Aballon

Geography

From an outsider’s view, Aballon is a dull world of iron and rock. Since the rise of anacite dominance of Aballon, interconnected settlements the size of nations—now known as megaplexes— spread across the surface of Aballon like a metal plague. The ongoing expansion of these city-nations is determined by incomprehensibly complicated calculations performed by the most advanced anacites in conjunction with the leaders of other similarly burgeoning city-states. Only the lands surrounding the vaunted cities of the First Ones remain free from the industrial expansion, and when viewed from orbit, one can clearly view the open landscapes left between the anacite-built megaplexes and the cities of the First Ones. The impact of stellar debris and other objects originally shaped much of the rocky surface of Aballon. Objects continued to collide with the world throughout its existence, as the planet only recently manufactured a working atmosphere in some locations. Many of the colossal megaplexes grew over craters and impact points. These immense settlements often include entire city-sized districts that make use of the extra space these craters provide to build undercities of varying sizes. Some of Aballon’s largest megaplexes include multiple undercities, each with a name reflecting an archaic naming convention for the craters as they were cataloged by the other worlds of the Golarion System in ages past. The Castrovelian- named crater of Lors Emphyria rests under the city of Striving, as does the Golarion-named series of close undercities known as the Catena of Ralzeros. Reaching up from enormous depressions in the planet’s surface are immense, rock-encrusted mountains of exposed lead. Some regions of the world form recessed valleys or highlands shaped over millions of years of planetary stabilization. Compression folds are the primary culprit of geographic shifts on the surface; scholars theorize that Aballon was once a larger world that compressed in on itself as the planetary core solidified into its current form of highly dense metals. The modern terrain is far less prone to change, and as a result, Aballon has suffered only minor shifting in the past 10,000 years. There are no oceans on the surface of Aballon. Frozen water does exist on the planet, being mostly confined to the half-frozen jungles of the Ice Wells, unique regions within deep impact craters scattered across the surface. The depth of the craters offers shade from the superheated sunlight, which leads to wells of ice. The plants within have adapted to collect solar energy and heat from the upper reaches of the impact points, creating unique regions of temperatures amicable to organic life. The Ice Wells remained relatively preserved until the recent surge of anacite expansion across the world, but now only a few remain. A layer of thick rock covers Aballon, beneath which immense deposits of iron and lead make up much of the planet’s internal structure. Because even the lowest melting point of rock and iron is twice the melting point of lead, Aballon has survived the constant bombardment of the nearby sun, but the risks of exposing a metallic portion of the planet to direct sunlight has been a major concern for most of the world’s history, as atmospheric and solar controls have been a very recent innovation. Various mandates from the ruling Insight Array prohibit exploitative practices by corporations and place complex regulations on mining efforts to minimize the potential for mining disasters. Because of this, many corporations have abandoned mining endeavors on Aballon and instead seek profits in the unregulated worlds of Near Space and the Vast. The remaining surface mining initiatives on Aballon are most commonly the result of Triune’s church, particularly those followers of Triune’s Epoch aspect who view the metals of Aballon with religious awe. Between millennia of robotic excavators crafting perfectly aligned subterranean tunnels and the organic “diggers” of the Ice Wells crafting their own networks, Aballon is rife with internal transit routes. Unleashed in the wake of the First Ones’ departure, the excavator robots began work constructing a series of pathways to connect the planet’s various settlements. Sometime during the Gap, these excavators completed their work, and the anacites installed complex, magnetically charged rail systems. The mag-rail network allows high-speed transit beneath the planet’s surface, freeing up the skies for city-sized bulk landers to collect goods from the anacite-run forges.

Maps

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  Aballon Map

  A map of Aballon

Type

Planet

Location under

Pact Worlds

Included Locations

• Myriad
• Pursuit
• Sea of Glass
• Striving
• Timeless

Owning Organization

The Insight Aray

Contested By

• Those Who Act
• Those Who Become
• Those Who Wait