Atmosphere

Basic Information

An atmosphere is a layer of gases that may surround a planet of sufficient mass. It is retained by the gravity of the planet. Within it, weather phenomena will occur.

See Also

• Meteorology
• Rod (cryptozoology) - strange cryptids believed to reside here.

Sources

Bibliography

1. Wikipedia entry

Game and Story Use

• Maybe an atmosphere doesn't just retain gases, but also magic particles as well? In such case, magic could have its own weather phenomena either parallel or in addition to normal weather patterns - complete with "high-magic" and "low-magic" pressure fields.
• Our own atmosphere doesn't have many life forms in its higher reaches, apart from the odd migratory bird. But that doesn't have to be true on all planets. If there is enough nutrition up there (perhaps plants on the ground release massive amounts of seeds that regularly make it up there), and if the atmospheric density is high enough (to make it easier for creatures to float), it might have vast swarms of life forms living up there who never touch the ground.
  • In a fantasy world, there might even be solid ground in those atmospheric reaches - complete with floating islands inhabited by flying sapient creatures (or non-aerial sapients who just got stuck there).
    • In SF worlds, anti-gravity technology might substitute for magic, especially if the "islands" are precursor artifacts.
  • On the other hand, maybe Earth's atmosphere does have an invisible ecosystem, starting with the Rods and including even stranger creatures…