It is pretty.
Yes it is. A man could get lost in himself there.
Is that a bad thing?
Depends on the man.

The Earth-That-Was got used up.

The folk that could made for the sky, and made themselves a new home out here. They made a dozen worlds and all their moons just like Earth, but it weren’t all roses and sunshine.

The government, in their vast and mighty wisdom, made the worlds of the Core great havens of culture, medicine, and trade, then dumped everyone else out on the rim with nothing but forty acres and a donkey, and expected them to be happy about it. Eventually, they decided even that was too much, and took back the one thing they’d let the Rimworlders have - their independence.

So naturally, there was a War. The people who just wanted to be left alone, versus the big bosses who wanted to control everything. The bosses won, of course; now everyone’s part of the Alliance and supposed to love, honor, and obey them, ‘til death do us part.

But that was six years and a few million lives ago. Purple or brown, we’re all just folk now. Out here on the Rim, we just do what we have to, take what we can, and thank Whoever every time a new day sees us still flying.

Except for the few of us they took everything from, whose daily prayer is just for a chance to get some of it back.

We’ll fly as long as we have to, but we’re looking for a place to land.

On their beacon, such that it was, we came in from the east, low across the wet and mud.  When you get close to the Pielshome Field, the beacon is pretty useless. Visibility was good and I saw the oil lamps that lit the green circle we had been assigned by the controller.  As soft as a leaf, I sat us down. A perfect landing graced with a perfect sunset filling our windscreen. The sun set rose, as the sinking began.  The paving bricks they use to line the landing circles they only hold so much weight. The mud is everywhere here.

As the Earth That Was was being "used up", the Dysporia began. Any Rocky World in the Lifeband were made to be habitable by people.  This produced a huge number of barely habitable planets, most of which are out on the frontier.

Madeira is not one of these world. It is a rich and lush world where the fine arts of wine making have been reborn, along with a culture of civility and honor.

All through the Alliance there are those that follow the Shepherds of The Book. The Book is old and came from many Great Teachers of the Past that walked The Earth that Was. These folks have followed a Great Shepherd into the Desert that is The Rim and have been given the Promised Land.

Nob was a fairly developed colony world. It had a few cities, some manufacturing, and something that passed as a space port. Then a wonderful disaster showered riches and power upon it.

I was watching one of those famous sunsets while I was waiting for the Mule to come back.  I saw the spot in the sun. I thought it was a bug. My gut knew what it was. I was running for the cockpit before it registered in my brain. It was time to get off this planet, as the soil was about to run red with blood.

Hot Dang, we are going to LaVenda!

Codex

Flying into Lewiston, once you get low enough, is difficult, captain. There is constant wind sheer through the valleys. You have to fly careful, as the wind will slam you into a mountain side faster than a card player tossing in a bad hand. Of course the town you want to get to, Porsen, is the very worse. So best we land in Ramsy territory on the Blue Diamond Lake there, and take the mule up the "road" to Porsen. I just hope the Ramsy and the Regina towns arent feuding any more. I hate dodging bullets that arent even meant for me.

A collection of plot hooks for a game on the road, or more precisely, on the route.

The Unification War was a travesty, an act of naked fascism against frontier worlds so diverse and destitute that their submission was not worth the cost in lives, material, and hostility garnered. We, gentlemen, have created generations of enemies.

L. C. Vallandigham

Charity out of spite, resistance in submission. Loosing everything can produce strange associations indeed.

On an outlying farm, the sick grandfather of a family was kidnapped. Can the kidnappers be stopped before they deliver him off-planet?

Ships, that have character, are the best means to get to the stars.