rESoUrCES: dilithiUm, intElliGEnCE aSSEtS

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In any event, his partners in the Orion Syndicate began to suspect him of skimming their share of the revenues for himself. In 2317, they had him assassinated in his penthouse suite.

In the decades since Arno Leyven’s death, private corporations with respectable public images have dominated Risa’s tourism trade. Few now speak of Risa as a world run by the Orions, but rumors persist that they maintain influence through secret business partnerships and control of workers’ unions.

Risa’s status as a place where you go to get away from it all has not isolated it from the eddies and tides of history. In 2366, time-traveling Vorgons suddenly emerged on Risa in search of the legendary weapon Tox Uthat, although their presence was little noted at the time. In 2368, a rogue Kitarian agent on Risa launched a plot to seize control of Starfleet. In 2373 the New Essentialist movement sabotaged the planet’s climate control system, unleashing several days of meteorological and seismic chaos.

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The Croesus’ Palace Resort still stands as a monu-ment to Arlo Leyven’s unparalleled daring. The central hotel tower rises 100 stories into the air, surrounded by all the trappings that one would expect from a top-rank establishment: elegant convention space and ballrooms, gourmet restaurants, holodeck suites, well-kept pools. It remains the epitome of luxury on a planet devoted to pleasure. A colossal statue of Arlo Leyven bestrides the main entrance (an idealized portrait that takes the edge off of the man’s ferret-like appearance), an enduring monument to the man who built Risa from the ground up.

After Croesus’ Palace, Temtibi Lagoon is probably Risa’s most famous resort site. This five-mile wide body of water offers vistas of striking beauty and several five-star hotels that help visitors take advantage of the local opportunities for sightseeing, water sports and other recreational opportunities. While vacationing here in 2373, Deep Space 9 Security Chief Lieutenant Worf became caught up in the New Essentialist plot to cripple Risa’s weather control system.

romUlUS and rEmUS

planEtary profilE

planEt namE: romUlUS ClaSS: m

moonS or rinGS: 2 moonS (pirEk and ElvrEnG) Gravity: 1.0 G

ClimatE: normal atmoSphErE, % hydroSphErE, warm tEmpEratUrE

dEmoGraphiCS: billionS of romUlanS Civilization: ElECtEd SEnatE and praEtor, tl

rESoUrCES: dilithiUm, intElliGEnCE aSSEtS

Perhaps one of the most dedicated foes of the Federation, the Romulans make their home on a pair of habitable worlds in the Beta quadrant, far from their ancestral beginnings. While these paired worlds are both beautiful and dangerous, they remain isolated behind a Neutral Zone and mysterious to the other Galactic powers, a reminder of the duality of the Romulan people: Passionate dedication mixed with inscrutable goals.

erAs: The Federation first runs afoul of the Romulans in the 22nd century, when the NX-class Enterprise stumbles across a Romulan client world seeded with cloaked mines. Of course, Romulus and Remus serve as the center of the Romulan empire long before this, ever since the Vulcan diaspora centuries before. Even into the 24th century, very few Federation citizens have seen Romulus or Remus.

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Romulus and Remus (called Romii by the Romulans) occupy the Beta Quadrant, orbiting the star that Federation charts label as Romulus. This system lies opposite the Neutral Zone, a buffer area that keeps the UFP and Romulan Star Empire apart.

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Romulus has a splendid climate. Slightly cooler than Vulcan and with a marginally lower temperature, it is a world of stark majesty. From tall trees to jagged mountains to glittering waterfalls, Romulus exhibits all of the natural beauty one could hope to see on a class M planet. The Romulans themselves doubtless found this primitive natural beauty a strong reason to stay and call the planet home.

Romulus has plentiful indigenous life, and far more vegetation than the comparatively arid world Vulcan.

Additionally, Romulans seeded some of their own ani-mals and plants here; evolutionary offshoots of Vulcan flora and fauna have adapted to the ecosystem.

Along with its cooler clime, Romulus has a more significant hydrosphere than Vulcan. Rainfall is com-mon in many parts of the planet, and instead of having small, salty oceans, the world boasts a large ocean and an array of many seas. This climate has contrib-uted significantly to the decline in general Romulan strength compared to their Vulcan ancestors.

Remus, or Romii, lies just inward of Romulus’ orbit.

is a much less desirable world. It is tidally locked, so it scorches on one side and freezes on the other. The Romulans displaced a primitive native species and took over the world as a mining colony. Over the centuries, the colony became a sort of throw-away for Romulans and other species who were considered inferior but not so dangerous as to require execution, and turned into a combination of prison mine and impressed shipyard.

While Remus has a marginally breathable atmosphere in the underground tunnels where it’s warm enough to live, only Romulan technologies brought in the neces-sary food and water supplies for survival.

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eography

Over a quarter of Romulus comprises the con-tinent Brel’kar, and it is here that the capitol city of Val’danadex Trel resides. In spite of the high Romulan population of this continent, the government studi-ously protects its natural resources. Mountains retain their sharp edge, and the seas are largely unpolluted.

Brel’kar runs the gamut of Romulan geography, then, ranging from arctic tundra in the north to coastal plains and tropical woodlands near the equator.

Besides the main continent, Romulus also hosts a variety of sub-continents and islands, broken up by large seas. The Nelrek ocean remains a tremendous sight that moves many a visitor; it’s said that when Romulans first beheld the ocean, they cried out in wonder, for their ancestors had never envisioned such a turbulent yet inviting body of water.

Remus, by contrast, is an arid rockball. The world has very little water and mostly hosts innumerable tunnels bored out of the dark rock. The world has few features beyond jagged rock faces and the occasional artificial construction.

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While Romulan civilization does not emphasize the same values as the Federation—such as privacy, forthrightness, and earnesty—it is nevertheless a highly evolved culture. The Romulan colonists took pains not only to bring with them all of the best technological tools of their Vulcan antecedents, but to build a civi-lization that would mesh with the lavish new world.

From the outset, the Romulans cast an eye toward the conservation of their natural resources, while occasionally fighting amongst themselves in struggles

Illustration by Kieran Yanner Illustration by Blake Beasley

958

designed to gauge faction strength and encourage dominance by the most clever, ruthless, and powerful members of society.

Combining Vulcan tenacity and intellect with their tools, the Romulans built their civilization from the ground up in a fashion engineered to suit their needs.

The promulgation of a code of honor—the code of D’era—served to remind all citizens of their place and duties to the state. The formation of their capital city revolved around the creation of a Senate, so that the most influential members of society could have a peaceable means of arbitrating their disputes. And always, the Romulans kept an eye to the stars, knowing that it was their destiny to spread forth and conquer.

Romulan civilization boasts some of the finest clothing, housing, entertainment… just so long as one doesn’t pick certain types of things that might make the government suspicious of seditious influences.

The Romulans, largely alone among the races of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, refused to send expe-ditions to colonize or exploit the Gamma Quadrant after the discovery of the Bajoran wormhole. Romulus has historically remained an isolated power, and that isolation served well, keeping the Romulans out of many conflicts until they were ready to enter on their own terms.

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iStory

The Romulans are not a native people; rather, they are explorers who came from Vulcan. During the Time of Awakening, as the Vulcan people put aside their volatile emotions and warlike natures, some Vulcans refused the call of logic. These Vulcans longed for the hot-blooded days of emotional conflict. Eventually, out-numbered by the followers of Surak, they left in sublight ships, hoping to seek a new homeworld somewhere near Vulcan within twenty or thirty years. What hap-pened exceeded any of their expectations: A temporary wormhole deposited several of the would-be colonists at the edge of the Romulus system. Noting the favorable characteristics of the planet before them, the Romulans seized this opportunity and found a new home.

While the Romulans didn’t develop warp drive as easily as some cultures, their penchant for subtlety rewarded them in other ways. The cloaking device was among their early advances, and the first Romulan exploratory vessels boasted this as a considerable advantage. The mineral resources of Remus helped immensely in the construction of an initial fleet. Still, the Romulans proceeded cautiously, ever wary of rediscovering the Vulcans or some other potentially hostile power.

By the 22nd century, the Romulans had expanded their borders slightly, but their relative lack of supra-luminal propulsion hampered exploration progress.

Nevertheless, they finally made fateful contact with the NX-class Enterprise when that vessel became dam-aged by a cloaked Romulan mine. While the Romulans didn’t show themselves here, and the Enterprise only caught a brief sighting of their ship, this presaged con-tact to come: Quiet withdrawal from Galactic affairs, with a consistent demand for outside races to leave, backed up by threat of force and the chilling convic-tion of Romulan superiority.

Later meetings proved just as difficult; the Romulans and Starfleet finally entered war in 2155. This was a mixed encounter for the Romulans. While Romulus and Remus possessed superior technology in the form of cloaks and a larger fleet, Starfleet had more maneu-verable ships thanks to their advanced warp drive.

Neither side could gain a decisive advantage—Starfleet vessels could flee or bring in reinforcements faster than Romulans could move tactically, but the cloak made it impossible for Starfleet to pin the Romulans down. Eventually, the Treaty of Cheron, negotiated by subspace radio, ended hostilities on a stalemate and established the Neutral Zone, from behind which the Romulan Empire would brood, expand, and occasion-ally emerge to test the burgeoning Federation.

In what would become a recurring pattern, the Romulans remained behind the Neutral Zone and out of mind for close to a century. Then, a new generation of their warbird was sent to assault Federation colo-nies and test the waters for a response. The famed Constitution-class Enterprise responded, and this time the Enterprise wasn’t as helpless before the Romulan attack. Captain Kirk managed to destroy the Romulan vessel, thereby forcing the Romulans to rethink their plans, but not before Starfleet learned conclu-sively the Romulan origins. While the Romulans had formed a peace treaty with the Klingons (to avoid a two front war), they now looked hungrily at that bor-der for expansion.

Once again, nearly a decade passed before the Romulans decisively tested the Federation, this time with a standoff against the Enterprise-D. By now the Romulans had developed their massive new war-birds with singularity engines and powerful disruptor cannons, easily the equal of Starfleet’s 24th century Galaxy-class ships, but careful diplomacy and maneu-vering on the part of Starfleet’s finest served to stop the Romulan advance again, although the Tal Shiar dealt blows to the UFP by managing to extradite hidden operatives and flush out traitors.

With the advent of the Dominion War, the Romulan empire remained officially neutral, but was forced into the conflict when Captain Benjamin Sisko provided (falsified) evidence of a Dominion assault plan against Romulus. At the end of the war the Romulans brought their forces to bear with the Alliance and aided in

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quashing the Dominion invasion—only to retreat once more behind their shroud of secrecy.

Most recently, the Romulan government under-went a shift in power as a new figure in Reman activ-ism managed to assassinate the former Senate and declare himself the new supreme Praetor. This myste-rious Shinzon proved to be a clone of the decorated Captain Jean-Luc Picard, designed as part of an earlier plot to inflitrate the Federation with trained clones of its top officials. Picard and the Enterprise-E responded to a call for diplomacy, only to discover that it was another trap; Shinzon had used the Reman shipbuild-ing facilities and technologies to design a new gen-eration of warships and planetary weapons, with the intent of destroying Earth and crippling the Federation.

Fortunately Picard and the crew of the Enterprise stopped him, but only at great cost, and leaving the Romulan government in a shambles. Whether the Romulans will retreat to their grim stoicism once more, or see this as a saving grace on their behalf thanks to the Federation, remains to be seen.

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The Reman mines are not exactly a “place of inter-est” so much as a location of strategic importance.

Reman laborers, as supervised slaves, here extract the resources that form the backbone of the Romulan Star Navy’s might. Dilithium and polyduranium all come from the winding tunnels of this maze, whose inhabit-ants rarely see light and have become degenerate crea-tures thanks to their generations of imprisonment.

The Firefalls of Gol’gathong remain one of Romulus’

most celebrated sights; at night, the falls reflect a red-dish-orange light that resembles a stream of flowing

fire. Romulan officers in particular seem to find this landmark breathtaking: A symbol not only of the natural beauty of their world, but of the fiery heart that beats in the Romulan breast and glows its brightest only in the darkness.

Illustrations by Blake Beasley and Kieran Yanner

958

ClimatE: thin atmoSphErE, 100% hydroSphErE (iCE), vEry Cold tEmpEratUrE

dEmoGraphiCS: thoUSandS of priSonErS Civilization: CorrUpt priSon dESpotiSm, tl

rESoUrCES: dilithiUm

In each major culture, there are those who defy the social order. Among the Federation, criminals are sent to rehabilitation centers, where they have a chance to recover and return to society. Among the Klingons, however, there is Rura Penthe… the prison planetoid.

erAs: Rura Penthe has served as a Klingon prison world since the early 22nd century, where slave a red dwarf star deep within the Klingon Empire. It is more than thirty light years from any other inhabited world, in hopes of keeping casual traffic (and potential escape routes) far away from the Alien’s Graveyard.

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Though Class M and technically a water world,

In document Star Trek Rpg Worlds 1 (Page 157-161)