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Old 06-20-2009, 04:30 AM   #27
Landwalker
 
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Cumberland, ME
Default Re: Celestial Bodies

Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny Angel View Post
I could have the two moons just orbit the planet, but I was trying to do something a little more exotic. Also, I wanted some reason for the tidal waves to be a little more extreme and for ocean travel to be a little more trecherous than on Earth... a way to explain why, even after long periods of time, certain races and societies still hadn't come into contact with other races and societies who were based on other continents or land masses.
Late though I may be, there's an existing published setting that at least considers this same thing: The Iron Kingdoms, by Privateer Press. I don't remember the exact angles and whatsits and so forth, but the general gist is that the planet has three moons in orbit around it, which are highly different from one another in orbital inclination, mass, and the "severity" of their orbits' elliptical shape. This was used to explain the unpredictable, severe, and very dangerous tidal behavior of the setting's primary ocean, and thus in turn to explain why it had virtually never been traversed.

Cheers.
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