My thoughts have turned again to a possible Pathfinder setting. Previously I had thought about doing a Pathfinder ringworld, but kept running into problems because while I've been using Larry Niven's Ringworld concept, my ringworld is a lot different from his, made by different engineers for different purposes.
I also was not happy with the names and a lot of how it was working out.
So I decided to try again, with a new name, and making this world a huge mobius-strip that circles the star three times and then twists to rejoin itself. With about ten times more surface area than Niven's Ringworld, I'm thinking of putting it in the Large Magellanic Cloud for a dramatic view of the Milky Way Galaxy.
But then this world has to be brought to the PCs scale. I do not intend to even try to map out the whole world, but instead concentrate on the area where the PCs are. I decided to put them near one of the rim walls, which is considered to be "north", and to the PCs look like an ever-rising range of mountains that rises to block most of their view of the night sky. The PCs land is then like a plateau that extends for a few thousand miles and then drops 20,000 feet to the ocean below. I've done a very crude map which covers about 6000 by 8000 miles.
The advantage of a ringworld-type setting is it gives me room to be really extravagant with terrain. On most worlds, if gnolls dominate a twelve million square mile continent, that is a big chunk of real estate. On a ringworld, there's plenty of room. (For reference, 12 million square miles is about the size of Africa.)
Introduction to Tobena
Tobena is a Pathfinder campaign set on mobius-ringworld that loops around the sun three times, then twists back to join the ends of the inner and outer loop. The world has seven "heavens", four "elemental levels", nine "hells" and a median "midgard" level, for a total of 21 layers. It is unimaginably long, unimaginably wide, and thousands of miles thick. It is big.
There is a second star in this system, billions of miles past the outer loop. PCs do not know how large their world is, who built it, or why. They only know that it is large, far beyond the small piece of it that they are familiar with, and they look with wonder at the marvelous complexity of the sky.
Fofatha
The PCs come from a land called Fofatha. There, they use bronze-age technology to make a living, and defend themselves from the many monstrous threats that threaten their existence. Fofatha happens to be near one of the rim walls, which resemble increasingly an increasingly unscalable mountain range. This means that almost half of their view of the sky is blocked by the great stone wall they call the Zhem.
From the Zhem, four great rivers flow down to the Fofatha lowlands. Eventually they come together into the giant Moria River, which then flows a thousand miles to the Maurd Sea. At the end of the Maurd Sea, mountains block its flow except for a four mile high waterfall that sends water steadily crashing into the Torkin Ocean.
The Surrounding Lands
While Fofatha covers about four million square miles in its own right, they also have knowledge of and connections with the surrounding territories. reference: four million square miles is about Europe
The Zhem Mountains keep rising higher and higher to the north. There are canyons that extend for thousands of miles, bordered by rock walls hundreds of miles high. Travel is difficult in Zhem, and the region is inhabited by fearsome giants and even more fearsome barbarians, as well as exotic monsters. It is a land of frequent natural hazards as well, which the locals know to avoid.
Nobody knows what lies beyond Zhem, because getting through Zhem is so difficult.
The Torkin Ocean is more hospitable to travellers, with a pleasant climate and numerous islands. Hundreds of miles into the Torkin Ocean is the continent of Vesard, where numerous hybrid and tauric creatures conduct a civilization of city-states and empires not very much unlike Fofatha itself, except for the warmth of climate, and the strangeness of the creatures to be encountered. Bards are quite ubiquitous in Vesard, and highly prized for their talents.
Chushk is a mountainous land to the east of Fofatha. It is nowhere as extremely mountainous as Zhem, but many of the peaks tower miles above the valleys, and some of the mountains are volcanic. There are a few large, relatively flat areas where great empires form. The region is rich in metals such as copper and gold, which gets traded to Fofatha in exchange for zinc and tin. Beyond Chushk is Don, a cool, desert land sparsely populated by inhabitants with a sinister reputation.
Montova lies to the southwest of Fofatha. The terrain gradually slopes down from the Fofatha level to the Torkin Ocean. The Gata Empire is a major source for "Red Gold", and Gatan pirates ply both the Torkin Ocean and the Maurd Sea. Two major rivers from down from Zhem through Montova, the Vales River and the Astes. They flow southwest to meet on the far western side of Montova, in the Vultura Canyon, before entering Salamanca beyond. Salamanca is known as a realm of wizards.
Nar lies to the southeast. The land climbs, then dips into a desert plateau about a mile above the Tokrin Ocean. The pyramid kingdoms occupy the northwest corner of this land. Beyond is uninhabited sandy wastes with rare oasis until one gets to either the jungles of Doloda or the jungles of Nolinda.
(A rough map - not to scale)
[code]
Zhem Zhem Zhem Zhem Zhem
Fofatha Chushk Don
Montova Fofatha Chushk Don
Salamanca Montova Torkin Nar Doloda
Montova Torkin Nolinda
[/code]
The Third Dimension
Not much is known, beyond the fact that there are two skies, seven heavens, two underworlds, and nine hells. Immediately above Fofatha are the Cloudlands, a sparsely-inhabited region of inhabitants dwelling on the clouds. Above the Cloudlands is the Firmament, about which little is known. Above the Cloudlands are the seven heavens.
Immediately below Fofatha is the Underdark, where mysterious creatures lurk in stone caverns. Below the Underdark is the Magma Sea, where temperatures are hot enough to melt some rocks, although other rocks are impervious enough for inhabitants to eek out a living on these islands. Below the Magma Sea are the nine hells.
Interesting concepts.
I'm curious: why complicate the topology of the thing? I think Niven's Ringworld or the mini-ringworld from Halo are already pretty darned difficult to come by (built of tremendous amounts of unobtanium, etc.) that the additional engineering problems behind a Mobius strip aren't worth the extra surface area. Also, I'm having trouble envisioning the configuration of the construct. Do you have a diagram? Is it constructed of some sort of flexible material? What happens when your portion of the 'world' happens to be facing away from the sun? Have you thought about the issues fixed by Ringworld's "sun squares" and how those might work with your world?
When you talk about above and below are you meaning figuratively or literally? I'm assuming you can't just take a drill and start boring to eventually reach the underdark, then the Magma Sea, then the Nine Hells? At some point you're entering another plane that doesn't actually exist in the Material?
Just some thoughts that came to mind when I first read through it. If you're dealing with pure Fantasy and not Sci-Fi, you can make any bloody thing you like :) but if you're thinking of introducing some Sci-Fi to it then I think you'll want to make sure the physics and so forth are defensible. Hope any of that helps or provides food for thought. Ringworld's an old favorite of mine too...and I'd love to RP on it (or in the Smoke Ring, actually).
M
Interesting concepts.
I'm curious: why complicate the topology of the thing? I think Niven's Ringworld or the mini-ringworld from Halo are already pretty darned difficult to come by (built of tremendous amounts of unobtanium, etc.) that the additional engineering problems behind a Mobius strip aren't worth the extra surface area. Also, I'm having trouble envisioning the configuration of the construct. Do you have a diagram? Is it constructed of some sort of flexible material? What happens when your portion of the 'world' happens to be facing away from the sun? Have you thought about the issues fixed by Ringworld's "sun squares" and how those might work with your world?
When you talk about above and below are you meaning figuratively or literally? I'm assuming you can't just take a drill and start boring to eventually reach the underdark, then the Magma Sea, then the Nine Hells? At some point you're entering another plane that doesn't actually exist in the Material?
Just some thoughts that came to mind when I first read through it. If you're dealing with pure Fantasy and not Sci-Fi, you can make any bloody thing you like :) but if you're thinking of introducing some Sci-Fi to it then I think you'll want to make sure the physics and so forth are defensible. Hope any of that helps or provides food for thought. Ringworld's an old favorite of mine too...and I'd love to RP on it (or in the Smoke Ring, actually).
M
I've been thinking of doing a fantasy setting inspired by Smoke Ring, too. Maybe some other day.
The main motivation for complicating the topology is because people kept confusing my setting with Larry Niven's setting. The same basic idea is the same, a huge structure in space, but other than that it is quite different. I figure making a mobius-strip world makes it clear that this is a different setting.
My concept is that the engineers designed it as a a multilayer structure wrapped and twisted. So yes, you can drill down physically and reach the Nine Hells. There would probably be gateways to the outer planes there, too. But this settings "seven heavens" and "nine hells" are different from the places in the Great Wheel cosmology, being names of layers in this structure.
I am still working on some of the details of the configuration but imagine taking a ribbon, drawing it through space around a star, sometimes moving closer, sometimes moving farther away, and then giving it a half twist before joining the ends.
It occurs to me that I will have to double up these layers so that the nine hells link with the nine hells and the seven heavens with the seven heavens where they join up. So the "ribbon" actually has 41 layers.
The parts facing away from the star would be in perpetual darkness. I've figured on making a second star to orbit this system and provide light for the far side, but it would be minor, like the moon at best, and then there would be the part that is facing neither star.
On the other hand, putting this in the Large Magellanic Cloud means that the structure will at least be illuminated by the Milky Way Galaxy, which would have an apparent magnitude of -2.0, which would be about the brightness of Jupiter, but spanning over 1/3 of the sky. There could certainly be some dramatic viewpoints from this world.
One of the things I've not worked out, is how to give the people on the "Middle World" layer a good view of the sky, with all the heavens above them. My thought is that the heavens are primarily made of transparent material, or perhaps even have a lace-like structure allowing a view of the sky. Inhabitants of the Cloudlands live on shifting clouds that frequently offer inhabitants a clear view of the sky. Inhabitants of the heavens could have similar arrangements.