Speaking of worldmap additions...

  • Speaking of worldmap additions...

    A friend of mine asked the question of me the other day:

    " So the whole continent we see mapped is on the one gigantic crystal shard of the spherical whole...What is on the other shards and can you get to them by Sky-Ship?"

    I was actually a little dumbstruck in that we had never even gotten far enough to bother with the greater world at large. I was reminded of Imperial China throughout it's long history. They were so big, as an empire goes, that they had so much trouble within their borders that they didn't often go travelling outside of their borders. Their nation was a fully functional ecosystem in itself. Naturally they did have the silk road and trade with persia and the mediteranean as we know it, but for the most part, no expansionism, no outside exploration, dealing with their neighbors, india, tibet, japan, korea and the rest of Asia was quite enough for their adventurers and sages to contend with.

    Anyway, I am now a little smitten with the idea of journeying to other shards. Does the worldbook say what is at the edge of the oceans that go off the map? What if a house sent a skyship to explore as far north, south, east or west as it could go? With the climate change happenning in Scott's campaign, I can see there being impetus for discovering newer, more temperate lands. I AM THAT MARCO POLO! I AM THAT CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS! Bring it on!
    "Daggra" means "Enemy" in Tibetan.
    "Chora" means "Thief" in Sanskrit.

  • RE: Speaking of worldmap additions...

    Yes,..in the Basic Compendium it does sort of describe the "edges" of the great world-shards in the briefest, vague detail (two paragraphs), in this section of "A Veiled, Sundered World" on page 10:

    To say that the world is “shattered” requires further explanation; for Dárdünah is a stable (if somewhat imperfect) spherical world that floats within the ethers of space around two unique burning crystal suns (though most holy texts would say it is the suns which rotate around Dárdünah). Long ago some incredible force either within or outside the world caused it to rupture and crack to its very core, and its vast tectonic segments began to separate outward from its center in spectacular, raggedly conical wedges. The planet itself, and everything on it, would have been utterly destroyed had not inexplicable forces conspired to contain those pieces in an event which no doubt formed the dazzling nebulae which surround the broken sphere, and continue providing it with an atmosphere in which life may thrive.

    Our earthly sciences would be hard-pressed to explain how all this was possible, but then again, the laws of our own physics simply do not apply here. Separating each of these fragmented segments are seemingly bottomless chasms over a thousand miles wide, their depths filled with glowing mists and vapor, and perhaps concealing at their heart the living crystal core of the world. The oceans of Dárdünah, near the edges of these gargantuan rifts become tempestuous and deadly as they begin transmuting from liquid into vapor, forming great columns of clouds heavy with rain reaching into the skies. The heavens here are filled with constant storms and turbulence which few water vessels or air-ships could endure, and at the rim itself what is left of the waters appears to fall away into the clouds and mist at the veritable edge of the world, to become vapor as well. While very few inhabitants of Dárdünah’s “known world” are truly aware of these wonders, fewer still have ever dared try to pass beyond such an edge, and of those that have made the attempt, none have ever returned.

    There ya go!!

    Scottie ^^