Cottman IV called "Darkover" possibly due to the pitch blackness which can follow sunset, or the blood red cast it's sun casts on the world.. The average temperature is 12° C (38.6° F) on a midsummer's day in the lowland city of Thendara. Temperature in the mountains is much colder, as are temperatures in winter. A human colony settled by generational ships several thousand years ago by colonists of Spanish, Gaelic, and Britton extraction, one of the only planets colonized with a near homogeneous population making ethnic diversity nonexistent.
Due to unreliable early navigation technology and damage to the ship in the crash, contact with Terra was lost. Some early colonists interbred with one of the planets several reclusive native species causing unique genetic mutations and introducing strains of telepathy and longevity into the population. It is this basis on which the comyn were built. Legend in the six domains says that Hastur--the son of Aldones, Lord of Light--came down and became mortal for the love of Cassilda. It is through the power of this legend that most of the population believe the comyn to be gods.
The traits which swirled in the genetic pool which are collectively referred to as laran can be amplified though the use of living crystals called matrix, or star stones. Blue-ish white in color, they are keyed to one person, can only be used by that one person, and generally die with their owner. To touch another person's matrix can send it's owner into shock, and a powerful telepath may kill their attacker in the process.
During an extremely violent period known as the Ages of Chaos/Hundred Kingdoms a program was actively pursued to breed the telepathic gifts true. This breeding program created massively powerful telepaths, but also bred instability into the noble families due to excessive inbreeding. Around the time of the Compact, a pledge to abandon weaponry which killed at greater than an arms length put an end to the use of telepathically made weapons of mass destruction, the breeding program was abolished.
Though granting a degree of stability to the families of the comyn, the end of the ages of Chaos also spelled the end of high sorcery as the power of Darkovan telepaths declined. At one time buildings could be built with the power of a mind, and armies could be halted in the field by a particularly powerful telepath. It was at this time that Ashara Alton, the first female Keeper took her place at Hali Tower and built Thendara Tower. What had once been an exclusively male office rapidly became the domain of women, as powerful channeling tools at the very center of the tower system.
After the destruction of Hali Tower, which had once been the center of Hastur power and prestiage, Arilinn Tower on the plains of the same name began to entrench itself in the post Ages of Chaos world. Issuing a series of laws governing laran use, known as the Laws of Arilinn, it was these rules which dictated both a system of ethics which supported the Compact, and customs which would lead to stagnation in the laran sciences.
The Compact, though uniting many of the low land and hills kingdoms, isolated the nobility of the high Hellers when Aldaran of Aldaran refused to sign it. The court at Thendara would continue to claim dominion over Aldaran, and the family crests remained in the great Comyn Castle, the division was more or less permanent and the independent mountain families would slowly wither in the cold. What problems of the shallow genetic pool the Six Domains have, the Hellers folk have more acutely. Despite a renaissance after the Terran Re-Contact, those who know the mountains are well aware of needs to reconcile with the valley folk.
The Empire which rediscovered Darkover almost two generations ago is a bloated and dying bureaucracy, though few in either camp realize that fully. Politically restless, massively over extended and morally bankrupt, the Empire will fall sooner rather than later. An overly powerful military industrial complex, having gained control of most of the state bureaucracy has stoked the paranoia of outside enemies for so long that when none appeared, greedy eyes turned inward. Rebellions against unresponsive and irrational Imperial Central directives feed corporate warfare which does not always limit itself to legal battle fields.
Caught up most directly are the dozen or so Protected and Closed Worlds--many of them lost Terran colonies--which have drawn the covetous eyes of those who believe they can direct anger and hostility outward, propping up the decaying Imperial system and gaining personal power.
Darkover is one such protected world, and the clash will be inevitable.
First landing in the Hellers near Caer Donn, and developing a close relationship with the Aldaran Domain, it was later decided to move the Terran Headquarters to Thendara--the nominal capital of the Six Domains. Leaving behind in their wake, a vastly changed hybrid city still known to the mountain folk as Caer Donn and to the Terrans as Port Chicago.
The Empire has massively misread and misplayed it's hand on Darkover almost from the start. First by aligning themselves with the Aldarans they were inevitably painted with the brush of that families legacy when dealing with the other noble families. Repeatedly failing to recognize the culture which saw their technology as excessive and their weapons as cowardly no small pothole has been missed in the Empire's drive towards the ultimate culture clash. Dangerous fools--or merely useful ones--from the point of view of the Darkovan observer the heavy handed approach has only served to alienate and anger the local rulers.
The Comyn though have their own problems, because entirely unrelated to the Terran arrival their society faced drastic changes as the very basis of the Tower systems crumbled at their ancient bases. The iron grip of Arilinn was slipping, and once powerful institutions sat half filled with it becoming more and more difficult to find girls willing to take on the lonely sacrifices of their central office. The answer would be remove the archaic and draconian rules which the Keepers lived under, and to allow all those with the power and the focus to take that station. But thousands of years of history, culture and taboo can not be broken over night, and noble blood has already stained the snows over the matter.
Darkover is not an idyllic world by any stretch, and it is these cultural differences which make them a target for Terran xenophobia. A patriarchal society, women's rules are fairly limited, even in the ways in which they rebel. Noble women fair little better than common folk, with the notable exception of the Aillard Domain, and they lack the escape valve that keeps the general society in check. The Comhii Letzii, the Guild of Renunciates, sometimes referred to as the Free Amazons may give up their rights to protection by men under the law for freedoms (and restrictions) under the Kings Charter.
It is to this blood cast world, deep within it's own internal conflicts, and threatened by a decaying giant that the destiny of both may be decided.