Chunky Space compact

    The Chunky Space Compact was created in response to border skirmishes inside Chunky Space between the six major signatories. The problem was that with the elevated levels of priracy within Chunky Space, unnecessary conflicts were occurring between the various security forces, sometimes catalyzed by the pirates they were obstebily hunting. After a particularly nasty incident in which Seeder Navy personnel were captured and eaten by Republic pirate hunters, a peace conference was called, and the compact was signed shortly thereafter. The terms are fairly simple.

1 - Non-aggression - The big one, arguably the reason for the treaty. Each polity keeps a register of all ships active in Chunky Space. Ships so named are to be free of all harassment and molestation outside of publicly declared interdiction zones. A vessel violating this sanction can expect to lose its official designation and be branded a pirate.

2 - Letters of Marque and reprisal - This section covers the (fairly simple) requirements a ship needs to met in order to serve as a privateer, as well as a list of polities and outlaw groups that are considered to be pirates.

3 - Colony licensensing - This is the sole provision added by the Republic of Sea Serpents. It outlines the necessary procedures to quantify environmental impact of new colonies and ways that impact can be negated. All unlicensed colonies are considered to be “wild cat” settlements and are fair targets for privateers

4 - Chunky net - This provision mandated the creation of a pan chunky space communication network in order to share information between polities 

5 - Extradition - Signatory parties have the right to call for extradition hearings for criminals in other signatory’s territories. Such hearings are to be overseen by a local magistrate (or the closest equivalent). Only acts that are crimes in both polities are extraditable.

6 - Right of Docking - Lastly, signatory ships are allowed at signatory ports and must be allowed to purchase fuel at local market prices, except during officially declared emergencies.

Rapacious Child

  

Rapacious Child is the factory/foundry complex that serves as the base of Father’s Corp’s operations in Chunky Space. It is an astral entity that budded off from Father Corp itself. It is possessed by the same greed as its sire but it is much less intelligent. It is a simple, grasping thing that only wants to melt down astral matter in its blazing gullet.

Seen from space, Rapacious Child looks like a monstrous face. A huge mouth splits the station in half vertically. Massive plates the size of cities overhang the opening like snaggly teeth. The mouth is lit by a warm glow. Both hemispheres have a single large glowing eye.


Rapacious Child is Father Corp’s most valuable asset in Chunky Space so it needs protection. In every system it visits it is escorted by 10 micro missile swarms, each hundreds of units strong. The swarms are kept hidden in ready mode in key locations across the system. Fire control for the swarms is provided by observers in stealthed watch posts. In addition, there are 2d20 astral trawlers docked or in system at any given time. Astral trawlers are armed with twin medium mazer banks and a squad of astral marines in battle panoplies. Between the ships there will also be 1d8 psychic weapon officers, split between telekinetic and offensive telepaths. Lastly, in dire situations the meld minister can focus the attention of the Child itself on intruders. The Child attacks with telekinetically controlled webs of molten metal.


Close orbit around the Child is known as the Feed Yard. This is a holding zone for astral matter that is destined to be fed to the Child. There are chunks of impossible edifices, surreal trees, and bloody corpses of astral creatures. Cyborg Prime Strain void laborers pick through the remains, scanning for items of value and potential threats to the Child. In emergency situations they mobilize into an ad-hoc militia.




Baby Blues are creeps that manifest in the Feed Yard. They are thought to have come from Prime Strain misconceptions about human reproduction. They look not unlike fat human infants, but much larger and solid blue. They float around the yard, motionless until they're looked at. They feed off of disgust and revulsion, so they begin to twitch when observed. They converge on people having panic attacks, mobbing up against them in a tide of soft blue flesh. The void workers try not to look at anything blue or baby like if they can help it.



The Jaw Dex is the slightly nicer of the two jaw cities. The hab complexes are cleaner, the rations are fresher and the security forces are less trigger happy. The permanent residents are entirely Prime Strain. The office of the Meld Minister is here. The current Meld Minister is JXTRL, once a cunning and ambitious middle manager. Their mind is already deteriorating from exposure to the Child. When they’re not directing the Child, they are locked in their office playing with blocks and eating candy. The bureaucracy of Father Corp has rerouted management of the child around them, to a council of upper middle managers.


Jaw Dex is home to the Eye of What You Want, a large temple complex where astral radiation shines from the depths of the child. The whole temple acts as psychic focus for clairvoyance, with the catch that it only shows material goods the psychic would wish to acquire.


The Jaw Sin is the shabbier of the two cities. The foreigner ghetto that houses non Prime Strain Father Corp employees is here. These workers are often debt slaves who were pressed into service by rescue fees when Father Corp found them in dire circumstances. They are given the most dangerous jobs in the child, like bowel maintenance worker. Also here is the visitor’s dock and the outlet store, where outsiders can purchase Father Corp goods.


The Eye of What Others Have is here. It is similar to the Eye of What you Want, except it shows material possessions belonging to people the seer knows personally. The two eyes are in constant use by “Clerical Associates” who use them to conduct “market research”. This results in an endless stream of intelligence products that swirl through the bureaucracy until they congeal into action items. Both eyes together give Father Corp strategic vision of almost anywhere in Chunky Space


The Bowels of the Child is a cramped and sprawling mass of brass pipes and tanks. Astral matter is melted down in the mouth and processed in the bowels. High levels of astral radiation means the machinery here does not operate on rational material rules but rather by dream logic. Constant maintenance is required, simply because it seems like constant maintenance should be required. Teams of workers plumb the sweltery depths, looking for dials to adjust and bolts to tighten. Accidents are frequent and deadly, like leaks of molten dream stuff and flash fires. There are also factory dwelling creeps that can be hostile. Somewhere in the tangle is the Umbilicus, the cords and pipes that connect the Child to Father Corp. The Umbilicus runs through the astral current called the Squeeze, which can act as a backdoor into the Child.


Jerkies are a type of creep found in the bowels. They are crude humanoid simulrums made of burned and desiccated meat. They are shy, hiding between pipes, peeking out of shadows with skeletal faces. Bowel workers say they are the corpses of those who were killed by accidents. They say they congregate around future accident sites. They are ambiguous figures, sometimes saving workers from their fate, sometimes trying to make more of their kind.


Rarely a Jerky will have a damaged mask on its face. This is actually a dangerous creature called a Maskform revenant. These beings are the damaged and distorted egos of dead maskforms, still clinging to existence. They are driven by revenge, but they can’t remember the source of their grudges. They grow wicked blades out their bodies and attack at short range. They will not attack the friends and family they had in life.

The Maskform Federation

 

    The Maskform Federation is a new military alliance formed by the various clans and settlements of the astral currents in Chunky Space. The Astral Currents have been settled for millennia but they have always been isolated and independent. Only Father Corp raids have pushed them together. They have created a unified force that opposes Father Corp not only in the Astral, but in the material world as well.

    The Maskform Federation has joined the Chunky Space Compact because they need allies and material support. For generations the Maskforms of Chunky Space have ignored the material world. This position is no longer tenable, as Father Corp uses the material world as a base to launch their raids into the astral currents. The Federation is boot-strapping up a real space navy and they need outside help to do so. 

    Before the Federation, Maskform societies were connected by the Caravan Houses, mechant consortiums that would travel between Astral currents. It was the caravan guards that formed the core of the Federation military. The Federation has since evolved beyond those roots, becoming estranged from the Caravan Houses’ economic interests. There is a growing pan-Maskform nationalism that some see as a threat to the traditional order. For now the common enemy of Father Corp keeps the alliance together.

    The Federation military is split into an auxiliary branch and a professional branch. The Auxiliaries are the fighting forces of the various tribes united together. They use their traditional tactics and command structures to fight in astral realms. The professional branch is a completely modern institution that focuses on real space.

    The strength of the Federation Navy lies in the psychic traditions of the Maskforms. All together, the tribes have knowledge of dozens of different psychic disciplines. There are schools for telekinesis, mind intrusion, wild empathy, techno gnosis and some applications that are so obscure they don’t have common names. What is also notable is how the Federation navy deploys these powers as part of a combined arms doctrine. Psychics are assigned to multidisciplinary fire teams with infantry support. Federation forces are powerful, flexible and unconventional.

    The Amorphous live in the cave-like current called The Squeeze. Their name comes from their custom of assuming flexible slime forms, allowing them to squeeze through any gap their mask can fit through. They live in sealed fortresses built around fixed points in the everchanging caves. Each fortress is ruled by a military leader called a Wallmaster who serves at the consent of a council of civil leaders. The Amorphous have been forced to militarize even before the emergence of Father Corp. The Squeeze is also home to the Dig Safe Empire, a militant cult of meme victims that desire only to dig and to spread their compulsion. The various settlements are all united together by ancient pacts, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t infighting. Disputes are settled through ritual one on one combat between warriors wearing tech gnostic battle panoplies 

    The Illuminated live in Siren’s Call, a layered oceanic realm. The layer you experience is dependent on your vibrational frequency, with the catch that the realm itself is always sapping energy. To avoid the dangerous low vibe layers, they carry lightstones, which they use as a  meditative focus to increase their vibes. They live in nomadic, free swimming pods. The only permanent settlement is the crawling city, made out of motile astral coral. The city is home to creches, libraries and workshops; all of the infrastructure they can’t carry with them. The city is ruled by a Headmaster, who is appointed by a council of department heads.  Their power extends only to the city; the pods have no formal leadership structure.

    The Threaded live in the everchanging wilds of the Trail. Navigation in the Trail works by sympathy and connection; by setting your intention towards a person, the Trail will take you to them (though not necessarily without incident or a detour). The Threaded sew special ceremonial fibers into their astral bodies that strengthen their connection to whoever has the other half of their fiber. They build settlements on meta-stable locations, areas where the warping effect of the trail is somewhat muted. Even these islands of apparent stability aren’t permanent, sometimes melting back into the flux of the trail. As a result the Threaded are always exploring the Trail, looking for new building sites. Settlements are typically small and are ruled by two democratically elected leaders; a “Master Sojourner” who handles external matters like diplomacy and trade and a “ Master cultivator” who handles internal matters.

    The Florid are associated with the astral current known as the digital abyss but in truth the abyss is antithetical to long term habitation. Instead, the Florid live in an “astral delta” realm where the abyss flows into the more hospitable dreamscape known as HellBloom. HellBloom is a massive virtual lake overgrown with digital lotuses. The Florid live on island settlements. Each island is dominated by a single hotel. The hotels service the Digital Devils, powerful and demented digital/astral entities who just need a place to unwind and destress sometimes. The hotels are split between worker-owned and private hereditary owners. An economic war has been going on for centuries that has seen the fortunes of the private owners, the so-called “Spa Queens”, wane considerably. They have now embraced Father Corp and rely on it for cheap resupply. The tides of war are turning once again and the unionists are turning to the Federation for help.

    Life on the Ruin Way is in constant motion. Slow moving objects get shunted to a barren oubliette dimension called the neon wastes. The Peregrine maskforms live on convoys of mobile temple complexes. The convoys travel between sacred fix points in the Ruin Way. Each of the four major convoys uses a different primary fuel source, in order to lessen competition. When there are disputes about routes, food sources or secondary fuels they engage in ceremonial conflicts known as “dust ups”, in which mounted warriors attempt to force each other down into the neon wastes. The convoys are theocracies lead by the most accomplished pilgrims.

    The nexus of Maskform civilization in Chunky Space has always been Dream Washed Ortellion. All five major currents have confluxes here, making it a major trading post. The planet’s capitol, Graz Throne, is the largest city in the Federation. All other settlements are much smaller. The nominal ruler of the planet is the Monarch of Graz, but their role is more militant than political. Trained from birth in the Questing Arts, their task is to contain and control astral influence. Graz Throne is administered by the Fool’s Parade, a body of citizens under the sway of the Jubilant Moon. The outlying settlements are ruled by democratically elected mayors. The Maskforms of Dream Washed Ortellion don’t have a collective name like the other groups. They are sometimes called the Mudbound but that is considered derogatory.

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.