Planet & Polyhedrons Test Flight

This is the first "large-scale" test for the P&P system.

By that, I mean it's fairly small.

I wanted to try making a Sector Map out of several Sub-sector maps. So I rolled up four sub-sectors (as shown here).

Then I decided to "zoom" in on a star system and roll up it's details.

I rolled an M-type star.

My orbit dice rolls were like this:

• d6 (Medium Terrestrial Planet): 2
• d4 (Small Terrestrial Planet): 3
• d8 (Large Terrestrial Planet): 3 (uh-oh!)
• d10 (Asteroid Belt): 9
• d12 (Ice Giant): 11
• d20 (Gas Giant): 19 

None of the planets are in what would generally be considered the Habitable Zone of the star, but we'll get to that in a bit.

The Small Terrestrial Planet got destroyed by the Larger Terrestrial Planet, so now that Large Terrestrial Planet has a ring system. Pretty cool.

Okay. So, going down the line, let's add some attributes.

Rolling my dice again for each planet, I find:

Medium Terrestrial Planet is Volcanic with a thin Hydrogen Sulfide atmosphere with a "Fractal Plateau". This summons tom mind a toxic mashup of Mordor and the Shattered Plains (from The Way of Kings). Very Star Wars.

Large Terrestrial Planet is a Rocky World with a Trace Atmosphere of helium and sodium. It has a "Cratered Plateau" and, as per the previous step, a Ring System.

The Asteroid Belt has Three Small Rocky planetoids.

1. Volcanic; Trace helium sodium; "Dimensional Canyon". This I kind of picture as a rift to another dimension cutting across the surface. How did it get there? Natural happenstance? Was there a sketchy science lab hidden on it? 
2. Rocky; Trace helium sodium; "Blistering Mountain". While not technically a volcanic planet, I suppose it could have a very large volcano on it? Or maybe it is more like a blister? Volcanic, yes, but more of a constant upwelling of molten mud bubbling up and hardening, gradually building up over years.
3. Rocky; Trace helium sodium; "Antique Lake". This is pretty weird. There are any number of substances that could form lakes in this environment, but the "antique" quality is pretty weird. It is an ancient, artificial lake? Why would that be there?

The Ice Giant has a super dense atmosphere of methane and hydrogen. It also has a "Phosphorescent Ocean". That's cool! I like the idea of there being some sort of phosphorescent, glowing something under the clouds of this Ice Giant. I know the "ice" on an ice giant is not conventional ice. So I'll have to do some research to think about what this might be.

Gas Giant is a Super Gas Giant with a hydrogen, helium atmosphere. I rolled "Acidic Cavern" on the unsual features table and this probably demonstrates a limit of the system. Obviously, a Gas Giant wouldn't have a cavern system. But this sort of inconsistency can just force you to come up with explanations: 

• this gas giant is just built different!
• Acidic moon in close orbit!
• Labyrinthine alien megastructure infested by acidic slimes!
• Are said acidic slimes originally from the antique vat on the rocky world in the Asteroid Belt? I'm starting to suspect so...

Sometimes prompts work best when they're non-sensical.

Slime aside, this isn't a wildly habitable-seeming star system. It would be very easy for me to say, "Well, this must be that unexplored system in the upper-right quadrant." But let's force the situation a little. Let's say I have to pick one of the populated systems.

I'm going to make my life a little easier and say it's one of the systems with a "Service Station" in it.

Where would it make most sense for the Service Station to be located? Probably just on the edge of the system. Perhaps by a certain Super Giant with a claustrophobic slime problem?

Maybe the service station itself has been over-run by the acidic slime?

I think that sounds pretty good. You've got instant stakes: a ship that needs refitting, a station crew in danger, a narrow warren of station halls and maintenance tunnels filled with acidic slime. Sounds like a dungeon to me!