Rustam

Rustam has a gravity of approximately 0.8 standard gees, noticeably lighter than the Imperial norm. Seen from orbit, it has cloud-streaked umber coloring, fields of ochre, brown mountains touched with ice, and yellow seas with patches of green. The planet experiences orange daylight and short days. A vast black scar, roughly half a hundred miles long, marks the continent where the Cielcin destroyed the city of Suren using plasma cannons.

Rustam was home to a palatine house and a colonial population before the Cielcin attack. The attack killed approximately two million people, with roughly twice as many survivors. The surviving colonists built Arslan from grounded starships and continue to live there. The city hosts a diverse population with a thriving illicit trade, including black markets, jubala dens, and nuclear ordnance trafficking. Arslan's streets are patrolled by urban prefects operating under the nominal authority of the Holy Terran Chantry.

Rustam was formerly governed as the Rustam Barony under a palatine house, which was wiped out in the Cielcin attack along with the city of Suren and the established government. In the aftermath, an interim Consul named Zhivay set himself up as the de facto authority in Arslan. The Holy Terran Chantry effectively controls Zhivay, making it the real power behind the ostensible civil authority. The Chantry maintains prayer call stations and surveillance cameras in Arslan but lacks sufficient Inquisition resources to conduct a full investigation on the frontier. The provincial government has surveillance cameras throughout the city but cannot enforce Imperial law effectively.

Suren: the former principal city of Rustam, destroyed in the Cielcin attack approximately ten years before Howling Dark. The Cielcin gouged a vast scar into the planet's surface at this site; the ruins and the black scar are visible from orbit. The palatine ruling house and the planetary government were both annihilated in the attack.

Arslan: the city built by Rustam's surviving colonists in the aftermath of the Cielcin attack. Constructed from grounded starships -- cargo carriers, mining ships, and a Nipponese supercarrier called the Murakami -- pressed together and linked by bridges, cable cars, and rough-welded balconies. It sits on the edge of a vast plain sheltered on one side by an ice-capped mountain. The air is oily and faintly acrid. The city contains jubala dens, black markets, tea houses, monorail lines, and a diverse street-level population. It is the site of the Meidua Red Company's operation against the Extrasolarian arms dealer known as the Painted Man.