Blood Sun

The Blood Sun

• System of 13 planets.

The Blood Imperium

Themes: Mongol language; facial tattooing; polyamorous society; blood-using witches; Dronigmar

• Empire of human warlords, often at odds with the Void Sodality; often use great Dronigmar stoneships
• Khortgal: "water" world, though planet is toxic and water is some chemical; floating harvesting camps used to gather precious substances for alchemical work; five alchemist guilds pretty much dominate the world, protected by the Imperium; surface of liquid catches on fire during the day
• Chuluu: barren stone world very close to the Blood Sun; one of two worlds considered homeworld of the Dronigmar
• Shimtei: mountainous world with rich valleys with human settlements; second of two worlds considered homeworld of the Dronigmar
• Rondil: multi-biome world (mostly forest, savannah, and swamps), HQ for Imperium

The Midmarches

• Khili'ann: Desert world known for Maker ruins; lots of garifolk
• Saitai: Mining world known for metallurgy and automatons
• Tarnigast: world filled with big monsters, largely unoccupied, single mountain-top settlement/port
• Rootworld: Rootworld Orthodoxy, rootsingers, garden/agriculture planet
• Shulamai: Swamp world; headquarters of the Blood Witches
• Takhal: Abandoned, plague-ridden world

The Void Sodality

Themes: Piracy, cold, void, Uzbek language, black steel, layers of coats/cloaks

• Outermost three planets of the system, made up of five allied "Void Lords" whose night-ships somehow manage to travel great distances despite the total lack of use of thevaqan.
• Reputation as raiders and pirates.
• Oqshom: A world whose distance from the Blood Sun results in a near-perpetual state of twilight during the day, and deep black freezing nights. Ruled by the Void Lord Noza, a notorious pirate. Oqshom has a single moon.
  • Girdob: A small moon in orbit around Oqshom, Girdob is ruled by Void Lord Mardya. She is the wife of Noza, and a notable pirate queen in her own right. Girdob is a water world, with terrible storms that constantly criss-cross its surface. The only land are patches of tall spires, the result of weak volcanic activity, that stick up out of the ocean, out of which settlements are carved and interconnected with bridges.
• Qecha: A thin-aired world of deep rivers and extensive swamplands, with only three small seas. The lands are all low and marshy, but the native plantlife here generates both air and heat naturally, providing the ability to inhabit the world. Qecha is ruled by Void Lord Roqalia, an infamous torturer and interrogator. It is orbited by two moons.
  • Tuman & G'ubor: These two moons are the dominion of Void Lord Ardumaq. Both are mountainous bodies carved with deep, mist-filled trenches. Though the air is very thin above the layer of the mist, the fog itself traps both heat and breatheable air produced by carefully-tended tree gardens in the trenches.
• Sovuq: A world with two moons, which is perpetually ice-covered, ruled by Void Lord Wavaq. Cities here are built deep underground, to take advantage of planetary geothermals. The air above-ground is all but unbreatheable, so thin is it, but local airborne microplankton dwell within its subterranean caverns, producing breatheable air as part of their natural life cycle.

Other Info

Theme: Blood, mutation, visceral power, sex, primal power, hallucination

• Blood Witches, renowned healers and midwives, as well as advisers who "blood" patrons with leech-creatures they've bred to consume blood and replace it with longevity elixirs. Found all over the Ravimarga, except in the Rastram, who consider their arts unclean. Maintain servant-warriors hopped up on blood elixirs to defend them.
• The Scarlet Web: Sympathetically bonded public servants, connected via heredity and DNA used as communications relays. Kept in tanks of crimson nutrients to provide immersive hallucinative mental links
• Poisons: Blood Imperium has a long history of poison use for not just assassination but also beauty, birth control, medical augmentation, in vitro genetic manipulation, recreation and similar tasks. Many of the nobles have engineered bloodlines to be immune to standard poisons.
• Genetic Manipulation: animals as useful tools, for work and recreation. Designer off-spring for those who can afford it, or guardian animals (forbidden from being raised to sentience by the witches). Ability to mix seed of multiple lovers and conjoined them into a composite fetus.
• Selamas: Harems of males kept by noble women, who mix and match their best attributes through genetic manipulation in the "cauldron of the womb". (Strange composite pupils are a sign of this special breeding.)
• Shapechangers that can take in the genetic samples of a lover and assume those forms.
• Hallucinogens-based folk religion, "snake handlers" bitten by venomous creatures whose venom causes visions.