Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - General That's no moon...

That's a planet! (left side of the image.)

Not just a planet, it looks like a planet with an atmosphere. I can see clouds and oceans.

Is Rivellon just one half of a double-planet system?

I wonder what's it called, or if anything lives there?

i hope we get to visit it.

Good questions! I haven't even seen it yet....

I asked the same thing a while back and it was't confirmed what it was. It was said its the moon but as Stabbey says it looks to me like a planet...

Stabbey IS right, though.

The white formations that are seen there look a lot like clouds, and clouds can't exist without atmosphere, and moons are too small to sustain atmosphere. Plus, the blue surface makes it look like an ocean planet. Not to mention the size.

That's not true, lots of moons have atmospheres, Enceladus for example is tiny and has a rather thick one. The difference between a moon and a binary planet is where the centre of mass of the two bodies is, so if it's between the two planets it's a binary planet where each planet rotates around each other (Pluto and Charon for example --though they're no longer planets), if the certre of mass is within one of the planets then one is a satellite/moon of the other (eg. Earth and our moon) (note that there are other definitions of this though).

For all we know Rivellon (or where this picture is from) is a moon of the object in the picture! Anyway, I don't mean to be so pedantic, I just think this stuff is interesting.

Actually that is not true:
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Moons orbit planets, planets orbit stars. That's the main difference. Size isn't a factor as a moon orbiting a large planet can be larger than a small planet. And not all moons are just balls of rock and some planets (mercury) are not much more than balls of (molten) rock.
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Several of Jupiter's moons have atmosphere.
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Things get a little confusing when we talk about binary-planet. I won't quote some of the defs I've read but leave it as the Moon is considered rather large by conventional standards.

mmm, yeah... I dun goofed. I'll be in the corner.

But the size as seen from the surface of Rivellon does indicate that it's either a big celestial object, or a very close one. Can't say much not knowing the size of Rivellon.

Yes, technically, it could just be a moon, but during formation, it would have to have sufficient mass to be able to hold on to its own atmosphere. Too little, and the lighter gases would get sucked away to the bigger partner, leaving it a barren rock.

That thing in the sky really looks like it has a substantial atmosphere - which means enough mass to hold onto it, so it probably is comparable in mass to Rivellon.

Earth is 81 times more massive than the Moon, and even then the gravitational center of the Earth-Moon system is about 1,700 km (about a quarter of the Earth's radius) beneath the surface of the Earth.

There's also a valid argument that the Moon orbits the Sun (other satellites orbits sometimes have them move away from the Sun, but the Moon always moves towards the Sun), but that's debated and a bit beyond the scope.

I was going to take this further by saying that it's not just a mass problem as again, Enceladus is closer to Saturn than our moon is to Earth and Saturn is 5 million times heavier than it but it still has an atmosphere. But then I figured we're talking about a universe where people can teleport vast distances seemingly instantly, dragons can spew fire indefinitely without requiring vast amounts of energy, people can make it rain regardless of cloud conditions, etc. So I think it's safe to say the standard rules of physics don't really apply here.

So whether it's a binary planet or moon is up to Larian and similarly with whatever kind of atmosphere, conditions etc that they decide to give it. I think meme and I were disputing the statement that moons can't have atmosphere's though, we just both brought up the binary planet thing independently.

So back to speculation, if you look at the scenery in this picture it seems kind of barren with lots of canyons, my initial instinct when I clicked on the image was that this was a moon orbiting Rivellon. It kind of reminds me of orbital platforms levels in Starcraft.

I think the idea of some kind of fortress on the moon isn't that uncommon in fantasy or mythology so perhaps this is some allusion to that. It's probably reasonable to assume that a sufficiently powerful wizard can teleport distances that far.

However I could be way off, and that planet/moon in the background could just be a nice artistic touch.

Thanks for pointing it out Stabbey!

The other question that comes to mind is of course. Wth happened to this other celestial between DC and Divine Divinity/Divinity 2 as it's not seen or referenced anywhere...?