The water sphere

In the middle of the wild landscape, this giant ball of water floats just above the ground. It marks the location of a regularly recurring rift to an ocean planet. When the rift opens, the sphere absorbs the water coming through it, drastically increasing in size. When the rift closes, the water slowly evaporates and shrinks. At its largest, the sphere can get to over a hundred meters across, at is smallest it is about 5 meters.

The presence of the sphere is the result of the efforts of a number of shifters and water warlocks from the The Federation of Magic. They were able to place a permanent rune at the entrance to the rift that creates a strong attraction to liquid water. It is effectively a plug in the rift; an arcane tampon, so to speak, that expands with the absorbed water until no more water can get through. Without this, the flow of water would be catastrophic for both Earth and the Ocean planet beyond.

It is theoretically possible to travel through the water sphere and into the ocean planet while the rift is open. The rune only attracts free-flowing liquid water, so swimmers could swim into the ocean beyond without handicap, should they so desire. So far, the place beyond has been unnamed. The people who do know of it call it only by the unimaginative title, "Water World."

Fauna & Flora

It is common for water dwelling creatures to come through the rift when it opens and be stuck here in the sphere when it closes.

Not all of the creatures are small, or passive. In fact, there is a jellyfish that is known to reach out of the sphere and drag prey into it to feed.

These jellyfish come in all sizes and the largest has a reach of 10 meters and can drag and eat something the size of a horse.


But most common is a small fuchsia-colored fish with glowing yellow eyes. There are usually a dozen or so in the sphere at any one time.

Natural Resources

The water sphere is a source of scientific research into the ocean planet beyond. Scientists and scholars would surely be intrigued by it. Because all of the water trapped in it eventually evaporates, its salinity would expectedly increase over time. Many of these salts are unique to the planet on the other side of the rift and so a regular team of salt harvesters has set up their workshop here, preventing the expected salinity increase.
Salts:

• Mental Salt - This is a shiny granular purple residue. Ingesting the daily dose aids concentration and clarity, providing a +2 to knowledge skill rolls and skills requiring smarts for 24 hours.
• Sports Salt - This greenish yellow powder aids the efficient conversion of energy in the body, resulting in more strength and endurance. Vigor rolls and strength based skills get a +2 for 24 hours after ingesting a daily dose.
• Magic Salt - Somehow, this clear crystallized dust helps to make arcane use more efficient. Ingesting the daily dose provides a 20% increase in power points (both PPE and ISP, round up) and doubles all Power Point regeneration for 24 hours.
• Super Salt - This is the total combined evaporated salts found in the water. The mixture of complex compounds provides the total breadth of beneficial effects listed above, but at only half the potency. (same duration)

Ingesting more than a daily dose will oversaturate the body, negating the beneficial effects. Ingesting three times the daily dose will result in exactly the reverse effects. Every daily dose beyond that compounds the negative effects. Ingesting any bit less than the daily dose will have zero results. Apparently there is a critical concentration of salts necessary to achieve the cascading reactions that create these effects.
All attempts to synthesize these salts have been unsuccessful so far.
The entire salt extraction process is able to produce 3 daily doses of super or one daily dose of all three of the concentrates per week. Since the water sphere is located on a ley line nexus, it attracts all manner of phenomenon and beastie, leaving it operational only about 75% of the time. This means the entire yearly production of salts is about 117 daily doses, give or take. The salt is thus extremely expensive.