Capillary District, Kreas

Discussion in 'Planets & Organizations' started by Pinkbat5, Nov 12, 2021.

  1. Pinkbat5

    Pinkbat5 pocl v3.6.7 Staff Member Moderator Diamond Donator

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    Astrography

    Ileum – Main Sequence M class star
    Ø Ileum I (A small tidally-locked venus-like world, choking in scalding carbon dioxide.)
    Ø Ileum II (Effectively a large scorched rock.)
    III Chymus (Lush with native life, but not entirely habitable to your average organic.)
    . An assortment of satellites
    . Planetary Ring (Smallish, fairly stable, mostly made of silicate)
    . IRIS Tachyonic Station
    . Ø Ik (A small erchius moon.)
    Ø Ileum IV (Gas giant. Bright blue, large rings. Largest gas giant in the system)
    . Ø Ileum IVa (Planet-sized rocky moon. Large iron core.)
    . Ø Ileum IVb (Planet-sized rocky moon. Violent volcanic activity.)
    . Ø Ileum IVc (Planet-sized rocky moon. Mostly made of water-ice.)
    . Ø An assortment of smaller moons
    Asteroid belt
    Ø Ileum V (Gas giant. Brown-yellow, small rings)
    Ø Ileum VI (Gas giant. Blue. Smallest gas giant in the system)

    The Planet Chymus

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    The planet Chymus is a toxic hellhole. Its oceans are acid, reaching a maximum of pH of 4.5 at the poles, and awash with toxin-secreting microorganisms. The atmosphere is 10% carbon dioxide, warming the globe beyond an Earth climatologists’s worst nightmares. The few spots of dry land that do exist are uninhabitable when below sea level– CO2, heavier than the rest of the atmosphere, collects in the lowlands and transforms them into anoxic death traps. Any unfortunate oxygen-breather that wanders into a valley is swiftly suffocated. Not that breathing in oxygen-laden areas is safe, either; the acid is found in the soil and rains from the sky. Any unprotected, unaugmented organic would last no longer than a week before succumbing to lung damage. Even synthetic life isn’t safe; the pH can damage most casings over time. (Novakid, extremophile freaks as they are, are fine.)

    Still, Chymus is teeming with life. All native organisms are well-acclimated to the acidic conditions, and both complex flora and fauna are present. Most of this diversity is in the ocean, but freshwater and dry-land animals exist as well. The anoxic death-valleys are popular with exotic flora and anaerobic bacteria, and most terrestrial animals have no issue extracting oxygen with their highly efficient lungs.

    Regardless of environmental hazards, the appearance of the planet itself is striking. Firstly, Chymus has a small ring system that is visible from the planet’s surface. They make the planet measurably more difficult to land on, and present issues when attempting to establish satellites, but any fleet sufficiently familiar with navigating around the rings will find they have a territorial advantage against foreign invaders. Secondly, Chymus is host to several native species of green “algae,” which exist in such high concentrations near the planet’s equator that they stain both the ocean and the sky green. The effect is so extreme that it is visible from space; locals have named this green area of the planet “The Bile Seas.”


    Chymus’ Colonization

    Of course, worse worlds have been colonized. Chymus has seen populations of the core races and the more exotic Shifter species, although if any of the former exist on Chymus any longer, they are not making their presence obvious. Thick walls, whether made of metal or acid-resistant skin, are more than enough to protect colonists from most of the dangers. And there is always the option of genetic modification; the native shifters have stolen enough genetics from native wildlife to swim in the oceans and breathe the air without any additional protection. The same is possible for the common races, provided anyone cares enough to do it.

    There are only two known settlements on Chymus, both shifter-populated; Kreas and its sister city, Sarka. Both are isolationist, likely only trading with each-other; Sarka has closed borders and outright refuses to make diplomatic contact with off-world nations, and Kreas doesn’t allow uninfected people into the city proper without a special pass.

    Because of their obscure and isolationist nature, the history of both of these city-states remains unknown. As Kreas eases restrictions on its borders, this may change.


    The City of Kreas

    This early into border-opening, Kreas has published very little information on itself. It isn’t a deliberately kept secret at all; Kreatins aren’t hesitant to talk about what the city is like, there simply has not been enough opportunity for that information to become public knowledge. It is safe to assume that it eventually will, provided their borders remain semi-open.

    What is known is that Kreas is a decently large city, shifter-only, and has a culture that more closely resembles the Ascended Superhive than anything else, although some of its citizens are clearly infected instead of being native-born.

    Kreas’ official language is Serez-ex common, also called Stygian, the most commonly spoken shifter language. Unlike the Ascended, most Kreatins only know the dialect of Stygian that is unpronounceable for most organic races, so they tend to adopt galactic common nicknames instead of using their real ones.

    Despite the border opening, many Kreatins seem afraid of uninfected in passing interactions. This partial opening was likely not because of a sudden change of heart.


    The Capillary District

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    Whatever their reasoning is, Kreas seems to be interested in attracting foreigner attention. The Capillary District is one method of doing that; it is a tourism district, created specifically to attract uninfected Fringers, their attention, and their money.

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    “Like real capillaries, the district’s a site of exchange.”

    The Capillary District includes a welcome area, a nightclub, a spa, an inn, a medbay, an island and three “natural” areas that are actually genemodded hive flesh. Some of the businesses are new, others are old and relocated. Menus have been chosen to offer an even selection of shifter cuisine and foods that would be more familiar to a Fringer. Law enforcement is present, but only to protect the infrastructure and the Kreatins working there. If Fringers start killing each other over who-knows-what, that’s their business.

    In the case of fire, the hive automatically ingests some of the toxic Chymian seawater and sprays it on the flame. If the fire was started by someone, the water is also sprayed at that person’s face.

    The Bone Garden

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    The Bone Garden is a traditional shifter park, where hivematter is “planted” instead of real flora. This hivematter then makes no attempt to replicate flora, and instead grows limbs, eyes, bones, or other body parts directly out of the ground. This park happens to focus on bare bone, and also sports a clear view of the Chymian sea floor.

    Big Bill’s Bar and Grill

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    Big Bill is a former human that carries on his passion for grillin’, even though he now lives in a city where everybody prefers raw meat. Most of the bar and grill’s menu is familiar to the average human, though there are raw options for basically everything. This is the second “Big Bill’s” opened; the original location is near downtown Kreas.
    The Bar and Grill and adjacent structures are inside the remnants of site B, a large underwater outpost structure that was originally inhabited by core races. This is only a tiny portion of the inorganic structure, cut off from the rest.
    The bartender, Little Timmy, is a semi-intelligent hive-mass that knows a handful of memorized jokes.

    The Inn

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    Most Kreatins hate normal beds and think they’re unclean, but this inn was designed to host uninfected. It’s deliberately very cheap, and ran directly by the city government. Sleeping here is the one way to coax local law enforcement into protecting you; they make it difficult to break in and kill someone in their sleep.

    The Medbay

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    The medbay basic medical services to anybody who stumbles inside, free of charge. Unfortunately, it appears the only person Kreas has hired to work there is a veterinarian.
    The capillary medbay has one thing other Fringe clinics don’t, however: a cheap and effective antiviral for the Shifter virus. As long as a person hasn’t entered stage 2 of infection, they can administer a drug that will quickly cure a person.
    The fleshy bed administers painkillers, coagulants, antiseptics and a chemical cocktail that accelerates healing.

    Chronic Memorial Station

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    The station is a small island located just above the Capillary District. It was once a part of above-water Site B, remodelled with the addition of a hive-garden. It’s there for sightseers that want to see what above-water Chymus looks like, and provide a local nexus relay and power source for the teleporters. If the generator goes down, so do the teleporters and the electronic lights for a couple minutes, until the rest of the city’s power grid kicks in. The city claims to have a corvette on standby in case anybody needs offworld.
    Non-shifter tourists beware! Chymus’s air is hard on the lungs. Organics can breathe there without immediately feeling sick, but an hour or so of exposure will start to hurt, and so will multiple shorter visits. The city provides free gas masks to minimize damage.
    The city has yet to explain the reasoning behind the island being named “Chronic Memorial Station.”

    Vena Cava

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    Named after the largest vein in the human body, the Vena Cava is a shifter-styled nightclub with a tar-and-insect theme. The bar is hosted by an eccentric ex-floran with a wide selection of unusual alcohol, and the dance floor is made of freshly grown bone.
    Shifters adore loud music, partying and booze, and consider all three to be an integral part of their cultural identity. Kreatin shifters are no exception. By their standards, the Vena Cava is actually rather tame- it offers drinks with ethanol concentrations that won’t immediately poison most organic species, and the music has been adjusted to appeal to general Fringe culture. Most “normal” shifter club-music sounds like guttural screaming.

    Synovial Spa

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    On a technological level, the Synovial spa is the most impressive section of the district; alarmingly, it seems better suited to non-shifter biology than the equipment in the medbay.
    The spa offers three services: basking rooms, aromatherapy rooms and “tar” pools.
    The basking rooms are warm and shine a concentrated light on a visitor. The effect is the pleasant warm sensation of laying in the sun, only in a quiet room instead of by the beach. To minimize chances of skin damage, organics that enter are automatically misted with an oil that serves as a highly effective sunscreen.
    Aromatherapy rooms contain beds suspended over bright green pools that emit strong-smelling fumes. These fumes clear the sinuses and contain a designer drug that eases anxiety, increases alertness and slightly lowers adenosine levels in the brain.
    Finally, the “tar” pools are filled with a carefully formulated organic fluid. It contains independant and “intelligent” amoeba-like cells, resembling tunicate amebocytes or mammalian white blood cells, that eat and dispose of everything from dirt and dust, to harmful bacteria, to dead skin cells, without attacking the bathers themselves. These same cells can be found in shifter nests, and give the nest-fluid its cleaning properties. The result is that everything immersed in the tar for a period of time emerges clean. The pools also have antimicrobial properties, contain drugs that enhance the mending of wounds, and soothe mild and some chronic pain, all without any common side effects.

    The Cave of Visions

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    Caves like these are typical of Kreas, and apparently hold special significance for Kreatins. The glowing pools are filled with engineered bioluminescent bacteria that also happen to secrete a compound similar to psilocybin. Effects are only felt if the water is drank.
    They are natively considered a place to meditate, reflect on the self, or simply enjoy the calming atmosphere; it seems the city considered this an important part of their culture to share.

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    The Capillary District has descriptor items scattered around the hub! They look like encircled eyes. Press “E” at them to get descriptions of the area.


    Menus

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    Anybody staying at the inn gets 10% off their meal the next day.
    Starters

    Green Eggs and Ham (pH-neutralized Chymian fish caviar with ham, raw or smoked.)
    Chernobyl Crab Bisque (pH-neutralized Chymian crab prepared into a creamy soup.)
    Green Oysters (pH-neutralized Chymian ‘Oysters’ with herbs)
    Clot Platter (Clotted blood from a selection of species)
    Gel Caviar (Gel-beetle egg clusters on crackers)
    Gel Platter (Gutloaded gel-beetles sprinkled with spices, served live.)
    Lard Cup (Rendered pig fat and bread.)
    Sunny Side (2 chicken eggs, prepared in a style of your choice.)

    Sides
    All burgers, mains and steaks come with two sides of your choice.

    Terran-style Mashed potatoes (Boiled mashed tuber with butter and garlic)
    Terran-style Chicken Ceasar (Green salad with romaine lettuce and croutons. Chicken is offered raw, rare, medium-rare and well done)
    Sweet n’ Sour Tala Worms (Gutloaded insects sprinkled with spices. Offered live or roasted)
    Bill’s Mixed Seed Bowl (Avosian nuts and seeds sprinkled with spices.)
    Breakfast Mac n’ Cheese (Pasta and cheese sauce with bacon bits.)
    Floral Blood Soup Mini-bowl (Clotted animal blood and poultry stock with a hint of vinegar. Noodles optional)

    Burgers and Sandwiches
    Coming soon

    Mains

    Big Bill’s Beef Liver (Beef liver, served fried in batter, grilled or raw.)
    Big Bill’s Beef Kidney (Beef Kidney, served grilled or raw.)
    Chicken Heart Platter (Chicken hearts with hash browns, served fried or raw.)
    Chernobyl Crabcakes (pH-neutralized Chymian crab crabcakes.)
    Queen Crab legs (Chymian crab with butter dipping sauce. Offered raw or boiled.)
    Marrow Delight (Half pound of yellow beef bone marrow wrapped in Chymian fish skin in a bread bowl.)
    Green “Sushi” “Steaks” (A platter of raw chymian fish meat.)
    North Avosian Roast Rat (Roasted rodent, served whole on a skewer, sprinkled with avosian spices. Also offered chilled and freeze-dried)
    Lamb souvlaki (Grilled lamb on a skewer. Warning: served hot!)

    !! Roast Wyvern Heart !! (This dish still beats and breathes fire. Served with a fire extinguisher. If you can finish it unsinged, you get 200pix store credit.)

    Steaks

    Steaks are offered raw, rare, medium-rare and well-done. Choose from any part of the cow, chicken, rat or lamb, or ask about our hive-grown options.

    Drink Menu

    Water (Sparkling or regular)
    Bone Broth
    Juice (Orange, Avesmingo, Grape)
    Soda (Bepis, Bepsi, Cocaine Cola, Dr. Popp, Citrus Crash, Mother Energy Drink, Swamp Water, BeefBone Maxx)
    Beer (Blud Light, Bludweiser, Cornelius Crusher, Crammed Carnage, Slaughterhouse Ale, Adam’s Apple Cider, Tendon Ipa, Dead Guy Ale, Blood In The Whiskey Stout, The Abyss)
    Bloodwine
    Milkshake (Chocolate, Vanilla, Crab blood)


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    Punch of the Day: We serve a different punch every day! Ask the bartender for more information. ((All the punches are like this))

    Bottled

    Ant Liquor (Traditional shifter spirit, fermented insect extract)
    Pink Akkit (Traditional shifter spirit, blended ethanol-producing hive muscle)
    Red Akkit (Traditional shifter spirit, fermented diabetic hive blood)
    Whitechyme (Kreatin spirit, fermented Chymian algae)
    Kreatin Kumis (Fermented hive milk, shifter-style)
    Kreatin Mead (Fermented hive honey, shifter-style)
    Salmon Vodka (Salmon-infused vodka)
    Bloodwine (Traditional floran spirit, sparkling or regular)
    Mamajuana (Traditional terran beverage)
    Gin (Traditional terran liquor)
    Brandy (Traditional terran spirit)
    Absinthe (Traditional terran spirit, swiss-style)
    Rum (Traditional terran liquor)
    Whiskey (Traditional terran spirit. Bourbon, corn, malt, rye, or wheat)
    Black Hole (Also sometimes known as “wormhole,” because it sucks you to the hospital after only one sip)
    Mike’s Hard Lemonade (Flavoured malt beverage)

    Mixed

    All drinks have regular, low-percentage and virgin options. Organics with unaugmented livers are advised to exercise caution when ordering the regular options.

    Bloody Puss (Blended beef, pussplum, red wine)
    Amalgam (Amalgamate fruit juice, vodka)
    Broken Heart (Blended blood clot, spiced rum, cardiac-muscle pink akkit)
    Tala Mash (Blended tala worms, ant liquor, hive cream)
    Kumis-and-honey (Hive milk kumis, hive honey)
    -emia “Presence in Blood” (Red Akkit, wine, hive cream)
    Bilewater (Sweetened Chymian algae mash, whitechyme)
    Hive Conquest (Kreatin mead, blood, blended tala worms)
    Kreatin Porto Flip (Brandy, ruby port, mashed desalinated Chymian fish caviar)
    Kreatin Whiskey Sour (Bourbon whiskey, lemon juice, sugar, optional Chymian fish caviar)
    Steak (5 randomly chosen liquors, blended beef)
    Cosmopolitan (Vodka, triple sec, cranberry juice, lime juice)
    Gump (Pink Akkit, lemon juice, water, bourbon)
    Rum-and-clot (Rum, clot cola, lime juice)
    Gin Fizz (Gin, lemon juice, sugar)
    Bloody Mary (Tomato juice, lemon juice, hot pepper sauce, celery, vodka)
    Bloody Mayor (Tomato juice, lemon juice, hot pepper sauce, celery, whitechyme)
    Monkey Gland (Gin, orange juice, grenadine, absinthe)
    Black Russian (Vodka, coffee liqueur)
    White Russian (Vodka, coffee liqueur, hive cream)
    Green Russian (Whitechyme, coffee liqueur)
    Ex-Russian (Whitechyme, coffee liqueur, hive cream)
    Green Grogg (Whitechyme, coffee liqueur, spices, sweetened algae)
    Tala Grogg (Blended tala worms, ant liquor, hive cream, coffee liqueur, spices)
    Zombie (Fruit juices, liqueurs, rums)
    Thunder God's Command (Black hole, everclear, whitechyme, the bartender’s blood)

    Non-alcoholic

    Water
    Lemonade
    Clot Cola
    All Ages Appropriate Battery Acid (Energy drink, sugar, lemon extract)
    Highlander Grogg (Maple-spice flavoured coffee)
    Gravy (beef or poultry)

    Snacks

    Tala bowl (meat-gutloaded tala worms, served live or freeze-dried)
    Ketchup Chips (spicy blood dipping sauce optional)
    Cheese platter (includes Zalekk, a soft hive-cheese with red mold)