System: Menkent

Many of the locals on Menkent refer to their world as the burial site of the Marsden dynasty, thanks to the heroic death of the Lyran Commonwealth’s second Archon, Alistair Marsden, on the Plain of Dust just outside the capital city of Blackstone in 2408. Marsden, who died leading a tank regiment during the Age of War, left behind his widow, Katherine Marsden-Steiner, the woman who would rule the Commonwealth and establish the Great House of Steiner. This simple historical event at once turned the sandy, sun-blasted world of Menkent into a tourist attraction for those willing to brave its closeness to the Draconis Combine border.

Lit by a large, orange subgiant, which it orbits just a little too closely, Menkent itself is a warm planet, less than half of which is covered by water, and that is so salty that it requires purifiers to drink. Even inland seas and rivers require treatment before they can be used for drinking and irrigation, making life here difficult, but not impossible. At the time of Marsden’s death, House Kurita had managed to overtake this world, and it would trade hands between Steiner and Kurita many times before and after the days of the original Star League. Effectively little more than a barren wasteland — its principal exports being limited to common metals and small machines — Menkent’s local infrastructure was ravaged by the centuries of continuous warfare.

The capital city of Blackstone stands at the junction of three rivers on Terrasota, the largest and most populous of the planet’s three continents. The other two continents, Areseppi and Aphirojia, are both equatorial continents, where the arid climate and local dust storms have made habitation more difficult than normal, and thus both are far less densely populated.

There are no functional factories located on this planet.