Makem Te

Homebrew Reference Book: Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds

See also: Galactic Gazetteer

Makem Te is an unremarkable, ugly world. Yet its natives have turned it into one of the galaxy's marvels through the sheer stubbornness of faith.

Makem Te is a dry desert planet characterized by crumbling rock and sickly, scrublike plants. It lacks oceans, seas, and lakes, drawing all moisture from underground aquifers that are replenished during torrential rains twice each year. What makes the planet remarkable is the degree to which its native Swokes Swokes have decorated their world using only primitive technology. Cities of solid iron rise from the desert, impossibly delicate in their architecture considering the strength of their manufacture. But the planet's most famous construction in the Tract.

Essentially a giant cemetery, the Tract is a checkerboard of polished stone squares, each supporting a short pillar called a stela. One tile is laid for every fallen Swokes Swokes. The process, which has been going on for millennia, has produced an astonishing 1.2 trillion memorial squares. The Tract currently takes up more than 7 percent of Makem Te's total landmass.

Makem Te Statistics

Region: The Outer Rim

Climate: Arid

Gravity: Standard

Moons: 0

Length of Day: 45 Standard Hours

Length of Year: 188 Standard Days

Sapient Species: 94% Swokes Swokes (Native), 6% Other Species

Government: Congress of Caliphs

Capital: Thousand Thousand

Major Exports: Ore, Spice

Major Imports: Foodstuffs, Technology

Knowledge (Galactic Lore)

DC		RESULT
10		Makem Te is the dry homeworld of the Swokes Swokes, on the Perlemian Trade Route.
15		The 10% of the planet's surface consists of a necropolis called "The Tract of Makem Te."
20		Makem Te cities are built from ornate cast iron, giving the planet a reputation for having the galaxy's greatest metal workers.

Knowledge (Social Sciences)

DC		RESULT
10		Every Swokes Swokes that dies on Makem Te is marked at their final resting place.
15		Schinga Shikou are large, predatory, serpents native to Makem Te, and the most prized of the Schinga species.
20		Entry into the Tract is both expensive and incredibly dangerous, as many pilgrims die of sunstroke, dehydration, or animal attack.

History

"Yellow star: Makem. Third planet: Makem Te. Arid, pebbly, no oceans, one large ice cap." The first Republic assessment of Rimworld planets along the Perlemian Route was absurdly sparse in detail and riddled with errors. For Makem Te, what was labeled an ice cap was actually the Tract shining brightly in the sun.

When a Republic beacon crew arrived in the system much later to install a nav buoy, they were sufficiently intrigued by the "ice cap" to land a contact team. The scientists were astonished to discover that the vast mass in the northern hemisphere, approximately 2,300 kilometers on each edge, was a linked grid of 2-meter-square stone plaques. In the translated tongue of the Swokes Swokes natives, the spectacle was known as the Tract.

In the deserts surrounding the Tract, the scientists explored the Swokes Swokes' cast-iron cities and discovered a sparse biosphere dominated by giant serpents. Some of the snakes had been domesticated by the natives as mounts and beasts of burden, while wild specimens slithered through the desert sands and menaced wayward travelers. Collectively known as schingas, the reptiles came in myriad subspecies, including the strong and obedient Schinga Equa, the subterranean Schinga Klaug, the tiny Schinga Picai, the venom-dripping Schinga Ikkow, and the pureblooded serpent-stallion known as the Schinga Shikou- the "Pride of Makem Te."

At first, the Republic considere Makem Te a quaint curiocity. It changed its tune when a pair of geologists, saddled with a long layover at the Republic's orbital fueling station, visited a rock quarry producing Tract stone and realized that Makem Te was rich in metals and medical-grade spice. Republic industrialists greedily signed a contract with the planet's ruling Congress of Caliphs and built dozens of mines. In short order, off-worlders and advanced technology became commonplace on Makem Te, leading to cultural confusion among a people hidebound by tradition.