Alen

Alen (pronounced /ˈeɪlən/) is the eighth and largest planet in the Bundan system, the star system best known for the terrestrial planet of Eolo. Though, like most gas giants, composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, Alen has a subtle turquoise color due to the abundance of methane in its atmosphere.

Though possessing a thriving, if alien, ecosystem of its own, Alen is best known for its numerous moons, many of which have temperatures and compositions much closer to the terrestrial standard than the planet itself. Although certainly colonization of Alen is proceeding, it is on its moons that most Eolan nations focus their efforts.

Life

Alen's native life exists in numerous different layers—go a few hundred kilometers closer to or farther from the planet's center, and one encounters entirely different ecosystems. In each case, however, the life is necessarily adapted to one of constant swimming, flight, or floating, as Alen has no solid surface (though it does contain occasional ice crystals).

Eolan exobiologists have tentatively divided Alen into ten biotic zones, though there's not a sharp distinction between all of them, and some layers may have prominent "sublayers". From outermost to innermost, the biotic zones are as follows:

• Photic zone—The top layer of Alen is the one that still receives the most light from the system's sun. Many of the organisms here are photosynthetic, such as the gas lily and the basketfruit plant.
• Nebular zone—This is the highest zone where clouds form—though clouds of methane and ammonia rather than water. Many organisms here have various ways of "seeing" through the cloud cover, such as the sonar-using tIelo; others, such as the discophoran quaj, just rely on touch and smell.
• Xanthic zone—This zone is characterized by its yellow hue, due to sulfur and other chemicals (some of which are of biotic origin). The best known organism of this zone is undoubtedly the spherical nolem, with a reputation as the most dangerous creature not just of the xanthic zone but of all of Alen.
• Nival zone—Though not the only layer of Alen to have ice crystals, this is where they are most common. For reasons still unclear, the nival zone seems to be home to a large population of undead, some of them arisen from people on Eolo and other worlds.
• Aqueous zone—While this may be the layer of Alen that is closest to terrestrial chemistry—it gets its name from its relative abundance of water—it is among those with the most strange and alien life, full of bizarre creatures of myriad form. It was only recently that it was recognized that many of these beings were all members of one highly variform species, or clade, now called weiji.
• Insular zone—Alone among Alen's biotic zones, this zone has some semblance of solid ground—but only because these bits of "ground" are themselves living creatures, called tivians. Because of the presence of the tivians, the insular zone actually is home to some creatures that cannot swim or fly, though they still tend to have flying larval stages to spread to other tivians.
• Osseous zone—This zone gets its name not from literal bone, but from coral-like structures called bunlocks that somewhat resemble floating bones. In places the bunlocks are dense enough to form something similar to floating reefs, complete with the abundance of life that usually characterizes such places.
• Turbulent zone—This layer of Alen is constantly in churning motion, not because of any inherent planetary processes, but because of the action of the organisms within. Among the largest residents of the turbulent zone, and among those that contribute the most to its agitation, are the huge, eel-like gowloon and the cyathiform lowpock.
• Viscous zone—Somewhat misleadingly named, the viscous zone is viscous only in comparison to the gaseous layers above it. This layer is filled with glowing creatures that feed off detritus from the layers above, so efficiently that virtually none of it makes it to the zone below.
• Bathothermal zone—The base of the food chain of the bathothermal zone is the pianta, a type of very long organism that draws its energy from the temperature differential between altitudes within the planet's core. Feeding on the pianta and its exudations are a myriad of other, smaller organisms.

Settlement

Although Alen's fluidity and frigidity make it less than hospitable for humans and other terrestrial beings, that hasn't stopped Eolan nations from trying to settle it, if perhaps mostly to avoid letting some other nation get too large a headstart claiming the planet. Though no part of Alen is conducive to terrestrial life, magic can get around that, allowing visitors and immigrants from Eolo to breathe the otherwise unbreathable gases and withstand temperatures they could not survive naturally. Though there are, at least of yet, no large areas of Alen that have been developed, there is no shortage of small holds, as well as a number of empty claims of much larger regions with little to back them up.

Perhaps the most settled part of Alen is the insular zone, if only because in that zone there is "solid ground" available to be built on. However, floating structures and artificial shees have been constructed in other zones as well. Next to the insular zone, the aqueous zone is the most settled, due to the availability of water there. The single largest Eolan settlement on Alen, however, the floating city of Buquerdi, is located deep in the viscous zone.

Moons

Main:moons of Alen Alen has a dozen planemar moons—a rather impressive number, even for a gas giant, to the extent that many planetologists suspect that magic must play some role, and that it could not retain so many large moons in stable orbit without its help. Unlike their primary, Alen's moons are all solid, though this is not to say they are inhabitable by unaided terrestrial life. Still, all the major moons do bear life, if perhaps life of bizarre form by Eolan standards.

From the closest to Alen to the farthest, its major moons are:

• Crolom—Barren and brown, Crolom was thought lifeless, or nearly so, until it was discovered that it did indeed bear thriving ecoysystems underground.
• Jartr—Shrouded in opaque cloud cover, Jartr has a hot, swampy surface swarming with creatures resembling giant insects.
• Anazal—This icy moon is known for the giant clockwork mechanisms that cover its surface, constructed out of ice by its ancient inhabitants for forgotten purposes.
• Gacen—Gacen is the only one of Alen's moons that is fully congenial to terrestrial life, though this seems to be the effect of magical enchantments, for which there is reason to suspect some more sinister motivation.
• Hab—This dry, volcanic moon is inhabited by two major races, the jede and the cothor, who are constantly at war.
• Erag—Bright green from a distance, Erag looks no less green close up, covered by flora that resembles terrestrial plants but in fact are quite different.
• Lebru—This moon's rich blue color comes from gases extruded by great sessile creatures called suvians that lurk just beneath its surface.
• Aadion—Its atmosphere filled with a stew of caustic chemicals, Aadion seems physically barren, but all sorts of strange magical effects play over its surface, some of which seem to be some sort of intangible life forms.
• Caciaca—A volcanic moon known for its huge geysers, Caciaca ejects spumes of gas and vapor high above its surface.
• Kelane—Kelane is legendary for the beauty of its shifting, multicolored clouds, but beneath those clouds it is a word of ooze and living slime creatures.
• Imil—Covered in a thick layer of ice, Imil harbors diverse life beneath its frozen surface.
• Yiri—Known as the "Dreaming Moon", Yiri is home to fairylike creatures called sutak who summon weird entities from distant planes.

Alen also bears at least several dozen irregularly shaped subplanemar moons, but their precise number is uncertain, and most of them have no known characteristics of particular interest. (One exception is the recently discovered Lucun, which seems to be a compit with portals to many different places, though most of these portals seem to rely on yet undetermined activation mechanisms.) Like most gas giants, Alen also possesses a ring system, though Alen's rings are too faint to be seen from Eolo with the naked eye.

Magic

The planetary magic associated with Alen is sometimes known as lauism, and deals largely with transfigurement, with lauists altering themselves and others to produce a variety of effects. Lauism is considered a risky subarcanum to try to master, because a mistake in its use could leave one's form terribly and permanently warped. It has, however, the potential for considerable power, and the physical changes that accompany its effects may give it an intimidation factor quite beyond its primary results.

The moons of Alen are associated with a type of magic of their own, one called moonsmagic that draws on the interaction between the ambient magics of the individual moons. Unlike lauism, moonsmagic is strong on Alen itself, and is therefore popular among the gas giant's inhabitants.