Vaxanide

22 Jul, 2025

The following is spoiler-free for players in Skulls Without Number. Lege deinceps.

Vaxanide, the Wild Frontier

Vaxanide is a frontier world, but growing at a breakneck pace by Imperial standards. In the last hundred years, it has gone from a backwater with one small "civilized" area, to a planet that may one day be counted among the great Hive Worlds of the Calixis Sector.

Yet for today it remains a frontier, where the spires do not yet pierce the sky, and its lords may not yet rest secure in their control. For those skilled, desperate, or foolish enough to brave the violence of the frontier and the intrigues of the oligarchy, there are great riches and glory to be won; and in the brush of deep jungles and dark recesses of the red rock canyons, terrible secrets may be yet prised from their guardians.

Planetology

Vaxanide is the first planet and mainworld of the Vaxan system in the Malfian sub-sector. It rolls through the primary biosphere alongside its smaller sister Moskito, and at some distance from the gas giant Reche, its moons, and the ice world of Portolá. The solar scrying and lucispicy of the Ordo Stellarium of the Adeptus Mechanicus has revealed that Vaxan was once a yellow star, and somewhat smaller; at some point in the Dark Age, it was tainted. Now it sits bloated, having devoured the bodies of the inner system, bathing its children in a hazy orange glow.

Stable warp routes exist from Vaxan to Malfi, Ganf Magna, and Kalf.

Geography

Vaxanide is a warm planet, ranging from intolerably hot at the equator to downright temperate at the poles. It has slightly below-Terran gravity, but close enough to be perfectly tolerable to chthonic populations. Its atmosphere is breatheable and its biosphere is mostly miscible for humans and creatures of Terran stock. It has no great oceans, but merely lakes and rivers. Mountains dot the planet, breaking climes and channeling the water. However, snowcapped grey peaks are rare - weathered red clay and sandstone are far more common, worn by biting winds and carved deep by thousands of years of rivers. Between the mountains alternate vast scrubby plains and thick jungles. Past where the mountains jealously hold rainclouds, vast deserts form.

The lakes are full of all sorts of fish and crustaceans, and the plains replete with withered twisting grasses. Yet the most unique flora and fauna can only be found where the wet pockmarked canyons of certain river deltas form the Slime Jungles. These jungles host all sorts of creatures, but recieve their name from the macroprotazoa that ooze over the canopy and ground. These slimes are found nowhere else in the sector.

And there are stranger things still. No one has found the silent, abandoned city deep in the equatorial jungle. Yet many continue to insist it exists, and that the legends are all true: it holds wealth and treasure beyond imagination; and it drives discoverers to madness. Pockets of feral orks in the jungle are the least of your worries.

Human Geography

Due to its characteristics, humans can settle anywhere on Vaxanide where there is water. Without great oceans, most of the water not on the surface is underground. Communities anchor themselves around anywhere water can be tapped: on the fertile riverbanks and lakeshores, on a dusty prairie above an artesian well, or nestled into a canyon wall above an underground lake. The Vaxanide Governate is the largest and most powerful of the planet's polities, and its polar hive city of Vaxanhive dwarfs all planetary contenders.

The Vaxanide Governate

Fully recovered from the Second Siege of Vaxanide, the Vaxanide Governate has accelerated the growth of Vaxanhive from a mere megapolis to a proper hive. The dominion of the Governate and ruling House Vaxanide has pushed ever-outwards from the north pole, into the "townships" that dot the planet. Here, newly-acquired townships come under the influence of the mayorazgos; those that resist are replaced with Vaxanish settlers. It is a land of boomtowns, company towns, and cavalry forts. There is no rule of law, the only law is the law of the robber baron and the bandit boss.¹ Electricity is the most precious commodity, and he who owns the rails lords like a king. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of Vaxan freemen migrate out every year, eager for their sole chance to live free as their fathers did.

The Governate is not single-minded and Lord Vaxanide is not a dictator. His position is partially upheld by his tithe responsibilities, and mostly by the legitimacy lent by the Council of Delegates. In the Council representatives of Mayorazgos and territories (groups of townships) confer on policy and settle law. Though the smallfolk of the territories have a voice, their concerns are preempted by the greed and intrigues of the mayorazgos: the families, guilds, and corporations that form the oligarchy of the Governate. House Longhorn, Ferrovax, House Herradura, the Huston Pryory, House Castigane, Four-Eight Universal, House Glasner, the Martaxus Combine, House Crockett, the Order of St. Magdalena, House Díaz, the Most Honorable Cogguild - all are represented, and battle with speeches and legislation as their forces clash in the streets.

The mayorazgos themselves are divided between two broad parties: the conservative Decalogue Circle, who wish to secure their noble privileges and ancient rights; and the pro-growth Liberal Trust League, who push for economic expansion and development, no matter what social structures must be shattered in the process.

Economy

The Administratum rates Vaxanide's tithe as Solutio Extremis, and it is paid entirely by the Governate, for which they receive full Imperial support against all other polities on the planet. It is paid in a mixture of troops,² and the glass, ceramic, and fishery products for which the planet was long known. These are not for mere decoration or cheap trinkets. The deposits of sandstone and clay are of grains, purities and admixtures found nowhere else in the Calixis Sector. The fiery manufactorums of Vaxanhive refine them into glass fit to secure voidship bridges and ceramic plating able to ablate bolter shells. Without the high-quality creations of Vaxanide, many of the sector's high-tech vehicles, voidships, and devices would be useless. For this reason, the Magi of the Lathes take a keen interest in its output. Fishery makes up the next large industry, but with every year less is exported and more is consumed by Vaxanhive.

Vaxanhive provides the finished goods, so the townships serve Vaxanhive. Each is established upon some resource deposit, be it sand, clay, fisheries, or something else. Farming communities nestle against rivers, and towns of herdsmen dot the plains, each funneling their surplus to feed Vaxanhive. In equatorial mountains, indentured servants break their backs to haul gold and silver to their masters. A handful of communities mine the deep, rich veins coal deposits to feed the ever-hungry genatoriums and locomotives. However, each of these townships are dominated by one of the mayorazgos, and if not the mayorazgos, then their local rail baron. For it is the railway and its venerable machines that take their goods to market, and so justify their continued support from the metropole. Without this support, the township might lose electricity, and be swallowed up by the unrelenting jungles and deserts.

Other Polities

The planet is far from unified, or even fully explored. Many subtropical townships still govern themselves, or have successfully resisted the Vaxan advance. High in the Acoma mountains, the Keresa Alliance fights and raids the Vaxan frontier, counting thousands of towns and clans in their dominion. Near the south pole is the Flower Cities Alliance, four of the largest Tlaseseya cities who banded together to protect themselves and their people from Vaxan encroachment.

Between these polities and the Governate lies the frontier - a place where people and communities struggle amidst the pressures of colonization, expropriation, and violence. It is here that the desperado and the cavalryman; the mercenary and the vaquero; the prospector and the scholar all meet. It is here that headmen and elders dance delicately along shifting lines and loyalties to preserve their people. It is here that an adventurous soul may yet turn the page of history in their favor - for fame, fortune, or family.

#lore #rpg #skulls-without-number