Nakondis Colony

Amist-shrouded forest world deep in the Vast, Nakondis initially seemed like it would be useful only for the production of timber. AbadarCorp funded a survey team and received mixed data. Nakondis was fertile and habitable, as several native trees produced edible fruit and test crops grew quickly. However, the planet’s pervasive mist carried a mild electrical charge that, when pooled into a dense fog in low-lying sumps or whipped about by the occasional storms, could reach lethal levels.
It took the survey team a week on Nakondis to encounter its most irritating denizens: curious simian animals that gnawed on electronic items, stole gear, and generally made nuisances of themselves. Although weak and easily frightened individually, these tiny animals were fearless and destructive in large groups. After an embarrassing incident in which a scout named Amnis Hobgar lost both his sidearm and his pants to the creatures, the survey crew started calling them “hobgars,” and the name stuck.
The survey crew noted that the planet’s few low mountain ranges contained a variant of tin that carried an electrical charge particularly well. As an ancillary benefit, the tree-dwelling hobgars were less prevalent in the mountains, making mining operations there easier. Sensing a market for this conductive tin, AbadarCorp bankrolled a significant colony expedition to the planet.
The leader of the Nakondis colony is a midranking priest named Madelon Kesi (LG male korasha Lashunta mystic), a stocky and gruff individual. After distinguishing himself in AbadarCorp business dealings on Castrovel, Madelon requested a posting far from The Pact Worlds, believing he could make a name for himself on the frontier of known space, and leveraged his connections to lead the new colony. When the colony ships arrived on Nakondis in 317 ag, Madelon expected to get the colony settled quickly and return to the Pact Worlds. He didn’t expect to immediately fall in love with the serene, quiet beauty of the planet or to become such close friends with the other colonists. Over a year later, Madelon remains the colony’s gruff but well-liked administrator.
The colonists carefully selected the location for their exploration and expansion. The main settlement, Madelon’s Landing, was constructed in a fairly large clearing near Nakondis’s equator; as the irritating hobgars are arboreal, they are less of a nuisance in such clearings. A mountain range laden with deposits of conductive tin rises within a few miles of Madelon’s Landing, putting mining operations within easy reach of the settlement. Dangerous weather is rare in this area, and the colony is far from any of the wide valleys that contain Nakondis’s roiling, electrified fog seas. Although the Nakondis colony sprawls across many square miles, the rest of the planet is unexplored and uninhabited, save for a few surveyors and their drones.
The colonists on Nakondis are hardworking, self-reliant people. Generally speaking, they’ve found life on Nakondis to be easier than expected, although they like to gripe about irritations such as lack of clear visibility and the ever-present hobgars. The colonists have developed a dry sense of humor and enjoy using simple, folksy names, calling their skilled physician “Doc” and naming their complex botanical facilities the “Greenhouse” and the “Herb Garden.”

Tourism

The majority of the settlers of Nakondis live in Madelon’s Landing. A few scientists and miners move between the small outposts scattered within a few days’ ride from the settlement.
BLUE TIN RANGE This low range of mountains is largely free of forest. As this makes the area less likely to see hobgar infestation, the colonists have established four automated mining operations within the peaks. The facilities are technologically primitive, using battery-operated cranks and steel bores, as the conductive tin extracted from the mountain can become dangerously electrified when removed with modern extraction techniques such as laser cutting. These four locations, named Blue Tin Extraction Points (BTEP-1 through BTEP-4), are maintained by a team of miners who rotate from site to site over several days. Some miners have family living in Madelon’s Landing whom they see on occasion, but most are happy to be even further removed from civilization...
BOTANY CAMPS Several outposts have been established around the colony to study various aspects of the planet’s flora. Each camp consists of two or three prefabricated modules that serve as laboratories and minimal sleeping quarters with attached generators to provide power. The scientists assigned to these camps stay about a week at each outpost, maintaining any long-term experiments they are undertaking, and spend additional time in the field traveling between the camps and collecting samples.
Botany Camp 2-A is used as a base for studying mountain plants and lichen and sees occasional visits from the local miners, who like to show unusual mineral formations they have uncovered to the scientists. Though they are not geologists, the scientists allow the miners to store these finds in the outpost in case personnel with the skills to study them join the colony in the future. Botany Camp 2-B was established to study symbiotic growth of the native trees in a particularly dense section of the forest. Travel to the site is difficult due to the riotous overgrowth surrounding it, which quickly chokes any paths to the station in a manner that some believe is actively hostile to nonplant life. Botany Camp 2-C, the farthest outpost from Madelon’s Landing, is known as the “Herb Garden,” as its purpose is examining the properties of rare native herbs. Lately, the botanists have discovered enormous simian footprints in the mud near the outpost, but there has been no sign of the creature that created them.
DALESKO A month after the colonists finished constructing Madelon’s Landing, a handful of colonists petitioned for enough supplies to start a second settlement a few miles away in another clearing. The group was given two modules and a tilling drone. Under the leadership of Tannia Helsedar, a woman who was experienced in farming methods on alien planets, the colonists named their community Dalesko. The tiny settlement began auspiciously, but one morning, when a colonist from Madelon’s Landing visited the farms to deliver water, he found the place completely abandoned. He saw signs of struggles within the modules, but no blood or even bodies. Though the crops had only begun to sprout, a single pale yellow flower, its stem stretching over 7 feet, grew in the middle the fields. The colonists mounted a search party but found no trace of the others; they have avoided this area since, marking the disappearance with a stone plinth in the Madelon’s Landing cemetery.
HOBGAR THICKET A particularly dense stand of trees found at the eastern edge of the Blue Tin Range is home to the largest concentration of hobgars yet discovered. The tiny simians crowd the branches, and their faint hooting echoes through the fog for hundreds of feet. Though they are normally gentle beasts, these hobgars become incredibly violent when any other creatures enter the thicket, hurling their signature bolts of electricity and descending in swarms to bite and scratch the intruders. The few biologists in the colony are unsure of what causes this aggression. Some believe the hobgars are protecting large clutches of their offspring; others posit the more outlandish theory that the simians are being controlled by some outside influence that exists as an incorporeal force in the planet’s electricity.
LIGHTNING LAKE Sluggish rivers come down out of the nearby mountains into a valley to feed this bog, which is one of the few sources of fresh surface water on the entire planet. Due to its low elevation, the area is constantly full of soupy, roiling fog that crackles with electrical energy. The congealed fog is nearly thick enough to swim in, highly charged, and quite dangerous. Trees surrounding the lake are scarred from blasts of lightning that occasionally issue from the lake, and few native creatures other than hobgars dare to get close.
ROYAL VENTURE CRASH SITE This is the crash site of an experimental Azlanti ship called the Royal Venture. The vessel struck the planet long before the Gap, although a more recent probe sent by the Azlanti Star Empire crashed near it only a week or so ago, drawing the colonists’ attention to the previously undiscovered site.
WHISPERING HILLS This patch of stony mounds approximately 5 miles long is completely devoid of any greenery. Colonists who have scouted the ridges have reported hearing faint noises that sound almost like speech coming from underneath the soil, leading to a number of ghost stories concerning the site. Skeptics say that the sounds are simply gusts of wind moving past the hills, but the lack of movement in the ever-present fog confutes this explanation. The colonists have yet to mount any form of expedition into the hills to discover the source of the noises or even to see whether the stone there holds any resources of value.
MADELON’S LANDING Just over 100 individuals live in the community called Madelon’s Landing. While Madelon didn’t protest the designation at first, he has grown a bit embarrassed by the vanity of the name. He’s been considering advocating for a new name for the settlement and might ask the PCs for their recommendations for a new name to celebrate the settlement’s liberation after Part 2 of the adventure.
Madelon’s Landing is a typical AbadarCorp colony, consisting primarily of prefabricated modules dropped onto the planet’s surface, combined and reconfigured according to carefully designed specifications. Each weatherproofed steel module measures 20 feet wide, 10 feet high, and 100 feet long. Although the colony may look like a haphazard scattering of shipping containers strewn about a forest clearing, the layout is designed to maximize settler privacy, comfort, and efficiency. The open space in the center of the community and the paths between modules are just as much a part of the social design as the clustering of private residences near public modules. Most modules in Madelon’s Landing are private dwellings, with an average of six inhabitants per module. Nearly all modules contain work space matched to the talents of the inhabitants; for example, a bioengineer and a mechanic inhabiting a module with their children might include a laboratory at one end of the module, a workshop at the other, and personal rooms in between. All unmarked modules on the map on page 42 are private dwellings of this type. The other modules are distinctive or for specialized public use.
MADELON’S LANDING LN AbadarCorp colony Population 108 (65% human, 14% lashunta, 21% other) Government autocracy (Madelon Kesi) Qualities devout, technologically average Maximum Item Level 4th
1. Madelon’s Module: As the administrator of Nakondis Colony, Madelon Kesi was supplied with a private residence consisting of two attached modules. Realizing that he didn’t need that much space for himself, Madelon converted one of the two modules into a chapel to Abadar, where he oversees services every 5 days (the church module provided by AbadarCorp was instead repurposed as interior storage, as described in area 6). Madelon also uses the large dining room in his module for meetings with members of the colony on a day-to-day basis, and the doors into this large room are usually left unlocked for anyone seeking Madelon for colony business. Madelon eat his meals in his kitchen rather than the dining room; he also maintains a bedroom, bathroom, and tidy office in his home.
2. Aibretta’s Junk Shop: Two of these three attached modules are the repair bay and engineering workshop of Aibretta Fulson (CN female human mechanic), the colony’s most talented mechanic and most curmudgeonly member. The area around Aibretta’s modules is surrounded with a short metal fence of her own invention that emits a lowgrade sonic vibration. This vibration keeps the native hobgars at bay, but it tends to give non-humans within the fence headaches after a day or two. Although Aibretta offered to fence the entire colony to solve the hobgar problem, Madelon and the other non-humans declined her offer; Aibretta therefore maintains her sonic fencing to protect only her own home. The area within the fence is an untidy collection of stripped vehicles, broken computers, and scattered components; others in the colony minimize their interactions with Aibretta and refer to her home as the “Junk Shop.” Aibretta doesn’t mind being approached only when needed, as it leaves her time to putter with her various half-finished inventions in peace. Aibretta initially inhabited the personal module with her husband, Jellik Holson (NG male human), but the two divorced a few months after arriving at the colony for reasons that neither likes to talk about in mixed company.
3. Communication Module: This module contains all of the high-powered communications equipment that Madelon’s Landing uses to communicate with other settlements on Nakondis and with the Pact Worlds. The module is topped with a large satellite dish and a high-powered antenna attached to the adjacent rock formation. The stone is called the Glimmerock, and its other side hosts a trap that deters hobgar meddling here. A clever and friendly shirren nicknamed Chatterbug (N female shirren mechanic) maintains the module and its ancillary devices. Chatterbug earned her nickname with her regular and relentless oversharing; the other colonists have learned not to trust her with any secrets they don’t want publicly aired. Although the communications module is purportedly open to any colonist, Chatterbug treats it as her own. The communications equipment doesn’t occupy the entire module; the remainder serves as the settlement’s main armory. Since the planet is free of dangerous predators and the colony is too deep in the Vast to be easily accessible to pirates, the weapons in the armory haven’t been needed, and the colonists don’t expect that to change.
4. Glimmerock: The forest clearing in which Madelon’s Landing sits wasn’t empty when the colonists arrived. A curved ridge of crystal-studded rock rises from the center of the clearing, glittering with reflected sunlight even in the planet’s pervasive fog. About 200 feet long and 30 feet tall at its highest point, the ridge defied conventional geological explanation but didn’t appear to be artificially constructed. It posed no apparent danger, and the clearing was otherwise ideally located, so the colony built their settlement around it. The settlers have since learned that the ridge isn’t natural—its crystals glow brighter or dimmer on an astrological cycle—but its construction is unknown and it appears to be harmless. In fact, the colonists have put the ridge to use by planting a communications antenna atop it, which provided a surprising boost to the signal.
5. Hobgar Trap: To help mitigate the hobgar nuisance, the colonists erected a trap near the open commons in the center of town: a tall metal pole that carries an electrical wire up its center, sparking from a plate in a specially designed cage at the top. The sparking plate attracts hobgars from elsewhere in the settlement; they can enter the cage, but they can’t get back out without bypassing the lock mechanism. Captivity often enrages the hobgars, but the pole is tall enough that they can’t shock anyone below with their electric jolts. Once the cage is full of a dozen or so hobgars, the colonists airlift the cage to a distant part of the forest and set the hobgars free. A few colonists bristle at the difficulty of this removal process and suggest simply killing the caged hobgars, but Madelon won’t condone the slaughter of animals.
6. Community Storehouse: The largest building in Madelon’s Landing holds the community’s food, tools, and other sundry possessions. The building is constructed of four modules welded together and is mostly a vast warehouse, although a small office for a clerk named Rendell Tace (LG male human) contains a thorough set of supply records. In the center of the building’s open interior is a single module emblazoned with the holy symbol of Abadar on all sides. When the community storehouse was first constructed, hobgars kept sneaking in and destroying technological equipment. Rendell came up with the solution of storing the high-tech equipment in a smaller module within the cavernous storage building, providing a second layer of protection. Madelon agreed, realizing that the module set aside as the shrine of Abadar was mostly superfluous since he could easily provide services in his home. The shrine module was disassembled, brought into the community storage piece by piece, then reassembled and sealed, except for a single airlock-like door. This solution has been mostly successful, and the colonists now keep most of their hightech supplies in this inner storage module, allowing only Madelon or Rendell to access them.
7. Cemetery: For a colony that has been operating for barely a year, its small cemetery is surprisingly full. Severalminers perished during the first months of mining operations, and a few others were lost to miscellaneous accidents, but the biggest tragedy suffered by the Nakondis colonists occurred in the nearby settlement of Dalesko. Among the graves of the miners and other casualties, there is a stone plinth commemorating the colonists whose bodies were never found.
8. Commons: This open area to the east of the Glimmerock is used for community gatherings and is a popular place for adults to socialize and for children to play. The Commons, large enough to land a Medium or smaller starship in, is where the initial colonist ships landed to unload the modules for the settlement. The colonists don’t expect to use the Commons as a landing pad again, except perhaps in an emergency, as there are sufficient forest clearings within walking distance for ships to land in without disturbing the community.
9. Hospital: One of the first modules erected in Madelon’s Landing was a high-tech medical bay to tend to the colonists’ needs. Fortunately, the hospital hasn’t seen a lot of use, primarily due to the efforts of the colonist’s chief physician, a boisterous human woman named “Doc” Epplendell (LG female human). Doc insists that each colonist have extensive first-aid training, personally providing such training to each colonist during times when her medical skills aren’t immediately needed. Doc knows she is a familiar and cheery face to the colony, so she hasn’t told anyone—even Madelon— that she’s developed an aggressive form of brain cancer and has only a few months to live.
10. Moisture Collector: Due to the pervasive mist on Nakondis, the colonists never needed to drill a well to supply water. Instead, they erected a large pillar with membranous flanges that draw moisture from the fog. The moisture collector condenses the water into several large storage tanks that surround the pillar’s base. As a result of the condensation of nearby mist, visibility around the moisture collector is usually better than anywhere else in Madelon’s Landing.
11. Gold Key School: These two modules are classrooms and laboratories used for training the children who came to Nakondis as colonists and any children who might be born in the future. Many colonists take turns teaching practical lessons, but the primary teacher is Helesk Varden (LN male human), whose stern discipline and devout Abadaran faith are well known.
12. Greenhouse: Although most scientists in Madelon’s Landing operate out of laboratories integrated into their personal modules, botany and horticulture are such significant areas of study for the colony that these two connected modules are devoted entirely to these sciences. The colonists call the structure the “Greenhouse” because of the large plates of transparent aluminum used in the modules’ construction. The Greenhouse contains extensive soil and plant samples from across Nakondis, each labeled neatly and monitored with state-of-theart botany equipment. The facility is shared by all of the colonists, and some use it to grow small patches of fruits and vegetables that won’t otherwise survive in the planet’s electrically charged atmosphere.
13. The Stable: This open-sided module is a garage where the colonists keep a half-dozen sturdy exploration hovertrikes, along with equipment for maintaining them. Each hovertrike has a front hoverpad, a sturdy saddle, and a wide rear cargo area (or, in a pinch, space for two passengers) supported by two hoverpads. Some of the initial colonists opined that the hovertrikes resemble fat horses, and the nickname of the “Stable” for this building stuck. It’s rare that more than two or three vehicles are present at any time, as most are in use by settlers outside of Madelon’s Landing who need the means to come and go from the community.

Type

National Territory