- Name: Malstrom
- Type: Spherical air body
- Size: F (19k miles in diameter)
- Escape time: 1 hour
- Satellites:
- Day length: 30 hours
- Year length: 2.704 days
- Population analysis: Predominantly humanoid
Malstrom is a gigantic gas planet dotted with hundreds of asteroid like islands of stone and earth floating chaotically through the mists. Malstrom is named for its violent storms and its heavy static electrical activity. Malstrom exports a great amount of Gravwood and is famous for its Storm smiths who are able to create Storm steel, a wondrous metal whose inherent charge makes excellent weapons or defensive items with "shocking" results for would be thieves.
The people of Malstrom make their live from farming or mining on the many floating islands and almost all of the larger cities trade regularly with Agari space merchants. Since stone is a luxury on Malstrom and too valuable to waste on simple homes, most people on Malstrom live in floating Gravwood houses tethered to their fields or mines. It is not uncommon to see whole floating cities consisting of hundreds of individual ships and buildings tethered together or otherwise connected by bridges and planks. The Akadian's like to say that "the clumsy don't live long on Malstrom" and with good reason. Feather-folk are quite common on Malstrom. Some of the most commonly seen are the winged elves Avariel, Aaracocra, Mangryphs (See appendix II: beastiary for details), Gargoyles and Air Genasi. The Malstrom strain of Gargoyle is more civilised than their common cousins and a great deal larger. Akadian mercenary troops pay well for them, making the Gargoyles one of the few folks of Malstrom that see the reaches of space often.
Space travellers from Malstrom are uncommon, but some adventurous sorts do range far and wide, especially to the Jewelled ring where metal is more common and cheaper than what the Akadian's charge. For the most part the folk of Malstrom travel about their own world on flying ships or beasts, going about their daily lives without a care as to what happens beyond the stars.
Ports of call
Due to the mutable nature of the Malstrom and the seemingly random paths of the asteroids therein, it is hard to find a stable port for traders to buy and sell wares. Most often Akadian traders will randomly choose settlements from orbit and work with what is available or hire a cloud guide if one is available. The people of Malstrom have a sixth sense for the movements of their world, but few can "track the stones" as well as a cloud guide. Hadozee, a type of flying ape with gliding flaps like a flying squirrel, make some of the best cloud guides despite their quarrelsome nature and sharp tongues.
The only semi-stable port Malstrom offers is Storms eye, a grand flying citadel that keeps its position at the center of Torrentil, one of Malstroms many permanent storms, with the aid of a dozen or more Manasails. For most folk Storms eye translates to "the big city" and is the center of most folks childhood hopes and dreams, yet only the best and the brightest find work and a place to live at Storms eye. This is perhaps the only place where one can pay and be paid in hard coin which makes it a heavily frequented place by those who don't mind the docking costs of 1 sp per hour and the relatively high prices.
Resources/Trade
The most frequently traded materials from Malstrom are Gravwood and Storm steel, both of which form the cornerstone of Malstrom's economy. The extreme shortage of stone, farming soil and metals makes these items a must for any merchant vessel travelling to this planet. Since precious metals like silver, gold and platinum are more than rare on Malstrom, these materials are not used for common currency. Each community pay their debts with a sort of IOU chips made of polished Gravwood and engraved with the communities name on one side and a value on the other. This system makes it somewhat complicated for merchants to make hard coin and can sometimes lead to an inability for the communities to pay off trade debts. Thus it is not uncommon for the folk of Malstrom to "sell" members of the community into indentured servitude and it is in fact well looked upon when a person does so of their own free will. When such a person returns, often after long years of service, they are treated like local heroes and cared for for the rest of their days.
