Stair-World [Archive] - Wizards Community

Stair-World [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Tsochar
03-02-08, 06:16 PM Here's the premise:
This world is composed of thousands of flat, trapezoidal plateaus, each bounded on one side by a cliff, on the opposite side by a cliff going upward, on the third side by an abyss, and on the fourth side by a wall. They are roughly a hundred by a thousand miles in dimension, and each step is fifty miles upward. They are arranged to form four enormous spiral staircases, one complete cycle every 20 steps. Each one can be reached only by crossing the abyss, 600 miles across, by ascending to the next spiral, 200 miles up, or by digging to the spiral below, 50 miles down. Suffice it to say, to climb steps is far more common than it is to travel to another spiral, though every few dozen steps one will find a well-traveled cave, tree, or magic ferry to the next. Every few days an impossibly enormous creature will drift lazily up or down the abyss, for some unknown purpose.

As one ascends, the plateaus become more good aligned, as one descends, they become more evil-aligned. The 100 or so middle portions of each spiral are inhabited by the core races in kingdoms of varying sorts, usually several to a step. The suns travel along the incline below the steps, lighting the steps below them as they spiral ever upward. When a sun is not overhead, it is "night."

Within one's own spiral, it is usually fairly easy to cross from one step to the next. Dwarven canals carved in the cliffsides are usually the safest way to descend by boat and water pump shafts can bring them back up, though the largest vessels cannot usually fit in these. Various paths are usually accessible for on-foot travelers for ascension or descent, and if one has some coin he can take a gnommish balloon or airship instead.
Be warned, though, to descend or ascend takes a long time, and some less-traveled shortcut paths might have bandits lurking, waiting for a trader in a hurry to try the perilously steep journey. If you have a boat and are in a hurry, you could always tie a parachute to it, sail it off a cliff and hope for the best.

Though trade from one spiral to the next is important, there are risks to each method. The largest trees, impossibly old and tall, tend to grow towards the stars' paths (they are trees, after all.) While they can survive quite high temperatures, any travelers unfortunate or sluggish enough to be caught in the sun's path would be roasted alive.
Crossing the abyss requires a very sturdy airship; a balloon couldn't make the journey in time. Every 2d6 days a giant floating creature, like a whale a hundred miles wide, rises or descends through the abyss. It takes 1d3 days to pass. If one encounters the ship, It may swallow it whole. You could try to sail along the edge, but one good storm and the ship might get smashed against the cliffside. Winds along the edge tend to be unruly.
Descending through the caverns is likewise a risky venture, since goblins, drow, and other evil humanoids live there. Plus you need to bring a means to get down safely.

So how does this concept sound?
Orchomenos
03-03-08, 10:07 AM Completely warped and twisted.*But this is a spiral, right? :P

That sounds great for a cosmology, but I wouldn't use it for a material plane.
Zavia
03-07-08, 12:19 AM Sounds rather intresting, you think you can find someone to make a 3d model of that? i cant seem to really visualise it somehow...
Mostly_Ghostly
03-07-08, 01:04 PM This is a pretty neat idea, but you want to be sure that it doesn't just become a cheap gimmick. Also, the huge size of each step (thousands of square miles) means that you'll never be able to detail more than a couple, which sort of defeats the purpose, I'd think. Maybe make them a few miles on the longest side, and have civilizations span several steps. Also, I'd think about what sort of cultures would reasonably develop on a set of giant stairs. How did the technology for airships evolve? Do people worship the giant flying things as gods? A giant cliff would be a serious barrier to communication and travel. If the dwarves had a monopoly on travel, they could become incredibly rich charging tolls. Perhaps the poorer people would have to brave the dangers of the abandoned paths.
Naderion
03-07-08, 05:39 PM That would be mine concern, too. When the steps are too large for normal people to travel, the whole concept becomes obsolete.

Sounds rather intresting, you think you can find someone to make a 3d model of that? i cant seem to really visualise it somehow...

I think he means something like this: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/79/243055350_959a93d3b8.jpg
james_gaines
03-07-08, 06:11 PM I think he means something like this: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/79/243055350_959a93d3b8.jpg

I think he actually means the opposite. Theres a central pillar around which the stairs spiral. There's a whole forest of these pillars, so in close places there might be giant trees, collapsed 'stairs', or even such means as zip lines and rope bridges connecting the 'trees'.
Tsochar
03-09-08, 04:06 AM First off, let me clarify the shape. It is indeed a spiral staircase, but instead of one, there are four spirals all about a central pillar, the void/abyss. If you climbed steps, you would stay on your own spiral, but if you went directly upward you would go up to the next spiral, and if you go upward four times you would be back on your original spiral, but one layer up. If you're having trouble, consider this (http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6955110-0-large.jpg). The four helices all revolve around a center point, but if you follow one from start to finish, you'll never come across any of the other 3. Aside from that, it is very much like a spiral staircase.

This is a pretty neat idea, but you want to be sure that it doesn't just become a cheap gimmick. Also, the huge size of each step (thousands of square miles) means that you'll never be able to detail more than a couple, which sort of defeats the purpose, I'd think.

I originally had them much smaller, but I decided that it would probably be better for individual kingdoms and countries to be on a single step, since that adds to the danger of step-climbing.

How did the technology for airships evolve?

... A wizard did it? I doubt many players would ask, so I'm going to chalk this up to DM's discretion.

Do people worship the giant flying things as gods?

Some probably do, or used to.

A giant cliff would be a serious barrier to communication and travel.

Yeah, that's kind of the point.

If the dwarves had a monopoly on travel, they could become incredibly rich charging tolls.

The dwarves are divided into clans, which compete amongst themselves. The prices don't get obscene, but they are sort of high. And it isn't really a monopoly; they don't have most of the routes, but they do have the safest, most cost-effective ones. Getting mugged on the way up or down is by no means a certainty, but going in and not coming out is definitely possible.

Perhaps the poorer people would have to brave the dangers of the abandoned paths.

yup. There are a lot of paths, though, and sometimes it's cheaper to hire out bodyguards, i.e, PCs.
Zavia
03-09-08, 07:07 AM Ah Thanks.

Btw, consider gnomes as a possible competition to the dwarves.
Mostly_Ghostly
03-09-08, 05:18 PM While I see what your reasoning for making the steps very large, my issue with it is still that I think the action would be limited to one or two steps because of their immense size. An area a hundred by a thousand miles is more than enough for the better part of an entire campaign, and the players could spend all their time on one step, which would defeat the purpose.
Tsochar
03-09-08, 11:15 PM An area a hundred by a thousand miles is more than enough for the better part of an entire campaign

Hmm...

50 by 150 maybe?
Mostly_Ghostly
03-10-08, 12:45 AM I think the really cool part of the setting is imagining what it would be like for the average person to live there: there's a very cool sense of dwarfing scale. You'd look up every day to see the massive spirals winding their way ever upwards, or watch an enormous thing drift lazily by. So, on the one hand you want to keep that sense of enormousness. But on the other hand, the characters should be doing a lot of travelling between steps, so really each step just needs to be big enough to fit a few interesting encounters. You just need to find a balance between the two.
Tsochar
03-10-08, 04:55 AM Step numbers:

The steps have numbers which, like year numbers in FR, are not usually used in everyday life. Most often, they are there for very long-range travelers. The numbering ascends with the steps, and they are renamed whenever someone intrepid discovers a new step at the bottom. This isn't as easy as it sounds; the suns are dim at that level, and it is quite dark and dangerous at the 'bottom.' One can't see the next step down, and demons and devils make their homes there. Oftentimes, an explorer will confirm "yeah, there's another step here" only to meet an untimely end on the way up. On the other hand, the path upward is bright, and few have returned from there either. (think the top layer of Celestia)

World theories:

There are several types of theories as to how the stairworld is shaped as a whole. Many believe in the 'straight up to infinity' theory, where it's just stairs forever, or the similar 'straight up a finite distance' theory. Others believe in the Forest theory, where the spiral is but one in a 'forest' of spirals. The Toran theory maintains that eventually the world curves into a torus, and the absolute forces of light and dark emanate from two sides of the same source. It is said that if one falls through the darkness to the bottom, they will see the Source, the creator of all, before falling from the top. Several have tried to fall and return to prove this, but none have returned, yet.
Zavia
03-10-08, 06:17 AM How about diffrent sized steps.

Lets assume in one complete circle, the total length if someone travled on the outer edge is 100x (x being a measurement of length like km, miles, foot etc)

so, say 20 steps are about 3-4x each, and one or 2 steps comprise of the rest of the steps.

To ensure the stair's height is about the same, each circle also would increase by 100x, where each step would be a randomly diffrent height from each other.

Anyone get wad im saying?
Dog_O_War
03-10-08, 12:36 PM I think this is a great idea, but as others have said, the steps are far to large to make the game-world developed. You're looking at 2+ civs per step, at 20 steps per rotation, and 4 rotations. On one spiral alone there will be a minimum of 160 civilizations, with a high likelyhood of more. Times 4 for the four spirals.

I'd go with a step that was 2 miles from cliff to cliff, 1.5 miles thick (that is how tall a cliff will be as well), and about 10 miles wide. This brings about enough space for a single civ. to exist, and is limited enough that they would want to expand. I'd put the space from one spiral to the next at about 100 miles as well, offering that the moving sun is actually an open and moving portal to the plane of fire that shrinks and enlarges to simulate the seasons.

Maybe there are some steps missing, offering that looking down into a cloudy nothing feeling when looking at the vacant spot.
The outer wall seems a bit..... blank. Maybe instead of some stone prison, this is where most of those massively thick trees are, blocking outside movement.
Tsochar
03-11-08, 02:33 AM I'd go with a step that was 2 miles from cliff to cliff, 1.5 miles thick (that is how tall a cliff will be as well), and about 10 miles wide. This brings about enough space for a single civ. to exist, and is limited enough that they would want to expand. I'd put the space from one spiral to the next at about 100 miles as well,

The thing about that is that there are 200 steps per revolution, making the divide 120 or so miles across. This is all fine and good, but I'd rather there be a slightly lower margin by which the difficulty of step-climbing and spiral-crossing differs.
Also, the size of each step concerns me. I mean, 20 square miles is hardly enough room for an entire kingdom when one takes into account agricultural land and the like. 20 square miles could hold *maybe* a few hundred people, which is really not that big. It's really just big enough to allow any humanoid settlements to survive (gene pool minimum for a viable population is 160 people). I'm thinking more along the lines of 20 by 50 miles at least. That's enough space for a respectable, if small, civilization. As for other dimensions, I think I'll go with a 5-mile high step and a 20-mile gap between spirals, with 20 steps to a revolution. That makes a gap of 130 miles, which is still pretty far.

Some thoughts about the day/night cycle.

As a sun comes up toward the plateau, there would be a little sliver of light appearing on the outer side of the cliff face. It would appear on the upper outer corner first, working its way toward the inner corner, going steadily toward the bottom as the dividing line slowly becomes horizontal. Once the sun rises over the plateau, the day would continue until the sun passed over the cliff, where it would cast the cliff's shadow. As it turns away from the step along its journey, the line between light and dark would slant until the inner corner was covered in darkness, followed by the outer corner. The light would be dimmer on the outer corner, due to distance, before it disappears. A full night later, the next sun comes up. Hence, the inner corners see the least sunlight during the 'twilight' periods, but they would also be able to see more of the other layers' stars, so it evens out fairly well.

Figuring all that out was a 1.5-hour headache, but it's totally worth it to imagine how awesome it would look. I won't even try calculating the fine details, like how long each stage would be. I need a good simulator for that....
Zavia
03-15-08, 10:08 AM Btw, dont forget the steps are not perfect retangles.

Now I was thinking, because there is always a cliff on one side of every step, if there was a high enough natural formation, a few steps here and there will have places that have not seen light for a long LONG time, but not atcually underground.
A topless cave with a vertical wall on one side, and naturally steep earth on the other.

Just tot it seems intresting.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Tsochar 03-02-08, 06:16 PM	Here's the premise: This world is composed of thousands of flat, trapezoidal plateaus, each bounded on one side by a cliff, on the opposite side by a cliff going upward, on the third side by an abyss, and on the fourth side by a wall. They are roughly a hundred by a thousand miles in dimension, and each step is fifty miles upward. They are arranged to form four enormous spiral staircases, one complete cycle every 20 steps. Each one can be reached only by crossing the abyss, 600 miles across, by ascending to the next spiral, 200 miles up, or by digging to the spiral below, 50 miles down. Suffice it to say, to climb steps is far more common than it is to travel to another spiral, though every few dozen steps one will find a well-traveled cave, tree, or magic ferry to the next. Every few days an impossibly enormous creature will drift lazily up or down the abyss, for some unknown purpose. As one ascends, the plateaus become more good aligned, as one descends, they become more evil-aligned. The 100 or so middle portions of each spiral are inhabited by the core races in kingdoms of varying sorts, usually several to a step. The suns travel along the incline below the steps, lighting the steps below them as they spiral ever upward. When a sun is not overhead, it is "night." Within one's own spiral, it is usually fairly easy to cross from one step to the next. Dwarven canals carved in the cliffsides are usually the safest way to descend by boat and water pump shafts can bring them back up, though the largest vessels cannot usually fit in these. Various paths are usually accessible for on-foot travelers for ascension or descent, and if one has some coin he can take a gnommish balloon or airship instead. Be warned, though, to descend or ascend takes a long time, and some less-traveled shortcut paths might have bandits lurking, waiting for a trader in a hurry to try the perilously steep journey. If you have a boat and are in a hurry, you could always tie a parachute to it, sail it off a cliff and hope for the best. Though trade from one spiral to the next is important, there are risks to each method. The largest trees, impossibly old and tall, tend to grow towards the stars' paths (they are trees, after all.) While they can survive quite high temperatures, any travelers unfortunate or sluggish enough to be caught in the sun's path would be roasted alive. Crossing the abyss requires a very sturdy airship; a balloon couldn't make the journey in time. Every 2d6 days a giant floating creature, like a whale a hundred miles wide, rises or descends through the abyss. It takes 1d3 days to pass. If one encounters the ship, It may swallow it whole. You could try to sail along the edge, but one good storm and the ship might get smashed against the cliffside. Winds along the edge tend to be unruly. Descending through the caverns is likewise a risky venture, since goblins, drow, and other evil humanoids live there. Plus you need to bring a means to get down safely. So how does this concept sound?
Orchomenos 03-03-08, 10:07 AM	Completely warped and twisted.*But this is a spiral, right? :P That sounds great for a cosmology, but I wouldn't use it for a material plane.
Zavia 03-07-08, 12:19 AM	Sounds rather intresting, you think you can find someone to make a 3d model of that? i cant seem to really visualise it somehow...
Mostly_Ghostly 03-07-08, 01:04 PM	This is a pretty neat idea, but you want to be sure that it doesn't just become a cheap gimmick. Also, the huge size of each step (thousands of square miles) means that you'll never be able to detail more than a couple, which sort of defeats the purpose, I'd think. Maybe make them a few miles on the longest side, and have civilizations span several steps. Also, I'd think about what sort of cultures would reasonably develop on a set of giant stairs. How did the technology for airships evolve? Do people worship the giant flying things as gods? A giant cliff would be a serious barrier to communication and travel. If the dwarves had a monopoly on travel, they could become incredibly rich charging tolls. Perhaps the poorer people would have to brave the dangers of the abandoned paths.
Naderion 03-07-08, 05:39 PM	That would be mine concern, too. When the steps are too large for normal people to travel, the whole concept becomes obsolete. Sounds rather intresting, you think you can find someone to make a 3d model of that? i cant seem to really visualise it somehow... I think he means something like this: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/79/243055350_959a93d3b8.jpg
james_gaines 03-07-08, 06:11 PM	I think he means something like this: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/79/243055350_959a93d3b8.jpg I think he actually means the opposite. Theres a central pillar around which the stairs spiral. There's a whole forest of these pillars, so in close places there might be giant trees, collapsed 'stairs', or even such means as zip lines and rope bridges connecting the 'trees'.
Tsochar 03-09-08, 04:06 AM	First off, let me clarify the shape. It is indeed a spiral staircase, but instead of one, there are four spirals all about a central pillar, the void/abyss. If you climbed steps, you would stay on your own spiral, but if you went directly upward you would go up to the next spiral, and if you go upward four times you would be back on your original spiral, but one layer up. If you're having trouble, consider this (http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6955110-0-large.jpg). The four helices all revolve around a center point, but if you follow one from start to finish, you'll never come across any of the other 3. Aside from that, it is very much like a spiral staircase. This is a pretty neat idea, but you want to be sure that it doesn't just become a cheap gimmick. Also, the huge size of each step (thousands of square miles) means that you'll never be able to detail more than a couple, which sort of defeats the purpose, I'd think. I originally had them much smaller, but I decided that it would probably be better for individual kingdoms and countries to be on a single step, since that adds to the danger of step-climbing. How did the technology for airships evolve? ... A wizard did it? I doubt many players would ask, so I'm going to chalk this up to DM's discretion. Do people worship the giant flying things as gods? Some probably do, or used to. A giant cliff would be a serious barrier to communication and travel. Yeah, that's kind of the point. If the dwarves had a monopoly on travel, they could become incredibly rich charging tolls. The dwarves are divided into clans, which compete amongst themselves. The prices don't get obscene, but they are sort of high. And it isn't really a monopoly; they don't have most of the routes, but they do have the safest, most cost-effective ones. Getting mugged on the way up or down is by no means a certainty, but going in and not coming out is definitely possible. Perhaps the poorer people would have to brave the dangers of the abandoned paths. yup. There are a lot of paths, though, and sometimes it's cheaper to hire out bodyguards, i.e, PCs.
Zavia 03-09-08, 07:07 AM	Ah Thanks. Btw, consider gnomes as a possible competition to the dwarves.
Mostly_Ghostly 03-09-08, 05:18 PM	While I see what your reasoning for making the steps very large, my issue with it is still that I think the action would be limited to one or two steps because of their immense size. An area a hundred by a thousand miles is more than enough for the better part of an entire campaign, and the players could spend all their time on one step, which would defeat the purpose.
Tsochar 03-09-08, 11:15 PM	An area a hundred by a thousand miles is more than enough for the better part of an entire campaign Hmm... 50 by 150 maybe?
Mostly_Ghostly 03-10-08, 12:45 AM	I think the really cool part of the setting is imagining what it would be like for the average person to live there: there's a very cool sense of dwarfing scale. You'd look up every day to see the massive spirals winding their way ever upwards, or watch an enormous thing drift lazily by. So, on the one hand you want to keep that sense of enormousness. But on the other hand, the characters should be doing a lot of travelling between steps, so really each step just needs to be big enough to fit a few interesting encounters. You just need to find a balance between the two.
Tsochar 03-10-08, 04:55 AM	Step numbers: The steps have numbers which, like year numbers in FR, are not usually used in everyday life. Most often, they are there for very long-range travelers. The numbering ascends with the steps, and they are renamed whenever someone intrepid discovers a new step at the bottom. This isn't as easy as it sounds; the suns are dim at that level, and it is quite dark and dangerous at the 'bottom.' One can't see the next step down, and demons and devils make their homes there. Oftentimes, an explorer will confirm "yeah, there's another step here" only to meet an untimely end on the way up. On the other hand, the path upward is bright, and few have returned from there either. (think the top layer of Celestia) World theories: There are several types of theories as to how the stairworld is shaped as a whole. Many believe in the 'straight up to infinity' theory, where it's just stairs forever, or the similar 'straight up a finite distance' theory. Others believe in the Forest theory, where the spiral is but one in a 'forest' of spirals. The Toran theory maintains that eventually the world curves into a torus, and the absolute forces of light and dark emanate from two sides of the same source. It is said that if one falls through the darkness to the bottom, they will see the Source, the creator of all, before falling from the top. Several have tried to fall and return to prove this, but none have returned, yet.
Zavia 03-10-08, 06:17 AM	How about diffrent sized steps. Lets assume in one complete circle, the total length if someone travled on the outer edge is 100x (x being a measurement of length like km, miles, foot etc) so, say 20 steps are about 3-4x each, and one or 2 steps comprise of the rest of the steps. To ensure the stair's height is about the same, each circle also would increase by 100x, where each step would be a randomly diffrent height from each other. Anyone get wad im saying?
Dog_O_War 03-10-08, 12:36 PM	I think this is a great idea, but as others have said, the steps are far to large to make the game-world developed. You're looking at 2+ civs per step, at 20 steps per rotation, and 4 rotations. On one spiral alone there will be a minimum of 160 civilizations, with a high likelyhood of more. Times 4 for the four spirals. I'd go with a step that was 2 miles from cliff to cliff, 1.5 miles thick (that is how tall a cliff will be as well), and about 10 miles wide. This brings about enough space for a single civ. to exist, and is limited enough that they would want to expand. I'd put the space from one spiral to the next at about 100 miles as well, offering that the moving sun is actually an open and moving portal to the plane of fire that shrinks and enlarges to simulate the seasons. Maybe there are some steps missing, offering that looking down into a cloudy nothing feeling when looking at the vacant spot. The outer wall seems a bit..... blank. Maybe instead of some stone prison, this is where most of those massively thick trees are, blocking outside movement.
Tsochar 03-11-08, 02:33 AM	I'd go with a step that was 2 miles from cliff to cliff, 1.5 miles thick (that is how tall a cliff will be as well), and about 10 miles wide. This brings about enough space for a single civ. to exist, and is limited enough that they would want to expand. I'd put the space from one spiral to the next at about 100 miles as well, The thing about that is that there are 200 steps per revolution, making the divide 120 or so miles across. This is all fine and good, but I'd rather there be a slightly lower margin by which the difficulty of step-climbing and spiral-crossing differs. Also, the size of each step concerns me. I mean, 20 square miles is hardly enough room for an entire kingdom when one takes into account agricultural land and the like. 20 square miles could hold maybe a few hundred people, which is really not that big. It's really just big enough to allow any humanoid settlements to survive (gene pool minimum for a viable population is 160 people). I'm thinking more along the lines of 20 by 50 miles at least. That's enough space for a respectable, if small, civilization. As for other dimensions, I think I'll go with a 5-mile high step and a 20-mile gap between spirals, with 20 steps to a revolution. That makes a gap of 130 miles, which is still pretty far. Some thoughts about the day/night cycle. As a sun comes up toward the plateau, there would be a little sliver of light appearing on the outer side of the cliff face. It would appear on the upper outer corner first, working its way toward the inner corner, going steadily toward the bottom as the dividing line slowly becomes horizontal. Once the sun rises over the plateau, the day would continue until the sun passed over the cliff, where it would cast the cliff's shadow. As it turns away from the step along its journey, the line between light and dark would slant until the inner corner was covered in darkness, followed by the outer corner. The light would be dimmer on the outer corner, due to distance, before it disappears. A full night later, the next sun comes up. Hence, the inner corners see the least sunlight during the 'twilight' periods, but they would also be able to see more of the other layers' stars, so it evens out fairly well. Figuring all that out was a 1.5-hour headache, but it's totally worth it to imagine how awesome it would look. I won't even try calculating the fine details, like how long each stage would be. I need a good simulator for that....
Zavia 03-15-08, 10:08 AM	Btw, dont forget the steps are not perfect retangles. Now I was thinking, because there is always a cliff on one side of every step, if there was a high enough natural formation, a few steps here and there will have places that have not seen light for a long LONG time, but not atcually underground. A topless cave with a vertical wall on one side, and naturally steep earth on the other. Just tot it seems intresting.