Rings around a Planet [Archive] - Wizards Community

Rings around a Planet [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Leaves
07-30-03, 06:01 PM There was some scattered support for having Saturn-like rings around the main planet on the old boards. I saw this thread on the Homebrew board (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52461) and thought WCP folks might be interested. There appears to be somebody there who can calculate how big rings would appear from the surface of a planet, which I think is definately a resource to be cultivated . . .

http://www.geocities.com/leaves_or/leafcool.txt
Oops
07-30-03, 06:28 PM The rings seemed to be one of the few things that we agreed on on the old board. We didn't come up with composition, but I suggested the idea of purely magical rings. I'm not sure anyone noticed, though. It has been a while, so I might be forgetting a post or two.
nick012000
07-30-03, 06:32 PM that would be... interesting...
Oops
07-30-03, 06:56 PM In real life, rings are created by tidal friction grinding down small objects captured by large planets. The rings eventually get sucked into the planet. This means that Saturn's rings weren't always the way they are now and that they won't be there forever.
WizO_Iyala
07-30-03, 07:13 PM But they will be there on the scale of a species lifetime or several species lifetimes :) Rings around planets is an interesting subject, like a lot of things in astronomy a great deal is just commonly agreed theory, it's impossible to really provewhere saturns rings came from. I really wish I remembered more of the astronomy I studied. I'd love to have rings around the planet. If anyone lives in a place dark enough to have seen the milkyway they should be imagining what I'm picturing, something as beautiful and breathtaking as that only more so :)
Jaerc
08-01-03, 08:42 PM About how long ago did the bands originate. Also how visible do you WANT them to be? Tell me and I will see about figuring the answers
Captain Mutilate
08-05-03, 03:05 PM Personally I think rings would be a great idea... i have an idea as well of what they would look like... it is a good idea. i think we should go with it.
Leaves
08-05-03, 08:07 PM I don't know how people want them to appear in the sky, but i think they should be a very obvious, dramatic thing. I'd love it if you could see sparkles across the sky even during the day, and at night it would be a broad trail of 1000s of satelites moving against the starfield. Like looking up at a 10 lane interstate across the sky, to use an oh-so-American simile.

The idea of eclipses when the sun passed behind the ring is intriguing, too. Can anybody tell me how broad the rings would have to be so that, standing on the equator, they'd be almost as wide as the sun is across? So that the sun is nearly obscured during the spring and fall equinoxes? Is that a reasonable sort of situation?

http://www.geocities.com/leaves_or/leafpaltoids.txt
Captain Mutilate
08-05-03, 08:15 PM Maybe the planet is at a tilt to teh sun, so that the sun isn't eclipsed, but maybe faded. OOOOOOOOOH I GOTTA GREAT IDEA!!!!!!!

****At times, the sun could shine THROUGH the rings, with a stained-glass effect: maybe once a year. Some races could have relegious beleifs regarding this event...****

There's the idea. Like it?
Leaves
08-05-03, 08:47 PM Yeah, something like that would be really cool. I'm not sure about the astronomy, but I'm pretty sure it would be twice a year . . . Still, it would be almost certain that lots of religions would give spiritual significance to the event, and almost every culture would have legends about the rings.
Dark Kurgan
08-16-03, 12:08 AM These rings could also pose a hazard to the denizens of this world. With a good-sized chunk o' stuff falling from the sky every so often, :b: it would make building large cities a hazard - but the sky-stones would probaly become religious icons for the locals, a gift and punishment from the gods.
nick012000
08-16-03, 04:00 AM Anythiong that would get through the atmoshere would be the size of a pebble.
Oops
08-16-03, 06:24 AM That would depend how quickly its orbit decays. Artificial satellites are directed into oceans when their orbits decay because they don't burn up in the atmosphere.
Gods probably wouldn't want their followers or temples hit, so they would protect certain people places from objects that suddenly decided to drop in.
Obsidianjaerc
08-16-03, 01:24 PM It seems to me that back when the gods still got along they would have fashioned a sheild that shatters any falling rocks bigger than a watermeleon to keep ALL theirs followers safe. Perhaps there are parts of the world where there are holes in the shield though
Dream Spinner
08-16-03, 01:35 PM The gods used to get along?
Obsidianjaerc
08-16-03, 03:58 PM :embarrass Erm no... what I meant was diffrent pantheons` ambassadors would probably have reached the agreement to combine their power but once to protect the people. No one of the pantheons would have been able to protect their own peole let alone the world. So I thought they might have worked together that one time.
Oops
08-16-03, 06:22 PM There might also have been far fewer pantheons.

I still prefer magical rings.
Leaves
08-17-03, 01:15 PM Wow, a veritable discussion!

Oops, if you explained somewhere what you meant by purely magical rings, I missed it. I could come up with a couple possibilities:

The rings are purely illusional, they are patterns of light, not objects. If you had a space shuttle to fly up to where the rings appear to be, you would find nothing.
The sky is actually a blue-colored dome, and the rings are a stripe of different colors, painted on the surface of the sky by divine beings.
The rings affect the magical forces of the world by their place in the sky, like the moons of Krynn. Spellcasters become stronger or weaker when the rings obscure the sun, moon, etc.
The rings are composed of rcoks, dust, and ice, but they are held in place by magic, not by the forces of gravity.
The rings are the visible manifestation of a gateway to another plane.
The rings are a flock of clockwork birds that endlessly fly around the globe at the highest altitudes.
Ditto the previous, but with dragons/angels/flying horses instead.
The rings are the path of the souls of the dead as they walk their way to the afterlife.
The rings are "rings" in the jewelry sense, not the astronomy sense. They are a huge rings of gold and platinum around the planet.

And so on.

Personally, I am attached to the concept of rings composed of dust and ice, like the rings of saturn. I would be fine with the idea that they are held in place by magical forces, not gravity. I can't see that it would make a difference for most situations. I could see interesting situations arising if the rocks of the rings were held in place by powerful but not undefeatable magic. Powerful demons or mages might threaten to dislodge the largest pieces, aiming them at their enemies cities. Angels and adventurers would have to prevent the catastrophe.

I don't like so much that there would be frequent and catastrophic meteor impacts. First off, because in order to prevent the construction of large cities, they would have to be very frequent. People in our world build cities in places prone to natural disasters, like in earthquake zones or in river floodplains or near volcanoes, always thinking, "it won't happen to us."

Second, something like that limits what anyone else can do on the project. Everybody shouldn't have to figure out "what do they do about all the meteors?"
Obsidianjaerc
08-17-03, 01:29 PM QOUTE

I The rings are purely illusional, they are patterns of light, not objects. If you had a space shuttle to fly up to where the rings appear to be, you would find nothing.

II The sky is actually a blue-colored dome, and the rings are a stripe of different colors, painted on the surface of the sky by divine beings.

III The rings affect the magical forces of the world by their place in the sky, like the moons of Krynn. Spellcasters become stronger or weaker when the rings obscure the sun, moon, etc.

IV The rings are composed of rcoks, dust, and ice, but they are held in place by magic, not by the forces of gravity.

V The rings are the visible manifestation of a gateway to another plane.

VI The rings are a flock of clockwork birds that endlessly fly around the globe at the highest altitudes.

VII Ditto the previous, but with dragons/angels/flying horses instead.

VIII The rings are the path of the souls of the dead as they walk their way to the afterlife.

IXThe rings are "rings" in the jewelry sense, not the astronomy
sense. They are a huge rings of gold and platinum around the planet.
------------------------------------------------
I Okay I guess
II erm... mabey not
III Maybe not stronger and weaker but perhaps affecting diffrent domains... I dont like it to Krynnish
IV Yes
V Very tricky we would suddenly have two worlds on our hands constantly... I think no.
VI Intresting idea but no
VII SEE VI
VIII Maybe
IX Think of the space age gold rush... think of the adventurers....think of the mayhem:devil: ... or NOT

I think that impacts would be rare and maybe concentrated in the desert or arctic. Occasional( 10 times in a generation (human)) large ( the size of a bookcase or desk) might crash down. Even more rarely ( Once in a generation or less ) would they hit cities or populatyed areas.
Leaves
08-17-03, 03:52 PM Thanks for the comments. I was just throwing out possibilities, didn't really think all of them out thouroughly.

Thanks for numbering them!

I. I agree; okay, no strong oppinion either way.
II. I don't like it, either.
III. I just think it's very complicated having a system like that. You have to have a detailed calendar and charts (in a D&D game) and inconsistences start springing up.
IV. Yes, see my previous comments.
V. I didn't mean another world like a different planet, but maybe like a gateway to the heavens/hells, the world of the gods. Or simply to a magical realm.
VI + VII. Yeah, just a silly idea.
VIII. Maybe.
IX. I like the space age gold-rush idea, really! But it's probably way outside the bounds of this project.

. . . maybe concentrated in the desert or arctic . . .

I didn't know they were going to be concentrated to specific regions, I thought they would be random. Okay, if they are concentrated to specific regions, it's easy enough for one person to say "There are no meteors in this region of country Y" if they want.

Were those numbers supposed to be worldwide, or for a local region? And 1 out of 10 seems high for the rocks to hit cities, unless they are aimed.

http://www.geocities.com/leaves_or/leafangel.txt
Oops
08-17-03, 11:07 PM I was thinking magical in the sense of enchantments. The rings are physically there, they are bright and colorful, but they are made of smooth solid bands of magic/holograms/forcefields/whatever (or any variation of such bands). They wouldn't fall to the planet because they aren't affected by normal physical laws.
Obsidianjaerc
08-20-03, 03:01 PM QOUTE

I didn't know they were going to be concentrated to specific regions, I thought they would be random. Okay, if they are concentrated to specific regions, it's easy enough for one person to say "There are no meteors in this region of country Y" if they want. Yeah they probably would be random. But what if thats how one desert [Crater] came into being. A particular lot of meteors hit there and no one knows why. But on the other hand random is good to.

Were those numbers supposed to be worldwide, or for a local region? And 1 out of 10 seems high for the rocks to hit cities, unless they are aimed. I dont know I just added that as an after thought. That is probably not a good number.
Narg
09-11-03, 06:27 AM If the rings are going to be concentrated to certain areas ( a belt aroung the planet) it would be split in two!

Like a huge torn dessert filled with craters and stuff. If the rings were magical the stuff that falls down should be magical too. So here we got a zone with alot of magical stuff. So to balance that you can fill the area with powerful monsters, who also seperates the people on either side of the planet.

You can also let the belt be a sea insted of a dessert. Filled with lots of mysterious sae creatures. The sea itself could be magical, what about creating equipment so that you could explore the bottom of the ocean...

just som ideas:rolleyes:

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Leaves 07-30-03, 06:01 PM	There was some scattered support for having Saturn-like rings around the main planet on the old boards. I saw this thread on the Homebrew board (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52461) and thought WCP folks might be interested. There appears to be somebody there who can calculate how big rings would appear from the surface of a planet, which I think is definately a resource to be cultivated . . . http://www.geocities.com/leaves_or/leafcool.txt
Oops 07-30-03, 06:28 PM	The rings seemed to be one of the few things that we agreed on on the old board. We didn't come up with composition, but I suggested the idea of purely magical rings. I'm not sure anyone noticed, though. It has been a while, so I might be forgetting a post or two.
nick012000 07-30-03, 06:32 PM	that would be... interesting...
Oops 07-30-03, 06:56 PM	In real life, rings are created by tidal friction grinding down small objects captured by large planets. The rings eventually get sucked into the planet. This means that Saturn's rings weren't always the way they are now and that they won't be there forever.
WizO_Iyala 07-30-03, 07:13 PM	But they will be there on the scale of a species lifetime or several species lifetimes :) Rings around planets is an interesting subject, like a lot of things in astronomy a great deal is just commonly agreed theory, it's impossible to really provewhere saturns rings came from. I really wish I remembered more of the astronomy I studied. I'd love to have rings around the planet. If anyone lives in a place dark enough to have seen the milkyway they should be imagining what I'm picturing, something as beautiful and breathtaking as that only more so :)
Jaerc 08-01-03, 08:42 PM	About how long ago did the bands originate. Also how visible do you WANT them to be? Tell me and I will see about figuring the answers
Captain Mutilate 08-05-03, 03:05 PM	Personally I think rings would be a great idea... i have an idea as well of what they would look like... it is a good idea. i think we should go with it.
Leaves 08-05-03, 08:07 PM	I don't know how people want them to appear in the sky, but i think they should be a very obvious, dramatic thing. I'd love it if you could see sparkles across the sky even during the day, and at night it would be a broad trail of 1000s of satelites moving against the starfield. Like looking up at a 10 lane interstate across the sky, to use an oh-so-American simile. The idea of eclipses when the sun passed behind the ring is intriguing, too. Can anybody tell me how broad the rings would have to be so that, standing on the equator, they'd be almost as wide as the sun is across? So that the sun is nearly obscured during the spring and fall equinoxes? Is that a reasonable sort of situation? http://www.geocities.com/leaves_or/leafpaltoids.txt
Captain Mutilate 08-05-03, 08:15 PM	Maybe the planet is at a tilt to teh sun, so that the sun isn't eclipsed, but maybe faded. OOOOOOOOOH I GOTTA GREAT IDEA!!!!!!! **At times, the sun could shine THROUGH the rings, with a stained-glass effect: maybe once a year. Some races could have relegious beleifs regarding this event...** There's the idea. Like it?
Leaves 08-05-03, 08:47 PM	Yeah, something like that would be really cool. I'm not sure about the astronomy, but I'm pretty sure it would be twice a year . . . Still, it would be almost certain that lots of religions would give spiritual significance to the event, and almost every culture would have legends about the rings.
Dark Kurgan 08-16-03, 12:08 AM	These rings could also pose a hazard to the denizens of this world. With a good-sized chunk o' stuff falling from the sky every so often, :b: it would make building large cities a hazard - but the sky-stones would probaly become religious icons for the locals, a gift and punishment from the gods.
nick012000 08-16-03, 04:00 AM	Anythiong that would get through the atmoshere would be the size of a pebble.
Oops 08-16-03, 06:24 AM	That would depend how quickly its orbit decays. Artificial satellites are directed into oceans when their orbits decay because they don't burn up in the atmosphere. Gods probably wouldn't want their followers or temples hit, so they would protect certain people places from objects that suddenly decided to drop in.
Obsidianjaerc 08-16-03, 01:24 PM	It seems to me that back when the gods still got along they would have fashioned a sheild that shatters any falling rocks bigger than a watermeleon to keep ALL theirs followers safe. Perhaps there are parts of the world where there are holes in the shield though
Dream Spinner 08-16-03, 01:35 PM	The gods used to get along?
Obsidianjaerc 08-16-03, 03:58 PM	:embarrass Erm no... what I meant was diffrent pantheons` ambassadors would probably have reached the agreement to combine their power but once to protect the people. No one of the pantheons would have been able to protect their own peole let alone the world. So I thought they might have worked together that one time.
Oops 08-16-03, 06:22 PM	There might also have been far fewer pantheons. I still prefer magical rings.
Leaves 08-17-03, 01:15 PM	Wow, a veritable discussion! Oops, if you explained somewhere what you meant by purely magical rings, I missed it. I could come up with a couple possibilities: The rings are purely illusional, they are patterns of light, not objects. If you had a space shuttle to fly up to where the rings appear to be, you would find nothing. The sky is actually a blue-colored dome, and the rings are a stripe of different colors, painted on the surface of the sky by divine beings. The rings affect the magical forces of the world by their place in the sky, like the moons of Krynn. Spellcasters become stronger or weaker when the rings obscure the sun, moon, etc. The rings are composed of rcoks, dust, and ice, but they are held in place by magic, not by the forces of gravity. The rings are the visible manifestation of a gateway to another plane. The rings are a flock of clockwork birds that endlessly fly around the globe at the highest altitudes. Ditto the previous, but with dragons/angels/flying horses instead. The rings are the path of the souls of the dead as they walk their way to the afterlife. The rings are "rings" in the jewelry sense, not the astronomy sense. They are a huge rings of gold and platinum around the planet. And so on. Personally, I am attached to the concept of rings composed of dust and ice, like the rings of saturn. I would be fine with the idea that they are held in place by magical forces, not gravity. I can't see that it would make a difference for most situations. I could see interesting situations arising if the rocks of the rings were held in place by powerful but not undefeatable magic. Powerful demons or mages might threaten to dislodge the largest pieces, aiming them at their enemies cities. Angels and adventurers would have to prevent the catastrophe. I don't like so much that there would be frequent and catastrophic meteor impacts. First off, because in order to prevent the construction of large cities, they would have to be very frequent. People in our world build cities in places prone to natural disasters, like in earthquake zones or in river floodplains or near volcanoes, always thinking, "it won't happen to us." Second, something like that limits what anyone else can do on the project. Everybody shouldn't have to figure out "what do they do about all the meteors?"
Obsidianjaerc 08-17-03, 01:29 PM	QOUTE I The rings are purely illusional, they are patterns of light, not objects. If you had a space shuttle to fly up to where the rings appear to be, you would find nothing. II The sky is actually a blue-colored dome, and the rings are a stripe of different colors, painted on the surface of the sky by divine beings. III The rings affect the magical forces of the world by their place in the sky, like the moons of Krynn. Spellcasters become stronger or weaker when the rings obscure the sun, moon, etc. IV The rings are composed of rcoks, dust, and ice, but they are held in place by magic, not by the forces of gravity. V The rings are the visible manifestation of a gateway to another plane. VI The rings are a flock of clockwork birds that endlessly fly around the globe at the highest altitudes. VII Ditto the previous, but with dragons/angels/flying horses instead. VIII The rings are the path of the souls of the dead as they walk their way to the afterlife. IXThe rings are "rings" in the jewelry sense, not the astronomy sense. They are a huge rings of gold and platinum around the planet. ------------------------------------------------ I Okay I guess II erm... mabey not III Maybe not stronger and weaker but perhaps affecting diffrent domains... I dont like it to Krynnish IV Yes V Very tricky we would suddenly have two worlds on our hands constantly... I think no. VI Intresting idea but no VII SEE VI VIII Maybe IX Think of the space age gold rush... think of the adventurers....think of the mayhem:devil: ... or NOT I think that impacts would be rare and maybe concentrated in the desert or arctic. Occasional( 10 times in a generation (human)) large ( the size of a bookcase or desk) might crash down. Even more rarely ( Once in a generation or less ) would they hit cities or populatyed areas.
Leaves 08-17-03, 03:52 PM	Thanks for the comments. I was just throwing out possibilities, didn't really think all of them out thouroughly. Thanks for numbering them! I. I agree; okay, no strong oppinion either way. II. I don't like it, either. III. I just think it's very complicated having a system like that. You have to have a detailed calendar and charts (in a D&D game) and inconsistences start springing up. IV. Yes, see my previous comments. V. I didn't mean another world like a different planet, but maybe like a gateway to the heavens/hells, the world of the gods. Or simply to a magical realm. VI + VII. Yeah, just a silly idea. VIII. Maybe. IX. I like the space age gold-rush idea, really! But it's probably way outside the bounds of this project. . . . maybe concentrated in the desert or arctic . . . I didn't know they were going to be concentrated to specific regions, I thought they would be random. Okay, if they are concentrated to specific regions, it's easy enough for one person to say "There are no meteors in this region of country Y" if they want. Were those numbers supposed to be worldwide, or for a local region? And 1 out of 10 seems high for the rocks to hit cities, unless they are aimed. http://www.geocities.com/leaves_or/leafangel.txt
Oops 08-17-03, 11:07 PM	I was thinking magical in the sense of enchantments. The rings are physically there, they are bright and colorful, but they are made of smooth solid bands of magic/holograms/forcefields/whatever (or any variation of such bands). They wouldn't fall to the planet because they aren't affected by normal physical laws.
Obsidianjaerc 08-20-03, 03:01 PM	QOUTE I didn't know they were going to be concentrated to specific regions, I thought they would be random. Okay, if they are concentrated to specific regions, it's easy enough for one person to say "There are no meteors in this region of country Y" if they want. Yeah they probably would be random. But what if thats how one desert [Crater] came into being. A particular lot of meteors hit there and no one knows why. But on the other hand random is good to. Were those numbers supposed to be worldwide, or for a local region? And 1 out of 10 seems high for the rocks to hit cities, unless they are aimed. I dont know I just added that as an after thought. That is probably not a good number.
Narg 09-11-03, 06:27 AM	If the rings are going to be concentrated to certain areas ( a belt aroung the planet) it would be split in two! Like a huge torn dessert filled with craters and stuff. If the rings were magical the stuff that falls down should be magical too. So here we got a zone with alot of magical stuff. So to balance that you can fill the area with powerful monsters, who also seperates the people on either side of the planet. You can also let the belt be a sea insted of a dessert. Filled with lots of mysterious sae creatures. The sea itself could be magical, what about creating equipment so that you could explore the bottom of the ocean... just som ideas:rolleyes: