Quote from DrakenBrines_ALT >>

Question: What is your dream solar system? This includes sun type, number of planets, life of the planets, moons, and asteroid belts?

 If I knew where my 1989 scribbled notes for my Star Frontiers campaign were... I'd have the most AEDorsay detailed answer for you. Not only did I love Star Frontiers back in the day - but back before real life swept in and buried me in responsibilities - I used to go crazy about planets and moons and solar systems... undoubtedly because of my love for Star Wars (which probably fed my love of Star Frontiers)... but I was so wildly interested in all of that. But... that was eons ago.

Y'all got me digging this morning, and i found this, lol.

Not something I'll pay for, but...

https://universesandbox.com/

I'm more likely to model something and haul it into Poser, lol

Quote from AEDorsay >>

Quote from DrakenBrines_ALT >>

Question: What is your dream solar system? This includes sun type, number of planets, life of the planets, moons, and asteroid belts?

 
I don't know nearly enough astrophysics to do this properly, but...

Type A star. Think in terms of an atom -- Nitrogen, with planets as electrons.

2 Gas Giants, orbits at 75 degrees to main plane, opposing, at extremes. Total of 25 moons between them.

Oort cloud beyond them in a near complete dyson sphere style surround, a mere two klicks thick for the cloud's hard, asteroid-based core.

1 frosty blob just outside the habitable zone no moon, but rings for days. High albedo.

2 planets in too close -- a mercury and venus. the outer one (venus) has a large moon (about half the size) that is stuck on  the side opposite the Sun, giving it a coronal refraction area that is *almost* habitable.

2 habitable zone planets. One has three moons, one has two moons.  Of the triplets, one is habitable itself, with a strong core, the others are more like rocks. Takes up a good handspan's worth of sky on the main planet. (that is, if you hold your palm up in the sky, the moon would be the size of your palm, without fingers, in the sky, so much larger than our moon, which is about two fingers or so). Habitable moon is blue and green, blah blah, oceans and the like. Telescopes are a wonder!

THe planet with two moons is habitable and kinda "in waiting" for the folks on the first one to mess things up. Because, well, people. So, also oceans, moons are smaller, more copper than iron, more nickel than tin. Gods use it as a resort town.

60 recognized constellations  I can never be arsed enough to actually lay them all out.

Huh, come to think of it, I should probably put all of this into my current set up, lol. I have an oort cloud, I have an A star, I have a 3 moon main with a big habitable moon. That's all, though. I mean, the whole practtical universse for Wyrlde is the size of the solar system, so expanding on it wouldn't be a bad thing.

 I like this, but don’t understand some of it. You know more about astrophysics than I do.

Quote from AEDorsay >>

Quote from DrakenBrines_ALT >>

Question: What is your dream solar system? This includes sun type, number of planets, life of the planets, moons, and asteroid belts?

 
I don't know nearly enough astrophysics to do this properly, but...

Type A star. Think in terms of an atom -- Nitrogen, with planets as electrons.

2 Gas Giants, orbits at 75 degrees to main plane, opposing, at extremes. Total of 25 moons between them.

Oort cloud beyond them in a near complete dyson sphere style surround, a mere two klicks thick for the cloud's hard, asteroid-based core.

1 frosty blob just outside the habitable zone no moon, but rings for days. High albedo.

2 planets in too close -- a mercury and venus. the outer one (venus) has a large moon (about half the size) that is stuck on  the side opposite the Sun, giving it a coronal refraction area that is *almost* habitable.

2 habitable zone planets. One has three moons, one has two moons.  Of the triplets, one is habitable itself, with a strong core, the others are more like rocks. Takes up a good handspan's worth of sky on the main planet. (that is, if you hold your palm up in the sky, the moon would be the size of your palm, without fingers, in the sky, so much larger than our moon, which is about two fingers or so). Habitable moon is blue and green, blah blah, oceans and the like. Telescopes are a wonder!

THe planet with two moons is habitable and kinda "in waiting" for the folks on the first one to mess things up. Because, well, people. So, also oceans, moons are smaller, more copper than iron, more nickel than tin. Gods use it as a resort town.

60 recognized constellations  I can never be arsed enough to actually lay them all out.

Huh, come to think of it, I should probably put all of this into my current set up, lol. I have an oort cloud, I have an A star, I have a 3 moon main with a big habitable moon. That's all, though. I mean, the whole practtical universse for Wyrlde is the size of the solar system, so expanding on it wouldn't be a bad thing.

 This is awesome! Is there sentient life on either the habitable moon or the habitable planet with two moons?

Quote from DrakenBrine >>

Quote from AEDorsay >>

Quote from DrakenBrines_ALT >>

Question: What is your dream solar system? This includes sun type, number of planets, life of the planets, moons, and asteroid belts?

 
I don't know nearly enough astrophysics to do this properly, but...

Type A star. Think in terms of an atom -- Nitrogen, with planets as electrons.

2 Gas Giants, orbits at 75 degrees to main plane, opposing, at extremes. Total of 25 moons between them.

Oort cloud beyond them in a near complete dyson sphere style surround, a mere two klicks thick for the cloud's hard, asteroid-based core.

1 frosty blob just outside the habitable zone no moon, but rings for days. High albedo.

2 planets in too close -- a mercury and venus. the outer one (venus) has a large moon (about half the size) that is stuck on  the side opposite the Sun, giving it a coronal refraction area that is *almost* habitable.

2 habitable zone planets. One has three moons, one has two moons.  Of the triplets, one is habitable itself, with a strong core, the others are more like rocks. Takes up a good handspan's worth of sky on the main planet. (that is, if you hold your palm up in the sky, the moon would be the size of your palm, without fingers, in the sky, so much larger than our moon, which is about two fingers or so). Habitable moon is blue and green, blah blah, oceans and the like. Telescopes are a wonder!

THe planet with two moons is habitable and kinda "in waiting" for the folks on the first one to mess things up. Because, well, people. So, also oceans, moons are smaller, more copper than iron, more nickel than tin. Gods use it as a resort town.

60 recognized constellations  I can never be arsed enough to actually lay them all out.

Huh, come to think of it, I should probably put all of this into my current set up, lol. I have an oort cloud, I have an A star, I have a 3 moon main with a big habitable moon. That's all, though. I mean, the whole practical universe for Wyrlde is the size of the solar system, so expanding on it wouldn't be a bad thing.

 I like this, but don’t understand some of it. You know more about astrophysics than I do.

If pressed I could lay out a parabolic orbit, but i would need the help of a big computer and people smarter than me ;)

Some points: Stars are classified in funny ways. An "A" is hotter, younger, and bluer in light than our own.

Most representations have all the planets circling or lined up along the same axis -- a line throught he middle of the star, horizontal. The gas giants circle the star in an "X" formation, with the rest above or below that horizontal line. Real thing. 

An Oort cloud is a bunch of matter that sits outside the edge of a solar system -- dust, mostly, the stuff that was left over from formation of the system. in the Pern books, the Red Star passess through an Oort cloud and picks up the thread. Voyager, a satellite we launched a gazillion years ago, just breached the Oort cloud of our solar system.

the fancy phrase about the corona and shit just means that there is a bit of brighter dusk/dawn for the one moon in a ring on the surface of the planet because it is always in the shadow of the bigger planet from the sun.

Albedo is the word for how much of the sun's light is reflected off the surface. Our moon is only about 0.07%.  At about 15%, the moon would be so bright that you wouldn't trip in the dark.

Quote from WoodsGirl0402 >>

Quote from AEDorsay >>

Quote from DrakenBrines_ALT >>

Question: What is your dream solar system? This includes sun type, number of planets, life of the planets, moons, and asteroid belts?

 
I don't know nearly enough astrophysics to do this properly, but...

Type A star. Think in terms of an atom -- Nitrogen, with planets as electrons.

2 Gas Giants, orbits at 75 degrees to main plane, opposing, at extremes. Total of 25 moons between them.

Oort cloud beyond them in a near complete dyson sphere style surround, a mere two klicks thick for the cloud's hard, asteroid-based core.

1 frosty blob just outside the habitable zone no moon, but rings for days. High albedo.

2 planets in too close -- a mercury and venus. the outer one (venus) has a large moon (about half the size) that is stuck on  the side opposite the Sun, giving it a coronal refraction area that is *almost* habitable.

2 habitable zone planets. One has three moons, one has two moons.  Of the triplets, one is habitable itself, with a strong core, the others are more like rocks. Takes up a good handspan's worth of sky on the main planet. (that is, if you hold your palm up in the sky, the moon would be the size of your palm, without fingers, in the sky, so much larger than our moon, which is about two fingers or so). Habitable moon is blue and green, blah blah, oceans and the like. Telescopes are a wonder!

THe planet with two moons is habitable and kinda "in waiting" for the folks on the first one to mess things up. Because, well, people. So, also oceans, moons are smaller, more copper than iron, more nickel than tin. Gods use it as a resort town.

60 recognized constellations  I can never be arsed enough to actually lay them all out.

Huh, come to think of it, I should probably put all of this into my current set up, lol. I have an oort cloud, I have an A star, I have a 3 moon main with a big habitable moon. That's all, though. I mean, the whole practtical universse for Wyrlde is the size of the solar system, so expanding on it wouldn't be a bad thing.

 This is awesome! Is there sentient life on either the habitable moon or the habitable planet with two moons?

So, the main planet (we'll call it Tau Ceti 4, because I am giggly this AM) is inhabited, and the habitable moon above it is inhabited, and there are some gates from one place to the other, but they haven't had any real contact for nearly 2000 years.

the second planet remains "unknown" officially, but yeah, there's life. Dinosaurs and shit, i suppose, though sentience is a matter of "do I really want to play there?"

That’s really fascinating! I love it.

I would only deviate from earth when it seems symbolic for something in the game concept. So like, I might make there be two suns, if it's a game with only two players, or if the characters all have doppelgangers or something. I care not for scientific accuracy. If you try to tell me two suns would cause, like, horrible tsunamis every day or something, I'll just say no, that's not how it works, unless daily tsunamis would be cool I guess.

Quote from ChoirOfFire >>

I would only deviate from earth when it seems symbolic for something in the game concept. So like, I might make there be two suns, if it's a game with only two players, or if the characters all have doppelgangers or something. I care not for scientific accuracy. If you try to tell me two suns would cause, like, horrible tsunamis every day or something, I'll just say no, that's not how it works, unless daily tsunamis would be cool I guess.

 
That's how it should be, imo.

Generally speaking, I don't stick to science for the purpose of believability, I do it for the sake of simplicity. I might know why a planet with two moons the size of ours is all kinds of really horrible and wonky, and all that, but I don't really care if it is something I want to see or engage with for *any* reason.

it is like trying to understand a galaxy where all the planets are only a single environment. tens of thousands of planets, each a single basic biome within limited variations makes zero sense in terms of science or accuracy or believability.

But it allows for telling a story that we get emotionally without pushing us to question it too hard while we are *in the story*.  it fits our way of seeing the world around us -- drive a few hours and you are on tatooine, drive a few more and you can visit arrakis, drive a bit further and now you can see the sites of corruscant.

It makes sense.

in the moment at least. In the psychology of telling and experiencing a story, those things must always serve the story because people will always default otherwise to what they know.  A D&D game where folks speak in old english as part of the play is seriously ick for most folks -- and frankly, from a linguistic perspective,it would be a horrible mishmash of Italian, Fench, Norman, German, Spanish, ROman, greek, and Egyptian,  from across six to eight different linguistic eras, just given the default expectations.

it simplifies things -- how many games are people actually using the words for the money, or are they just saying gold piece and silver piece and copper piece?

In the end, it is no different than "Once every 247 years, a bunch of asteroids come crashing to the planet, somehow managing to target all the settlements, and leaving big ole honkin chunks of stone just sitting there on a plain with secrets inside them (but no impact crater)."

that's more interesting to say than a glacial alluvial plain has left remnants.

The patterns feel right. 

I have a whole world I have created and I've spent years on just one continent of it, because I don't need the rest -- but maybe one day the story will take me elsewhere, and now I have the roots for it. The vast majority of stories -- hell, even something like Star Wars -- can be boiled down to a quick jaunt across the border to the neighboring place, and that place is usually much smaller in scale and scope in the practical terms of the needs of th story. Better to say "warp drive, Mr. Sulu" when in space than "full sails, Mr. Wiggins!" -- but we've seen that one as well.

All th science and shit does for me is allow me to take short cuts by allowing the stuff people already "know" to fill in the blanks. I don't have to create a whole language unless there is a purpose for it -- something that the story will call for. A strange scroll, a cryptic message, blah blah, and even then I only need to know enough of it to make it work in the moment. I don't have to be an English professor with a love of Finnish who spends years creating his own languages.  I don't have to be a TV scientist who shares the secrets of the stars to have a planet with a moon as big as your fist in the sky beside two others -- even if one of them is actually a massive space station (not a moon) from long before the time that people remember clearly.

Most folks have absolutely no clue what it was like to live during the time of the building of the Pyramids. Hell, they don't even know what it was like to live in the time of Roman Empire, or the Crusades, or the Enlightenment. Some folks will understand what happened to Copernicus after the bad stuff, others will have heard of some dude who called himself Paracelsus, but most people?

THey barely know what they learned in school, and if it happened after 7th grade, they will be lucky to know even a tenth of it unless they had to use it every day.

So I don't need a complex, detailed history of the last couple thousand years. Five paragraphs is all I need for the first two thirds of that, lol, the rest is icing to give it flavor and maybe make it memorable.

Maybe.

It is always more fun to let your imagination go. To be free. To have a Jedi and a Gunfighter stand side by side and face a dragon with six wings and a bad case of heartburn.

A quote: 

“So many people think that if you’re writing fantasy, it means you can just make everything up as you go.

Want to add a dragon? Add a dragon!

Want some magic? Throw it in.

But the thing is, regardless of whether you’re dealing with realism or fantasy, every world has rules.

Make sure to establish a natural order.”

 – V. E. Schwab

The natural order, though, is what you make it out to be, and you only ever have to fill in the parts that are different.

I just like a lot of different.

Quote from DrakenBrines_ALT >>

Question: What is your dream solar system? This includes sun type, number of planets, life of the planets, moons, and asteroid belts?

 Well, not very scientifically accurate, but...

The sun is an arrow shot across the sky each day by the sun god. The arrow was carved from the bones of an ancient primordial pterodactyl.

The world is flat. It is also on the shell of a giant flying space turtle named Takoaka

The moon is actually a giant portal in the sky. It opens and closes in an endless cycle that has greatly affected how people keep track of time. If you travel through the portal you end up in a black and white (and occasionally blue or, under particularly bad occasions, red) dream-like world ruled by the moon goddess. It is also possible to fly a hot air balloon to the moon. 

There are other "planets" and not all of them rest on the back of turtles. There are ring worlds and worlds built around the remains of dead titans. There is one world that is sloshed about in the open beak of a giant pelican while another is balanced on the tip of a seal's nose. There are planets ruled by Grey-like aliens who fly UFOs about the cosmos to make crop circles, steal livestock, and vivisect humans.

There is one world that floats in a giant bathtub. The people there worship a god called The Bather who constantly fights against a demonic figure who wishes to pull the bathtub's plug which would drain the bath and destroy the world. Rubber duckies are greatly revered there.

Of course there are constellations which are named by the time of people that look at two tiny dots in the sky and see a da Vinci painting in full color. Some of the most well known ones are the Cowboy, the Dragon, the Fish Hook, the Knight, the Lobster, the Shrimp, the Northern Striped River Marmoset, Amerelot the Eagle, Amelia the Archer, Jack the Swing Dancer, Theodore Roosevelt, Slice of Key Lime Pie, the Exasperated Pregnant Lady with Eight Children, the Medusa, Granata the Pomegranate, Draco the Dragon, and many more. 

This is the universe my Dnd world is set in. 

Agreed. When you put the six winged dragon in, it's on you to say "this is strange, dragons usually have two wings" or "this is normal for the dragons in this place."

You can get a lot of mileage from adjusting whether something is strange. The Rogue uses a rapier, but he's the only one in the nation who does? That can be interesting. Ghosts are just as numerous as living people? Gosh, what a wild world that would be.

I find that this really has a huge effect on players' interactions with guns in particular. If you make your world one where there's guns all over, you'll probably only get one character who uses them. If you make it one where guns don't exist at all, but you forget to also remove cannons for example, then you can all but guarantee your players will at some point try to invent the gun.

So, Daisy managed to get her suspect pool down to two, and has "ridden off to check on a lead" while secretly following the party. It is a lot for her to deal with being on a different Mortal Realm, she thinks it might be The Bleak, but they all keep looking at her like she is crazy. She did manage to find an excuse to use her mana lightning, and she was able to stop one of the party from falling into a pit trap in some old ruins being explored as a favor to the local Count's Vizier (who wants them to find a particular lamp).

Having an NPC played live proved to be irresistible, especially since the DM and I were on a separate screen exchanging notes the whole time. I had a blast. I really do have to figure out who the fugitive is, lol, so who knows...

Seeing The_Summoning_Dark's explanation of their world put in a mind to explain how the people of Wyrlde see theirs, lol.

The Sun is a ball of fire around which the planets, of which Wyrlde is one and Avilon is one continent upon it revolve. Within the sun are war criminals being burned for eternity. At least two are beholders.

The stars are also balls of fire that have been set up within the night's sky. Some are a reward, hiding within them pocket dimensions where heroes of old are allowed to rest in peace and comfort, at least one with a 100 virgins because he was a dirty old pervert. The most heroic form the stars that guide the most important constellations of the Hearth, the Hall, the Field, and I forget the other two and don't feel like looking them up. Lesser heroes and legends have their own spaces in the constellations that make up the local astrology.

There are three moons. You can't miss the big one, which is blue and green and on a clear night you can see storms moving across the face of it. Over the course of five years, you can see the whole of it, the two bodies spinning about slightly syncopated so that they are able to see the full of each other. Another moon is a smaller, pink and sky blue and white, and it meanders through the sky seasonally, matching the Solstice and equinox so they are always on the nights of a full moon.

The third moon iis comparatively tiny, and bright and shiny, silvery. Myths tell us that it is how the Ancients and the Gods came to the world. 

The entire universe is the size of what the Powers That Be tell us is a Solar System. It was made that way, torn form a larger universe, a multiverse some say, durin the God's War, by Belial, who wanted to deny the Bright Host any help from outside. When the Cataclysm happened, it stayed that way. In doing so, though, it created reflections, reverberations, shadows and variances within the harmonies of the All, and most believe that is how magic came into being. We know that there was no magic until during the God's War other than that held by the Powers That Be, and that the Planes and their dimensions did not exist as they do now.

THus, the Ephemeral Plane exists and casts shadows of itself, and those shadows became the Celestial, Infernal, Necrotic, Radiant, Shadow, and Nether Planes. And each of them reflects the shades of the dimensions around the Ephemeral Plane -- The Astral, Ethereal, and Faewilde. To each of the Planes went the children and grand children of the Powers That Be -- becoming Denizens such as the Devils of Hell and the Angels of Heaven, the Nightmares of the Nether and the Dreams of the Shadow. And although they were sealed, it was not long before those who learned the secrets of magic found ways to summon them, and brought them through, and they, in turn, found that there was always a reason to be here.

And so there are the reflections of the Mortality, the Mortal Plane of the Ephemeral, and they are Yrthe, The Bleak, The Unknown, and more. Seven Mortal Realms, and as we die our souls and spirits (our Anima, consisting of Soul, Spirit, and Mind) is divorced from our bodies (Our Flesh, consisting of Heart and Bone) and based on how we lived our livs in this world we travel tot he next dimension where we are reincarnated into another life.

That is the Cycle. To each life we are all given a span always divided by five, and that is our allotment.  How we live in that time and how and when we die is known only to the three who hold all, the Fates, the Sisters whose existence was bound and ensured by the actions of a proud Power, and the agreement with the Anima Mundi, who is now perhaps more powerful than she was ever meant to be.

dwarfs and Elfin, Therian and Triton, Seraph and Cambion, goblin and Thyrs -- all of us come from the same original stock, the same flesh. The Ancients are long gone, but we are their children, and so all of us are always and forever one people, divided into kinds by the losses we endured.

yes, even the Goblins, Just because they lay eggs doesn't mean they aren't still part Ancient. But how we get the Whole of Humanity is a different tale for a different time...

Quote from AEDorsay >>

Quote from SirTawmis >>

One of my players from my D&D game, bought me BG3 last night.
My video card struggles at "Ultra" (which is not surprising - the machine I got was pretty much just for writing - never expected to play any games on it, as I usually stick to console gaming, unless it's old, retro DOS game). Even when I tell it to "Auto Detect" it swears Ultra is what I should run it at - but the game becomes much more manageable set to "Low." (It's the same thing for Sons of the Forest, which is a fun, but chaotic survival game).
I played a bit - not gonna spoil anything - but got to a beach - found a crypt - fell in a trap - and things went rapidly south since I had - in doing so - accidentally split the party.
So gonna restore and maybe not do that, since my main character perished.
I also loaded up Wizardry 8 (which is a great CRPG from years ago) - and been playing that again - because it appeared on my YT Stream and got me all itchy to play it again, even though I've beat it like twice - I was seeing things in this person's YT Play through - that I either didn't do or don't remember. So got me all wanting to play it again.
Also been spending the last few days (on my world's site, I have monsters listed and their lore - not their stats - so players - and myself, can read it - and been revamping a bunch of the lore or making it match the lore I've since introduced since posting them and such). That's actually been quite fun.

 My now ancient desktop hasn't been turned on since 2020, except to set it up once, lol. I work on laptops and tablets exclusively -- so I hear and feel the pain of the game tryign to tell you that no, ultra is good, even if it was what ultra is a couple generations ago...
Splitting the party is never wise. But that is what traps are mean to do, after all...
I remember hearing a lot about Wizardry. Which meant it had to be huge among certain circles, lol. Going back and replying a game is always great fun if you see something you never saw before. I can only stomach about 20 minutes of watching someone else play at a time max, but when I do, it usually gets me thinking!
One of my favorite things to do is work on lore, for obvious reasons, lol.  I am a huge fan of the unreliable narrator who gets 60% of everything right 80% of the time. In between corrections, adjustments, updates, and meeting the needs of some cranky people who are making plans for 2024 that I am not sure I am ready for (but will I ever be, really?), I am tweaking the lore in the adventure outlines. I think I have most of them broken down into good session sized chunks of about four hours. But it means years of sessions, lol.Two hundred seventy five milestones. Twenty One mainline Adventures, plus 60 sides/errands (and random tales for more), four different concurrent subplots, and at least two romances. Right about 2.5 million XP total, per character. 
I know all of that, just don't ask me to go into the details because that's just the core outlines and only the first five adventures are actually planned out to any depth.
Tomorrow I am playing Daisy for real. I have to read passages of Raymond Chandler books to get a feel for her, lol.
First time I have played a character in, shit, four years? Faerun-based world, I am coming in as a Traveler (planar visitor), 7th Level Nomad (Jedi with a twist), and yes, she is a Reeve on a hunt after a convict (who is one of the other players, but none of us know who).
Nala and BB are not coming.  Chris is afraid of BB. 

 
In regards to BG3 - I ended up starting completely over - and this time made a Tiefling Paladin (an accurate version of my current D&D character)... I normally DM (I run... counts... five games... all in a "living world" as I call it where the actions done in one game can carry over into other campaigns... so if group_01 burns town_01 down, when group_02 comes along, town_01 is either still burnt down or in a state of repair)... but, I am fortunate to have one of my players DM a game of D&D (which is Curse of Strahd)... so I made that character in BG3, and over all, have been doing better. I do like that the game changes based on your dice rolls at decision points... so in just the start, I have already had a very different game, because two rolls I made (different areas) had the opposite results... And when I got to said area, where I fell in the trap, I convinced the would be people that doing what they're doing is a bad idea and that the fight was avoided entirely... until I ventured into said area and encountered their "friends" .... which, with a full party I was able to take down, but it was still pretty close. So BG3 is an impressive game (even if my computer struggles even on Low Quality mode, lol). But all weekend, I have really been revamping a ton of my monster lore and such, and updating images and all of that... it's been a wonderful exercise in creativity. The down side is having so much more to do - and knowing that tomorrow morning I have to go to work. However, I won't complain too much because work helps pay the bills (which are way too many!) - because this single income house hold thing (wife is on disability) - living in San Diego is not easy at all. 
Like you, I love me some lore - and even if some of it will NEVER be seen by my players (they're aware of the monster listing with the lore - and just told them in Discord how I was updating it - but not expecting anyone to read it!) Some of them do though because they love the lore I've created - and also some of the lore was generated because of the adventures that various parties have had - and I've made up lore on the spot to explain things. So they enjoying seeing their direct influence on my campaign. Which I think really helps with the "living world" feeling. One of my players, I will just call her "J" is in all five of my games. And so in the recent live, in person game (I posted about it somewhere above) - all the references I was making she was absolutely smiling about because she is aware of it all (though the various characters she plays in my campaigns). So that's really cool to see.

Quote from DrakenBrines_ALT >>

Question: What is your dream solar system? This includes sun type, number of planets, life of the planets, moons, and asteroid belts?

All right - figured I'd take a wild stab at this one - and make it D&D related.
Keep in mind Space.com and my love of Norse mythology helped with a lot of this...

There would be a sole sol (see what I did there?) - where sixteen planets orbit around it. The first seven planets are considered "terrestrial planets" due to their rocky surfaces. These seven planets are called: Aesir is the first planet. Similar to Mercury this planet burns hot being closest to the sun. The second planet, often called "the second sun" is Surtur - a gas planet whose gases burn endlessly like the sun itself. Surtur is the easiest planet to see, night or day, burning in the sky. The third planet is called Hel. It is believed at one time this planet hosted a wide variety of life until an incredible solar flare that pushed Surtur's flames across Hel extinguished all forms of life on Hel. In a strange twist of fate, the magic that naturally flowed on Hel re-animated the charred corpses - and so Hel became a living death planet. The fourth planet is the primary planet where the main adventures take place - this planet is called Vanir - and is similar to Earth in many regards. However, the magic that flows throughout Vanir also allows for floating castles and mountains that sit upon clouds and considered a natural phenomenon. When it rains, rainbow bridges are solid and provide easy access to different areas and a means to avoid flooding. The fifth planet is named Balder and has been observed by many mages through powerful telescopes - it is completely covered in flora and subject to many storms that feed the lush planet's forested area. There is no signs of humanoid life on Balder, which many believe is what has allowed the flora and fauna to bloom in such a manner. Efforts are underway to discover a means to travel to the planet, as its plant life and fauna may contain many potential cures for maladies of the world. The sixth planet - with its unusual gravity belt that whips around it - was originally believed to be two eyes and thus named Heimdall - however, as Mages have studied this - the asteroid belt resembles more of an hour glass - and Mages speculate that if they could reach the planet some form of time travel may be possible. The seventh planet whose unique voyage around the sun seems to slow down and speed up at different times is named Loki, because of its deceptive movements. Loki is primarily a stone covered planet with bodies of water and lava scattered about. Just beyond Loki is a large planet - the largest by any means - larger than Jupiter itself - and is an ice planet called Thrym. Thrym's surface has never been seen - and some speculate that it was originally some form of large ice that captured a gravitational pull around the sun - and as the eons passed, grew larger and larger. Beyond Thrym is the nineth planet - whose entire surface seems to be water - and constantly rages storms with non stop lightning and thunder. This planet was naturally named Thor. Thor has a twin planet, similar in size and atmosphere, also with thunderous storms - and so the tenth planet was named Aegir. The eleventh planet - twice as large as Aegir - also has water over 97% of it - and was named Njord. Unlike Aegir and Thor, the planet Njord seems devoid of storms. The twelfth planet was only recently discovered and named Tyr because of its ability to hide in plain sight it would seem. Unlike other planets, Tyr has a unique trait in which one side seems completely reflective - giving off the appearance that nothing is there. The thirteenth planet is a massive gas giant - whose atmosphere is incredibly dense; however, plants and mountains thrive on this planet. No known animals or humanoids exist on the planet dubbed Uller. The fourteenth planet is named Hermod, because in the manner the planet orbits the sun it frequently comes close to colliding with other planets, before re-establishing its own orbit again. It's uncertain what kind of force can cause this "lucky planet" to swerve the way it does and avoid impact with other planets. The fifteenth planet is Frigga - and this is because this planet is surrounded by thirty moons - all said to be "children of the planet of Frigga." Frigga's climate is thought to be covered in ice; however, all of her moons seem to indicate that they have no ice on them and are teaming with wildlife. The final planet is none other than Odin - a massive planet, larger than the rest - and larger than the sun itself. Moving the slowest around the solar system it is said that the planet Odin keeps an eye on all the other planets. The atmosphere of Odin is a complete mystery as all attempts to view it are mysteriously blocked.

Quote from AEDorsay >>

Y'all got me digging this morning, and i found this, lol.
Not something I'll pay for, but...
https://universesandbox.com/
I'm more likely to model something and haul it into Poser, lol

 Son of a... 30 bucks isn't much for an odd simulator... and its requirements are pretty low for looking that amazing...

I may need to get this at some time...

I didn't know what botw was but when you mentioned hearts, seeds, faeries, I knew what you were talking about.

I totally need a new machine in order to play BG3.

Quote from DrakenBrines_ALT >>

Question: What is your dream solar system? This includes sun type, number of planets, life of the planets, moons, and asteroid belts?

 The star wars universe. (Ik that's a universe not a solar system. Sue me)

Quote from Wysperra >>

I didn't know what botw was but when you mentioned hearts, seeds, faeries, I knew what you were talking about.

 
I am still trying to piece what the above is in reference to? lol

Quote from SirTawmis >>

Quote from Wysperra >>

I didn't know what botw was but when you mentioned hearts, seeds, faeries, I knew what you were talking about.

 
I am still trying to piece what the above is in reference to? lol

 

Quote from DrakenBrine >>

Quote from Amnon_Balderk >>

Anyone playing Tears of the Kingdom?

Much more my speed of an rpg-style game.

Plus, the glorious Matt Mercer voices Ganondorf. :)

 I’ve been playing botw instead, as preparation. 14 hearts, full barbarian armor, 8 stamina upgrades, all divine beasts, 23 or so Korok seeds, unlocked all great fairies, at least 76 shrines done, and defeated Ganon twice.

 The Nintendo Zelda thing.

Quote from SirTawmis >>

Quote from Wysperra >>

I didn't know what botw was but when you mentioned hearts, seeds, faeries, I knew what you were talking about.

 
I am still trying to piece what the above is in reference to? lol

 

 
I am assured, after checking in with persons younger and more "hep" than I, that botw is Legend of Zelda: "Breath of the Wild", the previous incarnation of the adventures of Link aiding the Princess, an exclusive IP for Nintendo.

A google search conducted while typing this tells me that the Princess Zelda is not Link's final form, that there is no catching them all, and that no cards were harmed in the making of that game or the current Legend of Zelda chapter, titled Tears of the Kingdom.

The series centers on the various incarnations of Link, a courageous young man of the elf-like Hylian race, and Princess Zelda, a magical princess who is the mortal reincarnation of the goddess Hylia, as they fight to save the magical land of Hyrule from Ganon, an evil warlord turned demon king, who is the principal antagonist of the series. Ganon wishes to use the Triforce, a sacred relic left behind by the three goddesses that created Hyrule, to remake the world in his own dark image. When gathered together, the power of the Triforce can grant any wish its user desires; however, if someone with a heart that does not possess a balance of the three virtues of Power, Courage, and Wisdom attempts to touch the Triforce, it will split into three triangles and bond with three people whose hearts embody the required virtue.

It has quite the backstory and history, is incredibly influential (including on D&D), and my kids *still* play the music from Ocarina of Time.

So, as I noted in a different thread, I finally figured out how the hell I am going to do Psionics, lol.

The downside is that it isn't a thing done until at least 3rd Level, and really not until later.  Psionics and Magic "ignore each other" -- that is, magic is not affected by psionics and psionics are not affected by magic.

All psionics are Psychic, however, so they can technically interact, as psychic damage and such are still a thing, but I just made it way worse than folks may realize, lol.  And since Wraiths, Wights, and Ghosts on Wyrlde all do Psychic Damage, as do Nightmares and Dreams (in addition to Shadow and Nether) it is quite the interesting thing to me. Esecially because it solves the practical problem of the traditional 1e era Wraith attack.

Wraiths originaly sicked "levels" from you. Your level was your life energy. Bad day with a wraith or other level sucking thing and your 9th level Flibber might be a 3rd level Flibber at the end. IT made them super scary and a pain in the ass. Liches, too -- Acerak was notable for that.

With what I did to make this work, though, is give folks Psi Points that work only if you take a special ability that is basically "i wanna do psionics".  That gives you a bunch more resistance to psychic stuff (four times more, specifically) and these psi points essentially operate as HP for psychic stuff. Run out of them, though, and you pass out, and now it all comes out of your psychic score. Normally you "heal" Psyche according to your ability modifier for it.

But at 1 and lower, there is no positive modifier, and so you do not heal from it.  Since Psyche is a derived score, and not a main one, I can play with it without significant impact on the rest of the game -- unless they are dealing with psychic stuff. So drop someone's score to zero and they don't die, they just go persistently vegetative until someone comes along and heals them.

Heals their psyche. 

ANd because this is a game where I have magical girls, I have Heart, and Heart is what you use to deal with Trauma, so Psychic damage means Heart Saves, and that includes spooky ass places that don't feel right.  Like, oh, cabins in the woods, or abandoned summer camps with lakes near them.

And When two Psychics go at it, it all comes down to rolls and their Psyche scores as well as resource management. I don't want to run an all psionics game, sot hose same points that they have to survive being hit with are the ones they use to perform deeds, and I only have five levels of "psionic power levels" (instead of the 10 for magic) so they have to be smart about what they do and how they do it. In general terms, the max Psi Points are 100 (for a 20th level character with scores of 20 in Int, Wis, San, and Cha) so a maximum cost of 10 points for the big ones is reasonable and gives it "oomph", but also keeps things trickling, since max recovery is still going to be 5 per hour of rest for that same maxed out person. with damage rolls (5d6 max) and such, it should be enough.

Or be like Daisy and say screw it, resource management is boring stuff for accountants, and pass out. I confess, I am more like Daisy.

It looks like I will end up with close to 50 different "powers" or uses, including the different -kinesis types and the back and forth kinds of things, but it is working out and the mechanics seem sound enough. 

Sorry for using this space to crow a bit -- I am super relieved, and now all I have to do that is a big problem is solve for Runes, which I am way more likely to say screw it with. The Power Words are just spells, so easy enough to handle, but the Runes were getting complex and I was not looking forward to that much more work.

And yes, I will put it into a doc separate down the road and put it out there. 

Question:

Why are hyumans the default (or not) in your world?