Overview
A world covered in towering rock spires, some of them topped with cities. Herders in grav vehicle and their flocks of winged cattle fly between them. Inside the spires are mysterious cave systems.
Quick Facts
A577799-C
- Starport: A-class (excellent quality, refined fuel, starship construction)
- Gas giant in system
- Diameter: 5,000 miles / 8,000 km (significantly smaller than Earth)
- Atmosphere: Standard, tainted
- Water coverage: 70%
- Population: 20 million
- Government: Bureaucracy
- Law level: 9 (all weapons prohibited)
- Tech level: 12 (interstellar)
- Trade classification: Agricultural
- Space lanes to: Tench (jump-1), Befandefa (jump-1), Bennec (jump-1)
Government, Law, and Diplomacy
Sheen is controlled by a single ruling party. The head of the party is a man named Arvan Hoyn, though his personal power is limited. There is a well-supplied police force, though it concerns itself mostly with the cities and bigger towns, rarely visiting smaller settlements.
Sheen is one of the three allied systems forming the BST Triumvirate. Sheen’s contributions to the partnership are starship construction, and cattle export.
Surface Travel
- Travel between two neighboring spires by grav vehicle takes 5 minutes.
- Travel between two major cities takes 2 - 3 hours.
- Travelling down through the cave systems of a spire, from the top to the water level, takes three days. Going back up takes six days.
Interstellar Travel
In a given week, ships with the following destinations may be present at the starport:
The Starport
Sheen’s great starport has a spire all to itself, neighboring the spire of Yorcha, the capital. The starport has shipyards for commercial and military use. It is here that the warships of the BST Triumvirate are built.
Weapons are not allowed on Sheen, and are confiscated by customs officials unless a bribe is paid (200 credits).
The expanding starport facilities have pushed the startown over the edge of the spire. It is now partially built vertically on the spire’s side, creaking buildings stacked below each other, and secured in the rock by steel beams.
The Rock Spires
Sheen’s thousands of rock spires all share the same characteristics. The height is consistently around seven kilometres above sea level, with almost vertical sides. They have circular flat tops with a diameter of three kilometres. The spires form a pattern - each spire has six neighbouring spires, each at a distance of six kilometres. The spires are found across the planet, on land and in the sea. However, there are some regions where the spire pattern is uneven, the spires have fallen, or there just are no spires at all. If one were to study the planet’s continental drift, it would appear that there was a “perfect” pattern about ninety million years ago, which has since become distorted.
A wide variety of winged animals fly through the air between the spires, and the planet’s low gravity allows them to grow to impressive size. The goat-sized thornwings fly in flocks, and graze on mosses growing on the side of the rock spires. The humans of Sheen have domesticated them, and herd them across the air from grav vehicles.
The largest predators, bloodrainers, have a wingspan of over twenty metres, and are a threat to sky-herders and their flocks alike.
Sheen’s atmosphere contains gases dangerous to humans. Their concentration is greater the closer you are to the ground. On top of the spires, a filter mask is enough for protection, but starting about a kilometre from ground level, a respirator is also necessary due to low oxygen levels.
On top of the rock spires are entrances to labyrinthine cave systems.
The Ground
The ground is desolate. Moss grows there, but there are no animals other than various tiny worms. Even though Sheen’s larger animals are not harmed by the atmosphere’s gases, the lack of oxygen means they cannot survive here.
The Cities
The capital of Sheen is Yorcha, a city that is starting to outgrow the rock spire it sits on. The buildings rise high, and the streets are narrow and crowded. Other major cities include Shaykan, Leelon, and Poedes. There are many smaller towns, villages, and homesteads, each on its own spire.
Grav vehicles are ubiquitous for travel between spires. In the cities, ground vehicles are limited to small two- and three-wheelers.
The Caverns
The cave systems inside the rock spires don’t seem to be carved, but are too smooth and regularly shaped to be natural formations. Ten or so metres down, air in the caves becomes breathable. It is not known how deep the caves go.
In a major city, the caverns inside the spire house all kinds of people.
- 1d6 Cave inhabitants Demeanour
- 1 Homeless camp Aggressive
- 2 Criminal gang Cautious
- 3 Artist commune Isolationist
- 4 Cult Welcoming
- 5 Science lab Well-meaning
- 6 Political dissidents Sinister
Unknown to most surface people, some have moved even deeper. At about sea level, the caverns become filled with water. There, small communities dwell, catching fish for sustenance. Occasionally, metal orbs float up from the depths of the water, which they trade upspire for goods, usually to criminal gangs. Orbs are sold on for about 5,000 credits, but only to trusted buyers.
An orb is one centimetre across, hollow, and covered in blunt spikes. Someone who carries an orb on their person will “attune” to it after 24 hours, gaining the ability to mentally reach out to another person’s mind, reading surface thoughts and learning their emotional state. Every time an orb is used, the referee rolls 2d6. On a roll of 11+, the orb stops working, and its spikes retract into it.
Each orb is filled with the dangerous gases of the Sheen atmosphere, in high concentration. If they are released, they will make the air in a normal-sized room unbreathable in 15 seconds. The thin metal can be cracked by applying pressure with a knife or similar.
Scenarios
- A monk from Gaffa has heard a rumor of the spiked orbs, and wants to bring some back to their homeworld. Unfortunately they don’t have a lot of credits.
- An aggressive bloodrainer has been killing thornwings, and a village of sky-herders has placed a bounty on it. Turns out it has been tamed by a hermit on a remote spire, and has been bringing her food. The hermit doesn’t know that many of the thornwings her pet has brought are from domesticated flocks.
