LOCAL CLUSTER
KROGAN DMZ
ARALAKH
Durak
Durak is a small, heat-blasted rock lost in the blinding glare of the star Aralakh. It occasionally traps a trace atmosphere of gases blown in on Aralakh’s powerful solar wind, which inevitably blows the gases back out again.
The planetoid has a few valuable lodes of heavy metals, which were sporadically mined by the krogan at the height of their power. In the closing years of the Rebellions, the five clans working the planetoid fell to fighting over a particularly rich deposit of iridium. All five clan warlords agreed to a Crush (a meeting at a neutral location) to negotiate a truce. Unfortunately, all five arrived planning to betray their fellows. While the leaders and their seconds met, all their bases were destroyed by simultaneous hypervelocity cannon strikes.
Left with only the food, water, and air in their hardsuits, and with no way to call for rescue, the warlords apparently fought each other to the death. The survivors of the five “Durak clans” on Tuchanka still argue about which clan’s warlord was the last one standing.
Orbital Distance: 0.83 AU
Orbital Period: 0.6 Earth Years
Radius: 1,972 km
Orbital Period: 0.6 Earth Years
Atmospheric Pressure: Trace
Surface Temperature: 348 Celsius
Surface Gravity: 0.22 G
Kanin
One of Kanin’s hemispheres contains an impact crater 700 kilometers in diameter. Dubbed the Renkat Basin, it was mined for light metals in the interbellum between the Rachni War and Krogan Rebellions. Any obvious resource concentrations have long since been stripped.
Orbital Distance: 1.66 AU
Orbital Period: 1.6 Earth Years
Radius: 3312 km
Orbital Period: 1.6 Earth Years
Atmospheric Pressure: Trace
Surface Temperature: 155 Celsius
Surface Gravity: 0.28 G
Kruban
Kruban is a tidally-locked Venusian hothouse, its surface perpetually obscured by clouds of sulfur and carbon dioxides. The first group of krogan brought into orbit by the salarian uplift teams requested a trip to Kruban. The salarians at first thought the krogan were confused about the nature of Kruban’s environment; the planet is named for a krogan mythological paradise in which honorable warriors feast on the internal organs of their enemies. In fact, krogan astronomers had correctly deduced the nature of Kruban in the years before the global holocaust. In the two millennia since, Kruban had come to be thought of as an ideal test of one’s toughness.
Every year, a few krogan attempt to land on Kruban and exit their ships naked in an attempt to prove their “kroganhood.” The planet’s surface is littered with the crushed, corroded remains of their ships. Only one, Shath Norda, is known to have returned from the surface alive, albeit with most of his bones crushed and all four of his lungs damaged by sulfuric gas. Norda recovered from his trial, to the adulation of his people. Until he died in 1943, he could lie with any fertile female he wished.
Orbital Distance: 3.31 AU
Orbital Period: 4.6 Earth Years
Radius: 5,443 km
Orbital Period: 4.6 Earth Years
Atmospheric Pressure: 47.3 Earth Atmospheres
Surface Temperature: 728 Celsius
Surface Gravity: 0.7 G
Ruam
The smaller of Aralakh’s hydrogen-helium gas giants maintains a small helium-3 recovery infrastructure. Although the depth of Ruam’s gravity well makes it inefficient to export, visitors to the Aralakh system often “top off” their fuel tanks at Ruam’s stations. The Council Demilitarization Enforcement Mission (CDEM) maintains a token garrison to monitor any potential sale of fuel to known subversives and terrorists.
Population: 1,040
CDEM Garrison: 20
Orbital Distance: 11.1 AU
Orbital Period: 28.4 Earth Years
Radius: 67,154 km
Day Length: 13.8 Earth Hours
Tuchanka
Scarred by bombardment craters, radioactive rubble, choking ash, salt flats, and alkaline seas, Tuchanka can barely support life. Thousands of years ago, life grew in fierce abundance under the F-class star Aralakh (a Raik clan word meaning “Eye of Wrath”). Tree-analogues grew in thick jungles, their roots growing out of shallow, silty seas. Life fed upon life in an evolutionary crucible. This world died in nuclear firestorms after the krogan split the atom. A “little ice age” of nuclear winter killed off much of the remaining plant life.
In recent centuries, many krogan have returned to their homeworld. The reduced albedo has caused global temperatures to rise. In order to maintain livable temperatures, a vast shroud was assembled at the L1 Lagrange point. It is maintained by the Council Demilitarization Enforcement Mission (CDEM), which is based on orbiting battlestations.
CDEM ADVISORY: Visitors to Tuchanka land at their own risk. The CDEM will not attempt to extract citizens threatened by clan warfare.
TRAVEL ADVISORY: The ecology of Tuchanka is deadly. Nearly every native species engages in some predatory behavior; even the remaining vegetation is carnivorous. Travel beyond guarded areas is strongly discouraged.
Population: 2.1 billion
Capital: currently Urdnot (since 2183)
CDEM Garrison: 2,400 (in orbital battlestations)
Orbital Distance: 5.3 AU
Orbital Period: 16.7 Earth Years
Radius: 8,293 km
Day Length: 21.4 Earth Hours
Atmospheric Pressure: 1.1 Earth Atmospheres
Surface Temperature: 72 Celsius (36 in shrouded areas)
Surface Gravity: 1.14 G
Vaul
Vaul is a hydrogen-helium gas giant named for an ancient krogan deity that stood watch for enemies of his pantheon. The gas giant’s moons are named after some of Vaul’s myriad eyes and ears. The only reason to visit the Vaul system is scientific curiosity, which the krogan lack.
Orbital Distance: 17.8 AU
Orbital Period: 57.8 Earth Years
Radius: 73,944 km
Day Length: 12.1 Earth Hours
DRANEK
Dor
Dor is a conventional methane-ammonia ice giant. It is the main fueling port in the Dranek cluster gateway system. Pildea Station, the headquarters for patrol ships of the Council Demilitarization Enforcement Mission (CDEM), lies at the trailing Lagrange point of Dor.
The CDEM logs all ships passing through the Krogan Demilitarized Zone, and has the right to board and search them for contraband at any time and for any reason. There are no exceptions; at points over the last two centuries, diplomatic incidents have been caused when the patrol frigates boarded an asari hospital ship, a batarian diplomatic courier, and privately- owned human “tramp” freighters.
These measures are provided for under the terms of the krogan armistice. While the krogan were allowed to retain their government and personal weapons, any attempt to provide starship-mounted weapons to the clans on Tuchanka is punishable by law. Nearly a millennia after the war ended, the official
penalty for smuggling proscribed weapons is still death by spacing.
Population: 7,300
CDEM Garrison: 1,100 (not including patrol ship crews)
Orbital Distance: 0.36 AU
Orbital Period: 0.4 Earth Years
Radius: 25,588 km
Day Length: 18.4 Earth Hours
Kelim
Kelim is a tectonically inert rock with an atmosphere of krypton, xenon, and argon. There are a few valuable lodes of light metals scattered across its surface, but these are difficult to find; most were mined out in the years leading up to the Krogan Rebellions.
Orbital Distance: 0.2 AU
Orbital Period: 0.2 Earth Years
Radius: 5,580 km
Day Length: 28.3 Earth Hours
Atmospheric Pressure: 0.5 Earth Atmospheres
Surface Temperature: 42 Celsius
Celsius Surface Gravity: 0.52 G
Rothla*
Once Rothla was a large ice dwarf with the statistics listed below. In the waning years of the Krogan Rebellions it was shattered into field of debris by what is assumed to have been the test of an exotic weapons system. In the wake of “the event,” the planetoid was reduced to a relatively contained field of thousands of tiny moonlets rotating around one another, colliding and ricocheting.
The method used to destroy the planetoid has never been deduced. The krogan clan who performed the experiment apparently all died in the event. Ships that have traveled to the edge of the event’s light cone observed a moment of extreme gravitational lensing around Rothla immediately before its break up, but no other clues.
A popular extranet meme put forward by asari author Delsae Orthysa insists that the turians are covering up the existence of a krogan “super biotic” breed that was genetically engineered within Rothla. The CDEM enforces quarantine around the Rothla Field, citing cases of amateur investigators whose ships came to grief in the debris field.
Orbital Distance: 1.15 AU
Orbital Period: 2.3 Earth Years
Radius: 4263km
Day Length: 64.2 Earth Hours
Atmospheric Pressure: 0.14 Earth Atmospheres
Surface Temperature: -153 Celsius
NITH
Mantun
The class-B blue giant Nith was once the most strategically valuable system within krogan territory. Though far too hot for habitable planets, Nith emits thousands of times the energy of a main sequence star like Earth’s Sol.
With help from salarian uplift teams, the krogan constructed a chain of solar power collector stations in orbit around Nith. These vast arrays beamed power to particle accelerators on the surface of Mantun, which manufactured antiproton fuel for warship thrusters. In the Krogan Rebellions, the Spectre agents managed to get a virus into the computers of the solar power arrays; every fifth array suddenly applied braking thrusters. The arrays behind them “piled up,” and all were reduced to wreckage. This has since dispersed into a relatively stable ring system.
The krogan never had the resources to rebuild the solar arrays, depriving them of their fleet’s main fuel supply for the remainder of the war. The particle accelerators still exist on Mantun, but have not been used in thousands of years.
Orbital Distance: 57.2 AU
Orbital Period: 112.1 Earth Years
Radius: 2,150 km
Orbital Period: 112.1 Earth Years
Atmospheric Pressure: Trace
Surface Temperature: 641 Celsius
Surface Gravity: 0.28G
Tula
Tula’s methane-ammonia atmosphere traps the blistering heat of Nith, driving dayside temperatures up over 1000 degrees. While some lodes of useful metals are present, the planet’s incredible heat makes mining impractical.
Orbital Distance: 108.7 AU
Orbital Period: 293.9 Earth Years
Radius: 5,204 km
Day Length: 59.7 Earth Hours
Atmospheric Pressure: 0.54 Earth Atmospheres
Surface Temperature: 1,036 Celsius
Surface Gravity: 0.55 G
Vard
Vard is a methane-ammonia ice giant. Until the Krogan Rebellions, it had a sizable helium-3 fuel refining infrastructure. Once the solar arrays orbiting Nith were destroyed, the constant flow of antiproton tankers visiting the system disappeared. There was little point to maintaining the facilities, so they were shut down and abandoned. Today the ancient stations are “squatted” by transients, criminals, and outcasts. Although few are safe for habitation, neither the krogan nor the Council Demilitarization Enforcement Mission (CDEM) patrols care if they take their chances.
Population: 2,072
Orbital Distance: 195.6 AU
Orbital Period: 709.6 Earth Years
Radius: 36,670 km
Day Length: 18.0 Earth Hours
Wreckage*
SERPENT NEBULA
WIDOW
Citadel
Supposedly constructed by the long-extinct Protheans, this colossal deep-space station serves as the capital of the Citadel Council. Gravity is simulated through rotation, and is a comfortable 1.02 standard G’s on the Wards and a light 0.3 standard G’s on the Presidium Ring.
Total Length (Open): 44.7 km
Diameter (Open): 12.8 km
Population: 13.2 million (not including keepers)
Gross Weight: 7.11 billion metric tons
APIEN CREST
