Each planet is one of those "only one biome" pulp adventure science fiction worlds; Earth is the only place in the solar system where all of the varying terrain types can be found. There are a series of colonies on the other planets--but thanks to the lack of instantaneous communication between Earth and the other planets there is usually more tolerance and cooperation between rival nations than there would be on Terra. The smarter consuls, military officers and political authorities realize that this is the way things have to run on another planet when support from their home nations is weeks or months away. The less intelligent ones die, have their duties covered by subordinates until a replacement can be sent from Earth or promoted from the ranks, and are unmourned by the colonialists on the other planets.
Mercury, as can be expected, has very few resources. A volcanic hellscape with rivers of magma and an atmosphere hot enough to cause mild tissue damage, it's valuable for rare minerals and gemstones prized by magic users more than anything. The USA, CSA, Peachtree, England, France, Germany, Russia, Holland, Spain and Portugal have colonies here, each one close enough to the others to offer support in the wake of inevitable catastrophe.
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Venus is a jungle / swamp / rain forest / ocean world, with the sun taking up six times as much space in the sky as it does on Earth. It's nearly constantly raining there, and the plant and animal life on Venus tends towards the poisonous or horribly clawed / fanged. Daguerrotypes of Venusian life are reliable circulation boosters for Terran newspapers or the journal of the National Geographic Society; of particular note are the Jaguar Men. They're a sentient, bipedal race of humanoid spotted cat people and are reasonably closely allied with the USA and Peachtree settlements on Venus (a fad in the Confederacy's recent past for Jaguar Man-skin rugs and wall hangings has had the expected result on Venusian-Confederate relations). The Deep Ones (which will be using the stats for Sahuagin) live in the oceans and deep swamps of Venus; there is also a race of Green Lizardmen who can breathe underwater on this planet.
Of the expected carnivorous plants in the Venusian jungle, the gallows tree is one of the strangest. It ensnares its prey with vines that strangle the victims to death and flytrap-like jaws consume the corpses headfirst over a period of days or weeks. The gallows tree grows fruit with addictive narcotic and hallucinogenic properties, but the hallucinations are always of memories of its previous victims. It is considered ghoulish and repulsive by pretty much all Terrans to have a gallowfruit habit. Other species have opinions ranging from general tolerance to viewing the gallowfruit dreams as shamanic experiences. The Jaguar Men cultivate the Gil Weed as a sustenance crop, which is the basis for the sugary-sweet Venusian liquor margil (valuable and rare on Earth and celebrated on Venus as well).
The USA, Peachtree, England, France, Germany, Spain and the CSA maintain presences on Venus to a greater or lesser extent, with each settlement concerned with keeping the jungle beaten back from their cities.
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Mars is a desert world, with nomadic Red Lizardmen traversing the deserts and the three-legged Tripod Martians cultivating the arable land to the sides of the Martian canals. The polar ice caps experience a partial melt every summer, flooding the canals with fresh water and fertilizing the Martian crops. There's still a small trickle of melt water through the rest of the year but it's the annual flood melt that makes Martian agriculture possible to any large extent. It's extraordinarily difficult to raise animals larger than chickens on Mars for food, which has led to a diet high in fruits and vegetables on that planet. The Vuz, a hardy desert tuber, is one of the staple foods of Martian agriculture (it is also used as the base for vuzd, a bitter Martian liquor).
The animal life on Mars tends towards the reptilian and insectile, with many creatures burrowing under the Martian soil (their tunnels, especially from the larger boreworms, have been known to create sinkholes and subsidence in the Martian outposts from time to time). Martian plants tend to look like cacti or grow underground with wide and deep root systems. The soil is rich in nutrients but Terran and Venusian planets require much more water than the Martian system tends to supply.
Peachtree has close diplomatic ties with the Tripod Martians following the construction and maintenance of a Calculating Engine that helps control a series of water-diverting and retaining flood gates on the main canals, which has increased crop yields and reduced hunger on the agricultural settlements considerably. The USA offers military support to Peachtree and the remote CSA outpost , Fortress Carter, has used Mars as a punishment detail for unruly slaves, since they have nowhere to flee on the planet (it is surrounded by hundreds of miles of empty desert). They labor and die in the Confederate mines, a source of alchemical and magically significant minerals and precious metals.
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The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is thought to be the remains of at least one massive planet that was destroyed in a cataclysm hundreds of millions of years in the past. The remains of this planet or planets range in size from pebbles to massive boulders capable of sustaining an atmosphere. Ceres, having a diameter of 955 kilometers, is found to be the largest member of several hundred sizable boulders locked in what would seem to be a merry-go-round of primordial debris from a very early phase of planetary formation. Out of over two thousand asteroids regularly charted and observed, Ceres, due to its large size, convenient location and availability, was found to be the perfect spot for a drinking establishment, or "bar" if you will. It was named, appropriately enough, "The Ceres Crossroads". And it was more often than not frequented by roughnecks and thugs. It is also renowned as the inventor of the Three Planets cocktail, a concoction of Terran rum, Martian vuzd and Venusian margil.
The rest of the asteroid belt serves as a hiding place for smugglers and criminals, with some crews of Etheric Pirates laying claim to larger asteroids and using them as bases of operation for raids on Martian targets or ranging into the outer planets. Groups with Calculation Engines or mathematical prodigies use high-level calculus to determine the orbital paths of asteroids, with the right of salvage and ownership going to the people who register them first on Earth. While some of the asteroids are merely huge lumps of stone or iron, there have been legends of house-sized nuggets of gold, silver, mithril, adamantium and other impossibly precious metals out in the asteroid belt and George Washington Carver himself, testing a mathematical theory, led the Peachtree expedition to the asteroids that wound up recovering a sapphire the size of a bread basket; the gem carved from that sapphire is on display in the capital of Peachtree as a testament to the limits of the possible when intelligence and will are properly applied.
Every spacefaring nation has some sort of presence in the asteroid belt, and the boundary zone between the inner and outer planets is also a place where individual treasure hunters and groups of rogues can be found. Piracy is a constant threat, although the etheric navies of the more powerful countries run patrols to deter (and destroy) the pirate gangs. It's a constant struggle, with neither side able to claim victory at this point.
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