Bretheda

The largest gas giant in the system, Bretheda is a constantly swirling mass of blue and purple storm clouds. Through these tempests and swarms of lesser life-forms soar the blimplike Barathus, sometimes derogatorily called floaters, or simply Brethedans, given their status as the planet’s most advanced native race. Though their transparent bodies resemble elongated jellyfish or dirigibles and their trilling and diving give the impression they are strange birds or dolphins, barathus are in fact highly intelligent, curious creatures, with an unusually communal approach to survival. When faced with a challenge greater than it can handle on its own, a barathu merges with other barathus to create a temporary, unique collective creature far stronger and smarter than its component beings, only to disband again when the need has passed.
As befits creatures on a planet with few metals, barathu technology is entirely biological. In addition to their capability to reshape themselves and evolve new adaptations in seconds, hardening their bodies or growing extra limbs, barathus’ genealtering abilities also allow them to design and birth living tools using only their bodies, from tailored viruses to semi-intelligent servitor races. Some of the best biotechnology in the system comes from Bretheda, created either in the numerous floating arcology cities staffed by offworlders or within native Brethedan enterprises such as the capricious Sopeth Corporation—a company that’s in fact a single sentient being composed of thousands of merged barathus.
While the peaceful, freewheeling nature of barathu society makes local governance unnecessary, barathus have learned that outsiders require more structure to avoid disaster. Toward this end, Confluence—an entity of immense intelligence formed of any barathus who feel the near-religious call to public service—sets and enforces regulations on offworlders. The entity splits off specially adapted delegates and enforcers as needed, imbuing them with proprietary biotech allowing communication with Confluence in real time, no matter the distance. Any number of corporations would kill to study this technology—and many have done so—but thus far the self-destruction sequences coded into the so-called Confluence Agents, plus fear of reprisal from Bretheda’s governing entity, has kept greedy researchers largely in check.
Bretheda’s nickname, the Cradle, comes from its dozens of moons, some almost large enough to be planets in their own right. While many are inhabited, only some of these are well known, and others have barely been explored.
A water world covered in a shell of ice, Kalo-Mahoi is the most industrialized of Bretheda’s moons, and its residents, the aquatic kalo, have their own independent representatives on the Pact Council. Though air-breathing races often find it disconcerting to descend deep into the moon’s frigid seas, and though the world’s icy crust contains numerous spaceports and liaison centers, the Kalo have taken great pains to make their world inviting, and they dominate the solar system’s art and fashion scenes from their organic vent-cities.
The arid forests of Marata, by contrast, are the subject of much anthropological debate, as its seven-gendered Maraquoi tribes have been making the leap from paleolithic to spacefaring in just a few generations. While some maraquoi traditionalists in their government, aided by activists of other races, argue that the furry humanoids are losing their culture and fundamental right to advance at their own pace, the majority of maraquoi resent the idea of having their access to the Pact Worlds restricted and have begun a mass exodus out into the rest of the solar system.
Less social than these other races are the silicon-based lifeforms of crystalline Dykon, most notably the brilliant mathobsessed Urog. Buffalo-sized creatures of crystal who slide across the surface on cilia and electromagnetic fields, they absorb the sun’s light through their skin-shells. Urogs sometimes take jobs as starship navigators, technomancers, and physicists.
Only the desperate or condemned accept work on Bretheda’s notorious collection of “death moons.” On radioactive Thyst, for instance, unshielded flesh melts from bone in cancerous rivers, yet crews are still needed to harvest minerals, study the unique animal life, or hunt for the magical armor mysteriously discarded by the moon’s rarely glimpsed light-absorbing humanoids. Meanwhile, on the tidally heated hellscape of Varos, elementalist fireworkers harness raw volcanic power while digging for the unique gemstones produced only in the moon’s mantle.

Geography

As a gas giant, Bretheda lacks the typical geography of a terrestrial world. Its predominantly helium-hydrogen atmosphere carries a peculiar blue and purple coloration and is in a constant storm-wracked turmoil. Planet-sized thunderheads surge with some of the most powerful lightning seen in The Pact Worlds, colliding in spectacles of devastation. Where the contrasting jets border one another, wind speeds reach hundreds of miles per hour, further fueled by convection between the atmosphere’s cool outer layers and pressure-heated inner layers. Some storm fronts carry shredding barrages of crystallized ammonia, while others surge with blistering upwellings of superheated gas capable of incinerating the occupants of most starships.
Given the lack of terrain, Bretheda’s closest equivalent to geographic features is distinct weather patterns. The most significant of these is in the southern hemisphere: a trio of massive cyclones, each roughly the size of Castrovel, dating back before The Gap and known as the Eyes of the Ancients. In the planet’s northern hemisphere, the Counter Band is clearly discernible—a stripe of clouds, tinged more purple than blue, rotating counter to the paler jets to either side of it and leaving a wake of cacophonous storms along both edges. The Equatorial Zone is similarly tempestuous, as it is here that the overall clockwise rotation of the northern hemisphere meets the southern hemisphere’s counterclockwise rotation. The poles are some of the most reliably calm points on the planet, and thus they are home to the world’s largest artificial settlements.
The bulk of Bretheda’s inhabitants reside within the less dense upper layers of the atmosphere. Most visitors to the planet are unable to reach the barathu-named Boundary, the point deep below the surface where increasing pressure causes the gaseous clouds to coalesce into a liquid. Beyond even barathus’ reach, without substantial aid, is the deep center of the world: a mass of hyperpressurized and superheated gases forced into a metallic state.
Bretheda has numerous moons—even more than its sibling Liavara—though many are barren rock and bear little mention outside of star charts and scientific archives. Perhaps the most widely known is Kalo-Mahoi, a water world locked beneath a shell of ice, home to the trendsetting kalo in fabulous aquatic cities built over geothermal vents. The largest of the moons is maraquoi-inhabited Marata; followed by the volcanic inferno of Varos; crystalline Dykon, which is host to silicon-based lifeforms; and the radioactive wasteland of Thyst. Many smaller moons share the orbit, including Chamari, Daxus, and YashuIndiri, among many others.

History

The largest planet of the Pact Worlds system is a massive, turbulent gas giant ringed with abundant moons, some of which are themselves larger than other Pact Worlds. The sky-seas of this world constantly churn and roil in bands encircling the world, forming perpetual storms that can be seen from across the system and last for centuries, if not millennia. Despite this tumult, Bretheda and its moons have spawned a stunning number and variety of life-forms, leading to its longstanding moniker, “The Cradle.” The world holds a sizable share of power and influence in the Pact Worlds, between the barathus’ dominance of the biotech industry and their administration of nearby Liavara, the kalo’s leadership in system-wide art and fashion, the incredible intellectual ability of Dykon’s urogs, and the sheer number of sentient species who call Bretheda home.
RESIDENTS The iconic inhabitants of Bretheda are barathus: soaring, translucent beings akin to a hybrid between a blimp and a jellyfish, able to merge with one another into collective entities with strength and intelligence surpassing the sum of the component individuals. Barathus are often simply called Brethedans (when not being disparaged as “floaters”), and they are both the most populous of the planet’s races as well as the most politically powerful, as a massive collective of the creatures forms the governing entity known as Confluence.
Barathus have also collaborated with offworlders to build several artificial settlements within the world’s stormy skies, thus allowing members of other races to inhabit their world. While the citizens of these cities are by no means homogeneous, barathus’ societal structure attracts a surprising number of Kasatha interested in the natives’ collective culture, as well as Lashunta drawn to the cutting-edge biotech research and development taking place here.
The stormy clouds of Bretheda are home to the arthropodan Haan, hunters who fly using innate buoyant gases and balloons woven of silken webbing. These highly traditional people refrain from employing all but the simplest of tools—and thus also avoid interacting with the interplanetary stage, planetary government, and various settlements of barathus and offworlders alike. A few individual haans have abandoned their society to explore the stars, but such wanderers are barred from returning to their communities, thus most haans who choose to leave their culture also depart from the world as a whole.
The planet’s sky-seas also host countless strange creatures native to the clouds. The occasional oma can still be found here, thought to be the original ships with which barathus traveled to Liavara and beyond. Nuru worms levitate throughout the Equatorial Zone, seeking any prey smaller than themselves and swallowing them whole. Along the edges of the Counter Band, vampiric mist storms hide within the natural cyclones, catching unwary haans and other creatures. Only rarely do the Boundary-native sagolath rise to the upper layers, using biologically warmed hydrogen to reach creatures upon which they can unleash their poisonous tentacles. Air elementals of all sizes make a comfortable home in Bretheda’s upper layers, and creatures of pure lightning gravitate toward the incredible electrical bolts discharged from the planet’s massive thunderstorms.
On Kalo-Mahoi, the aquatic kalo are the dominant race, though they share their home with a variety of oceanic life as well as a robust population of water elementals. Marata is home to the rapidly advancing civilization of the maraquoi, a peculiar species of mammalian hominids with a highly specialized reproductive cycle involving seven distinct genders. Of all the crystalline life-forms on Dykon, the silicon-based urogs are by far the most intelligent; indeed, these sturdy creatures are likely one of the most intellectually advanced races in the system, though they focus their efforts almost exclusively on abstract mathematical theory and rarely deign to interact with other races.
The notorious death moons of Bretheda hold populations beyond merely the prison camps for which they are known. Thyst has recently seen an influx of Eoxian immigrants who can withstand the moon’s radioactive emissions. On Varos, fire elementals and the occasional red dragon travel the volcanic landscape while elementalist fireworkers tap into the raw power of the planet’s tidally driven geotectonic activity, and desperate miners seek out rare gemstones found only in the planet’s fiery mantle.
With abundant moons comes abundant terrain, and a staggering number of Free Captains, itinerant spacefarers, outcasts, slavers, and smugglers find the moons of Bretheda ideal places to make a temporary stopovers, plant hidden caches, build shrines to strange gods, conduct illicit exchanges, wait out enemies, or undertake other unsavory practices. Though the barathu government and The Stewards alike seek to police such activity, the reality is simply that there’s no effective way to monitor such a vast expanse with the resources they have.
SOCIETY The peaceful nature of barathus combined with the creatures’ ability to merge both physically and psychologically has largely preempted most reasons for formal government. For much of the world’s history, barathus have refrained from formal social organization beyond whatever merging is required to overcome an immediate challenge at hand. Left to their own devices, most barathus are content to soar the stormy skies of their home, trilling songs and dancing in the wild air currents.
The native haans, for their part, adhere to exclusive, traditionalist social structures. Eschewing interactions with outsiders has largely removed them from the interplanetary political scene. They form tight-knit tribal communities with their own strict rules, and those haans who choose to leave their native tribes to explore the world beyond are cast out entirely, mourned as dead by their family and tribe. Despite the natives’ lack of formal governance, the presence of other races on Bretheda has led to the barathus’ realization that most people need at least some overarching structure, lest they succumb to anarchistic disaster. Thus, those barathus who felt the call to public service merged together to form Confluence, a massive, hyperintelligent collective that provides a stable governing infrastructure for the planet as a whole.
Despite existing almost exclusively to benefit offworlders, Confluence holds a tremendous amount of political power. In addition to its considerable intellectual prowess, the entity has the ability to split off subcreatures known as Confluence Agents, each of which has a yet-unparalleled ability to communicate in real time with Confluence itself. This combination would be staggering enough in the service of one world, but Brethedan delegates on the Pact Council also represent its numerous moons, and given Bretheda’s exclusive administration of the nearby protectorate of Liavara, those delegates represent that planet and most of its moons as well. Fortunately, the barathu government appears disinterested in abusing this tremendous power, though the mere existence of such influence leaves many suspicious.
Confluence’s policies on Bretheda are generally liberal, providing widely accepted social protections while allowing plenty of latitude for academic and economic endeavors, but the government maintains grave punishments for violent crime. As a result, Brethedan offworlder settlements are largely peaceful centers of research, feeding the many biotech corporations that have based their work on the barathus’ ability to generate biological tools and adaptations. Yet this is a field still dominated by barathus merged into massive sentient corporation-entities, such as the wildly successful Sopeth Corporation.
A peculiarity caused by the prevalence of superior biotechnology on Bretheda is something of a prejudice against traditional cybernetic augmentations. While the latter is certainly legal and common enough among offworlders, Brethedans as a whole instead strongly favor biotech and organic implants, tending to view cybernetics and those with such augmentations with a mixture of pity and scorn.
Though Confluence represents the majority of Brethedan and Liavaran moons on the Pact Council, it generally allows those moons with major populations to govern themselves. KaloMahoi and Marata are exceptions, with Kalo-Mahoi being a full member of the Pact and Marata being considered a protectorate. Like all other members, Kalo delegates on the Pact Council vote on matters important to the entire system, favoring measures that provide funding to the arts. The maraquoi society on Marata has (so far) been allowed to develop according to its own direction, but the breakneck pace of their cultural development has led some xenoanthropologists and maraquoi traditionalists to insist on greater protections, despite the majority’s insistence on Marata becoming a full signatory of the Pact.
Moons without significant populations are technically subject to Confluence policies, but for the most part they are still left to manage themselves. The exception to this is the handful of Confluence-managed prison camps on the worlds of Thyst and Varos; these colonies house individuals who perpetuate violent crimes against other Brethedan citizens, as well as those who press too hard against the regulations barring attempts to reverse-engineer the Confluence Agents’ impressive communication abilities.
CONFLICTS AND THREATS The foremost threat to any creature on Bretheda is the planet itself: its helium-hydrogen atmosphere is not breathable for the majority of humanoids, and the lack of solid ground requires most creatures to rely upon vehicles or other artificial means of propulsion. But it is the constantly raging storms that pose the most danger to the planet’s inhabitants, no matter what form those inhabitants take. Barathus are not immune to the titanic lighting bolts arcing between thunderstorms, and even the most deft of haans can easily be caught in a back draft that pulls it into a boiling upheaval of superheated gases from the depths, cooking it in its shell like an oversized crab. Artificial settlements carefully maintain their positions, avoiding the opposing winds at the borders of counter-directional jets that can crush the sturdiest arcology infrastructure, and many employ crack teams of navigators and meteorologists to ensure they remain in the calmest paths possible. Even the colossal collectives of Confluence and the Sopeth Corporation could be torn apart were they to drift into the planet’s larger cyclones; the fury of these storms led to the planet’s ancient admonition: “Always an eye on the winds.”
Barathu society is generally cooperative and avoids direct confrontation; however, other races on Bretheda don’t necessarily hold this attitude. Non-barathu corporations strive to outdo one another and their barathu counterparts, often resulting in the biotech equivalent of arms races, corporate espionage, and a fair share of underhanded dealings. Some organizations risk even Confluence’s severe sanctions against violence to wage more outright corporate warfare, taking the form of assassinations, sabotage, and occasionally even terrorist attacks on the more biotech-focused settlement platforms.
The reality that the barathu entity of Confluence controls the two largest planets in the Pact Worlds system, and by extension dozens of moons, draws criticism and suspicion from other races and worlds. Some of the most vehement protests come not from other worlds concerned with the barathus’ undue influence but from those groups Bretheda represents on the Pact Council: the insectile inhabitants of Nchak, for example, who feel that the living incarnation of the goddess Hylax is ill served to be considered a mere subsidiary. But outside groups also fear the overwhelming power Confluence holds, convinced that no entity with such a degree of influence could avoid corruption and favoritism. Thus, settlements on Bretheda find themselves subject to close scrutiny by outsiders, along with a shocking amount of lobbying, political intrigue, and surveillance.
With Drift travel making the Pact Worlds irrevocably interconnected, different Brethedan social groups are struggling to navigate the rapidly changing sociopolitical landscape in which they have found themselves. More and more often, young barathus intentionally retain their early stage mentality so as to better relate to single-minded offworlders. Haan culture faces an intergenerational conflict as curious members of the species long to explore the new technologies available despite their people’s traditional taboos. Marata’s maraquoi remain deadlocked between their tribal legacy and the opportunities of spacefaring star system, even as some of the species depart to explore the cosmos.

Tourism

The following interesting locales can be found across Bretheda and its many moons.

Bretheda

The notable sites detailed below are found in the swirling clouds of the gas giant itself and within a few miles of its “surface.”
Byssine Run Along the southern edge of the Counter Band is a relatively stable storm front of shearing winds, boiling updrafts venting up from the planet’s denser layers, and a series of polarized storm masses exchanging multiple bolts of lightning per second. Even the calmest winds along this stretch never drop below 300 miles per hour, making it simultaneously rather predictable and deeply treacherous. It isn’t surprising that the most foolhardy young adults of just about every species on the planet share a practice of racing this stretch, known as the Byssine Run. Originally only a dare, the race has become semiformalized as the celebrity Zo!, famous for hosting vicious broadcasted blood sport in the Halls of the Living, has begun offering prizes and filming the competition, thus attracting hundreds of contenders who are almost assuredly to be killed in their attempts to achieve fame and fortune.
Chamari This tiny moon would go unnoticed, and likely uninhabited, except that it bears a series of stone monoliths that, when viewed from orbit, replicate the six stars found in the holy symbol of Ibra the Inscrutable, serving as the foundation for one of the oldest temples to the deity to have yet been discovered in the Pact Worlds and beyond. The temple causes the otherwise barren world to see a shocking amount of tourism, though the temple’s clergy resent the starships’ light pollution, which interferes with the clear skies necessary for accurate astronomical observation. Recent policy has placed a limit on how many vessels can travel to the moon, which orbital paths they can assume, and when they can arrive and depart; this bottleneck has created fierce competition for docking privileges, sometimes resulting in outright firefights between ships looking to reach the moon.
Confluence The governing entity of Bretheda (and by extension, its protectorate Liavara and the moons of both worlds) is a single entity formed from countless merged barathus following the call to public service. It typically maintains a location near Trillidiem to facilitate communication with the Stewards, representatives from the various groups falling under its administration, corporate lobbyists, the Starfinder Society, and an enclave of kasathan Talavites working to learn and document barathu “oral” traditions. Occasionally, however, due to a whim of fancy or some undisclosed business, the entity wanders off, diving deep into the planet’s layers or sailing southward through the stormy skies. Often it leaves one or more Confluence Agents in Trillidiem to carry on its responsibilities in such absences, and the Agents’ proprietary communications technology allows them to communicate in real time with the primary entity, thus minimizing disruptions while maintaining oversight. Some researchers theorize that Confluence Agents are in fact still merged with Confluence via some kind of quantum entanglement, hence the inimitable nature of their highly sought-after communications capacities. Those researchers who have gotten the closest to replicating that technology have succeeded only at tapping into a stream of screams, unintelligible whispers, and endlessly repeating words that remain foreign even under the scrutiny of masterful linguists and interpretive magic.
Daxus This small moon is generally indistinguishable from most of the lifeless rocks orbiting Bretheda, but two features set it apart: its inhabitant and its history. Passing vessels and survey Eyes of the Ancients For ages, three cyclones of epic proportions have churned in a symbiotic maelstrom in the southern hemisphere of Bretheda’s turbulent atmosphere. Mentions of these storms appear in records dating long before the Gap, even among societies with only the most basic of telescopic technology, and the violence of each storm is enough to tear apart even the sturdiest of vessels. Yet satellite imagery shows an apparently calm center cradled between the three, with faint signals suggesting that there might be some kind of settlement or structure nestled within the clouds here. Worshipers of Triune, citing the trifold nature of both their deity and the storms, insist that the structure must be a shrine to their deity, while others point to the inscrutable nature of the signal as fitting for a site holy to Ibra. More skeptical voices dismiss both claims as far less likely than the structure being nothing more than a remnant of a starship caught in the storms and eventually swept to the central area—though for a ship to have survived the crushing power of the Eyes would require an extraordinary quality of construction, likely beyond that currently seen in the Pact Worlds. Regardless of which theory, if any, is correct, no pilots have yet managed to navigate the Eyes or succeed at a direct descent from orbit into the center.
Iratha Incorporated Starting a biotech firm on the world occupied by masters in the industry might seem like a terrible business decision, but Iratha Incorporated founders Iraeon (NG female damaya lashunta operative) and Thalus Enthremian Damru of House Alo (CN male kasatha envoy) have turned the potentially disastrous endeavor into a financial success. Well aware of the system-wide reputation Bretheda holds in the field, the two chose to establish their corporation in Trillidiem as an assertion of their company’s quality. By specializing exclusively in humanoid augmentations, the corporation has been able to carve out a profitable niche for itself, but it has also drawn the attention of drow arms dealers who see a potential opening to infiltrate the competitive biotech industry.
Laoe Araae Barathus have a long history of survival on their inhospitable world thanks to their ability to merge with one another and thus adapt to nearly any situation. In the last few decades, however, a common and once-harmless fungal infestation has begun to appear in a drastically merged, mutated form—one that shares the barathus’ ability to adapt to new circumstances, spreading throughout its host until it can overtake the central nervous system and cause the creature’s demise. This contagion is passed from one barathu to another via merging, and this particularly virulent form has so far proven itself able to survive every adaptation its hosts have employed against it. Infected barathus have taken to quarantining themselves in a distant, isolated hospice community among the storm bands of the southern hemisphere, its name loosely translating to “Lonely Dream.” Here, a small group of caretakers consisting entirely of non-barathus, particularly kasathas, tends to the victims. Meanwhile, a team of barathu and offworld scholars races to find a cure before the infestation reaches epidemic levels. Their research so far suggests that the contagion was intentionally mutated, possibly using barathu genetic material to specifically target the creatures despite their inherent adaptability. More disturbingly, signs point to the creator perhaps being barathu, though why a member of their communal, cooperative culture would undertake such an action remains a mystery.
Nesting Clouds While Bretheda’s native haans eschew technology and stationary settlements, they maintain strong familial and cultural traditions. One of these is centered on their reproductive cycle: while many Brethedan species drop eggs to gestate in the gas giant’s depths, haans instead employ their web and balloon abilities to create communal floating nests for their offspring. As such nests are somewhat vulnerable to predators, haans guard them fiercely and keep their locations a close secret, though the advent of satellite imagery presents a continual threat to that security. In response, some haan leaders have suggested petitioning Confluence to designate certain portions of the world as being protected and ban the use of imaging technology; however, others point out that such an indication would imply the location of the nesting clouds and thus undermine the protection efforts.
Silversail This arcology is a series of sleek, aerodynamic platforms powered by wind turbines that also assist in maintaining its location in the relative calm of the planet’s southern polar region. This arcology serves as home and headquarters to Life Innovations, one of the most successful biotech firms in the Pact Worlds, though unlike some of its Brethedan competitors, Life Innovations maintains robust relations with offworlders, and thus entertains a regular parade of researchers and employees from other races and worlds. The city’s substantial trade has not gone unnoticed among the Pact Worlds players, and the Koridatsu family of the Golden League maintains a steady, subtle influence on those markets it can access. However, erratic implementation of typical Golden League strategies hints at some kind of internal conflict or disruption within the Koridatsu clan—a weakness that would surely draw opportunistic competitor clans’ attention should it become known among the larger Golden League.
Sopeth Corporation While many Brethedan corporations and settlements are constructed to facilitate participation and inhabitation by other races, the macroentity known as the Sopeth Corporation is precisely the opposite: a secretive, xenophobic conglomeration of biotech researchers and developers formed organizationally and physically of thousands of barathus merged into a single entity. With no need or desire to accommodate offworlders, the Sopeth Corporation eschews the calmer portions of the Brethedan atmosphere; the entity instead can most often be found in the storm-wracked teams have noted a reach of ice and snow on the otherwise barren sphere and captured images suggesting the moon is home to some kind of colossal blue worm. The images match a series of descriptions from Lost Golarion depicting some kind of monstrous, legendary creature that resided on that world’s moon, though whether the creature in residence on Daxus is the same thing, a distant relative, or merely similar in appearance is unknown. As for the moon’s history, it begins at the end of the Gap; none of the extensive records of the Golarion System mention this particular moon, implying that it somehow appeared during the Gap.
Ebethruya Predating the artificial arcologies built of polycarbon and transparent aluminum, Ebethruya is an entirely organic settlement grown by the planet’s native barathus long before the Gap. Its biological nature allows barathus to merge directly with the settlement’s infrastructure to maintain and develop it, but it also carries some peculiar limitations, such as the fact that conventional starship thrusters would irrevocably injure the semiliving settlement. As a result, traffic to and from the arcology is limited to suborbital vehicles with specially developed engines and vessels towed by barathus through the stormy clouds surrounding the city. Though most of Ebethruya’s inhabitants are Brethedan natives, the city sees some visitors to its ancient, organically cultivated temple to Oras, one of the few actual temples dedicated to the deity.
Equatorial Zone. While the corporation occasionally deigns to cooperate with representatives of other barathu firms, allowing them to partially merge with the Sopeth entity, anyone who does so with the intent of corporate espionage or undermining the corporation finds itself permanently conjoined, unable to separate. Attempted infiltrators of other species meet with a far less hospitable response and can only hope that they are among the lucky ones shipped to work on one of Bretheda’s death moon prison camps, rather than those forced into service as laboratory subjects for experimental (and usually painful) biotech developments.
Sui Saolus Academy The barathu-led research institution of Sui Saolus maintains an arcology-campus for students, faculty, and staff. The school is the leading institution in the Pact Worlds for academic biotech research, grooming students for careers in the planet’s burgeoning biotech industries. Applicants of all races are considered in the school’s fiercely competitive admissions office, though the administration has been markedly slow in responding to accusations of enrolling merged barathus who separate into distinct entities after acceptance. Within the institution, faculty-led research labs engage in bitter rivalries and race to land the next big biotech development, employing levels of security and secrecy rivaling that of their biotechfirm corporate sponsors. For this reason, the recent upsurge of leaked information from all offices and laboratories has incited all-out riots on campus, undermining academic affairs and research endeavors alike.
Trillidiem The most traditionally metropolitan of the Brethedan arcologies, Trillidiem sees the most immigration, tourism, and travel of any location on the planet. Accordingly, it serves as the planetary headquarters for the Stewards and also supports a relatively large Starfinder Society presence. To maintain relative stillness among the planet’s stormy atmosphere, the arcology maintains a location precisely at the planet’s northern pole, never quite seeing the full light of the distant sun or suffering complete darkness, instead existing in a perpetual violet twilight. Bubbles of transparent aluminum, called Domes, clump together along connective tunnels and passages to form the city’s various commercial, industrial, and residential districts. The fundamentally modular structure allows for virtually unlimited growth, and though Trillidiem is already the largest metropolis on the planet, it continues to expand at a breakneck pace. Oversight from the government-entity Confluence, usually found drifting not far from the arcology and its accompanying spaceport, ensures the city is efficiently run and generally safe, but with enough of a hands-off approach to allow plenty of commerce—legal or otherwise.
In Trillidiem’s spacious Dome 38 lies a longstanding temple to Talavet known as Cloudhearth, a destination for Talavites from Bretheda, nearby Liavara, and beyond. The congregation is as diverse as the inhabitants of the arcology in which it resides, including shirrens, vesk, ysoki, and others, in addition to the more typical kasatha worshipers and native barathus. Though normally a congenial gathering, the temple’s community has been strained in recent weeks following the death of the long-standing head priest, who in her final directives named an android called Epic as the successor to her position. More traditional members of the congregation have balked at this transition, which has been complicated by the fact that Epic hasn’t been seen in Trillidiem since before the priest passed away, and attempts to contact them have all failed.
TRILLIDIEM NG arcology Population 265,000 (62% barathu, 8% lashunta, 7% Human, 4% kasatha, 3% kalo, 2% Android, 1% haan, 1% Ysoki, 12% other) Government autocracy (Confluence) Qualities modular, technologically advanced Maximum Item Level 16th QUALITIES Modular The compartmentalized nature of this settlement’s construction allows for relatively easy and quick additions, renovations, and even physical rearrangement. It can also be used to physically separate parts of the city for quarantine or security purposes.
Varos Station 4 The Brethedan government eschews the death penalty for even the most heinous of crimes, but most of the “beneficiaries” of that philosophy don’t find it comforting, as they carry out seemingly (and sometimes literally) interminable sentences of hard physical labor on the world’s various “death moons.” Station 4 on the tidally heated landscape of Varos is one such camp, populated almost exclusively by imprisoned constructs, including Anacites, androids, and other sentient constructed entities, all working to mine the ultra-rare gemstones produced by the moon’s unique combination of elemental and geological factors. Rumors persist that the majority of the stations laborers are slaves, rather than prisoners, which led to the most recent prisoner uprising garnering a surprising level of system-wide sympathizers demanding an independent investigation into the death moons’ prison camps.
Yashu-Indiri This tiny airless moon long orbited Bretheda as one of many lifeless rocks. Since the end of the Gap, however, an order of mystics has taken up residence here, and in only a few centuries it has almost entirely covered the moon’s surface with hand-built shrines honoring abandoned, dead, and otherwise forgotten deities, demigods, empyreal lords, quasi-deities, and even nontheistic philosophies. A special section honors dozens of divinities who saw particularly widespread worship on Golarion before the Gap, including Cayden Cailean, Shelyn, Torag, and many others. The moon’s monastery holds one of the Pact Worlds’ largest archives of lore about these entities, thus making it of some interest on a system-wide scale, but of particular fascination to the Starfinder Society.

Dykon

The crystalline moon of Dykon boasts the following major sites.
Ekynas The main spaceport on the moon of Dykon is less a settlement than an academic institution, where the mathematic efficiency-minded urogs meet with Contemplatives, lashuntas, and other obsessive intellectuals interested in similarly esoteric abstractions. Technomancers also frequent the locale, particularly those focused on cryptomancy and methods of blocking divination magic. The most prestigious circle of intellectuals has been spending decades in an effort to understand the infinitely complex space between spaces. Their efforts have so far produced a few minor teleportation effects, but each experiment has had unanticipated interactions with The Drift: pulling chunks of planar material imported into the Drift back into the Material Plane, transposing the astrogation coordinates of nearby vessels, and similarly unpredictable effects. More cautious members of the team have urged a closer examination of the anomalies—an attitude that the majority of the group has embraced by insisting upon conducting further experiments, regardless of the outcomes.
Oscillation Field A vast swath of crystalline shards of various shapes and sizes jut from the ground across many acres here, each vibrating with a unique frequency barely perceptible to most senses. A rumor among the local urogs states that if one walks a certain path through the field, the crystals will sync up and produce a transcendental effect that will alter one’s consciousness forever. While most scholars are quick to point out there is no evidence to support this notion, that doesn’t prevent hopeful pilgrims from spending years wandering the field.

Kalo-Mahoi

Kalo-Mahoi has many high-tech underwater settlements.
Grand Inza The largest of Kalo-Mahoi’s graceful, stylish cities is a destination for Pact Worlds fashionistas, featuring exclusive high-end shopping-center megaresorts catering to every whim of anyone with enough credits to foot the bill. Shirrens in particular enjoy visiting these resorts, as the nearly limitless personalized options allow for an unending buffet of choices to be made and savored, all the sweeter in a system where most clothing and accessories are available only in prepackaged sets. While the corporations here are fiscally prudent enough to encourage such behavior, they are cognizant of the potential for this particular subset of their clientele to succumb to a devastating addiction to consumerism, so they offer discrete intervention services for such individuals. The fact that these services often carry a price of their own and are operated by some of the larger corporations is usually—though not always—overlooked.

Marata

The most noteworthy sites on the protected moon of Marata include the following.
Ha Quoia The growing conflict between the maraquoi traditionalists and expansionists has come to a head in Ha Quoia, Marata’s newest city and primary spaceport, and the seat of its new intertribal government. Within Ha Quoia’s polycarbon walls, traditionalist leaders argue for isolation and a return to traditional ways with the Xenowardens’ backing, while more progressive politicians push to open the moon to the financial and societal opportunities that accompany Pact Worlds membership. Efforts to declare the moon a protectorate have been filibustered, but expansionists haven’t been able to block passing strict sanctions that effectively cut off the moon from outside trade. A lack of formal visas hasn’t stopped some maraquoi from leaving the moon in search of adventure and opportunity, and the embargoes haven’t stopped traders from illegally smuggling goods and offworlders onto the moon. Most recently, a fringe group of isolationists has begun calling for the species’ unique sex, zysha, to withhold the psychic influence that enables maraquoi reproduction in an effort to force a return to traditional values. The Pact Council has repeatedly discussed methods to defuse the rapidly escalating tensions but hasn’t yet figured out how to do so without further interfering in the organic progression of maraquoi cultural development.
Ste Xinnith The largest forest found on the moon, this bucolic area has recently been thrust into the spotlight after a team of researchers discovered remarkable healing properties in some of its flora. Pharmaceutical companies across the system are clamoring to have laboratories and other facilities built near the site to further these studies, but the maraquoi traditionalists are protesting any interference by offworld forces. Debate on this topic has stalled in the Pact Council, but proponents on either side continue to attempt to get the public on their side through media campaigns and grassroots protests.

Thyst

Despite its poisonous atmosphere, the following noteworthy site can be found on Thyst.
Pharain On the radioactive moon of Thyst, a small enclave of undead elebrian borais has declared itself independent of Eox’s governmental oversight. The group has petitioned the Pact Council to consider its tiny settlement of Pharain a member of the Pact Worlds or, barring full membership, a protectorate administered by the Pact Council or Stewards. The bone sages of Eox are adamantly opposed to allowing such independence, insisting that the expatriates are in fact fugitives and should be returned to Eox for summary arraignment, though they refuse to articulate what crimes the isolationists have supposedly committed. The Pact Council has opened an investigation into the matter, effectively rendering itself incapable of taking further action for the foreseeable future. Of course, the rest of the Pact Worlds suspects the enclave of being a cell of Corpse Fleet agents and urges the Stewards to take more proactive measures.

Alternative Name(s)

The Cradle

Type

Planet

Inhabiting Species

• Flying Viper Eel