Publication:Practical Planetology

Practical Planetology

System: Dungeons and Dragons 2e  Abbreviation: SJR4  Series: SJR  Author: Nigel Findley  Publisher: TSR  Item Code: 9328  Publication Date: 1991  Format: Paperback  Page Count: 64-page book, single-sided fold-out map "-pagebook,single-sidedfold-outmap" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 64.   ISBN-10: 1-56076-134-2  Preceded by: Spelljammer Dungeon Master's Screen  Followed by: Rock of Bral

Product Blurb Groundlings have no idea, but any spelljamming adventurer worth his salt knows the universe is huge! Let Practical Planetology open new possibilites for your AD&D SPELLJAMMER campaign. Herein find fifteen unique planets, exotic and mysterious, ripe for plunder or other less profitable adventures. Weigh anchor at the air world Alabeth, and float with marooned elves atop their massive holbags. Visit the mithril dragons of Radole who ride the hot thermals over lakes of molten tin. Endure the searing flames of the efreeti city on Ignia, or swim among the island necrocracies - nations of undead from a destroyed planet - on Charon. These and other bizarre worlds of adventure await you in Practical Planetology, along with beasts native to them, eleven new monsters in all. All you'll need is a ship, a helm, and a star to steer them by! Practical Planetology contains material suitable for characters of any level. This text is quoted from promotion material. Text and images are copyrighted by the original publisher.

SJR4 Practical Planetology is an accessory for the Spelljammer Campaign Setting.

It provides setting information about fifteen planets. The product consists of one 96 page book and one poster. It was published by TSR Inc. in 1991.

Practical Planetology

The Practical Planetology book provides fifteen example worlds that can be incorporated into a Spelljammer game. It also introduces the idea of The Geonomicon, a large and expensive book that contains detailed information about approximately 80 worlds.

Contents

• Chapter 1: Introduction - This chapter mentions: Trevis Pelor, captain of the squidship the Far Star and the book known as The Geonomicon. It also explains the layout of the following chapters.
• Chapter 2: Earth Bodies - This chapter covers: basic information about earth bodies and has subsections about five earth worlds.
  • Comporellon - This section of the Earth Bodies chapter covers: basic information about Comporellon, climate, apperance from space, continents (including Zilber, Veraine and Panaga), local flora (including unusual blue and violet plants and plants that gain energy from temperature change) local fauna (mostly reptiles), local inhabitants (the ai'ir), other issues (Comporellon's acidic atmosphere), and four adventure ideas.
  • Falx - This section of the Earth Bodies chapter covers: basic information about Falx, climate, appearance from space, continents (of which there is technically only one), surface flora (including mobile plants), surface fauna (exclusively reptile), subterranean life (including myconids and aboleths), local inhabitants (including illithids and their two cities Brain-in-the-Skull and Tenticles-Grip-Tightly, orcs, goblins, dwarves and drow, other issues (Falx's high CO₂ atmosphere) and five adventure ideas.
  • Armistice - This section of the Earth Bodies chapter covers: basic information about Armistice (and basic information about its three large moons: Vesta, Lacerne and Vardig), climate, apperance from space, continents (including Ugrek, Taliak, Grishnakh, Toborg and Rakhar), local flora (including lichens, mosses, large plants and poisonous seaweed), local fauna (including creatures similar to remorhaz and tunnel worms and giant fish), local inhabitants (including decendents of the Combined Goblin Fleet forces who surrendered to Aldyn Leafblower during the Unhuman War), other issues (Armistice's high gravity) and five adventure ideas.
  • Radole - This section of the Earth Bodies chapter covers: basic information about Radole, climate (on the Sunside, Darkside and The Ribbon), appearance from space, continents (of which there is technically only one), Sunside fauna (including steelback beetles and mithril dragons), Darkside fauna (including shadows and a sub-species of white pudding), flora and fauna of The Ribbon, local inhabitants (including humans, elves, dwarves and halflings), civilisation (including The Imperial Radole Navy, the Radole Planetary Defense Force and the PDF's Judiciary Committee), other issues (including the deadly heat on Sunside, the deadly cold on Darkside and the skeletons scattered in orbit by necromancers) and four adventure ideas.
  • Bodi - This section of the Earth Bodies chapter covers: basic information about Bodi (and basic information about Bodi's ring), climate, appearance from space, continents (of which there is only one), flora (mostly forest plants), fauna (including gyres and giant fish), local inhabitants (including green dragons, tasloi and high elves), other issues (lack of open landing areas) and four adventure ideas.
• Chapter 3: Fire Bodies - This chapter covers: basic information about fire bodies and has subsections about two fire worlds.
  • Ignia - This section of the Fire Bodies chapter covers: basic information about Ignia, climate, appearance from space, continents (one floating island called Salome), fauna (including fire bats and flame swallows), local inhabitants (including efreet and salamanders) and four adventure ideas.
  • Garrash - This section of the Fire Bodies chapter covers: basic information about Garrash (and basic information about Garrash's ring, its single sunspot: the Great Storm and its moon: Taran), climate (including the 'fire-rain' that falls from the ring), apperance from space, continents (including Greendale, Zaberie and countless uncharted continents), planetary fauna (including salamanders, fire bats, flame swallows, efreet and other creatures native to the Elemental Plane of Fire), atmospheric fauna (including fire bats and flame swallows), Taran's fauna (including salamanders and fire snakes, fauna and flora of Zaberie (including fire snakes, salamanders, azer and fire-resistant trees and shrubs with metallic bark or leaves), fauna of Garrash's ring (including zats, local inhabitants (only the azer of Zaberie are covered), and five adventure ideas.
• Chapter 4: Water Bodies - This chapter covers: basic information about water bodies and has subsections about three water worlds.
  • Thalassa - This section of the Water Bodies chapter covers: basic information about Thalassa (and basic information about its lack of atmosphere, its skin and the mile deep layer of 'oxywater' found just below Thalassa's skin membrane), climate (which consists of mild currents in the water and oxywater and no climate in the void above the membrane), appearance from space, continents (of which there are none), fauna of the water (including giant sharks, like the megalodon, giant squids and other giant creatures, like the kraken), fauna of the oxywater (including smaller, less dangerous creatures including large numbers of fish), flora of the Layer (a 50 inch layer of plankton that separates the oxywater from the water below it), local inhabitants (including sahuagin living in the water and mermen and nixies living in the oxywater), other issues (Thalassa's oxywater mantle) and five adventure ideas.
  • Charon - This section of the Water Bodies chapter covers: basic information about Charon (a former moon of the destroyed planet Nex), climate (which is calm, cloudy, foggy and very cold), apperance from space, contients (of which there are six unnamed fragments of Nex), fauna of the oceans (mostly small blind fish with carnivorous fish similar to quippers on the surface), flora of the oceans (plankton), fauna of the continets (undead from Nex), local inhabitants (six nations of undead humans ruled by six warring undead lich kings), other issues (powerful magic possesed by the lich kings who destroyed Nex) and three adventure ideas.
  • Barbuda - This section of the Water Bodies chapter covers: basic information about Barbuda, climate, apperance from space, continents (of which there are almost one hundred floating and sunken islands including Dormina), fauna and flora of the oceans (various sizes of brightly coloured fish and shark, plankton and sea weeds that grow on the water covered parts of the continents), fauna and flora of the floating islands (including birds and small mammals on small islands and larger animals like the banderdog on larger islands), local inhabitants (including sahuagin, sea sprites in the oceans and couatl living on the island Dormina), and five adventure ideas.
• Chapter 5: Air Bodies - This chapter covers: basic information about air bodies and has subsections about two air worlds.
  • Alabeth - This section of the Air Bodies chapter covers: basic information about Alabeth (and basic information about its liquid fire core, its five hundred cloud layers, its fifteen moons and its ring system), climate (which differs between every cloud layer), apperance from space, continents (of which there is none, although some of the creatures are large enough to be habitable), fauna and flora of the First Layer (including a large number of birds ranging from sparrow size to eagle size), fauna and flora of the Second Layer (of which there is just plankton), fauna and flora of the the Third Layer (including holbags, sky scavvers, smaller creatures similar to the holbags, a large number of types of birds and grasses and rabbit like creatures that live on top of the holbags), local inhabitants (including Alabeth elves and troglodytes), other issues (how the scale of Alabeth's outer layers makes detect planetary curvature impossible) and four adventure ideas.
  • Nubis - This section of the Air Bodies chapter covers: basic information about Nubis (and basic information about the poisonous sphere of cloud at its core, its moon: Ob, and the spherical 'tidal cloud' that moves through the upper atmosphere of Nubis to remain directly opposite the moon), climate (it only ever rains below the tidal cloud), appearance from space, continents (of which there is none, although Nubis has semi-solid clouds that are habitable), fauna (many types of hawks and eagles, even more types of smaller birds, some larger creatures including stirges, hippogriffs, griffons and wyverns), local inhabitants (including silver dragons, cloud giants and storm giants and possibly undead) and six adventure ideas.
• Chapter 6: Unusual or 'Non-Standard' Worlds - This chapter covers: basic information about unsual worlds and has subsections about three 'non-standard' worlds.
  • Nivil - This section of the Unusual or Non-Standard Worlds chapter covers: basic information about Nivil (a ring planet formed of a one mile thick rock and metal strip that forms a complete ring around its sun, has no gravitational force, but instead relies on centrifugal force to keep its atomsphere trapped beween the two walls of mountains that are on the rims of the planet), climate, apperance from space, continents (of which there are thousands including Alanta), fauna and flora (which includes most species found on terrestrial planets, but no known underground creatures), local inhabitants (including a human race called the Alanti and most sentient race in known space that lives above the surface), other issues (leaving and entering Nivil's atomsphere and navigation) and four adventure ideas.
  • Torus - This section of the Unusual or Non-Standard Worlds chapter covers: basic information about Torus (a torus shaped terrestiral planet), continents (including Davin, Telaria, Wysdon and an unnamed continent that spans the world and touches both sides of the Cylindrical Sea), land fauna (of which there are only insects and mammals including a six foot long giant hornet) ocean fauna (sea mammals ranging in size from seals to giant carnivorous whales, with the Cylindrical Sea also containing sea lions), local inhabitants (including centaurs, humans from the planet Synex, who have colonies close to the Cylindrical Sea and selkies that live in the Cylindrical Sea), other issues (Torus's unusual seasons) and six adventure ideas.
  • Plata - This section of the Unusual or Non-Standard Worlds chapter covers: basic information about Plata (a terrestrial disc shaped flatworld with gravity on one side), climate, apperance from space (which differes on both sides), continents (indluding the continent around the edge of Plata, Circulus, and smaller continents contained within Circulus, including Barrakis - a continent surrounded by the Braiemor Ocean at the centre of the planet), fauna (including wooly creatures similar to giant rats and sea rats - that are similar to giant rats, but with gills), local inhabitants (aarakocra know as the Chilterik (the people), orcs, goblins, kobolds, flinds, bugbears and gnolls) and four adventure ideas.
• Appendix: New Monsters - This chapter has ten new monsters (mithril dragon, azer, flame swallow, gyre, imbul, holbag, sky scavver, steelback beetle, strangler and zat).

Extras

Poster

• The Worlds of Practical Planetology

Credits

• Design: Nigel D. Findley
• Editing: John A. Nephew
• Cover Art Paul Jaquays
• Cartography: Steve Beck
• Illustrations: Mark Nelson, John Statema and Jim Holloway
• Typography: Design Partners

See also

• Category:SJR4 (the SJR4 Practical Planetology category)
• Planetology (the non-weapon proficiency from CGR1 The Complete Spacefarer's Handbook)

References

• Spelljammer reference: SJR4, 9328XXX0701 (The Worlds of Practical Planetology poster), 9328XXX1501 (Practial Planetology)
• TSR reference: TSR 9328
• ISBN: 1-56076-134-2

External links

• Practical Planetology at the TSR Archive
• Paul Westermeyer's review of 'SJR4 Practical Planetology' at Beyond the Moons (the official Spelljammer website)
• Purchase 'SJR4 Practical Planetology' PDF from DriveThruRPG
• Purchase 'SJR4 Practical Planetology' PDF from Paizo
• Purchase 'SJR4 Practical Planetology' PDF from RPGNow
• View Paul Jaquays' 'SJR4 Practical Planetology' cover artwork at mediabox.com

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