Name: The Banesun
Type: Spherical Radiance Body
Size: H
Escape Time: 24 turns
Satellites: 8 planets
Day Length: 75 hours
Year Length: none
Population Analysis: creatures from the
elemental plane of fire
The primary of the Banesun crystal sphere is a crimson-red fiery body. It is a giant of a sun, a bloated red orb of hydrogen combustion. The Banesun is over 500,000 miles in diameter, a monster of a sun. It burns with a tremendous amount of energy, heating the entire sphere.
The surface of the Banesun is a hellish environment of fire and brimstone. Massive flares and storms race across the nearly endless surface. Sages warn that approaching the surface is impossible; the heat is enough to cause any ship to be instantly destroyed, even if it is cooler than most typical stars. For some odd reason, no amount of fire resistance will work; all spells of protection of any sort fail to work within 50 million miles of Banesun's surface. Even creatures normally immune to fire perish on the surface, including fire giants and red dragons. Only creatures made of pure fire can survive, such as effreets and fire elementals.
The atmosphere of Banesun is absolutely poisonous to humanoids, even if they somehow managed to reach the surface. This photosphere is even hotter than the surface, forever protecting the surface from intrusion. It is very thick, with a radius of over 75,000 miles above the Banesun's surface. It glows with its own energy, casting the sphere in its famous hellish red light. Nothing, it seems, lives in the photosphere. Sages knowledgeable in such matters (and have communicated with efreet from Banesun) speculate that, somehow, the photosphere saps away life from any creature, even those of fire. Thus, the efreet never the leave the surface of the sun, as there is a safe zone that goes up to 10 miles above the surface.
The interior of the Banesun is completely unknown. As there is no definite surface, it is impossible to know where the atmosphere ends and the interior begins. Most sages agree that is probably is like any other sun while priests have their own theories. They claim that at the center of the Banesun beats the heart of a powerful god, who no lies forgotten and dead. His power was sacrificed to create the sphere.
Even for a sun, Banesun is stormy. Flares and firestorms cover no less than half the globe, and any area can expect a firestorm to race across within five minutes. Some flares are huge, reaching up to 100,000 miles into space. These deadly bursts of solar energy eject vast quantities of super heated gases and chunks of molten rock into space. The gases condense as they cool, creating new comets when they reach the outer system. The rocks likewise cool, but into asteroids that tend to find stable orbits in one of the many asteroid fields or belts. Many have unstable orbits and will eventually (after several centuries) crash back into the Banesun.
It is unknown how the effreet survive the fierce nature of the Banesun. The winds are enough to rip apart whole worlds with a single gust. By all rights, the effreet should not be able to survive it. Yet they do, and remain a mystery for the sages.
From anywhere in the sphere, the Banesun seems unnaturally large and bloated. It pulses with energy, bathing the entire sphere in a hellish red light. The Banesun is far dimmer than most suns, and can be looked upon without harm to the eyes. Flares have been reportedly visible as far out as Shade without use of a telescope. The many violent storms are clearly visible, tearing across the surface like waves of fire.
As the Banesun is a sea of liquid fire, there are no landmasses anywhere. No special stone or metal cities are able to survive. It is unknown why this is, as continents are known to survive on suns that are far hotter and even more deadly.
There is only two species of life on the Banesun, effreets and fire elementals. In both cases, they seem darker and more violent than normally encountered. They are very anti-social, and would rather kill each other than establish communities. They are also very hard to summon, requiring a wish spell to bring them from their hellish home.
It is unknown why the effreet choose to live on the Banesun. Nor is it understood why they stay. The Banesun is not a healthy climate for them, and it seems to turn them against each other. The brutally harsh environment kills many effreet, yet the species endures.
The fire elementals seem to be born of the fire of the Banesun and thus connected to it. Though these elementals are often five times bigger than normal, they are nearly impossible to control when summoned. Nothing less than a full wish spell will bring these creatures from their home. A second wish spell is required to establish control over the elemental, and that only lasts 1 round per level of the caster. These elementals are hateful and destructive; when away from their home, they seek to destroy everything around them.
One sage has speculated as to why the elementals are so violent and why the effreet don't leave. The elementals, he claims, are the spirits of the dead in Banesun. Their souls are drawn to the Banesun like moths to fire, taking shape as great bursts of living flame. He further claims that the effreet are descendants of criminals from the plane of fire, and were stripped of their ability to leave. Somehow, they survived and even thrived in the brutal climate. The cost was, however, their ability to plane shift and any form of society. The sage has even gone on to speculate that the effreet are slowly loosing their intelligence and, if anything, becoming more savage than before.
As there is no social order on the Banesun, there are no groundlings. Only the effreet count towards an intelligent species, but they are too busy trying to survive and kill each other to care about societies or contacting space cultures.
None. Other than the comets and asteroids ejected by solar flares, the Banesun has nothing of interest.
None.
For some unknown reason, the Banesun brings out the worst in people. Ships that have traveled within 100 million miles of the Banesun report that fights become much more common, people are constantly agitated and tense, and mutinies are much more common. Sleep is nearly impossible to get, as most visitors are too tense and uneasy to relax enough to fall asleep. The gith of Gith's Fury have adapted to this and it does not affect them at all.
