Pantano

Pantano is a habitable planet in the Pantan system covered in vast marshland. Without any government to speak of, few natural resources, and little strategic value, Pantano has emerged as a sort of haven for smugglers, runaways, and outlaws. Despite a quiet history in galactic politics, it has recently become caught up in some Imperial drama after the sector's Moff approved an orbital blockade for reasons that are still unclear.

Description

Pantano's surface is covered in swampy marshland, bogs, bayous, and inky black lakes. Surface temperatures are cool, but rarely drop below freezing, even at the poles. Due to the weak light from its dying star and near-constant raincloud cover, it's never much brighter than other systems' dusk.

History

Whichever species may have inhabited Pantano originally, it's clear that as soon as they became a spacefaring civilization they either left and never came back, or went extinct trying. Though some evidence of civilization is hidden in the swamps, apart from a single abandoned shipyard that's now only used as a landmark to navigate the bayous, simply because it's the only thing visible from orbit, no large nor meaningful memory of them remains.

As the Galactic Republic continued to expand through the mid and outer rim, Pantano was repeatedly passed over and remained abandoned, which soon became its defining feature. Since the system lies both outside of Hutt space and the jurisdiction of the Republic, Pantano was a perfect meeting place for smugglers and pirates, some of whom eventually put down roots. Daylight is rare, the weather is terrible, and there's no civilization to speak of—who else would come to Pantano willingly?—so it quickly grew into a poorly-kept secret hideaway for outlaws, mutineers, and runaways.

Inhabitants

Most of Pantano's permanent inhabitants are hermetic fishermen, isolating alone or forming small homesteads with families or clans. They are comprised of a variety of species, but generally have a few things in common: a desire for privacy, questionable (often criminal) pasts, self-sufficiency, and pretty limited social skills—if you want to live the Libertarian dream, you have to suffer some neckbeards. Commerce isn't so far beyond a barter economy, so the Imperial credits in your account won't mean much here, and both supplies and dining are likewise limited to pretty much survival gear, simple meals (often forged), and some basic weaponry—though if you can find some, there's no such thing as regulated military hardware here, so go nuts.

Locations

Regions

Miyagi's Landing

Geographically nestled within the northern reaches of the western bayou, but effectively a region unto itself, Pantano's only city and de facto capital formed long ago around the Jedi Temple of Light at the planet's north pole. It's expanded outward since, consisting of a wide array of architectures and improvised housing from downed and decommissioned starships, all connected by stone or rope bridges that connect what little dry ground is safe to build upon.

High plains

a bit of a misnomer, since they're not all that high, but rising above the swamp and relatively flat, the high plains of Pantano are home to the Pantano shipyard and Delta Base. The plains outside the shipyard ruins are largely used for recreational speeder flights, an AT-AT staging ground, or big game hunting.

Western bayou

a large wetland dotted with settlements, the bayou region is home to Miyagi's Landing, as well as a series of smaller private dwellings and larger plantations. The majority of Pantano's permanent residents, especially those who aren't fishermen, live in this region.

The Great Pantano Swamp

the majority of the planet's surface is covered in marshland, but this expanse is noteworthy in its size and lack of inhabitants. This is where the fabled mother eel is said to dwell, a Shai-Hulud knockoff worshipped by Pantano's more primitive or religious types.

Eastern bayou

across the swamp from the western bayou, the eastern bayou boasts the remainder of Pantano's true settlements. Rather than the stoic, libertarian self-sufficiency of the westerners, the eastern Pantano have a reputation for forming tight-knit, xenophobic communities. If the western bayou is a place to disappear, the eastern bayou is the place they'll disappear you.

The badlands

wherever there is not swamp, there are rocks. The badlands are an impassable series of sharp, crumbling rocks that aren't home to much but sure-footed megafauna, usually reptilian or insectoid.

The north pole

on a planet where it's always pretty dark, you'd think it wouldn't be notable that there's a region that's actually always night. You'd be mistaken. The north pole isn't home to much, but everything that lives there will eat you.

The south pole

because of Pantano's weak sun and axial tilt, the south pole boasts the driest weather and even a little sunlight, but the region is also home to an indigenous fungus whose spores are unbreathable, so no one lives there. The south pole is also home to the ruins of the Sith Temple of Darkness.

Sites

Miyagi's Landing

The de facto capital city (and I'm using "city" loosely) of Pantano and the only public starport, located not far from the ruins of Pantano's shipyard. It's an eclectic mix of the standard prefabricated buildings you'd see throughout the galaxy, ramshackle wooden huts you'd expect on any backwater, and storefronts shaped from starships that stopped being spaceworthy decades ago.

The Shipyard aka Delta Base

One of the few landmarks in Pantano visible from orbit, it's unclear who originally built this shipyard but it's been in ruins for centuries. In recent history it's largely been used to find Miyagi's Landing when comms were down, which is fairly often. Because it's on one of the few large, flat plateaus on Pantano's surface, today it's being used as a staging ground for whatever the Empire has in store for the dying swamp planet.

Brees

It's unclear why a KOTOR-era star destroyer crash-landed on Pantano, but the intact(-ish) third of it above the swamp's surface has been reborn as a pirate fortress. It's another object visible from orbit, but unlike the shipyard, this one is probably better to avoid. It's rumored that the flooded compartments below house a mighty cache of military-grade hardware that is now feared lost due to the predations of some local megafauna (shoutout to the OG, Dungeons & Dragons).

Oda Clanhold

The ancestral home of the Pantano branch of the Oda Rodian clan, this natural granite enclosure is home to permanent and semi-permanent structures of soft Pantan timber and eel leather, and at least eighty Rodians desperately hoping they aren't wiped out by a rival clan after some of their strapping young lads met their ends at the hands of off-worlders and the Empire.

Behind the scenes

The thematic inspiration I'm working from is like if someone put eighteenth century New Orleans in sixteenth century Okinawa, and then made an eighties movie about it—swamps, fishermen, neon signs, gamblers, ramen shops, pickpockets, always night, always raining, fan boats (but with, like, Star Wars hover technology), etc.; "Blade Runner on the bayou" gets you close enough. This should give us not only a shared theme, but also some common material to draw from as we invent characters and situations on the fly, evoking some non-Star Wars media like Blade Runner, Firefly, Red Dead Redemption, Interview with the Vampire, Samurai Champloo, spaghetti westerns, Kurosawa flicks, etc.

The name is just Spanish for "swamp", but it definitely sounds like the name of a Star Wars planet, don't you think?