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Player > Setting > Planets > Verces
Starfinder Core Rulebook p.444
Diameter: ×1
Mass: ×1
Gravity: ×1
Location: Pact Worlds
Atmosphere: Normal
Day: —; Year: 3 years
As a tidally locked world, Verces has no day or night, only
a light side and a dark side, with an atmosphere only
partially capable of redistributing the sun’s energy. On the light
side, known as Fullbright, scorched deserts host iron-hard plants
and animals with photosynthesizing skin, while the partly frozen
seas of Darkside offer a home to predators such as hoarbats and
the infamous bloodbrothers, who trap prey within their own
bodies in order to co-opt their circulatory systems. Between these
two extremes runs the Ring of Nations, a temperate zone along
the twilit terminator filled with gleaming skyscrapers, bustling
spaceports, gorgeously manicured (and dizzyingly vertical) parkfarms,
and high-speed bullet trains.
Similar to humans but taller, with color-changing skin and
mouselike black eyes, the native verthani have long been at
the forefront of cybernetics, due in part to their traditional
caste system. Under this ancient system, young adults chose
membership in one of three groups: the Augmented, warriors
and adventurers who modified their bodies with technology; the
Pure Ones, who rejected all personal augmentation but dedicated
themselves to food production, governance, and other domestic
responsibilities; and the scarred God-Vessels, who served as living
avatars of their deities, burning holy symbols called devotionals
into their chests. To ensure that no group grew too powerful,
Augmented and God-Vessels were only allowed to marry Pure
Ones. Though this caste system is now seen as archaic, with most
verthani augmenting themselves to one degree or another and
paying only lip service (at best) to the old ways, many still credit
the caste system with the head start that placed Verces at the
cutting edge of implant technology.
In addition to pioneering cybernetics, verthani were also
one of the first races to adopt space exploration, voyaging
between worlds in their dirigible-like aetherships. While the
coming of Drift technology and increased interplanetary trade
under the Pact have allowed other worlds to catch up, verthani
pilots and interstellar explorers remain legendary, and their
massive shipyards at Skydock—an ancient geosynchronous
satellite reached via space elevator—are second to none. Long
since replaced by more modern designs, retrofitted aethership
pleasure yachts still serve as marks of style and status among
Pact World elites, as do their high-end Terminator-brand
racing skiffs.
Since even before the Gap, the Ring of Nations has governed
Verces’s temperate zone. While all of the component countries
maintain theoretical independence, in practice the coalition
forms a single worldwide government, with representatives
from each country participating in the planetary Grand
Assembly. The success of this model led to the Pact Worlds
adopting both its structure and the peacekeeping Stewards, and
to this day Verces remains a firm supporter of the agreement,
as well as Absalom Station’s closest ally. Citizens of the Ring of
Nations freely pass between countries, and in places the Ring
becomes a single vast city, skyscrapers glinting in the sun while
its hive of shadowed lower levels blaze with neon and magic.
Of course, not all Vercites recognize the Grand Assembly’s
authority. Beyond the terminator zone live scattered groups
of rebels, from nomadic tribes and survivalist cults to criminal
organizations and political exiles. Collectively termed the Outlaw
Kingdoms, these fringe societies are generally ignored except
when they raid Ring citizens or Ring-owned outposts, such as
the vast Sun Farm solar plantations in Fullbright or Darkside’s
shelynium ice mines. Some groups, such as the ice-obsessed
Ascetics of Nar in the frozen monastery called the Fastness
of the Ordered Mind, trade regularly with Ring citizens, but
most respectable Vercites steer clear of both darksiders and
lightsiders—at least officially.
For a planet so urban and densely settled along the terminator,
Verces has a surprising amount of unexplored wilderness. Even
those in the Outlaw Kingdoms, dwelling in their sun-baked huts
or tunneling deep into the ice to reach the fertile seas beneath,
inhabit only a tiny portion of their territory, leaving vast stretches
of untouched wilds and strange ruins from unremembered
eras. One of the strangest of these is Qidel, Aerie of the Sun, a
strange tube-spire rising high out of the center of Fullbright and
descending deep into the planet’s mantle. So far, all expeditions
into the structure have failed to return, transmitting only strange
ravings about winged creatures in the depths.
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