Symnara would be considered a "super" earth like planet. It is one of 3 habitable planets out of 12 worlds. The Sennar home system is located around a blue-white sub-giant (A) sequence star.

Shenakali
The main Sennar homeworld it has 2 moons…
Sargissu - <sargizoo>
An earthlike world approximately 6 thousand miles in diameter consisting mostly of plains, forests, lakes, a large sea and 2 considerable ice caps at the poles. Gravity is about .8 that of normal

Krisnoku <krisnoko>
A smaller moon of approximately Mars size with a thin but breathable atmosphere, temperatures very similar to the northern arctic circle regions

Diameter: 11,889 mi.

Circumf: 37,350.36 mi

Atmos/ PSI
Although a fairly standard mix of Nitrogen/Oxygen, there is also a measurable free mix of Helium, Methane and other gasses present making the air a bit exotic. Pressure is 28 psi

Rotation:
There are 40 Standard Earth hours in a day, with a year being nearly
7 earth years long. The Sennar call a full period of rotation around
their sun a cycle.

Gravity:
Is twice the Terran normal

Inclination
5 degrees . Most of the planet is tropical to semi-tropical, with the higher Latitudes being temperate. The poles are ice covered.

Land/Sea ratio: 48 / 62

Other Notes:
Although the biological chemistry is made up in the carbon range… there is however, a greater incidence of cobalt compounds. Most of the land is more mountainous than Terra, but the seas are much shallower

You're opening yourself up to quite a lot of worldbuilding there, with 3 planets! I'm really curious about why there's so much cobalt on that one planet. I mean, from a meta-perspective, what prompted you to make it that way?

As "humans" are iron based, and are from a world with iron elements...

and "Vulcans" are copper based, no doubt by the preponderance of copper on their world

the "Symnara" have cobaltic compounds in their biology, with their world having a high degree of cobalt. [[Cobalt is in the same range as Iron, and Copper]]

There are not just 3 planets in the system, there are 12 in total. Some of the gas giants in the system do have a couple of earth sized habitable moons.

Think I'd be cheating with Neo-Terra, as it's just a future version of Earth. So instead I'll do Artauk:

Artauk

Equatorial diameter: 38,268 km

Polar diameter: 38,142 km

Moons: 5, all of differing sizes (need to think of some names for them).

Rotation: An average year (known as a cycle) on Artauk is equivalent to 687 Earth days. An average day (known as a turn) is equivalent to around 25.6 Earth hours.

Gravity: Around 50% that of Earth. The planet is also less iron dense (and also contains a second, subterranean world beneath its mantle) which makes it lighter despite its larger size.

Land/Sea ratio: Almost perfectly 50/50 due to the planet's unusual layout (similar to a beachball design). All land masses connect at the north and south pole (known as the 'All Bridges') and the oceans divide them by equal amounts. There are a few exceptions such as the F'moire homelands which are a cluster of large islands.

Climate: Due to both the planet's rotation and geographical layout, almost all land areas have the full spectrum of climates, ranging from arctic at the top and bottom to semi-tropical towards the equator. The only differences are the result of the planet's axial tilt causing the seasons to not only be twice as long as on Earth but also unevenly distributed. Because of this, summers in the southern regions are shorter and hotter, and northern summers are longer and milder.

Notes: As stated above, metals are not as abundant on Artauk as on Earth. Instead a fair number of areas rely on glass or crystalline compounds, or materials harvested from the local wildlife for building materials, clothing, armor, weapons and such.

Aha, okay! So Artauk's a world of glass, so the people living there have no choice but to use what's available, and because there isn't much metal, that means their entire history, military included, turns out different?

Yeah quite different. We can definitely explore it more if you wish with the worldbuilding doc.

I'm happy to pick up with Artauk whenever you are!

Stargazer takes place in the Milky Way galaxy 200-ish years from now. The galaxy is populated by numerous sentient species, most of whom have the capacity to invent technology, think introspectively, communicate with languages, etc. Humans are the newest species to become part of the intragalactic community, having been contacted by other sentient species in the late 21st century. I've drawn heavily from Star Trek and Star Wars, but there's inspiration from dozens of sources here.

Humans are present, but they largely take a back seat to the rest of the galaxy, both narratively and in-universe, as they are relatively new to the galaxy, and are learning more than teaching. Most sci-fi focuses on humans as the main character/species, as it's natural for us to create stories which center around ourselves, but I wanted to create a universe where humans are just one species of many taking part in something larger and more important than themselves.

This universe is not specifically made for one story. I want to create numerous stories using this world as a basic setting, and I intend for most of them to have nothing to do with any one specific species, instead being more ensemble cast-oriented. I also want to focus on stories that can teach valuable lessons to adult audiences, similar to Star Trek, but with more focus on humanities and such than more recent Trek seems to do.

The political landscape of the galaxy is admittably quite optimistic. I've invented systems of law, economics, finance, etc. which hinge more on equity and good will than any real-life counterparts, mixing the best of most real systems while leaving out most negative aspects- for instance, some political entities make use of "communism", but it is wildly different in nature and definition to the system humans call "communism, focusing on equity, logic, and people more than political control and governance.

There are numerous factions and other political entities: some are comparable to real-life entities, while others are entirely fictional, often based on other fictional entities. I've also taken many real-life systems and expanded them, such as Universal Basic Income being expanded to include necessities such as food, water, shelter, etc.

The laws of physics, chemistry, etc. are unchanged from reality aside from quantum physics, which is flexible enough to allow FTL travel within certain limitations. I've tried to stick with a very realistic universe, only deviating from it slightly to allow for a more interesting world.

There's way too much to share in a journal comment, I really need to create some posts of my own.

Being a part of something bigger is a really important theme to explore. I like that you're exploring that. And no worries about the optimism, I think we live in some dark times and nobody could really blame you for wanting to make your world a place where things feel a bit brighter. I did the same - my world's a planet-sized national park, and in my stories, it's never destroyed or exploited.

That's ultimately very unlikely, even with all the in-universe protections I've written around it, but it's nice to imagine an unspoiled world. Equity matters to you, and a lighter human touch on the natural world matters to me (and so does equity, but, you know).

Stargazer is mostly a vessel for politically-inclined stories, told from the POV of various people in an imaginative galaxy. I do want to focus on environmental issues and other complexities, but that will happen in another creative universe. Not every story will center around a galactic community, either; some stories/characters will take place in communities with no knowledge of the greater galaxy, but will still be present in it, perhaps asking the age-old question "is anyone out there?". The "part of something bigger" point draws heavily from my life. Before I graduated high school, I had the false impression the world would be so much easier than it turned out to be. I had to learn how to be part of something huge I was never properly prepared for, and more importantly, I learned the hard way I couldn't just whine about stuff and get what I wanted (I'm Autistic, so it did in fact take me until a couple failed years of college to realize that).

I think it also helps a lot of my stories take hints from Star Wars and Star Trek, which are very much vessels for political stories as well. It's also not a 100% optimistic universe; WW3 happens on Earth in the Middle East, the USA collapses in the 2040s, and when aliens do arrive on Earth, it starts over 50 years of conflict pertaining to their presence (I've made this specific point as a sort of jab at Star Trek; for some reason, the arrival of Vulcans on Earth didn't start any major conflicts, which I think is incredibly unrealistic. You'd think some humans would go to war with the aliens who won't leave us alone, but apparently that didn't happen?).

"Before I graduated high school, I had the false impression the world would be so much easier than it turned out to be. I had to learn how to be part of something huge I was never properly prepared for, and more importantly, I learned the hard way I couldn't just whine about stuff and get what I wanted (I'm Autistic, so it did in fact take me until a couple failed years of college to realize that)."

Oof, that's very familiar to me too! Mind you, I think it really helps to figure out we're autistic so we at least understand what's going on in our heads. When we know what's going on in there, we can make space for ourselves and other people in the world more gracefully.

"for some reason, the arrival of Vulcans on Earth didn't start any major conflicts, which I think is incredibly unrealistic. You'd think some humans would go to war with the aliens who won't leave us alone, but apparently that didn't happen?). "
Well, here's a thing - I think the key to making that plausible is propaganda, information leaking, all that stuff. I'm not an expert in that, by any means, but I think it makes a lot of different how governments would prepare their people. At this rate, if we actually got contacted by Greys I don't think we'd react as hard as if they hadn't been spoonfed to us in science fiction for decades.

Not sure if this would count, but here's the basic premise for one of my projects:

Monstruo is a monster tamer inspired game that revolves around the titular mons themselves, Monstruo. In universe, it's a massively popular series, labeled as Catchapon, that takes the place of the Pokemon craze that hit the globe when it was first introduced to the west, and is brought to life by a corporation simply known as the Institute.

However, what's not told to the public is the Institute is a shady corporation who found about this realm called the Otherboard, where the Monstruo live, and is effectively "colonizing" and monopolizing it for their own needs and profit, even letting trainers into it under the guise of a VR simulation.

There are so many concepts that are important to explore in fiction, and colonialism is an important one. It can be a sensitive issue to many, as it should be, but I'm glad you're exploring it.

nice

On mobile so don't really have a lot to type but let me give the copypasta I made

The year 2077 has arrived. A herd of fuckin’ ugly pokemon are rushing from the mainland. Nuke rate skyrocketed! Earth is ruined! Therefore, the Shadow government called Kendrick Lamar’s relative “Derek” for the massacre of the mons. Derek is a killer machine. Wipe out all 1.2 billion of the pocket monsters! However, in mainland Agartha there was a secret project in progress! A project to transform the deceased Sharlie Cirk into an ultimate weapon!

That's... definitely an interesting scenario in contrast to the other pokemon-related one in this comment thread.

Pretty sure it's a reference to Hong Kong 97.

Yeah did just lift hong kong 97

Ah, well I'd never heard of Hong Kong 97 until right now, so there's that.

Oh! And oh we get comments here? :o Well uh... I've had a few world ideas^^;;

Main one is your typical Earth-like spec evo world, but I also thought of a few other worlds that are a part of the same universe, a tidally-locked world in a nearby star system, and either an ocean world or a Europa-like ice world in the same system

Based off various things I saw speculating on how life might evolve on different types worlds, I've also thought of a whole collection of worlds...

And on a more fantasy note I've also been trying to come up with my own version of Hell inspired by the Helluverse 😅

Oh right I also had an idea for a series featuring two aliens brewing to take over Earth, with plenty it worldbuilding in their lore (such as them being a matriarchal society)

Life evolving on just one world is a big project, I can't imagine taking on multiple worlds, each different. I wish you luck with that one! It does sound like a lot of fun, though.

And matriarchal societies are far more common in the animal kingdom than patriarchal, so aliens being matriarchal makes a lot of sense.

Well only one of them is a full on project akin to Alien Biospheres and similar works. The other worlds in the universe I only have basic ideas for; can imagine future civilizations discovering them early in their development or life simply having never evolved past a certain point, but it is fun to imagine what a full project for them would be like

Oh cool! Didn't know that :o (I really like how it's similar but different than humans, and how it does tie in for some of the characters as well [since they're all a part of their society's ruling family, with the main protagonist being a future heir to the throne]. Would love to go on about it but I'm kinda worried about just dumping all this information here 😅)

Ha ha! It's easily done!

Oh and just remembered something

I've also thought about how most animals don't grow old the way humans do, and many just get larger, so I imagined it's the same for them, with their leader being much larger than other members of their species due to her advanced age, being so large in fact that her body can no longer support itself (she spends most of her time lying down, barely able to stand, and her organs are starting to fail, so she is in constant pain)

That sounds a bit like D&D dragons! I'm not as familiar with how they work as maybe I should be, but as a teenager I loved the dragon art so much I bought a game box, I think the 5E one, and just enjoyed the art. The literature included a huge diagram of all the different dragon types, and it had a silver as the only great wyrm on it. For ages I thought that silver dragons were much bigger than the other types, until someone told me no, they're all the same size, they just get bigger with age and that one was the oldest on the page.

It's still my headcannon that silver dragons are giant dragons.

Oh yeah makes sense to me that dragons would be that way! And ah wow :o And oh wow!

Heh^^

Sundered Shroud pitch document for current state of play. Richard "Rich" Peter Gallian, a red-tailed hawk Wildtouched and Melody Nicole "Athena's Aegis" Shebesta, a great horned owl Wildtouched, are core characters.


3 Pantheons (name might be changed in the fork)

Approximate Realm Locations

Current short-form history

Nathan Scott "Nate" Renfrew character history:

Born in 1997, a mere 4 years before the Realms opened, Nathan spent a good deal of his childhood obsessed with becoming a modern adventurer. While at first it was just a childhood dream, it later developed into becoming a potential reality as Nathan grew older and entered into the Boy Scouts in order to gain some starting skills and spent much of his off time honing his abilities and learning new ones. As this occurred, his parents began to become concerned.

When he was 18, he had a row with his parents over taking his college tuition money and going on a trip to Greece as a 'character building' exercise. After reflecting on his parent's arguments some, he decided that if he was to go, it would be better to go fully prepared for the job, especially if he could do it on someone else's tab. He ended up taking the money and applying to a "Expedition School," an academy set up to train the people who worked in and staffed the human parts of the Realms. After a grueling 4 year course in almost a dozen different skills and some overseas education in England, Nathan graduated in the top 5 of his class and was picked up by a large adventure messaging firm in summer of 2019. Giving him a EU visa and paying for his transportation, Nathan was quickly brought over to work in the realms as a hired assistant for adventuring parties, a so-called "Realmwalker" for Realmwalkers Incorporated. Much economic activity had sprung up around the realms by then.

(BROADLY, a Realmwalker is anyone who regularly goes into and out of the realms for some purpose. But in Nathan's case it's like being a high-stakes trailhead or guide.)

He's earned his parent's grudging respect over the last few years, since it's a legitimate line of work, although they still worry about him, especially after he got voluntarily Marked to Athene (widely seen as blasphemous by normal religions) and started dating Dawn, a human man who'd been turned into a harpy woman 10+ years prior via a "Forcemark", a form of divine press-ganging.

In 2020, a number of strange beings appeared on his planet due to unknown circumstances. They quickly ended up getting entangled with local gods and politics, causing some minor distortion and attention across the planet. Due to random luck, Nate ended up being the guide for several of them, offering security and advice to them as everything was worked out to return stability to all of them, as best as realistically possible. (This part of the canon has to be glided over lightly, as it dealt with old RP that I'm retconning the finer details of).

After that, Nathan spent time writing and having published a book about the events and run(from his perspective), to shore up his income. Some time after that, he spent 6 months in-realm as a teacher to realm-denizens who wished to learn about the scientific area outside of Hellas, and this is an experience he remembers fondly. He will occasionally work at Lecce Realmwalkers University as a substitute instructor or adjunct, bringing practical experience to the classroom.

After another year or two, and several months in St. Petersburg running into Midgard for groups operating there, he finally worked up the courage to ask Dawn the harpy to marry him after a three year relationship. (New Year's Eve, in realm 2022). While surprised, she accepted, and both began dealing with the issues of interspecies marriage, not the least of which was Nate's parents being...less then enthused with the idea. They were married on Valentine's Day, 2023, and shortly after went on a honeymoon drifting in Hellas.

Unfortunately, while they were there, relations between Echidna and Typhon deteriorated, and Typhon's followers abducted Dawn (who is marked to Echidna) to blackmail Nathan. After a week or so meandering around trying to help, he went to his own temple for help in rescuing her, being given the ability to do a deep-cover op into Typhon's temple to rescue her after being transformed into a lamia (snake woman). This went off fairly well and the two were reunited happily a week later.

After that, the two went to Midgard, just to be caught in the power play of Fenris. Nathan was among the initial infectees of "Lupine Flu" and was transformed into a digitigrade anthrowolf (svartskoll). Being tasked at the time to destroy an ancient artifact for Athene, his desperation and panic led him to accept a deal proposed by Fenrir to call him to destroy the artifact instead. This got Dawn her hands back as a svartskoll woman, and Nathan back to human. Athene lost Bia (an Athenian subgod) to Fenris. Fenris absorbed the artifact's power as he destroyed it, and had made sure Nathan had left evidence implicating him, and offered Nathan the chance to 'switch sides' to him instead of go back to Athene and face certain shame and punishment. Nathan instead refused, and turned himself in. Offered a choice between being stripped of "Devout" status, or a hardship/shame punishment, he chose the latter, and
spent the following 9 months as a crippled, nonanthro owl as penance. No speech, no flying.

Following that and other adventures, eventually he and Dawn had an amicable split to 'take some time' to sort out differing opinions. During this time, Nathan ended up being transported to Kaerwyn. (Nexus world). He went back to retrieve Dawn after some time, but she had died in the interim under unclear circumstances.

This led him to a rut for a few years, where he was living in the past instead of the present. Eventually he got the kick in the ass he needed to start building towards the future. Eventually he realized that as much as he loved Dawn, that she was gone, and she wouldn't have wanted him wallowing in pity on her behalf. That he had to move on with his life, and find a new meaning.

He'd known Duel McCollough (human woman, normal 1990s earth) for a while before, as they were coworkers in Kaerwyn's Night Watch, and they'd had some time together. Duel was from a more normal earth, but she loved dragons, even having a biomod to have golden dragon scales on her body in some places. She was about his age...they were working together as partners sometimes...and she made him smile. And reminded him of happier times. And over time, they became closer. And started going out. And since then, they've supported each other, been each other's solace, and generally just fallen in love.

Nathan by this point was approaching mid 30s, and eventually proposed to Duel, and became somewhat stand-in father to two younger men (Ernest, human from a medieval fairytale world, and Caius, a deer anthro from a WWII analogue world) who are finding themselves as adults. He continues working in the Night Watch on Kaerwyn, a sort of internal guard for the town, and tries to undo his own sins.

There's two. I'll try and get docs for Winds of Change, Wings and Prayers, META, and Iridescent Space tomorrow.