Kuznuh Unveiled

Kuznuh is the primary world of the neshekk and a member of the Alliance. The neshekk aren't natives; they arrived there after being displaced by the Great Collapse. The neshekk have made their fortunes primarily through investment banking.They have a reputation for ethical behavior and conservative investment, but are sticklers for the letter of contracts and do not tend to offer easy terms.

Perhaps because of their wealth or perhaps due to a separate cultural quirk, the neshekk are greatly concerned with privacy. They go through the streets wrapped in a shroud of nizara, making them invisible or unrecognizable (depending on their settings) in the metascape of their world, unless they choose otherwise. It is a misdemeanor privacy violation to view public spaces of Kuznuh unfiltered by the metascape. All social interaction on Kuznuh is a process of negotiating the level and setting time parameters for permissions to access personal information. Even among family, neshekk may completely cloak themselves in nizara for privacy’s sake.

Their desire to protect their privacy and wealth (and the wealth of their clients) has led the neshekk to become security experts in both electronic and data security. Neshekk infosecurity firms are noted for their ruthlessness; they have been known to employ basilisk patterns and other forms of deadly intrusion countermeasures.

Neshekk society is divided into clans. The heads of these clans elect a Chief Executive Officer of Kuznuh. When the neshekk clan leaders lose confidence in a CEO, he or she is replaced--and memory-wiped to insure the protection of board secrets. This process is referred to as “beheading.”

Kuznuh City, the capital of their world, has a walled and checkpointed city center full of windowless, unadorned cylinders where the wealthy neshekk reside. Offworlders that work for them reside in partitioned areas around it. All visitors and offworlders are given rudimentary nizara shielding, but don’t have as many options with its use nor are theirs as opaque to legal inquiries as that of citizens.

(For those that are interested, FATE stats for the neshekk and other species can be found in a newly updated file here.)

The Alliance

The Alliance is unique in the Strange Stars in representing interspecies cooperation on an interstellar scale. It was formed by seven peoples displaced by the Great Collapse. Initially distrustful of each other, they came to fear the lawlessness of the Zuran Expanse and religious strife in the center of the Radiant Polity more than sacrificing a bit of their own sovereignty.

Previously, we've touched on the smaragdines, the blesh and the gnomes.  Here's an overview of the other Alliance members:

The hyehoon are humanoids spliced from avian and hominid DNA. They have lighter frames than humans, but are strong for their weight. Hyehoon are a dynamic and inquisitive culture, producing explorers, scientists, diplomats and traders. They face internal strife from conflict with the minority religious faction known as the Eden Seekers.

The neshekk banking and investment clans are the financial backbone of the Alliance. Neshekk are greatly concerned (possibly obsessed) with security and privacy. They never go into public without their elaborate privacy screeens/firewalls called nizara in place. Off-worlders are restricted to certain areas of Kuznuh, the neshekk homeworld, and it is a misdemeanor to view any public space unfiltered by the metascape.

The Alliance's greatest warriors are the thrax. A clone race, created for war, they still structure their society along martial lines. They are known for their elaborate battle armor and their enthusiasm for hand to hand weapons.

The winged deva are the most mysterious of the Alliance's members. They can survive in hard vacuum unprotected and through space under their own power (at least for short distances). In their home system of Altair, they're repairing damaged moon-sized brains.

Ships in the Strange Stars

Art by Peter Elson

Alliance Fleet
Military ships in the Alliance are based and maintained in one member world or another.

Smaragdine registered Alliance ships: Frumious Bandersnatch, Chemosit, Blatant Beast, Coeurl, Peryton, Lurking Grue, Basilisk, Owlbear.

Neshekk registered Alliance ships: Binding Arbitration, Creditor, External Audit, Accounts Payable, Devaluation, Termination with Prejudice, Constructive Dismissal.

(And let's not forget the dread neshekk privateer vessel Crimson Permanent Assurance)

Art by Bob Layzell

Vokun Fleet
All Vokun ships save more the most minor custom vessels or intersystem shuttles are controlled by the Vokun themselves. Their names reflect their bellicose and imperialist culture.

Sample ship names: Martial Prowess, Indomitable, Destroyer of Worlds, Conqueror, Inevitable Victory, Imperious Will, Unchallenged Might.

The Strange Stars' Most Wanted

Here's a selection of  "most wanted" criminals culled from various crime databases across known space:

The Dragon’s Teeth: An infosophont which generates for its clients a specially synthesized, infectious nanoweapon for the purposes of creating assassins from random bystanders.

Haxun Malokk: Penitent crime lord operating out of an independent principality on Circus. Though associated with numerous crimes, he may be more notable for his eccentricity: he has patterned his criminal persona on an Old Earth historic work named Chicago Mobs of the Twenties and forces the members of his gang to dress and act accordingly.

Ligeia-988: Eratoan bioroid who masterminded a large-scale kidnapping ring in a supposedly unused pleasure dome. Most of her victims believed they were on vacation during the duration of their confinement.

Mako Orm: An infamous Zao Pirate who escaped capture by the privateer vessel Thermidorian by use of a bootleg genderswap nanoswarm. She is believed to be living under an assumed name in the Strip.

Polychrome: Allegedly the target of contract killers hired by Neshekk Banking Clans, this con-artist was responsible for a major “correction” in Alliance financial markets after a spectacularly successful execution of the “new node scam.”

Another Savage Friday

In what's becoming a regular feature, let's again turn to channel Wrathofzombie as Mike has been hard at work again this week adapting Strange Stars for Savage Worlds:

Neshekk: privacy obsessed bankers.
Gnomes: eusocial asteroid miners.
Deva: mysterious, angelic, post-humans.
Blesh: alien bioroids with the minds of long-dead humans.

The Strange Stars

With nearly 40 posts in the Strange Stars setting, the sagacious Robert over at Rogues & Reavers suggested it might be time for an overview post to make it easier for people to see how these far-ranging elements sort of fit together. I’m not sure the best way of doing that (one might want to start with the inspirations here), but I’ll sort of summarize what’s been presented so far:

The Strange Stars is the sphere of the human phyle in the far future, a time millennia after the first human expansion and the rise (and fall) of builders of the hyperspace nodes, the Archaic Oikumene. In the current era, the Strange Stars are fragmented into smaller cultures and civilizations.

The former cradle of the Archaic Oikumene is a depopulated area without a central authority known as the Zuran Expanse. The Expanse is home to dangers like the inhuman ssraad (in three colors), and ruined worlds that entice treasure-seekers like Tenebrae and the Library of Atoz-Theln. It’s also home to unusual cultures like the invertebrate zhmun of Aygo and the self-improvement cult of Aurogov.

Art by Peter Elson

Spinward from the Expanse is the Alliance, a union of species allied for protection and trade. Members of the Alliance include the green-skinned psionicists of Smaragdoz, the privacy obsessed neshekk of Kuznuh, the avian-humanoid splice hyehoon of Omu, the human-alien blended cyborg Blesh, the gnomes of Dzrrn, and the angel-like deva of Altair.

Bordering the Alliance is the expansionistic and theocratic Instrumentality of Aom.

On the other side of the Expanse is the Vokun Empire. Besides the decadent vokun, the empire contains several client species. The cybernetic crustacean-like Engineers build much of Vokun technology. The yellow-skinned ibglibdishpan are their biologic computers. The kuath are bioarmored child-soldiers.

There are a number of other interesting cultures and worlds: the oneirochemist Phantasists, the ancient mind excavators of Deshret, and the warrior-poet moravecs of Eridanus, among others. The major galactic powers are at least openingly cordial (whatever may go on behind the scenes) and trade takes place between the two “civilized” portions of the galaxy that must pass through hyperspace nodes in the “wilder” areas (not just the Expanse, but the Rim and Coreward Reach, as well). New cultures, lost since the Great Collapse are discovered from time to time, and their are number of ruined worlds with treasures to loot.

Random Adventures in the Strange Stars

Mike "Wrathofzombie" Evans had suggest a few months ago that I do some sort of adventure inspiration creator for Strange Stars for the setting book. It didn't make it into that book, but I'm going to refine something of that sort for one of the game system books. Here's what I've got so far:

Setups:
 The Heist
 The Gauntlet
 The Unexpected

The Heist: [A] wants the PCs to steal [B] from [C]
A: 1 A neshekk insurance exec  2 Vokun lord  3 A zhmu collector  4 An eccentric Smaragdine celebrity  5 An Orichalcosan optimate  6 The Pharesmid Syndicate
B: 1 A proprietary genetic code  2 An Old Earth artifact  3 A work of art  4 a high-grade mind emulation  5 A weapon from the Archaic Oikumene  6 A mysterious box of alien origin
C: 1 a high security vault station  2 the interior of a Wanderer  3 the isolated asteroid estate of a rival  4 a stateroom safe on a luxury starliner  5 A Zao Pirate stronghold  6 an armored spacehauler

The Guantlet: The PCs must get [A] [B] despite [C]
A: 1 A Deodand hacker  2 An ibglibdishpan defector  3 A diplomate from the League of Habitats  4 A jook band  5 A group of Minga  6 A Wanderer avatar
B: 1 across an Interzone favela  2 off a prison asteroid  3 out of Vokun space  4 to an Alliance cruiser  5 home  6 off Deshret
C: 1 irate smugglers  2 a traitor in their midst  3 pursuing bounty hunters  4 a squad of kuath  5 moravec supremacists  6 a deadly outbreak

The Unexpected: When [A], the PCs unexpectedly stumble onto [B]
A: 1 responding to a distress call  2 exploring a derelict ship  3 on a routine intersystem flight  4 making planetfall for repairs  5 visiting an isolated station for supplies  6 on vacation
B: 1 a dangerous xenospecies  2 a cache of outlawed bioweapons  3 a hidden ssraad raiding vessel  4 a relic of the Archaic Oikumene  5 a new hyperspace node  6 a cabal of psi cultists

Images from the Strange Stars

An image download of a few sophont individuals from the far future:

Garn Singh Hardraker, 500 year-old captain of the starship Brave Ulysses. He claims to have lost his leg to the toxic tendrils of a hydrogen-breather monster captured in the atmosphere of a brown dwarf. What appears to be an old fashion peg-leg is actually programmable matter.

Faizura Dayr, mercenary guard for a bot-breaking crew on Gogmagog. The mirrorshade eyepatch is an optic interface for her smartgun.

His Excellency Volodymir Ivo, Envoy Plenipotentiary representing the Uldra People's Council of Kommissars on Borea. He hopes to acquire a loan at good terms from a neshekk bank to continue to fund his people's war against the Cold Minds.

Mako Orm, a former Zao pirate. He escaped capture by the privateer vessel Thermidorian by use of a bootleg genderswap nanoswarm and enjoyed a brief career as a tour guide on the Strip.