Kyuli

System: Kyuli
Hex Location: 2326
Star Type:  Single F4 V
Number of Worlds: 3
Gas Giants: N
Planetoid Belt: Kuiper belt and 4 separate asteroid belts

Starport Type: C
World Size: Moon-sized
Atmosphere Type: Thin
Surface Water: 54%
Population: Medium (700 million)
Political Affiliation: Dhangetan Cartel
Tags: Secret cabal, Sealed menace, Primitive aliens

Notes: Sometimes colloquially called a zombie plague world, that isn't strictly speaking true, but close enough for most.  The native inhabitants of Kyuli are eyeless vampire-ghoul creatures that are mostly humanoid in form, but which are fairly low intelligence, ad which are pathologically aggressive hunters who engage in feeding frenzies readily.  The colonists on this world, who mostly maintain it as a stopping point on the way towards somewhere else, stay normally in strongly walled cities and settlements; they number in significantly smaller numbers than the population itself (less than a million across the entire system) or on raft-settlements, or on islands, or otherwise in areas where the vampire-ghouls can't reach.  There is some other aquaculture farming and other industry on the planet.  Precious metals are mined in a not terribly insignificant quantity, but not enough to have sparked a boom town or rush scenario.  This is partly because the atmosphere is very thin, the air is cold, and gravity is relatively low, making it all around a rather uncomfortable place to live.  There is a smaller albeit lucrative business in hunting the vampire-ghouls for sport, which the Dhangetans encourage.

There are ruins scattered here and there on the planet of unknown provenance that do not resemble Ancient ruins, and in fact seem to be similar to early Marian ruins of some sort or other.  The vampire-ghouls also have been found to have at least some human DNA in them.  Some have suspected that Kyuli was settled by the Marians many centuries ago and something happened that caused massive and rapid mutation to transform the humans into savage cannibals, the results of which are the current vampire-ghouls.  But if this is indeed the case, nobody knows what could have caused this.

In reality, there is a sealed cause for the mutation buried deep in a desert at the south pole.  Here, the remnants of an old death-sage (or cyber-lich, if you prefer) laboratory still exists, and the small cabal of three of them still rule over the planet, tolerating the modern settlers and colonists for the time being and refusing to reveal themselves to them.  They not only caused the mutation of the original Marian colonists, but they do manage to maintain some kind of psionic control over their actions to a limited degree, and use them not only as shocktroops but as scouts—or they would if they left their world.  For reasons that are unclear to everyone who knows anything about them (which are very few indeed; possibly the Dhangetan planetary governor and his inner circle, at most, and a handful of other well-connected occult and conspiracy type guys who pay attention to that kind of thing) they are making no effort at the moment to capitalize on this army, however.  Some believe that they have gone torpid and "hibernate" while others simply believe that the motives of unliving death-sages are inscrutable and it shouldn't be surprising when they're not understood.