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.