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- Kortil -
Kortil, shown without its artificial canal network and urban centers.
[Made with Fractal World Generator]
Region - Outer Rim.
System - Kortay System.
Suns - Kortil orbits a single yellow star of average mass, known as Kortay.
Orbital Position - Kortil resides in Kortay's habitable zone, and is the third planet out.
Moons - Kortil has a single large moon, as well as a handful of major artificial ones. They are:
- Lanas - Kortil's sole natural satellite, Lanas is a barren rock composed of various metals and silicates. One of the largest single moons in the system, it is responsible for its host planet's tides. Lanas' bulk is thought to have shielded Kortil from catastrophic asteroid strikes during the global ecosystem's formative years, and its surface is covered with the scars of long-ago impacts.
- Kortil Shipyards - Orbiting at Kortil's third Lagrange point, Kortil Shipyard is a massive collection of linked orbital construction yards and factories, over thirty kilometers in length. Though not nearly as massive as the fabled Drive Yards above Kuat, Kortil Shipyards has a nonetheless impressive output. A showcase of Kort technology, much of the shipyard is in fact automated, staffed by tireless droid workers overseen by a scant handful of organic foremen. The yards are divided between numerous corporations, and are constantly being expanded; the most common products built at the yards are drone barges and other automated vessels.
- Kortil Hyperspace Terminal - The transportation hub of the Kortay System, Kortil Hyperspace Terminal is the planet's orbital customs and immigration center. All travelers arriving in the Kortay System are shunted through the Terminal after arriving in system, before continuing on to whatever local destination they are bound for. Large and impressive, Kortil Hyperspace Terminal is noted for its prompt and efficient customs section, which is staffed entirely by droids of Kort design and manufacture.
- Jenneris - Named for the ancient Kort god of the dawn, Jenneris is visible just before daybreak in the skies of Kortil. It orbits relatively close to its star, and is little more than a seared ball of heavy metals with no atmosphere and higher than standard gravity.
- Ultin - Ultin is the second planet out from Kortay, a body with a mass roughly similar to Kortil, but with no liquid water and a toxic chlorine atmosphere. Ultin follows an unusual retrograde orbit, and its annual first appearance in the night sky of Kortil marks the beginning of the new year.
- Kortil - Kortil is the third planet from its star, and is detailed more broadly outside this list.
- Kortal - Once thought to be the source of all demons in Kort mythology, Kortal occupies the fourth position in the system, and exists at the edge of Kortay's habitable zone. Though it has a roughly temperate climate, Kortal is a dead world, with no liquid water and a carbon dioxide atmosphere. It was speculated by the ancient Kort that this was the planet from which the Thirsty Ones had come, and where others like them might still live. This was disproved when the first Kort expeditions surveyed the planet early in their space age; however, ancient, unexplained ruins were discovered, which may have been a base for the marauders, or perhaps something far older.
- Delepidus - The fifth planet in the Kortay System, Delepidus is a monster gas giant with swirling orange and yellow clouds, orbited by dozens of moons, not all of which have been charted even after thousands of years of space exploration. What is known is that all of Delepidus' known moons have a similar mineral composition; this has led to the theory that they are the remnants of a giant rocky proto-planet, captured and shredded by Delepidus' formidable gravity early in the Kortay System's history.
- The Orphan Moons - An asteroid belt orbiting just past Delepidus, the Orphan Moons are a region of stellar debris presumably left over from the formation of the system. Though diffuse, the Orphan Moons contain hundreds of thousands of individual objects, from insignificant rocks the size of an astromech droid to heavy-element boulders the size of Star Destroyers. The largest objects in the belt are the Orphan Moons themselves, an array of twenty-seven large planetoids which may have indeed been the moons of a now destroyed gas giant.
- Encelinima - The sixth and outermost planet in the Kortay System, Encelinima is a super-dense silicate ball orbiting several orders of magnitude further away from Kortay than even the distant Delepidus. Believed to be the solid core of an unbelievably massive gas giant which was somehow stripped of its atmosphere, the lonely planet is only about a quarter the size of Kortil, though far, far heavier. Encelinima trails the Tears of the Gods in its orbit, a huge cluster of asteroids composed of various frozen gases, believed to be the remains of the planet's atmosphere, which stretch into a near ring around the outer edge of the system. It is unknown what kind of catastrophe stripped Encelinima of its gaseous shell, though theories abound; one posits that it was struck by yet another gas giant in a retrograde orbit, and that the Orphan Moons either once belonged to Encelinima or this other object. Encelinima's orbit certainly looks as if the planet could have caromed off something else: it is dramatically tilted and highly elliptical, taking almost 400 years to complete one rotation around its star.
Rotational Period - 26 standard hours.
Orbital Period - 374 standard days.
Class - Terrestrial.
Atmosphere - Type I nominal, with greater than standard oxygen content and high humidity.
Climate - Nominally temperate; conditions are similar to a Carboniferous world.
Gravity - Coruscant standard.
Primary Terrain - Kortil's terrain mainly consists of coastal salt marshes, wetlands, Cordaites-based mangrove, Lycopod forests, islands, low-growing fern plains, deserts and mountains. The planet has a single large continent which stretches from pole to pole.
Native Species - The Kort.
Immigrated Species - Rellarins, Tynnans, some Humans.
Primary Languages - Kortese, Bocce.
Government - Kortil is ruled by the College of Governance, a direct democracy in which a body of fifty Kortilish are elected by the general populace to manage affairs of state. Members of the college serve four year terms, with a maximum of two terms; an election is held every two years, with 25 seats in the College up for election at a time. Citizens may vote for up to five different candidates each, with a maximum of one vote per candidate. Candidates for seats in the College of Governance are barred from declaring allegiance to a specific political party, and if elected, must swear an oath to perform their duties in an impartial manner.
Population - 6-8 billion sentients.
Demonym - Kortilish.
Major Imports - Kortil is mostly self-sufficient, with most of its food production and even raw material mining occurring in-system. However, they do import certain exotic materials and technologies which are used in their products, but are difficult to mine or manufacture locally. The planet is also an importer of many luxury goods, a rarity so far out in the Outer Rim.
Major Exports - Kortil's major export is droids and droid components, including drone barges and other autonomous machines. They are also a minor exporter of aquacultural goods, such as as edible aquatic plants and marine invertebrates.
Affiliation - The government of Kortil is strictly neutral in Galactic affairs.
Major Locations - Notable locations on Kortil include the following:
- Centropolis - The administrative center of the College of Governance, Centropolis is the capital of Kortil and its largest city. Located on an island just off the western coast of the planet's only continent, Centropolis consists of an administrative core which houses government buildings and their supporting infrastructure, ringed by alternating residential and commercial districts. Of note, large financial and business institutions are barred from keeping offices in Centropolis, in an attempt to isolate government workers and officials from their influence.
- Kortilia - Kortil's major commercial city, Kortilia is located on the main continent's east coast, historically a center of trade and travel due to the high density of islands and waterways there. Kortilia contains the headquarters for most of the planet's large corporations, and has a bustling financial district in addition to major centers of art and culture. Kortilia is the location of the All-Kortil Automation Show, an annual event where hundreds of Kortilish manufacturers showcase their latest wares for the public, as well as new concepts and technologies not yet ready for production. The show draws visitors from across the Outer Rim, and is famously democratic, with a standard booth space guaranteed to all participants who register before a certain date, ensuring that even tiny start-ups can get in on the action.
- Tarrow Telkish Memorial Droid Museum - Built to honor the father of Kort electronics, the Tarrow Telkish Memorial Droid Museum is a sprawling climate-controlled complex located near the planet's south pole. Showcasing one of the Galaxy's foremost collections of deactivated droids and droid-related technology, The Droid Museum contains everything from ancient Kort-made clockwork automatons to YVH-series battle droids, with mechanicals from all corners of the Galaxy on public display. Famously, the museum contains several priceless artifacts, including a blasted-out head dome which was purportedly stripped off R2-D2 after the Battle of Yavin, as well as several components said to have once belonged to an ancient Rakatan droid.
- High Shrine of the Iron One - Though Kortil is littered with shrines to the Kort species' great god of science and machinery, the High Shrine of the Iron One is perhaps the grandest of them all. Located in a remote mountain valley, it is built enclosing a patch of glassed ground which is said to be the spot where the Iron One lifted off to return to the sky after repairing his great ship. The shrine is magnificently built of bronzium - the first alloy which the Iron One taught the Kort to make - and precisely cut stone, and is maintained by a collection of remarkably sophisticated clockwork automatons, built by ancient craftsmen to imitate and pay tribute to their departed deity. Many have noted the similarities between the style of these machines and antique Xim-era war robots.
- Kortil Canal Network - Built over thousands of years by the Kort as they explored and colonized inland, the Kortil Canals are a vast network of artificial waterways dug to link Kort settlements. Bordered by paved roadways, these narrow canals were constructed to suit Kort physiology; since the species requires large amounts of water in order to keep their branchiostegal lungs functioning, the canals were intended to transport water to inland settlements, and to allow weary travelers to stop and drink - or even immerse themselves - whenever necessary. Impressive feats of engineering, these surface roads have fallen out of general use by most of the population, though they were well constructed enough to survive intact to this day.
Though technologically advanced, native Kortilish still typically worship a pantheon of gods, chief among them being the Iron One, the Kort deity of science and technology. Worship of this deity and its teachings has led Kortilish culture to revere autonomous machinery, particularly droids and their associated technologies. Droids are treated with more respect on Kortil than on most other worlds in the Galaxy, and First-degree droids are afforded the same rights and privileges as organics on-planet, by law and custom; also, it is illegal to scrap or perform memory wipes on functional droids, except as legal punishment for criminal acts. Droids on Kortil therefore tend to develop complex personalities over the course of their service lives, which tend to be quite long.
Of note, Kortilish religion has no priesthood to speak of; worshipers offer prayers to their gods directly, and whatever their exchange with the deities is considered to be their own business.
Also of interest, the Kort species have in recent generations spawned a subculture known as the Parl, not technically a subspecies but endeavoring to become one. The Parl wish to return to their kind's prehistoric roots; using minor surgery to convert their rudimentary lungs back into gills - or, less drastically, equipping themselves with mechanical prosthesis - they have forsaken dry land to return to their species' origins in the waters of their planet's ocean. Many Parl colonies have been built in the shallow coastal waters off Kortil's single large continent, supported primarily by aquaculture, as well as submarine mining and other specialized undersea industries. Recently, the Parl have begun to look into the possibility of genetic engineering to impart their anatomical modifications more permanently to future generations.
Though isolated and theoretically neutral, the Kortilish still maintain a military for the defense of their planet and people. Thought to be composed mainly of advanced war droids, including droid infantry, automated warships and droid starfighters, very little is publicly available on the composition and strength of the Kortilish army, aerospace corps or navy.
Technology - Kortil has a technological level roughly on par with the Galactic standard, including space travel and the like. In particular, however, the Kortilish have a passion for droids and automation, an obsession which has its roots deep in their archaic history. They also have a slight edge in metallurgy and computer design compared to many others in the Galaxy.
- History -
Kortil is a relatively remote planet in the Outer Rim, located just beyond the Centrality. Orbiting an unremarkable yellow star, Kortil's surface is 60% ocean, with a single large continent primarily occupied by coastal salt marshes, lush swamps and inland grasslands. Resembling a primitive, Carboniferous world, Kortil would not stand out if stripped of its other features.
This otherwise unremarkable world did manage to give rise to a sentient species, however: the crustacean-like Kort.
The native Kort are a relatively young race, unusual in that their sentience appeared relatively early in their evolutionary history; their lineage has a fairly short fossil record, and many believe that intense competition between species within their planet's primordial oceans drove the ancestors of the Kort to develop their intelligence rapidly, already being formidable before they left the water to colonize the land, evolving further into the species as it appears today.
That is not to say that the Kort have a lesser history compared to other, older races. Indeed, Kort history is far from boring, and it is long indeed.
The first modern Kort were hunter-gatherers, forming small tribes which settled their planet's vast coastal wetlands, eventually following the waterways inland to settle the interior of the single large continent. Curious and intelligent, the Kort advanced slowly but steadily, developing aquaculture, which allowed their small villages to grow into their first true cities, and leading to more and more complex cultural development.
It was during this period that the Kort received their first visitations from the stars.
"Now go to sleep, little ones, or the Thirsty Ones might come to drink your blood!"
_Kort parent.
Historical and archaeological records are sketchy as to the exact date, but the period known in myth and legend as the Time of the Thirsty is believed to have occurred some 20,000 years before the Battle of Yavin, and is known among the Kort even to this day as a time of evil and despair. Accounts passed down in aural traditions and later recorded in ancient chronicles tell of whole villages found dessicated, even tucked securely beneath their carapaces, puncture wounds in their backs. The tales say that "Thirsty Ones" from the sky were responsible for the carnage, terrifying beings who possessed no carapace, only exposed flesh. Because Kort who received damage to their exoskeletons were vulnerable to severe dehydration, and because the Thirsty Ones appeared to steal the blood of their victims, it was believed that the beings killed because they were desperately thirsty, evil spirits cursed by the gods to seek the blood of mortals to moisten their parched lungs. It is speculated by modern scholars that these accounts have a less than supernatural explanation, though perhaps one which is no less chilling; it is possible that ancient spacefarers, probably humanoids from the nearby Tion Cluster or Hutt Space, came to Kortil to harvest the locals' hemocyanin blood - which clots upon exposure to most known bacterial toxins, and is and was incredibly valuable for various medical procedures and tests - in massive quantities.
Whatever the origin of the Thirsty Ones, the ancient Kort were powerless to resist them. The vampiric aliens towered over their prey, and had far superior technology to the primitive arthropods, felling even the most powerful of the species' warriors from afar with their "light rods" and traveling at great speed aboard the miraculous flying ships which had brought them from the sky. Unable to do anything to defend themselves against the marauders, who would appear without warning in their sky-ships, the Kort could only pray to their gods for protection.
One day, their prayers were seemingly answered.
"One day, the Thirsty Ones fought another like themselves; the challenger was burned from the sky, and the ground shook. Warriors and shamans went to look upon what had fallen. This was the coming of the Iron One, the savior of our people."
_Quotation from the Tale of the Iron One.
According to legend, there was a great battle in the skies above the Kort home-world, during which several of the Thirsty Ones' great ships threw their lightning at another vessel, similar but different. The new ship managed to destroy two of the Thirsty Ones' ships, but was grievously wounded itself, and came to earth deep in a mountain range where the marauders did not bother to pursue it. Fearful but inquisitive, the nearest Kort city sent a group of warriors and shamans to investigate the crash, from which they returned with a startling discovery.
The creature the investigation party brought back from the crashed sky vessel appeared in form to be like the Thirsty Ones, but even larger, and unlike them, encased in an impenetrable carapace of polished iron. The people of the city were fearful of the bizarre creature, but the warriors and shamans assured all that it wished them no harm; its fight was apparently with the Thirsty Ones, and unlike them, it needed no blood to moisten its lungs.
The creature was injured, but still lived, and refused the medicines the shamans offered it. Instead, it commissioned items from the town's resident smith, teaching the man the secrets of forging a new metal from a mixture of elements, as well as techniques for precise measurements which allowed for the production of multiple identical pieces. The Iron One then opened its carapace, revealing insides which were not of flesh, but instead of metal and jewels. Using the items the smith had forged, the Iron One replaced parts of itself which were damaged, and being metal, would not heal on their own as flesh did.
Shortly after the Iron One repaired itself, it got the chance to finish its fight with the Thirsty Ones.
The Thirsty Ones came to the city in the night, leaving their great ships at the outskirts and breaking through the gates with their light weapons, slaughtering the warriors they encountered and draining the blood of all they caught. The people of the city were in a panic, fleeing for their lives or sheltering fearfully beneath their carapaces, warriors throwing themselves hopelessly against the attackers' might.
But then came the Iron One.
The great metal being marched on the Thirsty Ones, its shining carapace turning their beams. It answered with its own, lances of power striking down scores of the marauders, many of whom turned and tried to flee. But the Iron One was merciless; none of the attackers made it back out of the gates, and by morning, the streets ran slick with their unnatural crimson blood.
The tales say that the Iron One stayed among the Kort for only a brief time after it had slain the Thirsty Ones. It revealed to them that it had been commissioned by another to destroy the marauders, and that it must soon return to the sky and report back to them that its task had been completed. Its ship was damaged in the crash, however, and it recruited a number of locals to assist it in scavenging items from the Thirsty Ones' ships and using them to repair its own. Besides this, the Iron One commissioned items from the people of the city of its own design, educating them in the skills and techniques necessary for their construction. In time, the Iron One repaired its ship, and bid grateful farewell to the Kort, returning to the sky from whence it had come.
The Iron One left the Kort greatly uplifted; the metal being had given them the rudiments of the scientific method, not to mention countless advances in metallurgy, mathematics and engineering. Barely out of their hunter-gatherer stage, the Kort suddenly had the raw knowledge to advance their society by leaps and bounds, and their future looked bright indeed.
In time, the Iron One came to take its place among the great gods of Kort mythology, with shrines erected across the planet in its honor which can still be found to this day.
In the millennia following the Time of the Thirsty and its resolution, the teachings of the Iron One spread across the planet, resulting in a golden age of new discoveries by the Kort. Various Kort civilizations rose and fell, but slowly the species progressed toward an industrial age, with the technology composing the Iron One as the goal they aspired to. By 10,000 BBY, the species' technical sophistication had advanced enough to allow them to build their first crude automatons, made with gears and springs rather than energy cells and servos. By 5,000 BBY, they had discovered and utilized electronics, rapidly leading to wireless communications, electrification, computers, automotive transport, atmospheric flight and eventually spaceflight. Developing their own form of hyperdrive, the Kort explored surrounding star systems beginning in 4,000 BBY, and made contact with the wider Galaxy around 3,000 BBY, their technology and culture rapidly catching up to the competition. With the immigration of several alien species, Kortil became more cosmopolitan, and the native Kortilish became regional leaders in the design and production of their cultural specialty: droids.
Having weathered the various wars, plagues and other catastrophes which have ravaged the Galaxy in recent centuries, Kortil still remains a prosperous industrial world, even if its relative isolation on the Outer Rim has limited the scope of its success somewhat. During the worst of the Gulag Virus outbreak, the planet quarantined itself, continuing business with other worlds exclusively through droid intermediaries. This policy proved effective in sparing the Kortilish from the worst of the plague, though this was not to say the people of Kortil were uninvolved. Volunteering their infrastructure and expertise, the Kortilish manufactured vast numbers of medical droids, with the native Kort also donating many samples of their remarkable blood for new treatments and research. These items were supplied free of charge to aid organizations fighting the outbreaks. Once the virus had subsided in their region of the Galaxy, however, the Kortilish did finally reemerge from their physical isolation.
As for the Netherworld event of more recent memory, the Kortilish were not so lucky. As with much of the rest of the Galaxy, the people of Kortil lost thousands, including a number of prominent government officials. This loss caused brief panic and upheaval, though thankfully it occurred on the eve of an election, meaning that most of those who had disappeared immediately had their vacancies filled, resulting in minimal disruption to the planetary government. Even so, the loss of so many was a blow to the Kortilish, and the absence of the vanished is keenly felt and remembered with great sadness.
Despite these setbacks, and their relative isolation, the Kortilish have maintained an optimistic attitude and a strong economy. They continue to do brisk business within the region, and are happy to sell their wares to all interested parties.
Notable PCs - To be added.
Intent - This planet is to be the home-world of the Kort, as well as to be an area where corporations might set up operations relating to droid design and production.
