Mystaraspace and Charon/Asterius
by Charles TaylorOk, lets have some hard numbers here:
The DM's Guide to Immortals (Gold Box) page 5-6 describe the Urt/Mystara star system, and give a table of planet sizes:
| Body | Alternate Name | Diameter (miles) | Orbit Radius (miles) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sun | Ixion | 864,000 | - |
| M-Venus | Valerias | 7,581 | 67 |
| Urt | Mystra | 7,926 | 83 |
| M-Mars | Vanya | 4,200 | 141 |
| Damocles | Arik | 6,103 | 257 |
| Jupiter | Ka | 88,670 | 484 |
| Saturn | Khoronus | 75,062 | 887 |
| Uranus | Odin | 29,577 | 1,783 |
| Neptune | Protius | 27,589 | 3,230 |
| Charon | Asterius | 5,320 | 7,105 |
| Sphere | - | - | 14,210 |
Champions of Mystara gives us a brief description of Matera and Patera/Myoshima; Patera has a circumference of 3,000 miles, giving a diameter of 955 miles. It is in a polar orbit with a period of 3 days and 12 hours.
So, Damocles/Arik is smaller than Mystra, but larger than Mars/Vanya.
Charon/Asterius is likewise intermediate in size between Damocles/Arik and Mars/Vanya.
Some thoughts on Asterius
Asterius is a 'gateway world' into Mystra space. Planetologists describe it as a 'bottle', 'flask', or 'gourd'-world - in shape, the world is a hollow sphere, with a shell about 500 miles thick, with a 1,000 mile across hole in one side (on the equator). The hole resembles the polar holes of Mystra, except that it is not cloaked in an illusion.
The outer shell is dark, with Ixion only providing a weak illumination during the day and distinctly chilly (average temperatures are near 0 celsius, regardless of latitude), a strange terrain for giant fungoid trees. One notable peril are roving bands of the machine-creatures known as meks.
The inner shell is what draws people to this world, and is partly responsible for the less flattering names it is known as... seen through the huge hole in the world shell is a bright central sun, illuminating a much more pleasant (for most folk) landscape of seas and wooded continents. Unfortunately, for many spacefarers that have come across this world, it is a bit of a trap, for a sargasso 'curtain' covers the entrance to the worlds interior. More than a few shipwrecks dot the landscape near the entrance, giving the world the sobriquets 'lobster pot' and 'ship-trap'.
In recent times steps have been taken to prevent such accidents, a number of spaceports have grown up around the rim of the hole, and various beacons and warning lights have been built. The largest is the city of Asterius' Boon, built onto a river delta near the boundry of the sargasso. There is some evidence that the immortal Asterius himself had something to do with the founding of the city.
The population of the inner sphere appears to largely consist of the decendents of the crews of ships that crashed due to the entrance sargasso. The inner shell is fertile, and provides many goods useful to the re-supply of spelljamming ships (food, wood, etc.).
Adventure Seeds
Salvage! - A ship carrying a faboulous lost (and possibly spurious) treasure has been traced to Asterius.
Meks! - what are they up to?
Meddling in the affairs of Immortals - what is Asterius up to?
Ok, thats my basic idea for this world - needs fleshing out a bit - and I'm not sure if it should have a truely indigenous population - and, if so, what? (ancient spelljamming race, ancient Mystarian race, other?)