Warforged in SPACE! a random campaign idea by mjnousak.

[mjnousak]

Alrighty, let's say, theoretically;
Merrix D'Cannith gets some Immovable Rods, enough for a small band of professional (insert classes here) warforged to use to go into space to investigate the Ring of Siberys and directly harvest some Siberys shards from the ring.

How this works.

The way they get up is easy, fly up with something first, the use the rods, or just use the rods.
1. Activate Rod, firmly grasp Rod.
2. Put second rod above your head as much as possible.
3. Deactivate first rod.
4. Put first rod above your head as much as possible.
5. Activate Rod, firmly grasp Rod, deactivate second rod.
6. Repeat steps 2-5 until you are in space and at the Ring of Siberys.
7. Mine
8. Return home with gregarious amounts of shards.
9. when gravity affects them normally (and aren't at risk of burning up in the atmosphere) simply fall down to the ground and prya they don't land somewhere hostile.
10. Find a way to use feather fall so you don't die from hitting the ground at terminal velocity.
11. Return home
12. Profit?

Alternatively

1. Have Merrix let them ride Warforged Raptors all the way up.
2. Then use rods so they can make themselves move /gain some speed in space (momentum). Or find some other means of propulsion that won't fry them.
3. do steps 7, 8,11, and 12 on the previous list, but you can fly home because you have the Warforged Raptors.


Questions/comments you may have.

"But won't they die in space?"
No, Warforged don't breath, eat, sleep etc. so in THEORY they can survive in space.

"Wouldn't they get bored and just quit after a while?"
They may get bored at some point, but they can talk to each other to relieve themselves of boredom. If they bring along, they can sing.

"What if they fall?"
Ring of Four Winds, it gives them Feather Fall 4 times per day (or +2AC against a single attack 4 times per day). Or have them tie each other to one another like mountain climbers do. Odds are they can hold you up.

"Wouldn't they run into something up there and have to fight it?"
Give them a way to fly/ levitate. Odds are this is a higher level game, so you can afford a magic item or two. Or have Merrix give them something. Also, what monster lives in the stratosphere-atmosphere (or anything ESLE up that high?)?

"What if they find something in space?"
Good question, I have no idea what lives in space in D&D. As far as I know, the only thing relating to space is the Alienist Prestige class, who summons aliens (adds Pseudonatural template to the creature it summons) to fight for it.

"Wouldn't it take them a really long time to get to the Ring?"
Probably. But they wouldn't really know that, or care because they don't age. when they get back to future Ebberon with colossal sized shards, they'd probably be welcomed back. Or if something like the spell plague happened but didn't reach them, they'd be considered borderline gods for their magic and bringing back these immense magical items.

"Wouldn't the planet move out from under them once they escape the planets gravitational pull?"
No, the universe has use constantly moving in some direction or another, the Suns of Ebberon would keep them spinning.

"But the Rods are immovable they'd be stuck in space."
Nope, a Immovable Rod CAN be moved with a DC 30 STR check to move it 10' in one round. I'm relatively certain the universe has a +infinity modifier to moving you in space.

"But that's only 10' per round, the planets move way more than that."
Common Sense overrides RAW here, otherwise, the Rod would make you die if you used it on the planet because you just stopped moving period, and instead of moving with the planet (which is going several THOUSAND feet per round), and you'd die anyway from hitting a random vertical surface.

This is just a rough idea, I have no idea how to implement this due to lack of space creatures and never having DM'd a D&D game before. If you ran this idea, how would YOU do it (presuming I didn't miss some horribly obvious thing preventing this idea from working)? Or do something similar with Awakened Golems and whatnot in Faerun if a bored wizard sent them off to investigate space? He could be a lich or something else that makes them not age or die due to aging so he can wait for them to return.

[avr]

If orbital mechanics work the same in Eberron as in RL - they may not - the components of the Ring of Siberys are moving very, very fast relative to the ground. Lethally fast and then some.

If they don't you're looking at something magical. The correlation between moons and planes suggests that you may actually find a route to an obscure part of the Astral plane rather than outer space.

[squiggit]

If orbital mechanics work the same in Eberron as in RL - they may not - the components of the Ring of Siberys are moving very, very fast relative to the ground. Lethally fast and then some.

Isn't there a rule somewhere in the DMG that says something like that unless it's stated otherwise expect things to function how they would in a real world?

[mjnousak]

If orbital mechanics work the same in Eberron as in RL - they may not - the components of the Ring of Siberys are moving very, very fast relative to the ground. Lethally fast and then some.

That's like saying you can't land on the moon because it's moving very fast compared to the ground.

The Shards may have a weird orbit, but that doesn't mean you can't find it/ travel to it. You may have to look out for falling shards at the worst if you're between Ebberon World and the Ring (presuming you don't encounter something else along the way).


Isn't there a rule somewhere in the DMG that says something like that unless it's stated otherwise expect things to function how they would in a real world?

That agrees with my above statement.


If they don't you're looking at something magical. The correlation between moons and planes suggests that you may actually find a route to an obscure part of the Astral plane rather than outer space.

That would make an equally interesting adventure I think. Though where you end up would be up to debate. Also, Source? I thought the only way for dimensional travel was dimensional traveling spells/ portal.

[avr]

That's like saying you can't land on the moon because it's moving very fast compared to the ground.

The Shards may have a weird orbit, but that doesn't mean you can't find it/ travel to it. You may have to look out for falling shards at the worst if you're between Ebberon World and the Ring (presuming you don't encounter something else along the way).
It's like saying if you climbed a ladder to the moon at a walking pace, when you got there the moon would smack you in the kisser hard enough to vaporise you as it swept by in it's orbit. You can go with Space: 1889 physics or mythic physics to get around this, but RL is quite clear on the point. An orbit has a velocity as well as a height.

That would make an equally interesting adventure I think. Though where you end up would be up to debate. Also, Source? I thought the only way for dimensional travel was dimensional traveling spells/ portal.
1: Khyber can be reached by going deep enough underground and is treated in some ways as another plane - like some RL treatments of Hades or Hell. Siberys was a progenitor dragon on the same level as Khyber.
2: The planes are described as orbiting Eberron within the Astral plane (ECS pg 92.)
3: There's the same number of moons, extra planes and dragonmarks, whicn has been stated not to be a coincidence. This (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20050307a) article by Keith Baker correlates each moon with a dragonmark. It may be useful to you otherwise for this campaign too.
4: Astral means starry or related to the stars.
5: When a plane is coterminous you may be able to move to it by going into an appropriate environment. Source (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eb/20040309a).

[mjnousak]

It's like saying if you climbed a ladder to the moon at a walking pace, when you got there the moon would smack you in the kisser hard enough to vaporise you as it swept by in it's orbit. You can go with Space: 1889 physics or mythic physics to get around this, but RL is quite clear on the point. An orbit has a velocity as well as a height.

Yes, but presuming said magic ( perpetually moving and all sorts of other things) ladder took you right to a point on the moon, you would just "arrive" and not get "smacked in the kisser" due to being affected by the planet's gravity. The Rods are important here since they'd let you safely "descend" while being affected by the moons gravity.


1: Khyber can be reached by going deep enough underground and is treated in some ways as another plane - like some RL treatments of Hades or Hell. Siberys was a progenitor dragon on the same level as Khyber.

Did not know that, but also interesting.


2: The planes are described as orbiting Eberron within the Astral plane (ECS pg 92.)

Knew that, (had a huge alignment argument with a player for shoving our teammates into a (albeit dysfunctional) portal to the Realm of Dreams ( all we knew was it gave off a MASSIVE magical Aura ). I (a warforged), walked through it and nothing happened (it put people to sleep to port in Quori). So he started shoving other party members in. (He was CN I'm TN and I told him to stop it (he'd tried shoving me into dangerous/ unknown places too and I was getting sick of it), and he said "you wouldn't care about the others because you're TN". About 10 minutes into the bickering, the DM screamed at us to shut up and told us what the thing did, why the thing doesn't work (can't access the Plane of Dreams because it's too far away) and not to mention that situation in game again or the PC would die via something terrible or purple lightning.


3: There's the same number of moons, extra planes and dragonmarks, whicn has been stated not to be a coincidence. This (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20050307a) article by Keith Baker correlates each moon with a dragonmark. It may be useful to you otherwise for this campaign too.

Interesting. Duly noted.


4: Astral means starry or related to the stars.

Yes, I knew that.
So Astral Plane should equal space. But silvery and actually does have inhabitants. Guess that solves the "what would you find" question. Interesting. I wonder how that affects one's body if it was half in the astral plane and half in material due to being halfway on the border, or would you just get sucked in? hmmm.


5: When a plane is coterminous you may be able to move to it by going into an appropriate environment. Source (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eb/20040309a).

Fascinating, I like the moving map and breakdown of each plane/ how their effects work.

So what I got from this was.
1. You'd enter the astral plane then probably end up in another random plane depending on orbits.
2. I need to look into Ebberron lore more before making a game in there.

[Mnemnosyne]

Since this is Eberron it may not apply, but space mechanics in the other major campaign settings do not work anything like real life in the slightest, since as far as I know, unless specifically overridden in a new edition, older edition stuff, especially setting content, remains valid. Which means D&D worlds, with the possible exception of Eberron, function on Spelljammer mechanics.

Which means all you need for space travel (if you don't mind going really, really slow when compared to the vast distances) is any sort of fly speed, and no need to breathe. So fly where you're going on the back of a zombie giant eagle.

Now, in Eberron, a lot of this stuff doesn't apply; we know the planes function differently, at the very least. So there is definitely the question of whether gravity and such function as in real life, as in other D&D settings, or in some other manner that is unique to Eberron.

[TuggyNE]

Yes, but presuming said magic ( perpetually moving and all sorts of other things) ladder took you right to a point on the moon, you would just "arrive" and not get "smacked in the kisser" due to being affected by the planet's gravity. The Rods are important here since they'd let you safely "descend" while being affected by the moons gravity.

That might work for the hypothetical moon, depending on what frame of reference the immovable rods use. It's a lot more dubious when dealing with what is essentially a ring formation like Saturn's, since the dominant gravity well is pretty much guaranteed to be the planet's until maybe ten meters from one of the shards. At which point, hilarity ensues as you abruptly change velocity by thousands of meters/second in a single round! Good times.