Setting:Cloudburst/Lockehold

System
Galactic Position	Cloudburst Sector, Cognomen Subsector
System Overlord	None
Worlds in the system	7, 1 habitable
World Type, Name	Feudal World, Locke's World
Tropospheric Composition	Nitrogen 77.5%, Oxygen 21%, Argon .5%, Water 1%, Carbon gasses .01%
Religion	Holy Emperor Star Cult
Government type	Feudal
Planetary Governor	No
Adept Presence	Adeptus Administratum, Adeptus Ministorum, Adeptus Mechanicus, Adeptus Astra Telepathica
Climate	Wildly varies from pole to equator, with broad stretches of desert, sea, and dense forest
Geography	.9 times the size of Terra, large ridges of tectonic rock mountains separating climate bands, deep, salty seas
Gravity	.89 Terran Gravity
Day Length	28
Economy	Local Scrip
Principal Exports	Dye, Oil, Salt, Stone, Iron Ore
Principal Imports	Refined Alloys, Electronics
Countries and Continents	Six hundred seven city states spread over five continents
Military	Celestial Guard barracks, Locke Doomriders (low quality PDF)
Contact with other Systems	Almost none
Tithe Grade	Solutio Tertius
Population	18,120,000

Description

As another of the worlds claimed by Rogue Traders during the Gold Rushes, the feudal planet of Locke’s World is hardly unique. What is unique is its geography, and the effect this has had on its development. The whole habitable zone of the planet is split into a maze of canyons, ravines, sharp mountains, deep seas, and plateau. Between and among the rock formations, vast forests sprout from eroded soils, and hundreds of dueling city—states harvest food from the abundant plant life.

Locke himself was Veridal Locke of the Locke Rogue Trader house, which has long since moved on to greener pastures. The planet was in a state of barbarism and poverty when Locke found it, apparently the result of a three-way war between the native humans, invading Warp beasts, and rebelling machines, many thousands of years ago. Although humanity won, and managed to shut off the damaged robot factory before the planet was overrun, all infrastructure of the world was lost. The residents of the planet had barely survived the crucible of war, and their world was unprepared for the collapse of time.

Eventually, as is so often the case, the Imperium came knocking. The world resembled a farm plot from above, with steep cliffs and walls of rock separating patches of color from different plants. A few were cauldrons of fire, from volcanic activity or raids between tribes of primitives. Locke knew there would be little to do on such a world, and was not of the mind to bring the primitives to worship him. He staked a claim on the world and promptly sold it to the Administratum.

However, unlike Cygnmo, the people of Lockehold are quite receptive to the idea of membership in the Imperium, for the most part. The individual thousands of tribes of the world took greedily to knowledge of the outside world. After a few centuries of religious and linguistic instruction, the people of Lockehold gradually readied for proper Imperial induction.

As time went by, obstacles arose. The hard stone of the ridges between each valley is quite resistant to all but the most potent blasting and mining techniques. Also, those tribes that did not want to become part of the Imperium expressed their choice violently, requiring costly pacification.

After a few more centuries of false starts and investments, several tribes that had shown especially fervent worship of the Emperor or logistical skill were allowed to become the new nobles of the world. The system is something of an experiment on the part of the Administratum. Each of the hundreds of city-states around the world is allowed some leeway in the design of their defenses, their tithe infrastructure, and their educational system, as well as the public level of religious observation. As such, no two cities are alike, and thus make perfect grounds for observing the transition between Feudal World and Civilized World.

Some cities have enjoyed leaders that were far superior to their peers in efficiency, productivity, and faith. Others have stagnated, for their lack of such leaders. The Administratum has kept careful watch on the winners and losers of these contests, to see which deserve promotion to eventually become the Planetary Governor.

Until then, the cities produce resources for themselves, sometimes with enough left over for trade with other city-states. The Mechanicus has withheld a degree of high-tech support from these cities, for the purposes of the experiment. At sea, however, the Mechanicus operates various resource derricks to collect petrochemicals and ores for export to Cognomen. The main export of the cities is dye, which they harvest from a dazzling array of arboreal flowers and leaves, and ship to Thimble. Overall, the planet’s development into an Imperial planet is proceeding slowly and in fits and starts, but for now, its export markets seem healthy.

The maze of canyons and ridges that define the blocky forests that any passing ship could see from high orbit makes for a perfect laboratory for evolutionary biology. Several blocks of forest and city are physically isolated from other blocks by means only human transportation could easily cross, meaning that each one serves as an isolated test bed for biological testing. Given that the Administratum wants Lockehold to develop naturally into a modern world, there are some limits on what can actually be tested, since releasing alien creatures into the environment would be very dangerous.

However, some testing has already begun, specifically on Drimmerzole’s miracle antibiotic, which the Magi Biologis of the Mechanicus have thus far proven unable to synthesize perfectly. The natural bacteria of the planet have cell membranes similar to those of Terran bacteria, and some also have Gram-type cell walls, which Petals can kill.

The defenses of the world are far more robust than those of the majority of low-tech worlds in Cloudburst. Locke’s World fields its own PDF, drawn from feudal levies of each city-state, and trained in Munitorum bases across the globe. Its orbital defenses are far weaker, and almost certainly could not stand up to a Glasian invasion.