Gesium

System: Gesium
Hex Location: 2129
Star Type: Triple G1 V, D (close), B4 V (distant)
Number of Worlds: 14
Gas Giants: 4
Planetoid Belt: Comet and 2 asteroid belts

Starport Type: B
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Dangerous (effects are immediate, but not life-threatening—operating without a filter makes you sick, -3 to all d20 rolls)
Surface Water: 20%
Population: Medium sized population (40 million)
Political Affiliation: Bern Monarchy, Carrick Grand Marches
Notes: Gesium is a world shrouded in thick clouds and constant low light.  Part of a rare triple star system, the yellow star and the white dwarf make up a close pair around which the planets circle, but the blue star is a more distant companion, and has its own gas giant and other small, related planetary system.  Thick forests of strange, fungoid plants lined with bio-luminescent cells cover much of the surface, and present an edible—if not always incredibly palatable—feast for the colonists.

Typical Gesian forest

Gesium is famous for its high tech medical research as well, and they are a leading developer of cybernetic implants.  It's also famous for other high tech items as well.  Real military-grade stuff, I mean—one of the biggest challenges the people of Gesium face is the constant threat of espionage and smuggling.  Because of this, they have the full support of the Arch Duke in developing top of the line security as well.  Gesium is also infamous as being a difficult place to visit casually—although their security is certainly not completely air-tight.

Gesium also is a world of archaeological interest.  It was once a world of the Death Sages, and some of their older buildings, cities and other items of archaeological interest remain.  In fact, there are at least a few actual Death Sages that remain, and there has been cordial contact between them and the colonists, although they mostly ignore one another.  They are reticent about their reasons for abandoning Gesium, however, as it's clear that the hold-outs are just that and that the Death Sages otherwise retreated from Gesium in the past.  Persistent rumors of there being something hidden on Gesium that frightened away even the Death Sages remain, although no hint of it has been found so far.

The colonists are Carrick-normal; Bernese people for the most part, but there were also small populations of Idacharians who, undergoing a technological dark age, lost the ability to leave their world.  Their culture had evolved somewhat, and they no longer followed the Old Ones cult—in fact, since the coming of the colonists, they've heartily embraced the Bernese churches, and most follow a Christian confessional tradition.  They've also heartily embraced the technical acumen that the colonists brought with them, and added to it some of their own know-how—although the lost the ability to make jump drives, they had thoroughly explored their system using traditional drives, and had otherwise developed many other technical wonders of various types.

NOTE: With the publication of these details for Gesium, I've finished the Carrick Grand Marches.  The next step, which I think is obvious, is to detail the four or five systems that are contiguous to the Grand Marches and mostly allied with it, to complete the little area completely.  The Carthen Colony, culturally similar, but part of the Revanchists politically, seems like it would be the next obvious target for mapping.  After that... we'll see where I decide to bounce next.

Jhantor

System: Jhantor
Hex Location: 2028
Star Type: Double K6 V, G1 V (close)
Number of Worlds: 13
Gas Giants: 8 (1 Hot Jupiter)
Planetoid Belt: Comet and Asteroid belt

Starport Type: A
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 40%
Population: Super-populated (35 billion)
Political Affiliation: Bern Monarchy, Carrick Grand Marches
Notes: Jhantor was once a thriving civilization of its own that eventually threw in its lot with the Grand Duke and the Monarchy overall.  It was a rather populous (a few billion) world settled many generations ago by Altairans, but it was used as a dumping ground by the Marian Empire of a number of Jaffan and Psarian criminals and political dissidents.  Even later, many generations ago still, Cilindareans and other descendants of Earth-humans moved in, and are now the majority population.  Numerous aliens also have settled here.  And all of this was before the Bernese appeared in the area, and the Jhantorians agreed to be peacefully annexed to the Carrick Grand Marches.

Jhantor, therefore, is much more cosmopolitan, much more developed, and much more established, with its own long-lived regional culture, than most other worlds in the Carrick colony. It entered the colony peacefully as an already established civilization, where one would expect it to have remained merely an allied world at best.  In some ways, this contributes to the economic prosperity of Carrick overall.  The Jhantor system is famous for its export of refined fuel, diamonds mined in the carbon-rich asteroid belt, its financial district, and other service industries.

Jhantor is also an ecumenopolis; i.e., the entire world is one huge city.  However, that doesn't mean that there aren't fairly sizable parks, preserves, and areas that have gone feral and been largely abandoned to the elements to reclaim.  Like many cosmopolitan ecumenopoli, animals that were either brought for experimentation, for past zoological gardens, or for pets or livestock, have gone feral and roam much of the less well patrolled parts of the planet.

Jhantor is also famous for its spires, that rise literally miles above the surface of the planet, and extend out beyond the atmosphere, into space.  It's also infamous for corruption, which is probably inevitable with a population this large.  It's not exactly a Tars Bruttium-level  Space Sin City, but it's got it's own reputation as a place with plenty of organized crime, decadent pleasures, and more.

Eliane

System: Eliane
Hex Location: 1928
Star Type: Single K8 Ia
Number of Worlds: 11
Gas Giants: 3
Planetoid Belt: None

Starport Type: E
World Size: Larger than Earth
Atmosphere Type: Dangerous—immediate but not life-threatening.  Without a filter, sickness which imposes -4 on all d20 rolls.
Surface Water: 30%
Population: Medium sized (110 million)
Political Affiliation: Bern Monarchy, Carrick Grand Marches
Notes: There are remarkably few worlds in known space that occupy systems with stars as odd as a red supergiant; in fact, it's generally believed that such is statistically almost impossible to exist; the forces that cause a massive, old star to swell to red supergiant status like Antares of Betelgeuse would also cause it to sweep away with solar winds, or swallow whole any planets in a habitable zone.  And yet, here were have Eliane, and planet bathed in harsh but surprisingly not terribly hot light from a massive red supergiant that fills much of the sky.

However, there are some aspects of Eliane that seem weird.  While it is a large world; much more comfortable for hulks than for regulars, with an atmosphere that won't kill you exactly, but which is slowly poisonous and requires a filter or other breath mask at a minimum.  Because of the blazing sun and its UV radiation, most life lives in deep chasms, both native (non-sentient) and colonial.  Many colonial building have been "gravved" by warlocks to counter the effects of the heavy gravity so that normal people can live here comfortably, but this is also a world where hulks are often more comfortable, and much of the population, curiously, is made up of emancipated robots rather than biological colonists.  Emancipated robots are often unusual in nature and personality, and many of them are recruited by the unscrupulous, who take advantage of their relative social inexperience and artificial autism-like behaviors, to engage in various shady activities.

Water is somewhat scarce on Eliane; mostly concentrated in polar ice caps and glaciers deep in the bottom of craters and canyons that receive little or even no sunlight, but which steam as the temperature rises.  Tidal effects from the massive gravitational pull of Eliane's supergiant sun also warps and distorts the planet, causing an abnormally high level of volcanic activity.  Mostly this is less explosive, and manifests as lava lakes, rivers and other features usually associated with water, but huge shield volcanoes and the occasional pyroclastic blast are a hazard that needs to be accounted for by the colonials.  In spite of this, there are very solid tectonic cratons that seem very stable, and even have fossils millions of years old that appear to resemble the remains—both biological and architectural—of the Greys.  This has led scientists to speculate that possibly Eliane's current position—either it's distance from the sun, or it's presence in this system at all—is artificial, although what could cause an entire planet to migrate is unknown, and no ruins anywhere on the planet can be interpreted to give any clue to answer that riddle.

Eliane is also famous for having a gigantic, ancient crater, as big as a continent, that is a scar from some massive ancient impact that nearly destroyed it altogether.  This leads scientists to also believe that life on the planet is not native, and must have been artificially seeded at some point in the distant past.

Tethys

System: Tethys
Hex Location: 2128
Star Type: Double A1 V, G9 V (close)
Number of Worlds: 11
Gas Giants: 3
Planetoid Belt: Asteroid and comet belt

Starport Type: C
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 90%
Population: Large (2 billion)
Political Affiliation: Bern Monarchy, Carrick Grand Marches
Notes: The first colonized world in the Carrick is Tethys, an extremely watery world (although the seas are often shallow; less than a thousand feet deep over vast expanses) with no native inhabitants.  While there was plenty of marine life native to the world, it's also become a vast farm world in many ways for giant mats of floating plankton, edible seaweed, and fish of various origins, many imported from off-world.

There's also a fair bit of industry; the vast reserves of water as cooling and a solution for chemicals, etc. is important. The water itself can be converted fairly easily into refined fuel, which is available at multiple locations across the planet, and which is actually a major export. Overall, this tends to be a prosperous and peaceful world.  This of course brings with it demand for more services.  A Dhangetan is rumored to operate a crime ring from a "palace" somewhere in a deeper part of the sea.  Smuggling of banned substances, spice, weapons, and even slave labor is not unknown.

Cetians make up a large portion of the settlers here, which makes sense, but there are a lot of humans too, who live in "sea stacks"—skyscraper-like buildings that actually only rise a few stories above the surface in most cases, but which stretch downwards to anchor on the sea floor.  Floating ship cities that can migrate across the surface are also common, although "city" might be overstating it, as even the biggest of these rarely hold more than a couple tens of thousands of people at max capacity.

Lyrae VI

System: Lyrae VI
Hex Location: 2027
Star Type: Single M9 V
Number of Worlds: 10
Gas Giants: 1
Planetoid Belt: None

Starport Type: A
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 50%
Population: Tiny outpost 95,000
Political Affiliation: Bern Monarchy, Carrick Grand Marches
Notes: Sometimes we get interested results with random system generation; an A type starport with only a tiny population?  This is clearly a special situation, and I decided to make it Grand Duke Ander Gadriar's palace world.  While the "permanent" population is under 100,000, there could (and often are) upward of 200% of that population in terms of "temporary" population; visitors, soldiers, etc.

The Ducal Palace

A fairly large (although mostly only populated by robots) orbital space station maintains a planet-wide shield and strict control of who comes on or off of Lyrae VI.  There's often a relatively long "waiting room" in orbital of ships that are being vetted for passage—a process that can take hours for smaller ships, but can take weeks for larger ships with larger crew.  The Grand Duke knows that he has many enemies and takes his security very seriously.  Because he's fairly popular locally in his Grand Duchy, it's not hard to recruit Bernese citizens to maintain his palace world too.

The surface of the planet is itself quite Earth-like in most respects; there's less surface water, so there are, in general, larger and more frequent deserts, but there's plenty of everything else, and the small number of inhabitants usually spend their time in areas that are both temperate and filled with beautiful, garden-like dramatic scenery.

More of the palace complex

There are no natives, but a few people do not live in the palace complex itself; either by self-imposed exile, or because they are game rangers, or have other reasons for wandering farther afield, but they are very rare.  The interesting thing about this is, however, that there are a few political prisoners located deep in the hinterlands.  There are only a few of these, but they range from insurgents and revolutionaries that fought for independence or anarchy from the Bernese colonial government, Revanchist and Imperial spies, Dhangetan criminal overlords, and more.  Most of these prisoners are too valuable to be executed or remanded to standard prison or gaol—they know too much about something which makes holding them risky, but doing anything else is even more risky.

Prisoner transfer far from the palace

New Vesta

System: New Vesta
Hex Location: 2127
Star Type: Double A5 V, O1 V (distant)
Number of Worlds: 14 (7/7)
Gas Giants: 3/1
Planetoid Belt: Kuiper belt

Starport Type: E
World Size: Moon-sized
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 10%
Population: Small settlements (600,000 people)
Political Affiliation: Bern Monarchy, Carrick Grand Marches
Notes: New Vesta is mostly a rural farm world.  Having no original native inhabitants of intelligence it's been rather extensively set up to provide for the needs of many in the colony; it especially feeds the many mouths of Shahar, which does not have the capability of growing much of its own food.  Infamous for being rather quiet, one can travel by road or foot or speeder for days without seeing another person; but usually seeing signs of agriculture; robot combines, well-ordered fields, orchards and grazing areas, etc.  Water is brought largely from off-world; low orbit captured centaurs or comets made primarily of ice is the primary vector on what is otherwise an arid surface.

Resting farm equipment in the prairies of New Vesta

There are also a fair number of independent, isolationist, introverted type farmers who have independent, self-sufficient family farms.  These salt-of-the-earth types are the stereotype for New Vesta, but there are at least as many folks who work for either corporate or government sponsored farms, or even work the lands owned directly by the Grand Duke.

While a good 60% or so of the surface is tamed and farmed; the other 40% or so is truly wild, and there are many dangerous predators and prey animals both.  The Grand Duke sometimes brings his more adventurous guests on safari here, where they face incredibly dangerous wildlife that lives in the areas that are not settled.

Shahar

System: Shahar
Hex Location: 2026
Star Type: Single B4 V
Number of Worlds: 6
Gas Giants: 4 (Hot Jupiter)
Planetoid Belt: Kuiper and asteroid belt

Starport Type: D
World Size: Moon-sized
Atmosphere Type: Thin
Surface Water: 20% (mostly ice)
Population: Super-populated (15 billion)
Political Affiliation: Bern Monarchy, Carrick Grand Marches
Notes: In spite of it's relatively spartan amenities, this is an incredibly thickly populated world.  Centaur-like natives (see cover of Burroughs' The Moon Maid, especially the Frazetta one) are common and give the system its name, but the real wealth of the system is in the precious metals mines, which are incredibly productive compared to what most rocky inner planets are able to offer.  The high population is partly due to this gold and silver rush, which has engulfed the planet and caused a lot of conflict between original settlers, natives and newcomers—many of whom are not Bernese citizens.

Small colonial town at night

The planetary governor, Sholy Henders has been forced to put strict controls on settlement and building, so most that wander the surface do so in the equivalent of tents.  This is to protect both the colonial towns and cities and the natives.  Vast teeming numbers of people and aliens live in temporary mobile orbital stations, often made from salvaged colonial arks or other decommissioned large ships that could be quickly adapted into a space station, and ships come and go at a furious pace.

Services are growing quickly for space travel as well; although most travelers merely skim the gas giants for unrefined fuel and get their ships fitted and maintained elsewhere in the Carrick colonial holdings.