Liavara
In addition to several large, populated moons, this peach-colored gas giant also has extensive dust rings and countless tiny shepherd moons. Through these rings swim vast oma space-whales, straining nutrients and tiny elementals from the dust with their energy baleen, while down in the planet’s cloud layers floats a complex ecosystem ranging from air plants and giant bacteria to apex predators such as deadly keji swarms or the infamous tarenake, visible only by the gas it displaces. As you descend into the planet’s denser cloud strata, predators get larger and more piscine, capturing prey with vampiric tentacles, magical fields, or acid-coated web nets. Many upper-layer creatures drop their gas-filled eggs through these layers into even deeper strata, where the eggs eventually reach neutral buoyancy and gestate in the increased heat and pressure, away from their usual predators.
Through this gaseous wilderness float the Dreamers, Liavara’s most prominent—and most confusing—intelligent race. Nearly identical to the gelatinous Barathus of neighboring Bretheda, Liavara’s Dreamers lack their kindred’s collectivist culture or ability to combine consciousnesses, instead swooping through the skies in complex social interactions still mostly unintelligible to outsiders. Barathu legend says that the Dreamers were originally colonists from Bretheda who flew to the then-uninhabited world, only to quickly devolve—or ascend—into a state described alternately as feral or enlightened. With little interest in outside cultures and none at all in economics or governance, the Dreamers are best known for their prophetic songs predicting some great or terrible event to come—the Dreamers themselves make no distinction between the two.
Given this relative lack of civilization, Liavara would have long since been taken over by other races if not for the barathus’ fierce insistence that the planet be left as a refuge for these pseudoholy entities. Not officially a member of The Pact Worlds—though many of its moons are—Liavara is technically a protectorate administrated exclusively by Bretheda, which keeps a careful watch on the humanoid gas-mining ventures and floating city-platforms allowed to operate here. While most of the gases making up the planet are ordinary elements such as hydrogen and helium, the planet also harbors many rare gases, such as metasterium (useful in a variety of genetic engineering and mutation processes) and the magic-enhancing thaumogen, popular as both a magical crafting agent and a performance enhancing drug for technomancers (but highly illegal due to its sanity-eroding side effects). Many speculators believe that there are still far more unique, valuable compounds and organisms drifting in the deep layers of the planet, and despite the hazardous conditions and strict prohibitions by Brethedan overseers, many corporations still quietly contract out for deep dive explorations, made all the more risky by the need for absolute secrecy.
Far more welcoming than Liavara itself are the planet’s independent moons. The most prominent of these is heavily populated Arkanen, which constantly bleeds off its atmosphere, only to replenish it each year when its eccentric orbit takes it through Liavara’s own upper atmosphere. Extremely dangerous storms arise as huge lightning bolts arc between the two worlds, harnessed by resident scientists and spellcasters alike. This orbit should be impossible according to normal physical models, which leads many to believe that the moon was built specifically as a power source. What the arcane dynamo might have been designed to power remains unknown.
After Arkanen, the most civilized moon is Osoro, a world of mountaintop settlements high above the seas of poisonous gas breathed out by the moon’s jungles. Here, solar-powered gliders sail between inhabited areas, while corrosion-resistant vessels dive down into the roiling clouds to study the ruins of a lost age. Heavily populated Nchak is close behind; a world of arthropods ruled by pulsating philosopher worms and the mortal incarnation of Hylax, it has become a religious and tourist mecca for many Shirren. Less visited is Melos, a mysterious world whose entire population vanished in what may have been a rapturous religious ascendance or a more sinister event, though it remains a treasure trove for archaeologists and salvagers. Isolated Hallas has been kept carefully cordoned off since even before The Gap, lest unprepared contact with the resident hyper-evolved energy beings cause outsiders’ brains to explode from overstimulation.
Geography
Like many gas giants, Liavara has no terrestrial surface or solid core; its atmospheric layers simply grow denser and hotter the farther one travels toward the center, until the pressure and temperature initiate phase changes in the gases, creating a core dense enough to crush any vessel unprepared for the journey. Liavara’s atmosphere is predominantly helium and hydrogen, and while it is not necessarily breathable by many humanoids, neither is it toxic. In comparison to stormy Bretheda, Liavara enjoys periods of relative calm, though all manner of atmospheric weather phenomena can be experienced somewhere on the world.
The outer layers of the planet are not so different from the atmospheres of other worlds, save that there is no such thing as a clear day and the sky is formed of clouds ranging from yellow to orange to red hues. Deeper within, as atmospheric pressure increases, the layers become more sealike, and the creatures within them appear to swim rather than fly. A variety of gaseous compounds, many of practical value and some exceptionally rare or outright unavailable elsewhere in the system, exist throughout all the planet’s layers, leading to the planet’s status as a highly sought territory for gas-mining efforts.
Just north of the equator, a band of clouds called the Ribbon encircles the planet. The air currents in this region move swiftly, and its clouds are substantially lighter in color than the rest of Liavara’s atmosphere, making it one of the planet’s most distinctive features. Records of the Ribbon predate the Gap, though comparisons of pre-Gap and post-Gap images of Liavara indicate that the band has shifted slightly farther north over time. The coloration difference is due primarily to variations in the amount of nitrogen dioxide in the atmosphere; the Ribbon has the most direct exposure to the sun, free from the shadow of the planet’s rings, and the incrementally higher temperature here pushes that particular reddish-orange compound into other regions, darkening those clouds and leaving the Ribbon a paler hue.
The planet’s extensive dust rings are even more distinctive, and far more impressive. Liavara is the only planet in the system to sport rings of any kind. These bands of dust and ice are shaped and defined into particular striations by the planet’s innumerable shepherd moons—ranging from chunks of rock some tens of feet in diameter to asteroids and tiny planetoids. Many shepherd moons bear unexplained marks of ancient civilizations: abandoned mines, obelisks covered in eldritch markings, and even lavish tombs.
The only true settlement on Liavara is the floating city of Roselight, a series of transparent aluminum and polycarbonate domes atop a mechanical thruster platform, built almost exclusively as a carefully managed gas-mining outpost. The Brethedan administration ensures that Roselight remains at a specified point in the planet’s atmosphere, so barathu overseers can monitor traffic and activity to ensure the mining corporations operate within the planet’s strict limitations. Maintaining a fixed orbit above Roselight is Upwell, an artificial satellite serving as the main point of entry to the planet’s atmosphere. As Liavara itself is closed to most traffic, Upwell is a bustling center of commerce in its own right, benefiting from the traffic of the mining industries.
Liavara’s five larger moons each have their own complex ecologies. Arkanen continually bleeds off its atmosphere in a comet-like trail, but the moon’s eccentric orbital pattern causes it to make an astronomically impossible dive through Liavara’s atmospheric layers each year. This causes massive electrical storms, but it does enable Arkanen to capture enough air to maintain its inhabitants for the year to come.
Osoro would be a normal enough world if its islands emerged from a sea of water. Instead, these peaks reach up into the oxygen-rich upper atmosphere out of a soup of toxic gases—fumes produced in combination from sulfuric vents and the emissions of poisonous plants between the moon’s vast mountains. The inhospitable habitat has not discouraged its residents, however, and Osoro boasts several large cities, including the narrow but miles-long metropolis of Saborosaan along the Bhalakosti Ridge, the massive spaceport Tholem on the equatorial plateau, and the great capital Orosalos in the southern hemisphere, high on the slopes of the moon’s highest peak.
Melos is well known for the beauty of its natural landscapes, though the moon’s most notable features are the eerie ruins of its once-great cities, abandoned for millennia. Nchak is not as attractive, with its thin atmosphere and rocky surface, and most of its civilization resides in subterranean warrens, but some visitors find an austere beauty in the moon’s mountainous vistas.
Liavara’s final major moon, Hallas, is cordoned off behind a magical barrier. The moon’s native species, the hyperevolved energy beings known as hallajins, are powerful entities whose telepathic touch overloads the minds of all lesser species—including virtually all humanoids. Ages ago, Arkanen’s wizards responded to this danger by erecting arcane warning beacons around Hallas, powered by the immense energy generated as Arkanen passes through Liavara’s atmosphere each year, and thus maintained throughout the millennia. The hallajins have no physical forms and therefore no use for physical settlements. As a result, Hallas remains a barren, unsettled wilderness.
History
One of two massive gas giants in the Pact Worlds system, Liavara is known for its peach-colored skies, extensive dust rings, and countless shepherd moons. However, Liavara does not hold full Pact Worlds membership. Instead, the neighboring world of Bretheda administers Liavara as a refuge for the planet’s most notable species, the barathu-like Dreamers. Nevertheless, many societies and cultures thrive on Liavara and its moons, and commerce and industry is booming despite the strict limitations placed upon such activities.
RESIDENTS
The gently swirling clouds of Liavara’s endless atmosphere are home to an astonishing breadth of life, but its most prominent inhabitants, the Dreamers, are not actually native to the world. Long ago, barathu explorers departed the stormy skies of Bretheda within telepathically controlled Oma, traversing the void to reach nearby Liavara. But their original purpose in making that journey—if there was one—is long lost, and the barathus who settled on Liavara underwent a psychological and physiological departure from their Brethedan kin. The Dreamers of Liavara still physically resemble the barathus of Bretheda, and their intelligence is still evident in their complex social interactions and their echoic songs, but even the Dreamers’ onetime kin find their logic confounding and their actions without apparent purpose. Some describe the creatures as regressed or devolved; most, however, know better than to dismiss the Dreamers as feral. Barathus widely regard them as enlightened, and their preternatural songs have shown truly prophetic qualities on more than one occasion, though their greatest prediction references some truly remarkable event yet to come.
The Dreamers, though certainly the most intelligent creatures on the planet, are not alone in the endless skies of their home. Liavara’s native races take a wide variety of forms, all suited to life in the clouds or adapted to the extreme pressure of the world’s deeper layers. Giant bacteria and epiphyte vegetation drift along on the currents in abundance, forming the foundation of the planet’s food chains. The roughly avian kriegakos “graze” by brushing up against these plants, allowing the digestive pores on their skin—often confused with their equally abundant and similarly embedded visual sensors—to absorb nutrients directly into the bloodstream. Kriegakos fall prey to the larger cloud-skates, which leverage biological jet propulsion to overtake the smaller creatures. Few life-forms on Liavara are safe from the completely transparent tarenake, though savvy targets know to watch for the empty spaces and displaced gas that belie the hunters’ locations. Equally deadly are the keji swarms, conglomerations of thousands of floating amoeba-like organisms that can surround and dissolve a creature within mere moments.
Closer to the planet’s core, as the clouds condense into a pressurized mass closer to liquid than gas, the predators swim rather than soar. Truly massive beasts make their way through these lightless depths, hunting not with claws and teeth but with acid-coated webbing, vampiric tentacles, and even magical fields to attract or ensnare their prey. Few explorers brave the dangers of the deeper layers, as fewer still return from such expeditions.
No one is certain whether the oma—massive space whales known for their magnificent songs—are native to Liavara, Bretheda, or some other place, but they can often be found either diving among Liavara’s gentle clouds or skimming through its dust rings. The creatures strain matter from both environs through their energy-filtering baleen, gaining sustenance from biological material as well as minuscule electric charges and incautious lightning elementals, the latter also particularly drawn to Liavara’s rings.
A limited number of humanoids call Liavara home, at least temporarily, most making their livings on the gas-mining station Roselight. This culture is a diverse jumble of races, ranging from androids well suited to working in an oxygen-free environment to Lashunta researchers to Vesk bodyguards protecting the station’s Human overseers and Ysoki entrepreneurs.
Most of Liavara’s major moons are populated. Arkanen is home to two native sentient species: the three-eyed, electrically attuned humanoid Dirindi, and the centaur-like Sazaron, who have humanoid torsos and four-legged saurian bodies. In addition, the moon’s unique and powerful annual orbital phenomenon draws researchers and arcanists of all species from throughout the Pact Worlds.
Osoro was colonized by dirindi from Arkanen before the Gap, and they remain its most populous species, though they share their moon with large numbers of uncatalogued predators inhabiting the toxic-gas seas surrounding Osoro’s settled mountaintops. Melos, on the other hand, remains largely abandoned following the disappearance of its native inhabitants millennia ago, save for those archaeological outposts supporting various research expeditions into the moon’s ruins.
Nchak retains a sizable population of its original insectile inhabitants, operating under the leadership of the supposed mortal incarnation of the Forever Queen. However, the divine status that Hylaxian have accorded to this entity has resulted in a massive influx of shirrens alongside a smaller number of immigrants of other insectile races, including Brethedan Haan and other species from elsewhere in the galaxy that nevertheless hold Hylax in high regard.
The hallajins are the primary residents of Hallas, but thanks to the powerful arcane quarantine placed around it, Hallas is the only Liavaran moon that is almost entirely free of outsiders—though occasionally a fanatical (or foolish) zealot breaches the wards in an attempt to gain some great boon from the moon’s psychic natives.
One of Liavara’s shepherd moons, a hunk of rock named Hibb that was long thought to be uninhabited, has recently been revealed to be the home of a previously unknown sentient species called the Bantrid, who emerged from heretofore undiscovered underground bunkers on the moon. These unusual creatures have a single spherical footorb instead of lower limbs and are eager to meet their “new” neighbors in the Pact Worlds.
SOCIETY
Liavara is not a member of the Absalom Pact; the gas giant, its impressive rings, and its many shepherd moons are collectively designated a Pact Worlds protectorate, administered exclusively by the collective governing entity Confluence on the neighboring world Bretheda (usually through its mysterious Confluence Agents). Liavara’s only “native” inhabitants, the Dreamers, have no society to speak of—at least not one that other species can recognized. But the other races that reside on Liavara or one of its many moons have formed their own communities and cultures.
Roselight has virtually no restrictions in social areas, resulting in a rather rough-and-tumble culture where nearly anything goes among the surprisingly diverse, miner-oriented population. No one species holds dominance or even a majority of the station’s population, making it a surprisingly equitable settlement, if a bit lawless and short on high culture.
Of Liavara’s moons, Arkanen is the most metropolitan and enjoys full Pact Worlds membership under a joint dirindi-sazaron government. Osoro is also a signatory to the Absalom Pact, and remains culturally similar to Arkanen, though Osorans consider themselves to be pioneer folk of a hardier variety than the “soft” urbanites of Arkanen.
Nchak, once an outlier of insectile civilization worshiping the Forever Queen, has become something of a cultural touchstone with the arrival of the shirren species in the Pact Worlds. Along with this peaceful race came the understanding that the entity worshiped by Nchak’s inhabitants for millennia was in fact a manifestation of the goddess Hylax. Over the last few centuries, the moon has become a central hub of worship for her followers in the Pact Worlds, catapulting Nchak into a far more prominent position as a Pact Worlds protectorate than a moon of its size would normally merit.
On quarantined Hallas, what society the hallajins may have developed in their isolation remains unknown, as the inward-focused energy beings rarely deign to communicate with outsiders in any way.
CONFLICTS AND THREATS
The greatest tension on Liavara is between people and profit. The rare gases in the planet’s atmosphere are a draw for capitalists throughout the system, but Liavara’s status as a protectorate and the governing barathus’ insistence upon maintaining the world’s natural ecosystem for the benefit of the Dreamers has placed a harsh limit on the extent to which entrepreneurs can mine the planet’s resources. This has led to a proliferation of illicit mobile mining operations in restricted and more dangerous parts of the planet. With no oversight, these unregulated floating mining platforms often explode or suffer other accidental mishaps, and their crews often fight with one another, attack rival operations, or kill those who might expose their illicit activities. Even on the authorized city of Roselight, competition between rival mining corporations leads to infighting, sabotage, and generally rough streets. Strangely, another source of conflict on the planet arises from those who at first seem to support the barathus’ reverence of the Dreamers. Several groups of scholars seek to study the Dreamers’ prophecies and understand their potential predictions, especially because a popular theory among the limited scholastic research to date states the Dreamers’ songs in ages past might have predicted the Gap, and thus scholars are eager—even desperate—to learn what galaxy-shaking event the creatures are now foretelling. The barathu administration, on the other hand, maintains a strict noninterference policy toward the Dreamers, and thus they remain in conflict with scholars hoping to learn more.
It is widely known that the Dreamers command some psychic abilities; less common is the knowledge that Liavara itself is subject to a higher-than-average amount of latent background psychic energy. Whether this is a result of the Dreamers’ songs or the cause of their mysterious transcendence remains unknown. Regardless, cultists looking to absorb that psychic energy seek out the planet and the Dreamers. Even when this doesn’t place them in conflict with the barathus’ policies, such cultists remain a nuisance, frequently getting in the way and requiring rescue efforts more often than even the work vessels of the more poorly equipped mining operations. Furthermore, those who are successful in their quests are more often than not successful only in gaining psychic powers—and not in controlling them, which makes them a menace to themselves and others.
The residents of Nchak fear a very different threat. Many of that moon’s inhabitants remain far more aware of The Swarm than the typical Pact Worlds citizen, due to the Nchaki’s insectile nature and the shirrens’ Swarm heritage. The Forever Queen and the ideals she represents make Nchak a particularly ripe target should the Swarm choose to return to the Pact Worlds in a resumed effort to overrun the system.
Tourism
The following entries describe interesting locales on Liavara and its many moons.
Liavara and Its Shepherd Moons
In addition to locations in and among its clouds, the gas giant has a number of notable small shepherd moons. Black Siren Drow emissaries from Apostae founded this outpost on one of Liavara’s unnamed shepherd moons. Their settlement meticulously adheres to all codes and regulations of both the Absalom Pact and the barathu administration, leaving few courses of action for parties concerned with the drow’s presence. None, even the resident drow, contest that they maintain their station for the sole purpose of monitoring the lucrative gas-mining operations on the planet, nor is there any question that they do so out of a vested interest in undermining their competitors’ efforts. But with no violations of any regulations—a fact the drow are quick to point out and eagerly boast of—authorities are forced to allow the outpost. The Cluster Though Liavara is a gas giant with open skies instead of solid land, residents and scholars alike know that the clouds often carry other materials. North of the Ribbon is a clump of low-density rocky material that might be large enough to host a small settlement if it weren’t constantly grinding and clashing together. Liavara’s Dreamers fastidiously avoid the place, though no one knows why. Perhaps the strange clump of rocks houses some terrible evil force, or perhaps these are the cursed remains of a shepherd moon—which the Dreamers generally regard with a kind of reverence—that long ago crashed into the planet. Deep Station The depths of a gas giant are a fascinating subject for researchers, and this research facility, complete with a tiny shrine to Yaraesa, floats at a depth where the pressure is too intense for most structures to retain integrity. Deep Station was built with a sturdier infrastructure than most vessels transporting staff and supplies to and from the station, so while the station could go deeper into Liavara’s atmosphere, it would then be unable to receive support. The pressure and electromagnetic fields at such depths usually wreak havoc with standard communications systems, but recently transmissions from Deep Station have stopped altogether. Colleagues at Deep Station’s partner institutions would deeply love to find a starship crew with a ship hardy enough to brave the gas giant’s depths to investigate. Epifarms The lack of terra firma on Liavara presents some particular challenges related to sustaining its various settlements, as limited as they are. Chief among these is food production, but teams of barathus and Xenowardens have developed an ingenious solution: massive floating farms cultivating domesticated macrobacteria and massive epiphytes in a close symbiosis. The plants pull trace amounts of oxygen from the atmosphere to produce water, which the macrobacteria combine with other gases to synthesize nutrients to support the plants. The result is a largely sustainable supply of protein and vitamins for the planet’s inhabitants (though most consumers readily admit that the textures leave a bit to be desired), with some even exported to Upwell and a number of the lunar cities. The “epifarmers” who tend these floating farms have developed new strains of bacteria with the potential to drastically increase yields, but these new species show signs of enhanced awareness, and thus have raised ethical questions about whether it’s acceptable to eat them. Hullheap On the relatively small shepherd moon S-288, dozens of crashed starships form a massive, twisted heap of metal, polycarbonate, and other debris. No one knows what drew the first ship to the moon or why it crashed; after all, such unfortunate mishaps are relatively common on a galactic scale. But rumors of the tremendous value of that first ship’s cargo drew other spacefarers looking to salvage their way into retirement, only to find their own ships crashing into the moon at the same spot and adding their hulls to the pile. This, of course, only further spurred the rumors of untold wealth, and every few years another intrepid explorer, certain that he or she will be the one to survive the dangers and extract the treasure, plots a course to S-288 despite standing warnings about the still-unexplained phenomenon that causes ships to plummet into the heap. Official assurances that there is no treasure to be found only fuel rumors that whatever prize lies beneath Hullheap must be valuable indeed if even the governmental authorities are trying to cover it up. Old Hulk Before Roselight was established, gas mining on Liavara was conducted from a scrappy mechanical platform built sometime during the Gap. It had already failed by the time history resumed, abandoned and left to deteriorate within the planet’s depths. Its buoyancy engines, however, retain at least some level of functionality, and the platform bobs between the upper and lower layers of the planet’s atmosphere. This erratic elevation means that sometimes the derelict structure “surfaces” from the clouds below, like the corpse of a mechanical whale, floating for a few hours or days before sinking back into the unbearable pressure of the planet’s depths. The facility surely holds some evidence of the time of its construction, and likely untold other artifacts, salvageable materials, and valuables—but explorers must not only manage the unpredictable window of opportunity but also overcome whatever creatures might still be living within. Psyden This tiny, self-contained outpost maintains a location in Liavara’s skies on roughly the opposite side of the world from Roselight. Its population consists entirely of individuals seeking to develop some kind of psychic powers via exposure to the planet’s latent psychic energy. The settlement has become something of a mecca for would-be mystics, doubling as a place of worship for Oras. For most of Psyden’s century-long history, only a rare few individuals have actually manifested supernatural abilities—roughly the same number produced in any other environment. But over the last decade, more and more residents have begun manifesting unusual abilities rumored to result from the Dreamers’ influence. Believers insist their efforts have paid off, but skeptics are beginning to wonder if some kind of illicit biotech augmentations or other factors might be at play. The Rings Liavara’s rings have long fascinated those creatures with telescopes powerful enough to see them. They maintain sharply defined edges and distinctive striations courtesy of the shepherd moons, but despite being almost entirely formed of dust and ice, the rings are anything but barren. Their most notable inhabitants are the spacefaring oma, which skim across the rings straining out nutrients and whatever energy they can capture. Only in the past few decades have researchers discovered that a scant minority of the particles in the rings—fewer than one per billion—are fragments of hyper-resonant crystal that retain all sonic vibrations that have ever passed through them, leading to the hypothesis that these crystals are what draw the oma here in the first place. This discovery captured the immediate interest of the Starfinder Society, as its members suspect these crystals might retain sonic “memories” of events that occurred during the Gap, though little progress has yet been made in testing that theory. Roselight Although it exists solely for Liavara’s tightly controlled gasmining industry, Roselight is a surprisingly beautiful city—a floating platform of steel and polycarbon capped with transparent aluminum domes of varying sizes that catch the light filtering through Liavara’s peach-colored clouds to shimmer like giant soap bubbles. The tight restrictions on the city result in an environment not dissimilar from a space station, as everything in the city, including air and water, must be recycled. The barathu-run Office of Commercial Interests on Roselight oversees all commercial endeavors on Liavara. It issues the permits required to tap the planet’s natural resources, and the staff enforces harsh penalties against companies whose operations violate the strict terms of their contracts. However, the OCI has been a den of bribery and corruption since the day it was first constructed, and it has long been suspected of hiring out contractors for illegal mining operations. The Liavaran headquarters of The Stewards is located on Roselight, and its warrior-diplomats are ready to strike out into the gas giant or onto one of its moons at a moment’s notice. In addition, the Aspis Consortium openly maintains an office called Silver Drake, ostensibly to help police Liavara for illegal mining operations. However, most unaffiliated Roselighters are certain their presence and activity is a cover to allow the Consortium to scout out or even operate their own illegal deepdive mining runs. The Starfinder Society, for its part, operates out of the Dreamer Lodge, the only lodge serving Liavara and its moons. A blocky building incongruously called the Rose Garden is the permanent outpost of the Xenowardens on Liavara. The Xenowardens staunchly support Liavara’s status as a protectorate and oppose capitalistic efforts that might harm the planet’s natural environment, leading to frequent conflicts with various gas-mining interests. ROSELIGHT LN city Population 54,000 (35% human, 30% barathu, 8% ysoki, 6% android, 2% lashunta, 1% haan, 1% sarcesian, 1% vesk, 16% other) Government autocracy (Confluence) Qualities bureaucratic, insular Maximum Item Level 10th S-569 Liavara’s shepherd moons are almost too plentiful to count, but modern technology has made it possible to track and catalog them, if perhaps not necessarily to give them all evocative names. Most bear simple numeric designations to aid in tracking their orbits and managing the surprising number that bear various signs of past habitation. Scholars and Starfinders take interest in the latter, while astronomers monitoring their orbital paths notice when those paths change, as has been the case with one of the larger bodies, S-569. Its formerly regular orbit has been shifting almost imperceptibly, but enough that it is now evident that its path will certainly cause it to collide with Osoro sometime in the next decade, a disaster that would likely obliterate life on Osoro and could cause substantial damage to Liavara and its other moons as well. Authorities from Liavara and Osoro are soliciting proposals for adjusting S-569’s trajectory to avoid such a collision, while also—more quietly—uncovering why the moon’s previously predictable orbit has suddenly changed. Trade Lanes With Liavara’s dust rings and shepherd moons complicating starship travel between the planet and its larger moons, most traffic follows a series of established trade lanes that avoid these hazards. Unfortunately, having merchant vessels in predictable places leads to a different type of hazard: piracy. Encounters with pirates such as the Free Captains and other, less reputable criminals is a threat that forces starships to travel heavily armed and grouped together for safety—or at least they did, until the Free Captains seemingly abandoned the entire Liavaran system. In the absence of once-common attacks and sightings, traders are beginning to wonder what caused their sudden respite. Some suspect a ploy to launch a much larger, more brazen assault on Liavara’s moons and settlements; others wonder if some trouble among the Free Captains has forced a change in their tactics. Upwell One of Liavara’s larger shepherd moons, previously uninhabited and free from any marks of civilization, was converted into a space station shortly after Liavara was granted protectorate status and the city of Roselight was constructed. Upwell serves as Liavara’s primary spaceport, and cargo haulers laden with high-demand materials mined from the planet below chug regularly between Roselight and the station, transferring their cargoes to massive bulk freighters that make the journey to other worlds. Upwell has never run smoothly, but with an upsurge in accidents and breakdowns, fingers have been alternately pointed at the Xenowardens, surely trying to get other races off the Dreamers’ planet; the Android Abolitionist Front, as it is not uncommon to discover androids still enslaved in the planet’s various gas-mining operations; drow saboteurs from Apostae; and other forces—or any combination of these groups. Without sufficient forces to handle an investigation, the Stewards and station officials are looking for an experienced, objective team to quietly investigate the matter. The Vents At a somewhat stationary location just south of the equator are the Vents, a nearly constant upwelling of gases from the deeper layers of Liavara’s atmosphere forced to the surface in massive billowing clouds. Dreamers can almost always be found here, soaring through the fluffy swirls, but the valuable gases are also tempting targets for illicit gas-mining. The restrictions on gasmining efforts and prohibitions on interfering with the Dreamers has so far limited traffic here, but it’s only a matter of time before greed wins out over better judgment.Arkanen
Famous for its many lightning storms and its anomalous orbit, the moon of Arkanen includes the following notable sites. Denkiri Center Arkanen’s primary technomagical research facility is typically a place of studious research and experimentation, save for the few weeks each year surrounding the moon’s dive through Liavara’s atmosphere. As such, the recent spate of leading researchers suddenly dying of acute cranial overstimulation (or, as the more salacious news vidfeeds are calling it: “exploding brain syndrome”) is somewhat unprecedented. The physical evidence has been identical in each case, suggesting some kind of incredibly potent psychic energy at work. Initial analysis suggests the energy life-forms of Hallas are the culprits, but the ancient wards around that moon, combined with the hallajins’ own tendency to ignore the larger universe around them, cast doubt on that theory. The administration of the Denkiri Center is preparing to launch an investigation to assess the stability of the arcane wards around Hallas, hoping to determine whether the hallajins have begun to emerge or if some outside entity is framing them for its own underhanded efforts. Telataranas The biggest city on Arkanen (and in the entire Liavaran planetary system), and the ancient capital of the sazarons, Telataranas hosts one of the largest concentrations of magical universities and mystical academies in the Pact Worlds. Tall pylons are interspersed throughout Telataranas’s streets and around its perimeter, silently standing vigil over the city. Each year, when Arkanen dives through Liavara’s atmosphere, these pylons absorb the energy of the violent electric storms that surge across the moon, protecting Telataranas’s structures and inhabitants from harm as well as providing free power to the city.Melos
The mysterious Melos draws many visitors to the following notable locations. Etraos At one time, in ages lost even before the Gap, Melos boasted a tremendous population centered in this now-ruined city, widely accepted to be the capital of the Melosian civilization. The city’s inhabitants, as well as the moon’s entire populace, vanished en masse in the Taking, an event held by some to be a religious rapture and described by others as a sinister genocide. Recently, a small group of fanatical Elorituans has taken up residence in Etraos. Rather than simply deciphering and understanding the lost civilization and its disappearance, these colonists seek to recreate the Taking, with themselves as the subjects of what they are certain was a glorious ascension at the hands of their god, the Hidden Truth. Gest A relatively small archaeological outpost on the outskirts of the ruined city of Etraos, Gest is nevertheless the largest inhabited settlement on Melos. The opportunity to uncover the truth of the Taking and explore the history of the Melosian civilization draws archaeologists from across the galaxy. Currently, the active archaeological expeditions on Melos are focused on the capital city of Etraos; the nearby temple complex of Chyraos, seemingly dedicated to deities unknown elsewhere in the Pact Worlds; and the island of Thrienos, which contains the tombs of what are believed to be the moon’s most legendary pre-Taking heroes.Nchak
Inhabited mainly by arthropods who worship an insectoid deity, Nchak includes the following notable sites. Forever Halls These palatial, subterranean chambers beneath Nchak’s surface have long been home to the Forever Queen, believed by the Nchaki to be the mortal incarnation of the goddess Hylax. With the spread of Hylax’s church throughout the Pact Worlds, this once-insignificant moon has discovered a new and profound importance. Many Hylaxians feel that it’s inappropriate for Nchak, an obviously sacred site for their faith, to be simply a protectorate under the administration of another world’s government. Several coalitions of the faithful have begun lobbying the Pact Council for full Pact Worlds membership for Nchak, equal in stature to Arkanen, Osoro, and the Brethedan moon Kalo-Mahoi. Zeffrac Science Platform Just over a quarter-century ago, this scientific research space station orbiting Nchak experienced a sudden, devastating decompression. Among the thousands of deceased were all 14 members of the Wise Council, a group of prestigious shirren scientists responsible for governing the station. It was soon discovered, however, that every single member of the Wise Council had in fact died months or even years before, but their bodies were inhabited by a species of intelligent fungal parasites now named dycepskians. While the decompression event was catastrophic, it also derailed the parasites’ plan—discovered only after their demise—to steer the entire space station into the moon. The strange part, though, is that no group or individual has ever stepped forward to claim responsibility for the event, and conspiracy theorists point to the Unseen as the actors behind the event. The science platform’s new leadership—a council of mixed races subject to careful scrutiny and regular medical examinations—periodically hires groups of adventurers to try to discover who was in fact responsible for the incident.Osoro
Among Osoro’s mountaintop settlements, the moon’s most noteworthy areas include the following. Bhalakosti Excursions A testament to the ability of humanoids to capitalize on the most dire of circumstances, the Saborosaan-based Bhalakosti Excursions has found a silver lining in the toxic clouds of Osoro’s lower atmosphere: survival safaris. Available in 3-, 7-, and 10-day lengths, as well as a day-trip option for the slightly less courageous, these tours take paying participants deep into the moon’s poisonous jungles for adrenaline-charged expeditions from which only the most stalwart return. While these tours are incredibly dangerous, the business has a powerful legal team that has drafted ironclad waivers. Though originally designed for—and certainly still available to—extremist tourists of any race, the company has become well known among vesk circles as a particularly thrilling means of testing one’s mettle against the challenges of untamed nature at its most intense. So popular are the tours, in fact, that Bhalakosti Excursions has become something of a hot spot for vesk looking to impress superiors or potential romantic partners, and the waiting list is rarely shorter than several months. Orosalos Osoro’s capital is a great metropolis that takes its name from the moon’s highest mountain, whose entire exposed surface is covered by the city. Like all settlements on Osoro, Orosalos’s walls were built to defend against the occasional attack from predators rising up from the toxic-gas clouds and the jungles hidden below, such as the spiral-winged, razor-fanged irokirois that corkscrew their way through the sky. Typically such defenses are proven necessary only a few times each year, but Orosalos has fended off three separate attacks in the past month, and reports from Osoro’s other large cities suggest the entire moon is experiencing a rash of increased monster activity. The government suspects that something is driving the creatures up from their native gaseous depths, whether that be an even larger creature or an ecological shift causing a shortage of these predators’ typical prey. With the attacks growing more frequent, the Osoran government is looking to hire explorers to brave the toxic jungles beneath the moon’s inhabited peaks to determine the source of the disruption and find a way to put things right. Saborosaan Stretched along the top of the narrow Bhalakosti Ridge, Saborosaan is a city where space is at a premium. The wealthy live in elegant towers on the ridgeline in the center of the city, while the poor are relegated to slums on the fringes, sometimes scant feet from the roiling toxic gases surrounding the ridge. With no room for the community to expand outward, Saborosaan’s government has begun to authorize drilling into the ridge, paving the way for excavating underground chambers and tunnels to house the city’s burgeoning population. However, it seems that Osoro’s subterranean inhabitants are as dangerous as its surface fauna, and digging crews have refused to carry out any more drilling until the threat of these creatures has been dealt with. Tholem Osoro’s primary spaceport sits atop a wide equatorial plateau—the largest expanse of habitable land on the moon. Next to Upwell, Tholem is Liavara’s second-busiest spaceport, thanks in part to low tariffs and generous trade regulations. Port police have long struggled with criminal enterprises attempting to take over aspects of the port’s business, but recently, several Veskarium-based business entities have bought up much of Tholem’s property. These purchases have been completely legal, but some Osorans are beginning to suspect that the vesk might be trying to establish a solid foothold in the Pact Worlds. This has led to a growing nativist sentiment in the city, and a few bars and hotels in Tholem have adopted a “no vesk served” policy, leading to increasing racial tensions in the port.
Alternative Name(s)
The Dreamer
Type
Planet
Included Locations
Inhabiting Species
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