Moon Problem

[DualShadow]

Hey all, i'm trying to set up a world piece by piece and well one of my first stop is the moon or moons. I like the DragonLance 3 magical moon thing but I want mine to mean a bit differently so I thought why not 9 moons (the 9 alignments and the 9 school of magic ( counting universal )) but then I thought of a feat something like a Moon Sensitive.

Its because I don' want to only restrict the moon influence to caster like in dragonlance but with the feat be able to give some small bonus to every class. Or even that the moon grant multiple blessing but when taking the feat you choose wich one you wanna take.

So any tiny suggestion to help me is welcome and appreciated.

[Lmns Crn]

Hey, welcome to the group, and thanks for posting.

Moons are awesome, and exploring any kind of heavenly bodies for astronomical and/or astrological purposes can be a lot of fun.

I am a little bit less than excited by the idea of nine moons for nine D&D alignments (and not just because I rather dislike alignment in general). You get some situation like "the chaotic-neutral moon is rising", which seems, honestly, sort of hollow.

Why not separate moons from alignment, and treat them almost like, say, signs of the zodiac? For example, if a character is born when Moon X is full, then they're marked by that moon-- it's considered to have an influence in their life, and maybe even a game mechanic bonus for items related to whatever that moon's associated with, or a bonus whenever that moon is full or high in the sky. If a character is born when a moon is new (i.e., not visible at all), maybe they get the opposite effect: the moon doesn't influence them at all, or has a reversed or harmful influence.

Bonus points if there's a lot of folklore/mythology/legends associated with these moons, and suspicion and superstition associated with people who happened to be born under the "wrong" ones.

If you're using D&D mechanics, you could write these up like li'l feats, and give everybody a free "moon feat" at first level or whatever.

Hey, I also found a nine-sided thing that might inspire you somehow.

[Drizztrocks]

Hello, and welcome to the CBG. I assume your using 3.5 mechanics, since you are using nine alignments. Right now I don't have any suggestions, but i'll keep up with this thread.

[Xeviat]

It seems you are still using 3rd edition, with your mentioning of the spell schools. You could have moons match alignments, much as the outer planes matched the alignments in the Planescape and 3E settings. 9 works, but you can also do the 12 (?) that there were in Planescape.

Luminous's idea of the Zodiac could work very well as well. It could still be linked to the alignments if you really like them, and you can have each represent deities. Other systems you could use is to have them be associated with the elements. A quick idea that just came to mind would be to have the moons associated with the alignments (just good, evil, chaotic, lawful) and then have constellations tied to the deities. When a is in a constellation, that deity takes on that alignment. There are many things you can do really.

How did you want to handle the moon feat bonuses? Would they only apply while that moon is "up"? How fast would you like them to go?

I'm also uncertain as to the physics of having so many moons around an Earth-sized planet. The moons would probably have to be smaller and further away, lest their own gravities disrupt them (which would mean they'd eventually collide).

As for the exact potency of the feats, I would not make them that much more valuable than normal feats. Their circumstantial nature only matters if it is actually used circumstantially; if a party all uses the power of one moon, they could coordinate their adventures accordingly (like "dies in sunlight" weakness for vampires isn't normally an issue because they simply don't come out in the day).

[O Senhor Leetz]

I'd also say go with the zodiac/born under a sign approach. the CRGP Morrowind included something like this, which I thought was very interesting.

The strength of these "zodiac/moon abilities" would have to depend on how crucial the moon concept is to the campaign setting. it they are just additional flavor, then I'd go with something like a +2 bonus to a couple skills (still 3e right?). But if the moons are a core concept, maybe something like a class ability usable x amount of times would fit better. For instance, if a PC was born under a moon that is related with violence, chaos, or war, allow the PC to use the Rage ability x2 a week at half their character level or something. Spell-like abilities, ability bonuses and penalties, and damage reduction/resistance are more things that you could use.

[Epic Meepo]

That bit about the alignment-based moons reminds me of my old Astrological Alignments thread from back in the day. If you like aligned moons, you might also like the astrological alignment system.

[SDragon]

I kinda like the idea of the nine magical moons. It reminds me of the rings of CeBeGia, which had similar flavor.

It sounds like each moon here is associated with both an alignment an a school of magic. For each moon, is there some connection between it's alignment and it's school?

For the Moon Sensitive feat, is the character only sensitive to one moon, or to all nine?

[Drizztrocks]

If thats so, and the school of magic and the alignment are related, i'm not sure i'd go for that. Illusion fits chaotic good, universal fits true nuetral, etc, yes I get that but if Necromancy is an evil alignment, then that would lean towards all necromancers being evil. If you want to go for that, i'm not saying you shouldn't, i'm just pointing out that this will push characters in a certain direction.

[DualShadow]

Yes I am using the 3.5 edition of DnD ( I have player that dont like the lack of out of combat skills and ability and the balance of 4th edition ).

@Luminous Crayon, I like the 9 sided personnality thing you found, I also found the alignment moons to be a bit lame but that was just an idea ( an easy to find idea to add ), mixing the 9 sided personnality thing and the moon influence together would be nice but would affect the player only if he take the feat because having all character act out of 1 of the 9 cookie cutter personnality is not my goal.

@Xeviat, sorry but im not familiar with Planescape, the physics of it all could be put aside for now or simply be resolved by saying its magic or some wierd sciency star trek explanation the the 9 gravitic pull + the planet form a perfect gravitic field that blah blah blah. I also dont want the feats to be like a must take feat but rather a flavor feat or a introduction feat that allow a PrC later.

@Leetz, hmm nice thing you brought up, I didnt thought of the morrowind moons bonus, so maybe a secondary feat requiring the first one could allow for higher abilities such as the rage exemple you said.

So ill take a day or 2 to think about that annd ill post again with more info on the way I would like it to be in my world. I thank you all for your effort and hope for some more when ill post back.