Fen

Rokhandan Lore Pages
Species Lore Pages		Rokhandan
Planet and System Pages		Fen
Governments and Organizations Pages		Rokhandan Directorate

Fen is the largest planet in the Rokh System and is the capital planet of the Rokhandian Directorate.

General Information

System: Ahni System

Moon(s): Idni and Kuni

Development level: Extremely High

Capital: Ahni Sara

Population (Planetside): 5.2 billion Fen, 3.4 billion Kuni, 240 million additional across the system.

Other Planets: 13

Fen

The home to the rokhandan people and their place of evolution. It is a terrestrial planet with only a few landlocked seas and no real oceans, though rivers and lakes are common and important features. It’s most known for its wild and brutal climate with shifting climates and brutal winds, thanks to its high axial tilt and mildly eccentric orbit.With 12.5 hours to the day and 366 earth days to a year, it is common to use earth’s calendar for convenience, simply doubling the number of days. At the end of the year the ‘free day’ is held, a now-important rokhandan holiday. A bonus that is added to the calendar and serves as a rokhandan holiday.

Above it is a luminous ring. Fen tends to have brighter nights all year round, similar to a full moon due to these rings, and they occupy a permanent place in the spirit of the Directorate and Fen in general. Mining has completely ceased in the rings, moved farther away from the jewel of the Directorate. Exploitation of them was affecting the weather and threatened the species’ cultural heritage. Inside of the rings is the first of Fen’s moons, Idni. A It is not a remarkable body and has little more than scientific outposts on it. Though culturally it is particularly notable, highly luminous and light-reflecting, it is a bright glowing spot in the ring. However the second moon, Kuni, is far more notable.

Kuni is a terrestrial moon, it is for a moon, large, dense and could even be considered a planet if it was not in orbit of Fen. It is mostly ocean, with numerous islands, archipelagos and a single moderate landmass about the size of Brazil on it. Fully capable of supporting life, it has since had Fen flora and fauna transplanted onto it–lacking much in the way of life beyond algae and proto-organisms when found. Kuni is now considered property of no clan, and is the true capital of the Directorate, and where the vast majority of foreigners visit. It is the jewel of the nation.

Flora

Fen’s flora is diverse, with millions of species and subspecies of plants, they are usually green and leafy and not too dissimilar to earth foliage. However a peculiarity of Fen flora is the amount of rapidly growing durable algaes and ground-cover, often growing in cycles with the seasons. Grasses similarly tend to either grow in cycles of rapid death and life, following the unpredictable weather patterns, growing in the path of changing cycles. Larger plants such as trees tend to be broad and sturdy or tall and thin, mostly evergreen and survive longer and more extreme variations in climates, thicker forests often house micro-biomes unseen outside of their shelter.

Fauna

As with any ecosphere, there are a large quantity of creatures, too large for a book, let alone here. But some notable species are as follows: Ghineru - A lanky four-legged creature non-obligate herbivore that shares both the role of a horse and a dog to the rokhandan people. They are on average about five and a half feet at their shoulder, with a longer neck. Most of their body is hairless except a tufted, wiry-haired tail and a long mane. Their faces are long, eyes are forward facing with round pupils and their snout has a tapir-like nose. They possess long and sharp canines and each foot is tipped in four hoofed, grip-capable toes. Though they are highly evolutionarily diverse, not unlike terran dogs, they can come in a variety of appearances and sizes. Today, they serve as traditional mounts and companions and are raised for dairy. They are incredibly important to rokhandan history and evolution, and the two species developed alongside each other in symbiosis. Hamav - A large wormlike invertebrate, about the size of a large dog in mass. They feed almost exclusively on the algae that grows in dead flora across Fen and have become the ubiquitous meat and egg producer for rokhandans, laying clusters of eggs with a calcified shell every week. Raza - A small bipedal reptilian pack-hunter and a common pest throughout Fen, these animals have unfortunately spread as invasive species to other worlds and are a notable predator of indiginous species. Their eggs were once very difficult to detect when parasitically laid in hamav. Permitting them to spread wide and far throughout Directorate space. Today efforts are being made to exterminate them from many planets and better detection measures have been implemented.

Settlements

Fen is a well settled world, but the eccentric weather has forced certain unique trends on its surface. Most settlements are sprawling, rather than tall, low to the ground and tend to be well insulated for both heat and cold. But the most famous settlements on Fen are its Sky-cities. At ground level, they simply resemble a tall tower, with a large disc at the top, like a colossal tree. These towers are one part elevator, support structure, and massive wind generators. At the top are large, if compact disc-shaped cities. The cities themselves sit above the troposphere of the planet, where weather is gentle and calm. They have grown in size significantly from earlier versions of their design, and now utilize anti-gravity technology to ease designs. These are by far the densest settlements on the planet.

On Kuni, skytowers are still built, although the stabler weather has mostly removed their purpose. But notably the capital city of Ahni Sara. Ahni-Sara is a massive arcology and lies at the equator of the planet, a massive pyramid, it is where the ring visibly splits Fen in two. Ahni-Sara literally translates to ‘Star Home’ but translates best to ‘The Heavens’ in English. Kuni has been heavily terraformed. Though it had an atmosphere, it lacked much in the way of plant or animal life, and it took nearly a century to terraform it into a planet. Today, it is populated and marks a major cultural center of diverse communities. The majority of non-rokhandans live on Kuni, and the temporary academic community is significant.

Holidays

Fen and Fen culture has a few holidays that are notable. As with most places, the solstices and equinoxes tend to be swarmed with local holidays, but a few traditions have emerged other than these.

Free Day	Formally named Kermin, Free Day A holiday based around the added ‘extra day’ to par Fen’s calendar with Earth’s. This is a time for romance, experimentation or to break special mores. Officially it is a celebration of the unity of the rokhandan and human people and to reflect on the past year’s failures and successes.. Youth culture has a tendency to instead interpret it as a ‘free day’ where ‘nothing counts.’ Among the rokhandan diaspora, it is celebrated instead on the last day of the year.
Unification Day	The anniversary of the unity of the tribes and clans and the formation of the first great meeting of the clans. It is a time of thanksgiving and charity, and most rokhandans consider it a time to visit family or visit old friends. It is celebrated in August, on the 36th Fen day. (August 18th)
Foundation Day	The celebration of the foundation of the directorate itself, on the anniversary of the arrival of the first FTL ship to the system. It’s a typical patriotic holiday, celebrating a rarity for the Directorate, a truly national patriotic day. It happens in Spring, on May 1st.
Clan Days	Almost every clan in every region of Fen has their own set of holidays, religious, cultural or otherwise. But the exact days are so varied that its unimportant to list them.

The Star System

The Star Ahni - 0AU	Smaller and less bright than Sol and similarly is usually described as a yellow-dwarf star.
Auri - 0.28 AU	First of the three tidally locked rocky planets. About half the size of Fen, it is known as the Guide and is often depicted as a bird, as it is a fleeting thing, only visible from Fen in twilight. It is mythically scouting the course across the sky of the other two rocky planets.
Adi - 0.43 AU	Second of the three, it is a metal-heavy body and it is small and dense. It is depicted as a rokhandan child and is mythologically wandering the sky with Azari and Auri. Ancient metaphor held the child as a representative of the rokhandan species.
Azari - 0.49 AU	Third of the three, it is a large body, nearly the size of Fen and a prominent feature in the sky. Ancient beliefs often associated it with a ghineru that raised Adi.
Fen - 0.75 AU	The home of the rokhandan people, a ringed terrestrial planet. It is slightly smaller and less dense than Earth and experiences wild temperatures. It has two moons, Idni, a rocky body in its belt, and Kuni, a large terrestrial, though heavily watery moon of Kuni. Kuni and Fen hold the majority of the population of the system.
Sawud - 1.12 AU	Nearly twice the size of Fen, historically this icey world was mistaken to be a particularly bright star. It is nearly entirely made of ice and water and has a thick, cloudless breathable atmosphere. However it is incredibly cold and rivers of liquid xenon run in canyons across its surface. It has a small population and a few small domed cities. Most of its industry is extraction of rare gasses and supplying water to the system.
Aswan - 1.54 AU	Often called Nerio by the human diaspora, after the mythological consort of the god Mars, this Mars-like planet is remarkable primarily for its significant similarity in size, appearance and distance from the star as Sol’s Mars. This has led to a belief among many more religious sorts of a special relationship between the two peoples.
Ajari - 3.75 AU	A small gas giant, it has a primarily red hue with yellow and orange streaks. Its storms are too great for any attempts at settlement and none of its moons have more than small outposts.It’s occasionally visible via the naked eye, and is associated with hunters and is known as stalker-star.
Kalawi - 4.93 AU	An ice giant with dark blue to near black storms on its surface. A number of installations for gas extraction orbits it, refining general starship fuel. It has little role in mythology, as it was too dark to be seen by earliest telescopes.
Asteroid Belt - 5.3-7.5 AU	The main belt of the system, there are notable mining settlements throughout it, extracting useful materials and is the primary source for military ship building supplies in the system. Two clans, the Sar-Awaz and Al-Kubaz control most operations in the region and somewhat illegally operate constant raids against each other’s facilities and shipments.
Sa-Fahir - 8.89 AU	Known as the King, this massive yellow-white gas giant is notable for two reasons. One, being by far the largest object (other than the star) in the system, as well as its 33 moons. One of which is an ice world, known as Hadiz. A habitable ice-planet that marks the most distant place in the system where any attempts at settlement have been gone. It is mythologically important and was once assumed to be a second habitable planet.
Albi - 11.92 AU	A rocky planet with a few mining operations. There is nothing particularly notable about the world, though it is the largest of the rocky bodies in the system.
Huori - 18.86 AU	An ice giant with no real settlements, being too far away for easy extraction, though its moons are home to a number of completely rogue clans. In the media it is often portrayed as a fantastical rebel enclave of extreme forward thinkers. Helping this image is its almost completely and wholly black surface, dark, frigid storms swallow what little light reaches it.
Sufai - 31.23 AU	A distant ice giant with incredibly fast storms and winds, it is beyond any attempts at habitation and there is nothing here but occasional expeditions and investigations, mostly to its moons.
Rivi and Ris - 43.67 AU	Two distant rocky bodies, the largest of the distant bodies at the edge of the system, they orbit each other as they orbit the star. They are not particularly large objects and barely count as planets. Laying in a loose belt of similar, but significantly smaller rocky bodies.