Starfinder: Eox, Planet of the Undead
Somewhere in Starfinder is a lifeless planet that’s inhabited by the Undead. For franchising opportunities, inquire within.
Starfinder news is trickling in from around the web. Today we’ve got a look at an entire planet that was reduced to a lifeless wasteland after a technomagical superweapon blasted a hole in the planet and burned off its atmosphere. It also destroyed the world it was pointed at and created the asteroid belt the Disapora–so I guess life has its ups and downs? At any rate, this is a world where only the undead can survive, though I’m not sure that’s the right word either. Whatever the case may be, there are few places out there quite as inhospitable as Eox, the planet of the Undead.
“Have you ever heard the old apocryphal story about how the scientists of the Manhattan Project who tested the first atomic bomb feared it might cause a chain reaction and set the entire atmosphere on fire? Well that’s exactly what happened on Eox.
Once upon a time, Eox was a lush world, until its arrogant rulers created a superweapon capable of destroying neighboring planets. Their device worked, blowing up the enemy worlds and creating the asteroid belt called the Diaspora—but the magical backlash blew a hole in Eox as well and set its atmosphere ablaze. In the wake of the disaster, the few survivors in the irradiated wasteland turned to necromancy to rebuild their society.
Today, Eox is a world of the dead—and pretty smug about it, actually. After all, being undead comes with a lot of advantages in the modern era: Spaceships that don’t need air! A zombie workforce that doesn’t need breaks! While many of the other Pact Worlds fear and resent Eox, no one can deny that it’s better to have the undead working with you than against you.“
There’s one part in particular that is especially great. “Eox is a world of the dead–and pretty smug about it.” I love this characterization of the undead. Presenting them as another faction in the Starfinder world that, sure, is probably evil, but that isn’t just blasted outright. Especially when you read that they have deals to import the dead of entire other worlds–I can’t get over what a great wrinkle that is for the setting. I mean if any race is suited to traveling through the void, it’s probably the ones that don’t need to eat, breath, sleep, or worry about freezing to death.
Dread Central also got some fantastic pictures of the upcoming monsters. We’ve included a few below, but be sure and head over to their website to check out the full writeup.
So right away, one of the first things we learn is that there are liches. Obviously. Only now they’re called Necrovites and they are heavily sci-fi flavored. Their phylacteries have been replaced with a magitek artifact electroencephalon that stores the consciousness and recreates your body if it is destroyed (presumably it recreates an undead body–but who knows!). At any rate, they have considerable power and can call upon mighty necromancy to bolster their standard accoutrements. Like the submachine gun pictured below.
But there’s more. Bone Sages (who have appeared in Pathfinder adventures before) are still around. In fact they’re the ones who remember Eox before its catastrophe. They’ve transcended mortality and are an important part of Undead ‘society,’ which we’re told is scattershot–undead ‘fiefdoms’ carved up and run by their own Bonelord, each one harboring a Beholder-like paranoia against the others.
Just the sort of thing that makes an irradiated wasteland hospitable. Although, as we all know, life…uhhh…finds a way. And nowhere is that more evident than in the blasted, scarred world of Eox. Floating out in the radioactive deserts, you’ll find the Ellicoth. A graceful beast that subsists off of the energy of others–whether living or dead, making these tentacled, energy vampires a threat to the living and the undead alike.
It looks like it has a bony carapace, but those tentacles seem very fleshy and vibrant to me, so it’s hard to tell whether or not this is an undead creature or not. But we do know that it fits into the Eoxian ecosystem as a predator that can threaten settlements of any kind.
We also learn that there are embassies from other races on Eox. Corporations have branches out here, and there are ambassadors from throughout the Drift to try and make sure they’re on the right side of the undead. After all they have needs. The Eoxians cannot reproduce, they need corpses to supplement their workforce and boost their population. So they trade with the other empires out there for what they need, reaching out through the stars to find others.
That’s one of their ships. This one is helpfully named Omenbringer and is a carrier ship. You can see that there’s not much consideration for the living here, which leads to some interesting design choices.
Most Eoxian ships resemble elaborate bone structures or the corpses of vast creatures, though this is partially an illusion, as much of the bone is actually more advanced materials sculpted into their morbid shapes. Such ships are designed specifically for the undead, with large portions of the hull left open to space, no galleys or heads, and tight-packed workstations in which the crew might be expected to stand at their posts for weeks without moving. All of this makes Eoxian ships extremely difficult to take down in combat, and this is particularly of the massive Thaumtech Omenbringer illustrated here, a carrier ship loaded with squadrons of nimble necrogliders.
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I think it’s fantastic to see that they’re taking conceits like “the undead are in space” to this level of consideration. After all if you don’t have to worry about radiation, why do you need containment? You can make it harder for your living enemies to board you, right? Plus it means you get some cool-looking space ships to fight with. I’m getting some serious Spelljammer hits off of the shape of this ship. Makes you wonder if that evil red glow isn’t from some kind of distressingly radioactive magitek laser cannon or the like.
Well that’s just a taste of one of the worlds that awaits in Starfinder. Be sure to stay tuned for more news as it comes up.
Read Dread Central’s writeup of Eox, the Undead World.
If the undead need starships–maybe the gods do too…
