Classification: Arid Frontier World
Population: Scattered settlements, crawler towns, nomadic clans, outlaw enclaves
Primary Imports: Water, food, tech, fuel
Primary Exports: Alloys, scrap, heat-resilient minerals, mercenaries
Notable Feature: The Skyspine space elevator anchoring Wayfarer Crown above
Credence is the desert heart of the Fractured Reach—a world of cracked mesas, endless dunes, rust-red horizons, and wind-scoured canyons that howl like old ghosts when the sun dips low. It is harsh, hot, and unforgiving, yet thousands call it home: drifters, settlers, gunhands, scavengers, preachers, prospectors, and people who’ve run out of places to run.
Above it hangs Wayfarer Crown, its artificial moon-station faintly glimmering through storm haze like a steel halo. From Crown’s anchoring point descends the Skyspine, a monumental space elevator—a gleaming thread stretching from the heavens to the sandy plains below. It is the world’s primary artery for travel and commerce; everything else trickles through long desert roads or ancient rail lines that only half-function on any given day.
Credence is a land where justice is improvisational, fortunes are made and lost overnight, and more than a few legends begin with a long walk down a sun-baked road.
Credence’s climate is brutal but strangely beautiful.
Salt flats and scorching dunes that bake under the golden light of Solara-V. Mirages here appear like shimmering cities before melting back into sand.
Knife-edged ravines, natural stone bridges, and winding gullies perfect for ambushes or hiding outlaw camps. Windstorms here can strip paint from starships.
Flat-topped plateaus rising like ancient monuments. Many hold small settlements perched at impossible heights, reachable only by lifts or cliffside trails.
Bands of hypercharged atmosphere that whip up sudden electrical storms. Locals read cloud patterns the way spacers read star charts.
Credence is harsh because it can be. Its people survive because they must.
Credence folk distrust authority but honor personal oaths. Deals sealed with a handshake matter more than contracts.
The planet’s busiest settlement, located at the base of the Skyspine. A rowdy trade hub overflowing with cantinas, repair shops, cargo rail lines, market stalls, and bounty boards. Dustgate grows wider, not taller—buildings sprawl out like a metal patchwork stitched into desert stone.
Massive multi-story machines that roll endlessly across the dunes like slow-moving cities. Each crawler has its own laws, leaders, and grudges. When two crawlertowns meet, festivals—or firefights—break out.
Nomadic groups who travel on hoverbikes, sand skiffs, or beast-mounted caravans. Their traditions predate the Fracture, and they know the desert better than any offworlder.
Canyons and caves house hidden strongholds where syndicates, smugglers, and ex-corporate deserters operate with loose alliances.
Water is the single most valuable resource on Credence. Moisture farms, condensation rigs, and underground aquifers shape settlement placement, alliances, and feuds.
Credence is littered with pre-Fracture debris and half-buried starship wrecks. Salvagers roam the wastes hunting valuables or tech that can be refurbished.
Heat-resistant alloys, crystalline dust deposits, and unique metallic sands bring prospectors from across the Reach.
Bounty hunting, bodyguard work, and gun-for-hire contracts are some of the planet’s most reliable professions.
Massive creatures rumored to migrate under the dunes. Credence trembles faintly when they pass.
Giant machines half-buried under centuries of sand. Some still hum with dormant power.
A region where magnetic distortion causes compasses, scanners, and navigators to fail. More than one crew has vanished here.
Rivalries between outlaw factions regularly spill onto roads, rails, and crawlertowns.
Credence is the closest thing the Reach has to a classic Western frontier—if the frontier had crashed starships, hover bikes, and plasma pistols.
It feels like:
Heat radiating off metal panels.
Boots crunching on dry sand.
Guns on hips and dust in lungs.
Bars lit by neon and lantern flame.
The distant hum of the Skyspine against a sunset sky.
A world daring you to survive it.
Credence doesn’t welcome newcomers.
But it remembers survivors.