Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 185 - Lore Series - The Vast and Empty Areas of Your Map

Episode Date: July 30, 2023

In this episode I use a bit of lore about the Vast to expand on a concept important to your game world - unexplored areas with the potential to have anything you can think of.   #DMtips #dnd #Pathfinder #Starfinder #TheVast   Resources: Paizo forums - What is the Vast?  https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2v1by?What-is-the-Vast 

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. I have been gaming a long time, and I have yet to find a gaming group that doesn't get a little bit excited to explore lost and unknown areas. Thank you so much for listening to the Taking20 Podcast, episode 185, all about Starfinderers area of space called the vast i want to thank this week's sponsor luggage if you take a plane trip and the airline loses your luggage you may be tempted to sue them however you may want to rethink that you've already lost one case we have a coffee ko-fi.com slash taking20podcast. This podcast survives thanks to the generosity of listeners like you. If you like the podcast, please consider donating, even if it's just a couple of dollars.

Keep it alive. Donor-suggested episodes always float to the top of the queue, so if there's a topic you'd like me to cover soonish, please consider donating just a little. I want to go on record at the very beginning of this episode and say that I am cheating a little bit in this lore episode. That's right, I'm using a lore episode to make a point when it comes to game and world and adventure and map design. But then again, isn't that the point of the podcast in a lot of ways? Let's get the title out of the way first. What is The Vast? The Vast is a

huge, little explored area of space in the Starfinder universe. The reason I want to talk about it is because having these unexplored areas is very important to your game for a couple of reasons. Because I'm a contrarian, let's start with the less common reason for you to leave unexplored areas of your world when you're designing. 1. If you ever intend on making your game world available for others to use, you need to include unmapped, lost, or distant locations as part of the game world, which would allow other DMs and GMs to set their stories there if they wanted to do something different than what you had designed in your main game world. Your game world may be high fantasy with floating cities and magical streetlights as common as tree pollen. However, a DM using your game world may want a setting that's full of aliens and strange technologies, and there's nothing like that in what you designed. The second reason I would want you to leave an unexplored or unmapped

area of your world is, well, that second reason is going to come to you right after this advertisement for Squarespace. Oh god, can you imagine? Well, no, I'm not doing that. That would be awful. Anyway, let's talk about The Vast and some quick facts about Starfinder lore to help understand and level set for everybody. The VAST and its concepts is inexorably tied to a concept known as the GAP, and I talked about the GAP in Starfinder back in episode 137, so go give that a listen if you're interested. A technology was developed called drift beacons, and these are fixed points that allow for easier targets of faster-than-light travel through what's something known as the Drift. They serve as both navigational signposts and communication relays

for the interstellar civilization that exists in Starfinder. Most of the adventures in Starfinder occur in what are known as the Pact Worlds. The Pact Worlds system, or Galarian system, is the solar system that arguably most of the game is based around. These worlds and the entire system are covered with drift beacons and almost completely mapped, from the innermost planet all the way to the outermost asteroid. The packed worlds consist of the following planets moving from innermost to outermost. I'm probably going to mispronounce some of these, so feel free to correct me by sending me a message to feedback at taking20podcast.com.

Abalon, it's the closest to the sun and it is drab gray. It's boiling on one side and freezing on the other, and it's inhabited by machine people called anasites. Castravel, imagine if Venus were an inhabitable world with oceans and atmosphere, etc. That's Castorvel. It's full of sentient species known as Lushunta and the Elves. Little known fact, that's where a lot of the Elves fled during Earthfall when that happened in Galarian's history. Learn all about Earthfall on episode 121. Next planet we'll talk about is Akiton. It's a red planet loosely based on Mars. Dust storms, mostly lawless, a few city-states here and there.

It's inhabited by Yosuke and a few other races. Verses, or verses, V-E-R-C-E-S. Tidily locked continental world with one side a scorching desert and the other side freezing cold. Life mostly clings to a ring between the two temperature extremes as 27 nations have arisen in that very narrow space around the entire planet. Next is the Diaspora, which is an asteroid belt. The next planet I've always thought was interesting. EOX. It's a planet of undead.

Eons ago, they built and fired a terrible weapon against two neighboring planets, and it shattered them, and the remains of those planets became the Diaspora. The problem is that the weapon that they fired burned away Eox's atmosphere, and most of the inhabitants had to turn to necromancy to survive. Triaxus is the next planet. necromancy to survive. Triaxis is the next planet. It has a very eccentric orbit that results in centuries-long summers and winters. One of my favorite Pathfinder 1e adventure paths goes to Triaxis, and I'm not going to tell you which one because I don't want to spoil it. Next is Laeivara. It's a gas giant very similar to Saturn, except with several large populated moons. Next would be Britheda. It's a gas giant similar to Jupiter, also with large populated moons. Next would be Britheta.

It's a gas giant similar to Jupiter, also with dozens of moons. Next planet is Apostae or Apostae. Barren, lifeless, cold, with its out-of-alignment and highly elliptical orbit. It reminds me a lot of Pluto. You remember when that was a planet? Oh, those were the heady days of youth. What lives there on Apustae? Drow, troglodytes, orcs, etc. But there's also some elementals and constructs there.

Octurn is the next one. Planet-sized great old one, basically. Toxic atmosphere, the entire surface swells and contracts like it's breathing. It's covered by a global illusion, by the way, and the space around it littered with starship debris. Besides planets, there's also some space stations and some humanoid-made items that are circling the star. Absalom Station is between Castroville and Akiton and is arguably the heart of the solar system. Millions live and thrive there on a space station that appeared where Galarian used to be during the gap. And then Idari is a massive generational starship that's orbiting the star as well. Like I said, a large chunk of Starfinder takes place in this solar system, and there are unexplored moons and star bases galore.

Plenty of cities to visit. Heck, Absalom Station by itself is big enough for an entire adventure path. But this solar system is not the only thing there is. From here, we can venture out to what's called Near Space, or the Near. It's an area close to the Pact Worlds that's very well scouted. There are a lot of drift beacons in Near Space to aid navigation. It includes solar systems like the Vescarium, otherwise known as Vesk Space, where the reptilian ancestry calls itself home. And there's also some other well-known and well- explored galaxies and worlds in there. Interestingly, being close, nearby, to the

packed worlds is not a requirement for being considered near space. That designation comes mostly from the fact that it's been thoroughly mapped and very drift accessible. There's tons of drift beacons there. There are actually parts of near space that would be geographically farther away than the last designation and the subject of today's episode, the vast. The vast is a fringe region of space where there are few drift beacons and most planets are unexplored. That, I want to make sure you understand, is the major differentiation between near space and the vast, the availability and frequency of drift beacons. While well-charted areas with many beacons in the galactic rim are part of near space, distance has no bearing. All right, so we've said that. To bastardize the

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the vast is big. Really big. I mean, you just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. Sure, near space contains a few populated solar systems with clearly defined roads and space lanes and travel among them. The vast is, well, everything else in the universe. For gits and shiggles, I took a friend of mine to lunch who majored in astrophysics in college. I asked him what percentage of the known universe our solar system is. He growled and threatened to murder me for giving him this kind of problem over lunch, but I plied him with barbecue and beer.

Thereby proving, by the way, that we're all just cavemen at our hearts. We really just want to eat and spend time with each other and maybe get a little drunk. The only difference between us and cavemen is just some of us now are a little more knowledgeable about gravitational lensing and the Drake equation. We sat and talked, and he grabbed a notepad and came up with zero point, put 56 zeros after the decimal point, three percent. That's what percentage of the universe our solar system is. And proceeded to call it, quote, close enough for government work, end quote.

That, by the way, is a ridiculously small percentage of the universe. Almost infinitesimally small. So imagine the Starfinder universe is similar, and there are, say, oh, 20 inhabited and almost fully mapped solar systems. Do you know what 20 times ludicrously small is? Still ludicrously small. Everything else, that's the vast. 99.999999, and you know you can just keep going with nines.

Let's just call it damn near 100% of the universe is the vast and walk away from this crazy math. The vast is largely unmapped, unknown, and could contain anything. Worms with no eyes and amazing vision by detecting vibrations in the air? Sure, sounds fun. Plant-mammal hybrids with voices like a bass drum that speak in subtle variations of pitch? Sounds good. A mostly liquid species that builds their entire civilization inside of massive frozen blocks of methane? Sure, why not? The Vast is a magical,

wonderful place that, for we GMs, is a huge playground. You can put lost civilizations, pre-spaceflight civilizations, pre-alloy, hell, pre-toolmaking civilizations out there that are like the existing ancestries in your game or maybe very, very different. Lithoids that are silicon-based instead of carbon. Pig people who speak with interpretive dance. A junta-based warlike tribe of lizard people. No, sorry, that's already there. They're called the Vesk.

You can write entire adventures where the PCs meet new people and grow fond of them, incorporate them into the space United Nations, or conquer and subjugate them, making the jelly people of Narnon 7 take jobs as our foot massagers. The sky is no longer the limit as long as you have a vast in your game world. And that's why I wanted to talk to you about it. The lore information for such a wide open area is almost non-existent. But Jeremy, isn't this a lore episode? How can you have a lore episode when there isn't much lore? Well, impatient ass, I'm getting there. Go over there and sit and be quiet. Go. I said go. Sit. Now, sorry about that.

The reason you can call this a lore episode is because lore is not only what's provided by the publisher, but what the GM decides to add themselves. What's in the vast? Whatever the hell you want to be there. Whatever makes for good adventures. Whatever sounds fun to you and your players. An asteroid adrift for millennia with drones keeping it maintained and on course for... something. A populated planet, a solar system where it can establish itself as a new planet at the edge of it, fulfill some sort of dangerous or beneficial or egalitarian purpose. It's up to you. Whatever sounds fun.

A dead god whose preserved corpse has been tumbling through space for millennia? Sure, it sounds kinda spelljammer-y, see episode 140, but it also sounds fun. A ship rocketing between the stars and whatever you would like. Now you're cheating. Jeremy, saying lore is whatever you want it to be doesn't provide any new information. Yeah, I thought I told you to be quiet. Besides a lore episode, this easily could have been a world-building one, because my beloved DMs out there, I want to give you the second critical reason for unexplored areas in your

game world. Always, and I mean always, when you're building your maps and building your world, have an area off the edge of the known map. Areas where it could say, here there be dragons. Areas that are unknown and could be explored by the PCs. I have been gaming a long time, and I have yet to find a gaming group that doesn't get a little bit excited to explore lost and unknown areas. They love exploring strange new worlds and seeking out new life and civilizations to boldly go where no man has gone before. I better stop now because I don't have the rights to that song. The point is, having empty areas where the

map isn't filled in is so exciting. There could be anything at all in that empty space. A utopia beach planet where the temperature is always a beautiful 85 degrees. Okay, I may have stolen that idea from Fifth Element. A continental planet like Earth with new life forms and new dangers. An ocean planet that has a permanent connection to the elemental plane of water. A planet where it's high pressure atmosphere and it rains diamonds. Adventures with space pirates and generational starships

containing tens and thousands of cryogenically frozen... What? You probably have some ideas. I was going to say species that resemble golden retrievers on Earth. That's right. Who's a good boy?

Who's a good boy? Who's a good... That's my problem. I'd probably get shot trying to be a diplomat to that species. How the hell did we get to golden retrievers? Okay, let's wander back. Jeremy, I don't play Starfinder. Why should I care what the vast is? I said hush. That kind of narrow thinking can keep a good GM from becoming a great GM. Remember one of the DM mantras, borrow, borrow, borrow, steal, steal, steal. Great ideas can come from anywhere and take what you need and use it in your game with your spin and your flavor on it.

So you're playing 5e on the Sword Coast or Pathfinder 2e on Galarian or Delta Green on Earth, and your version of those worlds aren't connected to the Vast, what benefit can you draw from this episode? Well, first off, I'd say you can put anything in the Vast if you want, including Earth if you want to. It's already canon on Galarian, for example, that the Baba Yaga of Galarian is the same Baba Yaga of Earth, so they're already connected. But even if you keep them completely separate, there are ideas that you can use from the concept of the vast, a wide open, unexplored, or minimally explored area of the map, regardless of what it's named. When designing your game world,

I think this episode is important for you to keep in mind, because if you're making something to publish and for others to use, you need somewhere they can slot their game if it doesn't exactly fit what you've already made. And if you're making a game world for your players, it gives somewhere for your players to get excited about. The potential for adventure in unmapped areas is through the root. The vast inner world that you're designing or leading players in could be called the Sargasso Sea, a dangerous area of strange currents, difficult to navigate, or maybe it's the continent of Sarasan, where gorillas the size of office buildings roam freely, forming a civilization to protect themselves from the dinosaurs that haven't gone extinct there. There are mosquitoes the size of Great Danes buzzing by with proboscis, proboscis, proboscises? The bloodsucker things on their face that are the diameter of pool noodles.

The island of lost dreams or the edge of your world has a shimmering portal that leads to the plane of wandering shadows where adventurers never return. Think about any areas in your game world or on your map that aren't well known. world or on your map that aren't well known. Those are great places to set an adventure and you can customize and design the adventure for your players as they go through based on what they enjoy. Because it's not mapped. We don't know what's there so you can put whatever you want in that unmapped area. Let's say you're in traditional 5e or Pathfinder game and your own custom world is what you're running it in. It could be high or low fantasy, doesn't matter. The party's on a ship and they get caught in a terrible storm between Hyrospex Island and Continent of Regadia. The ship is dashed upon the rocks and the characters

gradually fail their swim checks and lose consciousness. They wake up on an island with strange plants, a thick jungle of foreign-looking foliage none of the characters recognize, and mountains that rise off to the east. Nearby is a simple but sturdy, crude cottage with a rock overhang for a ceiling. And from inside, the party hears happy-sounding whistling. There's a thrill to being in an area that's not fully explored or known. The vast majority of us will never travel to unexplored areas of Earth or our own solar system. One of the more interesting quotes I ever heard stated is that our generations are the middle children of history.

We were born too late to explore the Earth and too early to explore the stars. RPGs are a wonderful way to recreate that feeling of Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore I have never met a gaming group that didn't get a little excited when they were given a map that's largely not filled in with any number of places to go It's the excitement of the unknown It's the thrill of discovery

and the exhilarating feeling that each choice could bring you face-to-face with tremendous danger, untold wealth and maybe a few experience points to boot. My friends, that's what the vast is. Whatever it looks like in your world, large unmapped sections of the solar system, a previously unknown continent, an alternate universe version of an existing game world, or maybe even a completely different plane of existence. The vast is just that. Any area that holds treasures and dangers in equal measure with new places to explore and people to meet. Have an unexplored area in your game world. Give your players a blank map and ask them to fill it in as they explore whatever they happen to discover as they go. I'd be willing to bet that if you set up your game that way,

you and your players would have fun doing it. If you enjoy this podcast, please consider giving it a like and a rating wherever you happen to find it. Every interaction like that helps this podcast gain some visibility and might help someone find it who would enjoy it. Tune in next week when I'm going to expand on a topic from a few episodes ago

and talk about class levels in your world and my old-school view on it. Tune in next week when I'm going to expand on a topic from a few episodes ago and talk about class levels in your world and my old school view on it. But before I go, I want to thank this week's sponsor, Luggage. Every time I go get my luggage at the airport, I always get a little snappy and sometimes I even burst into tears. I guess I'm just case sensitive. This has been episode 185, continuing the lore series all about the vast. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking 20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube Media Production. Copyright 2023. References to game system content are copyrighted by their respective publishers.