Ziost
Ziost
Embedded Files
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
**Title**
Ziost
**Small Text / Caption**
Ancient Sith capital, Imperial gateway, and the lifeless scar left by one of the SWTOR era’s greatest catastrophes.
**Standard Text**
Ziost is an ancient Sith world whose history spans radically different identities. It once served as a capital of early Sith civilization, later became an important commercial, political, and population center of the modern **Sith Empire** (https://www.starforgerp.com/lore/factions-powers/sith-empire), and was known as the “Gateway to the Empire.”
That history ended catastrophically when the former Sith Emperor Vitiate turned upon the world. During the crisis that followed his return from **Yavin 4** (https://www.starforgerp.com/galaxy/planets-moons/yavin-4), he seized control of people across Ziost, fed upon the resulting death and violence, and ultimately annihilated the planet’s ordinary life.
The Ziost encountered afterward is therefore not simply another cold Imperial world. It is a devastated historical site: ruined infrastructure, ash-covered terrain, abandoned machinery, traces of a destroyed society, and dangerous Monoliths remain where cities and settlements once supported a substantial Imperial population.
For roleplay, Ziost works especially well for expeditions, military or intelligence investigations, Sith history, archaeological research, survivor backgrounds, recovery operations, droid activity, dangerous reconnaissance, and stories concerned with what remains after a galactic catastrophe.
**Image / Photo — Optional**
Suggested Placement:
Below the introductory text as a coordinated two-column visual group. Place “Before the Cataclysm” first and “After the Cataclysm” second so the same sequence remains logical when Google Sites stacks the columns on mobile.
Visual Continuity:
Both images should use matching 4:3 dimensions, compatible rendering quality, similar visual weight, and a shared realistic SWTOR-era treatment. The contrast should come from Ziost’s changed condition rather than from unrelated art styles.
**Subheading**
Before the Cataclysm
Suggested Subject / Description:
New Adasta during its functioning Imperial period: a large fortified city built into Ziost’s frozen and rocky landscape, with monumental SWTOR-era Imperial architecture, civilian and commercial activity, transport infrastructure, and the People’s Tower visible as an important civic landmark. The scene should establish that Ziost was once a living Imperial world rather than merely an archaeological ruin.
Suggested Format:
4:3 landscape website image.
Era / Lore Requirements:
Use SWTOR-era Imperial architecture and technology. Ziost should appear bitterly cold, rocky, and developed, with snow or frozen terrain appropriate to its pre-cataclysm condition. Do not substitute Galactic Empire architecture, stormtroopers, TIE fighters, or other later-era Imperial imagery.
Recommended Alt Text:
New Adasta rises above Ziost’s frozen terrain, with Imperial buildings, transport activity, and civilians visible throughout the city.
**Small Text / Caption**
New Adasta before the destruction of Ziost.
**Subheading**
After the Cataclysm
Suggested Subject / Description:
The same world after Vitiate’s destruction: an ashen, desaturated wasteland containing ruined Imperial structures, twisted remnants of vegetation, abandoned equipment, broken terrain, and a distant Monolith whose scale makes the danger apparent without turning the scene into a combat tableau. No ordinary biological population should be visible.
Suggested Format:
4:3 landscape website image.
Era / Lore Requirements:
The world should remain recognizably Ziost rather than becoming a generic volcanic planet. Preserve traces of its former frozen Imperial landscape beneath the ashen devastation. Buildings and machinery should remain Old Republic-era. The Monolith should appear as an unnatural dark-side construct rather than a conventional animal.
Recommended Alt Text:
Ash-covered ruins and dead terrain stretch across post-cataclysm Ziost while a massive Monolith stands in the distance.
**Small Text / Caption**
Ziost after Vitiate’s cataclysm.
Image Generation Prompt — Shared Visual Treatment
Image Subject 1 — Before the Cataclysm
Depict New Adasta on Ziost during the functioning Sith Empire period before Vitiate’s final attack.
The city occupies a severe frozen and rocky environment, combining dense SWTOR-era Imperial construction with exposed cliffs, snow, dark stone, sparse cold-adapted vegetation, and transportation infrastructure. Monumental gray Imperial buildings rise above the settlement, with restrained crimson Imperial banners and the People’s Tower visible as a major civic landmark.
Show enough civilian, commercial, administrative, and transport activity to establish New Adasta as a substantial inhabited Imperial city rather than solely a military fortress. Small figures, cargo movement, service vehicles, or distant spacecraft may provide scale, but no single character should dominate the image.
Architecture, equipment, clothing, vehicles, and symbols must use Star Wars: The Old Republic-era Imperial visual language. Do not depict Galactic Empire stormtroopers, TIE fighters, Imperial Star Destroyers, or other designs strongly identified with later eras.
The scene represents normal Ziost before the Vitiate crisis. Do not depict possession, Monoliths, widespread fighting, mass destruction, or the later ashen cataclysm.
Image Subject 2 — After the Cataclysm
Depict Ziost after Vitiate has annihilated its ordinary biological life.
Show a broad, desaturated landscape of ash-gray and dark frozen terrain containing damaged SWTOR-era Imperial structures, abandoned machinery, wreckage, fissures, skeletal or twisted remnants of former vegetation, and evidence of a once-inhabited world abruptly emptied of life.
A large Monolith may appear at a distance as a threatening silhouette or clearly recognizable dark-side construct. It should feel unnatural, massive, and enduring without becoming the entire focus of the composition.
No living civilians, soldiers, ordinary wildlife, healthy vegetation, rebuilding settlement, or normal city activity should be visible. Droids, probes, abandoned technological equipment, and ruined infrastructure may appear where useful.
The world should remain physically recognizable as the remains of Ziost rather than a completely vaporized planet. Preserve SWTOR-era Imperial architectural remnants and the cold, severe geography beneath the ashen devastation.
Core Prompt
Create an original 4:3 visual for the StarForgeRP website based on the Image Subject described above.
Use a realistic, cinematic concept-art presentation appropriate to Star Wars: The Old Republic and the broader Old Republic era. The image should feel grounded, detailed, atmospheric, and believable, with restrained visual storytelling rather than exaggerated spectacle.
Maintain visual compatibility with the broader StarForgeRP artwork collection without forcing every subject into identical colors or lighting. Dark blue, navy, charcoal, muted metallic tones, cool environmental light, and selective warm gold or amber illumination may provide a recurring visual foundation where appropriate. Allow the natural colors of a character, world, culture, environment, object, or scene to remain recognizable when they are important to the subject.
Compose the scene according to what it needs to communicate. Characters, locations, landscapes, historical scenes, artifacts, architecture, starships, organizations, cultural subjects, technology, and archival compositions do not require identical framing. Give the primary subject a clear visual focus while allowing the surrounding environment to provide useful context, scale, and atmosphere.
Prioritize SWTOR-era and Old Republic-era visual language. Clothing, armor, architecture, starships, weapons, equipment, terminals, droids, vehicles, furnishings, and other technology should feel appropriate to that period when they appear. Avoid designs strongly associated with later Star Wars eras unless the individual Image Subject specifically requires them.
When the subject is tied to a particular faction, organization, culture, location, historical period, or StarForgeRP development, follow the supplied lore and continuity information rather than replacing it with generic Star Wars imagery.
Do not invent lore-significant uniforms, insignia, technology, architecture, symbols, relationships, events, or outcomes merely to make the image more elaborate.
When an uncertain detail is not necessary to the composition, it may remain visually unspecified.
Where appropriate, use environmental depth, atmospheric haze, practical or holographic illumination, weather, planetary terrain, architecture, machinery, interiors, crowds, distant activity, or culturally appropriate surroundings.
Background detail should support the primary subject and help establish the setting without overwhelming the composition.
For original StarForgeRP characters and other community-created subjects, follow supplied descriptions and reference material when available.
Preserve specifically requested identifying features, proportions, clothing, equipment, markings, colors, or other established design elements while creating a new composition rather than closely reproducing unrelated artwork.
If no reference image is supplied, create an original interpretation from the written description. Do not request a reference merely because one could improve precision.
Weapons should appear only when relevant to the subject.
Lightsabers should not be added merely as general Star Wars decoration; include them only when they meaningfully belong to the character, event, location, activity, or subject being depicted.
Do not include titles, captions, logos, borders, watermarks, webpage elements, decorative written language, readable interface labels, or other visible text unless the individual Image Subject specifically calls for them.
Compose the artwork for a 4:3 frame.
Keep important faces, characters, objects, landmarks, vehicles, and other essential visual information comfortably within the composition, with enough surrounding space to prevent important details from being lost near the edges.
The primary subject should remain recognizable and readable when the image is displayed on StarForgeRP at approximately 440 × 330 px.
Visual Standard
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Website Display Size: approximately 440 × 330 px
Generation Size: use an appropriate native 4:3 resolution rather than generating specifically at the smaller website dimensions
Overall Style: realistic, cinematic Old Republic-era concept art
Palette: dark blue, navy, charcoal, muted metallic tones, and restrained warm illumination as a recurring foundation where appropriate; preserve subject-specific colors when important
Lighting: predominantly cinematic and atmospheric, often using cool ambient light with selective warm gold or amber highlights where appropriate
Atmosphere: grounded, immersive, detailed, and visually restrained
Composition: clear primary subject, readable at website display size, with essential details safely inside the frame
Background: lore-appropriate and supportive without competing with the primary subject
Continuity & Era: favor supplied StarForgeRP continuity and SWTOR-era visual language; avoid unsupported or later-era substitutions
Reference Material: preserve requested subject identity and established design details when references are available; generate from the written description when no reference is supplied and none is required
Technology: appropriate to the Old Republic or SWTOR era when applicable
Weapons: only when relevant to the subject
Lightsabers: only when specifically appropriate to the subject
Originality: create a new composition rather than directly reproducing or closely copying an existing artwork
Text, Logos & UI: none unless explicitly requested
**Heading**
Quick Reference
**List**
* Location: Sith Worlds; historically deep within Imperial space* Historical Importance: Ancient Sith capital and major center of Sith civilization* Modern Imperial Role: Major commercial, political, and population center known as the “Gateway to the Empire”* Principal Historical City: New Adasta* Historical Environment: Rocky, arid terrain transformed over time from a warmer forested climate into a bitterly cold tundra* Major SWTOR-Era Event: Vitiate’s assault on and destruction of Ziost* Post-Cataclysm Condition: Ordinary biological life destroyed; surviving landscape dominated by ash, ruins, abandoned infrastructure, and dangerous Monoliths* Primary Roleplay Uses: Sith history, survivor backgrounds, archaeology, intelligence work, military history, reconnaissance, hazardous expeditions, recovery missions, droid research, missing records, and catastrophe aftermath
**Heading**
Environment & Transformation
**Standard Text**
Ziost was already an unusually severe world long before its final destruction. SWTOR describes a rocky and arid planet that had once possessed a warmer climate and dense forests before becoming a bitterly cold tundra. The cause of that ancient environmental transformation is not firmly established; even within SWTOR, geological change and long-term dark-side influence are presented as possibilities rather than a settled answer.
Before the cataclysm, snow, frozen ground, dark rock formations, sparse vegetation, cities, roads, military facilities, and other Imperial construction could all be found across the areas represented in SWTOR.
Vitiate’s destruction transformed that environment again. The post-cataclysm landscape is drained of ordinary life and visually dominated by gray and black terrain, ash, dead vegetation, damaged structures, wreckage, abandoned equipment, and strange disturbances associated with the disaster.
For roleplay, the two periods should not be blended casually. Historical scenes set before the catastrophe can use populated Imperial cities and functioning infrastructure. Stories set afterward should reflect the physical and social absence created by the planet’s destruction.
**Heading**
An Ancient Sith Capital
**Standard Text**
Ziost’s importance predates the modern Sith Empire by thousands of years.
SWTOR’s historical records describe the ancient Sith species leaving **Korriban** (https://www.starforgerp.com/galaxy/planets-moons/korriban) after an early period of conflict and eventually establishing a new capital on Ziost. The world remained one of the most important political centers of ancient Sith civilization for an extended period before internal rivalry and historical upheaval shifted the centers of Sith power elsewhere.
This gives Ziost a historical role distinct from Korriban. Korriban remained deeply connected to Sith ancestry, tombs, religious memory, and later training, while Ziost also possessed a long history as an inhabited center of government and society.
Ancient ruins on Ziost may therefore represent more than isolated tombs. Political compounds, residences, ceremonial structures, defensive works, archives, and other remains of successive Sith societies may all be plausible subjects for archaeology when the individual story avoids inventing a uniquely important ancient site without sufficient continuity support.
**Heading**
Gateway to the Empire
**Standard Text**
The modern Sith Empire eventually restored Ziost to major importance even though **Dromund Kaas** (https://www.starforgerp.com/galaxy/planets-moons/dromund-kaas) served as its principal capital.
By the period immediately preceding the planet’s destruction, Ziost had become a major Imperial commercial, political, and population center. Its position and economic importance earned it the name “Gateway to the Empire.”
New Adasta represented that renewed prosperity. The city combined civilian life, commerce, Imperial administration, military security, and large-scale infrastructure rather than functioning solely as a Sith temple or battlefield.
The world was not politically uniform. SWTOR also records repeated attempts at revolt, including a destructive campaign by the Ziost Liberation Front. Imperial authorities responded by strengthening systems intended to contain future unrest within New Adasta.
That history can matter to characters who lived on Ziost before its destruction. A former resident might have come from an Imperial military family, a merchant household, a civil-service background, the Sith aristocracy, an enslaved population, an industrial or logistical profession, or a community shaped by resistance and political repression. Ziost should not be reduced to a planet inhabited only by Sith Lords.
**Heading**
The Ziost Cataclysm
**Standard Text**
The defining event in modern Ziost history followed the confrontation with Revan on Yavin 4.
After escaping Yavin 4, the former Sith Emperor Vitiate turned his attention to Ziost. He began dominating the minds of people on the planet and using the resulting violence and deaths to increase his own power. Imperial troops, civilians, and members of a Republic Jedi unit known as the Sixth Line were among those affected.
Sith Intelligence Minister Lana Beniko and Republic SIS operative Theron Shan became central to efforts to contain the crisis. Their cooperation reflected the scale of the threat rather than a lasting alliance between their governments.
The Galactic Republic also committed military forces to Ziost during the emergency. Those forces became vulnerable to Vitiate’s influence as the situation deteriorated, adding another layer of conflict to an already collapsing planetary crisis.
Efforts to interfere with Vitiate’s control and evacuate civilians saved some people, but they did not save the world.
Vitiate ultimately unleashed enough dark-side power to strip Ziost of ordinary life. The catastrophe left the physical planet behind while destroying its living population and ecosystem on a planetary scale.
For the wider chronology surrounding Yavin 4, Ziost, and the beginning of the Eternal Empire storyline, see the **Galactic Timeline** (https://www.starforgerp.com/timeline/galactic-timeline).
**Heading**
Aftermath
**Standard Text**
Ziost after the catastrophe is defined as much by absence as by destruction.
Buildings, machinery, roads, crashed probes, ruined facilities, abandoned survey equipment, records, and other physical traces may remain even though the communities that built and used them are gone. This creates a setting where investigators can enter spaces that still resemble a functioning civilization while encountering none of the ordinary life that once gave those places meaning.
The world is therefore useful for more than combat. Archaeological teams may attempt to distinguish ancient Sith remains from modern Imperial ruins. Intelligence personnel may recover damaged records. Droids may continue operating after their biological crews are gone. Families or institutions elsewhere in the Empire may search for evidence concerning people, property, research, or archives lost during the catastrophe.
Some questions may never receive complete answers. A destroyed city can preserve incomplete records, contradictory sensor logs, damaged identification data, or sites that cannot safely be reached.
That uncertainty is particularly useful for collaborative roleplay because recovering part of the truth does not require a story to discover a galaxy-changing secret.
**Heading**
Monoliths
**Standard Text**
The Monoliths are among the most dangerous remnants associated with the catastrophe.
SWTOR describes them as something beyond conventional Sithspawn. Rather than simply being living creatures altered through Sith alchemy, they are presented as entities formed from dark-side energy itself, capable of extraordinary resilience.
Several Monoliths remained on Ziost after its biological life had been destroyed, including specimens of enormous size.
For roleplay, they should therefore be treated as exceptional hazards rather than ordinary wildlife. Their presence can justify evacuation plans, remote observation, military escorts, restricted expedition routes, lost survey teams, abandoned equipment, or situations where recovering information is more realistic than defeating every threat encountered.
**Heading**
Important Locations
**Subheading**
New Adasta
**Standard Text**
New Adasta was Ziost’s principal modern city and one of the clearest expressions of the planet’s renewed importance within the Sith Empire.
Before the catastrophe, it supported a large civilian population together with commerce, Imperial administration, security, military activity, and transportation infrastructure. Much of the Ziost crisis unfolded in and around the city as Vitiate’s influence spread through its population.
Stories set before the destruction can therefore use New Adasta as a genuinely urban Imperial environment rather than merely a military base.
Stories set afterward should instead treat its remains as part of the lost world: damaged or abandoned structures, empty districts, records without owners, and evidence of lives interrupted by the catastrophe.
**Subheading**
People’s Tower
**Standard Text**
The People’s Tower was a major landmark within New Adasta and became important during attempts to break Vitiate’s control of the city.
Its prominence makes it useful as a recognizable historical reference point when characters study records of the crisis or explore surviving portions of New Adasta.
It should not, however, become shorthand for the entire city. New Adasta contained civilian districts, transport routes, defensive infrastructure, administrative facilities, commerce, and other spaces beyond the tower itself.
**Subheading**
Post-Cataclysm Survey Areas
**Standard Text**
SWTOR’s post-cataclysm Ziost content focuses on investigators entering the devastated landscape to study what happened and recover information from the remains.
That is the strongest model for present-era visits to the planet.
A StarForgeRP expedition might involve environmental analysis, recovery of damaged memory cores, identification of remains, archaeological surveys, mapping unstable terrain, retrieval of Imperial records, droid research, investigation of dark-side anomalies, or attempts to determine whether an inaccessible site contains anything still worth recovering.
The explorable game area should not be treated as a complete survey of the entire planet. Other ruins, wilderness regions, former settlements, isolated installations, and ancient sites can exist beyond the represented map when a story remains consistent with Ziost’s established history and post-cataclysm condition.
**Heading**
Roleplay Considerations
**List**
* A character described as a survivor of Ziost should normally have escaped, been evacuated, or already been offworld before the final cataclysm. Surviving while physically present after the planetary destruction would require an exceptional and deliberately established explanation.* Former residents may have lost family members, property, professional networks, estates, military units, institutions, businesses, records, or communities. Those consequences can matter without defining every survivor in the same way.* Historical roleplay before the destruction may use functioning New Adasta, Imperial institutions, commerce, urban society, political unrest, and ordinary civilian life.* Present-era planetary scenes work better as expeditions than as routine settlement or tourism.* Recovering records, possessions, identification data, scientific results, or historically meaningful but non-unique artifacts can produce strong stories without every expedition uncovering an unprecedented Sith superweapon.* Ancient Sith remains and modern Imperial ruins may overlap. Discovering a structure does not automatically establish its date, builder, purpose, or importance.* Droids and automated systems can provide useful continuity on a world whose biological population was destroyed, particularly for stories involving abandoned facilities, incomplete records, or machinery that continued operating without its original users.* Monolith encounters should feel dangerous and exceptional. Avoid reducing them to routine local fauna.* Force-related phenomena should be tied to specific circumstances rather than assuming every Force-sensitive character experiences identical visions, corruption, or supernatural effects simply by landing on Ziost.* Failure can create useful consequences: an expedition may recover only part of a record, lose equipment, abandon an unsafe site, misidentify a ruin, alert another interested party, or discover that the information being sought did not survive.
**Heading**
Ziost in StarForgeRP’s Present Day
**Standard Text**
At the current StarForgeRP setting, the destruction of Ziost is established history rather than an active planetary crisis.
The durable baseline for present-day roleplay is the devastated world left after Vitiate’s attack: a historically important but extraordinarily dangerous location whose value comes from what once existed there, what physically remains, and what later investigators may still be able to learn.
Do not assume that New Adasta has returned to ordinary civilian life, that the destroyed ecosystem has naturally recovered, or that a large permanent population has been restored unless later established SWTOR material or deliberate StarForgeRP continuity provides that development.
That still leaves substantial room for stories. Imperial authorities, Sith researchers, military personnel, intelligence organizations, archaeologists, independent specialists, droids, scavengers, or other expeditions may all have reasons to investigate the world when the risks and permissions involved are treated seriously.
For StarForgeRP’s current campaign date and wider galactic circumstances, see **Current Setting** (https://www.starforgerp.com/timeline/current-setting).
Ziost
**Small Text / Caption**
Ancient Sith capital, Imperial gateway, and the lifeless scar left by one of the SWTOR era’s greatest catastrophes.
**Standard Text**
Ziost is an ancient Sith world whose history spans radically different identities. It once served as a capital of early Sith civilization, later became an important commercial, political, and population center of the modern **Sith Empire** (https://www.starforgerp.com/lore/factions-powers/sith-empire), and was known as the “Gateway to the Empire.”
That history ended catastrophically when the former Sith Emperor Vitiate turned upon the world. During the crisis that followed his return from **Yavin 4** (https://www.starforgerp.com/galaxy/planets-moons/yavin-4), he seized control of people across Ziost, fed upon the resulting death and violence, and ultimately annihilated the planet’s ordinary life.
The Ziost encountered afterward is therefore not simply another cold Imperial world. It is a devastated historical site: ruined infrastructure, ash-covered terrain, abandoned machinery, traces of a destroyed society, and dangerous Monoliths remain where cities and settlements once supported a substantial Imperial population.
For roleplay, Ziost works especially well for expeditions, military or intelligence investigations, Sith history, archaeological research, survivor backgrounds, recovery operations, droid activity, dangerous reconnaissance, and stories concerned with what remains after a galactic catastrophe.
**Image / Photo — Optional**
Suggested Placement:
Below the introductory text as a coordinated two-column visual group. Place “Before the Cataclysm” first and “After the Cataclysm” second so the same sequence remains logical when Google Sites stacks the columns on mobile.
Visual Continuity:
Both images should use matching 4:3 dimensions, compatible rendering quality, similar visual weight, and a shared realistic SWTOR-era treatment. The contrast should come from Ziost’s changed condition rather than from unrelated art styles.
**Subheading**
Before the Cataclysm
Suggested Subject / Description:
New Adasta during its functioning Imperial period: a large fortified city built into Ziost’s frozen and rocky landscape, with monumental SWTOR-era Imperial architecture, civilian and commercial activity, transport infrastructure, and the People’s Tower visible as an important civic landmark. The scene should establish that Ziost was once a living Imperial world rather than merely an archaeological ruin.
Suggested Format:
4:3 landscape website image.
Era / Lore Requirements:
Use SWTOR-era Imperial architecture and technology. Ziost should appear bitterly cold, rocky, and developed, with snow or frozen terrain appropriate to its pre-cataclysm condition. Do not substitute Galactic Empire architecture, stormtroopers, TIE fighters, or other later-era Imperial imagery.
Recommended Alt Text:
New Adasta rises above Ziost’s frozen terrain, with Imperial buildings, transport activity, and civilians visible throughout the city.
**Small Text / Caption**
New Adasta before the destruction of Ziost.
**Subheading**
After the Cataclysm
Suggested Subject / Description:
The same world after Vitiate’s destruction: an ashen, desaturated wasteland containing ruined Imperial structures, twisted remnants of vegetation, abandoned equipment, broken terrain, and a distant Monolith whose scale makes the danger apparent without turning the scene into a combat tableau. No ordinary biological population should be visible.
Suggested Format:
4:3 landscape website image.
Era / Lore Requirements:
The world should remain recognizably Ziost rather than becoming a generic volcanic planet. Preserve traces of its former frozen Imperial landscape beneath the ashen devastation. Buildings and machinery should remain Old Republic-era. The Monolith should appear as an unnatural dark-side construct rather than a conventional animal.
Recommended Alt Text:
Ash-covered ruins and dead terrain stretch across post-cataclysm Ziost while a massive Monolith stands in the distance.
**Small Text / Caption**
Ziost after Vitiate’s cataclysm.
Image Generation Prompt — Shared Visual Treatment
Image Subject 1 — Before the Cataclysm
Depict New Adasta on Ziost during the functioning Sith Empire period before Vitiate’s final attack.
The city occupies a severe frozen and rocky environment, combining dense SWTOR-era Imperial construction with exposed cliffs, snow, dark stone, sparse cold-adapted vegetation, and transportation infrastructure. Monumental gray Imperial buildings rise above the settlement, with restrained crimson Imperial banners and the People’s Tower visible as a major civic landmark.
Show enough civilian, commercial, administrative, and transport activity to establish New Adasta as a substantial inhabited Imperial city rather than solely a military fortress. Small figures, cargo movement, service vehicles, or distant spacecraft may provide scale, but no single character should dominate the image.
Architecture, equipment, clothing, vehicles, and symbols must use Star Wars: The Old Republic-era Imperial visual language. Do not depict Galactic Empire stormtroopers, TIE fighters, Imperial Star Destroyers, or other designs strongly identified with later eras.
The scene represents normal Ziost before the Vitiate crisis. Do not depict possession, Monoliths, widespread fighting, mass destruction, or the later ashen cataclysm.
Image Subject 2 — After the Cataclysm
Depict Ziost after Vitiate has annihilated its ordinary biological life.
Show a broad, desaturated landscape of ash-gray and dark frozen terrain containing damaged SWTOR-era Imperial structures, abandoned machinery, wreckage, fissures, skeletal or twisted remnants of former vegetation, and evidence of a once-inhabited world abruptly emptied of life.
A large Monolith may appear at a distance as a threatening silhouette or clearly recognizable dark-side construct. It should feel unnatural, massive, and enduring without becoming the entire focus of the composition.
No living civilians, soldiers, ordinary wildlife, healthy vegetation, rebuilding settlement, or normal city activity should be visible. Droids, probes, abandoned technological equipment, and ruined infrastructure may appear where useful.
The world should remain physically recognizable as the remains of Ziost rather than a completely vaporized planet. Preserve SWTOR-era Imperial architectural remnants and the cold, severe geography beneath the ashen devastation.
Core Prompt
Create an original 4:3 visual for the StarForgeRP website based on the Image Subject described above.
Use a realistic, cinematic concept-art presentation appropriate to Star Wars: The Old Republic and the broader Old Republic era. The image should feel grounded, detailed, atmospheric, and believable, with restrained visual storytelling rather than exaggerated spectacle.
Maintain visual compatibility with the broader StarForgeRP artwork collection without forcing every subject into identical colors or lighting. Dark blue, navy, charcoal, muted metallic tones, cool environmental light, and selective warm gold or amber illumination may provide a recurring visual foundation where appropriate. Allow the natural colors of a character, world, culture, environment, object, or scene to remain recognizable when they are important to the subject.
Compose the scene according to what it needs to communicate. Characters, locations, landscapes, historical scenes, artifacts, architecture, starships, organizations, cultural subjects, technology, and archival compositions do not require identical framing. Give the primary subject a clear visual focus while allowing the surrounding environment to provide useful context, scale, and atmosphere.
Prioritize SWTOR-era and Old Republic-era visual language. Clothing, armor, architecture, starships, weapons, equipment, terminals, droids, vehicles, furnishings, and other technology should feel appropriate to that period when they appear. Avoid designs strongly associated with later Star Wars eras unless the individual Image Subject specifically requires them.
When the subject is tied to a particular faction, organization, culture, location, historical period, or StarForgeRP development, follow the supplied lore and continuity information rather than replacing it with generic Star Wars imagery.
Do not invent lore-significant uniforms, insignia, technology, architecture, symbols, relationships, events, or outcomes merely to make the image more elaborate.
When an uncertain detail is not necessary to the composition, it may remain visually unspecified.
Where appropriate, use environmental depth, atmospheric haze, practical or holographic illumination, weather, planetary terrain, architecture, machinery, interiors, crowds, distant activity, or culturally appropriate surroundings.
Background detail should support the primary subject and help establish the setting without overwhelming the composition.
For original StarForgeRP characters and other community-created subjects, follow supplied descriptions and reference material when available.
Preserve specifically requested identifying features, proportions, clothing, equipment, markings, colors, or other established design elements while creating a new composition rather than closely reproducing unrelated artwork.
If no reference image is supplied, create an original interpretation from the written description. Do not request a reference merely because one could improve precision.
Weapons should appear only when relevant to the subject.
Lightsabers should not be added merely as general Star Wars decoration; include them only when they meaningfully belong to the character, event, location, activity, or subject being depicted.
Do not include titles, captions, logos, borders, watermarks, webpage elements, decorative written language, readable interface labels, or other visible text unless the individual Image Subject specifically calls for them.
Compose the artwork for a 4:3 frame.
Keep important faces, characters, objects, landmarks, vehicles, and other essential visual information comfortably within the composition, with enough surrounding space to prevent important details from being lost near the edges.
The primary subject should remain recognizable and readable when the image is displayed on StarForgeRP at approximately 440 × 330 px.
Visual Standard
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Website Display Size: approximately 440 × 330 px
Generation Size: use an appropriate native 4:3 resolution rather than generating specifically at the smaller website dimensions
Overall Style: realistic, cinematic Old Republic-era concept art
Palette: dark blue, navy, charcoal, muted metallic tones, and restrained warm illumination as a recurring foundation where appropriate; preserve subject-specific colors when important
Lighting: predominantly cinematic and atmospheric, often using cool ambient light with selective warm gold or amber highlights where appropriate
Atmosphere: grounded, immersive, detailed, and visually restrained
Composition: clear primary subject, readable at website display size, with essential details safely inside the frame
Background: lore-appropriate and supportive without competing with the primary subject
Continuity & Era: favor supplied StarForgeRP continuity and SWTOR-era visual language; avoid unsupported or later-era substitutions
Reference Material: preserve requested subject identity and established design details when references are available; generate from the written description when no reference is supplied and none is required
Technology: appropriate to the Old Republic or SWTOR era when applicable
Weapons: only when relevant to the subject
Lightsabers: only when specifically appropriate to the subject
Originality: create a new composition rather than directly reproducing or closely copying an existing artwork
Text, Logos & UI: none unless explicitly requested
**Heading**
Quick Reference
**List**
* Location: Sith Worlds; historically deep within Imperial space* Historical Importance: Ancient Sith capital and major center of Sith civilization* Modern Imperial Role: Major commercial, political, and population center known as the “Gateway to the Empire”* Principal Historical City: New Adasta* Historical Environment: Rocky, arid terrain transformed over time from a warmer forested climate into a bitterly cold tundra* Major SWTOR-Era Event: Vitiate’s assault on and destruction of Ziost* Post-Cataclysm Condition: Ordinary biological life destroyed; surviving landscape dominated by ash, ruins, abandoned infrastructure, and dangerous Monoliths* Primary Roleplay Uses: Sith history, survivor backgrounds, archaeology, intelligence work, military history, reconnaissance, hazardous expeditions, recovery missions, droid research, missing records, and catastrophe aftermath
**Heading**
Environment & Transformation
**Standard Text**
Ziost was already an unusually severe world long before its final destruction. SWTOR describes a rocky and arid planet that had once possessed a warmer climate and dense forests before becoming a bitterly cold tundra. The cause of that ancient environmental transformation is not firmly established; even within SWTOR, geological change and long-term dark-side influence are presented as possibilities rather than a settled answer.
Before the cataclysm, snow, frozen ground, dark rock formations, sparse vegetation, cities, roads, military facilities, and other Imperial construction could all be found across the areas represented in SWTOR.
Vitiate’s destruction transformed that environment again. The post-cataclysm landscape is drained of ordinary life and visually dominated by gray and black terrain, ash, dead vegetation, damaged structures, wreckage, abandoned equipment, and strange disturbances associated with the disaster.
For roleplay, the two periods should not be blended casually. Historical scenes set before the catastrophe can use populated Imperial cities and functioning infrastructure. Stories set afterward should reflect the physical and social absence created by the planet’s destruction.
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An Ancient Sith Capital
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Ziost’s importance predates the modern Sith Empire by thousands of years.
SWTOR’s historical records describe the ancient Sith species leaving **Korriban** (https://www.starforgerp.com/galaxy/planets-moons/korriban) after an early period of conflict and eventually establishing a new capital on Ziost. The world remained one of the most important political centers of ancient Sith civilization for an extended period before internal rivalry and historical upheaval shifted the centers of Sith power elsewhere.
This gives Ziost a historical role distinct from Korriban. Korriban remained deeply connected to Sith ancestry, tombs, religious memory, and later training, while Ziost also possessed a long history as an inhabited center of government and society.
Ancient ruins on Ziost may therefore represent more than isolated tombs. Political compounds, residences, ceremonial structures, defensive works, archives, and other remains of successive Sith societies may all be plausible subjects for archaeology when the individual story avoids inventing a uniquely important ancient site without sufficient continuity support.
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Gateway to the Empire
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The modern Sith Empire eventually restored Ziost to major importance even though **Dromund Kaas** (https://www.starforgerp.com/galaxy/planets-moons/dromund-kaas) served as its principal capital.
By the period immediately preceding the planet’s destruction, Ziost had become a major Imperial commercial, political, and population center. Its position and economic importance earned it the name “Gateway to the Empire.”
New Adasta represented that renewed prosperity. The city combined civilian life, commerce, Imperial administration, military security, and large-scale infrastructure rather than functioning solely as a Sith temple or battlefield.
The world was not politically uniform. SWTOR also records repeated attempts at revolt, including a destructive campaign by the Ziost Liberation Front. Imperial authorities responded by strengthening systems intended to contain future unrest within New Adasta.
That history can matter to characters who lived on Ziost before its destruction. A former resident might have come from an Imperial military family, a merchant household, a civil-service background, the Sith aristocracy, an enslaved population, an industrial or logistical profession, or a community shaped by resistance and political repression. Ziost should not be reduced to a planet inhabited only by Sith Lords.
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The Ziost Cataclysm
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The defining event in modern Ziost history followed the confrontation with Revan on Yavin 4.
After escaping Yavin 4, the former Sith Emperor Vitiate turned his attention to Ziost. He began dominating the minds of people on the planet and using the resulting violence and deaths to increase his own power. Imperial troops, civilians, and members of a Republic Jedi unit known as the Sixth Line were among those affected.
Sith Intelligence Minister Lana Beniko and Republic SIS operative Theron Shan became central to efforts to contain the crisis. Their cooperation reflected the scale of the threat rather than a lasting alliance between their governments.
The Galactic Republic also committed military forces to Ziost during the emergency. Those forces became vulnerable to Vitiate’s influence as the situation deteriorated, adding another layer of conflict to an already collapsing planetary crisis.
Efforts to interfere with Vitiate’s control and evacuate civilians saved some people, but they did not save the world.
Vitiate ultimately unleashed enough dark-side power to strip Ziost of ordinary life. The catastrophe left the physical planet behind while destroying its living population and ecosystem on a planetary scale.
For the wider chronology surrounding Yavin 4, Ziost, and the beginning of the Eternal Empire storyline, see the **Galactic Timeline** (https://www.starforgerp.com/timeline/galactic-timeline).
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Aftermath
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Ziost after the catastrophe is defined as much by absence as by destruction.
Buildings, machinery, roads, crashed probes, ruined facilities, abandoned survey equipment, records, and other physical traces may remain even though the communities that built and used them are gone. This creates a setting where investigators can enter spaces that still resemble a functioning civilization while encountering none of the ordinary life that once gave those places meaning.
The world is therefore useful for more than combat. Archaeological teams may attempt to distinguish ancient Sith remains from modern Imperial ruins. Intelligence personnel may recover damaged records. Droids may continue operating after their biological crews are gone. Families or institutions elsewhere in the Empire may search for evidence concerning people, property, research, or archives lost during the catastrophe.
Some questions may never receive complete answers. A destroyed city can preserve incomplete records, contradictory sensor logs, damaged identification data, or sites that cannot safely be reached.
That uncertainty is particularly useful for collaborative roleplay because recovering part of the truth does not require a story to discover a galaxy-changing secret.
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Monoliths
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The Monoliths are among the most dangerous remnants associated with the catastrophe.
SWTOR describes them as something beyond conventional Sithspawn. Rather than simply being living creatures altered through Sith alchemy, they are presented as entities formed from dark-side energy itself, capable of extraordinary resilience.
Several Monoliths remained on Ziost after its biological life had been destroyed, including specimens of enormous size.
For roleplay, they should therefore be treated as exceptional hazards rather than ordinary wildlife. Their presence can justify evacuation plans, remote observation, military escorts, restricted expedition routes, lost survey teams, abandoned equipment, or situations where recovering information is more realistic than defeating every threat encountered.
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Important Locations
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New Adasta
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New Adasta was Ziost’s principal modern city and one of the clearest expressions of the planet’s renewed importance within the Sith Empire.
Before the catastrophe, it supported a large civilian population together with commerce, Imperial administration, security, military activity, and transportation infrastructure. Much of the Ziost crisis unfolded in and around the city as Vitiate’s influence spread through its population.
Stories set before the destruction can therefore use New Adasta as a genuinely urban Imperial environment rather than merely a military base.
Stories set afterward should instead treat its remains as part of the lost world: damaged or abandoned structures, empty districts, records without owners, and evidence of lives interrupted by the catastrophe.
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People’s Tower
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The People’s Tower was a major landmark within New Adasta and became important during attempts to break Vitiate’s control of the city.
Its prominence makes it useful as a recognizable historical reference point when characters study records of the crisis or explore surviving portions of New Adasta.
It should not, however, become shorthand for the entire city. New Adasta contained civilian districts, transport routes, defensive infrastructure, administrative facilities, commerce, and other spaces beyond the tower itself.
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Post-Cataclysm Survey Areas
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SWTOR’s post-cataclysm Ziost content focuses on investigators entering the devastated landscape to study what happened and recover information from the remains.
That is the strongest model for present-era visits to the planet.
A StarForgeRP expedition might involve environmental analysis, recovery of damaged memory cores, identification of remains, archaeological surveys, mapping unstable terrain, retrieval of Imperial records, droid research, investigation of dark-side anomalies, or attempts to determine whether an inaccessible site contains anything still worth recovering.
The explorable game area should not be treated as a complete survey of the entire planet. Other ruins, wilderness regions, former settlements, isolated installations, and ancient sites can exist beyond the represented map when a story remains consistent with Ziost’s established history and post-cataclysm condition.
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Roleplay Considerations
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* A character described as a survivor of Ziost should normally have escaped, been evacuated, or already been offworld before the final cataclysm. Surviving while physically present after the planetary destruction would require an exceptional and deliberately established explanation.* Former residents may have lost family members, property, professional networks, estates, military units, institutions, businesses, records, or communities. Those consequences can matter without defining every survivor in the same way.* Historical roleplay before the destruction may use functioning New Adasta, Imperial institutions, commerce, urban society, political unrest, and ordinary civilian life.* Present-era planetary scenes work better as expeditions than as routine settlement or tourism.* Recovering records, possessions, identification data, scientific results, or historically meaningful but non-unique artifacts can produce strong stories without every expedition uncovering an unprecedented Sith superweapon.* Ancient Sith remains and modern Imperial ruins may overlap. Discovering a structure does not automatically establish its date, builder, purpose, or importance.* Droids and automated systems can provide useful continuity on a world whose biological population was destroyed, particularly for stories involving abandoned facilities, incomplete records, or machinery that continued operating without its original users.* Monolith encounters should feel dangerous and exceptional. Avoid reducing them to routine local fauna.* Force-related phenomena should be tied to specific circumstances rather than assuming every Force-sensitive character experiences identical visions, corruption, or supernatural effects simply by landing on Ziost.* Failure can create useful consequences: an expedition may recover only part of a record, lose equipment, abandon an unsafe site, misidentify a ruin, alert another interested party, or discover that the information being sought did not survive.
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Ziost in StarForgeRP’s Present Day
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At the current StarForgeRP setting, the destruction of Ziost is established history rather than an active planetary crisis.
The durable baseline for present-day roleplay is the devastated world left after Vitiate’s attack: a historically important but extraordinarily dangerous location whose value comes from what once existed there, what physically remains, and what later investigators may still be able to learn.
Do not assume that New Adasta has returned to ordinary civilian life, that the destroyed ecosystem has naturally recovered, or that a large permanent population has been restored unless later established SWTOR material or deliberate StarForgeRP continuity provides that development.
That still leaves substantial room for stories. Imperial authorities, Sith researchers, military personnel, intelligence organizations, archaeologists, independent specialists, droids, scavengers, or other expeditions may all have reasons to investigate the world when the risks and permissions involved are treated seriously.
For StarForgeRP’s current campaign date and wider galactic circumstances, see **Current Setting** (https://www.starforgerp.com/timeline/current-setting).
This page is under active development.
This page is under active development.
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