Gunkmire

Gunkmire is a planet in the Milky Way Galaxy.

As the festering jewel in the Gunkmire Dominion’s stinking crown, Gunkmire is a rocky terrestrial planet. Its thick, stuffy atmosphere wraps the planet like a heavy blanket, trapping both heat and humidity and making the planet feel like a sauna. The planet’s largely-flat terrain is dominated by ancient, decaying forests and murky bogs, marshes and swamps. Though rain is frequent, wind is not, and this makes the planet feel eerily still and unnaturally calm, even though the swamps are full of dangerous beings.

Gunkmire is home primarily to two sentient species. The boggrouts are a species of molluscs composed mostly of gelatinous matter, and who migrated out of the swamps long ago to build their sprawling timber villages. The stenchlings on the other hand are ugly, slouching humanoids with warty green skin, who reside in the bogs and feed on prey like snakes, toads and salamanders.

Sludge-Queen Anaesthesia, queen of the boggrouts and lady of lies, governs Gunkmire and all its domains with an oozing iron fist. The planet might not have much else going for it, but it does have oil – in fact it’s said to be bursting with it – and with much of the galaxy still so dependent upon fossil fuels, Anaesthesia has become very rich indeed.

Thanks to the Sludge-Queen’s selfishness and greed, most of Gunkmire’s inhabitants are desperately poor and live in extreme squalor. Sickness and disease are rife, and the entire populace is riddled with plague. Most are too weak and tired to work the land and produce what they need to sustain themselves. What little they do produce is carted straight to the Silt Palace, along with a hefty tithe, and what Anaesthesia doesn’t want is shipped off to other planets in exchange for money and good favour with powerful people.

Gunkmire has five natural satellites: Gloombus, Mireen, Sludgeon, Fester, and Squelch.