Trade hub of larger-than-life flora and faunaSource Starfinder #46: The Perfect Storm pg. 62
Location Near Space
Settlements —
Diameter ×5; Mass ×4; Gravity ×1
Atmosphere Normal
Day 20 hours; Year 10 years
Ergodia is a gigantic world of towering trees, expansive oceans, and highaltitude peaks all inhabited by monstrous, though rare, colossi. Its system neighbors that of notable Near Space gas giant, Preluria (Starfinder Near Space 100), and its collection of planetoids that form a wide orbital ring.
In recent years, the Pact Worlds and the Veskarium jointly established several trading posts on the planet’s surface as neutral territory, where the many different factions of Preluria and its rings can buy and sell goods. Those with the capability consider the Drift journey to the neighboring system worth the time and effort to reach an unaligned port free of threats such as space piracy.
This robust trade benefits all parties greatly; even the occasional trouble created by the schemes and disagreements between Vorlath mercenaries and the Xystrian Brotherhood do little to affect businesses. The worst conflicts are kept in line by Vesk general Vrodos Rarazen (LE female vesk soldier). Her mission is to make the planet safe and keep the peace, and she’s already succeeded at the former. Vrodos has led several successful campaigns to track and kill Ergodian colossi that could threaten various settlements. The shrewd general keeps the peace between Prelurian factions with a combination of force and tactical bribery; Vrodos knows that a well-placed credstick or “misplaced” shipment of rare starmetals will stop most conflicts before they start—for a fraction of the cost of a military engagement.
Vrodos does an excellent job at keeping Ergodia profitable, but she wants more than that. She doesn’t want to be a mere shepherd guiding profits and scaring off wolves; she wants a kingdom of her own to do with as she pleases. To enact this desire, Vrodos has been planning to tame some of the weaker kaijus by driving them away from trading posts where possible and then sending tactical strike teams to study their habitats and behaviors.
The Drift Crisis gave her an opportunity to pull the trigger on her conquest. With the difficulty of travel and communication, Vrodos decided it was time to take control of all Ergodia under the guise of being tough on fabricated “rising crime rates.” She framed a particularly heinous set of bombings and murders in Ergodia’s largest trading post of Monnom on the Xystrian Brotherhood while declaring martial law across the entire planet. Her well-paid Vorlath mercenaries have begun to conduct ruthless raids on known Xystrian hideouts to search for these so-called criminals. Vrodos also locked down the planet’s settlements, telling the citizens that curtailing their freedom is necessary to keep them safe.
Not everyone on the planet accepts Vrodos’ ambitions. The awkward and unlikely alliance of a small group of Knights of Golarion and the Xystrian Brotherhood forms the core of Free Ergodia, a resistance movement that is beginning to oppose the powerhungry vesk warlord. Driven from major cities, the resistance made a home in the strange and lush Ergodian jungles. In her desire to eradicate this resistance, Vrodos riled up sleeping kaijus in the area, leading to indiscriminate rampages across the planet.
|