Character
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a really cool and interesting planet for future roleplay.
- Image Credit: (x)
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: Not Applicable
- Planet Name: Tenzan
- Demonym: Tenzanai
- Region: Outer Rim Territories
- System Name: Tengri
- System Features: Tengri is a K1 orange star. Tenzan occupies the second orbit, with two airless rock planets closer in and two ice giants farther out. Tenzan has two moons: Vakhar, a heavily developed trade moon containing the only port open to offworlders, and Sel, a restricted moon housing the observatories of House Orlok. Rotational period is 31 standard hours. Orbital period is 423 local days.
- Location: Here
- Major Imports:
- Luxury foodstuffs
- Textiles
- Medical Compounds
- Select Starship Components
- Major Exports:
- Refined Ores
- High Grade Alloys
- Heavy Industrial Components
- Foundry Goods.
- Unexploited Resources: Large deep crust mineral deposits left unworked under religious land law. Extensive biotic resources in the Jade Meridian sea, harvested only under strict ancient quotas. The Suren steppes have never been surveyed by outside parties.
- Gravity: 1.4x Standard
- Climate: Temperate
- Primary Terrain: Artificial with notable exceptions.
- Atmosphere: Type I
- Capital City: Ordu-Tenza
- Planetary Features: Tenzan is a controlled ecumenopolis. Under an ancient law called the Right of Sky, no residence may be built where the sky cannot be seen from its entrance. As a result the planet's cities are built in stepped terraces rather than stacked levels, with no enclosed undercities. Districts are divided by large open vertical shafts called sky wells, and major avenues are aligned to the solstices. Two large regions are excluded from urbanization entirely: the Jade Meridian, a continent sized sea that has never been built on or bridged, and the Suren, northern steppes reserved for the horse herds, religious ceremonies, and funerary sites. These regions are collectively called the Open Country. The planet is Urban with protected Wild regions.
- Major Locations:
- Ordu-Tenza: The capital and oldest city on Tenzan, built in concentric rings around the landing site of the Arrow of Heaven. The colony ship was never dismantled and stands enshrined at the city's center, maintained by House Senda, its drive cores long ago removed and ceremonially buried in the manner of the dead. The innermost ring contains the royal court, the assembly halls of the Kurultai and the Censorate, and the recitation hall of the Circle, the only building on the planet in which the full legal canon may be formally spoken. Ordu-Tenza is the model from which all later Tenzanai urbanism descends: terraced construction, solstice aligned avenues, and the great sky wells down which the solstice choirs perform. With roughly four billion residents it is not the largest city on the planet, but precedence in all state matters belongs to it, and a law is not considered in force until proclaimed there.
- Vakhar: The larger of Tenzan's two moons and the planet's sole point of contact with the galaxy. Originally settled around 4,800 BBY as a foundry and shipyard complex to move heavy industry off the surface, it was expanded after first contact into the merchant city, embassy district, customs authority, and quarantine that have channeled all foreign trade for four thousand years. It is administered by House Qoren through the Gate Ministry, which holds sole authority over foreign relations. Offworld families of many species have lived and traded on Vakhar for generations, some for centuries, under Tenzanai law and with full access to the Censorate's grievance system, but with no possibility of travel downwell. The moon was the site of the largest battle in Tenzanai history in 27 ABY, when the home fleet and the Keshik repelled a Yuuzhan Vong assault at the cost of roughly one million dead and the destruction of much of the foundry infrastructure, since rebuilt by House Khasar.
- The Suren: The high cold steppes of the northern hemisphere, reserved from settlement since the Codification and held to be the most sacred ground on the planet. The Suren contains the assembly grounds where the Kurultai meets for the gravest matters of state, including every royal election since the first, all conducted in the open air as the constitution requires. It also contains the sky burial towers, where the dead of every social class are given identically to the sky, and the great horse herds, descended from embryos carried aboard the Arrow of Heaven and considered the oldest unbroken bloodline in the galaxy. Each year the banner houses ride the Suren in a ceremonial season combining religious observance, athletic competition between the houses, and military exercise. The region is administered by House Tahoma and closed to all outsiders without exception; no offworld being has ever stood on it.
- The Jade Meridian: A continent sized sea in the southern hemisphere, named for the color given to its waters by the vast algal forests beneath. Under the settlement of the first Kurultai the sea is owned in common by all nine banners and may not be built upon, bridged, or drained, making it the largest of the planet's protected regions. Its fisheries are worked by House Shiren under quotas fixed in antiquity and adjusted only by act of all three chambers, one of the most difficult legislative procedures in Tenzanai law. Shiren is also the only house whose dead are given to water rather than sky, an exception older than any surviving explanation for it. The sea moderates the southern hemisphere's climate and supplies a significant share of the planet's food, which Tenzanai jurists cite as the practical argument for the Open Country doctrine: the cities exist by the land's permission.
- Sel: The smaller moon, settled around 4,800 BBY as the permanent seat of House Orlok's observatories and closed to nearly everyone since, including most Tenzanai. The Orlok have charted the sky from Sel every night for over five millennia, continuing a record begun on the surface at the Codification, as the charting of the sky is held to be a form of prayer. The moon also houses the written shadow archive of the legal canon and the complete annals of the Khaganate. Sel's significance to outside scholarship rests on a single fact: its observatories continued their nightly charts through the entire span of the Veiled Centuries, producing roughly three hundred thousand charts of a sky that matches no known vantage point in the galaxy. House Orlok released three of them in 902 ABY, unasked and without explanation, and has declined every request for more.
- Native Species: None
- Immigrated Species:
- Human
- Population: Heavy
- Demographics: Almost entirely Tenzanai. The planet is strongly xenophobic in policy, though the exclusion is procedural rather than violent. Offworlders of all species are confined to Vakhar. Travel to the surface requires formal adoption into one of the nine noble houses, which has been granted fewer than two hundred times in four thousand years of galactic contact.
- Primary Languages: High Tenzar (liturgical and legal), Tenzar Vernacular, Galactic Basic
- Culture: Tenzanai culture combines steppe pastoral traditions, a large industrial urban society, and a scholar bureaucracy. The state religion centers on the Eternal Sky, understood not as a deity residing in the sky but as the sky itself, which is held to lend light, weather, and life. This belief underlies the Right of Sky and most land law. Ancestor veneration is universal: households keep small lacquered chairs representing their dead within living memory, which are addressed daily and carried during ceremonial migrations. The dead are not buried but given to sky burial on open towers in the Suren, a rite shared identically by nobles and commoners. Society is otherwise hierarchical, organized under nine hereditary banner houses, with civil service examinations serving as the main avenue of social mobility. Music traditions include throat singing and mass choral performances conducted in the city sky wells at the solstices. Visual art emphasizes calligraphy, often on cloth banners released to weather away on the steppes. Major sports include riding, wrestling, and mounted archery, contested between the banner houses each ceremonial season.
- Government: Elective feudal monarchy with a tricameral legislature. The head of state is the Khagan, elected for life by the Kurultai from the bloodlines of the nine banner houses. The three chambers are: the Kurultai, the council of banner lords, which controls war, land tenure, and holds the sole right to initiate legislation; the Censorate, roughly three hundred scholars selected through open examinations, which drafts the final legal text of all laws, audits all state finances including the royal household, and can impeach any state officer including the Khagan; and the Circle, a chamber of oral law keepers drawn from the general population, which maintains the entire legal canon in trained memory. No law takes effect until the Circle formally recites it into the canon. The Circle cannot initiate or amend legislation, but it can block any law by declining to recite it, an absolute veto with no override. The Khagan can be deposed through a fixed procedure involving three Censorate censures, a Kurultai vote, and the Circle striking the coronation from the recited canon.
- Affiliation: None
- Wealth: High. Tenzan has run a continuous trade surplus through Vakhar for roughly four thousand years, exporting premium alloys and industrial goods while importing comparatively little.
- Stability: High. The constitutional order is ancient and deeply entrenched, and political conflict is channeled through the chambers and the examination system rather than unrest. Vakhar is very safe for visitors, with low crime and heavy regulation. The planet's surface is inaccessible to outsiders altogether.
- Freedom & Oppression: Tenzanai society is heavily regulated by customary law, caste structure, and religious land statutes, but is not a police state. The law applies to the nobility as well as commoners, and the Censorate exists largely to enforce this. Any resident, including offworlders on Vakhar, may bring a grievance before a Censor. There is no personality cult around the monarchy; depictions and statues of living Khagans are traditionally prohibited. The principal restriction is the closed border: for outsiders, the planet below Vakhar is inaccessible, with no appeal process.
- Military: Substantial and defensively oriented. The ground forces are the Keshik, professional heavy infantry formations raised primarily through House Batuun, equipped with vacuum rated heavy armor and historically hired out under contract during the Clone Wars and the Imperial era, always under Tenzanai officers. The home fleet is large and modern but has never deployed beyond the Khoryn Reach. Vakhar is heavily fortified, and the approaches to the planet are layered with defensive installations. The military's most significant engagement was the Battle of Vakhar in 27 ABY, in which Tenzanai forces repelled a Yuuzhan Vong invasion at the cost of approximately one million dead.
- Technology: Galactic standard overall. Metallurgy, foundry technology, and heavy industry exceed galactic standard. Shipbuilding is conservative but high quality. Information technology lags by deliberate policy; the Tenzanai distrust centralized data storage and maintain their legal canon redundantly through the Circle's trained memory.
Tenzan was settled around 26,700 BBY by human colonists aboard the sleeper ship Arrow of Heaven, part of the early human diaspora that left the Core before the founding of the Republic. Records do not state why the colonists left, an omission scholars consider deliberate. The ship carried colonists, seed stock, frozen horse embryos, and a legal code maintained by a caste of law keepers who memorized it in full as a safeguard against data loss. This caste is the direct ancestor of the modern Circle, making its mnemonic tradition older than the settlement itself. Generations born during the centuries long voyage knew no sky, and landfall was treated as revelation rather than arrival. The sky faith dates its founding to that moment, and the Right of Sky appears in law within two centuries of it. The ship was never dismantled and remains enshrined at its landing site, around which the capital Ordu-Tenza grew.
The colony fragmented within a few generations. Heavy gravity made powered transport unreliable, the horse herds thrived, and the dispersed settlements consolidated into pastoral riding clans that fought over territory for roughly sixteen centuries. The period produced the banner as the unit of political identity, the levy system, councils held under open sky, and sky burial. The wars ended around 24,400 BBY when the warlord Altan Qor, having defeated the last rival coalitions, convened the surviving clan lords into a council, the first Kurultai, rather than destroying them. The council elected him the first Khagan. Nine clans held banners at that council, and the number was fixed permanently: the nine banner houses of the present day descend directly from them.
The first millennium converted the war settlement into a constitution. The law keepers were established as the Circle, with the principle that no law exists until recited into their canon, originally a ratification mechanism, since theirs was the only version of the law all nine banners trusted. The Jade Meridian was placed in common ownership of all nine houses and the Suren steppes reserved for the herds, the assembly grounds, and the burial towers, establishing the Open Country as the legal baseline of the planet. The Censorate began as the Khagan's scribes and auditors, staffed by noble appointment and captured by the great houses for millennia.
Industrialization began around 16,000 BBY, driven by the planet's mineral wealth. Because the Right of Sky made enclosed industrial cities illegal, industry was forced into the terraced configuration that still characterizes the planet. The defining internal crisis came around 14,000 BBY, when landlords began constructing enclosed tenement levels for industrial labor, an offense called smothering. The noble Censorate declined to prosecute its own houses' interests, and the Circle responded with the only general legislative strike in Tenzanai history, refusing to recite any new law for eleven years. The standoff ended with the Examination Reform, which opened the Censorate to all Tenzanai by competitive examination and made it the independent chamber it has remained since. Three later civil wars, the Banner Schisms, were each ended through constitutional deposition rather than conquest; three reigns from these periods are formally absent from the recited canon, their coronations struck by the Circle.
Tenzan achieved spaceflight independently around 5,200 BBY, driven by House Orlok, whose religious mandate is the charting of the sky. The Tenzanai settled Vakhar as a foundry moon, moving heavy industry off the surface, and Sel as the seat of the Orlok observatories. They built no hyperdrives and explored nothing: their cosmology holds the stars to be the watch fires of the dead, and the Orlok position, never contradicted, is that the living have no business among them.
The Republic made first contact in 3,712 BBY through a scout vessel out of the Tion Cluster, encountering an industrialized, spacefaring civilization that had assumed for twenty three millennia it was alone. Tenzan declined membership and routed all foreign contact to Vakhar, an arrangement formalized as the Courtesy: full hospitality on the gate moon, absolute exclusion from the surface, admission possible only through adoption into a banner house, granted fewer than two hundred times in four thousand years. Trade grew steadily, with Tenzan exporting ore and foundry goods and importing little. The Jedi Order requested entry three times and was refused three times.
During the Clone Wars, Tenzan signed supply contracts with the Confederacy of Independent Systems in 22 BBY, providing ore, foundry access on Vakhar, and the Keshik, roughly three hundred thousand levy infantry serving under their own officers. The decision was commercial: the Republic's integrationist Senate threatened the Courtesy, while the Confederacy offered trade without integration. Tenzan never joined the Separatist parliament and permitted no droid forces on its surface. After the Confederacy's defeat it transitioned to Imperial membership in 19 BBY without recorded resistance. The Empire confirmed the closed border, the Closed Charter, in exchange for tribute, ore, and levies, and counted Tenzan among its more reliable Outer Rim member worlds. After Endor, the remnant fleet of Moff Herade Vull was granted harbor at Vakhar from 4 to 11 ABY, then escorted out of the region when the Gate Ministry declared the terms of welcome complete.
The Yuuzhan Vong devastated the Khoryn Reach. Tenzan accepted no refugees, though records later showed it purchased safe passage for refugee convoys transiting the region. The Vong attacked the system once, in 27 ABY, and were defeated at the Battle of Vakhar after eleven days that killed approximately one million Tenzanai. In 29 ABY the Kurultai issued the Edict of the Closed Sky, sealing the borders and darkening the beacons.
What followed is unexplained. In 35 ABY a New Republic survey found the star burning alone: no planet, no moons, no debris, no gravitational signature. Eight further surveys over the following centuries by four governments produced identical results, and Tenzan was widely regarded as destroyed. In 902 ABY a private survey found the planet in its charted orbit, beacons lit, traffic normal, its inhabitants unaware anything unusual had occurred. Tenzanai records document 873 years of continuous internal history, including dynasties, a century long interregnum, and a four decade climate crisis, and independent dating confirms the elapsed time was physically real on the planet. However, House Orlok's astronomical charts from the period show star fields corresponding to no known vantage point in the galaxy, and the three institutions that analyzed them produced mutually incompatible conclusions. The government has never offered an explanation and individual Tenzanai decline to discuss the period. Tenzanai sources, where they reference it at all, call it the Veiled Centuries.
Since reestablishing contact, Tenzan has resumed trade through Vakhar under its pre-Edict policies. It remains unaligned and its border remains closed.
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