Because of Christophsis’s planetary geology – the surface is nearly entirely crystalline – very little in the way of natural organisms live on the surface. The few that do are usually imported species from visitors or immigrants to the planet.
Christophsis isn’t without its own ecosystem, though. Deep beneath the surface of Christophsis lies a vast, underground cave system that supports many different varieties of life.
These life forms rarely interact with the Christophsians on the surface, having adapted to living in the dark, dank cave environments. Miners have reported occasional encounters with these creatures, although usually the two groups know to stay out of each other’s way.
Christophsis has long been defined by its desirability, both as a world replete with harvestable resources and as a key waypoint on a major hyperlane. From its early history as a mining colony to its recent history as a major point of contention in the Clone Wars, Christophsis has never been short on suitors.
Ever since its discovery, early in the plotting of the first major hyperlanes, Christophsis has been recognized as a treasure trove of raw materials. At the center of a system with three major asteroid belts – the Barren, the resources. Consequently, up until about five hundred years before the dissolution of the Republic, Christophsis was only a curiosity, deemed too much of a risk to mine, despite its large potential.
That changed when a Core Worlds mining concern from Tepasi made a concerted effort and expenditure of resources to transform the planet and its system into a workable mining colony. While the effort was extraordinarily expensive, as the first crews began to mine Christophsis and its nearby asteroids in earnest,
they discovered deep mineral veins far in excess of their original projections. The planet had transformed from a location of interest to speculators to a seriously prolific mining colony in just a few short years, and the original investors’ efforts paid off handsomely.
The rapid growth – in both cultural prominence and resource output – continued up until the onset of the Clone Wars, at which time it was notable as one of the largest citizenries in the whole Outer Rim. This fact didn’t escape either side in the war, both of whom set their eyes on Christophsis as a critical strategic resource.
Over the course of the war, the planet changed hands several times, at times even existing in partial control of both sides. This unstable allegiance was aided by the collapse of the planets oligarchical government at the beginning of the war. This collapse escalated tensions between the native Christophsian humans and the native Rodians, Kerkoiden, and other non-humans, the latter of whom saw the humans as representative of the oligarchy that had oppressed them for so long.
After the end of the war and the transformation of the Republic into the Galactic Empire, Christophsis saw a return to its pre-war form. It fell under the loose control of the Empire, and its mercantile oligarchy was reinstated under direction of Moff Grinak, governor of the Savareen sector.
The majority of Christophsis’s thirty-five billion inhabitants are humans, although non-humans, chiefly Rodians and Kerkoidens, represent nearly a third of the population. Humans also made up the largest part of the merchant ruling
class, although that group represents fewer than ten percent of the population.
Despite its shining appearance from space, Christophsis is a world marred by class conflict.
The majority of Christophsians lives on the planet to support its massive mining endeavors in some way, shape, or form, and they make up a laborer underclass that sees little of the vast prosperity Christophsis’s oligarchs possess. This results in a perpetual undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the ruling merchant class, which often comes to the surface in times of instability, as seen during the Clone Wars.
However, none of the citizens of Christophsis sink into the depths of poverty that one might see in Coruscant’s Invisible Sector, for example.
The reason for this is twofold. Primarily, this is because the expansionistic nature of mining in the Christoph system requires frequent new workers, and wages must be kept high enough to attract miners and laborers from out of the sector. Secondarily, as the wealthy of Christophsis have expanded across the surface, driving the creation of its massive cities visible from orbit, they’ve abandoned older areas in favor of new ones, allowing “second-hand”
cities to be repopulated by the lower classes.
This has prevented, or at least slowed, the descent of poorer neighborhoods into slums.
Most travelers to the Christoph system rarely see more than the impressive approach into Chaleydonia or one of its sister cities, since all business is conducted in the metropolitan areas. However, naturalists and geologists see an entirely different world – Christophsis’s
unique environment provides habitats for several rare cave-dwelling species, and there are truly remarkable sights to behold below the surface of the planet.
Christophsis also isn’t without its share of fortune-seekers looking to strike it rich the way the daring often did before the arrival of the major mining companies. Although most of the surface mines are kept under tight control, some spacers still manage to slip into the asteroid thickets and harvest valuable cargo from the ground there.
Chaleydonia, the teal-hued capital of Christophsis, is the largest major city on the planet and center of commerce and social life.
Because of the giant crystals harvested as construction material for the vast majority of its structures, it’s known to residents simply as
“Crystal City.”
Despite being the site of multiple major ground battles during the Clone Wars, Crystal City saw very little in the way of long-term harm to its growth. Because of the use of local crystals as the backbone for construction, Chaleydonians were able to use a special “re-seeding” process to grow back most of the war’s damage within months.
The New Tagge Mercantile Hall is the dual seat of government and economic power on the planet. Built immediately after the founding of the first Christophsian mining concern, the Hall is mostly occupied by high-volume materials traders managing sales and acquisitions for the industrial and commercial interests of Christophsis.
While most offworld business matters are handled discreetly in high-altitude or orbital facilities, the Mercantile hall is one of the few places on the planet’s surface where offworlders are at least as prevalent as natives.
Consequently, this is one of the few places where a fixed Imperial garrison is assigned, given that billions of credits change accounts in here each day.
On the very fringes of Crystal City sits Christophsis’s densest population of Kerkoidens, the third-most-represented species on the planet. While the residents call it “Hiren Maldine,” Kerkoidese for “Maldinian’s Hope,”
most of the non-Kerkoiden residents of the city simply know it as Little Kerkoidia.
Little Kerkoidia is notable for being the only spot in the city where arboreal life flourishes, as the Kerkoidens erected a large savannah-styled arboretum in the center of the neighborhood.
The arboretum is also kept stocked with a small supply of Kerkoiden Farrabeasts, a grassland animal featured prominently in Kerkoiden cooking.
The subterranean city of Deep Mooritona stands out among the numerous cities of Christophsis for being a real experiment. As surface mines became less and less profitable, many of the mining facilities moved deeper and deeper underground. While this opened up access to richer sources of materials, it also presented logistical challenges, as planetside supply lines became crowded and slow.
Deep Mooritona was a proposed solution for that. Sitting at the junction of several core mine
access tunnels, Deep Mooritona started as the management facility in charge of directing traffic to the core mines. As technology and processes improved, supply line issues abated, but Deep Mooritona was still well-placed to make an impact on the larger and larger underground mines. Since deep delves into the mines took increasingly long periods of time, it became convenient to add to Deep Mooritona the resources necessary to support a long-term settlement, primarily to house miners and support personnel.
Today, Deep Mooritona remains a busy hub of activity for miners working long tours of duty in the core mines. While few make permanent homes here, preferring to stay for only months at a time, the city is central enough to all the mines that it maintains a year-round population in the hundreds of millions, making it one of Christophsis’s largest cities.
The Mooritona Canal is jokingly referred to by the miners of Deep Mooritona as “that big mistake.” Connected to a vast underground water system, the Mooritona Canal encircles Deep Mooritona and heads off in one direction into what appears to be a core mine access tunnel.
The first mining groups to tap into the surface at the location that would become Deep Mooritona attempted to branch out first in the direction of the Mooritona Canal. Believing the already-partially-bored route along the waterway would save effort, the miners bored the tunnel for about three kilometers before work abruptly halted and all the miners disappeared. Follow-up investigative crews found no remains of the miners, and in the interim, other mine access tunnels had been
started. After the fact, geological surveyors the intersection of several major fault lines, the Sea is thought to be caused by a naturally-occurring seismic event that breaks down crystal growths after a certain amount of time.
The crystals of the Great Crystal Sea are highly prized by both artists and engineers, for obviously different reasons. The crystals from the Sea are extraordinarily resilient, and they are ideal for shaping and cutting into jewelry pieces. Additionally, the crystals react sympathetically to multiple forms of energy, and Christophsian scientists have been working for years to adapt them into power generation devices. These dual facts have been the cause of at least one notable incident where a Christophsian noble was hit by a stun shot and then subsequently vaporized.
Even though the crystals from the Great Crystal Sea are potentially valuable, few venture to the sea to harvest them. The terrain is notoriously unsteady and dangerous, being known to swallow excavating parties whole. Crystals in the sea have also been known to cause strange feedback loops in the repulsorlifts of certain types of vehicles, compounding the issue.
One of the first regions on Christophsis turned to a profitable resource-gathering site is the Farinom Impact Zone. Fifty kilometers south of Crystal City sits this large scarred plain, the site on the planet where asteroids most frequently fall. Believed to be caused by gravitational
“eddies” in the gravity well of Christophsis, the Farinom Impact Zone sees over three hundred asteroid impacts every year.
Although the danger posed by an asteroid falling onto someone’s head can’t be overlooked, the Impact Zone is rich with minerals ready-extracted from the broken asteroids that pockmark the surface. A global sensor net currently tracks the movement of the asteroids, and most of the large mining companies schedule resource retrieval around those warnings.
While that information is kept proprietary, it’s not unheard of for individuals to venture out into the Impact Zone in an attempt to strike it rich. Fottari Zubo, one of the first Kerkoidens to manage a mining company, is said to have made his first hundred thousand credits by rolling the dice at the Farinom Impact Zone and turning his profits into a business. How true the story is remains unknown, as most scavengers in the Impact Zone rarely have the resources to gather much in between the trips the larger companies make.
The very first thing that drew speculators into the Christoph system was its picturesque and unusually dense asteroid belt system.
Composed of three different asteroid belts, orbital positions at various points in the system are thick with asteroids, providing on the one
hand quite a collection of resources, but on the other, a massive navigational hazard.
The Barren, the asteroid belt located closest to the star in the middle of the Christoph system is the most dangerous to access and consequently, the least profitable and least used. Orbiting at a relatively short distance from the star, these asteroids move unusually quickly. As such, collisions over the years have ground the belt down to very small micro-asteroids.
Few would even consider the Barren as more than a curiosity but for the fact that the star Christoph has an unusually high rate of coronal mass injection activity. Every few hours, a wave of energy from the star surges over portions of the Barren, exciting some of the material contained within. These asteroids glow for days at a time, during which radioactive fuel material can be extracted. It also provides for an observable spectacle; visible from high orbit as far out as Christophsis.
The Hammers are so named for two reasons.
They were originally called the Hammers because they represented an enormous navigation hazard to light freighters and exploration vessels trying to make it to Christophsis.
After the planet was popularized as a center of mining, the mining corporations tried rebranding the belt as the “Tepasi Hammers of Christophsis” because of their unique interaction with Christophsis’s gravity well and its Farinom Impact Zone. While the new name didn’t stick, it’s undeniable that the Hammers
function effectively as another tool in the mining companies’ toolbox.
At the very edge of the Christoph system, beyond the orbit of its outermost planet, Erodsis, sits the largest asteroid belt in the system, the Halo. The Halo belt is the most accessible to newcomers in the system, as it’s farthest from the monitored spacelanes.
Unfortunately, its accessibility also means that it’s the most picked-through of the resource mines. It’s not uncommon for a prospective miner to set down on a promising asteroid in the Halo and find several deep tap shafts already dug into its core, with abandoned mining equipment simply left there.
The Halo was the very first of the asteroid belts in the Christoph system to be noticed, and it was inspection of this belt by crews plotting the Corellian Run that originally drew visitors into the Savareen sector.
While the vast skyscrapers of Christophsis’s large cities might lead one to think Christophsis has few mysteries left, the vast caverns underground would give that assumption the lie. The mining corporations of Christophsis have made themselves masters of the surface, but what lies below is its own world.
A common sight in the underlevels of many large metropolises and ecumenopolises, duracrete slugs are large silica-consuming parasites. Believed to have originated in the Core Worlds, probably Coruscant, these large mollusks feed off of building materials, especially duracrete. They rarely interact with people, but they can be very destructive to property.
Skills: Resilience Talents: None Abilities: Silhouette 2
Equipment: Consume [Resilience, Damage 10, Critical -, Range: Engaged, Breach 2, Prepare 2]
This leathery-winged avian predator makes its home in high aeries wherever there are strong wind currents, and as a result, they’re commonly found in cities and mountains alike.
Hawk-bats are most often found in large groups, and they’d hunt their prey – duracrete slugs among them –by mobbing it and tearing it to pieces. Hawk-bats are not threatening to
Abilities: Flyer (Hawk-bats are excellent flyers, see EotE core rulebook p.202)
Equipment: Fell Swoop [Coordination, Damage 3, Critical 3, Range: Engaged, Vicious 1]
Of all the creatures that make their homes deep underground the surface of Christophsis, this one is perhaps the most commonly seen, as reported by the miners of Deep Mooritona. The aquanid is a large, water-dwelling spider. These spiders are known to be fiercely individualistic, rarely coexisting with even their own kind.
Capable of growing up to a meter in length, the aquanids will prey on anything they can isolate and attack, even other aquanids.
Skills: Athletics 1, Brawl 3, Cool 1, Deception 2, Perception 1, Stealth 2, Vigilance 1
Talents: None
Abilities: Amphibious (aquanids may breathe underwater without penalty and never suffer movement penalties for traveling through water), Paralyzing venom (targets hit by the aquanid’s “bite” attack must make an Average ( ) Resilience check or be immobilized for one round)
Equipment: Bite [Brawl, Damage 5, Critical 3, Range: Engaged, Pierce 1]
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Also referred to as “tunnel wraiths” by the few who have been unlucky enough to see them, these large, vole-like creatures dwell in the near-total-darkness of Christophsis’s vast underground caverns. Fiercely territorial, subterrics live in large dens of dozens or more – reports from surviving miners only report experiencing several. Subterrics rarely hunt people or large animals as prey; they’re only aggressive when confronted in their nests.
Unfortunately for most who dwell below the surface, though, subterrics are nearly invisible to the naked eye, possessing a gland that enables the subterric to absorb energy on the electromagentic spectrum, including visible light.
Skills: Athletics, Brawl, Stealth, Survival, Vigilance
Talents: None
Abilities: Energy Leech (Subterrics have +1 defense against any energy-based weapons), Imperceptible (Subterrics are effectively invisible to the naked eye; sensing them requires a Hard ( ) Perception check) Equipment: Rip and tear [Brawl, Damage 5, Critical 4, Range: Engaged, Vicious 2]
Christophsian miners come from all over the galaxy and all walks of life, although many of them are humans, Rodians, or Kerkoiden.
Skills: Athletics, Brawl, Discipline, Knowledge (Education), Mechanics, Ranged (Light), Resilience, Survival
Talents: Strong Arm (treats thrown weapons as if they had one greater range)
Abilities: None
Equipment: Light blaster pistol [Ranged (Light), Damage 5, Critical 4, Range: Medium, Stun setting], Mining equipment (breath mask, mining laser, glow rods, scanner goggles)
The near-total hold that Christophsian mining enterprises have over the planet means that, no matter what you think you’re doing, you’re always doing business with someone. Those individuals in high positions with a corporation or very successful individual businessmen have a huge degree of control over the life of the average Christophsian.
Skills: Charm 1, Computers 1, Cool 1, Deception 1, Knowledge (Core Worlds) 1, Knowledge (Education) 1, Negotiation 3, Streetwise 1 Talents: Nobody’s Fool 1 (May upgrade
incoming Charm, Coercion, or Deception checks once), Smooth Talker 2 (May spend to add
to Negotiation checks), Natural Negotiator (Once per session, may reroll any Cool or Negotiation check)
Abilities: None
Equipment: Holdout blaster [Ranged (Light), Damage 5, Critical 4, Range: Short, Stun setting], Datapad, 1000-credit credit chip
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