The Setting
Planets
Playable Planets
Cradle of humanity and diplomatic heart of the Alliance.
Galactic Co-ordination System: Spur, SOL-3
Earth – delicate, beautiful, carefully coaxed back into life after nearly being snuffed out entirely. A planet of strivers, artisans, and cultural curators, learning and growing from a shattered past. The birthplace of two of the Alliance’s major species, and the heartland of the Alliance’s legal and diplomatic corps. Earth’s impact on the Alliance – on the galaxy at large – is remarkable; not bad, indeed, for a pale blue dot.
Anarchist research base & orbital waste management system.
Vessel Specifications: category XK-1, Firkin class (>15,000,000 souls)
Immense, intricate, improbably mobile; Geostation Kessler defies convention and description alike as it drifts between the stars. From its perch within an asteroid belt or in a host planet’s upper orbit, it reaches out its bright arms to gather up the detritus of the galaxy. From atmospheric contamination to broken satellites, launch window trash to stricken spacecraft: if it can be caught by a tractor beam, it will be drawn into Kessler to be scanned, categorized, cleaned and studied. Whatever Kessler finds, it keeps – or else sells to the highest bidder.
A union of unions, siphoning a gas giant one moonful at a time.
Galactic Co-ordination System: Spur, MICHEL/SICULUS-1
Marzion IX is the ninth and largest planet overseen by the Marz Union - arguably the Alliance’s most vital industrial organization, and certainly the loudest. MU invests heavily in distant and dangerous planets, drawing the richest and rarest materials from environments that no-one else can handle. IX is their most precarious investment - a gas giant with no solid ground to stand on, save the gas mining rigs the colonists brought with them and the occasional moon for those rigs to cling to. The sense of danger here is all-encompassing, but so is the camaraderie between each and every worker; all divisions dissolve for the sake of the work.
A frontier oasis, half-finished and halfway habitable.
Galactic Co-ordination System: Horizon, CASSITER-7
Sultonia lies on the frontier of Alliance space in the Horizon arm of the galaxy: the last port of call before the rich and pirate-haunted Helium Lanes, on the edge between the Alliance and the unknown. Even after decades of terraforming, it remains arid, inhospitable and alien – but those have settled here are rightly proud of what they have survived in order to build their home. It is a planet of isolated farmsteads, frontier towns, star-burned deserts and long nights. It is a land of hard work and easy charity, free from the complications and presumptions of more developed worlds.
Hot and cold playground of the rich and soon-to-be-rich.
Galactic Co-ordination System: Vista, NISABA-10
The lights of Viront Z85 rival that of its own star. Though the planet only supports life along its equator, that life is all the keener, all the brighter – as though it were spurred on by the precarious conditions in which it developed. It was this striving that drew the Vironti syndicates to flout Alliance advisories in settling here, carving a band of crystalline wealth from the planet’s dross. Viront! The very lap of luxury, the cutting edge of the cutting edge; where the newly minted and the temporarily embarrassed billionaires alike all go to the same parties.
Event Planets
Event 1's planet, home of the Lavra crash survivors.
Event 2's planet, home of the Zor.
Aliens
Playable Aliens
Every intelligent species makes tools; most build machines to make the impossible easy, from the simplest lathes to state-of-the-art autonomous drones. The creation of synthetic life, however, has eluded many of the galaxy’s theorists since times immemorial – but at least one species within the Alliance has managed it. Anthroids are the result: robots built by humans in the image of humans, truly intelligent and poised to find their place among the stars.
Humans are new to the Alliance – but their novelty belies a long history of struggle, sorrow and redemption. Imagining themselves alone in the universe, they brought their planet and themselves to the brink of annihilation, surviving only by profoundly changing how they lived. Armed with hard-won knowledge that the worst must not be allowed to come to pass, humanity now stands with the Alliance against the forces of cruelty and decay.
The adaptable and fluid Omdua helped to found the Alliance, and they have been present for every stage between the first outposts and its current breadth. Instinctively drawn to imitate the shape – and the expressions – of other species, these tentacled nomads have always drawn strength from their own plurality and the diverse (or diverting) behaviour of others. The Omdua bring a fluid perspective to matters of galactic importance, befitting the fluidity of their own forms.
Cold-blooded, scaled, horned – the Skala cut imposing figures, but their appearance belies a species that evolved to share warmth and burdens alike with their kinfolk. Hailing from winding warrens where individuality is secondary to survival and companionship is constant, the Skala have had the wide and wonderful galaxy unfurled before them by circumstance. Here and now, with the Alliance beside them, they are learning how to choose for themselves and decide their own paths.
Descended from ambush predators, the painted Tever are a species of fiercely independent hunters who have learned, since the early days of the Alliance, to play nicely with others – but instinct is a powerful thing, and not easily shed even in the cold depths of space. In idle conversation, they are direct; on the prowl, they are daring; at the negotiating table, they are dangerous. You’ll only see a Tever if they want to be seen.
The industrious insectoids known as Vari are known for their pragmatism and their resilience. They evolved on a world where death in the form of much larger creatures, with even bigger jaws, lurked around every corner; their drive to survive left them with thicker skins than most, and bigger hearts (or equivalent hemocoelic systems). Among the Vari and their firm friends in the Alliance, no one is left behind – no matter how many they number, or what odds they face.
Other Aliens
The primary alien within SHADOW forces.
A mysterious robotic threat.
