Gel'roe (World Guide, Location, Planet) (Patreon)

Gel'roe is a lone planet orbiting a moderately sized stellar black hole, about 450 light years past the outer border of the Marian Drift Prefecture. Located just beyond the black hole's dense accretion disk, the world is habitable, after a fashion. Though cast in near total darkness, the world is kept warm by its core, kept molten by large quantities of highly radioactive heavy metals that were concentrated within the world at the time of its formation. The atmosphere of Gel'roe is similar to that of a standard, habitable 0.95G planet, though its oxygen cycle is dependent on bacteria rather than plants.

All life forms known to exist on Gel'roe are either bacterial or fungal in nature. Virtually every surface on the world is covered in bacterial slime of one sort or another. Aveyka who have visited the planet in order to harvest certain bacteria often call it 'the snot planet' as a result. The fungi who form vast mushroom forests on the world largely subsist off of bacterial waste products.

While fungal spores present a highly toxic danger in certain environments, it's the bacteria who create the worst hazards to Gel'roe's occasional visitors. Many are universally infectious, and fatally so if left untreated. A few will colonize mammals, and at least one is known to provide a protective 'snot' coating that renders its host immune to both the world's other bacteria, as well as its fungi. The Aveyka are known to use this particular bacteria to protect themselves as they harvest other types, though removing it is said to be next to impossible, with the colony always growing back after a short time.

For those few 'in the know', the most famous, or infamous, bacterial colony type exported by the Aveyka shares the name of the planet itself. The 'gel'roe' microorganism is a transparent, prismatic bacteria which floats in damp, low-lying air in large colonies. It typically subsists off of airborne nutrients and fungal spores. It will not survive encounters with dry environments for more than a fifteen minutes or so, and is therefore easy to neutralize using desiccants.

What makes the gel'roe bacterium so infamous is its voracious appetite for mammalian flesh. Should a victim find herself caught in a gel'roe cloud without a full envirosuit, the bacteria will cling to and spread over her entire body. After a few short moments, it will rapidly and painlessly consume her physical body, leaving behind a faceless, gelatinous husk of crystal clear bacterial waste material.

Despite its appearance, and the manner of its creation, the resulting husk is still very much alive. Still fully conscious, though stripped of knowledge, personality, and willpower, the husk is nearly as mobile as it was before its creation. It obtains energy for this mobility from the world's heat, and by absorbing nutrients from the air just as the bacteria that created it do.

In their native environment, they will almost always find their way into the fungus forests, where certain fungi can liquefy and fully consume them. Away from Gel'roe, these bacterial husks are completely at the mercy of whoever might come into possession of them. They will do whatever is asked of them, without hesitation or question.

Gel'roe husks can be liquefied, and their mass increased or decreased as desired using various technological means. The Aveyka use their own crystal-tech bottles and flasks to hold and emit a cloud of live gel'roe bacteria. When released, this bacteria converts the bottle opener into a husk, which the bottle liquefies, reduces and stores as a plaything for whoever might come into possession of it.

Gel'roe husks have an indeterminate lifespan. So long as they are kept hydrated, and given access to airborne nutrients, they remain alive with no signs of aging or other physical change. Gel'roe husks contained in a crystal-tech bottle or flask are preserved in a static state, requiring nothing until the bottle is opened and they are released again.

Visiting the world of Gel'roe is impossible, unless one finds the right Aveyka to speak to. If they're persuasive enough, they might convince the Aveyka to take them to the planet on one of their bacteria harvesting expeditions. This is a one-way trip, however. Visitors are slathered in their very own 'snot' colony and left to spend the rest of their days in one of the half dozen slime covered 'villages' where residents live out their days, perform research, and collect bacteria for trade to the occasional Aveyka expedition in exchange for various sundry goods.