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{{Infobox Planet
NOTE: Current pirates or privateers would find it impossible to begin a legitimate career on the Horizon. Ex-pirates or privateers would find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do so with some exceptions which will be noted below.
|Name = Caria
|System = Paegilini
|Image = Caria (Kintsugi) wiki edit.png
|Sector = [[The Orion Spur#Sparring Sea|Sparring Sea]]
|Capital = Yaskarit
|Government = Imperial Viceroyalty
|Legislature = Adirim
|Species = Humans
|Languages = Vulgar Morozi, High Morozi
|Demonyms = Carian
|Nation = [[Empire of Dominia]]
|Former = [[Sol Alliance]]
}}
In the far-flung Paegilini System lies a strange, tidally-locked world of the Empire of Dominia: the '''Imperial Viceroyalty of Caria''''. Controlled by the Empire since 2424 and often referred to with the derisive nickname of the “Witch World,” it is a world shrouded in darkness and rumors. The planet serves as the Empire’s gate to the Eastern Military Frontier and its hand is soft here, allowing for the local oligarchy to thrive — though some conservatives have called for it to be reigned in. Its inhabitants are known as Carians and are often regarded with suspicion abroad due to their planet’s mysterious nature. They adhere to an acceptable deviation of Tribunalism known as Carian Tribunalism and are renowned for their abilities as seers and diviners within the broader umbrella of [[Moroz Holy Tribunal|Moroz Holy Tribunalism]].
{{TOC Hidden}}
==History==


For nearly as long as humanity has sought to explore the cosmos there has been a criminal element which has sought to profit from it while remaining firmly outside of the reach of justice. Pirates have long been a scourge for humanity across the Orion Spur as while individual pirates and pirate groups may be caught and tried, the temptation has always remained. Modern human pirates in the Orion Spur are a constant threat to interstellar shipping and an incredibly diverse group, including actors ranging from disillusioned miners to military deserters to state-backed privateering groups.
===Prehistory (Circa 2190 - 2375===


==A History of Marauding==
<center><i>“By the Aderlai’s mercy alone were we able to survive and endure,”</i>  - Excerpt from pre-Imperial Carian writing on the Prehistoric era.</center>


<center><i>“No force in interstellar history has caused quite as much damage as the lowly pirate driven by little more than their own greed and often piloting little more than repurposed civilian vessels,”</i> - Except from Violent Non-State Interstellar Actors of the Spur, a [[Solarian Armed Forces#Notable Facilities|Solarian Naval Academy]] textbook commonly read by new students.</center>
The pre-Imperial history of Caria is poorly documented. Attempts by [[Empire of Dominia|Imperial]] and – more recently – [[Sol Alliance|Solarian]] researchers to uncover its past have been frustrated by a lack of available records about the planet written before Elyra’s secession in 2302. It was most likely colonized at roughly the same time as [[Novi Jadran]] and [[Sun Reach]], in the late 22nd century, and intended to be a habitation or scientific center in the [[Sol Alliance History#Historical Solarian Sectors and Regions|Baltian and Arcadian Frontier Sectors]] due to its strange environment and ideal position between Sun Reach and inhabitable worlds further into the frontier. A [[Sol Alliance#Department of Colonization|Solarian Department of Colonization]] report from 2205 notes it as a research-focused colony and transit hub, but does not contain any further information. The lack of formal information from this era has led to Imperial scholars referring to it as “Prehistoric Caria” and have settled on referring to the planet as a Solarian scientific colony, based on what information is known about it from historical records and Carian genetic code showing signs of past genetic tampering associated with [[Sol Alliance History#The 23rd Century|Hegemonic-era]] Solarian experiments to produce more adaptable colonists.


The first human pirates emerged well into human colonization of the Sol System, and were initially very little more than miners who had opted to turn to criminality due to a lack of employment prospects due to the Crisis of 2127, which devastated the economy of Earth and its colonies until the early 2130s. With the economy on the mend these miner-pirates mostly disappeared by the 2140s, with the last holdouts vanishing in the 2150s due to patrols by the then-new [[Solarian Armed Forces#Solarian Navy|Solarian Navy]]. While these early pirates posed little threat and typically instead robbed fellow miners in their region, they were not the last pirates created by humans.
Carian academics have similarly fractured records which are often mixed with legends, half-truths, and oral histories. Officially they do not deviate from their Imperial counterparts in calling the planet a Solarian research colony. In their mythology Carians state they were brought to the planet by the Alliance, which abandoned them when its planetary rotation locked into place, and were saved by the geothermal vents modern Carian cities are now built around. According to modern dating by the Imperial Jadranic Academy of Sciences, Caria’s vents are thousands of years old and have been held by more conservative Tribunalist scholars as an example of the Goddess planning out the history of the Spur far in advance. Prior to the Imperial era, these mythologies substituted the Goddess for the Great Mother – or Aderlai – a local deity associated with Caria who possesses superficial resemblances to the Goddess.


As humanity expanded beyond the [[Sol|Sol System]] into its neighboring systems over the 22nd and 23rd centuries more opportunity began to emerge for pirates. What was once a singular system rapidly became dozens, then hundreds, and created a vast amount of space for pirates to both hide in and raid. These pirates, rather than their precursors, instead targeted interstellar shipping enterprises such as those of megacorporate actors and took the plunder back to concealed hideouts, often later re-selling the goods on the open market for an increased price. The Solarian Navy stretched itself thin to deal with this piracy and was gradually given more and more power to do so, often finding itself able to supersede local governments. Economic devastation in the 2260s and the Interstellar War only further contributed to this problem as the ranks of pirates were swelled by deserters and desperate individuals who had lost their livelihoods.
The poor amount of information on prehistoric Caria has led to numerous theories about the Witch World’s true origins. Some in the Holy Tribunal claim the colonists, like Morozians, were brought to the world to serve a special purpose, as She has ordained, and their unique nature is a sign of Her blessing. Others claim malevolent witch-spirits moved the planet known for its connection to sorcery from the depths of the Lemurian Sea – or beyond the Spur – to the modern Empire through vile witchwork for purposes unknown – but undoubtedly nefarious. Yet others claim the Carians are the end result of Solarian hegemonic-era experiments with the nature of humanity, and go beyond the limits of conventional human beings. The inoperative and broken remnants of warp gates in its system attest to the possibility of form of Solarian warp drive experimentation during their era of control, but the secrets of Caria’s past may never be truly known.


Following the Interstellar War piracy wracked both the [[Coalition of Colonies|Coalition]], particularly in the [[The Orion Spur#Weeping Stars|Weeping Stars DMZ]], and the Outer Ring of the Alliance. Attempts to reign it in by the Coalition and Alliance were initially unsuccessful, and piracy continued for much of the remainder of the 2200s. Only in the early 2300s, with a reinforced Solarian Navy and Xanu’s fleet having been repaired, was piracy contained. Not ended by any means, but contained to the point where it was no longer considered to be a serious problem. It remained but the Outer Ring of Sol continued to profit and expand, with new colonies such as [[Konyang]] forming, as the Coalition similarly improved its situation. The advent of the Warp Gate Project and the centralization of Solarian travel in [[San Colette]] further damaged pirates, who could now no longer rely on easily interdicting ships with their own, and weaker, warp drives.
===The Pirate Lords===


To the south, in the [[The Orion Spur#Sparring Sea|Sparring Sea]], a different kind of piracy emerged in the wake of [[Republic of Elyra#The Second Great Depression & Elyran Revolution|Elyran independence]] and the [[Empire of Dominia#The War of Moroz|War of Moroz]]: privateering. The [[Empire of Dominia]], loath to risk its fleets in open economic warfare with Elyra and concerned piracy would destroy its colonial ambitions, instead opted to pay pirates to attack its rivals. The Dominian relationship with privateering has continued to the present day despite the protests of its neighbors and has, ironically, made the Empire one of the nations least troubled by piracy.
<center><i>“The only loyalties they have is their own, and their coins,”</i> - Ernst Zhang, High Captain of the Pirate Lords, on Carians, prior to his execution (2424).</center>


Piracy would not seriously trouble the [[Sol Alliance|Alliance]] until the mid-2400s, when the problem began to re-emerge in much of the Outer Ring due to ongoing economic hardships and corruption in the Solarian Navy, which often looked the other way if enough money was paid to them. Despite attempts by reformers throughout the 2400s to address systemic problems in the anti-piracy doctrine of the Alliance the situation eventually became too much to manage and, following the [[Mars#The Violet Dawn Explosion|Violet Dawn incident]], much of the outer Alliance was written off as too difficult to control due to piracy and Navy corruption. Following the Collapse the situation became even more dire for these “written-off,” regions as they were flooded with bands of well-armed and desperate military deserters.
Well-recorded and attested Carian history starts in 2375, with the planet’s subjugation by the Pirate Lords of [[Sun Reach]]. The Lords used the world, which had by then developed its own local oligarchical government, in much the same way the Empire would: as a transit world between Sun Reach and their domains beyond Caria. This, and the soft hand of the Lords, caused the planet to benefit more from their control than perhaps anywhere else due to trade profits. By the late 24th century, the families that ruled Caria on behalf of Sun Reach were wealthier, more influential, and more independent than their overlord would have liked them to be. Rumors in the Adirim, Caria’s government, began to circulate that the Pirate Lords were planning to punish their most successful underlings and take over their trade empire themselves.


In the 2460s piracy is entering what seems to be another golden age throughout much of the human Orion Spur. In the [[Human Wildlands|Wildlands]] pirates and deserters alike have been given nearly free reign by the retreat of Solarian authority, with the Southern Wildlands in particular suffering more acutely following the further destabilization of the region by the [[Skrell]]. In the Biesel-occupied [[Corporate Reconstruction Zone]] much of the same issues appear as the under-equipped and poorly-trained [[Tau Ceti Foreign Legion]] finds itself unable to keep pace with civil unrest and stellar banditry. To the south, in the Badlands and Sparring Sea, privateers, pirates, and navies fight for supremacy in an area which has seen the major bluespace gate become significantly less active, thus resulting in more warp-based — and interceptable — travel and commerce. In the Coalition spillover from the Wildlands and CRZ has led to banditry along its western border. In the Alliance’s remaining territory the Navy zealously guards the borders and looks on helplessly as pirates ravage formerly Solarian territories. While the majority of these pirates are human, Unathi have become known as pirates and brigands due to the actions of a few of the species who saw opportunity in raiding space lanes in the decades that followed first contact. These Unathi slowly infested the Badlands and Sparring Sea, starting out small but gaining momentum until [[Unathi_Piracy|Unathi pirates and their fleets were some of the most well known in the spur, raiding from the Sparring Sea to Biesel itself.]]
But any censure of Caria’s oligarchical families would never come thanks to its growing conflict with Novi Jadran: an insignificant, frozen world home to a surprising amount of industry which had – out of frustration with constant raids on their world by Sun Reach – sworn loyalty to Moroz, a distant, nearly as frigid world of little importance to the Adirim or Carians more broadly. The Pirate Lords’ decisive and rapid defeat in Sun Reach in 2422 shocked the planet and threw it into a temporary panic as patrician families sold off what assets they could and prepared for an inevitable Dominian assault on their world. The local military – a shadow of what the Pirate Lords had, let alone the Empire’s military – rapidly dissolved in fear of what was to come.


The Spur, it would seem, is ravaged by piracy and instability as it careens towards a phoron-based economic collapse. Whether or not it shall pull back from this precipice remains to be seen.
When Imperial forces entered into the Paegilini system on 7 July, 2424, they were greeted by a planet on the verge of surrender. A look at the forces arrayed against Caria by the Empire led its leader, Grand Estate-Holder Bomilcar Magonbaal, to surrender immediately to the Imperial Fleet, which landed in the planetary capital and raised the Emperor’s standard in an official ceremony. The only shots fired in the Dominian invasion of the planet were in a ceremonial salute, and by a startled Dominian Imperial Fleet armsman at a migrating animal.


==Piratical Equipment==
===Imperial Era===


Due to their informal nature and diverse origins most pirate groups do not employ weaponry or ships on the same level as their military counterparts. Instead human pirates often rely on improvised, ersatz, or otherwise custom-made equipment such as repurposed civilian ships given more armor and, at times, military-grade equipment they have managed to acquire. Much of the ship-to-ship arsenal of the modern pirate consists of repurposed mining equipment as a laser intended to cut apart rocks is typically more than enough to force an unguarded freighter to pay a fee or hand over some of its cargo. The crews of pirate vessels are most typically armed with an eclectic mix of civilian industrial equipment, civilian weaponry, and — for higher-ranking or more important members, such as officers and marines — limited amounts of military-grade equipment.
<center><i>“Never forget the mercy Emperor Godwin showed you,”</i> - High Lord General Dorothea-Frieda Strelitz to Grand Estate-Holder Kusarit Maharbal, 2458.</center>


Privateers and deserters, on the other hand, are often much more well equipped and thus significantly more dangerous than their pirate counterparts. However, they are significantly rarer than more typical pirates due to requiring more materials to remain effective. Privateers get around this issue through the support of an interstellar nation which provides them with the raw materials and manpower needed to continue their day-to-day operations. Deserters, on the contrary, have no such support network and often decrease in efficiency, and thus become less dangerous, as time goes on and more and more military ships or systems are replaced by easier-to-maintain civilian equivalents.
As when it was controlled by the Pirate Lords, Caria and its government have thrived under Dominian rule. The mostly peaceful nature of its transfer to Morozian rule led to little damage to the Carians, with most disruptions coming from a shift between the native religion of the planet, known as Carianism to Dominians and the ''Hatim Aderlai-Zlim'' (lit. “Blood Path of the Great Mother”) to the pre-Imperial population, to Carian Tribunalism. Strategically, the planet’s role as a gate between Sun Reach and the broader region has not shifted, with House Caladius vessels replacing those of the Pirate Lords and colonial bureaucrats having replaced tribute collectors.


==[[Guide to Law|Legal Status]]==
Beneficially, Caria never faced the infrastructure and urban decay of Sun Reach, nor the privations of Novi Jadran, enabling it to bargain from a stronger position when it submitted to the Empire. While they lost their native faith to Tribunalism, canny maneuvering – which some claim involved sorcery – saw the Adirim and the Grand Estate-Holder remain in charge under the nominal oversight of a colonial Governor-Viceroy. The massive investment projects which changed life patterns on Sun Reach and Novi Jadran did not occur on Caria, and the planet has retained a level of autonomy alongside its prosperity. This has led to its non-trade economy being less integrated with the Dominian colonial economy, aside from the entry of Dominian textile products into a market once dominated by more expensive local Carian output.


How piracy is viewed legally varies from nation to nation. Additionally, statutes of limitation vary from nation to nation. This situation is further complicated legally by the presence of non-human piratical actors who occasionally seek refuge, or hideouts, in human space to avoid the wrath of their governments. Privateers add on further complications as not all nations recognize them or hire them as legitimate actors.
But despite its relative wealth from trade and freedom, not all is well upon the Witch World. Rumors of its sorcerous connections and the odd appearance of Carians cause them to often be discriminated against abroad in the Empire, with Imperial citizens blaming them for inexplicable phenomena when they are near and accusing them of trafficking with dark forces. In the Sparring Sea, where their trade networks are, tensions between the Republic of Elyra and Empire are higher than ever, and any war between the two will place them uncomfortably close to the frontlines and destroy many of their trade ventures. On Moroz, conservative nobles and clergy call for their autonomy to be restrained and their divination practices to be curtailed. And in Yaskarit, its capital, the Adirim is divided and volatile, with patrician families willing to use any dirty trick they can muster to win influence and power – even at the cost of the broader planet.


The [[Sol Alliance|Solarian Alliance]] has long held a hardline stance against piracy in its borders, and piracy targeting an Alliance-flagged vessel is punishable by death in both [[Solarian Security and Law|Solarian civil judicial code]] and in [[Solarian Armed Forces|Solarian military law]]. Pirates caught by the Solarian Navy are typically sentenced to death after a military-run trial and executed on the same ship which caught them. Deserters-turned-pirates received similar treatments with even shorter trials. Pirates who do find their way to a civilian court typically meet the same fate as their military-tried counterparts as pirates elicit little sympathy from juries and judges across the Alliance. The luckiest will find themselves sentenced to hard labor for multiple decades. Rumors of extrajudicial executions by the Navy of pirates have long abounded but are rarely investigated due to widespread public hatred of pirates. While it is officially illegal, Solarian military law recognizes privateers as legal combatants which are to be treated as prisoners of war. This regulation is a relic of the Interstellar War which has seen limited use in the centuries since, but has been applied to some cases involving the Wildlands.
==The Paegilini System==


Like much in the [[Republic of Elyra|Serene Republic of Elyra]], how one is punished for piracy or privateering generally depends upon citizenship status. Those rare Elyran citizens accused of piracy are treated as social failures and often forcibly rehabilitated in order to turn them into a productive Elyran citizen, though some recusants and recidivists find themselves involved in less savory work — such as [[Medina#The Phoron Bulletin|Medinian mercenary service]] — regardless of the government’s attempts to save them from themselves. [[Republic of Elyra#Elyran Citizens & Non-Citizen Persons|Non-Citizen Persons]], or NCPs, meet much harsher judgments and are generally given one of two punishments: death or hard labor in service of the Republic. Those given the death penalty are often regarded as those beyond redemption such repeat offenders, pirate officers, murderers, and phoron thieves. Those chosen for the convict labor program are often sent to locations most Elyrans are loathe to go such as the shifting tectonics of Medina or the chemical planets of [[Aemaq]]. Labor convicts are often watched over by IPCs owned by or working for the Elyran state. Privateering is illegal in the Republic and capture privateers are given wildly different treatments depending on their nation of origin. Generally, unathi are treated far more harshly than humans. Where humans are repatriated, [[Unathi]] are instead often condemned to execution or convict labor due to the Republic's historically poor relations with the [[Izweski Nation#Hegemony]]. Rumors that some authorities on Medina seek out and employ privateers such as the Goddess’ Flotilla to secure phoron for the planet have long been denied by its government.
<center><i>“These people cannot seriously believe their ‘goddess” resides in their moon, can they?”</i> - Sub-Lieutenant Yumiko Matsushita (2398 - ), Imperial Fleet, 2425.</center>


Though it is considered by many to be a nation of uptight nobility and vainglorious aspirations, the [[Empire of Dominia]] had long had a far more dynamic relationship with pirates and piracy than any other human nation. The Empire has long held a hardline stance against piracy: if any pirates attack a Dominian vessel, they are to all be punished for their sins with execution without exception. This harsh punishment has long been contrasted with a generous policy of paying and hiring privateering forces to harass its opposition. As a result the Empire is paradoxically a major cause of piracy which is itself almost entirely free of the issues it funds. This has long infuriated the Coalition and Republic of Elyra, along with the Hegemony and many tajara nations, who view the Empire as waging what is essentially an undeclared war on them. The Empire has denied this — and long denied any official connection to privateering — and claims it is simply an outlandish conspiracy designed to undermine its legitimacy. The major Dominian-backed privateering entity is the Goddess’ Flotilla — an organization so large and well-organized it is considered by some Elyran officers to simply be another branch of the Imperial military. The [[Empire of Dominia Great Houses#House Kazhkz|unathi houses]] of the Empire fund their own privateers.
Named for its star – Paegilini – Caria’s system has no signs of habitation prior to humanity’s arrival, and is filled with the deactivated, disassembled, and destroyed remains of Solarian hegemonic-era warp gates known locally as the Tanit Gates, most of which orbit around Caria and its moon. The system is home to four major celestial bodies and one notable moon.


The [[Coalition of Colonies]] has several legal oddities concerning its prosecution of piracy. Through a series of regulations and loopholes all piracy cases in the Coalition are prosecuted on [[Gadpathur]] which, unlike most other member states, allows executions. Most pirates who are prosecuted on Gadpathur have essentially already been found guilty by a court elsewhere in the Coalition and those who arrive on the planet find themselves subject to a quick trial followed by an execution. Gadpathur does not prosecute individuals who have committed piratical acts against [[Solarian Armed Forces#Solarian Navy|Solarian vessels]] in Coalition space due to the planet’s hardline stance against Sol. Individuals who have committed piracy against Solarian vessels in the Coalition are generally extradited to Sol itself via [[Xanu Prime|Xanu]] due to most in the Coalition valuing trade over the grudges of the Interstellar War. Privateering is officially illegal under Coalition law, but captured privateers are generally held as prisoners and later exchanged with their nation of origin. Pirates seeking to escape justice and gain asylum find little sympathy in the Coalition, which either executes or repatriates them depending on species and national origin. A distaste for piracy is one of the few things the Coalition and Hegemony agree on, and [[Coalition of Colonies#The Frontier Protection Bureau (FPB)|Ranger patrols]] often unceremoniously “lose” [[Unathi]] pirate prisoners near [[Izweski Nation|Hegemony]] patrols.
* '''Leptis''': The innermost planet of the system. A hot, barren rock with little in the way of mineral resources or stellar artefacts, it has remained mostly untouched aside from the remains of hegemonic-era and – more recently – [[Empire of Dominia Great Houses#House Volvalaad|House Volvalaad]] scientific probes. It has no atmosphere and the constant bombardment of Paeglini’s rays make long-term habitation impractical.
* '''Caria''': The crown jewel of the system and home to its population. It is a tidally-locked world lit by its moon, where the population lives on the side opposite of the sun.
* '''Lixus''': The only moon of Caria, its surface is made of highly-reflective material which provides the dim light the planet’s Shrouded side is known for. Lixus was a sacred site in Carianism – the officially extinct pre-Imperial faith of the planet – and is considered to be a protected site by the Imperial colonial administration due its importance for continued life on Caria’s surface. All activities here not approved by both the governor-viceroy and grand estate-holder are banned, with the Imperial Fleet responsible for prosecuting those who violate this regulation.
* '''Tanit Gates''': Mostly found in Caria’s orbit, these are manmade objects from the hegemonic era which resemble pre-24th century Solarian warp gates. Over the centuries most have fallen into disrepair due to damage from stellar objects or part-stripping by salvagers. However, a few gates have been preserved in Caria’s orbit and are being eagerly studied by [[Empire of Dominia Great Houses#House Volvalaad|House Volvalaad]] and scholars they have invited from the Solarian Alliance. No Tanit Gate has ever been recorded as active.
* Beyond Caria and Lixus the system’s major bodies are '''Motya''', a gas giant where Carian vessels have long mined resources in its rings, and '''Abdera''': a distant, icy dwarf planet categorized by the Imperial Institute of Astrography as marginal, despite its mineral wealth. [[Empire of Dominia#Zhurong|Zhurong’s]] ore veins are simply more valuable and easier to mine than a distant, cold rock.


==Notable Pirates and Privateers==
==Environment==
<center><i>“You know this place has to be a real s-hole for Haas to describe it as marginal/unlikely for colonization LOL,”</i> - Alexandria Wong (2225 - 2289) [[Sol Alliance#Department of Colonization|Solarian Department of Colonization]] Bureaucrat describing Caria in an internal memo.</center>


===Solarian Deserters===
A tidally-locked world, Caria is divided into two hemispheres known as the Sunward and Shrouded halves of the planet. The Sunward side of Caria is an uninhabitable desert constantly baked by the rays of the Paegilini Star and has no permanent settlements. The only structures are ruins of automated mining facilities from the Solarian era, half-buried by the sand which dominates much of Sunward Caria’s surface. Many of these facilities have laid untouched since the early 24th century. The Sunward dunes may hide even more secrets, but expeditions onto this side of the planet have proven costly, dangerous, and difficult for little returns. Animal and plant life on this side of Caria is rare, with most species limited to very small insects or burrowing creatures which live near underground sources of water and plant life. Surface water is unheard of, and will quickly evaporate in the event of rain. Certain animals which reside on or near the Sunward surface exhibit anhydrobiosis and can live for years to decades without water. House Volvalaad has expressed some interest in these creatures and is one of the few entities to support further research into this side.


<center><i>“Above all things the deserter is a '''COWARD''' who has abandoned the Alliance and their fellow citizens to danger in order to preserve their own life. If you desert you not only betray yourself and your duty, you betray every citizen of the Alliance you swore to protect,”</i>  - [[Solarian Armed Forces#Solarian Navy|Solarian Navy]] Handbook, circa the early 24h century (excerpt).</center>
Transitional zones dominate the thin line spanning the area between the Sunward and Shrouded sides. Like the Sunward side, these zones are desert-like and feature little in the way of life or surface water. However, they are also generally colder than the Sunward side due to not being cast in the star’s direct light.


<center>'''NOTE''': While Solarian deserters more generally may readily find employment on the Horizon, a member of an anti-Biesel pirate group would not be employed on it. Solarian People’s Liberation Front characters would not find employment on any SCC facility.
Shrouded Caria is where the planet’s population resides. Lit by the reflective glow of Caria’s moon, Lixus, it is a dim, cold, and barren landscape where life is concentrated around large geothermal vents which warm the area around themselves. The Carian population is densely concentrated in major cities around these vents and their surrounding territories, locally known as the eraset of a city. Outside of these vents surface conditions are tundra-like, dominated by cold temperatures and covered by small chemotrophs which are able to survive in an environment with little surface water, as most is found either around the geothermal vents and sea-seeps or in great underground rivers that connect vent to vent, sometimes traveling thousands of kilometers under the planetary surface.


An organization as large as the Solarian Navy, which has millions of personnel under its command, will understandably suffer from desertion at some level regardless of how hard it tries to prevent such from happening. Desertion has become a particularly acute issue in the wake of the Solarian Collapse due to the defection of entire fleets to other nations, [[Human Wildlands#The Solarian Restoration Front|petty statelets]], and — of course — some simply turning to [[Human Wildlands#The Southern Fleet Administration|piracy]] or [[Human Wildlands#The Free Solarian Fleets|mercenary work]]. Thousands of Solarian sailors and marines along with hundreds of ships defected or were written off as lost following the collapse of Solarian control in what has now become the Wildlands, though many now harass the Republic of Biesel’s so-called “[[Corporate Reconstruction Zone]],” for both profit and patriotism.
===Flora and Fauna===


Out of the two sectors which make up the Wildlands the Northern Wildlands has been ravaged less by piracy than its southern counterpart, but had found itself the home of ferocious fighting between Solarian statelets and the mercenary groups which often support them. Deserter-pirates are, of course, present as well and serve as a major issue for the three powers of the Northern Wildlands which has made most unable to fully claim their territory as fully controlled. The League has, out of the three powers, always suffered from this to the most noticeable extent, and has caused spillover into the Coalition near [[Konyang]] which has resulted in the deployment of Coalition vessels along the border for anti-piracy operations. The [[Human Wildlands#The Middle Ring Shield Pact|Shield Pact]] has suffered from similar issues and its piratical issues grow more the further out one is from [[San Colette]], its most important system. The use of mercenaries such as the Free Solarian Fleets have been vital in keeping at least some, though hardly all, of the Pact free of the scourge of piracy. The Front suffers from the least piracy-related issues simply due to having the largest fleet. However, Front forces are known to requisition civilian supplies and ships to bolster their forces and have been deemed little better than pirates by many due to this. Those heard saying this in public by the Front often find themselves quickly placed in front of a military tribunal and are often executed as traitors to the Alliance.
With planetary conditions for life generally being quite marginal, the ecosystem of Caria is characterized by highly extremophilic lifeforms that rely on chemotrophic producers as the foundation of the trophic system. Owing to its origins in the planet’s large subsurface ocean, both marine and surface Carian lifeforms are clustered heavily around hydrothermal vents and geysers that provide ample quantities of the necessary hydrocarbons and other chemicals for the production of nutrients and energy. On the surface, places where the ocean or geothermal activity has forced this chemical-rich water out from underground are typically known as sea-seeps, and often resemble vast tracts of inundated marshland.  


In the south the issue of piracy has been felt much more acutely due to the presence of the [[Human Wildlands#The Southern Fleet Administration|Southern Fleet Administration]], a Solarian Navy group which declared a Biesel-backed successor state which was destroyed by the skrell. The skrell, who many view as only caring for Jargon, did not clear the SFA out completely and effectively have allowed many ex-SFA pirate bands to form in the Southern Wildlands and terrorize the region. Spillover from the SFA’s former bandit realm has become an extreme problem for both the other two post-Solarian statelets in the region and the nations which ship through — or are adjacent to — the region such as the Republic of Biesel, Republic of Elyra, and Empire of Dominia. The Solarian-aligned statelets in the region, the Solarian Provisional Government and Southern Solarian Military District, have long cooperated together regarding the threat but recently have begun to cooperate with forces beyond their borders. SSMD vessels, in their ceaseless effort to hunt down and eliminate the SFA remnants and other pirates, have been observed cooperating with the Elyran Navy, Dominian Imperial Fleet, Hegemony, and — at times — Biesel-flagged vessels or non-SFA independent actors such as the Goddess’ Flotilla, a Dominia-affiliated privateering group. Rumors of foreign naval officers and officials visiting [[Visegra]]d have recently begun to circulate, though none have been confirmed.
At these sea-seeps, coralline structures and fungal-analogues are the most common “flora” analogues, though they largely consist of colonial organisms as opposed to anything that would resemble plant life. “Seep-coral” is the term used to refer to these aforementioned coral-analogues that form the backbone of the ecosystem, which grow continuously and exponentially for as long as sufficient chemical energy is available and grazing fauna do not otherwise intervene. It is worth noting traditional trees and most forms of plants do not exist in large numbers on Caria, as the planet lacks the natural sunlight required for easy photosynthesis.


The Corporate Reconstruction Zone, caught between both sections of the Wildlands, has suffered from issues present in both sections since its creation. Piracy by former Solarian Navy vessels is common in all but the most well-policed areas due to the Republic’s small armed forces and corporate paramilitaries being spread thin and rarely equipped well enough to fight better-armed and better-equipped former Navy pirates. Worsening the issue is the loyalty many regions on the western fringe of the CRZ still feel towards the Solarian Alliance and the animosity they feel towards Biesel, which many view as a corporate-run occupier which only wishes to enrich itself. Navy pirates in the CRZ often find safe refuge in these systems when they must rearm, refuel, and repair their vessels. Their Biesel pursuers, often hired mercenaries or under equipped and undertrained TCFL volunteers, almost never challenge these pirate safe havens.
Carian fauna, on the other hand, has a strong resemblance to Earth arthropods - with exoskeletons and crustacean-like traits being predominant and pointing to a relatively recent evolutionary origin. Surface and subsurface fauna are notably similar, and many terrestrial species are in fact semi-aquatic. Most species are colloquially referred to as “Grazers”, referring to their typical feeding behavior and their reliance on the limited amounts of edible surface matter available. Grazers tend to be small and relatively slow, conserving as much of their energy as possible, and many species exhibit considerable bioluminescence - largely as a method of communication on the perennially dim world. Owing to the highly nutrient-deprived nature of the Carian ecosystem, the vast majority of fauna species are extremely reliant on the chemotrophic producers that form the backbone of the planetary ecology, and populations are heavily concentrated in proximity to the habitats these chemotrophs rely upon.


====The Solarian People’s Liberation Fleet====
Carnivorous species are limited in number, but do exist, and are typically referred to as “Pouncers”. Like most Grazer species, the Pouncers are small and have a slow metabolism - many species are adapted to lying in wait for extensive periods of time, before engaging in explosive ambush attacks upon their prey upon detecting them. Some Pouncer species use deceptive bioluminescence in order to attract their quarry, having evolved to mimic the coloration and patterns of the species they specialize upon. While generally harmless, humans can accidentally trigger the hunting instinct of a Pouncer lying in wait, triggering abortive surprise attacks that are not very dangerous, but often quite startling to those who experience them.


“The corporations will call me a terrorist, a murderer, a mercenary deserter, a fascist warlord. I am none of these things, governor. I am, above all else, a protector of the Solarian people,” - Rear Admiral Augustín Cabanas (2426 - ) during the relief of Hang Tuah’s Rest, March 2463.
While not a major part of the Carian diet owing to their relative scarcity, Carian fauna is edible and generally very palatable - many Grazer species are favorably compared to sweet-tasting lobster or crab, and Patrician families have been known to make extensive use of them culinarily.


The most notable of all anti-Biesel pirates on the fringe of the CRZ, the SPLF is a group made up of a motley assortment of Solarian Navy personnel, local system defense forces, and displaced refugees from the Wildlands and CRZ which operates in a region of the CRZ along the Biesel-Sol border known as “the Hinterlands,” by Biesel-aligned forces. It is led by Mictlani Navy officer Agustín Cabanas and has been a notable threat for Biesel in the Hinterlands which has seen the region effectively out of Republic control since the Collapse. The region has long been the most pro-Solarian section of the Wildlands and the SPLF, which raids corporate assets and gives them to the planets of the Hinterlands, has become ludicrously popular in it. This popularity, and a steady flow of refugees from the broader CRZ and nearby SRF, have ensured the SPLF had not lacked for recruits, supplies, or ships. Many of the SPLF’s recruits have previously cut their teeth in anti-corporate actions on planets such as Mictlan, and a large number of its current members are thought to be affiliated with the Samaritans of Mictlan.
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
====Species====
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">


The core of the SPLF is an unusual one: the 15th, 16th, and 17th squadrons of the disgraced 35th Fleet now most commonly known as the founder of the SRF. These three squadrons and their flagship, a powerful Rome-class battleship, defected from the Front after its conquest of Lycoris and found their way to the Hinterlands in early spring 2463, where they helped the beleaguered remnants of the Solarian Republic of Hang Tuah Rest’s System Defense Force fight off a major incursion by the Tau Ceti Foreign Legion and several PMC units. The squadron leader, Rear Admiral Cabanas, made an unusual choice: the assets gained from the destroyed TCFL force would be split between Hang Tuah’s Rest and the squadrons, effectively saving the planet. This won him immeasurable approval from its residents and the squadron’s reputation grew rapidly in the Hinterlands as it saved more pro-Solarian worlds and distributed the supplies of more corporate convoys.
* '''Royal Grazer''': Resembling a mixture of horseshoe crab and lobster, royal grazers are a highly successful species which are relatively active in comparison to other species within their clade. They possess a robust exoskeleton and dextrous front claws that allow them to defend themselves from predators and manipulate their surroundings to dig their dens, in which they lay their eggs and keep their young. It heavily relies upon seep-coral for food and the toxins they ingest in doing so imparts upon their meat a slightly numbing and tingly sensation that gives Carian cuisine its distinctive taste. They are the most frequently eaten species of grazer on the planet. Their flavor develops with age and they grow continuously throughout their lifespan, and particularly large specimens fetch a high price from the patrician families - most notably for Yaskarit Risotto, the foremost delicacy on the planet, which makes heavy use of its meat for protein and ground seep-coral for a seasoning and garnish.
Trapdoor Pouncer: An uncanny fusion of crab. spider, and scorpion, trapdoor pouncers get their name from their dens, which are sealed by a hinged trap-door kept together with sticky mucus. Ambush hunters, they tend to leave their dens and lurk around the most productive grazing spots to wait for their prey. They have a tendency to have their leaping instinct triggered by passing humans, but are quite harmless (if frightening) and disengage upon realizing that they are not attacking suitable prey.


While it still remains centered around its ex-35th core the SPLF has grown over the intervening months and is now a messy amalgamation of Navy vessels, SDF ships, and civilian auxiliary vessels which have been armed and armored in the dockyards of the Hinterlands to better withstand Biesel’s forces, which they often engage on “liberation raids,” outside of the Hinterlands where they rob corporate or Biesellite assets and return to their isolated and cut-off territory with the spoils. This has made them many allies in the Hinterlands but few friends in the broader CRZ aside from the Solarian loyalists who often flee to the region in hopes of avoiding the Republic’s forces. Now, with the recent citizenship declarations by the Republic, more and more Solarians are fleeing to the SPLF and its Hinterland in hopes of either resisting Biesel or fleeing into the Alliance as a refugee. There are even rumors of Solarian Navy vessels and SPLF auxiliary freighters — most typically Ox-class freighters hastily painted Solarian green and given weaponry — meeting on the border to exchange supplies and transport refugees. Biesel, it seems, may have a much larger problem than it expected inside of its borders.
* '''Common Seep-Coral''': Closely resembling Earther stony coral, common seep-coral is the dominant feature of Carian sea-seeps. They can grow to immense sizes and resemble barren trees, though colored teal, pink, or purple rather than green. They are the most productive single species of chemotrophs on the planet, and provide key sustenance and shelter for a great number of species. Harvested seep-coral is frequently processed for use as a seasoning and imparts a unique tingly and numbing sensation upon those who eat it. Overconsumption is known to cause an upset stomach and must be consumed in moderation.


====23rd SFA Tactical Group “Beauchamp’s Marauders”====
* '''Wardweed''': A chemotrophic lichen that carpets the ground in proximity to sea-seeps, wardweed possesses medicinal properties and is frequently used in traditional Carian medical practices as a topical antiseptic and antibiotic. It is effective enough that it is intentionally cultivated to meet foreign demand, particularly on the Imperial Frontier. An alleged connection to Carian witchcraft has led to more conservative members of Imperial society to eschew it altogether, believing it corrupts the link between body and soul through foul sorcery.


“Thinking to get at once all the gold the goose could give, he killed it and opened it only to find nothing,” - Aesop.
* '''Seep-Flax''': A chemotrophic lichen that thrives in the marshy soil around a sea-seep, seep-flax has long been used as a strong, insulating fiber by Carians. Farms growing seep-flax require a great amount of space to be profitable as the lichen is relatively small and does not produce much material. The introduction of cheaper fabrics from the Empire has devastated the seep-flax industry and many former aquatic farms lie vacant, overrun with the flax they once grew for profit.
</div></div>


Anti-piracy operations by various actors in the Southern Wildlands have broken much of the SFA’s cohesiveness and fleet-level coordination, but some SFA groups remain cohesive despite this. The 23rd Tactical Group, consisting of several squadrons, is one of these groups and is led by Commodore Daniel “Danny” Fitzpatrick, a veteran of the 10th and longtime personal friend of F.R. Beauchamp. Considered to be on of the 10th’s most adept officers prior to the Collapse despite his extreme corruption and history of violence towards his subordinates, Fitzpatrick has survived what his fellow SFA warlords — most of them also Commodores — have not by staying low and avoiding the attention of other naval powers. When Anastasija Siljan launched her attack on the Orchard Moon, the 23rd — which may have shifted the engagement in her favor — was nowhere to be seen.
==Carians==
<center><i>“Stay away from me, witch!”</i> - Unknown [[Sun Reach|Reacher]] to a Carian merchant, March 2413.</center>


But despite being more coordinated than their fellows the 23rd is no less debaucherous or cruel than any other SFA warlord clique. It targets defenseless ships and robs them of their cargo, ransoms their crews, and kills any who resist. They are wantonly cruel against skrell or Foreign Legionnaires they capture, viewing them as the reason for the SFA’s collapse and the Alliance’s collapse respectively. And, even worse for them, the elimination of larger and more prominent SFA groups has placed a spotlight onto them, and the 23rd has recently been engaged by the pirate-hunting forces of the SSMD. Despite Fitzpatrick’s success so far it seems his career may be coming to an end, regardless of how much violence he uses to keep himself in charge.
The human residents of the Viceroyalty, '''Carians''' are a strange people who are often viewed negatively abroad in the [[Empire of Dominia|Empire]], where some regard them as a cursed people. Rumors surround them and their heritage, which is lost to the modern historical record. Some Dominians believe all Carians are sorcerers who practice their vile witchery outside of the gaze of the [[Moroz Holy Tribunal|Tribunal]] and Empire alike. Few serve in the [[Dominian Imperial Military|Imperial military]], and fewer serve the Tribunal outside of Caria, but they are highly successful merchants and traders across the Imperial Frontier and beyond, with most goods in the Sparring Sea-Badlands Region passing through Carian hands at least once. Some of their oldest mercantile families have trade networks stretching well beyond the Empire’s borders, and can acquire goods from as far afield as [[Assunzione]] or the [[Nralakk Federation]] if they so desire. A small minority of Dominians view the Carians as blessed heralds of the Goddess in the material world due to their strange appearances and the fact the planet produces a great number of Goddess-touched.


===Corporate Privateers===
Genetically, Carians show deviation from baseline humanity in their appearance and some organs. Imperial scientists have noted Carians tend to recover more quickly from diseases when abroad compared to other Dominians. They tend to be extremely pale, though they do not burn as easily as their skin tone would indicate, and many appear to have sallow skin. Their hair tends towards darker colors – with most being black-haired – but colors such as silver, white, or blonde are not uncommon. Carian eye colors range beyond the normal human spectrum, with purple shades being relatively common –  Grand Estate-Holder Kusarit Maharbal, for example, is known for her striking violet eyes and black hair. Their eyes have been modified or have adapted to see better in the constant semi-twilight of the planet, but are significantly more sensitive to rapid changes in light: flashes and flash grenades commonly used by police may temporarily blind them and most experience discomfort in normal light conditions. Carian eyes feature a larger iris and pupil than normal human eyes, and some wear sunglasses abroad to conceal this.


“Few wars are quite as vicious as the ones corporations wage in the shadows,” - John Schmidt (2412 - 2454), anti-corporate Tau Ceti-based author speaking to the Sol Alliance News Network shortly before his death under mysterious circumstances in 2454.
Oddly, the traits of “Carianism” – as it is known informally – appear to be highly genetically dominant and are always inherited by  the child of a mixed non-Carian and Carian union.


NOTE: Corporate privateers are often regarded as disposable, secret assets and would not be readily found on the Horizon. An Einstein Engines-affiliated privateer would never be hired on the Horizon.
While [[Empire of Dominia Great Houses|House Volvalaad]] is currently attempting to uncover the truth behind what makes Carians so divergent from baseline humanity, multiple theories have arisen to explain why Carians are so unusual. Most grounded are theories the manipulation comes from Carians themselves at some point in their past, or from the Solarian Alliance during its control of the planet. Neither of these theories, however, has any epigraphic or archeological evidence to support it. If documents do exist in the voluminous Solarian Department of Colonization archives covering genetic manipulation of Caria’s colonists, they have never been revealed by the Alliance or by researchers. Less grounded theories include Carians’ appearance comes from the Goddess Herself as punishment for a past sin or that they are not from the Spur at all, having arrived here from some alternate reality where humanity is slightly different.


A broad category of corporate funded and officially unofficial mercenaries, simple pirates, and desperados, corporate-funded privateers have long been used by megacorporations as assets used to interfere with their opposition while officially remaining on neutral, if not good, terms in order to maximize profit. Corporate privateers have long worked, fought, and died in the shadows and have long deliberately avoided acquiring the attention many of their counterparts have. Almost all corporate privateers, perhaps unsurprisingly, originate from Eridani’s Dreg population. Many have attempted to interfere with a megacorporation and have been given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get out of the Corporate Federation and avoid a messy execution. Corporate privateers are typically active in the Corporate Reconstruction Zone, where Einstein Engines has attempted to interfere with the Stellar Corporate Conglomerate, but can be found across the Spur with notable exceptions such as the Serene Republic of Elyra, Empire of Dominia, and certain regions of the Coalition and Alliance such as Sol itself, Himeo, and Light’s Edge.
==Government==
[[File:Kusarit_wiki_edit.png|thumb|Grand Estate-Holder Kusarit Maharbal, here depicted in a 2467 portrait commissioned by the Maharbal family to celebrate their continued dominance of Caria's highest office.]]
<center><i>“It is the will of His Majesty the Emperor that Caria be granted similar rights to Novi Jadran for its inhabitants’ cooperation in Imperial affairs,”</i> - Excerpt from the Emperor Godwin Accords.</center>


Corporate privateers, due to most typically only attacking the assets of other corporations they are paid to harass, have a lower impact in terms of total violence than their piratical counterparts. However, their targeting of corporate assets often means they cause greater financial losses to the Spur as a whole, particularly when higher-value shipments such as Einstein Engines communications equipment or SCC medical assets are damaged. It is, however, something of an unwritten rule to not target phoron shipments as the damage— even in the view of Einstein — to the Spur’s economy would be too great.
The Imperial Viceroyalty of Caria is a subject of the Empire of Dominia ruled, de jure, by Governor-Viceroy Gauthier Caladius, an unassuming and humorless man who has spent his life in the Empire’s colonial bureaucracy. De facto, however, the planet is ruled by '''Grand Estate-Holder Kusarit Maharbal''', one of the only Dominian planetary leaders – alongside [[Novi Jadran|Novi Jadran’s]] Governor-Marchioness Anastazija Glavan – to hail from the planet they govern, and the only not to hold a noble title. Uniquely in the Empire, Caria’s grand estate-holder is elected in a nominally democratic process by the Adirim: a governing council made up of the planet’s richest citizens and its voting body. Maharbal, who has the backing of [[Empire of Dominia Great Houses#House Caladius|House Caladius]] and the largest faction of the Adirim’s voting seats, has survived many challenges since her election in 2460, where she replaced her father, Watcyn Maharbal,  after his assassination by a now-exiled merchant dynasty acting on behalf of [[Dominian Society and Class Structure#Petty Nobility|House Kaneko]]’s affiliated voting block.


Corporate privateers captured by government naval forces aside from the Elyran Navy or Imperial Fleet — both of which execute them, assuming the Fleet does not capture Zavodskoi agents — often quickly find the proper palms greased to permit their release and are quickly back on the job. Privateers aptured by the competition are another means entirely, and their fates vary wildly from corporation to corporation. Some will attempt to “flip,” the privateer. Most will simply have them disappeared instead of going through the trouble. Life, after all, is cheap in the Spur. And nowhere is it cheaper than amongst the Eridanian Dregs.
The grand estate-holder is the most sought-after office on Caria: the leader of its republic, they de facto represent the planet abroad in official dealings with the broader empire, though Kusarit attends these alongside the governor-viceroy, who officially rules the world’s foreign affairs on behalf of the Empire. The loose hand of the colonial administration – a consequence of Caria’s rapid and voluntary capitulation to the Empire  – has allowed the grand estate-holder to exercise a greater level of influence than most local officials would ever dream of: they can propose legislation to the Adirim, begin the process of exiling a member of the Carian people, and – prior to the Imperial era – set the planet’s foreign policy. Assuming they can maintain their popularity in the Adirim, they are capable of maintaining their role in perpetuity as there are no term limits. In reality the longest-serving person to hold the position is Kusarit Maharbal, current matriarch of the Maharbal family, who has the backing of the Imperial colonial bureaucracy and House Caladius.


===The Tran Thi Hoai Organization===
===The Adirim===
<center><i>“How long will you abuse our patience, Drubal? This body’s is not so great as the Aderlai’s,”</i> - Kanmi Zimirda, of the same family, 2466.</center>


A mysterious group which is mostly unknown outside of [[New Hai Phong]], certain extranet circles, and SCC command staff, the Tran Thi Hoai Organization, or simply “the Organization,” is is a New Hai Phongese mercenary group which first emerged as a local vigilante group in response to bombings on the planet by tajara in 2462. Rumored to be initially made up of off-duty police officers and Solarian Army troops, the Organization first became known for systematically hunting down any tajara perceived to be involved in the bombing an executing them regardless of their actual guilt. Following the Collapse the Organization disappeared from NHP and a new, supposedly unconnected, “pirate” group armed with a mix of surplus military vessels and civilian vessels, both equipped with modern warp drives, emerged and committed a series of attacks against Hephaestus facilities outside of New Hai Phong before moving onto broader SCC assets in the mid 2463s.
The '''Adirim''' is Caria’s assembly and meets in its planetary capital, Yaskarit – the oldest and grandest of its vent-cities. It has 1,500 members, with each corresponding to a prominent merchant family. These families appoint a representative – who may be a non-relative or castellean, should they choose – to vote on their behalf in the Adirim, and owning a seat is considered to be a prerequisite for entering Carian high society. In the event of a total bloodline extinction for a seat holder or a seat-holder falling into relative poverty, only the grand estate-holder is able to choose a new merchant family to fill the vacant seat. This has led to a degree of habitual instability and turnover within the Adirim, particularly with the introduction of Houses Caladius and Kaneko’s influence, as merchant families ascend to the Adirim, withdraw from it, or are killed off by assassination, fall into economic ruin, or are exiled for alleged crimes. To pass an issue is deceptively easy: one must simply attain a pure majority – whether that is 751 or 1,499 – in votes. In practice this is difficult as the pro- and anti-Maharbal blocs of the Adirim are divided into competing interest groups, cliques, extended families, and conspiracies often motivated by their own profit over all else.


Attacks by the Organization are poorly documented by authorities but seem to favor NanoTrasen and Hephaestus vessels above others, and their attacks often leave little evidence of their presence — including survivors. Those who survive their attacks have universally been Hai Phongers themselves and none have provided useful testimony regarding the Organization or its potential members. Despite its mysterious nature the Organization’s operatives have been captured on security footage and appear to utilize a mix of  unmarked military and corporate equipment. One of its only known calling cards are the tags it leaves on tajara victims of its raids. Each contains a name, generally a Hai Phongese name, and an accompanying number. SCC intelligence has observed that the names are generally different, and the numbers on the tags have steadily gotten larger. Oddly, despite primarily targeting SCC vessels, no attacks by the Organization have been recorded against Zeng-Hu or Zavodskoi vessels.
A member of the Adirim is known as a '''representative''', or a '''delegate'''. They come from, or are affiliated with, Caria’s patrician families, and holding a seat has a wealth requirement: if one slips below it, their seat is confiscated and the grand estate-holder chooses their replacement. Per Carian law this replacement '''MUST''' be able to prove their family line dates back to at least the pre-Imperial era, in order to prevent the Adirim from being overrun by non-Carians. New representatives often bring in funerary records of their family to prove their lineage, with some having transported entire steles into the Adirim. One of the few rules about the Adirim is no family can acquire more than one seat for themselves. As a result, seats are spread across the planet and webs of influence can stretch through its mighty underground rivers, enveloping dozens of merchant families, business ventures, and trade networks. They can be recognized by their badge of office: a silvered knife they use to cast their votes. Some of these knives have been passed down in families since Carian prehistory, showing that some seats have remained stable for centuries. Others – by either fiscal ruination, exile, or bloodline extinction – have switched hands dozens of times across the centuries.


===[[Empire of Dominia]]-Affiliated Privateers===
However, five exceptions exist to the Carian ancestry rule: known as the '''viceroyalty''' seats, these Adirim members are Dominian members of the viceroyalty’s government and hold the power to veto anything passed by the body if at least four vote against it. Created by the Emperor Godwin Accords as a way of ensuring Dominian influence on a planet some in the government regard as too independent, these seats are informally known as the '''Imperial Viceroyal Council'''. The five Dominian members of the Adirim are all nobles and are not above involvement in the local government, with rumors having long circulated in Yaskarit that Grand Estate-Holder Maharbal has bribed members of the Council to vote with the Adirim on controversial legislation rather than against it. A piece of vetoed legislation can be sent back to the Adirim for further discussion or banned from discussion at all depending on the Council. The Counil is made up of one member from each [[Empire of Dominia Great Houses|great house]] and Viceroy Caladius.


<center><i>“When I act I do so to carry out Her will. Some will call me a simple cutthroat killer for the actions [[Moroz Holy Tribunal|She]] demands, but they are fools to say so!”</i> - Lord Admiral Carmelita Orona (year of birth unknown) in an unaired interview with Dominian state media.</center>
The Adirim’s major blocs – which are defined by their support and opposition to the current grand estate-holder – are the House Caladius-aligned pro-Maharbal bloc and the smaller, House Kaneko-aligned anti-Maharbal bloc. Between these lie a smaller number of undecided voters who either hold no strong stances on Grand Estate-Holder Maharbal or simply wish to avoid drawing excessive attention to themselves. The Maharbal family, which has dominated the position of grand estate-holder since Caria’s annexation into the Empire, is wealthy enough to bribe many of these undecided voters into supporting them during times of crisis, such as when their control over the position is challenged. They are also canny and loyal enough to have secured the backing – financial, administrative, and more – of House Caladius, which views Caria as a vital link between the Frontier and the Empire’s more easterly territories.


<center>'''NOTE''': House Kazhkz privateers are occasionally hired by organizations outside of [[Zavodskoi Interstellar]] due to their backgrounds. While being hired outside of Z.I. is not impossible, it is difficult, and former Kazhkz-affiliated privateers outside of Zavodskoi will always be underpaid and more closely watched compared to their colleagues.</center>
The House Kankeo-aligned bloc is led by the Drubal family, prominent shipwrights who have maintained a close relationship with the Empire’s naval forces since 2424 and are particularly close to the ever-ambitious Kanekos. This is an attempt by the Kanekos to carve out a planet aside from [[Empire of Dominia#Zhurong|Zhurong]], where they must bend the knee to [[Empire of Dominia Great Houses#House Zhao|House Zhao]], and Count Kaneko believes having his candidate ascend to the position of grand estate-holder would give the family strong influence over the planet – stronger than what House Caladius possesses, as the Drubal family lacks the immense wealth of their rivals, the Maharbal family. Scheming between the two merchant families has contributed significantly to the Adirim’s general instability.


The Empire of Dominia has long co-opted pirates in the Badlands and Sparring Sea to its own ends. While this has long drawn the ire of its neighbors such as the Hegemony, Republic of Elyra, and Coalition, this effort to engage pirates, and its own extremely harsh policies against piracy, have made the Empire relatively free of the issues commonly encountered in other nations. Those pirates hired by the Empire as privateers are often quite diverse and include both humans and unathi, with some funded by [[Empire of Dominia#House Kazhkz|House Kazhkz]] even consisting entirely  of unathi. While looked down upon by the [[Imperial Dominian Military#Imperial Fleet|Imperial Fleet]] and [[Empire of Dominia Great Houses#House Zhao|House Zhao]], Dominian privateering operations have long formed a crucial part of the Empire’s economic strategy in the region by denying its competitors safe transit through the region outside of bluespace.
Votes in the Adirim are held when a plurality of members are present. Attempting to deliberately block a representative from attending the Adirim to vote is a severe crime and a rule put in place during the [[Timeline#The Twenty-Fourth Century|mid-24th century]] to avoid disruptions to the voting itself in what had already become a hectic voting body. All members must pass between two large fires at the Adirim’s entrance: a relic from pre-Tribunalist times, the fires are said to cleanse and ward one from evil spirits. Representatives vote by taking their badge of office – a silvered knife – and slicing their thumb open, then daubing their blood onto a voting slip. The blood offering is symbolically and religiously important in Carian culture and is said to signify one’s firm belief in how they are voting for an issue.


While the Goddess’ Flotilla — a large and semi-religious privateering organization consisting almost entirely of human Ma’zals — may be well-known in the region itself, no organization features more prominently than House Kazhkz when Dominian privateering is thought of in the broader Spur. Often consisting entirely of unathi drawn from the great house itself or recruited from other unathi pirate groups, House Kazhkz privateers are known for their flamboyance and ability to make a profit — much of which goes back into House coffers in order to continue their operations. Despite these characteristics, House Kazhkz privateers have long been looked down upon by the Imperial Fleet and House Zhao, both of which are hesitant to provide the privateers with supplies. The Emperor, who has intervened on behalf of the larger Goddess’ Flotilla, has long been hesitant to do the same for Kazhkz privateeers in order to avoid angering House Zhao, which has long formed the backbone of the Fleet.
===Caria and the Imperial Government===


====The Goddess’ Flotilla====
The exceptional degree of autonomy enjoyed by Caria is rooted in its unique relationship with the Empire, which it enjoys thanks to both its position on the edge of the [[Empire of Dominia#The Eastern Military Frontier|Eastern Military Frontier]] and its early cooperation with the Imperial military during the war against the Pirate Lords in the 2420s. Where other worlds fought against the Empire and for the Pirate Lords, the Carians opted to surrender without a fight and quickly set about cooperating with the Dominians for both profit and state survival. Emperor Godwin, realizing the planet could be an asset and free up Imperial forces for more resource-rich worlds – such as Xiang-Xia and Sun Reach – accepted the Carians’ surrender and symbolically forgave them for siding with the Pirate Lords, then appointed the first Viceroy-Governor to serve as an Imperial minder for the planet. The terms for Caria under the Empire are laid out in the Emperor Godwin Accords of 2424, which offers autonomy in exchange for continued loyalty of the Grand Estate-Holder and the Adirim to the Empire.


<center>'''NOTE''': Members of the Goddess’ Flotilla can be found on SCC facilities and are almost always Zavodskoi employees. Finding employment outside of Zavodskoi is exceptionally difficult for Flotilla members.</center>
The Emperor alone can retract the Accords, and some conservative actors – those who claim the Carians used sorcery and dark dealings to attain their autonomy from Emperor Godwin – have called for Emperor Boleslaw Keeser to take a firmer stance against Grand Estate-Holder Maharbal and the Adirim, claiming they have acted more to protect Carians’ business interests than for the good of the Empire as a whole. For now, however, the aging Emperor Boleslaw has taken no action for or against the planet.


The [[The Orion Spur#Sparring Sea|Sparring Sea]] and [[The Orion Spur#Badlands|Badlands]] are home to the greatest modern privateering organization in the Orion Spur: the Goddess’ Flotilla. Under the command of Lord Admiral Carmelita Orona, a Ma’zal from Alterim Obrirava, this militant coalition of pirates, Fleet deserters, and Imperial citizens has wreaked havoc on Elyran and Hegemony shipping for nearly thirty years and has done far more damage than the original pirate groups it formed from. The Flotilla has long had the unofficial backing of the Empire of Dominia and has used this to retain its edge against its targets, and to promote what it's leader views as the Flotilla’s Goddess-endorsed crusade against those in the region which do not honor Her, who must either pay tribute or suffer holy retribution. Being in the same privateering business as House Kazhkz when it was first formed there were worries that the Flotilla would clash with it and cause further division at the highest levels of power. The Emperor, at the advice of the Caladius who wished to forestall potential conflict and increase their own profits, agreed to a solution which would ease these possibilities. The Emperor privately decreed that House Kazhkz would not operate in the same regions of space as the Flotilla, those regions being the closest and most traveled regions to the Empire; instead offering the Kazhkz’s lucrative contracts to take their raiding further afield to more dangerous, but wealthier areas of the spur. Recently, this has meant the Southern Wildlands, where Kazhkz privateers raid the loosely controlled territories of the Southern Solarian Military District and Southern Solarian Provisional Government.
It remains to be seen if his successor will.


While privateering within the [[Human Wildlands|Wildlands]] is considerably more dangerous due to the remnant Solarian Fleets holding enough combat power to challenge the entire might of the Imperial Fleet, causing heavy losses among the privateers, it is much more profitable both in terms of Imperial contracts and the loot gained from a far more developed region of space. This has earned the Kazhkz a surprising amount of respect from the Flotilla, combined with the religious reputation of the House, as well as a lack of competition between the two amplifies this respect. When Kazhkz ships transit back towards Dominia through the Sparring Sea, they often run into ships of the Flotilla looking for raiding targets or heading further out towards the Badlands. It has become common practice for one or both of the captain’s to invite the others crew aboard for a short celebration, and for the crews to intermingle after spending perhaps months on end with each other. Many privateers, both Flotilla and Kazhkz look forward to these meetings, as it is one of the only times a blind eye will be turned to alcohol, or butanol, being consumed aboard.
===Law Enforcement===


The Flotilla is significantly better-equipped than its piratical counterparts due to its status as an unofficially state-backed privateering organization intended to fight the enemies of the Empire in the region, particularly the Serene Republic of Elyra. Much of this equipment is surplus or otherwise decommissioned equipment “sold,” or “misplaced,” by the Imperial Fleet such as dated Empire-class cruisers which are, despite their age, fully capable of engaging and destroying military and civilian targets alike with their 608mm “Thunderer” main armament. Despite their unofficial status, letters of marque are held by many Flotilla captains and House Zhao, though often with reluctance, is sworn by decree of the Emperor to honor them. House Zhao’s officers often look down upon the Flotilla despite this decree, viewing them as little more than useful chaff and overzealous Ma’zals barely fit to use the equipment provided to them. Many Zhaos do not believe the Flotilla is ultimately loyal to the Empire as it was founded by a deserter and many in its ranks are Imperial Fleet deserters. They may say they represent the Goddess’ will, but who is to say if this means they are loyal?
The [[Dominian Security and Law|Empire’s laws]] on Caria are enforced by the steady hand of the Imperial Carian Constabulary Service, or ICCS, with limited support from the Tribunal Investigations Constabulary. Uniquely, the ICCS only has an urban constabulary and no rural component as the countryside of the planet is too inhospitable for permanent habitation. While it is well-funded and well-staffed, particularly compared to the haggard colonial constabularies throughout the Eastern Military Frontier, the ICCS has a reputation for corruption and close involvement with the politics of the Adirim and the patrician class. A bad constable will find themselves swept up into the plotting of merchant families and discarded as a pawn, while a good constable will find a way to make themselves useful to the winning side of a dispute. Some constables have become firm allies of certain patrician families and know when it is best to look the other way on behalf of their friends in high places. For normal Carians the ICCS it is common for constables to be tipped or “rewarded” by those who wish to see an investigation accelerated or deprioritized. If one cannot pay up, they will simply have to sit and wait for the wheels of the Empire’s bureaucracy to turn and spit out something resembling justice.


The sailors and officers of the Flotilla are mostly drawn from the Ma’zal population of the Empire and are often deserters from the Imperial Fleet who have opted to switch to a less strict organization. Others are adventurous civilians from the Empire, or rarely beyond its borders, who have fallen for the romanticism so often associated with a free life in the void. Unathi are almost never found in the Flotilla, instead preferring privateering groups backed by their great house. Those that are found within the Flotilla are usually outcasts, unable to fight alongside Kazhkz privateers for whatever reason and will generally shy away from those who do. Faith is a near-universal constant in the Flotilla regardless of an individual member’s origin and the Flotilla itself is well known for its uniquely quasi-religious structure where a ship’s captain is also its head religious figure, and most crews will host a mass sermon before entering combat. Flotilla officers will often powder their faces white and draw red lines on their face like those of a Tribunal priestess, and many additionally opt to dye their hair red as a further sign of devotion.
The ICCS has more diviners on-staff than any other colonial constabulary thanks to the higher number of Goddess-touched on Caria. They typically work alongside regular constables and Carian diviners, and are valuable assets for the Service. Like elsewhere in the Empire, divination-based testimony by a Goddess-touched is highly valuable for either side of a case. Divination derived from non-Goddess-touched diviners and seers is less valuable, but still serves an important role in the Carian legal system, particularly when one side of the case is deceased.


Lord Admiral Orona herself is said to strictly uphold these religious codes. A woman shrouded in mystery, little is known about Orona’s background beyond vague strokes. While her year of birth is unknown Orona is known to be the child of Ma’zal workers employed by the Helium-3 industry on Alterim Obrirava and was intensely religious. She joined the Imperial Fleet and rose to an unknown rank before allegedly hearing the Goddess, who commanded her to begin a holy crusade against the Empire’s enemies in the Sparring Sea and Badlands. Orona then deserted and has since formed the Flotilla around herself, commanding it from an unknown location said to be on the edge of Dominian space. Her status as a Goddess-touched individual — a woman able to commune with the Goddess and interpret Her words — has not been confirmed by the Holy Tribunal.
==Moroz Holy Tribunalism on Caria==
<center><i>“Blood of my blood, kin of my kin; forever shall we live in Lixus’ gaze,”</i> - Common funerary prayer on Caria.</center>


The Flotilla, despite its crusade-based origin, generally employs violence as a last resort and instead relies upon its fearsome equipment and reputation. Many independent merchant vessels in the Sparring Sea work tithes to the Flotilla into their budget, and some even opt to hire a follower of the Holy Tribunal to negotiate with them. Orion Express has begun to incorporate this into their shipping practices for the region, hiring Tribunialists, even some former members of the Flotilla, as negotiators on their behalf. On the other hand, Hegemony and Elyran Navy vessels serve as the main opposition for the Flotilla in the Sparring Sea and it generally avoids engaging them, instead preferring softer targets such as the lone Elyran or Hephaestus merchant vessels it often captures for ransom. Besides these Nationstates and Corporations, the Flotilla also interacts with the many Unathi pirates who roam the Badlands and Sparring Sea. Their relationship with most Unathi pirates tends to be one of mutual distrust but not outright hate, with both sides wanting to mostly leave each other alone. This sense of mutual isolation doesn’t apply with Hiskyn’s Revanchists, led by Fer’is Hiskyn, once Fer’is Kazhkz. Her husband was killed for not wanting to join the Empire by the Unathi who would go onto form House Kazhkz, and after a short battle which she lost, she swore vengeance upon them and the Empire itself. Whenever vessels flying her black and red skull adorned flag spot vessels belonging to the Flotilla, they attack, attempting to board as many vessels as possible regardless of their own losses. Those who surrender and are human are spared, however any Unathi are immediately put to death. While significantly less well equipped then the Flotilla, and too small to cause any significant harm, the Revanchists are a small thorn in the Flotilla’s side, harassing larger Flotilla forces within the Sparring Sea and forcing the diversion of raiding groups to squash these efforts to intrude on the Flotilla’s hunting grounds. Both the Flotilla and Imperial Navy have attempted to deal with the Revanchists for some time but have had little success aside from destroying vessels whenever they appear. A notable exception to its doctrine of capturing and ransoms are the Coalition’s Rangers, who are to be killed without mercy whenever encountered — regardless of whether or not they are armed.
Established by the Holy Tribunal when the planet surrendered in 2424 as a response to the native faith, Carianism, the [[Moroz Holy Tribunal]] on Caria has been influenced more by its local people than many Katarinians find comfortable.


=====The Flotilla Code=====
===History===


The Goddess’ Flotilla, like the broader Empire of Dominia, is bound by a code of honor. The Flotilla Code, as it is commonly known, can result in severe punishment if broken and is said to come from the mouth of the Lord Admiral herself. Goddess’ Flotilla sailors, in addition to the Code, are expected to follow the Holy Tribunal’s edicts and Imperial law, at least when in Dominian space. The Flotilla Code can be viewed below:
Before discussing Carian Tribunalism it is important to discuss the faith which preceded it: '''Carianism''', or ''Hatim Aderlai-Zlim''. Founded under obscure circumstances during Carian prehistory, Carianism was a monotheistic religion centered around the worship of a female goddess known as the Great Mother, or ''Aderlai'' in the local tradition, who was believed to reside in or on — historical texts cannot agree — Lixus, the planet’s moon. Carianist theology revolved heavily around astrology and divination to predict the future and the Aderlai’s will, as she was believed to reveal her intents only in subtle manners. The faith’s creation myth holds she used her mighty sword to crack Caria’s crust and carve the geothermal vents Carian cities have grown around, and this myth has been adapted by the Tribunal to build on their legitimacy. It is said the Great Mother’s sword exists in the real world and is kept in a deep vault under the grand estate holder’s official residence, and it shall be withdrawn in Caria’s greatest hour of need.


There is no authority higher than the Goddess, for She is our creator and to Her we return. The captain is the highest authority aside from Her aboard a ship, and in a squadron the captains shall vote amongst themselves for a leader. The Lord Admiral can appoint a flotilla leader as is necessary.
Carianism’s followers, out of genuine belief or simple pragmatism, were very willing to accept Tribunalist clergy into their planet after its surrender, and the mostly-Jarmilian missionaries sent to the planet were delighted, some would say blinded, by the presence of another female creator deity, which they took to be a sign the [[Moroz Holy Tribunal#The Goddess|Lady of Moroz]] had left Her mighty thumbprint upon this admittedly heathen faith. It was only sensible, then, that the Goddess’ chosen people — the Morozians — would be required to bring this planet into Her loving embrace. Within a decade, they had: young Carians were raised under Morozian theology which claimed their former goddess as an aspect of their more divine one. But while they had stamped out the Aderlai, the ancient tradition of Carian divination was harder to remove — and fearing a more active opposition to their proselytizing in an era of a thinly-stretched military, they chose to simply let it be.
Every crewmember of the vessel, even if ill, is entitled to his or her share of the prize once it has been collected. Prize money can be withheld for misconduct at the captain’s behest. Defrauding the ship is to be punished by marooning on the nearest inhabitable planet.
No heathen or heretic is allowed to be amongst the Flotilla. All found shall be allowed one opportunity to recant and convert. If they deny this, they are to be marooned. If they accept and continue to disobey Her, they are to be executed. Willful assistance of a heretic or heathen shall be punished at a captain’s discretion.
Keep your equipment issued to you by the quartermaster clean and ready for combat.
Cowardice in the face of the enemy shall result in marooning. Abandonment of one’s station without good reason will result in execution.
Do not strike fellow crew aboard. Disputes which cannot be resolved by a captain or officer shall be settled off ship via a duel to first blood.
Betrayal of the Flotilla to its enemies shall be punished by death.
Followers of Her will shall not be intentionally harmed by the Flotilla.
Vessels which have paid their tithe shall not be harassed by the Flotilla. Vessels which have paid for a tithe and escort are to be aided if they are involved in a pitched battle.
A Flotilla engineer entrusted with running a shipyard is to be assisted whenever possible, for they are the lifeblood of the Flotilla.
A Flotilla member who loses limb or is otherwise disabled in service is to be paid double prize for their last prize, and provided with the funds to pay their Mo’ri’zal by the Flotilla.
Any prisoner taken shall be treated with courtesy and respect until their ransom is paid, at which point they shall be delivered posthaste. To harm a prisoner shall be met with death, for it is considered to be harming the Flotilla’s prize.
All Rangers shall be killed without mercy, and no prisoners shall be taken. If a prisoner is discovered to be a ranger, they are to be killed immediately regardless of the potential ransom. Remember what they have done unto our brothers and sisters. Meet them with wrath!


===Unified Sadar Fleet===
===Carian Tribunalism===


<center><i>“A Sadar is undeserving of even the name with which they were born,”</i> - Common Scarab Fleet saying.</center>
Legally the sole faith upon Caria, this Tribunalist sect is a result of the ease of the planet’s conversion and the unwillingness of missionary priestesses to challenge some of the native population’s stranger beliefs. Commonly referred to as '''Carian Tribunalism''', it is officially characterized by the [[Moroz Holy Tribunal]] as an “acceptable deviation” from baseline Tribunalism similar to Reacher Tribunalism and Lyodiic Tribunalism. Unofficially many conservative figures in the Tribunal and House Caladius blame their liberal predecessors for allowing a cult of blood sorcerers and barely-closeted heretics to pass unmolested and entrench itself in what has become the linchpin of the [[Empire of Dominia#The Eastern Military Frontier|Eastern Military Frontier’s]] connection to the wider [[Empire of Dominia|Empire]]. The current Immaculate Hand has shown little interest in the question of whether Carian Tribunalism is acceptable or heretical, but — with Emperor Keeser and herself both aging — it is anticipated to be a major issue for her successor.


<center>'''NOTE''': Members of the Unified Sadar Fleet are rarely found outside of it due to their commitment to serve it until death. Any former members will do their best to keep affiliations with it secret.</center>
This branch of the Holy Tribunal is known throughout the Empire for its heavy emphasis on divination, astrological or otherwise, and all but the smallest and most insignificant temples on Caria have at least one diviner on-staff. Considered sanctified by the Tribunal, these diviners are said to augur the Goddess’ will through their predictions and are sometimes employed abroad by Tribunalist authorities for their talents. They must sacrifice a small amount of their blood, and typically cut into their thumbs using a silvered blade referred to as a blood ritual blade or zlimakhin, locally, said to prevent sorcerers or witch-spirits from interfering with the diviner’s readings, and thus corrupting the prediction. Some Katarinians claim this act is itself an example of blood sorcery but have so far not been able to stamp out the practice. Abroad, however, a diviner may find themselves harassed by the [[Moroz Holy Tribunal#The Tribunal Militant|Tribunal Investigations Constabulary]] or [[Dominian Security and Law|His Imperial Majesty’s Constabulary]] if they run afoul of a sufficiently powerful Katarinian.


Most cast out from the closely-knit ships of the [[Scarabs]] simply languish and often perish before they make it to civilization, or encounter another ship. Those that do not resign themselves to their fate and simply perish often find themselves in the ranks of the United Sadar Fleet, a loosely-knit band of rogues and cutthroats who have taken the traditional Scarab beliefs of camaraderie and loyalty to one’s vessel and family aboard it and twisted into s belief that whatever must be done in order to survive. To the typical Scarab the USF are a band of cockroaches tainting the broader Spur with their corruption of the Scarabs’ traditions, and should be destroyed on sight. To the Fleet themselves they are simply beleaguered outcasts attempting to make the best of a situation forced upon them by the broader Scarab fleet.
Tribunalist clergy and layperson staff on Caria are drawn primarily from the world itself, with many middle-class  and lesser patrician families more than willing to send a child or two to serve the Goddess’ needs in the red cloth of the Holy Tribunal, and many have served with distinction as clergy or laypeople of the faith. A notable exception is the Tribunal Investigations Constabulary: not a single Carian has officially joined the TIC, perhaps due to the planet’s shrouded reputation. Carian clergy are typically not seen off of the shrouded world due to the ill reputation of Carians abroad among many Dominians, though its diviners can be found in many holy sites across the Empire.


Those exiles who do join the Fleet do so via a ritual where they declare themselves to be loyal to it and it above until death, and to never abandon their fellow Sadar no matter what happens. This has made the Fleet an extremely tightly-knit and secretive group as few former members exist, with most serving until their deaths. The Fleet is isolationist and rarely interacts with the broader Coalition — or Spur — aside from raids it launches on isolated spaceborne outposts and unprotected vessels in order to acquire the supplies they need to survive and continue their policy of isolation.
Since the advent of Tribunalism on Caria the Holy Tribunal has recorded a higher-than-average number of [[Moroz Holy Tribunal#The Goddess|Goddess-touched women]] discovered on the planet than anywhere else outside of the Core Worlds. Carian Goddess-touched are prized locally as diviners and seers, with many of the wealthiest patrician families having having at least one on their familial staffs — the Maharbal family notably maintains a small institute for Goddess-touched it calls the Oracular Institute, and the current grand estate-holder has credited her political survival to their predictions more than once. Carian Goddess-touched who go abroad outside of a patrician family’s employment often do so in service to the Holy Tribunal. The Tribunal views Carian Goddess-touched as effective yet dangerous tools, and always assigns them a designated member of the clergy as a handler and minder.


These raids have never been documented on a planet with gravity as the Fleet mostly lacks the more modern ESS the Scarabs use and must make due in the environment their form has adapted to. For this reason raids on vessels and stations almost always start with the disabling of its gravity generator in order to allow the Fleet to fight in its natural environment. Raids on vessels with backup generators or magbooted crews are often far less successful as many of the Sadar raiders have never set foot in gravity and are entirely unprepared to experience it. More modern civilian ships which have entered the Coalition market recently, such as [[Himeo|Himean]] designs, often feature these backup generators to defeat Sadar raids. Many are even armed sufficiently to fight off the ancient Scarab vessels the Sadar are known to pilot, and some have even destroyed them.
Traditionally, a Carian Goddess-touched is blindfolded while relying upon her skills. This is said to blind her to all but the will of the Goddess, and better understand Her Word.


This lack of success has caused the Sadars to be significantly less prevalent in recent decades, with many officials proudly stating the pirate group is on its way into history. But this lack of activity has led to rumors the Fleet is planning to, rather than simply lay over and die, launch an exodus into uncharted space in order to find a [[Deep Space|new paradise]] for themselves. This is, of course, only a rumor. But it is a rumor which, due to the secretive nature of the Sadar, is nigh-impossible to confirm or deny. Even if not grounded in reality, it will doubtlessly remain for the near future.
==Culture==
[[File:Caria flag.png|thumb|The flag of Caria. The purple moons represent Lixus, while the twin fires represent protection from evil fortune. The silver backing references Caria's well-known silver industry, and some flags have real silver spun into them.]]
<center><i>“We should have never given them the level of autonomy they have wrenched from our hands,”</i> - Prince Alexander Keeser on Caria, 2463.</center>
 
As a more recent entrant to the Empire of Dominia, Caria’s local culture has been less influenced by the Core Worlds than Novi Jadran The planet having only been under Dominian rule for four decades, and its high level of autonomy, have led to Carians retaining their republican culture and mercantile focus: the second of which makes them valuable assets for Houses Caladius and Volvalaad, who rely on Carian merchants to go to places abroad where they reasonably cannot, and the first of which has led to them being viewed as a liability and threat by some of the Empire’s more conservative actors. Rather than the urban-rural divide of Novi Jadran or Sun Reach, cultural divisions on the shrouded world are rooted in class differences between the patrician merchants of the world and their less wealthy counterparts. Holding them together like glue is an “acceptable deviation” from the Holy Tribunal known as Carian Tribunalism.
 
Carians across all classes place a great value on familial and personal loyalty, and holding one’s word. Merchant families have grown, prospered, and collapsed based on how willing – or unwilling – they are to stick to their promises, and Carian contracts often involve the use of the participants’ blood to seal the agreement. To break the terms after one has committed their blood means one party has betrayed not just their word, but the word of their entire bloodline by extension. Relations of loyalty often go beyond family: it is expected a patrician will care for those in their charge and employ, such as their estate workers and their families, and those below the patrician will support their betters. This social rule is similar to the tenets of Dominian honour – that those above and below must support one another – and has helped Caria’s patricians integrate into Dominian society, even if they are not “true” nobility.
 
Despite these cultural values Carians have a reputation throughout the Empire as a quarrelsome people who will debate endlessly before acting, a reputation not helped by the often dynamic politics of the Adirim. It is said, in a common joke, that if one speaks to five Carians they will get six opinions — one having changed theirs in the time it takes to ask the others. Supporting this is a vibrant (by Dominian standards) civil society where patricians in the Adirim are constantly petitioned by their wealthy  “constituents” for favors, deals, and support, and local media outlets — many owned by patrician families — attempt to spin news stories to their advantage. The greatest of these is the Journal of Yaskarit, owned and operated by the Maharbal family, which circulates throughout the planet. The competitive nature of the Adirim assists in keeping Carians linked to their representatives, and it is not uncommon for members of the Adirim to grow rich off of “gifts” provided to introduce and pass legislation.
 
===Divination===
 
A cultural tradition from prehistoric Caria which survived integration into the Empire, divination is a key element of modern Carian religious traditions and is relied upon by many normal Carians before making significant decisions in their private or business lives. Not using divination opens one up to ill fortune, either at the capricious hands of fate or from the diabolical machinations of witch-spirits that so hound the imperfect, mortal world. Due to its importance, divination is a major domestic industry on Caria, governed through regulations passed by the Adirim and staffed by professionals who have been educated in proper practices — improper divination is said to attract witch-spirits as readily as a hidden synthetic does, and some Katarinians have accused contemporary divination as having roots in blood sorcery and heathen sacrificial rites. An officially-certified diviner who has passed their exams is formally known as a makhlim.
 
Properly performed, Tribunal-sanctioned, non-religious divination is carried out in a ritualistic manner by a diviner orsometimes multiple diviners and their assistants, who are often students of divination themselves. The primary ritualist pricks a finger with a small, silvered knife known as a zlimakhin, or “blood ritual blade,” with the silver said to counteract interference in the ritual by outside forces such as witch-spirits. Which divination is requested or desired will change the finger being used. The wounded finger is then placed into a device called a “Tanith splitter,” which filters the blood offering through a series of small holes which drip onto a sheet of divining paper covered in hexagrams. The diviner and their assistants begin analyzing the hexagrams once the bleeding has been stopped by the Tanith splitter, and determine what the Goddess’ fortunes dictate to the supplicant. This method is expensive and often takes a long time to determine the results, but is said to be very accurate and is favored by the patrician class.
 
While the Tanith-hexagram method is said to bring the most accurate divination, other techniques are used by makhlim and their assistants to scry the future. Commonly, middle-class Carians rely on silver-readings: less expensive than other methods, it involves offering the supplicant’s blood by having them prick a finger and bleed into a cup containing silver shavings and holy water, with the holy water said to cleanse impurities if a zlimakhin is unavailable. The water-and-blood mixture is then boiled away as the supplicant and diviner (typically only one diviner, with or without an assistant, due to the technique’s relative ease of use) observe, and the shape of the silver is interpreted by the diviner. Quick and simple to perform, the silver shavings are often reused by poorer Carians for multiple readings.
 
The cheapest and quickest method of divination is the most prone to error, but is used by many poor Carians to divine their fortunes. Known formally as vessel-based divination, or more insultingly as “spitting divination,” this technique involves a diviner — generally alone and without an assistant — slicing the supplicant’s finger open, then drinking the flowing blood, combining it with holy water in the mouth, and spitting it into a ritual vessel. The diviner then interprets the blood in the water to determine the Goddess’ will. The ritual vessel is — ideally — silvered to ward off the interference of witch spirits, but some rely solely on the repelling power of holy water. Often associated with bars, warehouses, and dockyards, this method of divination is sometimes attempted by non-diviners, to varying degrees of success. While it is easy to slice your finger and spit into a vessel, interpreting the revelations is far harder.
 
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
'''Carian beliefs hold each part of one’s hand is best for a different part of divination. These are:'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
* Thumb: Social matters, in both the political and business context.
* Index Finger: Loyalty, such as that of friends and colleagues.
* Middle Finger: Misfortune, future challenges.
* Ring Finger: Family matters, love, marriage, and similar issues.
* Pinkie: Personal health.
* Palm: The palm is generally avoided in Carian divination, as it is believed the blood from it will cause the fortune to be more obscure than that of a finger’s.
* Wrist: The wrist is generally avoided in Carian divination due to the danger it poses to a supplicant. Wrist blood, however, is said to be more sensitive to division than anywhere else on the hand, and diviners have been accused of harvesting blood from the wrist for their rituals by non-Carians.
</div></div>
 
===Funerary Rites===
 
The aftermath of a Carian’s death is unlike anything else in the modern Empire. Carian dead are universally cremated and some of their blood is integrated into their tombstone as a testament to their deeds in life and their ancestry. How much blood is used in this post-death ritual varies depending on one’s class. Patrician families will drain all blood from a cadaver while the middle classes will drain less, and the poorest Carians may only be able to afford a ritual goblet’s worth of drained blood. The funerary specialists who perform these rituals are known as ''zlimhyoni'' (a term translated as “blood ritualist” in Basic) and receive formalized training. Larger funeral homes often have a dedicated zlimhyoni on-staff. After the ritual draining the body is cremated.
 
After cremation a Carian’s blood is mixed with their ashes, also by a zlimhyoni, and the mixture is moved in a special container known as a ''zlimdiqaru'' (translated as “earthen blood vessel” in Basic) to a workshop that turns the mixture into a liquid building material known as ''zlimeben'', or “blood stone.” This material forms the sole material of Carian gravestones and is a permanent reminder of the deceased and their accomplishments in life. Patrician families drain more blood to ensure their dead are appropriately honored.
 
Poorer families build zlimeben memorials known as '''cairns'''. Small enough to fit inside a residence, they form the focal point of shrines honoring the deceased. While the gravestone must be made of the zlimeben, what surrounds it can be made of any material. Families will often have the shrine consecrated by a priestess to ensure witch-spirits are not attracted to an improperly-maintained cairn. Patrician families instead build great '''steles''' with their blood stones. Intended to honor their ancestry and their own deeds, some steles are the size of buildings and contain the zlimeben of multiple deceased. The venerable Maharbal family has the largest stele on the planet: a great monument that rises two-hundred meters into the air and integrates the blood of dozens of family members known as the Maharbal Epitaph. It is a public memorial maintained by the colonial government, attracts tourists from across the Empire, and is used for major Carian Tribunalist rituals on holidays.
 
Caria’s rituals are far stranger to a Morozian than the mourning rites of the Core Worlds and Novi Jadran, and have not escaped the rumors that plague the Witch World. Some Katarinian theologians claim Carians have a hidden rite known as a '''death stele'''. Supposedly practiced only on political enemies and criminals, a death stele’s creation involves a zlimhyoni and several diviners binding the soul of the deceased to their stele through an unknown process to ensure their soul will never reach the Goddess for judgement. Others claim the great Maharbal Epitaph is made primarily of death steles and allegedly Tribunalist rituals carried out there  grant Carians their sorcerous powers. The Holy Tribunal on Caria and the Viceroyalty’s government have both denied this claim, but it has remained durable among ordinary Dominians, particularly those with little knowledge of the planet, and Carians abroad are sometimes accused of having a hand in creating these alleged devices. No historical records exist to support their existence.
 
===Patricians===
 
The rulers of Caria, its patricians are the planet’s wealthiest and most venerable inhabitants. They control the trade which creates the planet’s wealth, sit in the Adirim, employ its middle and working classes, grant alms to the poor when needed, and represent it abroad when called upon. While wealthy and powerful they are '''not''' Imperial nobles and their status is wealth-based rather  than hereditary, though older patrician families tend to venerate their ancestors and call upon them to bolster their prestige and influence. Few Carian patricians have ascended to the ranks of Imperial nobility due to discrimination and a local cultural tradition which holds the status of patrician alone brings more prestige than nobility ever could, as it means the family has created their own wealth and reputation rather than been rewarded it by someone not from the Witch World. '''To be considered for patrician status, a family must have verifiable ties on Caria going back to at least the pre-Imperial era''', a gesture intended to stop its government from being flooded by non-Carians. Carian steles and other death-related traditions are part of the reason this exists: even some of the poorest families can trace their roots back decades.
 
Patrician status being tied to wealth has made it quite dynamic: families throughout history have risen to it and fallen out of it due to the ever-shifting fortunes of trade, investments, and seizing new opportunities. Today’s middle-class clerk may be tomorrow’s patrician if one is canny enough to spot a good opportunity, wealthy enough to act upon it, and lucky enough to be present. Likewise, a patrician family may be brought low by misfortune, mismanagement, simple bad luck, or the scheming of their enemies, falling into ruin and thus potentially opening up a seat in the Adirim if they were wealthy enough to sit in it.
 
Like their Jadranic counterparts, Carian patricians exercise a great amount of control and influence over the planet’s economic affairs, and arguably exert more influence due to the lack of a competing nobility and the loose hand of Morozian colonial oversight. They own the fiscal institutions and trade companies which bring goods to and from the planet, and commission shipbuilders — often on Zhurong but sometimes abroad — to create vessels able to carry goods across the Empire and beyond. Often in the Empire they fly under the banner of House Caladius, which views trade with the wider Spur as a net gain for the Empire, but they are not above flying under whatever flag of convenience will see them safely to the most places with the smallest possible inconvenience.
 
====Notable Patrician Families====
 
Among the patricians, some families are noted for their influence and histories.
 
The '''Maharbal''' family is Caria’s most powerful patrician family, having held onto the position of grand estate-holder for longer than any other group in Caria’s recent history. The family’s fortune is built in both political caniness – it employs more diviners and Goddess-touched than any other patrician family – and deep trade connections throughout the Empire proper, which it has cultivated with assistance from House Caladius. Its leader is Kusarit Maharbal, the planet’s current grand estate-holder, and the family is deeply connected to House Caladius and the broader Morozian colonial apparatus. Many Carians look to this family as having saved them from the fate of Xiang-Xia or Sun Reach, as their swift maneuvering during the planet’s conquest by Dominia helped ensure a peaceful surrender, a level of autonomy, and the Maharbals in power. In the late 25th century they have retained their great influence and Caladius backing, and claim only they can ensure Caria retains the level of independence it has so enjoyed for the past 40 years.
 
The '''Drubal''' family were military and industrial leaders prior to the planet’s surrender to Dominia, and saw their military enterprises wither on the vine when the Pirate Lords evaporated and the Morozians had no need for shipbuilding and military industry so far from the Core Worlds. Even worse, Caria could now rely upon the mighty Imperial Fleet for trade security – there was no need to send armed cutters produced by the Drubals any longer. The family sunk into a deep malaise from which they were rescued by the will of House Kaneko, which attached itself to the faltering patricians and began using them as a proxy to subvert Caladius influence on the planet and establish a foothold for Kaneko influence beyond Zhurong. To date they have not succeeded in their goal of capturing the grand estate-holder office for themselves, but they have rebuilt themselves, and are now a powerful counterweight against the Maharbals. Some say they are mere proxies for the conservatives in the Empire, and will subvert Caria’s independence, but the family has always denied this. It is led by Miqne Drubal, a man long obsessed with engineering who has contributed greatly to Caria’s modern cityscapes.
 
The '''Magonbaal''' are a still-influential patrician family who were in power before the Empire’s arrival to Caria. Popularly considered to be the most venerable of Caria’s patrician families, Magonbaal steles have been found dating back to shortly after the planet’s estimated colonization. While they were initially chastised by the Empire for serving as grand estate-holders under the Pirate Lords, their allies – the Maharbals – saw them only temporarily humiliated, with their leader forced to have the Dominian admiral place their foot on his neck as he lay prostrated and chained in a form of ritual humiliation. Bomilcar Magonbaal was spared the rest of his punishment and continues to lead his family. Most of their business is in the Eastern Military Frontier and beyond, with Magonbaal-owned vessels traveling as far afield as Xanu, Assunzione, and San Colette – it is said they are able to acquire anything, anywhere, produced by anyone, so long as they are paid sufficiently.
 
===Clothing and Fashion===
 
As Caria is in a constant twilight or semi-twilight lit only by the glow of its moon, Lixus, its domestic clothing and fashion have developed around the absence of light. Everyday clothing is often built for warmth, as the planet can become very cold outside of its cities, and dyed using lighter colors such as white and light greys. Wool and conventional textiles are rare, with Carians historically relying on domestic flora to produce textile-like substances from plant fiber or importing conventional textiles from elsewhere. Reflective accessories – both for the sake of fashion and often for safety – are common, with many using moon motifs due to the importance of Lixus to the planet’s continued prosperity.
 
Carian fashion accessories often involve the use of silver – pure silver for the wealthier, silver coatings for the poorer – as it is believed to repel malignant spirits and improve the wearer’s fortune. It is not uncommon for patricians, such as members of the Adirim, to have silver jewelry specifically for use in carrying out business to improve their successes, and many examples of Carian formalwear have buttons and zippers made out of pure silver. These suits are some of the rare examples of Carian clothing made in generally darker colors, with blacks and darker grays used to better accentuate the silver used in their designs.
 
Traditional Morozian fashion, such as the Imperial nobility’s leisurewear and formalwear or Jadranic working clothes, has yet to penetrate into Carian high society, but has begun to permeate its lower classes due to the cheapness and ease with which Jadranic and Morozian textile mills can produce effective, durable clothing made from conventional textiles. Some patrician families who possess holdings in the planet’s textile industry have lobbied, with some success, to halt the spread of cheaper clothing onto the planet. This trade battle has continued, and may become one of the bigger issues for the Adirim during the upcoming decade if the Empire continues to maintain its tenuous peace with Elyra.
 
===Carians and the Empire===
 
The strange appearances and odd traditions of Carians have made them subjects of fascination, disgust, and fear in many parts of the Empire. While Carians do go elsewhere in the Empire for trading, diplomatic work, or negotiations, they rarely stay there: doing so invites unwanted attention, and eventual trouble. They are often accused by less-educated Dominians of causing small misfortunes with their sorcery when they are present in a community for an extended period, with broken electronics and freak accidents blamed on their allegedly stronger connection to witch-spirits. They are often harassed by local religious and civil authorities as well, some of whom believe every Carian is a sorcerer-in-waiting. A Carian who only resides briefly to trade or formalize a deal can excuse themselves from such accusations, with them not having been present in the eyes of their potential accusers for long enough to attract witch spirits and other malign creatures. It should come as no surprise that Carians are extremely rare in the Empire’s military as a result, and can expect to not have successful careers if they choose to serve in uniform. After all. it is easy to blame them for any misfortunes.
 
A notable exception to this trend are noble families and some particularly wealthy Secondaries who see having a Carian on retainer as a way of demonstrating their wealth and their modernity, as their odd appearances wow and attract some while horrifying and repelling others. House Caladius, which has frequent dealings with the Witch World, employs the most Carians out of any great house and frequently collaborates with them in trade matters foreign and domestic. Carians employed by other great houses are instead often diviners or ritualists of some form, and native Carians have varying stances on this trend. Some view it as the best way to stop the frequent discrimination they face abroad, as the opinions of the nobility should eventually filter down to their employees and the general population. Others view it as a system of tokenization and a contributor to the widespread reputation of all Carians as diviners and sorcerers, as these diviners sent abroad may be some of the only Carians a typical Dominian commoner meets in their lives.
 
==Economics==
<center><i>“You fail to see the utility they offer, brother. But you have always failed to see things beyond the Fleet,”</i> - Crown Princess Priscilla Keeser on Caria, 2463.</center>
 
As a planet based around trade, the lifeblood of Caria has long been its shipping industry. Bolstered by its enviable position on major warp lanes between the Eastern Military Frontier and wider Empire, it came to prominence in the era of Sun Reach’s Pirate Lords as their main route for moving goods from their eastern domains back to their fortresses on or above Sun Reach. The Carians were canny enough to turn their aid of the Pirate Lords into a profit, and became proficient in navigating the routes of their overlord’s domain and beyond. Even if much of the goods were still being taken by the Reachers, Carians made a niche for themselves in creating newer, more efficient routes and mastering them. The Dominians – seeing the ease with which they had occupied the planet and the benefits of integrating their traders – were all too happy to keep this arrangement, and Carian trade vessels now criss-cross the Empire, with some traveling far beyond its borders.
 
In the modern era Caria is a great filter for goods entering the Empire from its colonies and beyond, brought by its merchant vessels or by House Caladius for sorting in its great warehouses and markets, then sent into or out of the broader Empire for sale. Xian ores, Carian luxury goods, Chaldean seafood, Hyrcanian lumber, and goods from beyond the Empire can all be found or requested here for whatever price local merchants deem appropriate. The money and goods have not stopped flowing through Caria, and the Empire under Emperor Boleslaw sees no need to intervene in what has become a very convenient arrangement where a “third party” handles much of the shipping logistics of its frontier regions. But some voices in the Empire claim the planet’s patrician families and their merchant enterprises are too wild, too untamed, and too dangerous to be left functioning on their own, and the wealth of Caria should be cut off. The wealth of the planet thus lies under the anxiety of what Boleslaw’s successor will do when they ascend to the throne, and the fear they will tug the planet’s collar tighter, ending its economic prosperity and turning Carians into odd-looking Xians rather than the wealthy merchants they present themselves as.
 
===Carian Domestic Industries===
 
While the Viceroyalty is most well-known for its traders the planet possesses thriving local industries with a focus on luxury goods for consumption by the patrician class or for export. Also prominent are shipyards which produce the ships Carian traders rely upon to move goods from one side of the Spur to the other. Less thriving are its textile and agrarian sectors, where cheap goods from the broader Empire have replaced many domestic products due to their ease of import and low cost. While Carian fashion has not yet totally begun to imitate Morozi styles, seep-flax has declined dramatically in favor of more conventional imported textile or fur-based fabrics. With many flax farms having gone out of business since 2424 unemployment is relatively high on Caria and many working poor rely on charity from the Holy Tribunal to make it through the day, in stark contrast to the patrician families, middle class professionals, and the skilled working-class laborers of industries such as shipbuilding or silver-mining. While a patrician may be as wealthy as a Morozian, or even wealthier, the poorest Carians are as destitute as any subject of the Imperial Frontier.
 
Caria is known abroad for its silver industry, which is concentrated in the city of Zama’s eraset. Mining silver is often carried out in or around sea-seeps or in the planet’s underground riverways, and is known to be dangerous, often dirty work, but the Carian demand for silver is insatiable and there are always good salaries to be made working mining machinery or in a processing facility. Once the silver moves beyond this stage it enters the realm of professionals who are often trained in colleges or academies, and is transformed from simple metal into luxury objects, including implements used by Carians in religious and civil ceremony. Carian silversmiths have a reputation for quality across the Orion Spur and their goods have traveled far abroad since the planet’s integration into the Dominian Empire, with some [[Luna|Lunarians]] and [[Venus|Cythereans]] prizing them as luxury imports.
 
==Carian Settlements==
<center><i>“It’s a better assignment than Sun Reach, but good Goddess are they a strange people!”</i> - Excerpt from a letter written by a Jadraner employed by House Caladius to his father, 2465.</center>
 
Carian settlements are all located on the Shrouded half of the planet facing its moon, Lixus. They are concentrated around geothermal vents known as “sea-seeps” which provide vital resources to the city: heat to make the environment bearable, nutrients for its soil, and geothermal power to keep it functioning as it should. The marshy terrain around these vents that the cities control and exploit is known as its ''eraset'', or ''‘rst'', which loosely translates to “sovereign domain” in Basic. A city’s eraset also covers its underground territory, and its estate-holder – an individual elected by the city’s patricians who is a cross between a governor and mayor – exercises suzerainty over it, with those who break Caria’s laws subject to the city’s courts and constables.
 
Cities on Caria have naturally grown outward from their sea-seeps over the centuries and some have become quite large, with Yaskarit and other great cities containing multiple sea-seeps within their eraset. A dominant feature of their skylines are the large geothermal power plants which rise from above these “tapped” sea-seeps and provide the city with heat and electric power, and can extend far underground. From these, wide boulevards extend outwards into the city’s districts and branch off into smaller streets, avenues, and alleyways that tie the ceraset together like a web. Carian cities are often cramped and built up rather than out, as the marshy terrain makes land reclamation initiatives constantly and time-consuming. Rivers are frequently found within the city limits due to the nature of sea-seeps, and these are used by barges moving goods to and from shuttleports and factories in addition to ferries and private craft.
 
While Caria does not have a true rural countryside due to the cold, dark, and inhospitable nature of its surface, the outer limits of a city’s eraset are often dominated by farms of varying sizes that produce its textiles, foods, and other goods – some smaller cities, with smaller eraset, may be entirely dedicated to farming, but most only devote their marginal land to agriculture. Under the surface, still in the eraset, one may find fishing operations and mineral exploitation, with silver ore prized for its religious and ritualistic significance. Cities which control significant silver deposits are often more wealthy and influential, as it is said there is no quicker way to become a patrician than to own and operate a silver mine.
 
===Major Settlements===
 
=====Yaskarit=====
 
'''Yaskarit''' is the planetary capital of and most populous city on Caria. Historical legends claim it was the first city to be founded on the planet, and its first stones were laid by the Aderlai herself – a legend which has fallen out of popular favor in the Imperial era due to its heathen roots. It is the center of the planet’s local and Imperial administrations, home to both Dominia’s colonial bureaucracy and the Adirim, and a minor regional center for the administration of the Eastern Military Frontier. Due to its large population it contains dozens of sea-seeps, including some of the largest on the planet. It is one of the hotter cities on Caria, located at nearly the furthest point from the Sunward side of the planet and readily exposed to Lixus’ blessed light. Yaskarit’s architecture is dominated by the Carian traditional style, with only Dominian colonial buildings featuring Morozian styling, and is criss-crossed by rivers of varying sizes, leading to some calling it the City of Boats. Most of the planet’s Morozian population is concentrated here and works in the colonial government, or on behalf of one of the great houses or their enterprises.
 
Due to its position near the planetary equator more shuttlecraft launch from Yaskarit from any other city, and its eraset is greatly prosperous. However, at its edges lie agrarian and textile industries hit hard by cheaper Morozian imports which have priced out native competition. Few bother to visit these deprived sectors, often known as the Lesheka District for the swampy, half-reclaimed terrain it rests upon which was never finished due to Dominia’s annexation of the planet. Any visitor will have plenty to see in the Adirim  District, its most central region, home to the planet’s governing body, the grand estate-holder’s palatial estate, and dozens of homes of rich patricians. For the middle and working class outside of the Lesheka District, Yaskarit offers a solid standard of living and more opportunities to go off-world than any other city on the Witch World.
 
=====Zama=====
 
'''Zama''' is popularly regarded as Caria’s “second city” and is a historical center for the venerable Magonbaal family. It is a center for the planet’s silver mining industry, with some of the richest veins being found underneath its sea-seeps. This silver industry has brought immense wealth to Zama and helped propel the Magonbaals to the historically dominant role they occupied until the Imperial era. The silver has also made it a center of first Carianism and now Carian Tribunalism, with many academies of divination and more conventional Tribunalist theology located in its eraset. Local legends hold it produces more Goddess-touched than any other eraset and is beloved by the Goddess above all other settlements. Due to its wealth the city is home to a great number of museums and parks funded by patrician families, sometimes by House Seok, and is home to one of the southern Spur’s most vibrant academic communities. Zama’s buildings often incorporate silver in their entryways: a technique said to block out malignant spirits.
 
The immense silver industry of Zama gives its eraset more of a presence underground than most, with mines stretching out from its borders and underground rivers filled with barges transporting mining equipment and silver ore. Collectively known as the Sofavek District, Zama’s underground is dirty and dark, but vibrant and full of working-class homes and businesses. Above it one can find the Tanit District, home to the city’s great academies and museums, and the Vanksa District, where factories and workshops produce much of the silver used in fashion, ritual, and region alike. The outskirts of the eraset are very aquatic, with large marshes having long blocked reclamation efforts and encouraged an aquaculture industry in place of conventional agriculture.
 
=====Mathula=====
 
Heartland of the Drubal family, '''Mathula''' is a great city which has long dominated Caria’s industrial sector. Here, the light of Lixus is dimmed by the smoke of industry and its marshes are polluted by runoff from its wealth. Since the Dominian conquest the city and its eraset have fallen on hard times, with the Pirate Lords’ demand for vessels vanishing and the Imperial Fleet already having a solid industrial base to draw from. Even with this base having shriveled, Mathula’s foundries and shuttleports still produce and assemble much of Caria’s shipping fleet, and some firms have successfully rebounded by expanding their clients to include House Caladius – something which has irritated the Kaneko-aligned Drubal family, who hope to rekindle the dying armaments and military shipbuilding industry they have historically dominated here. House Seok has also become involved in Mathula’s eraset, and has worked to clean some of the most polluted marshes around the city in the name of Empress Hai and Crown Priscilla Keeser. A gesture some consider charity, and others consider maneuvering against potential unrest when Priscilla ascends to the throne.
 
Mathula is bisected by the Mathula River, which grows from the massive sea-seep at its center – potentially the largest on the planet – and is spanned by several great steel bridges decorated with statues of the Aderlai (now claimed to be statues of the Goddess). Northern Mathula is home to its patrician homes and more prestigious districts, while Southern Mathula is home to working-class districts and the factories they work in. Southern Mathula is surrounded by a historically inhospitable marshy bog known as the Meshfot Zetit, or “Witch Bog,” which is wracked by pollutant runoff and the abandoned, partially-submerged remains of attempts to reclaim parts of it. Attempts by House Seok on behalf of the Empress have driven this area back and drained it of much of its pollutants, with some parts of the Witch Bog likely to become nature preserves in the near future.


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    Caria
    Paegilini System
    Sector: Sparring Sea
    Capital: Yaskarit
    Species: Humans
    Common Languages: Vulgar Morozi, High Morozi
    Demonyms: Carian
    Part of: Empire of Dominia
    Formerly part of: Sol Alliance

    In the far-flung Paegilini System lies a strange, tidally-locked world of the Empire of Dominia: the Imperial Viceroyalty of Caria'. Controlled by the Empire since 2424 and often referred to with the derisive nickname of the “Witch World,” it is a world shrouded in darkness and rumors. The planet serves as the Empire’s gate to the Eastern Military Frontier and its hand is soft here, allowing for the local oligarchy to thrive — though some conservatives have called for it to be reigned in. Its inhabitants are known as Carians and are often regarded with suspicion abroad due to their planet’s mysterious nature. They adhere to an acceptable deviation of Tribunalism known as Carian Tribunalism and are renowned for their abilities as seers and diviners within the broader umbrella of Moroz Holy Tribunalism.

    Contents

    History

    Prehistory (Circa 2190 - 2375

    “By the Aderlai’s mercy alone were we able to survive and endure,” - Excerpt from pre-Imperial Carian writing on the Prehistoric era.

    The pre-Imperial history of Caria is poorly documented. Attempts by Imperial and – more recently – Solarian researchers to uncover its past have been frustrated by a lack of available records about the planet written before Elyra’s secession in 2302. It was most likely colonized at roughly the same time as Novi Jadran and Sun Reach, in the late 22nd century, and intended to be a habitation or scientific center in the Baltian and Arcadian Frontier Sectors due to its strange environment and ideal position between Sun Reach and inhabitable worlds further into the frontier. A Solarian Department of Colonization report from 2205 notes it as a research-focused colony and transit hub, but does not contain any further information. The lack of formal information from this era has led to Imperial scholars referring to it as “Prehistoric Caria” and have settled on referring to the planet as a Solarian scientific colony, based on what information is known about it from historical records and Carian genetic code showing signs of past genetic tampering associated with Hegemonic-era Solarian experiments to produce more adaptable colonists.

    Carian academics have similarly fractured records which are often mixed with legends, half-truths, and oral histories. Officially they do not deviate from their Imperial counterparts in calling the planet a Solarian research colony. In their mythology Carians state they were brought to the planet by the Alliance, which abandoned them when its planetary rotation locked into place, and were saved by the geothermal vents modern Carian cities are now built around. According to modern dating by the Imperial Jadranic Academy of Sciences, Caria’s vents are thousands of years old and have been held by more conservative Tribunalist scholars as an example of the Goddess planning out the history of the Spur far in advance. Prior to the Imperial era, these mythologies substituted the Goddess for the Great Mother – or Aderlai – a local deity associated with Caria who possesses superficial resemblances to the Goddess.

    The poor amount of information on prehistoric Caria has led to numerous theories about the Witch World’s true origins. Some in the Holy Tribunal claim the colonists, like Morozians, were brought to the world to serve a special purpose, as She has ordained, and their unique nature is a sign of Her blessing. Others claim malevolent witch-spirits moved the planet known for its connection to sorcery from the depths of the Lemurian Sea – or beyond the Spur – to the modern Empire through vile witchwork for purposes unknown – but undoubtedly nefarious. Yet others claim the Carians are the end result of Solarian hegemonic-era experiments with the nature of humanity, and go beyond the limits of conventional human beings. The inoperative and broken remnants of warp gates in its system attest to the possibility of form of Solarian warp drive experimentation during their era of control, but the secrets of Caria’s past may never be truly known.

    The Pirate Lords

    “The only loyalties they have is their own, and their coins,” - Ernst Zhang, High Captain of the Pirate Lords, on Carians, prior to his execution (2424).

    Well-recorded and attested Carian history starts in 2375, with the planet’s subjugation by the Pirate Lords of Sun Reach. The Lords used the world, which had by then developed its own local oligarchical government, in much the same way the Empire would: as a transit world between Sun Reach and their domains beyond Caria. This, and the soft hand of the Lords, caused the planet to benefit more from their control than perhaps anywhere else due to trade profits. By the late 24th century, the families that ruled Caria on behalf of Sun Reach were wealthier, more influential, and more independent than their overlord would have liked them to be. Rumors in the Adirim, Caria’s government, began to circulate that the Pirate Lords were planning to punish their most successful underlings and take over their trade empire themselves.

    But any censure of Caria’s oligarchical families would never come thanks to its growing conflict with Novi Jadran: an insignificant, frozen world home to a surprising amount of industry which had – out of frustration with constant raids on their world by Sun Reach – sworn loyalty to Moroz, a distant, nearly as frigid world of little importance to the Adirim or Carians more broadly. The Pirate Lords’ decisive and rapid defeat in Sun Reach in 2422 shocked the planet and threw it into a temporary panic as patrician families sold off what assets they could and prepared for an inevitable Dominian assault on their world. The local military – a shadow of what the Pirate Lords had, let alone the Empire’s military – rapidly dissolved in fear of what was to come.

    When Imperial forces entered into the Paegilini system on 7 July, 2424, they were greeted by a planet on the verge of surrender. A look at the forces arrayed against Caria by the Empire led its leader, Grand Estate-Holder Bomilcar Magonbaal, to surrender immediately to the Imperial Fleet, which landed in the planetary capital and raised the Emperor’s standard in an official ceremony. The only shots fired in the Dominian invasion of the planet were in a ceremonial salute, and by a startled Dominian Imperial Fleet armsman at a migrating animal.

    Imperial Era

    “Never forget the mercy Emperor Godwin showed you,” - High Lord General Dorothea-Frieda Strelitz to Grand Estate-Holder Kusarit Maharbal, 2458.

    As when it was controlled by the Pirate Lords, Caria and its government have thrived under Dominian rule. The mostly peaceful nature of its transfer to Morozian rule led to little damage to the Carians, with most disruptions coming from a shift between the native religion of the planet, known as Carianism to Dominians and the Hatim Aderlai-Zlim (lit. “Blood Path of the Great Mother”) to the pre-Imperial population, to Carian Tribunalism. Strategically, the planet’s role as a gate between Sun Reach and the broader region has not shifted, with House Caladius vessels replacing those of the Pirate Lords and colonial bureaucrats having replaced tribute collectors.

    Beneficially, Caria never faced the infrastructure and urban decay of Sun Reach, nor the privations of Novi Jadran, enabling it to bargain from a stronger position when it submitted to the Empire. While they lost their native faith to Tribunalism, canny maneuvering – which some claim involved sorcery – saw the Adirim and the Grand Estate-Holder remain in charge under the nominal oversight of a colonial Governor-Viceroy. The massive investment projects which changed life patterns on Sun Reach and Novi Jadran did not occur on Caria, and the planet has retained a level of autonomy alongside its prosperity. This has led to its non-trade economy being less integrated with the Dominian colonial economy, aside from the entry of Dominian textile products into a market once dominated by more expensive local Carian output.

    But despite its relative wealth from trade and freedom, not all is well upon the Witch World. Rumors of its sorcerous connections and the odd appearance of Carians cause them to often be discriminated against abroad in the Empire, with Imperial citizens blaming them for inexplicable phenomena when they are near and accusing them of trafficking with dark forces. In the Sparring Sea, where their trade networks are, tensions between the Republic of Elyra and Empire are higher than ever, and any war between the two will place them uncomfortably close to the frontlines and destroy many of their trade ventures. On Moroz, conservative nobles and clergy call for their autonomy to be restrained and their divination practices to be curtailed. And in Yaskarit, its capital, the Adirim is divided and volatile, with patrician families willing to use any dirty trick they can muster to win influence and power – even at the cost of the broader planet.

    The Paegilini System

    “These people cannot seriously believe their ‘goddess” resides in their moon, can they?” - Sub-Lieutenant Yumiko Matsushita (2398 - ), Imperial Fleet, 2425.

    Named for its star – Paegilini – Caria’s system has no signs of habitation prior to humanity’s arrival, and is filled with the deactivated, disassembled, and destroyed remains of Solarian hegemonic-era warp gates known locally as the Tanit Gates, most of which orbit around Caria and its moon. The system is home to four major celestial bodies and one notable moon.

    • Leptis: The innermost planet of the system. A hot, barren rock with little in the way of mineral resources or stellar artefacts, it has remained mostly untouched aside from the remains of hegemonic-era and – more recently – House Volvalaad scientific probes. It has no atmosphere and the constant bombardment of Paeglini’s rays make long-term habitation impractical.
    • Caria: The crown jewel of the system and home to its population. It is a tidally-locked world lit by its moon, where the population lives on the side opposite of the sun.
    • Lixus: The only moon of Caria, its surface is made of highly-reflective material which provides the dim light the planet’s Shrouded side is known for. Lixus was a sacred site in Carianism – the officially extinct pre-Imperial faith of the planet – and is considered to be a protected site by the Imperial colonial administration due its importance for continued life on Caria’s surface. All activities here not approved by both the governor-viceroy and grand estate-holder are banned, with the Imperial Fleet responsible for prosecuting those who violate this regulation.
    • Tanit Gates: Mostly found in Caria’s orbit, these are manmade objects from the hegemonic era which resemble pre-24th century Solarian warp gates. Over the centuries most have fallen into disrepair due to damage from stellar objects or part-stripping by salvagers. However, a few gates have been preserved in Caria’s orbit and are being eagerly studied by House Volvalaad and scholars they have invited from the Solarian Alliance. No Tanit Gate has ever been recorded as active.
    • Beyond Caria and Lixus the system’s major bodies are Motya, a gas giant where Carian vessels have long mined resources in its rings, and Abdera: a distant, icy dwarf planet categorized by the Imperial Institute of Astrography as marginal, despite its mineral wealth. Zhurong’s ore veins are simply more valuable and easier to mine than a distant, cold rock.

    Environment

    “You know this place has to be a real s-hole for Haas to describe it as marginal/unlikely for colonization LOL,” - Alexandria Wong (2225 - 2289) Solarian Department of Colonization Bureaucrat describing Caria in an internal memo.

    A tidally-locked world, Caria is divided into two hemispheres known as the Sunward and Shrouded halves of the planet. The Sunward side of Caria is an uninhabitable desert constantly baked by the rays of the Paegilini Star and has no permanent settlements. The only structures are ruins of automated mining facilities from the Solarian era, half-buried by the sand which dominates much of Sunward Caria’s surface. Many of these facilities have laid untouched since the early 24th century. The Sunward dunes may hide even more secrets, but expeditions onto this side of the planet have proven costly, dangerous, and difficult for little returns. Animal and plant life on this side of Caria is rare, with most species limited to very small insects or burrowing creatures which live near underground sources of water and plant life. Surface water is unheard of, and will quickly evaporate in the event of rain. Certain animals which reside on or near the Sunward surface exhibit anhydrobiosis and can live for years to decades without water. House Volvalaad has expressed some interest in these creatures and is one of the few entities to support further research into this side.

    Transitional zones dominate the thin line spanning the area between the Sunward and Shrouded sides. Like the Sunward side, these zones are desert-like and feature little in the way of life or surface water. However, they are also generally colder than the Sunward side due to not being cast in the star’s direct light.

    Shrouded Caria is where the planet’s population resides. Lit by the reflective glow of Caria’s moon, Lixus, it is a dim, cold, and barren landscape where life is concentrated around large geothermal vents which warm the area around themselves. The Carian population is densely concentrated in major cities around these vents and their surrounding territories, locally known as the eraset of a city. Outside of these vents surface conditions are tundra-like, dominated by cold temperatures and covered by small chemotrophs which are able to survive in an environment with little surface water, as most is found either around the geothermal vents and sea-seeps or in great underground rivers that connect vent to vent, sometimes traveling thousands of kilometers under the planetary surface.

    Flora and Fauna

    With planetary conditions for life generally being quite marginal, the ecosystem of Caria is characterized by highly extremophilic lifeforms that rely on chemotrophic producers as the foundation of the trophic system. Owing to its origins in the planet’s large subsurface ocean, both marine and surface Carian lifeforms are clustered heavily around hydrothermal vents and geysers that provide ample quantities of the necessary hydrocarbons and other chemicals for the production of nutrients and energy. On the surface, places where the ocean or geothermal activity has forced this chemical-rich water out from underground are typically known as sea-seeps, and often resemble vast tracts of inundated marshland.

    At these sea-seeps, coralline structures and fungal-analogues are the most common “flora” analogues, though they largely consist of colonial organisms as opposed to anything that would resemble plant life. “Seep-coral” is the term used to refer to these aforementioned coral-analogues that form the backbone of the ecosystem, which grow continuously and exponentially for as long as sufficient chemical energy is available and grazing fauna do not otherwise intervene. It is worth noting traditional trees and most forms of plants do not exist in large numbers on Caria, as the planet lacks the natural sunlight required for easy photosynthesis.

    Carian fauna, on the other hand, has a strong resemblance to Earth arthropods - with exoskeletons and crustacean-like traits being predominant and pointing to a relatively recent evolutionary origin. Surface and subsurface fauna are notably similar, and many terrestrial species are in fact semi-aquatic. Most species are colloquially referred to as “Grazers”, referring to their typical feeding behavior and their reliance on the limited amounts of edible surface matter available. Grazers tend to be small and relatively slow, conserving as much of their energy as possible, and many species exhibit considerable bioluminescence - largely as a method of communication on the perennially dim world. Owing to the highly nutrient-deprived nature of the Carian ecosystem, the vast majority of fauna species are extremely reliant on the chemotrophic producers that form the backbone of the planetary ecology, and populations are heavily concentrated in proximity to the habitats these chemotrophs rely upon.

    Carnivorous species are limited in number, but do exist, and are typically referred to as “Pouncers”. Like most Grazer species, the Pouncers are small and have a slow metabolism - many species are adapted to lying in wait for extensive periods of time, before engaging in explosive ambush attacks upon their prey upon detecting them. Some Pouncer species use deceptive bioluminescence in order to attract their quarry, having evolved to mimic the coloration and patterns of the species they specialize upon. While generally harmless, humans can accidentally trigger the hunting instinct of a Pouncer lying in wait, triggering abortive surprise attacks that are not very dangerous, but often quite startling to those who experience them.

    While not a major part of the Carian diet owing to their relative scarcity, Carian fauna is edible and generally very palatable - many Grazer species are favorably compared to sweet-tasting lobster or crab, and Patrician families have been known to make extensive use of them culinarily.

    Species

    • Royal Grazer: Resembling a mixture of horseshoe crab and lobster, royal grazers are a highly successful species which are relatively active in comparison to other species within their clade. They possess a robust exoskeleton and dextrous front claws that allow them to defend themselves from predators and manipulate their surroundings to dig their dens, in which they lay their eggs and keep their young. It heavily relies upon seep-coral for food and the toxins they ingest in doing so imparts upon their meat a slightly numbing and tingly sensation that gives Carian cuisine its distinctive taste. They are the most frequently eaten species of grazer on the planet. Their flavor develops with age and they grow continuously throughout their lifespan, and particularly large specimens fetch a high price from the patrician families - most notably for Yaskarit Risotto, the foremost delicacy on the planet, which makes heavy use of its meat for protein and ground seep-coral for a seasoning and garnish.

    Trapdoor Pouncer: An uncanny fusion of crab. spider, and scorpion, trapdoor pouncers get their name from their dens, which are sealed by a hinged trap-door kept together with sticky mucus. Ambush hunters, they tend to leave their dens and lurk around the most productive grazing spots to wait for their prey. They have a tendency to have their leaping instinct triggered by passing humans, but are quite harmless (if frightening) and disengage upon realizing that they are not attacking suitable prey.

    • Common Seep-Coral: Closely resembling Earther stony coral, common seep-coral is the dominant feature of Carian sea-seeps. They can grow to immense sizes and resemble barren trees, though colored teal, pink, or purple rather than green. They are the most productive single species of chemotrophs on the planet, and provide key sustenance and shelter for a great number of species. Harvested seep-coral is frequently processed for use as a seasoning and imparts a unique tingly and numbing sensation upon those who eat it. Overconsumption is known to cause an upset stomach and must be consumed in moderation.
    • Wardweed: A chemotrophic lichen that carpets the ground in proximity to sea-seeps, wardweed possesses medicinal properties and is frequently used in traditional Carian medical practices as a topical antiseptic and antibiotic. It is effective enough that it is intentionally cultivated to meet foreign demand, particularly on the Imperial Frontier. An alleged connection to Carian witchcraft has led to more conservative members of Imperial society to eschew it altogether, believing it corrupts the link between body and soul through foul sorcery.
    • Seep-Flax: A chemotrophic lichen that thrives in the marshy soil around a sea-seep, seep-flax has long been used as a strong, insulating fiber by Carians. Farms growing seep-flax require a great amount of space to be profitable as the lichen is relatively small and does not produce much material. The introduction of cheaper fabrics from the Empire has devastated the seep-flax industry and many former aquatic farms lie vacant, overrun with the flax they once grew for profit.

    Carians

    “Stay away from me, witch!” - Unknown Reacher to a Carian merchant, March 2413.

    The human residents of the Viceroyalty, Carians are a strange people who are often viewed negatively abroad in the Empire, where some regard them as a cursed people. Rumors surround them and their heritage, which is lost to the modern historical record. Some Dominians believe all Carians are sorcerers who practice their vile witchery outside of the gaze of the Tribunal and Empire alike. Few serve in the Imperial military, and fewer serve the Tribunal outside of Caria, but they are highly successful merchants and traders across the Imperial Frontier and beyond, with most goods in the Sparring Sea-Badlands Region passing through Carian hands at least once. Some of their oldest mercantile families have trade networks stretching well beyond the Empire’s borders, and can acquire goods from as far afield as Assunzione or the Nralakk Federation if they so desire. A small minority of Dominians view the Carians as blessed heralds of the Goddess in the material world due to their strange appearances and the fact the planet produces a great number of Goddess-touched.

    Genetically, Carians show deviation from baseline humanity in their appearance and some organs. Imperial scientists have noted Carians tend to recover more quickly from diseases when abroad compared to other Dominians. They tend to be extremely pale, though they do not burn as easily as their skin tone would indicate, and many appear to have sallow skin. Their hair tends towards darker colors – with most being black-haired – but colors such as silver, white, or blonde are not uncommon. Carian eye colors range beyond the normal human spectrum, with purple shades being relatively common – Grand Estate-Holder Kusarit Maharbal, for example, is known for her striking violet eyes and black hair. Their eyes have been modified or have adapted to see better in the constant semi-twilight of the planet, but are significantly more sensitive to rapid changes in light: flashes and flash grenades commonly used by police may temporarily blind them and most experience discomfort in normal light conditions. Carian eyes feature a larger iris and pupil than normal human eyes, and some wear sunglasses abroad to conceal this.

    Oddly, the traits of “Carianism” – as it is known informally – appear to be highly genetically dominant and are always inherited by the child of a mixed non-Carian and Carian union.

    While House Volvalaad is currently attempting to uncover the truth behind what makes Carians so divergent from baseline humanity, multiple theories have arisen to explain why Carians are so unusual. Most grounded are theories the manipulation comes from Carians themselves at some point in their past, or from the Solarian Alliance during its control of the planet. Neither of these theories, however, has any epigraphic or archeological evidence to support it. If documents do exist in the voluminous Solarian Department of Colonization archives covering genetic manipulation of Caria’s colonists, they have never been revealed by the Alliance or by researchers. Less grounded theories include Carians’ appearance comes from the Goddess Herself as punishment for a past sin or that they are not from the Spur at all, having arrived here from some alternate reality where humanity is slightly different.

    Government

    Grand Estate-Holder Kusarit Maharbal, here depicted in a 2467 portrait commissioned by the Maharbal family to celebrate their continued dominance of Caria's highest office.
    “It is the will of His Majesty the Emperor that Caria be granted similar rights to Novi Jadran for its inhabitants’ cooperation in Imperial affairs,” - Excerpt from the Emperor Godwin Accords.

    The Imperial Viceroyalty of Caria is a subject of the Empire of Dominia ruled, de jure, by Governor-Viceroy Gauthier Caladius, an unassuming and humorless man who has spent his life in the Empire’s colonial bureaucracy. De facto, however, the planet is ruled by Grand Estate-Holder Kusarit Maharbal, one of the only Dominian planetary leaders – alongside Novi Jadran’s Governor-Marchioness Anastazija Glavan – to hail from the planet they govern, and the only not to hold a noble title. Uniquely in the Empire, Caria’s grand estate-holder is elected in a nominally democratic process by the Adirim: a governing council made up of the planet’s richest citizens and its voting body. Maharbal, who has the backing of House Caladius and the largest faction of the Adirim’s voting seats, has survived many challenges since her election in 2460, where she replaced her father, Watcyn Maharbal, after his assassination by a now-exiled merchant dynasty acting on behalf of House Kaneko’s affiliated voting block.

    The grand estate-holder is the most sought-after office on Caria: the leader of its republic, they de facto represent the planet abroad in official dealings with the broader empire, though Kusarit attends these alongside the governor-viceroy, who officially rules the world’s foreign affairs on behalf of the Empire. The loose hand of the colonial administration – a consequence of Caria’s rapid and voluntary capitulation to the Empire – has allowed the grand estate-holder to exercise a greater level of influence than most local officials would ever dream of: they can propose legislation to the Adirim, begin the process of exiling a member of the Carian people, and – prior to the Imperial era – set the planet’s foreign policy. Assuming they can maintain their popularity in the Adirim, they are capable of maintaining their role in perpetuity as there are no term limits. In reality the longest-serving person to hold the position is Kusarit Maharbal, current matriarch of the Maharbal family, who has the backing of the Imperial colonial bureaucracy and House Caladius.

    The Adirim

    “How long will you abuse our patience, Drubal? This body’s is not so great as the Aderlai’s,” - Kanmi Zimirda, of the same family, 2466.

    The Adirim is Caria’s assembly and meets in its planetary capital, Yaskarit – the oldest and grandest of its vent-cities. It has 1,500 members, with each corresponding to a prominent merchant family. These families appoint a representative – who may be a non-relative or castellean, should they choose – to vote on their behalf in the Adirim, and owning a seat is considered to be a prerequisite for entering Carian high society. In the event of a total bloodline extinction for a seat holder or a seat-holder falling into relative poverty, only the grand estate-holder is able to choose a new merchant family to fill the vacant seat. This has led to a degree of habitual instability and turnover within the Adirim, particularly with the introduction of Houses Caladius and Kaneko’s influence, as merchant families ascend to the Adirim, withdraw from it, or are killed off by assassination, fall into economic ruin, or are exiled for alleged crimes. To pass an issue is deceptively easy: one must simply attain a pure majority – whether that is 751 or 1,499 – in votes. In practice this is difficult as the pro- and anti-Maharbal blocs of the Adirim are divided into competing interest groups, cliques, extended families, and conspiracies often motivated by their own profit over all else.

    A member of the Adirim is known as a representative, or a delegate. They come from, or are affiliated with, Caria’s patrician families, and holding a seat has a wealth requirement: if one slips below it, their seat is confiscated and the grand estate-holder chooses their replacement. Per Carian law this replacement MUST be able to prove their family line dates back to at least the pre-Imperial era, in order to prevent the Adirim from being overrun by non-Carians. New representatives often bring in funerary records of their family to prove their lineage, with some having transported entire steles into the Adirim. One of the few rules about the Adirim is no family can acquire more than one seat for themselves. As a result, seats are spread across the planet and webs of influence can stretch through its mighty underground rivers, enveloping dozens of merchant families, business ventures, and trade networks. They can be recognized by their badge of office: a silvered knife they use to cast their votes. Some of these knives have been passed down in families since Carian prehistory, showing that some seats have remained stable for centuries. Others – by either fiscal ruination, exile, or bloodline extinction – have switched hands dozens of times across the centuries.

    However, five exceptions exist to the Carian ancestry rule: known as the viceroyalty seats, these Adirim members are Dominian members of the viceroyalty’s government and hold the power to veto anything passed by the body if at least four vote against it. Created by the Emperor Godwin Accords as a way of ensuring Dominian influence on a planet some in the government regard as too independent, these seats are informally known as the Imperial Viceroyal Council. The five Dominian members of the Adirim are all nobles and are not above involvement in the local government, with rumors having long circulated in Yaskarit that Grand Estate-Holder Maharbal has bribed members of the Council to vote with the Adirim on controversial legislation rather than against it. A piece of vetoed legislation can be sent back to the Adirim for further discussion or banned from discussion at all depending on the Council. The Counil is made up of one member from each great house and Viceroy Caladius.

    The Adirim’s major blocs – which are defined by their support and opposition to the current grand estate-holder – are the House Caladius-aligned pro-Maharbal bloc and the smaller, House Kaneko-aligned anti-Maharbal bloc. Between these lie a smaller number of undecided voters who either hold no strong stances on Grand Estate-Holder Maharbal or simply wish to avoid drawing excessive attention to themselves. The Maharbal family, which has dominated the position of grand estate-holder since Caria’s annexation into the Empire, is wealthy enough to bribe many of these undecided voters into supporting them during times of crisis, such as when their control over the position is challenged. They are also canny and loyal enough to have secured the backing – financial, administrative, and more – of House Caladius, which views Caria as a vital link between the Frontier and the Empire’s more easterly territories.

    The House Kankeo-aligned bloc is led by the Drubal family, prominent shipwrights who have maintained a close relationship with the Empire’s naval forces since 2424 and are particularly close to the ever-ambitious Kanekos. This is an attempt by the Kanekos to carve out a planet aside from Zhurong, where they must bend the knee to House Zhao, and Count Kaneko believes having his candidate ascend to the position of grand estate-holder would give the family strong influence over the planet – stronger than what House Caladius possesses, as the Drubal family lacks the immense wealth of their rivals, the Maharbal family. Scheming between the two merchant families has contributed significantly to the Adirim’s general instability.

    Votes in the Adirim are held when a plurality of members are present. Attempting to deliberately block a representative from attending the Adirim to vote is a severe crime and a rule put in place during the mid-24th century to avoid disruptions to the voting itself in what had already become a hectic voting body. All members must pass between two large fires at the Adirim’s entrance: a relic from pre-Tribunalist times, the fires are said to cleanse and ward one from evil spirits. Representatives vote by taking their badge of office – a silvered knife – and slicing their thumb open, then daubing their blood onto a voting slip. The blood offering is symbolically and religiously important in Carian culture and is said to signify one’s firm belief in how they are voting for an issue.

    Caria and the Imperial Government

    The exceptional degree of autonomy enjoyed by Caria is rooted in its unique relationship with the Empire, which it enjoys thanks to both its position on the edge of the Eastern Military Frontier and its early cooperation with the Imperial military during the war against the Pirate Lords in the 2420s. Where other worlds fought against the Empire and for the Pirate Lords, the Carians opted to surrender without a fight and quickly set about cooperating with the Dominians for both profit and state survival. Emperor Godwin, realizing the planet could be an asset and free up Imperial forces for more resource-rich worlds – such as Xiang-Xia and Sun Reach – accepted the Carians’ surrender and symbolically forgave them for siding with the Pirate Lords, then appointed the first Viceroy-Governor to serve as an Imperial minder for the planet. The terms for Caria under the Empire are laid out in the Emperor Godwin Accords of 2424, which offers autonomy in exchange for continued loyalty of the Grand Estate-Holder and the Adirim to the Empire.

    The Emperor alone can retract the Accords, and some conservative actors – those who claim the Carians used sorcery and dark dealings to attain their autonomy from Emperor Godwin – have called for Emperor Boleslaw Keeser to take a firmer stance against Grand Estate-Holder Maharbal and the Adirim, claiming they have acted more to protect Carians’ business interests than for the good of the Empire as a whole. For now, however, the aging Emperor Boleslaw has taken no action for or against the planet.

    It remains to be seen if his successor will.

    Law Enforcement

    The Empire’s laws on Caria are enforced by the steady hand of the Imperial Carian Constabulary Service, or ICCS, with limited support from the Tribunal Investigations Constabulary. Uniquely, the ICCS only has an urban constabulary and no rural component as the countryside of the planet is too inhospitable for permanent habitation. While it is well-funded and well-staffed, particularly compared to the haggard colonial constabularies throughout the Eastern Military Frontier, the ICCS has a reputation for corruption and close involvement with the politics of the Adirim and the patrician class. A bad constable will find themselves swept up into the plotting of merchant families and discarded as a pawn, while a good constable will find a way to make themselves useful to the winning side of a dispute. Some constables have become firm allies of certain patrician families and know when it is best to look the other way on behalf of their friends in high places. For normal Carians the ICCS it is common for constables to be tipped or “rewarded” by those who wish to see an investigation accelerated or deprioritized. If one cannot pay up, they will simply have to sit and wait for the wheels of the Empire’s bureaucracy to turn and spit out something resembling justice.

    The ICCS has more diviners on-staff than any other colonial constabulary thanks to the higher number of Goddess-touched on Caria. They typically work alongside regular constables and Carian diviners, and are valuable assets for the Service. Like elsewhere in the Empire, divination-based testimony by a Goddess-touched is highly valuable for either side of a case. Divination derived from non-Goddess-touched diviners and seers is less valuable, but still serves an important role in the Carian legal system, particularly when one side of the case is deceased.

    Moroz Holy Tribunalism on Caria

    “Blood of my blood, kin of my kin; forever shall we live in Lixus’ gaze,” - Common funerary prayer on Caria.

    Established by the Holy Tribunal when the planet surrendered in 2424 as a response to the native faith, Carianism, the Moroz Holy Tribunal on Caria has been influenced more by its local people than many Katarinians find comfortable.

    History

    Before discussing Carian Tribunalism it is important to discuss the faith which preceded it: Carianism, or Hatim Aderlai-Zlim. Founded under obscure circumstances during Carian prehistory, Carianism was a monotheistic religion centered around the worship of a female goddess known as the Great Mother, or Aderlai in the local tradition, who was believed to reside in or on — historical texts cannot agree — Lixus, the planet’s moon. Carianist theology revolved heavily around astrology and divination to predict the future and the Aderlai’s will, as she was believed to reveal her intents only in subtle manners. The faith’s creation myth holds she used her mighty sword to crack Caria’s crust and carve the geothermal vents Carian cities have grown around, and this myth has been adapted by the Tribunal to build on their legitimacy. It is said the Great Mother’s sword exists in the real world and is kept in a deep vault under the grand estate holder’s official residence, and it shall be withdrawn in Caria’s greatest hour of need.

    Carianism’s followers, out of genuine belief or simple pragmatism, were very willing to accept Tribunalist clergy into their planet after its surrender, and the mostly-Jarmilian missionaries sent to the planet were delighted, some would say blinded, by the presence of another female creator deity, which they took to be a sign the Lady of Moroz had left Her mighty thumbprint upon this admittedly heathen faith. It was only sensible, then, that the Goddess’ chosen people — the Morozians — would be required to bring this planet into Her loving embrace. Within a decade, they had: young Carians were raised under Morozian theology which claimed their former goddess as an aspect of their more divine one. But while they had stamped out the Aderlai, the ancient tradition of Carian divination was harder to remove — and fearing a more active opposition to their proselytizing in an era of a thinly-stretched military, they chose to simply let it be.

    Carian Tribunalism

    Legally the sole faith upon Caria, this Tribunalist sect is a result of the ease of the planet’s conversion and the unwillingness of missionary priestesses to challenge some of the native population’s stranger beliefs. Commonly referred to as Carian Tribunalism, it is officially characterized by the Moroz Holy Tribunal as an “acceptable deviation” from baseline Tribunalism similar to Reacher Tribunalism and Lyodiic Tribunalism. Unofficially many conservative figures in the Tribunal and House Caladius blame their liberal predecessors for allowing a cult of blood sorcerers and barely-closeted heretics to pass unmolested and entrench itself in what has become the linchpin of the Eastern Military Frontier’s connection to the wider Empire. The current Immaculate Hand has shown little interest in the question of whether Carian Tribunalism is acceptable or heretical, but — with Emperor Keeser and herself both aging — it is anticipated to be a major issue for her successor.

    This branch of the Holy Tribunal is known throughout the Empire for its heavy emphasis on divination, astrological or otherwise, and all but the smallest and most insignificant temples on Caria have at least one diviner on-staff. Considered sanctified by the Tribunal, these diviners are said to augur the Goddess’ will through their predictions and are sometimes employed abroad by Tribunalist authorities for their talents. They must sacrifice a small amount of their blood, and typically cut into their thumbs using a silvered blade referred to as a blood ritual blade or zlimakhin, locally, said to prevent sorcerers or witch-spirits from interfering with the diviner’s readings, and thus corrupting the prediction. Some Katarinians claim this act is itself an example of blood sorcery but have so far not been able to stamp out the practice. Abroad, however, a diviner may find themselves harassed by the Tribunal Investigations Constabulary or His Imperial Majesty’s Constabulary if they run afoul of a sufficiently powerful Katarinian.

    Tribunalist clergy and layperson staff on Caria are drawn primarily from the world itself, with many middle-class and lesser patrician families more than willing to send a child or two to serve the Goddess’ needs in the red cloth of the Holy Tribunal, and many have served with distinction as clergy or laypeople of the faith. A notable exception is the Tribunal Investigations Constabulary: not a single Carian has officially joined the TIC, perhaps due to the planet’s shrouded reputation. Carian clergy are typically not seen off of the shrouded world due to the ill reputation of Carians abroad among many Dominians, though its diviners can be found in many holy sites across the Empire.

    Since the advent of Tribunalism on Caria the Holy Tribunal has recorded a higher-than-average number of Goddess-touched women discovered on the planet than anywhere else outside of the Core Worlds. Carian Goddess-touched are prized locally as diviners and seers, with many of the wealthiest patrician families having having at least one on their familial staffs — the Maharbal family notably maintains a small institute for Goddess-touched it calls the Oracular Institute, and the current grand estate-holder has credited her political survival to their predictions more than once. Carian Goddess-touched who go abroad outside of a patrician family’s employment often do so in service to the Holy Tribunal. The Tribunal views Carian Goddess-touched as effective yet dangerous tools, and always assigns them a designated member of the clergy as a handler and minder.

    Traditionally, a Carian Goddess-touched is blindfolded while relying upon her skills. This is said to blind her to all but the will of the Goddess, and better understand Her Word.

    Culture

    The flag of Caria. The purple moons represent Lixus, while the twin fires represent protection from evil fortune. The silver backing references Caria's well-known silver industry, and some flags have real silver spun into them.
    “We should have never given them the level of autonomy they have wrenched from our hands,” - Prince Alexander Keeser on Caria, 2463.

    As a more recent entrant to the Empire of Dominia, Caria’s local culture has been less influenced by the Core Worlds than Novi Jadran The planet having only been under Dominian rule for four decades, and its high level of autonomy, have led to Carians retaining their republican culture and mercantile focus: the second of which makes them valuable assets for Houses Caladius and Volvalaad, who rely on Carian merchants to go to places abroad where they reasonably cannot, and the first of which has led to them being viewed as a liability and threat by some of the Empire’s more conservative actors. Rather than the urban-rural divide of Novi Jadran or Sun Reach, cultural divisions on the shrouded world are rooted in class differences between the patrician merchants of the world and their less wealthy counterparts. Holding them together like glue is an “acceptable deviation” from the Holy Tribunal known as Carian Tribunalism.

    Carians across all classes place a great value on familial and personal loyalty, and holding one’s word. Merchant families have grown, prospered, and collapsed based on how willing – or unwilling – they are to stick to their promises, and Carian contracts often involve the use of the participants’ blood to seal the agreement. To break the terms after one has committed their blood means one party has betrayed not just their word, but the word of their entire bloodline by extension. Relations of loyalty often go beyond family: it is expected a patrician will care for those in their charge and employ, such as their estate workers and their families, and those below the patrician will support their betters. This social rule is similar to the tenets of Dominian honour – that those above and below must support one another – and has helped Caria’s patricians integrate into Dominian society, even if they are not “true” nobility.

    Despite these cultural values Carians have a reputation throughout the Empire as a quarrelsome people who will debate endlessly before acting, a reputation not helped by the often dynamic politics of the Adirim. It is said, in a common joke, that if one speaks to five Carians they will get six opinions — one having changed theirs in the time it takes to ask the others. Supporting this is a vibrant (by Dominian standards) civil society where patricians in the Adirim are constantly petitioned by their wealthy “constituents” for favors, deals, and support, and local media outlets — many owned by patrician families — attempt to spin news stories to their advantage. The greatest of these is the Journal of Yaskarit, owned and operated by the Maharbal family, which circulates throughout the planet. The competitive nature of the Adirim assists in keeping Carians linked to their representatives, and it is not uncommon for members of the Adirim to grow rich off of “gifts” provided to introduce and pass legislation.

    Divination

    A cultural tradition from prehistoric Caria which survived integration into the Empire, divination is a key element of modern Carian religious traditions and is relied upon by many normal Carians before making significant decisions in their private or business lives. Not using divination opens one up to ill fortune, either at the capricious hands of fate or from the diabolical machinations of witch-spirits that so hound the imperfect, mortal world. Due to its importance, divination is a major domestic industry on Caria, governed through regulations passed by the Adirim and staffed by professionals who have been educated in proper practices — improper divination is said to attract witch-spirits as readily as a hidden synthetic does, and some Katarinians have accused contemporary divination as having roots in blood sorcery and heathen sacrificial rites. An officially-certified diviner who has passed their exams is formally known as a makhlim.

    Properly performed, Tribunal-sanctioned, non-religious divination is carried out in a ritualistic manner by a diviner orsometimes multiple diviners and their assistants, who are often students of divination themselves. The primary ritualist pricks a finger with a small, silvered knife known as a zlimakhin, or “blood ritual blade,” with the silver said to counteract interference in the ritual by outside forces such as witch-spirits. Which divination is requested or desired will change the finger being used. The wounded finger is then placed into a device called a “Tanith splitter,” which filters the blood offering through a series of small holes which drip onto a sheet of divining paper covered in hexagrams. The diviner and their assistants begin analyzing the hexagrams once the bleeding has been stopped by the Tanith splitter, and determine what the Goddess’ fortunes dictate to the supplicant. This method is expensive and often takes a long time to determine the results, but is said to be very accurate and is favored by the patrician class.

    While the Tanith-hexagram method is said to bring the most accurate divination, other techniques are used by makhlim and their assistants to scry the future. Commonly, middle-class Carians rely on silver-readings: less expensive than other methods, it involves offering the supplicant’s blood by having them prick a finger and bleed into a cup containing silver shavings and holy water, with the holy water said to cleanse impurities if a zlimakhin is unavailable. The water-and-blood mixture is then boiled away as the supplicant and diviner (typically only one diviner, with or without an assistant, due to the technique’s relative ease of use) observe, and the shape of the silver is interpreted by the diviner. Quick and simple to perform, the silver shavings are often reused by poorer Carians for multiple readings.

    The cheapest and quickest method of divination is the most prone to error, but is used by many poor Carians to divine their fortunes. Known formally as vessel-based divination, or more insultingly as “spitting divination,” this technique involves a diviner — generally alone and without an assistant — slicing the supplicant’s finger open, then drinking the flowing blood, combining it with holy water in the mouth, and spitting it into a ritual vessel. The diviner then interprets the blood in the water to determine the Goddess’ will. The ritual vessel is — ideally — silvered to ward off the interference of witch spirits, but some rely solely on the repelling power of holy water. Often associated with bars, warehouses, and dockyards, this method of divination is sometimes attempted by non-diviners, to varying degrees of success. While it is easy to slice your finger and spit into a vessel, interpreting the revelations is far harder.

    Carian beliefs hold each part of one’s hand is best for a different part of divination. These are:

    • Thumb: Social matters, in both the political and business context.
    • Index Finger: Loyalty, such as that of friends and colleagues.
    • Middle Finger: Misfortune, future challenges.
    • Ring Finger: Family matters, love, marriage, and similar issues.
    • Pinkie: Personal health.
    • Palm: The palm is generally avoided in Carian divination, as it is believed the blood from it will cause the fortune to be more obscure than that of a finger’s.
    • Wrist: The wrist is generally avoided in Carian divination due to the danger it poses to a supplicant. Wrist blood, however, is said to be more sensitive to division than anywhere else on the hand, and diviners have been accused of harvesting blood from the wrist for their rituals by non-Carians.

    Funerary Rites

    The aftermath of a Carian’s death is unlike anything else in the modern Empire. Carian dead are universally cremated and some of their blood is integrated into their tombstone as a testament to their deeds in life and their ancestry. How much blood is used in this post-death ritual varies depending on one’s class. Patrician families will drain all blood from a cadaver while the middle classes will drain less, and the poorest Carians may only be able to afford a ritual goblet’s worth of drained blood. The funerary specialists who perform these rituals are known as zlimhyoni (a term translated as “blood ritualist” in Basic) and receive formalized training. Larger funeral homes often have a dedicated zlimhyoni on-staff. After the ritual draining the body is cremated.

    After cremation a Carian’s blood is mixed with their ashes, also by a zlimhyoni, and the mixture is moved in a special container known as a zlimdiqaru (translated as “earthen blood vessel” in Basic) to a workshop that turns the mixture into a liquid building material known as zlimeben, or “blood stone.” This material forms the sole material of Carian gravestones and is a permanent reminder of the deceased and their accomplishments in life. Patrician families drain more blood to ensure their dead are appropriately honored.

    Poorer families build zlimeben memorials known as cairns. Small enough to fit inside a residence, they form the focal point of shrines honoring the deceased. While the gravestone must be made of the zlimeben, what surrounds it can be made of any material. Families will often have the shrine consecrated by a priestess to ensure witch-spirits are not attracted to an improperly-maintained cairn. Patrician families instead build great steles with their blood stones. Intended to honor their ancestry and their own deeds, some steles are the size of buildings and contain the zlimeben of multiple deceased. The venerable Maharbal family has the largest stele on the planet: a great monument that rises two-hundred meters into the air and integrates the blood of dozens of family members known as the Maharbal Epitaph. It is a public memorial maintained by the colonial government, attracts tourists from across the Empire, and is used for major Carian Tribunalist rituals on holidays.

    Caria’s rituals are far stranger to a Morozian than the mourning rites of the Core Worlds and Novi Jadran, and have not escaped the rumors that plague the Witch World. Some Katarinian theologians claim Carians have a hidden rite known as a death stele. Supposedly practiced only on political enemies and criminals, a death stele’s creation involves a zlimhyoni and several diviners binding the soul of the deceased to their stele through an unknown process to ensure their soul will never reach the Goddess for judgement. Others claim the great Maharbal Epitaph is made primarily of death steles and allegedly Tribunalist rituals carried out there grant Carians their sorcerous powers. The Holy Tribunal on Caria and the Viceroyalty’s government have both denied this claim, but it has remained durable among ordinary Dominians, particularly those with little knowledge of the planet, and Carians abroad are sometimes accused of having a hand in creating these alleged devices. No historical records exist to support their existence.

    Patricians

    The rulers of Caria, its patricians are the planet’s wealthiest and most venerable inhabitants. They control the trade which creates the planet’s wealth, sit in the Adirim, employ its middle and working classes, grant alms to the poor when needed, and represent it abroad when called upon. While wealthy and powerful they are not Imperial nobles and their status is wealth-based rather than hereditary, though older patrician families tend to venerate their ancestors and call upon them to bolster their prestige and influence. Few Carian patricians have ascended to the ranks of Imperial nobility due to discrimination and a local cultural tradition which holds the status of patrician alone brings more prestige than nobility ever could, as it means the family has created their own wealth and reputation rather than been rewarded it by someone not from the Witch World. To be considered for patrician status, a family must have verifiable ties on Caria going back to at least the pre-Imperial era, a gesture intended to stop its government from being flooded by non-Carians. Carian steles and other death-related traditions are part of the reason this exists: even some of the poorest families can trace their roots back decades.

    Patrician status being tied to wealth has made it quite dynamic: families throughout history have risen to it and fallen out of it due to the ever-shifting fortunes of trade, investments, and seizing new opportunities. Today’s middle-class clerk may be tomorrow’s patrician if one is canny enough to spot a good opportunity, wealthy enough to act upon it, and lucky enough to be present. Likewise, a patrician family may be brought low by misfortune, mismanagement, simple bad luck, or the scheming of their enemies, falling into ruin and thus potentially opening up a seat in the Adirim if they were wealthy enough to sit in it.

    Like their Jadranic counterparts, Carian patricians exercise a great amount of control and influence over the planet’s economic affairs, and arguably exert more influence due to the lack of a competing nobility and the loose hand of Morozian colonial oversight. They own the fiscal institutions and trade companies which bring goods to and from the planet, and commission shipbuilders — often on Zhurong but sometimes abroad — to create vessels able to carry goods across the Empire and beyond. Often in the Empire they fly under the banner of House Caladius, which views trade with the wider Spur as a net gain for the Empire, but they are not above flying under whatever flag of convenience will see them safely to the most places with the smallest possible inconvenience.

    Notable Patrician Families

    Among the patricians, some families are noted for their influence and histories.

    The Maharbal family is Caria’s most powerful patrician family, having held onto the position of grand estate-holder for longer than any other group in Caria’s recent history. The family’s fortune is built in both political caniness – it employs more diviners and Goddess-touched than any other patrician family – and deep trade connections throughout the Empire proper, which it has cultivated with assistance from House Caladius. Its leader is Kusarit Maharbal, the planet’s current grand estate-holder, and the family is deeply connected to House Caladius and the broader Morozian colonial apparatus. Many Carians look to this family as having saved them from the fate of Xiang-Xia or Sun Reach, as their swift maneuvering during the planet’s conquest by Dominia helped ensure a peaceful surrender, a level of autonomy, and the Maharbals in power. In the late 25th century they have retained their great influence and Caladius backing, and claim only they can ensure Caria retains the level of independence it has so enjoyed for the past 40 years.

    The Drubal family were military and industrial leaders prior to the planet’s surrender to Dominia, and saw their military enterprises wither on the vine when the Pirate Lords evaporated and the Morozians had no need for shipbuilding and military industry so far from the Core Worlds. Even worse, Caria could now rely upon the mighty Imperial Fleet for trade security – there was no need to send armed cutters produced by the Drubals any longer. The family sunk into a deep malaise from which they were rescued by the will of House Kaneko, which attached itself to the faltering patricians and began using them as a proxy to subvert Caladius influence on the planet and establish a foothold for Kaneko influence beyond Zhurong. To date they have not succeeded in their goal of capturing the grand estate-holder office for themselves, but they have rebuilt themselves, and are now a powerful counterweight against the Maharbals. Some say they are mere proxies for the conservatives in the Empire, and will subvert Caria’s independence, but the family has always denied this. It is led by Miqne Drubal, a man long obsessed with engineering who has contributed greatly to Caria’s modern cityscapes.

    The Magonbaal are a still-influential patrician family who were in power before the Empire’s arrival to Caria. Popularly considered to be the most venerable of Caria’s patrician families, Magonbaal steles have been found dating back to shortly after the planet’s estimated colonization. While they were initially chastised by the Empire for serving as grand estate-holders under the Pirate Lords, their allies – the Maharbals – saw them only temporarily humiliated, with their leader forced to have the Dominian admiral place their foot on his neck as he lay prostrated and chained in a form of ritual humiliation. Bomilcar Magonbaal was spared the rest of his punishment and continues to lead his family. Most of their business is in the Eastern Military Frontier and beyond, with Magonbaal-owned vessels traveling as far afield as Xanu, Assunzione, and San Colette – it is said they are able to acquire anything, anywhere, produced by anyone, so long as they are paid sufficiently.

    Clothing and Fashion

    As Caria is in a constant twilight or semi-twilight lit only by the glow of its moon, Lixus, its domestic clothing and fashion have developed around the absence of light. Everyday clothing is often built for warmth, as the planet can become very cold outside of its cities, and dyed using lighter colors such as white and light greys. Wool and conventional textiles are rare, with Carians historically relying on domestic flora to produce textile-like substances from plant fiber or importing conventional textiles from elsewhere. Reflective accessories – both for the sake of fashion and often for safety – are common, with many using moon motifs due to the importance of Lixus to the planet’s continued prosperity.

    Carian fashion accessories often involve the use of silver – pure silver for the wealthier, silver coatings for the poorer – as it is believed to repel malignant spirits and improve the wearer’s fortune. It is not uncommon for patricians, such as members of the Adirim, to have silver jewelry specifically for use in carrying out business to improve their successes, and many examples of Carian formalwear have buttons and zippers made out of pure silver. These suits are some of the rare examples of Carian clothing made in generally darker colors, with blacks and darker grays used to better accentuate the silver used in their designs.

    Traditional Morozian fashion, such as the Imperial nobility’s leisurewear and formalwear or Jadranic working clothes, has yet to penetrate into Carian high society, but has begun to permeate its lower classes due to the cheapness and ease with which Jadranic and Morozian textile mills can produce effective, durable clothing made from conventional textiles. Some patrician families who possess holdings in the planet’s textile industry have lobbied, with some success, to halt the spread of cheaper clothing onto the planet. This trade battle has continued, and may become one of the bigger issues for the Adirim during the upcoming decade if the Empire continues to maintain its tenuous peace with Elyra.

    Carians and the Empire

    The strange appearances and odd traditions of Carians have made them subjects of fascination, disgust, and fear in many parts of the Empire. While Carians do go elsewhere in the Empire for trading, diplomatic work, or negotiations, they rarely stay there: doing so invites unwanted attention, and eventual trouble. They are often accused by less-educated Dominians of causing small misfortunes with their sorcery when they are present in a community for an extended period, with broken electronics and freak accidents blamed on their allegedly stronger connection to witch-spirits. They are often harassed by local religious and civil authorities as well, some of whom believe every Carian is a sorcerer-in-waiting. A Carian who only resides briefly to trade or formalize a deal can excuse themselves from such accusations, with them not having been present in the eyes of their potential accusers for long enough to attract witch spirits and other malign creatures. It should come as no surprise that Carians are extremely rare in the Empire’s military as a result, and can expect to not have successful careers if they choose to serve in uniform. After all. it is easy to blame them for any misfortunes.

    A notable exception to this trend are noble families and some particularly wealthy Secondaries who see having a Carian on retainer as a way of demonstrating their wealth and their modernity, as their odd appearances wow and attract some while horrifying and repelling others. House Caladius, which has frequent dealings with the Witch World, employs the most Carians out of any great house and frequently collaborates with them in trade matters foreign and domestic. Carians employed by other great houses are instead often diviners or ritualists of some form, and native Carians have varying stances on this trend. Some view it as the best way to stop the frequent discrimination they face abroad, as the opinions of the nobility should eventually filter down to their employees and the general population. Others view it as a system of tokenization and a contributor to the widespread reputation of all Carians as diviners and sorcerers, as these diviners sent abroad may be some of the only Carians a typical Dominian commoner meets in their lives.

    Economics

    “You fail to see the utility they offer, brother. But you have always failed to see things beyond the Fleet,” - Crown Princess Priscilla Keeser on Caria, 2463.

    As a planet based around trade, the lifeblood of Caria has long been its shipping industry. Bolstered by its enviable position on major warp lanes between the Eastern Military Frontier and wider Empire, it came to prominence in the era of Sun Reach’s Pirate Lords as their main route for moving goods from their eastern domains back to their fortresses on or above Sun Reach. The Carians were canny enough to turn their aid of the Pirate Lords into a profit, and became proficient in navigating the routes of their overlord’s domain and beyond. Even if much of the goods were still being taken by the Reachers, Carians made a niche for themselves in creating newer, more efficient routes and mastering them. The Dominians – seeing the ease with which they had occupied the planet and the benefits of integrating their traders – were all too happy to keep this arrangement, and Carian trade vessels now criss-cross the Empire, with some traveling far beyond its borders.

    In the modern era Caria is a great filter for goods entering the Empire from its colonies and beyond, brought by its merchant vessels or by House Caladius for sorting in its great warehouses and markets, then sent into or out of the broader Empire for sale. Xian ores, Carian luxury goods, Chaldean seafood, Hyrcanian lumber, and goods from beyond the Empire can all be found or requested here for whatever price local merchants deem appropriate. The money and goods have not stopped flowing through Caria, and the Empire under Emperor Boleslaw sees no need to intervene in what has become a very convenient arrangement where a “third party” handles much of the shipping logistics of its frontier regions. But some voices in the Empire claim the planet’s patrician families and their merchant enterprises are too wild, too untamed, and too dangerous to be left functioning on their own, and the wealth of Caria should be cut off. The wealth of the planet thus lies under the anxiety of what Boleslaw’s successor will do when they ascend to the throne, and the fear they will tug the planet’s collar tighter, ending its economic prosperity and turning Carians into odd-looking Xians rather than the wealthy merchants they present themselves as.

    Carian Domestic Industries

    While the Viceroyalty is most well-known for its traders the planet possesses thriving local industries with a focus on luxury goods for consumption by the patrician class or for export. Also prominent are shipyards which produce the ships Carian traders rely upon to move goods from one side of the Spur to the other. Less thriving are its textile and agrarian sectors, where cheap goods from the broader Empire have replaced many domestic products due to their ease of import and low cost. While Carian fashion has not yet totally begun to imitate Morozi styles, seep-flax has declined dramatically in favor of more conventional imported textile or fur-based fabrics. With many flax farms having gone out of business since 2424 unemployment is relatively high on Caria and many working poor rely on charity from the Holy Tribunal to make it through the day, in stark contrast to the patrician families, middle class professionals, and the skilled working-class laborers of industries such as shipbuilding or silver-mining. While a patrician may be as wealthy as a Morozian, or even wealthier, the poorest Carians are as destitute as any subject of the Imperial Frontier.

    Caria is known abroad for its silver industry, which is concentrated in the city of Zama’s eraset. Mining silver is often carried out in or around sea-seeps or in the planet’s underground riverways, and is known to be dangerous, often dirty work, but the Carian demand for silver is insatiable and there are always good salaries to be made working mining machinery or in a processing facility. Once the silver moves beyond this stage it enters the realm of professionals who are often trained in colleges or academies, and is transformed from simple metal into luxury objects, including implements used by Carians in religious and civil ceremony. Carian silversmiths have a reputation for quality across the Orion Spur and their goods have traveled far abroad since the planet’s integration into the Dominian Empire, with some Lunarians and Cythereans prizing them as luxury imports.

    Carian Settlements

    “It’s a better assignment than Sun Reach, but good Goddess are they a strange people!” - Excerpt from a letter written by a Jadraner employed by House Caladius to his father, 2465.

    Carian settlements are all located on the Shrouded half of the planet facing its moon, Lixus. They are concentrated around geothermal vents known as “sea-seeps” which provide vital resources to the city: heat to make the environment bearable, nutrients for its soil, and geothermal power to keep it functioning as it should. The marshy terrain around these vents that the cities control and exploit is known as its eraset, or ‘rst, which loosely translates to “sovereign domain” in Basic. A city’s eraset also covers its underground territory, and its estate-holder – an individual elected by the city’s patricians who is a cross between a governor and mayor – exercises suzerainty over it, with those who break Caria’s laws subject to the city’s courts and constables.

    Cities on Caria have naturally grown outward from their sea-seeps over the centuries and some have become quite large, with Yaskarit and other great cities containing multiple sea-seeps within their eraset. A dominant feature of their skylines are the large geothermal power plants which rise from above these “tapped” sea-seeps and provide the city with heat and electric power, and can extend far underground. From these, wide boulevards extend outwards into the city’s districts and branch off into smaller streets, avenues, and alleyways that tie the ceraset together like a web. Carian cities are often cramped and built up rather than out, as the marshy terrain makes land reclamation initiatives constantly and time-consuming. Rivers are frequently found within the city limits due to the nature of sea-seeps, and these are used by barges moving goods to and from shuttleports and factories in addition to ferries and private craft.

    While Caria does not have a true rural countryside due to the cold, dark, and inhospitable nature of its surface, the outer limits of a city’s eraset are often dominated by farms of varying sizes that produce its textiles, foods, and other goods – some smaller cities, with smaller eraset, may be entirely dedicated to farming, but most only devote their marginal land to agriculture. Under the surface, still in the eraset, one may find fishing operations and mineral exploitation, with silver ore prized for its religious and ritualistic significance. Cities which control significant silver deposits are often more wealthy and influential, as it is said there is no quicker way to become a patrician than to own and operate a silver mine.

    Major Settlements

    Yaskarit

    Yaskarit is the planetary capital of and most populous city on Caria. Historical legends claim it was the first city to be founded on the planet, and its first stones were laid by the Aderlai herself – a legend which has fallen out of popular favor in the Imperial era due to its heathen roots. It is the center of the planet’s local and Imperial administrations, home to both Dominia’s colonial bureaucracy and the Adirim, and a minor regional center for the administration of the Eastern Military Frontier. Due to its large population it contains dozens of sea-seeps, including some of the largest on the planet. It is one of the hotter cities on Caria, located at nearly the furthest point from the Sunward side of the planet and readily exposed to Lixus’ blessed light. Yaskarit’s architecture is dominated by the Carian traditional style, with only Dominian colonial buildings featuring Morozian styling, and is criss-crossed by rivers of varying sizes, leading to some calling it the City of Boats. Most of the planet’s Morozian population is concentrated here and works in the colonial government, or on behalf of one of the great houses or their enterprises.

    Due to its position near the planetary equator more shuttlecraft launch from Yaskarit from any other city, and its eraset is greatly prosperous. However, at its edges lie agrarian and textile industries hit hard by cheaper Morozian imports which have priced out native competition. Few bother to visit these deprived sectors, often known as the Lesheka District for the swampy, half-reclaimed terrain it rests upon which was never finished due to Dominia’s annexation of the planet. Any visitor will have plenty to see in the Adirim District, its most central region, home to the planet’s governing body, the grand estate-holder’s palatial estate, and dozens of homes of rich patricians. For the middle and working class outside of the Lesheka District, Yaskarit offers a solid standard of living and more opportunities to go off-world than any other city on the Witch World.

    Zama

    Zama is popularly regarded as Caria’s “second city” and is a historical center for the venerable Magonbaal family. It is a center for the planet’s silver mining industry, with some of the richest veins being found underneath its sea-seeps. This silver industry has brought immense wealth to Zama and helped propel the Magonbaals to the historically dominant role they occupied until the Imperial era. The silver has also made it a center of first Carianism and now Carian Tribunalism, with many academies of divination and more conventional Tribunalist theology located in its eraset. Local legends hold it produces more Goddess-touched than any other eraset and is beloved by the Goddess above all other settlements. Due to its wealth the city is home to a great number of museums and parks funded by patrician families, sometimes by House Seok, and is home to one of the southern Spur’s most vibrant academic communities. Zama’s buildings often incorporate silver in their entryways: a technique said to block out malignant spirits.

    The immense silver industry of Zama gives its eraset more of a presence underground than most, with mines stretching out from its borders and underground rivers filled with barges transporting mining equipment and silver ore. Collectively known as the Sofavek District, Zama’s underground is dirty and dark, but vibrant and full of working-class homes and businesses. Above it one can find the Tanit District, home to the city’s great academies and museums, and the Vanksa District, where factories and workshops produce much of the silver used in fashion, ritual, and region alike. The outskirts of the eraset are very aquatic, with large marshes having long blocked reclamation efforts and encouraged an aquaculture industry in place of conventional agriculture.

    Mathula

    Heartland of the Drubal family, Mathula is a great city which has long dominated Caria’s industrial sector. Here, the light of Lixus is dimmed by the smoke of industry and its marshes are polluted by runoff from its wealth. Since the Dominian conquest the city and its eraset have fallen on hard times, with the Pirate Lords’ demand for vessels vanishing and the Imperial Fleet already having a solid industrial base to draw from. Even with this base having shriveled, Mathula’s foundries and shuttleports still produce and assemble much of Caria’s shipping fleet, and some firms have successfully rebounded by expanding their clients to include House Caladius – something which has irritated the Kaneko-aligned Drubal family, who hope to rekindle the dying armaments and military shipbuilding industry they have historically dominated here. House Seok has also become involved in Mathula’s eraset, and has worked to clean some of the most polluted marshes around the city in the name of Empress Hai and Crown Priscilla Keeser. A gesture some consider charity, and others consider maneuvering against potential unrest when Priscilla ascends to the throne.

    Mathula is bisected by the Mathula River, which grows from the massive sea-seep at its center – potentially the largest on the planet – and is spanned by several great steel bridges decorated with statues of the Aderlai (now claimed to be statues of the Goddess). Northern Mathula is home to its patrician homes and more prestigious districts, while Southern Mathula is home to working-class districts and the factories they work in. Southern Mathula is surrounded by a historically inhospitable marshy bog known as the Meshfot Zetit, or “Witch Bog,” which is wracked by pollutant runoff and the abandoned, partially-submerged remains of attempts to reclaim parts of it. Attempts by House Seok on behalf of the Empress have driven this area back and drained it of much of its pollutants, with some parts of the Witch Bog likely to become nature preserves in the near future.

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