The power source inside, ancient and immeasurable never runs out inside this device, giving the accurate, bright glow of the suns and moons in the solar system. These rings track the orbits of the planets and other bodies in the local system. Great brass tracks would loop around the centre, like rings. Unlike our world, the Material Plane may be in the centre of the Orrery, while the sun would be in the centre of ours. The Ancient Orrery look vastly different depending on which world you set your games on. The synchronisation between the celestial bodies in the Orrery and the grand beyond above in the heavens matches perfectly and has never decayed over the ages. The orbs of the nearby planets and light of the sun and moon. The ancient brass and bronze will have tarnished in places, losing the metallic shine here or there, but never losing functionality or consistency. The great grinding gears of the Orrery power themselves. Some orrery devices are simple and can occupy a table top, but the Ancient Orrery is grand and immense. This immense model of the local celestial bodies is a miraculous marriage of astronomy, the science of the stars, and astrology, the magic of the stars. One of the first made in the given world, it is accurate before its time. The cosmology in Dungeons and Dragons varies greatly whether it's the standard model in the Player's Handbook or if you've created something special for your world.Īn Ancient Orrery is one such special diagram of space. With enough research, astronomers can map out the local solar neighbourhood. A diagram great or small that mirrors the cosmology around you. Somewhere deeper within that institution, a person will find the orrery. A great brass telescope can dominate the space while shelves upon shelves of books drift from surface down to the students as they need them. On the inner dome of the art deco building, a great mural of the stars with dotted lines with labels of ancient names of the constellations in Elvish or Draconic. Wizards schools, magical academies, and grand observatories dedicated to staring at the stars all have their own models of the universe. Here's another site of unlikely, but phenomenal power. Places can be just as magical in the worlds of Dungeons and Dragons. This power comes from a Landmark, a kind of Magic Item that bestows benefits for a short time to those who visit that site. A holy site that can bestow powerful energy to Clerics and Paladins if they remain penitent to the holy forces energising the place. In a past article, I looked at the Shrine of Holy Light. I have brewed something very special for some of my games based on some very simple fantasy fiction logic: can only things and people be magic? What about places? That is a wondrous start, but perhaps not enough for little old me. It infuses and permeates through the world, lifting the fates of our player characters, and breathing life into powerful monsters and beings of unknowable power. Magic is everywhere in the worlds of Dungeons and Dragons.
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