The most habitable areas of Wildspace, at least for those who depend on light, are found in the inner system. Not the larger planets (Earth/Venus sized or bigger) as take off and landing is too risky to make a habit. That leaves smaller planets/moons and asteroids.

Most living will be done in Asteroid clusters or belts, then, as that's what's available. Things are not as sparse as they could be, however.

Rock hoppers are Halflings that inhabit asteroid clusters. Small asteroids can work as individual farms, larger asteroids can hold towns, and, if the asteroids are in a cluster together, you have a county, same as groundlings might. Space Swine become the working animal, and travel is done by Chariot, Cart, and Sled.

Dwarves mine. Asteroids are flying mountains. Dwarves mine asteroids. They leave behind (eventually) a cavern complex or underground city with oxygen producing mosses on the surface just waiting to be settled by others. Plenty of old deserted dwarven mines are floating about if you can find them. If not, contact a local Clan and buy one from them. They likely know where one or two are, and they can use the money, same as anyone.


Wizards towers and private homesteads can be built in or on an asteroid just as easily as for halflings, of course, making Hermits active (so to speak) int he asteroids, as well.

About the only thing you can't do well in the asteroids is forage. but you can fish off your ship and hunt scavvers and the like. Still, a resupply at Barney's or Ceres is probably wise, occasionally.

Dwarves mine and smelt and forge. And they live underground. This has a few ramifications that make Asteroid living better:

They grow fungus and the like that doesn't need sun. A good enough food source...for a dwarf.

They burn a lot of ...something... doing all that smelting and forging. Probably coal. They need to replace the oxygen used, so they likely have high production with low light plant life. Probably low maintenance, low moisture low light lichens and mosses. What else do they know how to grow, after all?

They travel in clans of 100 or more (up to 700). They don't get screwed with, often.

They have worked metal goods of the highest quality, and refined gemstones. They have money. They get screwed with often enough, but mostly couriers in transit.

Generally speaking, they prefer larger rocks, the Class A bodies of 1 mile to 10 miles in diameter. Anything larger is a very small planet, anything smaller is played out much too soon. That being said, new, start up, clans (under 100 dwarves) could well be hired to turn a rock into a "castle" complex. Given them a year, and you have your new fortification.

They trade for the same things anyone else does: wood for fires and shipbuilding, and food that isn't fungus based. they also trade amongst themselves. Coal miners need tools, and everyone else needs coal.

Stouts, mostly, and more resistant to the oddities of asteroid plant life.

They form farming communities not too far from larger human bases when possible, as they get from place to place with space swine steeds and draft beasts. They make heavy use of chariots for personal transport and sleds for cargo hauling. Wheels aren't wise when you're parked on the edge of the gravity plane. one slip, and you've lost your cart.

Now this is fine for those near Barney's Rock and Fred's Rock, but Ceres is a planet, and a flying piga can't do take off and landings. Those Hoppers are dependent on trade ships, and, frankly, Ceres is a farm planet, so they don't NEED to trade for food with Rock Hoppers.

Between Rocks and far away from them, any Rock Hopper clusters are dependent on trade ships, and might actually own one or two themselves, if they have a spare spellcaster to man the Helm. There aren't many away from the Rocks.

It's worth noting that almost all Rock Hopper groups are Druidic in nature. They are farmers working with low light, they need all the magical help they can get. If nothing else, a simple Rock to Mud to make soil is essential to starting a new farm or just planting pasture land.

If you're a hermit, you just pick a small rock with some soil and plant a few seeds, and hope no one bothers you. What else do you need? You're a hermit.

Wizards and similar types could have a tower built out of a rock. Dwarves are really good with masonry, too, and the core of the rock is a ready made quarry. The advantage here is that the quarried core makes for a good basement, and dwarves leave behind a nice layer of space moss to keep the air fresh. They needed it themselves, after all. Food is going to be an issue, so you'll be indulging in periodic trade. Or doing your own farming, which makes you more hermit than wizard (just based on how your pend your time).

More Money than Sense: Similar to a Wizard's tower, but you need servants and farmers, so... get a bigger rock, and start a village. Really, what's the point?

Magic is more prevalent, if only because it's core to survival and travel.

Continual Flame is going to be well used because humans need to see, and non humans want to see more than 60'. That means Rubies are going to be a major resource. It's possible the dwarves might have a way to may other gemstones into Rubies. (Forge clerics can do it, but it's a finicky process).

All non food plant life is imported. Trees take too long to grow for asteroid forests, and why use linen or cotton to make clothes when leather is much easier to get. If you can survive scavver hunting.

Most cloth will be wool from food beasts. (Sheep and goats)

Cotton is almost exclusively used for Canvas sails and the like, although as the sails wear out, crew will get nice soft canvas clothing from the remains.

Linen is, sometimes, imported for clothing, but mostly for Fine clothing. It's too thin for anything else: fragile and chilly.

Wood is almost exclusively used for building. Any scraps left over make it to a cooking or forge fire almost immediately, if just to stretch out the coal reserves.

You actually CAN fish off the side of a ship in space and expect to catch something. WHAT might be a surprise, but it can be done.

Water is rare in space outside of water asteroid areas (Saturn's rings in Sol System) such as comet belts (which are usually so far out, you run the rest of slipping into the Astral).

Water needs to be fetched and brought in. Towing small water asteroids to the designated Lake area works for the really big towns and cities, but smaller towns and villages need to create it. This is another reason Rock hoppers are druidic.

Underground cisterns are fine but they need refilled. While, in theory, an asteroid is a closed system, the asteroid itself is only about 1/9th the area of the gravity/air pocket pocket. this means naturally occurring rain form evaporated used water will mostly fall off the rock and into the gravity plane, working it's way out into space.

Create Water Spells are the backbone of the working man infrastructure, although Alchemy jugs and Decanters of Endless Water can help, if you have them. Clerics and Druids will never NOT have jobs minding the faithful. Not while they can cast Create Water or Create Food and Water. mages have to settle for Sleet Storm and Ice Storm, both of which are rough on the crops, and takes a while to learn.

Truthfully, there isn't much call for fey without abundant nature, nor elementals without an extreme example of their favorite element. And that sort of thing just doesn't happen in space. it's a void, after all.

Still there ARE exceptions. Tiny fey or elementals that have found a place. Only one or two, btu it's something.

Celestials are a different matter. Space whales are celestials, for instance, as are, technically, the Reigar, although they look more fey. Fiends don't seem to like space quite so much for some reason.

But the biggest number of otherworldly creatures of all are the Far Realm denizens. Somehow (in some multidimensional way that wizards only pretend to understand), the Far Realm is closest to us in Wildspace (and, possibly, somehow, the Astral). But they don't like light much and tend to stay out past Jupiter, where it's too dark for most local folk to find comfortable homes. Usually.

I'll get some specifics posted when the time comes, but working for a living on a ship (as opposed to adventuring/privateering) takes a bit of work and managed expectations.

First, if you're broke: You need to hire out as a delivery service. Someone else's goods and profit. If an overseer goes with you, it likely includes a round trip, which is a bit more income, but there are daily expenses. Food and water. By this I mean REAL food. not goodberries, especially with passengers. And a return trip means the same expense again, possibly with no cargo and no payday.

Speculative trade: You can decide to try and initiate trade with a dwarven mining enclave or a half village, but... what do they need/want? and is someone else already bringing it to them? They can't pay twice, and may prefer the merchant they know. Now, delivery service work is a good way to make contacts. but even after, you need to know your customer.

Dwarves will likely want food, maybe bulk wool of various sorts. Maybe wood, too, but decent wood supplies takes a big ship. Usually a modified longship. They can pay in gems or metal goods, or even metal ingots, possibly. Of course "metal goods" can be anything form weapons to farming equipment, and it matters which.

Hoppers will want tools and cloth, too, and not necessarily just farming tools. They have smiths and brewers and masons and etc, too. Well, usually. They have fresh meat, fruit and veggies to trade, and maybe some spare wool. Fresh, mind you, so I hope you're heading to an assured sale directly from there.

Hermits probably don't want you to bring them anything.

Wizards are going to have specific ideas about what they want, and are likely to have a permanent supplier handling things for them. Hard pressure door-to-door salesman are why they invented Magic Missile.

Rich idiots making their own asteroid fiefdom on a rock somewhere with a small village to take care of them will want their luxuries. The villagers will want tools. The idiot will have gold, the villagers will probably be broke. Maybe a little spare food.

Common:
-Herbs
-Honey
-Basic food stuffs
-Tools
-Metal goods
-Gems
-Jewelry
-Leather of various sorts, including more than a few exotics
-Coal
-Continual Flame items

Special
-Water
-Magic items

Imported from planets:
-Wood
-Cotton
-Linen
-Spices
-Salt (a salt mine COULD be found in space, but that would generally means there used to be an ocean there, so it's unlikely, and a little worrisome)
-Pottery and ceramic goods (clay is found with water. No water, no clay deposits)

It might not be obvious, but, as big as Space is, it's mostly empty. Space is actually much less populated than most planets by orders of magnitude.

Sol System Has 3 cities. One on Ceres, Barney's Rock, and Fred's Rock. And Fred's Rock is a factory town, not a full sized city. Oh, there may be more around Jupiter, but that moon system is almost a foreign country, currently. The only one in the system.

For all the variety of life in the big cities, you have to wonder where they all come from. The githyanki, for instance, breed and age to adulthood in system. But where in system?

-Humans are everywhere
-Giff has a small town outside Ceres City
-Astral Elves (well, actually, all elves) use Venus
-Thri-Keen are also on Venus, as it happens
-Dwarves have been covered, and mine asteroids aemi-nomadically

That leaves Lizardfolk, Gnomes, Plasmoids, Hadozee, and Githyanki. Autognomes don't really count, or can be mixed in with Gnomes.

More minor races are either outsiders or groundlings. Actually, Hadozee are probably outsiders, originally, and others know to be common in space might be as well.