Re: Faeriespace

From: "Charles Taylor" <nerik@?????????.?????.??.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 11:16 AM
Subject: Re: [SPELLJAMMER] Faeriespace - Was: Fairyspace Expansion


> David Shepheard <david_shepheard@???????.com> wrote:
>>
>>If you make the planets giant apples you can pick a different type of 
>>apple
>>as the basis for each planet and give each one surface features similar to
>>that type of apple. Lakes (or even seas) similar to cider could also add 
>>to
>>the uniqueness. Real apples sometimes have worms, so I think that their
>>could be giant underground worms*. This could create an unusual 
>>"underdark"
>>with long smooth tunnels.
> [snip]
>
> Further thought - we could have a variety of different fruit; apples,
> pears, lemons, etc. good/bad idea?

I said the same thing myself, plus I wouldn't stop at fruit - I'd use 
anything that grows on a tree*. If we keep all the new stuff much smaller 
than the original fruit, we can say that it isn't normally noticed.

* = I think Adam wanted to turn the Goblin Porcupine into something that 
grew somewhere. We could give the Shrakma Tree ship sized conkers and 
chestnuts that can be hollowed out by Wellow Goblins and exported out of the 
system.

There are two ways to go about this. You could either make each planet or 
sun a different type of fruit *or* have a level within the tree where 
several of the same type of fruit grow.

I think I'd prefer to have an entire level of the same type of fruit, 
because even within one type there are many different varieties. I can also 
visualise a time in the history of Upgood where there are eight apples and 
all the good races have to embark on The Great Exodus to move to the young 
apples before the old ones fall off and make the slow one way trip to the 
"soil" at the nadir of the crystal sphere.

Layers with windfalls would allow us to create some sort of "harvest cycle" 
where each level of the tree faces major disruption every 1000 or 2000 years 
(or whatever works). We could then quickly flesh out the history of this 
crystal sphere, by inserting regular events for Upgood, Vastdarken, the 
suns, and any other fruit/nut/berry layers we add onto the tree.

We could even make different layers of "leaves" look like different 
varieties of tree. The tree could have over ten thousand layers of branches 
that each have their own special properties.

The layers in Crystal Spheres being the most important ones, and the less 
inhabited layers could be built up over time. We could give each layer its 
own name, and put different types of resources on each layer.

This would allow us to have gigantic oak-like leaves that blot out the suns 
on one layer of branches and tiny sharp pine-needles that can be built into 
a ship as a +1 piercing ram on another layer.

Creatures like your gigantic squirrel (which I would make a flying squirrel) 
could live far away from the layers of Upgood and Vastdarken (especially as 
they would probably want to collect or eat giant nuts). You could have 
squirrel riding rangers who patrol the nut growing levels of the tree, 
looking for threats to the natural order.

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/