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CHETOM (cheh-tom)

Galactic Co-ordination System: Horizon, LATROFER-1

Adult vari are among the smallest mature lifeforms of their homeworld, where the most common non-sentient carnivores can grow to be as large as a standard-issue Alliance shuttle. The planet is incredibly biodiverse, though the vast majority of its life is one flavour or another of armoured invertebrate.

While Chetom appears to be a verdant jewel of a planet, it is a nightmare to navigate – there are few arid areas, and most of the planetary biome is rain-soaked fungal forest with wide and treacherous sinkholes and swamps. The abundance of oxygen sustains these massive matted hyphae, along with the immense and vicious megafauna. It also increases the risk and lethality of fire – an aspect of life not helped by the atmospheric humidity, which leads to frequent lightning storms.

Though there are many cultural sites hidden among the stalks of Chetom – the boltholes and longhouses of ancient Vari, mainly – they are generally charted in relation to the three Citadels of old. Each is an named for a mythical monster from Vari folklore:

• Kusulk, the Widening Worm, is a tiered series of terraces leading into a labyrinth of branching dwellings. The Vari honed their stonemasonry at Kusulk, transforming material dug out of the site into a series of concentric fortifications around it. Though well-defended from any land attack, Kusulk and its flocks proved helpless against the Silseradi striding over its walls.
• Nisefid, the Storm of Mouths, was woven under the cap of Chetom’s largest and strongest fungal copse. Nisefid was the birthplace of Vari sericulture and the home of its finest cuisine, with the milk crystals of its Apharid flocks being especially prized. Unfortunately, such a delicious prize proved irresistible to the Silseradi, and Nisefid was left in tatters; the most damaged of all the Citadels.
• Pasarat, the Filaments Within, clings to the walls of Chetom’s drier equatorial gulch – a series of towers and bridges stretching from cliff wall to wall, each cunningly disguised as a natural geological structure. The large and well-appointed nursery hives of Pasarat held out the longest against the Looming, with the Vari sheltering in the arid depths below.

Though these cities were besieged and then abandoned during the Looming, most of the underground chambers and their defences remain intact. Reclamation efforts aided by the Alliance are ongoing, with archaeological teams and Vari tribal leaders alike rubbing elbows in the amphitheatres and speaking chambers of old.