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So one thing that I saw in the books was a tid bit about how the Knights of Golarion accept generous donations from the people they protect. I got to thinking that this is probably how other factions not connected to a government probably fund themselves as well. Once I saw the Star Knight Archetype, a pretty good write up started to form in my head:
The Starknight Colonies
Shortly after the first Vesk War but before the Swarm Invasion, The planets that would form the Pact Worlds went through several periods of colonial expansions into the vast frontiers of what would one day be called Near Space. Although the earliest periods of expansion were governed by the planetary governments of the settlers themselves, two hundred years of treaties and warfare has changed the colonial settlement system significantly. Most Near Space colonies that are founded today are protectorates of the Pact Worlds or Veskarium. They are patrolled by the Vesk military or the Stewards and they remain firmly under the protection of their respective societies, possibly as future member planets.
But many of colonies are formed outside of government control and must defend themselves, either through private militias or large scale defense contracts with space-faring organizations.
The largest and most powerful factions currently over see a cluster of twenty star systems, each with several colonies on dozens of planets. These star systems have come to be known as The Starknight Colonies and they are a source of endless conflict and social upheaval along the galactic inner rim.
The largest and most famous of these combines are known as "The Chained Worlds" and when people refer to the Starknight Colonies, they tend to refer to these five systems under Hellknight rule. Controlled by representatives from all of the Hellknight orders but the official administration of the colonies falls beneath the Order of the Scourge, who are the most visible Hellknight Order in these respective systems. Under Hellknight rule, these colonies are among the wealthiest and most stable areas of Near Space and none of the Chained Worlds have ever suffered a massacre, worker revolt, or pirate raid since accepting the protection of the Hellknight orders. While there is no direct price for the administration of these security pacts, there is an expectation that the worlds they protect give the Hellknights right of first refusal for industrial products produced on Chained Worlds, always at a discounted price. But even with those restrictions, The Hellknights are still a lucrative trading partner for the worlds under their protection, paying for or hiring local labor to run their shipyards and supply chains. But the consequences of disobedience to these agreements can be high and the Order of the Scourge does not suffer rebellion in any form. Three years ago, a fifteen year old Lashunta playfully threw a rock at a local Hellknight street patrol that was walking through his neighborhood. The Hellknight Signifier in command of the patrol ordered one his men to open fire, wounding the young man. After surviving his injuries, the boy was presented with a bill for thirty credits...the cost of the ammunition expended during the incident.
Military administration of the Chained Worlds is largely left up to the individual governors and Hellknight commanders of each colony but the supreme command of the Chained Worlds defenses is currently administered by the Third Fleet under Paralictor Redclaw (LE Male Pantha, Soldier-Hellknight, Spacefarer). Redclaw was recruited as a teenager from the Veskarium to become one of the Order's most brutal warriors. As a veteran of dozens of campaigns, Redclaw has had to replace his body parts with either genetic augmentations or cybernetic prosthetic. As a result, Redclaw stands out among the other officers of the Third Scourge Fleet and tends to draw stares of fear where ever he appears. At the head of the Third Fleet is The Indomitable (Colossal Dreadnought), a frightening ship of the line that was personally designed by Redclaw's mentor and father figure, Master of Blades Ivar Felblood (LE Male Human, Envoy-Hellknight, Icon). Master Felblood once slew an Endbringer Devil and then used the monster's skin to form the hull of The Indomitable. Recently, Felblood arrived to oversee a retrofit of the The Indomitable, placing command of the local military under his purvey until the work has been completed.
Perilously close to the Chained Worlds are the "The Ten Sisters", ten colonies in four solar systems that are administered and protected by the Knights of Golarion. The Ten Sisters has never been a true "government" like the Chained Worlds or the Pact Worlds but was created as a necessity to counter the growing influence of the Hellknights among what were once free colonies. As more and more colonies around them bent their knee (sometimes literally) to the Hellknight orders, the leaders of what would become the Ten Sisters vowed to resist any attempt to bring them under the control of a government, any government. These colonists had left their lives in the Veskarium and Pact Worlds behind to live among the stars without corporate or government control and as resisted the idea of forming a government authority at all, especially one controlled by a group as reviled as the Hellknights. Thus, the colonists of the Ten Sisters created a contractual agreement with the Knights of Golarion that allowed them to preserve their independence while also keeping the Hellknights and corporations at bay. It has been an uneasy arrangement to say the least. The colonies volunteer their support to the Knights but can also vote to censure or withhold their support at anytime. Some colonial administrators or governments will have regular conflicts with the KoG fleets which are solved only through regular negotiation. The roots of these conflicts can be either economic, such as the refusal by Daybreak to supply food due a drop in the price of cornmeal, or even social, such as the radical protest by the Godless Commune to demand that the Knights of Golarion dissolve their relationship with the church of Iomeadae and become fully atheist. Life in the Ten Sisters is less secure and stable than life in the Chained Worlds but the colonists here feel more free and more comfortable speak their minds than their neighbors and occupants of these colonies often look down their noses at the fascist dystopia just a few light years away.
Military command in the Ten Sisters falls under the purvey of The Tenth Legion, which is commanded by Lady Marshal Valma Nazan (LG Female Drow, Mystic Priest), a famous priestess of Iomeadae who has commanded the forces in the Ten Sisters almost since the collective's founding. Nazan's Drow heritage has drawn a great deal concern by the Colonists under her charge, especially from Aeglos, a colony of mostly Snow Elves. But the men and women under Nazan's command swear by their the Lady Marshal's quality and are quick to shout down any disputes of her honor. Nazan's second in command is Captain Faustus Publicus (NG, Male Human, Solidier-Starknight, Spacefarer), a highly competent officer who rose through the ranks of the special forces to become the youngest Knight-Captain in the history of the Tenth Legion. The largest ship under Valma Nazan's command is Fury of the Inheritor (Supercolossal Baseship) which houses most of the Knights of Golarion forces in this part of space. While Fury of the Inheritor is certainly larger than her Hellknight rival,The Indomitable, Valma Nazan has little confidence in how her ship would fare in stand up fight against the Hellknights. Fury of the Inheritor has fewer support ships in her fleet and she is well aware that The Indomitable possesses armor and engines that vastly outclass her own vessel. For this reason, recent reports of provocative Hellknight troop movements at the edge of the Ten Sisters has left her very concerned.
Scattered between the Ten Sisters and the Chained Worlds and sometimes existing on space stations inside these same star systems, are a collection of worlds and space stations that fall under the control of the Church Abadar and the AbadarCorporation. Officially these installations and three star systems are known by their legal names: Abadar Licensed Colonial Assets, or LCAs, but unofficially the locals refer to Abadar's three main solar systems as "The Vault". The Vault is not just a cute nickname, access to LCA A1 and LCA A2 is under the strictest control. Only approved third party sub contractors or full Abadar Corporation employees are allowed to land on LCA A1, while LCA A2 requires full permission from a sitting member of the AbadarCorp Board of Directors or an Archbishop in the Church of Abadar. Much of this security is due to the value of what is produced in these systems. Facility A1 on the third planet of LCA A1 is a mining colony of roughly five thousand sentient workers and forty thousand SROs who produce one of the richest sources of Noqual in the entire galaxy. Sometime in the planet's prehistory, asteroids battered the planet's surface and left behind a treasure trove of star metal. As a result, the soil and upper crust of LCA A1's third planet is sixty percent Noqual and ten percent Adamantine. In an attempt to protect their investment, access to this world is restricted only to the miners and executives who administer Facility A1. Nearby the facility is "Thud", tongue in cheek nickname used by the miners to refer to the five square miles of habitation dorms and entertainment complexes where AbadarCorp provides for their every need. Active duty mining employees are provided with holo-theaters, bars, restaurants, educational facilities, child care, and medical care for free as long as you present a valid AbadarCorp ID. Miners within the colony jokingly claim that they feel like they're living at the "worst private spa in history" because they can only play shuffleboard if they've first worked a forty hour week in a mine. Truthfully, the profitability of LCA A1 means that AbadarCorp can afford to give these miners a bigger share of perks than most other mining facilities while still keeping the facility's profit margins in the black. Despite the fact that the facility is closed to non-Abadar Employees and Church members, criminal organisations like the Golden League are still present on the planet and offer the miners all of the things that AbadarCorporate Entertainment Coordinators aren't willing to provide. In fact, some people whisper that AbadarCorps is perfectly willing to turn a blind eye to prostitution and drug use as long as it keeps the miners happy. LCA A2 Facility 01 or "The Spookhouse", the sister facility, is a secretive paramilitary base that contains most of the AbadarCorps "Level Black" Defense projects. The facility is heavily guarded and any ship found approaching the facility will be destroyed if it approaches the upper atmosphere. All scientists and security personnel are restricted from leaving the facility until the terms of their contracts (usually no more than five years) are completed. These personnel live in LCA A2 Facility 02, a large domed habitat on the far side of the same planet as Facility 01 and commute via a secure maglev train to Facility 01. While Facility 02 is hardly as "social" or as boistrous as the The Thud, it's accouterments are vastly more lavish and scientists at Facility 02 are given literally whatever they want as long as they work on AbadarCorps top secret projects. And those projects include some of the most dangerous military projects in the company's history: germ warfare, genetic experimentation, and cybernetic augmentation for military use. The rumors about what kinds of hellish experiments occur within the walls of Facility 01 would horrify most of the Pact Worlds. To maintain secrecy over these two secure parts of their off world colonies, The AbadarCorporation has created a third, public facing solar system: LCA A3 also known as "MegaMarket", one of the largest retail facilities in near space. Built on a large moon over looking a ringed gas giant, MegaMarket is an all purpose retail sales facility that serves every colony in Near Space. Thirty thousand retail sales occur inside MegaMarket every twenty minutes and digital purchases occur in the millions. The facility offers free shipping for orders over twenty thousand credits and a discount for orders that are physically picked up at the station's dockside. In this manner, MegaMarket Stations supplies colonial facilities of all sizes with vehicles, parts, technological support, ammunition, weapons, food, entertainment products, medical supplies, and even accounting services. Anything can be purchased at MegaMarket and entire colonies are known to make "store trips" into the facility from across Near Space. MegaMarket is sparsely manned, only about a hundred employees total but it does contain at least twenty thousand AbadarTech Retail Drones who are programmed to provide full support for ever possible customer need. Shipping orders are fulfilled either using a third party Drone ship or by third party sub contractors.
Security in the Vault is divided between AbadarCorp Security and the Church of Abadar, both of whom maintain a tactical force inside the three systems and support facilities. AbadarCorporate Executive Security Force has a small fleet of five ATech Immortals and various support ships that are overseen by Zuzval Z'avas (LE Host Shireen, Operative, Mercenary). Z'avas is an Atheist and has little use for Abadar's religious undertones and instead focuses on maintaining the highest level of corporate security that its clients expect of him. They have been extremely successful in defending all three of The Vault's valuable targets from pirates, corporate spies, and the Cult of the Devourer, so the AbadarCorp tends to ignore the fact that Zuzval sometimes gets drunk at corporate events and speak disrespectfully about "all of the golden bible thumpers" they work with. However, corporate's patience with the Shireen commando is running thin and recently The AbadarCorp has decided to add and extra level of security. There was originally no reason for the Vault Guards, the Star Knight Order Militant of the Church of Abadar, in The Vault Colonial systems. But after a light skirmish between the Knights of Golarion and Abadar's Corporate Security ended in an embarrassing defeat, Justicar Ral Softpaw (LN, Female Ysoki, Soldier, Priest) has deployed the Sword of Wine and Honey (Colossal Dreadnaught) into the region. Justicar Softpaw is well known as battle hungry zealot who would happily make war against the enemies of Abadar with little provocation so Ral's massive vessel has been nicknamed "The Third Horseman" by colonists because it's recent arrival inside the region is seen as a dangerous provocation by the other organizations and colonies. The threat of a colonial war, especially with someone as conniving as Zuzval or as violent as Softpaw in charge of Abadar Corporate Space is now very real.
Eight other star systems sit mostly empty, with barely a five hundred thousand colonists between them, and they sit in a heavily fortified nature preserve known as "The Garden". These worlds are deliberately unsettled with the exception of Calenhad, a fortress world devoted to followers of the Green Faith and Oras, and dedicated to preservation of natural life in all it's forms. The vast, untamed wilderness is patrolled and protected by the Xenowardens, who patrol the spaces between these worlds as a single unified fleet. Three anonymous "hooded ones" from the Circle of Keepers command the fleet from a shaded grove on Calenhad but the public commanders of the Colonial Xenowardens are well known among their peers: Arch Druid Raska Thurn (Chaotic Neutral Female Korasha-Lashunta, Soldier-Divine Champion, Priest) leads the Greenguards. Once a wealthy survivor of gladitorial combat pits on Akiton, Raska eventually found herself "born again" into the faith of Oras and has since devoted her life to preserving the natural course of evolution. The purity of her devotion has made Raska a celebrity again, this time as a radical enviromentalist who views unrestricted colonial expansion as a danger to the natural order. Raska's fanaticism is balanced by Duilwen the Brave (NG Elf, Mystic-Star Knight, Biotechnician) Local leader of the Wildknights and a cautious ambassador to the Xenowarden cause. Duilwen is extremely old for an elf, too old to actually remember when he was born due to the Gap but he assumes he was at least five hundred years old when the Vesk attacked the Pact Worlds. Because of this, Duilwen the other Xenowardens defer to his leadership over most military matters, something which is frustrating to Raska's pack of radicals. Duilwen more moderate prescene has often kept The Garden from full scale military conflict inspite of obvious violations of their space by greedy AbadarCorp exploratory miners or Hellknight patrols. That peace may be at an end since the arrival of Sword of Wine and Honey. Recently, the Greenguard has completed construction on Old Grandfather (Colossal Dreadnought), a fearsome new ultra gardenship that will be ready for deployment as early as next spring.
In the Pact Worlds and the Veskarium, the endless military build up by these four factions in the Starknight Colonies has been viewed with increasing concern and there are fears the the relatively small populations of these isolated colonies may start an endless war throughout Near Space that would spread into more populated areas.