Lonely Planet in a Starless VoidSource Starfinder #10: The Diaspora Strain pg. 62
Location The Vast
Settlements —
Diameter x1; Mass x1; Gravity Standard
Atmosphere Normal
Day 48 hours; Year 2 years
Kax is a lush world with diverse biomes. Rather than being composed of large continents, it is covered in thousands of extensive archipelagos, several of which surround enormous islands. It has a broad tropical zone at its equator and ice caps at each pole, but most of the planet is temperate enough that settlements can be established anywhere without requiring much in the way of advanced shelters. Native flora and fauna tend to be huge and carnivorous, including dinosaurs and pack predators, which are most active at night. The fruit and vegetables that naturally grow across the planet are consumable by most Pact Worlds species, and many find them sweet smelling and delicious.
Kax is also the only planet in its system, and from the planet’s surface and surrounding space, no stars other than its own sun are visible. There are no moons, no asteroids, and no other objects of any kind floating nearby. As a result, no one knows where Kax actually is.
This “lonely planet” (as it is sometimes called) can be reached only by Drift travel, and the navigational beacons used to locate it place it in the Vast, but its exact location in the galaxy (if it is even in this galaxy) remains a mystery. The inability to see any stars from the Kax system is generally assumed to be the result of a nebula or dust cloud that cuts off their distant light, but if so, the concealment is total. No evidence, scientific or magical, has yet explained this occlusion.
After Kax was discovered, decades after the advent of Drift travel, it was briefly a common destination for research vessels and colony ships hoping to settle on the vibrant world. However, early expeditions suffered catastrophic losses. Ships sent distress calls that warned of infection, mutiny, or both, and later expeditions found them with all hands dead. Settlements reported an increase in minor accidents and theft, then stopped reporting in entirely. Some were found abandoned, while others were never found at all. Most famously, the Golden Vault colony funded by AbadarCorp was discovered entirely deserted by a supply ship’s crew—colonists’ possessions still in lockers, food rotting in larders—with no sign or record of what happened to the nearly 2,000 residents.
Theories to explain what happens on Kax run wild. Many believe the planet is used as a base of operation by some violent organization, with suggestions ranging from the Corpse Fleet to grays and reptoids. More extraordinary theories include the idea that the entire world (and its star) are haunted by the spirits of long-dead aliens, that the system is actually a demiplane that periodically fades away and ejects all non-native sentient beings into space, or that it is connected to the First World by several “thin spots” where angry fey emerge to kidnap any who dare despoil the planet. Attempts to confirm or debunk these theories find nothing, and some research expeditions have disappeared entirely. As a result, travel to Kax has greatly reduced in recent years.Aliens found at KaxHuitz’plina - CR 9; Medium magical beast
Youngling (Huitz’plina) - CR 3; Medium magical beast
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