Petriva

Petriva is the ancestral home world of both the dendrox and the squoll species, and is the central seat of power in the Royal Neurocratic Demesne of Petriva. It is the closest planet in relation to its star, and its surface is greatly impacted by frequent solar storms. Despite this, it is the most densely populated planet in its system, while its two neighbors remain nearly uninhabited. Petriva orbits Acumense once every 39 Petrivan days, with each day lasting 11 hours.

Overview
Petriva is approximately 8,100 miles (or 13,000 km) in diameter, and orbits Acumense in a steadily widening ellipse. The decay in Petriva's orbit has been growing in incremental but measurable amounts for an estimated 32,000 years, coinciding with the theorized date of the introduction of Thalassia to the Acumense system. Projections indicate that in another 3,000-4,000 years, the planet's orbit will destabilize entirely, and Petriva will be set adrift as a rogue planet. Currently, its orbit lies beyond the bounds of what is considered Acumense's habitable zone, and global cooling has begun to take effect on what was already a relatively wintry planetary ecosystem.

The atmosphere on Petriva contains unusually high concentrations of chlorine and argon gas, both of which can be found in small amounts throughout the lower atmosphere, with higher concentrations collecting in deep "gas lakes" in valleys and canyons. The chlorine gives most of the planet a deep green tinge, though this is often unnoticed by observers from orbit, as Acumense produces very little in the way of visible light.

60% of the non-encased surface is covered by oceans of highly saline water, with a crater-pocked surface of rocks and ice making up the remaining 40%.

Geological Description
The surface of Petriva is largely devoid of life, but for the hardiest of extremophiles living in forests near the equator, feeding off the infrared radiation from Acumense. The landscape of the planet is mostly composed of barren stretches of rocky terrain pockmarked with craters and glaciers of toxic ice. Two green oceans separate the remaining uncovered portions of the Petrivan continents: three unnamed stretches of snow-covered shale that have been carved into sharp curving spires and deep canyons by the unrelenting forces of time and wind. Scattered across the surface can be found valleys where the heavier atmospheric gasses have settled, resulting in dark-green suffocating fogs that rarely disperse.

Petriva's poles are capped by thick sheets of glaciers and permafrost covering an approximate 35% of the planet's total surface. Owing to the strong magnetic field of the planet and the frequency and intensity of Acumense's solar storms, these ice caps shoulder the brunt of most of the solar rays levelled at the planet. As a result, they have become extremely toxic environments to most forms of Petrivan life, being composed primarily of heavily irradiated ice and frozen chlorine. Only the most radioresistant lifeforms can exist on the caps, and are mostly microscopic in nature. Extreme low temperatures keep most of the harmful material from leeching into the equatorial ecosystem.