Editing Setting:Cloudburst/Drimmerzole

{{CloudburstSystemFull
|galacticposition=              [[Setting:Tri-Sector|Cloudburst Sector]], [[Setting:Cloudburst/Maskos|Maskos Subsector]]
|systemoverlord=       Grand Duke Emmanuel Voss
|planets=             Two, one inhabitable
|worldtype=           [[Feudal world]]: Drimmerzole Secundus
|satellite=     Moon – Elcyros
|troposphericcomposition=      Drimmerzole has Nitrogen 76%, Oxygen 20%, Krypton 2.5%, Water 1%, Carbon Dioxide 0.05%; Elcyros has no atmosphere
|religion=      Imperial Cult
|governmenttype=     Local Peerage
|planetarygovernor=   Yes
|adeptpresence=   Adeptus Ministorum, Adeptus Astra Telepathica, Adeptus Mechanicus, Administratum Tithe Collectors
|climate=   Drimmerzole Secundus has lengthy grasslands, broken by low mountains and long rivers, with frequent light rain and the occasional catastrophic tornado
|geography=             Drimmerzole is smaller than Terra and has little tectonic activity, having 72.9 million mi² of surface; Elcyros is a barren, non-tectonic rock of little interest
|gravity= Drimmerzole has Terran Gravity
|daylength=    23 Terran Hours
|economy=      Local Gelt
|principalexports=     Antibiotics, Textiles, Sand, Salt, Oil
|principalimports= Red Meat, Carbon Fuels, Laser Weapons, Processed Alloys, Agricultural Technology
|countriesandcontinents=   Drimmerzole has nine continents, each connected by secret subsurface tunnels maintained by Mechanicus volunteers for emergency defense use; the world is further subdivided by a massive peerage of local nobles
|military=       Drimmerzole Scarp-wrights (feudal PDF and brainwashed Guard)
|contactwithothersystems=          Minimal and purely economic
|tithegrade=   Solutio Prima
|population=    21,500,600
}}

==Description==

Drimmerzole is a small world, in terms of both its physical size and the role it plays in the sector.  Although it has deposits of gold, salt, and oil, which make it at least profitable to exploit for a colony, it is of no travel or strategic value beyond that.  The world is ruled over by roughly two thousand Dukes of the local peering, with the Imperial System Overlord serving as the Grand Duke.  Although elevation to this position is contingent on Adeptus Terra approval, ducal positions are not.  The peerage system is vicious, with lesser nobles competing to be the most successful, so that they can enjoy the patronage of the nearest Dukes.  Each Duke is allowed to raise some household defensive troops, equipped with black powder weapons.  The Imperial Governor alone may raise lasgun-equipped troops, and these are technically restrained from engaging in local political disputes.  Given that the incumbent Grand Duke detests his colleagues, and wouldn't allow himself to be involved in their petty squabbles if held at gunpoint to do so, it seems like an unlikely possibility.

In case of Glasian invasion, the main continents are connected by nine tunnels, all bored in secret by the Mechanicus.  These tunnels are where the Scarp-wrights, the Imperial Guard inductees, are trained and brainwashed into the service of the Imperium.  Here, they train in air-cycled underground chambers, overseen by bellowing Astra Militarum Drill Instructors and Commissarial Cadets from the Celeste Grand Schola Progenum.  The brainwashed serfs and peasants are seen as a low-risk first assignment for these new Instructors and disciplinarians.  In the past, visitors to the world have asked if the title of the unusually-named local military was supposed to be scrap-wrights, but the Drimmerzole government dismisses this as hearsay at best.

The planet raises Imperial Guard regiments from the ducal armies, though generally only to engage threats in neighboring inhabited systems.  Regiments favor infantry and rough riders, both biological and mounted on all-terrain vehicles.  The local Ecclesiarchy often assigns Chaplains from the populations of larger worlds in the sector, to prevent political ties.  This rises above habit and becomes law with the assignment of other Adepts.  Service in any Adeptus Terra or Commissarial duty in the system is forbidden outright for people born in the system, or their descendants for three generations.  The contempt the Grand Duke feels for his peers, the distance between Drimmerzole and any other Imperial system, and the harsh rules against local employment for Adepts add up to a situation in which the population and supreme government want nothing to do with each other, which suits the only real winners of that affair: the merchant houses.

Vast farms, operated by a mixture of servitors and serfs and owned by one of five Cloudburst Mercantile Noble Houses, grow the rare Red Lilac flower for interplanetary sale.  Too delicate to be harvested by combine, but too short-lived to be harvested by hand, the serfs instead use great slashing machetes and scythes, made of Mechanicus carbon steel and lethal in close quarters.  Baskets made of local wicker, and freezers provided by Cognomen in exchange for small cuts of the flowers’ profit, store the plants.  Once harvested and dried in very low temperatures, the flowers’ unique proteins can be rendered loose from the flower husks and made into a dazzlingly effective antibiotic; one that is effective against all known Human-pathogenic gram-positive bacteria.  Useful for trauma hospitals, military Field Chirurgia, and augmetic implantation clinics, this antibiotic (formally called P-n-benzene-triarsenolysitide and informally called Petals) is worth ten times its weight in platinum, and every flower collected is wrung clean of its protein before being mulched.  Despite the backbreaking labor and monotonous life of harvesting, the position of a Harvest Serf is actually sought-after by many Drimmerzole peasants.  This is thanks to its quite high-paying compensation, the free medical care its holders receive, and a hard exemption from all military levies by anybody short of the Sector Overlord himself.

The local collection vessels of the Imperial Tithe station over Drimmerzole at a small orbital platform operated by the Adeptus Administratum and Adeptus Mechanicus.  This station contains thousands of small shops and restaurants operated by Drimmerzolians, who usually live at a higher standard of living than anybody outside the peerage.

The other major advantage of living and working on the huge farms is the view.  Red Lilac (which is only distantly derived from the ancient Terran plant of the same name, thanks to an error in a Diaspora seed ship) grows best in wet, elevated terrain with clay-thin soil, and therefore only grows on Drimmerzole’s picturesque mountain plateaus.  From the plateaus, workers can gaze down on the petty, squabbling Dukes, Counts, Earls, Barons, Lords, and other well-to-do, and reflect on how it sucks to be them, before returning to a life of picking flowers.


Drimmerzole’s single moon is, if it’s even possible, less interesting.  Having nothing more remarkable than the local Mechanicus command post and a single Defense Laser, the Techpriests here have made the best of their mind-numbingly boring post.  They work on large farms of servers and cogitators, sequencing the DNA of Drimmerzole plants and looking at the world through hand-made telescopes, having essentially nothing else to do.  Rarely, however, a priest will actually request assignment to the Elcyros station, as it does provide excellent meditative opportunities for those who best contemplate the Omnissiah in the absence of complex work.