Ba'kal

Rocky, red and brown deserts cover the entirety of Ba’kal. Even the poles remain desertlike year-round, with no ice caps. Ba’kal’s howling winds blow sand and rocks in massive sandstorms that can strip the paint off the most heavy-duty vehicles in mere hours while leaving the surface pockmarked, dented, and punctured.

The main reason to live on Ba’kal is to participate in the extraction of useful salt compounds discovered on or under the planet’s surface. Mining them requires monstrous heavy-duty equipment built to survive the desolate surface conditions. Armored harvester crawlers scour the surface, scraping or digging up deposits. When a severe storm is detected, the race is on to reach shelter in one of the planet’s shield cities.

Shield cities, such as Stormshell, are heavily reinforced, armored settlements built to take a storm’s punishment. They serve as home bases, supply depots, markets, and refineries for the roving crawlers. Each is encased by a massive, sloped wall studded with bunker-like, hangar-sized garages around the perimeter, allowing fleeing crawlers immediate access to shelter.

Fights over limited bunker space are common, since the last crawlers may not find a spot and have to weather the storm outside the protection of the city interior. The local inhabitants are as tough and weather-beaten as their cities.