Eox

Long before The Gap or the advent of spaceflight, the inhabitants of other planets in The Pact Worlds tracked the retrograde orbit of Eox across their skies and felt dread—a fear that would turn out to be prophetic.
Once, long ago, Eox was a lush world with a dominant species, called Elebrian, who were very similar to Human. These original inhabitants proved gifted in both the magical and technological arts and became so hubristic in their power that they sought to destroy neighboring planets that refused to acknowledge their supremacy. According to popular legend, their first attempt—an attack on the worlds called the Twins—succeeded, shattering them into what is now known as the Diaspora. Yet the backlash from the weapon they fired blew a hole in Eox’s crust and set the entire atmosphere aflame, destroying the planet’s ecosystem and ravaging its cities in a fiery massacre. Only a few thousand individuals survived in magical bunkers and sealed environments deep belowground. With a tiny population of survivors and widespread infertility due to the intense radiation, rebuilding their society through ordinary means seemed impossible. Thus, Eox’s most powerful spellcasters turned to necromancy, seeing in undeath a chance to continue their dominion over a world inimical to ordinary life. These were the first bone sages, and some of them continue to rule to this day.
Modern Eox remains inhospitable to most living creatures, its atmosphere poisonous and thin, with areas of rampant radiation and runaway magic both common and generally unmarked. A few native plants cling to existence in the planet’s wilds, thriving on radiation or heat and chemicals from the wounded planet’s volcanism. Some bizarre yet natural creatures roam the blasted landscape, such as soul-drinking ellicoths, transparent glass serpents, or the semi-intelligent grub swarms that roil in the steaming sulfur springs. Yet, by far the majority of creatures encountered on Eox are undead. While the bone sages maintain an iron grip on the planet’s functioning cities and their own individual strongholds, most consider the terrain between them to be most useful as defensive zones, and hordes of hungry undead, ranging from ghoulish humanoids to skeletal beasts, are common in the trackless wastes. More-intelligent undead—Eox’s ordinary citizenry—can be found in the planet’s few modern cities, the largest of which stand at crossroads between lands claimed by various bone sages.
Politically, Eox is divided into individual fiefdoms, each of which has a bone sage—a title granted to only the most politically and magically powerful elebrians—ruling absolutely over potentially thousands of vassals, both intelligent and monstrous. While they constantly bicker and battle among themselves, the bone sages as a whole present a powerful unified front to the rest of the Pact Worlds, one that, contrary to popular rumor, is not so much evil as coldly amoral and utilitarian. For example, after generations of predation on other worlds, Eox was one of the first planets to support the creation of the Pact, despite the fact that it cost the planet much of its military might. (While this change in policy caused a significant portion of Eox’s military to go rogue, creating the officially disowned Corpse Fleet, many other worlds suspect that Eox maintains secret ties with this predatory legion.) Today, Eox’s primary source of protection is the ancient battle satellite known as the Sentinel, an orbital defense platform capable of destroying any warship near the planet’s orbit.
Visiting Eox is rarely comfortable for the living, but the planet still sees its fair share of travelers. Some come seeking necrografts, undead prosthetics that are often cheaper than cybernetics. Others are petitioners wishing to become undead to extend their existence—trading centuries of indentured service for timeless undead bodies—or body merchants, who help the bone sages repopulate their planet by importing corpses suitable for reanimation. Still others are the usual bevy of corporate consultants, engineers, financiers, scholars of magic, and other interplanetary professionals. A small number of glory seekers look to enter the deadly games in the Halls of the Living, a subterranean city designed specifically for living inhabitants, where cruel reality shows and competitions are arranged as entertainment and broadcast through the Pact Worlds.

Geography

What was once a verdant planet with an ecosystem capable of sustaining life is now nothing more than a charred husk with a thin, poisonous atmosphere awash with radiation. With no remaining seas and little of the planet’s history surviving to the modern era, the massive mesa of Remembrance Rock serves as a planetary monument of all that Eox has lost.
The Atraskien Shelf is the remnant of what used to be the continent of Atraskia, the largest landmass on Eox, before the world faced its cataclysm. The area remains somewhat raised above the basins and hollows that were once seabeds, though the massive upheavals that created the Facinora Basin also altered the relative altitudes of many areas, leveled mountain ranges, boiled bedrock, and altered much of the landscape. The atmosphere of the Atraskien Shelf is somewhat less toxic than the rest of Eox, but it has many more radioactive zones.
Deminas Hollow is a lowland area formed by the basin of what was once the Deminas Ocean, before the seas of Eox boiled away. The hollow is the largest of the lowlands, stretching across the equator of the planet. Many areas of the Deminas Hollow are unclaimed by any bone sage, and home to both wandering bands of starving undead and small herds of the mighty ellicoths that are among the only fauna to survive Eox’s devastation. Those settlements within the hollow generally have stronger, taller walls for defense, and the notable wild areas are considered unsafe even by native undead.
Another artifact of Eox’s disaster is a continent-sized crater, hundreds of miles deep and thousands across, known as the Facinora Basin, though the origin of that name was lost to history well before the Gap. The basin cuts close to the core of Eox, so the planet’s central heat and radioactive materials make the basin churn with lava and toxic gases even millennia after it formed. The region is extremely dangerous even by Eoxian standards, and most residents give it a wide berth. The basin is demarcated by a ring of mountains called the Fringe, which are home to a handful of twisted creatures that love heat but aren’t completely immune to fire.
The southern cap of Eox is a vast, broken plain with few undead settlements. Though ellicoths are rare here, many varieties of the strange plants that cling to life on Eox can be found in this area. The original name of the region is unknown, as is its nature prior to Eox’s fall, but the gray, blasted rock and colorless scrubs common here give the territory its modern name: Gray Hollow.
The vast, flat, northern reaches of Eox are known as Lacustria Hollow, the basin of what was once the arctic Lacustria Sea. Though no major settlements exist here, the area is littered with the wrecked remains of airships, diving spheres, sailing vessels, submarines, and underwater cities from the time when it was a thriving ocean beneath an eternal ice pack. What appear to be centuries of experimental ships, shattered strongholds, submerged ports, and wrecks suggest that before the planet was devastated, the Lacustria Sea was extremely active and saw trade, naval battles, eldritch wars, and even attempts to settle the seafloor. Though bone sages and Starfinders have been exploring these wrecks and runes for centuries, many are buried under hundreds of feet of dust, silt or even molten rocks, and new sites are constantly discovered after chemical sinkholes, earthquakes, or toxic storms. The Eternal Convocation approves more offworld expeditions to the Lacustria Basin than any other part of the planet, though most find nothing but rust and scraps of ancient textiles. As a result of this activity, the protected zone of the Lifeline was built at the southern edge of the hollow.
The few cities on the world—strange settlements known tombs, high-tech mausoleums, and lifeless offices and factories. Some have accommodations for living visitors, specifically the city of Orphys and the trade zones of the Lifeline, but while they are generally considered the safest areas of the planet, no part of Eox is truly safe.

History

Eox is among the most mysterious of the Pact Worlds, and it is likely the member planet most feared by citizens of the rest of the system. It is a dead world, killed long before the Gap in what is believed to have been fallout from an interplanetary war fought when most of the Pact Worlds’ idea of advanced technology was limited to metallurgy and printing presses. Most of Eox’s inhabitants are undead, with the most powerful—the bone sages—serving as regional lords with near-absolute local authority. These centuries-old masters of magic and technology brook no interference with their plans, but they carefully keep their experiments and long-term schemes within the bounds of what the Absalom Pact permits member worlds to perform in their own territories… or at least, no outsiders have successfully proven otherwise.
RESIDENTS Some of Eox’s original living inhabitants, the elebrians, survived the cataclysm that destroyed the planet’s ecosystem in sealed underground bunkers, but the extent of the devastation made it clear that their old way of life could not be easily restored. Elebrian leaders conferred and decided to turn themselves and much of their population into undead beings, enabling them to survive on the surface. These spellcasters were the first bone sages, and many continue to rule the planet.
However, a small population of living elebrians still exists to this day. They are often considered second-class citizens, relegated to settlements with breathable artificial atmospheres and radiation shielding. Though still relatively small, the largest contingent of living elebrians can be found in the Halls of the Living, an underground city that acts as a backdrop for various cruel shows broadcast for the rest of the planet’s amusement.
The undead far outnumber the living on Eox and range from cannibalistic ghouls to charming vampires and from skeletal bone troopers to spellcasting necrovites. Except for the bone sages, who are almost all necrovites, social standing isn’t dependent on the type of undead a citizen is, though usually only the more powerful undead have the intelligence and drive to own their own businesses or climb the social ladder.
SOCIETY Politically, Eox is divided into individual fiefdoms. In each fiefdom, a bone sage—a title granted to only the most politically and magically powerful Eoxians—rules absolutely over potentially thousands of vassals, both intelligent and monstrous. While the bone sages constantly bicker and battle among themselves, they present a powerful unified front to the rest of the Pact Worlds, one that, contrary to popular rumor, is not so much evil as coldly amoral and utilitarian.
The Eternal Convocation, a group of bone sages who set aside personal differences to come together and make decisions regarding Eox’s dealings with the rest of the system, maintains this unified front. From the jointly controlled necropolis of Orphys, the Convocation assigns Eoxian ambassadors to other Pact Worlds, appoints representatives to the Pact Council on Absalom Station, and establishes planetwide laws regarding when visitors from other worlds are allowed on Eox and how they are to be treated. Though the bone sages of the Eternal Convocation are not always among the most powerful of bone sages, their centuries-long unity in enforcing Eox’s Absalom Pact commitments has proven they have the numbers and political acumen that make them, collectively, more than a match for individual bone sages who might oppose them.
In matters beyond those of dealing with the Pact Worlds and citizens from other planets, however, the Eternal Convocation is no more unified than any other collection of oligarchs, but conflicts between bone sages are rarely solved with direct combat. As timeless beings beyond the need for sleep or fear of age, bone sages know that such feuds are among the riskiest activities they can possibly engage in. Instead, when two bone sages disagree, they are likely to apply pressure to one another, trying to create problems that take an opponent’s time and money to fix, until it becomes clear that acquiescing to a rival’s demands is less burdensome than a lifeless cold war. When issues must be settled more quickly, proxy wars are often established, with third parties (never the Eternal Convocation, but sometimes the Conclave of Whispers) agreeing to enforce the result should one of the two undead rulers opt to renege after a loss. These proxy wars are frequently arranged as specific blood sports within the Halls of the Living, not only ensuring a large audience to guard against cheating, but also generating revenue to help offset the expense of the conflict. Only if a bone sage is pushed too far does the idea of eldritch vengeance become appealing. As long as private disputes do not spill into others’ realms or violate Pact World rules, they are generally allowed to continue without interference until one side is destroyed. Of course, if either side is weakened too much, another coldly calculating bone sage may join the fray to expand her own holdings.
This laissez-faire attitude is generally carried down through the ranks of lesser oligarchs, important agents and servants, and the undead rank-and-file citizens. In most necropolises, the laws are simple and designed primarily to ensure the ruling class is not bothered or threatened. For example, while it is generally forbidden to attack other undead, this is a pragmatic measure designed to ensure enough workers and guards exist to protect the rulers of each settlement. Minor violations are likely to be overlooked as long as they do not create significant problems.
The undead citizens of Eox know that they will not age, weaken, or lose their lifeless vitality. There is no concept of retirement, nor any real need for it. A ghoul tasked with guarding a wall knows that in 3 centuries, both the wall and the need to guard it will likely continue to exist and the ghoul will remain capable of filling that need. Further, Eox’s undead population tends to be stable, with no births, no deaths from natural causes, and enough new bodies coming in for trade or sale to ensure a slow trickle of undead to replace those lost to accidents or violence. Low-ranking undead’s lives of endless menial labor are undertaken not out of a sense of duty, but for a need to gain both credits and whatever is needed to sate their hunger. If a common Eoxian fears anything, it is having some supernatural hunger go unsatisfied, driving the undead to increasing desperation and eventual madness—the unclaimed wastes of Eox are filled with packs of roving undead driven by a desire to feed on living prey that no longer exists. For the most part, bone sages consider such packs to be useful as early defenses of their walled strongholds and a good way to ensure enemies of Eox do not establish secret bases on the planet.
Beyond the largest and most powerful cities of the undead, thousands of smaller settlements and strongholds are scattered across the nearly lifeless world, each controlled by its own undead overlord. Many are younger or weaker bone sages, either incapable of or uninterested in ruling larger areas, but collectively as the Necropoleis—are sprawling mixes of ancient some are lesser undead of other types seeking to control as vast an area as their own abilities (and tolerance of the major bone sages) will allow. These settlements are significantly less stable than the Necropoleis, but their rules are also often less aloof, and more in need of assistance in the form of trade, mercenaries, or agents to handle issues beyond Eox.
CONFLICTS AND THREATS More than once in recent centuries, champions of light and virtue have suggested that Eox and its undead populace represent a clear and present danger to all life within the system. After all, many undead feed on the living, and Eox is one of the few worlds known to have launched planetary assaults against its neighbors, even if such actions were in the ancient past. The idea of accepting a world of undead tyrants as allies does not sit well with many citizens of the various Pact Worlds.
But as the bone sages are fond of reminding other planetary governments, Eox was the very first world to sign the Absalom Pact, and though many Pact World citizens are suspicious of the long-term plans of the denizens of Eox, there is no doubt that their power was instrumental in defending the system during conflicts with The Veskarium and later against the first attacks of The Swarm. The bone sages and their animated corpse minions are distasteful to many within the Pact Worlds, but Eox’s leaders are very careful to maintain diplomatic ties through the system. As feared and mistrusted as the bone sages are, their political machinations have so far prevented the authorities of other worlds from breaking the Absalom Pact’s terms in order to attack them.
Of course, not everyone in the Pact Worlds avoids dealing with the undead of Eox. Numerous groups work with citizens of Eox to seek out and oppose the Corpse Fleet, the undead space armada created by defecting soldiers when the bone sages signed the Absalom Pact. Mercenaries and merchants alike appreciate the opportunities brought about by the cadaver markets where bodies are bought and sold, the trade in necrograft augmentations and dread technologies shunned on other worlds, and the academies that draw in engineers and spellcasters with their vast stores of knowledge.
In the unpopulated stony wastes outside of the necropolises, strange, non-sentient creatures wander and hunt, thanks to centuries of radiation and sources of other magical pollution. Some of these beasts have adapted to feast on the necromantic energy that sustains the massive undead population, but this makes them no less dangerous to living beings. Chief among the natural threats of Eox are the elephantine ellicoths, whose touch can drain the souls of both the living and the undead.

Tourism

Despite its generally blasted landscape, Eox is home to a great number of thriving and bustling settlements, as well as other points of interest.
Arran Rifts The Greater and Lesser Arran Rifts, both hundreds of miles long and thousands of feet deep, are among the two most dangerous regions on Eox. They are named after island chains or subcontinents that existed before Eox’s ancient cataclysm—records are unclear which—in approximately the same location. What caused these areas to crack and form immense canyons that stretch down nearly to the original mantle of Eox is unknown, but the strange metals and bizarre fossils found on the few expeditions to go to these zones and return lead some Eoxian scholars to theorize there was once a vast cavern system here, with its own ecologies and native life separate from what existed on the surface of Eox at the time. The areas are rich with a few rare skymetals, radioactive metals, and even some ancient Eoxian artifacts, but are also home to many angry incorporeal undead. The rifts’ sulfur springs are among the most active on the planet, and numerous forms of grub swarms swell within their pools and near their gas vents. Rumors claim bizarre, enormous living monsters also dwell within the rifts, as the ellicoths do the plains, though this is generally considered just legend.
Blackmoon The cataclysm that killed Eox also created the Thousand Moons, a ring of asteroids around the planet that forms a never-ending arc of glittering lights visible from the surface. In the years before the Gap, sarcesians scheming to destroy the bone sages prepared a complex web of magic energies to allow the moons to be dropped on every major necropolis and outpost across the planet. For whatever reason, that planet-killing trap was never triggered—until a few years after the Gap. In the year 7 ag, the bone sages launched the Magefire Assault in an effort to take control of Absalom Station. No nation was coordinated enough to mount an effective defense, but some party or parties unknown managed to trigger the ancient Thousand Moons trap. The bone sages abandoned their attack on Absalom Station to flee back to Eox to prevent the devastation, but they were only partially successful. While most of the Thousand Moons were kept in orbit, one of the largest orbiting chunks fell (though at a much reduced speed) and crushed the mighty necropolis of Murthal, destroying everything within 1,000 miles of it. The massive chunk of rock that remained was named Blackmoon, and it is now one of the tallest mountains in the Pact Worlds.
Blackmoon is a nearly hemispheric orb of rock riddled with caves and tunnels that date back to precataclysm Eox. Beneath the stone, some small sections of Murthal survive, cut off from the outside world. More than one necrovite has sought to build a new necropolis on Blackmoon in the centuries since it fell, but all have met untimely ends from ancient traps and curses. Rumors suggest there are sarcesian renegades within Blackmoon even now, keeping a watchful eye on the bone sages and preparing for the day the undead betray the Absalom Pact.
Catacomb Mountains It is well documented that the Catacomb Mountains did not exist prior to the Gap. The lands where these imposing and angular slabs of basalt and black quartz now rise up were once a barren plain of radioactive lowlands and poisonous clouds. No record exists of why or how they were constructed—but they are certainly not natural. The Catacomb Mountains are a manufactured range of rock and strange ores honeycombed with hundreds of thousands of tombs, most sealed with advanced security systems and magic glyphs. Early expeditions into the outermost tombs revealed them to be filled with the remains of destroyed undead, often sealed in computerized sarcophagi designed to douse the corpses with acid or flame at any sign of movement. Other tombs were empty, with Eoxian runes warning that “necrovores have escaped” and similar vague messages. A joint agreement made by the most powerful bone sages forbids any further exploration into the Catacomb Mountains, but it is strongly suspected that numerous secret expeditions to the site are undertaken every year.
Church of Silence Located on a highland area that was once an island just off the continent of Atraskia, the Church of Silence is considered part of the Atraskien Shelf, despite being just beyond the long-gone coastline. The Church of Silence is an ancient monument to the perfection of undeath that has existed as neutral ground among the bone sages for eons as the closest thing to a sacred place the undead of Eox have. It is overseen by the Conclave of Whispers, a respected collection of the oldest bone sages, who claim to have given up secular matters in favor of pure research into undeath and eternal existence. The Conclave of Whispers specifically does not include any members of the Eternal Convocation, ensuring that the two groups each work to their own ends, rather than conspiring together. Within the Wordless Halls, the oldest parts of the Church of Silence, the conclave seeks to understand secrets nearly lost to time and to gather all lore on death and undeath available from anywhere in the galaxy. While the Wordless Halls are off limits to most living creatures, the bone sages grant open access to any androids, undead, and self-willed robots who wish to peruse the ancient libraries within, as long as they swear to obey the rules of the halls. The outer sections of the Church of Silence have much less lore and material within them, but the bone sages allow living necromancers to petition for access to research specific topics, especially if the practitioners bring some previously unknown bit of undead lore with them to barter for access.
Eternal Barrows When Eox joined the Pact Worlds, not all bone sages agreed with the decision. Though the Eternal Convocation and Conclave of Whispers both supported the idea, many bone sages felt it placed them in a position of weakness and was an unacceptable limitation on their self-rule. The details of the brief, vicious conflict that followed have been kept from the living, but it is known that multitudes of undead on the losing side were imprisoned in the massive field of penal tombs known as the Eternal Barrows. The most powerful undead prisoners, including ghosts, necrovites, nightshades, and vampires, were placed in stasis tombs so they would not experience the passage of time. The bone sages surrounded upstart undead masters with vast vaults; each of these vaults contained lesser undead creatures that did not answer to the undead master contained within, thus avoiding the possibility of collusion.
The ruling bone sages of Eox ensure that the deepest of the Eternal Barrows are untouched, and they seem unconcerned with how many centuries might pass before the undead who opposed them could be released. Many admit that destroying their political opponents would not be worth losing the vast knowledge those undead contain, and some even hint that the most powerful of those imprisoned are simply beyond destruction by any force. But with no fear of the ravages of time, the rulers of Eox are content to allow their foes to be locked away until the situation changes, maybe centuries or eons from now.
Exantius One of the newest of the Necropoleis, Exantius was founded and constructed by undead from other worlds only 50 years ago. The Eternal Convocation reluctantly gave permission to Tzurrtk (N host Shirren corpsefolk mystic) to create this settlement as a show of good faith to the rest of the Pact Worlds, but has yet to grant them a seat on their council. Exantius is a burgeoning city, as nonelebrian undead flock to the area after facing discrimination elsewhere. The bone sages are wary that this will eventually result in a shift in the planet’s balance of power; while such an event would realistically take centuries to occur, the bone sages are known for the long-term thinking.
For their part, Tzurrtk has no malicious intent, and they are very open about their motivations. After an extrasolar expedition left the shirrens with a fatal disease, Tzurrtk opened themself up to the universe and was rewarded with eternal life after death. Shunned by their family, they took to the spaceways to find a new home. Tzurrtk felt Eox was an obvious destination, but they found the culture of the native undead elebrians not to their liking. Rather than continue their search, Tzurrtk decided to make a place on Eox that would also welcome people like them.
Fading Run A shallow chasm in Gray Hollow, the Fading Run is home to those bloodsports and reality events that are too large or too elaborate to fit within the Halls of the Living. Demolition derbies and protracted obstacle courses make up the majority of the competitions that take place here, with competitors brought in from the Halls of the Living and offworld gladiatorial companies. While only a few of these contests are fought to the death, accidents and sabotage occur regularly, resulting in a staggering number of fatalities per year. A couple safety advocacy groups call for an end to these events, but the Eox’s government is always quick to point out that participation is voluntary and that contestants know the risks.
Grim Reach Far into Lacustria Hollow stands a ghostly town of translucent buildings of ancient design. Phantoms of elebrians walk through the streets, ignoring any being who approaches them and continuing routines that observers have noted repeats from week to week. While the Grim Reach appears to be the echo of an elebrian city that existed before the planet’s cataclysm killed most of Eox’s inhabitants, all pre-Gap records indicate that this location would have been at the bottom of a deep sea. The diaphanous buildings seem to be built for normal atmosphere, making this literal ghost town an true enigma.
This supernatural phenomenon isn’t well understood, even by Eoxian occult scholars. A few fringe researchers have recently put forth the theory that the Grim Reach is a vision of Eox’s not of past but of its future. At some point, living elebrians will thrive once again and the planet’s atmosphere will be breathable once again. These academics explain the settlement’s architecture as being a throwback to ancient elebrian heritage and scrutinize every detail about the phantom people to get any indication of whether their theory is correct.
Halls of the Living The Halls of the Living are an aberration on Eox—a subterranean city designed and maintained purely for the benefit of its living inhabitants. However, it is not a city where most people would choose to live, as it is maintained only as a backdrop for the cruel games and invasive reality shows that are the primary entertainment on Eox and are broadcast throughout the Pact Worlds. Many of the transmissions are outlawed on other planets, but little can be done to prevent them from being sent, and even the most depraved recordings can easily be found in archives of illicit sections of the infospheres of most Pact World cities.
Though numerous groups protest the existence of the Halls of the Living, as an entirely local issue, they are not a violation of the Absalom Pact. Further, every citizen is—at least officially—a willing participant. Children born within the Halls of the Living are removed to state-funded quarters in Urabron and not allowed to return until they reach the age of maturity. Anyone else is free to go at any time and receives a complementary one-way ticket to Absalom Station... and little else. Despite this, the potential fame and fortune that participants can earn in just a few years of games and programs have fostered a long waiting list of citizens petitioning to join the halls. Those citizens who manage to build a fan base of viewers and patrons can often skip the deadlier shows and instead participate in live feeds of their day-to-day activities or skill-based entertainment contests. The vast majority of participants are humans and Vesk (who seem to relish the challenges), but a noteworthy number of Dwarves, Forlorn Elves, Lashunta, and Ysoki also participate. Undead are forbidden (though undead camera crews, guards, showrunners, and administrators operate within the city for specific broadcasts) and Android and Kasatha are very rare. A small number of living elebrians—the dominant race of Eox before the disaster that killed the world—also participate and have done so for centuries. However, it is whispered that none of the elebrians who dwell in the Halls of the Living are true surviving members of that race and that all those who claim to be either are undead in disguise or are surgically altered humans.
The most well known promoter of events within the Halls of the Living is Zo! (NE male elebrian necrovite), a flamboyant host whose antics draw in as much of an audience as the games and blood sports he introduces. Zo! occasionally travels to the less reputable areas of the Pact Worlds and Near Space to personally recruit new contestants or to host special transmissions. The charismatic necrovite presents a different face of undead than most people are familiar with, which is perhaps the main reason behind his phenomenal ratings.
Karus Karus was originally constructed around and on top of the Halls of the Living, and for centuries it existed purely as a place for the undead of Eox to gather to view the events the denizens of the halls were forced through for entertainment. Because it was one of the few places bone sages peacefully gathered, over the centuries it also became the council center for the undead rulers of Eox—a place where they could meet in neutral territory to form councils and make treaties. As a result, it came to be the center from which the Sleepless Watch was formed to oversee control of the Sentinel—a moon-sized defense platform that was ancient even before the cataclysm struck Eox centuries prior to the Gap. The settlement expanded well beyond the Halls of the Living, in time growing to be an entirely separate complex.
When Eox signed the Absalom Pact, one of the most powerful dissenting bone sages was the Festrog Queen, who felt that agreeing to sign a treaty with living creatures was an affront to her undead perfection. Rather than confront her and attempt to banish her to the Eternal Barrows, the newly formed Eternal Convocation offered to salve her dignity by granting her control of Karus, and thus the greatest say in the control of the Sentinel. Whether the Festrog Queen saw opposition to the Convocation as doomed to failure or if she was truly mollified, she accepted the tribute and has ruled Karus for over 250 years. Both because of her true dislike of them and as a security measure, the Festrog Queen has outlawed the living within Karus, restricting them to the nearby Halls of the Living.
The Lifeline The Lifeline is a literal line demarcating the safe zone containing the Necroforge, Pact Port, and Urabron. A massive wall—more than 200 feet tall, 50 feet thick, and topped with spiked ridges and defensive plasma turrets—denotes the location of the Lifeline, but that is only the physical part of this barrier. A magic shield created by dozens of bone sages working in concert exists in the same location, independent of the wall. It prevents the radiation clouds, wild zones of magic, and fields of necromantic energy that roam across the rest of the planet’s surface from entering the safe zone. Skeletal guards and ghoul overseers who answer to the Eternal Convocation monitor the wall constantly; they keep out the numerous undead (and few living) threats that run wild in the lawless places of Eox. The atmosphere within the safe zone is still thin and poisonous, but the Lifeline keeps many of the dangers of Eox at bay, allowing visitors to move more freely and safely between the region’s three settlements.
Necroforge The Necroforge is less a city than it is an extensive industrial complex dedicated to the creation and study of undead, necrografts, and necromantic magic. Along with Orphys, it is one of the primary destinations for living beings who wish to augment themselves with necromantic implants and for necromancers who seek to become undead (often at the price of a century of unliving service once their transformation is complete), as well as for body merchants who bring corpses to Eox to be turned into new undead citizens or elements of necrografts and other experiments. Though very few living creatures permanently dwell in the Necroforge, it has extensive facilities to house and entertain its clients, guests, trade partners, and visitors. The Necroforge is ruled by the Painted Lady (NE female elebrian necrovite), a bone sage who maintains a nearly living appearance and has adorned her entire body with tattoos depicting dozens of living creatures becoming various forms of undead.
Orphys Orphys is the largest and most prosperous of Eox’s few cities, and is home to the Eternal Convocation, the council of bone sages who assign Eoxian ambassadors to other Pact Worlds and appoint representatives to the Pact Council on Absalom Station. The Eternal Convocation also rules Orphys directly, making it the only major necropolis not controlled by a single bone sage.
All of Orphys is enclosed within a bubble of breathable atmosphere, making it one of the most common destinations for living visitors outside of the Lifeline. Given that Orphys is as close to a planetary capital as Eox offers, most citizens of the Pact Worlds believe the necrovites who rule the city maintain the atmosphere to encourage living tourism and make it easier for Pact World officials to interface with their Eoxian counterparts. In truth, the Eternal Convocation doesn’t much care how the atmosphere impacts the daily lives of living visitors. The atmosphere domes were established centuries ago as part of an experiment into how various conditions impact the long-term stability and potential decay of undead bodies, and that experiment has continued uninterrupted for hundreds of years.
Unlike the cities within the Lifeline, Orphys does little to accommodate living residents beyond providing a suitable atmosphere for them to breathe. Food vendors are rare and almost exclusively deal in preserved foods with shelf lives measured in years. Even so, it is far easier to maintain livable conditions here than in nearly any other necropolis, and Orphys has built a number of businesses around the opportunities living creatures present. Like the Necroforge, it is a major hub in the necrograft trade and contains administrative and business centers that allow Pact World companies and organizations to interact with the Eternal Convocation.
ORPHYS NE necropolis Population 1,450,000 (88% undead, 7% android, 5% other) Government oligarchy (Eternal Convocation) Qualities academic, polluted, technologically advanced Maximum Item Level 20th
Oubliette A few unfortunate souls are completely broken, body and mind, by the transformation into undeath. Instead of being immediately terminated, many of these poor folk are brought to the Oubliette, an underground hospital of sorts. Director Ulla Vhasgos (LE female elebrian necrovite) and her small team of talented physicians and psychologists keep close watch over their charges and attempt to rehabilitate them. The facility maintains powerful magical security systems to prevent the escape of its more dangerous patients, but every so often, Oubliette goes dark, neither accepting or broadcasting transmissions. These periods can last days or even weeks, and when Oubliette again makes contact with the outside world, it is usually Director Vhasgos looking to fill a vacancy on her staff.
Pact Port Pact Port is the only city on Eox that is not part of the Necropoleis. Instead, it is a standard city designed primarily as a landing place for Pact Worlds trade ships and for the warehousing of Eoxian goods for export. Pact Port is a small domed city of 100,000 denizens, more than half living, and is administered by Sadrat Phain (NE male elebrian ghoul envoy) in the name of the Conclave of Whispers. Within the dome, ventilation systems maintain air designed to support as many forms of life native to the Pact Worlds as possible. Sadrat is permissive about most issues, upholding only those laws required by the Absalom Pact, with the sole exception of strictly forbidding any relic of ancient Eox to be removed from the world without the approval of the Convocation.
Every year, dozens of travelers come through Pact Port to purchase necrografts and have them installed. Before making the trip to Orphys or the Necroforge, they are directed to a small neighborhood in Pact Port called the Hospice, where necrograft merchants display catalogs of their wares. Prospective patients must be ready to negotiate the exorbitant fees and ironclad contracts before they can have the necessary surgeries. Necrograft companies maintain these storefronts in Pact Port to dissuade those not serious about the procedures and to keep unwanted applicants from their front doors.
The Pyre The Pyre is the only major settlement within the Facinora Basin, though some much smaller lava-mining stations and research outposts exist. A massive tower stretching more than a mile up from the lava, the Pyre is an arcology: a self-sufficient building that houses an entire city. It is also one of the primary sources of power on Eox, using the heat of the endlessly churning lava to incinerate waste materials from all over the planet (according to legend, including the bodies of any undead the bone sages do not wish to see again) to form a massive tornado of flame that drives hundreds of turbines before it ejects into the Eoxian sky as an eternal pillar of fire. The Pyre is ruled by Kalantrodoch the Unburning (NE male elebrian necrovite mystic), a necrovite less than a century old who is concerned almost exclusively with technological advancements rather than magical ones. Kalantrodoch rarely allows visitors or tourists within the walls of his arcology, but he has a well-known curiosity regarding pre-Gap technology and nearly always grants audiences to visitors who can provide examples of such devices he’s not yet familiar with.
Remembrance Rock An enormous mesa created by the energies of the cataclysm, Remembrance Rock is riddled with tombs and monuments to all that was lost when Eox was killed. Most of the tombs and shrines are long since empty, but a few deep in the interior remain protected by active guardians that allow respectful visitors but destroy tomb raiders.
The most visited memorial is a large cenotaph called the Reflection, which gets its name from the mirrorlike sheen placed on the marble from which it is built. It is protected from erosion and defacement by powerful magic, and all who peer into its surface see undead versions of themselves reflected back. Recently, a few people have complained that they can see nothing reflected except for a few vague shapes. These forms are said to undulate and draw closer to the viewer’s location, causing a dread chill to run down the viewer’s spine.
Spiral Basilica The center of worship for Pharasma on Eox, this large cathedral sits outside of Port Pact but still within the Lifeline. The Spiral Basilica caters mainly to those visitors to Eox who worry about interacting with the planet’s undead residents. The Pharasmin priests offer protective blessings to these folk for a modest donation to the church, and their very presence seems to be a soothing balm to those who must travel to Eox but who have religious or moral conflicts about it.
The main church of Pharasma isn’t interested in starting an extended holy war against the inhabitants of Eox, though most high-ranking members aren’t comfortable with the planet’s inclusion in the Pact Worlds. The Eternal Convocation tolerates the church’s presence on their planet, as long as it doesn’t disrupt everyday activities. As such, when hot-headed Pharasmin crusaders come to the planet, the Spiral Basilica acts as kind of release valve, pointing those devoted warriors toward patches of rogue undead creatures that the Eternal Convocation has sanctioned for destruction.
Thanox One of dozens of midsize necropolises scattered across Eox, Thanox is ruled by the bone sage referred to only as the Soulless One, and it would be unremarkable among such cities of the dead if not for its ruler’s claim to fame: in the minutes after all the undead of Eox realized they were suddenly recovering from a widespread amnesia, the Soulless One moved with decisive force and claimed the city from its former ruler. Such conflicts between bone sages are unremarkable, but the Soulless One was the first undead to claim the rank of bone sage without being some form of lich or necrovite. Instead, he is an apparition, seemingly a shadow with bright green circuitry patterns forming his eyes and running along his shoulders and arms. For decades it seemed likely some coalition of “proper” bone sages would form to strike down the upstart who dared claim that ancient title, but the Soulless One successfully played his foes off one another in political maneuvers until his strong support of the Eternal Convocation’s signing of the Absalom Pact cemented his place among the ruling class.
Urabron Urabron is a small settlement that predates the construction of the Lifeline. It is ruled by the bone sage Quatherat Hafet (NE male elebrian corpsefolk mechanic), an undead who is more machine than corpse after centuries of existence. Hafet claims to have existed for eons before the Gap, and he shrugs off questions about the missing centuries of his memory as one of the things that simply happens after existing long enough. Urabron is small enough to be encased by a large dome that maintains heat and an atmosphere similar to that of Castrovel, and it houses a few thousand scholars and spellcasters who study there alongside the bone troopers who serve Hafet. Why he allows such study or let Urabron be included within the area of the Lifeline is unknown.
Zinhew The necropolis Zinhew’s claim to fame are its wide collection of “flesh vats,” which produce chemically created flesh and blood that allows undead who require such sustenance to get it without harming living innocents. Though many of Eox’s undead complain these products don’t have the same flavor and texture as the real thing, Zinhew’s industrial sector still turns a profit, thanks in part to generous subsidies from the Eternal Convocation. The flesh vat bioengineers conduct ongoing research into the realism problem and are confident they will crack it eventually

Alternative Name(s)

The Dead

Type

Planet

Inhabiting Species

• Bone Trooper
• Carrion Dreg
• Corpsefolk
• Elebrian
• Ellicoth
• Glass Serpent