I'd more or less forgotten about Kepler-22B, but the recent posts on sectors I5 and T3 at Fate SF and Hereticwerks made me dig out my old notes.
Kepler is a system-neutral worldbuilding project: claim a sector, describe the key sites and build a set of encounters, for anyone to pick up and use in their gaming. More here.
My sector is V3, an inland sea partially covered by a red algal mat. So far I have a brief intro plus hexes 1: wreck; anomaly, 2: whirlpool; mass, 3: shell; EM signal, 4: crater; creature and 5: warren; construct, then 6-10: vessels; reefs; void; serpent; shells and 11: aurora; debris. This is no. 12.
Hex 63.54 The algal mat here is woven to form nest pools for hundreds of thousands of electrophagic crustaceans based downstream of a band of electromagnetic currents marked by boiling water, roiling steam and auroral flares. The excess energy and new compounds formed by the currents are the material basis for this nascent civilisation, and have so far stimulated the development of a rudimentary psychochitinous tool class.
The band is a channel of communication for two supervoltaic gastropods, related to those in Hex 11. Each maintains its buoyancy just below the surface by superheating a pocket of water and together they carry on an ancient discussion as to the nature of free will. Close by floats a third such being, listening in silence and gathering a great charge.
Concealed in the clouds of steam rising from the band is a spatiotemporal scar, a faint distortion refracting light, contact with which is highly disruptive. It is a former wormhole mouth which until recently was held open by the electromagnetic sheathing of the band.
The airs and waters of the region are saturated with billions of nanoscopic dronids, flying biological observers from another world. Each is filled with sensations, feelings and memories copied from lifeforms across the planet, living, dead or otherwise. Many are hibernating, some dreaming alien dreams as their stores of data leak. Most await the reopening of the wormhole in order to deliver their contents to a distant supervisory body.