Overview

A scattered graveyard of wreckage on the outer edge of Vesper System — decades of ships that mistimed a transit through the increasingly unreliable Reach, drifting alongside older hulks nobody can even date. It draws independent scavengers and, more quietly, the Red Veil Cartel, who've made it a forward base for salvage and smuggling far from Port Kestrel's eyes.

World Stats

Geography & Environment

• Not a true asteroid belt — a loose scatter of ship debris, ice, and rock, thin enough that most of it has to be found by transponder ghost and wreck-diving rather than sight
• Navigation is hazardous; wrecks drift and tumble unpredictably, and older hulks have been known to still carry live ordnance
• Some wreckage is recent — failed Reach transits — but a disturbing amount predates anyone's records of the route being used at all

Settlements

• None fixed. A handful of scavenger crews work out of patched-together salvage tenders, moving as the pickings dictate

Factions & Notable NPCs

• Red Veil Cartel — runs salvage and smuggling operations out of the Driftfield via Enforcer Dashiell Corr and the Widow's Toll
• Independent scavenger crews, unaligned and territorial about their claims

Trade & Economy

• Salvage is the only economy here — scavenged parts, hull plate, and the occasional intact system get sold on through the Anchorage or run back to Kestrel
• Red Veil folds its own smuggling runs into the general scavenger traffic, much as it does with the mining traffic in the Shattered Belt back home

Points of Interest

• The oldest wrecks in the field, pre-dating any recorded transit of Vesper Reach — nobody has a good explanation for how they got there