Berth - The New Planet



World Maps
Encompia Continent
Kingdom of Funnundia
Funnundia Capitol-Fransica
Begining Docs
Berth God Pantheon
Berrth House Rules
Camber Evil City
Huge Ptolus Map
Party Guid to Ptolus
Party Enters Ptolus
Midtown Locations

Berth Planet Maps:
BackroundGlobalView
BackroundGlobalViewPale
Berth Maps
Berth Temps
Berth Terrain
BerthAltitude
BerthAltitudeWithGrid
BerthAmericanView
BerthInfoMaps
BerthIsometricView.bmp
BerthNotMercator
BerthRainfall
BerthRivers
BerthSmall
BerthSpherical
BerthSphericalAltitudeds
BerthTempretures
BerthTerrainWIthRIvers
BigBerthAmericanView
BigBerthSpherical
HugeBerthSphereLL
HugeBerthSphereLR
HugeBerthSphereUL
HugeBerthSphereUR
Projections
Nilit
PrintBerthSpherical
Sphere
Jungle Campaign
Campaign_Begins
Player Notes
Race List

Jungle Names
Non-Steel Weapons
Sanity
Complete Herbs

 Creatures
Jungle Monsters
New Critters
Tunnel Worm
Vampire Monkey Bats
Metal Mummy


 3MeansToPower
5th Edition Dungeon Ideas
ADD _MonsterListWith Terrain
Berth Calandar
NewPlanet
animals
FirstYearWeather
BOBDOOBS
Campaign Kickoff




Berth - The planet
6 contanents, 4 island chains
  1. Ecompia - Main Continant - 3 main politial and cultural groups. Most of this continant is temperate with only the far southern area tropical.
  2. Arcoma - North Smaller - The Blasted Lands - This contanent is still contaminated with radioactivity, poisons, dangerous flora and fauna not to mention dangerous people!
  3. Bricoma - Southern Smaller - The Domed land. This has a plassteel partial globe covering the entire contanent to a distance of 3 miles offshore. It is heavily defended.
  4. Notafus - North Polar - The Frozen Land. Even the sea for 2 miles around is always frozen. A huge fresh water lake occupies 30% of the contanents surface.
  5. Selat - South Polar - larger than Notafus, it's pole is a source of constant volcanic activity that spreads in gradiet heat to the edges of this contanent. The beachs of this place are never cooler than 70deg. The heat comes from the winds that spread from the island center. For those not immune to high tempretures, it is unlivable.
  6. Fand - The Hidden Land - This is a continant hidden from all eyes and perception from the rest of the world. A powerful illusion protects an standard D&D culture and tech. Known by those aware of it's existance and the Land of the Fey.

Island Chains - These are balkanized chaotic places where utopian communities vie with Warlords to dominate each of the 4 chains. From largest to smallest they are
  1. Shamala - Mostly elf, low tech, high nature, low magic
  2. Penadi - Mostly apes, low tech, no magic, high chaos (warlords)
  3. Douia'loi - Mostly Octapeds, Merfolk and Locantha - High nature, low tech, high magic, low law
  4. Arlic- The Dragon Reservation - Dragons found outside of this island chain are imprisoned on sight -High Evil, High Magic, High Tech/High Chaos

Berth is very close to earth in size and most other measures.
Equatorial Radius

4,143 statute mile

Polar Semi-axis

4,123 statute miles

Radius of sphere of equal area

4,121 statute miles

Area of earth (approx.)

200,430,000 sq. miles

Equatorial Circumference

25,091 miles
Its gravity is the same and its orbit around the sun is almost the same as earth.

Berth is Earth normal in everything except weather. It has a more pronounce axial tilt (35.3%) and thus a greater range of temperatures through a given year. It also causes more frequent windy activity. This is further accentuated by the constant pumping of heat energy into the weather system by the southern volcanoes. The result is a stormy planet with common extremes of weather. The most noticeable result of this is the solidity of the buildings on the main continents.

The year is 364 days long. The months and weeks are all of equal length; 7 days a week and 4 weeks to a month. The single moons orbit no longer figure into these divisions of time since it was fractured into 2 pieces 40K years ago during the 3rd Civilization.

Originally there was 1 Moon called Nilit. If your campaign is situated in times before the 3rd civilisation, this moon lie ours always shows the same face toward the planet. However it orbits once in every 30 days. If you need to figure out the current phase of the moon, roll a d30 where 1 is no moon and 15 is full and 30 is almost no moon. Nilits mean radius is 1,120 miles. Double those figures to get its diameter: 2240 miles Nilits equatorial circumference is 6,393 miles.
Nilit


Historic Overview
The adventure will beginin the age of the 5th civilazation of 7
First civilation was the Farie Folk, Apes, Mapinguari, Dragons - Magic Dominates
Second civilation Humans, Apes, Elephants,  Farie, Lizards - Law Dominates
Third civilization Humans, Apes, Lizards, Farie - Nature Dominates
Fourth Civilization Humans, Apes, Lizards, Frogs - Mental Dominates
Fifth civilization Humans, Apes, Aslan, Vargr  - Technology Dominates
Sixth civilization Humans, Apes, Cats, Dogs, Elephants, Dragons - Ballance Dominates
Seventh  civilization Humans, Apes, Cast, Dogs, Farie - Justice Dominates
I've been forgetting about one of the most important elements of any campaign; the villians! These are the guys that drive adventures and without them, history is dull.
In the case of the world I;m developing, they will change, but will always be threatening the life on the planet.
The Hivers are neutral as regarding the inhabitants of the planet as they only want the technology of the Time Tunnels. They do help humaninty, but only to force them toward technology as the solution to their research.
Early in the world's history the enemy of life was a group of aliens with god-like powers. They are most often known as the Intruders by their enemies and the Strong Ones by their allies. They are a fungoid? life form that regard any life outside of their own as a waste of space. Their fungoid nature enables them to grow creatures in any shape they want including humans. Other than this, little is known about them to mankind as they are secretive even with those who implement their will. They could be called Lawful Evil, but they use Chaos as a tool to reduce the population and try to replace it with their own kind of life.
They were defeated in a final apocolyptic battle and for a dozen years the planet knew peace and ultimate harmony under High Magic conditions. Then the Intruders retributive strike hit. They directed 2 giant asteroids at the planet. If both of them had hit, all life on the planet would have been distroyed. In the year between when the sootsayers of the idylic age determined the danger from the asteroids, the high mages were able to develop a protection from one of them. Through concerted efforts over months using specially devised magics, they managed to change the orbit of the moon enough to intercept one of the missles. This split the moon in two and rained small chunks down on the surface of Berth for millenia.
The asteroid that did strike devistated the world. It destroyed one contanant turning it into a series of small islands. This started the Long Winter. This was over 400 years of cloud cover that froze the world. It also effectivly eliminated magic from the world by wiping out all knowledge of it.
From this point the history of the planet was a very gradual growth of life and a period of barbarism. During this time the secrets of magic lay hidden deep below the debris from the moon. This started the rise of technology.
As technology began it long climb to the stars, magic would occassionally be "discovered", but the Hivers will do almost anything to stop it as they need technology to continue to develop the Time Tunnels. They know from experience that they can not direct the magical powers so anything developed that relies on this force will not be transportable to their world.
But in the future a new force makes itself known.
These new enemies are constructed creatures that reproduce through construction not birth. Think cyborg Cylons. They have mental abilities and will teach this knowledge to their allies. They are from the far future and arrive in the system inadverdantly. Their world was on the brink of destruction through a solar flare that would bake their world. They did not have space travel that was practical for getting away. Seeking a way to escape, they found a way to create time rifts that were totally unpredictable in time or space. However it was cheap and easy for them to build. They changed their forms to remove their organic parts becoming sentient robots and sent everyone on the planet to random places in time and space.
They happened to land on the largest of the moon pieces and set up shop. They observed the planet for centuries and collected their resources to develop a way to get to the planet below and replace the current life with their form of life.
Mental (psionic) abilities requires an addition to the human brain. It is the part that allows the mental energy to be collected. Without it, no psionic abilities can be used. This requied delicate surgery that killed 80% of those attempting to get the ability. One of the cyborgs discovered a genetic manipulation that allowed the trait to be regressive and bred a handfull of humans with psionic ability to be Superbrains who trained their entire lives and acheived awesome powers. However, despite their best efforts the gene enter the human pool and the ability became available to an ever increasing (but never large) percent of the populace to use them.
Sometime man greatest enemy is himself. On two occassions, they succeeded in almost wiping out the races. An atomic war destroyed one contanant rendering it a mutant wasteland and a plague turned another into a baren ruin.

Third Civilization
Early in the world's history the enemy of life was a group of aliens with god-like powers. They are most often known as the Intruders by their enemies and the Strong Ones by their allies. They are a fungoid life form that regard any life outside of their own as a waste of space. Their fungoid nature enables them to grow creatures in any shape they want including humans. Other than this, little is known about them to mankind as they are secretive even with those who implement their will. They could be called Lawful Evil, but they use Chaos as a tool to reduce the population and try to replace it with their own kind of life.
They were defeated in a final apocalyptic battle and for a dozen years the planet knew peace and ultimate harmony under High Magic conditions. Then the Intruders retributive strike hit. They directed 2 giant asteroids at the planet. If both of them had hit, all life on the planet would have been destroyed. In the year between when the soothsayers of the idyllic age determined the danger from the asteroids, the high mages were able to develop a protection from one of them. Through concerted efforts over months using specially devised magics, they managed to change the orbit of the moon enough to intercept one of the missiles. This split the moon in two and rained small chunks down on the surface of the planet for decades.

The Third Civilization was ended by a collision between a large meteor and the moon. The meteor split it into 2 pieces and a debris field. The 3 are in very different orbits. The smaller piece is named "the Hawk" It is moving very fast and circles Berth 2.5 times a day. The larger piece is called Lilnilit and circles the globe 1.2 times a day. Another meteor struck the planet and ended the 3rd civilization.
The debris field intersects the planet orbit and the orbit of the larger moon. These times are known as bad omen times. The intersection occurs every 5.2 years. While the largest effect of this is a dramatic display of meteorites that can even be seen (rarely) during the daylight. Dozens of meteors can be seen every minute at the height of the intersection which lasts about 3 days. Occasionally, a large moon piece hits the ground, and twice large pieces have hit the ground causing earthquakes and disturbing the weather for years afterword due to dust and ash propelled into the atmosphere.

The asteroid that did strike devastated the world. It destroyed one contaminant turning it into a series of small islands. This started the Long Winter. This was over 400 years of cloud cover that froze the world. It also effectively eliminated magic from the world by wiping out all knowledge of it.
From this point the history of Berth was a very gradual growth of life and a period of barbarism. During this time the secrets of magic lay hidden deep below the debris from the moon. This started the rise of technology.
As technology began it long climb to the stars, magic would occasionally be "discovered", but the Hivers will do almost anything to stop it as they need technology to continue to develop the Time Tunnels. They know from experience that they can not direct the magical powers so anything developed that relies on this force will not be transportable to their world.


5rh Civilization
These new enemies are constructed creatures that reproduce through construction not birth. Think cyborg Cylons. They have mental abilities and will teach this knowledge to their allies. They are from the far future and arrive in the system inadvertently. Their world was on the brink of destruction through a solar flare that would bake their world. They did not have space travel that was practical for getting away. Seeking a way to escape, they found a way to create time rifts that were totally unpredictable in time or space. However it was cheap and easy for them to build. They changed their forms to remove their organic parts becoming sentient robots and sent everyone on the planet to random places in time and space.
They happened to land on the largest of the moon pieces and set up shop. They observed the planet for centuries and collected their resources to develop a way to get to the planet below and replace the current life with their form of life.
Mental (psionic) abilities requires an addition to the human brain. It is the part that allows the mental energy to be collected. Without it, no psionic abilities can be used. This required delicate surgery that killed 80% of those attempting to get the ability. One of the cyborgs discovered a genetic manipulation that allowed the trait to be regressive and bred a handful of humans with psionic ability to be Super-brains who trained their entire lives and achieved awesome powers. However, despite their best efforts the gene enter the human pool and the ability became available to an ever increasing (but never large) percent of the populace to use them.
Sometime man greatest enemy is himself. On two occasions, they succeeded in almost wiping out the races. An atomic war destroyed one continent rendering it a mutant wasteland and a plague turned another into a barren ruin. 
Sentient Races All of the major D&D races are present (Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit, Orc, Gnome, Human). These will have the standard effects on the characters per D&D rules.
In addition there are, sentient apes, cats, dogs, elephants, and Dragons. All of these are available as player characters except elephants and dragons. Elephants as a player character are impractical and dragon players would be a PIA.
I will steal freely from the T20 rules for the cat and dog races who will become the Vager and the Aslan. The reptile race are called Tenic. So the race list is:
Human, Elf, Dwarf, Midget, Ape, Gnome, Mapinguari, Tenic, Vargr and Aslan.
All of the races breed 'true'. There is no possible intermingiling of the races. They are NOT cross fertile.

Berth Notes
This is a very ancient world. Where the earliest civilization of Earth is about 8000 years ago, there is archeological evidence of civilizations on this planet 80000 years ago! This is a lot of time for variant evolution and for the rise and fall of 5 major peaks of accomplishment (so far!). I have described the other civilizations this planet will have below, so all of this information apply s to the time where the characters will first appear.

All evidence of evolution was erased by earlier civilizations who sought to "preserve" them only to have them destroyed when the civilization that gathered them together was destroyed. There are many theories accounting for the origin of species (and particularly to the sentient species) but an almost total dearth of proof for any theory.

They are all associated with alignments that are typical for that race. This is a generalization that will mostly be found in NPCs. Characters will be aware of their racial preference, but are not bound by it. The format for this information is:
Psionics-Magic-Tech, Good-Neutral-Evil, Law-Justice-Chaos

Player Character Races
It is important to remember that this list is all inclusive. Some races will be absent from some periods. The tendency is to become closer to the human norm as the planet ages.
However at tone time there were even more sentient races than listed here. These are
Human - Any
Elf - Nature/Magic/Good/Neutral
Half Elf - Any
Half Orc - Chaos, Neutral
Dwarf - Tech/Neutral/Law/Profit
Midget (as Halfling) - Magic/Neutral/Justice
Gnome - Tech-Psionics/Good/Chaos
Ape (as Orc) - Evil/Chaos/
Vargr (Dog) - Law/Neutral/Tech-Magic
Alsan ( Cat) - Chaos/Good/Tech-Mental
Tenic (As Lizardfolk) - Magic/Good/Law
Dragonborn - Law/Dragon/Strength
Tiefling - Chaotic/Neutral/Magic

Non-Player Sentient Races
Locantha (Aquatic Lizard) - Justice/Neutral/Magic
Merflok - (Aquatic Humanoid) Law/Good/Mental
Octapeds - (New Amphibian) Chaos/Evil/Technology
Mapinguari - (As a Giant Sloth) Law/Good/Psionics)
Dragon -  Law/Evil/Tech-Magic
Morgoth (Evil Underground) - Law/Evil/Tech
Deepers (Good Underground) - Justice/Neutral/Tech-Psionics
Farie Folk - Fey Races - SATYR - PIXIE - SHAEDLING - NYMPH - DRYAD (They can not exist without strong magic, restricted to the Fand)

For every advantage given by technology, there is a corresponding spell that can neutralize that advantage. For every advantage given by magic, there is a corresponding technological negation possible.

For instance the spell Expend Powder causes gunpowder and dynamite to explode and the device the Antimagic Grenade dispels all spells in the area of the explosion.
Prot. F. Normal Missiles negates bullets while the Oil of Magical Explosion causes  all  spells of a particular level to be expended  without result.

In the current age of Justice, there are groups  devoted to stamping out all extremes. There is a cult devoted to eliminating all those who manufacture explosive weapons while a guild of Technocrats seek to eliminate schools of magical knowledge.

There is almost no coal, petroleum or heavy metals like Uranium. The small amounts of these materials that existed were exhausted in the tech ages. which prevents cars, planes and nuclear power from being widely used. Thus there are no cars, planes, a locomotive is made of mostly ceramic and natural materials are far more common. There is no plastic.

All metals are very rare and items made of metal are worth far more than on traditional wolds.
Ceramic blade weapons are common, but break when a 1 is rolled to hit or on a 1 or 2 when used against metal or rock creatures.

Campaign Outline
The Planet
I am designing a new planet that has a history of civilization that lasts 100,000 years even though the characters are unaware of this. Wars, natural disasters, alien invasions and star travel have changed not only the nature of the civilizations, they have changed the planet itself. Continents have been destroyed, rendered unlivable by atomic explosions, suffered meteoric damage from the destruction of the moon and so on. It is a little larger than Earth and has more violent weather due to a greater axial tilt. Planetary density is somewhat less, so gravitation is the same as Earth.

The Tree of knowledge

The Tree of Knowledge is a device of unknown origin that exists in the legends and teaching of every culture of Berth. There are more than 2 of them, but the exact number is not known. They are the great teachers of civilization. They are shaped like 2 pure white highly polished stone balls exactly 5' in diameter one on top of the other.

The Means To Power
At different times (and sometimes simultaneously) the 3 means to power have been used, lost, found and discarded.
The Means to Power are Magic, Technology and Psionics.
The use of Magic requires specific knowledge of spells that can not be discovered by the users themselves. When the knowledge is lost, magic disappears until the Secrets are again introduced.
The use of Technology requires a huge industrial infrastructure that can only be supported by rapid use of the worlds resources and is vulnerable to any number of natural disasters and war.
The use of Psionics is only possible through a genetic modification combined with extensive and specialized training.
This allows the appearance and disappearance of these means to personal power at different times.

The campaign will begin in a standard Dungeons and Dragons non-psionc setting. At some point, the characters will discover the Time Tunnels.

That's it! This setup should allow an incredible amount of freedom in the kind of adventures the party will go up against. Their "true" time and place will be in a D&D setting world, but easily allow for adventures of almost any type.