World-Spheres - A Community Campaign Setting

[Elemental_Elf]

World-Spheres - A Community Campaign Setting

[/size]

Around a bright yellow star orbit hundreds of World-Spheres, small planetoids that harbor empires, republics, kingdoms and utopias, all alone in the dead of space. The Solar System is as ancient as it is vast having seen the rise and fall of civilizations the world over. The core of this Solar System is vibrant with life, civilization & interstellar travel. This vibrancy slowly gives way to vagrancy and barbarism the farther one travels from the core. Yet the bounty of life is not bound to this simple system. Nay, the Solar System acts as an mecca for interplanar travel. It is said there are as twice many planes as there are World-Spheres, which is a number few can truly fathom. The planes beyond do not conform to the natural laws seen in reality, no the planes appear as a diverse as life in a rain forest, each governed by their own unique set of traditions and law. Some would say the Solar System is but one additional plane, a view not held in high regard for the precise reason that all interplanar travel routs itself through the System; reality is unique amongst the cosmos of planes for it is the linchpin binding all others to its indomitable will.

~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome to the World-Spheres Community Campaign Setting! In this thread you will find many hundreds of planes and World-Sphere created by the people of the CBG. Each World-Sphere is designed to be a small habitable planetoids that follows the basic laws and themes of the Solar System. By contrast the Planes are vast and beyond imagining, following their own themes and laws. In not so many words the World-Spheres must conform to community driven rules while the Planes are completely open.

This tread is the posting thread for the entire setting, both World-Spheres and Planes. Below, you will find an index to ease the burden of searching and browsing. The Discussion Thread for World-Spheres can be found HERE. Feel free to post and concerns, criticism or anything else that relates to the setting over there.

~~~~~~~~~~

Master Index

World-Spheres
-  The Green God
- The Hunters' Fleet and the ruined world of Polemareo


Planes
- Eimos - Plane of Forgotten Wars
- Fluxworld
- Kyuumu, the Dreamtime
- Mikail's Spacer's Part 1: Terra Standard
- Xi - The Inverted World

[Steerpike]

Fluxworld
A Post-apocalyptic World of Manners

The Flux '" the world-sickness, the reality phage, the Chaos Plague.  Born in the misguided crucibles of science in the distant past the Flux has made this world a queasy wasteland, a roiling phantasmagoria inhabited by swarms of hideous mutants, mankind's final descendents, subhuman in every sense of the word, their genes mutilated and diseased, their malformed bodies aglow with warped energies.  They run and fight and breed in rude tribes that roam the the Fluxlands alongside the strange experiments that escaped from their vats centuries ago and scattered themselves across this unstable earth, a menagerie of nightmare-beasts.  Vast things with leathery wings flap across the seething sky while creatures somewhere between huge toads and squids bask in the black waters of the Tenebrous Sea.  There are stranger beings still in the far reaches of the flickering wastes, where the rules of time and space are twisted, the dynamics of flesh and spirit break down, memory and imagination bleed together and the ground, the water, the air itself quivers with horrors waiting to be born.  The skin of the world rustles with subcutaneous motions, presences '" or absences '" waiting to burst through the fragile dermis of reality and sing their eerie hymns to the tortured, echoing plains.

And yet in this lurid, hideous world, hovering perpetually on the lip of dissolution, civilization persists and prospers.  In the vast, impregnable fortress known only as the Manor the Gentlefolk still rule, Lords if not Masters of this degenerating land.  Though they may affect titles, sexes, genders '" Gentleman and Gentlewoman '" the inhabitants of the Manor long ago abandoned titles and hierarchy, along with constancy of form.  Created through science so arcane as to resemble magic or perhaps through magic so refined and fully harnessed as to resemble technology the Gentlefolk are biologically immortal, immune to all disease (save the Flux itself, to which they are still resistant), and able to alter their bodies with a relative minimum of effort.  Although posthuman in every way most still choose a relatively 'standard' humanoid form, albeit often with exotic colouration and a few similarly cosmetic details '" feathers instead of hair, or seven-finger hands, or the lower bodies of huge serpents, for example.  A few, acting out of caprice or simply a delight in grotesquerie, Refashion themselves more elaborately: it would not be out of place to see an anthropomorphic fox-woman, a sexless thing with a lamprey-like mouth full of gnashing needle teeth, and a man whose flesh is the hue and texture of bark with a nest of carnivorous flowers growing from his scalp sipping tea together in some baroque, enormous hall.  Though they worship no gods save themselves many choose to affect the guises of mythological figures: walking the ornate corridors of the Manor one will see six-armed deities of wisdom brushing shoulders with horned demons, crackling thunder-spirits, and plump cherubim, amongst a myriad of others.

The Manor is shielded by ancient fortifications so complete that if all the mutant armies of the world banded together and besieged its unyielding and iridescent walls they would be unable to ever penetrate even its outermost defenses.  Within the Manor itself every need and care of the Gentlefolk is attended either by the sentient Clockwork Entrails in the Manor basements (self-aware, self-repairing, and self-sufficient, running on chthonic batteries that won't expire for untold millennia), which provide virtually any material want, or by one of the many slave-races engineered in distant antiquity, creatures genetically hard-wired to take pleasure in the service of their overlords.  There are the dull, squat, bronze-skinned Mechanics who attend to any manual labour not carried out by the Entrails; the gorgeous Concubines, hermaphroditic and sensual, sex-objects who provide companionship and physical pleasure; and the Gargoyles, bat-like creatures that provide transportation outside of the Manor if desired.  Other creatures inhabit the Manor as well, specially created by specific Gentlefolk to cater to whatever need or desire they imagine.

Though they lack all laws (as well as money and commerce of any kind) the Gentlefolk have a few codes they maintain.  Disputes are settled through stylized duels and cold-blooded murder is considered incredibly vulgar, carrying the penalty of complete Social Death.  Though casual sexual congress between Gentlefolk is so common as to be ubiquitous there are no families (and rarely even monogamous couples) between the Manor's inhabitants, nor do the Gentlefolk have any children '" the only young Gentlefolk are clones of those very few who die by accident, Flux, or in duels.  The vast majority of Gentlefolk live out their endless lives in detached hedonism, transforming their bodies and satiating their senses, safe within the Manor.  A few deranged souls have taken to dwelling in the so-called Monastery Tower, having adopted an ascetic lifestyle, though this pretension of devotion is just as superficial as any other whimsical pursuit of the Gentlefolk.  The true madmen, however, are the Adventurers.

The Adventurers are those few Gentlemen and Gentlewomen who venture outside of the Manor.  A quixotic and wild-humoured breed, the Adventurers style themselves as true heroes in the purest sense of the word.  They travel the Fluxlands beyond the safety of the Manor walls not to right wrongs, destroy evil, earn coin, or amass treasure, but for the sheer audacious daring of wandering.  Constantly in danger the Adventurers live in a way the other Gentlefolk never approach, a life of thrilling extremes and heady flirtation with actual death, a fate practically unknown to the Gentlefolk save for those few claimed by the duels.  Risking Flux exposure, attack by mutants and wild beasts, deadly weather phenomena, and a million other perils, the Adventurers plumb the shells of dead cities, roam like vagabond demigods through the shifting wastes, or construct for themselves elaborate and terrifying games, races and scavenger hunts and the like that fling them across the breadth of the wild and weird ruins of the world.  Though they return frequently to the Manor to brag of their exploits, display their trophies, and relax after particularly trying journeys, the Adventurers are only truly at home out in the Fluxlands, mingling with the subhuman wreckage of humanity in the thousand tatterdemalion hellholes they call cities (each no more than a hundredth the size of the sublimely enormous Manor) or facing down gibbering monstrosities with unfathomable weaponry.

[ooc]Fluxworld is a Plane for the World-Spheres community setting.  It can also be seen as one possible "outcome" or future for the Cadaverous Earth (providing the whole place isn't devoured by the Fecundity or remade by the Chained Ones) - in many ways the Gentlefolk resemble a hyper-advanced incarnation of the magisters of Skein or the other aristocratic factions of that world, while the Fluxlands might be the Slaughter-lands if the Suppuration grew... or not.

The world itself is inspired primarily by Jack Vance's novella The Last Castle; other influences include Banks' Culture, Peake's Castle Gormenghast, and Poe's Masque of the Red Death.[/ooc]

[Steerpike]

[ooc]I'm thinking that some of the most daring Adventurers from Fluxworld might be found beyond the plane itself wandering the other World-Spheres...[/ooc]

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Kyuumu, the Dreamtime

A realm that disregards the logic of the outside world, a place where things exist as they are interesting and not as they should be.  The most modern street imaginable, but ascend the skyscrapers and you find yourself on top of a mountain peak above the clouds, a martial arts monastery rising in front of you.  Approach a sandy beach and behold the wonders of an entire desert civilization.  Creatures almost obscene in their fantasticness stalk the whateverscape; the kuusou, the chimeric natives, have dispensed with the singular form altogether.  If you can find mu, the essence of a dream, you may visit and stay and make a place for yourself.  But beware the akumu, those who delight in fooling others into self-torture, who live in the moping realms.  And beware arrogance, for the Musouka, the Dreamer, will not be broken to the will of anyone.

[ooc]Kyuumu is a plane for the World-Sphere Community Setting.  It's intended as a place to have adventures that are just gonzo insane: go anywhere, meet anyone, do anything.  Ignore logic, this is a realm where dreams come true.  There are only things characters shouldn't do:
Be too serious, because the terrifying akumu will track them down and eventually turn them into a being that cannot enjoy anything.  This is a realm made of fantastic, taking things seriously should be dangerous.
Believe that the world around you is yours to command and the entirety of Kyuumu will rise up against you.  This is just my personal twist, the idea that dreams can't be controlled, only negotiated with.[/ooc]

[Superfluous Crow]

The Green God

[/size]

At the rim of the world exists things that are far beyond the imagination of most people; things so strange or wondrous that they make people who witness it ask themselves whether they are still sane.  One of these things is perhaps the oldest living thing in the entire world: the Green God, or, as people on the Rim-worlds call it with tangible fear in their voices, the Devourer.
The Green God is a massive spherical plant-being, easily the size of a sphere, that feeds on the worlds it touches. When not feeding, it drifts slowly around space until it collides with a sphere: then its tentacular vines slowly spread across the world over a number of decades until it has completely enveloped the planet, at which point it presumably assimilates it somehow. A century or so after the collision there will be no trace of the world except the inhabitants who managed to escape. Because this is indeed the only option. The many worlds with sentient life have tried fighting it with every possible weapon, from fire to massive bombs, but the plant keeps on sending forward its creepers.
It's not known how old the plant is, although even serious scientists assume it is older than the Old Ones. No one know where it originated, except it was obviously far away from what we call the universe; most astrobotanists theorize that it was some form of invasive lifeform that developed on a foreign world and took control of it.
Although astronomers have confirmed that the Green God grows ever so slightly after it has fed, most of the mass is unaccounted for which leads to some speculation. One theory is that it is used to fuel its alien intelligence, but as yet there is no proof of it being more than a mindless plant drifting through space. The God is currently feasting on a far-away world known as Nepenthes, a world teeming with Old One ruins, and archaeologists are desperate to launch some kind of mission to rescue whatever knowledge that world hides before it is forever lost.

[Llum]

Eimos
- Plane of Forgotten Wars -

It happens to every war. Due to victors rewriting history or simply the flow of the sands of time. Every war is forgotten, but war is eternal and they never stop. In Eimos every battle continues on, from cattle raids to battles with land scarring artillery bombardments the endless sounds of war never still. Large pulsing egg-shaped organs sprout from the ground float on the water of hover in the air on bulbous sacks of gas. These organs spew out fresh combatants armed and ready for war.

Battle for Iron Skies

A battle fought so long ago even the participants have forgotten where and why they fight still rages in the skies of Eimos. Over a sea of liquid mercury wood and canvas biplanes strafe enormous iron fortress-moons. Anti-air howitzers sound a constant anthem for the battle. The fortress-moons orbit one another launching massive shells at enemy emplacements. Zeppelin Motherships give birth to hundreds of new biplanes every day. At night the battle continues with flares marking targets for shelling and strafing.

Luxan Jungle

In the mist drenched depths of the Luxan Jungle fierce Lizardmen battle invading High Elves. The Lizardmen who are ruled by the obese toad-priests and Ptera King fight the invading High Elves with obsidian studded clubs and spears. The High Elves who come from across the ocean use shining steel swords and unicorn horn bows.

The Lizardmen live in massive temple pyramid complexes built at the summit of slumbering volcanoes, ritually sacrificing warm blooded folk in the hopes of reawakening their ancient molten lava gods who would cleans the earth free of life. The High Elves wish to stop the vile cold blooded monsters once and for all, but seem only to fuel the sacrificial rituals.

Typical Lizardmen weapons are long thin clubs studded with obsidian blades, fire hardened javelins and obsidian tipped spears. Lizardmen fight in small mobile formations. Battles are usually supported by at least one of the massive toad-priests, all powerful magic users. Occasionally the someone from the Ptera-King royal family will join the battle, massive winged monsters who can rend an elf in half with their talons. Usually the royal Ptera family serve and generals who can scout the land from the air, however when forced into battle they are vicious.

The High Elves favor silvered steel long swords, magical bows made from unicorn horns and wyrm-bone greatswords. The High Elves come from a land across the sea and arrive on the shores of the Luxan jungle in large boats, ready to reinforce their fellow soldiers already entrenched in the jungle.

Om-Ibn-Shin Gulch

The skirmish over Om-Ibn-Shin Gulch is fought between two rival clans. The armored spidew riding Shin clan, defending their side of the Gulch and the aggressive undead Om clan, ruled by their zombie patriarch. The Gulch formed the border between clan lands for countless generations until the patriarch of the Om clan fell into undeath. Now driven by the relentless hunger of the undead the clan wants only to slay and feed on the living.

The massive spidews used by the Shin clan are capable of crossing the rough terrain of the Gulch with ease. Using long spears and crossbows spidew riders can attack the zombie hordes from safety as they fail to bypass the spidews thick leather armor and natural carapace.

The Om clan favors quantity over quality. They have hordes of mindless zombies raised from humans and local animals like wolves, dogs and bears. More powerful zombies with greater intelligence lead squads. The Zombies of the Om clan have been changed in certain ways to aid in battle. Spitters spew acidic vomit, berzerkers are difficult to to stop once they enter combat, flyers have superior tactical reach.

Her Majesty's Rigid Flan

The HMZ Rigid Flan is a Zeppelin Mothership from the Battle for Iron Skies. Her captain, Bashir Fontescue, fled the battle to return to his family. Sadly his family no longer existed for he was a man born by Eimos to continue the battle. After discovering the nature of Eimos he set his ship as a traveling safe-haven. The Rigid Flan is home to hundreds of deserters from and many different battles. Most are world weary, cynical and tired of the constant warfare they cannot escape from.

The second in command is someone who had never seen a zeppelin before being rescued. Alistair Brightson was a High Elf who battled the Luxan Lizardmen for four years before he was captured. Set to be sacrified to the molten lava gods he was rescued from the sacrificial altar by the Rigid Flan's crew at the last minute.

[ooc]Eimos is a plane in the CCS, any battle ever fought can be visited by those willing to brave endless battlefields to find it. I'll keep editing this post as I gather more material. Anyone feel free to describe a battle they would like included, I'll edit it into this post if you like. Or you can just post it in your own post[/ooc]

[Ghostman]

Xi - the Inverted World

Enter a world without sky, without suns, moons or stars. Enter Xi, the great hollow space surrounded on all directions by unfathomable depths of firm soil. In the Inverted World, light is provided by the Heaven's Gate - ever brilliant, ever swirling cloud of aetheric steam that is the visible manifestation of a large wormhole leading to the hub of the worlds. Illumination in Xi never ceases, never dims; there is no cycle of night and day, no changing of seasons. On the ground level, black-leaved branches of Stega-trees twist and spiral ever upwards under the eternal glow, while cyclopean cacti stand silently in the shadow of their parabolic light-gathering top-bowls. Cities of the Xiwi rise proudly on the shores of the many rivers and lakes of turquoise nectarium; massive towers of stone and metal connected at several levels by webs of covered bridges. Below them the honeycomb-like maze of alleys and bazaars conceals the uncouth masses long since forgotten by the masters of these overgrown metropoleis. Coursing through the orb-shaped athmosphere can be spotted the great windsock forms of the Lago-Lago beasts carrying the bio-augmented warriors of the Anointed Caste, patrolling the airspace or heading for a mission beyond the Heaven's Gate.

Xiwi

The Xiwi are the native race of the Inverted World. They are bipedal, toad-like humanoids with thick black skin, great toothless mouths and three-fingered hands. Their fingers lack nails but have suction-cups at the fingertips. They have no eyelids and keep their eyes clean by licking them with their long prehensile tongues. Their most striking feature is the large cranial crest that starts at the forehead, continues along the top of the skull and projects back from the head on a gentle curve. They also have rows of bone plates protruding from their backs. They are born from eggs hatched in fertilisation pools, spending their early childhood as tadpoles nursed in aquariums. They are born in large numbers, but only a few survive to complete the metamorphosis into juvenile Xiwi; the tadpoles are cannibalistic and most fall prey to their siblings while in the aquarium.

Xiwi are divided to several sub-races, a result of centuries of systematic application of eugenics and biotech augmentations. These subraces corresponds to the castes that form the structure of their society: Members of the Prophet Caste are small and frail, but have large, elongated heads housing highly developed brains. They are the politico-religious elite; the unquestioned rulers of Xi. Members of the Anointed Caste have large, muscular and robust bodies, with imposing crests and bone plates. They are bred for war and conditioned by religious ubringing and genetic manipulation to be loyal and self-sacraficing. They are extensively modified with biotech augmentations designed to improve their combat prowess. They form the military, paramilitary and police forces of the cities. Members of the Servile Caste are tall and slender, frail but highly coordinated. They are born to be the quiet and graceful servants of the Prophets. Members of the Faithful Caste are the most numerous of all, and thus set the standard for physical appearance of the race as a whole. Of the subraces they are the most enduring and persistent. They are the workers that toil tirelessly in the labyrinthine bottom levels of the tower-encrusted metropoleis, living out hard lives in the shadowed streets where the light of the Heaven's Gate barely reaches. Finally, the miserable members of the Pariah Caste lurk in the ghettoes that girdle the cities' perimeters. Theirs is the ungrateful and uncouth work of tending the countless vats of biomass which extend in vast fields from the cities' outskirts. It is the raw material to be processed into edible food within the factories of the Faithful. The Pariahs are dull-minded and submissive. Their labour exposes them to chemicals that cause illness and mutations among their ranks; many become gradually misshapen and sickly.

Other native races used to exist in Xi, but were driven to extinction unknown cycles ago. The ruins of their bizarre towns have been reclaimed by wilderness, and largely forgotten by the Xiwi. Sometimes runaway Pariahs stumble upon them and manage to conquer their instinctual fears enough to explore the ruins. Such people either never return, or do so as gibbering idiots, having lost their already feeble minds from exposure to some unimaginable horror.

Politics

The dominant political faction in Xi is the Omoran League. It is an alliance of the most powerful cities that controls the Heaven's Gate. Other cities must pay tribute to the League in order to access the wormhole. Factions have formed amongst them, but none come even close to challenge the power of the Omoran League.

Drugs

The use of legal drugs is embraced by the entire range of Xiwi society. From the highest Prophet down to the most wretched Pariah; everyone enhance their existence with myriad of stimulants. Advances in biotech have long since made their drugs "safe": there is no risk of overdose nor harmful effects to the body. Even so, most drugs in circulation are highly addictive and may render a Xiwi to a state where he becomes a danger to himself or others. Drughouses have sought to solve this by providing "safe rooms" where their customers can wait for the worst stupor to pass. Drugs used by the Prophets are high-quality, high-priced products beyond the reach of the lower castes. The Anointed frequently make use of special substances in their work, drugs that can accelerate their minds to experience time as slowed, render them oblivious to pain and fear, or drive them into a furious combat frenzy.

Technology

The Xiwi are largely focused on biotech: most of their technology uses organic matter in one form or another. Their machines are biomechanical wonders combining multiple heavily engineered organism and basic "dead" mechanical or electric parts. Some examples of these contraptions follow.

Vehicles:

Lago-Lago are flying creatures of Xi that resemble giant windsocks with insectoid heads. Their flight is based on an organ that allows them to interact with gravity fields, rather than aerodynamic qualities. They were domesticated in ancient times and used as warmounts by the Anointed. Similar use continues, though the species has been heavily modified by Xiwi biotech. They are now deadly war-machines equipped with a range of weaponry and augmented hides that offer great deal of protection without adding much to their weight. The improvements enable Lago-Lago to operate even in the vacuum of space. A different, larger version of Lago-Lago has been developed as a transport vessel, used primarily for flying passangers and cargo between cities.

Hopters are animals with bodies covered in turtle-like shells, billed heads on long snaking necks, and several pairs of large translucent wings. Xiwi biotech has produced a version of this species large enough to carry a cabin fitting up to five passangers and a control system attached to a brain-implant that allows the creature to be operated like a machine. Hopters are used as a means of transport within the cities.

Communications:

Telecom Brain-implants have rendered most other forms of communications obsolete. All Xiwi save for Pariahs enjoy a constant access to telecasts of visual, auditory, touch, and other forms of sensory input. Broadcasts and point-to-point connections are relayed by radiowaves over a network of living antenna-trees.

Weapons:

The traditional melee weapon of the Anointed is the Stolo-whip. Stolos are snake-like predatory animals of Xi that kill their prey by coiling their long, thin bodies around it and inflincting a deadly electric shock. The Xiwi learned to use Stolos as weapons early on. The modern version is extremely modified, with a flexible metallic shell and hundreds of tiny blades with poison injection mechanism.

Firebreathers are tube-shaped crustaceans engineered to be capable to spit out a jet of napalm-like substance. The smallest variants are handheld devices.

Hornet Guns are portable weapons that unleash a hail of tiny kamikaze-insecs equipped with armour-piercing stingers that ram themselves into a target and explode. They find their target guided by the weapon's laser pointer.


[ooc]Xi is a plane for the World-Sphere Community Setting. It is relatively small and counts as a single world by itself. It's sole entrance to the solar system is a glowing wormhole; one end exists in the center of Xi, while the other one is on a steady orbit as a part of the solar system. Xi is a place for local adventures, either as citizens caught in politics of crime in one of the metropoleis, or as escaped Pariahs trying to survive in the wilderness. It can also be a place for outsiders to visit, a test to their skill at diplomacy as they try to navigate their way through the hierarchy and taboos of Xiwi society.[/ooc]

[Superfluous Crow]

The Hunters' Fleet and the ruined world of Polemareo

[/size]

On a somewhat distant planet, Polemareo, although not too far from the civilized zone, once lived a splendid civilization of  weak but brilliant creatures. As they slowly used up the entirety of their planet's resources, they turned to space for conquer. Not having frames developed for war, they decided to use their extensive knowledge of genetic engineering to create the perfect soldier. A venture that went horribly wrong, just like it always does.
Their creations were named the Hunters, and were engineered to be living weapons. And as living weapons they possessed an insatiable thirst for blood; a thirst that wasn't quenched while the ancient aliens prepared for battle. So to quench the thirst, the hunters turned on their masters, and in a matter of weeks the entire planet was under their control.    
With the planet in ruins, the Hunters boarded the extraterrestrial ships that their masters had been creating and all 10 million of them zoomed into space in search of combat and blood.

The Hunters
They average 2 m and are extremely quick considering that most of their mass is made up of muscle, and every part of their body has been turned into a weapon. Their hands end in viscious talons, and their powerful jaws are studded with canine teeth covered in slightly poisonous saliva. Even their head has been turned into a weapon with the forehead- and chin-horn. In addition to their fearsome array of natural weapons they are also well-protected, naturally decked out in chitinous plates and with thick bones and a heavy skull to keep them from breaking. They possess sharp senses, above what a human can achieve, and their four eyes, two on the side and two on the front, can see both into the ordinary spectrum as well as the infrared spectrum, and with their multiple auditory and chemical canals and sensors they can easily pick up on scent trails and minute sounds. Their skin is somewhat color adaptive, allowing for camouflage, while the flesh possesses regenerative features allowing for quick recovery. They have no genders since they are unable to reproduce. They can only be created in vats, a technology they were never taught. As such, there will never be more Hunters than there are now, but due to their cellular regeneration they have an extensive lifespan; some speculate that they can't die of old age.  

Technology
The Hunters are scavengers. A lot of their equipment still consists of  what they took from their own masters; specially designed full body armor and ultra-sharp cleavers along with magnetic crossbows, but they also use weapons from other captured civilizations: each warrior has the right to choose his own weapon. The ships are also scavenged. The hunters aren't much for magic, and prefer technology which they understand the maintenance of to some degree.

Civilization
The Hunters are raiders, flying at random until they find an easy target to plunder or a challenge to their fighting prowess. Each ship is governed by a Chief who is the strongest warrior onboard. Anyone can challenge the captain to a duel when not in battle. Most of their legal system is actually based on duels, although most non-captain duels are non-lethal. The Chief of the largest ship, currently the ship Demugor, is the Warlord, a title currently held by Mughlaq the Fierce.  Each ship is autonomous, but can be called upon when the Warlord has his eyes on a big target.

Polemareo
Now completely abandoned by the Hunters, Polemareo is a destroyed world covered in rubble, radioactive dust, freakish storms, and putrid swampland. Some expeditions have been sent to its surface mainly to locate detailed information as to how to stop the hunters. None have succeeded yet. It is rumored that some of the ancient polemareons are still alive, somewhere underground.

[khyron1144]

Mikail's Spacer's Part 1: Terra Standard
Imagine, if you will, a plane completely blind to the fact that it is one of many.  A plane that as far as its inhabitants are concerned is infinite and alone.  A plane dominated by science and technology and blind to the forces of magic.

In one galaxy in this plane there is a solar system.  The primary body of this system is a yellow star.  The third planet out from this yellow star is a blue-green marble with an over-size moon.  On this planet there evolved one sapient species.  Hairless apes is the kindest one might call them.  Homo sapiens sapiens is their own term for themselves.  The Earth is what they called their planet

Sometime after this species began trying to escape the planet's gravity well with explosive rockets in order to see what's out there, they got an answer they didn't like.  More hairless apes, but with technology far in advance of their own and a desire for conquest.  this forced the Homo sapiens of Earth to unite into a single world government and combine their resources to fight the alien menace.  When the alien humanoids, also known as Xeno anthropoids or Xenanths, were defeated the humans began to unravel the mysteries of Xenanth technology.

Unfortunately for the humans, something about Xenanth technology is like a beacon to the even tougher and more hostile bug-like aliens, Xeno arthropods or Xenarths.  After a while, the Xenarth menace is also defeated.  Reverse-engineering of Xenarth technology allows humans to create what they believe will be the first effectively FTL ships of their own.

Now who do they get to crew the first experimental ship?  It is effectively a life-time exile from Earth even if it works perfectly, after all.  Well, one war hero of Russian descent, Admiral Mikail Afonin, was expressing embarassing and dangerously recidivist political opinions.  He couldn't be marched in front of a firing squad or conveniently and quietly disappeared.  No, his end had to be public and look heroic.  So he was put in charge of UEGS New Horizons, the first jump-ship manned by humans of this particular Earth.

What happened when the fallen Admiral and his reject crew made that jump is a story for another time...

 [ooc]Ok, this is background about a plane that explains how certain people of that plane got to an interesting planetoid of the hub solar system.[/ooc]

[khyron1144]

Planet of the Kaiju
Mikail's Spacers, Part 2
The UEGS New Horizons engaged its jump-drive.  According to the physicists, engineers, and mathematicians, who reverse-engineered the captured alien tech and laid the theoretical foundations to install the jump-drive, what should happen when the jump drive is used amounts to this:  For about a billionth of a second the ship will disappear from the universe entirely.  Then it comes back somewhere else.  This somewhere else can be anywhere from a few feet away to hundreds, thousands, millions, or billions of light years.  In short, effectively FTL travel.

That's what should have happened.  Here's what did happen:  The ship disappeared as per spec, but it re-appeared in orbit around one of the planets of the hub solar system of the World Spheres multiverse.  As far as anyone in their home plane knows, the ship never made its re-materialization.

It is reported that Corporal Jim Johnson, a suspected minor ESPer, acting as com officer on the bridge on that fateful day; said in reaction to the sensation of leaving the home plane:  "I've got a hunch that home is a long way away now."

The Admiral ordered an unmanned probe launched to the surface of the planet.  It sent back three hours of data before the signal abruptly cut off.  The data looked favorable.  A surface gravity of exactly one gee and a nitrogen, oxygen, and other stuff atmosphere fairly similar to Earth's combined to make the new world sound idyllic.  The landing site had a humidity and temperature fairly similar to that of a subtropical area on Earth.  Atmospheric sampling showed no dangerous microbes or toxins.  In short, it sounded like paradise.

The abrupt signal cut-off was a minor cause for concern.  However, New Horizons was so full of new and experimental technology that things failed abruptly all the time for no readily apparent reason. [spoiler] [ooc]Anybody else have Vista?[/ooc] [/spoiler]  

A landing party was sent down to follow up on the probe's initial scans.  The first hour worth of reports back to New Horizons were fairly routine.  Then, the giant pterosaurs attacked.  Those members of the crew armed with conventional firearms found their weapons ineffective.  Fortunately, half of the crew had the new laser sidearms, which proved effective.

After more extensive investigation it was found that this planet is over-run with very close analogues of Earth's dinosaurs and other prehistoric species such as sabre-toothed tigers.  Plus some anomalies, like the smilodon that is twenty times normal size.  There are even a few sapient native species, which seem to worship the anomalously large creatures.

Lieutenant Hawke, a bit of a film buff back on Earth, dubbed it The Planet of the Kaiju.

 [ooc]I hope this is pretty self-explanatory, but the planet of the kaiju is a planet in the main solar system.[/ooc]