Optimization Terraforming planetoids in a self-sufficient fashion [Archive]

Jowgen

2016-10-25, 08:36 PM

The goal of this optimization exercise is to create a self-sufficient set up that can be used to turn even the most barren planetoids into flourishing eco-systems given enough time. I envision a sort of "Gaia module" containing all that is required to automatically create a gradually growing area of habitable land. The process might look something like this (though I'm not married to the exact imagery).

http://i.tcgplayer.com/22479_200w.jpg

The Gaia module obviously needs to generate water, a breathable atmosphere and be able to modulate environmental temperatures to suitable levels. I don't think factors like insufficient/extreme gravity and magnetic fields to shield from solar winds need to be considered though, since their existence depends heavily of the DM homebrewing rules for how they'd work and affect things. As for the effects of Vacuums, I know of two rule sets that describe them, but only in regards to how they affect living creatures.

On the whole, I'd like to keep the catgirl casulties as low as possible in this. I'd also like to avoid repeating traps, Wish/Miracle and Epic Magic either, though wonderous architecture and custom continous wondrous items of spells are ok if there are no existing items that do the job.

To start off, here are my initial thoughts:

A purely magical solution to the Air and Water issue relying on existing magic items would be a combination of the Everful Basin (SBG p. 76), Bottle of Air (SRD) and Sprayer (A&E p. 25). The bottle of air is placed in the basin, and a custom-build Sprayer is fitted on top the basin in a manner that is both air and water-tight. A permanent Unseen Servant or some other sort of magic is then employed to keep the sprayer operating contiuously at high speed. With each pump, water and air are sucked out of the contraption and sprayed out in fine particles. The only factor affecting how quickly this setup will be able to add Water and Air to the environment is how quickly the sprayer can operate, as the water an air within are constant.

A potentially superior variation on the above would be to replace the Sprayer with a pressure valve and add a perpetual heating element to the set up, that provides enough heat to contiously boil and evaporate the water. Pressure cookers should be mentioned in some book somehwere, right? The only factor affecting how quickly this setup will add Water, Air and Heat to the environment is how much heat can be produced without destroying everything.

Another thing that seems rather useful are Stoneshrooms (Dragon 347 p. 47), a chalky rock-looking fungus native to the elemental plane of earth that is both edible (1 stoneshroom =1 meal), produces spores in the form of breathable air and subsists on minerals in the rock. Including enough of these, plus a set-up that allows the to propegate; will allow for the conversion of Minerals into both sustenance for living things as well as more breathable atmosphere. Not sure how to optimize its cultivation on a planetary basis though.

Lastly, the above do not properly address how to bring the whole planetoids temperature into an acceptable zone. I am particularly open to suggestions on that one.

Thank you for your time reading this, I look forward to your contributions and I hope everyone enjoys the thread. :smallsmile:

Malroth

2016-10-25, 09:18 PM

I had a thread a couple years back about teraforming Athas with dnd magic and the posters had some pretty good ideas especially the Widened Extended Inensified Fimbulwinters being able to easily produce enough water for ocean replenishment and chain war stone to flesh for nutrient replenishment in the soil.

Jowgen

2016-10-26, 12:08 AM

I did skim said thread with interest before posting and it did have quite a few interesting ideas, though most of them dealt with counteracting the many uniquely broken things about that literally God-forsaken world.

The plantlife-nutrients ideas are obviously of interest, but with Stoneshrooms and other Magical Plants (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?479663-Magical-Plants-and-Where-to-Find-them-WIP) that can survive in all kinds of environments on the table for seeding, I don't think your average planetoid with water, air and a good temperature will have much trouble going green. Still, if Rejuvenate and Nurturing Seeds were available as spells, those would certainly help with getting vegitation going.

The Fimbulwinter strategies mentioned are of interest and seemed workable on Athas, but using it for this doesn't quite sit right with me. The spell's effects depend on the season, for one, and arguing that a lifeless planetoid has seasons is a bit too much of a stretch in my book.

Malroth

2016-10-26, 03:39 AM

simply assume a lifeless hunk of rock has the least benifical "season" for any given spell untill it has enough raw gas for those sorts of things to be governed by it's orbit around it's primary.

Inevitability

2016-10-26, 03:48 AM

Darsson's Fiery Furnace and Darsson's Chilling Chamber can reduce the temperature in large areas to habitable (albeit still extreme) temperatures, and it can be Permanencied.

Fiery Furnace seems most survivable. An undead or construct would be able to survive in such circumstances without any further modifications: it doesn't breathe and is immune to nonlethal damage, after all. It also makes the usage of metal equipment impossible, though that isn't a very large issue.

Professor Chimp

2016-10-26, 05:14 AM

How massive of a planetoid are we talking? What kind of star does it orbit, if any? Does it have a sufficiently strong magnetic field?

I'd say you need to take these things into account when picking your planetoid. Otherwise you could end up with a planetoid that continually loses it's atmosphere due to Jean's Escape if it is too small, basically filling a bucket with a hole in the bottom. Or the upper atmosphere could get stripped away by solar winds if it doesn't have a strong enough magnetic field, bathing your planetoid in harmful cosmic radiation.

Or maybe i'm just being nitpicky here, applying real physics to d&d. You know what, I'll just let myself out now.

Jowgen

2016-10-26, 07:57 AM

simply assume a lifeless hunk of rock has the least benifical "season" for any given spell untill it has enough raw gas for those sorts of things to be governed by it's orbit around it's primary.

Still doesn't sit right with me for a bunch of other reasons. For example, Fimbulwinter is a Transmutation spell, which as a school "change the properties of some creature, thing, or condition". I just don't feel its justifiyable that it can add water/gas to to an environment that doesn't have an atmosphere in the first place.

To be clear though, this is just me. Others might see it differently and are not wrong from a RAW view (afaik)

Darsson's Fiery Furnace and Darsson's Chilling Chamber can reduce the temperature in large areas to habitable (albeit still extreme) temperatures, and it can be Permanencied.

I like it at least for the purposes of adding heat to the Everful Basin Steaming setup. It affects metal as heat metal does, which explicitly causes water to boil. Make the whole basin and valve setup out of metal, and even the most frigid planet won't be able to ice the whole thing over. I think the most efficient method to maxmize the boiling would be to add small spheres of the most durable to the Basin, small enough that they move about while the boiling happens.

As for large area temperature increases, I think it could be useful for the purposes of cultivating things that can survive that temperature naturally, like plants that can survive on the Elemental Plane of Fire.

How massive of a planetoid are we talking? What kind of star does it orbit, if any? Does it have a sufficiently strong magnetic field?

I'd say you need to take these things into account when picking your planetoid. Otherwise you could end up with a planetoid that continually loses it's atmosphere due to Jean's Escape if it is too small, basically filling a bucket with a hole in the bottom. Or the upper atmosphere could get stripped away by solar winds if it doesn't have a strong enough magnetic field, bathing your planetoid in harmful cosmic radiation.

Or maybe i'm just being nitpicky here, applying real physics to d&d. You know what, I'll just let myself out now.

I did post a thing about keeping such things out of the discussion, but no need to flee in shame, dear colleague. If such factors are significant, including something that can measure gravity and magnetism (e.g. some sort of magic-scale and a modified compas) would be sufficient to rule out unsuitable planetoids. Alternatively, if you can think of a means to increase gravity on a global scale, that would be something.

unseenmage

2016-10-26, 08:16 AM

In a space traipsing game I am in my character is solving the terraforming problem via Gigantean (Advanced Bestiary) Terraforming Robots (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/constructs/robot/robot-terraformer).

But that's PF.

Extra Anchovies

2016-10-26, 10:27 AM

Anthrowhale

2016-10-26, 09:13 PM

Flashflood creates 10^5 ft^3 of water so you get a cubic mile of water every 2 weeks if you cast every round.

Coidzor

2016-10-26, 10:49 PM

I know you don't like repeating traps, but spamming Soften Earth and Stone, Transmute Rock to Mud, Clashing Rocks(PF), Mudball(PF), Rampart(PF), and/or Expeditious Construction(PF) would create dirt/soil or something that could be more readily rendered into usable soil, at least for an initial "island" to be seeded with life that will then colonize and convert the areas around them and spread.

Mudball and Transmute Rock to Mud do double duty by introducing water into the system, and if you spam Clashing Rocks non-stop, it only takes about 500 million years to get as much volume of material as Ceres.

Beanstalk(PF) will create a lot of permanent, decaying organic matter in a given area, seeding an area with nutrients, similarly, getting ahold of djinnis' services can lead to a lot of organic matter, like really rich compost.

Climbing Beanstalk(PF) creates a permanent plant that produces beans as seeds that are edible and nutritious, provided the area it is in can sustain its life.

Snowball(PF) creates permanent water in the form of ice and snow, and Ice Spears(PF) creates water in the form of ice stalagmites.

Extra Anchovies

2016-10-26, 11:34 PM

I'm not familiar with the full list of spells which can be tied to Hallow or Unhallow, and the SRD only lists the ones in core. Does anyone happen to know of any non-core Hallow-linkable spells which could be of use?

unseenmage

2016-10-26, 11:57 PM

Awaken Sand from Sandstorm turns sand or even dust into a real, un-Dispel-able, ooze-like Construct that has free will, sentience/sapience, and an eternity to do whatever you Diplomance it into doing.

Minor Servitor from Savage Species is similar but Dispel-able and acts like Animate Objects.

Just tell that lazy planetoid to terraform itself with some good ol fashioned elbow grease.. er grit. Elbow grit. Cuz they're made of...
Never mind.

Jowgen

2016-10-27, 11:08 PM

We're well on our way to a full-fledged space program. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?387930-GitP-Builds-a-Space-Station)

Transmute Rock to Mud could, with enough castings, coat the surface of a rocky planetoid with (once the mud dries) workable soil.

I have read said thread with interest. Much interesting. If solar radiation is in play, I think it would likely be ideal to set the terraform in a way that leaves the planetoid with a perpetual thick cloud cover (as water is mentioned as a good radiation shield), and compensate for the lack of light by seeding the world with light-generating plants.

More importantly, it's given me an idea how to drastically increase the water output of the Steam device I described in my OP. One fits a just under 30 ft cylinder atop the basin and enchants it's ceiling with the Reverse Gravity Upside Down Room effect from SBG, so that the gravity effect partially overlaps with the basin. Now, part of the water from the basin with perpetually "fall" upwards, creating a constant falling cyclinder of water. Some of these cylinder can simply have exit valves on the sides to let the water rush out from the top, others can use the Fiery Furnace spell permancied inside to generate a far larger volume of steam.

As long as no pressure is allowed to build up, that is to say, the ammount of water/steam output is equal to how much water can fall from the basin per round, we get some rather respectable numbers. Objects in D&D fall 150 ft on their first turn, and presuming we can get the basin to have a diameter of at least 3 ft, we get a 7930.95 gallons or 1060.29 cu ft per round.

Transmute Rock to Mud does seem like a useful tool, but it would only work if one could find a way to get its effect to gradually spread accross the surface of the planetoid (at least the portions not dedicated to the cultivation of Stoneshrooms.

Flashflood creates 10^5 ft^3 of water so you get a cubic mile of water every 2 weeks if you cast every round.

I know if from the Terrafrom Athas thread, and while it makes a lot of water, it's spell level has always had me consider it a rather high end option, especially with roundly castings required. Still, producing 100,000 cu ft of water per round makes it about 100 times as productive as the improved Everful Basin model I just described. Making 100 of the above would be prohibitively expensive... unless, the cylinder approach were changed to use several Everful Basins paired with a single max-sized Upside Down Room. A stronghold space is described as 20 x 20 x 10 (4000 cu ft), and accounting that one side has to be about 30 ft for this to work, that leaves us with an Area permitting Everful basins of 133.33 sq ft. Multiplying that by the 150 ft of water that can fall in a round, this brings us up to 20.000 cu ft, which is which is notably closer to the 100,000 of flashflood. It'll take 10 weeks per cubic mile of water, but it's more easily/cheaply achieved as far as I can tell.

I know you don't like repeating traps, but spamming Soften Earth and Stone(PF), Transmute Rock to Mud, Clashing Rocks(PF), Mudball(PF), Rampart, and/or Expeditious Construction(PF) would create dirt/soil or something that could be more readily rendered into usable soil, at least for an initial "island" to be seeded with life that will then colonize and convert the areas around them and spread.

Mudball and Transmute Rock to Mud do double duty by introducing water into the system, and if you spam Clashing Rocks non-stop, it only takes about 500 million years to get as much volume of material as Ceres.

Beanstalk(PF) will create a lot of permanent, decaying organic matter in a given area, seeding an area with nutrients, similarly, getting ahold of djinnis' services can lead to a lot of organic matter, like really rich compost.

Climbing Beanstalk(PF) creates a permanent plant that produces beans as seeds that are edible and nutritious, provided the area it is in can sustain its life.

Snowball(PF) creates permanent water in the form of ice and snow, and Ice Spears creates water in the form of ice stalagmites.

Very sadly I'm looking to stay 3.5 in this, those spells could've been rather handy.

I'm not familiar with the full list of spells which can be tied to Hallow or Unhallow, and the SRD only lists the ones in core. Does anyone happen to know of any non-core Hallow-linkable spells which could be of use?

I'm a fan of Hallow abuse, but the 1 year refresh period is a bit of a hassle. I think the best kind of spell to tie to it would be one that creates a sort of safe-zone for the plant species meant for colonization to dwell within. They'll naturally try to spread beyond the hallow effect, and once the surrounding environment has been sufficiently changed to make it viable to them, they will.

Now as for what sort of spell would create this kind of ideal-environment 1-way barrier, I am not sure.

Awaken Sand from Sandstorm turns sand or even dust into a real, un-Dispel-able, ooze-like Construct that has free will, sentience/sapience, and an eternity to do whatever you Diplomance it into doing.

Minor Servitor from Savage Species is similar but Dispel-able and acts like Animate Objects.

I do like the idea of adding some sort of construct to serve as a "caretaker" for the terraform, although considering how important the job is, I think something a little more high end would be preferable.

Coidzor

2016-10-28, 12:06 AM

I have read said thread with interest. Much interesting. If solar radiation is in play, I think it would likely be ideal to set the terraform in a way that leaves the planetoid with a perpetual thick cloud cover (as water is mentioned as a good radiation shield), and compensate for the lack of light by seeding the world with light-generating plants.

Lots of water vapor does seem to be the way to go, especially if you're not initially using enclosed spaces and then opening your vaults to spread out onto the surface or something.

Still, probably good to look into the options for a DIY molten metal core to provide the electromagnetic field component to help protect and keep in atmosphere. If set up right, it can even go forever instead of eventually cooling like a naturally occurring one would.

Transmute Rock to Mud does seem like a useful tool, but it would only work if one could find a way to get its effect to gradually spread accross the surface of the planetoid (at least the portions not dedicated to the cultivation of Stoneshrooms.

Well, provided you get an environment suitable for plants, you can introduce lichens and other colonizer organisms. Over a long period of time they will convert rocky areas into soil. So if you include a bunch of colonizing plants and lichens on the edges of the initial seeding sites, they'll spread and the oases of other plant life will eventually follow.

Alternatively, 1/day or even 1/week custom magic items and some constructs that all have predesignated terraforming patterns. If you're not just going to have an army of solar simulacra that you grow until they can make it happen with 1 Wish and 5 Miracles per day.

I know if from the Terrafrom Athas thread, and while it makes a lot of water, it's spell level has always had me consider it a rather high end option, especially with roundly castings required. Still, producing 100,000 cu ft of water per round makes it about 100 times as productive as the improved Everful Basin model I just described. Making 100 of the above would be prohibitively expensive... unless, the cylinder approach were changed to use several Everful Basins paired with a single max-sized Upside Down Room. A stronghold space is described as 20 x 20 x 10 (4000 cu ft), and accounting that one side has to be about 30 ft for this to work, that leaves us with an Area permitting Everful basins of 133.33 sq ft. Multiplying that by the 150 ft of water that can fall in a round, this brings us up to 20.000 cu ft, which is which is notably closer to the 100,000 of flashflood. It'll take 10 weeks per cubic mile of water, but it's more easily/cheaply achieved as far as I can tell.

Unless you're in a rush, your aim is probably along the lines of operating only marginally faster than geologic timescales, so 2 weeks vs. 10 weeks is probably acceptable for significant cost savings.

Very sadly I'm looking to stay 3.5 in this, those spells could've been rather handy.

Then Ice Spears is out too, alas, looks like I left that out the PF tag on that while posting from my phone. Currently going through the PF spell list to find downtime spells and spells that have a permanent or lasting impact, so that's what I remembered offhand.

Transmute Rock to Mud and Stone to Flesh will get you soil and organic materials for decomposers.

I do like the idea of adding some sort of construct to serve as a "caretaker" for the terraform, although considering how important the job is, I think something a little more high end would be preferable.

Are Shadesteel Golems inimical to plant and animal life?

Bad Wolf

2016-10-28, 12:41 AM

Coidzor

2016-10-28, 01:27 AM

Jowgen

2016-10-28, 03:53 AM

I love stuff like this. With a Wizard/Ur-Priest build, you could use DMM: Persist on the Undermaster spell, which allows you to use one of the following once per round:

earth lock, earthquake, excavate, flesh to stone, meld into stone, move earth, reverse gravity, soften earth and stone, statue, stone shape, stone tell, stone to flesh, transmute mud to rock, transmute rock to mud, tunnel swallow, wall of stone, and xorn movement.

And they're all explicitly standard actions.

That would yield 14,400 rounds of Transmute Rock to Mud one could bring into play. At CL 20 each time the spell is cast that gives about about 4000 square feet affected to a depth of 10', more square footage if the spell can turn things into mud to a shallower depth for wider area. So about 57,600,000 square feet if optimal placement is possible.

Ceres, the dwarf planet, has a surface area of about 2,770,000 kilometers squared, or 29,816,032,000,000 square feet. So about 517,639.4 days or 1,417.2 years if repeated.

Depending upon whether you want to form lakes and oceans and the like, you're probably not going to want to turn the entire surface into mud or clay.

You'd need to do some move speed optimization to make sure you always have stone that can be turned into mud near your caster, since Undermaster requires you to be on or in the ground to take advantage of it.

I'm not personally fond of the idea, but I do think I can contribute to it. Tying the Undermaster effect to a (widened) Hallow spell and filling the hallow area with a metric load of intelligent construct minions would greatly reduce the difficulty and improve the efficiency. Each construct minion would gain access to the spells benefits, meaning you could multiply the coverage by how ever many minions you can fit in that space.

I believe that, as written, Vehicles qualify as structures that can be hallowed; so all you need is an earth covered vehicle of sufficient speed to take you far enough each round. Interestingly, combing Rock to Mud with Move Earth used in tandem by the minions could be a surprisingly effective way to tunnel into the planetoids crust (i.e. one minion makes 10 ft mud, the next moves it, go down, rinse lather repeat), though I see little point in that (unless you have a means to turn a solid planetoid's core into magma once you reach it).

Anthrowhale

2016-10-28, 05:19 AM

Jormengand

2016-10-28, 05:18 PM

If you can get the tiniest bit of plant life, then plant growth can cause it to become "thick and overgrown," over a 100-ft-radius circle, 150-ft-radius semicircle or 200-ft-radius quarter circle (150 ft semicircle is the largest of those areas, being 1.125 times the area of either of the others) irrespective of whether it was two saplings and a tiny amount of underbrush, or already a forest. This is of course castable multiple times to affect a larger area, and of course to make plants grow on the area even if they normally couldn't.

Jack_Simth

2016-10-28, 10:20 PM

More importantly, it's given me an idea how to drastically increase the water output of the Steam device I described in my OP. One fits a just under 30 ft cylinder atop the basin and enchants it's ceiling with the Reverse Gravity Upside Down Room effect from SBG, so that the gravity effect partially overlaps with the basin. Now, part of the water from the basin with perpetually "fall" upwards, creating a constant falling cyclinder of water. Some of these cylinder can simply have exit valves on the sides to let the water rush out from the top, others can use the Fiery Furnace spell permancied inside to generate a far larger volume of steam.
You're working too hard. Get a few Decanters (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#decanterofEndlessWater), glue (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#sovereignGlue) them to a nice big rock so they don't go anywhere, set them to "Gyser", and walk away.

As long as no pressure is allowed to build up, that is to say, the ammount of water/steam output is equal to how much water can fall from the basin per round, we get some rather respectable numbers. Objects in D&D fall 150 ft on their first turn, and presuming we can get the basin to have a diameter of at least 3 ft, we get a 7930.95 gallons or 1060.29 cu ft per round.
Problem: A tipped-over basin is one of the things that can explicitly break the basin. When you change the direction of gravity to make the water flow out... you've essentially tipped it over.

Transmute Rock to Mud does seem like a useful tool, but it would only work if one could find a way to get its effect to gradually spread accross the surface of the planetoid (at least the portions not dedicated to the cultivation of Stoneshrooms.Living spells. Transmute Rock to Mud affects an area and isn't Instant. It's unclear how exactly to make them, but let a few of those loose and you're set (eventually).

Coidzor

2016-10-29, 12:02 AM

Hmm. I suppose a network of Walls of Stone that were converted into dirt would cover much of the surface with dirt without shedding mass and instead adding mass to the system... If, once created, they count as nonmagical stone, which I can't really remember offhand.

You're working too hard. Get a few Decanters (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#decanterofEndlessWater), glue (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#sovereignGlue) them to a nice big rock so they don't go anywhere, set them to "Gyser", and walk away.

Living spells. Transmute Rock to Mud affects an area and isn't Instant. It's unclear how exactly to make them, but let a few of those loose and you're set (eventually).

Ah, right. As a bonus it lets you add more materials/minerals/mass to the system if you choose salt water. That's about 35 extra grams of salt per liter of salt water, so at 113.562 liters a round, the geyser is adding 3974.67 grams of salts to the environment per round, about 8.75 pounds of salts. Although a gallon of saltwater weighs about 8.5 pounds total, while a gallon of water weighs about 8.36 pounds or just 8 pounds in D&D math. 255 pounds of material a round for saltwater vs. 240 pounds of material a round for freshwater, convert back into kg for mass added to the system. That can marginally offset the lost mass from turning much of the surface into mud, I suppose.

Just watch out for Living Spells sinking down into the mud and making the planetoid mud all the way through. Unless you're into that, of course, or want to create a molten metal(or obsidian) core and then maybe have a couple more controlled Living Spells make a mantle and crust to go with all that (dried) mud.

Jack_Simth

2016-10-29, 12:21 AM

Hmm. I suppose a network of Walls of Stone that were converted into dirt would cover much of the surface with dirt without shedding mass and instead adding mass to the system... If, once created, they count as nonmagical stone, which I can't really remember offhand.It's an Instant spell, so all the magic is gone. May not qualify for Transmute Rock to Mud (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/transmuteRockToMud.htm), though, as the opening sentence is "This spell turns natural, uncut or unworked rock of any sort into an equal volume of mud" (emphasis added). While a Wall of Stone (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wallOfStone.htm) may not be magical, I'm not going to lay odds that a DM will let it slide as "natural" and "unworked".

Which may actually be useful, if you find a Transmute Rock to Mud Living Spell. Lets you set up areas it can't turn. Not that you really need to worry about it much, unless you have a pretty sizeable army of living spells, or a really, really large amount of time. Planets and moons are actually quite large. But hey: If you introduce them all personally, you can scry & fry them when they've converted the appropriate amount of material.

Ah, right. As a bonus it lets you add more materials/minerals/mass to the system if you choose salt water. That's about 35 extra grams of salt per liter of salt water, so at 113.562 liters a round, the geyser is adding 3974.67 grams of salts to the environment per round, about 8.75 pounds of salts. Although a gallon of saltwater weighs about 8.5 pounds total, while a gallon of water weighs about 8.36 pounds or just 8 pounds in D&D math. 255 pounds of material a round for saltwater vs. 240 pounds of material a round for freshwater, convert back into kg for mass added to the system. That can marginally offset the lost mass from turning much of the surface into mud, I suppose.

Just watch out for Living Spells sinking down into the mud and making the planetoid mud all the way through. Unless you're into that, of course, or want to create a molten metal(or obsidian) core and then maybe have a couple more controlled Living Spells make a mantle and crust to go with all that (dried) mud.
Keep in mind: Regular water adds mass, too.

And, of course, you may not have a mass that's rock all the way through. Lots of things in space are metal....

Bad Wolf

2016-10-29, 02:27 AM

There's also the epic spell 'Global Warming' from Sandstorm that raises the temperatu to either warm (61-90 Fahrenheit) or by one step, whichever is hotter. Minus side is that it also produces desert conditions.

Inevitability

2016-10-29, 02:33 AM

Jowgen

2016-10-30, 11:54 PM

Another trick related to repeat casting is to use a build like this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?496834-The-Clockwork-Wizard-Everything-in-no-time) to make the entire process instantaneous. That build advances wizard, but a similar archivist build using alternate source spell to qualify for Arcane Thesis metamagic reduction can access all spells.

Hallow + Time Stop perhaps? Now there is a scary thought. For one year, time will only pass within the area of the Hallow. Ugh, the mere thought gives me a headache. Anything that tries to move beyond the Hallow would be immediately frozen in time, meaning that if we try and generate mass and move it beyond the Hallow, it'll get stuck. Placing any sort of perpetual mass generation mechanism inside the Hallow would cause pressure to build up without end, which would then all release once the year is up (or, due to density, a singularity forms). Sadly the goal is not planetary devastation.

Casting spells out of the Hallow, on the other hand, might work.

If you can get the tiniest bit of plant life, then plant growth can cause it to become "thick and overgrown," over a 100-ft-radius circle, 150-ft-radius semicircle or 200-ft-radius quarter circle (150 ft semicircle is the largest of those areas, being 1.125 times the area of either of the others) irrespective of whether it was two saplings and a tiny amount of underbrush, or already a forest. This is of course castable multiple times to affect a larger area, and of course to make plants grow on the area even if they normally couldn't.

Seems like a good start to a method to propegate Stoneshrooms well enough to start converting minerals into atmosphere. Using Obaddis leaf (CC) can double the area for cheap.

You're working too hard. Get a few Decanters (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#decanterofEndlessWater), glue (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#sovereignGlue) them to a nice big rock so they don't go anywhere, set them to "Gyser", and walk away.
Problem: A tipped-over basin is one of the things that can explicitly break the basin. When you change the direction of gravity to make the water flow out... you've essentially tipped it over.
Living spells. Transmute Rock to Mud affects an area and isn't Instant. It's unclear how exactly to make them, but let a few of those loose and you're set (eventually).

The Decanters' Gyser doesn't have enough output for my taste. As long as water remains in the basin, the magic doesn't "spill away", hence why the reverse gravity is set to only include the smallest top area of of the Basin.

Living spells would be useful, but the RAW is explicit that the method for creating them is lost.

There's also the epic spell 'Global Warming' from Sandstorm that raises the temperatu to either warm (61-90 Fahrenheit) or by one step, whichever is hotter. Minus side is that it also produces desert conditions.

As mentioned, Epic Magic is out.

It's an Instant spell, so all the magic is gone. May not qualify for Transmute Rock to Mud (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/transmuteRockToMud.htm), though, as the opening sentence is "This spell turns natural, uncut or unworked rock of any sort into an equal volume of mud" (emphasis added). While a Wall of Stone (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wallOfStone.htm) may not be magical, I'm not going to lay odds that a DM will let it slide as "natural" and "unworked".

Which may actually be useful, if you find a Transmute Rock to Mud Living Spell. Lets you set up areas it can't turn. Not that you really need to worry about it much, unless you have a pretty sizeable army of living spells, or a really, really large amount of time. Planets and moons are actually quite large. But hey: If you introduce them all personally, you can scry & fry them when they've converted the appropriate amount of material.

Okay, so no Wall of Stone + Rock to Mud combo. Shame, that could've been a nice thing with the Time Stop x Hallow.

Okay, here is an alternative approach. Rather than focus on Mud and Water; how about we melt it all into lava instead?

Ash Willows (Dragon 347 p. 48) are up to 120 ft tall trees from the Elemental Plane of Fire that thrive off heat and continously produce ash. Grows several feet per year and each tree has runners that spawn 1d3 new trees each month. Combined with Plant Growth to speed things along, one should be able to get an exponentially increasing area covered with these trees and the Ash they produce, until the planet is a burning forest. After that, adding lots of water should give the planetoid a nice crust, cooling it to a nice temperature; and then new life can thrive on all the bio-mater from the Ash Willows.

Only problem: how to turn a plantoid into a ball of magma?

Inevitability

2016-10-31, 01:32 AM

Only problem: how to turn a plantoid into a ball of magma?

Open a Persisted Gate to a strategic part of the Plane of Fire?

unseenmage

2016-10-31, 06:52 AM

...

Only problem: how to turn a plantoid into a ball of magma?

Hit it with another planetoid.

Preferrably one with enough iron content that you can kill two celestial birds with one molten stone and give it a decent magnetosphere when it cools.

Inevitability

2016-10-31, 10:26 AM

Hit it with another planetoid.

Preferrably one with enough iron content that you can kill two celestial birds with one molten stone and give it a decent magnetosphere when it cools.

GitP: where even terraforming is done with unnecessarily large explosions.

Coidzor

2016-10-31, 10:56 AM

Do the Ash Willows have to be growing in magma, or could a network of Permanent Walls of Fire work to provide the necessary heat?

After a certain number of Ash Willows, will they each produce enough heat to actually be sufficient to sustain their own growth beyond an initial investment in heat? If so, then Shrink Item can work to import a lot of magma from elsewhere, even the Plane of Fire, as an initial start-up cost.

GitP: where even terraforming is done with unnecessarily large explosions.

Well, you know, it worked once before, so why reinvent the wheel if you have the ability and time to wrangle cosmic bodies and smack them into one another to make a mini E-arth?

Inevitability

2016-10-31, 11:07 AM

That got me thinking: why not create your own world? Wall of Iron and Wall of Stone are both instantaneous, after all, so creating a core of molten iron surrounded by stone shouldn't be too hard.

Segev

2016-10-31, 11:14 AM

Inevitability

2016-10-31, 12:01 PM

Mirage arcana (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/mirageArcana.htm) creates olfactory and tactile elements of the environment it's making an illusion of. As long as it didn't get dispelled, the illusory atmosphere would thus keep you breathing. Augment it with a bottle of air if needs be.

Fairly sure that's not how it works. Illusory air will undoubtedly feel like air, and it will smell like air, but it won't be air. You'll still suffocate if you try to breathe it.

Manipulating someone's senses doesn't change what enters their lungs.

Coidzor

2016-10-31, 12:02 PM

I suppose a Shadowcraft Mage could make enough Heightened Extended Programmed Images of 100% real lava/magma to cover the surface of a planetoid for however long is needed. Best combined with immortality, patience, and some serious CL-boosting cheese, since 4 rounds/CL is still not all that long in terms of propagating a species across a planetary body.

Although having islands of rock that just have stoneshrooms on them instead of doing the entire surface would tend to cut down on the number of them needed and thus the time scale before it gets up and running. Or having stone shrooms be the dominant "biome" and having the magma areas and ash willows be the islands, since the ash *will* travel and spread beyond where the trees themselves are growing to some extent.

That got me thinking: why not create your own world? Wall of Iron and Wall of Stone are both instantaneous, after all, so creating a core of molten iron surrounded by stone shouldn't be too hard.

The main issue is how many times you'd have to cast them to get enough material, and thus how large of an army of Solar Simulacra or chain-gated Solars one has to assemble to do it in a timely manner. In Pathfinder, I went through and calculated that the Clashing Rocks (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/clashing-rocks) spell, which creates 2 Colossal-sized objects of stone and earth, would take ~2.8*10^13 iterations of the spell to make a dwarf planet the size of Ceres, which for a single caster would mean about 5.4 million years casting every single round of every single day.

Also how you're going to make the core of iron molten in the first place is an issue too, I suppose, but I think the Terraforming Athas thread already solved that particular problem.

Mirage arcana (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/mirageArcana.htm) creates olfactory and tactile elements of the environment it's making an illusion of. As long as it didn't get dispelled, the illusory atmosphere would thus keep you breathing. Augment it with a bottle of air if needs be.

Now if only it covered thermal effects like temperature. Hmm, if only there were a way to get Shadowcraft Mage to play nice with Permanent Image.

Segev

2016-10-31, 12:23 PM

Fairly sure that's not how it works. Illusory air will undoubtedly feel like air, and it will smell like air, but it won't be air. You'll still suffocate if you try to breathe it.

Manipulating someone's senses doesn't change what enters their lungs.Possibly true, which is why I added a bottle of air as a potential augmentation.

Now if only it covered thermal effects like temperature. Hmm, if only there were a way to get Shadowcraft Mage to play nice with Permanent Image.Arguably, thermal effects are tactile. But I believe major image covers thermal effects explicitly, so you could always add one of those to your device for a nice warm pseudo-sun.

Coidzor

2016-10-31, 12:29 PM

Arguably, thermal effects are tactile. But I believe major image covers thermal effects explicitly, so you could always add one of those to your device for a nice warm pseudo-sun.

True. Ties up a single Immortal Shadowcraft Mage, but since it's concentration-based duration, they can keep it up as long as necessary. Which I suppose means you could put a single super-hot, 110% real illusion of something in the center of the planetoid and turn it into a lava world that way. Or I suppose have it just sweep in close and melt the surface and have the ash willows be seeded in its wake, depending.

Segev

2016-10-31, 12:34 PM

True. Ties up a single Immortal Shadowcraft Mage, but since it's concentration-based duration, they can keep it up as long as necessary. Which I suppose means you could put a single super-hot, 110% real illusion of something in the center of the planetoid and turn it into a lava world that way. Or I suppose have it just sweep in close and melt the surface and have the ash willows be seeded in its wake, depending.

Or incorporate it into a magic item that only makes that one illusion, and have that illusion bob at a comfortable distance for its size and heat above the area you want terraformed. Since it explicitly can't be hot enough to do damage, that even helps you with safety factor.

Alternatively, create some means of casting endure elements on every visitor to your terraformed world. They won't care what temperature it is, then.

Inevitability

2016-10-31, 12:48 PM

Possibly true, which is why I added a bottle of air as a potential augmentation.

That'd work, but why have the illusion then? It seems unnecessary.

Ruethgar

2016-10-31, 01:03 PM

Dark Sun has the Create Element spell. I would need to go searching through my notes, but I made a Gnome that was able to abuse SLAs to get massive quantities of the material, Level?*5*5*1 cu ft for earth, air I calculated once but never messed with, I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of Level?*10ft^3, and water was Level?*5ft^3.

Dark Sun also has the Nurturing Seeds orison which makes 25 seeds or cuttings impervious to all non-animal, mundane effects and makes a small area around where they are planted habitable to other plants.

The Prestidigitation creation effect is not listed as one of the ones that goes away after an hour which could allow you to make attended objects such as fertilized eggs in your hands. Should take no more than a year for most moderately sized creatures to completely replace the fragile original material, though I personally would require massive extra effort to keep them alive. You can also make seeds though, and Nurturing seeds will protect them.

Also, think it takes about 20 trees or 100ft^2 grass to support one human(as far as air goes). Scale that for the other animals if you really wanted to determine balance of the ecosystem. Also, 9:1 prey vs predator.

Segev

2016-10-31, 01:29 PM

That'd work, but why have the illusion then? It seems unnecessary.

For the plants, structures, etc. that you want. And because it'd make the air feel more "natural" by providing more comforting humidity levels and pressure-sensations. It skips all that tedious "change the fundamental ecology of the world" process. At least as long as you're cool with illusory environment.

Coidzor

2016-10-31, 02:32 PM

Dark Sun has the Create Element spell. I would need to go searching through my notes, but I made a Gnome that was able to abuse SLAs to get massive quantities of the material, Level?*5*5*1 cu ft for earth, air I calculated once but never messed with, I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of Level?*10ft^3, and water was Level?*5ft^3.

The Prestidigitation creation effect is not listed as one of the ones that goes away after an hour which could allow you to make attended objects such as fertilized eggs in your hands. Should take no more than a year for most moderately sized creatures to completely replace the fragile original material, though I personally would require massive extra effort to keep them alive. You can also make seeds though, and Nurturing seeds will protect them.

Any info as far as source or spell level? So that's 25*CL cubic feet of elemental earth? Dirt? Stone? Any kind of mundane material associated with the Earth element?

Also, just to be sure I read that right, that's 10*CL cubic feet of breatheable air and 5*CL cubic feet of water or 40 gallons of water/CL? Or is that (10*CL)^3 in cubic feet of air and (5*CL)^3 cubic feet of water?

Interesting use of Prestidigitation, come to think of it. No spells I know of that create living seeds...

Inevitability

2016-10-31, 03:13 PM

For the plants, structures, etc. that you want. And because it'd make the air feel more "natural" by providing more comforting humidity levels and pressure-sensations. It skips all that tedious "change the fundamental ecology of the world" process. At least as long as you're cool with illusory environment.

There are still issues that need terraforming then. How are you surviving the pressure? Where are you getting food and drink from? How aren't you freezing/melting to death?

And honestly, by the point you fixed all of those I suggest just casting the last few spells and bringing some life to the little world.

Segev

2016-10-31, 03:26 PM

There are still issues that need terraforming then. How are you surviving the pressure? Where are you getting food and drink from? How aren't you freezing/melting to death?

And honestly, by the point you fixed all of those I suggest just casting the last few spells and bringing some life to the little world.

Given that the tactile illusions would let you climb around inside structures, I'm inclined to say the tactile illusion of air solves the pressure problem. Food and drink are a legitimate concern.

Inevitability

2016-10-31, 04:19 PM

Given that the tactile illusions would let you climb around inside structures, I'm inclined to say the tactile illusion of air solves the pressure problem. Food and drink are a legitimate concern.

It wouldn't let you climb around inside, it'd make a wall feel like a wall. Mirage Arcana is a Glamer spell, not a Shadow spell.

If I'm delusional and think there's a bridge over a chasm, that doesn't let me actually walk over the thin air above the chasm. It might definitely feel real to me, but the moment I move my weight I'm going to fall like anyone else.

Jowgen

2016-11-01, 12:48 AM

Open a Persisted Gate to a strategic part of the Plane of Fire?

Ehh... it would have to be an extraordinarily hot place, and a single gate wouldn't be big enough to give enough of an impact. But there might be some alternatives.

The planetoid's nearest star might provide sufficient heat; so if one could get to the core and construct a sufficiently big 1-way portal that might get enough thermal energy into the core. Issue with that idea is how non-defined suns are in game.

The ideal thing, after looking into the plane of fire, would be an Inferno Star (Dragon 347). It's a 1+ mile ball of special fire that is hot beyond regular heat, bypassing fire immunity and having more of a touch = destruction impact than even Voidstone. Problem is how to get one of them from the plane of fire into the core of a planetoid

Hit it with another planetoid.

Preferrably one with enough iron content that you can kill two celestial birds with one molten stone and give it a decent magnetosphere when it cools.

Not sure the impact itself would have a desireable effect, but the idea of combining smaller planetoids to create one with a more suitable composition is interesting. The problem remains though that one would need to move an actual planetoid (http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/514/756/c61.gif)

Do the Ash Willows have to be growing in magma, or could a network of Permanent Walls of Fire work to provide the necessary heat?

After a certain number of Ash Willows, will they each produce enough heat to actually be sufficient to sustain their own growth beyond an initial investment in heat? If so, then Shrink Item can work to import a lot of magma from elsewhere, even the Plane of Fire, as an initial start-up cost.

Needs to be lava/magma I'm affraid; and they don't produce their own heat. They're basically more durable, tasteful, extreme and efficient brown mold. Now the idea of importing lava and other materials via shrink item, however, is an interesting one. A simple set of ring-gates could be used to funnel large ammounts of hazourdous materials to where they're needed on the plantoid, even from a different planetoid that one wishes to mine for resources (e.g. metal for the molten core).

Although having islands of rock that just have stoneshrooms on them instead of doing the entire surface would tend to cut down on the number of them needed and thus the time scale before it gets up and running. Or having stone shrooms be the dominant "biome" and having the magma areas and ash willows be the islands, since the ash *will* travel and spread beyond where the trees themselves are growing to some extent.

I like this layout.

Okay, putting all this together this order of business comes to mind:

1. Hollow out a small central portion of the core of the planetoid (a Voidstone Warhead MK I II should do the trick)
2. Construct a 1-way portal leading from the heatsource of choice into this new empty core. The ideal thing would be to actually draw a portion of an Inferno Star from the elemental plane of fire through the portal, though how to do that...
3. Fill the remainer of the core with whatever metals one can get their hands on, as needed (might not be). This can be done by using extra durable ring-gates, shrink item and a suitable source of metal (e.g. another otherwise unsuitable planetoid).
4. Once the core is sufficiently hot and melted, breach the crust in chosen locations to allow some of the magma to reach to the surface and spread as desired. Plant the Ash Willows there.
5. Seed the non-ash-willow parts of the surface with Stoneshrooms, and get all seed-sites started with repeated plant growts.
6. Wait until the planet is covered in sufficient ammounts of ash and breathable atmosphere.
7. Place your perpetual water-creation devices atop each of the Ash-willow lava areas. The water evaporates for a while, until the water succeeded in drawing out enough heat to harden the magma (resealing the crust), finishes creating our oceans and lakes and balance out the global temperature.
8. As we now have a mostly breathable atmosphere (minus ash, volcanic gases, etc.) and enough water and heat in the atmosphere to create "natural" weather patterns; Control Weather can be employed on a large scale to create enough torrential rain to clear the atmosphere of chocking ash. Then clear the weather up.
9. Spread the seeds of whatever plant-life is desired for the new planet.

Okay, there is bound to be holes in this and means to improve it; but I think it's a working model for the most part.

Inevitability

2016-11-01, 01:31 AM

Ehh... it would have to be an extraordinarily hot place, and a single gate wouldn't be big enough to give enough of an impact. But there might be some alternatives.

I was referring to opening a few gates to let magma through. The PoF has that, right?

Jowgen

2016-11-01, 02:33 AM

I was referring to opening a few gates to let magma through. The PoF has that, right?

It does, but that sadly doesn't help in that instance. "Magic portals generally require sentience to use; the natural hazards of a plane do not pass through portals. Temperature, air (whether toxic or not), dangerous substances, and energy emissions stay on their side of an open portal." (MotP p. 22).

I originally figured that an Inferno Star would be excempt from this because of how it moves, but upon closer reading, I think the mechanics of interplanar conduits block it also. Meaning that to get one into the hollowed planetoid core, you'd have to find a way to actually "bottle" this special magic fire. Which is tricky, considering that touching it kills you rather well; ignoring fire immunity. Not to mention that its fire that doesn't spread. How do you transport something like that?

Lava would be much easier to transport into the core manually, but since it's not hot enough to melt stone (strange, but RAW), you'd need to get the whole magma core that way. If there were something other than the Inferno Star that would be indoubtedly be hot enough to melt a significant portion of the inside of a planetoid, that'd be something, but my search hasn't turned up any alternatives. :smallannoyed:

unseenmage

2016-11-01, 03:11 AM

...

Not sure the impact itself would have a desireable effect, but the idea of combining smaller planetoids to create one with a more suitable composition is interesting. The problem remains though that one would need to move an actual planetoid (http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/514/756/c61.gif)

...

Well with enough time you don't move a planetoid exactly, you move LOTS of the smallest planetoids.

Enough comets and asteroids with the right composition sent in along the right trajectory and viola, you have yourself the equivalent of having moved a planet.

Now that I think on it, a few hundred trillion Scry + Teleport Object spells couod have the same effect. That the teleport spell variant has a miles mischance barely matters since we're aiming for planetoid wide volume at the end.

Segev

2016-11-01, 08:07 AM

It wouldn't let you climb around inside, it'd make a wall feel like a wall. Mirage Arcana is a Glamer spell, not a Shadow spell.

If I'm delusional and think there's a bridge over a chasm, that doesn't let me actually walk over the thin air above the chasm. It might definitely feel real to me, but the moment I move my weight I'm going to fall like anyone else.

I actually disagree on this one, simply because I'm pretty sure mirage arcana is supposed to be the spell that lets the illusionist transform a collapsing ruin into a glorious mansion (as an example), and have everybody wandering around it happy and comfortable until the illusion is dispelled and they realize that they've been in a building that doesn't even have a complete and sturdy stairway.

Jormengand

2016-11-01, 08:44 AM

I actually disagree on this one, simply because I'm pretty sure mirage arcana is supposed to be the spell that lets the illusionist transform a collapsing ruin into a glorious mansion (as an example), and have everybody wandering around it happy and comfortable until the illusion is dispelled and they realize that they've been in a building that doesn't even have a complete and sturdy stairway.

Glamers don't do that:

Because figments and glamers (see below) are unreal, they cannot produce real effects the way that other types of illusions can. They cannot cause damage to objects or creatures, support weight, provide nutrition, or provide protection from the elements. Consequently, these spells are useful for confounding or delaying foes, but useless for attacking them directly.

A glamer spell changes a subject’s sensory qualities, making it look, feel, taste, smell, or sound like something else, or even seem to disappear.

At best, it would make you fall down and you wouldn't notice yourself falling, and would still think you were climbing the stairs. I would think that it just meant you fell down and wondered why.

Segev

2016-11-01, 08:47 AM

Glamers don't do that:

At best, it would make you fall down and you wouldn't notice yourself falling, and would still think you were climbing the stairs. I would think that it just meant you fell down and wondered why.

Hm. Valid point. Makes it a far less interesting spell, almost to the point of "as useless as hallucinatory terrain." I've never found a situation where that was useful, because it's too easily detected and can't provide meaningful alterations to the environment in any useful capacity.

Inevitability

2016-11-01, 08:53 AM

Hm. Valid point. Makes it a far less interesting spell, almost to the point of "as useless as hallucinatory terrain." I've never found a situation where that was useful, because it's too easily detected and can't provide meaningful alterations to the environment in any useful capacity.

Welcome to high-level magic: half of it is overpowered, half of it is worthless.

Segev

2016-11-01, 09:46 AM

Welcome to high-level magic: half of it is overpowered, half of it is worthless.

Meh. Clearly hallucinatory terrain and mirage arcana need to be rewritten to make them worthwhile. Making them Shadow effects might be a good start.

Coidzor

2016-11-01, 09:59 AM

Now that I think on it, a few hundred trillion Scry + Teleport Object spells couod have the same effect. That the teleport spell variant has a miles mischance barely matters since we're aiming for planetoid wide volume at the end.

Drop off a few loads of those Hallow+Undermaster minions on various asteroids and bodies too large to be Teleport Object'd on their own in order to harvest in advance into chunks small enough to be Teleport Object'd with Stone Shape. Might save on some scrying or serve to expose/leave behind the metals, which could then be Fabricated together into appropriate volumes to be added to the core or used like rebar to reinforce the expanding structure or kept aside for other use.

Could also make use of the druid/elephant trick, I suppose, using Shrink Item to really maximize the amount per trip.

unseenmage

2016-11-01, 10:50 AM

Drop off a few loads of those Hallow+Undermaster minions on various asteroids and bodies too large to be Teleport Object'd on their own in order to harvest in advance into chunks small enough to be Teleport Object'd with Stone Shape. Might save on some scrying or serve to expose/leave behind the metals, which could then be Fabricated together into appropriate volumes to be added to the core or used like rebar to reinforce the expanding structure or kept aside for other use.

Could also make use of the druid/elephant trick, I suppose, using Shrink Item to really maximize the amount per trip.
Speaking of miniaturization...

If we want to get really crazy we could always build a Runic Guardian type Construct whom we instruct to go about Animate Object-ing asteroids then Smoky Confinement-ing them into a single bottle.
Later we release all of the S. Confined materials at once and again viola, semi-instant planetoid. But again only after loads of drudgework.

On the other hand one could set up a factory situation that just keeps churning out these guys and putting them to work to benefit from a bit of snowball effect.

Not sure how many rules we'd have to cheese/houserule to get G. Teleport, max CL Animate Objects, and Smoky Confinement all on thd same Construct though.

Alternatively, Spellstitched undead or even just Wondrous Magic Items could work in a pinch.

Coidzor

2016-11-01, 03:14 PM

Blast of Sand (Sandstorm): Druid 4, Sorcerer 4, Wizard 4, Sand (Sa) 4: Create a 30' cone of sand.

Deadfall (Spell Compendium, p. 59): Druid 8: Create a mass of dead organic plant material 20' radius 40' high cylinder that becomes dense rubble 5' high by 20' radius.

Hurtling Stone (Heroes of Battle): Druid 4: Create a 50# stone.

Hail of Stone (Spell Compendium): Sorcerer/Wizard 1: Create a rain of stones in a 5' radius, 40' high cylinder

Ice Darts (Frostburn): Bard 2, Sorcerer/Wizard 2: Create a number of icicles and fire them.

Lava Missile (Serpent Kingdoms): Cleric 2, Druid 2: Create a number of lava projectiles and fire them.

Lava Splash (Serpent Kingdoms): Cleric 5, Druid 4: Create a wave of lava that covers a 20' radius, 40' high cylinder.

Magnetic Pulse (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20040416a) (Far Corners of the World: Spells of the Mountains): Slam all unattended ferrous metal into the center of the spell's area.

Mudslide (Stormwrack, p. 119): Druid 6, Sorcerer/Wizard 6: Create a 40' spread of mud and water 10' deep, producing an area of deep bog until the water evaporates. Explicitly legitimate target for Transmute Mud to Rock.

Obedient Avalanche (Spell Compendium, p. 148): Cold 9, Sorcerer/Wizard 9: Create 20' radius of heavy snow, 20' radius beyond that of snow.

Raise Ice Forest (Frostburn): Druid 7: Create trees made out of ice provided you have access to frostfell regions.

Runic Marker (Champions of Valor, p. 57): Cleric 4: Create a 1' radius, 6' tall pillar of stone that can have its matter erased from existence at any time if its glyph of warding is triggered.

Sarcophagus of Stone (Spell Compendium, p. 180): Cleric 6: Create 1" thick stone sarcophagus just large enough to contain a Medium or smaller creature. 8' tall or long is the max cap for a medium creature.

Sudden Stalagmite (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20021025a) (Spell Compendium, p. 213): Druid 4: Create a 1' wide based, 10' tall stalagmite.

Wall of Salt (Sandstorm): Cleric 4, Druid 4, Sorcerer/Wizard 4: Wall of salt of one 5' square section of wall per CL that is 1 inch/CL thick.

Zajimarn's Avalanche (Magic of Faerûn): Sorcerer/Wizard 9: Create an avalanche that covers one 10' square/CL.

Mudslide seems like it's the way to actually accomplish the idea I had earlier of using Wall of Stone + Transmute Rock to Mud.

Hurtling Stone and, if we could get an estimate for the number/mass of stones, Hail of Stone seem like they'd be competitors with schemes involving grabbing other planetoids, at least when it comes to adding raw mass.

Deadfall looks like a convenient way to add your own layer of what will become petrochemicals over geological time scales.

Blast of Sand could be used to cut the mud with to turn it into more mixed soil more quickly, I suppose?

Zajimarn's Avalanche seems like it needs some definition, but it seems like the spell-based way to add water, though I think the magic item based way of automating it is probably superior.

As for a Runic Guardian, slapping Mudslide onto some of them while others have Hail of Stone and Lava Missile and other low-level matter creation spells along with either Wall of Salt or Lava Splash or Hurtling Stone seems like it may be competitive or more than competitive with having teams of Runic Guardians where one has Smoky Confinement and others have Stone Shape and Animate Objects. At least as far as matter accretion.

edit: Re: Hail of Stone: Falling Objects (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#fallingObjects) suggest that the individual stones created by Hail of Stone are 1 pound or heavier.

Objects weighing less than 1 pound do not deal damage to those they land upon, no matter how far they have fallen.

The spell deals 1d4 to 5d4, so it doesn't map well to the 1d6 for 31-50 pound objects falling from 40' or 200 pound objects falling from 10' formula. Maybe a single 1# stone per 5' cube targeted by the spell per 1d4 of damage dealt?

40' height = 8 layers of 5' cubes. 5' radius = 4 5' squares per layer. So 4*8= 32 5' cubes affected by the spell. So between 32 and 160 pounds of stones created by Hail of Stone based upon a semi(?)conservative estimate.

OTOH, 4/6 is 2/3, so if the rocks are all 2/3 of a pound that'd give between (21 and 1/3) pounds on the low end and (106 and 2/3) pounds on the high end.

Jowgen

2016-11-01, 07:00 PM

Coidzor

2016-11-01, 08:19 PM

Mudslide certainly seems handy, producing 50265.48 cu ft of mud with each casting, which is just over half the volume that a flashflood gives us in water, and it does so a whole two levels lower. Now that is a spell worth trying to figure out a good way to cast on a roundly basis for. The runic guardian's cost/effect ratio doesn't sit right with me, when a 6th level spell Schema is a comparatively measily 26.400 gp market price (13.200 gp + exp to create).

I love magnetic pulse for coolness factors, and it certainly seems like one should be able to do something useful with it, but I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

I've come accross something that could help with getting pieces of inferno star into the core.

From the description: "They tend to move in straight lines in one direction until contacting something solid that is at least quarter of their mass or larger; at which point they bounce in a new direction." If I am reading this right, I think it might be possible to consider them objects; as they have mass. As one can enter them, they're obviously not solid, but I think its a start?

That is a lot more mud than I initially had thought. I feel vindicated in the 15 minutes that took me on imarvintpa. :V

I thought it was neat too, but even with the free expansion to 60' radius if you're in a mountainous region of an asteroid and then doubling that again to 120', it's still pretty small for any purpose other than adding to the arsenal of lots and lots of little minions scouring an asteroid belt over a long period of time to accumulate and organize resources for you.

So find an interplanar travel spell that works on objects that you can't touch or find a way to be able to touch something that's pretty untouchable. Most portal type spells can just be opened up in front of whatever its current trajectory is, so you probably don't need to create a sacrificial object to bounce them in the way you want.

Jowgen

2016-11-02, 12:37 AM

I thought it was neat too, but even with the free expansion to 60' radius if you're in a mountainous region of an asteroid and then doubling that again to 120', it's still pretty small for any purpose other than adding to the arsenal of lots and lots of little minions scouring an asteroid belt over a long period of time to accumulate and organize resources for you.

So find an interplanar travel spell that works on objects that you can't touch or find a way to be able to touch something that's pretty untouchable. Most portal type spells can just be opened up in front of whatever its current trajectory is, so you probably don't need to create a sacrificial object to bounce them in the way you want.

Yeah, collecting little pieces of metal is something even Prestidigitation can do with a bit more time. Damn shame. That spell is like an beautifully elegant solution to a problem that just doesn't exist. :smallannoyed:

Sadly, unless the portal type spell specifies otherwise, the "Temperature, air (whether toxic or not), dangerous substances, and energy emissions stay on their side of an open portal" rule still applies. An inferno star kinda ticks all four of those boxes.

I have checked every teleportation subtype spell, and there appear to be none that can both affect unattended objects and move across planes. For making untouchable things touchable, the only thing I can see working is literally boxing the substance.

Based on that, I think I have part of a plan. Planar Ring Gates + Creature capable of surviving inside the Star + Glove of Storing + a source of endless under 20 lb boxes. Place one Ring Gate inside the hollow core, the nigh indestructable creature goes to the elemental plane of fire and goes to the core of the star with the other ring in one hand and the glove of storing hand free. It produces a box that automatically closes around a portion of inferno star, stores it in the glove, reaches through the ring gate and un-stores. Effectively, send a guy into the star and have him shovel plasma with one hand into a ring in his other hand.

Using the glove is a free action, placing the hand in the gate to release should be a move action (as per Sheathing a weapon), so the only issue is how to produce an endless supply of automatic containers as a standard action. Prestidigtation could produce some fragile boxes, but they'd be too small to be effective enough I think. Still, I don't have any better ideas. Shame the glove can't just store star-matter directly. :smallannoyed:

Coidzor

2016-11-02, 01:05 AM

Can walls of force survive the inferno star? If so, you could use a riverine box if those as possible or possibly a riverine shield as a scoop?

Jowgen

2016-11-02, 01:53 AM

Can walls of force survive the inferno star? If so, you could use a riverine box if those as possible or possibly a riverine shield as a scoop?

Checking on it, the destruction effect of the Star isn't labeled as disintegration, so Riverine items should be fine (not to mention fitting). Shield as scoop won't work, but Riverine is priced by the lb, so other items should be fine. As much as I dislike it, a custom piece of engineering seems to be needed.

Here's a rough design from the top of my head:

https://s18.postimg.org/kw1t4zd7t/Plasma_Harvester.png

This syringe type plasma harvester has two moving parts (in red), a plunger and a lid. All it does is that the plunger automatically moves from one end of the barrel to the other and back again each round, and when the plunger reaches the handle-end, the lid closes for a brief moment. Let the plunger pull back (allowing inferno star plasma to enter) and the lid close, glove-store it, place through the ring gate, un-glove-store it, let the plunger expell the inferno star plase, glove-store, pull back out, un-glove-store; and then repeat add infinitum. With everything riverine made, it should work fine. As for how the thing operates, there are plenty of low-grade magic items with self-moving parts that could be used for reference.

unseenmage

2016-11-02, 01:12 PM

Inevitability

2016-11-02, 01:46 PM

unseenmage

2016-11-02, 02:22 PM

Even if it couldn't control the whole thing it could likly control some if it.

Esp if you caught it mid flare and grabbed only the seperated part.

Edit: More usefully, use Cube of Force effect to seperate some starstuff then have the fiend posess that seperated stuff.

A Fiend using a Bead of Force could likely achieve the same.

Jack_Simth

2016-11-02, 06:43 PM

Well, technically Riverine is a Special Material and technically Special Materials aren't Magic Items until they're enchanted so technically we could Animate Objects/Minor Servitor some Riverine boxes to go fill themselves up with superheated starstuff.

Potential pitfall:
All Animate Objects (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateObjects.htm) actually permits you to do after casting is change the target. Unlike Summon Monster (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/summonMonsterI.htm), Animate Objects does not include anything along the lines of an "other tasks" clause.

Coidzor

2016-11-02, 07:04 PM

Potential pitfall:
All Animate Objects (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateObjects.htm) actually permits you to do after casting is change the target. Unlike Summon Monster (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/summonMonsterI.htm), Animate Objects does not include anything along the lines of an "other tasks" clause.

You mean that Animated Objects created via Animate Objects are useless outside of attacking things by RAW?

Well, I suppose you could get some boxes positioned on one side of it and have them set to attack a creature on the other side of the inferno star so they move through it, filling themselves with the substance.

Jack_Simth

2016-11-02, 07:18 PM

You mean that Animated Objects created via Animate Objects are useless outside of attacking things by RAW?I'll grant you it's silly, most DM's won't read it that way, and it makes using Permanency on an Animated Object a somewhat bad idea, but... seems to be the case.
Well, I suppose you could get some boxes positioned on one side of it and have them set to attack a creature on the other side of the inferno star so they move through it, filling themselves with the substance.You're going to need unlimited summons in that case... Summon Elemental reserve feat? Standard action to use it, move to direct the box.... there's also the Bowl of Commanding Water Elementals (fill via Decanter): takes longer each loop, but doesn't cost a feat.

Coidzor

2016-11-02, 07:52 PM

I'll grant you it's silly, most DM's won't read it that way, and it makes using Permanency on an Animated Object a somewhat bad idea, but... seems to be the case.You're going to need unlimited summons in that case... Summon Elemental reserve feat? Standard action to use it, move to direct the box.... there's also the Bowl of Commanding Water Elementals (fill via Decanter): takes longer each loop, but doesn't cost a feat.

...I'd have said use Psychic Reformation to just give some minions Summon Elemental as a feat, but that requires the ability to cast 4th level spells. Hmm.

How big is an Inferno Star again, and how much of it do we need?

OTOH, if you have the minions you could just have them move out of the way and redirect the animated object before it starts to hit them. Or have the minion lead it to a gate or whatever for it to drop off its load? :smallconfused:

Jack_Simth

2016-11-02, 09:01 PM

...I'd have said use Psychic Reformation to just give some minions Summon Elemental as a feat, but that requires the ability to cast 4th level spells. Hmm.

How big is an Inferno Star again, and how much of it do we need?

OTOH, if you have the minions you could just have them move out of the way and redirect the animated object before it starts to hit them. Or have the minion lead it to a gate or whatever for it to drop off its load? :smallconfused:

I suppose if the minion is faster than the object... which, as you're designing the object is pretty easy, you just design it such that the final result will end up with a speed sufficiently below that of your minion that it can never actually catch it (10-80 ft, depending on object size and design - no legs, legs, multiple legs, or wheels) so your lead just needs to be a: tireless and b: faster... of course, with the object being mindless, how do you make sure it actually scoops up some of the stuff you want? Hmm....

Coidzor

2016-11-02, 09:43 PM

I suppose if the minion is faster than the object... which, as you're designing the object is pretty easy, you just design it such that the final result will end up with a speed sufficiently below that of your minion that it can never actually catch it (10-80 ft, depending on object size and design - no legs, legs, multiple legs, or wheels) so your lead just needs to be a: tireless and b: faster... of course, with the object being mindless, how do you make sure it actually scoops up some of the stuff you want? Hmm....

Wait a minute! Wait a minute!

Haunt Shift should be able to get around that by having the undead minion shifted inside of the animated object be in complete control of it.

unseenmage

2016-11-02, 09:48 PM

Potential pitfall:
All Animate Objects (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateObjects.htm) actually permits you to do after casting is change the target. Unlike Summon Monster (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/summonMonsterI.htm), Animate Objects does not include anything along the lines of an "other tasks" clause.

Which is why you Diplomance a Minor Servitor instead. Unless you're going straight 3.5 in which case invisible Riverine mobile fort and Riverine Spell Turrets or something becomes your go-to.

Jowgen

2016-11-02, 10:20 PM

Infero Stars are objects, you say? What if you have a 5th-level Fiend of Possession take control of one? Its Animate Objects ability could then turn it into a creature, allowing quick movement across the planes.

They have mass, but aren't solid, so we're likely talking a Noncontinous object like a lake or cloud. Caveat to this idea is that a fiend must be Ethereal (as per the Ethrealness spell SU ability) to use its possess objects ability, and the Elemental Plane of Fire isn't coterminous with the Ethreal.

I'll grant you it's silly, most DM's won't read it that way, and it makes using Permanency on an Animated Object a somewhat bad idea, but... seems to be the case.You're going to need unlimited summons in that case... Summon Elemental reserve feat? Standard action to use it, move to direct the box.... there's also the Bowl of Commanding Water Elementals (fill via Decanter): takes longer each loop, but doesn't cost a feat.

Summons won't do. Unless the creature has been specifically "crafted" to resist the inferno star, it'll be destoryed almost instantly. A Riverine Minor Servitor might work, but arguing that Riverine (made of bloody walls of force) is a non-magical material is a pretty hard sell.

How big is an Inferno Star again, and how much of it do we need?

"radius of a mile or more" it says. As for how much we need... it's the single hottest sorta-natural substance I know off. The only thing I can see working as a guideline is if we were to actually use real life star plasma as a reference point. Now figuring out how much of that one would need to get enough heat to turn a solid planetoid core into a molten one of sufficient size... that's a little above my math/physics skill. :smallannoyed:

I suppose if the minion is faster than the object... which, as you're designing the object is pretty easy, you just design it such that the final result will end up with a speed sufficiently below that of your minion that it can never actually catch it (10-80 ft, depending on object size and design - no legs, legs, multiple legs, or wheels) so your lead just needs to be a: tireless and b: faster... of course, with the object being mindless, how do you make sure it actually scoops up some of the stuff you want? Hmm....

The general issue with that plan is that, if we don't employ a glove of storing, the Ring Gates will reach their 10.000 lb/day limit rather quickly. If it weren't for that, a riverine pump station of sorts hard-wired to the Ring Gates would work no issue. Then again, I have no idea how heavy a given volume of interno star is. :smallannoyed:

EDIT: Brain wave.

An Enveloping pit super-glued to a flat tower shield. 5000 cu ft of space that can be glove stored and move through the portal. Add in an automated Riverine plunger that moves 50 ft up and down each turn, and you got a way more efficient method of sucking in Star Matter and pushing it back out into the planetoid core.

Making it an extreme shield and upping the plunger frequency, one could potentially use it to shield bash through the Ring Gate (melee attacks through the ring gate are explcitly allowed), getting as many transfers per round as you can squeeze non-twf melee attacks into it. Considering the ring gate size and the fact that we pull the shield back each time, the gloves are no longer required to handle the Ring Gate lb limit.

If we presume 5 attacks each turn (feasible), thats 25000 cubic ft/round, or 360.000.000 cu ft per day. 1 mile radius sphere has a volume of 905.000.000.000, so 2.514 days to suck up a whole inferno star an release it into the planet core. Just under 7 years.

EDIT #2: Nesting several enveloping pits, if possible, would cut down the time considerably as well. As long as the edges/corners/seams are approrpiately sealed with Riverine, the pits themselves won't be affected. A pit can be nested with another 20 fully openened pits, each one with a plunger timed to move based on the central pits movement (can't place one on the bottom since the protective seams would prevent a single plasma-tight plunger moving through otherwise). That's a volume of 105000 cu ft for 75.600 gp. I call it the Plasma Harvester 6000 (™).

Even with only one transfer/round, that's 1.512.000.000 cu ft in a day; and it would take a mere 599 days to complete. A pretty acceptable amount of time to move a small star into the heart of a planetoid to get its molten core going, as far as I'm concerend.

unseenmage

2016-11-02, 10:33 PM

...

The general issue with that plan is that, if we don't employ a glove of storing, the Ring Gates will reach their 10.000 lb/day limit rather quickly. If it weren't for that, a riverine pump station of sorts hard-wired to the Ring Gates would work no issue. Then again, I have no idea how heavy a given volume of interno star is. :smallannoyed:

The last time I asked around about using starstuff outside a star it was explained to me that it is less useful for cooking things.

IIRC I was trying to use the super scifi Gate the ship in PF's Iron Gods campaign uses to warp starstuff at my enemies.

Jowgen

2016-11-03, 04:06 AM

The Haunted Presence idea seems a most elegant solution to the issue of how to animate some Riverine machines. There are plenty of ways to get lasting weak undead minions that blindly follow orders. Me like.

Also, in continuation of the second edit of my prior post, I've made blueprints for the Plasma Harvester 6000 (™). Once could give it more pits, but I think 21 are sufficient, and I don't feel like stretching the planar fabrice even more (especially in an over-lapping fashion) is sporting.

https://s18.postimg.org/m9eb9f1qx/Plasma_Harvester_6000.png

unseenmage

2016-11-03, 07:49 AM

another option would be to use the planar tear spells from the Planar Handbook to literally tear a hole into the star from another plane and then tear a hole into that point on that plane from somewhere else. Environmental effects explicitly get through these tears IIRC.

Precipitate Breach (https://dndtools.net/spells/planar-handbook--79/precipitate-breach--2163/) and Precipitate Complete Breach (https://dndtools.net/spells/planar-handbook--79/precipitate-complete-breach--2164/).

Complete Breach: When a complete breach occurs, a hole
is ripped in reality. The hole is a 10-foot-radius sphere that
inhabits the center of the 10d10-foot-radius area of the
breach on both affected planes. This larger affected area
exists on both affected planes and contains the traits of
both affected planes. The hole at the center is an open portal
between the planes. Creatures from either plane can move
as they will through the hole.

If the planar material on one side is less dense than the
material on the other, transport may occur. For instance,
if the air pressure on one side is much higher than on the
other, a roaring wind blows out one side of the hole, while
a sucking vortex comes into being on the other (small
differences in pressure create only a slight breeze). If
water exists on one side and not the other, liquid jets out
one side, but swirls away on the other.

Unlike with minor breaches, complete breaches require
the DM to specifically determine the breaching plane in
case travel occurs between the two places.
Duration: Most planar breaches last 1d6 days minus a
certain number of hours. A minor breach lasts 1d6 days
minus 12 hours (with a minimum duration of 12 hours),
a severe breach lasts 1d6 days minus 48 hours (with a
minimum duration of 1 hour), and a complete breach lasts
1d6 days minus 72 hours (with a minimum duration of 10
minutes). When the duration expires, the planar breach
recedes, taking the same amount of time and causing the
same atmospheric disturbances and effects as during the
breach’s onset.

So yeah, creating a complete breach using the spell ought to do it. One breach for getting the starstuff onto another plane then another breach to get that starstuff back to the material plane. (I am assuming these stars are Material Plane stars?)

Even if one is forced to use a random coordinate I could have sworn there was a spell that allowed one to rewrite a planar gateway's output location. Can't find it for the life of me. There's also the Create Portal feat from Dragon Mag. And those portals are explicitly immune to all forms of damage. Are Ring Gates subject to being destroyed by the starstuff?

Jowgen

2016-11-03, 08:07 AM

another option would be to use the planar tear spells from the Planar Handbook to literally tear a hole into the star from another plane and then tear a hole into that point on that plane from somewhere else. Environmental effects explicitly get through these tears IIRC.

Precipitate Breach (https://dndtools.net/spells/planar-handbook--79/precipitate-breach--2163/) and Precipitate Complete Breach (https://dndtools.net/spells/planar-handbook--79/precipitate-complete-breach--2164/).

So yeah, creating a complete breach using the spell ought to do it. One breach for getting the starstuff onto another plane then another breach to get that starstuff back to the material plane. (I am assuming these stars are Material Plane stars?)

Even if one is forced to use a random coordinate I could have sworn there was a spell that allowed one to rewrite a planar gateway's output location. Can't find it for the life of me. There's also the Create Portal feat from Dragon Mag. And those portals are explicitly immune to all forms of damage. Are Ring Gates subject to being destroyed by the starstuff?

Ahhh, good catch, I had skipped over the Breach spells because I only remembered the lesser categories of them. The Stars are Elemental Plane of Fire phenomenons, so a single breach could be used to connect directly. Problem is the highly random nature of the breaches.

I know of no way to force a complete planar breach to connect to a specific plane of choice, and even less so a specific spot. For severe breaches or weaker, the Portal Dissonance ACF from Planar Handbook can temporarily re-route portals and such, but it explictly won't work on a complete breach.

One method that could work is if one had a disposable, sealed and sufficiently small Demiplane available, to use as a relay station. Precipitate a complete breach from the Star to the demiplane, and then from the Demiplane to the Planetoid core.

What I really don't like about this approach, though, is that to sustain it requires repeated castings of exp-costing 9th level spells. Complete Breaches only last a few days at most.

EDIT: Oh, yeah, Ring Gates are subject to destruction by the star. The way around it I'd assume is to make sure that the sufficiently durable creature handling things is attending the gates, so that its saves/immunites apply to it. Another would be to fashion the gates out of Riverine.

Storm_Of_Snow

2016-11-03, 08:27 AM

It's an Instant spell, so all the magic is gone. May not qualify for Transmute Rock to Mud (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/transmuteRockToMud.htm), though, as the opening sentence is "This spell turns natural, uncut or unworked rock of any sort into an equal volume of mud" (emphasis added). While a Wall of Stone (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wallOfStone.htm) may not be magical, I'm not going to lay odds that a DM will let it slide as "natural" and "unworked".

What about Wall of Stone + Decanter of Endless Water + Time = one area where an eroded Wall of Stone once stood, and a lot of sand and gravel. :smallamused:

Or if you've got a Cleric, throw in Control Weather and make it rain until the Walls of Stone are no more. Or spam-cast Walls of Ice until you've made yourself a massive glacier to break them up (and coincidentally give yourself the opportunity to change you name to Slartibartfast and carve some fjords).

Wall of Stone doesn't say what type of stone it makes, only that the material component is granite - if you choose to make a softer stone (and your DM lets you), it'll take a lot less time to erode away.

Ruethgar

2016-11-03, 10:29 AM

Any info as far as source or spell level? So that's 25*CL cubic feet of elemental earth? Dirt? Stone? Any kind of mundane material associated with the Earth element?

Also, just to be sure I read that right, that's 10*CL cubic feet of breatheable air and 5*CL cubic feet of water or 40 gallons of water/CL? Or is that (10*CL)^3 in cubic feet of air and (5*CL)^3 cubic feet of water?

Interesting use of Prestidigitation, come to think of it. No spells I know of that create living seeds...

Level 0 spell from the 3.0 Dark Sun book. It can create generic earth or stone at ground level, water as per normal, magma, air and a few others that aren't really viable for anything. The abuse that I came up with(now nearly 2 years ago and haven't trouble finding the full mess written out) was A LOT more than you posted.

(10*CL?)^3 means if you have 3 CL (10*(3+2+1))^3 cubic feet of air. (5*CL?)^3 cubic feet of water. 5*5*CL? cubic feet of stone. 5*5*2*CL? cubic feet of earth. The base spell uses pounds of earth and stone and breaths of air menaing you need to really work around the creation of air by having a massive number of creatures(preferably very large ones) to pump full of air for them to exhale. I believe the above calculation was using medium creatures and googling approximate sandstone and loose soil densities. So maybe a few catgirls died in the process. I thought I would mention it as it could be useful if you allow that level of abuse. Do note that you cannot be a cleric with this spell or it becomes a single element.

It was something to the effect of War Sanctum Twin Ocular Chain Repeat Split Create Element chosen as an SLA through some Dragon feat that replaces Gnome SLAs, thought with the sorcerer's familiarity clause, a Kobold could Draconic Rite it as well. Do note that only War and Sanctum alter the spell level, War is a +1 Sanctum is a -1 until cast in the sanctum. All of the others only increase slot and so don't chance the level for the gnome replacement or draconic rite to beyond what is required. You could also take that one Kingdoms and Kalimdor feat for Int cantrips 1/day each, however then you would have to pay the time cost of a War spell. Note that Magical Training would not work with this as it specifies spell slots which you are going far above.

unseenmage

2016-11-03, 12:02 PM

...

What I really don't like about this approach, though, is that to sustain it requires repeated castings of exp-costing 9th level spells. Complete Breaches only last a few days at most.

...

How do you feel about Spellclocks from the Clockwork Wonders section of the WotC archives?

They're not technically custom magic traps exactly. They could recast the necessary spells forever.

Coidzor

2016-11-03, 03:46 PM

Hmm. Google and r/askscience (https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3j186p/what_is_the_hottest_object_in_the_known_universe/) are telling me that the LHC has made microscopic quantities of materials hotter than what we believe supernovae to be.

So potential reference point for Inferno Star temperature?

Level 0 spell from the 3.0 Dark Sun book. It can create generic earth or stone at ground level, water as per normal, magma, air and a few others that aren't really viable for anything. The abuse that I came up with(now nearly 2 years ago and haven't trouble finding the full mess written out) was A LOT more than you posted.

(10*CL?)^3 means if you have 3 CL (10*(3+2+1))^3 cubic feet of air. (5*CL?)^3 cubic feet of water. 5*5*CL? cubic feet of stone. 5*5*2*CL? cubic feet of earth. The base spell uses pounds of earth and stone and breaths of air menaing you need to really work around the creation of air by having a massive number of creatures(preferably very large ones) to pump full of air for them to exhale. I believe the above calculation was using medium creatures and googling approximate sandstone and loose soil densities. So maybe a few catgirls died in the process. I thought I would mention it as it could be useful if you allow that level of abuse. Do note that you cannot be a cleric with this spell or it becomes a single element.

It was something to the effect of War Sanctum Twin Ocular Chain Repeat Split Create Element chosen as an SLA through some Dragon feat that replaces Gnome SLAs, thought with the sorcerer's familiarity clause, a Kobold could Draconic Rite it as well. Do note that only War and Sanctum alter the spell level, War is a +1 Sanctum is a -1 until cast in the sanctum. All of the others only increase slot and so don't chance the level for the gnome replacement or draconic rite to beyond what is required. You could also take that one Kingdoms and Kalimdor feat for Int cantrips 1/day each, however then you would have to pay the time cost of a War spell. Note that Magical Training would not work with this as it specifies spell slots which you are going far above.

Sounds nifty! Too bad you can't find that old post of yours, though, it sounds like it and the context surrounding it must have been quite intriguing. :smallfrown:

Jowgen

2016-11-04, 12:22 AM

How do you feel about Spellclocks from the Clockwork Wonders section of the WotC archives?

I suppose those are acceptable, and Precipitate Complete Breach seems like a fitting candiate for being added to one. The two issues that remain though are locating a suitably small demiplane relay station, and how to ensure that the two breaches connect to this demiplane (i.e. trying randomly would cause serious mass devastation accross the planes).

However, considering that the spell-clock would be a one time investment one wouldn't need to worry about, and that the large size of breaches could allow for a very fast transfer of Starstuff (provided we have a proper vaccuum in the core); I still think this might be worth pursuing. We just need to find a way to make sure the Breach connects to our Demiplane (or directly even, if at all possible). The only thing I could find that is even slightly related is the Safety spell, which ensures planeshifts take you to non-hazardous areas, which is like the opposite of what we want. :smalltongue:

Hmm. Google and r/askscience (https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3j186p/what_is_the_hottest_object_in_the_known_universe/) are telling me that the LHC has made microscopic quantities of materials hotter than what we believe supernovae to be.

So potential reference point for Inferno Star temperature?

Hmmm... the issue with going this IRL physics is that heat, in the D&D universe, is literal elemental energy, rather than the vibration of particles. Perhaps an extrapolatory approach might work instead, to give a rought ball-park estimate?

Temerpature bands in D&D top out at 211° F, anything above that is just "burning heat" by normal standards. The heat given off by an Inferno Star ignores resistance and immunity, while making everything within 100 miles Severe heat, with touching it being equivalent to extreme heat (plus the DC 30 Fort save vs immediate destruction). One could treat regular severe heat to be moderate for Fire-immune creatures, so that the inferno star essentially stacks on another special temerpature band on top. Normally, each increase in band only adds 20-40°, but if we square the 210° mark instead to simulate an exponential increase, we get 44.100 ° F, which is only about 4 times the surface temp of our sun.

Ehhh, looking at this and our other options, I feel like this issue is best left alone after all. The inferno star makes everything within 100 miles "Epic severe heat". Relating to size, that's a range of 100 times its radius. This heat ignores immunity, so it should apply to the mass of the planet in full, liquifying everything within that area. So the star acts as our Inner Core, the liquid area 100 times the Star's Diameter is our outer core, the layer beyond this that is simply very hot due to the heat from the outer core is our mantle, and then on top we have the crust.

So really, all that needs to be done is to consider the diameter of the planetoid and use the above relation to determine how much Star we need to ensure the right proportion of layers.

Coidzor

2016-11-05, 02:42 PM

So, other than figuring out how to make a demiplane smaller than normal and create a vacuum inside of it, what are the current outstanding problems that need solving?

Jowgen

2016-11-05, 03:08 PM

So, other than figuring out how to make a demiplane smaller than normal and create a vacuum inside of it, what are the current outstanding problems that need solving?

Well, a means to make complete breaches connect where you want them to without the need for a demiplane would be handy, but not mandatory, especially since the molten core, lava lakes and Ash Willows aren't really vital to the effort.

I believe we've solved long term atmosphere generation with Stoneshrooms, Bottle of Air setups and I suppose Vapor Bottles (Shing South?) can be added to the list there.

Water has its own solutions as well, including everful basin setups, copious Flashfloods and/or Mudslides (which also adds soil), and the slow but simple Decanters of Endless water.

The spread of plantlife hasn't been exlored in depth, but we got plant-growth and general Bio-matter addition with the Ash Willow idea (plus the Stoneshrooms of course), and it's a pretty self-sufficient process anyway if the other factors are given. One thing I forgot to mention on the topic is that a Basket of Delights (fey feature articles) can provide endless seeds, as it produces ripe (as in, containing viable seeds) fruits.

Raising global temperature hasn't been touched upon much. The epic global warming spell was mentioned, but is beyond the project's scope. The steam-based Everful basin approach and the Ash Willow-Inferno star plan respectively add thermal energy into the mix; but weren't really considered as to how well they contribute to this issue, and how else it could be addressed.

Lowering global temperature on a uninhabitable lava planetoid also hasn't been considered, though that one seems a bit more straight forward.

Other things that might be worth musing about but likely don't have a solution is how one could adjust the distance to or nature of the planetoid's sun, or even more ambitously, how to effectively create a planteoid from scratch.

unseenmage

2016-11-05, 03:53 PM

In my sig there's a list of extraplanar plantlife that includes Stoneshrooms and Ash Willows. IIRC theres also a Bottle of Air living analogue that could come in handy.

Anthrowhale

2016-11-05, 10:16 PM

I wanted to write down some more detail on an approach to "terraforming" a planetoid instantaneously.

The key spells are:

Bombardment (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wallOfStone.htm) [Druid 8]. Makes 3.5K ft^3 of stone per casting.
Flash Flood [Cleric/Druid 8]. Makes 100K ft^3 of water per casting.
Updraft [Cleric/Druid 1]. Makes an unclear but significant amount of air per casting.
Greater Teleport (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/teleportGreater.htm) [Wizard/Travel 7]. Transports the caster to any location making short-range spells viable.

By choosing a location at the right distance from a star (not to hot, not to cold) to support life, teleporting there, then casting a sufficient quantity of Bombardment to create a planet(oid), then a sufficient quantity of Flash Flood and Updraft for water and air, a baseline planet can be created. It is important to start the first castings spinning and maintain that to create an adequate day/night cycle. Note that the L4 and L5 Lagrangion Points (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) seem particularly desirable in physics-based universe.

A few other spells (all optional) can assist the process of creating a living ecosphere or otherwise help with aesthetics.

Deadfall [Druid 8]. Makes 6.3K ft^3 of dead wood. This provides great fertilizer for plant life.
Wall of Salt [Cleric/Druid/Wizard 4]. Makes .8K ft^3 of salt. When combined with water this provides salt water.
Mudslide. [Druid/Wizard 6] 50k ft^3 of mud which becomes a large amount of dirt after evaporation. Dirt supports much more advanced plant life than bare rock.
Greater Stone Metamorphosis [Druid/Cleric 6, Wizard 8]. Transforms .21K ft^3 of stone into another stone providing much more variety.
Transmute Rock to Lava [Druid/Wizard 9]. Makes 1K ft^3 of molten Lava that cools naturally. This is primarily useful for traditionalists who want a molten core.

After casting these spells a sufficient number of times, you have a planet that is fertile and could rapidly develop an ecology on the timescale of a decade to a millenia depending on how much effort is made to transplant actual life. Without the optional spells, you'll have a planet with a dead center that might take 10K-1M years to terraform, simply because it takes a long time for barely-viable plant life to break down bare rock into soil that can support more advanced life.

One concern is that the created planet lacks a magnetosphere (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetosphere) implying the atmosphere ionizes and hence leaks at a greater rate than otherwise. On geological timescales, extra castings of updraft or other sources of air such as the mentioned Stoneshrooms or Bottle of Air seem desirable.

The synthetic world may also have an odd mixture of elements depending on exactly how diverse the Stone of Bombardment is, but Greater Stone Metamorphisis addresses this. Since the volume is relatively small, this should be saved for the lithosphere.

Casting all these spells in a reasonable amount of time requires an archivist variant of the clockwork wizard (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?496834-The-Clockwork-Wizard-Everything-in-no-time) detailed next. Note that every spell above requires a standard or swift action to cast and has no expensive material components so every spell can be cast as many times as desired to create an effect. Creating an earth-sized planet via this process takes about 40 trillion years of apparent time although it is instantaneous to a non-timestopped observer. The limiting factor here is creating the core, to such an extent that all surface related castings are essentially free.

Warforged Archivist 3/Church Inquisitor 2/Dweomer Keeper 5/Contemplative 1(Spell)/Dweomer Keeper 5/Lore Master (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/loremaster.htm) 1/Archivist 1/Hierophant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/hierophant.htm) 2
Feats:
Flaw: Repeat Spell. A critical metamagic.
L1: Maximize Spell. A critical Metamagic.
L3: Invisible Spell. For Arcane Thesis, but also handy.
L6: Eschew Materials. Cast infinite spells with costless material components.
L9: Twin Spell. A critical metamagic.
L12: Arcane Thesis[Shroud of Flame]. Our absorption power source.
L15: Arcane Thesis[Celerity]. Extra actions anyone?
Frog God's Fane: Skill Focus(Knowledge[Religion]) Prerequisite feat tax.
Loremaster 1: Arcane Thesis[Timestop]. Unlocks infinite actions.
L18: Arcane Thesis[Absorption]. Unlocks infinite spellcasting.
Hierophant 1: Alternate Source Spell. For Arcane Thesis
Hierophant 2: Energy Substitution[Cold]

Dweomer Keeper is qualified by twice using Substitute Domain on the Inquisition Domain granted by Church Inquisitor. The first casting provides access to Anyspell which allows memorizing an arcane spell to cast. The second casting provides access to the magic Domain.

Alternate Source Spell is qualified for via Anyspell from the Spell domain.

Arcane spells can be cast via Alternate Source Spell with no spell failure via the Twilight armor enhancement.

An augmented wisdom of 28 is required (for the bonus spell) and an intelligence of 24 is needed for the Lore Master bonus feat.

Caster level is 20 with L18 archivist spell access.

All spells can be Archivist spells via several different approaches to creating a divine scroll. Hence, all the spell-based tricks for unlimited casting in the Clockwork Wizard are available for all spells.

Since the planet is simply created we are really doing stellar engineering here rather than terraforming. Naturally, this means there are plenty of options other than a planet. For example, on a plane with a subjective directional gravity almost any shape should be possible.

Jowgen

2016-11-06, 06:11 AM

In my sig there's a list of extraplanar plantlife that includes Stoneshrooms and Ash Willows. IIRC theres also a Bottle of Air living analogue that could come in handy.

I'm familiar with your list from back when I searched for plants to include in a similar one I compiled (see my sig). The one you're referring to is simply called Air Plane, a sponge-like pond-surface plant that produces and stores air. A fist-sized piece can be held in the mouth to provide a medium creature with 5 minutes of air before dying. Stormwrack p. 109.

Well, if a particular planetoid turned out to be covered in lots of ice, then the Stoneshrooms will likely be ineffective; so melting the ice sheet and propegating Air Plants instead would be a good alternative, although their output is a bit lower by the looks of it.

I wanted to write down some more detail on an approach to "terraforming" a planetoid instantaneously.

The key spells are:

Bombardment (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wallOfStone.htm) [Druid 8]. Makes 14K ft^3 of stone per casting.
Flash Flood [Cleric/Druid 8]. Makes 100K ft^3 of water per casting.
Updraft [Cleric/Druid 1]. Makes an unclear but significant amount of air per casting.
Greater Teleport (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/teleportGreater.htm) [Wizard/Travel 7]. Transports the caster to any location making short-range spells viable.

By choosing a location at the right distance from a star (not to hot, not to cold) to support life, teleporting there, then casting a sufficient quantity of Bombardment to create a planet(oid), then a sufficient quantity of Flash Flood and Updraft for water and air, a baseline planet can be created. It is important to start the first castings spinning and maintain that to create an adequate day/night cycle. Note that the L4 and L5 Lagrangion Points (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) seem particularly desirable in physics-based universe.

A few other spells (all optional) can assist the process of creating a living ecosphere or otherwise help with aesthetics.

Deadfall [Druid 8]. Makes 5K ft^3 of dead wood. This provides great fertilizer for plant life.
Wall of Salt [Cleric/Druid/Wizard 4]. Makes 1K ft^3 of salt. When combined with water this provides salt water.
Transmute Rock to Mud (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/transmuteRockToMud.htm) [Druid/Wizard 5]. A permanent spell with the clause "Evaporation turns the mud to normal dirt over a period of days". Normal dirt is not magical so it cannot be dispelled. Dirt supports much more advanced plant life than bare rock.
Transmute Rock to Lava [Druid/Wizard 9]. Makes 1K ft^3 of molten Lava that cools naturally. This is primarily useful for traditionalists who want a molten core.

After casting these spells a sufficient number of times, you have a planet that is fertile and could rapidly develop an ecology on the timescale of a decade to a millenia depending on how much effort is made to transplant actual life. Without the optional spells, you'll have a planet with a dead center that might take 10K-1M years to terraform, simply because it takes a long time for barely-viable plant life to break down bare rock into soil that can support more advanced life.

One concern is that the created planet lacks a magnetosphere (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetosphere) implying the atmosphere ionizes and hence leaks at a greater rate than otherwise. On geological timescales, extra castings of updraft or other sources of air such as the mentioned Stoneshrooms or Bottle of Air seem desirable.

The synthetic world may also have an odd mixture of elements depending on exactly how diverse the Stone of Bombardment is.

Very detailed and thought out, I like the cut of your jib. :smallbiggrin:

Bombardment does seem like the best spell to create large volumes of simple stone. Add the Stone Metamorphosis spell (Und), and you no longer have to worry about the element balance.

Transmute Rock to Mud is counter-productive. The Mudslide spell (Stormwrack) is instantanous and creates 50265.48 cu ft of Mud), so using that keeps our stone supply in place and reduces the ammount of Flashflood castings needed. Cast in tandem with Deadfall and you easily create a layer of viable soil.

I think creating a Magnetosphere and getting a molten core is feasible and beneficial when operating in this scope of things. Magnetic Pulse (inward) tied to a Widened Hallow, permanent Darson's Fiery furnace on the same spot, Wall of Iron and True Creation (for Nickel) should do most of the trick. Once enough of these giant magnetic iron-nickel spheres are created, they should self-assemble into what'll be the inner and outer core. That you can build your Bombardment +Trasmute stone layer and lastly Mudslide x Flashflood layers on.

ExLibrisMortis

2016-11-06, 08:38 AM

This might be a bit of a silly way to get a planet, but then it might work.

The elemental plane of earth is infinite, and has lots of rocks.
Given that it has infinite rocks, there's probably a planet-sized rock somewhere on the plane of earth (possibly with a molten core, given suitable closeness to the plane of fire).
We can turn this rock into a planeshifting stronghold, or possibly a golem. Planets take up a lot of stronghold spaces, but we'll simply use cost reduction (or a supernatural wish, if bored).
As planeshifting stronghold/golem, the planet-sized rock can move into orbit under its own power, as instructed by the planet's owner.
Proceed with the usual terraforming.
Register Magrathea as company and trademark.

unseenmage

2016-11-06, 09:49 AM

I'm familiar with your list from back when I searched for plants to include in a similar one I compiled (see my sig). The one you're referring to is simply called Air Plane, a sponge-like pond-surface plant that produces and stores air. A fist-sized piece can be held in the mouth to provide a medium creature with 5 minutes of air before dying. Stormwrack p. 109.

Well, if a particular planetoid turned out to be covered in lots of ice, then the Stoneshrooms will likely be ineffective; so melting the ice sheet and propegating Air Plants instead would be a good alternative, although their output is a bit lower by the looks of it.

...

And yours is soooo much better than mine too! Ugh, I guess at some point I stopped reading people's sigs. They still show up. I just don't notice them anymore. Much to my detriment it would seem.

So long as you don't mind I think I'll farm your plant list for growable plants and re-iterate my list as a list of pottable plants instead. :smallsmile:

Edit: Oh yeah! It occurred to me that generating new habitable planetoids could be a cool method for growing new Wishferns and generating new locations suitable for Teleport Through Time spells. Hmmm, I wonder what other game mechanics require uninhabited or natural spaces?

Anthrowhale

2016-11-06, 10:23 AM

Very detailed and thought out, I like the cut of your jib. :smallbiggrin:

Stone Metamorphosis and Mudslide are great---I tweaked the description.

I think creating a Magnetosphere and getting a molten core is feasible and beneficial when operating in this scope of things.

I'm more skeptical about this. Magnetic Pulse essentially creates a magnetic monopole which is aphysical and hence unlikely to lead to a magnetosphere. Darson's Fiery Furnace has a great area but it isn't hot enough to melt stone---Transmute Rock to Lava is the only way I know to do that. Wall of Iron has an expensive material component which becomes deeply ruinous at planetary scales, and True Creation has a similarly ruinous XP cost. Maybe these could work via a custom command word item? A command word item for Wall of Iron costs 123.8K so that's feasible, if expensive. A custom item of True Creation is however 216.2K which exceeds nonepic limits :smallmad:

Jowgen

2016-11-06, 11:18 AM

This might be a bit of a silly way to get a planet, but then it might work.

In brief, you want to mine the Elemental Plane of Earth for a planet sized rock, turn it into a planet sized Stronghold and give the whole thing the ability to plane-shift? :smalleek:

Possible? Yes. Practical? I don't see it.

So long as you don't mind I think I'll farm your plant list for growable plants and re-iterate my list as a list of pottable plants instead. :smallsmile:

Edit: Oh yeah! It occurred to me that generating new habitable planetoids could be a cool method for growing new Wishferns and generating new locations suitable for Teleport Through Time spells. Hmmm, I wonder what other game mechanics require uninhabited or natural spaces?

Sure thing.

The Wishfern thing is an interesting idea indeed. As for other uses for large natural uninhabited spaces... nothing comes to mind, but there could be something?

I'm more skeptical about this. Magnetic Pulse essentially creates a magnetic monopole which is aphysical and hence unlikely to lead to a magnetosphere. Darson's Fiery Furnace has a great area but it isn't hot enough to melt stone---Transmute Rock to Lava is the only way I know to do that. Wall of Iron has an expensive material component which becomes deeply ruinous at planetary scales, and True Creation has a similarly ruinous XP cost. Maybe these could work via a custom command word item? A command word item for Wall of Iron costs 123.8K so that's feasible, if expensive. A custom item of True Creation is however 216.2K which exceeds nonepic limits :smallmad:

The key is that the magnetic pulse will be active throughout the area of hallow for a whole year, which should permanently magnetize the solid metal core materials. The heat from Darson's might be conductive or counter-productive here, that's beyond my working knowledge of magnets.

Nothing in game is, by RAW, hot enough to melt stone. Lava itself is called out as not being hot enough. So my operating assumption is that, darson's will provide continous heat to the solid inner metal core, and this heat will constantly seep into the outer metal core and rock mantle, which will build up under insulation, eventually getting to the temperatures needed. Whether the magnetic fields from the inner core will impact this in any way, no clue.

I see your point about the two spells. Now wall of iron I think is acceptable, but as for other means to get access to nickel and other specific metals desired... If only Alchemy actually did what it's supposed to. :smallannoyed:

unseenmage

2016-11-06, 11:28 AM

... but as for other means to get access to nickel and other specific metals desired... If only Alchemy actually did what it's supposed to. :smallannoyed:

Orbiting Spellclocks of True Creation?

Anthrowhale

2016-11-06, 12:37 PM

The key is that the magnetic pulse will be active throughout the area of hallow for a whole year, which should permanently magnetize the solid metal core materials.

Wikipedia says that the magnetosphere is due to conductive liquid iron in the outer core (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo_theory) since otherwise you cannot account for polarity switching in the Earth's magnetic field. Presuming that's correct, stone metamorphosis into ferrous stones followed by Transmute Rock to Lava may work when applied at sufficient scale.

Nothing in game is, by RAW, hot enough to melt stone.

Except Transmute Rock to Lava.

As far as I can tell from the Darsson's description, it does nothing (i.e. adds no heat) if the temperature is already Extreme Heat, so no higher temperatures can be reached by that method.

ExLibrisMortis

2016-11-06, 02:13 PM

In brief, you want to mine the Elemental Plane of Earth for a planet sized rock, turn it into a planet sized Stronghold and give the whole thing the ability to plane-shift? :smalleek:

Possible? Yes. Practical? I don't see it.
The advantage of finding an in-place rock is that it's quick - you find an earth weird, ask where such-and-such a rock can be found, go there, and retrieve your planet. Takes ten minutes for a spellcaster with 9ths.

The advantage of the SBG rules is that they bypass nonepic magic item cost limitations - each space is a separate 25 000 gp item. The concurrent downside is the high cost. A stronghold space equals 6 × 6 × 3 = 108 cubic metres. The volume of Earth is v ≈ 1,08 × 1021 cubic metres, so we get v/108 ≈ 1019 stronghold spaces (technically, there are no rules on structural integrity, so we only need the outer 5' of rock, but that's unsatisfying), at 25 000 gp each, so we get 2,5 × 1023 gp market price. The cost to craft is then 1,25 × 1023 gp and 1022 XP.

With that kind of cost, you cannot pay the XP yourself, but ambrosia will work, both for gp (100 gp per vial) and XP. You can get a creature to work on each SS separately, so the build time is no greater than that of a 25 000 gp object, given sufficient creatures. If you are intending to get into the planet-building business long-term, having some 1019 allies, each set up to be under the influence of distilled joy (through your interpretation here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21367612&postcount=29)), can be very practical. Of course, they can have 1019 dedicated wrights, too (with greater humanoid essence to produce XP).

An application of hive minds (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19299172&postcount=59) can get us sufficient creatures: wasps. A crafting wasp goes through 30 vials of ambrosia per day: 1000 gp and 40 XP's worth. Therefore, we need a 30:1 ratio of wasps:crafting wasps, assuming you produce one vial of ambrosia per creature per day. That gives us 3 × 1020 wasps, of which 1019 are crafting, for a 25-day build time. The nice thing is that the leftover wasps can also do other stuff, like terraforming the surface of the planet.

If crafting a plane-travelling planet is not an option (outrageous, I say!), you have to find another way to move it to the material plane. For that, it is hugely helpful if you are able to treat the planet as an object. For example, an object can be carried, shrunk, animated, and so on. A simple strength-enhanced colossal quadruped can planeshift with the planet/carry the planet through a natural portal. This is basically the Hulking Hurler's shtick, applied to custom planet-building.

Bucky

2016-11-06, 03:04 PM

The Wishfern thing is an interesting idea indeed.

The nice thing about terraforming to grow Wishferns is that you can engineer the planet's orbit for better growing conditions: short years, long winter solstice nights and no wildlife.

Jowgen

2016-11-07, 12:46 AM

Wikipedia says that the magnetosphere is due to conductive liquid iron in the outer core (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo_theory) since otherwise you cannot account for polarity switching in the Earth's magnetic field. Presuming that's correct, stone metamorphosis into ferrous stones followed by Transmute Rock to Lava may work when applied at sufficient scale.

As far as I can tell from the Darsson's description, it does nothing (i.e. adds no heat) if the temperature is already Extreme Heat, so no higher temperatures can be reached by that method.

There is more than one way to skin a rabbit. Before Dynamo theory, people thought the core was simply powerfully magnetized, and there is no reason something like that couldn't provide a workable magnetosphere to a planetoid.

My train of thought regarding Darson's was that the metal core would conduct heat into the surrounding stone faster than said stone would be able to conduct it further outwards, creating an oven effect around that core that would eventually lead to sufficient build-up of heat to melt the stone. The DMG p.303 does put lump lava in the Extreme Heat category of temperatures, so the actual difference shouldn't be too hard.

Alternative to Darson's: Control Temperature somehow boosted to CL 50. Takes the temperautre within 1000 ft radius from Unearthly Cold to Burning Heat. It's the predominant temeprature on the elemental plane of fire, where lava is the most common liquid, so that certainly should suffice.

EDIT: Adding a Dragon Ruby (CC p. 132) as a cheap extra component can double this to a 2000 ft radius.

...

I'm thinking that, if anything, you'd want to get those (insert huge number) minions that would be crafting stronghold spaced to instead form a hand-linking ring around the planet-sized rock, while making sure that 1 out of 7 has the ability to plane shift at least once. As long as their combined carrying capacity (up to lifting and staggering, I'd presume) equals the rocks, they should be able to all take it along with that one synchronized planeshift.

ExLibrisMortis

2016-11-07, 10:03 AM

I'm thinking that, if anything, you'd want to get those (insert huge number) minions that would be crafting stronghold spaced to instead form a hand-linking ring around the planet-sized rock, while making sure that 1 out of 7 has the ability to plane shift at least once. As long as their combined carrying capacity (up to lifting and staggering, I'd presume) equals the rocks, they should be able to all take it along with that one synchronized planeshift.
You could probably do that with polymorph any object. Three things you need to do, as follows:

One: the planet is probably treated as a series of 10' cubes, not as a single object. If you need one planeshifter per 10' cube, they need to burrow/earthglide (incorporeal creatures can't carry rock, typically). Earth elemental form seems practical.
Two: the planet-sized rock may not necessarily be 'loose' or even spherical, if you're carving it out of a bigger rock. The stronghold work helps defining which bit is going to shift. This is solved by the planeshifter-per-cube strategy.
Three: one ss worth of rock is heavy. About 6 × 6 × 3 × 2500 = 270 000 kg (600 000 lb), which is about 16 700 lb per planeshifter. If we are assuming Large earth elementals (6000 lb by themselves, so this rock is 30% heavier when they're earth gliding?) with Natural Heavyweight (hive mind provides lots of feats), we need to increase their strength to 38*, an increase by 13 points. Bite of the werebear provides enough strength.

Now, does a hivemind of 3,6 × 1020 creatures provide enough spell slots to provide each with bite of the werebear? Well, with a charisma score of ~1/50 per member, and ~1/4 bonus spell slot of each level, you have ~1/200 slots of each level per member. The spell lasts 1 round/level, so, with a caster level of ~1/50 per member, 5 × 1014 days. Dividing that by 200, we can have ~2,5 × 1012 overlapping round/level duration spells active on each wasp (of each spell level). So yes, that's plenty.

At that point, you need to get enough plane shift casters, and I think Reach Spell is the way to do it. Shifting everyone within 30' covers at least 125 Large creatures (5x5x5 grid of 10' cubes, diagonals are 30' exactly), and you can use your 7ths, 8ths, and 9ths (with Practical Metamagic (reach) and Arcane Thesis (plane shift)), so that's plenty of spells, even with a single daily allotment - ~3/200 members, for 375/200 needed plane shift capacity.

With 3 × 1020 wasps, you can build the planet into a stronghold (in 25 days), with 3,6 × 1020 wasps, you can planeshift it once (in a standard action, since the buffing was done eons ago).

*38 strength allows a heavy load of 4800 lb. Multiply by two for the feat and Large size, provides 19 200 lb capacity. 37 strength only allows 16 640 lb, which won't work for the parts that are heavier rock, such as basalt. If we have an iron core, we'll need 39 or 40 strength for those bits.

Jowgen

2016-11-07, 01:55 PM

I happen to have found a relatively simple solution to the whole Liquid core / Ash Willow issue. From the "Force of Nature" 18th-level free adventure module, I present you the MAGMAL HORROR. A Huge 16 HD Fire and Earth Elemental that has the following special ability

Heat (Ex): A magmal horror generates intense heat that melts earth or stone within 5 feet of its body into molten lava. [...]

Inevitability

2016-11-07, 02:56 PM

I happen to have found a relatively simple solution to the whole Liquid core / Ash Willow issue. From the "Force of Nature" 18th-level free adventure module, I present you the MAGMAL HORROR. A Huge 16 HD Fire and Earth Elemental that has the following special ability

Can they be advanced? At Colossal size, there's technically no upper limit to size, so if you can bring a Magmal Horror to there, you can have it occupy the entire core.

Anthrowhale

2016-11-07, 04:50 PM

I happen to have found a relatively simple solution to the whole Liquid core / Ash Willow issue. From the "Force of Nature" 18th-level free adventure module, I present you the MAGMAL HORROR. A Huge 16 HD Fire and Earth Elemental that has the following special ability

That's nice. Since the drawbacks of not having a Magnetosphere accrue after many megayears, you may just need to seed the core with a reproducing set.

Extra Anchovies

2016-11-07, 08:50 PM

Planetary magnetic fields are generated by the motion of electrically conducting fluids in the planet's core, and for rocky planets that would generally mean a nickel-iron alloy similar to Earth's. Lava generally runs in the 700-1300 ºC range, while the melting points of iron and nickel are about 1450 and 1525 ºC respectively. Are there any spells capable of explicitly melting iron? There is a Metal Melt spell, but it temporarily changes metal to a liquid without changing its temperature.

Jormengand

2016-11-07, 10:29 PM

Can they be advanced? At Colossal size, there's technically no upper limit to size, so if you can bring a Magmal Horror to there, you can have it occupy the entire core.

There must be some templates which knock them up a size or two as well, right?

Inevitability

2016-11-08, 01:38 AM

There must be some templates which knock them up a size or two as well, right?

Titanic doesn't work because type, half-goristro only works on Large and smaller creatures, half-minotaur doesn't work for both these reasons. I'm not seeing any templates that would enlarge it.

unseenmage

2016-11-08, 05:46 AM

Could farm the Plane of Fire for liquid hot nickel etc and use Animate Objects to Gate it to our planet's core cuz that spell doesn't care what temperature the object is. Minor Servitor still uses the 3.0 'animate a volume if material' language too if liquid metal isn't an object.

Between CL shenanigans, colossal being poorly defined it should be doable. Speed would seem to be of the essence to keep the stuff from cooling too. So lots of simultaneous animating/gating would require coordinating.

Jowgen

2016-11-08, 08:03 AM

The Magmal Horror can only be advanced to Gargantuan, and with the lack of appropriate templates, that is that for size.

The upside: there is a spell called Spirit Binding (CA, also OA); which is 6th level and can be used to bind an elemental of up to 16 HD. This means we can pop the spell in a Schema and Call Magmal Horrors on a daily basis, convincing them (with their measily 8 Cha) to burrow through the core until there is enough lava for our purposes.

I think any lack of Nickel could perhaps be addressed via Stone Metamorphosis, as Nickel is not a gem and there are a lot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nickel_minerals) of nickel-containing minerals that should be viable. Provided that a sweep with Detect Metal and Mineral reveals that our planetoid's core doesn't already have enough of the stuff, changing existing masses of stone into something with a suitable composition should be feasible.

If not, finding some good deposits on the Elemental Plane of Earth might be an alternative. Hell, we could Spirit Bind our Magmal Horros to do the heavy lifting there as well.

On a side note, I'm really starting to like having the Fire and Stone parts of the terraforming done by fire-earth elementals. So thematically fitting. :smallsmile:

Jowgen

2016-11-10, 02:27 PM

Okay then, to summarize the current protocol (kept to spells of 6th level or lower).

1. Use Schema(s) of Spirit Binding to call Magmal Horros and set them onto the task of a) liquifying the core (if there isn't one present), and b) creating lakes and rivers of Lava across the surface.
2. Plant Ash Willows in the lava lakes to begin the production of Ash (i.e. biomatter) and Stoneshrooms in rocky non-lava areas to start producing breathable atmosphere.
3. Use the Mudslide spell (possibly in a large set of Schemas) to speed along the spread of areas with areable soil and introduce more water to the surface.
4. Set about creating the oceans of the planetoid. This can be accomplished either using a choice of infinite water magic item setups or viable spells (although most, like Flashflood, are high-ish level).

Given enough time, the above 4 steps create a plantoid with sufficient heat, atmosphere and water to support live. The next question is how to go about establishing a viable ecosystem.

What sort of organisms in what ratio would be ideal for this?

Coidzor

2016-11-10, 05:33 PM

In retrospect, the Ash Willows may serve a different role than intended.

Ash can come in two main forms. Volcanic ash, which is mostly just very small rocks in a powdery form, which will enrich soil with minerals of interest to plants, and ash from burning plants, which is a mix of minerals left over after burning, which enrich the soil too, and unburned or partially burned organic material.

So Ash Willows may have no effect, make the minerals in the rock layers of the surface and near-surface become a form more accessible to plant life and microbes, or may make minerals more available and seed the proto-soil with organic compounds for decomposers to make available to other life.

As for ecosystem, if you want plant life, you need to have decomposer bacteria and fungus, mycorrihizae(sp?) for their symbiosis with plant root systems(may just come with transplanted plant life), something to provide CO2, and a source of Nitrogen to balance the atmosphere out so that it doesn't just catch fire and either stay on fire or become nothing bit CO2 & water vapor.

Stoneshrooms may take care of the nitrogen, though. Probably still need earthworms and some nitrogen fixing plants.

Beyond what you need for your agricultural needs and biosphere maintenance, it depends on how much habitat space you have. Introducing Dire Tigers probably won't work if your surface area is only big enough for them to feel very cramped and the species to inbreed and die out in a few generations/eat too much prey and die out.

Also, what you want. An agricultural world for wishferns and free range magebred warbeast bison to cull every few generations is going to be different from an outpost for a Planar Faction that wants a vantage point above a world of primer berks.

Jowgen

2016-11-10, 08:10 PM

Ash can come in two main forms. Volcanic ash, which is mostly just very small rocks in a powdery form, which will enrich soil with minerals of interest to plants, and ash from burning plants, which is a mix of minerals left over after burning, which enrich the soil too, and unburned or partially burned organic material.

So Ash Willows may have no effect, make the minerals in the rock layers of the surface and near-surface become a form more accessible to plant life and microbes, or may make minerals more available and seed the proto-soil with organic compounds for decomposers to make available to other life.

The Willows "continually smolder and rain ash all around them" and "one tree can create 1 pound of ash each day for every 10 feet of its height". I think the clear implication is that its the tree burning (as part of its weird metabolism) that sources the ash, so we are likely looking at the proto-soil organic compounds one as originally assumed.

As for ecosystem, if you want plant life, you need to have decomposer bacteria and fungus, mycorrihizae(sp?) for their symbiosis with plant root systems(may just come with transplanted plant life), something to provide CO2, and a source of Nitrogen to balance the atmosphere out so that it doesn't just catch fire and either stay on fire or become nothing bit CO2 & water vapor.

Okay, fungy certainly important. Seeing how they count as plants and have fruiting bodies, a basket of delights should provide the spores for them as easily as it can other seeds.

Getting the right bacteria cultures might take some improvisation, considering that their existence is only sporadically mentioned. The best I can think of is getting some crates of soil from Arborea or the Beastlands and spreading it around so that the contained organism can proliferate. Should work, considering that those two planes have most impressive plantlife, so the micro-organisms in that should be the best, right?

As for CO2 cycling... I guess some kind of animal life would be the obvious answer. Something that survives exclusively on fruits and nuts would be good, as those would aid the local plantlife rather than endanger it, even if they were allowed to spread without predators. Fruitbats perhaps?

Beyond what you need for your agricultural needs and biosphere maintenance, it depends on how much habitat space you have. Introducing Dire Tigers probably won't work if your surface area is only big enough for them to feel very cramped and the species to inbreed and die out in a few generations/eat too much prey and die out.

Also, what you want. An agricultural world for wishferns and free range magebred warbeast bison to cull every few generations is going to be different from an outpost for a Planar Faction that wants a vantage point above a world of primer berks.

Well, the project is meant to be pretty open-ended. Make nice habitable worlds first, decide what you want to use them for later.

Coidzor

2016-11-10, 10:38 PM

The Willows "continually smolder and rain ash all around them" and "one tree can create 1 pound of ash each day for every 10 feet of its height". I think the clear implication is that its the tree burning (as part of its weird metabolism) that sources the ash, so we are likely looking at the proto-soil organic compounds one as originally assumed.

Okay, fungy certainly important. Seeing how they count as plants and have fruiting bodies, a basket of delights should provide the spores for them as easily as it can other seeds.

Getting the right bacteria cultures might take some improvisation, considering that their existence is only sporadically mentioned. The best I can think of is getting some crates of soil from Arborea or the Beastlands and spreading it around so that the contained organism can proliferate. Should work, considering that those two planes have most impressive plantlife, so the micro-organisms in that should be the best, right?

As for CO2 cycling... I guess some kind of animal life would be the obvious answer. Something that survives exclusively on fruits and nuts would be good, as those would aid the local plantlife rather than endanger it, even if they were allowed to spread without predators. Fruitbats perhaps?

Well, the project is meant to be pretty open-ended. Make nice habitable worlds first, decide what you want to use them for later.

Ahh.

Yeah, I doubt fungi will be an issue, especially if we prepare the environment, go somewhere else, and then teleport back with some rotting material. Or just go somewhere, get covered in spores, and then teleport to the environment and have the spores spread.

Well, courtesy of The Martian, we can probably just have the bacteria from the waste produced by basically any humanoid, provided the environment doesn't kill them. Or you could take some compost from somewhere, but, yeah, taking fertile topsoil from elsewhere works too. Especially if you take the sod along with it.

Fruit bats sound good to me, yeah, but I'm no zoology type. Oceanic life may work to make CO2. I know cows would be a good source of methane for greenhouse gases.

unseenmage

2016-11-10, 11:43 PM

Hmmm, are there any kinds of planar breach that would allow landslides of material through?

Army of Constructs with Magic Items of repeatable Plane Shift + Animate Objects could just do everything we're trying to do here by farming infinite planes for planet-stuff.

Heck, add in Dominate and even the animal life is farmable. Add in Monstrous Thrall and suddenly your world gets monsters too. People-monsters or monster-monsters even.

Tireless workforce tirelessly farming infinite planes for mass quantities of materials and organisms.

Jowgen

2016-11-12, 05:43 AM

Yeah, I doubt fungi will be an issue, especially if we prepare the environment, go somewhere else, and then teleport back with some rotting material. Or just go somewhere, get covered in spores, and then teleport to the environment and have the spores spread.

Well, courtesy of The Martian, we can probably just have the bacteria from the waste produced by basically any humanoid, provided the environment doesn't kill them. Or you could take some compost from somewhere, but, yeah, taking fertile topsoil from elsewhere works too. Especially if you take the sod along with it.

Fruit bats sound good to me, yeah, but I'm no zoology type. Oceanic life may work to make CO2. I know cows would be a good source of methane for greenhouse gases.

Okay, decomposers check. Fruitbats are go as our core mammal for now, as I see no reason to not let them spread as much as the available fruit allows them, without a need for predators. I've been thinking on what else is indispensable. Some insects are needed I think. First up, Bees. We need them for polination. Second, Flies, we need them to speed up the breakdown of dead Fruitbats. Third, earthworms, for soil maintainance.

I think with that we should have a pretty balanced system up top. The only thing I'm worried about is whether the plantlife, if left unchallanged, will eventually grow so dense that it'll choke itself to death. How to balance that goes beyond my limited understanding of ecosystems.

For our oceans, I think coral would be a good base animal, which can be fed by suitable algae. Hopefully it's feasible to find two types of these that can exist in a natural balance, or else we'd have to introduce something else like Krill to cull the algae, and then something like Lobsters to kull the Krill.

Hmmm, are there any kinds of planar breach that would allow landslides of material through?

Army of Constructs with Magic Items of repeatable Plane Shift + Animate Objects could just do everything we're trying to do here by farming infinite planes for planet-stuff.

Heck, add in Dominate and even the animal life is farmable. Add in Monstrous Thrall and suddenly your world gets monsters too. People-monsters or monster-monsters even.

Tireless workforce tirelessly farming infinite planes for mass quantities of materials and organisms.

Complete Breaches can do that, but they are impossible to use for precice transport.

Farming for planet stuff is an idea that's been explored a bit in this thread; although doing it at the suggested scale would undoubtedly draw unwanted attention. It's certainly a viable route to go, but it's better suited to projects other than terraforming.

unseenmage

2016-11-12, 12:06 PM

...

Complete Breaches can do that, but they are impossible to use for precice transport.

Farming for planet stuff is an idea that's been explored a bit in this thread; although doing it at the suggested scale would undoubtedly draw unwanted attention. It's certainly a viable route to go, but it's better suited to projects other than terraforming.

Gate is better than Plane Shift or Complete Breach but Greater Plane Shift and Greater Teleport would be my go-to for precision harvesting.

Though when the goal is to harvest one environment to fuel another that miles mischance for regular Plane Shift and regular Teleport doesnt matter so much.

What sort of unwanted attention if I may ask?

Sure planetary volumes of stuff is a lot but with truly infinite planes it's pretty easy to find uninhabited expanses to mine via divinations.

Heck use the right divinations and you could even claim the divine agency of actual God (s) to be on your side which depending on the plane you're harvesting could have some pretty mighty clout with any locals.

I understand that you don't want to Gate/Wish/Genesis etc the easy answers but with planetary volume you're either gonna require planetary scale volumes of time or some sort of massively snowballing effect the way I see it.
Constructs are just how I solve for X in those situations. :smallsmile: I'm sure undead are more versatile I just like magic robots.

So do we want this project to be a thing a mid level character or party can achieve, a thing a society can achieve, or something a god wizard can achieve?Also, timescale, shouod this be doable within a lifetime, several millenia, a few weeks/days?

Anthrowhale

2016-11-12, 12:56 PM

Although discussion has focused on planetoids, it seems worth thinking about engineered structures as well. I see two avenues for this.

Spelljammer has the notion of an atmosphere attached to individual objects. If this is in play, then subplanetary objects with atmospheres are viable. In addition, spelljammer objects induce gravity planes. Hence, it should be possible to create a planar world with a "light side" and a "dark side" facing towards and away from the sun. Obviously, this world would need to be further away than earth orbit for a good heat transfer energy balance, but that seems entirely viable.

As an alternative, it is possible to create significant trapped atmospheres within the rules in a manner consistent with physics. To do this, you could use a custom item of at-will Wall of Iron to create an outer wall for the atmosphere along with Trobriand's Glassee to make the iron wall transparent. Applied on large scales with quadruple redundant airtight layers and restoration/patching mechanisms, this could create some massive quantities of living space. The most obvious choice here are massive orbitals using centrifugal force to provide artificial gravity.

dhasenan

2016-11-13, 11:19 AM

Another gravity option (because we're talking a base of ~2.5% of Earth gravity if we do nothing) is to turn the planetoid into an O'Neill cylinder (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder).

Let's say you want 1,000 square kilometers of living space. That maps to an O'Neill cylinder of 25km in diameter and 25km tall. Point one end at the sun, rotate it at an appropriate speed, and Bob's your uncle. Centripetal acceleration simulates gravity.

The primary requirement for an O'Neill cylinder is a material that can hold up to the force you're putting on it. Out of nonmagical items, you want to use obdurium, which is quite expensive -- you need 2,000 square kilometers of it! Based on the Stronghold Builders Guide, it costs about 21,000gp per cubic meter, so at a thickness of 1m, we're talking a total of 42 quadrillion gp (which translates into crafting time as a non-magical item). Well, we can cut that by a third or so because an O'Neill cylinder is half clear in order to radiate waste heat. It still needs a durable structure, but we can put giant holes in it and cover that with something durable and clear and much cheaper.

Another possibility depends on the definition of "move" you're using: make an obdurium scaffold, set it in motion as desired, and plate it with Wall of Force. The Walls of Force aren't moving relative to what they're anchored to, similar to how a Wall of Force cast on a planet doesn't move relative to the planet but does move relative to its star. That gets the price down to the trillion GP range. (Or a magic item of Wall of Force and a lot of patience.) The downside is that a Disjunction spell will destroy your habitat.

Overall, I'd say you want to use obdurium, with a giant squad of Dedicated Wrights to create it, then use Wall of Force if possible to protect the outside from debris. Wall of Force each end of the cylinder as well.

The other thing you have to account for there is the day/night cycle. The obvious thing to do is build a giant series of shutters at the end and rotate them through the usual means -- constructs or undead or hauntshifted equipment.

As for temperature control, to warm things you can open gates to the Plane of Fire. Cooling things isn't as straightforward -- you could use Decanters of Endless Water or gates to the Plane of Water, collect heat in the water they generate, and send the heated water into spheres of annihilation. But the effectiveness depends on the difference between the temperature you want to achieve and the initial temperature of the water. You can use heat pumps if the water's too warm, but that might be tricky with D&D technology.

Jowgen

2016-11-14, 09:25 AM

Gate is better than Plane Shift or Complete Breach but Greater Plane Shift and Greater Teleport would be my go-to for precision harvesting.

Though when the goal is to harvest one environment to fuel another that miles mischance for regular Plane Shift and regular Teleport doesnt matter so much.

What sort of unwanted attention if I may ask?

Only the breach could be used to literally dump things through without a creature carrying things; but if that isn't needed; I'd personally go the extra mile and construct a permanent portal (which, since the 3.5 update, can be done with just Craft Wondrous Item). A frame-built one, if possible, though the feat to make those is outdated with how its prereq, Craft Portal, no longer exists.

On the elemental plane of earth that would be the Dao Genies; who run their slave mining operations there. I don't think they'd so much be worried about us competing with them for resources, or even all that slighted at use infringing on their territory, but they'd certainly be intent on exploiting our efforts for their own gain. They will invariably notice any large scale mining operation, and then either start raiding our stuff (if our security is weak), or otherwise try to cheat us for a profit. It's not that they're impossible to deal with; but it's not a tango I'd personally be keen to partake in.

Constructs are just how I solve for X in those situations. :smallsmile: I'm sure undead are more versatile I just like magic robots.

So do we want this project to be a thing a mid level character or party can achieve, a thing a society can achieve, or something a god wizard can achieve?Also, timescale, shouod this be doable within a lifetime, several millenia, a few weeks/days?

I do like magic robots as well. Much more reliable than those easily turned/rebuked undead things.

What would you personally pick as your go-to workforce model?

I'd personally like one terraforming to take 5 years at the most, under 1 year would be perfect. But, that's just me.

Although discussion has focused on planetoids, it seems worth thinking about engineered structures as well. I see two avenues for this.

Spelljammer has the notion of an atmosphere attached to individual objects. If this is in play, then subplanetary objects with atmospheres are viable. In addition, spelljammer objects induce gravity planes. Hence, it should be possible to create a planar world with a "light side" and a "dark side" facing towards and away from the sun. Obviously, this world would need to be further away than earth orbit for a good heat transfer energy balance, but that seems entirely viable.

As an alternative, it is possible to create significant trapped atmospheres within the rules in a manner consistent with physics. To do this, you could use a custom item of at-will Wall of Iron to create an outer wall for the atmosphere along with Trobriand's Glassee to make the iron wall transparent. Applied on large scales with quadruple redundant airtight layers and restoration/patching mechanisms, this could create some massive quantities of living space. The most obvious choice here are massive orbitals using centrifugal force to provide artificial gravity.

Hmmm... both of those seem like pretty tall orders to accomplish. At that level of effort, the planetoid itself is probably a moot point, as you might as well just build ou can just build a Halo-style megastructure and be done with it.

Another gravity option (because we're talking a base of ~2.5% of Earth gravity if we do nothing) is to turn the planetoid into an O'Neill cylinder (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder).

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/52/58/84/525884cb6093e6a9a9cc242566915a97.jpg

Hmmm... I'm sure there's got to be a way to improve upon that setup, but nothing comes to mind.

As for temperature control, to warm things you can open gates to the Plane of Fire. Cooling things isn't as straightforward -- you could use Decanters of Endless Water or gates to the Plane of Water, collect heat in the water they generate, and send the heated water into spheres of annihilation. But the effectiveness depends on the difference between the temperature you want to achieve and the initial temperature of the water. You can use heat pumps if the water's too warm, but that might be tricky with D&D technology.

Heat, gases, dangerous substances and so on and so forth do not move through interplanar portals. The only exception are some natural portals and Complete Planar Breaches. A peramncied Darson's Fiery Furnace or two with some water pipes running through should give us a pretty good heating system.

unseenmage

2016-11-14, 11:23 AM

...

I do like magic robots as well. Much more reliable than those easily turned/rebuked undead things.

What would you personally pick as your go-to workforce model?

I'd personally like one terraforming to take 5 years at the most, under 1 year would be perfect. But, that's just me.

...

Hmmm, me personally? I'd use PF's more versatile and accessible Construct rules. (Or at least they are the way I use them.)
This thread being 3.5 though... Would take a team effort.
Would definitely use the Sacred Guardiam template from Bestiary of Krynn for superpowers and sentience.
Runic Guardians (MM2) and Spellsong Nightingales would be my source of repeatable spells. (In PF it would be the Simple Wizard Template.)
Workforce would be part Colossus Golems (ELH) and part Shadesteel Golems.

Alternatively, I'd use the Constructs Are Magic Items rules interpretation with Combining Magic Items to fuse Staffs of pertinent spells (below) with Sacred Guardians of the Constructs (above).

Or even fuse the Constructs and Staffs to Wondrous Architecture (SBG) of the O'Niel Cylinder or similar mentioned above. Name the resultant catgirl slaying monstrosity something Stargate based.

However the above takes as long to make as the planetoid you're after. For speed the plan changes a lot.

Minor Servitors, Awakened Sands, Permanent Animated Objects, and Crawling Claws generated via Spellclocks. Includes Spellclocks of True Creation to generate materials.
Spellclocks aquired via farming planar metropolis magic marts using repeatable G. Plane Shift and G. Teleport.
Gold acquired via repeatable Create Water and Water to Acid (St) sales; sold of course in those same planar metropolises.

Done right a Techsmith of Gond Artificer, his Gondsman, and his Improved Homunculus Dedicated Wright can, in a couple months, generate more mass in Constructs than there is mass in the planet in Faerun.

Couple of links in my sig to some of the threads where I used this process in a game.
I accidentally the campaign setting. I knew it would make a lot of Constructs, just not how MUCH it was.
(Am still writing up the compilation of these shenanigans. Was months of research at the time and those memories only degrade further the longer it takes me to finish that writeup.)

More seriously, War Minor Servitor with a cheesed out CL in something repeatable and a bucket full of Rods of Construct Control and just take the matter you need from where you need it.

Minor Servitor is Dispellable so just walk the Minor Servitors through a Dispelling Screen or Antimagic Field when you get where you're going.

Animate Objects, and Minor Servitor, do not change the temperature of the matter they animate so just grab some inferno starstuff, stone, iron, fertile soil, or whatever from wherever you need to get it from.

Seriously, truly infinite planes means you never run out of resources. Divination magic should keep you from ever even meeting another sentient thing while mining, if properly phrased.

Coidzor

2016-11-14, 02:55 PM

Can we shoot off water in lumps to make ice comets as a cooling system? It'd let us fire mass at a target while also having a habitat.

Jowgen

2016-11-15, 05:43 PM

Workforce would be part Colossus Golems (ELH) and part Shadesteel Golems.

May I ask why? I get colossus golems are the biggest and that Shadesteel Golems are really good constructs to make in general, but neither really seems to have any special functionality for mining, building or other labour that might be required.

Done right a Techsmith of Gond Artificer, his Gondsman, and his Improved Homunculus Dedicated Wright can, in a couple months, generate more mass in Constructs than there is mass in the planet in Faerun.

Couple of links in my sig to some of the threads where I used this process in a game.
I accidentally the campaign setting. I knew it would make a lot of Constructs, just not how MUCH it was.
(Am still writing up the compilation of these shenanigans. Was months of research at the time and those memories only degrade further the longer it takes me to finish that writeup.)

I shall persuse with interest.

More seriously, War Minor Servitor with a cheesed out CL in something repeatable and a bucket full of Rods of Construct Control and just take the matter you need from where you need it.

Minor Servitor is Dispellable so just walk the Minor Servitors through a Dispelling Screen or Antimagic Field when you get where you're going.

Animate Objects, and Minor Servitor, do not change the temperature of the matter they animate so just grab some inferno starstuff, stone, iron, fertile soil, or whatever from wherever you need to get it from.

That is quite elegant. Minor Servitor makes the raw materials work for you. Only real issue is handling the exp cost. The ideal thing would be if one could somehow make it that each minor servitor created could create another somehow. Then again, best not. (http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/4/42/Vlcsnap-2014-07-15-18h29m15s254.png/revision/latest?cb=20140715173547)

Can we shoot off water in lumps to make ice comets as a cooling system? It'd let us fire mass at a target while also having a habitat.

If using an O'Neill Cylinder, I think that would be feasible; provided we don't use up to much centrifugal force in the firing over time. Aiming would be tricky though.

Coidzor

2016-11-18, 12:53 AM

If using an O'Neill Cylinder, I think that would be feasible; provided we don't use up to much centrifugal force in the firing over time. Aiming would be tricky though.

I suppose we could just have a replenishing source of barrels(Djinn Simulacra?) and War Hulking Hurler Simulacra to aim and throw the barrels at a designated target, forming an ice and wood comet or layer of such on something else.

unseenmage

2016-11-18, 06:03 AM

May I ask why? I get colossus golems are the biggest and that Shadesteel Golems are really good constructs to make in general, but neither really seems to have any special functionality for mining, building or other labour that might be required.

...

You're not wrong, they are just generically optimal big guy and strong guy space fillers.

That is quite elegant. Minor Servitor makes the raw materials work for you. Only real issue is handling the exp cost. The ideal thing would be if one could somehow make it that each minor servitor created could create another somehow. Then again, best not. (http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/4/42/Vlcsnap-2014-07-15-18h29m15s254.png/revision/latest?cb=20140715173547)

...

Better idea then. We won't be using Wish but we will assume the Mercane do use it to fill orders.

So we submit an order for an Intelligent Magic Item staff with the Flying weapon special property so it counts as an Animated Object. Then we apply the Sacred Guardian template to it.
We also make sure it has the Minor Servitor, G. Teleport, G. Plane Shift, and Transference spells in it. And probably some Divination ability too. Use the combining Magic Items rules from the MIC to give it more spells somehow if we have to. Energy Transformation Field wouldn't be an awful option.

We want an Intelligent Magic Item so it can access its own superpowers. We want the Flying enhancement so it is a Construct. We want the Sacred Guardian template because Fast Healing and other superpowers. We want a Staff so it has sprcific spells. We want the Transference spell so we can buy xp.

There, now we have a shot caller to harvest and command our Minor Servitors for us. It can go anywhere, animate almost anything, and take it anywhere else.

When it runs out of charges it either makes use of the alternate recharging staff rules from the WotC archives or it uses it's last few charges to find some precious metal/gem, animate it, take it to a planar metropolis, sell the metal/gem, and comission another of itself to repeat the process.

Boom. Repeatable, commandable, high-ish survivability.
And really the Minor Servitors it makes are already Friendly to it. It would be within reason to ask them nicely to travel with it to a marketplace. Might require some Bluff to get them to do what it wants or maybe not as the spell is Dispel-able at will.

Coidzor

2016-11-18, 07:28 AM

Maybe throw on some charges per day properties so it stays magical and can always make sure its staff charges get recharged?

Jowgen

2016-11-18, 05:46 PM

Perhaps it would be simpler to go back to the Runic Guardian.

If we add the rudimentary intelligence upgrade from Dragon, we can get it 6 feats plus the ability to solve problems by itself. Put Minor Servitor as it's 5th level spot, 2 Unseen Crafters in each arm's 2nd level slot, and then think of something else for its 3rd and 1st level slots. Water to Acid would work, if that money making scheme flies; and/or Shrink Item might be a good one.

The CL for each SLA should either be 18 or 25 (those are the two CL mentioned in its description), and adding the Empower Spell like ability feat will let it get more use out each Minor Servitor, netting us at least 27 cu ft of animated matter with each use. Also, Shrink Item at least 54 cu ft of material with each use. Lastly, each Unseen Crafters will last for at least 18 days, giving the Guardian 36 constantly working invisible subordinates to do minor labour.

Now obviously, one guardian isn't going to get things done very fast. One way to partially remedy that would be to somehow get it the Magic In the Blood feat; but I'm not sure that's possible. The more effective solution would be to use its feat slots and skill points to give it the crafting feats and Craft Ranks required for it to craft duplicates of itself. If each such guardian makes itself a Dedicated Wright, it can go off and do actual work while its Wright works on the next in line. Another upside, all the Unseen Crafters will have pretty beefy craft checks themselves, which will come in handy in e.g. mining work.

With this, we basically get to double our number of Runic Guardians each month (provided the cash continues to flow); who can Animate and Shrink a respectable ammount of material each day, plus each guardian comes with a willing 36-servant highly skilled workforce. Once enough of them are made for material gathering, new models can be introduced for manufacture.

Now obviously, this entire approach comes with a serious replicator problem, putting that of the Clockwork Horrors to shame. There would need to be some damn serious failsafes (http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/stargatereturnoftheancients/images/3/32/Ancient_weapon_at_Dakara_03.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100829211824).

unseenmage

2016-11-18, 07:05 PM

Jowgen

2016-11-18, 08:36 PM

See now I have a hankering to just play one of these Runic Guardians who 'wields' one of the Flying Staffs. Just all sounds so deliciously cheesey. :smallsmile:

Oh and as for the replicator problem, have them set with orders to imbue each sucessive generation with a Craft Contingent Spell of Incarnate Construct set to go off when the planet is ready for habitation.

Boom. Instant humanoid/giant population.

Incarnate Constructing them isn't going to do much good, I fear. They will be little more than really strong, large 16HD savages (i.e. Cha 3). Hell knows if they, as a race, will even be able to procreate and evolve into a functioning society. At worst, you've turned your army of willing labourers into a new menace (well, annoyance) for the cosmos. Shame the incarnate construct template doesn't allow for more specifics.

Also, relying on a single contingent spell just seems really darn fragile. If, by some quirk or outside design, the guardians start to work against protocol; getting rid of any booby-trap magic on them for this scenario will be pretty high on their priority list.

unseenmage

2016-11-18, 08:43 PM

Incarnate Constructing them isn't going to do much good, I fear. They will be little more than really strong, large 16HD savages (i.e. Cha 3). Hell knows if they, as a race, will even be able to procreate and evolve into a functioning society. At worst, you've turned your army of willing labourers into a new menace (well, annoyance) for the cosmos. Shame the incarnate construct template doesn't allow for more specifics.

Also, relying on a single contingent spell just seems really darn fragile. If, by some quirk or outside design, the guardians start to work against protocol; getting rid of any booby-trap magic on them for this scenario will be pretty high on their priority list.

I was just working within the confines of the experiment. My goal was to strip them for parts when the job was done such as it were.

Preparing for DM fiat is a fools game IMHO. No sense trying to fight the inevitable. :smalltongue:

The C. Contingent Incarnate Construct was simply to ensure we create an engine with a logical shutoff switch.

Edit: Additionally, we could soup up those Incarnates with other C. Contingent Spell template applying spells. Mineralize Warrior comes to mind. Heck, even a series of C. Contingent Spells keyed to go off after the Incarnate Contruct goes into effect are feasable.
For example, Gate in a lycanthrope, Monstrous Thrall said lycanthrope and viola, were-whatever-we-decide-is-worth-it race.

Jowgen

2016-11-18, 10:41 PM

I was just working within the confines of the experiment. My goal was to strip them for parts when the job was done such as it were.

Preparing for DM fiat is a fools game IMHO. No sense trying to fight the inevitable. :smalltongue:

The C. Contingent Incarnate Construct was simply to ensure we create an engine with a logical shutoff switch.

Edit: Additionally, we could soup up those Incarnates with other C. Contingent Spell template applying spells. Mineralize Warrior comes to mind. Heck, even a series of C. Contingent Spells keyed to go off after the Incarnate Contruct goes into effect are feasable.
For example, Gate in a lycanthrope, Monstrous Thrall said lycanthrope and viola, were-whatever-we-decide-is-worth-it race.

Okay, to that end Incarnate Construct works, and I can see working them into we-decide-is-worthy (for we are the law) creatures; but thinking about it, I see limited usefullness in recycling them. After all, we might decide that at some point another world needs terraforming; or one of the prior projects has failed and needs a do-over. Why waste a perfectly good cosmic-scale-construction army?

No, the main thing I'm concerned about is a 3rd party taking over control, via the Rod and such. I vaguely recall you making a thread about this about an age ago; happen to recall any decent hard counters to those?

If not, we need a reliable (i.e. non-dispelable, non-supressable) self-destruct mechanism in each and every one of those suckers. Since they each know how to (and have to) create a dupliacte of themselves, this would really need to be an element they somehow have no choice but to include in their construction, can not function without; and whose trigger is inherently tied to the original creator.

The thing about them instantly being aware of their masters death and going on a rampage seems like a pretty decent starting point. It's just a question on how to translate the subsequent rampage into an inevitable self-destruct.

unseenmage

2016-11-19, 12:24 AM

Okay, to that end Incarnate Construct works, and I can see working them into we-decide-is-worthy (for we are the law) creatures; but thinking about it, I see limited usefullness in recycling them. After all, we might decide that at some point another world needs terraforming; or one of the prior projects has failed and needs a do-over. Why waste a perfectly good cosmic-scale-construction army?

No, the main thing I'm concerned about is a 3rd party taking over control, via the Rod and such. I vaguely recall you making a thread about this about an age ago; happen to recall any decent hard counters to those?

If not, we need a reliable (i.e. non-dispelable, non-supressable) self-destruct mechanism in each and every one of those suckers. Since they each know how to (and have to) create a dupliacte of themselves, this would really need to be an element they somehow have no choice but to include in their construction, can not function without; and whose trigger is inherently tied to the original creator.

The thing about them instantly being aware of their masters death and going on a rampage seems like a pretty decent starting point. It's just a question on how to translate the subsequent rampage into an inevitable self-destruct.

Hmmm, there IS a Construct somewhere that goes into super rampage mode if it's controller loses command of it... Was it the Runic Guardian..?

I do not remember. Maybe the Shield Guardian?

To my knowledge that was the only hard counter to the Rod of Construct Control I've ever encountered. Y'know, besides another R. o' Construct Control or two; or 10.

As for a kill switch,
Craft Contingent Greater Humanoid Essence + Craft Contingent no-save-kill/disable/transport spell maybe? The G. H. Essence removes all those pesky Construct immunities so we can hit them with whatever spell(s) we need to after.

Perhaps all three options. A Craft Contingent G. Plane Shift/G. Teleport Combo set to go off if a R. o' C. Control is used nearby.
Then another C. Contingency spell. Thus Time to G. Humanoid Essence then Baleful Polynorph into something useless.
THEN another C. Contingent to G. H. Essence + a no-save kill spell.

First line of defense we remove our prize.
Second line of defense we neutralize our prize until we can reclaim it.
And finally we just cut our losses.

That work?

5ColouredWalker

2016-11-19, 09:39 PM

Also how you're going to make the core of iron molten in the first place is an issue too, I suppose, but I think the Terraforming Athas thread already solved that particular problem.

Radioactive decay from the sheer amount of material is what keeps the Earth's core so hot if I remember right, and given DnD functions like real life for physics/etc except where stated otherwise, you don't need to worry about the core after having dumped a sufficiently large amount of iron there.

The planetoid's nearest star might provide sufficient heat; so if one could get to the core and construct a sufficiently big 1-way portal that might get enough thermal energy into the core. Issue with that idea is how non-defined suns are in game.

If I remember right, Stars are actually open holes to the plane of elemental fire in DnD, so no putting a gate over them. No clue if there's Water/Air/Earth equivilents.

Also, a spell you might be interested. Hallaster's Fetch I+. It's summon monster at 3 levels higher, but at the end of the duration the creature becomes free willed. If you're willing to have the planet settled, at least initially, by celestial/fiendish/axiomatic/anarchic/psuedonatural animals, that'll help your biome along. [Source- City of Splendors: Waterdeep]

Jowgen

2016-11-19, 10:28 PM

Hmmm, there IS a Construct somewhere that goes into super rampage mode if it's controller loses command of it... Was it the Runic Guardian..?

I do not remember. Maybe the Shield Guardian?

To my knowledge that was the only hard counter to the Rod of Construct Control I've ever encountered. Y'know, besides another R. o' Construct Control or two; or 10.

As for a kill switch, Craft Contingent Greater Humanoid Essence + Craft Contingent no-save-kill/disable/transport spell maybe? The G. H. Essence removes all those pesky Construct immunities so we can hit them with whatever spell(s) we need to after.

[...]

And finally we just cut our losses.

That work?

It is indeed the Shield and Runic Guardians that go on a rampage once their master dies. It's another reason to have a reliable self-destruct in place.

The problem is how fragile contignent spells are, specifically that they're subject to simple dispells and AMFs. We can mask the aura and set it to go off with the "no longer loyal" trigger no problem, but if someone is determined to comandeer some of the guardians, they will fail to make sure that contingent spell is gone exactly once.

We need something that can not be dispelled, can not be removed even while suppressed in an AMF, can not be set off by accident, and will reliably trigger if a) the master dies, b) the master wills, and c) the master changes (which is only possible through outside force).

I have come up with some ideas, but they're only half-baked so far.

The first is my hammer-for-everything solution: Voidstone. The guardians are made of a stone outside, a lead interior and some steel mixed in. The idea is to somehow also incorporate a voidstone core, which we somehow render inert until triggered by the above. This core would need to be placed so that removing it "surgically" would invariably destory the guardian. The first issue is, while "trapped" voidstone exists, the method on how to actually safely contain the stuff is never specified. The second issue is how to remove-trigger out little chest bomb.

The second is to use a seperate construct. If we can make it so that another (very small) construct resides within the guardian (conveniently shielded from common divinations by all that led), that construct might be able to serve as our chest bomb instead. Sufficiently small creatrues can share a larger creatures space without issue, so that is something, but... still seems hard to pull of rule wise.

Radioactive decay from the sheer amount of material is what keeps the Earth's core so hot if I remember right, and given DnD functions like real life for physics/etc except where stated otherwise, you don't need to worry about the core after having dumped a sufficiently large amount of iron there.

If I remember right, Stars are actually open holes to the plane of elemental fire in DnD, so no putting a gate over them. No clue if there's Water/Air/Earth equivilents.

Also, a spell you might be interested. Hallaster's Fetch I+. It's summon monster at 3 levels higher, but at the end of the duration the creature becomes free willed. If you're willing to have the planet settled, at least initially, by celestial/fiendish/axiomatic/anarchic/psuedonatural animals, that'll help your biome along. [Source- City of Splendors: Waterdeep]

Well, the core is then taken care of either way. We can certainly scratch that issue now.

The nature of suns differes from setting to setting; so we can't make any solid assumptions on that front.

I am interested in that one. It would be better if it functioned like nature's ally, since populating a world with just celestial animals seems like it might carry some issues; but what I do love about it: the Elysian Thrush. PlH makes them a valid SMI target, and while their usefulness is limited (extra resting health), they're ability to basically duplicate the entrapping trait of Elysium is just too beautifully unique. Plus, they real pretty. I'm not sure they'll be handy for the terraforming project, but I do love that I now know how to easily acquire them for other purposes. :smallbiggrin:

unseenmage

2016-11-19, 10:56 PM

...

The problem is how fragile contignent spells are, specifically that they're subject to simple dispells and AMFs. We can mask the aura and set it to go off with the "no longer loyal" trigger no problem, but if someone is determined to comandeer some of the guardians, they will fail to make sure that contingent spell is gone exactly once.

We need something that can not be dispelled, can not be removed even while suppressed in an AMF, can not be set off by accident, and will reliably trigger if a) the master dies, b) the master wills, and c) the master changes (which is only possible through outside force).
...

Ohhhhh, no, no. Craft Contingent Spell. Is an item creation feat that makes the Cintingency into a magic item analogue instead of an easily dispellable spell.
Also works on critters with Magic Immunity IIRC.

Voidstone is cool. Smaller Constructs can be Squeezed via the squeezing rules into a space like 2 sizes smaller than they are IIRC. So finding somewhere to stash it shouldnt be hard. :smallwink:

5ColouredWalker

2016-11-19, 10:58 PM

I am interested in that one. It would be better if it functioned like nature's ally, since populating a world with just celestial animals seems like it might carry some issues; but what I do love about it: the Elysian Thrush. PlH makes them a valid SMI target, and while their usefulness is limited (extra resting health), they're ability to basically duplicate the entrapping trait of Elysium is just too beautifully unique. Plus, they real pretty. I'm not sure they'll be handy for the terraforming project, but I do love that I now know how to easily acquire them for other purposes. :smallbiggrin:

Celestial/Infernal grant are only a problem for bigger animals, because the get DR. Axiomatic is a minor problem, because they all become mind linked, but at animal intelligence and being restricted to within species that might not mean much... Anarchic get fast healing, which means certain types of predation doesn't work... So basically, it's only good for animals with less than 3HD unless you want to f*ck up your ecosystem, however that does allow small wolves, light horses and such, so you'd probably be able to fill in most of the fauna part of your ecosystem that way.

That said, Axiomatic/Anarchic creatures are mostly immune to both extreme heat and cold (ER 5 Cold/Fire), while Celestial and Infernal creatures are mostly immune to extreme cold and fire respectively, making them much less fragile in terms of the ecosystems they can inhabit, while also being able to begin populating the world before it's comfortable for humans/etc to live on... So be careful which type of Penguins you get, or they might appear worldwide :smalltongue:

Jowgen

2016-11-19, 11:12 PM

Ohhhhh, no, no. Craft Contingent Spell. Is an item creation feat that makes the Cintingency into a magic item analogue instead of an easily dispellable spell.
Also works on critters with Magic Immunity IIRC.

Voidstone is cool. Smaller Constructs can be Squeezed via the squeezing rules into a space like 2 sizes smaller than they are IIRC. So finding somewhere to stash it shouldnt be hard. :smallwink:

I do not know where you get that notion. Page 139 of CA (as referenced in the Craft Contingent Spell feat) clearly states

If the bearer of a contingent spell is the target of dispel magic, the contingent spell might be permanently dispelled (but not triggered), as if it were an active spell in effect on the target creature. In an antimagic field, contingent spells are temporarily suppressed as all other magic items are.

So yeah, they are magic items; but do specifically keep the dispel vulernability of common spells.

Getting the cyanide-bot into the guardian is the lesser problem though. Real question is, what kind of Tiny or smaller construct can we use that knows when to and can reliably hit the kill switch. It would need the same kind of reliable link to the master as the runic guardian itself has. No clue how to accomplish this

I have an idea for the Voidstone though: bag of holding. As it's an extradimensional space, it will not be destoryed by Voidstone inside. However, if the bag is pierced, it just breaks and all the contents spill out. With it's fort save, the guardian will likely not even last a round. All that is needed is some sort of contraption that'll allow us to remotely plunge a tiny dagger into this tiny bag inside the guardian at the drop of a hat. Seems like a manageable problem.

Celestial/Infernal grant are only a problem for bigger animals, because the get DR. Axiomatic is a minor problem, because they all become mind linked, but at animal intelligence and being restricted to within species that might not mean much... Anarchic get fast healing, which means certain types of predation doesn't work... So basically, it's only good for animals with less than 3HD unless you want to f*ck up your ecosystem, however that does allow small wolves, light horses and such, so you'd probably be able to fill in most of the fauna part of your ecosystem that way.

That said, Axiomatic/Anarchic creatures are mostly immune to both extreme heat and cold (ER 5 Cold/Fire), while Celestial and Infernal creatures are mostly immune to extreme cold and fire respectively, making them much less fragile in terms of the ecosystems they can inhabit, while also being able to begin populating the world before it's comfortable for humans/etc to live on... So be careful which type of Penguins you get, or they might appear worldwide :smalltongue:

I like this.

Would it be crazy to think that, if we included all 4 varieties of moral opposites, that they'd eventually interbreed to the degree that the bloodlines cancel each other out giving us normal critters?

5ColouredWalker

2016-11-19, 11:33 PM

Would it be crazy to think that, if we included all 4 varieties of moral opposites, that they'd eventually interbreed to the degree that the bloodlines cancel each other out giving us normal critters?

Yes
(Alignment/Psuedo) creatures are Magical beasts with a int of 3 (I missed that. Whoops. I hope you like your beef more sentient than normal) and have the relevent alignments, and so would almost certainly find each other distasteful. Also, from an appearence standpoint, unless the template also causes them to view their changed appearence as optimal, they're all going to prefer to choose celestial (More perfect) mates, unless they can see past the appearence to the more useful features, in which case low HD creatures will probably tend towards Axiomatic for communication, while high HD ones Anarchic for the fast healing and the boost to survivability there. Given those both also provide the wider elemental resistances, they're also the breeds that can spread between more environments more. (Man may live everywhere, but imagine if we were immune to frostbite and heatstroke from anything shy of sleeping naked in Antarctica or sprinting across Death Valley.)

However, you could forcibly breed it out by mixing them, if you're evil, or-

Celestial creatures dwell on the upper planes, the realms of good,

Perhaps the DM (Or you) might rule that within a few generations of not being constantly being exposed to (Alignment) their descendents loose the template... Depending on the species, that could be anything from a couple of years, to a decade or two, or centuries if you include longer lived animals. (Or never, if you create Celestial Jellyfish.

Edit: You might be able to tell I'm Australian, because I just introduced animals where they don't belong without thinking all the consequences through. Speaking of which, don't introduce Celestial Rabits before you've introduced Fiendish Foxes :smalltongue:

GilesTheCleric

2016-12-07, 05:51 PM

Perhaps it's a bit late to the party here, but I found a spell that might be useful. I remember earlier on you had all sorts of problems moving those infernal stars around; with Shifting Sanctum (Drag308 25) you can teleport them wherever you like. Incidentally, it's also a teleport without the teleport descriptor, so it applies to your other thread, too.

Coidzor

2016-12-07, 05:58 PM

In terms of automation, one thing we forgot was the Decanter of Endless Sand from Sandstorm.

So that can pass off 2/3 components of having fertile soil.

If the Bag of Endless Dung from Paizo's 3.5 Legacy of Fire AP was legit, that'd solve the issue of organic materials, too, especially multiplying the cost by 5 to make it at-will instead of once a day.

Jowgen

2016-12-08, 09:59 AM

Perhaps the DM (Or you) might rule that within a few generations of not being constantly being exposed to (Alignment) their descendents loose the template... Depending on the species, that could be anything from a couple of years, to a decade or two, or centuries if you include longer lived animals. (Or never, if you create Celestial Jellyfish.

Okay, I'll keep the option on shelf.

Perhaps it's a bit late to the party here, but I found a spell that might be useful. I remember earlier on you had all sorts of problems moving those infernal stars around; with Shifting Sanctum (Drag308 25) you can teleport them wherever you like. Incidentally, it's also a teleport without the teleport descriptor, so it applies to your other thread, too.

No worries, all entries welcome. I'm familiar with the spell, but don't see it being quite as useful as one might hope. It's 9th level, only affects a 10 ft cube per level of terrain, and it comes with that pesky dragon-magic requirement. If it were larger sclae and a level or 2 lower it might be handy, but as is it just doesn't have the required oomph for money.

In terms of automation, one thing we forgot was the Decanter of Endless Sand from Sandstorm.

So that can pass off 2/3 components of having fertile soil.

If the Bag of Endless Dung from Paizo's 3.5 Legacy of Fire AP was legit, that'd solve the issue of organic materials, too, especially multiplying the cost by 5 to make it at-will instead of once a day.

I had originally dismissed the endless sand bottle, but after looking it over it might actually come in handy. It produces cu ft of sand at the same rate as the decanter produces gallons (well, for the last option one needs to extrapolate that); so that's over 6 times the volume (although it is over twice the price). 432000 cu ft per day.

Now sand does seems like it'll make a better soil base than barren rock covered in Ash-Willow ash, but I'm not sure how much use it's gonna be either case. Perhaps there is something useful that could be done with lots of volcanic glass, since our lava rivers plus silicon-based sand should be able to produce that, but I'm not sure what.

Ruethgar

2016-12-08, 11:44 AM

As a slight aside, I saw mentioned earlier that disjunction might ruin some plans for supporting a viable planet, but Ravenloft is officially licensed and you could use the Create Device feat to replicate any spell as an Extraordinary ability. If Dragon is also a go, you can even Sculpt Self it onto yourself with a serious battery and go to town with highly advanced science.

Jowgen

2016-12-08, 12:16 PM

It has just occured to me that the Endless Sand Bottle might be of particular use, if the type of sand it produces can be assumed to be of a certain type. For example, if it could produce the magnetic variety of IRL black sand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_sand); that could serve as a good means to introduce sufficient (magnetic) iron for the liquid core (if that's deemed nessecary). Even failing that, it might be possible to combine with Stone Metamorphosis to produce the elements needed (provided we can make the produced sand into solid objects).

As a slight aside, I saw mentioned earlier that disjunction might ruin some plans for supporting a viable planet, but Ravenloft is officially licensed and you could use the Create Device feat to replicate any spell as an Extraordinary ability. If Dragon is also a go, you can even Sculpt Self it onto yourself with a serious battery and go to town with highly advanced science.

For some of the more extreme approaches suggested in the thread, Devices would make things a bit more reliable if available. I think the base model (which relyies on called Magmal Horrors, Ash Willows and magic items that produce non-disjunctionable materials and thus only need to function for a limited ammount of time before they outlive their usefullness) is sufficiently anti-magic proof for the long run.

As for Sculpt Self... I just had a look, and by good does that bastion-press-ported mechanic seem complicated/cumbersome. :smalleek:

EDIT: The topic of the discussion has been planetoids, i.e. large celestial objects orbiting (in D&D sometimes orbited by) a sun. Now it occured to me that one should probably also take into account moons. After all, if a material plane world's residents decide they want to try their hand at terraforming, the closest place for them to do so would be the moon(s) of their material plane home world.

Question is, what other factors would one need to consider/adjust for when dealing with a moon instead of a planetoid when trying to implement the approaches composed in this thread? The first thing that comes to mind for me is whether theres a risk for a Majora's Mask situation when adding the required ammounts of mass to the moon, or even liquifying its core.