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Inspiration Strikes! #18


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Inspiration Strikes!

Intro. Not every planet in science fiction is habitable. For every lush forest planet that looked remarkable like Vancouver, there are, in reality, many more uninhabitable balls of rock. Welcome to one of those...

[end_news_blurb]

Issue #18: Planet Hell

ioprometheus_galileo_900.jpg

That fetid yellow sphere is Io, moon of Jupiter. OK, OK, technically its not a planet, but still, it could be, especially when it comes to a space set RPG. Not that the PCs are going to want to visit without really good reason. Io is heavily volcanic, with a reported estimate of 400+ volcanoes spewing silicates and sulfur across the surface. With volcanic peaks that make Mt. Everest look like a foothill, and a thin atmosphere of sulfur dioxide this is no vacation spot.

Places like this, harsh and alien and unremorsefully inhospitable to humankind are perfect for hidden military bases (or pirate/raider bases), alien homeworlds, or the "only damn place in the universe where we can get [insert ridiculous element name here]".

Alternately the nature of the planet can pose a juxtaposition against the usefulness of its location. Space is vast and distances a great, a system with a planet like this may not be inviting for any reason other than providing a stable gravity well to stage a refueling station along a well traveled, but long and sparsely populated, trade or transportation route between two major systems.

And then there is the option of sending the players to Planet Hell against their will. An accident in space sends their ship crashing to the surface. A penal colony for the worst of the worst. Stranded by pirates/raiders and left to die. Surviving and getting off this planet becomes the challenge then, and perhaps in their quest to do so they may uncover a long dead civilization, or some other secret.

What about you all, how would you use an uninviting and inhospitable planet in a game? What ideas spring to mind when looking at it?

Previously On Inspiration Strikes!

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Archaeology...that planet is only hell now...but what it used to be...

It could have been intentional to go to 'Hell' looking for stuff. All kinds of reasons to go searching through ruins; remnants of technology, civilization records, perhaps some planet seems to be suffering under the same circumstances this one did.

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Also, just because it's inhospitable to human or carbon based life, doesn't mean that it's not a paradise to alien or silicon (or other elemental basis) life. So maybe the PC's have to go for diplomatic reasons, or maybe this is the homeworld of the bad guys, or they've just discovered life in a system previously thought uninhabited or slated for destruction for an interstellar highway or some such.

Lots of ideas.

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