Liavara
I
n addition to several large, populated moons, this peach-
colored gas giant also has extensive dust rings and countless
tiny shepherd moons. Through these rings swim vast oma
space-whales, straining nutrients and tiny elementals from the
dust with their energy baleen, while down in the planet’s cloud
layers floats a complex ecosystem ranging from air plants and
giant bacteria to apex predators such as deadly keji swarms or
the infamous tarenake, visible only by the gas it displaces. As
you descend into the planet’s denser cloud strata, predators get
larger and more piscine, capturing prey with vampiric tentacles,
magical fields, or acid-coated web nets. Many upper-layer
creatures drop their gas-filled eggs through these layers into
even deeper strata, where the eggs eventually reach neutral
buoyancy and gestate in the increased heat and pressure, away
from their usual predators.
Through this gaseous wilderness float the Dreamers, Liavara’s
most prominent—and most confusing—intelligent race. Nearly
identical to the gelatinous barathus of neighboring Bretheda,
Liavara’s Dreamers lack their kindred’s collectivist culture or
ability to combine consciousnesses, instead swooping through
the skies in complex social interactions still mostly unintelligible
to outsiders. Barathu legend says that the Dreamers were
originally colonists from Bretheda who flew to the then-
uninhabited world, only to quickly devolve—or ascend—into a
state described alternately as feral or enlightened. With little
interest in outside cultures and none at all in economics or
governance, the Dreamers are best known for their prophetic
songs predicting some great or terrible event to come—the
Dreamers themselves make no distinction between the two.
Given this relative lack of civilization, Liavara would
have long since been taken over by other races if not for the
barathus’ fierce insistence that the planet be left as a refuge
for these pseudoholy entities. Not officially a member of the
Pact—though many of its moons are—Liavara is technically a
protectorate administrated exclusively by Bretheda, which
keeps a careful watch on the humanoid gas-mining ventures
and floating city-platforms allowed to operate here. While most
of the gases making up the planet are ordinary elements such as hydrogen and helium, the planet also harbors many rare gases,
such as metasterium (useful in a variety of genetic engineering
and mutation processes) and the magic-enhancing thaumogen,
popular as both a magical crafting agent and a performance-
enhancing drug for technomancers (but highly illegal due
to its sanity-eroding side effects). Many speculators believe
that there are still far more unique, valuable compounds and
organisms drifting in the deep layers of the planet, and despite
the hazardous conditions and strict prohibitions by Brethedan
overseers, many corporations still quietly contract out for deep
dive explorations, made all the more risky by the need for
absolute secrecy.
Far more welcoming than Liavara itself are the planet’s
independent moons. The most prominent of these is heavily
populated Arkanen, which constantly bleeds off its atmosphere,
only to replenish it each year when its eccentric orbit takes it
through Liavara’s own upper atmosphere. Extremely dangerous
storms arise as huge lightning bolts arc between the two
worlds, harnessed by resident scientists and spellcasters alike.
This orbit should be impossible according to normal physical
models, which leads many to believe that the moon was built
specifically as a power source. What the arcane dynamo might
have been designed to power remains unknown.
After Arkanen, the most civilized moon is Osoro, a world of
mountaintop settlements high above the seas of poisonous gas
breathed out by the moon’s jungles. Here, solar-powered gliders
sail between inhabited areas, while corrosion-resistant vessels
dive down into the roiling clouds to study the ruins of a lost age.
Heavily populated Nchak is close behind; a world of arthropods
ruled by pulsating philosopher worms and the mortal incarnation
of Hylax, it has become a religious and tourist mecca for many
shirrens. Less visited is Melos, a mysterious world whose entire
population vanished in what may have been a rapturous religious
ascendance or a more sinister event, though it remains a treasure
trove for archaeologists and salvagers. Isolated Hallas has been
kept carefully cordoned off since even before the Gap, lest
unprepared contact with the resident hyperevolved energy beings
cause outsiders’ brains to explode from overstimulation.
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