Mappae Solis: The Cloisters of the Engels

The engels of Jupiter are united in a single common cause: their re-ascension to godhood. Fractured posthumans seeking a lost past, they are nominally a unified front. However, over time different opinions and philosophies arose as to the best way to reawaken their godminds permanently, resulting in several different organisations, each based on a different moon of the Jupiter system. These Cloisters still work together, but the exact nature of their alliances and cooperation is baroque and inscrutable to outsiders.

Mappae Solis: The Hives of the Dwarves

 

As not all asteroids are the same, not all dwarven hives are the same. Although hives almost universally share a rigid internal structure with leadership held jointly by Queens and Praetorians, the hive’s relationship to other hives and the greater system is the key defining factor in differentiating the dwarven hives. Hives tend to specialise heavily, and connections and trade are vital for their survival. Dwarves also often view Worker and Soldier dwarves as closer to a resource than a populace, and may trade population instead of resources if needed.

Mappae Solis: The Tribes of the Drakuu

 

Mars is a harsh place to live. Dry and sparse, all life that lives there must adapt to the particulars of their home to survive. For all desert is not the same, and all that is dry is not desert. Those best adapted to its extremes populate almost every corner of Mars: the drakuu tribes.

Mappae Solis: Villages of the Elves, and the Shard-Holts of Terra

 The Villages of the Elves

In the same vein as the Copses of the Halflings, I am going to use two combined tables of 6 to produce a variety of different villages for the elves.

Elven culture is based on the answer to one question: what does it mean to be human? Whether this is a philosophical question or a query into fashion, each village is essentially a subculture, exploring specific answers to the question. Villages may grow or shrink in popularity and population as fads come and go, or even vanish overnight as the elves finish fully exploring the fashion.

Mappae Solis: Habitats and the Undead

There are many space-born habitats in the solar system that the Gates can reach, ranging from small zero-G satellites to great Stanford tori and O'Neill cylinders. However, the Gates rarely link to them, as the local network does not consider them in its attempts to send travellers to their desired location. Gate Keys can give direct access to these places, but a common trick used by adventurers is to carry a fragment of a Key.

GLOG Class: Secret Skeleton

 Most people live in the squishy goo inside their skull, supported and sustained by the wet meat wrapped around their bones, powered by the twitching viscera pulsing inside their ribcage. 

Ew.

GLOG Class: Wrench Wench and Big Bot.

 

Why is it that small, adorable, fierce girls often find themselves in the company of a big burly engine of destruction? Amusing juxtaposition? Archaic and unhealthy notions of femininity and masculinity? An equally shitty view on the roles in a heteronormative relationship being expressed in a more palatable form? Probably.

Mappae Solis: Copses of the Halflings

 CULTURES AND BIOMES

Monocultures are rare on Earth, and usually occur due to some form of extremism or isolation. Humans do not have a single authority or culture, but it is a common failing of much speculative fiction to assume that other races do. This often ties in with the idea of “single-biome planets”, worlds of only ice, or forest, or ocean. 

Places might be hotter or drier than Earth, but they should still have variance. Cultures might have species-based traits and similarities, but they should be varied. In this next series of Mappae Solis posts, I will try to give an impression of different species’ cultures, especially given the broken and varied worlds they live in. Don't take any of this as immutable canon, as strange and bizarre subcultures are to be expected.

The Copses of the Halflings

The massive forests of the halflings are not united. Although they share common ideas and views, each Copse is a separate entity, aligned but not always allied with the others.

A Clockwork Valley

 A place tainted by order rather than chaos. 

A medieval fantasy land, a high European fairy-tale. A valley up in the mountains, big enough for a forest, a lake, a city, and a very small desert. Several days ride across, well protected by mountains, and an army.

Something happened here long ago. The mines in the valley mine clockwork, deposited in great veins that strain against each other, or lie dormant. The metal is unknown, and does not corrode or melt. Immense physical damage will cause a piece to break into two smaller intact pieces.

Godtech, the Gates, and the Beast in the Pit

Spread across the many worlds of Mappae Solis are fragments of technology. Some are rude chunks of inert metal, others simple toys and trinkets. Others have remnant power, and many a hedge wizard possesses a small collection of minor artefacts. Some however, are not minor. Some have incomprehensible power, and work in bizarre and arcane fashions. Some, are godtech.

Terra and the Humans

Earth suffered the most of any world in the Fall, as its density of both technology and population made the disaster much worse. For all that it was, and still is, the most habitable world with the largest carrying capacity and oldest, most complex biosphere, it is much reduced from its glory days. It has been long enough after the Fall that many ecosystems and biomes have recovered, and in the absence of cities and godtech megastructures, even returned to pre-Industrial levels.

However, many will tell you that Earth, now called Terra, is the most dangerous world.