Ashtoreth is third planet from Primus, the sun, and a close neighbor of Sinai. It is almost entirely covered in water, and has a breathable atmosphere, appearing to be a turquoise color when viewed through a telescope from Sinai. Ashtoreth has one moon (not easily viewed from Sinai), and there is no discernable difference in gravity. There are small polar ice caps, not as large as those of either Sinai or Abaddon. Since there is not much in the way of continental land mass to provide any resistance to air or water currents, violent storms regularly sweep the planet.
Ashtoreth's 24-hour rotation matches that of Sinai. In the equatorial areas around the Gateway Island, Ashtoreth has no truly discernable seasons, remaining warm year round.
Purportedly, Ashtoreth was named after the Olympian god of the same name. The Mariner name for their home world is unpronuncable.
1.0 Civilizations and Organizations
An alliance between the Kampfzengruppe of Abaddon and the Khattan Emirate of Sinai has been responsible for the bulk of the exploration of Ashtoreth so far. Although the Rephidim Temple has at least a token presence on Gateway Island, the Kampfzengruppe has primary authority over all things remotely military, while the Emirate has domain over things monetary, where Ashtoreth is concerned.
Only limited contact has been made with Ashtoreth's native species. The information listed here should be taken as representing a sample of what those reasonably "in the know" would realize -- i.e, those who have actually visited the planet, or have dealings with it. This information is by no means complete, nor is it common knowledge amongst Sinaians or Abaddonians.
1.1 The Offworld Legion
The Kampfzengruppe and the Khattan Emirate maintain their presence on Ashtoreth by means of the Offworld Legion, which they jointly support. The Offworld Legion is comprised of volunteers and conscripts from Abaddon and Sinai who serve the interests of the Motherland and the Emir in high-risk situations on the Gateway Worlds -- including Abaddon and Sinai, that is. A large portion of the forces are comprised of condemned criminals that have been given a chance to serve time with the Legion in lieu of death sentences. For many, they'll still find death anyway, but there is the promise, however farfetched, of amnesty granted, should they survive long enough and perform well enough to please their masters.
The Offworld Legion is based on Gateway Island, often deployed to serve aboard the "living submarines", the urgans. Conventional firearms are of little use underwater, so semi-organic dart launchers and harpoon guns are weapons of choice.
1.2 Mariners
"Mariners" are Ashtoreth natives that resemble mermen or mermaids with anthropomorphic feline features. The upper torso of a Mariner resembles that of a Khatta, though with very fine, slick fur, making it appear almost hairless. The lower part of the Mariner resembles the tail of a dolphin or porpoise. Mariners have webbed hands, retractile claws, double eyelids (one set of eyelids being translucent, to protect the eyes while under water), long hair, and are found in a wide variety of colors in several patterns, not restricted to "traditional" cat coloration. Mariners are carnivores, preying primarily on fish, and are (of course) excellent swimmers. They have enormous lung capacity, especially adapted to the water, and even a limited ability to "recycle" gases -- which just serves to extend their already remarkable ability to stay underwater for prolonged periods, but doesn't make them amphibious.
Mariners are mammals, though outward gender characteristics are somewhat subtle, as the mercats have very streamlined bodies. The easiest way to tell at a glance between the genders is to observe relative body build, as female Mariners tend to be slighter of frame, whereas male Mariners are more muscular, broad-shouldered, and larger. To further take advantage of "streamlining", many Mariner warriors shave their heads.
Mariners can expel air from their lungs without taking in any water, thus able to make calls underwater. They're also capable of speaking normally (when out of the water), and their native tongue -- while grammatically built like Khattan and even sharing many apparently related words -- is still very high-pitched and hard for others to understand.
1.2.1 Abyssinians
Abyssinians are the first of the mercats to be encountered by the Alliance and the Offworld Legion, and hence are most commonly associated with the term "Mariner". Their name is derived from their home, within the Great Abyss off of the Crimson Archipelago. The Abyssinians live in underwater domes made of organic material, looking much like giant jellyfish clinging to the sides of the Abyss. Abyssinians have a highly developed technology dubbed "grafting", based entirely on the use of various oceanic life forms, and splicing pieces of them together, using arcane processes that bypass the tendencies of most such creatures' immune systems to reject such spliced pieces as foreign.
Although Mariners have a higher tolerance for cold water than most offworlders, they tend to keep to the warmer waters of the Abyss, or toward the shallows. They sometimes sun themselves on what few islands there are, such as the Crimson Archipelago and Gateway Island, but prolonged drying of their sensitive skin can be unhealthy for the Mariners - It has been discovered that the interior of the Gateway Island complex has some unexplained mechanisms in place for keeping things dry, which tend to react badly with visiting Mariners.
Another type of Mariner is the Siren, so named because most of those encountered have been female, and are noted for having beautiful voices as heard through an urgan's ear membrane. Rumor has it that they can control the minds of men and compel them to leave the safety of their urgans, and drown themselves in the ocean.
Sirens physically resemble Abyssinians, except that their lines are even more sleek and fragile-looking, and they have translucent membranes fanning out from their arms and torso. These membranes shift in color, and have points of illumination that pulsate along. The membranes of the females are more elaborate, almost suggesting a ballroom gown in its complexity and
volume. Mature males of the species are referred to as Tritons, and are much fewer in number
and more reclusive, as the females are primarily responsible not only for child-rearing, but
for hunting and fighting.
Unlike most Mariners, Sirens are amphibious, able to breathe in open air or under water. Among other things, this means that Sirens are capable of living in greater seclusion, not requiring such things as the air-recycling domes of the Abyssinians, or to stay near the surface.
Sirens have been hostile in encounters with Sinaians and Abaddonians, and clash with the Abyssinians as well, frequently attacking urgans that stray into their territory -- the boundaries of which change constantly.
1.3 Corsairs
Due to the ever-present threat of severe storms and lack of safe harbors, the Offworld Legion doesn't have all that much presence on the surface of the oceans of Ashtoreth. However, there have been reports of pirates operating on the surface, using their own vessels that resemble gigantic, ship-sized clam shells, capable of acting as submersibles or skimming across the top of the waters. Some urgan sailors have claimed that they've even seen the clam-ships fly. Most of the times, reports of sightings involve such a clam-ship being spotted, and then it speeds away, avoiding the urgan or scout ship, but there have also been instances of attacks on the Legionnaires. So far, reports from survivors have indicated that the pirates use firearms, and Khattas have been spotted in their number, suggesting that these are Offworld Legionnaires who have somehow acquired these "clam shell" vessels and have gone renegade.
1.4 Nessians
There have been reports of sea serpent Nagas of considerable size swimming the seas. While the Alliance has employed some Nagas of the sea serpent variety as scouts, they have been accounted for, and these reports concern sea serpents too large to conceivably be taken all the way to the Gateway Tower (through the desert!) and fit through the Gateway to Ashtoreth, and there's no way that some lost scout could have grown to such size in a mere four or five years. Only very recently, in the year 6105, did the adventuresome explorer Mage Envoy of Lothrhyn make contact with the gargantuan Nessian people. It is said that she even found the location of the fabled underwater city of Sutaranakh, their spiritual capitol.
2.0 Locations
Very little of Ashtoreth has been seriously explored, since there is no easy way to get zeppelins and other airships through the Gateway to Ashtoreth, nor to build and maintain them there. Most of what has been explored has been in the vicinity of Gateway Island. Though Ashtoreth has one moon, as of yet, nothing is known of it, save that it orbits the planet.
[For the sake of simplicity, Ashtoreth's moon is assumed to have a lunar phase cycle identical to real-life Earth. If you're running a log in the "present time", and outside, there's a full moon, then there's a full moon on Ashtoreth, too. It may be an amazing coincidence, but it's a whole lot easier than trying to calculate phases for an alien world's moon.]
2.1 Gateway Island
Gateway Island is a rocky spire rising from the ocean floor, capped by a stone and Sifran crystal tower known as the Crystal Chamber. This chamber is almost identical to the Gateway Tower on Sinai, except that the tower is not broken, and instead of having eleven gateways to other worlds and a door leading outside, there is one gateway back to Sinai, and eleven window/doorways leading to the outside world. The doorway directly opposite the gateway leads into a crystal dome that gives a perfect view of the ocean, with a pathway that descends along the slope of the island, and enters into a network of crystal tubes, tunnels in the rock, and more crystal domes that run down the length of the spire and underneath the waters. The other ten windows open directly out onto the island itself, "cracking" open and then sealing again.
During storms, sometimes most or all of Gateway Island is submerged by crashing waves. At times such as this, if any of the Crystal Chamber doorways are open to the outside, there is an invisible barrier that holds out large masses of water. This barrier is not perfect, and someone standing inside the Chamber may still get sprayed by a few loose droplets, but it is sufficient to keep the Chamber from being flooded, yet still allowing people to pass through. Standing in the Chamber with a door open is not necessarily a good idea, as debris cast about in the waves -- or fish -- may fly right through the door, even if the water is held back.
Other such "portals" to the world outside can be found through the Sifran complex. Some are set in walls, while others are set in the floor, appearing as pools. There are also other types of "waterlocks" to be found in the complex, operated by wall panels set in the stone, that can fill an area with water or replenish it with breathable air. (Various other features of the complex are similarly operated by stone panels set in walls, but not everything functions properly. The Sifras may have been clever, but their creations aren't perfect.)
The interior of the Sifran complex has been claimed by the Kampfzengruppe/Khattan Alliance, and turned into what amounts to a small city based on the island. The most important places are clustered near the top, since traveling through the tunnel system can get a bit tedious, although some of the clever Sifran modes of transportation are still functional. (There are areas where crystal discs act as "taxis", summoned by pressing a panel, and then ferrying the passenger through the area, hovering above the ground, and even diving or rising through vertical shafts to get between levels.)
Although there are a few crystal structures above the waterline, the vast majority of the city is underwater. There are areas that have been allocated to merchants (mostly Khattan), an embassy/research station of the Rephidim Temple, a College Esoterica Guild Hall (not that magic is of any use here), a Silent Ones mission, a few "townhouses" of wealthy Khattans, etc., though most of the area is claimed by the Kampfzengruppe-run military base. Narcotic substances are heavily regulated here, but deep within the complex, there is an area referred to as the "Abyss", centered around a "speakeasy" of the same name, where bribes have been paid to make sure that the authorities look the other way, and various vices are readily available to those who have too much money.
Despite all the access to water, the interior of the complex stays remarkably dry -- in fact, so dry that it irritates the skin of certain sensitive species, and has a tendency to evaporate drinks left sitting out too long. This is maintained by Sifran technology in ways barely understood, except that the crystal machinery somehow maintains a dry, temperate, well-lit environment in all sections of the complex except certain areas where such basic functions have broken down. In the event that part of the complex should be ruptured, there are crystal "bulkheads" that seal into place, and limited self-repair systems that can seal a breach in minutes, then evacuate the water from the flooded area.
The currency of choice to be exchanged here is either Sinai shekels or Abaddonian marks. The exchange rate varies, but it usually hovers around a rate of 1 shekel per mark. The languages of Khattan and Bosch are in most common usage, though, since many of the Legionnaires are from Sinai, there are still several who speak Rephidim Standard in a pinch. (It should be noted that though the Kampfzengruppe tongue is almost identical to Bosch, they themselves don't refer to it as "Bosch".)
The exterior of Gateway Island, when not submerged, looks like a tall rocky spire poking up from the water, with a few crystal domes and walkways visible on ledges along its length. There are wide rocky shelves at different steps down the island's length, the first being located just under the waterline, and covered with an accumulation of white sand that has built up into a beach. Shells and sand-shekels sometimes wash up on the shore, and seagulls (ordinary, Earth-type seagulls) regularly fight over any fish that show up on the beach. The water tends to be tropically warm in the shallows year-round, though it cools at night, and gets progressively colder the deeper one gets.
2.2 Crimson Archipelago
This is a line of "spire" islands, much like Gateway Island, rising up from the water, forming tall peaks of a rocky ridge that marks an upheaval at the edge of a deep underwater rift. The island is so named because of growths of red coral-like nodules that cover the islands (especially closer to the waterline). When the tide brings the waters up over these nodules, colorful plant-like growths pop out of holes and sway in the water. When the water recedes, they withdraw into their "shells". When the growths die off, they leave their "shells", building up a large mass of coral.
During times of relative calm, some brave offworlders have come to these islands for research purposes, fishing, etc. Mariners also sometimes sun themselves on the beaches.
3.0 Magic & Technology
So far, it appears that magic -- as it is understood on Sinai -- is not present on Ashtoreth. There is still some degree of Quantum Uncertainty, but not nearly to the degree of Sinai. Rather, it's more comparable to that on Abaddon. Gunpowder and other chemical reactions work just fine, near as can be told, though there are still occasional mishaps. Electrical devices and electronics suffer some malfunctions, but sufficient redundancy in design can overcome many of those problems. Mariners and nonsapient life forms haven't been studied sufficiently to see if Quantum Uncertainty has an effect on mutation as it does on the surface of Sinai.
3.1 Grafting
The peculiar organic-based technology of the Abyssinian Mariners is referred to as "grafting", and involves the utilization of strange oceanic life forms in new ways, sometimes fusing them -- in part or in whole -- with other life forms to create living weapons, tools and vehicles. The largest example of this would be the jellyfish-like creatures, bred to enormous size by the Abyssinians, which serve to make the protective dome-shaped environments that the Abyssianians use for their city of Marinopolis.
3.1.1 Urgan
This bit of technology has been modified to be very useful to the visiting offworlders. Urgans are strange hybrid creatures, part whale, part some sort of octopus-type creature, with hollow, oxygen-rich chambers inside their bodies, and grafted-on organic weaponry. These creatures serve as living "submarines". For the Mariners, most of their inner chambers are flooded with water, but still with enough air to surface and breathe. For the offworlders, these urgans have been modified to have a drier inside environment, and to accomodate those with legs instead of flippers.
3.1.2 Shellgun
This weapon makes use of an aquatic mollusk that is capable of spitting out sharp pearly spines to ward off predators. Shellguns use surgical alteration to suppress this instinct unless a trigger is pulled. These weapons are preferred aboard urgans, since they can't blow holes in the urgan as firearms might, and since they can be used underwater. The drawback to shellguns is that extensive use in a short period of time (i.e., a fire fight) can cause the shellgun's muscle to fatigue, losing accuracy and then failing to fire altogether, even if there is ammunition left. Another is that shellguns can dry out if not kept properly moist, and, being living creatures, need proper care as such.
Back to The Planets: Section 3.0
1.2.2 Sirens