The Driftmarch — a region gazetteer

The board the campaign plays across: a frontier sector of the Shore, ten systems and change, roughly a jump apart, with the great derelict ark the Concord adrift at its heart. This file builds the sector top-down on the Chapter 37 toolkit and the Appendix A4 record sheets — enough of each world to run a session from, loose enough to bend to your table.

Use it the way Chapter 37 intends: sketch the whole sector now, develop each system on its own record when the crew turns toward it. Every entry below gives a system its defining character (Chapter 37), who holds it, and two or three threads — the leads that tie it into the wider web (file 04) and the seven powers (file 02). Where a roll would come up in play, the owning chapter is cited; nothing here is a new rule. The names follow the Chapter 37 conventions and sit deliberately beside the canon worlds of Chapter 30 (the Shoals of Providence), never on top of them — so the Driftmarch contradicts no published map.

The shape of the sector§

The Driftmarch is a loose cluster at the edge of settled space, the kind of margin where the lost still wash up out of the dark and no single authority reaches every world (Chapter 30). Its systems sit roughly one parsec — one jump, one week — apart (Chapter 27), so the stop-and-jump pulse paces the campaign and fires the faction turn every jump week (Chapter 33).

Saltgate is the hub: the free port everyone passes through, and the crew's likely first base. From Saltgate a single jump reaches the registry world Calloway's Watch, the foundry Brightspan, the wake-station Coldcradle, and the derelict field Stilldrift — and it is off Stilldrift, in an unclaimed fringe hex, that the Concord drifts. One jump further out lie the frontier worlds Farcradle and Marrow Deep; further still, the boomtown Newlanding, where a second ark is making orbit; and at the dark edge of the chart, Lasthollow, the colony that went silent generations ago. Two more systems — Pale Watch and Greaves March — sit on the chart as names until the crew sails their way.

A whole sector is just systems like these and the factions whose reach spans them (Chapter 37); the powers are in file 02. Add a system whenever the crew jumps somewhere new — Chapter 37 builds one in minutes, and the worked record at the end of this file shows how.

Saltgate — the free port (home)§

A free port that answers to no one and sells that fact (Chapter 37, system 41). TL 12, a battered ring-station over a dead salt-world, grown outward in mismatched modules for two centuries.

Saltgate is the Driftmarch's crossroads and its conscience-for-hire: the one neutral dock for three jumps in any direction, where every people, faction, and fugitive passes through and the harbormaster sells silence to all of them at the same fair rate. The Saltgate Free Companies (file 02) run it by a single rule — neutrality is the product — which makes the port a haven and a nest of informers at once. It is the natural place for a broke crew to be handed a claim, and the place that claim must be registered before anyone will honor it.

Threads: the harbormaster will witness the crew's Concord claim — for a fee, a favor owed, and a copy of the paperwork that does not stay secret; a fixer who owes everyone is brokering bids on the ark before the crew has even seen it; and a quiet room off the promenade is where Lumen, Helios, and a NULL intermediary all keep standing tables.

Also in-system: the dead salt-world below — abandoned evaporite works and salt flats where a ship, a cache, or a body can disappear (Chapter 37, moons & belts).

Role: home base (early); the social/intrigue hub; jumps to Calloway's Watch, Brightspan, Coldcradle, Stilldrift.

The Concord — the ark§

A ballistic Sleeper ark adrift in an unclaimed fringe hex off Stilldrift — a graveyard of derelicts (Chapter 37, system 44) that gave up one wreck too large to break. The Concord is the campaign's centerpiece and gets its own file; see 03 (and the base-building subsystem in 03a). In the gazetteer it is only a fixed point: a sealed, pressurized hull the size of a small moon, mostly dark, tens of thousands frozen aboard in failing cryo, its reactor idling at the lowest setting that keeps the deep vaults cold. It has no port, no law, and no people awake to greet a visitor — only what the crew brings to it.

Threads: it is one jump from Stilldrift, where the breakers already wait; its cryo is failing slowly, so the clock is the Sleepers' lives; and the question of what it becomes — crown, council, or commons — wakes the moment its people do (file 03, §the internal blocs).

Role: the prize, the base, and the megadungeon; all six pillars; jumps to Stilldrift (and thence Saltgate).

Calloway's Watch — the registry world§

A Seeder core world, old money (Chapter 30, core/wealthy; Chapter 37, world 35 — a world of old institutions), TL 13. Above it hangs Calloway Gate, the highport and customs chokehold whose registry is the nearest thing the sector has to an authoritative record of who owns what.

Calloway's Watch is the Driftmarch's establishment: old Seeder families who terraformed this corner early and have been rich and unbothered ever since, their surnames hung on the valleys before half the sector existed (the new nobilities, Chapter 30). Nothing here moves fast and nothing is new — which is exactly why it matters, because the registry decides whether the crew's claim on the Concord is real. What the Gate records is what is legally so, and everyone from Lumen to Helios is quietly lobbying the registrars.

Threads: a registrar will affirm — or quietly challenge — the crew's claim, for the right consideration; an old family will fund the crew's rebuild so long as they never ask why (and they should ask why); and somewhere in the registry sleeps a prior lien on the Concord that no living clerk filed — NULL's thread (file 02).

Also in-system: a cryo-storage moon where the old families bank their own frozen kin and fortunes (Chapter 37, moons & belts 52) — Lumen ground, and a place where a registry claim and a sleeping relative can become the same problem.

Role: the sovereignty/recognition fight; social and legal intrigue; jumps to Saltgate, Brightspan, Coldcradle.

Brightspan — the foundry§

An industrial foundry world and orbital (Chapter 30, industrial; Chapter 37, world 33 — a company world), TL 13. The reason the frontier runs at all: Brightspan makes the drives, hull plate, and med-fabs that no agricultural or mining world can, and ships them outward in every direction.

It is loud, crowded, and transactional, the four peoples working the same foundry floors and the only aristocracy the combines that own them. For the crew it is indispensable and dangerous in equal measure: the Concord's rebuild needs parts only Brightspan can fabricate (the base-building subsystem, 03a), and the combine that sells them will happily take a lien on the ark as collateral. Helios Vanguard owns a piece of the largest works here.

Threads: a foundry-master will fabricate the ark's bridge components — on terms that mortgage the crew to Helios by degrees; an export-controlled drive part the rebuild needs runs only through people the crew would rather not owe; and a worker has proof a combine is stamping its marks on someone else's stolen designs.

Role: trade and the rebuild economy; the Helios thread; jumps to Saltgate, Calloway's Watch.

Farcradle — the breadbasket§

A Wanderborn frontier breadbasket (Chapter 30, frontier/agricultural; Chapter 37, world 43), TL 9. Roofed fields under a sky the settlers still don't trust, towns dug down into the rock, the lights kept low — outsiders find it dim and faintly chittering, which suits the locals fine.

Farcradle feeds a dozen systems that could not feed themselves, and that dependence is its leverage and its vulnerability both. It matters to the campaign as the one world that could feed the Concord's woken thousands — a population cannot be thawed faster than it can be fed (the woken restoration track, 03a) — but Farcradle's own harvest is faltering, and its growers are wary of a new mouth the size of a moon.

Threads: the harvest the sector leans on is failing and the elders won't say why; a grower co-op will contract to feed the ark — if the crew first does something about the combine leaning on them to sell their seed-stock; and a young Wanderborn wants offworld passage their family forbids.

Role: trade, the woken-feeding logistics, frontier social play; jumps to Saltgate, Marrow Deep.

Marrow Deep — the Companion mine§

A Companion-majority mining world (Chapter 31; Chapter 37, world 36 / 42 — extraction), TL 10, with a bonded-labor past it bought its way out of and has not forgotten. Drays at the rock face, Hounds running the survey and the haul; the galleries run deep and hot, and the freedom is recent enough that nobody takes it for granted.

Marrow Deep is the spark of the Second Liberation (Spine C; file 02, the Free Burrow). The Concord carries Companions in stasis, legally "cargo" under the old law (Chapter 38, salvage result 46; Chapter 31), and Marrow Deep's free Companions will not let that stand. Whatever the crew decides about the stasis-hold lands here first and loudest — and from here spreads across the sector.

Threads: a Free Burrow organizer asks the crew's help freeing the ark's stasis-Companions before a bond-holder can claim them; a deep gallery has opened onto something that isn't ore; and a Seeder combine has appeared offering to "reinvest," which the older Companions read instantly as the charter coming back in a friendlier coat.

Role: the Companion question and the Liberation arc; personal combat and heritage intrigue; jumps to Farcradle, Saltgate.

Stilldrift — the graveyard§

A graveyard of derelicts in slow, silent orbits (Chapter 37, system 44; the salvage generator, Chapter 38), TL — varies by hull. The wrecks here are old and many, and lately the Concord has joined them as the largest of all; the breakers treat the whole field as theirs.

Stilldrift is the salvage pillar's home ground and GANYMEDE Salvage's yard (file 02): a breaking-ship works the field, and the Concord's own dead escort hulls drift here — the ships that crossed with it and did not survive the arrival, each a wreck with a piece of the ark's story (and its command codes) aboard. It is also the most dangerous place in the sector to be caught alone.

Threads: the Concord's escort hulls hold its bridge codes, its manifest, and the names of who it carried — salvage them before GANYMEDE does; a GANYMEDE breaking-ship is rigging a "recoverable" hull to scuttle, manufacturing the scrap it sells; and a rival crew is already working the field, one wreck ahead.

Also in-system: a shipbreaking yard moored at the field's edge — GANYMEDE's depot, where hulls are dragged to die and the occasional thing they brought aboard is still moving (Chapter 37, moons & belts 31; the salvage generator, Chapter 38).

Role: salvage and ship combat; the GANYMEDE thread; jumps to Saltgate and the Concord's fringe hex.

Coldcradle — the wake-station§

A cryo-revival facility (Chapter 37, station 16), TL 11, a tired ring that thaws the Sleepers this stretch of the Shore keeps receiving. Half its population is staff and half is the recently woken, blinking into a galaxy that left without them.

Coldcradle is Lumen Sleeper Trust ground (file 02): the Trust runs the thaw lists, manages the woken's estates, and — quietly — decides who wakes and who waits. It is the obvious place to bring the Concord's frozen for safe revival, and the worst possible place to bring them if Lumen would rather certain Sleepers never opened their eyes (Spine B). The crew will need Coldcradle's revival suites and should never fully trust them.

Threads: a triage officer kept the real wake-ledger and wants out before it buries her — the lever against Lumen; the cryo banks are degrading faster than the station can revive them, and triage has curdled into politics over who thaws; and a newly woken Sleeper carries a name or a code that someone offworld will kill to keep frozen.

Role: the Lumen conspiracy; intrigue and investigation; jumps to Saltgate, Calloway's Watch.

Newlanding — the arrival§

An arrival-year boomtown — a second, smaller ark making orbit now (Chapter 37, system 45 / 33; Chapter 30), TL 9 and climbing fast and badly. Raw, overflowing with new arrivals, claims in dispute, salvage falling, Sleepers waking into a fight.

Newlanding is the campaign's precedent and its mirror: everything the crew faces with the Concord, playing out small and fast and in the open where they can watch it. Who claimed that ark, how the powers carved it, what became of its woken — Newlanding shows the crew their own near future, and the players can intervene to learn the rules before the big game, or to make an ally of whoever wins here.

Threads: the smaller ark's claim is being carved up by the same powers circling the Concord — a dry run the crew can study or disrupt; a woken family from Newlanding's ark holds knowledge of how these hulls are run; and a desperate claimant offers the crew a cut to defend a claim they can't hold alone.

Role: exploration, trade, social — the campaign in miniature; jumps to Marrow Deep, the outer chart.

Lasthollow — the lost colony§

A failed colony, its dome dark, its claim still legally live (Chapter 37, system 62 / world 51 — a world that went silent), TL unknown. A name on old charts and nothing on new ones: Lasthollow prospered, then — generations ago — simply stopped answering. No distress call, no last message; the traffic just ended.

Lasthollow is the deep node — the Concord's original destination, and what NULL does not want found (file 02). The ark was bound here; whatever silenced the colony is tangled with the lien NULL holds and the Last Transmission the ark's memory cores may carry. It is a rumor with coordinates, chased by more than one faction, and the race to it may matter more than the place itself.

Threads: the Concord's logs name Lasthollow as its port of call — and the colony went dark around the time the ark should have arrived; a salvager came back from its coordinates with a drive core newer than anything that colony should have had, and a story she won't repeat; and NULL has paid, quietly, to keep anyone from going.

Role: exploration and the NULL/Last-Transmission mystery; the metaclock's deep end; far jumps out.

Sketched on the chart§

Two systems are names until the crew sails their way; build them on contact (Chapter 37).

Pale Watch — a relay system: beacons, no people, and whoever's quietly minding them (Chapter 37, system 61). The Driftmarch's navigation backbone; whoever holds the beacons shapes who arrives where. A natural place for a GANYMEDE beacon-scheme or a NULL listening post to surface.
Greaves March — a garrison system, militarized far beyond what it seems to warrant (Chapter 37, system 42). An unpaid garrison and an armory for sale (Chapter 33); a source of muscle, ordnance, or a mercenary company for whoever can meet the price — including the crew, when the Concord needs defending.

A worked system record (Appendix A4)§

To show the toolkit in motion: when the crew first turns toward Coldcradle, a GM fills one A4 system record (Chapter 37; ZZ_BM4) in a couple of minutes. Copy the block, or use as-is.

SYSTEM: Coldcradle

System contents: A dead world and a thriving orbital — no one lives down there (Ch 37, 21);
  the station is the system.

MAIN WORLD: (none settled) — the cryo-revival ring is the destination
  Character: A tired wake-station thawing the Sleepers the Shore keeps receiving (Ch 37, station 16)
  Hook: Someone runs the thaw lists — and decides who wakes and who never does
  Who runs it: The Lumen Sleeper Trust, through a station director who answers to offworld (Ch 34)
  TL / gear sources: TL 11; revival suites, cryo-supplies, med-stock (Ch 24)

Other bodies (moons, belts, stations):
  • The cryo banks themselves — degrading; triage has become politics
  • A waste-tug graveyard at the ring's edge — where failed pods quietly go

Settlement(s) visited:
  Name: The Thaw Concourse   Runs it: A revival-trust liaison
    Needs: Wakers arriving with old claims handled quietly   Fears: An audit of the wake-ledger

Factions present (Ch 34): Lumen Sleeper Trust (primary); a NULL intermediary, occasionally

Current encounters / situation (Ch 41): A triage officer wants out, and is carrying proof;
  a newly woken Sleeper is about to become a problem for someone powerful

Every other system expands the same way on contact. Keep the filled records with your A4 sector sheet (file 00) and the faction trackers (file 02); together they are the living state of the Driftmarch.