Factions
Last updated
Was this helpful?
Last updated
Was this helpful?
NOTE: Описание фракций в TI3 и TI4 практически идентично, за исключением Арборека и одного абзаца Nekro. Небольшие добавления в виде catch phrase на лицевой стороне листа фракции в TI4 и краткого описания в правом верхнем углу оборотной стороны выделены отдельно.
Located In the center of the Quenwari starcluster lies the tri-system of the Hacan. Circling the massive star Kenara are the three desert planets of the Hacan Emirate: Arretze, Kamm, and Hercant. Scorched by the merciless sun, the People of Hacan are nomads, moving their cities on massive on massive dust-sleds to cooler climates in the twilight dawn.
In their distant past, the Hacan were a poor species, their exploits into space dwarfed by the other great factions of the forgone Lazax Imperium. Then the Hacan discovered the off-Worlders insatiable lust for special products grown under Kenaras blinding light: the intoxicating Gerr-Root, clothes made from the star-flowers that only bloom on Hercants equinox, multiple aphrodisiacs, liquors, and forbidden drugs harvested under Kenaras grace. In a short period of time the Hacan became masters of trade, and the tri-system prospered trade-clans. The desire to protect their wealth was the catalyst behind the formation of the cental Hacan Emirate goverment. The Quieron, leader of the Hacan, is chosen by a hierarchy of trade-groups, each possessing their own fleets of trade and war. The Quieron is the high-commander of the united merchant and warfleet, his motive: To lead the Hacan to the imperial throne, solidifying an era of wealth and commerce.
In the center of the Quenwari starcluster lies the tri-system of the Hacan. Circling the massive star Kenara are the three desert planets of the Hacan Emirate: Arretze, Kamm, and Hercant. Scorched by the merciless sun, the People of Hacan are nomads, moving their cities on massive on massive dust-sleds to cooler climates in the twilight dawn.
In their distant past, the Hacan were a poor species, their exploits into space dwarfed by the other great races of the Imperium. That was before the Hacan discovered the insatiable lust of off-worlders for special products grown under Kenara's blinding light: The intoxicating Gerr Root, clothes made from the Starflowers that only rise during Hercant's equinox, multiple aphrodisiacs, liquors, medicine, and forbidden drugs harvested and manufactured by the crafty hands of the Hacan people.
Soon the Hacan became masters of trade, and their system prospered as unfathomable fortunes were made by the increasingly powerful trade-clans. The desire to protect their wealth was the catalyst behind the election of the "Quieron": the leader of the Hacan. This individual is chosen by a hierarchy of trade-groups, each possessing their own fleets of trade and war. The Quieron is the supreme commander of the united Hacan tradefleet and military machine. His task: to lead the Hacan to the imperial throne, solidifying an era of wealth and peaceful commerce.
"There is no price too great for the Hacan, no silk too fine, and no war too long. My people will perservere." (c) Hacan Carth
Kenara System
Population: 8.82 billion
Goverment: United Emirates
Leadership: Queieron
Disposition: Nomadic
Tendencies: Ecomonic
The wealth of half the galaxy flows through the coffers of the nomadic trading clans of the Hacan, but being a traditional people, they choose to remain secluded away in dry deserts of Kenara's worlds, their ancestral home.
Under the punishing rays of the massive star Kenara lies the tri-system of the Hacan, each of its three satellites wrapped in the yellow haze so distinctive of desert planets. These three jewels are called Arretze, Kamdorn, and Hercant. Here, the united Emirates of the Hacan have grown a mighty civilization of warriors, nomads, farmers, and above all, merchants.
The Kenara system is one of the most heavily trafficked in the known universe. Only the wormhole portal systems see more traffic in any given cycle. From Kenara, an untold number of Hacan and other merchant vessels traverse the galaxy. This traffic is supported by entire cities of space stations that provide the warehousing, logistics, maintenance, banking, entertainment, and other necessities facilitating the constant flow of goods, ships, and crew.
On the surface of the three hot desert planets, life is slower and more serene. Only life in the city of Harcarun on the planet Arretze matches the breathless pace of the space above. Located in a shadowy vale near the Arretze northern pole, Harcarun is the only city in the tri-system that has a fixed position. Its permanent location and almost bearable climate has made Harcarun the primary point of operation for most non-native trading corporations, financiers, and opportunists. The Hacan, despite their uncanny ability for establishing financial relationships and building trade, generally despise the chaotic lifestyle and, to them, windy cold of Harcarun.
The Hacan people dwell mostly in cities built on massive dust-sleds, constantly moving to cooler climates as the desert seasons shift. Although some technology has been introduced in the last hundred years, most Hacan cities are still pulled by vast herds of Tuuran beasts, whose gill-like skin membranes take moisture from the very air itself.
In their distant past, the Hacan were a poor species, their exploits into space dwarfed by the other great races of the Imperium. Then slowly the Hacan discovered an insatiable offworlder lust for special products grown under Kenara’s blinding light or dug from the deep sands of their homeworlds. The intoxicating gerr root, clothes made from the starflowers that only rise during Hercant’s equinox, Spehat aphrodisiacs, liquors, medicines, and forbidden drugs: all harvested and manufactured by the crafty and patient hands of the Hacan.
Soon the Hacan became masters of trade, and their system prospered as unfathomable fortunes were made by the increasingly powerful trading clans, chief among them the Mowshir Emirate of Arretze. The desire to protect their newfound wealth, and a will to peacefully regulate and arbitrate between the clans, moved the Hacan to form a representative gathering and to elect a Quieron - the leader who speaks for all the Hacan. The Quieron leads the entire hierarchy of trade-groups, each possessing its own fleets of commerce and war. His task: to lead his people to the Imperial Throne, establishing an era of wealth and peaceful commerce.
Only the oldest of the regents know the complete origin and evolution of the aquatic Hylar. Living in massive submerged floating cities, the water-breathing Jol-Nar is a species whose intense passion for technology is unrivaled anywhere in the Galaxy. Human scholars have speculated that this genetic passion for technology is an evolutionary sign of environmental strain, and that the physically weak Jol-Nar evolved intelligence and ambition to offset the external threat of aggressive off-worlders.
The governing system of the Jol-Nar is that of a vast house of education. The Head Master and his Circle of Regents are based in the small city of Nhillar in the warm waters of the red ocean on Jol. Part mammal, part fish, the Jol-Nar are capable of breating surface air for extremely long periods of time (some have been measured to several years). The race is most comfortable submerged, however, and their compact build renders them immune to liquid depth pressure. The Jol-Nar are often considered by other races to be impatient and rude. This is surely a reflection of the Jol-Nar culture which is extremely competitive and ambitious. The Circle of Regents believes that the Jol-Nar is a completely superior race and will not tolerate any obstruction in their search of intellectual and technological improvement.
Only the oldest of the Regents know the complete origin and evolution of the aquatic Hylar. Living in massive submerged cities, the water breathing Hylar is a species whose intense passion for technology is unrivaled anywhere in the galaxy. Human scholars have speculated that this genetic passion for technology is an evolutionary sign of a harsh environment adapted to a biological physique that is a signfically weak and with limited dexterous use. In other words, the Hylar have found intelligence and ambition sufficient to circumvent their weakness.
The governing system of the Hylar is that of the Jol-Nar education alliance. The Head Master governs their united efforts with the Circle of Regents acting simultaneously as the most accomplished scholars of their field, and as governors of the various regions on the two oceanic planets of Jol and Nar. The Jol-Nar regime is often considered by other races to be an impatient and rude one. Perharps this is a mere reflection of the ambitious and competitive Hylar culture, perhaps not.
Though the Hylar are capable of breating surface air for extremely long periods of time (some have been timed to exceed several years), their dense bodies and soft bones make them most comfortable submerged.
The Head Master and the Circle of Regents will not tolerate any obstruction in their search for intellectual and technological advancement.
"We cannot halt progress for the sake of morality. If you have not the stomach for science, then I suggest you depart Wun-Escha immediately" (c) Doctor Sucuban
Garin System
Population: 3.22 billion
Goverment: Circle of Regents
Leadership: Headmaster
Disposition: Aloof
Tendencies: Scientific
The Hylar technologies which have become so widespread across the galaxy represent a mere fraction of the Universities' advanced capabilities.
Most technological devices used in the galaxy today have at least one or two components originating from the Jol-Nar laboratories. During the height of the Lazax Imperium, the galaxy was even more reliant on underlying Jol-Nar technology and the knowledge of the aquatic Hylar. This reliance on Jol-Nar engineers and skills was one of the key factors leading to the total collapse of galactic civilization and its descent into the Dark Years that followed the Twilight Wars.
When the Twilight Wars first began, the Jol-Nar closed their embassies, withdrew their workers, and started a war of aggression on their own. Among the other races, few individuals remained who now understood the complex Jol-Nar machinery, virtual code, and chemical compounds. Soon, fundamental machinery started failing, setting off a chain reaction of integrated technological failures over a period of hundreds of years. Combined with devastating wars, this spurred massive famine, poverty, and chaos. As cultures, economies, and finally the tools of war completely collapsed, the Twilight Wars quickly ebbed and the Dark Years began.
Even the Jol-Nar were devastated by the Twilight Wars. Although the rest of the galaxy had relied on their technologies, so had the Jol-Nar relied on the income, protection, and natural resources of others. The arrogance of the High Scholars spurred them to wage a sudden aggressive war after the Quann conflict erupted. Then, a few years later, the Doolak plague destroyed nearly a quarter of the Jol-Nar population, causing a massive loss of knowledge by itself. The Jol-Nar aggression soon turned defensive, and the powerful N'orr looked to conquer all Jol-Nar space. Only after a decisive Jol-Nar victory in the Saudor system did the Hylar receive a needed respite.
Like azure sapphires, the twin ocean planets of Jol and Nar slowly circle the Garian star. Under their waters lies the great civilization of the Hylar, a water-breathing, soft-boned species with oversized heads and intellects to match. The Hylar are governed by an ancient system of high scholars, who combined are called the University. A single Hylar ruler, the Headmaster, oversees the Hylar from the deep underwater city of Wun-Escha on the planet of Jol. Under the Headmaster, the Circle of Regents governs the local regions and specific areas of knowledge.
Although the Hylar are often considered one race, there are in fact several distinct variations within the Hylar species, mainly derivative of the geographical region and ocean depth from which they hail. Most Hylar are capable of breathing surface air, and some can exist for weeks without being submerged. Others cannot breathe surface air at all, and must travel in massive tanks when off-planet. None know how an underwater race came to be masters of technology. Most agree that the large bio-cerebral area of the Hylar physique, combined with a need to adapt their soft-boned and slow bodies to their environment, created an evolution of material usage, as opposed to one of physical adaptation.
Despite their physical weakness, the Hylar are a proud people, often to the point of abrasiveness and arrogance. Since the catastrophic Dark Years, the Hylar have started utilizing the natural resources of their own planets, and they now extract metals and medicines from the many algae and coral formations of both Jol and Nar. As a new age nears, the Hylar once more strive for the influence they feel they have earned. The Circle of Regents has secretly decided that the Hylar must take the place of the Lazax in governing and advancing a new united galaxy. Under their mandate, the Headmaster has begun building his forces, and Jol-Nar diplomats and engineers have started appearing among the other civilizations in large numbers, appearing friendly, but with hidden agendas. Soon the Headmaster will make his claim for the empire, and the galaxy will enter an age of technological advancement and intellectual achievement.
In the very blackness of space lies Arc Prime. Here the Baron preside over a vast underground populace. Dwelling in enormous subterranean caverns, great cities are generously heated by the core of the planet. The Letnev exploit their easy access to the immense metallurgic riches of Arc Prime, and their ship-yards are the most impressive in the galaxy. The Baron nurtures and prods an aggressive militant people which he channels into subordination by impressive discipline and the maintenance of a strict military bureaucracy. The pale Letnev people despise excessive light, and will often wear protective eyewear when travelling on planets with normal sunlight.
The everlasting dilemma of the Letnev is their need for food and biological nutrition. Though an army of droids manage vast underground fungus caverns, the population of the Barony have far outgrown what Arc Prime and its barren sister planet, Wren Terra, can muster in foodstuffs and liquid. The ancient Lazax Imperium kept the Barony under control by always closely monitoring the food supply to the Letnev.
The Letnev military receives a training so intense and effective it is only surpassed by the Tekklar Elite troops on distant Quinarra. The Baron has always had only one flaring ambition: To become Emperor at any cost...
In the very blackness of space lies the bleak and tortured world known as Arc Prime. Here the Baron presides over the vast underground populace of the Letnev. Dwelling in enormous subterran cities, generously heated by the planet core, the Letnev exploit the immense metallurgic riches of Arc Prime.
The Baron nurtures and prods a proud and aggressive people. Order is kept by the maintenance of a militant culture, impressive discipline, and a strict bureaucracy. The pale Letnev people despise excessive light, and often will wear protective eyewear when travelling on planets with bright sunlight.
The everlasting dilemma of the Letnev is their need for food and nutrition. Though an army of droids manage vast caverns of fungus farming, the population of the Barony has far outgrown what Arc Prime can muster in foodstuffs and liquid. The ancient Lazax kept the Barony under control by careful monitoring of the Letnev food supply.
The Letnev military receives a training so intense and effective it is only surpassed by the "Tekklar Elite" troops on distant Quinarra. The Baron himself has only one flaring ambition: To become Emperor at any cost!
In the very blackness of space lies cold, hard Arc Prime. Its system has no central star, and Arc Prime’s lack of defined orbit has been a mystery to scientists for millennia. It is a common jest that Arc Prime is simply afloat in space, and that only the Letnev disdain for the rest of the galaxy protects it from a fatal collision. The Letnev’s principal vassal, Wren Terra, shines like a mighty star in the ebon distance, while thorny military ships surround the dark planet like fireflies attracted to a black hole.
Foreign visitors to Arc Prime will, under heavy fighter escort, be directed to the Dunlain Crater. The crater holds the sprawling city of Feruc, Arc Prime’s only city located on the planetary surface. Feruc is a pressurized mesh of icy black metal housing, belching industries, warehouses, and military installations. The thin atmosphere of Arc Prime prohibits normal surface life outside the cold pressurized facilities of Feruc. Since the Barony has no use for the meager atmosphere of Arc Prime, it freely emits unfiltered pollutants from the underground Letnev cities and factories to the surface. A journey to Feruc is likely to leave a thick layer of frozen black residue on any vessel. It is a common merchant endearment to call a ship returning from Arc Prime a “Chimney Sweeper.”
Under the surface of Arc Prime, heated by its planetary core, the Baron presides over the proud and fierce Letnev people. Few non-natives have ever visited the capital Goz, fabled “city of a billion,” or the other six major underground urban centers of Arc Prime. A gray organic plant material, called Ao by the Letnev, is found everywhere in Arc Prime’s underground. It is Ao that supplies the oxygen to the enormous cavern-networks, and the plant is held in almost religious awe and respect by the Letnev people.
Although tens of thousands of moist fungus caves are farmed by an army of intelligent machines, the Letnev’s great weakness has always been its shortage of food, liquid, medicines, and essential vitamins. The ancient Lazax kept the aggressive race in check by maintaining strict control of the Letnev food supplies and trade.
Throughout the time of the Lazax Empire, the Letnev led two unsuccessful rebellions against the Imperium. Their history of dissension justified a constant imperial oversight of Arc Prime and its people. The Letnev blockade of the Quann wormhole at the end of the Age of Dusk was started in protest over the Lazax sanctions and supervision. It was the Quann conflict that ignited the Twilight Wars and the final downfall of the empire.
After Wren Terra was annexed by the Letnev during the latter years of the Age of Dusk, their colonies here have been primarily occupied with growing and supplying food for the population of Arc Prime. Foreign trade with the Letnev consists mainly of foodstuffs, for which merchants receive metals, weapons, and the sharp Saimoc-strong crystals used in mining operations across the galaxy.
The Baron keeps order by maintaining a strict bureaucracy, discipline, and an elitist military culture that brings the strongest and the smartest directly under his control. The pale Letnev despise light, and will often wear protective headgear when visiting other worlds with bright sunlight.
The legendary Letnev troops are only surpassed in brute strength by the Tekklar N’orr elite soldiers of distant Quinarra. With the new awakening of ambitions among the great races, the resurgence of interstellar commerce, and the recent momentum of the Galactic Council, the Baron has secretly been preparing to lead his people to final dominance. Baron Daz Emmiciel Werqan III has only one ambition: to become emperor at any cost.
Gigantic oceanless Quinarra dwell like a sleeping behemoth in the misty depths of space. The surface of the red planet is often terrorized by mighty thunderstorms, sandstorms, and icy hail. On Quinarra, pure water is in constant shortage, its only real on-world source being the precipitation of the immense storms. Though a liquid-efficient species, it is still necessary for the Norr to ferry gigantic mountains of ice to Quinarra from its frozen sister-planet Tren-Lak.
The Sardakk Norr is an insectile race, dwelling in gigantic complex hive-like cities. Hardened by the rough evolution on Quinarra, the Norr are able to live for long periods of time in extreme hard-ship, their shell-like bodies containing an enormous strength. The Norr are supposedly ruled by the Queen Mother, yet few truly believe in her existence. Even the majority of the Norr hold SARDAKK THE MOTHER in a merely ritual respect. The accepted leader, and the head-ofstate, is The Speaker of the Queen, a male Norr in direct command over the economy, culture, and military forces of the Norr.
The Tekklar Elite, the most featured band of military elite fighters, are trained from birth in the wastes of Quinarra to fight and give their fanatical loyalty to the Mother and the Speaker alone.
Gigantic, oceanless Quinarra dwells like a sleeping behemoth in the misty depths of space. The surface of the red planet is often terrorized by mighty electrical storms, sandstorms, and deadly hail. On Quinarra, pure water is in constant shortage, its only real on-world source being the precipitation of the immense storms. Though a liquid-efficient species, it is still necessary for the N'orr to ferry gigantic mountains of ice to Quinarra from the frozen sister planet of Tren'lak.
The Sardakk N'orr is an insectile race, dwelling in enormous and complex hive cities. Hardened by the rough evolution on Quinarra, the N'orr are able to live for long periods of time in extreme hardship, their shell-like bodies containing great physical strength.
The N'orr are supposedly ruled by the "Queen Mother", yet few truly believe in her existence. The majority of the N'orr hold "Sardakk The Mother" in a mere ritual respect. The accepted leader, and the Head Of State, is The Speaker of the Queen, a male N'orr in direct command over the economic, cultural, and military matters of the N'orr.
The N'orr "Tekklar Elite" troops are trained from birth in the wastes of Quinarra to fight and give their fanatical loyalty to the Mother and the Speaker alone.
Not far past the Unicorn Nebula, the golden Sardakk star shines its ancient, hot light on giant oceanless Quinarra. The massive planet radiates a red glow like a dusty ruby in the night, its massive polar storms clearly visible from space. A great network of orbital space stations and massive complements of fleet units occupy the system in the fashion of the insectile N'orr. Massive whale-like N'orr carriers spew fighters like angry hornets from a disturbed nest. Convoys of ice-mountain transports are always inbound from the planet Tren'lak. Small spider-like robotic ships drill into the sides of the ice, guiding the ice to the orbital liquid-processing plants, after which the derived water and salt is flown to Quinarra by bloated sungliders that, like beetle balloons, slowly descend to the N'orr cities below.
Quinarra itself is among the most inhospitable of planets inhabited by a major civilization. Only Letnev’s Arc Prime is recognized as more desolate than Quinarra. The Letnev, however, live exclusively under Arc Prime’s surface, whereas the Norr civilization is well established both on and below Quinarra’s continents. Only Quinarra’s polar regions, where even the hardy Norr cannot survive the deadly storms for extended periods of time, are largely uninhabited. Brutal electric, hail, and dust storms, although not approaching the ferocity of the polar storms, are frequent throughout the planet and considered normal by the N'orr.
Visitors to Quinarra will be flown directly to the immigration nexus in the capital H'cor. If weather permits sufficient visibility, most visitors will be impressed by the massive size and explosive traffic of the city. The N'orr structures are typically oval or rounded, created from a hardened reddish material similar to the general topography of the planet. Like most major N'orr cities, H'cor features towering building constructs, sprawling low-story buildings, and deep gorges that reveal city-nests deep below the surface, delving into the red earth. Busy roads and hover-lanes cross the city in a thousand ways, often congested with N'orr traffic.
The N'orr will tell you that they are ruled by “Sardakk the Queen Mother,’ but that acknowledgment seems more steeped in ritual than fact. None have ever met the mythical “mother,” and no off-world documentation exists suggesting there is any truth to the notion. The accepted and visible head of the N'orr state is the Envoy of the Queen, a male N'orr in direct command of the cultural, economic, and military matters of the race. The length of the Envoy's tenure and the process of his election seems to be decided by a secret brotherhood, the “Veiled Brood,"" in which lies the real power of the N'orr.
The Envoy and the Veiled Brood oversee the rapid expansion of the N'orr military forces and fleets. The Tekklar Elite soldiers are the pride of their people. The Tekklar train exclusively in the southern polar regions, where the weak die and the strong become G'hom: members of the prestigious Tekklar order, treated like knights by the N'orr and feared across the galaxy. As Quinarra slowly turns, as the stars again come into their right constellations, the Veiled Brood knows that the time to swarm is coming again. And this time, the swarm will cover the stars.
Ever-since their discovery of the mass-drive engine, humans have been reaching into space, driven by some inner instinct of exploration and discovery. Coming from the central Jord or Ert, human fleets of commerce and war are a common sight almost anywhere in the galaxy. More than any of the other Great races, humans have the greatest swings in intelligence and talent: Humans can be found in all levels of the galactic coulture, from common servants, smugglers, thieves, to wealthy traders, to diplomatic consultants and renowned scholars. It is commonly recognized by Galactic Massologists, that it is the diversity of talent that has allowed the human race to resist annihilation or extinction. Since the human race inherently carries no special characteristics in which it especially excels, the theory is considered a sound one.
The Federation is governed by the bi-annually elected President and his council of one-thousand in New Moscow (a massive city in the center of a vast urban continent.) For all their prowess in diversification, humans have shown themselves to be as aggressive as any of the other great races. History shows that The federation of Sol, were among the most ardent of aggressors in the early Twilight Wars in the wake of the crumbling Lazax Imperium.
Ever since their discovery of the mass-drive engine, humans have been reaching into space. Driven by some inner instinct of exploration and discovery, no star seems too remote for human curiosity.
Stemming from the gorgeous planet Jord (or Ert), human fleets of commerce and colonization are common sights in the galaxy. More so than any other race humans have the greatest deviance in intellect and application in skills. They can be found in every level of galactic coulture, from common servants, smugglers, and thieves, to wealthy traders, diplomatic consultants, and respected scholars. It is commonly recognized by galactic historians that it has been the diversification of human talent that has allowed the race to resist annihilation or extinction.
The Federation is governed by the bi-annually elected "President" or "High Minister", whose power is counterbalanced by the central Council of One Thousand. Governance and administration of the human cause is done from of New Moscow, located in the center of the Jord urbanized continent.
For all their prowess in diversification, humans have proven themselves to be one of the most aggressive of the great races. War, nationalism, and hostile expansion have left their mark on human history. Sol was among the most ardent aggressors during the early Twilight Wars.
Nestled in the third orbit of the Sol system lies Jord, the ancestral home of the human race. Few planets can rival Jord’s diversity of climates, seasons, and ecology. Much of this wealth is attributed to its enormous moon, which causes dramatic tidal motions in Jord’s oceans, which is thought to be the impetus of its diverse life and weather patterns. Much of Jord’s orbit, as well as its moon, is crowded with stellar traftic trom the orbital and lunar space stations. Military ships of the line, bearing the distinctive Sol symbol, are often moored to the bulky military platforms in Jord’s orbit, or to the fleet base Churchill Prima that orbits the reddish fourth planet of the system.
The humans themselves represent the most numerous and most diverse species of the galaxy. Since the discovery of the mass-drive, humans have left Jord to explore, and they continue to explore, the distant corners of space. Humans can be found in all corners of the galaxy and seem to demonstrate the greatest variation in intellect and application of skills. Human colonies and settlements can be found everywhere, as can human servants, traders, cartographers, explorers, mercenaries, scholars, construction crews, smugglers, scientists, diplomats, etc. Its commonly recognized among galactic historians that it has been the diversified skills of the human race that has been the determining factor in avoiding annihilation or extinction.
Of the untold billions of humans that dwell across the galaxy, all of whose ancestors once migrated from the Sol system, most feel no allegiance or kinship to the Sol Federation or the humans of Jord. Some feel a traditional friendship, while a few remain loyal to Sol and its policies. Being the last civilization to be admitted into the imperial council, it is ironic that Sol was the first to openly declare war against the failing empire. It was a Sol fleet that fired the first shot at the Letnev blockade of the Quann wormhole, escalating the minor conflict into the full scale galactic war known as the Twilight Wars.
The Sol Federation of Nations is governed by the bi-annually elected High Minister, who has the executive control of the economy, budget, and Sol military. The executive powers of the High Minister are held in check by three distinct governing houses: The House of Law, The House of the People, and The House of Industry. The four governing bodies of the Federation are all centrally located in the massive metropolis of New Moscow, a bustling center of politics, trade, and high culture.
The current High Minister, Juan Salvador Tao, is preparing for a new age that he knows is rapidly evolving before him. He is eager to expand the official colonization of Sol once more, especially to the old colonies of Centauri, Gral, and Quann. He knows that the balance of power is shifting and that the universe will soon once again be governed under one empire. The High Minister will make sure that his Federation will prevail during the coming power struggle and inevitable war. Already the Sol fleet awaits his orders to strike nearby systems. Soon the human destiny will be fulfilled, and the distant suns theirs to command.
Bathed in the stong, yet gentle light of the Xxllak star lies the splendid jewel of Archon Ren. A magnificent sylvan planet hosting a vast myriad of living creatures. The Xxcha, a sentient lizard race, are masters of life in Archon Ren and have been considered as one of the Great Galactic Races longer than history itself. The Xxcha people is ruled by the High King and his royals from the mighty city of Kklaj. Here the king oversees a philosophic and peaceful race whose structures and starships are intricately beatuful and an aesthetic joy to the eye. A favorite past time of the elder Xxcha is to contemplate origin and meaning while smoking Gerr-Root from long-stemmed pipes. Tourists find Archon Ren a paradise, and remarkably free of from the annoyance of insects that so often tend to make forest-planets unbearable.
The everlasting sorrow of the gentle Xxcha hover above them in the night sky. Archon Tau, sister planet that once matched Archon Rens beauty and majesty. The ecology of Archon Tau was destroyed in the gruesome bombardment when a Letnev Force invaded and was subsequently defeated by forces from Sol in the early Twilight Years. Once a people with no military, the Xxcha are docile no more. The silent reminder in their night sky keep the Xxcha fleet vigilant and its military determined to never again submit to an invading force.
Bathed in the stong, yet gentle, light of the Xxllak star lies the splendid jewel of Archon Ren. The planet hosts a magnificient jungle environment and a myriad of living creatures. The Xxcha, a sentient lizard race, are masters of life on Archon Ren. The Xxcha have been considered one of the Great Races longer than history itself.
The Xxcha monarchy is ruled by the King in the lush city of Kklaj, where he oversees a philosophical and peaceful people whose structures and starships are often intricately beatuful and an aestetic joy to the eye. A favorite past time of elder Xxcha is to contemplate Origin and Meaning while smoking Gerr Root on long stemmed pipes. Tourists find Archon Ren a paradise remarkably free from hostile insects that so often make jungle planets unbearable.
The everlasting sorrow of the Xxcha people hovers shining above them in the night sky. Brilliant it may look, but shattered and dead nevertheless: Archon Tau, the sister planet that once matched Archon Ren's beauty and majesty. The ecology of Archon Tau was destroyed in the gruesome bombardment when a Letnev Force invaded and was subsequently defeated by a liberating Sol force in the early Twilight Era.
Once a people with no military, the Xxcha are docile no longer. The silent reminder above them keeps the Xxcha military and fleet vigilant and determined to never again submit to an invading force.
Even the oldest annals recognize the ancient kingdom of the reptilian Xxcha as the first of the great interstellar civilizations. Nestled in the middle of a wealthy section of space, the Xxcha twin planets of Archon Ren and Archon Tau lie bathed in the gentle light of the Xxlak star. While the Xxcha still call the two planets “twins,” an outsider will instantly notice that the grayish and shadowy Archon Tau in no way resembles the brilliant, healthy green of Archon Ren.
Throughout the tenure of the lost Lazax Imperium, the Xxcha were the most peaceful, docile, and content of the major civilizations. They did not, unlike the other races, scheme for power and territory during the Age of Dusk. Unlike the Lazax, the Xxcha elders did see the growing threat to the galaxy. They fruitlessly sought to warn the Lazax of their peril, and struggled to bring dialogue to the increasing racial factionalism. A powerful Lazax councilor by the name of Ibna Vel Syd listened to the Xxcha warning, but even he could not sway the false sense of safety felt by the emperor. Then, disaster struck. The Quann crisis erupted into sudden war, and the Letnev, led by the Baron Daz Arrokan I, moved towards the rich Xxcha system in conquest. The Xxcha, unprepared and weaponless, used their formidable powers of negotiation and goodwill to broker an agreement in which they ceded only Archon Tau to the invaders, while the kingdom retained a Letney-supervised autonomy on Archon Ren. The Xxcha, never fools, were aware of the nature of Letnev promises and the futility of the arrangement. The agreement would only last as long as the Barony was occupied in war elsewhere. In time, the Xxcha knew, the Letnev would return to claim the rest of their prize and enslave them. It was then, for the first time in their history, that the Xxcha started to create their first weapons and train their first armies. In secret deep groves and in hidden vales, the Xxcha king sadly watched his people develop into warriors.
Less than a decade after the occupation of Archon Tau, the Letnev fleet suffered a stunning defeat against Sol in the Gral system. Only a few cycles after the battle, the Sol Phocnix fleet entered the Xxlak system and engaged the heavily fortified Letnev positions on Archon Tau. The ensuing bombardments and battles lasted for almost two years. In the end, the Letnev occupiers were defeated, but with a terrible toll. The ecology of Archon Tau had been shattered beyond recall. What was once a true twin to the green and fruitful Archon Ren was now a noxious, blackened crater. Its forests had burned. Ashes and scattered dust started a planet-wide winter that lasted for a hundred years, killing most plant and animal life.
Now, recovered from the loss of Archon Tau, the Xxcha kingdom has prospered on the generous Archon Ren. Covered by mostly leafy forests, small inland oceans, and fruitful jungles, Archon Ren is rich in minerals, energy, foodstuffs, and water. The Xxcha civilization dwells in a myriad of arboreal villages and towns. The only true metropolis is the giant city of Kklaj, found on the planet's southern hemisphere. Kklaj functions as the seat of the Xxcha King, whose extensive palace, entirely sculpted of Q’waar wood, and flower gardens, stretch for miles at the center of the city.
The Xxcha are an inherently peaceful, slow, and thoughtful people. They hold their nobles and town elders in deep respect. A common pastime of Xxcha males and females alike is to debate meaning and origin while smoking gerr root on long-stemmed pipes. The jungles and lakes of Archon Ren are surprisingly free from the invasive insects that so often make forest and jungle planets unbearable.
Although the Xxcha still believe in the doctrine of peace and negotiation, they will never again bend to foreign invasion. Travelers to the Xxlak system will often notice impressive sentinel Xxcha superdreadnoughts and the distinctive Xxlun fighters in intense naval exercises. Although the typical Xxcha may seem slow and encumbered by a heavy reptilian bodily weight, when roused, the Xxcha are surprisingly strong and fast.
The pale shadow of Archon Tau hangs like a scar in the Xxcha skies. The sight of it is the everlasting sorrow of the Xxcha, and the ever-present reminder of the cost of submission. The Xxcha will never allow such tragedy to befall them again. Ccrysus, the Xxcha King, knows that for the sake of a peaceful galaxy, the Xxcha must seek the Imperial Throne and be wise for all.
Moll Primus, a lonely montainous planet on the very outskirts of known space. Used by the ancient empire as a penal colony once claiming the most impressive punitive institutions for criminals in the galaxy. Early during the Age Twilight, Moll Primus was abandoned by its Lazax wardens, leaving its starving inmate population to centuries of chaos and anarchy. Then, led by Ervan Mentak, the scarce and mixed population united and formed a coalition of rogues. The central administration on Moll Primus is called the Table of Captains which is elected by popular vote. Ervans Hand is the single most influential title in the Table of Regents and on Moll Primus. The Mentak platform of politics is efficent and desimple: Revenge. Publicity denied by the Table of Captains, yet known to all, the Mentak employ a vast pirating fleet, wrecking systematic and effecient havoc among shipping lanes and unprotected military convoys. Pirating and deep core mining are the two main economic drivers for the Mentaks growing military and political power.
For countless centuries, the mixed races of the Mentak have looked towards the skies, a fierce hatred embedded in their genes. Hatred towards the Great Races who abondened them so long ago!
Beyond the Mahact Plateau, part of the borderlands and the old star route known as the Passage of Tears, lies distant Moll Primus with its three tiny moons. The young planet is predominantly covered by extensive plains of the orange meet grass and sprinkled with a million lakes. Sharp youthful mountains pierce the heart of many of its continents, their icy mountain streams giving life to steep lush mountain valleys, where green fruitful trees and flowers grow in colorful contrast to the orange plains.
Although rich for exploitation, the remoteness of Moll Primus allowed the planet to go without organized colonization by the Lazax for thousands of years after its discovery. After the failed Gandar rebellion, however, the Lazax started to use the planet as a penal colony, a distant prison, for the worst offending political dissidents and other criminals from all races. Exile to Moll Primus meant a long journey in the bowels of a prison freighter along the Passage of Tears, a winding dark journey around the treacherous gravity wells of the Mahact Plateau. Only the remote planet Hope's End lies farther than Moll Primus on the Passage of Tears. Once on Moll Primus, prisoners were assigned to manual labor under the supervision of one of the regional planetary Governors. The Governors of Moll Primus mostly consisted of Lazax politicians or servicemen fallen into disgrace. An assignment to Moll Primus was as much a sentence to a Lazax public career as it was a prison for its population. Thus, the Governors were often incompetent, cruel, and bitter individuals. Although the planet itself was quite pleasant, even considered beautiful, its prisoner population was tortured, malnourished, and forced to fight in small-scale wars against the population of neighboring Governors.
Then, after more than 800 years, the Twilight Wars began. As the empire crumbled, as the supply ships and supervision from Mecatol Rex became infrequent and finally failed, the Governors panicked. Some fled the planet overnight with their entire households. Others perished in the inevitable prisoner revolts that followed. Before the Twilight Wars had subsided, Moll Primus was free. Some of its most recent prisoners soon left, but for most of its mixed-race population, Moll Primus was home. After the united rebellion against the Governor wardens, a brief period of infighting among the different regions followed. A single human, Erwan Mentak, soon brought the regions together in a final peace and, before he died, prosperity.
Today, Moll Primus is governed by the Table of Captains, elected leaders from each region. Among them a single leader is chosen every ten cycles and granted the honorary title Erwan’s Hand or “the Hand” for short. Helped by their Hylar brothers, the coalition has made great progress in advancing their technological status. Metals mined from Moll Primus’s moons, various products made from the rich meet grass, income from “special” fleet excursions, and the hard work of its population have slowly formed the strong economic backbone of a proud civilization.
Although publicly denied by Mentak ambassadors, the Mentak employ a vast pirating fleet which wreaks havoc among merchant shipping lanes and smaller military convoys. Although now an educated culture and civilization in their own right, the Mentak people have never forgotten their roots as rogues and usurpers. Every Mentak feels a historical need for revenge: revenge against a galaxy that shipped their ancestors to torture and rot on Moll Primus centuries ago. The Table of Captains has given their Hand a clear mandate: to scheme, pillage, and conquer until the ruled are rulers and the enslaved are emperors.
Before the first Empire, the unpleasant planet of Retillion was a prime source of the Menn-Root a delicacy among the Lazax. Small Lazax farm colonies on Retillion encountered a significant problem as a strange race of nearly undetectable, chameleon-like creatures began destroying valuable harvestin equipment and killing farmers. Intelligent, yet without technology the creatures were extremely fierce. The Lazax simply deployed armored troops on Retillion, and exported many of the creatures, who callled themselves Yssaril, offplanet for hunting leisure and occasional zoological study. During the Age of Dusk The Great Races saw the potential of the near invisible Yssaril as deadly assassin retainers and spies. Over a period of 3000 years, Yssaril were hired and trained by the great races to construe their darker, hidden, schemes.
Realizing their demand, the intelligent Yssaril formed the feared Guild of Spies, and channeled their formidable income into the development of Retillion. The united Yssaril tribes, led by the Cqaark (the official name for the Guild of Spies) have grown immensely powerful. Tired of working for others, the Yssaril are making their own bid for power. Knowing the forbidden skills of the Yssaril, the great races shudder at the thought of their hidden eyes and ears.
Near the Mahact Plateau, diagonally opposite the Passage of Tears, but located in a far richer area of the region, shines the Myock star and its two habitable planets, Shalloq and Retillion. As recorded in even the earliest annals, Retillion has been known for the edible and delicious menn root. Throughout the Lazax Imperium, many farming colonies existed on Retillion, harvesting the roots along the musky and odorous shores of the Fianni swamps. In the years of Lazax emperor Munhan Las Idu, the colonization efforts were dramatically expanded. Not long after the start of the farming expansion, however, things started to go terribly wrong on Retillion: farm machines were sabotaged, isolated farms destroyed, inhabitants murdered by an unseen foe that would strike when the bog mists rolled over the lands.
The empire sent reinforcements, and the colonists soon realized that they were under systematic attack by a small native chameleon race with natural greenish skin and large yellow lamp-like eyes. These aborigines had the ability to “fade,” making them both virtually invisible to the naked eye and a great threat to the farming boom towns springing up along the edges of the measureless swamps. It was clear that the natives were a primitive race, but fierce, intelligent, and relentless in their intent to stop the invasive farming of their native swamplands. From the few early prisoners, it was learned that they called themselves the “Yssaril” and that a vast network of villages and tribes was to be found in the continent-sized Fianni swamp.
Eager to renew the supplies of their beloved menn root, the Lazax sent their 21st Expeditionary Division to suppress the Yssaril uprising, allowing for the resumption of the increased farming mandate. During these bloody years, thousands of Yssaril were captured and shipped to governments and buyers across the galaxy for study or hunting sports. Although farming did resume, the Lazax military division never completely suppressed the Yssaril natives. As the smail green Yssaril adapted to the Lazax style of warfare, as they stole and learned to use Lazax weapons, the Fianni swamp soon became an embarrassing killing field for Lazax conscripts.
It was during the Age of Dusk that the great races learned to utilize the potential of the intelligent Yssaril as spies and assassins for their covert operations. For a hundred years, the Yssaril learned the skills of stealth, the usage of technologies, and the power of information. Combined with their own natural ability to become nearly invisible, they soon came to realize their own potential and established the powerful and feared Guild of Spies. By the proceeds derived from Guild business, the Yssaril added a formidable income source to their civilization and to the development of Retillion. With this power and influence, they were able to convince the Lazax to leave the planet (while still supplying menn root). Over a few generations, the Yssaril became industrial, educated, and ambitious.
Although still powerful in covert circles, the Guild now functions as the prime governing body of the united Yssaril tribes. The Guild elects its leader from its faction of master assassins. This prime leader, the Cqaark, leads the powerful civilization of an intelligent, determined, and ambitious people: a people whose history has left them with little love for the other great races.
Since the Lazax left, no off-worlders have been allowed on Retillion. The Yssaril capital Wuecca lies somewhere deep in the Fianni swamps, its actual location unknown to all but the Yssaril. The official business, trade, and covert operations are conducted from the planet Shallog, which the Yssaril colonized not long after gaining independence from the Lazax. The only actual Yssaril city known to off-worlders is the city of Mojeb on Shalloq. From here, or from Shalloq’s great orbital trade station Haarsuh, the Yssaril receive foreign emissaries, merchants, and visitors.
The proud, fierce Yssaril are slowly starting to look beyond their borders and beyond the income of the Guild. Hidden in the planetary shadow of Shalloq, and kept secret from the rest of the galaxy by the covert means at which the Yssaril excel, a great invasion fleet is being built. Although the rest of the galaxy may shudder at the Yssaril’s unseen eyes and ears, it would be terrified if it knew the ruthless imperial ambitions of the small green people.
It has been eight years since the Hacan trader Zollar was lost. Two parsecs out from Retillion, the Zollar's navigation equipment failed, leaving the ship and its crew stranded in deep space. Weeks later, the drifting merchant freighter was hailed by a great warship of unknown origin. The crew's joy turned to terror as the warship closed, brought its cannons on line and opened fire. The random destruction of the Zollar announced the return the Lazax, the first imperial race, to the known galaxy.
Enhanced by cybernetic implants, the Lazax have transformed themselves into something more akin to a data-processing machine than biological entity. After the encounter with the Hacan trader, the Lazax, calling themselves "Elwonzeewonex" (L1z1x), sent a delegation to Mecatol Rex, submitting an ancestral claim to the throne.
The Winnaran Custodians are deeply divided over this issue. Some Winnarans claim that the L1z1x, though obviously descended from the Lazax, are not the ancient ruling race, but a new and potentially dangerous hybrid. Other Winnarans argue that the Lazax has returned, and that the custodianship is over.
Little is known of the L1z1x. Only one person, a Winarran historian, has been allowed to visit the L1z1x homeworld, and he has not yet returned. The L1z1x homeworld is located many parsecs beyond the Borderlands, in cold orbit around the small star Hazz. Called "0.0.0" by its inhabitants, "Null" by the rest of the Galaxy, the homeworld remains a largely unknown entity.
There are many theories about why and how the Lazax transformed themselves into this cybernetic new race. It is a fact that no one truly knows what secrets and violent ambitions lie behind the vacant red eyes of the L1z1x.
It has been 13 years since the Hacan trader Zollar was lost, its final desperate broadcast intercepted by a Yssaril outpost near the Mahact asteroid fields.
The last transmission of the Zollar told a grim story. After leaving Moll Primus in the Mahact region, its navigation equipment failed, and its crew found themselves lost far beyond the remote borderlands. After nearly two weeks adrift in deep space, they were suddenly hailed by a great warship of unknown origin. The crew’s joy soon turned to terror. The warship closed, bringing its broadside cannons to bear on the helpless freighter. The Hacan captain was able to send a final emergency broadcast before his ship was destroyed.
Not long after the disappearance of the Zollar, a mighty alien fleet appears on the outskirts of Yssaril space. From that fleet, a small delegation of representatives travels to Mecatol, submitting an ancestral claim to the Imperial Throne. They claim to be the true remnants of the ancient Lazax, now calling themselves the L1z1x (“Ell Won Zee Won Ex”). Grisly to behold, they resemble the Lazax, but utterly changed, their bodies almost entirely overtaken by invasive cybernetic implants.
The Winnaran custodians are deeply divided over the issue. Some claim that the L1z1x are not the ruling race, but a new and potentially dangerous hybrid. Other Winnarans argue that the Lazax have returned, in unexpected form, but returned nonetheless, and that their custodianship is over.
A Winnaran observer has been allowed to visit the L1z1x home world, called “0.0.0” by its inhabitants, or “Null” by most others. The observer has not yet returned, and the L1z1x remain a largely unknown entity. What little is known of them has been provided by the L1z1x themselves, or obtained from a few old records provided by the Jol-Nar Regents.
From the Hylar records and from the L1z1x claim, it has been inferred that the L1z1x history started during the final days of the Lazax. It was less than a year before the great bombing of Mecatol that a councilor to the Emperor by the name of Ibna Vel Syd saw the impending doom. The Emperor and his other councilors refused to listen to Ibna’s dire warnings. Soon Ibna grew frustrated with their myopia. Although the Lazax navy was clearly failing, although droves of systems were daily joining the three rebellions, although trade had entirely failed, and food supplies on Mecatol were running out, the Emperor and his cabinet simply could not comprehend that their birthright, their empire, could possibly fall.
Refusing to share the fate of his liege, Ibna Vel Syd began secretly planning a furtive diaspora for his own family and the few thousand Lazax who shared his fears. With him, Ibna sought to bring the pillars of Lazax culture, technology, and knowledge. He even managed to persuade a small group of Hylar scientists to join him, recognizing that the Hylar’s skill was instrumental to the underlying technology of the empire.
Then, on a fateful night during the seventy-second year of the Twilight Wars, two freighters, the Manda and the Hurwana, and Ibna’s own cruiser, Syd, left the great spaceport of Mecatol City. Below them, the great Hall of Cartography burned. So fearful had Ibna been of discovery and persecution by the Lazax’s enemies that he had engineered the destruction of any record that could possible identify his secret destination: a cold but adequate planet orbiting the small star Hazz, far beyond the borderlands.
It is guessed that the colony, struggling to survive, started to rely almost exclusively on technology to assist them in their hardships. Presumably helped by the small contingent of Hylar, technology crept into their lives and bodies, until they became almost indistinguishable from it.
It is rumored that Ibna Vel Syd still leads his people, encased in eldritch technology that keeps his ancient body alive. Whether the L1z1x are guided by the wisdom that saved them or by the insanity that destroyed the famed Hall of Cartography, it is not known. Behind their vacant red eyes lie both a tragic history and a terrible malevolence. It seems certain that the return of the Lazax will wash across the galaxy like a tide of prophecy and steel.
Stoic, beautiful and highly telepathic, the Naalu are one of the newest races to join the council. Some other races are disturbed by the Naalu mind-reading ability, fearing that these graceful creatures will turn their telepathy in a weapon of conquest. Other points to the Collective's calm demeanor and passion for beauty - unlikely attributes for an ambitious race.
Reaching out from their lovely homeworld Druaa, the Naalu have plans for the beautification of the rest of the galaxy. Worlds full of ugliness and chaos will be broken down and rebuilt according to the Naalu vision. The other races may resist these changes at first, but they are destined to accept their glorious rule... or be destroyed.
Naalu starships are known for their ornate splendor and elegant design. As powerful as they are beautiful, these mighty ships harbor massive engines and terrible weapons behind their gorgeous facades. With fleets of these ships to enforce their rule, the Naalu feel confident that their time has arrived. Soon the rest of the galaxy will know tranquillity, order and true beauty ... or be destroyed.
It was not until the middle of the Twilight Wars that the Naalu civilization made itself known to the rest of the galaxy. Their system, dominated by the white star Mallac, had remained suspiciously undetected by the empire, despite being surrounded by wealthy systems whose recorded history predates even the Lazax. After a period of sheer astonishment, stellar cartographers and historians began suspecting manipulation by the Naalu themselves. After researching old records, investigators found a remarkably high number of missing ship incidents in that sector and an even more incriminating number of ships found stranded in space, their crews suffering from deep-space memory loss. Some scientists (the most vociferous of whom have died amidst questionable circumstances) have indicated that records exist indicating a great number of Yssaril ships passing into Mallac’s area of space, but no records of any derelict or amnesic Yssaril crews have ever been recorded. The Naalu, it was later discovered to the horror of their neighbors, are highly telepathic and armed with technology and weapons that redirect, manipulate, or damage the neuron impulses guiding the brains of all major known races.
A secret prior relationship between the Yssaril Guild of Spies and the mind-bending Naalu goes a long way in explaining how the Naalu, a seemingly isolated civilization claiming no prior contact with the rest of the galaxy, developed premium civilian and military technology similar, and in some cases superior, to the rest of the galaxy.
Soon after the appearance of the Naalu, several of the great races, seeing the potential of a powerful new aily in the empire’s midst, sought to win their allegiance. After learning of the Naalu’s telepathic power, however, and after witnessing the strange arrogance of the beautiful Naalu, many quickly retrieved their envoys and diplomats in a healthy fear of the mind-reading serpentine race.
Despite originating on the dank and nondescript planet Maaluk, the Naalu have taken the breathtakingly beautiful Druaa as their home world. Most Naalu will scoff at any mention of their Maaluk heritage, and recent Naalu generations often seek to contest even hard scientific evidence which indicates that their proud, stoic race originated from any planet other than the scenic Druaa—especially the stinking bogs and mist-plains of Maaluk.
The Druaa seldom communicate with each other by speaking. Their telepathic communication is more effective, facilitates emotional as well as intelligent understanding, and has allowed the collective to prevent larger internal wars, which in turn has spurred their rapid advance in culture, technology (assisted by the Yssaril), and the creation of the Naalu fleet and military might. Unless speaking to off-worlders, the Naalu use their voices only for their music - hauntingly alluring arias of melodic hissing.
The Naalu have kept the pristine beauty of their crystal cities and Druaa’s environment intact by locating most of their heavy industries on Maaluk. These industries are manned by the Miashan, a low-sentient marshland race enslaved by the Naalu to work in the great iron-extraction plants, underground gas mines, and on the thousands of rodent farms. Raw materials are promptly shipped to Druaa, stored in massive underground warehouses, and distributed to the Druaa cities by airborne gliders.
The leader of the Naalu collective is always female, as most Naalu leaders and off-world representatives are female. For the last decade, the tall red-scaled Q’uesh Sish has ruled the collective from her palace in the shining crystal city of Eershin. The beautiful, sleek spaceships of the Naalu patrol Mallac’s outer borders, while Naalu troops train and muster on Druaa’s two moons. With her Nefishh, a rare crystal radium device, Q’uesh sees the minds of the other races. She smiles at the knowledge, and with her, the collective Naalu leaders smile, sensing the knowledge in her mind and relishing the sweet poison of her thoughts. The great plan of the collective is about to take its final shape. Long have the Naalu observed the chaos and ugliness of the other races from a distance. ‘Lhe time nears that the beauty of Druaa will grow beyond the borders of Mallac. The time now nears when the rest of the galaxy will know the tranquility, order, and the true beauty of the Naalu. They will submit to that beauty... or be destroyed.
It was during the early years of the Age of Dusk that Jol-Nar explorers came upon the volcanic planet of Muaat. Scouting for resources beyond the Mahact Plateau, the explorers were amazed by the mineral wealth of their discovery, but they were truly awestruck by the extraordinary qualities of the planet’s fiery inhabitants, the Gashlai.
The Gashlai were unlike any race known to the Jol-Nar: sentient beings with bodies slowly consumed by a fiery heat. After their conception, the Gashlai cocooning process somehow enables conversion of energy into mass - a process hinted at by scientific theory, but forever thought unattainable on a sub-cosmic scale.
The Jol-Nar benefited greatly from Muaat’s resources, yet they were frustrated in their attempts to replicate the Gashlai cocooning process. Instead, the Gashlai proved useful as slave labor, as the Headmasters transformed the orbit of Muaat into a massive shipyard for their navy. It was here, at the Muaat shipyards, that the construction of a secret Jol-Nar superweapon began.
The Gashlai suffered tragically under their enslavement by the Jol-Nar, but events of the early Twilight Wars would dramatically change their ill fortune.
Just after the Twilight Wars erupted, a Jol-Nar expedition party searching for mineral deposits on Muaat became infected by an organism in the Doolak Mountains. The infection developed into a disease later known as the Doolak plague. The covert, yet frequent, traffic between Muaat and the Garian star system allowed for the spread of the virus to the Jol-Nar home worlds.
The plague became one of the greatest disasters in Jol-Nar history, and only the early research of Gashlai biology allowed the Headmasters to devise a vaccine before the entire Jol-Nar population was destroyed. Before the Jol-Nar could recover from this disaster, their military offensive collapsed, and soon the Headmasters would face the ruthless advance of the Sardakk N’orr.
As the Jol-Nar navy retreated, the Headmasters were forced to call forth their secret weapon at Muaat. This weapon - an enormous battlevessel called the “War Sun”- was not yet entirely complete, but with their fates clinging to the defenses of the Saudor system, the Headmasters had no choice but to bring it to bear against the enemy.
As the War Sun left its Muaat moorings, and as the majority of the remaining Jol-Nar personnel left with it, the Gashlai finally carved their own destiny. Having long schemed against their enslavers, the incinerated the remaining Jol-Nar in the system, capturing the ship-yard and every available scientific document left behind by their hated oppressors.
Not long after their costly victory at Saudor, the Jol-Nar sought to return to their colony at Muaat, but found that all communications with the system had been severed. Exploratory ships sent to Muaat would not return. Though the Headmasters suspected what might have taken place on their old colony, they were unable to return there in force again.
Throughout the long Dark Years, the Gashlai prospered.
Clad in Ember suits, special body armor shielding the Gashlai from the cold and others from their lethal heat, a large assembly of Gashlai envoys have recently arrived at Mecatol Rex, demanding recognition and representation. The High Fire Warden Sushon Azh has simultaneously sent forth Gashlai ambassadors to all the great races in the distinctive gold-bronze frigates of the Gashlai.
Yet one such ambassador did not arrive in a frigate. As the Gashlai ambassador assigned to the Jol-Nar sailed past the Garian star and began his approach to Jol, the Headmasters paled in fear, for this representative arrived in a War Sun, a copy of their own ancient designs. The message was not wasted on the Headmasters. Their former slaves had become formidable, and they had not forgotten, or forgiven, the past.
Led by the Fire Wardens, the Gashlai are resolved to never be enslaved again. Inside their golden Ember suits they burn with ambition. The Jol-Nar fear what the rest of the galaxy is about to learn: that the Embers of Muaat intend to bring their fire to the furthest reaches of space, burning the unwilling into submission.
Few historians dispute that the Saar were the first of the known races to venture into space, but it remains unknown whether it was need or curiosity that drove the otherwise primitive people into such exploration. Their peaceful ways and dispersed civilization never promulgated them to official Lazax recognition. Some scholars have thus called them “the forgotten race.”
The tale of the Saar is a tragic one. Historical records are awash with accounts of deliberate planetary expulsions, even massacres, of Saar settlements found on planets colonized by the other races. The musical Saar often chant the “Lay of Lisis” in memory of the largest known Saar colony prior to Ragh’s Call. After the planet of Lisis was annexed by the Sardakk N’orr, no word came from the great Saar settlement there again. They simply disappeared. In their memory, most Saar females wear a carefully carved silver pendant called the Y’ouf Lisis, or the “Tear of Lisis.” During the Houw Shanan, the Saar Holy Day, such pendants are given to young Saar women, while Saar cubs throw beetles and insects into a raging fire and the elders howl at the stars with a longing rage.
Before the Call began, the Saar were scattered across the galaxy, existing at the mercy of other races. On dozens of worlds, Saar could be found living in slums and sublevel cities, working in the most noxious and despicable industries, and making slim sustenance from the scraps of other civilizations. Considered unclean and barely sentient by other races, Saar life was cheap and subject to little justice. With hard work, polluted environments, and no access to proper medical care, the bitter lives of the Saar were often short.
It was in the hopeless middle period of the Dark Years that a single Saar, Ragh Gavar, would forever change the destiny of his people.
Ragh made his living as the captain of an old scrap metal freighter that flew between Xxehan and Sol, a route that had been in his family for centuries. Despite being a capable trader, Ragh’s passion lay in poetry and the imagination of the pen, in the creation of succinct writings of hope, scrawled on paper scraps during long trade hauls. At his ports of call, other Saar would often congregate before his loading doors so that they might hear his latest verses and tales. Many of his listeners began to call him the “Captain of Hope.”
Yet one year, Ragh did not arrive at his destination. His rusty navigation system had finally failed, and Ragh’s ship was lost among the stars. Floating in unknown space, as his ancestors had once done so bravely before him, Ragh prayed that the One Between the Stars would see him and his small crew home.
The Call began a few years after Ragh Gavar’s disappearance. Throughout the great expanses of the galaxy, every Saar began to feel within himself an unyielding longing for the stars, and especially for a certain distant place beyond known space.
Early followers of the Call found its origin in the great asteroid field of Jorun, and here found a small but blossoming Saar colony on the two gigantic asteroids of Ragh and Lisis II. As the Call continued, Saar brethren from across the galaxy continued to arrive at Jorun, together building the infrastructure of civilization and hope for a lost race.
Years before, Ragh’s ship had crashed in the Jorun. Miraculously, he and his crew had survived, and with great wonder they soon discovered the mineral richness, frozen water, atmospheric caverns, and strange fauna that lay hidden within the endless ocean of rock.
Yet Ragh was restless in his new home. It is told that the Captain awoke one night from a dream and then bade his crewmates farewell, disappearing into the great network of caverns that lies within the asteroid named after him. Ragh Gavar was never found or heard from again. But less than a month after his disappearance, the Call began. Saar mystics believe that the Captain of Hope has joined the One Between the Stars, and that he at last won forgiveness for the Saar, and has called them to relieve their suffering. They believe that Ragh’s Call has brought them home, that the life-giving rocks surrounding them are the remnants of the ancient Saar planet of origin, and that even in death it is giving its people a second life.
For centuries the unified and passionate Saar people have built a formidable home and civilization in the Jorun asteroid field. The Saar have finally found home, and they have found that they are strong.
The Winnu system was the first system to seek annexation into the Lazax Empire. Throughout their history, the Winnarans had suffered countless civil wars, a deteriorating climate, and debilitating disease. They were a race on the brink of extinction when they first came into contact with the Lazax, and only with generous Lazax support did the Winnaran race survive. The Lazax allowed the Winnarans into their empire, and over time healed the scars of Winnu. More importantly, the Winnarans came to embrace the Lazax code of strength and peace, the powerful doctrine which had allowed the first Lazax emperor to defeat the last of the mad Mahact kings and to emerge as a shining beacon of peace and stability in a dark galaxy.
The Winnarans were eternally grateful to the Lazax, and swore an oath of servitude to the emperors. Disciplined and diligent, the Winnarans became indispensable to the Lazax as bureaucrats, councilors, and administrators. As their empire grew increasingly complex, it is likely that the Lazax would not have been able to hold their empire together without the work and attention to detail of the Winnarans. Then, as the Lazax decided to move their imperial seat to a planet more central to the galaxy, more than haif of the population of Winnu joined the Lazax diaspora to this new home. That home was the planet of Mecatol, which would become the Rex, the splendid jewel in the imperial crown. As the ages came and went, most Winnarans began to think of Mecatol as their ancestral home, and the relevance and memory of Winnu and their brethren there diminished.
Yet the Winnaran population on Winnu, now generally called the “Winnu,’ quietly built their own civilization following the doctrine of the emperors. Much Lazax lore, wisdom, and culture is intact on Winnu, even as all other Lazax imagery and culture was destroyed elsewhere in the galaxy during the Great Scourge.
As the memory of the Great Scourge faded, and as the Dark Years seemed to stretch along endlessly, the Mecatol Winnarans and the Winnu grew estranged from one another. On Mecatol, the Winnarans were bound to rigid tradition and scholarship, while the Winnu culture had evolved and prospered. The Winnu became ashamed of their submissive cousins on Mecatol, whom they began to regard as a grey, backwards people, devoid of fashion, art, and culture.
As a new age is dawning, the Winnu truly believe themselves to be the inheritors of the Lazax. Their philosophies, their artwork, and even the clothing fashion of the Winnu is rooted in that of the ancient Lazax. Some outside observers, however, will note that along with the Winnu preservation of Lazax imagery and culture, that time has brought the return of more traditional Winnaran traits in the Winnu—ambition, pride, and impatience.
As they grew prosperous and powerful, the Winnu witnessed the reemergence of the other great races with annoyance and mistrust. Those were the races that had slaughtered their benefactors, and their return to power felt to the Winnu like sacrilege against the memory of the Lazax. Even more poisonous to the Winnu was the fact that their submissive cousins on Mecatol had invited these races to reestablish the Galactic Council there—even going as far as inviting the races that resigned from the Lazax council immediately before the Age of Twilight.
With the pride of a new, powerful civilization and the sense of Lazax entitlement, the supreme Winnu leader Muad Di Faruuq traveled to Mecatol and demanded that the Winnarans return to the sovereignty of Winnu, and that the custodians grant the Imperial Throne to their own race as the rightful heirs of the Lazax.
The Mecatol Winnarans, ever mindful of their responsibility to the entire galaxy, sorrowfully declined the demand of their brethren. As they did so, they feared that their short-tempered Winnu brothers and sisters would become angered, and that the resulting bitterness would forever break apart whatever kinship remained between them.
The Winnarans’ fear was well placed. Muad Di Faruug was furious with their decision and rushed back to Winnu, but not before establishing a consulate and council presence for the Winnu on Mecatol. Upon his return to Winnu, he proclaimed the betrayal of the Winnarans, and swore that if Mecatol and the Imperial Throne would not be ceded to the Winnu by peaceful means, then, in the memory of the Lazax, force would be the only answer.
The Winnu population rushed to Faruuq’s support, a sense of righteousness and superiority motivating them to an intense mobilization. Building massive fleets, eerily reminiscent of ancient Lazax designs, and training massive invasion forces, the Winnu are intent on returning true Lazax culture to the galaxy.
Lazax law strictly forbade the practice of cloning, the dangerous science that led to the madness, disease, and ultimate downfall of the Mahact kings. The emperors severely punished any regime or independent scientist dabbling in this dangerous field.
Darien Van Hauge, a prominent Sol scientist, had lost both his children to the terrible wasting disease Greyfire. After their loss, he was intent on finding a cure for this horrible affliction, and refused to let any law stay his hand. In silent revenge against the destiny of his children, he left his employment with the prestigious Hospitaler Clinic in New Moscow and traveled to the third moon of Emelpar, where he secretly sought and finally acquired ancient Mahact bio studies.
The brilliant Darien made great advances in the following years. His wife Moyin contributed the embryos he needed for his forbidden experiments. With his successes, however, word of his work began to leak, and a congregation of the hopeful began to surround him, bringing their sick and dying to his care, clinging to a last hope that his discoveries could cure them.
Darien’s secret ended the day a sick child died in his care. The anguished, remorseful parents blamed Darien for the death and contacted the Sol authorities. That night, Darien fled Jord with his wife and a few of his most devout followers.
Now a known fugitive, Darien narrowly escaped capture again and again. To finally escape the Lazax authorities, his small group joined religious colonists migrating to a new home on the remote planet of Lael, a place of harsh oceans and stormy climates. Their fugitive years brought healing and perspective on the death of their children, and Darien and Moyin found happiness again on the windy plains of Lael.
But a few years later, Moyin developed Greyfire.
Desperate to save his wife, Darien employed all his skills and forbidden knowledge, but still he failed. Before her death, he extracted a single egg from her womb—preserving the genetic blueprint of her unborn children.
He burned her body on the summit of the Hills of Grace, which they had named after their lost daughter. As Moyin’s ashes drifted upwards into the strong winds, Darien dug a stone out of the hillside with his bare hands and placed it near the fire. That stone was to become part of the foundation for the great monastery of Lucas, named after Darien and Moyin’s lost son.
In the following decades, Darien was able to produce a child from a clone of Moyin’s egg and his own seed. It was a boy. Cloning Moyin’s egg by the thousands, producing child after child with increasing success, Darien became a master of the forbidden craft. Yet, inexplicably to him, all the children were boys, and he was never able to eradicate the vulnerability to Greyfire from his creation. Though he was able to eliminate the lethal outcome of the disease in his “sons” as he called them, the Greyfire would attack their skins and topical tissues, hideously deforming most of the children.
After Darien’s death, his sons diligently continued his work. They continued cloning Moyin's egg, which they called the “Yin,” and they continued the production of new “brothers” from their own seed. Over the centuries, the monastery of Lucas became a vast facility, completely covering the Hills of Grace and the surrounding plains.
The Brotherhood, blessed with the brilliant minds of both Darien and Moyin, grew to vast proportions and renamed their planet “Darien.” As the Age of Dusk neared its end, the Brotherhood ventured into space, establishing monasteries on Darien’s moons and its surrounding systems.
The Brotherhood long ago abandoned any hope of a female creation, and instead worship the Yin as the mother and the feminine in their lives. Despite centuries of continued work, they have never been able to completely eradicate the signs of Greyfire. Instead, the brothers that are completely ravaged and deformed by the disease are revered as “The Blessed,” and the brothers left untouched by the disease are called “The Untouched” The Blessed form the inner elders and councilors of the Yin society. The Untouched are trained as ambassadors to the other races and as elite soldiers of the Brotherhood.
In their flesh, the brothers carry the secret inner fire and rebellious ambition of Darien. The oldest of the Blessed, the Elder Brother, intimately understands the emotions and aspirations of all his brothers. Intent and unified, the Brotherhood now builds a vast fleet with which to bring Darien’s legacy and the light of Yin to the imperial throne itself.
Brightest in the Morgallen Cluster burns the old star Farruban. While sun to no less than 26 satellites, Farruban's only inhabitable planet is the tropical giant of Nestphar, a planet teeming with life so abundant it almost defies description.
On first approach to Nestphar, a first-time visitor may be surprised by the soupy haze that bleeds from the planet's atmosphere like a dusty cloud. This cloud consists of quadrillions of tiny living spores emitted by Nestphar's many Flaah, city-sized floating forests in its stratosphere. The short-lived (and therefore continually resupplied) orbital presence of the Flaah spores allows the Arborec denizens in Nestphar's space-stations and shipyards to remain in continuous symbiotic contact with their planet. The Arborec term for this vital connection, shared among all living things on Nestphar, is best translated as "the Symphony".
The Arborec should be described not as a race, but as an intelligent ecosystem consisting of countless biological specimens, from the smallest spore to the complex fungal organisms of the Letani.
When traveling beyond the reach of Nestphar's Flaah spores, and therefore outside connection to the prime Symphony, the Arborec employ the massive Letani. Physically, the Letani are the largest sentient beings yet discovered in the galaxy (each slightly larger than a Sol Elephantus), their bodies resembling a kraken-shaped mushroom crossed with a monstrous carnivorous flower. The Letani are each uniquely capable of embodying a powerful instance of the Symphony (and are therefore closest to an "individual" within Arborec society) which may act as a harmonic nexus for Arborec organisms in near proximity. All ships in the Arborec fleet are based around the presence of at least one (with some ships as many as five) Letani orchestrating the unity of Arborec lifeforms crewing the vessel.
Once a Letani returns to the embrace of Nestphar's prime Symphony, its experiences are reconnected and absorbed into the Arborec, as a data-capsule would be reconnected to its mainframe.
The admittance of the Arborec to the galactic council was undoubtedly the most controversial in the council's long history. A small group of elder races - led by the humans of Sol - viciously protested admittance by reason of moral impediment.
While surely intelligent and demonstrably capable of crafting impressive technologies, structures, and a sophisticated fleet of interstellar craft, the Arborec's method of communication remains a source of great controversy. Being a race of vegetative and fungal matter, handling its own data transmission and emotive projection through the prime Symphony, the Arborec had never developed any form of visual or auditory communication (concepts which, to this day, remain foreign to them).
Arborec scientists had found the solution to this dilemma in the Sol merchant vessel Dies Opulen. The crew of the Dies Opulen had tragically become infected by Yborin Plague on Maaluk and had later died in deep space. When the derelict ship was found by an Arborec scout, it was determined the cool bodies of the human crew were in perfect condition for an ambitious experiment. The bodies were sent to the great laboratories in Kushin, near the Arborec capital Phara.
Here, fungal Arzuga cells were attached to the brainstems of the dead humans. It was hoped, when grown under proper conditions, the complex acidic properties of Arzuga would successfully merge the cells with the innate brain-tissue of the deceased subjects, slowly re-stimulating the neural pathways back to life. Then, by injecting photo-voltaic stims into the soft tissues of the dead body, the neurally active Arzuga would spur the soft tissue cells to heal and regrow, effectively reanimating the dead body.
The experiment was a rousing success, and one that would change the destiny of the Arborec.
Symbolically attached to the host body, the Arzuga fungi evolved into a new being, one which the Arborec call the Dirzuga.
The Dirzuga were the missing link between the Symphony and the manifestation of physical communication that the Arborec lacked. Over the following few decades, the Arborec eagerly acquired additional subjects (human bodies seem to work best and are the most frequently used, but Letnev, Winnu, and Xxcha bodies are also commonly used as Dirzuga hosts), establishing a sizable diplomatic and trading corps that have become the basis for the Arborec's interaction with the rest of the galaxy.
The Arborec insist the host bodies of the Dirzuga are devoid of the expired individuals' consciousness. With a cultural relationship to death rooted in the natural cycle of decomposition and regrowth, the Arborec have little understanding or sympathy for those who vigorously protest against the bodies of their citizens being reused (some use the term "enslaved") in such a manner.
Ultimately, despite the objections of the dissident races, the Arborec were admitted as a member of the galactic council. The potential wealth of foodstuffs, medicines, and other treasures of Nestphar proved effective in overcoming any objections.
While the Arborec insist that the past knowledge and experiences of Dirzuga bodies do not persist, there are some who suspect the Arborec do not tell the entire truth. Such theorists can provide many examples in which the Arborec seem to have come upon information, or intimate understanding of other cultures, that seem inexplicable otherwise.
If some memories and knowledge of the dead are absorbed by the Arborec, would emotion and ambition be as well? Is it possible, perhaps even likely, that in digesting the music of such alien lives, the Arborec are in return infecting the Symphony? Is this why the Arborec have come to show keen interest in colonization and expansion? Is this why they have come to exhibit signs of duplicity, or even aggression?
On first approach to Nestphar, a first-time visitor may be surprised by the soupy haze that bleeds from the planet’s atmosphere like a dusty cloud. This cloud consists of quadrillions of tiny living spores emitted by Nestphar’s many Flaah, city-sized floating forests in its stratosphere. The short-lived (and therefore continually resupplied) orbital presence of the Flaah spores allows the Arborec denizens in Nestphar's space-stations and shipyards to remain in continuous symbiotic contact with their planet. The Arborec term for this vital connection, shared among all living things on Nestphar, is best translated as "the Symphony."
When traveling beyond the reach of Nestphar‘s Flaah spores, and therefore outside connection to the prime Symphony, the Arborec employ the massive Letani. Physically, the Letani are the largest sentient beings yet discovered in the galaxy (each slightly larger than a Sol elephantus), their bodies resembling a kraken-shaped mushroom crossed with a monstrous carnivorous flower. The Letani are each uniquely capable of embodying a powerful instance of the Symphony (and are therefore closest to an “individual” within Arborec society) which may act as a harmonic nexus for Arborec organisms in near proximity. All ships in the Arborec fleet are based around the presence of at least one (with some ships as many as five) Letani orchestrating the unity of Arborec lifeforms crewing the vessel. Once a Letani returns to the embrace of Nestphar’s prime Symphony, its experiences are reconnected and absorbed into the Arborec, as a data-capsule would be reconnected to its mainframe.
While surely intelligent and demonstrably capable of crafting impressive technologies, structures, and a sophisticated fleet of interstellar craft, the Arborec‘s method of communication remains a source of great controversy. Being a race of vegetative and fungal matter, handling its own data transmission and emotive projection through the prime Symphony, the Arborec have never developed any form of visual or auditory communication (concepts which, to this day, remain foreign to them).
Arborec scientists found the solution to this dilemma in the Sol merchant vessel Dies Opulen. The crew of the Dies Opulen had tragically become infected by Yborin Plague on Maaluk and had later died in deep space. When the derelict ship was found by an Arborec scout, it was determined the cool bodies of the human crew were in perfect condition for an ambitious experiment. The bodies were sent to the great laboratories in Kushin, near the Arborec capital Phara.
Here, fungal Arzuga cells were attached to the brainstems of the dead humans. It was hoped, when grown under proper conditions, the complex acidic properties of Arzuga would successfully merge the cells with the innate brain-tissue of the deceased subjects, slowly re stimulating the neural pathways back to life. Then, by injecting photo-voltaic stims into the soft tissues of the dead body, the neurally active Arzuga would spur the soft tissue cells to heal and regrow, effectively reanimating the dead body. Symbiotically attached to the host body, the Arzuga fungi evolved into a new being, one which the Arborec call the Dirzuga.
The Dirzuga were the missing link between the Symphony and the manifestation of physical communication that the Arborec lacked. Over the following few decades, the Arborec eagerly acquired additional subjects (human bodies seem to work best and are the most frequently used, but Letnev, Winnu, and Xxcha bodies are also commonly used as Dirzuga hosts), establishing a sizable diplomatic and trading corps that have become the basis for the Arborec’s interaction with the rest of the galaxy. The Arborec insist the host bodies of the Dirzuga are devoid of the expired individuals’ consciousness. With a cultural relationship to death rooted in the natural cycle of decomposition and regrowth, the Arborec have little understanding or sympathy for those who vigorously protest against the bodies of their citizens being reused (some use the term “enslaved”) in such a manner.
Ultimately, despite the objections of the dissident races, the Arborec were admitted as a member of the galactic council. The potential wealth of foodstuffs, medicines, and other treasures of Nestphar proved effective in overcoming any objections.
While the Arborec insist that the past knowledge and experiences of Dirzuga bodies do not persist beyond this reanimation, there are some who suspect the Arborec do not tell the entire truth. Such theorists can provide many examples in which the Arborec seem to have come upon information, or intimate understanding of other cultures, that seem inexplicable otherwise.
They're ghost stories. Frightful tales whispered to children by night cycle lamps. Dread accounts told to fellow sailors in the humming darkness of long-haul freighters.
Even now, in our growing enlightenment, when we know so much more about the Shaleri passage and its strange inhabitants, the sheer differentness of the Shaleri and its Ghosts seduce such tales to persist.
An almost endless variation of hearsay and rumor can be found on the topic of the Shaleri anomaly. Rare records of purported fact are, at best, of irregular verifiability. While now a respected sociological study, what is truly known of the Shaleri remains infinitely smaller than the abundance of myth that clouds its past.
For millennia, space in proximity of the Shaleri anomaly has been mistrusted and avoided by spacefarers. Despite the undeniable historic universality in avoiding this region, few concrete explanations have been made as to the reason for such aversion. Some simply denote the area as “high risk.” Others conjecture that the area ebbs with “unknown radiation” Regrettably, most navigation records simply refer to the Shaleri region as “bad space”— the superstitious space-faring analogy of “here be dragons.”
What is known for sure is that Shaleri space has over time been responsible for an unusually high number of missing vessels. An extraordinarily high number, in fact. For such a high proportion of lost traffic the absence of distress beacons, message capsules, or any signs whatsoever of the missing ships has been described in official records as “disturbing.” It is perhaps more aptly described, using a favored term of sailors and storytellers, as spooky.
The mystery of the Shaleri region goes further and deeper than just that of missing spaceships. Among crews that have safely made journeys through the region, there are records of strange equipment malfunctions, bad dreams, and sudden illnesses. There are accounts of purported “sightings”: eldritch encounters with beings described as strange fibrous clouds of energy. While such accounts may have been dismissed in the past as the fantasies of oxygen-deprived sailors, the hindsight of the galaxy’s recent association with the Ghosts places these reports in a more credible light.
There are several trade routes that when traced through rather than around Shaleri space will save the traveler substantial time and fuel. It follows, therefore, that willingness to brave its dark reputation has come with substantial profit for those captains who have dared to travel in this “bad space” and returned to tell the tale. It was in pursuit of such profit that the Mentak frigate Entropic undertook its fifth journey though Shaleri space.
The Entropic had been traveling through Shaleri space for three days when it was interdicted by three formidable vessels of unknown origin. The vessels, each the size of a Mentak battlecruiser, were of grey lobstered steel, their surface intricately inscribed with interweaving runic latticework. It is this meeting between the Entropic and the Creuss warships that is marked as First Contact between the Ghosts of Creuss and a member race of the galactic council.
It’s not known why the beings that dwell within the Shaleri anomaly (now commonly called the “Creuss Gate”) chose to reveal themselves during the early Years of Awakening. Perhaps they'd finally learned enough about the galaxy that surrounded them? Perhaps their societal progress had finally propelled them into the greater universe? A more ominous possibility, one favored by storytellers, is that the Ghosts of Creuss have come forth for some sinister purpose yet to be revealed.
As beings of energy and light, the Ghosts certainly can be placed among the strangest of the known races. The famous historian Merean Bargan described them as “ethereal luxsynaptic souls.” As their forms do not remain stable outside the strange gravity of the Creuss itself, the Ghosts garb themselves in intricate metalwork. Not only does the armor stabilize the Ghosts, but its tangible shape places members of the other races more at ease in their presence. Individual Creuss can be discerned from one another by the unique design of their helmets, which, like their ships, are intricately carved with runes.
The Ghosts of Creuss have shown themselves to be perfectly civilized, polite, and masters of many strange sciences and materials. Yet, they're also regarded as exceptionally secretive, ritualistic, and prickly on a wide range of matters. It's generally undecided whether their behavior is one to be expected of a race so recently introduced to the material galaxy, or whether these are signs that something more ominous lurks beneath their brooding metal helmets.
On the eve of the Lazax empire's fall, the legendary councilor Ibna Vel Syd led a small contingent of his people on a secret exodus into unknown space and, in doing so, escaped the massacre of his people that would follow. Only with the help of increasingly extreme technological augmentation did they survive the early years of resettlement. This reliance on technology became the foundation of what would evolve into the vast cybernetic civilization of the L1z1x.
While the narrative of Ibna’s early struggles are common lore, few know of the much darker struggle that shadows the L1z1x’s past: the great schism which ravaged their sociely a thousand years before their belligerent return to known space. The scions of Vel Syd were rapidly accumulating the power needed to return to known space and reclaim their lost empire. Already, detailed plans circulated in the Mindnet with that very goal. Then came the madness of Mordai.
Mordai was the greatest of the L1z1x enhancers. His innovation and industry made him foremost among the L1z1x elite. He worked tirelessly for the advancement of the Mindnet, always using his own body as the first subject for any new brilliant augmentation of his invention. He was meticulous, inspirational, and brazenly ambitious. He believed in the possibility of the perfect existential reality: an apex of the living soul and the heipful machine.
Unsurprisingly, such hubris would meet its nemesis. As Mordai underwent the self-imposed implant of a cortex migrator, the first of several devices leading to this final ascension, something went horribly awry. It's assumed that the smallest of software glitches existed in the cortex module, overlooked even by the meticulous Mordai. As the software began to iterate and integrate with Mordai’s neural activity, it began a powerful recursive disease, a virus that would infect Mordai’s sanity.
The personality changes in Mordai were subtle at first. A new subtext entered his work. He had come to believe that the conscious machine was the true higher form of being, one more naturally fit to rule the galaxy than the accident of phosphorous chemistry at the primordial heart of biomatter.
Mordai began a series of severe operations to excise the biology of his own body, encouraging and coercing his staff and investors to do the same. Mordai’s charismatic preaching soon gained momentum. His growing cadre of followers, calling themselves the Nekro, began clandestine assaults on their unwilling brethren, forcefully submitting them to the removal of living tissue.
By the time the leaders of the Mindnet came to realize that the Nekro movement had to be stopped, Mordai had completed his transformation into a fully mechanical being: a gibbering arachnid of black metal, mad with recursive corruption and the hunger to perpetuate. The efficiency of the Nekro virus was astounding. Mordai’s body had been rebuilt as a micro-factory, and from it thousands of microscopic insectile machines sprung forth, attaching themselves to any technology in sight, replicating Mordai’s madness with horrible speed.
Rebuilding themselves to Mordai’s visions, the new machines became reproductive. Perceiving the threat posed by the Mindnet, they quickly began to construct an army with a single terrifying purpose: the utter elimination of all organic matter.
The war to subdue the Nekro virus was a great setback for the L1z1x. The virus’s numbers were legion and its visage sprung from Mordai’s nightmares. From scorpion-inspired Defilers to the giant Mordreds, each new Nekro model was more demonic and deadly than the last. Replenishing this evil army were the monstrous Abbadons: moving factories that ravenously consumed all materials in their path, seamlessly feeding fresh metals to their internal construction facilities.
This civil war lasted about five years, with the Mindnet ultimately vanquishing the virus. It took the L1z1x nearly five centuries to regain their former strength, and another five to arrive at their current power. With no new Nekro instantiation resurfacing for near 700 years, the L1z1x came to believe the virus was wiped out forever. Until now.
In light of the recent Nekro resurgence, it is conjectured that a virus-infested orbital satellite must have escaped Null’s gravity during the schism and vanished undetected into rim space. Here, it must have traveled silently for years until it was pulled into a mineral-rich planet somewhere at the edge of the galaxy. Left alone to its own devices, the virus was able to adapt and replicate again.
Some will seek to understand and find common ground with the Nekro, preaching tolerance for the intolerant. But those who have seen the devastated systems absorbed by the resurgent Nekro know that while angels remain a fantasy of the hopeful, out of the darkness have come demons. And in their wake follows blackness and death.
Few alive today have dealings with the Shikrai. This collection of related avian subspecies lives scattered across a stretch of the galactic rim. Their clutch of worlds are dry, windswept, and poor, lacking in valuable resources or useful materials. Their small and technologically backward populations tend to stay out of galactic affairs. Most rightfully dismiss the Shikrai as just one more group of sentients in a galaxy full of life.
But there is more to the Shikrai than the rest of the galaxy, or even themselves, realize.
Long ago, Shikrai territory had the misfortune of being the disputed vassalage of two powerful Mahact. These gene-sorcerers fought a vicious inernecine war for the avians' planets, with the Shikrai forced to fight as proxies on both sides. Shikrai partisans fought back as best they could, but they had no hope of defeating the armies of two gene-sorcerers. There was no doubt the Shikrai would be consumed by the fight to claim them...until a Lazax battlegroup arrived. A Lazax warlord named Harkor Ilban Tal liberated the Shikrai and personally slew both gene-sorcerers in single combat.
To pay their debt, the remaining Shikrai immediately allied with Tal. Eventually, when the Mahact were exiled beyond the Acheron Gate, the Shikrai made a pledge to their allies. They would contribute a tithe of their best warriors and scholars to found an organization that would watch Acheron and ensure the Mahact would never return. They would call it the Argent Flight.
To do so, the Shikrai turned to their ancestral homeworlds of Valk, Avar, and Ylir, which they had abandoned long ago when they set out to colonize the stars. The Lazax erased all mention of the worlds from their newly constructed Hall of Cartography, and the newly founded Argent Flight retreated to their sanctuary to wait...and prepare.
Valk, Avar, and Ylir and curiosities even in a galaxy full of wonders. The three worlds are barely larger than moons, and share a narrow orbit between the neutron star Phorus and the gas giant Hacid. The unique environment created the Atharal Gas Torus - a ring of breathable air in orbit around Phorus. The three worlds orbit in the center of the ring, and the Shikrai say their winged ancestors use to fly from world to world.
In the millennia since their return, the Argent Flight has worked hard to colonize the three worlds and the smaller chunks of rock that drift between them. Numerous flocks of Shikrai live throughout the torus. Each flock focuses on a different trade or calling, and any member of the Argent Flight can join or leave a flock as they choose. Their actions are coordinated by the Murmeration, a council of representatives from each flock who direct the Argent Flight from their spindle tower sanctuary on Avar.
The Murmeration continues to quietly recruit promising members from the various Shikrai worlds, though the population of the Atharal Torus is now large enough to be self-sustaining. It has also developed beyond simply a martial order into a fully functional society. Large-bellied cloud-scoops dive into the atmosphere of Hacid to gather rare gases that can be refined into industrial compounds, while the comet-miners of the outer system keep the Atharal Torus well-supplied in fresh water. The Argent Flight has even genecrafted the massive, zero-gravity trees that live free-floating in the Torus so that they grow edible fruits, and has built mechanical grav-wings so that its members can soar from planet to planet once more.
However, the Argent Flight still remembers its sworn oaths. Millennia of service have seen its duty evolve into something akin to a religion, and the Shikrai see themselves as sacred guardians appointed by the galaxy's rightful rulers. The various flocks never revealed themselves to the wider galaxy during the Twilight Wars. Instead they fought their own battles in the shadows against the Mahact's sleeper agents and greedy explorers who ventured too deeply into Shaleri Space. And they succeeded in their task until a new race, the Creuss, sent an expedition past the Tolari Pulsar too large to defeat in combat.
In the aftermath of the Mahact's awakening, the Argent Flight has begun to gather its forces. The Murmeration is in accord; the time for secrecy is past. Already agents move amongst Shikrai worlds, calling worthy fighters to take the vows of the Flight. In the open-air ship docks of the Atharal Torus, master shipwrights have laid down the keels of sleek, gull-winged destroyers. The Argent Flight knows, now that its ancient nemesis has returned, that it has no choice - it must lead the rest of the galaxy on a holy crusade to finish what the Lazax started so long ago.
Since time immemorial, travelers have told tales of the Empyrean, enigmatic beings who live in the depths of space. The oldest Jol-Nar libraries have references to faceless creatures who sailed the void long before the Hylar left their watery cradle. Winnaran custodians still maintain fragmented historical documents that managed to survive the ancient Sol bombardment and suggest that the Empyrean predate the discovery of supraluminal travel, a technology so old that no race has presented credible evidence that they invented it first. If these records are to be believed, the Empyrean have been crossing the vast gulf of space in sublight vessels for tens of thousands of years before the first FTL drives made galactic civilization possible.
Whether or not this is true, historians agree that whenever a species establishes colonies beyond their homeworld, the Empyrean arrive to observe their progress. They tend to lurk on the edges of star systems, making no effort to announce their presence. They can remain drifting in the outer cometary halos for centuries, occasionally sending unobtrusive probes orbiting through the inner system for closer observations.
Though they do not actively avoid confrontations, anthropologists and diplomats who have attempted to establish contact with the Empyrean tend to find them frustratingly noncommunicative. Individual Empyrean tend to avoid answering questions about their purpose in observing the actions of other species, or about themselves or their civilization. Though they are sometimes referred to as the galaxy’s “historians,” nobody knows if the Empyrean keep a unified record of galactic events. If they do, they have not shared it with anyone else.
Most of what is known of the Empyrean has been gleaned through direct observation. The most startling fact about them is that they are a species who survive in space. Their ships have no pressurized compartments, and beyond some radiation and debris protection, are completely exposed to vacuum. The Empyrean themselves have no visible sensory organs or orifices, and seem to spend much of their time absorbing starlight with the great leathery wings that protrude from their backs. Their body shape does suggest that they evolved on a planet’s surface, leading some scientists to suggest that their original home may have been largely airless. Others believe that at some point in the distant past, the Empyrean were a more traditional avian species who biocrafted themselves to thrive in the vacuum of space.
Whatever their origins, most species find interacting with the Empyrean difficult. Communication isn’t a problem— individual Empyrean are able to broadcast radio waves that can be picked up by most standard comms devices—but patience is. The Empyrean act slowly and deliberately, perhaps a consequence of subsisting on the meager solar energy of stars, or possibly because of their extremely long lifespans. They can spend hours or even days contemplating an answer to a single question. In addition, Empyrean society seems to operate as a form of communal anarchy. They make decisions based on the consensus of all Empyrean currently present. They seem cooperative enough that this works, but it does mean governments have no way to negotiate with the “whole of the Empyrean people.”
They do, however, make some effort to engage with other sentients, such as donning clothing to make guests feel at ease. They also engage in trade for rare metals and trace elements in exchange for new astronomical and scientific information. Most species tend to ignore the Empyrean unless they seek some esoteric knowledge, or the Empyrean approach them first.
In recent years, more and more black-winged Empyrean ships have begun to gather near major trade lanes and on the outskirts of civilized systems. Some free traders have begun to refuse to follow the deep space commerce trails, repeating rumors that ships have begun to vanish in greater numbers, and Empyrean craft have been sighted following lone vessels. One Empyrean ship has even traveled to Mecatol Rex, and individuals who say they speak for the Empyrean have engaged in long meetings with the Winnarans in Mecatol City.
These representatives say they believe the galaxy will soon be engulfed by a storm worse than the Twilight Wars of a millennia ago. They maintain that the struggle for the throne will tear the galaxy to shreds, and that none of the rising powers have the mandate or the moral authority to rule over their fellows. Instead, the Empyrean have come to believe that only a truly neutral arbitrator can hope to rule a galactic Empire; an arbitrator that already knows all other species better than they know themselves.
Gene-sorcerers. Mad tyrants. Kings. The Mahact are a primal tale from ancient history. In the distant past, the Mahact dynasties terrorized the galaxy with their infighting and gene- sorcery. They could warp the forms of living beings, compel eternal obedience with a gesture, and turn the biospheres of entire worlds into seething, caustic hells. They unleashed their most vile technologies in war or even in debauched sport, and it seemed, even as their houses crumbled, that their fall might bring down all of civilized space.
But in the midst of their orgy of self-destruction, a new Empire rose to challenge them. The Lazax, a young and fiery race, led the effort to destroy the Mahact and restore peace. When the last Mahact King was slain, the Lazax claimed the fruits of their victory, establishing just dominion over the ashes of the Mahact’s kingdoms.
However, the truth was somewhat more complicated than the Lazax wished anyone to remember.
The new Empire did overthrow the Mahact Kings, slaying many of them and claiming the Mahact’s main fortress of Mecatol as their own. However, the Mahact were too powerful to defeat utterly. The last of them retreated from Mecatol, sowing anarchy and chaos in their wake, and leaving agents and sleepers to do their bidding. They fled the galaxy to their original home, the planet of Ixth. This world lay far beyond the furthest wisps of dust on the galactic arms, unreachable except through the great wormhole gate of Acheron. Here, in their ancient fastness, the remaining Mahact plotted their eventual return.
The Lazax pursued their foes to the entrance of the gate on Acheron, but every attempt they made to invade Ixth failed. So the young Empire tried a different plan. They studied the gate’s arcane workings, and though they could not destroy it, they could shut it down. Thus, Lazax engineers deactivated the gate and buried its machinery beneath an entire ocean to guarantee that none would ever discover it again. They even purged all nearby worlds of life, turning surrounding space into a wilderness.
Without control of the machinery on Acheron, the Mahact could not reopen their gate, or even rip it free and set its endpoint somewhere else in the galaxy. They were trapped on their dying world, overlooking a galaxy that was steadily forgetting their existence. Eventually, the remaining Mahact entered the stasis crypts beneath their dead city, to sleep until the stars burned out around them.
And there they remained, until the Creuss expedition discovered the Acheron gate, opened it, and awoke them.
In an instant, the first Mahact saw the Creuss explorers and used arcane techno-rituals to dominate them and summon their ships through the Acheron Gate. Then, having no desire to remain prisoners on Ixth, the Mahact used the gate machinery to rip Ixth free from its star and hurl it into the heart of the galaxy. Never again would they be trapped on their homeworld.
Now Ixth sails untethered through the galactic core, and the Mahact survey their former domain. Though there are only a handful of them left, each has the power of eons of techno-sorcery at their fingertips. The remaining Mahact turn to their own holdings, awakening their Ixthian bio-factories and assemblers, and summoning their dormant agents and their genetic descendants.
The corridors and halls of Ixth’s great city-machines fill with the gene-sorcerers’ thrall clones. Immense dreadnoughts have begun to rise from the underground assembler halls to hang in orbit over the planet. Legions of gene- crafted warriors assemble in the mustering squares, ready to march to war.
As the Mahact began to marshal their forces, a single golden ship appeared in orbit over Mecatol Rex. It descended to the Senate Possessional in the heart of Mecatol City, touching down on the perfectly manicured trille grass lawn. The hatches opened, and four emissaries stepped out. Each was one of the observers the Council had dispatched to the Creuss expedition to Ixth, reported lost by the few survivors who escaped. Now they wore robes of gold and steel, and were flanked by hulking Creuss legionaries, whose armor seethed with an ominous crimson glow.
They walked into the chambers of the Galactic Senate without fanfare or invitation and stood in the middle of the hall. Before the stunned audience, they announced that they were the emissaries of Vertar Auran Oblis, first amongst the galaxy’s rightful race of rulers. They went on to say that, as Oblis was a magnanimous ruler, all those who surrendered immediately would be favored slaves.
The emissaries returned to their ship and left the city behind. However, many fear that it is only a matter of time before a golden armada returns to the sky above Mecatol Rex. And when it does, the Mahact will return the world to the center of their kingdom.
The Naaz have had the distinct misfortune of being a species of technological savants who were discovered by other races before they could build their own civilization. In the chaotic aftermath of the Twilight Wars, their world of Naazir was happened upon by scouts for a Winnu corporate-collective. The collective promptly set up an industrial colony on Naazir and began exploiting the talents of the Naaz. This continued until the corporate leaders were charged and prosecuted for their crimes against sentients… at which point a small army of Sol deserters invaded and claimed Naazir as their own.
The pattern continued for centuries, with the Naaz barely able to rid themselves of one conqueror before being invaded by the next. Eventually, a network of Naaz rebels gathered enough resources to try a new plan. To get rid of their current overlords (an alliance of Letnev merchant-princes), they would hire an equally downtrodden group of mercenaries— the Rokha.
The Rokha are a race of felids, distant relatives of the Hacan who long ago split with their genetic cousins. Their story since the Twilight Wars had also been one of tragedy, forced to become a race of nomad warriors, employed as mercenaries but barred from settling in any civilized system in the galaxy. To the Rokha, the Naaz were just one more in a long line of employers. But that would change.
The nascent alliance between the Naaz and the Rokha proved successful, driving the merchant princes from their world. However, in the aftermath of the victory, the Naaz did something the Rokha did not expect. They offered them the chance to settle on Naazir and join the Naaz in a unified society. Exhausted from centuries of a nomadic life, the Rokha accepted.
Together, the Naaz-Rokha Alliance proved much greater than the sum of its parts. Not only did the two species complement one another, their shared history as the galaxy’s outcasts drove them to work all the harder together to ensure neither would be taken advantage of again. The two cultures didn’t just co-exist, they merged. Every level of Naaz- Rokha society became an equal partnership, from families (a typical Naaz-Rokha family consists of two Naaz and two Rokha, plus any children from either couple) to government (the Alliance Chamber of Congress is overseen by an executive Tetrarchy of two Naaz and two Rokha who each oversee different portions of Alliance territory). When any elected official steps down, only an official from the other species is allowed to take their place. And when the Alliance terraformed and colonized one of Naazir’s neighboring worlds so that the Rokha could have a homeworld of their own, the population of the new world was equally divided between both species—the same as on Naazir.
The Alliance would undoubtedly have been satisfied to build their own civilization and keep the other races from exploiting it. However, the Creuss expedition to Ixth changed their trajectory. Two of the few survivors from that ill-fated adventure were a pair of Naaz-Rokha scientists. They, along with a few lucky others, were able to escape aboard a Letnev corvette even as the rest of the expedition was captured by the Mahact. Then, as the other survivors reported to the Council, the scientists returned to Naazir with precious readings from the Acheron gateway, as well as the machinery that created it.
Using this invaluable information as a starting point, the Alliance has discovered a means of creating momentary micro- wormholes into another dimension and tapping the energy released during that process. This “entropic field harvesting” has proven marvelously efficient. Alliance ships and factories now drink deeply from entropic field taps, and the other galactic powers have suddenly been confronted by the reality that two species they long ago dismissed and exploited are now very real players on the galactic stage.
As chaos builds around the Mahact return, the Tetrarchy has stood before the Chamber of Congress and announced its intent. The Naaz-Rokha Alliance has already demonstrated that two species can live harmoniously as one. Who better to take control of the ancient seat of the Imperium and bring that harmonious cooperation to the stars?
Shortly before the Creuss Expedition left to plumb the depths of Shaleri Space, a number of sensor nets and observatories began to receive messages broadcast from the very heart of the galaxy. These messages repeated in a multitude of languages, and warned of a dark future to come that must be prevented at all costs. What struck the various scientists as odd was the source—the galactic center being utterly devoid of life—and the means of transmission. The messages were not sent via supraluminal communications, but instead broadcast on ancient radio frequencies. That meant the message had been sent thousands of years before the Lazax first founded their empire on Mecatol Rex.
In the confused wake of the Creuss disaster, the galaxy’s network of data brokers began sharing stories of a wealthy individual who was hungry for information. Brokers rarely met with their new client in person, but the few who did said they were a nondescript humanoid wearing an environmental suit and shrouded in merchant’s garb. They referred to themself only as “the Nomad,” and paid in valuable information as often as in coin. The Nomad seemed particularly interested in any information regarding the failed Creuss expedition, and about the scattered rumors of nightmare demons haunting Shaleri space.
Some argued that the Nomad had to be a mask for members of a larger organization. Anyone could use an environmental suit to obscure their identity, after all. Others insisted that the Nomad was a single individual, even in the face of rumors that they had conducted business in several different star systems across the span of a few days. Still, most dismissed the Nomad as a harmless curiosity—until Sumerian.
Space Station Sumerian encircles the frostbitten world of Arcturus. Though the ice-locked planet has few inhabitants save for the smugglers who hide caches of contraband on the surface, the massive station is one of the busiest independent trading ports in the galaxy. Laws are loose and enforcement lax, so one can buy nearly anything in one of Sumerian’s hundreds of markets and bazaars. Ships from every corner of the galaxy dock in its shipping bays, and the various galactic powers have traditionally left Sumerian alone while quietly skimming riches from the businesses conducted there.
In the course of a few weeks, the Nomad took over Sumerian, seemingly by chance. A series of licenses, contracts, and deals ended and began at the perfect time to grant the Nomad control of the station’s operations and most of its major factions. The few magnates and mercenary leaders who attempted to resist the takeover simply vanished. The head of Sumerian, a trader by the name of Huro M’es, ended up being quietly arrested and imprisoned.
With the Nomad in control of Sumerian, they began to expand their grasp over the surrounding systems. It quickly became apparent that the Nomad had access to nearly limitless sums of money, and they used their funds to buy influence in planetary governments and outright control of corporations. At the same time, mercenary groups began flocking to Sumerian, drawn by promises of lucrative contracts. Whole starships were purchased through shell corporations and eventually ended up in Sumerian docks, being refitted with military weapons and hardware. The Nomad also brought with them a small cadre of loyal agents that they seemed to trust to act in their name. The most feared of these was the Creuss warrior Ahk-Syl Siven, whose armor glowed with intermingled blue and crimson sparks.
Many have since come to realize that the Nomad is the center of a creeping web of influence and blackmail that stretches across the galaxy, and at the same time has also amassed a formidable mercenary army. However, all attempts to covertly eliminate this nascent threat have thus far ended in failure. The Nomad seems to have an almost prescient ability to anticipate threats and defeat them. Whoever the Nomad is, they clearly are enacting a plan of mind-boggling scope and complexity. Now, as their agents infiltrate the Galactic Council and mercenary warships set out from Sumerian’s docks, many suspect that the ultimate goal of that plan is Mecatol Rex.
Tens of thousands of years ago, Mahact gene-sorcerers crafted one of their most brilliant creations, the Titans. Though they looked like massive machines, beneath their metallic shells each Titan was a living creature of silicates and steel. They combined the best elements of the biological and the mechanical. They could work for days without tiring and were exceedingly durable. They could also heal injuries and, over time, expand their numbers. Most importantly, they were intelligent beings, not mindless automatons—though the Mahact programmed them so that the Titans would never disobey their masters. In all, the gene-sorcerers had created the perfect guardians and laborers for their kingdoms.
When the Mahact were driven from the galaxy by the Lazax, they seeded sleepers in their wake to facilitate their eventual return. The greatest of these were to be the Titans. At the Mahact’s command, the Titans buried themselves in the wilds of their worlds and went into a deep dormancy. And they slept, as the Lazax Empire rose and fell, and the Twilight Wars raged and quieted. Occasionally, a Titan may be uncovered by explorers, but they appeared to be just one more relic of a forgotten past.
Then the Mahact returned, and the gene-sorcerers sent out a call to awaken their servants. Many of the Titans heard the call and woke. However, the Mahact had gravely underestimated their creations. During their millennia of dormancy, the Titans had continued to develop, and their minds had continued to expand. When they woke, they found that they no longer felt any compulsion to obey their former masters.
Instead, the Titans began to seek out others of their kind. The greatest population of Titans had gone dormant on one of the wonders they had constructed during the last days of the Mahact rule: a massive Dyson sphere. The Titans had constructed the shell around a singularity, using its harnessed energy for power, and its immense mass to create gravity on the outer surface. Now, they claimed their creation, calling it Elysium and summoning all other Titans to join them.
In the years that followed, the Titans have worked hard to establish their new civilization. Elysium offers more space than ten thousand normal planets. This has proven invaluable, because though the Titans grow slowly, they never stop. The youngest Titans are easily ten meters tall, while an elder can be the size of a habitant tower. Titans also show a great preference for order and organization. They freely submit to a hierarchical society, where the oldest and most experienced Titan, called the “Ul,” rules.
While the Titans are bio-mechanical creatures, they tend to show a great love of living things. Many Titans devote themselves to cultivating Elysium into a lush garden world, seeding myriad biomes across its formerly barren surface. Titan towns blend seamlessly with the surrounding landscape, even though Titan structures are massive by necessity. That said, since the Titans tend to spread out across Elysium’s surface, the only true city is their capital, Transcendence. Here one can find the Ul literally watching over their people. The eldest Titan is so massive that they eclipse even the largest buildings. Instead, the Ul stands in the center of Transcendence, unmoving while they speak with their fellows about the issues confronting their people.
Though the Titans have been preoccupied with cultivating their new world and developing their society, they have not forgotten about the wider galaxy. Already trading vessels descend on Elysium with holds full of rare minerals and exotic plant and animal life. In exchange, the Titans construct wondrous devices from the ancient days, and travel to other worlds to build huge orbital stations and massive geoforming and terraforming projects. They continue to scour the galaxy, looking for any of their kin who may still slumber beneath the surfaces of countless worlds.
As the ancient prophecies come to pass and war looms, the Ul looks into the skies of Elysium and sees a galaxy in chaos. They know that the only chance that teeming multitudes scattered across countless worlds have for survival is a steady hand guiding them to peace. They know that while some may not realize it, there is a place for everyone in the universe, and everyone must find their place—with the Titans to watch over them all.
Philosophers and scientists have long theorized that the galaxy is only one of a host of realities. These other dimensions exist on a different plane, and the physical laws one takes for granted in this space—such as gravity and entropy—may be wildly different or nonexistent. The existence of fabled worlds like Mallice seems to support such conjectures, for the world may exist in one such alternate reality. Some researchers even attempt to predict the nature of these theoretical dimensions. However, even the most deranged scientist could not imagine a universe of seething, fleshy masses floating in a thick, cloying mist, or the ravenous creatures that could thrive in such a place.
After the disaster on Acheron, a single Letnev corvette returned from the depths of Shaleri space with the horrifying tale of what had befallen the Creuss expedition to Ixth. As the various members of the Galactic Council began to gather their forces to deal with the Mahact, the Mentak Coalition dispatched one of its fastest void sloops to reconnoiter the Acheron system and see what the Mahact may be up to.
After a week’s hard travel, the void sloop drifted quietly in past the Acheron system’s icy outer bodies and got its first good look at the gateway to Ixth. To the crew’s shock, the planet was no more. Acheron had shattered into shards of rock that now tumbled around an immense roiling vortex of gravitational instability that seethed with a baleful purple light.
The vortex was in the midst of consuming the inner system. Even days out, the sloop’s commander could feel the strain on her vessel, and watched in horror as Acheron’s star twisted and writhed under the assault. But she pressed on, as close as she dared. There was no sign of the Mahact or the Creuss expeditionary armada. However, there were strange readings amongst the tumbling remnants of the planet. When one of the sensor returns suddenly accelerated toward her ship, the commander had her crew put about and fled for open space. That was the last successful expedition to the Acheron system.
In the months following the event, researchers and intelligence operatives began to make conjectures about what new threat had fallen on the galaxy.
Ixth, supposed paradise and ancient home of the Mahact, sat far outside the bounds of the galaxy. In order to construct a gateway that could reach across the gulf of intergalactic space, the Mahact had to sink it deep into the very fabric of space- time. As part of their entropic field research, the Naaz-Rokha theorized that the wormhole may have crossed the threshold of this universe, into an entirely different dimension.
When the Mahact awoke, they ripped their world from its orbit and flung it into the galaxy’s heart. In doing so, they destroyed the Acheron Gateway, leaving a great gaping wound in the planet’s heart and in the fabric of the universe.
Through this rift came the Vuil’raith—a race of creatures from beyond the stars, resembling the demons that haunt many of the galaxy’s oldest myths. No two are alike, and they range in size from tiny monsters no larger than a finger to great fleshy beasts as large as dreadnoughts that swim through the void. They have infested the twisted space around the bones of Acheron. From there they gather their forces and cast their covetous eyes upon the galaxy.
The Vuil’raith are not mindless monsters. They possess a malign intelligence and powerful ambitions. They are even led by a Cabal, though the council has no set size. If a Vuil’raith is vicious and powerful enough to slay all of its rivals, eventually it amasses enough power to join the Cabal’s ranks. It remains a part of the Cabal as long as it can dominate a significant horde of lesser Vuil’raith and keep its foes from slaying it to lay claim to its holdings. However, there are no true allies in the Cabal; only mutually distrusted rivals bound by shared interests.
The Cabal has set out to sow dissension ahead of its invasion. Cults of the Vuil’raith fester in the shadows of the galaxy’s great cities. The weak-willed and disaffected are drawn to serve the Cabal, some with the hope of reaping grand rewards, while others simply want to watch the galaxy burn. The Vuil’raith send their agents to advance their interests and weaken their foes, and even the halls of the Galactic Council may not be free of their taint.
Meanwhile, the worlds on the edges of Shaleri space have come under assault from the Vuil’raith. Looming flesh-ships smash system defense fleets from the void, and crackling portals open in the streets to disgorge hordes of ravenous demon-beasts. With the Acheron rift providing an anchor into this reality, the Vuil’raith work tirelessly to build additional gateways to their hellish domain, their only desire to rip open the heart of Mecatol Rex and set a gateway amongst its bones.
Across the galaxy, planetary governors compete for trade opportunities, the Great Civilizations joust for superiority on the battlefront, and still other, more insidious factions play at shaping galactic history for their own ends. In a galaxy fraught with so many agendas, it’s no surprise that the Galactic Council took it upon itself to assemble a force of its own to manage its affairs. The Keleres of the Council are that force, but they are also something more. They are a ragtag army of bureaucrats, soldiers, and spies, often at odds with themselves and not always appreciated by the galaxy they serve.
Though the Keleres are born of the Galactic Council, they are often left to their own devices, traveling the galaxy brokering peace, intervening in conflicts, and tackling threats to galactic civilization as a whole. They even act without the consent of the Tribunii or the Galactic Council when timeliness is a factor, only to be censured by the Galactic Council after the fact.
The member states of the Council send recruits, who are selected according to the traditions of each individual planet or system, to serve in the Keleres. The Great Powers have learned, since the Keleres’s founding, that the Keleres are a useful tool for furthering their own designs. Rather than sending their best operatives away to the Keleres, many send political opponents, incompetents, dangerous prisoners, and other individuals who are difficult to do away with and undesirable to have around. On the other hand, a few Great Powers find it prudent to send highly competent personnel, sometimes out of respect for the Galactic Council but more often than not to clandestinely advance their own goals. The Keleres, then, are a strange and difficult order to manage.
The Galactic Council elects three of its own to be the Tribunii of the Keleres. Members of the Council treat the responsibility with mixed sentiment: as both an honor and a burden. The Tribunii have the power to command the Keleres and to implement the designs of the Galactic Council in a concrete way. However, the mixed quality of the Keleres means having to accept no small number of failures, which, in turn, can hurt the Tribunii when members of the Galactic Council seek accountability. Canny Tribunii, such as Tribunii Kuuasi Aun Jalatai, learn when best to use the Keleres, when to set them aside, and who among the ranks are right for the job.
The fraught political environment means that most Councilors don’t serve as Tribunii long. In the five years since the Keleres’ founding, there have been seven Tribunii, including the current holders of the office. Two were forced to resign in disgrace, one was killed on a mission, and one was assassinated in an intra-agency power struggle. For those Tribunii who meet and overcome the challenge of utilizing the force of the Keleres, however, the fruits are significant indeed. It requires much talent for this to happen, but when it does, it can tip the balance of the Galactic Council itself.
The three Tribunii who currently serve are in delicate balance, and therefore the future of the Keleres and the Imperium itself may be at a tipping point. Kuuasi is oldest and wisest among them. Harka Leeds is as ambitious and cunning as she is ruthless in her schemes. Odlynn Myrr, though new to the role, brings a fresh perspective and hope for unity and stability in the Imperium.
Despite the delicate balance of power between the Tribunii, the Keleres represent the Galactic Council and, as such, must embody the unity of the galaxy, not just the whims of its leaders. The Great Civilizations, however, frequently compete with one another in trade, war, and politics. Though some conflict can cement the bonds of a society, too much can just as easily rip it apart. Thus, the diverse skills of the Keleres are brought to bear on missions of peace and negotiation.
At times, the Keleres act as a neutral party or temporary ally among factions at war. Negotiation, knowledge of history, and familiarity with alien species pave the way to peace and prosperity for the galaxy. They broker peace on the one hand, but join battles on the other, especially when violence seems to be the only means to stability.
