mythusmage
2007-09-11, 08:37 AM
In the Brightness of Night
A haphazard series on the world of Ærth given a reworking for a possible new edition of Dangerous Journeys: Mythus. (Assuming Wizards has no problem with it. Think of this as a sort of audition.)
First Part: A Peculiarity of the Universe
Unlike our universe in Ærth's matter and energy are separate things. One cannot be converted into the other. And while most of the time both are mixed together, and the task be difficult indeed, still it is possible to separate the two. In the one case to produce Heka (energy), and in the other to produce Tau (matter). All other forms of energy are fantasias on Heka, while all other forms of matter are fantasias on Tau.
One such thing is hekalite, a crystaline form of Heka---though not really---that is a natural source of heka. Hekalite is found here and there throughout the universe, but most especially at the core of each and every world larger than just a bit smaller than the Moon. It is this hekalite core that gives each world having such its configuration.
Consider the Ærth. At first glance it appears to be a sphere some 8,000 miles in diameter. A closer inspection reveals it has two openings, holes about 1,000 miles in diameter where the poles would be. Inside there is a hekalite sun. A star 100 miles in diameter that shines both light and heka. It is this star that has a most peculiar property in that, unlike mass, it bends space-time up. So that things fall away from it. A sort of reverse gravity; though not an anti-gravity, for that is a different phenomenon entirely.
It is this reverse gravity that creates a gap 1,900 miles wide between the hekalite sun and the surface of the inner world, and which provides the "gravity" that plants things firmly there, where otherwise objects and creatures would float off and eventually fall into the interior sun.
So finally we come to the shell that is the Ærth people know. While called a hollow world, it is a torus instead, a sort of flattened doughnut. Which is where we shall stop and prepare for the next installment in this essay at essays.
A haphazard series on the world of Ærth given a reworking for a possible new edition of Dangerous Journeys: Mythus. (Assuming Wizards has no problem with it. Think of this as a sort of audition.)
First Part: A Peculiarity of the Universe
Unlike our universe in Ærth's matter and energy are separate things. One cannot be converted into the other. And while most of the time both are mixed together, and the task be difficult indeed, still it is possible to separate the two. In the one case to produce Heka (energy), and in the other to produce Tau (matter). All other forms of energy are fantasias on Heka, while all other forms of matter are fantasias on Tau.
One such thing is hekalite, a crystaline form of Heka---though not really---that is a natural source of heka. Hekalite is found here and there throughout the universe, but most especially at the core of each and every world larger than just a bit smaller than the Moon. It is this hekalite core that gives each world having such its configuration.
Consider the Ærth. At first glance it appears to be a sphere some 8,000 miles in diameter. A closer inspection reveals it has two openings, holes about 1,000 miles in diameter where the poles would be. Inside there is a hekalite sun. A star 100 miles in diameter that shines both light and heka. It is this star that has a most peculiar property in that, unlike mass, it bends space-time up. So that things fall away from it. A sort of reverse gravity; though not an anti-gravity, for that is a different phenomenon entirely.
It is this reverse gravity that creates a gap 1,900 miles wide between the hekalite sun and the surface of the inner world, and which provides the "gravity" that plants things firmly there, where otherwise objects and creatures would float off and eventually fall into the interior sun.
So finally we come to the shell that is the Ærth people know. While called a hollow world, it is a torus instead, a sort of flattened doughnut. Which is where we shall stop and prepare for the next installment in this essay at essays.