Chunky Space

 Chunky Space is a region of space that was the site of a terrible battle in the Bastard War. The use of ontological weapons has left permanent scars in the fabric of spacetime. Hyperspace itself is warped, making it difficult to navigate. Ordinary hyperdrives require laborious calculations  in order to make simple jumps. As a result, Chunky Space is relatively unexplored. In recent ages the Chunky Space Compact has formed, leading to a new era of exploration and exploitation in the uncharted depths of Chunky Space.

Concepts

The astral plane - A dimensional complex that exists alongside conventional reality. When sentient creatures dream they reflexively create dreamscapes within astral space. Certain technologies and psychic powers allow for the manipulation of these spaces. The astral plane is “closer” in Chunky Space, meaning it is easier to influence and in turn has more influence on the real world.

Astral Currents - Most dreamscapes, even large permanent ones are only accessible from a small corresponding area in real space. The exceptions are the astral currents, which are massive dreamscapes that touch many points in conventional reality.  They are believed to be artificial structures made by the ancient Bastards. With the right technology they can be traversed as an alternative to hyperspace.

Astral Null - Conceptual nothingness. It is often thought of as the astral equivalent of vacuum. The Astral Null makes up the majority of the Astral plane but it isn’t truly empty. Strange astral lifeforms have adapted to live in the extreme low energy environment.

Shades and shadestone - Shades are known as the “invented people”. Non biological entities dreamed into existence by shade stone. They were used as servitors by their creators, the Phantsmagorics. Shades are not truly sapient, and without clear direction they create pantomime civilizations. Shadestone is an organic mineral that slowly grows into humanoid shapes. Where there is shade stone, there are shades.

Cosmic Eels - Massive organisms involved in a galactic migration between dreamscapes and astral currents. Each Eel is unique and home to its own astral ecosystem. Sometimes the Eels will breach into real space for unknown reasons, bringing with them a tide of surreal astral lifeforms.

Triple Crop

Chunky Space was created during the Bastard War, as the first Bastards used reality warping weapons on each other. After the dust settled, Chunky Space was first settled by the triple crop, a group of three civilizations with a complicated pattern of cooperation and war. They are all long gone, but the remote nature of chunky space has preserved their works. 

Soft Bodies - Master terraformers and bio-engineers. Their feral engineered ecosystems are found across chunky space. Early pioneers in the realm of kaiju manufacture. It is said they predicted the kaiju wars and nullified their own sapience, to spare themselves the horror of what was to come.

Noetic Alchemists - Machine intelligences obsessed with perfecting intelligence. Their esoteric industry processed billions of egos into a variety of strange and novel forms. They were destroyed by the Digital Devils, powerful beings that arose out of the dross

Phantasmagorics - A coalition of powerful psychics. They led early colonization efforts into astral space. Their fate is uncertain; some say they ascended to a higher plane, others say they were sealed away in some astral oblelette. 

Player factions

The Chunky Space Compact. A treaty between six polities with interests within Chunky Space. The treaty covers non-aggression, environmental standards for colonies and outposts and the issuing of privateering titles. The member polities are as follows:

Black Rainbow Destroyers Arts Council - The BRDs are a clade of autonomous weapons made by the ancient Gnomics to fight in the Bastard wars. These conflicts have long since ended and the BRD have had to evolve past their original mission. Now they seek to foster arts and culture within Chunky Space.

Maskform federation - Maskforms are a human subspecies that have evolved to live in astral environments. The Federation is a loose coalition of tribes that has recently formed to protect Chunky Space Maskforms from the predations of Father Corp. 

Seeder Initiative - A human polity from the human homeworld of Dirt. Formed after the old technocrat kings were overthrown in a violent revolution. They seek to promote human settlements and to create a pan-galactic human polity.

Republic of Sea Serpents - A ancient, eco-conservative polity founded by sapient bio-weapons. The Republic is a collection of far flung ocean worlds, each ruled by a monstrous senator. The polity is connected by a massive mercantile network of corporate clans.

Reclaimer Alliance - The Alliance is a mutual aid and defence pact of freeholds. The farmers and scavengers of the Alliance specialize in settling ruin worlds. 

Sophonic Advent - A theocratic machine polity that seeks to create and enrich minds. They take their ideology from “the final machine” , an alleged super being that will come into existence at the end of time. They are expanding in Chunky Space in order to study the works of the Noetic Alchemists.

Races

Dirt human - A human from the homeworld of Dirt. You remember a time when the Technocrat Kings ruled.

Mu-boll - Presumed Terran species that lost and regained sapiance while isolated in a large space station 

Flesh 7 - Gregarious machine intelligences with organic bodies. Close allies of humans.

Rune form - A digitized human subspecies. They use robotic bodies outside their digital homes.

Machine uplift - A regular digital device modified to be sapient.

 

Flesh 7 - A small minority Flesh 7 follow the Advent. They are marginalized due to their organic bodies.

Mycophile - A human subspecies with symbiotic yeast colonies in their fingernails.

Orn - The name of a Gestalt intelligence formed by several related species of fungal sapient 

Scolopendrites - Carnivorous insectile sapients. Mildly venomous 

Yonger Sky Clan - sapients evolved from the Ger, an organic machine ecology

Osgrenites - Monster hunting humans from the Dentata planet Osgren

Clowners - Amphibious crustacean sapients. They have an outer armoured shell that protects their vulnerable true body 

Whispering Worms - Sapient symbiotes that live in their hosts digestive tracts. They host in both sapient and non-sapient creatures

Black Rainbow Destroyer -Created long ago by the Gnomics to destroy their enemies, these machine lifeforms have a evolved a sophisticated culture

Maskforms - Dream beings evolved from humans who colonized astral realms

Mallhemian - Human from the free spirited culture of Mall Town. 

Pirate factions

Oth - Oth was an arcology back on Dirt. Unbeknownst to all the other arcologies (save for their sister city of Esk), Oth had off planet colonies. During the revolution, the Arcology itself was abandoned and the center of the kingdom shifted to their colony in Chunk Space. Now Oth raiders plague the region, seeking materials for their cold war with Seeder Initiative

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Father Corp - A astral factory complex the size of a small world. The Prime Strain is race of clones that serves the factory. Their raiding and exploitation parties are a constant scourge in Chunky Space

Reborn - The Reborn come from the Undersphere, a galactic breakaway region under the galactic plane. The Reborn resemble monsters from myths and legends. Their corsairs ply the galaxy, looking for wealth and glory.

Clowner Pirate Clans  - The Clowner corporate clans make their living shipping goods and people across the galaxy. At least that’s the official story. In reality, almost every corporate clan engages in piracy, under a fake clan name. These fake clans are known as the pirate clans, and their existence and activities are officially denied.

XEV - The XEV are machine intelligence corporations. Their culture is strongly machine chauvinist. XEV pirates active in Chunky Space do not respect the property rights of organic life.

Unique planets 

1 Syberite’s garden - This world was once a pleasure garden for the Softbody elite. The lifeforms here were engineered for luxury; soft hides, beautiful feathers, delicate flavors and powerful intoxicants. In the millennium since the world was left fallow the Red Queen’s Race has bent these living artworks into stange and novel forms.

2 Slug temple - A sweltering gaian world. There are five massive stone temples across the planet. Each temple is home to a kaiju guardian that arises from the native flora in an endless cycle of death and rebirth.

3 Cloister - This world is a massive organism of unknown purpose and potency. The ice choked surface hides a massive system of nacreous caverns. Inside there is a hidden ecosystem of planetary parasites and symbiotes.

4 Hell Bloom - A hothouse world that hosts a machine ecosystem supporting a single massive worldframe. Inside is a digital paradise of flowers and water features. Digital Devils lounge in bathhouses, unwinding their tortured psyches. This is the best place to make a deal with a Digital Devil. 

5 Deep hole - An empty planet hiding a subterranean bunker. In this silent and corpse-littered facility there is a deep hole. Fall down far enough, and you’ll find yourself in the digital abyss.

6 Alembic - The Gnomic machine ecology is still performing the esoteric industry of the Noetic Alchemists. Bizarre antennas channel cosmic energy into condensers that convert into astral fluids which are pumped through tangles of pipes into transparent  holding tanks. These secrets are guarded by notably hostile guardian drones

7 Idol Grounds -  A world covered in ancient shrines in regular intervals. Haunted by feral godlings.

8 Scuzz center - This planet is covered in huge strands of pink Scuzz in exotic formations. Long rumored to be home to the laboratories where Scuzz was first created.

9 Shade city - This planet is a massive chunk of shade stone in the shape of a skull. The planet is home to a mega city of shades. Their strange automatic society is riven by conflict between the humanoid, surfacing dwelling Homonoids and the divergent, subterranean Hetronoids.

10 Frozen Battle - Time was frozen during a battle between Noetic Alchemists and primitive Black Rainbow Destroyers. This planet is a famous sightseeing destination, but it is also rumored to be very cursed.

11 Eel Grass -  Not a planet but a mass of liquid water in a ring around the star. Home to lush kelp forests. A creche for young cosmic eels. According to legend, this is where the Phantsmagorics created the Eel Aborhorant .

12 Rapacious child - A fragment of the mountrous factory complex Father. It serves as a base of operations for the Father Corp raiders that have been plaguing the region.

13 Oth Base - This planet is only known by reports from Esk nobles that visited before the revolution. Nothing is known about the surface but there are continent sized caverns full of living carpets of maggots. The Oth are thought to be using this planet as a base for their activities in Chunky Space. 

14 C R A W L - An Astral singularity that has created a dense knot of recursive dreamscapes, all centered around symbiosis and parasitism. Currently being exploited by Father Corp.

15 Ten Thousand lonely Watchtowers - A Black Rainbow Destroyer art installation planet. The eponymous towers are built into the ruins of vanished civilization. Home to a spaceport built into an abandoned shopping mall. Mall Town is famous for its bohemian atmosphere.

16 Dreamwashed Ortellion - This planet is orbited by a thousand phantasmal astral moons. Astral currents wash over the planet in regular intervals, making a dreamlike ecosystem. This planet is home to the Maskform city of Graz Throne.

17 Far Sea - This frigid ocean world is home to an Esk colony built into an ancient stone megalith. It serves as the Seeder base in Chunky Space. The oceans and the skies are home to great Softbody leviathans

18 Urgo Lux - A Gnomic world built by the Noetic Alchemists. Home to the Sophonic Adent research facility and starport of Stil Port.

19 Ungan Zal - This planet used to be a floral superorganism, then it died. Now it is a vast expense of dead wood and moss. Home to thousands of Reclaimer Alliance homesteads.

20 Sea of Mazes - This ocean bound planet is home to massive formations of shade stone that form into labyrinths. A recent addition to the Republic of Sea Serpents, having been colonized in the last thousand years by Senator Orthon, who lives in the underwater caves beneath the spaceport Rynthtop 

Port Towns

Mall Town - A city built into an ancient subterranean shopping mall complex. Famous for its bohemian art culture. Below the mall is an abandoned military bunker that has been taken over by the Squeeze. The phantom farms down there are a source of both resources and danger for the city.

Stil Port - One of three massive floating disks above a major geothermal power complex. The other disks are defend by attack drones but not this one, allowing the Sophonic Advent to build their research complex there.

Stump Town - Built atop a massive wooden mesa. On the surface there is a quaint little herding village. Below is a sprawling metroplex carved out of the rotting wood.

Breaktide - A circular megalith shelters this city from the frigid world ocean. Founded half a century ago by Esk nobles, who came here to hunt Kaiju.

Rynthtop - A tropical village built across a network of atolls and lagoons. Under the city, senator Orthon makes her lair in the complex of aquatic shadestone caves. 

Graz Throne -  A cobblestone paved city, home to the planetary Monarch. To protect from the influence of Astral Currents, the city has its own dreamscape projector, casting a lively and celebratory aura over the city

Astral currents

Siren Call - A “layered” astral realm. Visitors begin in a bright and airy seascape. As they spend time in the plane it becomes darker and deeper. Many don’t return from the depths.

The Squeeze - An impossible maze of tunnels and caverns. The walls here are a bit like stone, a bit like flesh. Bottomless holes and gaps lead to Astral Null. Home to uncountable billions of crawling, insectile phobiavores.

The Trail - An infinite, ever changing wilderness. The only constant is a single narrow pathway. If you leave the trail it is almost impossible to find again. You will wander forever until you fall into the Astral Null or you are eaten by a shape-shifting Anybeast.

Neon Speedway - Cracked and scorched day-glow wasteland. Impossible to navigate on foot, only by going fast is it possible to make progress here. At sufficient speed, the realm changes into an awe inspiring vista of chrome and crystal ruins

Digital Abyss - A low energy realm close to Astral Null. A featureless void of eye-searing false color. Broken and abstract wireframes serve as solitary landmarks. The Digital Abyss is notable for being easily accessible by dreaming machines. Even non sapient machines can sometimes connect, forming dangerous abyssal leakages. Home to the digital devils, as well as many dangerous and unsettling astral lifeforms.