The Diaspora

A vast asteroid belt, the Diaspora was formed when the twin planets Damiar and Iovo were destroyed by an unknown catastrophe millennia ago, long before even The Gap. The fractured remains of these two worlds spin lazily in their new orbits, and though there are more than a million celestial bodies with diameters greater than a mile within the Diaspora, all are spaced far enough apart that they rarely collide with one another. Most of these planetoids consist of formless chunks of rock or ice, though a few still hold traces of the civilizations of Damiar and Iovo. Some have just enough gravity—or technological assistance—to hold a thin atmosphere, while others are devoid of breathable gases. Dust and tiny pieces of stone and metal float between the asteroids, occasionally posing a threat to ships passing through at speed.
The true dangers of the Diaspora, however, are the beings that inhabit the asteroids. Smugglers and space pirates—especially the Free Captains of Broken Rock—store their ill-gotten goods on various rocks; some protect their stashes with high-tech security, while others hide their lairs in plain sight on otherwise nondescript chunks of stone. Many planetoids rich in minerals and other resources have been claimed by various mining companies—the most prominent being several Dwarven Star Citadels—often all too eager to fight to protect their interests. In addition, Androids calling themselves the Refugists have recently begun construction of their own home world by pulling together asteroids with tractor beams and gravity guns. Whether or not they’ll succeed at this endeavor has yet to be seen, but rumor has them approaching their work with almost religious fervor and little patience for interruptions.
All of this, of course, ignores the Diaspora’s indigenous residents. Called Sarcesian, these humanoids supposedly descend from the natives of the lost twin planets, evolved and adapted to life in hard vacuum. Able to suspend respiration indefinitely, they soar between the lonely asteroids on wings of pure energy stretched impossibly long to catch the solar wind. Sometimes referred to as “angels”—both derisively and admiringly—the sarcesians maintain a number of carefully terraformed “crèche worlds” within the belt where they can relax and raise their children. While usually peaceful, the sarcesians have never forgotten their ancient feud with Eox, which they believe was responsible for their worlds’ destruction. Like many of their neighbors, the sarcesians send representatives to the Pact Council in order to make their views known, yet they have no overarching government capable of taking them beyond the status of a Pact World protectorate, instead following a libertarian philosophy of holding on to what they have and allowing others to do the same.
With a 600-mile diameter, Nisis is the largest body in the Diaspora. Under its crust of ice, this planetoid is mostly composed of fresh water, an immense mass of liquid home to aquatic predators that have claimed the lives of countless would-be colonists. Only small enclaves of sarcesians live in inverted dome-villages clinging to the underside of the planet’s ice crust, and the settlers are always on high alert for threats from below, ready to abandon their homes and retreat to strongholds on the planetoid’s surface at a moment’s notice. The water of Nisis also serves as the source of the River Between, a strange waterway surrounded by atmosphere in a cylindrical containment field, which flows through the Diaspora and connects many of the asteroids and crèche worlds. The River Between used to be a well-used way to travel quickly through the asteroid belt, but recently the water has turned dark, and sailors have begun reporting vicious attacks by unseen creatures. Traffic on the river has dropped precipitously since the coming of these “diaspora wyrms,” and some scientists have noted that both the attacks and the change in the waterway coincided with another inexplicable event: Nisis started slowly growing in size.
Among many famous Diasporan locations is the House of the Void, a mysterious asteroid monastery whose black-robed monks stay tight-lipped about their goals. On the other side of the belt, the hollow asteroid known as the Wailing Stone now sits empty. Long ago, miles of silent corridors were drilled into the rock and used to quarantine victims of some terrible madness, and they later served as a penal colony—before all the residents vanished at some point during the Gap. Attempts to recolonize the stone have so far failed, as all who remain longer than a few days report disturbing nightmares and glimpses of twisted figures dressed in yellow rags.

Geography

Many of the Diaspora’s planetoids are barren rocks with no atmosphere, parched from solar radiation and blasted by cosmic winds. Others are self-contained biospheres maintained primarily by the sarcesians, but artificial habitats such as dwarven space stations and mining colonies dot the otherwise inhospitable reaches of the Diaspora as well. Further, due to the ancient catastrophe that destroyed Damiar and Iovo, the Diaspora is rife with supernatural phenomena that defy scientific categorization. Planar fissures, intermittently appearing clouds of energized plasma, and other unknown mysteries haunt the darkness between the Diaspora’s celestial bodies. Despite the asteroid field’s diverse and eclectic inhabitants, only eight percent of all planetoids in the Diaspora are known to be inhabited, leaving vast stretches of the asteroid belt both unpopulated, and in many cases, unexplored.

History

The Diaspora is a geographically diverse region of space marked by millions of asteroids ranging in size from less than a meter across to hundreds of miles in diameter. These planetoids are scattered over so vast a region of space, however, that collisions between them are rare. The majority of the Diaspora is formed from the debris of two planets called Damiar and Iovo, which were destroyed in the primordial time prior to the Gap. Little is known of the geographical makeup of these twin worlds, but their geology is readily apparent by researching the composition of the local planetary debris.
RESIDENTS The dominant residents of the Diaspora are creatures called sarcesians, who claim to descend from the native inhabitants of Damiar and Iovo. Some dispute this claim, but in fact, the remnants of ruins from those twin worlds found scattered throughout the Diaspora clearly exhibit the presence of sarcesian culture, lending much credibility to the sarcesians’ assertion of their origin.
The Free Captains, a notorious collective of pirates and smugglers, are another major group within the Diaspora. While not every raider in the asteroid belt belongs to this faction, the most prosperous and notorious of pirates claim membership in the Free Captains. Individual Free Captains can be found operating throughout the Diaspora, but their power center is the secret asteroid fortress called Broken Rock.
Beyond sarcesians and space pirates, itinerant peoples from across the Pact Worlds and beyond inhabit the Diaspora. Dwarves constitute the largest group within the Diaspora, with holdings ranging from large organized mining operations to the more traditional dwarven Star Citadels. Other inhabitants include colonists from Lost Golarion seeking to settle new homes on the frontier of the system, miners hoping to find their fortunes in the asteroids, pirates and smugglers looking to maneuver outside of the eyes of law enforcement, and even extraplanar entities slipping through breaks in the walls between planes brought about by the destruction of two entire worlds. Additionally, thousands of small colonies of mercenaries, merchants, and xenobiologists are scattered across the millions of miles that the Diaspora spans.
SOCIETY Though they are the largest population within the Diaspora, the sarcesians lack a centralized government. As a result, the Diaspora is officially classified as a Pact Worlds protectorate, and several factions of Diasporan inhabitants send non-voting representatives to the Pact Council, though the sarcesian delegation is by far the largest and loudest. The sarcesian envoys regularly petition for the Diaspora to be given full Pact World status on the Pact Council while simultaneously claiming to be the “true” representatives of all Diasporan peoples—a political stance that is a sharp contrast to that held by most sarcesians, who remain largely libertarian individuals. They care primarily for their own corners of the asteroid belt and otherwise are largely content to allow others to do as they please, as long as they do not impinge on the personal liberties of any one given sarcesian settlement. Similarly, the dwarves of the Star Citadels maintain law and order within their fortresses but remain largely indifferent to the activities of other groups, so long as they don’t come into conflict with them.
Despite being autonomous pirates, the Free Captains ultimately owe allegiance to an elected council of pirate lords, who meet regularly on Broken Rock to decide overarching matters of great import to the organization and to settle large disputes between its members. However, this council doesn’t concern itself with the day-to-day operations of the Free Captains, which would be a nearly impossible task for such a loose, chaotic coalition. Instead, the Free Captains have all agreed to abide by a code that guides their conduct and states protocols for raiding, capturing, and destroying other spacefaring vessels.
In the depths of the Diaspora, beyond the fringes of civilization, society begins to break down. While major corporations and private interests hold small stakes within the disparate debris field, few have enough vested interests to maintain sizable peacekeeping or law-enforcement retinues. Hellknights are sometimes dispatched to the Diaspora to hunt down lawbreakers pertinent to their specific orders, but the majority of their concerns keep them in the more civilized corners of the Pact Worlds. Independent cells of Stewards occasionally operate within the Diaspora as well, uncovering sinister plots and apprehending those who threaten the system’s peace.
CONFLICTS AND THREATS With the Diaspora home to so many diverse groups, conflict is a common occurrence. Piracy is the single largest threat in the Diaspora, largely due to the presence of the Free Captains and their continuous push to keep planetary police, Hellknights, Stewards, and other extra-Diasporan law enforcement out of their “free” territory. Lesser gangs of independent criminals also wreak chaos across the Diaspora, and tales of their barbarism and terror are often conflated with stories of the Free Captains, giving all pirates—both organized and not—the same reputation among the general populace.
The sarcesians are largely content to allow outsiders to come and go through the Diaspora, but they ferociously defend their pockets of civilization, especially against any incursions into their territory by Eoxians, whom the sarcesians blame for the demise of their ancestors and ancestral home worlds. While not normally a hazard to most spacefarers, Eoxian vessels do occasionally venture into the Diaspora in search of raw minerals and supplies—including, in some grim instances, raw materials for their dark necromantic practices. The sarcesians mostly ignore such small incursions, but larger Eoxian fleets can unite the otherwise placid sarcesians, who combine their disparate ships into a militia fleet intent on driving off the emissaries of the bone sages at any cost.
The airless void between asteroids can hold its own dangers beyond enemy starships. Choirs of asterays occasionally lead vessels to crash upon the rocks and then drift playfully among the wreckage. Dreaded shantaks—intelligent winged beasts covered in slimy scales—are fiercely territorial and do not hesitate to attack anything that gets close to their lairs. Most shantaks are relentless once they begin pursuing a target, and some organizations offer bounties for shantak heads to encourage hunting and keep their rapidly expanding population in check.
A variety of other dangerous creatures make their homes on the Diaspora’s asteroids and planetoids. Some, like the massive, wormlike surnochs, burrow mindlessly through the rocks and exist only to feed, while others, including cunning void hags, seek out the seclusion offered by the Diaspora to perform astral experiments. Even an asteroid seemingly devoid of life could have a deadly virus lying dormant within an innocuous rock or an alien creature magically held in stasis in a crumbling ruin.

Tourism

The Diaspora is rife with interesting and notable locations, if a crew can find them among the scattered asteroids.
The Abattoir In the chaotic years following the Gap, a gang of space pirates broke away from the Free Captains, finding their code too restrictive. Unfortunately for them, the small asteroid they chose to use as their base was the prison of a cruel undead creature exiled by the bone sages of Eox for unremembered crimes it committed during the Gap. The foolish pirates accidentally released the creature, who quickly slaughtered them all. Only garbled transmissions of bloodcurdling screams escaped the remote asteroid, which was dubbed the Abattoir by local Diasporans and summarily quarantined. Some believe the unknown catastrophe turned its victims into undead monstrosities, and the unliving pirates are rumored to occasionally set sail from the rock to add to their burgeoning armada of the damned. As of yet, no one has been brave enough to explore the Abattoir to prove or disprove these rumors.
Archon’s Halo Archon’s Halo is a militarized research station located within the accretion disc of Havinak’s Vortex. Not directly operated by any one governmental body, Archon’s Halo is instead maintained by a sect of Eloritu's church called the Disciples of the Sixth Rune. This strictly Lashunta sect of Eloritu’s church is obsessed with studying not only Havinak’s Vortex, but also the gravitational anomaly of the Phantom Rift and the ship graveyard of the Hum. Disciples of the Sixth Rune have highly advanced magical and technological talents and count numerous technomancers among their number. However, the Stewards have classified the sect as a hostile organization, and most encounters with the Disciples have resulted in catastrophic losses of life.
The Disciples of the Sixth Rune has one public-facing representative, Gaileia Seeoh (LE female damaya lashunta envoy/technomancer), who professes to hold the title of Dark Glyph within the Way. Gaileia occasionally makes diplomatic appeals to the Pact Council when tensions between their order and the Pact Worlds grow too high. More commonly, however, Gaileia secretly entreats with gray, bulb-headed humanoids for undisclosed reasons.
Ascendant Shard A rumored supernatural stone adrift in the Diaspora with the purported ability to grant those who discover it their hearts’ desire, the Ascendant Shard is a location of myth and legend. Some scholars on Absalom Station theorize that this rock is a fragment of the original meteorite that became the fabled Starstone prior to its collision with lost Golarion. Others believe the Ascendant Shard is all that remains of a dead god’s heart, and those who discover it can siphon off a fragment of the deity’s lingering essence. Most who have sought the shard have returned empty-handed, but a few never return at all, and there are just as many stories that those treasure seekers found all they sought and more as there are tales insisting that they died in countless horrible ways. Recently, a lone spacefarer at the helm of ship meant for a crew of a dozen or more arrived at Absalom Station, claiming to have returned from the Ascendant Shard. Before she could get close enough to dock with the station, however, her vessel mysteriously imploded, as if crushed by a giant invisible hand. Investigators found no trace of sabotage aboard the ship, and records of the vessel state that it had been missing for over 2 decades.
The Blockade An easily avoided stretch of the Diaspora is littered with deadly weapons known as necrotic mines. These disastrous weapons are forged of seething bone, flesh, and sinew and infused with terrible volumes of negative energy. These undead mines each contain a tiny portal to the Negative Energy Plane, allowing them to reconstitute after detonation. No one is certain who created this minefield, as it was in place when the Gap ended, though most point their fingers at Eox. No one group has committed the time and resources to disarm these weapons, but the Stewards have noted that the mines seem to self-replicate. While it might take centuries for them to reach densely inhabited reaches of space, the outright destruction they could cause if and when such an event happens is unfathomable.
Broken Rock Known as the stronghold of the Free Captains of the Diaspora, Broken Rock is a 450-mile-wide asteroid with a large, prominent crevasse dubbed Besmara's Smile by the locals. The space pirates discovered and colonized the rock at some point during the Gap, building a sprawling settlement of docks, taverns, and warehouses around the crack. This city has continued to grow over the centuries, and it remains a haven for Free Captains and their crews, offering merchants who purchase their illicit goods, mechanics who can repair their starships, and gambling halls where they can throw away their credits. To keep law-enforcement organizations such as the Hellknights and the Stewards off these ne’er-do-wells’ backs, only Free Captains and those they vouch for know the exact location of Broken Rock. In the event of an attack, an array of automated capital laser weapons known collectively as the Broadsides defends the asteroid.
In addition to being a guaranteed safe harbor for the Free Captains, Broken Rock is also where the Pirate Council—the organization’s elected leadership—meets to discuss matters of import and occasionally modify the Free Captains’ pirate code. The Pirate Council determines which megacorporations’ vessels are off-limits (thanks to exorbitant protection fees) and which are viable targets. They also settle disputes between Free Captains, usually decreeing the wronged party is owed a monetary sum from the party at fault; rarely do these disagreements end in formal duels to the death anymore. Finally, the council resolves what to do when marauders, smugglers, and other extralegal groups begin to infringe on the Free Captains’ territories; this often involves putting bounties out on these rival factions.
When a pirate lord leaves the council—whether through misfortune or retirement—all Free Captains are invited to return to Broken Rock to nominate and elect a replacement. This period of open application lasts for 1 month, which usually ensures that only the pirates with the fastest Drift engines and those who happen to be on Broken Rock at the time make it onto the ballot. Voting lasts for an additional 3 months and is open to all Free Captains, but all votes must be cast in person. Following ancient tradition, votes are cast manually using goldplated plastic tokens, and the collected tokens are guarded around the clock by a roster of Free Captains who directly serve the current Pirate Council. Candidates frequently remain on Broken Rock during the voting period, many of them bribing incoming voters with drinks, goods, or promises of both.
The longest-serving member of the Pirate Council is Ceris Hightower (CN female human mechanic/soldier), a tough-as-nails engineer with little patience for tomfoolery and even less mercy for those who cross her. Ceris was born on Verces, the daughter of a climate scientist and a factory worker (now both deceased). She lived a solidly middle-class early life, occasionally trekking out to relatively safe areas of Fullbright and Darkside for tastes of adventure with her friends. When she came of age, she sought out the Vercite citadel of the Hellknight Order of the Furnace and enlisted as a trainee. Ceris spent several months in hard training, but she couldn’t master the level of discipline and respect for the chain of command required to become a Hellknight. Instead, she used the martial skills she learned to good effect in several mercenary groups and eventually joined up with the Free Captains. She worked her way up to the rank of pirate lord, aided by her strength and willpower, before becoming a member of the Pirate Council soon thereafter. She is well respected, if not exactly liked, by the majority of the other Free Captains, and she has a reputation for getting things done. Now at the age of 88, Ceris has resorted to cybernetics to extend her life so that she can continue leading the Free Captains. But as she continues to advance in age, other Free Captains are maneuvering to sweep in and fill the power vacuum when she passes on, or to nudge that event to take place sooner rather than later.
BROKEN ROCK CN asteroid base Population 45,600 (41% human, 23% android, 22% ysoki, 14% other) Government council (Pirate Council) Qualities insular, notorious, secret location Maximum Item Level 15th QUALITIES Secret Location The settlement is concealed or hidden in some way, or its precise location is a closely guarded secret.
Cairn After it broke away from the regular Eoxian navy, the Corpse Fleet sought out places where it could hide and build up its forces before striking against the living creatures of the Pact Worlds. One of the group's earliest bases, this roughly cube-shaped rock is located far from other inhabited asteroids and provided the Corpse Fleet enough secrecy to organize, but they couldn't stay here for long, knowing the Stewards or another peacekeeping force would find them soon enough. The surface of the now-abandoned rock is littered with scraps of Corpse Fleet equipment, though anything obviously valuable was looted long ago. Rumors hold, however, that the place is haunted, possibly by incorporeal Corpse Fleet agents who were left behind to guard a secret weapon.
Chainbreaker One This seemingly unassuming asteroid is only a mile in diameter, but it holds a large secret—it is the headquarters for the Android Abolitionist Front (AAF), a coalition of agents who work tirelessly to ensure freedom for all synthetic sentient beings. The base is inside the asteroid’s hollow interior, its entrance cloaked with holographic projectors and its energy signatures dampened by well-placed signal maskers. Chainbreaker One’s only permanent residents are the AAF’s leadership (a shadowy council known as Ex Novo) and a small contingent of android and robot guards and mechanics. Ex Novo’s current composition is widely unknown, even to the majority of the AAF’s membership, though rumors hold that it consists mainly of androids and a sentient AI program. Within Chainbreaker One, Ex Novo coordinates the AAF’s actions, chooses the group’s next targets, and generates the pirate broadcasts that make sure the general public remains sympathetic to their cause. The asteroid’s exact coordinates and security codes are given only to the organization’s most trusted agents. A series of small nuclear warheads are embedded within the asteroid’s crust, primed to be detonated at a moment’s notice should the base’s secrecy ever be compromised.
Congregant Halls A mysterious rock riddled with passageways and corridors of all shapes and sizes formerly called the Vacant Halls, Congregant Halls is now a buzzing hive of activity. Shortly after the end of the Gap, an Aballonian Anacite named Intricate-GrayCube learned of the Vacant Halls and became convinced that the asteroid’s random twists, turns, and dead ends served a purpose. It traveled to the Diaspora with a few other interested anacites and established a base within one of the asteroid’s larger chambers. Over 2 centuries later, Intricate-Gray-Cube and its comrades have still not cracked the asteroid’s secrets. They have filled the halls with thousands of drones, each examining and analyzing imperfections in the stone, no matter how small. Complicating the anacites’ mission is that every few months, corridors seem to appear, move, or vanish with no rhyme or reason. Some think Intricate-Gray-Cube has been driven insane by its obsession, but that hasn’t stopped other anacites from occasionally lending their own processing power to studying the asteroid’s secrets.
EC-40 Pilots are warned to avoid the region of space around the icehoracalcum comet designated EC-40, which seems to move at a speed slower than such a celestial body should be capable of. Astronomers on Verces originally discovered the comet long before the Gap and sent an expedition aboard the aethership Gloaming to investigate. The crew of the Gloaming learned that the comet was relatively close to Damiar at the moment of the planet’s destruction, and the energy of that catastrophe interacted with the comet’s composition to trap that moment in time. Those who approach within a few hundred miles of the comet become trapped in a time loop that has been repeating for millennia, in which they witness Damiar’s destruction play out over and over again—a fate that befell the Gloaming and its crew. Since the Gap, other vessels have attempted to learn more about EC-40, only to become trapped in the anomaly themselves. Strangely, however, sensors can detect only one ship near the comet, which most assume to be the Gloaming; the fate of the later vessels that approached EC-40 remains a mystery.
Farabarrium The ysoki trade frigate Farabarrium is a salvaged ATech Immortal left adrift by the Knights of Golarion after a brutal confrontation with an Eoxian cruiser several years ago. A group of ysoki salvagers called the Shirsask Kaia laid claim to the damaged ship and were able to bring the vessel back online within 2 years’ time. With the significant firepower and space provided by the Farabarrium, the Shirsask Kaia decided to put down roots in the Diaspora and operate as a trade hub and salvage way station. The Shirsask Kaia were quick to negotiate a lucrative protection deal with the Free Captains in return for offering priority maintenance for all Free Captain vessels. Now the Farabarrium is a well-known hot spot of trade activity within the Diaspora and a noteworthy pit stop for travelers scouring the forgotten reaches of the asteroid belt.
Footprint of the First Ones The shattered remnants of one of Iovo’s moons drifts on an erratic elliptical orbit through the Diaspora, often veering wildly away from the typical path of the Diaspora’s debris before rejoining it centuries later. This irregular orbit is due to the fact that the moon fragments frequently pass through the perimeter of the Phantom Rift, which scatters the moon fragments’ orbital trajectories. A still-functional and highly advanced robotics facility is nestled within an impact crater on one of the largest fragments of the sundered moon. Dubbed the Footprint of the First Ones, this sealed facility is believed to be similar to the automated machine forges found on Aballon, except that the facility remains tightly sealed from the outside. The material of the facility is an unknown alloy with a chemical composition similar to both adamantine and mithral. Demolished solar collectors on the moon’s surface and scans of the structure indicate that the facility is running on reserve power, but those inside the building have yet to request any assistance, even from the anacites of Aballon.
The Forgotten King One of the more curious “asteroids” found in the Diaspora, the Forgotten King appears to be a human skull 12 miles in diameter. Appearances notwithstanding, this morbid artifact is crafted not out of bone, but of an ancient and sturdy type of ceramic. Hundreds of thousands of lines of verse in some unknown language that resists magical translation and comprehension cover the interior of the skull. A massive joint effort between several institutes of learning to study this epic poem has so far gleaned only that the text refers to a long-lost monarch and his enormous wealth. This particular piece of knowledge has set the imaginations of many aflame, all trying to discover exactly what this treasure is and where it is located. Countless charlatans and con artists across the Pact Worlds offer phony translations of the poem to gullible souls for the right price, or claim they know where to find the Forgotten King’s hoard but need a few thousand credits to buy supplies for the journey. It is likely that the translation efforts will eventually come to fruition, though what they might uncover is anyone’s guess.
Giant’s Toe From afar, this hunk of rock gives the appearance of some giant humanoid’s big toe, and would be otherwise unremarkable save for two things. The first is a fossilized colony of a never-before-catalogued species of foot-long nematodes. The second is that divination spells cast while on the asteroid cause an eye-shaped rune to glow on the caster’s forehead for a short period of time. Some claim to have had prophetic dreams after the rune has faded. Whether these two aspects are related has yet to be established.
Havinak's Vortex One of the most dangerous hazards of the Diaspora is the gravitational phenomenon known as Havinak’s Vortex. The vortex is a roughly planet-sized gravity well that sporadically appears twice annually for anywhere between 10 to 30 minutes, funneling all matter within a 10,000-mile radius into the Maelstrom. The vortex gets its name from Azirian Havinak, the human astronomer, explorer, and devotee of Ibra who was the first to enter the rift and return. He spoke of a bizarre space station forged of raw willpower and inhabited by proteans, the Maelstrom’s chaos-living inhabitants. Havinak described the space station as an amalgam of structures, building styles, and construction materials like an architectural teratoma. Since his return, Havinak and a few brave others have made several trips into the vortex, returning with increasingly disturbing stories of the proteans’ activities on their space station, as well as strange relics from the Maelstrom. However, since Havinak failed to come back from his most recent trip a decade ago, no one has been bold enough to travel into the rift.
Heorrhahd The first Star Citadel of the dwarves, Heorrhahd was founded in the years shortly after the Gap, following the destruction of the dwarven mining colony Arngrannam in the chaotic conflicts of the era. The founders of Heorrhahd began by carving a gigantic dwarven face into a suitable asteroid and then attached powerful engines to the rock, allowing them to situate it within the Diaspora at a location of their choosing. Thousands of dwarves volunteered to carve a subterranean city within the asteroid, attempting to mimic the interiors of the long-lost Sky Citadels of ancient dwarven history. Modern airlocks seal off the Star Citadel’s interior from the vacuum of space, but most of the tunnels and structures within are fashioned of stone rather than plastic, metal, or other advanced materials.
Heorrhahd represents a focus on certain dwarven traditions in the face of the existential crisis posed by the Gap. The Star Citadel is governed by a council of Rivethun—members of an ancient order of dwarven animists who treat with spirits for knowledge and power—who use communication, empathy, and insight to better understand the dwarves’ position and role in the universe and who see it as their duty to use that knowledge to carry their people into a new golden age. Many of Heorrhahd’s dwarven residents are adept at channeling benevolent spirits, often of their ancestors, after prolonged periods of meditation on their past travails. Outsiders are welcome to visit Heorrhahd, but non-dwarves are usually permitted only temporary stays within the citadel without special dispensation.
The Star Citadel is also the headquarters to a large number of dwarven mining companies—most notably Bolka Mining Consortium and Stonequarry Industries—who operate mostly within the Diaspora, tunneling into asteroids in search of valuable resources or lost artifacts. As such, the spaceways surrounding Heorrhahd are always under threat of pirate attacks. To combat this threat, the dwarves maintain a small navy usually capable of fending off marauders who would attempt to ambush trade ships and frigates loaded with newly mined treasures.
House of the Void The House of the Void is a squat, sprawling monastery-fortress that is disproportionately large in comparison to the small asteroid it sits on. It is home to an order known as the Acolytes of the Void, ascetics and anchorites who all wear perfectly black robes that conceal their species (though they do seem humanoid) and speak only through vocoders, giving all acolytes the same mechanical voice. The Acolytes supposedly contemplate the void of space in search of enlightenment, but their true philosophy remains something of a mystery to people outside the order. In fact, the Acolytes of the Void are a sect devoted to the Empty Traveler, one of the many forms of the Outer God Nyarlathotep. Dedicated to bringing about the return of the Great Old Ones, the Acolytes often appear unexpectedly at scenes of great chaos in the Pact Worlds, as if to bear witness to these events—or possibly to encourage them. Strangely, despite their worship of the Crawling Chaos, no Acolyte of the Void has ever been seen anywhere on Aucturn.
The Hum Beyond the inhabited reaches of the Diaspora is a sprawling graveyard of starships that dates back farther than anyone can tell. When a vessel comes within a thousand miles of the graveyard, its hull is permeated with a subsonic hum that gradually becomes audible to most species. Creatures exposed to this subtle noise become increasingly erratic and prone to tempestuous emotional outbursts. Worse, astrogation is negatively impacted by the hum, causing sensors to return false positive readings of incoming objects. By the time the hum is audible, most ships begin to vibrate sympathetically with the noise and, unless the crew is able to divert course, soon suffer total loss of hull integrity as their ship literally vibrates into pieces. Exploration of the Hum has been a fruitless endeavor, as even those ships whose hulls survive the noise still suffer catastrophic crew loss from the psychological breaks brought on by the subsonic hum. At present, the source of the Hum is unknown.
Jioh Station The Veskarium navy maintains this outpost within the Diaspora in a fixed orbit synchronized with that of Verces. More than 3,000 vesk soldiers and a small fleet of short-range exploratory vessels are posted to Jioh Station, and a Veskarian battle cruiser brings supplies and a new garrison every 72 weeks. In spite of numerous attempts by the Free Captains to oust them, the vesk remain entrenched in their outpost, though their reasons for doing so are not entirely understood. Vesk tactical procedures would not classify the location of Jioh Station as a valuable asset. Whatever the vesk are doing on Jioh Station is a well-kept secret, even within the Veskarium.
Nisis The 600-mile-wide ice-crusted planetoid called Nisis is home to several colonies of sarcesians who inhabit underwater dome settlements attached to the underside of the ice. Outfitted with hydrogen extraction plants and gas turbines, the largest of these domes are Ahilira, Merhja, and Vaando. The residents of all three settlements must always be ready to desert their homes and hole up in the dozens of small bunkers on Nisis’s surface should the aquatic predators within the planetoid’s inner sea decide to attack the domes en masse. Xenobiologists suggest that the gigantic coral reef floating within the planet, dubbed the Broodnest, is the main source of this hostile life, though no one has gotten close enough to the miles-wide reef to fully explore it and confirm these theories. Nisis’s waters are also renowned for being the starting point of a cosmic phenomenon called the River Between, the serpentine river of liquid water that snakes its way through the Diaspora. When the waters of the River Between recently turned dark, so too did much of Nisis’s internal ocean, a disturbing fact whose discovery coincides with the revelation that the planetoid’s ice crust has also begun to thicken, slowly increasing Nisis’s size.
Parley Not much more than 2 miles in diameter, this strange site is entirely spherical and covered in alien runes carved into its surface. Though it can't be quite proven, these runes are thought to be the source of Parley's unusual power: no one within several miles of the asteroid can speak a deliberate and intentional lie (as if under the effects of a zone of truth spell). Due to this, the space around Parley is often used among the Free Captains to negotiate alliances and contracts. Expeditions of arcane scholars who come to study this asteroid often fall to in-fighting as prolonged exposure to the magical emanation causes people to blurt out unspoken truths.
Phantom Rift Close to the orbital path of the Diaspora lies a point in space with a fixed distance from the sun. This stellar anomaly looks similar to a heat mirage against the blackness of space, distorting the appearance of any stellar bodies it occludes. The Phantom Rift measures roughly 7,000 miles across and is generally spherical, roughly the size of a planet. Vessels that pass through this phenomenon suffer no ill effects, though passengers sometimes complain of brief bouts of dizziness. Some scholars believe that the Phantom Rift is the afterimage of a gigantic portal to another dimension, through which a mysterious progenitor race traveled millennia ago. According to the theories, these aliens supposedly seeded the galaxy with the first samples of life and then returned to their own time and space. A handful of scientists, many considered unbalanced by their peers, study the anomaly in the hope of opening the portal once again and contacting this unknown race.
Refuge Recently, a group of androids calling themselves the Refugists have staked claims on a cluster of uninhabited asteroids within the Diaspora. Hoping to build an android home world, they have begun using tractor beams and artificial gravity generators to pull these asteroids together into a single mass. The new planetoid is not yet big enough to rival the Diaspora’s other larger celestial bodies, but only time will tell if the androids will succeed at their efforts. The Free Captains have made a few overtures toward offering a protection deal to the Refugists, but they have been soundly rebuffed each time they approach, as if the androids don’t want them to get too close to the project. The Refugists have also been actively recruiting more androids to their cause but insist that new recruits leave their previous lives completely behind.
The River Between The River Between winds through the Diaspora, a rushing waterway contained with a cylindrical containment field of unknown origin. Some legends claim that the River Between was constructed shortly after the destruction of Damiar and Iovo by beings from the Plane of Water in an attempt to lay claim to the newly formed asteroid field, while others believe the survivors of that catastrophe (who eventually became the sarcesians) built the waterway gradually over centuries, hoping to reclaim their lost worlds. Either way, the River Between was used as a safe means of travel between certain asteroids until the advent of interplanetary travel. Some still used the river for a while thereafter, as building a boat is considerably cheaper than purchasing a starship. However, in the years since the Gap, the waters have turned dark and fetid, and sailors have begun to go missing on their voyages. A few survivors have returned to sarcesian crèche worlds from the River Between, claiming they were attacked from below by terrible serpents. Sarcesians have petitioned the Stewards to do something about these “diaspora wyrms,” which have also been spotted on the River Between’s source world of Nisis, but to date, the Stewards’ fact-finding missions have met with little success and they have found no sign of these mysterious creatures.
Sejada The largest of the sarcesian crèche worlds, Sejada is the de facto sarcesian capital, where the few decisions that affect all sarcesians are made in large, town-hall-like meetings that any sarcesian can attend to vote on the presented referenda. These forums are held at irregular intervals, sometimes with little to no notice, but most sarcesians don't seem to mind. Sejada also hosts the births, upbringing, and education of thousands of sarcesians a year. Sarcesians take a very hands-off approach to their own families, leaving children in the care of trained sarcesian crèche-minders, who are often assisted by robotic nannies. Some sarcesian parents remain on the crèche world to assist in their children’s training for a few years, but most return to their own lives, seeing their offspring only once they are full adults. Outsiders might see Sejada as a cold, unfeeling place, but the children there are happy, allowed to grow and learn at their own pace until they are old enough to start studying a trade. The early stages of apprenticeship usually occur on this planetoid, but some masters leave the world with their charges after as short a time as a year, giving the young sarcesians hands-on training in fields such as mercenary work, piloting, and trading.
Songbird Station Situated on an asteroid just half a mile in diameter, the temple and performing arts center named Songbird Station resembles a jewel-studded stone set against a field of black, and the gleaming, opalescent structure is further adorned with rainbow streamers of energy that radiate outward from the station’s perimeter like banners flying in the wind. Founded a few decades ago, Songbird Station is a temple-school dedicated to Shelyn, the goddess of art, beauty, and music. Her priests instruct the faithful and visitors alike in a myriad of art forms both practical and therapeutic, making Songbird Station a bastion of creative endeavors in an otherwise remote and hostile corner of the Diaspora. Additionally, the station’s concert hall frequently hosts massively famous entertainers from across the Pact Worlds, including sugar-pop sensation Strawberry Machine Cake and Aballonian euphonics composer Zed-29. Performances at Songbird Station are viewed as both reverent worship of Shelyn and a beacon of hope for the Diaspora’s residents. The main organizer of Songbird Station, Nairon Shalorrh (CG male kasatha mystic), believes that if worshipers create enough art and beauty and spread that beauty to envelop all the known worlds, Shelyn’s voice will ring out loud and clear for all the galaxy’s people to hear, perhaps even bringing peace to all worlds.
Wailing Stone The asteroid known as the Wailing Stone has been abandoned since some time during the Gap. Miles of corridors are drilled into this rock (which presumably originates from Damiar or Iovo’s inner mantle). Evidence suggests that the area once served as a prison during the Gap, and that its origins may stretch back even further in time. No trace of the Wailing Stone’s residents have ever been found, and attempts at recolonization have always resulted in the disappearance of the settlers, leaving behind nothing but enigmatic references to something called “the Sign.” Recent expeditions to study this phenomenon have reported terrible nightmares afflicting the expeditions’ members, as well as the appearance of hostile, flayed creatures wearing tattered yellow rags. For the time being, the Stewards have quarantined the Wailing Stone and placed a hazard beacon nearby to warn away approaching ships, but some representatives to the Pact Council have put forth proposals to once more utilize the asteroid as a prison—or execution site—for the Pact Worlds’ most dangerous criminals. These motions are widely considered foolish and have gained little traction.

Alternative Name(s)

The Lost Ones

Type

Asteroid belt

Included Locations

• The House Unhindered

Inhabiting Species

• Diaspora Wyrm
• Quyu