C867530-9 812

C - Starport (routine)

8 - Planetary size (Earth-like)

6 - Atmosphere (standard)

7 - Hydrosphere (70% water)

5 - Population (hundreds of thousands)

3 - Government (self-perpetuating oligarchy)

0 - Law level (no prohibitions)

9 - Technology level (early stellar)

8 - Population multiplier (800 000)

1 - Planetoid belts (1)

2 - Gas giants (2)

::Nature::

The world is amazingly Earth-like in basic characteristics, though its dominant lifeform before the arrival of humans was a kind of multicellular, oxygen-producing alga (and its land-based, moss-like cousins). Human colonization has brought in a subset of terrestrial plants and animals which have since spread throughout the planet's only continent.

::History::

The world has been settled a little over 400 years ago by a sleeper ship. The initial population was just a couple hundred men and women, hailing from but one ethnic group, and filtered for absence of criminal tendencies, low aggression and high degree of conformity. Until recently, they were completely isolated from interstellar society.

During the first half of its history, the technological capabilities of the population dwindled as the original equipment from the ship broke down and the original colonists died - and the numbers of their descendants were insufficient to make a technological society possible. At its nadir, the inhabitants were reduced to using steam power, but as their numbers grew, they did gradually rediscover the lost (or previously inapplicable) arts of their ancestors.

Ten years ago, they have been contacted by interstellar explorers, who traded them jump technology and so access to galactic society. Due to the vast swaths of unclaimed land on the world, the pressure for exploration and colonization of the rest of the system and the galaxy is low, but foreign traders have been met with hospitality and serviceable ground-side starport facilities.

::Society::

What extrastellar visitors usually notice first is just how similar everyone looks - and this is not just a lack of cultural sensitivity; the world's people are quite closely related to one another. The genetic homogeneity also results in a relatively high rate of birth defects, which are generally accepted as a fact of life. The dominant fashion - very plain, full-body garb - tends to hide all but the worst of the deformities.

Another unusual facet is the near-absence of specialized law enforcement, and no written code of laws. People are expected to do whatever is socially acceptable to do, and to know what is and what is not. The primary means of dealing with nonconformists and criminals is social exclusion and ostracism - which in the early years of the colony often meant a sentence to starvation in the barren landscape.

The direct descendants of the sleeper ship captain, now numbering in the thousands, form the nominal planetary government which decides matters of highest import, but meets only rarely. Local leaders are generally selected by acclaim or consensus from among the population, and serve as dispute-settlers and judges.

::Adventure Hooks::

A local man has been convicted of the unthinkable - murder. He has been duly excluded from society, and nobody will even so much as talk to him or sell him food. When the player characters arrive, he turns to them for help as the only ones who aren't forbidden to listen to him - to help clear his name.

The planetary government turns to the arriving player characters for help - they have recently acquired a band of squatters on their world. Unlike the pacifistic and conformistic natives, these people are aggressive, violent and ostracism does not work on them - they aren't even part of society! Desperate for aid, the ruling assembly thinks that maybe they can fight offworlders by using other offworlders, namely: the player characters.

A visiting dignitary from the player characters' polity of origin asks for help with negotiations. Apparently, he is attempting to close down a protectorate treaty with the locals, who are not convinced that the greater stellar society is as violent and criminal as the diplomat claims, and are therefore not inclined to purchase protection. He asks to provide him with convincing arguments and evidence, whatever they might be.