The World Is An Orrery

One of the things that has really attracted me to OSR, is the fact that so much of it can be absolutely Gonzo. I mean, there's obviously nothing stopping any given game from being Gonzo as you want, but it seems that the high mortality rate of characters helps a lot, for me at least. After all with less emotional investment comes a greater willingness to take risks. Plus the general rules lightness of the systems, and the emphasis on player freedom and lateral thinking, lends itself slightly more to introducing wacky silliness without having to worry about the effect on player classes and abilities. To that end, allow me to present my silliness.

The World Is An Orrery

One of these things

One thing I really loved in reading about Outer Space in Centerra over at Goblin Punch is the idea that, given enough moxie/chutzpah/idiot bull-headedness, you could conceivably get to Outer Space using Medieval/magical/Fairy Tale technology. Be it a carriage pulled by swans, a boat sailing off the edge of the world, or just climbing up a really tall tree you eventually find yourself amongst the ether thinking "Well now what?"

Zeus seen here unimpressed with the Achean space programme

For me I love the idea of Medieval/Early Modern ideas of Space Adventure being the workable truth. Space being difficult to get to, but once you're there you aren't suddenly thrown into a world of hard science. Instead, you can continue bumbling along in a haphazard adventurer fashion in a world where the player is as equally clueless as to the rules of the world as the character would be. Take that science majors! A degree in classics doesn't seem so pointless now, does it?!

Just stumble out into space why don't you?

So, my world is an Orrery. The sun and all the nearby planets are all connected by great pillared mechanisms that make them go around in the cosmic ballet. The stars as well, rather than being distant suns are their own pinwheeling gear enmeshed celestial bodies closer to home. Likewise, this is a geocentric orrery, because that clearly makes much more sense.

The sun is obviously moving in the sky

This, I think, is great for two reasons:

1) Someone obviously built this thing, but... why the fuck would you want to? The whole absurdity of a giant mechanism to recreate something that is familiar to us in nature makes the world seem strange and alien and full of possibilities.

2) This thing is gradually falling apart.

Falling Stars

Stolen straight from the avatar of Calliope himself Neil Gaiman; the stars are not inanimate celestial bodies, but living intelligent beings who pass their time in contemplation and song... until they fall to earth. However in this world, rather than being Claire Danes they are thirty feet tall and made of precious metals, pretty much the same otherwise.

Sort of like this, but tall

The stars sit in their own gear wrought cradles, spinning about in an intricate web of repeated patterns. However, whoever, or whatever, constructed this thing did not evidently see fit to design it this far into the future. The stars, with greater frequency in the last few centuries, have begun to occasionally collide with each other, or the various swirling arms and rings of the greater orrery, breaking free of their moorings and falling towards the centre of the orrery and crashing to earth.

The stars have been watching the earth, and discussing philosophy companionably through the music of the spheres for millennia. They know secrets of magic and natural philosophy, have watched all the history of all the worlds unfold, can discourse at length on the politics of all the planets in the orrery, they may even be able to answer the question of who built the orrery and why. When they fall to earth, they bring their many centuries of wisdom and observation. The thing is, no two stars quite agree.

The Church is vehement that these fallen stars are angels come from heaven, and that all they say will naturally confirm all the wisdom of the Bible, so there is no need for the faithful to actually talk to one. Crusading Orders of Warrior-Astrologers watch for falling stars that they might bundle any and all of these fallen angels into the Church's "protection", never to be seen again. Some speculate that the Church works tirelessly on schemes to afix the stars back into the heavens. Others think that there are hundreds and hundreds of captured stars in fortified basements, crying out in tortured chorus at their imprisonment, robbed of the open sky and the serene companionship of their kin. Still others speculate an ever darker fate for those missing angels.

However, the Church is not the only power anxious to catch a fallen star. Many scholars and magi yearn for the chance to interrogate a star to gain the wisdoms of the universe, many others wish to find a star for the valuable magical properties that they have (it is said that devouring the still beating heart of a star will grant the astro-gourmand immortality, eternal youth, or a plethora of godlike powers depending on which source you credit). However, there are much more mundane reasons leading to the pursuit of fallen stars: they are made of money. Their skin is electrum, their bones adamant, their ichor liquid gold, and their hearts are rubies larger that a man's head. Tribes of Kobolds hunt them for their Dragon overlords driven by the avarice endemic to their kind (although when queried on their motives, they will likely claim "Revenge").