Just how big is "known space"?

Hi all,

With my Internet connection going down *every* evening for the last month, 
I've had time to do a bit of offline reading.

Part of this has been looking at old SJML postings. Last year Ben Wafer was 
saying how the big three spheres (Greyspace, Krynnspace and Realmspace) 
should be "spelljamming suburbs" to explain the lack of knowledge about 
spelljamming on Oerth, Krynn and Toril.

More recently someone was talking about Practical Planetology. While looking 
at it again, I re-read the "Geonomicon" sidebar on page 2. Here is the most 
interesting bit:

"The Geonomicon is a large book containing details on 80 or so worlds that 
have been explored by various adventurers."

Above this sidebar is a description of Captain Trevis Pelor, who has added 
12 additional worlds to the blank pages at the back of his Geonomicon and 
hopes that he goes home or goes to a major spelljamming port, his new 
additions will be: "transcribed to the master version of the Geonomicon, to 
be included in all future copies of the great book." (He also hopes that his 
name will be added to the list of contributors.)

So unless Captain Trevis Pelor is unusual, there are other people out there 
trying to add planets to the Geonomicon. The Geonomicon we have today* is 
something that is expanding and *currently* at approximately 80 worlds.

* = "Today" being whatever year Paul has worked out for Practical 
Planetology.

If we run time backwards then the Geonomicon will shrink until it is the 
work of a single explorer. I'm not sure how many editions we would have to 
go back, before we got to that point, but taking the example of Captain 
Trevis Pelor and the fact that the worlds are all explored ones, we might be 
able to infer something.

You may be wondering where Ben's comments come in to this topic, but here is 
where they combined with Practical Planetology to made me think of 
something:

If the Radiant Triangle is made up of three crystal spheres where the 
largest worlds have no knowledge of spelljamming *and* "known space" only 
has 80 planets that have been explored enough to appear in the Geonomicon 
and  then maybe Spelljammer *isn't* the impossibly big campaign setting that 
we *think* it is. Maybe Spelljammer is a setting that only covers one or two 
dozen crystal spheres. Maybe the rest of the spheres are unexplored.

So I ask the question: how big *is* known space? Or "how many spheres are 
considered "civilised" by spacefarers?

Lets have a look at the "....space" books to see if we can work out some 
sort of average number of worlds per sphere. Remember that the quote from 
the sidebar specifies that these are "explored" worlds, so voidworlds 
shouldn't really be included in this list of 80 planets. I'm also going to 
discount suns. I know that fireworlds are included in Practical Planetology, 
but I'm trying to be conservative and boost the number of possible crystal 
spheres. If we count all the worlds that PCs can't visit we could end up 
with a very small number of crystal spheres.

I'll start with Greyspace:

Oerth - I'm tempted to ignore all groundling worlds, but as the sphere is 
named after the City of Greyhawk, I figure that some spacefarers visit it.

Kule - this is a voidworld. page 13 of Greyspace says: "no organised trade 
exists with any of the societies on Kule", but it does have a drow 
spaceport, so I'll grudgingly include it.

Raenei - page 21 of Greyspace says: "There are no port facilities...on 
Raenei", so I'm ignoring it.

Liga - I'm ignoring this sun.

The Grinder - I'm ignoring asteroid belts.

Edill - This air world is inhabited by dragons who don't buy anything. Only 
the red dragons are interested in trading and they deal with the gobinoids. 
So I'm ignoring Edill.

Gnibile - Undead live here, so I'm ignoring it.

Conatha - No land and xenophobic sea creatures mean I'm ignoring this water 
world.

Ginsel - Finally a proper spelljamming world.

Borka - The Borka Retribution Fleet would stop any detailed exploration, so 
I'm ignoring this cluster world.

Greela - Another proper spelljamming world, with two main cultures. I'm 
including this cluster.

The Spectre ("The Wink") - The life here is all imported from elsewhere. 
I'll count this, but it might not have been documented on earlier editions 
of Geonomicon.

This gives us between 3 and 5 planets in Greyspace that would definately be 
in the Geonomicon.

Lets move onto Krynnspace:

The Sun - Its a sun - I'll ignore it.

Sirrion** - Although this cool fireworld has a single spelljamming port, 
people can't easily explore the rest of it, so I'll ignore it.

* = I'm using the corrected spelling of Sirrion.

Reorx - A proper spelljamming planet.

Krynn - A groundling world, but the Tinker Gnomes have it as a homeworld, so 
it has to be counted.

Chislev - It is an uncivilised planet, so would probably be treated as a 
groundling world, but it should be possible to explore it, so I'll count it.

Zivilyn - Its central regions are pretty uninhabitable, but should be easy 
enough to map from a passing ship. I'll count this. (In the past this planet 
was an intact world, but as no evidence of that civilisation remains, I'd 
argue that the Geonomicon was written after the Cataclysm of Zivilyn***.)

*** = FYI: The Cataclysm of Zivilyn predates the First Cataclysm of Krynn 
(and the end of the First Unhuman War). We don't have any details of events 
before the destruction, but we can use those events to help cut back the 
time the Geonomicon has existed.

Nehzmyth - It has no ports of call, so I'm ignoring it.

The Stellar Islandes - These are connected by a walkway that was "connected 
decades ago", so it might be in recent copies of the Geonomicon, but I don't 
think it would be in the first edition.

So I'm accepting 3 to 5 worlds.

Finally lets do Realmspace:

The Sun - Again I'm ignoring it.

Anadia - Xenophobic halflings, but a civilised world, so I'll include it.

Coliar - An air world with "ports of call" counts.

Toril - A "groundling world", but the home of the Shou Lung Empire, so I'll 
include it.

Kapri - There are no safe places to land on this waterworld, so I'll ignore 
it. (However, the elven navy probably has old details on Kapri's aquatic elf 
society.)

Chandos - "It is believed that a spelljammer hasn't landed...for 
centuaries." I'm ignoring it.

Glyth - The only safe place is the moon Mingabwe, so I'll ignore this.

Garden - As a liveworld, this place would change over time, but I'll count 
it.

H'Catha - Beholders live here, so I'll ignore it.

So I'm counting 4 of the worlds.

In total I'm counting between 10 and 14 worlds for these three spheres. The 
lower number suggests that the Geonomicon needs about 24 spheres and the 
higher number suggests that it only needs about 17 or 18 spheres.

This is all guesswork, of course, and there could be lots of spheres, with 
only one useful planet. But even if all crystal spheres only had one world, 
we could infer that there would be less than 80 crystal spheres in "known 
space".

I'm sure that this guess could be refined, by working out what crystal 
spheres would be in known space. For example: Spiralspace is a must-have 
sphere, so I'd be inclined to use Paul's Bralspace to refine a guess.

"My name is Bruin Shambrath -- you killed my father -- prepare to die!"
David "Big Mac" Shepheard
Virtual Eclipse Role Playing Club
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