Strategic Location: Toward the edge of the space
controlled by the Confederation of Unaligned Worlds.
Temperature: 112% standard.
Atmosphere: Thin. May cause nosebleeds and exhaustion
among non-natives.
Hydrosphere: 37% of the surface of Rethqua is covered
in water, of which 94% has a salinity of 0%-3%.
Gravity: 109% standard.
Terrain: Rolling hills, large mountain ranges, and vast
areas of broken terrain.
Mineral Resources: Substantial reserves of Kurindium,
Shabral, and a Mantium ore termed Rethquantium, which has several
unique properties.
Length of Day: 25 standard hours.
Length of Year: 350 local days.
Sapient Species: The reptilian Quen are the only native sentient species.
Capital City: Thiquira was the long time capital of the
Quen, but it has been destroyed and irradiated by the Empire. The
currently capital is Quall Nahsrem, but reclamation of Thiquira is
a project of great importance to the Quen.
Other Cities: Ebelen, Heleq, Thakel, and Nardaren are
the other major cities of Rethqua.
Starport: The Empire had installed a limited services
starport at Piett City, but the Quen destroyed that facility. For
now, all landings must be conducted at landing strips scattered
across the planet, though construction of a planetary class port
near Ebelen has begun.
Population (within +/- 1%): 23,905,300 Quen.
Government: The Quen are ruled by a hereditary
nobility, which is at the head of a feudal system of governance.
Tech Level: Steel age. Some Imperial technology has
been incorporated into the Quen military's armory, and trade with
the other races of the Confederation of Unaligned worlds is slowly
putting technological devices into the hands of the average Quen.
However, most of the technology encountered on Rethqua is native in
nature, and not yet advanced to steam levels.
Slienar: This burning hot world is of relatively little
value, for while it has some reserves of compounds similar to
Rethquantium, it is far to hot to mine effectively.
Miriqua: The compounds in this jet black planet's atmosphere
hold in most of the heat that Kardak releases on it, turning the
planet far hotter than the core of a gas giant. Spectrum analysis
has revealed some mineral reserves of interest, but they are no
more accessible than those of stars.
Rethqua: See above.
Yirdu: The moons of this massive world was the site of an
Imperial garrison for several months after the Imperium lost
Rethqua.
Methir: This small world has a small Shuumar mine, which
harvests some Mantium and mantium derivatives. The lease on this
mine is the primary source of income for the Quen at this time,
though mercenary contracts are a close second.
Planetary Capsule:
Flora and fauna: Rethqua is rather rich in life.
Despite the world's lower than standard percentage of surface
water, most of the planet remains fertile, as the surface water of
Rethqua is more spread out than it is in most worlds, with numerous
lakes and rivers taking the place of large oceans. The rather thin
atmosphere keeps these smaller bodies from evaporating over-
quickly, as there is simply less room in the air for water
molecules.
The rivers and lakes feed a vast variety of wildlife. Around
half of the planet is covered in thick riverine forests, and most
of the other half is some form of grassland. The rivers have also
cut twisting mazes of canyons through the limestone tablelands that
are the planet's primary geological region (a relic of an earlier,
much wetter age in the planet's evolution.), and these badlands
regions are usually covered in either forest or grassland, but some
of these regions remain quite bare, as the precipitous nature of
the cliff faces, and only a few tenacious shrubs cling to the rocks
there.
The forest regions are inhabited by a wide variety of giant
reptiles and saurithuscians. Several mammal species are also
present, and fill the roles of most of the large predators.
Specifically notable among the plant eaters are the herbivorous
genah goanna, the deerlike tahberin, and the giant spiny tliubr.
The primary predators of the forest region include the gargantuan
goanna, the crested bear, and the armored
tiger.
The plain regions are home to the massive masthun bovines, the small and agile
massabar, the bedrim lizards, and several varieties of armored
tiger. These ecosystems interact at the forest edge, with some
forest predators waiting at the margins to seize the occasional
passing plains herbivore. In fact there are several species of
predator that live exclusively at the forest margins, making use of
the advantages of both ecosystems.
Sentient Species: The slight, reptilian Quen are the
only sentient species of the planet.
History: The Quen first achieved sentience as a nomadic
hunter race, who lived in close harmony with their domesticated
armored tigers, using them as riding beasts and pack animals. True
carnivores, the Quen followed the Masthun herds, using the meat,
hides, bones, even the droppings of those huge beasts to provide
their needs of food, shelter and fire. Several tribes of Quen
eventually abandoned the nomadic lifestyle, forming permanent
colonies along particularly fertile riverbeds, trapping fish and
crustaceans, and ranging far upstream to hunt and kill creatures
that came down to take advantage of the open water. It was in
these permanent settlements that the technology of metal working
was first developed, though a healthy trade relationship with the
nomadic Quen soon spread that advancement across the planet.
While the direct ancestors of the Quen were forest creatures,
the Quen themselves are natives of the plains. However, when the
plains could no longer support the numbers of Quen that lived
there, the then bronze age Quen expanded into the forest regions.
A somewhat more hostile place than the plains, the forests of
Rethqua are also a very productive hunting ground. The Quen had to
adapt their hunting techniques for use in this new habitat, and
they did so quite successfully. It was in the forests of Rethqua
that the first true Quen cities developed, stockaded villages which
kept the creatures of the forest from stealing into the Quen huts
during the night.
Iron working was soon developed, and the first real empires
were forged on Quen. At first, numerous petty kingdoms, some no
larger than a single river valley, or a pair of forest cities, held
sway over the populace, but these were soon subsumed into larger
principalities. For several thousand years, fourteen major
kingdoms divided Rethqua. These fourteen kingdoms constantly
jostled for power, fighting war after inconclusive war. This
situation was ended in the early steel age, when the warlord of one
of the kingdoms, Afsh Ralqui, succeeded in the complete military
conquest of one of the neighboring kingdoms. Afsh's hereditary
monarch realized the potential of this warrior, and appointed him
his heir. The military success over the one neighbor was quickly
repeated, and then repeated again. Just before his death by a
degenerative disease Afsh succeeded in conquering all of Rethqua.
The Ralqui dynasty was not quite as successful as it's
progenitor was. The warrior caste of the Quen was always a
powerful one, and it lost none of it's power with the unification
of the planet. As soon as the dynasty started to lose control of
the Empire, bands of warriors rose in revolt. Time and again, the
planet was split by civil war, dividing into two, three, up to ten
fragments, before another unifier rose. However, after the Ralqui,
the planet was never again under a single ruler.
Until the Empire came. Initially, the proud Quen monarchs
refused to submit to Imperial rule. Stormtroopers were sent in to
subdue the natives, and the first battle of Kambandion field was
fought. Armed only with swords, daggers, and bows, and armored in ornately
worked suits of scale mail, the Quen seemed
no match for the advanced unified commands of the Empire. However,
the Quen were warriors without peer, trained in combat almost from
the day of their birth, and they were mounted on the formidable
armored tigers. While the Quen took heavy casualties from the
Imperial fire, they broke the Imperial lines, and inflicted heavy
damage on the stormtroopers. And, while they had no weapons that
could take on the Empire's walkers, Quen scaled the massive
machines, and slaughtered their crews. Repulsor tanks were called
in too late, and what should have been an easy victory for the
Empire turned into a humiliating defeat.
However, the Empire was no so easily dissuaded from it's
prize, and the Quen had no space craft. Orbital bombardment of
Quen cities began shortly after the victory at Kambandion, and
continued for three years. At this time, the ruler of one of the
three kingdoms currently ruling Rethqua decided that further deaths
were unacceptable, and surrendered his territories to the Empire.
It took four more years of pinpoint bombardment before the last of
the kingdoms surrendered.
Imperial rule was very harsh on Quen, and memories of the
debacle of Kambandion were perhaps a factor in increasing that
harshness. Personal ownership of any weapons was outlawed, and
Quen warriors had to give up their beloved Damruas, or straight
swords, and were sent to work in Imperial mines or factories
alongside the commoners. The armored tigers were termed pets, and
introduced diseases succeed in reducing their population
substantially. The rulers of the three kingdoms, and their
families were all executed, to avoid giving the Quen any figures to
rally around, and the planet was garrisoned with nearly four times
the usual numbers of Imperial troops.
However, the Quen had not been entirely broken. In the depths
of the forests, particularly in the badlands river valley forests,
resistance fighters trained, using only the most primitive of
weapons. The leader of the resistance, Shalquan Ralqui, was one of
the last descendants of the legendary dynasty, and proved effective
at gaining the loyalty of undecided Quen. When the Shuumar and Aldru
broke the Imperial yoke, Quen laborers who had smuggled themselves
off Rethqua convinced the fledgling Confederation of Unaligned
Worlds to help drive off the Imperial fleet. With the fleet gone,
the great Quen revolt began. Mostly armed only with sharpened
household implements and simple staves, the Quen took on the Empire
again.
The Central Imperial garrison had been built Kambandion field,
to symbolize the Empire's destruction of the independent spirit of
the Quen, and that is where the central battle of the revolt was
fought. The second battle of Kambandion field was not fought by
warriors on giant armored tigers, glistening in ornate armor.
Rather, the Quen were clothed in little more than rags, and carried
as motley a collection of weapons as had ever been seen. And it
was just as much a Quen victory as the first battle of Kambandion.
The Quen had always believed that it was the soul of the warrior
that won battles, not his weapons, and the second battle of
Kambandion field proved this maxim true. A huge herd of Masthun
bovines (whose numbers had risen sharply with the reduction of
armored tiger populations) was stampeded over the minefield, and
tore a large hole in the side of the garrison. The Quen swarmed in
directly afterward, crippling the Imperial presence on their world
with that unexpected attack.
However, victory over the Empire was not insured. The Shuumar
and Aldru weren't able to hold the fleet off forever, and when they
were pushed back, the Imperial forces launched several ORBSATs into
Rethqua's orbit. The devastation caused by these bombardment
satellites nearly forced the Quen into another surrender, but a
Yaeger Stell Kommando elite starfighter wing destroyed those
satellites, and left Rethqua permanently free.