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12:32, 9th October 2024 (GMT+0)

Life and Trade in Space.

Posted by Dungeon MasterFor group 0
Dungeon Master
GM, 32 posts
Sun 8 Sep 2024
at 23:41
  • msg #1

Life and Trade in Space.

Ok, as it's come up, I want to be sure everyone is awaree that a Space voyage is NOT the same as a Sea voyange.
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Air limits your range. You can cruise through the upper atomsphere os a planet too big to l;and on to replenish air safely, assuming the air there is safe inthe first place. But you have to be near a planet or moon for that to work.

Most asteroids will have some sort of air (some will be voids, with no air). How fresh it is can be hard to tell. If it has plant life on it, it's probably safe. if not, you're going to be risking it.
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Water is trickier. Most big asteroid cities have some sort of lake or pond refilled by hauling in Ice asteroids. This is why water costs gold.

The cheapest and easiest thing for a ship's crew is to have someone that can cast Ceate Water. Druid and cleric helmsmen are popular for this reason. You can mine ice asteroids around Saturn or ice meteors in the Krupeir belt, but you might want to have Purify Food and Water on hand.

And, of course you can buy water on Ceres o the Rocks (Fred's and Barney's)
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And, finally, there is food.

City Asteroids generally have the city on one side, and farms producing air food on the other. The generally also rotate along a 24 hour cycle, or keep the Farm side to the sun, depending on the ruler's personal preference.

Rock Hopper clusters generally sell grain, vegatables, and pork, but rarely more than a week or two supply of fresh (and none dried, at least for sale). They are clusters of small farms selling off surplus, after all.

Ceres and Venus produce plentiful food, as they are actual planets. Smaller than most, but well traveled to. Venus sells very little if any meat. Ceres has plenty pof meat, including a rather tasty but unique strain of beef. Ceres, especially, sells dried rations as well, although you can get some vegetarian selections at Venus, as well.
Dungeon Master
GM, 33 posts
Sun 8 Sep 2024
at 23:50
  • msg #2

Major Trade Products

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Wood is traded by both Ceres and Venus, but Venus produces much more, and in the hardwood varieties prefered by most ship and house builders and. Ceres' dimmer light tends to encourage evergreens to dominate.
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Spices:
Venus is the only place warm and bright enough to grow spices. Well, other than the other inner planets. Everyone likes a good spice, to this can be profitable cargo, assuming you're getting the right spice for the next destination.
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Herbs are easier than spices, tending to be found anywhere plants are, unles spices, which all seem to be tropical in origin. They're easy to find in general, but if you need medicinal herbs, you are probably better off hittng an apothecary in town, or foraging on a planet.
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Meat:
Other than the pork from Rock Hoppers, most meat comes form Ceres, and they specialize in Beef, although they have plenty of chicken and a different strain of pork, as well.

Game meats are the product of hunting, and they're precious little options for that unless you're landing on a planet.
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Fish:
Truthfully, you CAN fish off the back of your ship and get a little fresh meat. It might be a bit exotic to some tastes, but ti's possible.

Ceres also deals in dried fresh water fish

Venus deals in dried Saltwater fish.
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Metal and Gems:
This is mostly the purview of dwarves, who also produce finished goods. The trick is finding them or waiting for their next port visit. They are semi nomadic, and move from large rock to large rock every few years to every negereation, depending on how rich the current rock is. They trade for food and scrap wood for their smelters and forges.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:59, Sun 08 Sept.
Dungeon Master
GM, 34 posts
Sun 8 Sep 2024
at 23:57
  • msg #3

Passenger Runs and Major Ports


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Ceres has a Major resupply port next to it's Lake. Land only ships can land in the field onthe other side of the port town from the lake.

Fred's Rock and barney's rock both provide resuplpy, and, also, an air tax.

There are other points of interest in the Asteroid Belt. AA chart might come in handy.
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Venus has one publically available port and all trade and passenger travel is done through this port. The Elven Fleet seems to guard the planet and run the port.
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Jupiter's moon dont' seem to have a central port, as far as anyone knows at present, but several of the moons do. You'll want a chart of the system
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Saturn's moon dont' seem to have a central port, as far as anyone knows at present, but several of the moons do. You'll want a chart of the system. The dragonborn seem to have their own fleet patrolling the system.

There are no known asteroid bases in the rings, but they are hardly necessary, as the moons are so close.
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Pluto has a port, or so it's reported. Most folks don't have a lot of business with them. Odd, as you'dd think they'd make for a good trade opporunity.
Dungeon Master
GM, 78 posts
Thu 26 Sep 2024
at 22:20
  • msg #4

Rumors and Unexplained Facts

Rubies:
The single largest and most mass produced magic item is space would be an Continual Flame device. Most ships have a dozen or more of one sort or another for seeing below decks and int he outer syste. Many experienced spacers (especially of the non spell casting sort) keep a piton with the spell on it in thier pouches against need.

But that's a LOT of rubies. The dwarves can't possibly be finding that much (or they can, and there's a ruby rich asteroid mine out there, somewhere). Possibly some of the moons produce them in local mines aswell.

But...the Mercane stores in the 3 major asteroid ports all seem to have an infinite supply of Ever Lights of various sizes.

The gem dragons fear that the body of their dead god has been found on the Astral, and is being mined for spell components.



Tiefling Pirates:
Rumor of a new pirate ship in local space, crewed exclusively by tiefings with a demonic captain.

The Church of Celestian's already poor attitude to tieflings has gotten much worse.


Jupiter landings:
It is said that the Mercane have developed a craft that can land on and take off from Jupiter safely. It is said to be an extremely long and hazardous trip each way, however.
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