Venusian Skies

## Cloudscape Canopy

### Layers

Between fifty and sixty-five kilometers span the inhabited layers of the Venusian sky, where pioneers set foot and humanity grows. To both ends there is the frontier, where the extremophile organisms expand its boundaries ever more, slowing conquering more and more territories from the erstwhile inhospitable planet.

* Fringe Regions
* Coldest Regions
* High Skies
* Low skies
* Twilight Zone
* Acidic Abyss

### Acidic Tempests

Stirred by volcanoes and the force of the sun, the skies of Venus are an eternal storm. Where currents of air rapidly change, they often breach the fragile veil of habitable spheres and carry acidic clouds deep into the inhabited isles. Time and again the corrosive rain falls and eats away at all living things. To those without masks and coat, there is nothing left but to endure until the anger of Venus subsides and new rays of the sun reach through the clearing clouds.

### Feverish Nights

One-hundred and seventeen Terran days pass between the two sunrises of each Venusian year. Time flows curiously on the boiling planet and when daylight turns into darkness, a deep feverish night falls upon the world.

Many creatures survive in months of the dark, feeding on atmospheric energy. The heat never passes, neither does the wind. And in bioluminescent light, the skies of Venusia thrive. Those creatures and plankton who photosynthesize hibernate in spores on the wind, other migrate chasing the dawn, fleeing the terminator line. With them are many of humankind's isles, nomadic peoples remaining in eternal dusk and dawn.

## Thriving Skies

Life in the Venusian skies is bound to the technological monument of humanity. Spheres of biomass are sown throughout the atmosphere, centered around the skyward floating continents. Their vast reaches are bleak and empty akin to the open sea, but where reefs are suspended in the bottomless sky, they thrive towards pinnacles of organic complexity.

### Venusian Snow

All Venusian life subsists on the feeding grounds of grazing clouds. Microbes, Nanites and molecular machines transforming thermal energy into the components of riving biomass let the Venusian snow fall onto the empty plains. Where the snow falls, the atmosphere is rich enough for the augmented humanity of Venus to breathe.

### Water Wellsprings

Throughout the Solar System water is the elixir of nigh all living things. In the fevering skies of Venus, the liquid of life is a precious commodity. Obtained from elements broken out of the atmosphere, vapor churns the clouds and falls with the snow. Captured from the wind by humanity and creatures alike, the water is hoarded by all. The great Siphonophores hold it in cushions of boundless gelatinous form, whereas humanity entraps it deep underground, only to reveal it by the whims of the naiads.

### Skyward Life

On water and snow subsides the complex webwork of Venusian living things.

* **Flora** born from Venusian snow thrives on all skyward continents. Clad in a hard crust and filled with precious marrow, the plants of Venus are deep and dark, absorbing all twilight reaching deep beneath the clouds. They are stubborn, resilient creatures offering many thorns and poisons to those attempting their demise.
* **Venusian Vermin** is the living mass of crustaceans and worms buried in black soil. Transforming snow to complex biomass, the vermin of Venus feed many larger things. Many escape their role of play in large monolithic colonies which graze and roam the lands.
* **Flying Rays** roam the skies like open waters of the seas. Filled with annexed gasses, their organs, and muscles elevate them through the skies. Some are ancient, vast filter-feeders, others ferocious hunters among the clouds
* **Great Siphonophores** are the largest of all things living under Venusian clouds. Their ever-growing gelatinous bodies know no bounds and take on the most complex and wondrous forms. Sacks of Helium keep them in the sky, as they are carried with the winds evermore. Some, they say, glow curiously in the dark as if to communicate tales among their kin.
* **Venusian Medusae** and **Polyps** inhabit all isles and are found throughout the entire atmosphere in hibernating form. Once their spores reach habitable lands again, they quickly emerge from their hardened shells once more and bloom in their billions throughout the sky.

### Venusian Lineages

Venusian humanity has taken many forms, adapted to the diverse niches offered by the sister-world. Many see well in the twilight and thrive in pressing heat. Even more are immune to dangerous acidity and differences in pressure. As the world shapes them, so they shape themselves, spawning distinct differences between each archipelago and continent.

## Skyward Continents

### Geography

Each of the fourteen continents is a monument to humankind, a product of an entire era of technology and unique in its construction and form.

Different in size and age, all skyward continents encompass moving plates, elevated into the sky by means of atmosphere and Helium. Around their edges, vast veils of wind keep many storms away. In arcologies and settlements, they house billions of souls and uncounted creatures on vast landscapes among the skies.

All features of the continents are modeled and designed. An Architecture of function and technology governs all design.

### Archipelago

Isles of smaller population surround all expansive continents. Installations and mines, stations and habitats of all kinds are connected to the centerpieces of Venusian Civilization. Many of them are constant companions, but some are guided by another course.

### Wandering

Many entities of the Venusian Skies are anchored to the hellish ground, to keep close to precious resources. Others, however, keep to the terminator, following the crawling day. Where continents of Venus meet and collide, the greatest trades are engaged and the cruelest wars are fought.