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disgruntledexplainer · 19 days ago

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Space travel in D&D (not spelljammer)

So there is a D&D campaign setting called Dragonstar, which is kind of like a space opera but with more magic. (don't worry I'm going somewhere with this)

The general premise is that every D&D world (or at least every 3rd edition / D20 D&D world) is in fact a separate planet in a large galaxy, and some of these planets have developed interstellar travel capabilities. Specifically, there is a grand empire founded by a coalition of dragons from a specific world, each of which takes turns ruling it's entire expanse. The spacecraft are technological, but interstellar travel is achieved through giant magical spheres which can teleport users near, not not exactly to, any planet in the galaxy. Whenever a Chromatic Dragon (one of the evil species) becomes emperor, it begins a massive campaign of horrifically violent invasions to expand it's borders, while whenever a Metalic Dragon (one of the good species) becomes emperor, it focuses on making sure all of the invaded planets are uplifted and prosperous, trying to make up for the actions of their evil kin. The current emperor is Chromatic (a red dragon specifically), and his invasions have just begun. There is a section of the galaxy that is currently unexplored, and it is this section that most other D&D worlds take place in.

This produces an interesting, and grim, situation where all of the countless D&D worlds are under threat of an invasion they are completely unaware of, and are ill-equipped to repel. Except... some actually DO have a chance. There are a number of D&D worlds I can think of who can, and indeed occasionally HAVE, developed space travel canonically, and I think if they formed a coalition they could stand some chance of repelling an invasion. Lets go over a few.

Before we start, though, I want to go over some of the things required to produce at least an inter-planetary civilization, and some hurdles that these planets would have to deal with. First off, the planet would need to develop a viable spacecraft. It would need to be able to get into space, survive the vacuum of space, and get back to the ground. It would also need to have a working life support system, particularly something to refresh the air. Finally, it would need to be able to do all of this after leaving it's planet's orbit. This last part is more of a tall order than one might expect, since the magic on each planet at least theoretically comes from a different (often planet-specific) source. This means that in order to function, the ship either needs to be technological in nature, or needs to run off of a form of magic that will continue functioning in the void between planets.

OK, lets start with the planets which have already canonically developed interstellar travel. For this purpose I am ignoring spelljammer canon, both because it's version of space if incompatible with that given in Dragonstar, and because it's... frankly kinda silly.

You might be surprised to learn that the first planet to develop space travel would be Athas. You know, the post-apocalyptic hellscape where civilization has literally degenerated into the stone age and all life is slowly dying out. However, we aren't talking about the present state of the planet, but rather how it was 14,000 years ago, when the sun was blue and the planet was covered in life and water. During that time, only two sentient species lived on the planet, the Rhulisti (a kind of halfling) and the Kreen (giant praying mantisis); of these, the Rhulisti were the most advanced. They developed a form of mystic tech known as Life-Shaping, which involved shifting the life force around within a creature to produce controlled mutations. While the Rhulisti died out with the coming of the Green Age (or rather deliberately mutated themselves into other species like halflings, elves, and humans), some of them did not. There is a comet called The Mesenger which appears periodically in the sky, which is actually an ancient, living Rhulisti spacecraft. If there are any Rhulisti still on board, it stands to reason that there might be others who left the planet before the Green Age began, and began colonizing other worlds within the system. If this is the case, then the problem of getting into space is solved: they're already there, and they have the "tech" to get back up if they want. They also have a means to get back down and life-support systems as well. Frankly, though, I don't think they're ever coming back down; life on Athas is just way too garbage to bother, and they could probably scavenge all the water and raw materials they need from the asteroid and kuiper belts of their system to live comfortably enough. If the Athas system is invaded, the actual world of Athas would be easily crushed, but the Rhulisti could just hide in the asteroid belt until everything blew over and then just go back to... whatever it is they have been doing for the past 14,000 years.

Next up is another weird one: Dragonlance. At first glance, the world of Dragonlance would seem to be a terrible candidate for a space-faring world; it's technology is medieval, it's magic depends on the presence of it's moons and the nearness of it's gods (at one point the planet got teleported by one of it's gods to another system away from its moons and it's now very confused gods, resulting in almost all of it's magic disapearing, with the exception of magic drawn from the soul or the chaotic energies of the Graygem). HOWEVER, there is one species which can, and likely has, gotten into space: the Tinker Gnomes. Blessed with an incredible intellect and cursed with a complete lack of common sense, tinker gnomes have an ingrained obsession with advancing a particular field of study, the pursuit of which consumes they're (often very short) lives. Individual Tinker Gnomes can advance their field of study by decades within a short period of time, but when they die all of these developments are often lost since Tinker Gnomes rarely read each-other's notes, and nobody else can understand them. In all likelihood, dozens of tinker gnomes have developed, built, and flown spacecraft of a variety of sorts, but all died due to a mistake that any other species on the planet would have been able to point out (like forgetting to add life support or choosing to cushion the fall of their landing ship with feathered pillows instead of... anything else). Perhaps a few HAVE gotten into space... and aren't quite sure how to get back down. I fully expect the orbits of Krynn to be littered with bizarre looking spacecraft and the dead gnomes who once piloted them. Needless to say, Krynn would be a sitting duck, but the floating wrecks might confuse, spook, and delay the invasion for a couple days at least.

Now for the ones who are almost there. The first that comes to mind is Eberron; honestly that world is a mere generation or two from launching a fully-functional spacecraft. This is for several interrelated reasons: Dragonshards, Dragonmarked Houses, Elemental Binding, and Soarwood. Dragonshards are a kind of crystal with magical properties, that come in three varieties, each keyed to a different, useful purpose. The Dragonmarked Houses are trade guilds run by powerful families with the innate ability to use useful but minor spell-like abilities that can be enhanced by one kind of dragonshard to achieve incredible feats of magic, and the guilds themselves often use another kind of dragonshard to help them mass-produce useful magic items. Elemental Binding is a process invented by the Drow and perfected by the Gnomes of Zilargo that involves binding an elemental into the third kind of dragonshard, producing a source of infinite energy. Finally, Soarwood is a kind of wood native to the homeland of the elves which is naturally buoyant in air, so that things composed mostly of soarwood can actually float in the air. All these combined allow the Elves, Gnomes, and the Dragonmarked Houses to collaborate to create wonders beyond any single wizard's ability to produce, including creating airships and submarines. For getting into orbit, elemental binding provides a practically infinite source of propulsion, and Soarwood makes it so that they don't have to worry about lifting something so heavy as a rocket so high up. Theoretically, someone could fly an eberron airship up right now and he would end up in space eventually. Regarding life support, elemental-bound submarines also use an air elemental to cycle and purify the air in the cabin. If the soarwood hull is sealed tight, it should be able to keep everyone breathing inside. Once in orbit, Airships could collaborate with each-other to produce combat space-craft out of metal, which wouldn't need to worry about leaving or returning to the surface and could just spend their time defending. The Dragonmarked could use Dragonshards to enhance their abilities to duplicate a number of classic sci-fi technologies: Lyrander heirs act as pilots or man the weapons (using the stormship binding methods to produce a ring of beta radiation and ionized gas they can direct at targets), Deneith heirs could provide energy shields, Sivis heirs could handle communications, Cannith heirs could act as engineers and repair-men, and Orien heirs could control teleportation circles to bring people aboard without landing (good for combat ships), or be in charge of interplanetary navigation by virtue of their natural ability to teleport. That's right folks, we have our first interstellar civilization candidate! After a couple more generations, the Arcane Congress might be able to develop methods to achieve the things the Dragonmarked can do without marks or shards, but it will work for now. Additionally, even though Eberron magic would NORMALLY only work near the planet, because it needs proximity to the ring of dragonshards floating in orbit to provide energy, a ship fully outfitted this way would have enough large dragonshards in it producing enough magical radiation to make sure that any magic keeping the ship together wouldn't fail, and that spellcasters could still cast spells. Indeed, when in orbit around their own world their spells might actually be SIGNIFICANTLY ENHANCED by the proximity of the enormous dragonshards that form the ring, making planetary defense easy. Dragonmarks don't need Dragonshards to work anyways. Ultimately, all of this together essentially means that the Dragonmarked Houses (specifically they're governing body The Twelve) would dominate the orbit of the planet for a VERY long time, and their military branch, The Blackwheel Company, would be the de facto defenders of the planet. Facing an invasion, I actually think Eberron could hold their own, so long as they kept close to their ships.

Next we have Theah, from the 7th Sea RPG, which was adapted into D&D during the D20 boom. Theah is currently in the age of restoration (AKA Swashbuckling Time), but for a variety of reasons their technology is advancing a lot faster that it normally would. A LOT FASTER. To compound this, they are surrounded by the ruins of technologically and magically advanced species from before humanity's emergence. One species in particular, the Tessera, had developed extensive magnetism-based technologies that included rail guns and even flying cities! Of these species, the Tessera's tech would be by far the most useful for getting the Theans to space: first, the fact that the Tessera were able to get their cities to float using magnetism at all means that Theah's planetary magnetic field must be WAY stronger than our own, enough to support the weight of a city. Second, the fact that they were able to float the cities means that it should be possible to use Tessera tech and the planet's magnetic field to launch a ship into the air, perhaps even into orbit! this would mean that the Theans wouldn't need to spend nearly so much time and resources developing ships to beat their planet's gravitational field, and getting down should be much easier too. All they would need to do is backwards-engineer the tech, which would require cooperation between the Explorers Society and the Invisible College (or rather La Academia de Ciencia del Profeta y Salvador, since most of the scientists of the Invisible College have gone back to their original places of work of the Reformed Vaticine Church of the Prophets in Castile with the deposition of Cardinal Verdugo and the decline of the power of his Inquisition). As for life support, it so happens that while Thean science in in general more advanced than it should be for the time, Thean medical science is leagues ahead of where it should be, and if it continues to be so they should be developing air-scrubbers in no time. Tessera tech even comes with rail-guns as I mentioned, meaning that when Theah does go to space, they may very well go into space armed to the teeth with advanced weaponry. On top of this, they may be able to get larger ships into orbit if they make them out of Dracheneisen, a special material that is as light as a feather but as strong as steel and easily shaped; if they can find more of it in the Drachenberg Mountains in Eisen and Ussura, they could make entire warships out of the material and launch them into space battle-ready, and landing such ships would be laughably easy if they had wings. As for magic... well, most of the magic of Theah probably wouldn't work far from its surface (Bargainer sorcery in particular is implied to require the Barrier to word, as it feeds parasitically off of it and damages it at the same time, while Glamour and Nacht have heavy ties to planes of existence unique to Theah and Pyryem and Laerdom both draw on the power of semi-divine entities to function), and those that don't (like Druid geasa and vaticine Miracles) would not be much use in space, and are notably weaker than magic in other worlds. But the Vaticine Church isn't particularly fond of most magic anyways, so that actually solves a problem rather than causing it. A downside of this is that, like most other worlds, Thean spacecraft would be strictly interplanetary instead of interstellar, but if faced with invasion a Theah so armed could repel it, albeit with some difficulty.

Now for one that would seem to be a good candidate for spaceflight, but isn't. By far one of the most technologically advanced worlds in D&D is the unnamed world in the Dragonmech rpg, which possesses steam-powered mechs the size of cities. Unfortunately, the kinds of technology that world has aren't very well suited to space travel, being large, heavy, inefficient, and ultimately flightless creations, and the fact that they are STEAM powered would mean that they would be constantly leaking precious resources just to keep their ships powered if they made one. On top of that, much of their environment has been completely wrecked by the Lunar Rain (basically their moon shifted in its orbit close enough that debris and entire living creatures began falling off of it, resulting in a searing rain of fine dust and giant meteors and terrifying monsters everywhere, not to mention the enormous tides which essentially washed away most of the other continents on the planet). The inhabitants of Highpoint are in no condition to be developing space-flight right now; they are too busy just trying to survive, and all of their extensive innovations are bent to that singular endeavor. Which is a shame, because they are one of the few planets whose magic would likely still work offworld with no caveats, since it seems to originate from some kind of cosmic energy (AKA the kind of stuff the Dragon Empire would likely be using). One benefit of this, though, is that they have been so busy fighting alien monsters for so long that if the Dragon Empire were to invade, they could probably hold their ground, except against an orbital bombardment, and I struggle to think of a reason why the Dragon Empire would even consider invading such a mess of a world to begin with; if anything they're worse off than Athas, and are a few bad days away of being exterminated by their own moon.

As for other worlds... OK, I know Oerth (Greyhawk) and Torril (Faerun) are supposed to have developed spelljammer vessels according to the spelljammer books, but I just can't see it. Both of them have heavily localized magic systems. Oerth derives it's power from the Great Wheel cosmology and "cosmic balance", so if they went to any world that WASN'T part of that cosmology (like Athas, Eberron, and Theah), their spelljammer engines would stop working, leaving them dead in space with no life support. Torril would have it even worse; their magic originates from the Spellweave, a network of energy that connects all living things ON TORRIL SPECIFICALLY, and over the course of the history of that world the Spellweave HAS LITERALLY DIED MULTIPLE TIMES. But did magic "die" on other worlds? no. This indicates that the Spellweave only provides power to the wizards and sorcerers of Torril, nowhere else, and if they were to travel to ANY other world their spelljammer engines would fail IMMEDIATELY. Even with the wizards of both worlds often being way more powerful than those in the worlds I previously mentioned, this problem would be too great to circumvent. And forget about using technology to produce spaceflight; those worlds are strictly medieval. If invaded, their spellcasters would definitely be able to put up an impressive fight (both worlds boast a surprising number of spellcasters above 20th level, which is pretty rare), it is unlikely they would be able to do anything about an orbital bombardment, or even know that it's coming.

Most other worlds would have similar problems, with most of them having extremely localized magic systems and low tech levels. They would fall like dominoes to the Empire without the aid of Eberron, and maybe future Theah and the Rhulisti if they find a way to leave their respective planets.

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