Planetary Briefing on Sepheris Secundus
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Sepheris Secundus is a world of immense mineral wealth, city sized mines, billion strong hordes of serfs and the sharpest divide between the elites and the masses in the Calixis Sector. It is a grim place of snow and twilight, feral mutants, and lives spent in back breaking labor hacking at the ground. The Imperium’s eagerness to exploit Sepheris Secundus’s vast resources is such that the planet is at the same time the richest and poorest world in the sector.
Sepheris Secundus’s climate is cold and stormy, its surface obscured by a mantle of cloud. It has no oceans save for a series of small equatorial seas; most of the planet’s fresh water is bound up in the great ice sheets that cover its poles. Its surface is split between the vast open mines that run like deep scars in the crust, and dense, snow laden forests broken only by ruins of failed kingdoms that tried to claim Sepheris Secundus in the past. With its endless blizzards, widespread ignorance and antiquated methods for doing everything, Sepheris Secundus would be a meaningless backwater were it not for the enormous mineral wealth beneath its surface.
Planetary history: The planet has been settled for a very long time. Perhaps as far back as the Dark Age of Technology. No surviving records of the early period has been found, making exact dating impossible. It really doesn’t matter – humanity has been around for thousands of years, long before the arrival of the Imperium here in the Calixis Sector.
Vern supposes that the world was once a much more fertile place than it is today, with great oceans and a more temperate climate. Starting about 4.000 years ago an ice age set in, an ice age that continues to this day (indeed, the ice age might actually be deepening). Perhaps this is but part of the world’s natural cycle or perhaps it is the result of some terrible calamity (like the one that befell Corax Secundus).
The onset of the ice age brought an end to sophisticated civilization on Sepheris Secundus, and for the next two thousand years the world devolved into a series of low-tech feudal domains. It was to this world Drusus came during the Angevin Crusade. Seeing the immense mineral wealth of the locals (who hardly had any mining skills at all) Drusus quickly recognized the value of the planet. Before moving on to new conquests he ordered a star fortress taken down from orbit and positioned over the most valuable mining real estate on the planet. Ore exports commenced shortly thereafter.
By early M40 the world was made an Imperial World and a Governor appointed. The old star fortress/mining station became the Governor’s capital. To ensure his complete control over the planet hi-tech was banned (except for Icenholm and the Governor’s own forces) and infrastructure kept at a minimum. At the same time it was arranged to provide for food imports and encourage the growth of the serf population. It was reasoned that a few billion men with picks, hand-drills, black-powder charges, and wheel-barrels could accomplish the same as a smaller hi-tech workforce. This arrangement stands to this day (with some minor tech-creep; most mines now use proper mining explosives for example), with manpower substituting advanced mining techniques.
Icenholm/the Gorgonid Mine: The capital city of Sepheris Secundus is Icenholm. Built around Drusus’ ancient star fortress this city of millions literally floats over the Gorgonid Mine. It is from here that the Royal House of Sepheris Secundus rules (with the ancient and decrepit Lachryma III as the current Queen). It is also where the Royal Scourges – the Queen’s hi-tech personal army – are based. Icenholm is a spectacular sight by any standard – a great floating city covered by mirrors, crystals and colored glass. Great metal cables in their thousands reach out from the city (one could suppose that they keep the city aloft, but this is erroneous – most of them hang down from the city) and into the massive mine beneath the city. The standard of living in Icenholm is not unlike that found elsewhere in the Imperium – it is the sole oasis of civilization on this world, and it is reserved for the nobles and their retinues.
The Gorgonid Mine remains the most important single mine on Sepheris Secundus, accounting for nearly 10% of the world’s Gross Planetary Product. Directly beneath Icenholm the Gorgonid is like a gargantuan tiered cone turned on its head – the greatest strip mine in Calixis sector, several kilometers deep and many scores of kilometers in diameter, all wedged in between jagged mountain peaks rising as high as 6000 meters. Floating on top is the glittering crown that is Icenholm, its many mirrors and colored glass faces turning the city into a dazzling sight (too bad the serfs are always looking down, or one would imagine they’d be quite impressed).
Today there is little strip mining in theGorgonid directly beneath Icenholm – that sort of activity has moved on to the valleys and plateaus in the surrounding mountains. Instead the old faces are puckered by great portals of metal leading down and into the surrounding mountains and the deep earth. Each portal leads to a single independent mine, each run by a Baron, and there are thousands of such mines (many of whom are no longer operated, their mineral bounty stripped out long ago, and the portals closed forever).
Approximately 200.000 million serfs live and work in the shadow of Icenholm, with another 300.000 million spread across the strip mines in the surrounding mountains. In a way they are the fortunate ones. The Gorgonid is not run purely by hand power – semi-advanced gear is in use, ranging from drilling equipment, to explosives and massive ore haulers. In other regions of the planet conditions are more primitive, and the lives of the serfs even more desperate. But that is beyond the score of this brief (but there is an appendix 😉
The ore that is gathered is sorted on site and hauled by building-sized trucks to the great ore processor stations at the edge of the Tumble (the great slag heaps that surround the mines of the Gorgonid). Elsewhere on the planet ore must sometimes be transported overland for quite a distance to reach the regional orbital landing fields. After sorting and some simple refinement the processed ore go into the great ore barges (the pilots and tech-adepts operating these shuttles also live in Icenholm – but out of sight of the nobility). Thousands of barges make the trip every day, carrying the ore into the waiting maws of the megafreighters waiting in low orbit.
Social classes: The Royal House is the top dog – seeing as they are Imperial Governors as well as royalty, and can draw upon the might of the Imperium if need be. The rest of the high nobility is made up of the regional Dukes and the Counts (whose responsibility is a single city-mine). The lesser nobilty is the Barons and their families; a Sepheris Secundus baron is responsible for the running of a specific mine shaft or mine face. By law a Baron is required to live on his own fief, although they are also encouraged to have estates in Icenholm.
There is also a small middle class of Freemen, mostly made up of two groups – independent homesteaders living out in the wilds, and skilled workers in one of Icenholm’s guilds (such at the one that operates the ore barges – the Cloudwalkers – and the guild that maintains the shuttles).
The remaining 99% of the population are serfs. Unlike slaves they are not owned, but are considered free. In practice they are worse of than most slaves – a slave is a valuable commodity, a serf is not – all they have to offer is cheap labor, and the Barons work them hard. A serf will have to pay his Baron as much as nine tenths of what he gathers in the mines, just to be allowed to mine. Whatever else he can collect is his – to be sold to the Baron in return for food, lodging, etc. It doesn’t help that what he picks out of the ground is worth a fortune on any other world – all the serf will ever know is endless toil and an early death.
Adeptus Arbites/the Solitarium: Sepheris Secundus is a hotbed of dissent and insurrection – the serf population is too big and too downtrodden for it to be otherwise. For the most part local forces, sometimes backed by Royal Scourges, are sufficient to deal with such problems. Only in special cases are the Arbites called upon to solve cases of insurrection gone too far, investigate-in-force into mines where outright heresy is suspected, or hunt for rogue psykers hiding in the Shatters (a name for abandoned mines).
The Arbites are garrisoned in the Solitarium; a black Precinct fort that hovers ominously just below Icenholm. A few cables and utility ducts link the Solitarium and Icenholm, as well as retractable roadway, but otherwise the Solitarium is completely separate. In addition to a large motor pool, an entire hangar deck, and a sophisticated monitoring central, the Solitarium has room for some 5.000 Arbites, but there are currently less than 700 stationed there.
+++PLANETARY DATA+++
GALACTIC POSITION: 52/34/CS/NNE.
CLASS: Imperial World, Mining World sub-classification
SUBSECTOR: Golgenna.
SYSTEM: Sepheris system; regular system with G9 V primary, seven planetary bodies; 1. Hypermassive gas giant, 2. Imperial World, 3-7 small-to-medium icy cores.
SATELLITES: Three moons, none inhabited.
CLIMATE: Sub-arctic with narrow band of cold temperate climate along equator.
POPULATION: 12,000,000,000.
PLANETARY GOVERNOR: Queen Lachryma III.
ECONOMY: Icenholm and Gross Planetary Product tied into Sector-wide economy. Local currency-based economy specific to each planetray region. Barter ecnomy at the local level; in the mines and villages of Sepheris Secundus life revolves around endless mining, to the point where chips and lumps of ore are sometimes used as currency.
PRINCIPLE EXPORTS: Semi-processed ores, exported primarily to Scintilla, but with some being hauled futher abroad.
Over the course of the past four centuries there has been an increase in the export of serfs; with DeVayne Incorporation and its likes purchasing the rights to the serf’s labor and transporting them off-world to other labor-intensive occupations. Since the serf surplus is increasing there will likely be more serf exportation in the future.
PRINCIPLE IMPORTS: Sepheris Secundus relies on imports of food from the sector’s agri-worlds. Icenholm is an importer of exotics and luxuries from across the sector.
MILITARY FORCES: Its vast population makes it a potential supplier of Imperial Guard recruits, although a relatively small proportion of the population would be suitable because of universally poor health, along with the risk of exposing the subjugated masses to the possibility of life outside the mines. There are currently no active Secundan Guard Regiments.
The planet’s PDF force consists of three divisional equivalents (the Royal Scourges) armed with las/autoweapons and body armor, but very little heavy equipment. The Scourges are based in Icenholm, but a third of the force is usually deployed somewhere assisting/keeping an eye on the regional Dukes, and another third is (very frequently) engaged in supressing serf revolts or clearing out agressive mutant populations.
CONTACT WITH OTHER WORLDS: Major warp routes link Sepheris Secundus to Scintilla, Iocanthos, Fedrid and Ganf Magna. Secondary routes lead to Quaddis, Luggnum, Vaxanide (currently closed due to fluctuations in the warp), and Valon Urr.
For RPG Campaigns 