More from Sector C6

Image from wikipedia

Hermits in the Hills: These hills have long been attractive to a breed of strange, religious hermits from the south. The caves are dry and cool, and the landscape abounds in easily accessed edibles, especially a button-sized mushroom that helps the hermits slip into their trances. The soft-shelled southerners have built quite a pilgrimage business around these hermits, with well-traveled trails leading down from the hills to large wooden roadhouses with grand courtyards, stables, etc. These are linked to the southern market towns via brick roadways that are beginning to show their age. Spacers are generally unwelcome at the roadhouses and in the Hermitage Hills, as they are considered a pox on the local culture and a threat to the ruling elite of the market towns. The loudest opposition comes from the few spacers that live among these people and have "gone native" - though not so native as to not use a blaster to fry unwelcome intruders.

Mining Operation: A small band of prospectors has set up an illegal mining operation here, using heavy industrial disintegrators to plow up large swathes of the landscape to get to the veins of valuable ores (triskellium, lopadite and pseudo-silver deposits) below. The last batch of rains washed down from the hills and destroyed a portion of the camp and caused a flood in the lowlands. The sodden landscape is now crawling with bee-spiders, whose stings carry a rotting disease that has claimed many of the miners.

Landing Strip: The survey scouts have cleared this area to build a landing strip. The strip is too small for large, interplanetary craft, but is perfect for the light atmosphere freighters that deliver supplies from the Port Gernsback. A small caretaker's shack has been constructed from corrugated plaz-board and tin packing sheaths, and is lived in by Urgo Ezbik, an odd man who survived a zombie war but lost his left arm (he thinks it is still out there looking for him) and a small piece of his sanity. Still, he's a wiz with aircraft repairs. He has stocks of ammunition and food hidden throughout the area.

Olvugai Scout Survey: A team of olvugai are scouting this area in pogos on behalf of the Andromeda Confederation. They are mercenary scientists, but not particularly violent. One has been infected by alien bacteria (an oddity for olvugai) and they are at a loss to solve the problem, as their small supply of medicinal powders and tonics has proven ineffective.

Ancient City: The remains of an ancient city of the three-toed people sits here, choked by jungle and as-yet unexplored by spacers. The ruins hide large reservoirs of fresh water (much of it heavy), a large idol of golden-radium, subterranean laboratories, armories, treasure vaults and summoning chambers, and other wondrous things. Those who enter must beware the fungal growths that look like unicorn horns that will inevitably spring up on their unprotected skulls. The images of the three-toed people all show similar horns on their heads. They are, in fact, a form of fungal parasite/symbiote that did most of that species' heavy thinking and planning. They survive as an airborne fungus that clings to and then grows on sentient beings. There is a 1 in 6 chance per person they grow on that they will make meaningful contact and begin conquering their mind. Otherwise, they scramble a person's synapses and leave them a shuddering, incoherent mass on the forest floor.

Three bull zartodons have taken up residence here, sending out arcs of photovoltaic energy to attract females.