Fantasy Cosmology Compendium v2

[Blind Orc]

Original thread:Default Fantasy Cosmology Compendium made by Eerie

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Sadly, it just died. And I failed to find something similar with google or the forum search engine. I suppose/hope it was locked to prevent thread necromancy, so I (think I) followed the rules and did it the right way. If I was wrong forgive me

Also if the original thread could be re-opened, and Earie is still around, maybe this and that could be merged, and have the new ideas added to the original. Until then I will copy-and-edit things from the original thread-it feels like stealing, but I can't see any other way. Sorry.

This thread wasn't my idea, so if you find it useful thank Earie.

Check the original thread to see the changes.

Fantasy Cosmology Compendium


Spherical Concepts

• Spherical world.
• Inverted sphere.

Flat Concepts

• Flat Earth

Non-standard Concepts

• Floating islands
• World tree
• Dungeon world.
• Water world.

1. Spherical world.
Universe full of spheres. This is the most realistic cosmology, because, well, it`s the real one. In order to find inconsistences, you have to plunge deep into astronomy and quantum physics (dark energy, Higgs boson et cetera).

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Advantages:
- Physical model already fully developed by centuries of scientific progress.
- Variably big, yet travel between planets is hard.

Problems:
- Unoriginal, boring.
- Space. Blurs the border between fantasy and sci-fi. If you have space and elfs, you will eventually have elfs IN SPACE!!!, and not everybody likes it.

Variants:
- Geocentrical model.
- Space filled with air.
- Only one planet (There is no space, or there is a dome around the world and the stars aren't what they are in reality.)

2. Flat Earth
A plane. Your old flat world.

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Advantages:
- Easy do draw maps.
- Classic.

Problems:
- Gravity. If the plane only have one side, then why does it floats? And will anything that fall off accelerate forever?
- Space. Leads to "IN SPACE!!!" problem.
- Horizon should curve up, unless you do something extreme with the atmosphere diffraction. People who live on a flat plane will think they live on the bottom of a hemisphere. "World is a Cup".
- Edges. What holds the atmosphere? What holds the ocean?

Variants:
- Plane of infinite depth and infinite sky, no other side. "It`s stone all the way down and air all the way up". Deals with the "IN SPACE!!!" problem.
- Not a flat, but something between a flat and a hemisphere. Solves the "World is a Cup" problem.
- Disk world. Functions like a planet that is for some reason unnaturally flat. If you step over it, you go to the other side of the disk. Solves the "IN SPACE!!!" problem, and most of the obvious gravity problems.

3. Inverted sphere.
Hollow ball, and you live on the inside. Dyson sphere, only magical.

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Advantages:
- It`s cool.

Problems:
- Night time. Movement of sun in the sky.
- Gravity. Everything should fall down into the sun. Possible solution: sun exerts negative gravity.
- Horizon. No horizon at all.
- Space outside the ball. Leads to "IN SPACE!!!" problem.

Variants:
- Hollow bubble inside an infinite space filled with matter. "It`s stone all the way around". Deals with the "IN SPACE!!!" problem.
- Spinning World. Solves the Gravity problem, at most places. No one could go to the poles, so they would function like walls. A slow shift of the poles over time would prevent the world from going O-> () -> []

4. Floating islands.
Many little planes or rocks just flying around.

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Advantages:
- It`s cool.
- You can make flight an integral part of your setting.

Problems:
- Gravity.
- Edges. You can`t really have rivers unless you get really big islands. Everything will run off.
- Horizon. Lack thereof. We are floating in empty space. Even if the sun moves, it will never disappear.
- Bombing. Dropping heavy objects in islands below you is very easy.

Variations:
- Combine with something bigger. Floating islands above a surface.
- Gravity bubbles around the islands. If a river falls off, it will become a lake because of the gravity bubble. Solves the bombing problem as well.
- Islands move around a light source, much like the the planets move around the sun. Moving between dark and light places could create ''Night'' and ''Day''.

5. World tree
Very big tree, and everyone is living on it.

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Advantages:
- It`s cool.

Problems:
- Maps. Go on, draw me a map of a freaking tree.
- Ecology. It`s a tree. It should grow on something. What`s down there, a plane?
- Bombing. Inhabitants should expect heavy object to fall on them every living moment.
- Edges. Hard to have rivers, unless the branches are really big.

Variants:
- Multiple World trees.
- An other world type within the tree. for example a Dungeon World inside a tree.

6. Dungeon world.
Infinite rock in every direction, honeycombed with tunnels, caverns, underground rivers etc.

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Advantages:
- Caves are cool.
- Can have great variety, large caves can function as small worlds.

Problems:
- Maps. 3D world, go draw a map of it...
- Energy. No sun, no light. Need to design light and hear sources.
- Gravity. Infinite world with gravity will collapse. Without gravity you get weightless enviroment where everything flies. Local gravity sources are complicated. Possible easy solution is to give the world a frame, an infinitely strong skeleton upon which everything else lies, thus dividing the world into many finite, non-collapsing parts.

Variants:
- Elemental plane of flesh. A living Dungeon world. Or you can substitute animal-like flesh for plant-like tissue, and get a plane of plants.
-Read here

7. Water world.
A universe filled with water. Not to be confused with local underwater settings (in oceans, rivers, caves etc.) although they share many characteristics. May have local bubbles of air\land.

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Advantages:
- Underwater settings are cool.
- Weightless enviroment, everything "flies".

Problems:
- Maps. 3D world again.
- Energy. How do you put Sun in the water?

Variants:
-

[Blind Orc]

I plan to post here in a min

[Blind Orc]

Actually, I don't know the word limit, so to be safe...

[Blind Orc]

Ok that should be enough (hopefully, not)

[Zeta Kai]

I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but I don't understand why we need a second one of these. The first one, which you linked to, seemed fairly comprehensive. Why are we doing this again.

[Blind Orc]

Because it was not complete. I feel that it was a genius idea, but it was ignored and not perfect. That was 2 years before, and I wasn't here then

When I started it I just wanted to add stuff, but after I started I realized that it could take a different direction. So plan to make it a bit different.

I am still editing the first post, so for now it looks like an exact copy of the previous one- but it won't be like that for long.

So yeah, you are right. The way it looks now it adds nothing- the point is to make it better

[Zale]

Wouldn't the centrifugal force from the spinning of a hollow world keep everything from falling down?

[Zeta Kai]

Wouldn't the centrifugal force from the spinning of a hollow world keep everything from falling down?

Only at the "equator". The farther "north" & "south" you go, the less effect spinning would have, & at the poles, it would have no effect at all.

[Zale]

Only at the "equator". The farther "north" & "south" you go, the less effect spinning would have, & at the poles, it would have no effect at all.

Riiiight.

That makes sense.

So..

A Wizard did it?

[Garryl]

A truly infinite (in all directions) and roughly homogenous dungeon world should actually have near zero gravity in all places. The effective gravity from all directions should cancel each other out as each atom is pulled equally in all directions. What could create localized gravity would be areas of denser material, such as a mass of adamantine or lead (or some other dense material) about the size of a planet. On the surface, it would have a net gravity roughly equivalent to a normal planet with the same size and with mass equal to the difference in mass between the density planetoid and the equivalent volume of earth-space. Gravity below the surface or further out should be similar to gravity in or around an equivalent planet. This would most likely invalidate a significant aspect of the dungeon world setting, as masses like these would, over time, pull in the looser material nearby, creating huge caverns (probably on the scale of an equivalent planet's atmosphere), packing that material down and growing. In addition to the fact that this would eventually make the planet dense enough to become star-like (fusion in its core, and eventually collapsing into a black hole), this still negates the idea of a honeycomb, eternally-underground world as there will be a distinct surface (if not a traditional sky).

There are a whole bunch of world-building ideas here, if anyone wants to run with them. Here are a few that come to mind.

- Density planetoids exist and people are living on them. However, they are unnatural. The big evil beings are the eternally neutral Earth Elementals trying to undo the aberration and set the universe right again by destroying the planetoid and returning it to homogeneity.

- Density planetoids have begun forming recently (maybe within the past few thousand years). People are living on them. The planetoids have not yet pulled in much of the surrounding earthen space, so space climbers can still travel between planets (admittedly, they'd still have to travel ridiculously faster than a climb to get anywhere in a lifetime with the spaces needed between planets with any appreciable gravity, but this is still a fantasy world so whatever). Perhaps the adventure is in traveling between these planets. Maybe some of them are drawing in the surrounding material, extending their atmospheric caverns to high to climb out of.

- The sky is falling. Living on a density planet, the roof of the atmosphere cavern is collapsing. The planet's gravity is pulling in looser material much faster than normal, or has caught a section that's much looser than the rest of the earth space or something. Either way, the sky is falling as avalanches rain from the sky.

- Your planet is having a fire age. Over the millenia, it has pulled in too much material from the surrounding earth space. Now, its core has ignited into fusion fires, heating your planet and cooking it from within.

[erictheredd]

I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but I don't understand why we need a second one of these. The first one, which you linked to, seemed fairly comprehensive. Why are we doing this again.

Comprehensive as in all the common things done? Cause there is a lot more that can be done with interesting world shapes. The people doing the Mobieus strip come to mind. (Though they are in for a true mess).

I actually sat down once and tried to come up with interesting world shapes. Here are some of the better ones:

The cupped funnels:
The world is a massive funnel, high in the sky, it has its identical counter-part on the other side of the world, a whole through which water pours. It can be done with one or two suns. I like one to warm the low lands and one vaporizing all the moisture pouring into it, creating clouds. The world has walls, but they are so far out they are where glaciers form. The whole world is sloped and constantly cloudy and rainy. The world wraps around, draining into itself, and gravity is in a certain direction. There are boundaries on the funnel, shutting it in.

Of course, their are variations. Perhaps its sand that flows instead of water. Oh, and you can string a bunch of these in a circle if you want to.

[Blind Orc]

The cupped funnels:
The world is a massive funnel, high in the sky, it has its identical counter-part on the other side of the world, a whole through which water pours. It can be done with one or two suns. I like one to warm the low lands and one vaporizing all the moisture pouring into it, creating clouds. The world has walls, but they are so far out they are where glaciers form. The whole world is sloped and constantly cloudy and rainy. The world wraps around, draining into itself, and gravity is in a certain direction. There are boundaries on the funnel, shutting it in.

You mean something like that? The second sun is going up and down between the two sides?

Of course, their are variations. Perhaps its sand that flows instead of water. Oh, and you can string a bunch of these in a circle if you want to.

What do you mean in a circle?

Also: There are some edits in the first post with italics, feel free to correct me.

[erictheredd]

You mean something like that? The second sun is going up and down between the two sides?

the second sun is stationary, and in the same place relative to its funnel as the first sun. also, while the picture is correct, you can also draw it with the the second sun and the other funnel above the first sun and the habitable lands.

Though your version is a perfectily fine variation. Imagine what sun rises look like when the sun is actually coming up through the ocean.

What do you mean in a circle?

you have one chamber that drains into another, that drains into the a third, which drains into the first.

or you can do that with 5, 50, 5 million, or an infinite number of chambers. And honestly, the inhabitants likely don't know which one it is

[Lord Raziere]

I have an obvious idea:

A God Did It.

Whatever needs explained, can actually be explained by this. Need night and day for a hollow word? The Gods of setting decided that the Sun just naturally gradually darkens then lights up again over a 24-hour period, want north poles? the gods decided that the light from the goes in certain directions because they wanted it that way.
Want a flat world and a flat horizon? easy, the gods decided the world just works that way. They didn't want to calculate pi when creating the world, so they beat up pi and threw it out of the world. They then promoted 3 to the position.
Any scientists that tried to take advantage of any this in any way they didn't like they beat up as well, killed them horribly. Gods have a right to decide how the world works, why listen to these little humans spouting this "science" nonsense?
A dungeon world works because it works that way, the god decided that gravity only works the way the god wants it to work. Want to argue with the guy who can make gravity kill you?

[Gnarph]

You could also add Ringworld (as in Niven's Ringworld). It is certainly more sci-fi than fantasy, but it fits the thread.

It's like an inverted sphere but just a single ring. This way rotation can give the effect of gravity throughout the inner surface. The book had a ring of "shadow squares" that rotated at a slightly different speed than the Ringworld itself between the world's surface and the sun to periodically block the sun and simulate a day/night cycle.

[erictheredd]

Thats called an inverted sphere. technically part of an inverted sphere, but its up there

[Bibliomancer]

I have an obvious idea:

A God Did It.

Whatever needs explained, can actually be explained by this. Need night and day for a hollow word? The Gods of setting decided that the Sun just naturally gradually darkens then lights up again over a 24-hour period, want north poles? the gods decided that the light from the goes in certain directions because they wanted it that way.
Want a flat world and a flat horizon? easy, the gods decided the world just works that way. They didn't want to calculate pi when creating the world, so they beat up pi and threw it out of the world. They then promoted 3 to the position.
Any scientists that tried to take advantage of any this in any way they didn't like they beat up as well, killed them horribly. Gods have a right to decide how the world works, why listen to these little humans spouting this "science" nonsense?
A dungeon world works because it works that way, the god decided that gravity only works the way the god wants it to work. Want to argue with the guy who can make gravity kill you?

I agree with this approach whole-heartedly. In the campaign setting that I've been working on, every material plane world is created by one (or more) overdeities, so the laws of physics are whatever the heck is convenient. In the world specific to this campaign setting, the world is a crystal sphere half filled up with earth, with the top half being air. Down is constant and not gravity reliant.

The other useful thing about this approach is that it provides an in-universe explanation of why infinite loops and other shenanigans don't work: the gods don't like them.