The Campaign Builder's Guild

ok, to further elaborate on this shipping guild, here is a fluffy back story for it-

The Navigators would be the descendants of simple space-freighter pilots who, during the building of Earth II millennium ago, would run materials from massive trans-planetary barges down to the various construction sites on the surface. At the onset of the destruction of the original Earth, these freighters, like nearly all advanced technology that was critically linked to the planet (Earth I), crashed beyond repair, fell into the seas, or drifted into the void. Some, however, managed to survive and stay aloft. These survivors, the original Navigators, banded together during the dark times and survived on the near self-sustaining vessels as they drifted on the edge of space. Over this period of time, the Navigators themselves - who were intrinsically linked to the neural networks of the ship - began to shape themselves as messengers of God, as their entombed state gave them an inhuman lifespan as well as complete control over the Navigator's respective ship.

By the time that the Navigators descended from the clouds, the single Navigator on each ship was prayed to as a saint, a messenger of God by the inhabitants of each ship, now called carracks. Also, by this time, the Navigator's themselves, between slow mental breakdown, chemical dependencies, and ego, believe they too are actually messengers of God. There are no more than six carracks remaining. On the surface, the Navigators would have a two-fold mission - gain follower's for their grand plan (mentioned in a moment) and transport selected goods across the world. Their main goal, unknown to all but the Navigators themselves and a few other souls, is to look for a way to call upon God (read: an interplanetary barge) to deliver them to paradise (read: some kind of orbital living station somewhere in the solar system that may or may not exist.) So the Navigator's often hire others or use loyal servants to search for other crashed carracks for some kind of artifact (read: remote control) to call on "God."

does that make sense?

The drawing is beautiful, but why do you need a spaceship to transport things around the planet? Won't a low orbit airplane do the job? Imagine a 747 with the speed and the height of the Concorde. Would that be more suitable?

well, I was thinking that airplanes need runways, which I feel wouldn't really fit with the high tech/low tech juxtaposition. Plus at the time of the construction of Earth II, I would imagine airplanes would be obsolete, as if we were capable of building an artificial world, I'm sure we could have gotten around aerodynamics. Plus a huge, mile long hulk that would mysteriously appear out of the clouds has a lot more panache than a 747-like thing - at least in my opinion.

What about an airplane with a ramjet/scramjet that can land almost vertically?

Well, a 747 is a huge hulk... though not a mile long.

I just can't really see the physics justification for a mile-long ship. The power needed to lift it into the air is one thing; the ability to avoid and destroy space junk and meteroites is another-- it just does not seem realistic.

Then again, this is science fiction.

Personally I think the setting can be better served by not having spaceships or ultra-high-tech at all. If not done perfectly, they can seem tacked on and campy.

But that's just my opinion. I'm sure you can whip up something very good. :)

Quote from: Light DragonThen again, this is science fiction.

yeah that's the key as of now. I know I'm taking LOTS of liberties with speculative technology, physics, and evolution, but hell, if we can suspend our disbelief for dragons and dwarves, I don't think this is too far of a stretch ;)

Quote from: Light DragonWhat about an airplane with a ramjet/scramjet that can land almost vertically?

I just can't really see the physics justification for a mile-long ship. The power needed to lift it into the air is one thing; the ability to avoid and destroy space junk and meteroites is another-- it just does not seem realistic.

well I was thinking that the purpose of these ships would be to basically be flying semi-trucks. They would breach the atmosphere and dock with massive interplanetary barges that could not land on the surface, load up with stuff, and fly it to the planet. These carracks would probably have some kind of singularity generator (or whatever fluff you want to use) - hence them not running out of fuel - and have some other fluffy technology that would allow them to stay aloft and even land if they wanted to within the atmosphere.

Quote from: Light DragonPersonally I think the setting can be better served by not having spaceships or ultra-high-tech at all. If not done perfectly, they can seem tacked on and campy.

I definitely run that risk for sure, it's bound to be there when you mesh genres. If you've read any of the Dune novels, that's kinda the feel I'm looking for - this contrast between high technology and ancient culture.

here's a repost of the art I did for what one of these ships would look like, as it's been pushed back to a previous page, if anyone didn't catch it earlier.

 

I just had an idea that seems plausible. What if this world wasn't even meant to be fully settled? What if the destruction of earth 1 was not seen, and this was just an experiment for world building and terraforming. Perhaps during this, scientists of great wealth could buy land on this new planet and use it to test their genetic engineering and its limits. This would be a good excuse to have prehistoric animals living on this planet. In a way, they would be more suited to living there then humans.

  Then suppose humans on earth 1 were given warning of the destruction of earth and fled, landing here on this testing/experiment planet.


    On the destruction of earth 1: maybe a solar flare that would have been stopped by a healthy atmosphere, but went right through earth's like butter, lighting up the entire planet. But the scientists, pioneers and workers living and working in ships or on land at the new planet were to far to be hurt by the radiation, and have a very healthy (engineered) ozone layer and atmosphere.

Sounds interesting Survivorman.

had a thought. instead of trying to explain how we made a whole new spherical planet, what about a halo shape world? or some other shape that would require far less materials to construct.

If you want a strange shape, how about an inner normal sized spherical planet, surrounded by a disc shape (sort of like saturns rings). This could add some of the strange landscape you wanted from your half of planet death star idea.

would the rings be solid platform-like things? maybe intended as huge farms? I was also thinking having the setting be on the inside of a planet, but I'm not sure if figuring out weather patterns would be all that fun, plus there would be no stars or any cool celestial things.

On the same not as your rings, what if this new planet slowly collected the fragments of Earth I and Earth II was surrounded by a rough ring of dust and rock that would have come from Earth I. So there would be no real moons, but oblong chunks of the first Earth and a Saturn-like ring.

I also think, that if this world turns out to be spherical, the middle will be a honey-comb like network of frames and support beams that would have some kind of massive machinery for some fluffy sci-fi purpose (as I'm not too keen on keeping everything mathematically correct, as that's not as much fun. :)) that could also double as a real underworld of pitch-black corridors and hellish, fire-spewing machines.

That sounds really cool. Perhaps there could even be "demons" that are in fact robots or something that work to keep the inside of earth 2 running right.

 The rings would be part of the planet, walkable and stuff, but would seem very strange and alien. My idea was that it was to hold in the planet while they were creating it, so it didn't get out of control. They meant to eventually remove it, but then the tragedy happened.

  Now, what was once a solid metal ring has been covered in layers of stone and sand. The ring is now an arrid, desert land where tribal clans rule and small frontier towns hide outlaws and outcasts.

  The problem is that there should be some difference between this ring and the inner world. I was thinking maybe its not protected as much from solar radiation, and living there or staying there could give you radiation poisoning and/or mutations. And maybe the native tribes (who were once workers living on the ring holding in the planet) evolved in such a way that the radiation doesn't affect them.

  Or even better, they worship the sun as a god that brings blessings (mutations) to their people, and takes their kind away to serve the sun god loyaly (tribe members killed by the radiation).

   Does this go along with what you're trying to do?

Quote from: SurvivormanThat sounds really cool. Perhaps there could even be "demons" that are in fact robots or something that work to keep the inside of earth 2 running right.

that was exactly what I was thinking. I was also thinking that the "foreman" robots, who would have been programmed with some form of AI to keep the other robots working, would be worshiped as kinds of Demon Lords if their AI fritzed and they went super-ego and power hungry?
I just have this image in my head of a huge industrial/worker robot that has been painted and decorated with religious icons as throngs of naked, flame wielding worshipers dance around it's feet.

I'm not too sold on the ring idea yet, except I did think that some historic invasion by the magic-wielding "Dragon Kings" (read: space workers who found a way to invade the world with advanced weapons and ships) who controlled a vast empire for centuries. Wouldn't be too unlike the rules in the movie Stargate.

maybe instead of a ring, a large scaffold would cover parts of the planet, which would also be home to "demons" who would descend to the planet from time to time for some purpose.

I really like that idea. You could run a camapign where the community the PCs live in worships the Gods up in the sky, and then the PCs find out that the "gods" are actually just descendants of ancient workers. The community sees it as blasphemy and puts them in prison and schedules them for execution.

[ic=Chal Pyol]The Dread City. The Black City. The Sorcerer's City. Many are the names that grace the tongues of those that speak of Chal Pyol. Silently sitting in the peripheral of the known lands of Pala Lum, long has the city subtly sent its agents into the great empires and cities of the northern lands. Always waiting in the shadows, the motives of Chal Pyol are as enigmatic as the rulers of the ebon city, the Sorcerous Houses. Hairless, with milk-blue eyes and skin as black as jet, the Sorcerers are as mysterious and intelligent as they are ruthless and narcissistic. They are the covetous guardians and keepers of knowledge that once belonged to the Ancient Ones, those who sailed the stars in ships of jade and iron and fire.

Seven dread ziggurats rise high above the thin strip of steam-covered jungle that  rests like a verdant ribbon between the endless blue of Great Sea to the west, and the lifeless, rust-hued mountains of Tzala Tchor to the east. The massive edifices are made of dark, nearly black stone. The cuts and angles are flawless and kept perfectly clean of the incessant vegetation of the jungle below. Motifs of serpents and celestial bodies adorn the ebon faces of the ziggurats. It is within these black towers the Sorcerous Houses make their abode. But below the ebon peaks of their temple is where the remainder of the city ekes out a living and struggles to survive in the shadows of their sorcerous masters. Made of the same black stone as the monuments that rise above them, the City-Below-The-Leaves is overgrown with jungle vegetation and infested with sacred serpents.

There are but two stratus in Chal Pyol '" the Sorcerers and the slaves. Kept in line through fear, alchemy, and things far darker, the vast majority of the Dread City is enslaved. In contrast to the sheer black of their masters, the skins and hair of the slaves of Chal Pyol are bleached white as children and they are adorned only in the whitest cloth. Amongst the black stone, the Sorcerers are as one with the city, while their slaves cannot hide even in the darkest shadow. No one knows how large the cities population truly is, as even the travelers that are allow past the immediate docks often encounter entire city wards devoid of population, seeing only the ghostly shapes of slaves running amongst the overgrown roots of the city. A handful of kings an emperors have declared their intents to invade the Black City, but all have been found flayed, burnt, or worse before the preparations could even be made.

Chal Pyol maintains minimal relations with the outside world. While the city does occasionally send merchant parties abroad, most trade comes to them. Alchemical compounds, strange emulsions and potions, rare powders, nightshade, lotuses, flowers, bones, and furs are what the Black City deals in. Slaves are never bought and never sold, as the Sorcerers like to keep close tabs on their own stock. When the Sorcerers are seen abroad, it most commonly in the wake of an event having to deal with some aspect of the Ancient Ones '" the unearthing of a relic, an archive being found, the awaking of their legions. It is said that the goal of the dread Sorcerers is to harness the full power of the Ancient Ones. While is only hearsay, the masters of Chal Pyol make no attempt to hide their lust for the long lost powers.
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Sounds cool. Just a thought: were the ziggurats built by the sorcerers and their slaves, or were they built before earth 1 was destroyed, and had another purpose?