Planetary Fantasy

 It's like Spelljammer but mine

Touchstones: Star Control, Planescape, Star Trek

The Astral Sea

The Astral Sea has a convoluted relationship with time and space. Space within the Astral Sea is compressed, turning million year voyages into mere months- and the time which passes within is not quite the same as what passes without. It provides a much more convenient mode of inter-planetary travel than realspace Voidships, which are only used in specialized edge scenarios.

Planes appear as "Planets" surrounded by satellites representing connected Elemental and Divine/Infernal Planes. The actual "Prime Material" Planet is not present within the Astral Sea, only the "Sidereal" planes such as the Shadowfell or Feywild. To reach the Prime Material, one must first disembark into the local Shadowfell or Feywild, then enter a Fairy Ring or Sahdowgate to the Prime Material. Planets with frequent Astral traffic often have Feywilds that have been glassed into flat deserts to serve as a convenient Spaceport, fitted with permanent Feygates and Astral Elevators to facilitate travel.

The Astral Sea is filled with a pseudomaterial called Aether, a physical reflection of the emptiness that exists in the actual void of Realspace. Aether takes both gaseous and liquid form- an endless expanse of dead air and black water, neither are suitable to be imbibed. The currents of the Astral Sea form natural sailing lanes between Planets, similar to the shipping lanes found in terrestrial oceans. It is even possible for extremely gifted individuals to swim between Planets. Of course, most Starfarers use Starships. (Dragons, naturally, count as extremely gifted individuals, and fly instead of swimming.)

The most basic Starship is a canoe with oars. Such a craft is capable of traveling at very slow speeds between nearby celestial bodies, or flying between different points in the Sidereal without breaking Astral Orbit. Of course, you need to find a tall enough point on the Feywild/Shadowfell that you can make portage into the Astral Sea. Gravity is flexible in the sidereal realms that a tall enough Wizard's tower, tree, or mountain can serve as an Astral Elevator. In absence of a convenient fixed structure, a hot air balloon will often be sufficient to bring a Starship into Astral Orbit.

Astral Orbit is achieved when approaching a Planet in the Astral Sea. As you close the distance, the spherical planet seems to unfold into the "sky" above your craft. Breaking the reversed gravity causes you to "fall" from Astral Orbit. Starfarers ought have a plan to make this descent slowly.

Most Starships are not bare canoes powered by oars. Traveling across the Astral Sea to other Stars is a lot harder than canoeing to the Moon. While Starships don't have to be pressurized, since the Aether is not a vacuum, it is also not breathable. Starships need to be fitted with life support systems, water and food provisions, redundant propulsion systems, and so on. Aether cannot be desalinated, shoals of Astral Sea dwelling organisms are infrequent, and are not reliably edible, and there are frequently some very nasty things lurking beneath the black waves.

Having propulsion is very important- while there exist currents that allow Starships to travel swiftly along common lanes, there also exist dead zones- and worse, weirs and whirlpools that can entrap ships. Astral Weirs caused by dark Realspace celestial objects pull Starships into their placid center with currents much stronger than the force that basic mechanical propulsion systems provide- leaving them completely stranded unless another Starship with a more powerful engine comes along and pulls them free. Not all of the dangers are purely environmental. Piracy, Dragons, Void Demons, Astral Debris; many of the dangers of the Astral Sea are blessedly vulnerable to a salvo of cannonfire.

Races of the Astral Sea

Carcinization:  Elves, Dwarves, and Humans- among other races, are found rather commonly on different Prime Material Planets. There are many theories to explain this strange coincidence. For one, many of the races referred to as "Elves" have completely different origins, their commonalities are largely cosmetic. While some elves are tree dwelling gracile immortals, others are descended from plants themselves, and some have just as much in common with the "Human" pseudospecies. Then again; the Dwarven pseudospecies is incredibly homogeneous. Dwarven morphology and culture remains mostly consistent across Planar origins. Perhaps Dwarves simply represent an optimal biological niche, or are just a popular idea among the many Creator Gods. Whatever the reason, it is not surprising to meet another Human from a different Planet.

This is a non-exhaustive list of the spacefaring races of the Crux-Satari arm of the "Great Wheel" dwarf galaxy.

1. Humans - One of the more common races found on the Astral Sea. Many are auxilliary crew on the Starships of other races, powerful mages from otherwise "primitive" Planets, or privateering crews of adventurers flying around in a ship they stole from a Starfaring race- or stumbled across ina dungeon somewhere on their homeworld.
2. Elves - Once upon a time there was a colossal tree that spread throughout the Astral Sea, its boughs touched a thousand stars. It is thought to have seeded much of the vegetable life throughout the Feywilds of the galaxy. The Elves tended to it, and it was both their home and their God. Then it was shattered.
• The Fallen used their powers of Treesinging blended with Necromancy to weave Rotships from the shards of the tree. Without a home, they travel in an eternal quest to find the still living taproot of their lost paradise.
• Elan - While the Fallen fell to despair, the Elan fell to mania. After the death of the First Tree they settled the Feywilds they found themselves stranded in. They integrated into the Fey species found therein, founding the infamous Courts of the Fey. After many years, some Elan turned their gaze towards the Astral Sky. The Elan are creatures of whimsy and excess, their ships are absurd pleasure barges and roving carnivals, and expeditionary explorers in search of novel pleasures on the many worlds of the Crux-Satari.
3. Dwarves - Squat people born from living stone. Excellent craftsmen and dedicated workers. Known as being prolific merchants and mercenaries. Invented the shotgun.
4. Orcs - Vatborn soldiers created to be disposable war slaves, stripped of most of the biological processes required to live a full and happy life for the sake of efficiency. Many have escaped to individual backwater Planets and made their own lives there, for better or worse. Most are pirates and private soldiers for fascist empires. Orcish gene matrixes are the most common form of contraband found across the Crux-Satari; it's as easy as slotting them into an alchemical bioprinter and pulling the lever.
5. Maun Sotha - A mix between hagfish, termites, and weasels. They have three fingered forefeet, and a row of six more piggy hindfeet. Their long tails are tipped with a paralytic stinger. Maun saliva solidifies into a hardened plaster-like crust, which they tongue-sculpt into hives, clothing, and Starships. Maun Starships are infamous for being hellish tangles cobbled together from shipwrecks, debris, and fungal infestations. Rather than using cannons, they just ram their enemies, allowing their ship to break apart and then tangle around the other Craft. Maun magitech focuses on the cultivation of specialized strains of fungi- their Straships are propelled by a web of demonic mycelium which converts the suffering of living things into kinetic energy. Known for mass raiding and abductions.
6. Bishapti - Maggoty grub ruminants with doughy bodies and four arms. Their Nymph stage requires gastroliths to properly digest the tough vegetal matter found on their homeworld. Bishapti are actually not natively sentient, their higher mental functions are a result of the interactions of three different polarities of psychically resonant stones inside their stomachs. According to Bishapti folklore; Ha-stones provide Bishapti with desire, Poh-stones provide Bishapti with mathematical ability, and Reah-stones grant them personality and the ability to metacognitize. It is said there is a fourth stone, which grants a Bishapti terrible supernatural powers. The Bishapti homeworld is the only known source of these stones. Pirates target Bishapti to cut the stones from their stomachs.
• Agol Bishapti - The final form of a Bishapti, held at bay by alchemical treatmentand meditation. Agol Bishapti lack mouths or stomachs, and so are no longer sentient. They exist only to lay and fertilize eggs- but are physically powerful and covered from head to toe in inch thick armored plating. Agol Bishapti Eunuchs are used as a sacred warrior caste, directed in battle by telepath priests. They live for a matter of weeks. To become Agol is the greates sacrifice a Bishapti can make for their clan.
7. Automaton - Golems, Robots, Warforged; a convergent Pseudospecies of ensouled contructs. Designed to be servants, remade through fire and blood to be Automatons; Self Acting. Sometimes very dangerous to the Organic creatures that remind them oh so much of the masters they just got done grinding into grease.
• Necromachina - Making Golem cores is precision work. Trapping a Necrotic false soul inside of a chunk of dessicated corpsemeat and then implanting it into a mechanical body is much cheaper. The Astral Sea is filled with Ghost Ships manned by ancient Necromachina; bottom dollar self-perpetuating paperclippers travelling around stripmining worlds regardless of whether or not they're inhabited.
• Floethi -  Living wood sung around an ensouled core. An eco-friendly alternative to wrought metal. Desperate Fallen Elves try to do the same with the Dead Wood of the First Tree.
8. Ergheist - An ancient, warped race. Extremely skilled in the manipulation of living things through Alchemy, and even more gifted in the practice of Necromancy. Ergheist society fell to an oligarchy of billionaire lich-tyrants, who treated the living as worthless cattle and turned their home planet into a factory farm. Ergheist design their servants with impossible biologies and accelerated growth cycles, then kill and reanimate them to be used up until they need to be recycled into nutrient slurry. There are no more living Ergheist, the last scrap of viable genetic information was destroyed during their Resource wars, which suits the Lich lords just fine. A lich is an eternal machine, why would engineer its own obsolescence? Credited for the creation of Orcs. Responsible for polluting the Crux-Satari with an obscene amount of Necromachina paperclippers. Ergheist ships are attacked on sight by most Starferers.
9. Lacrima - Human Pseudospecies outlier. Their biology is mostly identical to other Humans; except for a third eye set in their foreheads. This third eye is capable of expelling tear drops telekinetically controlled by the Lacrima. Living creatures struck by these tears experience a momentary psychic link with the Lacrima.
10. Dragons - Not a Pseudospecies so much as a ring species spread across various Planets. Dragons are one of the only wholly terrestrial species capable of traveling the Astral Sea unaided. They need only find a Sidereal plane and flap their wings, and their absurd vitality allows them to survive the deprivation of the Aether. Dragons lack a drive for companionship, their nature as apex beings negates most of the pressures that drive the formation of societies. Dragons who meddle in the affairs of "lesser" starfaring races do so for many reasons. Some young Dragons do so to gain a leg up on the competition, others live among them from birth- finding a kinship kindled in their reptilian hearts. Older Dragons have more obscure purposes; compelled by alien logic, whimsy, or base cruelty.
11. Floxx - Two headed bird-like creatures with digititrade legs and wing-arms. The wings lack the full power to take them airborne except on worlds with a low gravitational constant like their own homeworld. Both heads are fully functional and have different personalities. Thought to be deeply honorable and wise; philosophy, mathematics, and theology are their main exports. Both of a Floxx's heads must be in agreement before they are capable of action, a trait which naturally lends the species a penchant for rhetoric. The Floxx do not use Starships; their Homeworld is home to a second sentient race- colossal whale like creatures (Peragia) who drift in and out of their Feywild's Astral Orbit. The Floxx build palanquin temples on their backs, and revere them as Gods. These nomadic temples make a pilgrimage across the Crux-Satari, lending their various talents (honorable warfare, spirited debate, wine brewing,) to other Sentient Races. Floxx Heretic-Pirates are known to be particularly dangerous.
12. Goblinoids - Thought to have been uplifted by a forgotten ancient race whose technology they inherited. Given a bad reputation by a fanatical sect (called the Sakarin) of their religion, whose manifest-destiny beliefs provide justification for the conquest of the inhabited worlds of other Sentient Races. They claim that the Lost Race left behind a trail of vaults and ruins, leading to a second uplifting and subsequent apotheosis to the Plane of Positive Energy as Gods. They also claim that it is their sacred duty to find and uplift all other instances of Goblins across the Astral Sea, folding them into the Great Crusade of the Sakarin. The Goblinoids who remain on their homeworld are much more relaxed, committed to a monastic lifestyle contemplating the mysteries of their uplifters and the preservation of the biosphere.