Ssirik Akuar

Ssirik Akuar
Basic Information
Other names	The Sunset World
Crystal sphere	Unknown
Type	Planet
Type class	Earth body
Satellites	One moon
Satellite of	The Sun
Year length	20 weeks
Population summary	Illithidae, fungi and amorphs

Ssirik Akuar, also known as the Sunset World, is a planet dominated by the illithids.

Overview

Ssirik Akuar is tidally locked with its dim red sun, meaning that one face, known as the Sunlands, is constantly lit by the sun, while the opposite side, known as the Nightlands, is covered in perpetual darkness. Between the two hemispheres lies a crescent-shaped habitable-zone locked in perpetual twilight. From the habitable-zone, the sun appears as a small sullen red orb lying a finger's width above the horizon, while a huge copper-coloured moon looms above in the dark blue sky, accompanied by twinkling stars. The sun seldom shifts from its position low on the horizon, which accounts for the planet's alternate name, the Sunset World.

When traveling towards the sun, the lands grow hotter and more arid until the Sunlands are bathed in an eternal noon, where water boils when it touches the parched earth. In the opposite direction, the Nightlands form a region of frigid cold, covered with ice. Between the Sunlands and the Nightlands, the twilit habitable region forms a ring, thickest at the poles and thinnest at the equator, between the glaciers and the salt flats that cover the opposite halves of the globe. A chill wind blows from the Nightlands toward the warmth, as does water from the frozen glaciers, first as chilled fresh meltwater, and then as tepid, briny rivers. This flow of air and water never stops or changes direction, shaping the trees, bushes, and even the land itself.

As with any other world, the habitable-zone of the Sunset World experiences its own seasons. Over the course of twenty weeks, the sun dips a little below the horizon, shrinking in size and causing the perpetual winds to cool and weaken. Just before the onset of the hottest season, the sun rises until it reaches a point a little above its usual position, growing rapidly to three times its usual size, causing the wind to strengthen to a torrential gale.

The habitable zone between the ice and the salty deserts typically consists of poorly drained land, swamps or shallow lakes. Deep bodies of water and mountains are rare. Water is most often found in pools and seeps, and seldom in waterfalls or rapids. Fogs and mists are common near bodies of water, as the changes in temperature are so sudden and great. From the habitable zone, the moon rises as a thin crescent near the sun, waxing until it sets toward the Nightlands over a period of ten days, after which it appears to repeat the cycle some ten days later.

Inhabitants

The plant life of Ssirik Akuar is black rather than green, as green plants cannot thrive in the available light. In the sunward regions, some of these plants are gray or silver due to hairy or waxy surfaces that shed excess light and retain moisture. In most regions, however, the vegetation has the color of pitch. Some of the larger trees and bushes are streamlined in the direction of the wind, having oval-shaped trunks and sunward-pointing branches. Others grow rapidly in periods of great heat and light, and occasionally collapse under the impact of the strong winds that follow. Still others avoid the worst of the high wind by folding their leaves or by moving about in search of shelter. Some of these more motile species actively defend themselves against animal life, or even attempt to trap animals for food, either with viscous leaves and simple water traps for small creatures or with moving tendrils and spiked branches or pits for larger creatures.

Fungoid life is abundant on the Sunset World, including many motile and highly aggressive lifeforms which resemble certain species commonly found in subterranean regions on other planets. Also reasonably abundant are those animal lifeforms known as amorphs, which include all boneless and shapeless creatures commonly known as oozes, trappers, deadly puddings, ropers, jellies, mimics, and lurkers. These, like the fungi, are aggressive and incredibly dangerous, including surface trappers that masquerade as gravel banks or sandy clearings, and ropers that conceal themselves among the stumps of forests.

The dominant form of animal life is referred to as the illithidae; i.e. illithid-like creatures which include the illithids themselves, as well as a range of other lifeforms, some of which , surprisingly enough, resemble the creature known as the carrion crawler. All of the Illithidae have four limbs with four digits each; most have an internal skeleton of chitin rather than bone; all have tentacles arranged around a beaked or lamprey-like mouth in some multiple of four; all are amphibious; and all have a tough, thick skin generally covered by a protective layer of mucus (though in the sunward regions it may be rough and sharklike instead). All Illithidae have a larval form that lives for a period inside some other organism, typically a creature killed by its parent. Many of the Illithidae are equivalent to mammals or reptiles of other terrestrial planets, like Oerth or Toril.

The animals of Ssirik Akuar, particularly those of the illithid-like body form, are often sentient or semi-sentient. Many are even resistant to magical or psionic attack, and some of these creatures are even psionically empowered. These animals are capable of long periods of inactivity followed by periods of furious motion as they encounter prey or predators. Their reflexes are exceptionally quick, and they are strong and difficult to kill. All are voracious, as resources in the habitable zones is rather sparse. As a result, creatures of this world eat large amounts in short periods of time, as the flesh and vegetation of Ssirik Akuar is prone to rapid decay even at low temperatures. In spite of the scarcity of food, some creatures of Ssirik Akuar grow to exceptional size.

While a number of illithids choose to live solitary lives, the majority choose to live in settlements of between 50 and 1,000 individuals. These settlements generally consist of burrows and a cluster of stone towers on the leeward side of a hill. Entrances to the complexes are never at ground level; they are only accessible by air. This is presumably a precaution against vermin and large predators, as well as possible seasonal flooding. The towers are of varying thickness and height, and often have a cross section determined by the prevailing winds. Ranged about the central towers are the orderly fields and pastures that provide most of the settlement’s needs. Illithid adults do not tend these; even junior members of the community merely supervise the work of various enslaved creatures.