• Overview
  • Map
  • Areas
  • Points of Interest
  • Characters
  • Races
  • Classes
  • Factions
  • Monsters
  • Items
  • Spells
  • Feats
  • Quests
  • One-Shots
  • Game Master
  1. Drift💫A Space Odyssey
  3. Lore

Thalassa-Nine

At a glance

  • World type. Ocean homeworld of the Vellari, in the Core.

  • Main trade. Ice hauling. Its tug fleets catch comets and ice chunks and tow them to dry worlds.

  • Ruled by. The Grand Council, seated at Tidehall.

  • Constellation. The Vellari constellation is Thalassa-Nine, Brinelight, Deepmere and Salt Crown.

  • Port. Sealpoint Orbital, 200 berths.

  • Reputation. Proud, wet and slow to forgive. A Vellari haul crew will buy you a drink or break your nose, depending on how you talk about their house.

Role in the Drift

Most fresh water in the Drift started as Vellari ice, and that trade starts on Thalassa-Nine. The old ice-hauling houses keep their home docks here. Each season their tug fleets fly to the cold edges of star systems. They catch comets and ice chunks with nets and harpoon lines and tow them to dry worlds and stations, where the ice is cut up and melted.

The Grand Council decides where the big haul fleets go. Friendly worlds get their ice on time. Worlds that cross the Council find their ice late. In droughts the Council sends free relief hauls, and many Rim stations would not exist without them.

History

  • USD 0003. The Vellari haul fleets start regular ice runs to dry worlds.

  • USD 0023. The Vellari constellation forms. Brinelight makes reef composites, Deepmere grows kelp fuel and Salt Crown makes brine chemicals.

  • USD 0041-0046. Piracy grows across the Drift. Haul tugs start flying with armed guards.

  • USD 0082. The Salt Crown ice-jacking wave. Syndicates hijack Vellari tugs on the Salt Crown corridor and sell the ice. The Council starts posting its big bounties.

  • USD 0101. Signal tampering spikes. The fleets stop trusting long-range orders and send messages by fast courier.

The Grand Council

The Council is made up of the heads of the old ice-hauling houses. It meets in the round hall at Tidehall. Each season it reads out the haul routes, and crews pack the bars nearby to hear where they are going.

  • The houses. Old family firms that own the tugs, hire the crews and keep the profits. They fight each other for the best routes.

  • Relief hauls. Free ice sent to worlds in drought. They make the Council loved on the Rim.

  • Bounties. The Council posts some of the biggest bounties in the Drift on ice jackers. The bounty office is at Salt-Scribe Inlet.

  • Envoys. Dry worlds send envoys to Pelagic Concorde to buy season contracts. They wait a long time.

Economy

The planet lives on ice hauling and everything around it. Brinekite Array builds nets, harpoon lines and tow cables and refits tugs. Mirrorfold Quays is the home dock of the fleets. Pilot academies at Pelagic Concorde train new tug crews. Imports are alloys, ceramics, engine parts and food from dry worlds.

A good season makes the whole planet rich for a year. A bad season, with lost tugs and stolen ice, leaves crews broke and bars empty.

Places

  • Tidehall. Seat of the Grand Council. Round halls, the fleet memorial pier and the Calibration Tank, the haul crews' favorite bar.

  • Brinekite Array. Gear town and tug yards, with test lagoons where tow lines are pulled until they snap.

  • Mirrorfold Quays. Home docks of the haul fleets on one side, and a clean Core port full of customs officers on the other.

  • Pelagic Concorde. Meeting halls for dry-world envoys and the tug pilot academies.

  • Salt-Scribe Inlet. Where the Council investigates ice jacking and posts its bounties.

  • Sealpoint Orbital. The main port in orbit. Busy, shiny and full of Authority police.

Visiting crews

  • Expect a long wait at Sealpoint Orbital. Authority customs checks every ship, and a small bribe moves you up the line.

  • In season, the outer ring fills with haul tugs. Escort work and deck-hand jobs are easy to find.

  • Do not insult a hauling house in a dockside bar.

  • Vellari water here is the best in the Drift, and it is cheaper here than anywhere else.

Life on Thalassa-Nine

People live in dense, wet housing on floating platforms. Children learn to swim before they walk and to throw a net before they read. Almost every family has someone on a haul crew, and most families have lost someone at the cold edge. Dock bars have walls of tug photos. The music is slow blues on old speakers, and the favorite food is salt broth with kelp bread.

Languages. Vellari first, Trade Common everywhere.

Relations with other worlds

  • Brinelight. Sells composite hulls and canned food to the fleets. The Brinelight Composite Cartel lobbies the Council for tug contracts.

  • Deepmere. Sells kelp fuel to the fleets. The Deepmere Fuel Syndic wants a bigger share of the ice routes.

  • Salt Crown. Makes chemicals, and its corridor is where most ice jacking happens.

  • Kedra. A Human Core world that buys a lot of ice and argues about the price every year.

  • Slipwind. Keth beacons mark the lanes the haul fleets use.

  • Brightline. Synthborn banks hold the houses' money.

Crime and danger

  • Ice jacking. Pirates and syndicates hijack tugs and sell the ice. Most jackings happen far out, but docked tugs with full tow lines get hit too.

  • Bribery. Customs officers at the Core ports take money. Everyone knows it.

  • House feuds. Hauling houses fight over routes, sometimes with fists and sometimes with sabotage.

  • Storms. Big ocean storms close the floating cities for days.