Re: Darkspace - Planet Orbits

From: "Charles Taylor" <nerik@?????????.?????.??.uk>
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2007 7:00 PM
Subject: Re: [SPELLJAMMER] Darkspace - Planet Orbits

 David Shepheard <david_shepheard@???????.com> wrote:

>> I'm working on other stuff (mostly trying to get the SJ Wiki knocked into
>> shape so that I can upload the Darkspace canon info onto it), but these
>> numbers you knocked out are great.
>>
>> In case you didn't see elsewhere, I just rechecked my own notes and 
>> noticed
>> I had introduced an error. So these planets are al intact ones rather 
>> than
>> belts, but your numbes will still work. I've adjusted your text (but not
>> your stats).

>Thanks, but I don't think you introduced an error, 'Crystal Spheres'
>page 39 describes Darkspace as "Othe system has no planetsO Debris of
>an unknown origin and strange nature floats in various orbitsO In the
>farthest orbitO is the largest rock in the sphere, nearly the size of
>a planet" On the next page it implies that Verin still existed (in
>some state at least) when T'laan left. The remainder of that section
>describes the colony of New Thesalys.

STET!

Thanks for the correction, Charles. It says the planets are gone, but then 
goes on to say that small moons and planets are left.

I'd say that the continent of Verin that T'Laan was on should be intact, so 
that he wouldn't be destroyed while he was asleep. I can't think who would 
destroy the uninhabited planets. Maybe we could have a series of 
Dragonlance-style Cataclysms blast the planets to bits.

>> I think, that I'd like to come back to this after a while and work on 
>> these
>> planets one at a time. I think that giving each planet a god, and then
>> spinning stuff off of that, would work well.
>>
>> I think that looking at the word "Verin" to see the sort of culture we 
>> can
>> try to infer from it could help.
>>
>> I just looked it up on the Internet and a very badly sourced article on
>> Wikipedia claims Verin is the name of a demon lord:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verin_%28Dungeons_%26_Dragons%29
>>
>> If anyone has time to research this and look for related material it 
>> could
>> help us a lot. Maybe the 9 planets could all be named after demon lords 
>> and
>> other outsiders instead of gods. The article says that Verin is mentioned 
>> in
>> the Planescape supplement: "Faces of Evil: The Fiends", so if Loki is
>> reading perhaps he could skim read the book and look for him.
>>
>> Another two uses of the word Verin are a city in Spain and a character in
>> The Wheel of Time:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ver%C3%ADn
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verin_Mathwin
>>
>> They might also be useful for inspiration, although I'd prefer to avoid
>> lifting things from a modern book like The Wheel of Time.

>As to names, I'm leaning towards using lesser-known Spanish cities,
>but I'm interested to know what the Planescape book (which I don't
>recall possessing) says about the arch-fiend Verin.

Spanish cities it is then Charles. But as seeing at Verin is in the Ourense 
Province, I think we should narrow our choice down to that smaller part of 
Spain. Here is a list of municipalities in Ourense from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_in_Ourense

All of these names will have a cultural connection with each other. If there 
are any Spanish speakers lurking on the list, now would be a *very* good 
time for you to chip in and help with this. I suggest we drop the accents 
and other special characters from the Spanish names to help people type 
stuff. I've never liked that accent in "Faerun".

If we haven't got any Spanish speakers, I'd suggest either sticking to the 
single word names for the names of planets/gods/asteroid belts or *maybe* 
dropping part of the name of two word towns, so that we end up with one word 
names.

Here are a few suggestions:
* How about calling the sun (and the sun god) "Celanova" as it contains the 
word "nova" (which means new star) and that is kind of poetic.
* How about having a bunch of sun worshiping monks (on the planet Verin) who 
live/worship in a monestary called The Monestary of The Sun after the 
Monastery of San Salvador de Celanova. (I would suggest that this order of 
monks should be able to multi-class as clerics of Celanova, in a similar way 
to monk orders in Realmspace.)

I'd also suggest doing more detailed research into Verin and using names of 
places, roads or other things within the city as the names of geographical 
features or countries on the planet Verin. These old names can be found on 
out-dated maps within libraries within deserted buildings.

Here is are a couple of suggestions:

* Lets call the largest ocean on Verin the Tamega Ocean after the river that 
flows through the Spanish town.
* Lets call three smaller seas the Cabreiroa Sea, Fontenova Sea and Sousas 
Sea after the three water bottling plants in the town.
* Lets put the Tower of Night into a country called Monterrey after 
Monterrey Castle.
* Lets call the organised groups of vampire hunters The Cigarron after the 
masked figures that run through the streets during Verin's carnival. (The 
word cigarron means grasshoppers in English.)

(I would have suggested doing the same sort of thing for the other planets, 
but don't forget that they were uninhabited, so everything should be unnamed 
until the new era after the Crystal Spheres adventure.)

"My name is Bruin Shambrath -- you killed my father -- prepare to die!"
David "Big Mac" Shepheard
Virtual Eclipse Role Playing Club
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/virtualeclipselrp/links/d20_system_001071937434/Spelljammer_001071430476
http://spelljammer.wikia.com/
http://www32.brinkster.com/virtualeclipse/