Spacefaring Worlds Earth - the human homeworld. Over the last hundred years, Earth has begun to establish colonies on nearby worlds - Zavier in the Ross 128 system, Luyten’s World in the Luyten’s Star system, and Fenris and Freki in the Wolf-1061 system. All Earth’s colonies are still domed arcologies on un-terraformed worlds. There are also generation ships, sent before Earth developed faster-than-light technology, which are still in transit to their destinations.
Khthon - the Gorgon homeworld, on the cold end of what humans would call that solar system’s ‘Goldilocks zone.’ It doesn’t look like much from space, as the surface temperatures combined with Gorgons’ reptilian nature mean their civilization is almost entirely in extensive cave networks below ground, with the exception of spaceports and burial plots. By this point in time, Gorgons have begun setting up subterranean colonies off-planet, although each world tends to be home to its own religious, cultural, and political movements, completely independent of (and often hostile to) their homeworld. Colonies include Sublune & Hypocaia.
Hecate - the Hecatite homeworld, a peaceful but extremely regimented place. All life on Hecate is silicon-based and crystalline, not carbon-based, and the line between being, creature, plant, and object is fuzzy at best. Highly organized with a central government of their most educated and accomplished elder scientists, Hecatites place great value on intellectual achievement and consider academic prowess a greater indicator of maturity than mere age. Practiced spacefarers in their own right, most of their colonies are strictly places of research, not residence, such as Aratta Skyhook, a science station over the silicon quarry world of Snowflake, which specializes in new computer and Synthetic designs.
Junkworlds - radioactive trash heaps used as prison planets by some spacefaring species, and occasionally picked over for scraps by scavengers and other less scrupulous sorts of spacefarers. Gehenna was evacuated before the tachyon storm in the Starquake generation; junkworlds still in use include Megiddo and Potmos. The offenses that can see one exiled to a junkworld vary depending on species, ranging from political dissidence or scientific malfeasance for the Hecatites to prisoners of war for the Gorgons. Diabolin tend to put their criminals into cryofreeze and retrieve them later; enslaved members of other species can be subjected to this treatment if their owner was as well. Dreamers can access Questing Country from a junkworld, but may occasionally find themselves up against some real doozies of nightmares.
Throne Of The Overlords - the massive, dark, volcanic Diabolin homeworld was lost three centuries ago, polluted in some way by Diabolin internecine warfare - the Diabolin have a dozen mutually exclusive stories about what happened and how, and believe all of them. Diabolin names for places tend to be titles, not names, like the English might name a house "the Hollyhocks." The Diabolin white dwarf diamond mine which is their main surviving colony is "The Dead Reach," but most Diabolin live on massive, broken-down, slow-moving warships called Dreadnoughts. These have similar names, like “The Great Worm,” “Gate of the Furies,” “The Scourge of Infamy,” and “Pit of the Titans.”
Uncharted Worlds Faerie - the elves’ homeworld, only ever visited by the Diabolin (the elves rather wish they wouldn’t). Faerie is a wild & beautiful world with abundant multi-hued flora, graceful & bright-colored fauna, and lush temperate & tropical biomes even at the polar regions, with almost no axial tilt to create seasons. Elves are mostly semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers; they have little metalworking, no cities save Diabolin ruins, no agriculture, no writing. What scavenged stellar technology remains is viewed as evil magic. Since the fall of the Diabolin empire, no one, not even those few space-faring elves, has located Faerie again.
Cadmus - homeworld of the Spartoi, a rocky world with brown, rust-infused oceans, inhospitable badlands full of harsh weather, an unstable magnetic field, and very little ozone, creating a volatile climate and high mutation rates in all its hardy, volatile species. The Spartoi organize themselves in clans, based on either bloodlines or chosen family. Clans, especially those formed by choice, often use similar names (starting with the same letter, for instance, or ending with similar sounds). Family clans are more likely to be stationary, living on hereditary grounds, while chosen clans are more nomadic - unless, of course, they defeat or absorb a family clan and settle on that clan’s hereditary grounds. This is not a fun place to be a pacifist, as most clans can’t fathom why you’d want to, and those that can are isolated and well-hidden for their own safety.
Povodni - a wet world of low, marshy continents with many active springs and wells, and shallow seas full of migratory flora and fauna. The Vodyanoi live in coastal cave systems, using the air-filled sections of their caverns for the kinds of chemical and technical work that are impossible underwater. Most Vodyanoi technology, however, is the result of breeding plants to serve specific purposes, and their air-cavern handicrafts are pre-Industrial. Vodyanoi culture is largely flexible and adaptable; they are natural mimics, inventive, and do not prize continuity or tradition, so their ‘nations’ are all seen as temporary associations, not permanent or rigid institutions. Vodyanoi are not the top of the local food chain - while they are omnivores, they have the reflexes and instincts of prey, not predators, despite hunting small fish.
THE KNOWN WORLDS
Earth - the human homeworld. Over the last hundred years, Earth has begun to establish colonies on nearby worlds - Zavier in the Ross 128 system, Luyten’s World in the Luyten’s Star system, and Fenris and Freki in the Wolf-1061 system. All Earth’s colonies are still domed arcologies on un-terraformed worlds. There are also generation ships, sent before Earth developed faster-than-light technology, which are still in transit to their destinations.
Khthon - the Gorgon homeworld, on the cold end of what humans would call that solar system’s ‘Goldilocks zone.’ It doesn’t look like much from space, as the surface temperatures combined with Gorgons’ reptilian nature mean their civilization is almost entirely in extensive cave networks below ground, with the exception of spaceports and burial plots. By this point in time, Gorgons have begun setting up subterranean colonies off-planet, although each world tends to be home to its own religious, cultural, and political movements, completely independent of (and often hostile to) their homeworld. Colonies include Sublune & Hypocaia.
Hecate - the Hecatite homeworld, a peaceful but extremely regimented place. All life on Hecate is silicon-based and crystalline, not carbon-based, and the line between being, creature, plant, and object is fuzzy at best. Highly organized with a central government of their most educated and accomplished elder scientists, Hecatites place great value on intellectual achievement and consider academic prowess a greater indicator of maturity than mere age. Practiced spacefarers in their own right, most of their colonies are strictly places of research, not residence, such as Aratta Skyhook, a science station over the silicon quarry world of Snowflake, which specializes in new computer and Synthetic designs.
Junkworlds - radioactive trash heaps used as prison planets by some spacefaring species, and occasionally picked over for scraps by scavengers and other less scrupulous sorts of spacefarers. Gehenna was evacuated before the tachyon storm in the Starquake generation; junkworlds still in use include Megiddo and Potmos. The offenses that can see one exiled to a junkworld vary depending on species, ranging from political dissidence or scientific malfeasance for the Hecatites to prisoners of war for the Gorgons. Diabolin tend to put their criminals into cryofreeze and retrieve them later; enslaved members of other species can be subjected to this treatment if their owner was as well. Dreamers can access Questing Country from a junkworld, but may occasionally find themselves up against some real doozies of nightmares.
Throne Of The Overlords - the massive, dark, volcanic Diabolin homeworld was lost three centuries ago, polluted in some way by Diabolin internecine warfare - the Diabolin have a dozen mutually exclusive stories about what happened and how, and believe all of them. Diabolin names for places tend to be titles, not names, like the English might name a house "the Hollyhocks." The Diabolin white dwarf diamond mine which is their main surviving colony is "The Dead Reach," but most Diabolin live on massive, broken-down, slow-moving warships called Dreadnoughts. These have similar names, like “The Great Worm,” “Gate of the Furies,” “The Scourge of Infamy,” and “Pit of the Titans.”
Uncharted Worlds
Faerie - the elves’ homeworld, only ever visited by the Diabolin (the elves rather wish they wouldn’t). Faerie is a wild & beautiful world with abundant multi-hued flora, graceful & bright-colored fauna, and lush temperate & tropical biomes even at the polar regions, with almost no axial tilt to create seasons. Elves are mostly semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers; they have little metalworking, no cities save Diabolin ruins, no agriculture, no writing. What scavenged stellar technology remains is viewed as evil magic. Since the fall of the Diabolin empire, no one, not even those few space-faring elves, has located Faerie again.
Cadmus - homeworld of the Spartoi, a rocky world with brown, rust-infused oceans, inhospitable badlands full of harsh weather, an unstable magnetic field, and very little ozone, creating a volatile climate and high mutation rates in all its hardy, volatile species. The Spartoi organize themselves in clans, based on either bloodlines or chosen family. Clans, especially those formed by choice, often use similar names (starting with the same letter, for instance, or ending with similar sounds). Family clans are more likely to be stationary, living on hereditary grounds, while chosen clans are more nomadic - unless, of course, they defeat or absorb a family clan and settle on that clan’s hereditary grounds. This is not a fun place to be a pacifist, as most clans can’t fathom why you’d want to, and those that can are isolated and well-hidden for their own safety.
Povodni - a wet world of low, marshy continents with many active springs and wells, and shallow seas full of migratory flora and fauna. The Vodyanoi live in coastal cave systems, using the air-filled sections of their caverns for the kinds of chemical and technical work that are impossible underwater. Most Vodyanoi technology, however, is the result of breeding plants to serve specific purposes, and their air-cavern handicrafts are pre-Industrial. Vodyanoi culture is largely flexible and adaptable; they are natural mimics, inventive, and do not prize continuity or tradition, so their ‘nations’ are all seen as temporary associations, not permanent or rigid institutions. Vodyanoi are not the top of the local food chain - while they are omnivores, they have the reflexes and instincts of prey, not predators, despite hunting small fish.