Salamanders - Chapter Bastions: Upon the blackened, volcanic world of Nocturne there are seven great settlements known as the sanctuary cities of Nocturne. The foundations of these mighty cities bore deep into the earth and each is rooted in the hardest bedrock of the planet.The sanctuary cities were established in the location of the seven original settlements of Nocturne's ancient tribal kings. Each of these cities is home to one of seven Salamander Chapter bastions that are located on Nocturne. Each is devoted to and inhabited by the Astartes of one of the Chapter's seven companies.Each Chapter bastion is an austere and hollow place. During the Time of Trial however, the sanctuary cities throw open their gates and offer shelter to the people of Nocturne.As the Nocturneans are primarily a nomadic race, much of the planet's populace dwells in disparate villages or even transient encampments ill-suited to resist the devastation wrought by the constant earthquakes and eruptions of volcanoes that plague the world. Vast pilgrimages are often undertaken that trail the length and breadth of the planet, as Nocturneans travel great distances seeking succour.Stout walls and robust gates wrought to be strong and resilient by Nocturne's master artisans were the sanctuary cities' bulwark of defence during the earliest years of the world's ancient colonisation. Tribal shamans who were latent psykers -- before such genetic mutations were demystified and regulated under the Imperium -- had been the first to establish where the safest locations on Nocturne were for these permanent settlements to be founded.They had done so through their psychic communion with the earth, a sacred bond that the people of Nocturne still recognise and respect. Later, there had come the geological pioneers who advised on the construction and development of the nascent townships that would eventually become the sanctuary cities.But as the ages passed these cities had evolved. Technologies brought by the Emperor after the Great Crusade encountered Nocturne provided new technologies with which to withstand the violent rigour of Nocturnean geology.Void Shields now stood in the path of lava flows or pyroclastic clouds; while adamantium and reinforced ceramite repelled the seismic tremors or sweeping floods of fire. These havens and their defences are all that stands between the people of Nocturne and their eradication by the elements.Within each Chapter bastion in the sanctuary cities, gymnasia provide for the rigours of the Astartes' daily training regimen, and a Reclusiam, presided over by the company's Chaplain, sees to their spiritual needs. In the lower levels of each bastion are the solitoriums, little more than stark oubliettes used for battle-meditation and honour-scarring.Dormitories are sparse and mainly inhabited by Chapter serfs. Armouries hold weapons and other war materiel, though these are mainly for the Chapter's neophytes -- seasoned battle-brothers often maintain their own arsenals, situated at private domiciles amongst the populace of Nocturne where they can better act as their custodians and protectors.Refectories provide repast, and in the great halls rare gatherings can be held. An Apothecarion sees to the wounded. Oratoriums and Librariums are maintained as seats of knowledge and learning in each bastion, though the culture of Nocturne stresses greater importance on the experience and tempering fire of the battlefield.Catacombs run through a vast undercroft in each bastion where the emanating swelter of the forges can be felt, the soot of foundries and the hard metal stench of smelteries absorbed by every pore.The great forges of the bastions are temples of iron and steel, where an anvil rather than an altar is the pillar of worship. The hours of devotion spent in the cloying heat, through the lathered sweat and thickening smoke, are as crucial to a Salamander Space Marine as any battle-rite.