Unreviewed The Duchy of Nathema

Darth Virelia · 2025-10-23T01:54:07-0400

THE DUCHY OF NATHEMA

"Beauty Beneath the Surface."

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

Intent: To codify the Duchy of Nathema, one of the principal ducal holdings of the Dark Court under Darth Virelia. This submission defines Nathema's transformation into a corrupted jungle world, its governance under the Duchy system, and its strategic and metaphysical importance to the Dark Court's expansion.
Image Credit: [X]
Canon: N/A.
Permissions: N/A.
Links: The Dark Court [X], Darth Virelia , Feast of Ascension [X] , Race Against The Roots [X], The Roots of Evil [X]

ORGANIZATION INFORMATION

Organization Name: The Duchy of Nathema
Classification: Feudal Territorial Command / Planetary Duchy
Affiliation: The Dark Court
Organization Symbol: See above.
Description: The Duchy of Nathema is one of the first and most symbolically powerful ducal domains of the Dark Court. Once a void world stripped of life and the Force, Nathema has undergone a cataclysmic metamorphosis. Through the Dark Court's intervention, its dead surface has regrown into an immense, predatory jungle infused with malevolent consciousness — a world that hungers and remembers.

The Duchy governs both the living planet and the infrastructure rising above it: orbital foundries, research sanctums, and the sprawling citadels built to contain and harness Nathema's new vitality. It serves as both laboratory and battlefield, a site where nature, alchemy, and the Force itself blur together.

The Dark Court's ultimate goal is not to cleanse Nathema's corruption, but to tame it — to bind the planet's resurrected will to the Queen's dominion and use it as a living weapon against her enemies.

GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Headquarters:
The Blackroot Citadel, located in the heart of the Verdant Scar — a colossal sinkhole where the planet's malevolent consciousness is believed to be most concentrated.

Domain:
The Duchy's authority extends across the entirety of Nathema and its orbitals.
Notable Assets:

The Blackroot Citadel — capital fortress and administrative heart of the Duchy.
The Heartgarden — an alchemical facility cultivating bio-reactive flora for the Queen's armies.
Vault 17 — sealed excavation site where the original Nathema Null Field was broken.
The Mycelium Network — a planet-wide fungal intelligence partially tamed to serve the Duchy's communications systems.

SOCIAL INFORMATION

Hierarchy:
The Duchy operates on a feudal chain of delegation, mirroring the wider structure of the Dark Court:

The Dark Queen (Darth Virelia) — Absolute sovereign; all authority flows from her.
The Exarchs — Supreme administrators and governors, each ruling a sphere of dominion.
Dukes and Counts — Nobility who govern individual worlds, fleets, or regions beneath the Exarchs.
Knights — Force-wielding agents and commanders serving directly under Exarchs or nobles.
Peasantry and Servitors — The foundation of the system; workers, soldiers, and administrators.

Each Duchess wields near-total power within their Duchy but remains personally accountable to the Queen.

Membership:
The Duchy's population consists of approximately 40 million, including soldiers, laborers, researchers, and colonists under military administration. Membership in the noble ranks is earned through service in Nathema's reclamation projects, mastery of alchemy, or successful survival expeditions into the living jungle.

Climate:
Paradoxical — part military outpost, part ecological nightmare. The Duchy's citizens live under constant tension: balancing reverence for the planet's newfound vitality with fear of its hunger. Scientists, soldiers, and Dark Siders coexist uneasily, their daily survival a contest of intellect and endurance.

Reputation:
To the wider Dark Court, Nathema is both a miracle and a warning — proof that even the dead can be made to live again, but that resurrection comes at a cost. Outsiders describe the Duchy as a world of haunting beauty, where the air itself whispers and the trees breathe too loudly.

Curios:
Members of the Duchy's military and research divisions bear bioluminescent tattoos infused with Nathema's pollen — a marker of their attunement to the planet's will. The longer one serves on Nathema, the brighter the markings become.

Rules:
All Duchy are bound by the Doctrine of Fealty, an oath that transcends written law.

The Throne is Absolute.
Power is Service.
Ambition is permitted, but disobedience is annihilation.
The Duchy exists to ensure the will of the Queen.

The system encourages calculated rivalry and punishes complacency. Each Duchess may test another, but direct rebellion is impossible — the Queen's binding oaths enforce loyalty through metaphysical compulsion.

Goals:
The Duchy's purpose is twofold:

Domination of the Living Force: To fully enslave and weaponize Nathema's awakened planetary consciousness, transforming it into a Dark Side entity bound to the Queen's command.
Biological Supremacy: To develop adaptive organisms, droids, and hybrids capable of thriving in the planet's hostile biosphere and replicating its regenerative properties.

MEMBERS

Darth Virelia (The Dark Queen) — Supreme Sovereign of the Exarchate.
Duchess/Duke of Nathema — Planetary Warden and governor.
Countess/Count of the Verdant Scar — Overseer of biological containment.
Countess/Count of the Canopy Sprawl — Commander of the exploration divisions.
Knight-Commander — Leader of the local Order.

HISTORICAL INFORMATION

Nathema was once a scar upon the galaxy — a world stripped of the Force, its surface lifeless and gray, haunted by the echo of the ritual that consumed it. When the Dark Court arrived, they found ruins and silence… and something else. A pulse.

Through the campaigns of Virelia's secretive works, Sith alchemists and engineers uncovered buried seed vaults deep beneath the crust — remnants of an ancient ecosystem petrified but not destroyed. The Dark Queen ordered them revived, using captured energy from the planet's residual Dark Side storm. The result was violent beyond prediction.

The planet awoke.

Nathema's surface erupted into uncontrolled life — a jungle grown from corruption itself. Plants screamed when cut, rain carried memory, and the soil drank blood eagerly. Within months, the barren wastes had become an overgrown labyrinth, its wildlife shaped by fear and hunger. The planet's new vitality was not natural; it was aware.

The Dark Court waged war against the world, subduing it through alchemy, sorcery, and siege. When the last of its storms fell silent, Darth Virelia proclaimed the planet tamed and raised it to the status of Duchy — a world both conquered and alive.

The scouting expedition is listed below, remembered for their valiant efforts:

Lysander von Ascania

Iskera Valest

The Lost

Luvaen Malstadt

Obscura

Qyssiyana

Veyra Shuun

Valaine Valentine

Kyber

Darth Morta

Drystan Creed

Carisma Rostu

Darth Virelia

Those who partook in the struggle are listed below, remembered on a plaque inside the capital building of the planet:

Darth Virelia

Veyra Kryze

Iskera Valest

Evangel

Darth Dreer

Seren Gwyn

Vharra Theskar

Yet the struggle is far from over. The jungle still resists, its will pressing against its masters, whispering to them in dreams. The Duchy of Nathema stands at the frontier between civilization and the wild Dark Side — a living reminder that creation and corruption are one and the same.