The Piazza

Ok, this sphere is described as a large, deserted sphere between human and illithid space, whose most notable feature is a pair of red suns, and red-eyed space stirges.

My idea is to slighly 're-image' the sphere as a largely lawless frontier sphere, sort of Wild West meets "Pirates of the Caribbean". I'm also going to fill it with the relics of long-lost civilisations and other strangeness.

First, taking the known features:

Large Sphere: Make it larger than Realmspace & Krynnspace, but smaller than Greyspace (which is really big).

War Zone: As the illithids suffered the early attacks in the Vodoni war, I'm having some major battles of this conflict happen here. As a result, there maybe vagabond bands of Vodoni deserters roving the sphere.

Two Red Suns: Two large red suns, separated by about one-third the sphere diameter - each has its own familiy of worlds, with one or two outlying worlds that orbit both. Each sun will also have a swarm of close-orbiting artifical stations, I'm calling them 'sunflowers' ATM, most of which are within the suns thermal zones. These are relics of some lost civilisation, probably the one that built the leviathon wrecks. The more accessable are frequently used as bases.

Red-eyed Stirges: I'd make 'red eyes' a distinguishing features of most creatures native to the sphere.

Expanding on This
Ok, this is a large sphere so there is room for lots of worlds, the overall 'wilderness' theme means that centres of civilisation will be widely scattered among large tracks of lawless land/water/air/space.
In other words, its a red-lit 'Points of Light' sphere.

Bretheren of the Crimson Eyes A rough (in many meanings) asociation of pirates.

Ruined former illithid outposts Neothelids, undead, who knows what else?

Ruins of lost civilisations I'm thinking one would be inspired by Ray Bradbury's Mars.

Smuggler's Dens

...More when I get an opportunity to post.

Very cool!

How about a race of Stirge-men as well? Or is that too Mystaran?

-Havard

Hadn't thought of that (and I don't think beast-men are particularly Mystaran) - in fact, how about Space-Strige-men who fly between worlds, feeding on hapless villagers, inattentive crew, etc?

Ok, lets start filling in details: First build our sphere...

SJR1 Lost Ships p.62 sidebar gives us a brief description of Redeyes:

'distinctive landmark' 'huge crystal sphere' 'dominated by a pair of very large, deep red fire worlds'

I'll start with a proposed radius of 7.224 billion miles (72 days travel shell to centre) much bigger than Krynnspace, but noticably smaller than Greyspace.

The Suns
Two very large red suns, perhaps spaced to look like eyes.
Well, I think I originally had them spaced a bit too far apart - space them about 3 billion miles apart, and make them both about 300 million miles in diameter (well into Size class J, but OTOH, only one-twelth the size of Antares) I think I might be stretching the meaning of 'very large' a bit.

In old elven records, one is called Naurelen, the other Gorgaelen.

These suns are cooler than most fire bodys, (Naurelen is noticably hotter) but are still pretty hot. Orbiting close to each sun are numerous ancient artificial bodies (Size A) which show a notable similarity in architecture and construction to Space Leviathans (Lost Ships p.62). As the majority orbit within the thermal zones of the suns, they have been largely unexplored. The more accessable ones tend to get utilised as bases, and have been much modified over the years.

Now I fire up the spelljammer system maker for each sun:

Worlds of Naurelen

1st Planet: Size E (9436 miles) Earth Sphere, Orbit distance 202 million miles, period 304 days, orbits counterclockwise.
1 moon: Size E (5547 miles) Earth Cluster, Orbit distance 150,000 miles, period 24 days, orbits clockwise
Could be a double world, where one component broke up?)

2nd Planet: Size G (74,300 miles) Air Sphere, Orbit distance 312 million miles, period 478 days, orbits counterclockwise, ring of water/ice

3rd Planet: Size C (922 miles) Water Flat, Orbit distance 370 million miles, period 401 days, orbits counterclockwise, has earth ring

4th Planet: Size F (25,800 miles) Air Sphere, Orbit distance 1,186 million miles, period 1815 days, orbits counterclockwise, has earth ring

Worlds of Gorgaelen

1st Planet: Size A (1 mile) Earth Belt, orbit distance 167 million miles, period 213 days, orbits clockwise, colder than normal

2nd Planet: Size G (95,500 miles) Water Belt, orbit distance 189 million miles, period 265 days, orbits clockwise

3rd Planet: Size G (73,300 miles) Earth Flat, orbit distance 289 million miles, period 423 days, orbits clockwise, colder than normal

4th Planet: Size G (42,000 miles) Air flat, orbit distance 321 million miles, period 487 days, orbits clockwise, ring of water/ice

5th Planet Size G (75,900 miles) Earth sphere, orbit distance 383 million miles, period 99 days, orbits clockwise, colder than normal.
zoom!

6th Planet: Size I (2,630,000 miles) Air sphere, orbit distance 1,594 million miles, peroid 1,653 days, orbits clockwise, hotter than normal
1st moon: Size F (29,400 miles) water flat, orbit distance 34.19 million miles, period 22 days, orbits counterclockwise, has fire ring
2nd moon: Size C (294 miles) fire flat, orbit distance 44.71 million miles, period 18 days, orbits counterclockwise, colder than normal
3rd moon: Size F (21,100 miles) amorphous fire, orbit distance 47.34 million miles, fixed
4th moon: Size E (6970 miles) Earth sphere, orbit distance 52.6 million miles, period 31 days, orbits randomly, has fire ring
5th moon: Size D (1,200 miles) water cluster, orbit distance 55.23 million miles, period 27 days, orbits clockwise, hotter than normal

Hmm... looking at the orbits, I think that Gorgaelen stole this planet from Naurelen sometime in the distant past.
Idea, maybe this world orbits both, in a figure-of eight?

The Outer Worlds
These orbit the centre of the sphere.

Outer planet 1: Size G (67,200 miles) Air belt, orbit distance 3.15 billion miles, period 4,134 days, orbits clockwise, ring of earth
A broad belt of air clouds, threaded on a much thinner belts of earth rocks

Outer planet 2: Size D (1,154 miles) Earth Sphere, orbit distance 3.612 billion miles, period 5,327 days, orbits clockwise

Other details
The entire sphere is wreathed in faint nebulosity, dimly illumiated by the twin red suns. A frequent optical illusion is that the nebulosity takes on the appearance of a cowled head or skull with two glowing red eyes.

There are frequent unmapped debris fields, usually the detritus of ancient (or not so ancient) battles.

Ok, I've now got a bunch of worlds to name & populate, and I need to figure out what the stars are - any ideas?

crazy, random idea, possibly better-suited for mirrorspace, is to have the stars actually all be reflections of the two suns.

just throwing it out there.

I had a similar idea, but like you, I thought it fitted Mirrorspace better.

Creatures of Redeyes

Returning to Lost Ships, Redeyes is home to "at least one rogue Death Tyrant", lots of scavvers, and the aformentioned red-eyed space stirges.

Death Tyrants are like automata, smart automata, but they don't do much if not given instructions. Rogues cannot be controlled, and are often used as traps - so, who put this one (or ones) here, and why?

Havard suggested Stirge-men, so, how about this:

Strigomen
Strigomen are man-sized, roughly humanoid, flying carnivoirs, in they natural form, a Strigoman is a bat-winged, four-armed humanoid with a surprisingly human face, save for it long, pointed nose. The nose is actually a feeding proboscis, housinging within it a long stylet that the Strigoman uses to pierce its prey and drink their blood. Strigomen can survive in fouled air, and are highly tolerant of temperature changes, and are fully capable of flying in wildspace for extended periods of time.
Strigomen have human-level intelligence, and live in large social groups, or "roosts", although they tend to hunt alone.
Strigomen can disguise themselves as humans or similar humanoids by using their wings as cloajks and tucking thir lower pair of arms away. This can be penetrated by close inspection.

Red-eyed Space Stirges
These are similar to normal stirges, but are adapted to space. They can go into hibernation to conserve energy during times of poor hunting. They frequently nest in large roosts on wandering asteroids and comets, and have a tendency to swarm en-masse to attack any ships (or other suitable food sources) that come close. Red-eyed space stirges are frequently used as trained hunting-beasts by strigomen (q.v.)

okay, another crazy, random idea: the sphere has many starbeasts, and the stars are the eyes of the various starbeasts. not all starbeasts have the same amount of eyes, and they're not necessarily on the same scale. some starbeasts may move a lot, some may move slowly or very rarely, and some may not move at all (at least, not in recorded history).

Population: space activity

The sidebar on page 62 of Lost Ships is a bit (IMHO) contradictory, on the one hand it states that 'only the desperate or well-armed come scavaging' but on the other it says '...a host of human and humanoid reavers' and finally 'few Redeyes raiders have enough treasure to be worth fighting' - so why are they there?

My answer:

Redeyes lies between human and illithid territories, when they're not fighting, there is going to be some trade between them.

What are Illithids most likely to buy from humans - slaves.

I see the Chainmen and Illithid slavers having a fairly major trade route through Redeys, (as well as assorted smugglers) - and where there's slavers, there's bound to be Neogi trying to get a piece of the action.

The Pragmatic Order of Thought will be trying to target slave-ships to liberate the cargo, while more traditional pirates will be targetting slaveships after they've sold off their 'goods' when they'll presumably be laden with coin or valuable cargo.

And then there are the aformentioned Vodoni deserters/stragglers.

So this gives us:

Chainmen bases
Usually a heavily armed camp on a convenient piece of habitable planet. Possibly with forder-labour camps to provide necessary resources.

Illithid bases
Probably not many, and, given the sphere's tendency to become a battlefield, the bases that are hear are likely well defended, probably deep underground.

Neogi bases
See pirate Havens (q.v.)

Pragmatic Order of Thought bases
A few well-fortified bases hidden on smaller bodies.

Pirate havens (The 'Red-Eyed Bretheren)
Mostly based on the smaller habitable bodies (as these allow a quicker get-away in case of emergency). At least one free-floating base made from hundreds of lashed-togeather hulks.

Vodoni Reavers
At least one well-hidden base, contructed as an advance base during the Vodoni War. It provides docking facilities for a small number of Vodoni warships, and the reavers have been supplimenting there original ships with captured ships of other races.

Quick thought on the planets - the way I have the Redeyes sphere set up ATM, most of the worlds will have periods without real night (when they're between the two suns - and remember, those suns are big).

You might consider large populations of "savages"; their ancestors were marooned here over the course of the various wars.

Perhaps some goblinoid or even Scro bases would be useful. Small ones, local raiders.

Ok, starting on the planets - and some history.

Necarne; The Outermost World
Illithids find the red glow of the Red Eyes suns less painful than the brighter light of other suns, especially at the distant remove of this small world. In the past this world was home to one of the few surface mind flayer communities, a highly cultured (in illithid terms) world-spanning civilisation, thriving on slaves shipped in from farm-world nearer the suns. Large cities of psionicly-shaped obsidian lay bathed in a dull red light.

But digging deeper, there are ruins more ancient still, of some long vanished race.

...but that was a long time ago...

...the first war is lost to history, it is uncertain who the enemy was, elves?, thri-kreen? or some other race. Other wars would follow, with attackers more familier to modern times; dwarfs, humans, more elves. At the attacks persisted and intensified, the illithids followed their instincts, and slowly retreated underground, abandoning their great cities, and forging new, heavily defended, cities deep within the planet.

The wars continued other millenia, at times, the illithids drove their foes from the sphere, at other times, large tracts of the sphere were occuipied by one or more of the opposing races. It was during these latter periods that the vulnerability of the outer world become most noticable, it had become dependent upon the shipments of slaves and fodder from the inner world, when these supply lines were cut, the world starved.

Today, most of the great surface cities lie in long abandoned ruins, shattered by bombardment from above, haunted (mostly not literally) by the desendents of the few slaves to escape their former master's hunger. Most of the subterranian bunker-cities likewise lie empty, save for the odd fferal neothellid and other beasts. The illithids hang on to this day, in a few heavily armed citadels, but their presence is the mearest shadow of thir former glory.

Summary
War-torn former illithid capital world for this sphere.
Surface: old illithid ruined cities, feral humans, humanoids, grimlocks, feral gith etc.
Underground: Well defended illithid citadel, abandoned underground cities full of monsters

Edit: Added Name

Next world in:

Strixia Belt
This wide belt of air worlds streatches all of the way around Redeyes space. A thin thread of much smaller earth bodies weaves its way through the clouds, orbiting at a different rate such that the earth bodies act as a 'conveyer' through the ring. Other sparse earth and plant bodies float within the air worlds.
The air world support a sparse but diverse ecosystem of aerial plankton and floating plants. A variety of herbivores feed of the plants, such as air manitees, sky whales, and are prey to a number of carnivores, such as several sub-species of scavver and the ubiquitous space stireges. Numerous roosts of strigomen dwell within this belt.
This belt is a frequent air-replenishing station for ships travelling to, or through, Redeyesspace. Their are fortifications on many of the larger earth bodies, usually built by various raiders and insurgents over the centuries. The majority of these are currently abandoned ruins. Others are centres of small communities of humans and humanoids who farm the various sky-beasts. The origins of such communities are largely lost to time, but they are likely the desendents of crashed ship crews.

I've decided the 6th world of Gorgalean orbits both suns in a figure-of-eight,
...and its a monster.

Gep'Qyeyp
This monstrous air sphere orbits the twin suns of the Redeyes sphere in a figure of eight pattern, it is notable that it tends to experience more violent storms when passing between the two suns. Due to the presence of multiple fire-bodies in orbit, Gep'Qyeyp tends to be more brightly illuminated than most of Redeyesspace, and was treated as a bit of a backwater by the illithids.
Its is a world of violent weather, with solid surfaces being few and far between, but life survives here, many of the aerial lifeforms found in the Strixia Belt are also found here, as well as giant gas-bag creatures similar to the Holbags of Alabeth.

Gep'Qyeyp is orbited by five moons of varies character.

Ge-Nub is the innermost moon, an enormous disc of water, it is surrounded by a ring of fire of a slightly larger radius that rotates along an axis running parallel to the disc. As its ring provided higher levels of illumination than was normal for this sphere, the illithids tended to use it as a farm world, growing food for slaves, and aquatic host species for when such were deemed necessary.
Today, the aquatic weed runs wild, numerous shallow-sea creatures dwell in its waters, while floating rafts of weed provide the closest thing to solid ground on this world.
Numerous tribes dwell upon the rafts, and more than a few pirate bases, this moon is a popular spot for refreshing ones water supplies.

Ceyewoa A small square flat of cool blue flame, Ceyewoa makes a strange contrast to the predominantly red colours of Redeyesspace, as fire worlds go, it is pretty cold and dim. Few fire creatures dwell here - its too cold, but it has its own sparse ecosystem of 'arctic' fire creatures.

Ewo'Ahealu An ever-changing blob of fire.

Ayake A full-sized world in its own right, there are traces of prehistoric cultures that pre-date the illithids, Ayake like Ge-Nub, has additional illumination in the form of a fire ring orbiting above its equator. Most of the 'indigenous' cultures are nomadic, with stone-age technology, but there are thousands of small, scattered kingdoms founded by wreck survivors, deserters, retired pitates, etc. The Pragmatic Order of Thought have established there largest base in Redeyesspace on this world, an entire kingdom called "Freedom's Hope". This moons random orbit means that it has no meaningful seasons.

Qib-Gu A cluster of small amorphous water worlds, the 'seas' of Qib-Gu are warmer than would be expected. This world largely gets ignored except as a source of water.

Ok, I've left this alone to long,

Having done the outer worlds, I'm now starting on the worlds of Naurelen, Outer to inner.

Naurelen 4: E'Aezofy
This air world has an atmosphere of dark, roiling clouds, which mostly conceal the relatively sparse solid bodies within this world. This is a dry world, those clouds are perpetual dust storms. Life is rare and hardy here, and near the top of the fod chain are a particular sup-species of stirge that are particularly adept at retaining moisture, and who attack sources of such moisture with a voracious appetite. a freshly gorged E'Aezofy stirge will likely have devoured so much blood as to inflate itself into a sphere!

The world has no moon, but is surrounded by a large ring of small, colourful, earth bodies, arranged in a beautiful banded pattern. These share the lack of water of the world in general, with the result that this world is largely ignored, except as a hiding place by those that have, for one reason or another, little need of water.

Fauna of E'Aezofy
The primary fauna of E'Aezofy itself are creatures known as dustworms - they actually resemble millipedes and centipedes but with insect wings instead of legs. Most specimens are small, but occasionaly examples of up to 10' have been spotted. Sailors tails tell of truly gargantuan dustworms dwelling deep within the planet.

The pinicle life-form dwelling on E'Aezofy's ring system are a particularly hardy breed of Rockhoppers, they dwell in nomadic tribes, and are adept at the preservation of water.

Ok, next one in:

Naurelen 3: Eld-dup
Eld-dup is an elliptical sheet of water, 1,012 miles by 832 miles, and 1 mile thick, with a solid rock 'edge' 1 mile across.

With the exception of the edge, there are almost no natural solid bodies at the surface of the water, and the majority of the solid bodies with the body of the world are vast branching structures of strangely blackish coral.

Many aquatic species dwell within this sea.

The nature of this world has made it a valuable port. Water-capable craft can land in the sea, land-capable craft may land on the edge, and space-onlu craft may reach docks on the outside of the edge. With this result, the edge is heavily built up with fortified ports built by most of the various factions that have fought over Red-eyesspace over the ages. The vast majority of these are now ruins (frequently, ruins upon ruins), but a number of the more powerful pirate gangs, and the Chainmen have fortresses here. Battles between rivals are frequent. In addition, numerous floating fortifications and harbours have been built upon the surface of the sea, they are in the same state as those on the edge.

Naurelen 2: Ute'Neayoa

Size G (74,300 miles) Air Sphere, Orbit distance 312 million miles, period 478 days, orbits counterclockwise, ring of water/ice

This air world consists of concentric shells of cloud separated by layers of exceptionally clear air. The upper layers are fairly well illuminated, abet with the prevailing crimson light of Redeyesspace.

Innumerable flying islands, varying from a few yards to a few miles across float within the bulk of this world, drifing with the winds. These are covered with strange dark red vegitation on the upper layers, changing to fungoid growth as you progress deeper into the depths of Ute'Neayoa. Ruins of old habitats or fortifications of many races are frequently found upon the larger islands. A number of pirate bands have established bases within these ruins, and a few hardy Illithid outposts continue to survive in the deepest regions of the planet.

The vast majority of the fauna of this world is airborn, either feeding upon the vegitation, or predating those that do. In the surface layers huge flocks of birds of many sizes, up to Rocs fly, as well as winged reptiles, including dragons. While the lower regions bats and stange moths dwell.

Some of the illithids found here are cebromorphed winged humanoids, and can fly.

The Rings of Ute'Neayoa
This wide ring of small water bodies tends to freeze over at night, (remember that part of Ute'Neayoa's orbit takes it between the two suns, during which time there is no night).

Creatures resembling flying fish live within the water bodies, or travelling between them. They are food to an amphibious sub-species of scavver.

In Bold, awesome and scary idea. I love it!

Ok, last one of Naurelen:

Naurelen 1: Deqievr



The innermost world(s) orbiting Naurelen, Deqievr consists of a largish spherical earth world and a slightly smaller cluster of irregular earth bodies orbiting about a common centre. The cluster body is usually refered to as the Deqievr Rubble. There are signs that the Rubble was once a single body that fragmented in the remote past, sages speculate that once Deqievr consisted of two identical spherical worlds, before one broke up, however, other sages point out that the estimated mass of the Rubble is only about one-fifth of that of Deqievr.

As the closest world to Naurelen, the Illithids considered Deqievr a marginal world, of little use other than 'farming', and it tended to be the first would ceded to any invaders. Nowadays the world is inhabited by mostly nomadic hunter-gatherer societies made up of the decendents of numerous generations of escaped or abandoned illithid slaves and the survivors of crashed ships. A few more settled, and heavily defended, societies dot the world.

The Last Bastian of Deqievr
One large, ancient, fortress-state, at least according to its own sagas, has stood firm against all attacks. Its histories claim that it pre-dates the first arrival of illithids in Redeyesspace, this ancient fortress is built within the caldera of an extinct island volcano. Its inhabitants are a hardy folk, suspicious to the point of xenophobia. The Last Bastian has a well-armed fleet of ships, mostly crewed well beyound normal operating limits, and relying on the fact that they don't have to venture far from their home port.

The Rubble
Many of the tumbling chuncks of rock that comprise the Rubble are large enough to support at least sparse vegitation. Several pirate bands have taken advantage of this and have established a number of bases within the Rubble.

To aid visualisation, I've produced a basic map of the sphere; the bottom diagram show the sphere overall, while the two upper diagrams show the two red suns at 4x the scale:
Red-Eyes Space PDF

Gorgaelen 4: Threphea



From afar, Threphea resembles a multi-armed spiral of white cloud, it is only on closer examination that its true, violent, nature is revealed; Threphea is an eternal storm, resembling the great hurricanes that batter the tropics of smaller worlds, but many times larger and more violent.

However, like its smaller kin, Threphea has an eye, a central, cloud-free patch itself the size of a fair-sized world where calm air reigns. Over the aeons, a number of floating cities have been built here by the various civilisations that have battled over Red-Eyes space. Most are now deserted and in ruins, haunted by the ubiquitous red-eyed stirges. Those cities built by the illithids tend to be enclosed in domes, pyramids or monolithic blocks to keep their inhabitants in the conforting darkness, while those built by other races tended to be more open, but still heavily fortified.

Only a foolhardy or desperate traveller would risk the danger of the stormwinds, if a ship does so, its helmsman must succeed a piloting roll each round or suffer a manoeuvrability lost critical. A ship who’s manoeuvrability is G or worse is at the mercy of the winds, to be blown around Threphea until it is torn apart, or dashed against the rare earth bodies within the storm. There is life within the storm zone, however, hardy free-floating plants provide food for hardy stubby-winged birds, who are themselves preyed upon by four-winged raptors and the aforementioned stirges. These birds have legs, but do not use them for landing, instead they are used to carry their eggs.

At the periphery of Threphea, rain and sleet from the storm is driven outwards, where it gathers into a ring orbiting the edge of the planet, before falling back into the storm.

For travellers within Red-eyes space, Threphea is used mostly as a convenient stop to replenish water. Most ships avoid the turbulent world itself, unless venturing to the eye. At least one pirate fleet makes its base within an abandoned flying city within the eye.

Redeyes now has it own page - there's nothing there except the sphere map and some sidebar maps ATM.
I've updated the sphere map a bit - planets are now colour coded.

Quick status update - I've begun compiling and expanding what I've done so far into a 'proper' sphere guide document. If anyone has any suggestions I'd welcome them.

Starting as early as possible with writing in the 'right' format (the sphere guide format is great, imho!) saves much work later on. I have made the mistake with mirrorspace and now cringe at the thought of transforming/transferring all the stuff that exists now in a proper form...