Re: The Known Spheres - Was: Known Space

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Spelljammer Setting Discussion [mailto:SPELLJAMMER-
> L@??????.???????.com] On Behalf Of David Shepheard
> The Shou Lung are actually a race that could be very interesting to expand
> upon. I would like to see their activity predate the First Unhuman War. I
> would like to see the Admiral of Lionheart (or whatever his title was)
> presented with one of the official scrolls of greeting from a high ranking
> recorder. I would like to see a lower officer, like Sindiath, be on
> friendly
> terms with a top Shou Lung official.
> 
> I would like to see the Shou Lung enter the First Unhuman War on a matter
> of
> honour. They need to play a very small role in the war to avoid continuity
> problems, but it would be a great way for their fleet to gain new helms.
> And
> if a former emperor ordered new ships to be built as fast as Unhuman helms
> were recovered, the war could provide a good excuse for a big Shou Lung
> expansion at that time. After the war the supply of captured helms would
> soon dry up and expansion could slow down drastically.
> 
> Given the large number of behind the scenes references to the Shou Lung, I
> think they should have several colonies across Known Space. A Shou Lung
> colony on The Tears of Selune would be a useful plot-device, because it
> could protect the Shou Lung from attacks from space. (And if WotC ever
> kill
> off the Shou Lung Empire, or stop it having contact with wildspace, the
> Tear
> owned by the Shou Lung could replace Toril as a central point of
> organisation.)
> 
> The Shou Lung seem to be obsessed by liveworlds and unusual things, so I
> think that colonies should be put onto planets where the Emperor's
> Recorders
> can document these unusual things.
> 
> Ships are supposed to have split off from the Empire over the years, so
> I'd
> have some Shou give up space travel and found oriental groundling
> colonies.
> In some cases, they might have a crash and not have the option to return
> to
> wildspace. If we have one (or more) colony per Known Space sphere we can
> also justify The Path and The Way being seen as a spacefaring religion.
> 
> In fact the cultural clash between followers of The Path and followers of
> The Way can cause a holy war between Shou Lung offshoots and cut down the
> Dragonship fleet, to a less dominant number of ships. This would allow us
> to
> build up and then cut down the Shou Lung presence, but still spread their
> culture across Known Space.

[Ben Wafer] These are all great ideas. We know that the Shou have a presence
on the Rock of Bral, but they've got to have colonies and enclaves
throughout the known spheres, not just one or two. I also see the Shou as
making contact with other oriental-style civilizations around the spheres,
with mixed results. In some cases I see them engaging in trade with those
civilizations (maybe even trading the design for Dragonships to them in
order to gain a spacefaring ally in a sphere where logistics keep them from
having a significant presence), and in some cases I see them ending up in
conflict with those civilizations, maybe even resorting to blockading them
to keep them from becoming competition in space.

> We still need someone or some organisation to travel through the spheres
> and
> give the dwarves the knowledge they need to leave their worlds and become
> spacefarers.

[Ben Wafer] Or we could have the gods of the dwarves give the entire race
this knowledge at some distant point in history, probably at a point when
the general decline of groundling dwarves had begun. Some clans would have
gone into space where they thrived, while others decided to stubbornly
remain as groundlings, where most of them slowly declined. I'm undecided
about which explanation for the dwarves in space I prefer.
 
> I think that SJ needs a period where the dwarves are temporarily a major
> force and then break off into separate clans. Marthammor Duin, the dwarven
> god of explorers and travellers and patron of dwarves who travel far from
> home, would make a good plot device for this, because his clerics, rangers
> and paladins could travel around wildspace, and teach kings how to build
> citadels and dwarven forges. We would need a single world or a single clan
> to be given the initial knowledge and then spread it across Known Space.
> 
> I think that this could all happen long before the elves and goblin-kin
> gain
> power in wildspace. I see the dwarves as a race that would get into
> wildspace, potentially have the spheres of Known Space at their command,
> but
> ignore their own power in a quest to find asteroids containing riches
> beyond
> imagination.

[Ben Wafer] See this is why I'm undecided, because I like this idea as well.

> I was just reading LotV again and the sidebar on page 50 describes
> halflings
> as a minor race. To me that means they are a race that other spacefarers
> underestimate. Races like the elves, have got involved in expensive
> conflicts, but halflings could have largely avoided that sort of thing. I
> see them slipping under the noses of the, so called, major races and
> forming
> lots of symbiotic colonies next to humans and other friendly races.

[Ben Wafer] I particularly see them having symbiotic colonies with elves. In
fact, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the Halflings in space got there
because of the elves.
 
> I think we need at least one "powerful", but non-hostile halfling colony
> to
> act as a location for the Swanship to have been designed.
> 
> I also think that we need to try to add halfling settlements into many of
> the spheres of Known Space [correction the Known Spheres] to justify the
> races inclusion in the SJ core rules.

[Ben Wafer] Yup.
 
> BTW: I'm not sure how much air and food halfling crew need. The "Crew"
> paragraph in the description of the Swanship in Lost Ships (page 66)
> suggests that you need 16 crew instead of 12, but that halflings breath
> *half* the air of larger folk (doubling the crew capacity for an all
> halfling crew). I'm pretty sure I've seen conflicting information about
> this
> elsewhere, but can't remember where I might have seen it.

[Ben Wafer] I actually worked out my own system for air used by size, vs.
amount of work that can be done by size.

> That sounds like it makes sense to me. I think I would like to see a few
> more Netheril style empires attempt to dominate wildspace and get killed
> off
> by the elven navy. For example: I would love for Dragonlance's Knights of
> the Divine Hammer to have a small presence in wildspace immediately prior
> to
> the First Cataclysm (of Krynn).
> 
> One of these arrogant human empires would make a good backstory for the
> Xenos. I would prefer it to be a planet that isn't part of TSR canon,
> because then we don't have to worry about continuity problems. I see some
> unimportant kingdom that went into wildspace 3000 years ago, got slapped
> back down by the elves and then got taken apart from nearby human kingdoms
> who disliked them more than the elves did. I see the king loosing his
> kingdom and being forced into exile on some hostile island that is easier
> to
> defend from his enemies. And I see his decedents brewing with hate and
> being
> determined to return to space and find a way to put down the non-humans
> they
> blame for the downfall of their former kingdom.
> 
> I see the Xenos using so much anti-elf and anti-demi-human propaganda that
> their origins are almost lost in their web of lies. The Xenos should have
> been recruiting malcontent humans since the got back into wildspace. Most
> of
> the humans in today's Xenos should probably have no connection with the
> original people who created the organisastion.

[Ben Wafer] This idea is great, and I'd love to see you flesh it out a
little more.

> I don't see the elven navy as colonising planets. D&D campaign settings
> existed long before Spelljammer and I got the impression that they all
> have
> their own mythology that has the elves being placed their by the gods.
> 
> To actually have the elven navy colonising individual planets, we are
> going
> to have to have them colonising Toril, Krynn, Oerth and any other TSR or
> d20
> System world we want to incorporate into Spelljammer. And if we do that
> with
> elves, we are going to have to do that with every other race.
> 
> That is a continuity nightmare! We would have to say Toril elves are the
> "real" elves or Oerth elves or whatever. People are bound to have issues
> with us if we do that. And we, ourselves are bound to have issues.

[Ben Wafer] Agreed to a point. I absolutely wouldn't have all elves on all
planets be colonies placed there by the IEN. In fact, for virtually every
common race (humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, gnomes, halflings, ogres
etc) I see them being native to many different groundling worlds, probably
placed there by their respective gods ages ago. At the same time, I see all
of them later founding colonies on other worlds. I see one of the primary
goals of the IEN being finding all of the worlds where elves are native in
order to form a connection between them all, but I also see them making
colonies on worlds without elves in order to support the fleet, as well as
simply to take advantage of worlds which are well-suited to the elven
culture.
 

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