Planets 3: Duel Culture

Note: this is part of a series, worldbuilding some shit apart from the usual D&Dlike stuff.

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Forgotten from each other, separated in distance and time, every planet naturally develops dialects and customs, and uphelds their own traditions. But if there was one thing that could be considered a constant throughout all the disk, enough to form the backbone of a common culture, that would be the practice of the martial arts. And with it you will find universal respect for a fight in which men have challenged each other 1v1

Everybody knows a version of the tale in which the Sun challenged Gravity to a duel and won, scattering the Gravity Shards all across the universe, around which the planets were eventually formed: the bigger planets around the big shards, and the smaller planets around the small ones. The myth has some weight (no pun intended) as digging deep into any planet one can experience the gravity pull increasing gradually the more you approach the core. And this happens more violently in small planets: it´s easy to imagine the merciless shard down there, pulling everything around as if it was ashamed of being naked and wanted to dress itself. At some point, the very pull dismantles all digging attempts, which are extremelly dangerous to people and have costed lives and fortunes to men. 

Dungeons of increased atmospheres are very useful for some: Dojos use them for physical training. It can help processes when the decantation of any mixture is involved; or the pressure can be used to improve certain metal castings. I've heard of subterranean prisons under castles, where the prisoners can barely move; and of terrible monsters that have adapted to their ancestral caves or the depths of oceans.

 

 

The inverse phenomenon happens outwards: the point in which the pull diminishes enough to be negligible is further from the ground at the bigger planets, and at jumping distance in small ones. This leads to interesting cases like the one at the capitol city of Missina: a big blue planet with little landmass and on which their inhabitants have recourred to building skyscrapers. It is a custom there to travel through the city jumping from one tower to another, all across the streets. The whole city is accessible by "flying" in this method; and it's main Dojo is specialized on mid-air combat: their trainings often take place between the towers that flank the city's bay, with the loser invariably falling down into the waters. This art has a special key relevance because, due to it's size and location on the Disk, Missina attracts an astounding number of asteroids; and the local fighters can kick approaching asteroids before they crash, driving them out of contrived collision zones.

There are some who worship Sun and Gravity as deities, amongst all the others. But real or myth, you can find fighters and fighting schools in almost every round rock of the system. Their styles and attacks are often inspired on the planet's inner or nearby fauna, landscapes, occupations, etc. Some of them use weapons and others refuse them entirelly. Some practice friendly sport amongst peers, while other schools do not contemplate duels that are not to death. Whenever two fighters clash, it's not only their skills who met, but two different worldviews, and there are not universal guidelines or rules for a combat. Those, alongside what do victory and defeat mean on it are to be discovered in a case by case basis. 

 

 

Planets 2: Time and weather in the Disk

Not every planet has a night: very small planets have not enough mass to block much sunlight. However, as they grow big in scale, the dusk zone also grows. This is truer in orbits closer to the sun, where desertic climates are common. At the temperate middle orbits it's easy to have bright nights due to the clouds acting as lush reflecting screens. But even if the confortable darkness of night is a luxury for some, it becomes the norm far from the sun: behind all the cloud layers piled up, the planets are gradually subsumed in penumbra.

The very concept of a day is certainly diffuse in the Disk as whole. Every planet has its own rotation cycles, and there is not an unified unit of time. A traveler in planet A can build a house from the foundations to the roof during a single night. Then go to planet B and have seven dusks and dawns pass over him during a nap. But most people don't travel too much, and adapt their lives to their local idiosincrasy as part of their planet culture; just as all civilizations adapt to summer and winter. But how much exactly does a winter last?

Translation cycles are equally diverse across the known world. And while using years as an unit can work when talking with a fellow planeteer or organizing local stuff, the proper way to deal with strangers or speaking of the past is in terms of generations: "In times of my father, my grandfather, or my grand-grandfather". However, seasons do exist, and every planet gets their summer, fall, winter and spring. They just have a different impact and time on each. I cannot imagine how hard (an long) can winter be on one of the outernmost planets, and how does their people endure, if there is actually somebody there.

Sometimes, a sage tries with more effort than success to research notes, contrast planetary records and make sense of the world history, and eventually surrenders; cursing the disinterested nature of men; because it's very hard to find records of the past of any kind in the planets beyond personal or familiar diaries. "Maybe people would act different if we all lived in a planet with the same years and days for everyone" he says. "We could measure our ages in years; or know which planet holds the oldest city" But only sages care about that kind of impossible things: nobody else cares about when something happened or what is their exact age. A kid becomes a youth at some point, and then an adult, then an old man. Those ages are most times obvious to oneself and to others, and they don't need more. While for the sages the world is old and carries the weight of the past, for those with fire in their bellies the world is as fresh as the everchanging sand in a beach, waiting for them to build their castles on; and its easy to hear the breath of the gods behind you, just as if they had created the world not long ago, and are still taking a rest.

Weather, on the other hand, is much more important. 

The Disk itself looks like a disk, because the known orbits all spin in the same plane. Just like planets, clouds and winds have their own cycles around the father sun. And just as birds migrate from planet to planet, alongside floating flower seeds, stray projectiles or the harmless paper hearts that young girls like to send into the sky so they find their future lovers, also winds and storms are put to dance by thermal and centrifugal forces and attracted eventually by a planet's pull. However, weather's dance is as vital to farmers and navigators as planet's dance is to the sages. A weather yearly almanac, be it copied from another guildsmen or inherited through many generations is an invaluable treasure to have for men and woman of many trades. When there is no other choice, settlers and pioneers write them by their own hand, many times in the improvised symbols and crude drawings proper of illiterate men.

Planets 1: Floating around

 

"Why doesn't everybody fly around from planet to planet all the time? It's so easy, right?" 

Thats what most kids ask when they learn about the open space of the Disk. 

 "Yes, it is, kids." Parents say. "But have something in mind: once you set your feet off the land, our gravity will pull you less and less, and at a certain point, you'll be drafted by further gravities of distant planets, so you'll probably get to go somewhere. But the orbits are capricious, our whole universe an unfathomable clock of a myriad spheres. If you lose track of your home planet, you might never be able to find it again. I wish you would stay with us forever, and there is no shame on it. Many others do not ever abandon their home planets. But someday you'll be a man and might like to prove your worth far beyond those clouds..."

Nobody knows for certain how many planets there are on the solar system. It is known that the biggest one (and the most populated for sure) is probably Hytral: its enormous circumference spanning almost 250 km along its equator. The planet codices at the observatory in Emben register the names of five hundred spheres of different sizes, though the actual number is for sure much larger: its impossible to count all the smaller nameless rocks which can barely hold a handful of baobabs. The added problem of them all having different rotation cycles makes travel and observation very difficult during long spans, making most of that information incomplete and outdated,

Travelling from planet to planet is not difficult for a healthy and fit person. Although at surface level all the planets have similar gravity pull, its easy to break free of it by propelling yourself high enough: this distance is usually proportional to the size of the planet. In a very small one, an energic jump can do the trick, or you may help yourself by using a jumping pole or climbing up a tree (As a kid growing up in a small planet, I did it all the time with my friends instead of going into school). Bigger planets normally have towers dedicated to the purpose of helping departers reach the heights for low gravity. Of course, the landing is also rougher on those, and having a parachuting device is advised to those travelling into one. 

Its always wise to check your local sage for the upcoming planetary conjuntions, as you can lift off and wade through clean sky and clouds for more time than you intended, or find another place instead. In case of doubt, following a flock of birds will always lead you somewhere. On the other hand, following a flock of cloud whales will surely lead you to deep cloud formations with little or no land, in which is terribly easy to become disorientated and lost.

Most people has no real reason to travel to other planets. Some do it in their youths, as an adventure, or maybe searching for a different place in which to settle. Constant travel is much rarer, and people who does it is often treated with as much curiosity than suspicion. Though interplanar invasion and wars are very strange in the disk, probably for logistical reasons, criminals and scoundrels are not. But who doesn't like the visit of a journeyman of any strange foreign trade, looking for knowledge and sharing his own? Who isn't enthralled by the visit of a singer, bringing information that is part her own lies and part the ones that were told to her? Who hasn't followed a foreign monk into the local dojo, searching for an honorable duel in which to test his skills?