Alien Planet Fantasy Worlds

[Malik]

Side note. In other posts you implied the peoples of your world were geographically isolated - rugged mountains and wave tossed seas limiting exploration. However, teleportation provides a way around those limitations.

It does. There are specific limitations on the way teleportation works, though, because I didn't want to make it a cure-all. The sorcerer has to have seen the target destination in order to get it exactly right. A hasty teleport can land you miles off-target; a distracted or interrupted sorcerer might put you inside solid rock. The series kicks off when the Lord High Sorcerer, who's one of the few who can open a portal to another planet, has no idea what Earth looks like. He guesses, and ends up at a RenFaire.

It's also exhausting--it's some of the biggest magic anyone can do--so the applications are limited. Short teleports between routine destinations are doable for the caliber of sorcerer that powerful nobles keep on staff, but again, there's a refractory period, so to speak. At the end of my first book the MCs teleport into enemy territory but they have to walk home. (I have some readers who missed this, apparently, as I still get angry DMs from readers demanding to know why the heroes don't just teleport everywhere.)

Thanks for paying attention, BTW. These kinds of questions make my day.

 

[ThinkerX]

It does. There are specific limitations on the way teleportation works, though, because I didn't want to make it a cure-all. The sorcerer has to have seen the target destination in order to get it exactly right. A hasty teleport can land you miles off-target; a distracted or interrupted sorcerer might put you inside solid rock. The series kicks off when the Lord High Sorcerer, who's one of the few who can open a portal to another planet, has no idea what Earth looks like. He guesses, and ends up at a RenFaire.

It's also exhausting--it's some of the biggest magic anyone can do--so the applications are limited. Short teleports between routine destinations are doable for the caliber of sorcerer that powerful nobles keep on staff, but again, there's a refractory period, so to speak. At the end of my first book the MCs teleport into enemy territory but they have to walk home. (I have some readers who missed this, apparently, as I still get angry DMs from readers demanding to know why the heroes don't just teleport everywhere.)

Thanks for paying attention, BTW. These kinds of questions make my day.

You are welcome.

My 'second world' (by dictates of geography) is a ocean world with only a couple of landmasses that can be considered 'continents'. Like the main world, it too was terraformed and populated by the 'ancient aliens.' One of the (human) groups they imported were early Polynesians, who are able to navigate seas near as treacherous as the ones on your world via their voyaging canoes. Thought occurs to me - given the tech level you describe (if anything a bit superior to that of ancient Polynesia), these might be the sorts of vessels that could handle the seas of your world. Might be interesting should a fleet of such reach one or another of your settlements. (I was thinking trimarans, but most seem to have a mere two hulls.) Found an paper or two indicating these craft are extraordinarily capable of handling rough seas. polynesian voyaging canoes - Google Search

 

[The Dark One]

I've been thinking about this a lot recently. I've just finished my first sci-fi novel (I'm usually known for fairly off-beat crime) and am mapping out the sequel.

The first novel is mainly set on earth, but the sequel is about 50% set on a very strange world.

I want it to be a world unlike any other - avoiding most of the standard tropes - but I am keenly aware that there is a balance needed between the unfamiliar and familiar to avoid reader distraction, while opening up new exotic worlds and ideas. There is a particular thing that the denizens of the world are working to achieve so, somewhere in that idea, is where I expect to mine ideas for the physical attributes of the world itself.

 

[S.T. Ockenner]

Been meaning to ask this for a while. How did your humans and elves and goblins and whatnot reach this world? Did they do so on their own, or were they brought there by an outside agency?

I used the activities of the 'ancient aliens' to justify the presence of humans and other races on my worlds - every few hundred years, one alien faction/race or another would 'snatch' a few hundred or a few thousand humans, goblins, and so on as servants, test subjects, and for other now irrelevant purposes. The aliens started these abductions in the late stone age (acquiring different sorts of hominids before they went extinct on earth) and continued right up until the last major vestiges of their civilizations collapsed about 1800 years ago - and even then, isolated alien enclaves continued to import humans and others, albeit on a much smaller scale.

Or, you could explain it through the multiverse, having it be in a universe where Earth doesn't exist.

 

[ThinkerX]

Or, you could explain it through the multiverse, having it be in a universe where Earth doesn't exist.

doesn't fit in with the overall scheme of things - at several points in the novels and stories, characters do travel to these terraformed worlds from Earth and elsewhere

 

[S.T. Ockenner]

doesn't fit in with the overall scheme of things - at several points in the novels and stories, characters do travel to these terraformed worlds from Earth and elsewhere

oh, okay, I guess that wouldn't work then.

 

[D. Gray Warrior]

One of my defunct settings took place on a rogue planet. Basically, it was a planet that wasn't apart of any star system and drifted aimlessly through space.

Heat for sustaining life came from the planet's own geothermal energy. There was also the Phoenix, a bird of fire that served the same role as our sun, and provided light.

It was worshiped as a god since the inhabitants of the planet believed once the Phoenix died, the apocalypse would happen, and they could extend her lifespan through worship and rituals.

Right now, I'm fond of a world tree like Yggdrasil or a star system with multiple stars.