Quaddis
Quaddis has been ruled by a hereditary tyranny since its first settlement in the dark age of technology. Before retirement, the ruling Governor will appoint a successor, generally a relative. The Governor has complete power over the Planet, at least in theory.
Over the millennia the Imperial Bureaucracy has slowly burrowed into the planet like a parasite. Today, the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Adeptus Ministorum each own a small continent and have representatives in the Governor’s court in Tara. Representatives have their own rooms in the Governor’s Palace, much to her chagrin, though thankfully in opposite wings.
Adeptus Astra Telepathica is resigned to an office building in the capital city itself. With a few hundred staff, the AAT are constantly on the lookout for new psykers to ship off world. The least powerful of the bureaucracies, the Adeptus Arbites, consists of a single officer, Judge Garret Digrazia, attached to the Planetary Defence Force which doubles as a law enforcement agency.
In order to preserve the planets beauty and appeal to tourists, Quaddis has a traditional two child limit to all native-born families on the planet. Families found in violation of the twochild policy are released into the forests for the visiting nobles to hunt for sport.
To further limit population growth, excessively high immigration fees prevent all but the nobles from entering the planet. In the event of a baby-bust, Quaddis will award special visas via a sector wide lottery to make up the shortfall.
Planetary Economy:
As a Pleasure World, tourism will always be the key to the Quaddis Economy. Wealthy nobles from across the Golgenna Reach have spent unfathomable amounts of treasure to build huge pleasure palaces for themselves and their guests. Behind the walls of these palaces, the Imperial elite are tended to by literally thousands of paid and unpaid servants. The major Ministorum presence on the planet keeps the pleasureseeking from spilling into outright heresy. The largest of the palaces remains Tara Palace, measuring at more than 330,000 square meters or 3.5 million square feet. It has 1,100 rooms and stands 12 stories tall with another 8 underground levels. Home to the Governor and her family, the palace is overseen by 7,000 servants. Besides running a planetwide resort for the wealthy and powerful, Quaddis is known for its exceptional quality alcohol. The northern continent is especially known for its wines which are much sort after across the segmentum. The rarest of bottles, the Quaddis Conti, makes only 6,000 bottles per year and sells for more than 500,000 Thrones each, more than most servants will make in a lifetime.Planetary Defence Force: The Quadis Legionaries
The Legion
The largest of the three services numbering 7,200 full time, professional soldiers under the command of Major General Julianus Lidi. The legionaries are poorly equipped, the service rifle being a bullpup caseless auto-rifle. A peaceful planet, the most action the Legion sees is breaking up drunken brawls in the capital and rescuing nobles when they get lost in the vast forests. The Legion has no Main Battle Tanks, instead relying on a fleet of 80 Chimera IFVs, 27 Taurox APC’s and 15 Tauros ATV’s. For artillery the Legion has 50 basilisk cannons and three Hydra Flak guns for defence against aircraft. The legion has a mediocre reputation with the exception of the Ranger Company under Captain Constantine Homsey. Numbering 150 of the finest legionaries, the Rangers are armed with modern las weapons and specialise in special reconnaissance and direct-action raids. House Leinwald has been known to hire the Rangers out to the Imperial Guard as specialist scouts, earning them valuable combat experience. A platoon of 30 Rangers forms the personal bodyguard of the Governor.Navy Squadron
Numbering 1,100 sailors under command of Captain Waylon Lopata. The maritime force consists of just four patrol boats, the largest of which, the Roisin 3, weighs 2200 tons and is armed with three autocannons.Air Wing
The smallest of the three services with about 700 airmen and women under Wing Commander Beyal Milo. The Air Wing operates 26 propeller driven aircraft of various sizes, from fighters armed with heavy-stubbers and rocket pods to search and rescue helicopters up to large patrol planes and VIP aircraft.Soldiers of Fortune – The Mercenaries of Quaddis
With the sheer number of wealthy nobles on the planet, private security forces outnumber the PDF by three to one. The hired guns operate in small groups from a few dozen to a few hundred in strength, but they belong to two rival guilds.Vanguard
The smaller of the two guilds, Vanguard maintains 12,000 men and women under arms on its roster. Vanguard units are generally ex-PDF and occasionally hired from off world. Vanguard mercenaries are expensive but well worth the price, all come equipped with modern flak armour and las weapons.DefCon
The Defence Contracts Guild hires some 15,000 mercenaries but is notorious for its lower standards. Pretty much any thug or wide-eyed dreamer can find a job working for DefCon though they are expected to provide their own equipment. As a result, DefCon mercenaries are generally armed with autoguns or stubbers and rarely wear body armour. What they lack in quality they compensate for with a low price, costing 20% less than Vanguard mercenaries. They also have a well-earned reputation for viciously overreacting to any security threat.Unique Equipment
The Wines of Quaddis
Although amasec may be the most popular fine spirit across the sector, and many local ales and vintages hold sway where they are made, the most sought-after alcohol is the wine of Quaddis. The garden world of Quaddis is considered by most to be nothing more than a myth, or perhaps a place that once did exist but is now long gone to dust. Regardless, the wines produced by its viniculture are valued above all others and almost preternaturally potent. Many hive nobles and guilders pay huge sums for them and, in some cases, plot, murder and steal to attain them; seeing them both a mark of ultimate opulence and good taste. Three such wines are listed here: the first, the Sorrowful Vintage, is widely regarded as a pale imitation of the real thing (but still highly desirable), the second, the Golden Tokay, is perhaps the most accessible “true” Quaddis wine, while the last, the Kataline Malmsey, is the stuff dreams are made off—hugely valuable and, legend holds, capable of killing an over-indulgent drinker with pure pleasure. Sorrowful Vintage: Cost 250, Rare Golden Tokay: Cost 1,000, Very Rare Kataline Malmsey: Cost 10,000+, Very RareSandstone
This drug is made from a pollen extract from what was thought to be a worthless plant on Cyrus Vulpa. The Pleasuremeisters on Quaddis heard tales chewing the flowers granted odd neurochemical effects, but could never produce any useful extracts. Their failures though lead to Sandstone, the result of distilling the pollen into yellowish granules which are then packed into hard bricks. The grains can then be rubbed into the gums raw or ground into powder for injection. Sandstone induces a state of heightened mental determination, allowing the user to shrug off fearsome opponents, bleeding wounds, hunger, or other now lesser concerns. It also lets them withstand brutal interrogations and even chemicals designed to weaken their resistance. Sandstone lasts 1d5+3 hours, and grants +30 to all Willpower based tests plus another +10 to resist Interrogation attempts. Failure to pass a Difficult (-10) Toughness Test will result in taking 1 Fatigue point after it wears off.Segmentum: Obscurus
Sector: Calixis
Subsector: Golgenna Reach
Population: 4,997,0001
Affiliation: Imperium
Class: Pleasure World
Tithe Grade: Colonial Exemption
Equatorial circumference: 42,000km
Axial tilt: 23°
Length of day: 53 hours
Length of year: 570 Terran days
Satellites: None
Gravity: 1G
Atmosphere: Nitrogen 78%, Oxygen 21%, Argon 1%
Hydrosphere: Average
Mean Temperature: -10°C (Poles) to +30°C (Equator)
Terrain: Large uninterrupted forests, remote islands, ancient columns, plateaus, flat rock
Planetary Politics:
Current Governess: Thresa Leinwand, 45 years old
Capital: Tara (population 544,000)
Maps
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Xicarph
The only city Quaddis sports is called Xicarph—if indeed it can even truly be called a city. Xicarph, situated at Quaddis’ northern artic pole, is a sprawling vision of grandiose palaces, marble plazas, fecund gardens, and echoing amphitheatres— all bathed in a balmy heat contained beneath a sealed dome of brass and armour crystal that keeps the killing cold of the polar ice flats from disturbing the city’s inhabitants. Xicarph is the planet’s legal capitol but has few trappings of government, and even less of industry or production. Instead, it is a setting for all manner of revels and diversions, a sealed and guarded playground and meeting place for the obscenely wealthy and those whose dealings and power stretch across the worlds of the Calixis Sector. Xicarph is a marvel to the eye and a marked contrast to many other Imperial cities, a sprawling riot of white stone, marble, gold and adamantine. A place of open plazas, sumptuous palaces, wide promenades, stately gardens, and clean air, Xicarph’s beauty belies its true nature as a product of intrigue, vanity, and the callous abuse of power. Beneath its heavenly exterior, it is as corrosive and deadly as the worst world the Calixis Sector has to offer. As well as being home to a few thousand functionaries and attendants who can be truly called the city’s natives, its population swells and falls dramatically with the movements to and from residences of the city’s patrons and their entourages and with the movements of travellers, revellers, entertainers and traders. This transient population is fed by the fact that Xicarph also has the world’s lone open starport, and is thus a stopping point for itinerant entertainment troupes and jaded travellers from across the sector seeking Quaddis’ pleasures, if they have the wealth to afford the exorbitant landing fees. Xicarph is both a wondrous construction in itself and a relic of the Calixis Sector’s founding days, and like the rest of Quaddis,it is home to many forgotten things and dark echoes of the past. Running for kilometres beneath the city’s surface, sunk like roots into the rock below, is a maze of passageways, storage chambers, service ducts, geo-thermal reactors and, above all, secrets best left buried. Part of this shadowy labyrinth of steel and darkness carries the legendary name of the “Red Cages,” a network of slaughterhouses, cage complexes, and containment pens in which savage creatures are kept to fuel the blood sport arenas (and worse) in the city above.
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