C R A W L

If you seek to earn riches while you Slumber, Venture forth to C R A W L. 



C R A W L is a billion twisted dreams from the plague Aeon. At its boiling heart it is said there is an obelisk corrupted with strange astral life. Where once the obelisk dreamed of a lost paradise, now it dreams its own diseased hell. Everything in C R A W L dreams, and those dreams teem with their own dreamers. All these dreamers and dreams form a twisted knot of loops and spirals, an infinite closed expanse of parasitism.

The dreams of C R A W L are slick fluid and flesh scapes, endless expanses of astral life swirling and melting forever. Each dream is home to millions of crawling and squirming things, and each one dreams one of the dreams of C R A W L. When a creature in a dream dreams, its astral body becomes a luminous portal. Any creature touching it is sucked into the new dream. No one knows how many dreams there are in C R A W L

The closer to the lost obelisk, the denser the dreams become. At the center, the cancerous energies bleed out into real space. Though it looks like a real sun, it is a hole in space through which dread energies can enter the world. They call it the Crawl Star.

Around the Crawl Star, there are five celestial bodies. It is thought that they were once dead planets but through the unwholesome green light of that cursed star they were transfigured into living beings. They are the Children of C R A W L .

The first child is Olhambve, the Mournful Ooze. It is a desolate world of stone and lichen, dotted with temples to dead gods. In the gutters and cisterns lurks the ooze, a single  predatory ocean. Those devoured by it find themselves in a pocket of C R A W L where they are dissolved for a subjective eternity. Somewhere on this forsaken world there is the hidden lair of the Lune-man pirate Ax Feber. With his ship, the corvette Darkshine he preys on those that come to C R A W L. Exposure to the light of the Crawl Star has warped his mind. He seeks to marry Olhambve and birth a new race of monsters. In his lair he has a thousand precious jewels, and he is always looking for more, so that he may win the favor of his beloved.

The second child is Frantolous, The Soft Expanse. It is a world of soft pink flesh, a perfect globe marred by city sized ticks. On the back of one of these titian parasites that Father Corp has made their outpost. Father Corp is a voracious corporate god that feeds on Dreams though out the galaxy. They have come to C R A W L to harvest its diseased riches. Here is where you can earn your fortune. Those who sleep in the light of the Crawl Star find themselves pulled into C R A W L itself. As they wander its recursive dreamscapes they become infested by all manner of dream creatures. If they can survive and return to the material universe, they can sell their unwelcome passengers to Father Corp. On their outpost on they have extraction jars that create tremendous negative psychic pressure to suck out any errant dream creatures. Most of these poor creatures are doomed to be ground into their component emotions and sensations, but the most symbiotic are instead given to Father Corps breeding programs. The servants of Father Corp, the Prime Strain, use shiny beetles to adorn their pallid bodies. The most prized adornments come from C R A W L. There is a fortune to made by one who finds a new fashion.

Here also is the only place where Father Corp may brew one of its drugs, paracosm. Those who imbibe this pale orange ichor have visions of their own private universe where they are the demiurge. There are many who use this to escape their lives as they sleep. However, do not use it while you sleep near the Crawl Star. This new dream will merge with C R A W L and you will be subsumed into the cycle. It is derived from the venom of the dream giver beetle. They use it to create living astral nests for their larva.

The third child is Xyzxy, the Cryptic Garden. It is a tangled orchard of vines and dark swollen fruit. Within each pome is a writhing mass of worms and beetles and strange plastic things. The woods are deep and trackless and haunted by the masked ones, terrible and strange primitives. Each one is a walking hive of parasitic minions. They are hostile to all who trespass on C R A W L and the children. 

The Fourth child is Olark the Writhing World. It is a ball of worms and beetles the size of a planet. Father Corp has laid its covetous eyes upon it, and has created a fleet of fishing ships that trawl the living ocean for cheap and easy protein, though they may soon abandon the venture. The squirming catch is often treacherous, and something is eating the boats. They say Father Corp is really searching for some lost bastard relic lost beneath the wriggling tide.

The Fifth and finale child is Peivlard the Watchful Myriad. It is a cluster of eyes of all different shapes and colors, always focused on the same point. It can view any point in C R A W L and the children. It is a sick voyeur that wishes to see violence and depravity. It speaks in a voice like ocular jelly dripping from a corpse. It speaks poisonous truths it has seen, so that it may reveal in the chaos it causes. When its eyes are upon you, you can feel ten thousands cold stares boring into you. It is said that Peivlard knows where every treasure of C R A W L is buried and it will tell you, but for a terrible cost.



Editor's note



Here we have another delightful entry from my friend the cloaked figure. It's a nice account of 
C R A W L, though its clearly not a first hand one. That's okay, even preferable. All the first hand accounts tend to be … unhinged, for some strange reason.

First, a quick note about biology. Spooky-pants here describes the dream flora and fauna in terms of strict parasitism, and while there's a lot of that going around, parasitism exists on a gradient with mutualism. Not every symbiont in C R A W L has a parasitic relationship with its host. This is clear from the number of dream pet linages that have come from there. One of my aunts has a blue spiraled sivganzer, a type of astral serpent native to C R A W L bred to protect its hosts from nightmares. It begs food qualia from strangers and is afraid of loud noises.

Moving on, I can't believe I have to say this, but don't try to rob pirates that live on the outskirts of gross dimensional rifts. I don't even know how creepo knows all this junk, so acting on this information is not recommended. On a similar note, while collecting dream bugs for a soulless all-devouring corporation probably pays well, there are easier ways to make money. Saner ways, in any case.

And finally, a note on those "terrible and strange primitives", they are referring to the Maskforms. They are a human subspecies adapted to living in dreamscapes, and they are closely related to Riddleforms. As a Riddleform myself I most object to this characterization. While Maskforms lack the sophistication of digital lifeforms such as myself, I wouldn't say they're primitive. Also, they are only sort of strange and occasionally terrible. Neither the less, their crusade against the predations of Father Corp can only be seen as noble. After Father Corp is preying on Maskform colonies across the galaxy. Its only fair that they take out the occasional Father Corp freelancer.

As always, we at the Galactic Gazetteer can not be held liable for any fool thing you do after reading our fine publication. The legal department has been sharpening its claws against the side of its cage, so please, feel free to occupy its attention.

Expedition to Krangor

Krangor smells of skin, of sweet yeast and sour sweat. Krangor lives and breathes as an incarnate god but unlike other proud and boastful deities it whispers with a  silent voice. We heard its enigmatic call, and its unspoken promise. It spoke to us of the Molecular Fire. After all, what else could have catalyzed the birth of such a titian?

We arrived in the space-port of Rump Town ten strong. Rump Town is a benighted place, smelling of waste and desperation. The town is built over a deep upwelling from the bowels of Krangor. The foul odor is compounded by the tube forests that grow from spores carried by incautious astro-travelers.

The foul boutique reeks of alien pollution and the heavings of a great beast. An Overwhelming cocktail to be sure, but I was able to sniff out some unusual essences. There was a tall and proud tube tree with an uncharacteristic noble odor, and a small vermin the smelled of incredible violence. When I had finished with my gatherings, Ise had arranged us travel on a caravan, so we set out.

The skin plains are a lonesome place, an empty eternity under a bruise purple sky. Our guides were sullen and watchful humans, obscured under heavy robes. Even my companions could smell their unease and paranoia and soon we learned of its source. Ise was taken in the night, skewered by a horrible mourn that had crept unseen into our encampment. Too late the alarm was sounded as it skittered away into the darkness. Our guides fired a desultory volley but the beast was long gone. In the mourning we once again ventured forth into the flatness, our minds dark with visions of spear -like limbs. At night we would hear their sad bellows, and in the light we would see their looming forms. We were not attacked again, though I do not know why.

After a week of numbing travel we arrived at the Theatre of the Center, a monastery city. It resembled a jeweled adornment pierced through the skin. Here at last we met the Magocytes. These strange creatures are massive cells that guard and heal Krangor. I could smell the power rolling of them, the creamy burnt smell of psionic metabolisms. As expected, they were reluctant to give me a sample of their cytoplasm, but one unusually gregarious individual accepted Gve as payment. I thanked Gve for his service and took my prize.

Ise had most of our coin when he was taken, so I sold Til and Fal for more funds. At one of the bars they had a most potent brew called ich that would crawl up the sides of the glass under its own power. I added it to my collection, and went to find its source.

This lead me to the nearby scab fields. Here the skin is broken and cracked and thick rivers of red ichor flow to the surface. The blood of Krangor has a will of its own and Dak was grabbed and pulled under during a moment of inattention. Unfortunate, but I was able to collect a sample of the raw ichor.

We were lucky enough to witness the cause of the scablands when a plastic angel burst forth in a shower of gore. These creatures infect Krangor and emerge from its depths according to their own alien whims. From accounts I had heard their forms vary but this one was composed of three orbs orbiting around a central blade. After its violent birth it took notice of us and pointed its body at Vil, who soon collapsed shaking and bleeding. The rest of my party was able to take the creature down with concentrated small arms fire. It's flesh was smooth and smelled of ancient malice. I placed the sample in my most secure jar. Vil body began to swell and contort with the creature's offspring so we burned it and returned it to the theater.

I retired to my rented study to examine my samples. The tube tree's nobility proved false, an ancient forgery. The tree used this ruse to  parasitize true kings. A monarch parasite could be adapted into a weapon easily enough, but it is useless to my art. the vermin was another weapon, a seeker. It's ordained prey was long dead, almost certainly by its fangs. I have no need for genocide .

The cytoplasm, to my resignation decayed quickly. The resulting slurry had a paradoxical flavor. It tasted of great victory and bitter defeat at the same time. I have added it to my spice collection.

I  breed out the yeast from the liquor. It was a vile and aggressive beast that fought the ichor to ferment it. It is powerful with a bellicose flavor. The ichor was the most tantalizing but the most obscure. It hid its scent from me. It used its powers to keep me from its secrets. Its will can only come from the planet itself. For a few precious hours a fragment of a god was dying  on my workbench. In death it catalyzed itself to oblivion in a final blaze of glory. This tiny God corpse will not be long in my possession. I will give it to  the order so that they may ponder its Glory.

While I was conducting my studies, the rest of my party was exploring the city. In a sunken bar beneath the skin Vre heard a curious Tidbit; beyond the subterranean latrines there was a passage to the depths of Krangor. Vre lead is  to the sewer pits where an unknown hand had made a path out of plastic sheets and cast off wood. Within the expected foulness I sensed death. I sent Tan to collect a sample but she slipped and drowned in the foulness before we could rescue her.  We pushed on.

I expected the interior of Krangor  to be a realm of blood and Tissue. while such a place may exist deeper still, what I found was more skin; caverns of folds and wrinkles, deep pores and hidden crypts. The air was poor and stale with a curious vital odor.

We had only just stopped catch our breath when Ove  cried out. A noxious yellow ooze crawled up his leg . I held back Vre as I dug through my pack looking for gloves. As I pulled them out, the smell of a  powerful catalyst filled the air. I tore great handfuls of slime off of him as he wailed in pain. I saw his naked bones under the slime, as my gloves begin to smoke. I ripped them off and come quickly cleansed my hands. Vre passed soon after.  We retraced our steps not without a great deal of terror.

Our manpower depleted and  our funds dwindling, we made our way off-world. Krangor is an old and quarrelsome God and it holds its secrets deep, but our quest is unabated. I or my successor will venture once more into the skin may find the molecular fire.

Editor's Note

Here we have the latest dispatch for Arch Magi Hervin Voss of the order of the Molecular Fire. For those keeping track at home, we're up to 38 assorted casualties among his allies and hirelings. I don't know where he keeps finding these people, and I don't understand how he's still alive.

Some notes: There is a rumor the caravans of Krangor deliberately allow some of their charges to be taken by the horrible mourns, in return for a measure of safety. Now, I can not speak with authority but the events Hervin describes are at least in line with such a thing. I'm not saying it is true but it is certainly suggestive.

Now it might seem like our pal Hervin sold some of his friends into slavery, but that’s not quite the case. Magocytes only accept those who come into their service willingly. These servants are then modified through bio-kinesis into creatures known as skin servitors. By all reports they have a high degree of autonomy and a comfortable standard of living. It is not the best life but it beats following Hervin into the dank corners of the galaxy.

And for the thickos out there, the Galactic Gazetteer only publishes these accounts for informational purposes. We can't be held liable for any expeditions to any of the locations we describe.  If you read the same account I did, I can't imagine any of you wanting to go to Krangor, but you mouth breathers always surprise me. 

Journey to the Temple of Red Waters

If you seek allies for desperate deeds, set out for ShrangGa, the misty jewel of the Reclaimers. From the void dock with the massive hive called the Needle Spines, shrine city of the holy vermin. It's sloping tunnels are filled with scuttling scolependrites, feeding and scheming in the dark.

Travel east from the Needle Spines along the ancient high road. Follow the worn stone path just above the swirling miasma, taking care not to breathe in the spores when they rise and shroud the road like rainbow mist. Travel past the temples of Ego, where the will of Orn issues forth. Travel past the catalytic pits, where the power of Orn churns deep underground. Travel past the hidden villages, where masked and robed humans hide from the corrosive mind of Orn.

Past all that the road finally climbs down to a dismal and rain soak village known as the Lash. This is the edge of the eye of Not Orn, a lawless swamp basin where Orn does not reach. Lash is a benighted place. The constant rains keep the spores away but also keep the villagers inside their insect carapace hovels. The iridescent sheen of chitin is universally marred by creeping brown slime. At the foot of the village where the slope of buildings meets the water is the rotting dark, where silent fishermen trudge through the downpours. Talk to the one eyed woman named Grather, or the 3 meter tall mute enigma know to the locals as Lom. They know the path through the swamp. Be quiet on the ride, for the eye of Orn is stalked by ravenous insects.

 You will know you are close  when the waters turn from brown and green to clear sanguine red. Out of the swamp mute sentinels of stone rise, statues worn down through the ages into abstract figures. This is the shrine of Red Waters, and soon you will meet Gilthain who is not Orn, the high priest of this strange temple. His pale fungal flesh weeps red ichor. He greets all visitors by name and offers them his hospitality.

The Temple is a jumble of stone rising out of the marsh, its ancient purpose lost to rain and water. Now the interiors are furnished with soft wood and paper walls and plush pillows. To swim in the water is to have your weaknesses melted away by subtle acids, to lose your imperfections to a hungry mire. Naked, mute and dirty humans serve in the temple, making food and tending to the massive hookahs. Everywhere is the smiling face of Gilthain, keeping peace and hospitably. Do not challenge him, or his true bulk will rise from the swamp. 

There are many guests at the temple, many outcasts and pirates all enjoying the rough pleasures of this deep and overlooked land. Gilthain is well informed about many things he could not know, and during private dinners of roasted insect and alien fruits he will let you into his confidence. He offers opportunity, and the chance to from convenient fellowships among those  who do not trust easy. Many thefts, murders and dark conspiracies in the wider galaxy had there origin, here on the edge of civilization. The nights here are filled with hunting calls, rain and smoke, cruel laughter and crueler schemes.

Editor's note

Hoy boy, another account from our mystery contributor. I'd stop publishing them but last time I tried they kept leaving bigger and bigger dead animals on our door stop. At least we don't have to pay them.

A couple of notes; As always our spooky friend is vague about the very concrete dangers. The "spores" of ShrangGa are an information exchange medium used by the Orn to facilitate their gestalt mind. When breathed in by non Orn it causes disjointed hallucinations. Long term exposure leads to a condition known as Orn-craze, or more informally, the craze. It is characterized by a general mental decline and a suggestive state. Those afflicted by the Orn craze are compelled to follow the orders of the Orn and other fungal beings. Presumably this is what's up with the naked human servants. So yeah, wear a breathing mask when you're on the surface.

Now a brief word on the giant insects they mention off handily. Surprisingly, they're right to be vague. I could find no respectable monograph on the fauna of Erstvale. Presumably there's a vermin engine somewhere on the planet but the church doesn't advertise it, which makes sense after the recent Neo Floozy invasions of Reclaimer worlds. Still, it’s a bit strange. I can find older pamphlets on the various Vermin engines, but nothing about one on ShrangGa. Something to look into, I guess.

Lastly, and I wish this could go without saying, but if you follow the advice of some creep who doesn't show up on security cams, the Galactic Gazetteer can't be held liable for anything that happens to you. Seriously, this person is a major weirdo and we don't know where they get this stuff, so just don't. Please don't test our legal department, we don't feed it very often

Jezoflorids

Jezoflorids are a race of sapient plants. They are serpentine in form, with a ring of manipulator tentacles in the front and a crown of leaves and eyes on top of their "head". This is also where their flowers and fruits grow, once they reached sexual maturity. At the rear of their central trunk is a brush like formation of roots. They need to spend roughly a third of their time with their roots submerged in nutrient rich soil, and they need a similar amount of sunlight exposure. They can also "eat" by using these roots to penetrate a variety of foodstuffs. There are over a thousand different cultivars of Jezoflorid; each represents a distinct variety of leaves, flowers, and quality of fruit.

Jezoflorids reproduce through seeds that are roughly the size of tennis balls. They require rather exacting conditions to germinate. For example, they need so much nitrogen it's almost impossible to get them to grow without fertilizer or compost. Upon germination, they grow rapidly; maturing from a sessile sprout to a motile sproutling in about a week. Their minds grow at a similar pace; they are capable of language at about three weeks. At this point, they enter the "skill imprinting" stage.

They become obsessed with the first task or skill they're presented with, and will devote themselves to study and practice. In this way they become useful before they fully mentally mature. Sproutlings are savants; like children that have a single adult area of expertise. After about five years, they come into bloom, signifying their passage into adulthood. At this point, their mind broadens and they become less monomaniacal. Jezoflorids never stop growing. Once they grow beyond 3 meters in length, they are considered elders, but that is more of a cultural distinction than a biological one.

As flowering plants, Jezoflorids have three genders: male, female and hermaphrodite. When fertilized, female flowers grow into fruits that resemble custardy avocados. The cultural expectation is that Jezoflorids should be producing fruits whenever they are in a stable living situation. To this end, MotherCorp settlements keep colonies of pollinating insects on the premises. Jezoflorids experience a mild erotic charge when their flowers are visited by insects carrying grains of pollen. Artificial pollination is a common practice, to refine cultivars or to attempt to create new one. (Generally, this is a practice tightly overseen by MotherCorp). It is possible to transplant a flower bud from one Jezoflorid to another, a process called grafting, after which the bud can survive indefinitely. Close companions are known exchange flower buds as a symbol of love. The gender or number of participants within these arrangements do not matter.

Organizations

Mothercorp

The Jezoflorid race, and all rights and practices related to it, are owned by MotherCorp, a galaxy-spanning Mega-Corporation. Mothercorp officially owns all Jezoflorid seeds, and adult Jezoflorids are obligated to provide their fruit to the good of the company. Jezoflorids are mostly okay with this arrangement; they say this is because most executive positions are held by Jezoflorids. In reality, MotherCorp is engaged in wide-scale social engineering projects. Mothercorp is principally an agricultural firm; while they sell agricultural products, bio-ships, environmental and terraforming services and mercenary forces, their major products are Jezoflorid sproutlings and Jezoflorid seeds.

   

The Brambles is the Military branch of MotherCorp. It is composed of adult Jezoflorids that grew up immersed in violence; as well as hordes of cannon-fodder sproutlings. MotherCorp keeps this organization on a tight leash. Having seen the horrors of war, these of all Jezoflorids know the sheer callousness of MotherCorp. As such, in times of peace, they are kept docile and weak willed through various chemical and biological agents.

The Gardeners are the grey eminence inside MotherCorp. A secretive cabal of high ranking executives, their official remit is a long term eugenics program to develop new cultivars. Their actual purpose is more sinister. They administer and prescribe social control programs to keep MotherCorp viable as a polity. Trawling the infosphere for points of critical influence, they administer agents of biological control to manipulate and manage their subjects’ behavior. For example they might drug certain personalities to make them more lethargic and less opinionated, or they might resort to more extreme measures and infect them with mind controlling parasites. Through systems like these, MotherCorp maintains a high popularity and good regard in spite of corrupt and callous practices.

Others

The Glade is a resistance movement against MotherCorp. They believe that Jezoflorids should not be selling each other into slavery, and that the pursuit of wealth is unnecessary and often immoral. Unfortunately, MotherCorp is adept at using biological agents to control minds. As such, members of The Glade exist only on the extreme fringes of MotherCorp society, and only on a few hidden worlds do they have their own backwater civilization. They have been waging a hopeless crusade for centuries. At this stage, they’ve been reduced to waging petty terrorism against MotherCorp holdings – and have done so without much success.

Personalities

Elder Moral Rectitude is the commanding officer of Bramble Patch Gamma. He is an absolute monster of a Jezoflorid, at least a half millennium old and over 30 stories long. After a long life spent in battlefields across the galaxy, he is cunning, ruthless and he always knows what you're up to. That is, that's what he's like when he's off his leash. He is far too dangerous for MotherCorp to let him have full command of his mind. He is host to a fungal parasite* that alters his perceptions and makes the world seem like a game. From his liar in the Bramble Patch he sets the objectives for the war games and watches everything play out like a befuddled old war hero. In times of extreme crises the parasite deactivates, giving him free reign. During these periods of lucidity he is hatching a secret plan to free himself. In the ashes of an emergency he plants the seeds for the next one. He is slowly assembling a scheme over decades. He has to hide his movements from his masters and from his parasite, but he is patient. He will have vengeance on MotherCorp for making him a tool, even if takes a thousand years.

At first glance, Adult Grass Star is a wide eyed glade fanatic; ranting on spaceport street corners and handing out anti-MotherCorp pamphlets.  This is an accurate impression of him but he is also a savvy businessman and fixer. He is well connected in both the Glade and the galactic underworld, and is the plant creature to talk to about deals bridging these two worlds.

Adult Due Diligence is a low level Gardner, but the highest ranked member of that faction an outsider is likely to meet. She oversees the production of some of the more exotic cultivars on Forward Garden. Part of her job duties is handling high profile clients. She sells the cultivars she grows to anyone who has the money, without the usual "good conduct" contracts, no questions asked. She also oversees "product demos", a duty she takes unseemly, sadistic joy in. She is not above hiring Alien mercenaries as cat's paws in internal MotherCorp disputes.

Locations

The Vault is the "homeworld" of the Jezoflorids. It lies on the far side of the Galaxy deep in MotherCorp territory, so details are sketchy. What is known is that it is a single world tree grown around a Floozy seed vault. Weather it is supposed to be a green wonder land or a capitalist dystopia ruled by cold vegetable minds depends on who's describing it.

Forward Garden is a Forest covered resort world. In its depths there are every kind of delight and diversion a galactic aristo could hope for. It is also a major depot for the sale of Jezoflorid Sproutlings. "Law and Order" are maintained by large hostile insects.

Bramble Patch Gamma is the "Bramble Patch" closest to human space. Here on a planet-wide battlefield sproutlings are trained in the various arts of war. This is no mere wargame however. The sproutlings  are split into clans and given live ammo; the idea being real war is the best teacher. The adult officers make a point to take prisoners whenever possible, but over half of the sproutlings here die before they reach maturity. This is where to hire Bramble mercenaries, the catch being they only do business face to face, requiring prospective clients to navigate a live battlefield.

*As previously mentioned MotherCorp uses a variety of biological techniques to pacify its subjects. This particular example is small-batch artisanal mind control.

The Agredeem

Overview and history

The Agredeem  are an ordinary race of Sapients who suffer a chronic case of god emperors. Their history is rather typical, if a bit more dramatic; the regular golden ages and downfalls punctuated by episodes of consuming mania. This persisted after they developed space travel. Their domain grew steadily when sanity reined, and rapidly when it failed. After the death of a particularly twisted emperor, the Agredeem had had enough. To prevent the emergence of the next mad king, they made a panopticon state called the Totality. Through brute surveillance and statistical voyeurism it was hoped that any nascent god emperors would be discovered and neutralized. It worked until it didn't.

The end of the Totality is one of the great political mysteries of the current age. The Totality was a peaceful and open polity with many foreign visitors. One day every visiting diplomat and spy was arrested and killed. Massive crowds of Agredeem took to the streets in a violent purge of outsiders. When the dust cleared, a new God Emperor was on the throne and the Agredeem empire was back, as though the Totality was nothing but a dream.

It is a bit unfair to call the Orphan's Guild the secret police of the Totality. They were hardly a secret, and they ran fewer undercover operations than the populace believed. They could perhaps be called the final police; they were the last line of defense against their people's darker natures, the supreme watcher of the watchmen. The first sign of the end of the Totality was when their agents began to turn up dead in suspicious or improbable ways. Many of them were killed, or fell under the Emperor's sway. The few that escaped started the new Orphan's guild, a group of partisans dedicated to bring down the Empire and restoring the Totality. Their ranks have been bolstered by various Agredeem civilians who were outside the Totality when it fell. Their road is a long one; they are fifth column that can't operate in their home territory for long for fear of losing themselves to the imperial delusion. They track the movements of the Emperor and his* Great Star advisors, looking for targets of opportunity.

The power of the Great Stars

The infamous mind control of the Great stars is not something under their conscious control. Rather it is field that is projected over roughly a thousand square miles (modern great stars use psychic repeaters to effect entire star systems. A sapient being in the field (including intelligent machines) slowly has their subconscious goals aligned with the Great Star. The citizens of the empire believe on a fundamental level that their best option is to follow and obey the Great Star. They truly think that the Empire will make them happy, famous, immortal, whatever it is that they desire. This ability is not a one way street however. As the great star alters their victims subconscious, they are exposed to feedback. A Great Star is a constant nexus of outside desires and urges. This inevitably leads to megalomania, as the Great Star directs their followers to fulfill their collective Id. Great stars are prone to madness and obsession, as random bits of psychic detritus flow in and out of their minds.

It might seem as though the Great Stars are destined to control the minds of the entire galaxy. There are a couple of things stopping that. First of all, it is less effective on Non-Agredeem. It can take up to week for an average sapient to fall in line, and a well self-posed being can hold off potentially indefinitely. Second, the effect fades when a being is no longer in the area of the field (though the delusion can linger if the being doesn't have the force of will to reassert their true beliefs). Third, there is an incredible psychic cost to using the ability as a weapon of war. By linking their minds to those of the combatants on both sides, the Great Star is inundated with a wave of stress and fear. And as the Great Star is a nexus for desires and prejudices, the besieged society frequently crumbles in a dramatic and horrible fashion. War crimes and genocides are common outcomes. An Emperor who relies on their ability to conquer will be driven irrevocably insane in short order. Modern imperial doctrine is to subdue the enemy through conventional means, then bring in a Great Star to complete the pacification.

Biology and culture

The Agredeem are amphibious but are more comfortable in the water. On land, or as they say "the dry side" they are heavier and slower, plus they need to keep their skin moist or else suffer painful rashes and cracking. They also can only reproduce underwater. They practice external fertilization, with the gametes meeting each other in the water. The sexual act is not erotic as we understand it, but rather a social function. It occurs during special "orgies" that are more like parties or soirees. The participants reaffirm their social bonds over some entertainment, and at the end they release their gametes. In their pre-modern era the larval Agredeem would mature in the wild as plankton, and would have to be "harvested" from the ocean floor in order to join society. Nowadays the orgies take place in special filtered tanks, and the fertilized eggs are examined and either kept or discarded.  In this era of empire the entertainment at these orgies has grown more decadent and wicked. Gladiatorial combat and public executions are popular choices.

The Totality was a peaceful and mostly rational culture. They saw their Imperial past as a time of shame and madness, but on some level they still appreciated their colonial prosperity. Those planets that were conquered in the bad old days were incorporated into the Totality  as gently as possible, though there was some resentment form non Agredeem that found themselves living in a benevolent foreign police state.

With the advent of the new Empire the bad old days have come again. The current mood is one of manifest destiny. The Agredeem people increasingly see themselves as the rightful rulers of the galaxy. Mildly paternalistic relationships with client states are now openly colonial once more. The covetous desires of their living gods become manifest in a culture of decadent display and consumption. Before service to the state was no great honor, merely just duty. Now military officials and high ranking bureaucrats are making themselves into a new aristocracy. Pomp and propaganda are rampart, their infosphere is a swamp of state lies and self serving delusions of grandeur. And above all of it is the God Emperor and  his advisers. Every delusion, vice and folly found in the Empire is also found in this small court. The Empire is a reflection of their twisted desires.

Notable Persons

Smell of Rotten Fruit** is the Orphan's Guild liaison for outside contractors. It is their job to recruit and handle non Agredeem agents. Mostly they feed information to pirates and privateers, but they also meet and share information with foreign spies. They're as cagey and secretive as any spook, but they have a real flair for the dramatic. They give a scented calling card to their agents bearing their signature reek, to be left behind to taunt the Empire's own counter intelligence operatives. This is part of a long term "tethered goat" strategy to lure out and capture enemy agents  


The current God Emperor is named Gradissophoul, the Revealed Path. His official bio says that he was raised by a sect of monks who guard a secret Obelisk Dreamer site on the homeworld of Agred. It was here that he was visited by a fragmentary Dreamer intelligence that revealed that he was the true inheritor of the Dreamer's legacy, and that it was his destiny to gain the powers of the Bastards for the Agredeem. This is likely nonsense;  There has never been any evidence of a Bastard presence on Agred, and the story is very self-serving. Regardless, Imperial Agredeem take it very seriously, as does Gradisophoul. In between state orgies and strategy sessions they spend their time obsessively  studying Obelisk Dreamer relics and texts. They often summon  renowned scholars to consult with. Those who keep their wits about them and resist the emperor's corrosive will report that he is about as knowledgeable as a somewhat dim grad student . Still, he has the full force of an interstellar empire to follow up on their whims and theories. A rational mind could use the emperor's private collection to make some important discoveries. Unfortunately it never leaves the empire's flag ship,  With Divine Feet we Tread

The Emperor has six Great Star "advisers" (most of them are more like henchmen), the chief of which is Xerdofistor, The Mind of God, who is the Emperor's closest confidant and psychiatrist. Her job is to keep the Emperor mentally stable, which is tricky because Xerdofistor is subject to the same extreme mental stresses all Great Stars are. Still, she seems to have a net positive effect on the Emperor, even if their relationship is dogged by rumors, the most scandalous of which is that they mate in private (Agredeem consider sexual acts with fewer than five participants perverse). The Orphan Guild theorizes that with Xerdofistor's influence the Emperor would become unbalanced, so she is under constant threat of assassination. As a result she spends much of their time on board their flagship The Inner Truth of All Minds obsessively study logs and recordings, looking for plots against her. She has a keen mind, but also a lot of psychic baggage. She finds nearly as many real conspiracies as fake ones.

Planets of Interest

The Agredeem homeworld, Agred is the site of over a hundred densely populated Arcologies. Millennium of habitation has weakened the biosphere. When the Totality ruled they devoted significant resources to stabilizing the wounded ecosystem. The empire has no such concern, shifting the economy to a war footing. Conditions in the cities are deteriorating, but the locals don't care. Those not involved in heavy industry and agriculture are building new monuments to the God Emperor and the empire. The planet is defended by a fleet of massive but slightly antique battle stations, plus whatever fleet elements are present.

 The water world of Emphrina bears the dubious distinction of being the only world to willingly submit to the empire without the influence of a Great Star. The native Emphrinians  were peacefully admitted to the empire, then soon after the God Emperor died under mysterious  circumstances. These two events are linked in the popular imagination and to this day no Great Star will set foot on Emphrina. Still, the Emphrinians were loyal imperial citizens, then loyal Totality citizens, and now they're back to being loyal to the empire. Emphrina is a popular resort destination for Imperial aristocrats , and the absence of Great Stars makes it ideal for those that wish to deal with the empire without becoming thrall to it. 
Below the Agredeem colonies lie the Emphrinian psychodramas. Emphrinians don't have fixed identities , rather they assume different personas each cycle. These personalities range from bit players like "friendly shopkeeper" to major characters like "destined child" and "evil overlord". In the upper reaches of the world ocean they have a functional if eccentric civilization. Things are more chaotic in the lower depths; they engage in endless mock battles and invented struggles. It is theorized that there is some sort of gestalt mind directing their strange plays. If so, the best way to communicate with it may be to interface with the fiction; sending messages by manipulating dramatic elements. This is mostly conjecture, as the occupying Agredeem are uninterested in the antics of their subjects. The Orphan Guild sends the occasional expedition, hoping to unravel the mysteries of the planet.

* Traditionally Agredeem placed little importance on biological sex, and their language was gender neutral. Social importance of Gender is something they picked up from the humans on Malstrom, a sort of psychic infection they caught from our culture

**This is an obvious pseudonym. It shows that its owner has romantic and heroic notions and is maybe a little full of themselves.