Aucturn

Aucturn

(Cosmos)

Titles

The Stranger

Diameter

Varies

Mass

×2

Gravity

×2

Atmosphere

Toxic

Year length (PST)

500 years

Day length (PST)

Varies

Orbits

Sun

System

Pact Worlds system

Inhabitants

Cults of the Elder Mythos, Dominion of the Black forces

Images of Aucturn

Source: Core Rulebook, pg(s). 460-461

More information about this subject might be available on PathfinderWiki.

Aucturn is a planet-sized egg or embryo of a nascent Great Old One, the tenth and farthest celestial body orbiting the sun of the Pact Worlds system.

Geography

Aucturn is an organic, inhospitable world with a toxic, yellow-green atmosphere. Its soil is rubbery or chalky, and only mutated vegetation grows there. Its mountains resemble tumours, and its oceans are made of black muck. Its size constantly swells and contracts, twisting its landscape. To outside observers, Aucturn's appearance is inconsistent due to a global magical illusion. Aucturn's orbit is filled with the wrecks of starships, supposedly sent by other planets to neutralize Aucturn during the Gap, but now a navigation hazard.

Despite the planet's mutable geography, Aucturn has several features that are relatively persistent. These include the Undulating Sea, a large ocean surrounding the southern ice cap whose shores host various settlements, most notably the Citadel of the Black, the Twisting Peaks, a stony grey mountain range stretching from northwest to southeast that shield the poppies of the south from severe weather, and the Chalkmounds, a smaller mountain range in the northern hemisphere made of a fragile stone capable of absorbing toxins, making the surrounding area less inhospitable.

History

Prior to the Gap, Aucturn was considered neutral ground between the Cults of the Elder Mythos, who wish to encourage and nurture the new god within the planet, and the forces of the Dominion of the Black, who wish to control it for their own purposes. During the Gap they fought one another, a war that ended with the victory of the Cults and the expulsion of most, but not all, Dominion forces.

In 324 AG, sensing the psychic cries of the unborn deity within Aucturn, Shelyn confronted Nyarlathotep in the skies above Aucturn and demanded him to stop parasitising it. While Nyarlathotep defeated Shelyn, before he could land the killing blow, Zon-Kuthon came to his sister's aid. Together, they banished Nyarlathotep from this reality and reversed the link between him and the fetus, forcing most of Nyarlathotep's power back into Aucturn's core. The nascent Great Old One acquired the power it needed to hatch, resulting in the destruction of Aucturn and the birth of the Great Beyond's youngest god, the Newborn.

Government

Aucturn is a lawless place where evil runs unchecked. Authority only extends as far as the individual leader's reach, and many places have no local government at all. The only laws that exist are built on power alone; the weak have no rights and are no more than slaves, food, or test subjects. Nothing is too depraved to be forbidden, and secrets are the most valuable currency.

Carsai

The most powerful leader in Aucturn is Carsai the King, a prominent cultist and suspected avatar of Nyarlathotep who has ruled the Citadel of the Black for millennia. Due to his relative approachability and opposition of the Dominion of the Black that threaten the entire system, Aucturn was accepted into the Pact Worlds as a protectorate, and Carsai is even represented in some media as an antihero. He has employed his right to speak, or send proxies to speak for him, at Pact Council meetings for several years.

Inhabitants

Orocorans are the most common among Aucturn's monstrous, vicious indigenous lifeforms, but are usually too drug-addled to pose any threat to others. Other native creatures include bryrvaths, gugs, and shoggoths. Most native species prey upon both of the major immigrant groups of Aucturn: the often-mutated humanoid worshippers of the Outer Gods and other insane people, who usually live near the Chalkmounds or in sealed buildings and wear environmental suits when they need to go outside and spend their time either getting high on drugs or focusing on dangerous goals that threaten the entire system, and agents of the Dominion of the Black who control remote facilities and avoid the attention of the cults while protecting their secret lairs and contacting more Dominion agents from the Dark Tapestry. The Elder Mythos cults have proven themselves resistant to the frequent Dominion attacks, and the rest of the Pact Worlds are content to let the Dominion throw its resources at a toxic planet on the fringe of the system. For millennia, Nyarlathotep has used his temples to leech power from the entity gestating inside Aucturn's core.

Settlements

The largest city on Aucturn is the Citadel of the Black, home to the Pyramid of the Black Pharaoh, the largest temple to Nyarlathotep in the Pact Worlds system. It is ruled by Carsai, who maintains a strained but somewhat cordial relationship with the other inhabitants of the Pact Worlds.

The second-most populated settlement on the sparsely inhabited planet is the circular tower-city of Amniek, located at the base of the polyp-like Gravid Mound. It is ruled by the Midwives, a group of 13 cowled spellcasters, who claim that the Great Old One within Aucturn is already pregnant and when Gravid Mound bursts and gives birth to Aucturn's child, they will benefit from its dark gifts.