Belis: Magic in Spaaaaaaace!

[RFLS]

Sorry about all the questions, but personally I feel that answering questions is one of the things that helps me flesh out concepts to a greater extent, by giving me something concrete to focus on rather than "oh, better write this next paragraph about aboleths." If you work differently, I'm happy to only ask questions that I actually need the answers to and focus more on other kinds of advice.

No, questions are great. Ask away; I find it incredibly helpful.

I figured it made more sense to put questions about the setting here than in the recruitment thread, so:

How common is interplanetary travel for civilians, exactly? It sounds like the majority of travel is conducted using an alternating flux, which shouldn't be that difficult for nations to create and maintain if they have easy access to high-level gramarists, but given that they could hold a monopoly fairly easily it wouldn't be difficult for the nations and/or gramarists in question to charge prohibitively high prices. So are citizens of the Moret Empire popping out to Kyoryu for a picnic, or is that kind of travel restricted almost entirely to explorers, scientists and workers? Is it less likely for halflings to be traveling due to Moret's policy of isolationism? Is land owned by corporations or nations unfriendly to visitors blocked by large-scale pink filters and the like, or do they just count on gramarists and magicians powerful enough to have interplanetary travel being under the thumb of someone or other?

Hmm....I'm thinking fairly common, depending on the destination. Interplanetary travel between planets in the same system is definitely easy; you don't need an alternating flux to do it. Depending on where you're from and where you're going, interstellar travel should end up being fairly easy, too. You're not going to catch people from Rayunta taking a quick jaunt out to a star system controlled by Moret, but the expenses aren't prohibitive. Some places will use large scale pink filters, but it's difficult to impossible to find the manhours to do anything on the scale of a city, much less a planet.

The history of Belis looks good, although I'm curious about its relationship with Velikan: have the early attempts at imperialism by some nations permanently colored its view of Belis as a whole? It seems like if the Moret Empire initiated war and Rayunta or whoever made attempts at diplomacy, that could actually push the giants towards allying with those offering aid. Or is it just that the current leader of Velikan is nationalist and dislikes any interference with the nations of Belis?

Velikan's view of Belis is definitely colored from the initial contact; most of its peoples hold a mild grudge against them. Most don't make the distinction between the various races, they just generally dislike the planet as a whole. The current leader is just a step or two past that opinion, which is why he has support.

[Plerumque]

So I would assume there are factions in Velikan that disagree with this view, or consider it overly simplistic, it's just that they don't have enough support to make a difference? Are natives of Belis required to be fugitives if they want to travel to Velikan?

[RFLS]

So I would assume there are factions in Velikan that disagree with this view, or consider it overly simplistic, it's just that they don't have enough support to make a difference? Are natives of Belis required to be fugitives if they want to travel to Velikan?

Hmm...I hadn't gotten that far. I suppose there'd be factions that disagree; possibly a few that are outright opposed to it. Natives of Belis aren't fugitives, but it's made extremely clear that they're not welcome.

[RFLS]

Just rewrote how spaceships work. Decided that the Ethereal Plane gets a lot smaller away from masses on the Material Plane, meaning that if you move to it, the distance between two planets is much, much smaller than it would be on the Material.

[Plerumque]

Did you add Bauth, too? That's kind of interesting to me, just in that a nation presumably without any Doctorate-level and probably not many Magistrate-level gramarists is capable of holding its own (in that it hasn't yet been wiped off the map) against the highly industrialized Empire. I suppose they must have quite a few high-level casters, but if it can keep a hold on its territory without gramarie, it seems like it's just begging for a single charismatic scientist to come in and turn it into a force to be feared throughout the universe.

[RFLS]

Yeah, I added Bauth in. Right now it's a tossup between "Moret doesn't care that much" and "Bauth has incredibly powerful casters" as to why they haven't been subjugated yet. Possibly both. If it's at least the second one, I was considering having it be the bastion between Moret and the rest of the unnamed continent.

It occurs to me that I should probably upload (and work on) a map. Know a good mapmaker?

EDIT: I'm running a game to flesh the world out. IC is here, and OoC is here.

[Plerumque]

I had a GM once who used this, just setting the specifications and randomizing it until he found one he liked. Might not work for you, though, since you have specific ideas about the continents.

[RFLS]

I had a GM once who used this, just setting the specifications and randomizing it until he found one he liked. Might not work for you, though, since you have specific ideas about the continents.

Yeah, I've used that before. Pretty useful for the initial maps, but I also need to do a political one (and label it).

[altona]

XD What they said!

On a serious note, cyberpunk normally entails a certain breaking down of political barriers in favor of economic barriers, but that's very much not the case here. Does anyone have a cyberpunk setting I can read for a few pointers on how to do it while retaining political barriers as a major influence?

EDIT: I've also included descriptions of the cities of the three main nations. Next up is probably working on the lesser nations - as soon as I get those maps done....

If your still looking for a cyberpunk setting honestly I would look no further then Shadowrun. Its history is well documented and with little effort can be found online and the progression away from political barriers into the realm of the more economic is realistically plausible you see the nations still holding sway over land but the major decisions tend to fall in the court of corporations. Megacorps are just a different kind of political influence.

[IZ42]

Question on Rayunta: Where would Ratfolk fall on the social status spectrum? Above Tengu, below Grippli? Equal to Rakshasa? This is mildly important for the backstory of my Scientist character in Rise of the Warforged. I'll restate this question in the recruitment thread.

[RFLS]

If your still looking for a cyberpunk setting honestly I would look no further then Shadowrun. Its history is well documented and with little effort can be found online and the progression away from political barriers into the realm of the more economic is realistically plausible you see the nations still holding sway over land but the major decisions tend to fall in the court of corporations. Megacorps are just a different kind of political influence.

Yeah, I've read almost everything published for Shadowrun; it's been a big help.

Question on Rayunta: Where would Ratfolk fall on the social status spectrum? Above Tengu, below Grippli? Equal to Rakshasa? This is mildly important for the backstory of my Scientist character in Rise of the Warforged. I'll restate this question in the recruitment thread.

Thanks; I'd missed them on my initial pass. I just edited them into between grippli and tengu.

[kopout]

I have a question about Et'riso. Has the star actually exploded yet or merely ballooned? If it has exploded Et'riso will be so far away from the resulting white dwarf that it will probably need some sort of magic to hold onto enough heat to be habitable.

Also, about Loirr. I'd suggest making it water rather than liquid methane. If the aboleths live in liquid methane then they are almost completely uninteractable, their blood would boil at anything resembling our temperatures while from their perspective we would have liquid rock for blood.

[RFLS]

I have a question about Et'riso. Has the star actually exploded yet or merely ballooned? If it has exploded Et'riso will be so far away from the resulting white dwarf that it will probably need some sort of magic to hold onto enough heat to be habitable.

Just ballooned. I edited the post to clarify that just now; thank you.

Also, about Loirr. I'd suggest making it water rather than liquid methane. If the aboleths live in liquid methane then they are almost completely uninteractable, their blood would boil at anything resembling our temperatures while from their perspective we would have liquid rock for blood.

I think I'll leave it as methane - immunity to cold/fire are both trivial to come by, meaning that powerful individuals can travel in either direction without too much hassle, and it prevents large-scale colonization of Loirr by Belis.