Cumulus is not an easy station to map. Besides its confusing array of access corridors, its interior architecture is ever-changing. Cabins and bulkheads are designed to be removed if necessary, and this has lead to a continually changing series of designer quarters, as new arrivals demand cabins made-to-order for even a three-day stay.

The agora is especially fluid, as resident or renter merchants come and go, taking their portable stalls with them. While there are a number of permanent stalls, most of them run by the League itself, most independents last for a few months at the most before returning planetside (either to Byzantium Secundus, their own homeworlds, or someplace they smell money).

Besides a relatively stable crew manifest, there are some permanent renters on Cumulus. The high-priced skyscrapers are usually tenanted by nobles with little land but a lot of money (most often second or third+ sons or daughters who inherit money but no fiefs). Many wealthy merchants keep their permanent residences here on Cumulus, where they return between seasons of trading on distant worlds. Freelance guildsmembets or yeomen can also be found here, using Cumulus as a base for drumming up contracts - indeed, it was an extremely popular mercenary recruiting spot during the Emperor Wars, since its vicinity to Byzantium Secundus kept fights to a minimum. Many meres still hold offices on Cumulus.

There are also many misfortunates who arrive on Cumulus but cannot afford passage off. Some of these come escaping some crime or punishment on Byzantium Secundus. Others gambled away their fortunes before booking passage off, and are now stuck here. Eventually unable to afford food or lodging, they desperately beg for any job available.

If they cannot find one, they risk capture by the Chainers exchanging their freedom for passage off-station, usually to some noble's work camp on a distant world. Most of the squatters hiding in the space city are such wretches. (It is also rumored that there are unseen slaves working the engine rooms to make up for the lack of trained crewmembers.)

People of Note

Captain Fargo (Charioteer), commander of the station: Fargo is an old pilot with a savvy sense of economics. He used to run Charioteer medicine shows on back worlds. Infamous for selling sinful goods, his reputation soon preceded him to certain worlds, and the League felt it was in their best interests to place this valuable guildmember out of the Church's way. His understanding of starships and merchanting made him a good choice to command Cumulus, one of the League's premier spacestations. His lack of bureaucracy skills, however, have cost the station some of its autonomy as he sold increasingly more of the station to outside interests.

• Crafter Greba Ixlon, Chief Engineer: A somewhat sour-seeming woman, she is one of the best space station engineers in the Known Worlds (she despises her better, Crafter Erdo Sedgewick, on Diadem). She heads the sizable staff of engineers in charge of maintaining the complex station. Fellow Druzzi, chief of starship operations, answers to her.
• Sabot "Black Gut" Karlson: This crude Chainer is behind much of the station's smuggling operations. Details on him can be found in the Fading Suns supplement, Byzantium Secundus.
• Baroness Bashira al-Malik, resident of the highest spire: This wealthy noble lives on the tallest point of the station, looking down over the space city and out across the pylons to witness the construction platforms with their antlike workers crawling across their surfaces. She is the heir to her family's estates but dreads the year she must return to manage them. She indulges in as many exotic activities as she can for now, knowing that one day her time of freedom and irresponsibility will be over.
• Hyram the Brown, wandering doomsayer: Hyram is a somewhat touched hesychast monk who came to Cumulus and never left. He can be found at one time or another almost anywhere on the station (except the command deck), bellowing about the end of the universe as demons swallow the suns, extinguishing our "luminous souls." He will conspiratorially inform those he takes a liking to about his visions, which include dreams about holy relics "lying forgotten on the fallow ground of Symbiot worlds." He will even claim that certain relics lie hidden in unused areas of the station, but has so far been unable to convince anyone to help him search for them (which would require breaking into cordoned off zones, some of them without active life support).

Spacestation Cumulus A Nexus Adventure for Fading Suns

Introduction
Description
Residents