Tag: Rhydinspace

(continued from “The A’Taran-Orc War, Part 2“)

The Orcs who came down from the mountains had to focus on staving off starvation. The A’Tarans had not destroyed all the crops and livestock. Every surviving Orc went into the fields. A new governmental structure was birthed in the need to organize labor and food distribution. It was communal and local. It would grow into a diverse set of deliberative systems with a weak central government.

Warriorship was not abandoned, but it would never again be the foundation of rule and law.

(continued from “The A’Taran-Orc War, Part 1“)

The Orc Nation had no fixed defenses—had never needed them. Their remaining military forces were overwhelmed on the verdant plains of their heartland as the A’Taran horde swept east from the gate. The Orc capital city had no walls. The A’Tarans sacked it with great slaughter. The new Orc King died there, but more than that. The entire ruling class was wiped out. The remaining Orc people, shattered and leaderless, fled for their lives into the mountains beyond the capital.

Perhaps shocked by their own savagery, the A’Tarans did not pursue the Orcs further. They abandoned the Orc capital and returned to the gate.

The gate still existed, though. To protect the Empire, they would have to fortify the Rhydin side. And so they did, keeping a portion of the former Orc Nation. The horror of the war also reshaped the A’Taran psyche, but that is not my tale to tell.

For the Orcs, those thirty years brought even greater change….

(continues in “A New Orc Culture Rises From the Ashes of the Old“)

(continued from “On the A’Taran Race“)

Fate had brought the A’Taran to the planet Rhydin III via the dimensional gate. Cruelly, to an area recently conquered by an expanding nation of Orcs. The Orc Nation was for only Orcs; they killed or drove all other races out of their lost lands.

First contact between the Orcs and the A’Taran could only end in violence—and war. More prepared and eager for new conquests, the Orcs slew all the A’Taran in Rhydin and pushed through the gate into the Empire. The A’Taran could only retreat, trading land and blood for time. But time was all they needed.

While currently a peaceful people, the A’Taran had always had a warrior caste. Furthermore, the average A’Taran was taller and stronger than the average Orc. Faced with an invading enemy slaughtering without mercy, the entire A’Taran people rose to fight. The tide turned at the walled capital of the Empire. The Orc army was not repulsed; it was destroyed. The Orc King died there, as well.

The war now reversed completely. An A’Taran horde seeking revenge retook all lost territory and flooded back through the gate….

(continues in “The A’Taran-Orc War, Part 2“)

My primary roleplay collaborator, Brian, has a homebrewed race of anthropomorphic wolves called A’Taran. The race is divided between a star-spanning Hegemony and an unknown (to the Hegemony) splinter polity called The Empire. The Empire’s technology has devolved to a “Medieval” (fantasy) level. They had no knowledge of magic.

The Empire existed upon a single planet until about 35 years ago. That was when they came across an “alien” artifact: a dimensional gate. The first A’Tarans to venture through found themselves in a thick forest with an identical gate behind them. The gate proved both stable and two-way. The A’Tarans began logging the abundant trees, and established work camps.

The Empire had not seen war in living memory. The work camps had only a few proper guards, and their concern was only the possibility of troublesome wildlife. They were not prepared for what was about to befall them….

(continues in “The A’Taran-Orc War“)

I have previously described the Rhydinspace plane/dimension as only a single solar system. I am embracing this preexisting lore as an inspiring limitation. This is more than enough real estate for an outer space roleplay campaign.

A single planet can be challenging to a gamemaster as a fantasy setting. Eight planets with numerous satellites and a single star is a truly intimidating canvas size to me. And that is before adding magic and travellers/immigrants from other places. I am not even thinking of space stations here. (Asteroids? Yes, please!)

Galactic Scale is wide but usually shallow and homogeneous. My aim with Rhydinspace is depth and variety.

“How many moons does Rhydin VIII have?”

“Six.”

“No, it has seven. There is one your instruments cannot detect.”

The core of the following was written extemporaneously during a chat conversation with a friend. It is a “Xenograg in Space” snippet that highlights how unexpected magic can be in a solar system where technology is the default.

A klaxon unexpectedly sounds on the bridge of the pirate ship. They had just waylaid a small, unarmed system cutter and ordered them to prepared to be boarded. The First Mate looks up in shock from his datapad.

“Intruder Alert!” he declares. The pirate captain’s head snaps around to face the First Mate.

“How can we have intruders?! Our shields block Transporters!”

“They did not use Transporters, Capt’n! They teleported aboard using magic!”

“They wha—”

The Captain never finishes his sentence as six bellowing orcs in plate armor storm onto the ship’s bridge. Two are not even bearing guns, just melee weapons. The Captain and First Mate are shot dead without even touching their own holstered sidearms. The rest of the completely unarmored bridge crew die from a single stroke of sword or axe, each.

The orc leader speaks aloud because it makes it easier for him to project his thoughts.

“The ship is ours, General.”

>Well done, Darg,< Xenograg sends in reply. >I am very impressed, in fact. Convey my honored respects to your band.<

I have a new page under Other Fiction that tells of Xenograg’s first trip to Gateway Station which orbits the planet Rhydin III. This will tie into my Rhydinspace setting.

Without further ado, University of Rigel Medical Center at Rhydin.

The forces of Chaos slip into the Rhydin system through portals and, very rarely, magic-powered spaceships. They seek footholds on the outermost planets’ moons. They do not just build bases; they change the landscape to match their insane proclivities.

To find and root out these footholds, the sentient star recruits agents and allies from the ranks of the numerous sentient species that inhabit the system. The vast majority of these species are technological, though. Technology is important for traveling around the solar system but has serious limitations when used to fight supernatural opponents. They must fight fire with fire—the supernatural forces of magic and/or psionics. Such magical defenders as agents are sought after and highly prized by Rhydin.

As previously mentioned, the sentient star has a benevolent attitude towards their solar system/microverse. Their gravity creates order. That order has created life on at least one planet. They want this to life to continue to grow along its natural course, in balance.

There are enemies of Life, though. Not the impersonal dangers of vacuum or radiation, but hostile intelligences. Great foes that marshal forces to invade, conquer, enslave, and/or corrupt all life. Beings against any natural order. Gods of Chaos.

Not the primordial chaos of the Nexus, which is a perfect balance of potentiality. A degenerate manifestation totally opposed to balance.

This is a supernatural threat to Rhydin’s natural universe of physics.

The Rhydin solar system consists of eight planets and two asteroid belts. Two small, airless planets orbit nearest the star. Rhydin III is the sole planet within the Habitable Zone. The asteroid belts exist either side of Rhydin III. The remaining five planets are all gas giants.

Rhydin is a nexus dimension. The nexus dimension. An extension of the Nexus—the Infinite Primordial. A pocket of order.

It is a pocket universe. Its edge is the heliosphere. To go beyond is to leave the dimension. There are permanent portals to elsewheres out at the edge. Starships that utilize jump drives, warp drives, or overdrives create their own portals to whatever home dimensions their science is from.

(I think I will give #Lore24 a try. A spur to work on “Xenograg in Spaaaaaace!” Microblogging counts.) 😀

The Rhydin solar system is a standard heliocentric one. What is nonstandard is the star is sentient. They lack gender. They have a benevolent attitude towards their solar system and the lifeforms that inhabit it. They are still an alien intelligence, though, and are not always comprehensible or benign. Never intentionally harmful, but solar winds and other radiations of energy is part of what they are.

Rhydin is their name.

I have been giving thought to defining the Rhydin solar system. As Rhydin is a cross-genre campaign world, “Rhydinspace” is likewise. So science fantasy. I am starting my definition from the science end of the spectrum (e.g., space is a vacuum) and “softening” the science with fantasy only as needed.

See also Magical Defenders of the Solar System.

Check out this Mastodon thread

(Republished this preface of a previous post as a standalone.)

The solar system of the Realm of Rhydin defaults to a technological science fiction setting. It is cross-genre, though, so all fictional milieu are allowed: Star Wars, Star Trek, Mass Effect, et. al. Fantasy, too, but that is very rare since those characters already have a cross-genre setting of their own.

It is that rarity that I am focusing on.

I hypothesize that magical threats can and do physically arrive at the edge of the solar system. Being of fantastic origin, such a threat should be difficult-to-impossible to detect by technology. Even detected, perhaps not accepted or believed. Even believed, technology might not be able to counter the threat.

Thus a need for magical defenders in space. The problem lies in the tiny pool of potential recruits. Very few fantasy characters self-select to interact with the science fiction side of the Realm of Rhydin, let alone take a ride on a spaceship to Gateway Station in orbit.

anthropomorphous adjective. Shaped like a human being.

How do non-anthropomorphous aliens participate in a world adapted by hominids (e.g., humans, elves, dwarves, etc.) for themselves?

While fictional worlds may include non-anthropomorphous species, they are structured like the real world: reshaped by intelligent anthropomorphous beings for their own benefit. Hands with opposable thumbs begot tool use and the literal reshaping of the world. Speech communication via a voice box begot mutual understanding and information sharing from one person to many.

Fantasy worlds can utilize the mythological trope of magical animals that can talk and/or use human objects. Snakes do not have voice boxes, so sentient snakes cannot speak as hominids do. Spiders do not have hands, so sentient spiders cannot use hominid tools. How can either sentient species construct spaceships to travel into outer space?

They do have minds. They have psychic abilities inherent to the entire species. (Space magic.)

Telepathy need only be broadcasting to clone speech communication.

Telekinesis would need to clone both the physical strength of the hominid arm and the finely-controlled manual dexterity that fingers are capable of. Also needs the ability to manipulate two objects at once.

This line of thought means that psychic ability is nearly universal. Only in the anthropomorphous would it be optional—they are the exception to the rule.