DARK SUN
& SPELLJAMMER
DARK SUN
& SPELLJAMMER
KET-TAHN
Size D ~ Flatworld ~ Earth Body (Live World, 1 Moon)
Ket-tahn is one of the most frightening places in the multi-verse for an Athasian to walk: a Rhulisti world. From space it appears as a giant organic disk turning in the void, green and blue with life and water. A great axis runs through the centre of the disk, a giant pillar of stone that stretches to the extent of the atmospheric envelope. Ket-tahn revolves around this pillar, and the Rhulisti use it to launch their strange life-shaped spacecraft. The planets surface is almost equal parts earth and water, but mostly earth as no water exists toward the edge of the disk. In fact, this is mostly wasteland, and few locals travel here.
It is possible to climb down one of Ket-tahn’s cliff-like edges, into the opposing gravity-plane, but such a feat is more likely to result in a fall, whereupon the adventurer would drift along the plane of gravity to the edge of Ket-tahn’s atmospheric envelope.
Strange creatures inhabit this world. Most are life-shaped, but a few seem to be natural imports from other worlds. The land itself is sculpted to the needs of the Rhulisti, and great metropoli grow from the seas. Ket-tahn is physically different from Rhul-O, and as such it has attracted and bred a different type of Rhulisti. The inhabitants of Ket-tahn are much more laid back, less concerned with Rhulisti politics, and less mindful of what happens in the other worlds of Athaspace. Their minds are centred on themselves, on their own small community, or at the very most on Ket-tahn as a whole. It is taken for granted by Rhulisti that they are the primary species of the multiverse, so they do not feel a need to emphasise racial unity. Through their life-shaping, the Ket-tahn have evolved an entertainment- and convenience-based society similar to certain Western cultures of another distant Crystal Sphere. Life-shaped condos, amusement parks, and even ‘home storytelling systems’ have been developed by the Ket-tahn Rhulisti. As a whole, they are lazy and sheltered, although contact with an alien race might inspire enough xenophobia for them to take up arms. Considering their level of technology, this would be a dangerous gambit for the aliens.
The underside of Ket-tahn is pure hard earth, tapered into a cone. This makes it look like a Krynnish flying citadel when viewing it ride-side-up (or ‘Rhulisti-side-up’), and more like a mountain from the other. No Rhulisti live on 'Under-Tahn', but maintenance tunnels extend deep into the rock. The world is also an anomaly in that it is narrower along the horizontal axis of the gravity plane than the vertical. This is extremely rare, going against all the rules of wildspace. The Rhulisti claim that the Great Axis is the reason for this, and that they are technologically advanced enough to divert the gravity plane of their whole world.
Ket-O (Size A, w, Earth - Live World) is an artificial moon. It rotates around the Great Axis on the inhabited side of Ket-tahn. The side facing Ket-tahn looks like a ‘standard moon’ (apart from being flat), but the side facing away has forests and lakes, Rhulisti habitations, and a tremendous metropolis in the central lake. Because it always faces away from Ket-tahn at the same angle, Ket-O is exposed to the Dark Sun at the correct intervals to support life. The Rhulisti who live here actually maintain Ket-O.
The entire moon is actually an enormous living tool that simulates natural weather over Ket-tahn. Working tunnels and great caverns fill the flatmoon, and the planet-side glows with the organic energy of a thousand fireflies at night. During the day it emits an obscuring blue mist that creates the effect of a sky. The workings of Ket-O are immense and alien in origin, ljust ike the Rhulisti life-shaping art. When Athaspace was first travelled, planar/wildspace sages noted the similarity between Ket-tahn and the Great Ring, the Great Axis and the Great Spire, Ket-O and Sigil. Those few in the know who theorise that the Rhulisti may be the ‘Great Ancestors’ who created the multi-verse quake with fear and delight at this evidence. Unfortunately, Rhulisti are not present on Sigil or the Outlands (or any other place in the Planescape setting). .