Iron Pass is a dense, iron-rich planet whose surface is a maze of frozen ridges, open-pit mines, elevator shafts, and buried refinery complexes. Temperatures hover near lethal in the open; life clings to heated tunnels, shielded domes, and subterranean rail lines.
When the Fracture hit, most megacorps pulled out of the Reach. A few couldn’t—or wouldn’t—abandon the resources still locked in Iron Pass. Those that remained consolidated into the Corporate Constellations: a patchwork of rival, half-merged conglomerates that chose survival over profit, and control over conscience.
Now Iron Pass is their fortress world. They hold it like a bad habit.
Dim, rust-colored sky filtered through industrial haze
Constant plumes of exhaust and cryo-steam from surface stacks
Floodlit strip-mines yawning like scars
Trains of ore-haulers snaking between domes
Corporate logos half-painted over, layered in decades of mergers and betrayals
Corporate Constellations aren’t a single company; they’re a tangled alliance of survivors: old mining giants, logistics firms, security contractors, and research outfits that fused into a constellation of power blocs.
Control of Iron Pass’s rare alloys & exotics
Monopoly over refined fuel for the Reach
Leverage over Credence and any world that needs their resources
Enough muscle to keep Marshals, Freecrews, and syndicates “in their lane”
Enforced company towns and “employment contracts” that border on indenture
Private security armies with better gear than anyone else in the Reach
Strict data control, propaganda, and loyalty programs
Quiet shadow-wars between internal corporate factions
To the Reach at large, Iron Pass is where you go when you’ve run out of better choices: high pay, high risk, low chance of leaving on your own terms.
A ring of massive open-pit mines around the north pole, visible from orbit like a burn around the planet’s cap. Giant crawler rigs chew the ice and rock, dragging ore to conveyor cities at the rim.
The main corporate arcology, a stacked hive of glass, steel, and holographic billboards under a multi-layered dome. Here the executives live in relative comfort while workers sleep in barracks carved into the lower levels.
Heated mag-rail tunnels that run deep underground, moving ore, fuel, and people between sites. Also the main arteries for smuggling, sabotage, and escape attempts.
An officially “abandoned” research zone where early experiments with Fracture-related tech went wrong. Now under maximum lockdown; rumors say something down there still hums.
Role: Heavy industry hub, logistics node, company-town in orbit
Hardspar is wrapped in refineries, smelters, rail-launch pads, and docking spines. Ore from Iron Pass and gas from Zephyria’s upper atmosphere are funneled here, turned into usable alloys and fuel bricks.
Constant orange furnace glow on the nightside
Cargo drones and tugboats swarming like wasps
Workers living in stacked hab-blocks welded to the moon’s surface
Corporate propaganda banners promising “Advancement Through Excellence”
Hardspar is where the Corporate Constellations feel strongest: armored checkpoints, omnipresent surveillance, security squads in polished gear. Unions rise and are quietly dismantled; “accidents” happen in dark corners of the refineries.
For PCs, Hardspar is the place for:
Industrial heists
Labor uprisings
Data theft from corporate cores
Extraction of defectors or prisoners
Role: Geothermic resource world, high-risk research site
Cindermere looks cold from orbit, but its cracked ice shell glows faintly from the magma rivers beneath. Geothermal rigs tap the heat, powering deep-drill operations and experimental facilities.
Black fissures veined with dim orange light
Thin atmosphere shimmering with steam plumes
Isolated research domes straddling cracks in the ice
Long, creaking bridges across glowing chasms
The Constellations use Cindermere for:
Prototype reactor testing
Hazardous material storage
Discreet experiments they don’t want Wayfarer Crown or the CPG hearing about
Workers on Cindermere get hazard pay and short contracts—if they live to collect.
Against Credence & the CPG:
They need Credence as a market and a labor pool—but hate that the world has any political will of its own. Relations are “civil” but tense.
Against Marshals:
Publicly: full cooperation.
Privately: obstruction, legal stonewalling, and hired deniability.
Against Freecrews:
Necessary nuisance. They hire them when they must, try to replace them with corp-owned fleets when they can.
Against Syndicates:
Rivals, clients, and tools—depending on the day. The Constellations prefer to own crime, not eliminate it.
Iron Pass and its moons are perfect for stories about:
Corporate overreach and exploitation
Workers caught between survival and rebellion
PCs running heists or extraction missions in claustrophobic industrial spaces
Negotiations where credits, contracts, and leverage matter more than bullets… until bullets matter more than anything
Quiet wars between execs, syndicates, and Marshals, with PCs stuck in the middle
If Credence is “we built a government out of nothing,”
Iron Pass is “we kept the machine running no matter the cost.”
And somewhere between those two worlds, your crew decides which future the Reach gets.