Faigan
A harsh world with a harsh history, Faigan sits second from the blue sun. Once home to a great many peoples and their cultures, it is now known as the seat of the Foszar Coalition , assembled from the descendants of the last survivors of a terrible purge. In the modern era, Faigan thrives.
The planet's largest city, and capital of the Foszar Coalition, is Fort Verdant, a seaside metropolis with a history stretching back thousands of years.
Despite its outwardly inhospitable environments all the world over, Faigan was once a planet that could have been deemed even pleasant to live on. Before complex life had even finished its development cycle elsewhere in the system, the planet shattered abruptly, releasing a volcanic roil leaving deep basins of toxic gases in its wake.
Attempt to settle there were made in the southern hemisphere throughout the 15th Age, but the land proved unkind to its new arrivals. With great losses, the original settlers eventually made their way to the regions near the south pole. It was not until 106.24 that any remnant of other survivors from that time period had been discovered, having formed an animalistic symbiosis with creatures of the deep and worshipping them as gods. After its second settling, Faigan saw the rise of a surprising number of civilizations, despite its harsh living conditions.
Its first settling was not without some successful examples; the Parghai empire was a prominent power on Faigan, occupying almost all of Morasi and its surrounding islands, before splintering over a religious divide. The therianthrope Tayyari ascended to godhood, which caused schisms between those ready to accept a new deity, and those who answered only to an established pantheon.
Tayyari led her followers across Faigan's medial vortex, but remained in the thick of the storm to spread her influence through the wind. The lands to the south had been largely untouched, with the only living proof of the first settling above sea level having long isolated themselves at the south pole. "Living" was a contested label however, as the inhabitants of what would come to be known as the Wintergrave Necropolis had made it common practice to take on an elegant form of undeath after maturation.
The rest of the southern hemisphere bore only the sparse remains of previous nomadic presences, allowing the outcasts from the north to take lands of their own, from the equatorial Martai to the distant Foszarei.
During the 17th Age, the cells long since seeded on Faigan, and the reason for its shattering, had finished a rushed evolution, forming physical bodies for Serene interlopers determined to annihilate their old creations. They neutralized another of their kind; its followers, the Keepers of Ath Hadra, were none the wiser to the new voice guiding them and just as fanatical. What followed would mark the beginning of the Silgarene Era. When instructed to create a quiet place for its emergence, the Keepers descended on Faigan and began their grim task of annihilation. The survivors fell back to Foszarei, where a last stand was staged. The horrible truth of the force guiding the Keepers was revealed, and at great cost, was struck down.
Nowadays, the Foszar Coalition and its allies control the entirety of Faigan, as well as a number of other habitable worlds surrounding its star.
Geography
Faigan is primarily an arid world where water is scarce. Its continents are colossal pillars of rock which stand out about a great Halogen Sea, a roil of gases that extends all the way down to the planet's molten core. A storm twists across the planet's equator, the medial vortex, two opposing forces meeting in the middle, hurling dust and ash skyward as high as 50 km.
Civilization is more robust towards the poles where the weather is more temperate and the 44-hour days are frequently no hotter than 40C.
Though water is scarce, the continents of Foszarei to the south and Morasi to the north rest atop large aquifers. The planet's deep geological activity feeds and distills water back into these spaces, allowing them to be continually drawn from.
Three other continents exist, but with minimal water presence. One of them, Martai, is largely occluded by the medial vortex. While it offers the most viable terrain for crossing the vortex (the other options being re-entry from orbit or braving the dangers of the deep sea at this latitude), outposts and settlements are few there, save for the purposes of meteorological monitoring or high-speed transport.
Following a state of total war with the elusive but powerful Keepers of Ath Hadra, much of the world was left littered with little more than the remnants of civilization, and military outposts left unattended. Over time, these would be reclaimed as a global community was restored, but interplanetary administration proved much easier than domestic administration across
Foszarei and its surrounding isles retain an active and thriving society, with the Foszar Coalition controlling much of the mainland, while the Nayre Dominion and Kuareb Industries have settled in the periphery.
Fauna & Flora
Despite the many living wonders of Faigan, especially its middling genericism rating of 40%, of greatest note for its positive impact is the long-rooted succulent ikzoryg, a plant native to Morasi that allowed those first arriving to tap into the deep aquifers. The propagation of these plants to the southern hemisphere facilitated much-improved quality of life until a more sophisticated means of pumping water was developed for a larger scale. Even in modern times, the ikzoryg is still used by rural communities, and is a ubiquitous crop in any climate capable of sustaining it.
However, the iconic creatures Faigan is famous for are mainly found in the Halogen Sea is home to entire ecosystems of bizarre gasborne lifeforms, not the least of which is a primordial species of drake that has been deified by mutated settlers living in the abyss.
Most of the life in the sea has undergone a completely different evolutionary process than on the majority of worlds in the Ravel. At lower depths, atmospheric oxygen levels would be toxic to most lifeforms, which have developed an accelerated fermentation process to compensate. Some of these are edible, but beneath the Bromic layer, many lifeforms have evolved to metabolize arsenic rather than phosphorus.
Natural Resources
The Halogen Sea, despite its name, contains a surplus of other gases at the depths that warrant greater caution. Modern siphoning technologies have allowed the harvesting of these gases by submersible rigs, an endeavor that has almost as many pirates aiming for it as it does legitimate businesses, both domestic and licensed.
The upper levels of the ocean contain minimal fluorine; much of it has already formed platinum hexafluoride pillars near the mantle, another valuable industrial resource.
The ikzoryg plant has been exported far and wide as well, finding use on any world with arid climates and water to offer.
Tourism
Visitors tend to focus on Foszarei, especially the Quaking Isles, which are home to the Great Monastery of Tayyari, and the Dominion settlement of Ozone City, rebuilt after millennia along with the nation's revival. From there, a trip east to mainland leads to the scenic, coastal city of Haakis. Many come to enjoy the myriad delights the continent has to offer; techniques to remove toxins from the sea life from the lowest zones of Chloric Layer have given way to culinary experiences unlike any other in the Ravel, and the sea itself is awe-inspiring no matter where it is seen from.
Those who find themselves missing the cosmopolitan lifestyle offered by Ozone City may look further east, to Haven-In-The-Ash, third largest city on Foszarei with a view of Szoret, a permanently active volcano that has been releasing ash and cinders for millions of years.
For historians of all kinds, the world holds great significance as a site where mortals overcame their progenitors, and it stands as a reminder of their resilience, especially for humankind.
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