Hyleia
Hyleia is a medium planet that is approximately 8,000 miles in diameter. It is a gas giant that is mainly comprised of the air element, with 7 moons orbiting within its body. It is the centre of a trinary system of planets that orbit within the eighth orbital ring in the Echospace system, and its orbit is about 250 miles from the previous orbital ring.
As the centre of this strange combination of planets, it is approximately 1230 million miles from the system centre and 210 million miles away from the astral veil.
Whilst six of the moons that orbit within this gas giant are relatively ordinary, one of them is a massive clockwork contraption, which is theorised to be responsible for some fundamental aspect or effect in the system and that if it ever stops working, it could devastate the system… although nobody is able to figure out what it does and, predictably, no one wants to find out what happens if it stops working.
The Divine Serpents
Four of the moons are inhabited by creatures considered to be divine serpents that represent each of the primary elements of the world. It is said that these four creatures represent the "body" of the planet, whilst the other two moons are said to embody more esoteric principles - the mind and the soul. The divine serpents are as follows:- Qotal, the Plumed Dragon, is the divinity of air and can be found on the twin moons Maztica and .
- Boitata, the Seeing Serpent, makes their home on ???. They are a scaled serpent whose body is covered in various sets of eyes. As the divinity of fire, the scales along its body constantly open to allow the ever-building heat to escape from within its body.
- Garula, the Crawling King, is a ground-based serpent found on Kara-Tur. It is the divinity of Earth and constantly crawls across the landscape, leaving craters in its wake. Its multiple pairs of legs leave it close to the ground, while its head has a number of large tusks that curl towards the sky. Its entire body is covered in a thick, earthen fur, giving it an appearance somewhere between a wooly mammoth and a crocodile.
- Kar'r'rga, the Clawing Husk, is an ocean-bound serpent with immense pincers and elongated tentacles. Its hard carapace and entangling legs make it look somewhere between a crustacean and a kraken. This divinity of water can be found on the watery moon Zakhara.
The Seven Moons of Hyleia
Kara-Tur, Home to Garula, the Crawling King, a divine serpent. Kara-Tur is the largest body within the planet Hyleia, consisting mostly of the earth element, and it forms the planet's core (although it is slightly off-centre and does have a slight orbit). The planet is approximately 3,000 miles in diameter Earth, Size C (3,000 mile diameter) Maztica is the second largest moon (just under 3,000 miles in diameter), which orbits the fringes of the Hyleian gas giant. It is home to Qotal, the Plumed Dragon, who is the divine serpent of air. This particular moon is also an air body, although its gaseous make-up is a slightly different density to the planet which is why it is considered a separate entity. The Maztican body is filled with numerous earthen formations that create islands and continents within its body, each of which hosts a number of settlements and various tribes. Orbiting Maztica is a body that is considered its child. Far-Payit, or Maztica-2, is a liveworld that is almost entirely plantlife and contains one giant jungle ecosystem. It grew from within the Maztican body, but is now considered a separate entity in its own right. The rest of the orbital bodies are much smaller, each around 800 miles in diameter. The fire-body Aankh-Agni is home to Boitata the Serpent of Sight. Unusually, this fire body has a breathable atmosphere within and a smaller, earthen body at its centre. This core can be reached by travelling through randomly shifting, appearing and disappearing sunspots. It is incredibly difficult to do so without a suitable craft, or an immunity to the immense heat the body produces. Always appearing in an opposite positional orbit to Aankh-Agni is the watery moon of Zakhara, home to the Clawing Husk Kar'r'rga (the divinity of water). This In a perpendicular orbit to the rest of the "body" moons are the orbital bodies of Samsarai and Kronograf. Like the bodies of fire and water, these two moons are always on opposite sides of their orbital path from each other. Samsarai is an earth body that's around 800 miles in diameter and it is full of unusual crystalline life. The moon has a strong connection to the plane of dreams and its civilizations are built around this. There are three primary civilizations found here - the Inspired, who aim to become one with their dream spirits, becoming beings of pure thought that inhabit crystalline bodies (a Shardmind the people who believe this fusion and co-operation with dream spirits is an abomination; and the Kalashtar, a people who believe they can work together with the dream spirits without one taking over the other. Kronograf, unusually for this set of planets, appears to be entirely uninhabited. It is an immense clockwork contraption that was created and placed here by an unknown entity, and it is believed to serve some kind of purpose - although nobody knows what. The peoples of Hyleia generally believe that if it ever stopped working, a calamity would befall the realms.
Type
Planet
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