Apostae

Apostae is a small planet (or planet-sized object) in the Pact Worlds system. The planetoid has a highly ecliptic orbit, almost perpendicular to Absalom Station. It is generally believed the planetoid originated somewhere beyond the system and was caught in the sun's orbit thousands of years before the Gap. [1]

Geography
An Apostaean cityscape.

Apostae is a barren, airless world riddled with atmosphere-filled caverns and tunnels through to the planetoid's core. Many of these chambers are empty, but others hold ancient machines, permanently comatose alien forms, or vaults of advanced technology and weapons. The city's barren surface houses only one major settlement, the drow-controlled city of Nightarch. Nightarch is the only known point of entry into Apostae's interior, with several other entrances on the world's surface blocked by huge, locked, and indestructible doors. [1]

Settlements
Nightarch is the largest city on Apostae's surface. A major spaceport, the city hosts bustling markets dealing with personal and starship weaponry, mercenary squads of orc and half-orc warriors, fleshwarping augmentations, and custom weapons designs. Visitors often come through the city to search for alien technology in the caverns below, either on official contract or by slipping through the drow's defenses. Visitors also come to study the eponymous arch at the city's center. The arch is similar to many others in the city that link it with most of the other Pact Worlds but is covered in strange markings that defy all efforts at analysis. The arch activates spontaneously at rare and random intervals creating a gate to unknown landscapes; so far none who have entered these portals has ever returned. [1]

Within Apostae's tunnels, other drow settlements exist. Orc, half-orcs, and other races living in drow settlements are second-class citizens at best, with no say in political matters, treated mostly as laborers or subterranean cannon-fodder by the drow. [1]

History
Though few research teams explored Apostae before the Gap, they encountered a now-extinct race called the ilee that dwelled inside the world's tunnels. Strangely, nothing in the records suggests the ilee themselves had any knowledge of their origin, giving rise to theories that they may have degenerated over millennia between the stars or may have been a captive, servitor race that outlived their masters. No one knows what happened to kill off the ilee. [1]

Since the end of the Gap, Apostae has been primarily in drow hands. How and why the drow arrived on Apostae is a mystery, but most believe they were led there by their demonic patrons shortly before Golarion's disappearance. [1]

Inhabitants
Despite centuries of effort to expand their holdings and increase their meager population, the drow still only partially control the world's interior. Despite their lack of complete control of Apostae's interior, and their limited holdings on the surface to one major city, the drow still claim Apostae as their home world and became signatories to the Absalom Pact. [1]

Like the bone sages of Eox, Apostae's drow houses do not work together as a cohesive government. Each house acts independently, most operating as family-run corporations that deal in arms. The most powerful house is House Zeizerer, which controls Nightarch. [1]