Thanatos

System: Thanatos

Hex Location: 0733

Star Type: Double star G4 V, M8 V (distant)

Number of Worlds: 12 (7/5)

Gas Giants: 7 (4/3)

Planetoid Belt: Comet belt and asteroid belt (2 each)

Starport Type: A High class port

World Size: Earth-sized

Atmosphere Type: Earth-like

Surface Water: 20% ("surface" being a misnomer; most of it is in the crust in shallow aquifers rather than actually on the surface itself.)

Population: Medium (800 million)

Political Affiliation: Seraean Empire, Outremer

Notes: Thanatos is the capital of the Outremer region—occasionally known more formally as the Civitas Ordenis Umraci. Established as conquests by Shadow Knight Lords, they are semi-independent of the Seraean Empire; Shadow Knight Lords who desired greater autonomy and freedom, and went crusading to liberate and pacify regions that were formerly important to their Order for religious or political reasons, but which had fallen from control of the Empire prior to even the Slave Wars ghastly resolution. I say capital, but the reality is that the Outremer region is only loosely confederated, and the various Lords who rule their fiefdoms are somewhat fractious and unruly. Rather, Thanatos claims to be the capital, and it is probably the most important. Lord Kar Tanus VII is the most important figure in the Outremer systems, but his actual rule is limited to the Thanatos system itself.

In theory, of course, Kar Tanus is a vassal of the Empire, but in pragmatic day to day terms, he's so far from Phovos Mal, and its influence is weak enough, that he operates independently for all practical purposes, and only invokes his role as the local voice of the Emperor and the Council of Arch-heretics when it suits his purposes, otherwise ruling in his own name and for his own reasons.

The system is a double star, but the companion star, a faint red dwarf, is distant enough to almost effectively be a separate system; it is about as far from the main yellow star as Sedna is from our own sun, and provides little light and no appreciable heat to the inner planets like the main world. Most of the rest of the planets are thoroughly uninhabited and uninhabitable, but small settlements on a somewhat Earth-like planet of the companion star have sprouted up in very recent years, and asteroid and comet mining takes place here as well.

Thanatos itself is a cold, red desert—a world that formerly had more warmth and water, but which gradually seems to have lost some of it over time to forces that are mysterious. It is also the supposed home and point of origin of the Shadow Knights cult, which predates the Seraean Empire to which they are now strongly attached. In spite of this, the natives do not seem to be Seraean in ethnicity in any fashion whatsoever, although they are xenohuman. Bronze-skinned and yellow-eyed, with a dusky khaki or olive colored hair, they live in both Bedouin-like nomadic groups, as well as in ancient, moldering Lowlands cities of decadent, ancient civilizations that are long past their prime. Two groups of off-worlders have established modern cities, and effectively rule the planet, ignoring (for the most part) the natives except when employing them as either mercenaries or lower class laborers. These off-worlders are the Shadow Knights and their associated Seraean soldiers and settlers and colonists, and the second group are Old One cults, which maintain a feudal vassalage political relationship with Kar Tanus.

Because Outremer is still a region being pacified, and crusaders pass through frequently, many people coming to Thanatos on the way to somewhere else never actually land on the planet at all. All of the services offered at a type A starport are actually offered in a vast orbital location that floats in space above the planet, built on a small asteroid dragged into position by an ancient warlock and "gravitized" to offer Earth-like gravity in spite of its tiny size (on world, the starports, depending on the city in which you put down, never reach above class B at best.)

Semi-legendary history of the Order suggests that when it was founded, it was because of a weakness in the membrane of observed reality, and the ability of the bulk to be breached more easily here than elsewhere. This has led to a number of bulk entities occasionally having been reputed to have come to our reality here, daemons in reality, since they are so alien and hostile to life in the observed universe that they really can't be called anything else. Some are reputed to still be imprisoned somewhere deep underground, or in abandoned ruins deep in the desert. Many also claim that subversive and disturbing whispers can be heard at potentially any point on the surface, but others claim that those who say this are merely superstitious and subject to suggestion and paranoia. Either way, Thanatos is a violent world, in part because of the relatively light hand of Kar Tanus, his whim in prosecuting whatever harsh justice he feels is required, often without giving notice, and in part because for whatever reason, the inhabitants seem to be somewhat more susceptible to falling into violent psychosis and other madness after staying here too long.