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Thread: Spelljammer Void Worlds
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2021-01-09, 09:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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Spelljammer Void Worlds
In the published material for Spelljammer a void world is defined as a world without an atmosphere. Scattered throughout the spheres that I have created are a number of worlds that are just not there. Moons orbit an empty area, a void. I have been calling these empty areas void worlds in spite of the official definition since Spelljammer came out. I had one in the first sphere I created. I am preparing some of my material for posting and have been trying and failing to find a different label for my void worlds. I feel that continuing to call them void worlds will only be confusing in light of the definition in the published material. The synonyms I have found all seem to apply better to a world without an atmosphere than to a world that is not there. I am hoping that someone can think of a good alternative that conveys the same meaning concisely and succinctly with out excess verbiage. Void fits nicely in terms of length with the other types of planets and resizing that one column in each of my charts will be a major undertaking. Having striven to present as much information on each planet in as possible in a single line has left no room for expansion and I am at a loss. Assistance in this matter will be greatly appreciated.
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2021-01-09, 12:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
"Missing Worlds" or "Absent Worlds"?
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2021-01-09, 04:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
In astronomy, which obviously doesn't apply to Spelljammer, moons orbiting empty space where a planet should be but isn't, would indicate a planet mass black hole. (Which would only be some milimeters in diameter, so basically occupying no space.)
Maybe that's something to work with.We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.
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2021-01-09, 06:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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2021-01-09, 06:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
Would that prove to be a navigational hazard? A black hole that size could cause leaky casks in the hold and maybe require patches to the rigging but I don't think it could destroy a ship unless the ship stopped right there and let itself be destroyed. Contact with crew members could be catastrophic on an individual level, but that seems to me to be a really small probability. The level of traffic through the center could skew the odds one way or another, depending. I am definitely putting this on the table for consideration.
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2021-01-09, 10:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
I would call them Ghost Worlds or Phantom Worlds. Especially if they still stop spelljamming.
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2021-01-10, 05:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
The gravity of a black hole is identical to that of a star or planet of the same math. There would not be any difference until you get closer to the center than where the object of a star or planet would be.
The Earth has a radius of about 6,000 km. If you had a black hole with the same mass as the Earth, gravity would be the same 6,000 km from the tiny black hole as it's just above the surface of the Earth.
The big difference is that an Earth sized planet is pretty easy to visually see, while a black hole onviously is not.
I don't know how navigation between planets and moons is supposed to work in Spelljammer, but if you can see the path of the moon and know where the center of its orbit would be, it should be very easy to stay way clear of the center and be fully safe.
If you just go from one moon to another, the chance of that path leading straight through the center is very tiny. If you get near the center, you'd probably see your ship getting pulled off course towards the center, but you'd just have to adjust your steering a bit to counter for that. Even if you get very close while flying blind, the gravity would most likely thrown you off course as you fly past. Actually being pulled into something to hit it is really hard in space.We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.
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2021-01-10, 09:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
How about Null World? I think that has a ring to it.
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2021-01-10, 11:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
Okay, so. One issue that I'm seeing is that you're trying to apply the word "world" to a distinct lack of world. Like, where one would expect a world to be, there is no world, if I'm understanding you correctly. There is no world to be described by any adjective, whether "void" or otherwise, but rather a void of a world. That's not a void world; that's a world void. Which I say partly as a potential name suggestion but mostly just, like, technically.
The general word for what a satellite orbits seems to be "primary", so maybe you could work that in. But it's worth noting that orbits around empty points are totally a real thing! The barycenter of two roughly equally massive objects tends to be a point between them rather than inside of either one, so they'll both go around that.
I don't know how well that fits how gravity works in Spelljammer, but I am somewhat amused by the idea of D&D spacefarers hypothesizing the existence of an intangible, undetectable object at a system's barycenter because they don't understand physics.
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2021-01-11, 12:43 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
Physics barely has any connection with Spelljammer. Any object over 1 ton in mass creates a 1g gravity plane along its longest axis. Most planets are large enough to have gravity that points down at all points, but some planets can be disks or other shapes with gravity that actually follows a gravity planes.
So the most likely answer to a missing object at a barycenter is magic, which is common to spacefarers.
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2021-01-11, 01:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
The specific details may differ, but if
(1) big, roughly spherical objects pull other objects towards their centers
(2) this causes orbits, and
(3) nothing prevents two objects from being subject to each other's gravity
then I'd expect for objects to sometimes wind up orbiting an empty point in space for the same basic reasons that that happens in our own universe.
Obviously magic is a potential explanation. It's just an unnecessary one given point 3. That's the joke: Thinking that there even is a mystery to be solved is the result of an assumption that is, in retrospect, obviously wrong, and yet weirdly easy to make. Heck, I was going to post something to the effect that there must be something that the moons are orbiting in order for them to be orbiting at all. Then I remembered, oh yeah, massive bodies are attracted to each other.
It's funny because people are dumb. :P
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2021-01-11, 03:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
And this is where your argument falls over because in Spelljammer #3 is incorrect. This is most noticable when a small spelljammer nears a planet or a large spelljammer, the smaller spelljammer's gravity plane is overridden and the larger object's gravity applies. This in no way works in reverse (it's used as a combat tactic by big ships) - only the dominant gravity effect applies.
Last edited by Khedrac; 2021-01-11 at 03:21 AM.
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2021-01-11, 07:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
Seconding Khedrac here. In Spelljammer, gravity is an all-or-nothing force. Either it's a full 1G force, acting in the direction that's "most convenient", or it's nothing. And celestial bodies don't orbit due to gravity, either (most celestial bodies are well outside the gravity effects of each other). They could be carried by starbeasts (think the world resting on the back of four elephants all standing on the back of a turtle), or follow regular (circular) orbits, hang from the branches of a giant tree, not orbit at all, or something else entirely.
So moons orbiting nothing are completely fine as far as Grubbian Physics (named after Jeff Grubb) goes.
I think World Void or Missing World are the best descriptions for the phenomena described.Last edited by Lord Torath; 2021-01-11 at 07:51 AM.
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My Spelljammer stuff (including an orbit tracker), 2E AD&D spreadsheet, and Vault of the Drow maps are available in my Dropbox. Feel free to use or not use it as you see fit!
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2021-01-11, 10:25 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
Seconding this one, or maybe "Null System", since there is no "world" present, but there is a system orbiting the Null.
I'll also put forth my own slightly more arcane idea for nomenclature: call the moon or whatever that orbits nothing an "epicyclical world". The Epicycle was a concept in Ptolamaic astronomy where the orbits of planets were postulated to have circles within circles, epicycles, to explain retrograde motion in a geocentric cosmological model. Epicycles don't make sense from a gravitational standpoint, but neither does Spelljammer, and they perfectly describe the kind of planetary motion you are describing, where a heavenly body orbits a geometric point without any massive object being there. Bonus that the terminology comes from ancient astronomy, which sort of fits with D&D's largely pseudo-historical setting.You found the secret message! Don't forget to edit the wiki!
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2021-01-16, 01:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
Thank you all for your input. You certainly did not make this easy and I appreciate that. I ended up going back to the original source material many times and always seemed to find just how inadequate to my needs much of it actually was. This is my new list of World Types.
Type Description
Air composed of various gases at its core and for the bulk of its mass
Earth composed of solid matter at its core and for the bulk of its mass
Fire composed of flames at its core and for the bulk of its mass
Ghost composed of a singularity at its core, has no mass beyond that
Live composed of living material for the bulk of its mass even if there is different type material at the core
Null absolutely devoid of any kind of matter throughout its area
Water composed of liquid at its core and for the bulk of its mass
Looking at this I realized that I also needed to change my list of shapes to reflect the new list of Types and came up with this.
Shape Description
* amorphous or flexible shape
: belt of smaller objects in a single orbit
:: cluster of small objects in a defined area
o spherical shape
[] cube shape
[-] cuboid
/ flat with 2 well defined sides
O elliptical
^ regular shape
<> irregular shape
. singularity (superscript period)
N null - will always have at least one epicyclical moon
I have always used a “V” for void world but that does not seem suitable since I will be no longer calling them void worlds but just nulls. I love the idea of the ghost world and thought that the singularity fit that nicely. A large empty area that drops you down to tactical speed for no obvious reason is appealing. Because there is an actual effect for being in its vicinity it does not have to be defined by moons, whereas a null must have at least one moon to define its location. Otherwise the null is just more wildspace. I am a little concerned that the superscript period is too small to be readily seen, but on the other hand it represents a singularity and is therefore appropriate for it. When I first started this thread I did not realize the extent of my additions to the Spelljamming system. When something seemed inadequate I made it suit my needs. I made lists of regular and irregular shapes to consult, expanded the size chart to P, made lists of features for flat worlds and orbital movements, expanded the definition and potential size of stabeasts, added a Greater Planetary Display and a few other things. All of this is reflected in the spheres that I made and will have to be supplied in order to get the information in my sphere charts at a glance.
For some reason I could not get a simple tab to work and my charts are all squished together. If this is a regular feature then posting any kind of chart is just going to be uber annoying. The superscript didn't work either. Janet.
Thank you for the superscript info. It worked just fine this time.Last edited by Ides Usher; 2021-01-31 at 05:17 AM.
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2021-01-16, 04:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
Unfortunately one of the past forum updates took tables from being annoying (tab didn't work then either) to being infuriating. I suggest asking in the Grumpy Technology thread for people who can help with tables.
Superscript should work like this:[SUP]text to put into superscript[/SUP]
As an alternative to . consider · which is Alt + 0183 on a PC keyboardLast edited by Khedrac; 2021-01-16 at 04:39 AM.
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2021-01-16, 07:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
Here's a thread that could be helpful:
Tables in the Playground: All you want to know about the Table CodeWarhammer 40,000 Campaign Skirmish Game: Warpstrike
My Spelljammer stuff (including an orbit tracker), 2E AD&D spreadsheet, and Vault of the Drow maps are available in my Dropbox. Feel free to use or not use it as you see fit!
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2021-01-16, 09:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
Immediately subscribed so I can always find it quickly. Thank you so much. I have started a table template that I can just plug my information into without making the whole table from scratch each time. Yay!!
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2021-01-18, 09:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
To me, this is the one that conveys -
There's something strange going on. You should be very careful if you want to check it out since no-one has ever been able to explain it before...
Voidworld suggests "This is a known thing, there's nothing really interesting here"
Phantom World - "There is a world here, but something weird happened"
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2021-01-30, 02:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
Orbit Hole.
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2021-02-18, 07:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spelljammer Void Worlds
Not even that much. Anything longer than 25 feet generates 1g. You can walk on a tall giant like it was a planet. If you broke off a ship's mast and set it adrift, you could walk along it like it was lying on the ground. Everything, regardless of size, has an air envelope three times its size. You don't need a spacesuit because air follows you around.
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