Aucturn

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Aucturn

(Cosmos)

Titles

The Stranger

Type

Nascent Great Old One

Diameter

Varies

Mass

x 2

Gravity

x 2

Atmosphere

Poisonous

Orbit

500 years

Inhabitants

Worshippers of the Old Cults

Satellites

None

Images of Aucturn

Source: Distant Worlds, pg(s). 48f.

More information about this subject might be available on StarfinderWiki.

Aucturn, the Stranger, is a planet-sized nascent Great Old One, the eleventh and farthest celestial body orbiting Golarion's sun

Description

Aucturn is nearly double the size of Golarion but is bathed in a poisonous, yellow-green atmosphere. It is the only world in the system not connected to other planets in the solar system by a network of portals. Aucturn is rarely visible to the naked eye. Astronomers have reported differing descriptions of the planet, ranging from a ringed gas giant to a dark and lifeless rock.

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Rune representation

In scholarly works, Aucturn is sometimes represented by a complex rune: a long horizontal bar that has three vertical bars placed on top of it. The first vertical bar is terminated at both ends by small circles; the second is the longest of the three and has a small circle only at its base, its other end is forked in two; the third bar only has a small circle at its base while its top is crossed by the right-hand fork of the middle bar.

Gazetteer

The planet warps itself destroying places and making new ones, though some areas remain for some time, including:

• Citadel of the Black, ruled by Carsai the King
• The Gravid Mound watched over by the Tower of the Midwives
• The Loving Place

Inhabitants

Aucturn is populated by strange native creatures: ghostly apparitions, skinless hunters, and stranger beasts. There also exists a population of worshippers of the Old Cults seeking the Dark Tapestry, the Great Old Ones, and the Outer Gods.

Other creatures known to exist on Aucturn include:

• Cerebric fungus
• Denizens of Leng
• Gugs
• Xoarians
• The Midwives
• Shoggoths, especially at the south pole
• Vespergaunts
• Worms That Walk

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Alignment with Golarion

Every 56 years, Golarion and Aucturn's orbits align such that they are closest to one another, a phase lasting approximately four months. Although the gravitational influence is so slight as to go unnoticed by most of Golarion, it excites Golarion's elementals. In the deserts of Osirion, it causes spikes in sandstorm generation, resulting in the cyclical uncovering of long-lost ruins.

In legend

Aucturn is the subject of countless legends. Some hint that the planet may be the system's link to the lightless places between the stars known as the Dark Tapestry or to the mysterious Dominion of the Black whispered in Osirian legend. The Pharaoh of Numbers, one of the Four Pharaohs of Ascension responsible for unifying Osirion's historic empire, was a devotee of the planet Aucturn and thought to be obsessed with study of the planet, and some believe that the rapid technological and magical advances that occurred during the reign of the Four Pharaohs was due to powerful forces from Aucturn, a theory known as the Aucturn Enigma. Others postulate the planet is actually a vast living being in stasis.

Some astronomers fearfully postulate that Aucturn is the very example of the nightmare world that comes of the Great Old Ones having free reign; others dispute this theory as eccentric.

References

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.