Etris

OverviewGameplay and Locations

**Etris** is a habitable planet located on the western edge of the Plerus Expanse. It is the only habitable world in the Bardak-12 System. It is a temperate world notable for hosting a pre-industrial Drodo civilization on its surface, who are the distant descendants of an early wave of interstellar Drodo colonial expansion. Etris was rediscovered by Plerus Federal surveyors in 20 NE, and since then limited contact with the galaxy has been maintained via occasional visitors from spacers and representatives from the Plerus Expanse, Aratacia, and Adriyan.

## Origins

Etris was believed to have first settled roughly two millennia ago. The original expedition which settled the world was likely sent during a wave of early interstellar Drodo expansion into the then unexplored Plerus Expanse. It was widely believed in Drodo space at the time that there were habitable worlds and technology dating to the Old Empire to be found in the Expanse, which presented an opportunity for wealth and riches.

Very early in the history of the Etris colony was the use of high technology abandoned and all contact with the greater galaxy lost. It is believed that the settlement of Etris itself was not easy, and that supplies were already critically depleted before making footfall on the world itself. Additionally, the challenging etherography surrounding Etris would have made interstellar trade and communication very difficult.

The first generations of Etrisites organised themselves into subsistence communities, and over the course of roughly one-thousand years settled most of the planet’s habitable land with a patchwork of small states. Their origins as colonists has largely been forgotten in the intervening time.

## Geography

Etris is a pelagic world with a single continent of moderate size located on its northern hemisphere, which is also referred to as Etris by the locals. The southern extremity of the Etris continent consists of a massive semicircular bay called **Oxur**. Oxur is theorised to have been created many millions of years ago by the impact of a small planetoid.

The Oxur subcontinent, and the sea it encompasses, maintains a pleasant mediterranean climate and is the centre of civilization and trade on Etris. The many thousands of islands, large and small, are home to city-states and confederations of various sizes while the larger nations of the bay area form larger land-based empires. Oxur shares a lingua franca and broad set of cultural norms developed through centuries of mutual contact.

The middle band of this continent, named **Acen**, is separated by a series of mountain ranges to its south from Oxur. Temperate and heavily forested, it enjoys warm summers and suffers brutal winters. Though the Oxuri regard them as barbarians, the civilizations of Acen are very sophisticated, and are crucial to Oxur for their export of tin and finished bronze and iron goods, in return receiving copper, pottery, currency, and other finished goods. Yet farther north is the inhospitable tundra, **Ilox**, where it is rumoured hordes of vile creatures live and plot to invade southward.

## Ecology

Etris’ native ecology is famous both for its beauty and its deadliness. Carnivorous plants, monstrous sea predators capable of capsizing sea vessels, and tribes of subsapient brutes with an appetite for human flesh coexist with plane-sized birds with scintillating patterns of feathers, bees which produce an antibiotic honey, and many others. Ecosystems on Etris are therefore complex and deadly, and much of the time and effort of the local Drodo is dedicated to the dangerous work of taming and clearing this environment for use by civilization. Outside of the well-worn paths and the tall walls of the city, Etris is a very strange place.

## Culture and Politics

Culturally, the Etrisites are a distant offshoot of the Ranscari peoples of the early interstellar period of the Drodo Sector, as this was the majority population of the Drodo settlers. They speak a subfamily of languages called **Etrisite** by galactic linguists, which is itself part of a wider family of the Aratacic languages, including Ranscari dialects, Aratacian, Kusyar, and Stjarnavi. The Etrisite languages, while sharing a grammar and some vocabulary with their galactic counterparts in the Aratacic language family, are not mutually intelligible with them.

There are two dominant languages in the Etrisite family; **Oxuri**, spoken by the Southerners, and **Aceno**, spoken by the Northerners. Each of these languages could easily be considered groups of languages, and dozens of dialects, some radically different, exist.

The Oxuri and Aceno worlds constitute separate, very large civilizations with shared institutions, culture, and economic and political arrangements. The Oxuri, from the balmy south, are obligate traders, with a strong culture of city-living and municipal sovereignty. They worship a wide pantheon of gods, cultivate wheat and herd goats as their main food production, and are noted for their seafaring capabilities. Politically, the Oxuri organise themselves in ways as diverse as democratic city-states, to monarchical ones, to land-based kingdoms ruling over wide areas of Oxur.

The Aceno live in the temperate north of the Etris continent. Polytheists, they worship a very similar pantheon of gods to the Oxuri. The Aceno cultivate barley and prefer the herding of cattle on large commons, and it is this way that the main means by which the wealth of households and communities is counted. The Aceno organise themselves into large tribal confederations which claim territory and elect war-leaders using a senate. They are fearsome warriors, and their metalworking is noted for its quality.

## Currency

Commodity money made of precious metals remains the primary currency on Etris. Typically, they come in the form of small silver bars about half as long as a human thumb called **anurin** (🜛), with others being made of copper and gold. Almost every state on Etris mints their own, but most follow the pattern of these bars.

These coins have no value as currency off of Etris, and are of marginal value as collectors’ items. On a world with no connection to the cubit economy, however, they remain the means of exchange.

## Psionic Presence

The fantastical has a strong presence on Etris and its inhabitants. Incidence of psionic proficiency is far higher than the Drodo baseline and indigenous magic traditions flourish on the planet. Etris is also host to numerous bizarre creatures whose origins as wholly-natural products of evolution are questionable. This has made the planet of particular interest to various organisations, both spiritual and scientific in nature, which specialise in the study of psionics.

## Empyrean Power Crystals

The native Etrisites possess many thousands of Empyrean Power Crystals of every grade, ranging from the commonest to, in some exceptional cases, the most rare. It is widely theorised that all of these crystals came from the original hoard brought by the initial Drodo colonists two millennia ago, and that the original purpose of these crystals as well as the technology with which to put them in has been lost with time. Prior to rediscovery, the Etrisites assigned special cultural significance to the artifacts. They were frequently integrated into jewelry, kept in collections, and used in religious ceremonies. The planet has been an increasingly-popular focal point for EPC traders the galaxy over.

## Visiting Etris

Etris is a difficult world to navigate to and a difficult world to live on. The Bardak-12 system is set within a dense crust of etherfog which encircles the western extremity of the Plerus Expanse, which means space travel to the world is dangerous to fragile craft and inexperienced navigators. Once in the system, spacers will be expected to dock at Bardak Station, the only inhabited space station in the system, in orbit of Etris. Planetside, absence of the amenities and infrastructure present on the worlds of spacefaring civilizations makes visitation potentially very hazardous.

Physical health will be a constant concern while on Etris. Sanitation and public health are, by galactic standards, very poor. Transmissible diseases and food parasites are omnipresent, and potentially extremely deadly to humans and nearhumans. Outside of the handful of offworlder outposts on Etris, effective treatment for these illnesses is nonexistent. Innoculation for most diseases on Etris is available at [location(s)]. The introduction of galactic illnesses to Etris for which the locals have no immunity is also a serious concern, and Plerus Federal authorities strongly suggest offworlders undergo a comprehensive disease screening before going disembarking to Etris.

Physical security is also a salient concern. Etris is claimed by a patchwork of small iron-age polities. The claimed territory and diplomatic relations between these states is volatile, and war and raiding are frequent. The absence of modern law enforcement within cities means petty acts of criminality such as theft, fraud, and extortion are not uncommon. Travelling the Etris countryside, especially by night, exposes travellers to the risks of banditry, weather hazards, and dangerous animals. Certain states, such as Mipox, are significantly safer than others to travel within owing to the effective administration of basic law and order.

Travel by sea is often the fastest means of getting to locations, with this most often being done on wooden sailing and rowing vessels which hug the coast for most of the journey. While relatively fast and cheap, this form of travel is also hazardous as these ships are extremely vulnerable both to inclement weather and to piracy.

## Offworld Authorities

Etris has no central planetary government, and the pre-industrial statelets on the planet operate as sovereign powers. However, the Bardak-12 System itself falls within the claimed space of the Plerus Expanse, and owing to the unique vulnerability of the Etris civilization the planet's orbit is patrolled by a small Plerus Federal Navy detail, which redirects all incoming traffic to dock and check-in at Bardak Station for inspection and health screenings before going planetside.

Bardak Station hosts a company of Aratacian Foreign Legionnaires, who provide station security and limited apprehension and law enforcement capabilities to bad actors planetside.