Bases, Facilities & Strongholds

Some locations are defined less by the world around them than by what people built or adapted them to accomplish.

Military bases defend territory and support deployments. Headquarters coordinate organizations. Laboratories provide specialized equipment and controlled working environments. Academies and temples train their members. Shipyards, factories, hospitals, prisons, safehouses, estates, and strongholds each create their own expectations about who belongs there, what can happen there, and who is allowed inside.

The defining question is usually simple: what was this place built or adapted to do?

• Bases, garrisons, outposts, and defensive installations — places supporting military deployments, security operations, logistics, command, or territorial defense.

• Headquarters and command centers — persistent centers for leadership, planning, administration, communications, records, or organizational coordination.

• Research, medical, and technical facilities — laboratories, hospitals, clinics, engineering centers, archives, testing sites, and other specialist working environments.

• Academies, temples, and training facilities — active institutions where skills, traditions, beliefs, professions, or organizational responsibilities are taught and practiced.

• Prisons and secure facilities — detention centers, holding sites, vaults, interrogation facilities, and other places defined heavily by controlled movement or restricted access.

• Industrial and logistical facilities — factories, depots, warehouses, refineries, power installations, corporate compounds, and other sites supporting production or supply.

• Stations, shipyards, and remote installations — orbital or deep-space facilities, communications sites, listening posts, shipyards, platforms, and other installations whose isolation or specialized role shapes everyday activity.

• Estates, safehouses, and strongholds — residences, compounds, retreats, private headquarters, fortified properties, and other persistent spaces closely associated with particular characters or organizations.

Some places can reasonably fit more than one Galaxy category. Use Cities & Settlements when a location is primarily an inhabited community with many unrelated functions. Use Sites & Landmarks when its importance comes mainly from its history, physical identity, local significance, or role as a particular point of interest.

A useful facility creates circumstances before a scene even begins. Characters may already know who controls the location, whether they are expected to be there, what services or resources are available, and what could happen if they enter the wrong area or attract the wrong attention.

• Purpose — What normally happens here, and why does the location exist?

• Control — Who owns, commands, administers, occupies, or influences it?

• Access — Who may enter freely, and who needs authorization, an invitation, credentials, an escort, or another reason to be present?

• Personnel — Who normally lives or works here, and what professions or responsibilities bring people together?

• Resources — What equipment, information, transport, medical care, training, supplies, communications, or other capabilities are available?

• Security & Restrictions — Which people, areas, records, technologies, or activities receive special protection?

• Condition & Connections — Has the location been damaged, compromised, repurposed, contested, or otherwise changed, and which characters, organizations, or earlier stories already affect it?

Characters do not need galactic importance to have believable reasons to enter these places. Employment, military orders, deliveries, maintenance, medical treatment, training, research, inspections, transportation, security work, business, imprisonment, visiting someone, seeking refuge, or investigating a local problem can all bring characters into the same setting.

SWTOR's Galactic Strongholds system provides customizable personal and guild spaces that players can furnish, expand, visit, and share. Within StarForgeRP, those game spaces can also serve as physical stages for in-character locations without requiring every gameplay feature to exist literally within the shared continuity.

A decorated stronghold might represent an apartment, headquarters, estate, safehouse, temple, medical center, outpost, criminal operation, or another persistent setting. What matters to the StarForgeRP entry is the in-character place: where it is, who owns or controls it, what it is used for, who normally has access, which spaces or resources matter to roleplay, and what has happened there.

Facilities can change through roleplay. A base may be damaged or captured. A safehouse may be exposed. A laboratory may close or be repurposed. A headquarters may relocate. An estate may pass to another owner. An installation built for one purpose may acquire an entirely different role after the people or organizations using it change.

When those consequences continue to matter, later characters should be able to encounter them as part of the location's history rather than finding the setting reset after every story.