The World of Dryspace

The world of Dryspace is several days journey from the Orange Expanse and the asteroid station of Texas in one direction and the worlds of Golarion, Greyspace, and the Dracosphere in the other. Dryspace is, as the name implies, a world almost entirely composed of various desert, pocked only by the occasional oasis. Sandy desert, cactus desert, cold desert to the far north and far south.

Two nations rule this world, both human (there are no non-humans here), in a constant state of cold war. The Malikid Sultanate and the Latifid Emirate are more alike than they are different. Both have absolute sexual equality. Both frown on sex outside of marriage, but both polygamy and gay marriage are perfectly accepted. In both civilizations, all people wear tagelmusts when not in private dwellings.

The people of the Malikid Sultanate, ruled from the capital of Kemmet by Sultan Malik X, worship the hippopotamus goddess Tem-Et-Nu. Their uniforms are purple, and their weapons are bronze.

In the Latifid Emirate, ruled from Qarya by Emira Duqa IV, worships the sun god Aurifar, and their uniforms are orange. They have a slight edge in the war, for their weapons are iron.

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Countless centuries ago, before the desert came, there were two civilizations, also at war with one another. But one of these civilizations devised a terrible superweapon, a scroll of great power, which scoured the world of their foes, but also made the world unbearably hot and dry, crumbling the civilization into dust.

After the war's end, two factions arose: one which thought the scroll was too dangerous to ever be used again, and wanted it destroyed; and the other, which thought the scroll should be held in reserve in case some terrible threat should appear.

As a compromise, the scroll was torn in two. Half of it was destroyed, the other half stored in a tomb protected by many traps and curses. The scroll is unusable in this state, but a team of science-mages could potentially reverse-engineer the rest, given years of study.

Centuries later, these two factions are now known as the Latifid Emirate and the Malikid Sultanate.

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My players, although initially on a mission to retrieve the weapon for Sultan Malik, decided in the end to destroy it so neither side could recreate it and use it, effectively siding with the Latifids. (The detail that the two factions of the ruined civilization eventually became the two modern nations was one that the players filled in themselves: it hadn't occurred to me, but it made so much sense that I ran with it.)

Amorphidon the Shapeless One

Although the scro are, by and large, obsessed with rules and obedience, some exiles are found living outside of scro space, on their own or in enclaves such as the grubby asteroid station Texas. Some of these exiles are godless, others still worship the primary scro gods, but many choose to worship Amorphidon, the Shapeless One, whose doctrines are as ambiguous as its form.

Amorphidon is depicted in any number of different ways, frequently as something on the order of an ooze, gibbering mouther, or chaos beast. It is a god of whatever you happen to need a god for at any given moment, but could be more clearly conceptualized as a god of change.

There is no set hierarchy in the church of Amorphidon, though clerics and petitioners often bow to the wisdom of more experienced clerics. Nor are there set dogmas, worship texts, songs, or even method of worship. Amorphidon accepts homage in whatever way one wishes to offer it.

Oozes, blobs, jellies, and anything formless and shapeless are sacred to Amorphidon.

Amorphidon is chaotic neutral. Its clerics may be any chaotic, but they may also be true neutral (despite the normal restriction that prohibits clerics from being neutral unless their deity is neutral).

Amorphidon has no set favored weapon. A cleric of Amorphidon may choose any weapon as a favored weapon.

Amorphidon's holy symbol is an irregular, blobular shape, no two holy symbols the same.

Amorphidon's primary domains include chaos, decay, liberation, madness, slime, and trickery. A cleric of Amorphidon must choose one domain from that list, but her other domain may be chosen from any available to a cleric of her alignment.

Amorphidon allows its clerics to change, much as it has been known to changes itself:

• Every three cleric levels (at 3rd, 6th, 9th, etc.), a cleric of Amorphidon may change their choice of favored weapon.
• Every four cleric levels (at 4th, 8th, 12th, etc.), a cleric of Amorphidon may change a single choice of domain, while still obeying the rule that at least one domain must come from Amorphidon's list.
• Every five cleric levels (at 5th, 10th, 15th, etc.), a neutral or chaotic neutral cleric of Amorphidon may change their choice of whether to channel positive energy and spontaneously cast cure spells or channel negative energy and spontaneously cast inflict spells.

Giant Space Hamsters

So I was doing a bit of research into running a possible Spelljammer one-shot or campaign, and I came across this:

"[Giant Space] Hamsters are domesticated, used as both pets and livestock, and are also used to power gnome sidewheelers, an inefficient form of space ship that is powered by a series of gigantic hamster wheels."

"Characteristically, the tinker gnomes did not stop there, and continued to breed many forms of hamster, including the sabre-toothed giant space hamster, the carnivorous flying giant space hamster ("a regrettable if understandable line of inquiry"), the fire-breathing phase doppelganger giant space hamster, and the miniature giant space hamster (a dwarf variant, indistinguishable from ordinary hamsters)."

"The most infamous (and to gnomes, most feared) giant space hamster was 'Wooly Rupert,' the Tyrannohamstersaurus of Ill Omen."

This is among the most wonderfully preposterous things I have ever encountered, and I no longer understand why anybody would ever not play Spelljammer.