Bwill

Far off the trade routes, Bwill is not on any tourists’ must-see list. The people smell, the air tastes funny, and the local language can make your ears bleed. The majority of the inhabitants of this world work in some aspect or another of the fishing industry. First seen in the Amazing Conroy story “Yesterday’s Taste,” it is only later in the novella Barry’s Deal that we learn the people of Bwill had once spread out and built a network of colony worlds. Unfortunately, some psychological defect led them to experience profound melancholy and eventually suicidal depression for all members living away from the homeworld. In their despair, the offworld Bwill killed not only themselves but the worlds they’d created, leaving wrecked star systems behind. A large swath of dead space surrounds their remaining world. As a consequence, there are few commercial routes to or from Bwill, and while the locals do still visit other worlds, they do so for only short spans, always returning home before their mental health suffers.