Kessel

Kessel is a potato-shaped planet with one large moon located somewhat near Fwillsving and Honoghr. It is home to the city of Kessendra, is the only source of the telepathy-inducing glitterstim spice, and was the former site of a brutal Imperial prison and spice mining operation. Kessel's surface is covered with crumbled salt flats and atmosphere-producing factories, which make the air breathable when filtering breath masks are used. Kessel is too small to hold this artificial atmosphere, however, so much of it trails off behind the planet in the wake of its orbit. Beneath the surface of the planet live energy spiders, which spin glitterstim webs as a method of catching their prey (primarily the luminous "bogey").

---

Following the failure of the Emperor's attempt to destroy the Jedi enclave on Belsavis, several designers of the Eye of Palpatine were reassigned to punitive duty at Kessel. The Kessel system is adjacent to a cluster of black holes known as the Maw, which makes navigating to the planet difficult and helped glamorize the smugglers' "Kessel Run." While Kessel was under control by the Empire it was a common smuggling destination for those dealing in spice, and Han Solo once boasted he had made the Kessel Run in "less than 12 parsecs" by flying dangerously close to the Maw. Solo's life was also saved on one Kessel run by his old associate Badure. Prior to the Battle of Yavin, a bold Alliance rescue operation freed a group of Rebel POWs during a prisoner transfer operation. During the chaos surrounding the Battle of Endor, a Rybet prison official named Moruth Doole (who had secretly been supplying glitterstim to smugglers) staged a prison revolt and took control of the planet from the Empire. Several years later, after Doole's operation was dismantled, the administration of the mines was taken over by Lando Calrissian. Kessel's moon, which once held an Imperial garrison and Doole's ragtag defensive fleet (which was decimated in a battle with Admiral Daala's Star Destroyers), was utterly destroyed by a Death Star prototype from Maw Installation. Lujayne Forge, a member of the famed Rogue Squadron, was from Kessel, daughter of a man who had taught inmates under an Old Republic social program.