus devastating 
> rural  trade.)

I think that this effect would be damaging to all of Krynnspace and that the 
gods would take steps to prevent it from happening. As we already know that 
Krynn doesn't have a dead economy, I would infer that something has 
*already* happened to prevent this (and we just don't know what it is yet).

> Alternately, there is no spaceport at Palanthas, and spelljamming 
> contacts with Krynn are as sporadic and unorganized as otherwise 
> described.

Given the size of Anasalon, it doesn't make sense for there to be no contact 
between groundlings and wildspace. There are apparantly a few DL adventures 
that involve things in space. I think one of them has a visit to one of the 
moons. Ironically, as a fan of the crossover campaign, I'd like to keep 
traffic to groundling worlds to an absolute minimum, but there should be 
some traffic over the years.

I think we should make Ansalon a place that just isn't profitable to visit. 
I'd like Krynn, Oerth and Toril to be places for adventuring parties to 
visit - not important places on trade routes.

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/