Freelance Traveller

Polhishe

by Jo Jaquinta

This article originally appeared in Cepheus Journal #012 and was reprinted with permission in Freelance Traveller July/August 2024.

“It’s a bitch of a world. Covered in ice but for a few hot spots deep down. The ice melts and gasses out these long tunnels. Phols. At the right depth there is a reasonable air pressure. They are too deep for bombardment and impossible to storm so they've kept their independence. They’re mostly full of criminals and malcontents. They spend too much time fighting one another for Polhishe to be a problem that anyone wants to deal with anytime soon.”

– The Chief, Raider’s Lament

The mainworld of a star system is the place of commerce, contact, population, government… in short, civilization. However, every star system is vast, with bodies too remote or worthless to be of much interest to anyone. Or anyone with honest intentions.

The world of Polhishe is a world for people without honest intentions. It’s designed to be a simple drop in that you can place in almost any setting or campaign. It’s a lump of ice that can be an outer moon of a giant, a rogue in a planetoid field, the leftover flotsam at the edge of a system, or even in the Oort cloud. It is up to you and the necessities of your campaign.

The important thing, plot wise, is that it is a world of no great resources, but whose geography makes it hard to own or hold. Thus it can exist, largely independent and removed from the larger polities of your game world. This, of course, makes it a great setting for all sorts of plot points of an adventure.

Geography

Polhishe is a small to medium sized body, largely composed of ices. It’s a leftover remnant of planet formation that might have been a garden world, but for capricious nature which left it in a far orbit where the bulk of what would have been its atmosphere froze solid.

The rocky core of the planet still retains the heat of its collapse. Some places are more conductive of heat than others, and there the temperature along the solid/ice boundary raises high enough for the frozen atmosphere to sublimate back to gaseous form. The pressure then pushes this through the crust, exploiting weaknesses, broadening cracks, or melting its way through. Eventually it reaches the surface and is released. Some of it re­freezes and falls as snow in the further reaches of the planet, much of it escapes into space, free of the planet at last.

The twisting passages creating by the outgassing elements are called “phols” by the natives. They follow a torturous route through the crust, following weak points, but also changing over time like meanders in a river. The gas cools as it rises, and the pressure changes over the course of the route depending on how constricted the passage is. But in many phols there is a point where the pressure and temperature are close enough to allow for human habitation without a heavy requirement for environmental supplements.

It’s never pleasant. The temperature at no point is above freezing, otherwise the ices would melt. The pressure fluctuates a lot, and a bad meander can threaten a whole settlement. But the temperature differentials allow for thermoelectric energy generation almost anywhere. And the ice itself contains sufficient trace minerals and water for hydroponics. So, life may not thrive, but it can exist.

Society

The buffeting winds and twisting passages of the phol aren’t navigable without specialist knowledge. That and the several kilometers of crust above them make it a difficult process to bring any sort of force, short of meson guns, against the phols. Their relative paucity of resources hasn’t made it worthwhile for any polity to do so. And, so, the phols can generally operate independent of any low or government which may surround the space around them.

By and large, the best armed and most aggressive do the best in each phol. The worst of them are in complete anarchy. But most have fairly settled dependency hierarchies within them. These are rarely stable in the long term. So, even though the short term is usually static, different elements are always ready to exploit an advantage to change how things are run.

From the outside, it appears as gangs of armed criminals extorting people and fighting each other. But it is more nuanced than that. Food, energy, air and maintenance are all things that require expertise other than bullying to produce and are as essential as force projection. A batch of bad food, equipment that faults at a critical time, or a badly timed power outage can unseat any would­be absolute dictator. So, the power struggles take place on many levels. The result is a web of critical dependencies that bind all members of society in complicated ways. Most large changes are due to cascading effects from the unexpected consequences of small perturbations.

Industry

Polhishe has no great stock of resources. It has barely enough to keep itself going at a sustainable level. The raw industry that exists is almost entirely for home consumption. Rare goods, and especially high­tech consumables, need to be imported.

What Polhishe does have is a willingness to ignore any laws or the area it is in. Breaking a sealed cargo canister because it might incur criminal penalties is irrelevant to them. Copying software, duplicating engineering diagrams, creating genetic duplicates, or minting coinage are all considered reasonable activities. Because of this there is a class of experts with specialized skills in things that are illegal in most other places.

Another profitable local activity is the transshipment of goods. There is no such concept as contraband. Throughout space there are goods traded airlock to airlock. Those are still subject to local law, even though they may be hard to trace, and there has to be a degree of trust and knowledge between the sides. Exchanging goods on Polhishe means the parties need know less about each other, which is better for that transaction. And, if the goods are stored for a time, they need never meet at all. Everything can be brokered through third parties.

An unusual type of transshipment is that of people. Not necessarily slaves (although they don’t have much of a problem with that). But there are always people who need to get away from the authorities. Either for a time, or for good. Criminal networks outside of Polhishe who use it for business, also find it a safe destination for people when they get too hot. Some are temporary guests. Others are prisoners. And some just go native and immigrate. It’s not a pleasant life, what they left behind could be worse.

Commerce

The standard currency of your setting doesn’t carry much weight with the natives of Polhishe. It will be accepted, but never at good rates. Locals are far more interested in commodities that are rare, locally. There isn’t a definitive list, and it changes over time and from phol to phol. Finding an insider who can alert a visitor ahead of time what is currently the hot thing there is wise. Although that information will come at a cost. You are much more likely to get a better deal offering to pay in something that is locally desired.

If, as a referee, you are looking for something more structured, one suggestion is for “computer processing units” to be the scarce supply du jour. The 386, 486 and 586 models are compatible with most current local machinery. You can assign campaign specific values to them in increasing denominations and make negotiation easier for players who don’t get a thrill out of haggling for hours.

Adventuring Considerations

Almost any adventure involving Polhishe will require navigating certain obstacles. We present them here collectively, rather than scattered through the other adventure ideas.

Getting Down a Phol

The twisting tunnels carved by the outgassing winds of the phol are treacherous. High winds and sudden turns make piloting extremely difficult. The varying transparency of the ice to radar, and quickly changing pressure makes instrumental navigation difficult. Players may attempt it on their own, but they are going to have to make both piloting and navigation rolls at DM­4 each kilometer to avoid a mishap.
Each phol does have a small landing field near the top. There will be pilots here who will offer to either ferry people down into the phol, or else to pilot their ship down for someone. Ferry trips are 100Cr/person, and piloting is 10Cr/ton of hull (max 10,000t). They also offer secured parking on the surface for 10Cr/100t.

If they players ask about return services, they will be happy to take their money for those at a 50% discount. If the players press, they will haggle. The quoted prices are about 4× higher than what they are willing to take (and what the players can get if they make direct content with people in the phol). One advantage of the surface pilots is they will more readily take credits rather than local commodities.

Parking

If they secure a pilot, or ferry service, they will barely be undocked before the pilot starts to offer them special rates on berths. There are many docks a ship can land in, of various sizes. But each are under the control of a different faction. Some are more honest than others. The pilot claims to know the most honest ones and can negotiate a special price. This will come in at 1­4Cr/ton of hull, but there can be much bargaining.

Similarly for a ferry, there are many landing places. As soon as they are off the deck, the players are on their own, and many visitors get jumped right after disembarking. But this pilot is an honest pilot, and definitely does not get kickbacks for delivering tourists to bad quarters. For something around 10Cr/person, they will be delivered to a brightly lit dock side with perimeter protection.

Local Guides

Wherever the players land or disembark, there will be people waiting to offer their services.

Protection of various sorts can be hired. For the equivalent of 10Cr/person they can get a badge to wear that will indicate they are under the protection of a certain faction and are not to be messed with. That will work most place, but not everywhere. And where it doesn’t work, is hard to explain to a non­native. That will lead into suggesting they hire a guide. Actual armed bodyguards cost 100Cr/day in locally needed commodities. They’re there to project force, not fight on the player’s behalf. If the players provoke something, or go where they aren’t advised, the bodyguards feel no compulsion to save them. (Without further inducement, that is.)

Guides follow a similar spectrum. At the cheaper 10Cr/day side, they will get a com­link with a dedicated guide on the other end to act as a concierge on the other end, to explain things to them or make suggestions. For a physical guide to accompany them, that can rate up to or around 100Cr/day. They will be affable and cheerful and will do a good job at getting them much better prices than they would on their own (the cost of their kick­back included) but will hint heavily that a good tip at the end is very motivating.

Plot Hooks

The setting itself is ripe for inclusion in just about any adventure. Whenever the players need “dirty deeds, done dirt cheap”, someone might tip them off to the existence of Polhishe. Once discovered they may come up with their own reasons for coming back.

Inconvenient Witness

There is nothing worse than committing the perfect crime and having an inconvenient witness. Players, caught in rash actions, often do rash things. Killing innocent bystanders often causes problems that spiral out of control, so out with the chloroform, sleep drugs, the pistol whip, and then dump the body in the low berth and worry about it later.

But then later comes. Many players fall in that ethical boundary where they don’t want to kill someone in cold blood, just because they were inconvenient, but they will contemplate kidnapping them. (And if your players don’t fall into that category, this plot hooks can be a “favor” someone else asks.)

Polhishe is a good place for people to disappear into. There are no immigration regulations. And if someone is dumped there, they’re very unlikely to be able to get off world. Most of the essential jobs do not require specialized skills, and although the living isn’t great, it isn’t terrible. It can make an adventurous choice for people wrestling with an ethical problem.

Neutral Ground

If your players end up in hard-ball negotiations with powerful entities, and desire to keep the discussions out of the limelight of the law or the press, Polhishe is a place to consider.

They don’t exactly have great conference facilities, but for the right payment, local autocrats are willing to provide secure locations where neither side is likely to have compatriots ready to burst through the doors and add unexpected leverage to the bargaining.

It could be a hostage exchange, an under-the-table delivery of goods, a ransom payment, drug deal or smuggling. The locals won’t care as long as they are paid something they value. And word is very unlikely to get out.

Of course, if one side or the other decides it is worth paying even more, it is also a great location for a double cross, hijacking, or assassination.

Change of Identity

Sometimes the heat gets too hot, and a name just wears out. Other times there’s undercover work to be done, and a new identity is needed that’s off the books.

Where there’s a need, someone sees an opportunity. Whatever the authentication hardware needed, someone, at some point, has imported it to Polhishe. They have no qualms about producing extremely authentic identities for a number of authorities. Some even see it as an art form.

The particularly bold might even seek to have identities proving there are natives to Polhishe itself. It can be a convenient place to claim to be from since nothing can be verified. And it can be a good starting point for initiating an immigration process to somewhere more reputable.

Adventure Hooks

If you are looking for an adventure seed, rather than an adventure hook, a few ideas are outlined here of plots or shenanigans revolving around Polhishe.

Half Dressed

As a reward for a previous adventure, or as an unexpected find in a salvage operation, or even a random bid for the contents of a disused space locker, the players have legally acquired a suit of battledress armor. This is the ne plus ultra of armor. The pinnacle of accomplishment for any character party.

But it doesn’t work.

The suit’s software is locked down, and it will not obey any commands until unlocked. It could be that the last user left it that way. Or someone flubbed their engineering roll and did a factory reset on it. Or that the hardware, manufactured once, and the software, updated regularly, are licensed differently. The software for battledress is as heavily regulated as the armor and would be nearly as costly to acquire as the original suit.

For whatever reason you choose, the players are stuck with a very impressive statue, and nothing more. While bemoaning their fortune at a local dive, a shady character, down on their luck, offers to help them, if they clear his drinking tab. (DM’s choice for how big it is.)

If they do so, he will tell them about Polhishe. If they don’t believe him, he’ll pull up an adventure documentary on his hand­held computer. (It’s exaggerated and dramatic but should be enough to confirm it is a real place.) He’ll dodge any questions of why he has personal knowledge of the place, but he will give them a name: Kira Kaminska. She’s excellent at facilitating people with software problems. If she’s still alive.

If the players take the bait and fly off to Polhishe, they will reach their first dilemma: which phol? The drunk in the bar didn’t mention one, and there are 8 to 12 of them. The landing field’s pilot will be happy to look things up… for a price.

A suitable guide will be able to locate Kira Kaminska, or KK as she is known locally, easily. She’s old, but still alive. She’ll shake her head at the player’s dilemma, thinking the whole idea of locked down software is silly. She has a replacement patch for their make and model, up to date as of last year. It also has it’s update subroutines hacked so that it won’t bug them to update to the latest version next year. She does that for free as a point of honor.

She says she would normally charge the equivalent of 20,000Cr to hack this, but since she already has it hacked, she’ll give it to them for 10,000Cr. Unless they happen to have a case of a particular brand of crème filled chocolate eggs. She’s rather fond of them, and they are nearly impossible to get on Polhishe. A case is about 50Cr in a normal starport. The players may actually consider going back, getting a case, and returning, just for the steep discount!

Heir to the Throne

Years ago, in a hereditary feud between the children of a monarch, the child with less guile and connivance ended up marooned on Polhishe. It was important that they weren’t killed, because lie detectors are very good, and you never know what the future may hold.

And there’s the rub. The future did not turn out so well for the heir by force. They were neither luck in cards, nor lucky in love. They died, childless, after being caught cheating in a high stakes gambling name. On their death bed they repented of their misdeeds and revealed the location of the missing princess.

The players can either be agents of the crown, or a third party hired by them. (A referee who wants to mix things up may have one player paid off by the Democratic resistance to turn the missing into confirming her death, rather than recovering her.) All the players know is that she was dumped on Polhishe 15 to 20 years ago.

You can play the “which phol” game, if you like, and have the players, as in the previous adventure, spend time working out which phol she was dumped in. Or you can be generous and give them the name where she was left.

Once they arrive there, they have a daunting task. There are about 10 to 20,000 people in a phol, there’s no directory or index, and all they have to go on is a picture, a name, and possible a decoded genome (for final verification).

Their looking may lead them in unexpected directions.

One person will say they recognize and remember her, as she was a good friend. However, neither of them was well off, and they had to live in the worst possible locations. Last they lived together was in a burrow that was being undermined by a meander of the phol. It collapsed while she was off shift, and she was never seen since. Her friend presumes she died. They will happily accept an honorarium for providing this information, and for further payment, will lead them to the precarious remains of the dwelling. It’s somewhat dangerous to examine closely, and if they do so, and survive, and no evidence is found, her “friend” will say that bit must have fallen down the phol.

Once word gets around that they are looking for someone, they will be approached by someone who is an “expert” at finding evidence of people. They’ll note all of their information, make a few calculations, and give them a rate card. From the items on the rate card, it’s clear that the services they are offering are not to actually find someone, but to manufacture evidence of that person’s existence, with a high enough quality to pass genetic screening. Bloodstained weapons, jewelry with evidence of long wear, or even a cremated corpse are possible, for the right price.

A long line of people may appear wherever they are staying, all claiming to be the lost princess. If they try them all, every few hours there will be one with a partial match. After a few days, the matches get better and better. If they look into it, they will find out that someone with a genetic replicator is paying off people to make the claim and spraying them down with genetic markers. As they get partial positives, they refine their fakes. If they don’t look into it, after a few more days they will find a match. The person may be completely implausible (wrong age, ethnicity, or gender) but will match.

Where is the real princess? You can choose your own ending. (And make the others more red herrings!)

Ending one: Living quietly alone somewhere the princess lives her life. She’s shunned by most, since they consider her a bit wrong in the head. She’s given up trying to prove to people she’s a princess. She does some menial job and makes enough to live on in bad accommodation. She’s come to believe that she really is delusional, and thinks the characters are just making fun of her when they find her.

Ending two: Using her skill and knowledge of court intrigue, she has played the power broker on Polhishe. She has risen in the ranks and is now highly placed in a powerful faction. She’ll probably eventually haul the players in and interrogate them to find out what they are up to without revealing who she is. Maybe she’ll go back and rule with the iron fist she’s learned (and no few choice compatriots from Polhihe). Maybe’s she’ll decide she likes life better here. Maybe she’ll counter-bribe the players for all they’re worth to let them take a genetic sample and a letter of abdication.

Ending three: Someone comes forward with some personal items that test positive for a genetic match. The owner has died, but she did have two children. They are more than happy to leave Polhishe for a life of royal living. But it’s clear they don’t really like each other and there is almost certain to be another cycle of sibling warfare.

 

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