Orikolai

Ring-Shaped Macrolaboratory

Source: Starfinder Core Rulebook

The circumstances necessary to form a ring-shaped world seem beyond the capabilities of nature, yet the toroidshaped planet Orikolai—also referred to as the Crucible—maintains a fairly stable shape that resists collapsing into a rounded mass.
This shape dictates Orikolai’s bizarre surface conditions. Gravity on the planet is irregular, with surface gravity strongest along the interior and exterior equator and weakest along the hub and rim. In this way, the planet’s gravity fluctuates from low to normal. Because it orbits its sun at an angle, Orikolai experiences dramatic seasons, resulting in summers with 10,000 hours of daylight and equally dark winters. The planet remains tectonically active, with hubward plates converging into towering mountains capped in sun-shielded glaciers and rim-bound plates diverging dramatically into volcanically active expanses.
Orikolai’s flora and fauna have evolved to endure these conditions. Some, such as the herds of hashukayaks and highflying hub geese, live in a yearlong cycle of migration, crossing the planet to follow sunlight and food. Others hibernate to combat the long winters. Yet others demonstrate seasonal plasticity, even evolving bladderlike organs that allow them to adjust to a range of surface gravities.
Popular etiology holds that scientists of a long-removed age built Orikolai as a laboratory before departing millennia ago, even seeding the surface with life that has since adapted to their world’s dynamic climate. Outside races have attempted to colonize Orikolai with little success. Xenoarchaeologists nonetheless delight in exploring the world, for in secluded regions, ruins from the planet’s creator race remain. Most intriguing is the moonlike body within the circular void of the planet’s ring. Explorers suspect that this moon might have once served as a control center for the entire planet.
The time left to study Orikolai draws to a close, however, as the artificial stabilization processes that prevent the torus from collapsing have experienced gradual decay. Scientists predict that in a matter of centuries, the world will collapse inward on itself, making it a race against time to learn who the creators were, where they went, what they learned from their experimentations, and why they disappeared without a trace.

Type

Terrestrial Planet (Torboid-shaped)

Diameter

x2

Mass

x1-1/2

Gravity

Special

Atmosphere

Normal

Year Length (OST)

5 years

Day Length (OST)

2½ hours