Name: Darkstar
Type: Amorphous fire body
Size: C
Escape Time: 2 turns
Satellites: none
Distance from Primary: 2400 million miles
Day Length: 18 hours
Year Length: 540 months
Population Analysis: Lakshu
Few fire worlds are as enigmatic as Darkstar. While it appears to be a fairly standard fiery body from distant orbit, it quickly becomes clear that this is not a standard star. The surface swirls in strange and abstract shapes like some living abstract painting. Wild and contorted figures and shapes are in constant motion as the star rotates. The fire of this world are cool, a mere 150F, and is barely hot enough to give humans a sunburn. Despite the fact that this world constantly changes size, it does not experience solar flares, sun spots, or any other "standard" features of normal fire bodies.
Darkstar is not a large world, only about 700 miles across. This seems to be the average size, as it can grow as big as 850 miles in diameter and can shrink to a mere 640 miles. There is no real good way to measure the circumference of this world, as it lacks any definite shape to measure from.
The surface of Darkstar is nearly solid, having the texture of a wet sponge. Any attempt to mar the surface will utterly fail, as blades simply slide right through the surface, only to have the surface reseal as the blade passes by. The ground is at least a mile thick, and impossible to pass through, since it absorb all magic cast upon it, dissipating spells without effect.
Inside of Darkstar is a smaller world, a rocky earth body about 500 miles across. Covered by thick jungles, high plains, and steep mountains, this inner world. The conditions on this world are very rugged and harsh, with hard thunderstorms, dangerous animals, and deadly natural disasters. The world seems to have once been a drifting asteroid, but was altered a few centuries ago to suit the needs of a particular group of reigar artists, who wished to create a place to train an army of lakshu amazons for their own, twisted purposes. During the day, the sky is about as bright as an overcast day; at night, the sky darkens to twilight conditions.
This star is somehow connected to a demi-plane, which creates the outer, fiery shell. The Reigar enter and leave this world at will, possibly by shunting their esthetic ships through that demi-plane to the planet below. They rarely visit this world, and only to recruit lakshu to serve on their ships.
The fiery exterior of Darkstar has no atmosphere and no weather patterns. Only the interior has any kind of weather changes.
The sky of the inner world is always overcast. The sky appears oily red, orange, or green. Clouds, then they form, are bright blue in color, a property of the water found on this world. Temperature varies greatly from day to day, but is generally cold. The average temperature is about 50F, but can vary in upwards of 30 degrees in either direction. Temperature seems to be completely unrelated to seasons as understood by sages, nor is it related to day or night. It seems as if temperature is completely chaotic on this world.
Weather is likewise chaotic. Vicious storms can build up in an hour's time, yet die down a few minutes later. To determine weather on this world, roll on the weather table once per hour, allowing for any sort of weather. Rain can be light, steady, or a hard rain, all in a matter of minutes. Conditions are such that most of this world can support rainforests, but the high plateaus are usually barren. Snow can affect any area, but is most common on the high plateaus.
Darkstar is a vaguely spherical body, constantly shifting in shape and size. It can be any color, but such colors tend to be of the darker shades. Shapes and figures are formed and reform every few minutes, ruining any attempts to record patterns or common themes. Many sages have attempted to map out the changes in the shapes, but have all failed. Some claim that there is a definite pattern that the shell follows, but are usually quiet when asked for proof.
None. The shell has no means to create continents, and the inner earth body lacks large water bodies. It does have twelve small plateaus that rise a half mile above the surface of the planet, but the largest is only 20 miles across and not large enough to be considered true continents.
The plants of this world are a wash of colors, including purple, yellow, red, and pink trees. Most of the plants are leaf baring trees, but a thick and lush carpet of grass covers most of the planet. Forests are dominated by firs, ash, fig, and oak trees. Dangerous plants include hangman trees, thorn slingers, snapper saws, and mantraps.
Animal life is somewhat typical, thick with chipmunks, deer, rabbits, and other minor herbivores. Insects are not found, instead replaced by small birds no bigger than one's finger. Reptiles include snakes, crocodiles, and lizards, but amphibians cannot survive here. Fish survive in the small lakes, the largest a mere 2' in length. Catfish and trout are the most common aquatic dwellers.
Dangerous animal life include behir, bulettes, catoblepas, displacer beasts, dragonnes, griffons, hydras, minotaur lizards, and wyverns. These monsters survive on a steady diet of animals, but are hunted by the native lakshu as a rite of passage. Their high populations are magically supported by the unnaturally quick growth rates in the herbivore animals.
The only sentient species found on Darkstar are lakshu warriors. There are no less than fifteen tribes of lakshu on this world, each with over 400 members. They were put on this world by their masters, the reigar, to train, reproduce, and become powerful. The lakshu tribes dwell in small villages scattered throughout the planet, usually splitting their time between hunting, making armor and weapons, and survival. Conditions on this world are brutal, and only one in three lakshu will make it to adulthood. Despite this high attrition rate among the lakshu children, those that do survive are the hardest and most sturdy warriors. As part of their rite of adulthood, a young lakshu must hunt and slay one of the many dangerous monsters on this world. Many die, but the most cleaver lakshu manage to slay the beast through traps or through great skill and earn their rite of adulthood.
Reigar occasionally land here to recruit lakshu to crew their ships. They established this world solely for that purpose, allowing them to replenish their crew if a disaster kills too many of their loyal lakshu. Being chosen to be a servant of a reigar captain is considered the greatest honor of the lakshu, and none have ever turned such an offer down. For a captain to banish a lakshu to this world is death, since the other lakshu will immediately kill the offender for her failures. To die for a reigar is an immediate passage to paradise and the greatest honor that a lakshu can achieve.
Unfortunately for the lakshu, the reigar that brought them to this world are not the most honorable of the race. They are the unwitting servants of the Alliance of Dusk, an evil organization of reigar who play races against each other in bloody wars for pleasure and profit. They use Darkstar as a recruiting center to raise the armies they need to wreck havoc across all of Known Space. They created this world right under the tenticles of the illithids, making its appearance extremely painful to illithid eyes. When they discovered Darkstar, its appearance was so maddening that some illithids went insane, ultimately resulting in a general ban on the space around Darkstar. Since that time, the reigar come and go as they please, unrestricted by illithid interference.
The number of lakshu on Darkstar are steadily increasing, despite the high mortality rate and regular reigar visits, creating an ever growing army for the Alliance. Eventually, the reigar of the Alliance intend to use several thousand lakshu to invade key worlds and spread their influence throughout the Spheres. Other reigar do not know of the existence of this world, and some would be outraged by abuse of the loyal lakshu. Most, unfortunately, would approve of what the Alliance has done here.
There is but one commodity that is exported from this world: lakshu warriors. The planet imports nothing, but the lakshu tribes are self-sufficient and rely on nothing. Because of their high training and expert survival skills, the lakshu of this world have a +4 bonus to their hit points and a +1 bonus to hit with their weapon of choice, in addition to any other bonuses they may have due to specialization and strength. Additionally, they all have the proficiencies of survival, hunting, tracking, and endurance.
