Posts
The Iberibe System
Overview
The Iberibe system is named in stone texts found by scholars of the ancient Ndị’mmadụ culture. Its odd primary, J🜂❖, contains some asteroids, comets, and water bodies of Size A within it.
At about 40 million miles (inner orbital track 2) from the primary is a large ring of water, ice, and earth that is named Odo Odo is 1 to 5 miles in height and 10 to 20 miles across.
At about 80 million miles (inner orbital track 4) there are six, B🜃△, worlds positioned equidistant from each other. These worlds are all pyramidal in shape and have extensive ruins that have drawn many explorers and scholars to them. All that is known about the Iberibe system comes from these odd worlds.
At about 100 million miles (inner orbital track 5) is, A🜂⬤, Ebeọkụ. This world orbits in the opposite direction of all other worlds in the system and moves with much greater speed.
At about 120 million miles (inner orbital track 6) is a binary world. This is called Duanzhouxin, C🜃⬤ with a B🜄§, named by the Shou who inhabit the colony on the larger earth body.
At about 200 million miles (inner orbital track 10) there is a ring of asteroids. This field is sparsely populated, with size A🜃‡ or smaller bodies, so is fairly safe to fly through. There are clusters where the field is more populous.
At about 400 million miles (outer orbital track 1) is Eze’kpa’kpa’ndo, H🜁⬤ with a score or more moons orbiting it.
At about 800 million miles (outer orbital track 2) is the world of Ụlọ’nke’abụọ. This, E🜃⬤, world has a, D🜃⬤, void world orbiting it and a smaller, B🜄⬤, ice world orbiting that. It is used as a base for the Elven Imperial Navy. This is where their Armada is currently stationed.
At about 2,000 million miles (outer orbital track 5) is another asteroid field called Onye Nlekota by the ancient texts. Unlike the previous asteroid field this one does not follow the orbital plane. This one is an enormous sphere surrounding the rest of worlds. Sailing through here can be dangerous. Among the many hazards there are sargassos, random portals to other planes of existence, giant poisonous clouds, and wrecks with undead sailors.
Beyond this is mostly empty space with a few minor objects, like asteroids and comets until the Crystal Shell is reached at 4,000 million miles (outer orbital track 10).
Iberibe
The eponymous primary of the Iberibe system, is technically the second largest object in the system. Regardless, this is an unusual primary. First because it is a fire world that is interspersed with other elements, and second because it is not actually the brightest object, that is Ebeọkụ. A properly built and outfitted ship could theoretically dive within the gravity well of Iberibe and explore it. As foolish as this seems, at least one group of adventurous explorers, the Nzuzu Ubi, have tried this. Their success at doing so has not been recorded by sages or sung about by bards.
Odo Odo
Odo Odo is an unusual water world. Some sages call it a Torus world and others argue that it is just a ring around the primary. None of the earth type bodies within the ring are greater than 200 tons and are made mostly of sand and mud. The water itself is slightly acidic and extremely salty. Even so, there are a few lifeforms living within the ring, nothing much more interesting than jellyfish, algae, and some kelp-like plants. There is a small atmospheric area surrounding the waters that strongly smells of salt and vinegar. It can freshen a ship’s air envelope though few humanoids can stomach the smell for long. Odo Odo is about a 40 million miles from the Primary, or about a trip of about 9 hours.
The Ndị’mmadụ Ruinworlds
The six pyramidal worlds that make up this second celestial object are theorized to be the remnants of the ancient Ndị’mmadụ homeworld. Each of the world remnants, as sages like to call them, are 100 miles long on the square side of the pyramid. This side is always facing away from the primary of the system. There are stories indicating that the pyramids used to have gold capstones. Due to greed, these were stolen and taken out of the system long ago.
These worlds are vigorously explored by sages and adventurers looking to unlock the secrets or plunder the riches. As such, the Arcane have set up shop to service these people looking to profit from searching these worlds. The Arcane are utilizing an asteroid that they purchased from dwarves converted into an excellent port that can handle up to 30 vessels at a time. At about 80 million miles from the Primary it would take about 21 hours to travel to any single one of the six worlds from there.
Ebeọkụ
This small fire world is actually the brightest object in the system. It moves in the opposite direction of the other worlds and has the shortest orbital period at only 10 days. Due to its distance of about 100 million miles from the Primary this means that it moves at roughly 600 trillion miles per hour. A Spelljamming ship only moves at roughly 4.2 million miles per hour, so in comparison it moves about 700,000 times faster than any ship ever could! It takes about 24 hours to reach the orbit of Ebeọkụ and only a mathematical savant could ever hope to actually be able to get near enough to observe it closely.
Duanzhouxin
This binary system is controlled by the Shou. They have a heavily trafficked colony on the larger earth-type world. The smaller water world is somewhat amorphous and shines with a blue-green light from its center. The colony is heavily populated (150,000 people) with a strong agricultural base and a decent industrial economy. The prefect, Yaozuo, is a middle aged man with family ties to the Emperor of Shou Lung. He is a corrupt and inept prefect interested only in self-aggrandizement and self-indulgence. A recent Imperial Censor sent to Duanzhouxin by the name of Bao Zheng has started working diligently on stopping the corruption. This crackdown has caused some troubles for merchant ships as well as smugglers.
Outside of the main colony there are many large estates owned by upper class merchants who run large fleets of cheaply made Junks. The Shou plan on utilizing the world’s resources in order to bring further glory and wealth to the Emperor. They also regularly send sages to the Ndị’mmadụ Ruinworlds to explore and retrieve artifacts. It takes about 28 hours to reach Duanzhouxin from the Primary.
Asteroid belt Ala
The Ndị’mmadụ culture named this asteroid belt Ala. Sages theorize that the name is one of the civilization's gods. The name features prominently in the texts discovered thus far. Sadly, not much more had been gleaned as the language seems impervious to magical translations and therefore must be pieced together through deductive means.
There are a few larger asteroids that have been colonized by intrepid homesteaders. These independent freeholders usually have a small ship of their own or rent space on a larger ship in order to trade their wares with outsiders. Generally, they will not go out of their way to harm ships that wander too close, unless they have a fouled atmosphere which can wreak havoc on their delicately balanced artificial ecosystems. At roughly 200 million miles it takes about 2 days to get here from the Primary.
Eze’kpa’kpa’ndo
This large air world has over a score of moons surrounding it. These smaller worlds range in size from E to A and can be earth, water, or air worlds. Rumor has it that there are neogi in the area and the Elven Imperial Navy will pay handsomely for any information that would allow them to capture or destroy these foul slavers. Conversely, neogi are more than happy to buy slaves and information that would help them humiliate the elves. At roughly 400 million miles it takes about 4 days to reach from the Primary.
The Ụlọ’nke’abụọ Trinity
The odd trinary worlds of Ụlọ’nke’abụọ is the current base for the Elven Imperial Navy. The main body is where the elves have placed their supply depot. They have been working with an elven archmage to help them in developing newer and better craft for the Navy. So far he has developed a new means of propulsion that can give the elven Flitters spelljamming capability. The enemies of the elves would love nothing more than to get a hold of one of these Flitters to learn their secrets. The Arcane will pay a king's ransom to get a working Flitter in their hands, as these could directly compete with their virtual monopoly on spelljamming technology. At roughly 800 million miles it takes about 8 days to reach from the Primary.
Asteroid Field Onye Nlekota
This asteroid field is technically the largest celestial body in the system. Because it is a large spherical object composed of a great many smaller objects, there is some argument among sages to this claim. Regardless, it is a rather dangerous place to traverse because one must spend nearly two weeks at tactical speed to cross the nearly 170,000 miles of falderal to clear the gravity well. Since Onye Nlekota surrounds the entire rest of the system there is no way to go over, under, or around it. As such, many traders work hard to find the fastest and safest path through.
As previously mentioned in the overview there are sargassos to strand unwary ships, wrecks with undead, large poisonous clouds that seem to move with a will of their own, portals that appear out of nowhere and transport ships to other places or planes, and space monsters to boot! From the Primary or Crystal shell it takes 20 days to reach.
Na-agafe
The texts translated thus far call the space from Onye Nlekota to the Crystal shell Na-agafe. They seem to indicate that the ancient Ndị’mmadụ culture found this to be a frightening and dreadful place, the place where evil souls dwell after death.
The Crystal shell of the Iberibe system has thousands of billions of bright fist-sized gems shining from it. These are usually parceled close together to make a larger pattern of light which in turn creates the greater patterns of the constellations. A determined enough individual could theoretically pry out a gem. They are extremely cold to the touch and can freeze solid anything that spends more than a minute in contact with it, even pure fire will be frozen!
Portals through the shell are large and generally constant. Enough traffic has been flowing through them to warrant moving asteroids near the portals to service incoming and outgoing vessels. As of yet no one has been intrepid enough to do so.
No comments:
Post a Comment