Venus

Venus is the second planet in the Solar System, and is sometimes named the Storm Planet. It is a wild, unstable place, difficult to safely land on and even more difficult to traverse, safely or not.

Venus resembles Earth in a much earlier age, choking under the weight of huge, cloying plants and trees and massive fungi, which supports a vast and rich ecosystem of countless gigantic insects, amphibians, reptiles, and many other strange and wondrous beasts. Most notable are the Lizardmen, a Reptilian hominid species which the Europeans regard as the archetypal Noble Savage, being akin to dogs or wolves in their potential for taming but otherwise dangerous and ignorable.

Venus has as yet given no signs of real civilisation, past or present, and remains stubbornly impenterable to European explorers, with a handful of heavily fortified enclaves scattered in its Highest Peaks. Zeppelins are relied on heavily to supply these enclaves, and a means of more safely traversing the swamps, perhaps in mechanical walkers or tracked landships, are being considered.

For now, only the reckless or the insane dare trudge too far from the Colonies.