Vael Prime
Vael Prime is the verse's 1% rendered as a planet: sixty-four million people, almost all of them staff, retinues, second cousins, or indispensable artists, ringed by three glitter-band habitats where the actual Families live.
Rules Reference
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Aesthetic | glitter |
| Anchor System | vael-prime |
| Controlling Faction | Asset Realisation |
| Fold Bleed | low |
| Habitat | urban, surface |
| Population | 64000000 |
| Role | anchor |
| Zone | Core |
Notes
Dangers: Kadiss throttling: a House can downgrade a guest's tier as a social weapon; on Vael Prime this is enforced with theatre, and most guests do not realise they have been cognitively slowed until the dinner ends., Naked blades: assassin retinues are legal under House Vael precedent; carrying counter-retinue insurance is a Vael social grace, not paranoia.
Hooks: A House Vael second cousin has put out a quiet contract to retire a Navigator who misrouted one of the family's yachts through a minor fold; the Navigator is alive, hiding, and asks the party to find who inside the House sold the order., A glittering charity gala on the glitter bands is hosting an Ark-arrival diplomatic dinner; an Ark sleeper wakes mid-toast and speaks a pidgin no one in the Core has heard in three centuries, and Argus wants it recorded before it can be translated., A new glitter-band habitat is being completed and the contractor has run out of Dynar labour for the pressure-rated skeleton; House Vael wants the party to broker a deal with a Helix gene-world for a fresh heavy-world gene-line.
Lore: Vael Prime is the verse's 1% rendered as a planet: sixty-four million people, almost all of them staff, retinues, second cousins, or indispensable artists, ringed by three glitter-band habitats where the actual Families live. House Vael holds the world in the name of Asset Realisation, the apex of the Nine, and the planet reads as the doctrine made scenic: every person on it is someone's line item, and the line items are kept beautiful. The Glitter Bands are not one palace -- they are three, each maintained by a separate House line, each jealous of the other two, each running its own Kadiss enclave with its own tier ceilings. The Old Vellum at the pole is the closest thing the Core has to a temple: a physical archive, ink on vellum, three millennia of lineage, with Kadiss nodes forbidden in the lower levels so that the priests can work without the grid listening. The Long Mirror is the public face, a gallery of Family portraits where citizens come to be reminded who owns the Cores, the rek, and the Kadiss tier they live inside. Legion cadets are posted here for a season to learn what they are dying to protect; very few enjoy it.
Notable: The Glitter Bands: three high-orbit ring habitats ringing the planet, each one a separate court for a separate House line, each one a closed economy with its own Kadiss enclave., The Old Vellum: the archive at the planet's pole where House Vael's three-thousand-year lineage is recorded in physical ink; Kadiss nodes are forbidden below the second sub-level., The Long Mirror: a public gallery of Family portraits stretching back to the first Exodus ships; citizens come here to be reminded who they serve.