Umbral Rim

Default Navigation Modifier: -4
Alternate Names: The Dark Arm.

The Umbral Rim invokes both dread and a sense of curious wonder. The veils of its nebulae shroud its worlds from sight, and its alien inhabitants exude an aura of exotic appeal. Its strange philosophies have swept the galaxy, and its inhabitants once ruled the galaxy.

Where the Glorian Rim is home to the least aliens, the Umbral Rim is home to the most, which makes this region of space a melting pot of cultures and genetics. The three most famous alien species to arise from the Umbral Rim are the sacred Keleni, who produced the True Communion philosophy, the vampiric and beautiful Ranathim, who conquered the Galaxy and produced ecstatic cults of Dark Communion, and the hungry and disgusting Slavers, who currently rule the Umbral Rim.

The dead system of Styx and its nebulae dominate the Umbral Rim’s astrography. Once the homeworld of the Ranathim, some secret and dread technology, suspected to be of Eldothic origin, caused their star to go supernova and collapse into a black hole. Its death shattered the hyperspace routes and cast a nebulous veil over the Umbral Rim. Its death also broke the Ranathim’s tyranny, and they fell from being a race who held others in slavery and into a race itself enslaved. Today, those Slavers ply the stars of the Dark Arm, demanding a tribute of flesh, trading in the alien races native to their region of space and coveting the chance to capture more exotic species, like Traders, the Nehudi or even humans!

Navigating the Umbral Rim

The nebulae and the broken hyperspace routes make travel through the Umbral Rim difficult, but not impossible if one is familiar with the region. A successful roll of Area Knowledge for a specific Umbral Rim constellation grants a +2 to Navigation rolls.

The Diviners in the Umbral Rim swear by Lithian astronomy as a means of reading the strange, ever shifting hyperdynamic connections between the stars of the Umbral Rim. Despite the occult trappings of this assertion, the vast lore upon which the idea is founded seems substantial enough. At the GM’s discretion, Fortune Telling (Lithian Astrology) can act as a Complementary Roll to navigation rolls made in the Umbral Rim only.

The nebulae of the Umbral Rim present other hazards when traveling the Umbral Rim. Dense pockets can slow travel time (the GM can arbitrarily double or quadruple travel time). Nebulae also make using electronics more difficult, and apply a -0 to -4 to all Electronics Operation (Communications) rolls, including to FTL communications. See Nebulae in Adventures in Space for more.

The Umbral Rim has a unique hyperdynamic feature called the Dark Flow. The hyperdynamic medium on the outer edges of the Stygian Veil “flows” towards the Galactic Core. This makes travel from the galactic core towards the outer Umbral Rim harder than from the outer Umbral Rim towards the Galactic Core. On an galactic scale, this hyperdyanmic stream is relatively narrow but long: it flows several constellations (at least the Sanguine Stars, the Corvus Constellation and the Malian Sprawl), but, but while it can span several star systems, it doesn’t span the full width of constellations. Thus, it’s possible to “pick your way around” the flow. As a general rule, attempting to navigate “upstream” doubles travel time and adds a -1 navigation modifier, and navigating “downstream” adds a +1 navigation modifier and halves travel times. It’s ultimately up to the GM if a star system is affected by the Dark Flow. Avoiding the dark flow altogether always adds a -1 to -2 to the navigation difficulty.

The Aliens of the Umbral Rim

  • Gaunt: The Gaunt show up all across the galaxy, but especially in the Umbral Rim, the Galactic Core, and the Arkhaian Spiral. These pallid, ugly ghouls lurk in back alleys, and in the sewers and tunnels beneath larger cities. Their inhuman resilience lets them survive almost anywhere, and with ghoulish appetites and a corpse-like appearance and odor, they tend to prefer to avoid contact with others who might judge them harshly. Still, a Gaunt companion is a hardy and loyal companion, if one can endure the stink.
  • Keleni: The Keleni are a graceful, beautiful race of amphibious telepaths. They have soft, bluish or greenish skin with patches of attractive luminescence. Long, silken white or silver hair cascades down around their bodies. Their natural empathy and talent for Psychic Healing makes them a compassionate race, but their helpful nature has earned them nothing but trouble as empire after empire has scattered the people all across the Galaxy, forcing them to cling to their beliefs in the face of persecution. They best articulated the concepts behind the great psychic gestalt known as Communion and founded the religion of True Communion, one of the most important religions in the galaxy, and the faith of the famous Templars.
  • Keverlings: When the Ranathim first arrived on the ashen world of Moros, they discovered a sapient alien race already occupied it: the Keverlings. These small, beetle-like aliens became utterly besotted with Ranathim beauty, and quickly pledged their loyalty. And so, the Ranathim enslaved their first race and put them to work as minions, servants and technicians. While simple-minded, almost child-like, they focus extremely well on long tasks and their dexterous fingers make them excellent craftsmen. Today, they mostly reside in the Umbral Rim, to be closer to their beloved Ranathim or Keleni masters, but they’ve begun to slowly spread out across the galaxy, with more showing up on Trader Arks and imperial space stations as simple janitors or mechanics.
  • Krokuta: The Krokuta serve the Slavers of the Umbral Rim as their drug-enhanced legions and slave soldiers. The primal, alien savages have tall, muscular frames covered in a light layer of (typically brown) fur, with bestial muzzles and pointed ears, and often a crest of mohawk-like fur over the top of their head. Their unique metabolism gains more benefits from capability-enhancement drugs and makes them more easily addicted, which makes them both effective and pliable soldiers. Unfortunately, they’re dimwitted and struggle to master advanced technologies. If left to their own devices, they become quite a menace, and Krokuta warbands regularly hijack starships and maraud across the Umbral Rim.
  • Loroko: Those who meet the Loroko come to fear and respect these red warriors of the Umbral Rim. Their suicidal bravery comes from their robust vitality and a fervent desire to never again enter a state of subjugation. Their martial excellence has attracted the attention of bounty hunter lodges, mercenary companies, and they’ve even managed to earn the respect of the usually xenophobic Empire, who sometimes employs them as auxiliaries. However, they remain rare enough (and isolationist enough) that too many people make the lethal error of mistaking a Loroko commando in a space port bar for a “poor-man’s Ranathim.”
  • Ranathim: The Ranathim are a sultry and seductive race of psychic vampires. Their four horns, pointed ears, lashing tails and pointed teeth give them a somewhat demonic appearance, but displays an appealing physique that the other races of the galaxy find quite desirable. They use their display of flesh to draw others close so that they can feed on their psychic energy. The Ranathim once ruled the galaxy until their own selfish passions and sins tore their empire apart when their star went supernova in an event known as the Dark Cataclysm. Now, many of them are slaves, the dancing girls and gladiators of the Umbral Rim, and those who retain a fraction of their former power guard that power and independence jealously. They founded some of the most influential philosophies of the galaxy, including the Divine Masks and the Cult of the Mystical Tyrant. Their culture and language, the Lithian culture, remains dominant in the Umbral Rim and is the single largest collective alien culture in the galaxy.
  • Slavers: Deep in the Umbral Rim lurks horror. The humanitarian horror of slavery still holds the races of the Umbral Rim in its grip, and the face of that horror is the slimy Temkorathim or, as they are more popularly known, the Slavers. These serpentine creatures resemble a cross between a snake, a slug, a poison-arrow frog, and a mobile, sapient tongue. Tastebuds cover their soft, moist bodies, allowing them to taste what they touch, and they particularly enjoy the taste of the hormones found in the sweat and saliva of humanoids, which they can internalize and turn into drugs or poisons that they can secrete over their body, poisoning those that dare touch them. The Ranathim Tyranny first discovered them on a swamp world deep in the Sanguine Stars and recognized their bureaucratic acumen and took them in as scholarly slaves, to run and administrate remote parts of their empire. And as the Tyranny descended into decadence, the calculating Temkorathim continued to accrue knowledge, favors and social capital until the Tyranny collapsed and the Slavers moved to seize the reigns of power. They’ve turned this mastery of drugs into an addictive criminal empire, and today, Slavers rule the largest swathes of the Umbral Rim. The lords of these kleptocratic oligarchies often keep Ranathim as slaves, and delight in reminding their former masters of how the tables have turned.
  • Vithanni: Few humans have even heard of the Vithanni, let alone laid eyes upon one. The slavers of the Umbral Rim treat them as rare and delicate collectors items, for the Vithanni come from beyond the edge of the galaxy and lived on a rarified world. The ethereal, black-skinned star-children see by starlight and struggle to breath air as thick as ours. These ethereal beings seem more magical than real, and the magic of fate and fortune plays a powerful role in their lives, for they experience the tug and twists of fate more acutely than other races.

The Umbral Constellations

The Hydrus Constellation

Default Navigational Modifier: -2
Alternate Names: The Tangled Expanse, the Templar Stars

The semi-aquatic Keleni call the Hydrus Constellation home. They slowly built up their civilization and colonized the worlds of the Hydrus while cultivating their connection with True Communion and bringing its sanctity to their worlds. When the Eldothic Empire conquered the Hydrus Constellation, they scattered the Keleni, leaving their worlds open to the conquest of later empires. As a result, though these worlds originally belonged to the Keleni, few Keleni can be found there today.

The Hydrus Constellation lies at the boundary between the Galactic Core and the Umbral Rim, making it a vital region for both trade and war, and it has changed hands several times, falling first to the Eldoth, then to the Ranathim Empires, then to the Alexian Dynasty; when a pirate cartel captured it from the Alexian Dynasty and began to enslave the remaining Keleni, those aliens and humans who had become followers of True Communion rose up in the Communion Crusade and liberated the Hydrus Constellation, forming the original Templar State and founding the Order of the Templars of Communion. During the era of the Galactic Federation, House Elegans ruled it and, today, the Empire controls the Tangled Expanse.

The worlds of the Hydrus constellation tend to be warm, tropical and very wet.

Samsara

Default Navigational Modifier: +2.
Alternate Names: Alahari

The most famous world of the Hydrus Constellation, it is the most easily accessible world of the Umbral Rim, and served as the capital of the Templar Worlds and then, after their fall, of House Elegans. Its notorious canal city, Maon, rises from a great and shallow sea beneath the watchful gaze of a mountain and its temple to Communion. Scattered among its canals and narrow buildings, one can find great pleasure barges, roving gangs, self-flagellating cults, and aliens of every stripe and sort. Something shadowy tames the wild garden of crime in the city: while prostitution, gambling and drugs might run rampant across it, relic smuggling, slavery, racketeering and murder struggle to take hold. The street whispers that a shadowy Templar order called the Dark Vigil secretly governs the organized crime of Samsara, determining what it will allow, and quietly eliminating what it will not. The Empire technically rules this mess of a world, but its governors struggle to make heads or tail of its chaos.

Temjara

Default Navigational Modifier: -2.

The oceanic homeworld of the Keleni now lies largely empty. Small communities of Communion faithful have gathered to maintain its island temples, and pilgrims from all over the galaxy make their way to see the birthplace of their faith and to meditate in its temples. The Empire controls Temjara, and maintains a small presence at its orbital starports. They’ve cut off access to the world by anyone but themselves, including pilgrims or requests by the Keleni to resettle the world.

Anmarwi

Default Navigational Modifier: -10.
Alternate Names: The Promised World

Keleni prophecy speaks of Anmarwi, the promised world. According to these prophecies, the sanctity of True Communion pervades Anmarwi, and it can speak to its inhabitants, or even to all the truly faithful. It shrouds itself, preventing any travel to it except by the worthy. On the great day when the faithful have achieved oneness with True Communion, Anmarwi will open its arms and welcome them to settle on its shores and mountains. Most modern scholars don’t take the claims of Anmarwi, with its magic powers and secret cities, seriously, but many faithful search the stars of the Hydrus Constellation for it.

The Penumbral Barrier and the Nyxian Sprawl

Default Navigational Modifier: -6 to -8.
Alternate Names: The Himavata Constellation

The Penumbral Barrier runs the length of the region between the Hydrus Constellation and the Stygian Veil. On the leading edge of the Veil, it has a thick hyperdynamic medium and dense nebulae, making it extraordinarily difficult and time consuming to navigate. As a result, most starships would rather navigate around it, through the Corvus constellation, if they seek to get into the Stygian Veil or other regions deeper in the Umbral Rim. It also makes an attractive site for those who want to escape attention, and this makes it a popular den for pirates, though the Empire protects most of the trade routes in the Hydrus Constellation.

The long length of the Penumbral Barrier might be thought of as two closely related constellations. The density of the nebulae and hyperdynamic medium of the Penumbral Barrier varies across its considerable length. The region farthest from the more navigable Corvus Constellation is the densest and hardest to navigate; this area is sometimes called the Himavata region and is primarily populated by the descendants of refugees, pirates and, notably, the militaristic and defensive Loroko. The other side of the Penumbral Barrier diffuses into the Corvus Constellation and is much easier to navigate; this is called the Nyxian Sprawl.

The navigation of the Penumbral Barrier is easier from within the barrier than from without. Travel the Himavata Region from outside (especially from the Hydrus Constellation) is -8 and doubles travel time while reverse travel (from Himavata to the Hydrus or the Stygian Veil) is only -6 and has no travel time penalty; travel from the Hydrus constellation or the Corvus Constellation to the Nyxian Sprawl is -4 to -6. Travel from within the Nyxian Sprawl into the Himavat Region is -6, and travel from the Himavat Region to the Nyxian Sprawl is -4. Metaphorically, the Penumbral Barrier is a long “wall” or “mountain range”, and travel within that range is easier than trying to “scale it” from outside, and the Himavata region is “uphill” from the Nyxian sprawl.

The Penumbral Barrier makes fertile ground for dissident factions, and contains two major powers. The militaristic Second Loroko Protectorate controls most of the Himavata region. The growing League of Zang dominates the Nyxian Sprawl and makes some inroads into the Himavata region (through diplomacy rather than force of arms, of course).

Tyria

Default Navigational Modifier: -8 (-6 from within the Penumbral Barrier).

Tyria is the capital star system of the Second Loroko Protectorate. The population of Loroko live on the four moons of Tyria, a blue ice giant with white rings that orbits a dim, red dwarf. A young system, Tyria is surrounded by a large asteroid cloud that makes travel hazardous and frequently pels Tyria and its moons with meteor. The four moons are all within less than a day’s travel of each other by shuttle, and are similarly mountainous, volcanically hyperactive, and dark (Vision -3), although conditions beyond that vary. Despite their remote location, moons and asteroids produce certain durable metals needed for starship construction, and the clouds of Tyria itself are mined for hyperium fuel. While the system is hard to reach and its cold, volcanic moons uninviting, it suits the hardy Loroko who merely want to be left alone, and its rich resources feeds the defensive warmachine of the Second Protectorate.

Wilwatikta

Default Navigational Modifier: -8 (-6 from within the Penumbral Barrier).

Desolate deserts cover this hot, baking world with only a few polar regions capable of producing meaningful crops. Millennia ago, Wilwatikta was a fortress world created by the Ranathim Tyranny to fend off encroachments by the Eldoth during the Monolith war, and then a regional capital until the Dark Cataclysm rendered the Himavata Region virtually innavigable. Stripped of all support, the world collapsed into barbarism until rediscovered by a wave of Westerly settlers displaced by the Federation’s aggressive intervention in the Hydrus Constellation during the Slaver War. They settled the agriculturally viable polar regions only to discover that the planet was locked in a centuries’ long conflict between tribal Ranathim remnants who controlled the ruins of the domed surface cities and an underground nation of Gaunt. Today, the Westerly settlers have forged an alliance with the Gaunt to fend off the depredations of the Ranathim tribes and together have joined the League of Zang and provide it with relics of the military technologies of the Monolith War.

Kantha

Default Navigational Modifier: -7 (-5 from within the Penumbral Barrier).

When the Second Loroko Protectorate renewed its independence, it had to fight a long, bloody war agaisnt the Ranathim that controlled nearby Kantha. The conquest and subsequent cleansing of the world rewarded the Loroko with a idyllic world, but a weight of guilt. The Loroko established a military admnistration that ruled the world from orbit, and also guarded a primary entry point for the rest of the Protectorate. Over the centuries, the administration turned into a unique warrior caste that ruled the largely civilian groups that enjoyed the lush world below. Recently, High Commander Karnor Ran, ruler of the Kantha military administration, declared the independence of the new Kanthian Protectorate, and then immediately joined the League of Zang. The League provides the trade routes necessary to enrich the High Commander and fend off any attempts at reconquest by the Second Loroko Protectorate, and in return, Karnor Ran provides elite Loroko mercenaries and military advisors and a small number of Loroko slaves for Zangian slave traders to peddle to the rest of the Umbral Rim.

Kapugida

Default Navigational Modifier: -6 (-4 from within the Penumbral Barrier).

This rich and fertile world, filled with terraced farms and lazy river valleys, acts as the bread basket of the Penumbral Barrier. Billions of Ranathim and Keleni together share the world and get along surprisingly well. Peculiar, homegrown religions dominate the world, including a Domen Sefelina-inspired Fertility Cult, and a Domen Venalina-inspired pain-cult. Slave raiders regularly harassed the world, taking hundreds of thousands of slaves a year until the League of Zang stepped in, used economic and diplomatic strong-arm tactics and effectively colonized the world, which it rules through the Kapugida Exchange corporation. Now, the populations offer up a yearly tithe of their population slaves to the traders of Zang. While the population seems resigned to the arrangement, a new cult rapidly grows around a charismatic Ranathim firebrand figure who threatens to destabilize the world.

Zang

Default Navigational Modifier: -4.

The capital of the League of Zang and the home of Khedu, one of the most powerful Temkorathim outside of the Oligarchy of Vech. A great ocean covers this tranquil world, with only a few atolls and archipelagos and a single, modest, jungle-covered continent for land. A great nebula fills the planetary system and, lit by the energtic star at its core, it fills the skies of Zang with a constant and beautiful aurora effect. While a difficult system to reach by most standards, it is the “gateway” to the Penumbral Barrier and a major interstellar crossroads. People vacation on its warm beaches, go on safari in its jungles, to shop at its exotic markets or admire Khedu’s majestic, golden palace complexes. Zang has a famously entertaining courtly culture in its palaces, which makes it a coveted locations for diplomatic postings. Zang often hosts dignitaries from the Empire and the various potentates of the Umbral Rim.

The Corvus Constellation

Default Navigational Modifier: -3

Deeper in the Umbral Rim, resting near its spinward edge, not far from the Syvlan Rim, the Corvus Constellation skirts around the Shroud, making it one of the more navigable parts of the Umbral Rim. While its worlds tend to be marginal, the fact that one can actually reach them makes them a popular destination for merchants and empires alike.

The Dark Flow is especially pronounce in the Corvus Constellation. Anyone moving towards the Galactic Core in the Corvus Constellation can gain a +1 and halves travel time if they follow the Dark Flow. Going against it imposes a -1 to Navigation and doubles travel time if they move against it.

Sarai

Default Navigational Modifier: +1. Sarai is at the end of the Dark Flow. There’s never a dark flow penalty to reach it, but most travel within the Corvus Constellation can can claim a +1 and halved travel time to Sarai.

The nexus world of the Corvus Constellation lies not too far from the Hydrus Constellation. Having recently liberated it from the Slaver Empire, this world represents the deepest extent that the Valorian Empire has pressed their influence into the Umbral Rim. Deserts, savannahs, great mountains and fertile river valleys make up most of Sarai, and its population of mostly Ranathim attempt to scratch out an existence there. Recently freed, the Empire has allowed the Ranathim a measure of self-rule, and they even have a king, a largely ceremonial boy-emperor under the thumb of his “wife,” the high priestess of the Ranathim ecstasy cult of pleasure and freedom, Domen Sefelina. The Ranathim have come to see Sarai with hope, as a new homeworld to which they might go, and the Imperial Governor struggles to restrain their alien impulses, and to prevent his own soldiers from falling under the sway of beautiful Ranathim dancing girls or the intoxicating effects of their drugs and wine.

Tekna

Default Navigational Modifier: -2

The hyperium-rich gas giant and resource-rich asteroids of Tekna made it an unusually technological star system in the Umbral Rim, and while it’s not especially central to the Corvus Constellation, it’s often a preferred stop for merchants or others on long journeys for refueling and repairs. It also proved a vital strategic point during the Slaver War, and enjoyed a considerable Federation presence. This left the Lithian locals with a good impression of Maradonian culture and humanity at large, so when the Empire liberated Sarai from the oppression of the Vechian Oligarchy, they waited eagerly for their turn. Instead, the Vechian Oligarchy opened it up to Orion Arms, who began to exploit its population for cheap labor and entertainment. Today, Tekna has become something of a tourist stop for Imperials or Orion executives who want a taste of what the real Umbral Rim is like, while the oppressed locals slowly revise their opinions on humanity.

Hekatomb

Default Navigational Modifier: -3.
Alternate Names: Tevugant (The Hungry World)

Deep in the Corvus Constellation lies a dangerous world that, according to some, the Slaver race worships as a god. Strange monsters roam its jungles, and the quicksand of its swamps suck hungrily at one’s feet. A dark psychic presence lingers over the entire world. The Slavers import slaves by the hundreds to their great ziggurat city, and then ceremonially release them into the wilds of the planet, which devours them like a sacrifice. Its dark psychic presence make it attractive to those who walk the paths of Communion. Ranathim psychics sometimes travel to the world to seek mastery over the power of Hekatomb, while rumors persist of a Templar master who used the darkness of Hekatomb to hide his or her presence and that they live there to this day, awaiting an era that needs them.

The Skull Nebula

Default Navigational Modifier: -10

Caught between the Stygian Veil and the Corvus Constellation is a large, dense nebula, smaller than the Stygian Veil, but virtually impossible to navigate. Ionic storms constantly arc through the cloudy region, and ships that enter rarely leave. It was always a difficult region, but the Dark Cataclysm made it much worse, and the only star maps for the area are hopelessly outdated from before the fall of the second Tyranny. Most people simply avoid it, but some few still try to brave it and explore what lurks within.

Nobody knows what Star systems are in the Skull Nebula. Some possible ideas:

The Stygian Veil

Default Navigational Modifier: -6
Alternate Names: The Shroud

Styx and its nebula lies at the heart of the Umbral Rim and, in fact, give it its name. The shroud covers many constellations, but when speaking of the shroud, the denizens of the Umbral Realm mean its heart specifically, that ominous dark region where the black sun that once blazed over the homeworld of the Ranathim churns malevolently. Hyperspatial storms ravage the region, and its nebulae foil sight and sensors, making piracy a very real threat. Few journey into the Stygian Veil by choice.

Styx

Default Navigational Modifier: -2.
Alternate Names: Ranagant, Natlan Khemet

In their native tongue of Lithian, the Ranathim call the black hole of Styx, “Natlan Khemet” the desiccated husk that revolves around it, “Ranagant,” though they rarely name either, for they have a superstition against naming the dead, and their world is dead. But not destroyed, for despite the power of the supernova, their world somehow survived. To be sure, it lies shattered, with a tail of broken planetesimals and fragments behind it, but slightly more than half of the planet still retains its rounded shape and even some of its atmosphere. Volcanoes wrack its surface and great fissures split it. Great Ranathim cities lie in shattered ruins, with toppled monoliths and cracked pyramids. The Death Cult of the Ranathim, Domen Khemet, guard its surface, protecting any who would approach from the nightmarish psychic aura that now dominates the planet.

Moros

Default Navigational Modifier: -6.
Alternate Names: Nuthijant, the Plague World

Plague regularly sweeps through the Umbral Realm, often made worse by the fractured infrastructure, the humanitarian crises caused by rampant piracy and Slaver raids, and the treatment that slaves suffer, especially when they outlive their usefulness and their masters discard them. Some plagues fester permanently in those who catch them, condemning them to a lifetime of misery, while others will linger for a month or so before perishing in agony. Those who used to turn to the healers of the Hydrus Constellation must now flee to the plague world of Moros, where they find comfort in arms of the the compassionate cult of sin eaters, Domen Venalina. Their white-clad temple, with its wind chimes and idol to the Pure Lady, greet all those who come to the world. But the planet already had inhabitants before the coming of the sick and ill: strange, insect life crawls across its barren, white deserts and its black cliff, and beneath the soil, the native Keverlings toil endlessly to bring beauty to their winding nests. Ruling the world from their citadel in the bitterly cold north, the necrokinetic Mithna Adivasta experiment with the Dead Art and construct an army of servile gaunt who tend to the sick, and defend one of the last Ranathim-ruled worlds of the Umbral Rim from invaders.

Dhim

Default Navigational Modifier: -6.

The first colony and the second Ranathim world, its name means “Twin.” Once, it was a jewel of the Tyranny, and during the third Tyranny, a capital of a minor potentate. But the Dark Cataclysm ravaged the world, and during the incessant wars of the third tyranny, madness bombs rained down upon it, turning its beautiful cities into ruins haunted by wraithly energies, and a centuries’ old “trap” eruption, the “fire chasm,” continues to split its largest continent and poison its seas and skies. Today, the world has degenerated into a savage land filled with roaming barbarian tribes, fallen city states that fight off wandering monsters with ancient projectile rifles, and warlords who vie for control. No less than 5 major powers claim the world for their own, including the enigmant Tarvathim immortal named Maishen and her army of fanatically loyal Gaunt, the squabbling Oligarchs of Sanatai and Hordokai, the Krokuta barbarian king Krull and, of course, the Wizard of Dhim in his tower that overlooks the ruined City of Wonders.

The Pit

Default Navigational Modifier: -5.
Alternate Name: Desugant (“Junk world”)

Every empire needs a prison planet, but in its decline, the Oligarchy of Vech managed to lose control of theirs. The Pit is super-earth-sized, mineral rich world into which the various empires of the Umbral Rim carved a continent sized mine to consume every last resource available. On the far side of the world, these generations of empires dumped the remains of warships and unwanted technology. Any unwanted dissidents, dangerous prisoners or just someone unlucky enough to be captured when the Pit’s hungers for more labor, are tossed onto the planet to work as ship breaker, scavenger, miner or just to struggle to survive. Originally, the Slavers watched from orbit, trading food and basic supplies to the prisoners in exchange for raw resources, but they failed to notice the increasing unity amongst the warring scavenger tribes of the breaker fields until the first war hulk lifted off the planet and managed to pummel the blockade. Today, those scavenger tribes maraud across the isolated star systems of the Stygian Veil while the Oligarchy tries to regain its control of the rebellious Pit, and slaves still tremble in dread at the threat of being "sent to the Pit".

The Sanguine Stars

Default Navigational Modifier: -4

Deep in the Umbral Rim, near its fringe, dim red stars cast a baleful glow on the mists of the Shroud. These stars, though small, boast worlds with rich mineral wealth and hyperium deposits. They served the Ranathim empire as a foundry, and today serve as the basis and capital of the Slaver Empire.

Rath, The Blade Shrine

Default Navigational Modifier: +0.
Alternate Names: Lithamere

This majestic space station circles the brightest red star of the constellation, called “Lithamere” by the Ranathim, and “Rath” by other cartographers. Lithamere is the star sacred to the Ranathim god of vengeance, and the Blade Shrine is His holiest temple. This served as the home of the cult of vengeance, Domen Sonostrum, and the asteroid belts and gas giants of the system became fodder for its rampages across the Umbral Rim. The Slaver Empire seized the Rath system, despite the best efforts of the pirate-cult, leaving them to rage in impotence as the Slavers desecrated and retooled the shrine into their capital, filling it with gladiatorial arenas, dancing girls and their own triumphant parades. For the Slavers, the conquest of Rath allowed them to spit in the faces of the Ranathim who had oppressed their people for so long.

Wyrmwood

Default Navigational Modifier: -4.
Alternate Names: Litha Temkor

Alone among the Sanguine Stars, Wyrmwood burns a strange and eerie green rather than red as a result of some interaction with the mists of the Shroud. The world beneath its baleful green eye gave birth to the ugly, vermiform race that now rules the Slaver Empire. Thick, turgid seas covers the surface with only a few swampy landmasses rise above the oceans. Humidity and heat thicken the atmosphere to a cloying miasma that smells of rotten fish and most races find the world intolerably sweaty. The ziggurat-cities of the Slavers rest on the bedrock of their shallow seas, with high tide bringing slow waves to lap at the feet of pedestrians in its streets. While the Slavers hail from this world, they do not rule from it. Instead, they treat it as a world of commerce and tourism for their kind, with many successful overseers bringing their slaves and wealth with them to the planet when they choose to retire.

The Blood Moon of Charybdis

Default Navigational Modifier: -4.
Alternate Names: Saton

Hidden deep within the nebula of the shroud is a small and unremarkable red dwarf. An enormous “hot jupiter” gas giant orbits it, with one side eternally facing the star with an eye of smoldering red, and the rest of its cloudy atmosphere coal black. Orbiting the gas giant is a planet-sized moon, dusted red with rust from is iron-rich interior: the Blood Moon of Charybdis. The world is sufficiently insignificant and hard to reach that the Slaver Empire ignored it, and thus unintentionally made it a haven for every alien refugee in the constellation. The outcast cult of vengeance first seized it, turning it into a staging ground for their eventual efforts to retake their sacred shrine. Later, lost tribes of Keleni, outsider Ranathim, lost Gaunt and other races took shelter on the surface. Today, Ranathim pirates regularly launch raids from it, and then vanish back the mists of the Shroud.

The Occulted Expanse

Default Navigational Modifier: -6. Optionally, the navigation modifiers of the Occulted Expanse depends on the Hour of Destiny optional rule found in the Great Book of Destiny. During the Darkest Hour, add +2 to all Navigation rolls into, out from and within the Occulted Expanse; when the Hour is the Hour of Glory, apply a -2 penalty; during the Primal Hour or the Hour of Endings, add +0.
Alternate Names: The Lethean Expanse

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