More Locales from Beautiful Sector C6

A few more looks into my region of K22b - enjoy!

The Pointer: A clearing here features a rather vast stone, dark grey, carved in the shape of the head of a magrippa bird, one of the local fauna, a black bird that resembles a cross between a shrike and a flamingo. The stone points toward an abandoned city of the short, headless crab people - an ancient people apparently now extinct.

Bunker: Folks walking through the underbrush of this hex might fall through a mat of dried, woven grass into a large, subterranean bunker. The chamber they fall into is dusty and filled with refuse. There are three sealed doors here that lead into the rest of the complex, which was apparently used in case of an atomic war - a war that very well might have happened, given the relative lack of native technology in this region. Explorers of the bunker might discover that it was built by the three-toed people. It contains some of their ancient, atomic-aged weaponry (no usable batteries, and one would have to rig up a way to make any of it work), samples of their pop culture (runs the gamut from books about philosophy to girly magazines), and a wide variety of colored lenses, the purpose of which is unknown.

Blazing Falls: A waterfall in this hex has a very high gas content and, in essence, is on fire. The fire runs into the pool beneath it and down the river a ways. The source of the gas is unknown, but would be a dandy thing for a scientific survey to discover!

Grand Altar: An alien ruin in this hex looks like a giant, spherical construction of pink-gray stone. A set of stairs leads up to a portal of pale pink jade and a door long since battered down. Within the temple, there is a floor of mosaic tiles depicting some sort of pink worms and the mysterious three-toed people destroying the headless crab people. There is a hole in the floor from which seeps some sort of colorless gas with a petroleum smell. If lit, it bursts into flames which form into a weird sphere that fills the center of the temple like a great, flaming all-seeing eye. The effect is extremely unnerving. The temple heats up quickly, and will be nearly unbearable in 10 minutes time.

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.

More Previews of C6

Alien Dinos: A herd of alien lifeforms that look like long-legged, soft shelled turtles, are grazing on the dark, spicy fruit of the tall umbrella trees that fill much of this hex. One of them has been tagged by some other survey team, and the group are wary around aliens (i.e. there is a 1 in 6 chance they will charge).

Androids: A band of the silver-faced androids from Crux 12 has set up shop here. They purport to be doing a scientific survey, but their equipment is outdated and mismatched, and they seem as though they are hiding something. In fact, they are religious cultists and worshipers of the Worm - a 22nd century computer virus that targets computer systems and artificial intelligences. They seek out computer systems and do their best to infect them.

Danglers: This hex holds one of the more unusual life forms on the planet. Strips of amino acids that look something like gossamer threads drape the Y-trees here. They are not dangerous, and when (or if) ingested in the proper sequence (this could be determined by a biologist with the proper equipment and a genius for creative thinking) put people into a waking trance that allows them to view, from a deep, biological perspective, the evolutionary history of the planet. There is always a chance, though, that the strings are poisonous to some aliens, and that they might play havoc with the DNA of others.

Tripods: The woodlands give ground to rolling plains of orange onion-grass and white feather-fronds. Amidst this natural beauty there are hundreds of alien monuments that look like tripods about 20 to 30 feet tall made of amethyst-colored glass. This glass substance is extremely durable, and actually behaves more like metal when damaged (i.e. it bends and dents, rather than shatter, but can be scratched). Each tripod has three legs (obviously) that join a ring. The interior of the ring carries a strange static charge. What this means is a mystery. (P.S. -Amethyst Tripod would be a great name for a band).

Canyon of Bones: A canyon here, with rugged walls (many hand and toe-holds and small, shallow burrows of the local petting-spiders) is filled with thousands upon thousands of bones. Most are animal in nature, but there are many humanoid bones mixed in as well, representing most of the intelligent species native to the planet. Kaiser-dogs burrow through the damp ground at the bottom of the canyon (it appears to have once been the bed of a small river) and the native bacteria seems to have given them a dim sentience of their own. Those who spend the time to dig deeper into the muck might find strange beings with large heads and small, bony bodies curved into a fetal position buried in the muck. These creatures appear to be carved from ivory, but are in fact a profoundly powerful species of psychics in suspended animation, awaiting the return of the river. Many of the locals regard them as sleeping gods, and make sacrifices to them (i.e. the bones).

Sector C6 Takes Shape ...

Source

These previews are my own (and about damn time I wrote them) ...

DOME OF THE PRESERVERS: Dwarfed by the soaring jungle canopy, one might discover a great Dome of the Preservers in this hex. The dome is constructed of a greenish metal of wholly alien origin, and, unlike many of the ruins to be found in the galaxy, this one is intact!

The dome is approximately one mile in diameter and about 300 feet high without an apparent means of entry. In fact, there are several access points on the exterior, all of them leading into the outer ring of the dome. One can open one of these access points by playing five musical notes (you know the five, and your players should be able to figure them out). Upon playing these notes, a door simply appears, the metal appearing to pull back almost like a curtain - at this point, scientists will note that the dome (exterior and interior) is composed of billions of tiny "granules" of green metal that react primarily to musical notes.

The outer ring of the dome is a passageway lit by a dim radiance that seems to just radiate from the walls, floor and ceiling. The same musical notes that gained one entry can be used to open passages into the inner ring, from which one can enter various chambers (offices, storage, etc.) of the alien Preservers, or call up from a subterranean storage tube thousands of alien animals from the past of Kepler 22B and many other planets. All of them are stored in force cages in temporal stasis, though various tunes can awaken and even release them (one must take care). The Referee should assign effects to the eight basic musical notes, both singly and in combination, allowing explorers to cause all sorts of havoc as they puzzle their way through them. The force cages literally rise from gaps that form in the green floor of the central hall of the dome. One can bring up 100 different cages at a time, creating a little zoo.

You can use the handy dandy alien animal generator in Space Princess to whip up the inhabitants of the force cages, as well as throw in a few famous beasts drawn from sci-fi literature. The Preservers also maintained a few sentient beings in temporal stasis, so a rare musical combination could bring one of these aliens up from the depths.

TRANSHUMANISTAS: The Transhumanistas are a motorcycle gang that roams the galaxy in search of rare components to help them leave their human shells behind, that they might ... oh hell, they're a bunch of nutty cyborgs who like to steal things and cause trouble. Fifty of them have set up camp here. They're scouting out the alien ruins and contemplating making a run on Galaxy Ranger post in the hills. The gang is led by The Black Daedalia, a woman who is now only 13.5% organic.

SLIME POTS: In this area, the thick jungle gives way to rocky plains dotted by tufts of tough, orange-green grass and something the explorers have termed "slime pots". The slime pots look something like the famous Indian paint pots of Yellowstone (a national park located on Earth in the United States of America), but they are filled with a shimmering, shivering ooze that is capable of spitting globules at creatures that approach too close (15 feet is usually a safe distance, but the pots have been known to spit up to 22 feet away). The slime globules burn the skin and cause their victims to hallucinate and lose their balance. They are gradually eaten away, hosting a new colony of slime, which begins constructing a new slime pot where its victim has fallen.

The entire area is crisscrossed by underground thermal vents, making the rocky ground warm and allowing various gasses to escape through cracks. These gasses have a tendency to inebriate humans and human-like aliens, making them easy targets for the slime pots.

An artificially intelligent communication satellite of the Jark Collective has recently fall into the area of the  slime pots, and is waiting impatiently to be recovered and repaired.

BROWN BELLIES: The brown bellies are massive fungal domes that grow in the shade of the jungle. Each dome is a hemisphere measuring 1d4 + 6 feet in diameter. These domes play host to hives of alien wasps who operate on a higher mental plane than the average insect, using telepathic signals to link their miniscule minds into a single mind that is the equivalent of a 6 year old child with severe anger management issues.

VAMPIROIDS: A cruiser of the vampiroids was brought down on Keppler 22B some 500 years ago in a freak mishap. The ship's titanium superstructure has survived somewhat intact, though mostly buried, in the jungles here. The descendants of the vampiroids have survived as devolved, bat-like creatures with jutting fangs and a hankering for blood. They now dwell in the tree-tops in small cabals led by large, overbearing males. The females are capable of projecting illusions into people's minds, making themselves look like the seductive vampiroids of yore. Getting into the superstructure would present one with a treasure trove of vampiroid artifacts, and perhaps two or three members of the original crew in suspended animation.