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Player > Setting > Planets > Eox
Starfinder Core Rulebook p.450
Diameter: ×2/3
Mass: ×4/9
Gravity: ×1
Location: Pact Worlds
Atmosphere: Toxic and thin
Day: 30 days; Year: 5 years
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 elebrians, who were very similar to humans.
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; see
page 472 for more information.) 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.
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