The Nation of the 3 Lilies 6: The New Colonies

The New Colonies:
     Some additional colonies have been formed by the nation’s lizard
men.  The colony of Rogue Star is on a water world asteroid where the
lizard men have imported great lilies, floating seaweed and algae
colonies, and wooden platforms to live on.  Initially it was hoped the
colony would become wealthy exporting fish but imported species haven’t
done well against the natives and overfishing (especially of early on
when imported species were trying to establish themselves) has severely
hurt production.  Sharks and other large, dangerous fish still dominate
the asteroid.  The depths hide a secret the lizard men still don’t
suspect:  a lone eye of the deep that somehow ended up here.  The
colony’s population is poor and most are looking to emigrate.  With
reports of recent illithid sightings in the area, it may be that they
get their wish sooner than they’d like.
     Spear of Ogron (named after a legendary goblin artifact wielded
long ago by a great goblin chief of the same name, the spear is lost if
it was ever real in the first place) is on a lightly coniferously
forested asteroid that’s colder than most lizard men prefer (45 degrees
F at night to 62 degrees F in the day) but not harsh.  The lizard men
have taken to controlled logging of the asteroid and have pushed back
the primitive, stone age goblins that once inhabited the entire
surface.  Now the goblins survive only underground and in the areas
that have been cleared or are not yet under assault for timber.  They
are still primitive, tribal, and superstitious but have gained some
modern weapons as well as experience in how to fight their more
advanced, numerous, and powerful foes.  The lizard men have considered
hiring dwarven mercenaries to wipe all the goblins out and will
probably do so when they become a significant annoyance.  The lizard
men maintain a single small port town complete with wooden palisade and
ditch as well as a logging camp that moves with the loggers.  From
space it’s easy to see what areas were logged when as the forest is
encouraged to grow back as the loggers move on.  Oxen drag logs along
the single road that always leads from the logging camp to the port and
lizard men guards keep them safe.
     Stump Bog is a moor, a thickly swampy asteroid with plenty of
bogs, sinkholes, ppols, rock outcrops, ponds, and streams but primarily
scrub plant life.  It is hardly ideal but it is able to support a
population as well as not having any native intelligent life or large
predators.  Located relatively close to Swamp Mire and in the nation’s
interior, it was only natural that it would be colonized.  Small
communities dot the asteroid, exporting little but also relatively
self-sufficient.
     Green Hearth was a grassy, hilly asteroid supporting a few small
stands of trees.  The lizard men thought it ideal for farming but soon
discovered the ground was too rocky.  The asteroid was already home to
small animals (field mice, squirrels, rabbits, foxes, and a single
variety of small hawks were the largest) and had no native intelligent
life so it was easy to import sheep.  The lizard men have all but
irradicated the foxes and hawks.  They cull the sheep herds, exporting
mutton and wool, as well as trapping rabbits for their fur and food.
Since there are no predators there is no need to tend the herds and the
small asteroid’s populace seems lazy to visitors as they have little to
do much of the year.
     Two Claws was one of the earliest attempts at terraforming.
Originally it was a rocky world inhabited only by bugs with lichens,
mosses, algae, and small fungi at the base of the food chain.  The
lichens and masses had long since broken down a thin layer of soil but
with no plants to take root, things never went any further.  The lizard
men immediately introduced a large variety of vines, weeds, and bushes
that would produce food and even some birds and small mammals as well
as small frogs and fish to inhabit the local ponds.  This led to
several discoveries.  The main ones are that most of the asteroid’s
pools are linked by subterranean waterways and that it takes a long
time to turn rock into soil.  The lizard men of Two Claws live like
hermits, scattered about where they can fish a waterhole and raise a
garden.  They export little and the asteroid cannot support a larger
population.  The locals are hardy and stubborn, and aren’t about to
abandon their colony, however.
     Sand Trap is simply an asteroid completely composed of sand.  Few
plants can grow in sand (this is sand, not dirt or soil) but some have
adapted to do so here.  Small animals live here, among the scattered
plants and sands.  The sand sucks up all water that falls on it so the
plants run roots all the way to the core of the asteroid, tapping the
reservoir.  Some suggestion has been made that most of the plants of
the asteroid are now one, their roots having grown together deep in the
core.  Water can also be found on the surface in pitchers and pools
made by plants to attract animals (many such actually have stable
populations living in them).  The lizard men have found many ways to
use these plants, turning them into rope, paper, and a thick, fibrous
cloth that can make a plant-based substitute for leather armor (when
unhardened the cloth is still stiff enough to grant AC 9 but baking
makes it as good as hardened leather).  This material is strong enough
to have many uses and the ability to weave it together makes it ideal
for applications where leather is desired but the necessity of sewing
pieces of leather together makes it weaker or less practical. The
plants are also very nutritious and rapidly regrow as long as they
aren’t completely cut away (or have their roots severed).  The asteroid
does have danger, however, as quicksand forms randomly on the surface
and disappears just as quickly (new areas of quicksand can develop in
as quickly as two hours and will remain for 12 hours-8days).  For
man-sized and larger creatures, even the normal sands are hazardous,
acting as a slow sand (a slower quicksand) unless the person keeps
moving.  To combat these threats the lizard men weave huge mats to live
on that cover an acre or more and are secure to sturdy plants (the mats
leave holes for existing plants in the area to grow through).  This
limits the area that new plants can take root in, however.  The
asteroid has swallowed more than one spellajmming vessel over time, all
of which are presumably crushed and lying at the core now.
     The last of the new colonies is another terraforming project.
Semuanya’s Hearth was undoubtedly settled too soon but population
pressures on Sucking Mud forced this anyway.  The asteroid has some
dirt and soil and there is a rock core.  Water was brought in the form
of small ice asteroids and a variety of hearty weeds and scrub plants
as well as insects and other small animals added to make an ecosystem.
The asteroid had been transforming nicely, with small trees, bushes,
and vines growing beside the streams and ponds that are the center of
most of the local life.  Unfortunately, the ecosystem was neither
stable nor strong when lizard men overran the asteroid.  Semuanya’s
Hearth is poor, with no real exports and it still imports food under
government aid to survive.  Young lizard men usually leave to join the
navy or marines as soon as they are old enough but many return when
they decide to have a family or grow too old for continued service.
The colony is not only a drain on government resources but also in
worse shape than Sucking Mud with an atmosphere so foul that it kills
many young and old lizard men.  It has become the primary reason for
not allowing early colonization of the other asteroids under terraform.


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