Eel Grass Ring

     The Eel Grass Ring is an ancient megastructure built by the Phantasmagorics. It is a torus of water orbiting a star like a halo. An interior ring of metamaterials hosts the field affectors that keep the whole assembly together. The waters of the ring are thick with kelp, with some sections completely sheathed. Two large power sources on opposite sections of the ring are detectable by scans. There is also a cluster of S.O.S beacons in one section.

    The ring is an important migration site for cosmic eels on their circuits through the galaxy. They swim through transient astral confluxes from the astral current known as Siren’s Call. The life cycle of the cosmic eels is not well understood; the historical record shows that the current Cosmic Eels were preceded by other, now vanished eels. This implies that Cosmic Eels do in fact reproduce . The current theory is that the eel spawn they shed will grow into new Cosmic Eels, but that process has never been observed. What is known is that the Eel Grass Ring is rich with eel spawn. 

    It is believed that the Phantsmagorics built the ring to attract Cosmic Eels in order to study and replicate them. Certainly in the modern day the Cosmic Eels and their eel spawn play a huge role in the ring ecosystem. Eel spawn are astral amphibians, meaning they can live in astral environments and in material environments. They are naturally self bio-kinetic, meaning they can alter their biological makeup in response to outside stimuli. They frequently exhibit other psychic powers.

    The central ring contains formations of shade stone, a strange metamaterial made by the Phantsmagorics. Shade stone generates shades, creatures that are not made of normal matter but are still able to interact with the material world. Also present on the ring due to the influence of the Phantsmagorics is a diversity of memetic entities, both symbionts and pathogens.

Regions

The reef of wrecks - The kelp here grows amid thousands of wrecked starships, most of which have been gutted and looted. There are dozens of emergency beacons, each leading to an EM mine set up by wreckers from the starport Flotsam. Biome B. 

Screaming reef - Here a reef of shadestone faces grows on the central ring. In the caverns of screaming mouths there is a secret settlement of shade scholars who keep detailed records of the visits by the Cosmic Eels. Biome B

Power pole + - The Kelp here is laced through with phosphorescent veins that pulse with light. The pulse is synchronized throughout all the flora in the regions. Strange bands of EM radiation make comms unreliable. Biome A

Power pole - - Same as power pole + except instead of cycling through warm colors, the kelp cycles through cool colors. Biome A

Diaphanous sea - One the regions where the surface is sheathed in kelp. Beneath the kelp grows in thin flowing sheets. Best place in the ring to see a Cosmic Eel breach into reality.  Biome C

Motley sea - Similar to the Diaphanous sea except the kelp has an odd patchwork apparence to it. Rumors hold that somewhere in the kelp is the ancient laboratory where the Phantsmagorics created the Eel Abohorant. Biome C

Encounter die 1d6. One through three are universal encounters. Three through four are biome dependant. Six is dependent on which Cosmic Eel is in ascendancy; roll 1d5 

Universal encounters 

1. Philosopher Eel - Huge Apex predator. Arrow shaped head with myriad eye clusters. Sapient but highly focused on hunting and eating. Preys mainly on astral lifeforms, including those living in meatspace hosts. It communicates psychically in order to hunt for prey and to seek out new ideas, activities it considers closely related. It specializes in negating psychic powers.  

2. All Seeing Jelly - A transparent jelly covered in eyes. Defends itself by hijacking and redirecting visual input to anywhere in the galaxy

3. Creche giant - A humanoid shade hundreds of feet tall. Its head is a vast cavity swarming with young eels. Harmlessly swims through the sea, unless the baby eels are disturbed.

Biome A  - The flora here pulses with numinous energy. 

3. Power spiral - A spiral cluster of jellies, each a clone. They pulse like the flora but to a slightly different tempo. They feed on energy and will drain the power from technological systems. They defend themselves with directed energy attacks

4. Aura Eel - predatory eel spawn that appears to be covered in a field of lambent energy. The field is actually an memetic symbiont called slime fire that siphons life force from it’s host to empower their physic abilities. The eel hunts with shredding waves of telekinetic force.  When the eel is killed the aura detaches and floats free. It will host on the next organism it touches.

Biome B - Close and dense kelp obscures sight

3. Dollfaced crab - A man sized crab with a strange porcelain doll face. Babbles like a baby, attracting prey

4. Grief Gupper - Small brown humanoid with suckers on it’s hand and glassy eyed, open mouth stare. Despite the name, it feeds on all kinds of negative emotion. Difficult to notice because of it’s astral symbiote, creeping crypsis. Creatures infected with creeping crypsis will experience fugue states, during which it becomes hard for observers to pick out from the background.

Biome C - The kelp here is arranged in thin flowing sheets.

3. Labyrinth Eel - Weaves space and kelp together into insecable labyrinths. Feeds on the helplessness of those trapped inside. The only way to escape is by flushing out the Eel from its hiding place in the center of the labyrinth.

4. Geometroid - A living geometric pattern that moves across 2-d surfaces. Most are harmless but one in four is infected with a pareidile, a type of carnivorous meme. An infected geometroid will stalk and “bite” sapient prey. The bite does minimal damage but transfers the pareidile infection. An infected sapient will become convinced it is being stalked by a monster and will see that monster in random patterns. The delusion intensifies until the victim dies of fright.

Eels specific encounters -  Cosmic Eels visit the ring frequently, and when they do their presence influences the eel spawn. Certain eel spawn phenotypes are only present when specific Cosmic Eels are visiting the ring

6. Abhorrent - Broken mirror eel - Becomes an exact physical copy of the least charismatic member of the party except the chirality is reversed. It will follow the party and make a case that it should replace the original. It feeds on weakening bonds; once it has supplanted its victim in the social scene its meal is complete and it will revert back to its original form and swim away.

6. Dentata - Tooth piper eel - A bone white eel with holes like a wind instrument. Creates a soporific melody when hunting. After its prey falls asleep it uses telekinesis to harvest their teeth.

6. Vaporous - joyrider eel - Appears as a fast moving translucent streak that merges into its chosen host in the blink of an eye. The host experiences an urge to go fast and be up high, as well as enhanced reflexes. If the host is ever in open sky during a freefall, the eel will devour them in an instant before flying away to find a new host.

6. Suburban - time waster eel - Disguises itself as a bureaucratic functionary and feeds off the mental energy its victims waste dealing with it. It projects a “context field” which fools its victims into thinking it is in an environment where the eel’s ruse makes sense, like an office or a school.  

6. Adorned - Critic eel - Long flowing fins. Feeds on self confidence, which it collects by insulting the sartorial choices of others

Flotsam 

A pirate spaceport hidden in the wreck reef. A joint enterprise between the OOB and SOG pirate clans. The port’s “main street” is a large rope that runs between reclaimed wrecks. Most wrecks have either purple markings for OOB or green markings for SOG. SOG specializes in reclaimed hulls while OOB sells reclaimed reactors 

Captain Ooorl’s Lament - An old luxury cruiser converted into a bar/fight pit

Taffy Boy - a drug dealer and local institution. A candy mutant adapted for aquatic living. Sells narcotic balls and additive candy breathing fluid.

House of screams - That’s what it says on the sign. Decorated with curse jars. The proprietors are two neon punks sheathed in thick robes. They buy memetic infections.

Idol Grounds

     This entire planet was carved into a temple complex by the now vanished Phantasmagorics. The mountains are crowned with bell towers, the hills hold cathedrals and the bedrock is shot through with crypts. Despite all this, the Phantasmagorics were not themselves religious. They used the planet to breed godlings, and they used the godlings to exert imperial control.

    Godlings are composed of two parts. An immaterial astral presence and an imobile “idol” made of advanced metamaterials. If the astral presence is disrupted the idol will reform it, but if the idol is destroyed, the presence will lose cohesion and dissipate. Godlings are mental parasites that feed off the psychic energy of their worshippers. The Phantasmagorics designed different clades of godling based on preferred environment. The four major clades present on Idol Grounds are sky, sea, urban and garden.

    Creebos are the dominant life form on Idol Grounds. They are small mouse-like animals with dextrous front paws. They are very intelligent and are considered pre-sapient. They are capable of tool use but they are incapable of sophisticated language. They do, however, have religion. The godlings farm creebos for belief, using their psychic powers to perform miracles and to shepard creebo settlements. Individually creebos don’t pose much threat but godlings have been known to catalyze the creation of creebo armies that are hundreds of thousands strong.

    Idol Grounds is an arid terrestrial world. The only visible water is a series of eye shaped inland seas. Also visible from space is a massive fumarole several miles in diameter.  The oxygen level is low but breathable.Gravity is much lower than the planet’s volume would indicate, suggesting that the planet is hollow. A single radio beacon is transmitting a looping signal that says “Land here! All else is Death!”

    The inland seas are known as The God Eyes. Each sea is home to exactly one sea god. The creebos live on shore side settlements and on raft communities. Every three months the godlings hold a tournament where the creebos joust and spar with each other. The gods displace all of their territorial aggression onto these games, using them to establish a pecking order. When they’re not training their creebos or plotting against their neighbors, they collect and trade colorful shells. The dread sea is the one empty sea, rendered inhostiple by an infestation of dead sea creeps. The sea gods use it as neutral ground and as a sort of off-world embassy, which is why they set up the radio beacon (with offworld technological help). Sea godlings come here to gawk at and gossip with offworlders.

    Most of the surface is what is known as the Sky Gods Badlands. Each of the hundreds of Sky Gods has their own chunk of territory, which they guard ferociously. Like all godlings their astral forms are naturally invisible, but they project visual holograms as a matter of personnel pride. They favor large wings, flames and unblinking eyes. It’s the sky godlings that make Idol Grounds difficult to visit via spaceship. They don’t understand machines conceptually, so they perceive their passive nature as deliberate impudence. They have weather control abilities as well as direct energy attacks. The creebos live in underground settlements built around idol chambers. The godlings have a cultural agreement not to attack each other directly, rather they direct their creebos to wage proxy wars on their behalf. The most powerful godlings live in the mountains where sheltered fertile valleys can support millions of creebos. 

    The Deep Garden is a verdant paradise in the center of the planet. Hanging in the central cavity is the Radiant God Mother, the source all of the godlings spawned from. In addition to visible light, it also emits psychic radiation that makes it difficult to see and understand. The godlings here have formed a collective pantheon and worship the god mother. This region is fertile and the godlings are relatively harmonious, leading to huge and prosperous creebo communities.

    The fumarole on the surface is the most direct access to the deep garden but it is guarded by agents of the garden pantheon (around ten thousand armed creebos). In order to gain passage, you must agree to take some literature. If you do agree, every open cargo slot on ship (and all of the glove compartments) will be filled with tiny illegible religious pamphlets. If you want to study the godmother, you will be geased to deliver the pamphlets to beings across the galaxy before you will be allowed access.

   Below the crypt layer lies the office complexes where the Phantsmagorics controlled the godling business. Now the abandoned offices are home to urban godlings and their creebo congregations. Urban Godlings are secretive and paranoid. They have a lot of enemies, like the sky godlings and the garden godlings and other urban godlings. But worst of all are the binders, possibly fictitious creatures that have the power to trap godlings in unbreakable contracts. The creebos here farm fungus in the dark to survive.

Trade goods

Choral moss - This flora found in the sky gods badlands telepathically broadcasts a simple chant. The chant grows more complex as the biomass of the moss increases. Valuable to rich weirdos with strange taste in interior decor

Broken Idol - Thousands of smashed idols can be found in forgotten chambers across the planet. The semi organic metamaterial they’re made of is valuable to archaeologists and fringe scientists.

Data crystal - An ancient phantasmagoric storage medium. Prized by the creebos of the urban godlings, who use them as symbols of office. Valuable to archaeologists. 

Sybarite’s Garden

     We know little of the Soft Bodies’ culture. We don’t know their politics, we don’t know how their society was organized or who ruled. What we do know is that there were poor Soft Bodies and rich Soft Bodies. Sybarite’s garden is a planet that was once owned by the wealthy elite, the very biosphere sculpted to meet their decadent demands. With the fall of their empire the paradise world evolved into a dentatea planet, living luxuries turned wild once again.

    Sybarite’s Garden is a mid-sized terrestrial world with a rich biosphere. Like most late stage Soft Body worlds the atmosphere has a high oxygen level. Two major continents make up 20% of the surface area. No obvious signs of past or present settlement are visible, except for a series of rectangular lakes on the southern edge of the eastern continent  

    The Fragrant Jungle, also known as the reeking jungle, is a sweltering biome that covers most of the western continent. The flora here was once gene engineered as incense. Over the years their odors have diverged and mutated. The end result is overwhelming, the welter of different smells overlapping and combining. Together with the humidity and the chorus of screaming avians, the jungle is an assault on the senses. The pandemonium hides vicious predators and devious parasites.

Snufflers - Once bred as pets, snufflers have evolved into pack hunters. Their large heads hang low to the ground as they noisy lick the ground. Instead of smelling the air, they taste for trails. The hunt with their surprisingly dexterous hands, snatching and pummeling prey. 

Drop Worm - The apex predator of the jungle, 3 meters of corded muscle. They come in greens, yellows and oranges, all striped to hide in the canopy. They drop onto their prey and strangle them to death. Beilived to have evolved from a living scarf.

Lotus ooze - A small pink ooze. It is attracted to the smell of open wounds. It crawls inside it’s hosts, and hijacks their nervous system with opiates and hormones. The victim is compelled to dig a hole in a river bank, then seal themself inside. A flower grows out of the corpse and new oozes drip from it like nectar. 

    The Great Water Feature is a megalithic construction project left behind by the Soft Bodie. Massive stone slabs form lake beds, all connected to each other by stone channels. Today the lakes are choked by flowering weeds, creating painted vistas. Wooded isles hide the shattered remains of pleasure palaces.

Decorative leviathan - These massive aquatic serpents were once valued for the brilliant patterns on their scales. It is believed that the current leviathans are the same individuals who were alive at the height of the Soft Body Empire. They hunt by cavicating their mouths, creating powerful suction

Fighting Angels - Their beautiful flowing fins and tentacles beille their purpose as gladiatorial combatants. They have retractable barbs on their tentacles. Fiercely territorial, they attack on sight.

    Along the lake beds are hidden vaults carved into the stone. Hidden from prying eyes and protected by advanced biological security systems, the wealthy elite of the Soft Bodies used these vaults to store valuables.  In the modern era the security systems have died off and gone feral, but the vaults are still protected by the creatures of the great water feature. It is estimated that less than a quarter of the vaults have been found and looted

Contents of a vault 1d3

1d6 crates of programmable glass ingots - A form of currency used by the now extinct Silicon league. With the right protocol the glass can take any shape. Only certain archaeologists know these protocols.

1d4 ancient riddles - glass vials containing spores in long term hibernation. Inside the spores are enigmatic DNA sequences called riddles. Valuable to gene engineers 

1d2 crates of shell art - A major artform in Soft Body culture was breeding shelled animals with beautiful patterns. Only has full value to Soft Body historians, but they are pretty 

    North of the Great Water Feature is the Smoking Parie. Mud chimneys rise up out of the wildflowers. These structures are built by smokers, small eusocial animals that gather plant material and burn it in their hives. Because the flora on the planet was originally bred to entertain bored aristocrats, the plants and thus the smoke has psychoactive properties

Giggler - This is the smoker’s primary predator. The large front claws are used to rip up their nests, while the blackened skin on the face protects against the heat. Constant exposure to the smoke makes their behavior erratic. Named for their strange and continuous vocalizations   

Trade goods

Glasswood tree - Grows in the fragrant jungle. Prized by aritos for it’s strength, light weight and glass like luster.

Aching flowers- Tiny multicolored flowers that grow in the Great Water Feature. Can be distilled into a potent aphrodisiac. 

Ooze Lotus - An immature lotus ooze flower before it releases newborn oozes. A powerful narcotic

Smoker’s hash - processed and concentrated organic matter found in a smoker’s hive 

Smoker Queen - The progenitor of a smoker hive. Has great value in the Republic of Sea Serpents, where they eat monarchs 

The Seeder Initiative

     The Seeder Initiative is a young human polity that arose from the ashes of the old order on the human homeworld of Dirt. The technocrat kings were fearful and petty despots, content to rule their small arcologies, keeping the human homeworld hidden in the endless night. After the revolution, the Seeders took to the stars, only to discover humanity had already escaped the bonds of Dirt long ago. Now the seeders are seeking to reunite the fractured human colonies. They dream of a pan galactic human polity.

Politics 

Immediately after the rebels won the Seeder Initiative was formed as a military Junta to oversee the transition away from the arcolgies of Dirt to the vastness of space. Several years ago the Junta stepped down to make way for a liberal democracy. The chief executive is called the Prime Minister. The legislature is bicameral, split between the Large House for representatives from planetary colonies and the Small House which represents orbitals and outposts. The biggest wrinkle is that Dirt itself is unrepresented and citizens living on its surface cannot vote. This is meant to disenfranchise technocrat loyalists who are unwilling to leave their ancestral arcologies. This is just one more factor that has made Dirt a backwater within the Initiative.

The House of Esk occupies a singular and precarious position within the Initiative. They are one of the few technocrat noble lines to survive the war and they are the only house that joined the rebellion. Their defection marked the beginning of the end of the war, and as a result they were allowed to keep their noble titles and their holdings, including their psychic warsuits and their off planet colonies.  The feudal system is still in place, but it’s fangs have been knocked out with the advent of free travel; already the threat of personnel drain has forced reforms. Still, the authoritarian nature of Esk rankles many in the Initiative; for some, Esk represents everything the war was fought against. Nevertheless, they are part of the Initiative, for the time being at least.  

The Circle of integration, commonly called the Circle, is a ring of scientists and engineers created during the rebellion. Their mandate was to synthesize a unified technological praxis out of liberated technocrat artifacts and texts. They succeeded in some respects but the Technocrat knowledge base was corrupted and degraded by political whims. The circle understands more than the technocrats did, but less than the Empire of Dirt. With the war over and funding drying up, the Circle has moved towards self reliance, creating dockyards and orbital factories. Some in the Initiative worry that the Circle is becoming a breakaway faction,  compounded by fears of transhumanism. Many in the Circle are science mutants who have reclaimed the technologies that were used to create them. After centuries of human modification being taboo, the Circle is pushing that boundary.

The Seeder Defence Force (SDF) is the military wing of the Initiative. The officer corp is almost exclusively veterans of the rebellion while the grunts are mostly green volunteers. Early on it was decided that their focus would be the stars, so there has been a mad rush of ship building. In absolute terms their navy is still small, but every ship they have is a ship they didn’t have before the fall of the Technocrats. The transition between rebel partisans to professional soldiers has been a fraught one, giving the SDF a severe and erratic reputation.

    In order to supplement the still growing SDF, the Seeder Volunteer Force. Composed of merchants and privateers, the SVF is an auxiliary force that deploys when the SDF is otherwise unavailable. In contrast to the perception that SDF commanders are damaged and unpredictable, SVF captains are lauded as the heroic ideal; ordinary Terrans answering the call of duty.  Despite this reputation, they have a dubious, high loss record. Still, they help the Initiative project force across their sphere of influence.

Races

For centuries, humans on Dirt lived in sealed arcologies, isolated islands of civilization in the war torn wastes. Human society on Dirt was mired in a hereditary system of nobility. The direct servants of the Technocrat Kings were lords and ladies who ruled over the peasants . Twenty years ago, that system ended in fire. Humans from Dirt are often driven by the trauma from that event. Even those who weren’t alive then were born into a world shaped by the rebellion. Centuries of repression and isolation have given way to an era of passionate, almost neurotic exploration. A new new era  of possibility, still haunted by the horrors of the past.

    The Flesh 7 are a race of cyborgs with organic bodies and machine brains. They joined the Seeders during the war, when a group of rebels discovered their salvaging enclave Trash Bucket in Dirt’s debris ring. Their support gave the rebellion crucial space supremacy. In return the Flesh 7 were given monetary and technological support in the post-war period. Trash Bucket grew from a small outpost to an orbital city, and it is now the de facto capital of the Seeder Initiative. Though they are widely established across the galaxy, each individual enclave is small and there is little coordination, leading to the Flesh 7 being considered something of an “also-ran” in terms of galactic powers. Ambitious young Flesh 7s see the Initiative as a way to change that. By hitching their cart to humanity, they hope to share in their future empire.

    The Mu-Boll, also known as the twice born, are a recent addition to the Seeder Initiative. Their ancestors were isolated on the Great Station Mu millions of years ago, where they evolved away from sapience, only for that trait to reemerge later. It is believed that the Mu-Boll’s ancestors were in fact a human subspecies, though there is far too much artificial tampering in their genome for that to be known for certain. Regardless, the resemblance between the two species is remarkable. Same body plan, but Mu-Boll are shorter, with larger heads and larger eyes and pointed ears. The Mu-Boll had only recently emerged from their isolation on the Great Station Mu, and alliance with the Seeders seemed like a natural fit. The Mu-Boll prefer living in orbit while humans prefer planet side, meaning they aren’t in direct competition for living space. The greatest source of tension between the two races is the popularity of human meat clone cultures among the Mu-Boll.

    Canineform are human/dog hybrids. They have a tumultuous history with main line humanity. Originally enslaved through instinctual restraints, canineforms rebelled and created their own empire, the Domain of the Master. After thousands of years of uneasy peace with the Empire of Dirt, the two nations found themselves on opposite sides of the Kaiju War. After the Domain of the Master was destroyed, thousands of canineforms  found themselves stranded in the Dirt system. Some became low caste workers in the Technocrat kingdoms, while others lived in the wilds of the planet War. The rebellion upended the old social order, and canineforms were made equal. Their participation in the Initiative is not without friction however. The Seeders have positioned themselves as the inheritors of the Empire of Dirt, directly aligning themselves with the Canineform’s ancient enemy. Some tribes on War still believe the Kaiju war continues, while some Canineform separatists seek to reestablish the Master’s Domain. Still, as a human subspecies, most of the Seeder’s see the Canineforms as fellow terrans and full members of the Initiative. 

    Science Mutant is the catch-all term for humans altered by the technologies of the technocrat kings. It is important to note the term applies to cyborgs as well as genetically engineered humans. Many of the technocrats used their science to enhance the under class of their cities, either for use as laborers or as weapons. Science mutants were seen as the lowest of the low, mere objectified extensions of the technocrats’ will. It is no wonder then that they rebelled. In the new order science mutants have full human rights, but much of the old prejudice remains.

Chunky space

    Chunky Space is a pressing concern for the Seeder Initiative. The house of Oth has retreated here, the last Technocrat noble line to oppose the Seeders. That alone would be enough to draw attention but Chunky Space also promises riches and opportunity. The region is relatively unsettled, making it attractive to an expansionist power like the Seeders. They joined the compact because all the other signatories have significant human populations. They hope to leverage the political good will from the treaty into influence towards their goal of a pan terran polity. Their operational base in the region is the planet Far Sea, a former Esk colony.

The city of Graz Throne

    Dream-Washed Ortellion’s most striking feature is its ring of hundreds of multi-colored moons. They throng together in an impossibly crowded band, in defiance of conventional physics. They come from a rare astral conflux; all five major astral currents in Chunky Space meet here. The Moons are psychic eddies, swirling conglomerates of dream vibes. During the day their influence is weakened by the sun, but at night the dream tides they create rule the surface of Ortelion. Dream tides can sweep away reason and make people follow alien impulses. They also allow dangerous astral creatures to live on Dream-Washed Ortellion. As a result the native Maskforms¹ live in underground structures, protected from the dream tides by the simple dreams of the dirt and loam. The planet’s biggest (and only) city is Graz Throne.

    The gateway to Graz Throne is the Maskform Federation Headquarters. It sits outside the city proper in small spits of flatland amid a wild marsh. Like most of Dream-Washed Ortellion it is ruled by the strange fluxes of the dream tide. As a result it had to be built into the ground and covered with turf. As a result it looks like an archipelago of lumpy meadows rising out of a tidal marshland. Sometimes you can witness a hill splitting open, flaps of sod hanging in the air as spacecraft taxi in and out of the concealed hangers.
    

    In addition to being a spaceport, it is also an active military base. Foreign ships are directed to dedicated bays on the outskirts. Upon arrival outsiders are assigned a liaison officer whose job it is to handle customs, security, refueling, all of that messy business. As a matter of course all liaison officers are part of the Federation Intelligence Corp. It is considered rude to comment on this.

    The road to the city proper is shockingly narrow; a double line of bricks with dirt on either side Teams of porters use single wheeled barrows pulled by splay-footed pack lizards. The path leads out of the marshland and into the grain fields around the city. The fields are loney; the houses are underground so during the growing season it’s possible to see miles of fields without a single person in sight. The boundary of the city is plainly visible; the hidden sod houses are replaced with above ground cottages and the grain is replaced with orchards and vegetable plots.

    The first impression of Graz Throne is that it is impossibly rustic and picturesque. Wood and stone buildings tower above cobblestone streets. The fretwork is all laced through with an arabesque pattern that flows and changes throughout the city. The buildings are crowned with statues of maskform heroes and fantastical creatures. The largest and tallest structure is the Graz palace complex.It is a veritable hydra of whitestone towers, the tallest of which is the Moon Anchor, which dwarfs all other buildings. At the top is the prismatic pink Jubilant Moon, whose astral radiance keeps the dream tides away. The effects of the Jubilant Moon can be felt through most of the city. The air seems to vibrate and there’s a lightness to every movement.

    The caravansary district is in the outskirts of the city, where the buildings are still low. It consists of a trio of hotels, each with a large circular courtyard. This is where caravans come into the city. The bulk majority of goods are used to satisfy guild contracts, but there are always stalls where the public can buy tchokes and curios.

    The Alchemy district is marked by whimsical smoke stacks and glass reservoir tanks full of colored liquid. Guilds that use and refine chemicals, such as the Tanners Guild, the Dye-Makers Guild and the Potion Brewers guild. The smoke stacks are astral catalytic converters that transmute astral pollutants into harmless compounds. Even with these precautions, the Alchemy district is notably grimier than other parts of the city. The Scrubbers Guild works all across the city but their fiercest battles are here. If left unchecked, pollution build-up can cause grim grime, a sort of carnivorous mildew. Masked and googled scrubbers can be seen on scaffolds, working around the clock to prevent this.

    Graz Throne is located in a temperate zone and it’s also on a coast. This means that it has cool summers and mild winters. Dense fogs are common year round. During the day weather is anodyne but at night the influence of the Jubilant Moon takes over. Rainstorms have a beat and the thunder comes on time. Fog banks whirl and curl in a hidden rhythm. Frosts form in impossible fractal patterns.

Factions and Organizations

    The Maskform Federation is a relatively young polity created in response to Father Corp² piracy. What began as a simple self defence alliance has snowballed into nascent regional power. More than mere safety, the Federation offers unity and political purpose for disaffected Maskform youths. The federation has support from the Crown of Graz, which granted them the right to build a spaceport. This link to the outside world that doesn’t use the traditional astral trade routes is the Federation’s biggest advantage in local politics. Other than that, they are relatively powerless in local politics. Their favor with the throne doesn’t translate to favor with the other powers in the city. The trade guilds and the caravan houses see the Federation as a threat or a rival to their power bases. While their aims are roughly compatible with the Fool’s Parade, they have a hard time fielding fools, as their motivated and zealous personnel base finds participating in the Parade to be frivolous. As a result the Fool’s Parade is less committed to the war against Father Corp than Federation leadership wishes they were.

    Every resident of the city will tell you the Throne of Graz is purely ceremonial. This is broadly true but what they fail to mention is that on a world with as much astral influence as Ortellion, ceremonial is different from powerless. The monarch of Graz is trained from birth in the questing arts³. They are an elite questor that uses their talents to mediate between the dream realms and the Maskforms. Their most important duty is to maintain the link between the Jubilant Moon and the city but they have other tasks on Ortellion and in distant dream realms. The guild of Questors is the power behind the throne. It is the elders of the guild that monitor the omens and dispatch the monarch on her quests. Though they would never admit it, the guild has split into two factions; a “pro” Federation faction who sees Father Corp as an existential threat and an “anti” Federation who sees the Corp as a distraction and the Federation as threat to their power.

    The true municipal power in Graz Throne is the Parade of Fools, a singular endless party that snakes through the streets. The will of the parade arises from the interplay between the party goers and the whims of the Jubilant Moon. Anyone can join the parade, they must simply surrender their minds to the pull of the Jubilant Moon. Once under lunar influence, they are called directly to it, each step bringing them closer. Once they join the Parade they are given a title and costume fitting to their aptitudes and their vibes.. At the front is the Fool King, an enormous amorphous robe. Most of the time multiple people are the Head Fool at once, all bound together in the costume. Sometimes they struggle against each other, sometimes they seem to act with one mind, all according to the whims of the moon.

    Throughout the city there are circular intersections with public stages. These are called grumbles and it is here that the business of government happens. The parade snakes its way into the grumble, coiling around the central stage. The Head Fool announces the grumble and introduces the participants, explaining the structure of the debate to come in garbled moon logic. Positions are expressed through the medium of performance, each song or dance or act assigned a political meaning obvious to the revealers but obscured to onlookers. The crowd makes it’s will known through jeers and cheers and costumed agents are dispatched to carry out various functions of government. After every named fool has given their piece, the head fool announces the location of the next grumble and the Parade sets off once more.

    At the rear of the parade are the stilt wearing Dropsey Men, who keep a watchful eye for any parade goers showing signs of exhaustion. They point them out to the Knap-timers, who discreetly dose them with a mild sedative and load them onto the knap cart where they are delivered to specialized recovery rooms around the city. Towards the front are the gaily colored Bumpers who clear civilians from the path. Positioned throughout are the black clad Dred Fools. Armed with mancatchers, they respond to violence and emergencies with ruthless efficiency.

    The economic powers of the city are the guilds and the caravan houses. The guilds are unions of artisans who control factories and sources of raw materials. The caravan houses are pan-cosmic organizations who control trade routes through astral currents. Dream-Washed Ortellion is their space hub.

    There are dozens of guilds in the city, with some notable examples being the Sandwich Artisans Guild and the Dollmakers guild. While on the surface Graz Throne seems to be pre industrial, the guilds use special astral technology to achieve similar results. For example, instead of robots they use dolls made out of magic wood. While this enables a high degree of production, it doesn’t have the same “snowball” effect of traditional technology bases. The output of Graz Throne has been more or less static for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Guild artisans focus more on subtle refinement and mastery of existing techniques as opposed to innovation.

    Some guilds are vertically integrated, meaning they control farms or other operations in the area around Graz Throne. Other guilds rely on a complicated network of contractual obligations to other guilds and Caravan houses. Some of these contracts are hundreds of years old. Collectively, they are called the Gations, and guild members talk about them as though they were holy texts.

    Guilds are granted their charters by the fools parade. Every active guild is required to have at least one member present in the parade for at least half the time (as certified by the Minion of Rolls, who serves under the Mad Scrivener). In addition, guilds keep professional partiers on retainer, to bolster their influence over the Fool’s Parade. The capricious nature of the parade can make it hard to tell if such hired boosters have an effect, but the guilds would rather act futility than risk being out maneuvered by their rivals.

    Most guilds are run by specialist artisans. They have an “Apprentice - Journeyman - Master” hierarchy. The masters run the guild by democratic council. To become a master, a journeyman must complete a masterwork. Journeymen without the skill or the ambition to do so often specialize in middle management, become factory foreman and contract negotiators. Most citizens wear their guild badges as cloak pins but it’s not required.

    Not every guild fits the artisan model. The Students Guild is made up of foreign maskforms and guildless teenagers. They use membership fees and grants from the Fool’s Parade to pay other guilds to share their specialized knowledge. They send more courtiers to the Parade than the other guilds, leading to the perception that they have a special favor. The members of the Ragamuffins Guild live in the city's orphanages. They have a special permit to work as guides and messengers. The Questors Guild is sometimes called the Near House. In addition to teaching the Questing Arts, they fund terrestrial caravans that trade in the scattered townships across Ortellion.

    Once a guild is established and chartered it can feel like a permanent institution. This is not the case; under extreme circumstances the Parade can revoke guild charters. The most infamous case happened hundreds of years ago but it still casts a shadow on the present day. The Pipers Guild were exterminators who used hypnotic melodies to remove various urban pests. The exact details were suppressed and never made fully public but it's known that their allegiances flipped from the city to the pests they were supposed to fight. Their charter was revoked, and they were hunted down by the Dred Fools. The last masters of the Pipers Guild died in public giblets hanging from what was once their guild hall. They were replaced by the Raters Guild, who train native weasel-like creatures to deal with vermin.
    

    But it is said that the teachings of the Pipers Guild lived on in the whispers of their old enemies turned friends. It is said that the sprites and malmalkins⁴ of Graz Throne sing the old songs of the pipers into the ears of sleepers. Some of those unfortunates awake as piping fools, the most notorious form of errant fool⁵. Piping Fools use their hypnotic powers to spread chaos through the city. A single Piping Fool can shut the city down for weeks, as residents hide inside with their ears stopped up with wax. Fortunately Piping Fools are rare, with one emerging every few years. As even errant fools serve the will of the Jubilant Moon, they are not held liable for their actions, but their knowledge of the piping arts makes them too dangerous to live in society. When they are caught by Dred Fools they are sent to live in the Damn Spit Asylum, a remote building out in the marshes.

    In response to resistance from the Federation, Father Corp has set its sights on Graz Throne, in order to undermine their power base. They have begun beaming a multi-level marketing scheme into people’s dreams. If someone accepts the pitch, they wake up with a bedroom full of cheap Father Corp products and the compulsion to pawn them off on others. The Fool’s Parade has declared this practice illegal and will destroy any Father Corp products they find. Nevertheless, Father Corp products are finding their way into the daily lives of the citizens, subtly changing and weakening the guild system. It is unclear how Father Corp is transmitting the signal, as interference from the moons of Dream-Washed Ortelion should block any astral transmissions. Doomsayers allege that the Jubilant Moon has been suborned somehow. This seems unlikely but it has dire implications if true.

    Most citizens of Graz Throne belong to a guild, and it is their guild that feeds them. Guildhalls and guild dorms have onsite cooks (usually a high status journeyman, but in a food based guild they could be a master) who prepare meals using raw ingredients from the Grangers Guild. This means food culture in Graz Throne is focused on supplemental foods, little things meant to tide over guild workers between meals. The Sandwich Makers, the Grillers and the Confectioner’s guilds each have their own army of food carts, hoping to entice passing workers into spending a few Guilders. Potions flavored with sugar and cream are popular beverages. There are health potions, meal replacement potions, even potions that let you work while you sleep. Graz Throne beer is notoriously weak, as the Brewers Guild must satisfy the thirst of the Fool’s Parade. Instead of putting effort into beer, the masters of the Brewers Guild focus on high end spirits

    Like most of the Maskforms in Chunky Space, the citizens of Graz Throne are largely Bastardist. They believe they are descended from the original bastards, and it is their destiny to reclaim their legacy. More specifically, they believe early Maskforms were designed to rule over the astral realms created by the Obelisk Dreamers. Aside from that, the most important religious institutions in the city are the Mystery Cults. These small organizations worship specific sites and phenomena across Dream Washed Ortellion. It is a rite of passage for city youths to make a pilgrimage into the wilderness in order to experience a mystery. Some notable examples are the Order of the Green Heart and the Cult of the Unwinding River. Cult pamphlets make up a large proportion of the city’s street trash.

    The Caravan houses are important institutions to Maskform society in Chunky Space because they keep the tribes connected through trade. Each house has its own list of crossing points, locations where a group can transverse from one current to another. Graz Throne is the largest Maskform city and manufacturing center in Chunky Space, making it a vital part of every caravan route. Astral trade is complicated, but to put it broadly, raw materials come into Graz Throne and finished products leave.

Locations

    The Blue Lounge is nested deep with the sewers and access tunnels that underpin the city. The rays of the Jubilant Moon don’t reach underground, making the lounge a respite from its influence. For this reason it is a popular spot for the professional partiers that spend too much time in the Parade of Fools. On their off hours they are quiet, serious types who nurse weak drinks and compulsively play phantom instruments. For the cost of a few drinks you could learn quite a bit about the doings of the Parade.

    The Singing Sandwich is the Sandwich Artisans Guild hall and one of the most highly rated restaurants in Graz Throne. The titular dish is made using special fungal steaks that resonate in the aura of the Jubilant moon. Recently, the fungal farms in the building's basement have been taken over by a malmalkin infestation. While the building is closed, a host of journeymen have set up pop-ups outside. Tensions are rising. The situation could result in a major shake up in the Guild.

    The Questor’s Guildhall is a one story building with a wide footprint. The first floor is a museum warren dedicated to the guild’s achievements. Every room is crowded with stuffed monsters and dubious relics. A hidden door leads down to the real guildhall, which is a series of training labyrinths. Anyone who can find the door is entitled to lessons in the questing arts. The upper labyrinths are home to padded constructs painted to look like monsters. Lower, there are real monsters.

    The Dress Makers Guildhall is a large complex. In addition to it’s show rooms and dormitories it has a large central courtyard where a monthly sword fighting exhibition is held. A masterwork dress has so much attention and care put into it that it develops a sort of ontological inertia. In astral environments a masterwork gown functions as heavy armor. The exhibition matches demonstrate both advances in fashion and martial utility. A masterwork knight gown can run up to thousands of Guilders but they are invaluable at social functions and dreamworld battlefields alike. Journeyman gowns are more affordable but also more easily damaged and defaced


Special dress features

1 - Ribbons - The dress has four 10 foot ribbons arranged on the back. When worn, these ribbons animate under the control of the wearer. They can be used as whips or light spears

2 - Pocket Fortress - The wearer can retreat into a pocket dimension, leaving behind an armored bustle. The pocket dimension has enough space to fit 10 adult humans and can be outfitted to the wearers specifications

3 - Clone projector - the wearer can project up to five decoy images of themselves

4 - Flower launcher - Wrist mounted projectile launcher that uses thorned flowers as ammo






Encounters (1d6)

1. The Fools Parade smells contraband. They're ransacking market stalls and seizing Father Corp products. Tensions are high


2. A brass band is playing an energetic tune and the street lights are dancing along. There are signs of structural damage in nearby houses.


3. The federation is holding a triumph, parading a captured Father Corp executive in chains. “Help me” he mouths to the pcs. The parade picks up speed, hoping to avoid the parade of fools.


4. An exorcist is giving a public demonstration. The patient is strapped to a chair and their mental parasites are made visible and expelled. He then shoves them in a jar. Soon, something much larger than any of his jars will be expelled.

5. A horde of tiny living pastry men run down the street, with armed bakers in hot pursuit


6. An old woman walks down the street counting a large stack of credits. A gang of low lifes eyes her warily. She is a highly trained questor and this is in fact a trap


Footnotes
1.Maskforms are a human offshoot that adapted to live in astral environments. In a dream realm they take the form of a mask on a mutable body. In real space they revert to their ancestral human form.
2.Father Corp is an Astral mega factory that consumes and processes astral matter. Its agents have been been raiding Maskform villages in Chunky Space.
3.The Questing Arts are a collection of philosophical precepts, mental exercises and martial katas that teach the practitioner how to fight and maneuver in astral environments.
4.Sprites are non-sapient insects that resemble tiny human beings. Malmalkins are self replicating doll constructs that have been living feral in the walls of Graz Throne for centuries.
5.Errant Fools are people under the influence of the Jubilant Moon who for whatever reason don't join the Fool's Parade. Other common types include Moon Faces and Jacks Jumping