The Core (Planetary, not Rules)

[Jade_Tarem]

So I'm kinda curious, what should a fantasy world's core look like?

I have one in mind for my campaign, but I want to hear other opinions.

EDIT: I'm having issues with the poll, feel free to post here but I'm going to try to repost the thread later.

[AmoDman]

Soft and chewy with a crunchy outer shell.

But really, what exactly are you asking? You're beginning with the presumption that adventurers would be able to see the core. We can't even do that in the real world, only theorize. Then again, the real world doesn't have vast civilations of underground races...I mean, really, most d&d worlds are just waiting to fall apart, the fragile beehives that they are.

[Jade_Tarem]

Well, like I said, the original post is fragmented, half complete, and should include a poll.

[JadedDM]

On one of my homebrewed worlds, the core is made of amethyst (which is a magical gem on my world). So all magic comes from the core. Many dwarves believe that if they dig deep enough, they'll reach the core and become rich, but that's more of a pipe dream.

[Caledonian]

There is no core. The world is an infinite plane. Dig down far enough, and you end up passing into the Plane of Fire that's one of another world's suns.

[martyboy74]

On one of my homebrewed worlds, the core is made of amethyst (which is a magical gem on my world). So all magic comes from the core. Many dwarves believe that if they dig deep enough, they'll reach the core and become rich, but that's more of a pipe dream.
In more ways than one. How on earth (toril, etc.) would they get it out?

[AmoDman]

In more ways than one. How on earth (toril, etc.) would they get it out?

The same way you mine any deposits of jewels, I'd imagine, except these jewels happen to be the source of all magic itself. Not too raw of a deal.

[Caledonian]

The same way you mine any deposits of jewels, I'd imagine, except these jewels happen to be the source of all magic itself. Not too raw of a deal.

There couldn't possibly be any horrible unforseen consequences of such an action!

[Nerd-o-rama]

In my mind, the two published settings I've looked at in any depth (Faerun and Eberron) are earthlike planets, with iron/nickel cores. In Eberron, this doesn't matter so much. Dig deep enough (like half a mile) and you end up in Khyber. Try to dig down from Khyber and who knows where you end up? It doesn't lie completely in the same space as Eberron. It's kind of like a hellish, natural TARDIS.

I have yet to determine how Eberron has enough gravity to gain 13 spherical satellites and a visible ring, though.

In Faerun, the Drow will kill you before you get anywhere.

[AmoDman]

There couldn't possibly be any horrible unforseen consequences of such an action!

Why would there be? They're dwarves, they mine, the world goes round. Tolkien taught us the principles of Dwarven tenacity.

[JadedDM]

Ahhh, dwarves. Short-statured and short-sighed.

[StickMan]

I have yet to determine how Eberron has enough gravity to gain 13 spherical satellites and a visible ring, though.


Wait why would it need more gravity than earth to have 13 moons. I mean I don't know a ton about physics but it seems that as long as they are not as large as our moon it would be fine. Mars has two moons but they are very small. As for the Ring that is just pure magic and I don't think it is in space so much as in the atmospher.

[Emperor Tippy]

Maybe the moons are hollow?

[Cybren]

Wait why would it need more gravity than earth to have 13 moons. I mean I don't know a ton about physics but it seems that as long as they are not as large as our moon it would be fine. Mars has two moons but they are very small. As for the Ring that is just pure magic and I don't think it is in space so much as in the atmospher.

Note the important distinction of being visible, and the obvious fact that their orbits are stable and don't involve colliding with the planet or each other any time soon

[UglyPanda]

Personally, I think that if your PCs are powerful enough to dig/teleport to the center of the Earth, there should be something to cause instant death so they don't try to see what happens to planets with disintegrated cores. In other words, lots of lava and/or angry ancient civilizations.

The popular hollow world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystara

[JadedDM]

I never really thought about it before. But I suppose if someone did try and tunnel to the center of my world (and was somehow successful), they would get fried by the intense magical radiation.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Wait why would it need more gravity than earth to have 13 moons. I mean I don't know a ton about physics but it seems that as long as they are not as large as our moon it would be fine. Mars has two moons but they are very small. As for the Ring that is just pure magic and I don't think it is in space so much as in the atmospher.
Well, Mars' moons are tiny, without enough mass to their name to even maintain a spherical shape. Though to be fair, Earth's moon is relatively ginormous compared to most other satellites in our solar system. It's just that only gas giants like Saturn and Jupiter have been known to have dozens of moons.

Actually, Tippy's suggestion has some merit. Gives an interesting potential for extra adventure locations. And really, no one (living) on Eberron has explored their moons. They could be made of cheese, or gigantic portals into Eberron's outer planes.

And the Ring of Syberis is definitely comprised of physical matter in orbit - Syberis shards and mundane rock, which occasionally fall to Eberron under the influence of gravity. Then again, the setting does apparently have lighter-than-air wood, so it's possible (though unlikely), that the Ring has a similar property and "floats" on Eberron's upper atmosphere like a chunk of unweighted Soarwood hypothetically would, with pieces occasionally crashing to Earth because of magic.

[Indon]

Hmm... Some possibilities I can think of offhand:

-A nuclear furnace, revealing that the entire planet was a Dyson sphere all along!
-Scaffolding, revealing that the entire planet was an artificial creation of the Ancients all along!
-Pressurized, superheated metal, revealing that the entire planet was just a perfectly ordinary planet all along!

Heh.

[Bears With Lasers]

I have yet to determine how Eberron has enough gravity to gain 13 spherical satellites and a visible ring, though.

It's magic.

[JadedDM]

It's magic.

A wizard did it.

[Mewtarthio]

A wizard did it.

No, actually, it's Eberron. An Artificer did it.

[Black Mage]

In my world, a couple things would happen if people tried to reach the core.

1. They would probably be gang raped by quite a bit of vicious critters (My world's "underdark" is alot scarier than Faerun's)
2. If the reach the "core", they'd hit the crystal that powers all magic in the world.
3. If they decide to mine said crystal, the result would be a huge magical explosion that would wipe out all magic in the world for good. Oh, and they'd probably die from the explosion too...

[Quietus]

No, actually, it's Eberron. An Artificer did it.

Odds are, they didn't mean to do it, either.

Kender artificer, perhaps? Or gnome... if it's explosion-related, defiantely gnome.

[Variable Arcana]

Actually, the Earth has well over a hundred moons. It's just that only one of them is of any consequence, size-wise. The others are nice if you want to watch TV, or make a long-distance phone call, or spy on your enemies.

The Earth's (or Eberron's) size doesn't preclude having dozens of moons and a ring system -- they are just much less likely to form. But if powerful wizards or the Gods put them there, there's no reason they'd be unstable (until the evil demon/God/wizard actively destabilizes one, of course).

Re:OP....

My favorite fantasy answer, if your party insists on digging down, is that about a mile down, gravity reverses. And about two miles down (or one mile down and one mile "up") there's a new ground -- on the inside of the globe -- with a stationary sun at the center of the earth.

The inside of the world, of course, has all different species, with entirely different languages and forms of magic.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Responding in order to Variable:

Touché

and

That, as I recall, is Mystara pretty exactly.

Back to Eberron (call me a fanboy if you will. I just like shiny new things) and staying on topic this time, it actually seems like a candidate for the "gigantic crystalline core" theory now that I think of it. The whole core is made of one huge Khyber dragonshard. Or, depending on your interpretation, is the physical form of the recumbent progenitor dragon Khyber, just as the Ring of Syberis is supposedly the material remains of Syberis.

I guarantee someone in Eberron is enough of a dumbass to tunnel down to that and mine it. Probably Merrix, though he would have to devise some sort of elaborate "mole machine" first.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

The Core is liquid.

A cheese based sauce, melted cheese or possibly Mornay sauce, no one knows for sure.

[Charity]

Eberron Fondue.

[daggaz]

Feh, a moon is a natural satelite. All moons are satelites. Not all satelites are moons.

[SpiderBrigade]

"...that's no moon..."

[Shadow of the Sun]

An interesting campaign could be based on a world where something akin to The Cataclysm happened, except larger, and far earlier in history. So large it exposed parts of the core. Which is a solid, radioactive material. That was insulated by the planet, except now because it is exposed, it mutates almost anything that comes near it. Think of the fun you could have if it was magical radiation ala background magic on Discworld!

[Jayabalard]

there is no core... if you dig down deep enough you'll fall out the bottom of the world...

[martyboy74]

"...that's no moon..."

"...that's a melon! The Death Melon!" (http://www.storewars.org/flash/index.html)

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Considerations of this type are why I love disc-shaped worlds.

"Clearly, if we sail far enough, we'll come back around to the AHHHHHHHHHH!"

"If we dig deep enough, eventually we'll hit the AHHHHHHH!"

As to Eberron's moons: clearly, they're just enormous cardboard circles, always facing the planet; manned and created by mischevious Tinker Gnomes just to mess with your head.

Alternatively, they could be an Illithilid tourist trap; sort of like a glass-bottomed boat tour.

....man, would I love to see Eberron/Spelljammer.

[Matthew]

Me too, Spell Jammer would rock Eberron's world!

Whatever the core is made of, it bloody well shouldn't be hollow! Damn you TSR and your undermining of Mystra!

[Destro_Yersul]

My personal campaign world has a center coterminous with the plane of shadow. You get absorbed and die if you dig too deep... :smallamused:

[JadedDM]

With the high level of 'magitek' Eberron has, I'm kind of surprised they don't have spelljammers.

[Variable Arcana]

Feh, a moon is a natural satelite. All moons are satelites. Not all satelites are moons.
Bah. Artificial distinction.

In that case, Eberron has no moons. :smalltongue:

[Matthew]

With the high level of 'magitek' Eberron has, I'm kind of surprised they don't have spelljammers.

I think Eberron is supposed to be officially 'detached' from the D&D Universe. No idea why.

[Variable Arcana]

With the high level of 'magitek' Eberron has, I'm kind of surprised they don't have spelljammers.
Why would they want them? It's a terribly inefficient means of transport.

If there's somewhere (like a moon) you want to travel to, cheaper and easier to make two permanent pairs of teleportation circles...

Or just get a Mirror of Mental Prowess...

Or Greater Teleport...

Or a Carpet of Flying...

The bigger problem is that there's probably not much of a reason to go there.

[JadedDM]

This may have changed in 3E, but I thought you couldn't teleport somewhere you hadn't actually been to before? Plus, a flying carpet can only carry a few people, a ship can carry many more. (And I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the mirror thing.)

[jjpickar]

My last world that I homebrewed was a cylinder that had a light source that wasn't the sun. Space didn't even exist in that world.

[JadedDM]

I think Eberron is supposed to be officially 'detached' from the D&D Universe. No idea why.

Oh, yeah, and Dragonlance is like that, too. But I meant, they could still theoretically build spelljammers and go to the moons or something. It doesn't have to be attached to the entire D&D cosmology.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I think Eberron is supposed to be officially 'detached' from the D&D Universe. No idea why.
Mostly, for the sake of cleanliness and freshness; this way, the designers don't get bogged down in trying to incorporate their shiny new material into a gigantic meta-setting with dozens of very different worlds and all kinds of things that are at odds with Eberron's design philosophy (high-powered NPCs, corporeal deities, entirely different cosmological structures, etc.)

The reason spelljammers don't exist in Eberron is that Eberron isn't part of the Spelljammer setting, and they haven't been invented yet. There are airships, which use the flight capabilities of Air and Fire elementals to get around. I assume these would not work in extra-atmospheric/wildspace conditions. And of course, as has been mentioned, Eberron's sky is rather crowded and probably quite hazardous to wooden-hulled ships. That's not to say I couldn't picture something like a Spelljammer being created, to visit Eberron's moons, or more likely, to pull the ridiculously valuable Syberis shards straight from their position in orbit.

[Cybren]

Why would they want them? It's a terribly inefficient means of transport.

If there's somewhere (like a moon) you want to travel to, cheaper and easier to make two permanent pairs of teleportation circles...

Or just get a Mirror of Mental Prowess...

Or Greater Teleport...

Or a Carpet of Flying...

The bigger problem is that there's probably not much of a reason to go there.

WEll spelljamming was more like an alternate method of interplanar travel. You can't use the Teleport spell to go to faerun from eberron. Gate would work though. Of course in a campaign with spelljamming you wouldn't exactly want spells that make the concept redundant.


The reason spelljammers don't exist in Eberron is that Eberron isn't part of the Spelljammer setting, and they haven't been invented yet.
Well technicly, everything is part of spelljammer!

[jjpickar]

What exactly are spelljammers?

[JadedDM]

Spelljammers are flying ships that travel through wildspace. They are powered via 'spelljamming helms', which are magical chairs that 'siphon' magical power from a caster (drains their spells) to allow it to move and fly. There was a campaign setting called Spelljammer back in the days of 2E, connecting all of the worlds together (so you could, for instance, hop a gnomish sidewheeler on Krynn and fly to Toril or Oerth or some other strange world).

The ships were named after THE Spelljammer, a giant ship shaped like a manta ray that was so big, it had a city on it. It was also sentient.

When WotC took over, they dropped the Spelljammer setting, among many others, but fans have since updated it to 3E anyway here (http://www.spelljammer.org/).

[Nerd-o-rama]

Well technicly, everything is part of spelljammer!
Well, technically, Spelljammer isn't an officially supported setting in 3rd/3.5. Eberron's not part of the Great Wheel Cosmology either, which used to accommodate everything back in AD&D. The Great Wheel has been updated to 3.5 (though we're sadly lacking any real Sigil supplements), but is now limited to the Greyhawk CS. I submit that if Spelljammer were updated, it would not include any "official" Spheres besides Greyspace.

Of course, this is only talking about official material. I'm playing in an awesome (though mostly humorous) campaign that ties pretty much everything ever published under the D&D banner to the Planescape/Great Wheel setting. Mostly through liberal use of portals and a slightly re-imagined version of Spelljamming that considers the Phlogeston an inter-setting Transitive Plane instead of one huge meta-material, same as the Astral, Ethereal, and Shadow. Just much safer to traverse.

[Matthew]

Yep. Spell Jammer will always have a place in my heart and I hope one day to take a Vessel beyond the realms of what some people claim is impossible and visit the fabled land of Eberron. The very fact that Krynn was once entirely visitable, but now is not, suggests to me that everything is not as it seems...

[jjpickar]

From the sound of it I could see spelljammers in Eberron.

[JadedDM]

I wonder what crystal sphere Eberron would be in, theoretically speaking? Bakerspace? Tredecimalspace?

[Matthew]

One rumour I picked up was that it doesn't have a Crystal Sphere at all, but some sort of 'War Forged' Sphere, whatever that is.

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

One rumour I picked up was that it doesn't have a Crystal Sphere at all, but some sort of 'War Forged' Sphere, whatever that is.
Like a Dyson Sphere, but containing planar, psionic, and arcane energy, instead of simply solar?

That would account for the density of magic in ebberon, its unusual planar makeup and the 'density' of its planes (sufficient to cause manifest zones), and the prescence of unusually large amounts of construct-based technology.

Well, kinda.

[Mewtarthio]

One rumour I picked up was that it doesn't have a Crystal Sphere at all, but some sort of 'War Forged' Sphere, whatever that is.

It sounds as though the Artificers built Eberron. That's right: Artificers are so overpowered that they created themselves.

[Dervag]

Maybe the moons are hollow?No need.


Note the important distinction of being visible, and the obvious fact that their orbits are stable and don't involve colliding with the planet or each other any time soonNot hard. Put them in concentric orbits like the moons of Jupiter; it can be done. They might not be stable over multi-million year intervals, but they'd certainly hold together for time scales considerably longer than human history.

[AmoDman]

Actually, the Earth has well over a hundred moons. It's just that only one of them is of any consequence, size-wise. The others are nice if you want to watch TV, or make a long-distance phone call, or spy on your enemies.

Hundred? More like hundreds. Maybe even 1,000s. I asked my astronomy professor last semester how many satellites are up there...he didn't even want to venture a guess there are so many.

[Ranis]

My last world that I homebrewed was a cylinder that had a light source that wasn't the sun. Space didn't even exist in that world.

Yeah, those are fun, aren't they? The world I'm DMing right now is a homebrewed cylinder with seven suns.

Seven. Wrap your head around that one.

And yes, the life of the planet is on the inside.

[Cybren]

I've always been a fan of the torus. Especially since because of how the travel in oldschool CRPGs worked that's what they actually were...

[storybookknight]

Obviously, the center of the world is a giant cavern, with a sunken sea, and dinosaurs running around. There may also be ruins of lost civilizations, and geese.

Verne FTW!

[Shadow of the Sun]

Another nice one: The planet you are on is a giant earth elemental. Magic is the energy you steal from it.

[AmoDman]

Another nice one: The planet you are on is a giant earth elemental. Magic is the energy you steal from it.

I like it! And the gods torment the poor beast by spawning more and more races upon it to suck the life and mana force right out of it...but does that make the gods of creation evil? Hmmm...

[Shadow of the Sun]

Not if Mister Elemental did something so bad that this is his punishment. Such as trying to usurp the power of the gods, for example.

And now some idiot BBEG is trying to awaken/free the elemental again, so it he can become a god under the great overlord the elemental.

Just think of it, there are cults all over the planet, trying to awaken it, and your character gets a message in a dream...we could do something really fun with this!

[The_Snark]

I like the idea, but I think I'd like it more if imprisoning this elemental is a morally questionable act. Steers us away from Lighty the god of Goodness, Paladin McChivalry the god of Lawful Goodness, and Robin Hood the god of lovable rogues and stealing for good causes, and more towards Greek-style gods, who are flawed and conceited and not at all above inflicting horrible torments on things that bother them too much.

Is imprisoning and tormenting this elemental morally questionable, perhaps even evil? Yes. Will there be cults attempting to free the elemental? Also yes; maybe some of them believe it's unjust, maybe some of them are hoping for power in exchange for freeing it. What would the elemental do if freed? It'd get rid of the stupid parasites all over it and then go kick around the gods for awhile, is what. So the cults definitely need to be stopped, the elemental is still antagonistic, but it's not so clear-cut anymore.

[Shadow of the Sun]

We should put together a little campaign based on this idea, it would be interesting. At least, more interesting than Faerun!

[Nerd-o-rama]

Bah. Suggesting a Nickel-Iron core just doesn't spark the imagination like "you're living on a giant earth elemental." Good one, SotS.

I also like the Greek-mythology analogy, as the idea's not unlike the Greek pantheon's sealing of the Titans in Tartarus.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Thanks! =D

I should totally base a campaign off that idea- it would be a very interesting world, and is totally smacking with flavour.