Sea of Mazes

     The Sea of Mazes is an old Phantasmagoric world. The entire planet is some kind of megastructure, a tangled knot of the metamaterial known as shadestone. The planetary ocean is laced through with huge spiraling columns of the glassy black stone. Whatever purpose this mechanism once served, it is now broken and the planet is haunted by a strange ecosystem of imaginary organisms.

    Imaginary organisms (also known as creeps) are beings whose biochemistry is psychically mediated. Though they have a physical presence, they come from the minds of living beings, hence the term “imaginary”. While they are initially dependent on their host during development, once they are in their “adult” stage they can mediate their own metabolism.  The creeps on the Sea of Mazes are an older lineage, distinct from the more widespread creeps of the Undersphere . It is thought that they are generated from the ancestral neuroses of the planet’s shades.

  

    Sea of Mazes is the Republic of Sea Serpent’s name for the planet. In spacer’s cant it was called Churtwei. That name has fallen out of favor since colonization. The process began roughly a thousand years ago when scouts from the Republic’s corporate clans began using it as an outpost. It was considered a poor candidate for colonization due to the dangerous ecosystem. Long term settlement was only made possible by the discovery of the Deep Rynth platform. This fractal patch of shadestone works as a control surface for a subsection of the planetary mechanism. For the last 500 years, Senator Orthon has projected her psychic powers through the platform in order to create a relatively safe bubble. It is thought that there must be more such platforms elsewhere on the planet, but they remain undiscovered. 

    Rynth Top is the primary Republic settlement on the planet. Because it is built on a series of atolls it is a sparse, wide open city. The largest sections are the spaceport and the headquarters of the corporate clan Yob. The primary industry of the city is aquaculture and related processing. Dry land is at premium so most residents live on houseboats. The population is majority atheist with a kaijuist minority. Their small church is shingled with shed scales from senator Orthon. The safe zone the senator creates is delineated with carved shell totems.

    Mid Rynth is the network of caves and lagoons below Rynthtop. About 30% of it has been parcelled off for aquaculture, the rest being left wild. While the protective aura from the senator keeps out creeps, the region is still dangerous due to mundane wild animals. Underwater maintenance of the farms is done by Clowners, who can always regrow their bodies if they get damaged.

    Deep Rynth is where the Senator and her coterie of adopted spawn live. Even though the Deep Rynth platform is here, the area is outside the creep exclusion bubble. The senator shaped it so deliberately, to expose her spawn to creeps. She has six daughters, gifted her by wealthy serpents wishing to have a stake in the new colony. Together they call themselves the Council of Dark Thoughts, and they are the foremost authority on creeps in Chunky Space.

    Senator Orthon is in a precarious position. While Sea of Mazes is a recognized Republic colony, she does not have complete control of it. Other powers like the Shadow Marquis and the Wonder Hydra contest her rule. Her patrols suffer frequent caustlies and she cannot protect them from the creeps. To compensate she is offering substantial bounties on any one that can discover new power platforms. With control of all the platforms, she could theoretically extend her powers across the planet.

    Far to the west there is an area where the shadestone spars twist together into spires. The flooded interior of these structures is laced through with tunnels and cavities. The locals call this the Dread Academy. Something about the astral resonance of the structure has created a permanent conflux with the astral current known as the Squeeze. 

    Somewhere in the academy complex there is a secret outpost belonging to Shadow Marquis Plovro*, a powerful reborn corsair operating in Chunky Space. The goal of the operation is to harvest creeps to sell to other reborn nobles. They mostly leave Rynthtop alone, though several of their shapeshifting Deep Flesh operatives have been caught trying to infiltrate. Senator Orthon has posted huge bounties on any Reborn and on the location of the base.

To the east of Rynth Top are the wonder pools. Here the atolls are wider and covered in thick jungles. The lagons here are perfectly smooth bowls covered in sparkling green algae. The algae has psycho-projective properties, meaning it manifests the thoughts and feelings of the beings that swim in the pools as shimmering phantasms.

The region is ruled by a creature called the wonder hydra. In the real world it has many bodies that look like tiny worms with pearls for heads. They attach themselves to beings swimming in the pools, forcing them into a breathtaking dreamscape called the Hydra’s Dream. The dream is made of thousands of bubble realms, each beautiful and unique. Once a victim is pacificed in the real world, the hydra’s shade minions take them to one of the hydra’s underground layers. More hydra worms attach themselves, making the victim look as though they were bound in a string of pearls. The individual's desires and memories are eaten and used to form a new bubble realm within the dream. The Wonder Hydra is sapient but deeply alien and generally hostile. It wants new hosts, but barring that it wants new sensorium to construct its bubble realms. It exists partially in the astral current Siren’s call and it has treaty with the Illuminated Maskform tribe. 

Creeps 

Horror Coral - One of the most common creeps, it is found growing in vast colonies along the shadestone spurs. Each individual in a colony is in the shape of some humanoid anatomy, like a finger or an eye. Harmless on it’s own but broadcasts it’s sensorium to nearby creeps, giving them a tactical advantage.

Skinner - A skinless humanoid with a crude knife for one of its hands. At a distance it appears human (aside from the lack of skin) but up close it becomes apparent it only seems human. The teeth are large and square and the pupils are figure 8s. It desires two things; to hide it’s naked body and to remove skin from living beings.

Dread Proctor - Found in the dread academy. Appears as a humanoid wearing thick robes with its face obscured by matted black hair. It has four long, multi jointed hairy arms it uses to grab beings. It takes its victims deep into trapped sections of the academy and watches as they try to escape.

* While drama and theatrics is a big part of Reborn culture, this title isn't just for show. It means the holder rules a "shadow march" or a secret border territory.