Terran (Oceanic)
Terran (Oceanic) A planet that accreted past the water line and kept its water, so the ocean is the surface. Any land rises from the abyssal plain as archipelagos. The Keth'rassa and the Qy'reen are both native to worlds like these, and the Federation's shipping problem on one is that valuable resources sit at depths that are costly to reach.
Crossing it
- Navigate
- DC 12
- Forage
- DC 8
- Notice
- DC 15
Navigation is by current and by beacon. Foraging is easy, and the notice DC is high because the sightline is short in every direction.
In play
-
No shelf
With little continental crust there is often no shallow margin at all. The drop from surface to abyssal depth can happen within a few kilometers of the only island.
-
Persistent storms
With no landmass to break them, weather systems last for weeks, and a surface crossing has to be planned around one.
-
Pressure
Below a hull's rated depth, a vessel or creature takes 2d6 bludgeoning damage per minute. Resistance and immunity to bludgeoning do not apply; only a pressure rating does.
Regions on it
- Coastline The strip between high and low tide, which is different ground every six hours.
- Frozen Sea Ocean covered by a layer of sea ice that supports weight until it breaks, over water that stays liquid.
- Island Land surrounded by water on every side, where the only way off is a landing point, boat or beacon.
- Lower Atmosphere The layer of a world's atmosphere where weather occurs: breathable, turbulent and home to flying creatures and vessels.
- Near Space The last of the atmosphere, thin enough to count as vacuum for every purpose except drag.
- Oceanic Trench A subduction trench cutting miles below the sea floor, the deepest water on the world, enterable only by a trench-rated hull.
- Open Ocean Water with no bottom in reach and no cover of any kind, lit at the top and twilight below.
- Seamount An underwater mountain that does not reach the surface, and the one landmark in open water.
- Shallows Water over the shelf with the bottom in sight, lit, crowded, and shallow enough to work in.
- The Deep The water below the last light: cold, black, and the largest habitat on any water world.
- Upper Atmosphere The stratosphere and mesosphere, above the weather and below space, with no breathable air and little lift.
- Vent Field An isolated community of life on the sea floor, fed by hot vents or cold hydrocarbon seeps.