Guide to the Army Of The Red Spear: Part Six

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      Aotrs Shipyards
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      Notable Worlds of the Aotrs, Part Two

      (Note: Dates listed are in accordance with the current year 2346. To translate to Earth-E Julian (or Gregorian) calendar, simply subtract 326 years.)

      Akamo

      One of the three HPE-L worlds the Aotrs initially scouted from Kalanoth, Akamo was the first to be invaded and the first of these to be conquered.

      Akamo is a typical HPE-L world in most respects, with a wide variety of intelligent races, through the surface and in the subsurface and oceans. Humans were not untypically the bare surface majority. The other common populations of HPE-L races (elves, dwarves, halflings, the local orcs and goblinoids, lizard folk and the reptilian local “kobolds,” now more correctly Saraki) were all present in numbers, alongside a myriad of other humanoid and non-humanoid races across the globe.

      What set Akamo apart from Temnis and Raytayne was that the land surface. Akamo is a world of plateaus and mesa. Low volcanism and slow plate movement – believed to have been artificially induced, either by probability engineering or early divine action – created continents with vast plains, from which huge cliffs rise up to giant inselbergs and koppies. The lowlands were predominantly deserts and in some areas, magical wastelands that were highly dangerous, so most civilisations sat upon the inselbergs. In some respects, there are many similarities to Tusharnos, but while Tusharnos was divided into little fiefdoms by near-impassable mountain ranges, the plateaus encouraged Akamo’s denizens to develop early flight.

      At the time of the Aotrs’ initial reconnaissance in 5AD, the technology level of both the Aotrs and of Akamo was approximately around the 3rd century AD of Earth (e.g. the late Roman Empire). This was advanced enough that primitive, magical airships – both early dirigibles and enchanted vessels akin to ships as well as some actual ships – were being employed by the most prosperous nations alongside transport via flying beast.

      Akamo has the second-most common form of magic to HPE-L worlds – erudite spell-valanced spell-casting magic. As opposed to the most common (and as used by the Aotrs) erudite mana-valanced spell-casting magic, spell-valanced magic, instead of drawing from a mana reserve to fuel a spell which can be cast as long a sufficient mana remains to the caster, requires the entire spell to be prepared and stored in the mind before casting, typically in the form of memorised formula (or prayers in the case of divine casters).

      This was hitherto unknown magic to the Aotrs and in combination with the sheer scale of the applied flight magic, thus marked Akamo as the first priority target. The invasion began only a decade later, as soon as preparations were completed.

      The conquest of Akamo was slow, but steady. The nature of the inselbergs made them functionally not unlike islands, except with significantly less ease to get to. While this made transporting and supplying troops via air difficult, by the same token, it meant that the inselbergs were relatively isolated. The Aotrs’ advancing Gate spells gave them a significant edge, and many refinements to the Gate spells came from the Akamo campaigns, both on the small and large scale. Here as well, the Aotrs’ emphasis on a smaller number of high-quality troops stood them in good stead, as moving the elite units about was much easier.

      The conquest of Akamo was thus largely fought as a series of many numerous small-scale engagements, with only a few major battles. The natives of Akamo’s most effective resistance turned to be the world’s seemingly endless supply of adventuring parties, given they had the same advantages as the Aotrs elite of being able to easily get between inselbergs.

      The Aotrs teleporting fortress, Lichwall, dates from this period, constructed in 635 AD, partly with the aid of Akamoian magic. Lord Doomfire, the Aotrs’ High Command’s red dragon, met and joined the Aotrs during the Akamo campaigns, in 43AD.

      The most major setback occurred in the aftermath of the Scouring on Fearmore in 759AD. With the elite troops away for an extended period, four of the nations launched a joint, four-pronged attack on the Aotrs’ territories. While only one of these succeeded in liberating its target, the other three invasions did significant damage before they were repelled.

      But this was Akamo’s last gasp. With G’Nayel now Fearmore, and with a safe and secure base and Kalanoth now largely subdued, the Aotrs quickly recovered. The final nail came when Kalanoth was officially conquered forty-three years after the Scouring. With the resources of two worlds pouring in, plus resources from the stalled invasion of Temnis, Akamo’s last resistances were swiftly swept aside. Within three decades, in 834AD, Akamo was finally conquered.

      Akamo today still boasts it wide variety of races, the largest diversity in Aotrs space. Not all of the races made it to the modern times, however. The Akamo orcs proved to be unmanageable, and after the second rebellion in two decades and demonstrating an inherent resistance to conditioning, the Aotrs were forced to wipe them out in 1103AD. The orcs, with little access to magic, and confined to only four inselbergs, had no-where to go and despite a spirited resistance, were all killed with nine months. This remains the most well-known (aside from the Scouring itself) of the instances where the Aotrs have had to resort to genocide. History records Lord Death Despoil’s statement that it was an unfortunate measure and not one performed lightly. Akamo-type orcs have been encountered on other HPE-L worlds – though none that the Aotrs have completed conquered. With modern technology and magics, the Akamo orc’s chaotically disruptive natures can be ameliorated (making them at least as manageable as Temnis orcs), but that was simply not an option available twelve hundred years ago.

      The Sond system is heavily populated. It has two other terraformed planets– Kleey-Keyar (chillspeak, lit “kingdom of bone”), Whispering Watch (named from a local (former) deity). Two moons Fanditrax and Noct (named for local mythological figures) of two of the system’s gas giants have been also terraformed. There are colonies on almost all of the other worlds in the system, though many of these are small and former mining or resource collection sites. The Sond system is generalised compared to the other earliest worlds, with respectable but not exceptional production and shipyards capacities. Akamo is the location for three of the leading magical research academies, and is also a frequent training spot for atmospheric training exercises, both stemming from traditions established in its early history; while Kalanoth was the site of the Aotrs’ first orbital launch, much of the research and experimentation had been done on Akamo in the preceding decades.

      Raytayne

      Raytayne was one of the first planets the Aotrs scouted via scouted at the dawn of the first century AD, along with Akamo and Temnis. Of the three, it was considered the lowest priority from the initial scouting mission. This was due to the limitations of Gate spells of the time and Raytayne’s geography. At the time it was first scouted, Lord Death Despoil was limited in the locations on a world he could open a Gate to from another world, the largest factor being magical confluxes. Some of the locations were in obviously inhospitable or impractical locations. It was this limitation that helped regulate Raytayne to the lowest priority. (It would not be until the Aotrs’ Renaissance-equivalent period that this limitation would be finally overcome just for Lord Death Despoil himself and the industrial age before the magic was refined to the point anyone of lower strength than the High Command could attempt it even as a ritual.)

      While it has a fairly typical land and ocean hydrosphere (70% ocean to 30% land area), Raytayne is dominated by a large super-continent, Dakhal-Rah, which comprises almost 85% of the world’s surface land mass. Dakhal-Rah is formed from a confluence of landmasses (not unlike Pangaea on Earth). The remaining 15% is split among three smaller continents, roughly 8%, 4% and 2.5% respectively (with the last half-percent being in small islands and atolls). It was to the middle one of those continents, the continent of Arrassa, the Aotrs first arrived. Arrassa sits on the equator on the opposite side hemisphere to Dakhal-Rah, in the middle of the super-ocean. Arrassa is covered with thick tropical rainforests and jungles. As a single tectonic plate, it has relatively few mountains to break up the storms.

      Thus the Aotrs initial impression of Raytayne was a relatively small and primitive land in an endless ocean. While a few tribes of primitive intelligents were found, even the most advanced civilisation – dwarves – was barely into the bronze age. The invasion of Raytayne was shelved as requiring too many resources for too little gain, as opposed to the plentiful targets in Akamo and Temnis. Over the next six centuries, the Aotrs only established a small, isolated outpost and only conducted very limited operations – mostly reconnaissance.

      The most notable of operations, conducted in the middle of the fourth century AD, was the astronomic work that led to the creation of the first star map. It was this map that would doom Fearmore, but in many ways, also Raytayne as well. Despite its location as the furthest of the worlds the Aotrs had initially found, it was close enough to merit conquering for territorial reasons.

      It was not until Aotrs naval technology had advanced that an expedition was made from Arrassa in the late 4th century, around 370 AD that the Aotrs discovered Dakhal-Rah and how idiosyncratic Raytayne truly was.

      Raytayne is remarkable in that it never developed humans at all. This is currently a unique development among HPE-L worlds. In many ways, for whatever reason, humans had been selected as a sort of baseline for the Harbingers (though now we know that across the other side of the galaxy, the elenthnar also had the same, if not more extensive, treatment). As the HPE-L paradigm seemed more to be an offshoot of the habitability of Earth (given the presence of multiple Earths), they were almost a defining feature. Even on HPE-L worlds were humans were not generally very prevalent, such as those in the Royal Elven Kingdoms, Orc Fearcrushy or Ziragthargûm Divinity, had humans at one stage in their history, even if they became extinct for one reason or another.

      But Raytayne never did. Instead, dwarves filled what would be the typical human role. Even more remarkably, Raytayne had never been involved in the Xakkath Demon Wars (or if it had, in such minor a fashion as to have left no trace). Ziragthar, the major dwarven god of Ziragthargûm Divinity who had otherwise spread his influence to the dwarven populations during the wars, never reached Raytayne. So Raytayne’s dwarf population developed on quite different lines to what is thought of the stereotypical dwarven society. (That cultural similarity stems in most cases from the influence of Ziragthar.) Dakhal-Rah had been dominated by a massive dwarven empire, Zutuk-Sar, for centuries. Zutuk-Sar arose from an early desert culture and was one of the first true civilisations of Raytayne. At its height, it controlled most of Dakhal-Rah. An early emphasis in literacy and bureaucracy had placed Zutuk-Sar ahead of its contemporaries and helped keep the empire relatively stable.

      The dwarves of Zutuk-Sar had developed several syncretic faiths, but no true discrete divinity. The most important of these has spiritual beliefs that included preparing the dead for the next life and so the dwarves built increasingly grand tombs and burial sites. Tens of thousands of these tombs, pyramids, crypts and reliquaries still dot Dakhal-Rah’s land even today. Extremely unusually, the Raytayne orc-kin (fundamentally the same stock as the Kalanothi orc-kin), far from being the traditional enemies of the dwarves, had long been vassals and it was through the labour of orc slaves that many of the burial places had been erected.

      But Zutak-Sar’s desert sun was setting. The empire was slowly crumbling. It was fundamentally too large to be controlled by the methods of the time. The increasing excesses of the nobility and a string of weak rulers left the far reaches of the empire fragmenting. The Aotrs could afford to wait. Over the next two of centuries, the Aotrs conducted secret operations to help destabilise the empire. Zutak-Sar proved to be the first true testing ground for the art of such covert work. The Aotrs were greatly aided in this endeavour by the fact that Zutak-Sar had little in the way of overt magic. With divine magic being little more than basic shamanism and hedge-witchery, Zutak-Sar’s strength was in alchemy and magical creations rather than spells. Cloaking illusions was not something they were prepared for, and so the Aotrs had a strong initial advantage.

      When the Aotrs finally invaded in 634AD, it was the death-knell for the empire. Despite being invaded almost six centuries after Akamo, and four centuries after Temnis, Raytayne was fully conquered in merely 270 years. The empire fell quickly apart, and with but a single major landmass, it was significantly easier for the Aotrs to steadily work through the remaining sovereign states. That left but two major naval invasions of the last pair of continents – Arrassa was under Aotrs control at this point, the tribes of the jungles were never able to effectively mount a defence. The last kingdom, Dulathere, in the temperate continent of Lallasa, made one final stand, a last alliance of elves and dwarves. The presence of the Lord Death Despoil and the Aotrs elite ensured that they were soundly defeated and Dulathere officially surrendered in 904.

      Today, Raytayne boasts the largest population of dwarves of any world in the empire. Indeed, many of the dwarven populations from other worlds have migrated to Raytayne over the centuries. The orc-kin population, which is unusually integrated (the last legacy of Zutak-Sar) is likewise the largest in Aotrs space, just eclipsing that of Kalanoth. Humans are still very much in the minority, but a few immigrants are scattered among the population. The third largest demographic is elvish.

      Raytayne’s system, Irrnos, houses the primary facilities for the Orc Stormsoldiers, whose main headquarters and training grounds are located on Dustwhisper, a terraformed martian-paradigm planet. Aside from that, Raytayne is a major industrial centre for the civilian sector and the major producer and exporter of white goods for the Aotrs state.

      Temnis

      Temnis holds the distinction of being the world that to, date, was the most difficult successful conquest for the Aotrs, compared to the proportion of Aotrs-wide resources expended. While the conquest of Kalanoth took longer by two centuries, one must factor in that the Aotrs that invaded Temnis is 235AD was much larger and four centuries more advanced than the tiny army that arrived on Kalanoth.

      Part of the problem was that Temnis is simply larger. While only very fractionally above 1G due to a lower mean density, but with a mean radius of slightly over 7000km (4375 miles), Temnis is 10% larger than a typical HPE planet, and thus has 20% more surface area. With a 55% to 45% ocean-to-land ratio, it has 1.8 times the land area of a typical HPE planet – almost two planet’s worth. (And even a populous HPE-L world with aquatic races still has a generally higher land population than ocean-dwelling species.) This factor was somewhat compensated by Temnis being in an ice-age, with a continent on each pole. However, Temnis’s size, and the fact that only the southern hemisphere has any land close to the poles, means that the net effect is less a polar world and more a dry one, with so much of the hydrosphere locked in the poles.

      Temnis’ geography is otherwise typical for an HPE-L world, complete with a typical spread of intelligent and magical creatures, aside from the fact that there is simply more of it, spread over a wider area. The lower hydrosphere does mean that the centres of the largest trio of continents tend more towards vast expanses of deserts, which were lightly populated and likewise the polar continents had sparse civilisations. Still, in the temperate and tropical regions, there was simply a lot more nations to deal with, and a lot of places were just further away from each other. This made for long supply lines, and teleportation (or Gate transit) could only go so far – especially as it was needed in more critical places, such as Akamo. That was only half of the story. The other half was that Temnis boasted a large pantheon of very active divinities. While many of these were only demigods or minor deities, there were thousands. Divine magic was very commonplace, to the point that it was not treated as magic typically is at all, but something completely distinct. Nondivine magic was not technically rare, but in many of the nations, was looked down upon. In particular, world’s largest nation, the human-majority but multi-racial Holy Empire of the Two Hundred Gods (just the “Holy Empire” in common parlance) was a massive theocracy of significant power that spanned large parts of two continents.

      The sheer prevalence of divine magic and a markedly above-average level of divine intervention made Temnis a particularly hard battle for the Aotrs, as there ready counters to many of the advantages of Undeath to hand. But the enormous number of deities did mean that, despite the larger population from which to inspire followers, there was simply less divine energy to go around between all of them. Less than a hundred of the full deities (a significant number the gods of the Holy Empire’s sub-pantheon) had passed the point where they could exist independently of the faith of their worshippers, and, like all deities below overdiety status, drew power from the number of worshippers, which was less centralised. So the Aotrs were to learn the hard way, the difficult task of god-slaying.

      The conquest of Temnis provided the Aotrs with the means and approaches to deal with deities, an issue pressing on conquered planets. The gods of G’Nayel were either killed or so reduced in power they were forever trapped in their divine realms and unable to reach the material plane. Raytayne’s gods were less discrete figures and more personifications of mythic forces, and had only indirect influence on the world which ebbed as faith went away. But many of the deities of Kalanoth and Akamo were tied to cosmologies with more than one world, and thus, only functionally pushed off the planet, not destroyed, and others were local to the worlds and still active – though only in an underground way. Many of the current anti-divine methods and weapons in use today – such as the Liche’s Wrath’s and Howling Void’s “god-slayer” formation have their foundations in the battles for Temnis.

      Despite the setbacks, the Aotrs fought hard, and slowly expanded across Temnis. The Aotrs greatest success, however, was to sow the seeds for a Scouring-brought disaster to the Temnis campaign. A daring operation by Lord Death Despoil and the High Command had enabled the Aotrs to trap five of the most prominent gods of the Holy Empire (including the pantheon’s tacit leaders) in an extradimensional prison via a series of the god’s own artefacts, cutting them off from their followers. These when removed off-world (first to Fearmore, but eventually into the care of the KPS Division, where they remains until this day at the Nestrotar facility). This had removed, at a stroke, thousands of enemy divine casters and struck a blow to the morale of the Holy Empire (and world-wide) that Temnis never quite fully recovered from.

      But a new Priest-Emperor of the Two Hundred Gods came to power, Tzenis Braanunder, with the waxing power of his god, Vektran into the dominant god of the Holy Empire’s sub-pantheon. Vektran, a god of fire, now assumed the mantles of the departed deities. He was known for his radical dogma and zeal and without the counterbalance that the captured gods and goddesses had provided, he now was able to style himself as First of the Two Hundred. The Priest-Emperor was himself a sharp politician and zealot. He turned the broken and desperate followers of the abducted or slain divinities and offered them salvation. Vektran’s popularity spread like wildfire in the fearful people, and further cemented his power.

      When the Scouring happened, Braanunder wasted no time. With a mix of diplomacy, political manipulation and outright coercion, he welded together a crusade from the Holy Empire and many of the smaller nations and peoples; something no previous leader had been able to manage in the past five hundred years. Like an avalanche, they fell on the Aotrs forces. It became obvious within the first few months that the situation on Temnis was untenable to be resolved with force of arms against such an overwhelming horde, and Aotrs strategy switched to delaying tactics and evacuation. The five-year campaign saw the Aotrs driven back almost to their first foot-hold. It was here that Temnis’ sheer size was to at last aid the Aotrs. The initial Aotrs planetary infiltration point had come in a vast area of scrubland on the fringes of the world’s largest desert. As the Aotrs fell back, they destroyed the roads they had built for their own supplies (the majority of the living forces had either been evacuated or expended to slow the crusade down by this point). Thus for the crusade to reach them required a huge amount of supplies and a long supply train – and in the end, much as it frustrated Braanunder, he simply could not afford to feed his army. With the Aotrs retreating, his allies were pulling away and heading home, and the crusade, rather than ending in the Priest-Emperor’s desired final battle, simply petered out.

      The conquest of Temnis was placed on hold. It was clear that as long as the current Priest-Emperor lived, that the Holy Empire was too powerful. But the Aotrs could wait. The Priest-Emperor was not a kind man and he had a foul temper. While he had charisma, and to the bulk of the citizens appeared as a stern but righteous leader, his zealotry laid the foundations for the end of the Holy Empire. During the retreat, at his order, on several occasions, settlements – from villages to at least four cities – that were deemed to have been too corrupted or collaborators had been razed.

      Braanunder was human, and while it was expected his lifespan would be longer than usual, he would not live forever (since that would go against the domain of Vektran). Lord Death Despoil correctly predicted that, as he grew older and more arrogant, his less savoury personality would come more to the fore. The next five decades saw the Holy Empire of the Two Hundred Gods start to shift more away from “two hundred” and more towards “one,” as Vektran slowly made himself more prominent, to the point he was functionally king of the Holy Empire’s gods and absorbed several more domains and divine portfolios through the discreditation of other deities’ priesthoods.

      The Holy Empire thrived economically in the aftermath of the crusade, having absorbed the former Aotrs territories. Within one generation, Braanunder’s son – the new Priest-Emperor by heritage, rather than election in all but name – began a series of holy wars on the Holy Empire’s erstwhile allies, marked by significantly more intolerance to heretics. Braaunder’s grandson continued this policy, and was even more hard-line, clamping down on magic and non-humans.

      By the middle of Braanunder’s grandson’s reign, a little over two-hundred years had passed. For the past two decades, the Aotrs had been slowly rebuilding their roads in the desert, and quietly re-capturing peripheral territories. The Priest-Emperor, with a larger Holy Empire than ever, was too busy burning infidels on the opposite side of the empire to be concerned about what he considered a minor threat. But it was not the same Aotrs that Braanuder has repelled. In that two hundred years, Kalanoth, Akamo and Raytayne had all been conquered, and Fearmore fully established.

      In 962AD, sixty years after Raytayne’s conquest had been wrapped up, the largest Aotrs invasion force that had been seen thus far in its history, backed by no less than three full planet’s worth of materiel, the Aotrs launched a crusade of their own.

      It was still a hard-fought war at first, and borders moved back-and-forth several times. But the Priest-Emperor let his zealotry lead his thinking. As he cracked down on all the perceived domestic heretics, sought out by his inquisition, he began to order the razing of cities that did not fight hard enough or surrendered but were re-taken. It became increasingly clear to the citizens of the Holy Empire that the empire they were in was more corrupt than the one that was invading. The final death-blow to imperial power came when the Aotrs broke the largest of the Priest-Emperor’s armies and he demanded a scorched earth policy from the frontier all the way back to the capital – where he now remained. Massive riots and rebellions split the empire within weeks. The Priest-Emperor was deposed and killed, and mirroring his fate, Vektran was sealed away himself by a coalition of gods, both of his own and foreign sub-pantheons, at great cost.

      But it was too little and too late. Though the new ruler of the former Holy Empire was, in many ways, the archetypical callow-youth-turned-hero, the Priest-Emperors had done too much damage. Within two decades, the former Holy Empire had surrendered. From then, it was a steady march across the globe over the next century. By 1097, the Aotrs completed the subjugation of Temnis.

      Some of the lesser demigods entered into bargains to preserve themselves – and the Lichemaster saw the value in having some divine magics. But Temnis provided a most pressing issue: how to deal with all the latent divine energy the world had that had produced that had led to such a diverse number of gods. An educated population – even as primitive as an iron-age one – generally precludes the agglutination of latent divine energies into faith-formed entities (faith-formed small gods or proto-fey etc.) by the power of undirected belief in pre-history. But Temnis had so much latent divine energy that measures had to be developed to syphon it away (which also kept the demigods in check and from ascending and getting problematically powerful). A globe-wide network of mana absorbers was created, to draw on the latent divine energy by brute force and transform it into a more useful form of raw mana (a liquid or solid form of magic that is a universal reagent). The breakthrough – attributed to Lord Yeller, of all liches – was the harness belief-power against itself. A propaganda campaign was undertaken that the Aotrs were establishing the network to prevent the formation of more gods, with the intent of convincing people to believe it. Which in and of itself, made the system largely self-containing.

      Today, Temnis is dotted with mana towers, steles, mana-crystal formations and every city has a small network of mana absorbers. This ready, continuous supply has made Temnis the leading supplier of raw mana for magical processing, and thus has naturally become the principal centre for magical item production or for enchanting equipment, both on the planet itself and throughout the Ferat system.

      Vastbatros

      Vastbatros was founded in 1732 and was the first Aotrs world to be settled via colonisation as opposed to conquest. The Frost system was only a short distance from Kalanoth and the sixth planet had an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere. The planet was distant enough from the star that the world was cold, with only a temperate equatorial band free of the permafrost. Lower-life had evolved, but there were few large or dangerous creatures and the planet had a great deal of mineral resources, making it an ideal candidate for the first real-space expansion.

      Among the eight moons of the mid-sized gas-giant Frost III was one with a suitable for terraforming. Its position closer to the Frost’s sun made in an ideal place to provide food and other renewable resources for consumption at Vastbatros. Hasbaal, as it was named on founding, was colonised shortly afterwards in 1739.

      Compared to the history of many of the other Aotrs’ most important worlds, Vastbatros has had a quiet history. Due to the Aotrs long history and organisation, even its first few decades of colonisation went considerably smoother than the first instances of many powers. Vastbatros’s single greatest claim to fame is that it was the location the Aotrs made first contact with the Cybertanks, in 1810. The Cybertank force was a small reconnaissance group but Vastbatros’ defence forces were light; at least half of the ships were 1st Generation. The Cybertank force was destroyed, but at significant cost to the Aotrs starfleet and moderate damage to Hasbaal’s surface. This was the incident that was the impetus that caused the rush to develop the ill-fated 3rd Generation vessels fifteen years later.

      Vastbatros remains an important mineral and industrial centre, and now houses the third-largest shipyards in Aotrs space.

      Semilkar The discovery of Semilkar by the first FTL probes in 1755 posed the Aotrs their first major problem as an FTL-capable power. The Tresil system (then only known by its former astronomical designation), was situated in the sector the Aotrs had designated Bloody Spear. Bloody Spear sector lies right on the direct lines of travel between the Verak sector (where Temnis is located) and the Malevaor and Hate sectors. Tresil was towards the boundary of the sector and so had not been probed initially along that line.

      On the system’s third world, the probe detected what it now designated as an HPE planet, with a civilisation level only a few decades from developing FTL capability. This placed a potentially hostile power right next to the Aotrs’ main internal arteries. It was unilaterally decided that this problem needed to be nipped in the bud.

      Semilkar is directly credited with being the stimulus for the 2nd Generation of Aotrs starships. The 1st Generation had been primitive and mainly defensive in nature. The 2nd Generation would shift the focus towards offense, being the first to have (by the standards of the day) huge troop ships to carry a planetary invasion force to conquer a high-tech world, and quickly. This could not be a war that would drag on for centuries as in the previous conquests – the longer a war went on the more chances that the Semilkarians would develop ships of their own and perhaps find allies. Semilkar was a water-world, with only 20% of the surface land. The population consisted of humans native to the planet, but no other intelligent species. The background magic was in the lower medium band, meaning some supernatural phenomena were known, but were very rare.

      There were at the time three major nations in the most densely populated archipelago. The three nations had a long history of conflict (based around ethnic lines). A series of seventeen smaller nation states were scattered around the globe, from the fringes of the major archipelagos to smaller clusters in the seas. A forth nation occupied the planet’s largest land mass, but was otherwise isolated from the other archipelagos and almost alone in its hemisphere. This nation, Naua, possessed an ethnicity of humans unique to Semilkar. In the world’s previous history, Naua had been an imperial power in the pre-industrial ages, but had fallen behind in the later centuries.

      Semilkar had already established its first in-system colonies. While it had no moon, the second planet, Nulione (a “super-Earth”) occupied a close orbit and was rich in mineral resources and several colonies had already been founded in place of lunar colonies. The system’s two asteroid belts were already being mined.

      At the time, the three major nations were involved in a cold war and space-land-grab-race against each other. Unbeknownst to them, but ascertained by Aotrs scouting, Naua had been secretly building up its infrastructure and forces, ready to overwhelm the other nations, had the Aotrs not interfered. The Aotrs scouting did not go entirely unnoticed. By the time the 2nd Generation’s first vessels rolled out of the shipyards and straight into the invasion, two of the three nations had come to a tentative truce.

      The invasion lasted from 1767 to 1786. It was a hard-fought war. The Semilkarians had access to laser weapons and primitive anti-grav technology. While their power systems were principally still atomic, they were developed to the point of being common and bleeding edge fusion systems were being developed. Fleets of hover and grav vehicles clashed with wet-navy forces, while fighters fought in the air and the stars.

      The Aotrs has the advantage of a few decades of technological advancement. The Semilkarians, united (eventually) against the common foe, proved to be adept at closing the gap. But in the end, the Aotrs was simply larger. Semilkar had only a relatively small population, and was at the time facing of a power with access to the populations of five full worlds (and Fearmore) and several colonies. While the Aotrs were limited in the amount of forces they could bring to bear at once – and the Semilkarian’s system forces managed to inflict some costly losses on more than one occasion – the outcome was never really in doubt. Semilkar’s forces were slowly attired away over the seventeen-year conflict.

      The final turning point was the Battle of Uan, the capital city of Naua. Despite a long, pitched battle where they showed every resource, the allied Semilkarians were defeated. With significant losses to the remaining Semilkar forces and the largest continent under their control, the Aotrs were able to roll up the three remaining nations one by one over the next six months. The final nation, Dis’hwee, surrendered in mid-1786.

      Semilkar’s population proved robust and a valuable asset to the Aotrs. In particular, the very dominant Nauan ethnicity, with its unique blue-grey tinged skin and distinctive facial features, remains very recognisable in Aotrs human populations, even those with mixed elven blood. The skill and spirit of the Semilkar’s resistance had impressed Lord Death Despoil and many of the former resistance fighters were offered positions in the Aotrs (some posthumously). Lingering resentment from the conquest was surprisingly short-lived. As neither side had resorted to weapons of mass destruction (there simply was not enough usable surface on Semilkar to risk damaging), the infrastructure damage as quickly repaired. An influx of luxuries was brought in from off-world and the population – already who had been enjoying quite high standards of living – enjoyed the sudden boost in technological advancements that the Aotrs brought. In addition, the Aotrs solved one of Semilkar’s most pressing issues – room to expand. With comparatively little surface area on the planet, populations had had to be tightly controlled for centuries. Now that new vistas were open, families could afford to become larger and the Semilkarians proved to be eager and hardy colony frontiers-folk. While there remained inevitable resistance for a time, it had functionally died out with a couple of generations.

      Today, Semilkar is much more heavily populated. Floating and aquatic cities and orbital habitats provide a great deal more living space, affording the population more room to expand even on their own planet. Tresil’s large solar system sports numerous colonies and the forth planet, Umiq, and the gas giant Phenaynar’s fourteeth moon, Calouh, have been terraformed and are fully inhabited. The Tresil system is a waypoint on a major trade route for the core systems and to the outer extents of the Aotrs territory.

      Torrid

      Only recently conquered in 2307, Torrid is the most recent fully inhabited world to fall to the Aotrs. Torrid is a hot HPE world whose major continents are cloaked in thick jungle belts. Rating as a very high-magic world, Torrid would be classified as an HPE-L planet, but the flora and fauna, while being convergently similar to the typical HPE-L paradigm, is entirely unique. Its most widespread inhabitants are a near-human species who have been described (by Lord Yeller) as being akin to “what happens if you put a mandrill, a Neanderthal, an elf and a deer in a blender and shake them up” (sic). The vibrant jungles also house a large population of dryad-like near-fey whose persistence and significant magical capabilities proved challenging even for the 23rd and early 24th century Aotrs army.

      Torrid’s technological advancement was barely into the very early industrial age at its most advanced, but the thaumaturgical advancement was leaps and bounds ahead with many unique capabilities and even a form or supernatural manipulation that was neither magic, nor psionics, known as locally as Qa’daix (“filament weaving.”) This wealth of capability and knowledge was sufficient for the Aotrs to mount a full-scale planetary invasion in 2235 for the first time in a hundred and fifty years.

      At the present time, Torrid is still functionally a large colony, albeit on an inhabited world, and the population is still being integrated into the Aotrs. Civil unrest remains a sporadic issue at local levels, exacerbated by the jungles making transport other than by flight, Gate or magical means difficult. However, these issues are similar to those on Tusharnos, but less in magnitude and the Aotrs has access to much more technology in the current time. It is projected that this state of affairs is likely to last only another decade or two before the Torrid’s infrastructure is brought up to standard.

      Myst

      Myst (both the system and planet) is located in the Tros sector, a mostly uninhabited region on the fringes of human space. Despite Myst itself being a habitable world, which once supported sentient races, it had never been claimed by either of the two local human powers. The Tros sector comprises an area that encompasses their mutual border. Myst itself has only been officially known on the charts for sixty years, and the distance and contested ownership have precluded any major attempt to colonise or exploit beyond a few scientific surveys.

      That changed in 2325, when the Aotrs quietly slipped in and annexed the system. The Myst system has been heavily fortified and guarded in the subsequent years and now houses a sizable naval facility and ground base, the site of an Aotrs secret project – the reason for the planet’s annexation. Neither human power has ever made more than a cursory attempt to get it back. After both powers detected the initial incursion, they both sent fleets to investigate and wound up fighting each other, before being driven off by the Aotrs.

      Myst was an HPE world (borderline HPE-L). The fate of all Myst’s intelligent species is currently unknown. There remain ruins on the planet’s surface, but even the date of the disappearance has not been confirmed, estimated at being between nine and fifteen hundred years ago. The few exploratory work by Myst Base personnel have been so far unable to ascertain a closer date (methods such as carbon dating are an inexact science without significant effort to map a given planet’s historical carbon cycle). While similarities to other worlds where such an extinction has happened (such as Muisis or Skraakasstor) have been noted, there is no connection yet found between such worlds.

      The Aotrs Myst Exploratory Project began at Myst Base in 2341. While the full details remain classified, it is rumoured that Myst Base houses a hitherto unknown type of magical, pre-FTL interplanetary transportation system. It is presumed such a system would function in a manner like a Xakkath Pathway. The AMET‘s operations have directly lead to the establishment of a top-secret base (code-named Damning Echo) in a far-off quadrant of the galaxy, well outside Aotrs territory. That significant resources have been dispatched (including 2nd Fleet) to this facility suggests it is of even more strategic importance the Myst itself.

      Ships of the Aotrs Navy, Part Six

      (Note: measurements are taken from bounding box extremities.)

      Crypt Bearer Transport Cruiser

      Length: 840.0m Width: 252.0m Height: 253.0m

      Transporting troops across the stars has always been the Aotrs fleet’s primary task since the 1st Generation of starships. In the 10th Generation, the Crypt Bearer takes on the majority of this work. The Crypt Bearer can house a division of ground forces – in comfort, unlike many such troop ships – for the long periods of off-combat operations. The smaller starboard hangar bay of the Crypt Bearer’s two hangars houses a squadron of fighters, to provide top-cover. The port hangar bay can carry a variety of assault ships; Fallen Souls, Dirges and Murders. Of one the more common configurations is to forgo typical shuttles to allow the Crypt Bearer to house four Murders. Crypt Bearers frequently carry Apparitions as the top-cover fighters, simply so that the top-cover is not left behind by the Murders. This allows the Crypt Bearer to transport two-thirds of its troops in one go. In addition, the numerous multiple additional Gate rooms enable the Gate transit from ship to surface or ship to ship half of its quartered troops, or a quarter plus its own assault teams. Rarely is this full capability called for, however; but it can be a very unpleasant shock to an enemy vessel getting too close to a Crypt Bearer. Aotrs Gate technology is capable of penetrating all but advanced shielding, and several companies of boarding troops appearing simultaneously is enough to concern any vessel.

      This enormous transport capacity means the Crypt Bearer does not have to linger long in a deployment zone, which reduces its exposure to enemy attack. The Crypt Bearer is capable of a fair turn of speed for an oversized transport, but can only out-run larger and more cumbersome capital ships. Its defences are average for a ship of its size – but that means it has little more than half the armour and shields of the slightly larger and very well-protected Midnight. While it has numerous point-defence coldbeams, these are only best to stave off missile attacks or discourage fighters, but they are no substitute for an escort. The Crypt Bearer’s main protection, then, is simply not being in a position to be attacked from very long.

      Murder Fightercruiser

      Length: 79.20m Width: 41.40m Height: 28.61m

      The Murder’s job is to transport troops from space to surface or ship and it does so with expedience. The fightercruiser is dominated by its massive engines. Six huge rear drives propel the Murder at extremely high velocity. At the front, four directional plasma drive engines provide an agility that only the Apparition can match. The Murder is the fastest and most manoeuvrable vessel in the 10th generational arsenal – unladen, it can even edge out the Apparition. This is even more surprising considering the vessel’s not inconsiderable size – it is the largest fighter cruiser in Aotrs service – and even more so that it can safely do so while transporting troops.

      The Murder is capable of carrying approximately four companies of infantry in the main hold and in smaller troop holds scattered through the rest of the ship. This is the absolute maximum capacity, and for infantry only. More typically, two companies of vehicles plus associated infantry are carried. Advanced gravitational and inertial compensators ensure that the soldiers have a smooth ride, no matter what manoeuvres the Murder is making. It is a point of pride for Murder crews that they can actively dogfight while their charges do not spill a drop from whatever beverage they choose to drink. The Murder is unusual in that the gravity and inertial compensation is not global to the ship. The bridge has a graduated field, weakest at the front, where the pilot sits, allowing them to “feel” the much-reduced effects to have a better spacial awareness of how their vessel is positioned.

      The Murder sports the shielding protection equivalent to many light capital ships, though it has little in the way of hull armour, relying on shields and the extreme agility to avoid damage. It is armed with a pair of side-mounted twin coldbeam turrets, which grant almost full coverage over the ship. A third dorsal, heavier turret provides a little more firepower, though still at the fighter-scale range. All three turrets can be retracted closer to the hull in for atmospheric operations when flying at full speed – though this is more to reduce the load on the weapon barrels than to provide less resistance. It does slightly reduce the vessel’s shield volume, however, which assists in this regard.

      The Murder’s nose hoses a small light energy beam turret. The turret is capable of engaging targets in almost any approach, except in its own superstructure shadow. The weapon can be used for strafing on surface targets and is well suited to literally carving the Murder a hole or landing spot to disgorge its troops.

      The Murder’s two-level transport hold is capable of transporting any vehicle in the Aotrs’ ground forces, as demonstrated in this image. (Not illustrative of a true load-out.) In practise, the hold is configured for the load. Shorter vehicles, as shown with the Revenant MBTs at the front of the lower bay would are held in two rows via a locking clamp system in the hold’s walls. The Mk 2 Enragers at the front of the upper level would also usually be transported in this manner, in a crouched position and only transported standing if they are expected to engage in combat immediately upon disembarkation.

      Even a Dirge can be fitted within the hold, though it far more typical for a Dirge (and indeed a Fallen Soul) to make its way under its own power.

      Rend Long Range Fighter

      Length: 14.46m Width: 14.18m Height: 3.39m

      The Rend Long Range Fighter straddles the gap between the 9th and 10th Generation. A very late 9th Generation fighter, the Rend is the forerunner of the Foul Wing and Crater. The Rend is geared around a long-distance strike. It is designed to carry missiles, rather than a mix of missiles and torpedoes. It has three hardpoints under each wing, which can be outfitted with a double-hardpoint. The Rend’s most common configuration, however (and the one from which it takes it designation) is for the deployment of long-range missiles, most notably the massive Penetrator interdictor missile. A standard load for a Rend is to carry six of these missiles.

      The Rend is otherwise a poor dogfighter – while its manoeuvrability is not subpar, it only carries a pair of coldbeam cannons either side of the fuselage as secondary weapons. After discharging its missiles, the Rend is expected to with draw to reload. The vast majority of Rends are stationed as system defence forces, rather than with mobile fleets, where their reliance on a relatively few expendable munitions is less of an issue. While larger fleets may carry a few squadrons, they are far outnumbered by the other fighters.

      Dirge War Droid Transport

      Length: 14.04m Width: 8.27m Height: 6.44m

      The Dirge fills the role of heavy APC and dropship. While not as big as a typical dropship, they are still quite sizable. Lacking a Gate drive of their own, Dirges are generally only used for orbital or Gate insertions from larger vessels (or via spellcasters). Little more than a box with external engines and turrets, Dirges can carry up to 32 troops. The Dirge’s entire front hinges down into a ramp. The presence of the pyramid structure on the front (the shield generator and primary sensor array housing) means that the Dirge must hover off the ground to disgorge its troops, or place down its telescopic landing struts and sit as if on stilts. This compromise was made as it maximised the Dirge’s internal capacity for its volume – and because it’s most typical cargo is considered expendable and does not use cover to any degree anyway.

      Dirges are by far most often used to transport War Droid platoons. They are large enough to carry Enragers (both the Mk 1 and the newer Mk 2s), and often a platoon of three supplements a typical War Droid and Hunter Drone deployment. The Dirge is most often, then, expected to fly in and disgorge the War Droids under fire, without attempting to land. To facilitate this, the Dirge’s internal cargo bay walls are armoured almost as much as the external hull.

      The crew compartment is at the rear, behind this armoured wall, and the Dirge is flown entirely via instrumentation. However, a significant portion of Dirges, especially those used for War Droid transport, are fully automated robotic vehicles themselves.

      When used by other troops, the Dirges often carry light vehicles such as the Scitalis Recon Cycle and its predecessors as well as foot infantry. Dirges are heavily shielded, but otherwise only have poor mobility. They are only lightly armed, with two support coldbeam sponson turrets and a single ventral Class 5 turret. This low-cost approach makes the typical Dirge as expendable a resource as the War Droids in carries.

      Fallen Soul Multirole AFV

      Length: 7.97m Width: 4.00m Height: 4.24m

      The Fallen Soul is the Aotrs’ most recent APC, replacing the aging Vampire Lord. The Fallen Soul is an excellent multirole vehicle. It is designed to function as an IFV in ground operations and as a boarding pod in space. Like the Dirge, it lacks a Gate drive, but is quite capable of spaceflight. It has very good flying characteristics for its type, as good as some bombers.

      The Fallen Soul carries a single squad of eight Aotrs infantry (or four Power Armour troops). Functioning both as a miniature dropship and VTOL, the Fallen Soul’s side doors allow troops to deploy via lines (or by directly jumping out, in the case of Drop Infantry).

      The Fallen Soul is lightly armed with two twin coldbeam turrets, one dorsal and one ventral. Due to the placement and design of the vehicle, the turrets have effectively no dead zone for the field of fire – certainly none as far as other vehicles are concerned. It has shield generators, though these are limited in size.

      From the front, the Fallen Soul is virtually impossible to destroy. The prow is armoured exceptionally well; indeed it must be to punch through starship hull armour in its role of Boarding Pod. The turrets are programmed so that when the vehicle detects an imminent impact, they are automatically set to face the rear, presenting their armoured rear as part of the ram’s surface.

      The Fallen Soul’s biggest disadvantage is that in order to preserve armour integrity, there is no viewing port. This can lead to a dangerous situation is the sensors are knocked offline, since the only way to pilot the vehicle is for the gunner to open one of the side hatches and look out. Plans have been considered to make a pure combat variant like the Vampire Horde Doom, but have not yet left the drawing board.


      Crypt Bearer Transport Cruiser

      Direct price: £5.20 The Shop3D price: £6.49 (Resin)/£14.77 (Nylon) Link Shapeways price: $14.29 (£10.50) Link

      Murder Fightercruiser

      Direct price: £2.30 for 12 The Shop3D price: £1.10 (Resin)/£1.83 (Nylon) for 12 Link Shapeways price: $5.60 (£4.13) for 12 Link

      Rend Long Range Fighter 1/300th scale

      Direct price: £2.90 The Shop3D price: £3.03 (Resin)/£6.51 (Nylon) Link Shapeways price: $6.55 (£4.81) Link

      Fleet scale

      Direct price: £2.50 for 12 The Shop3D price: £1.02 (Resin)/£1.66 (Nylon) for 12 Link Shapeways price: $5.60 (£4.13) for 12 Link

      Dirge War Droid Transport 144th scale

      Direct price: £2.80 The Shop3D price: £19.08 (Resin)/£45.00 (Nylon) Link Shapeways price: $56.50 (£41.52) Link

      1/300th scale

      Direct price: £2.90 The Shop3D price: £4.10 (Resin)/£9.05 (Nylon) Link Shapeways price: $9.26 (£6.80) Link

      Fleet scale

      Direct price: £2.50 for 6 The Shop3D price: £1.00 (Resin)/£1.60 (Nylon) for 6 Link Shapeways price: $5.60 (£4.13) for 6 Link

      Fallen Soul Multirole AFV 144th scale

      Direct price: £2.80 The Shop3D price: £3.92 (Resin)/£8.61 (Nylon) Link Shapeways price: $11.87 (£8.72) Link

      1/300th scale

      Direct price: £2.90 The Shop3D price: £2.43 (Resin)/£5.04 (Nylon) Link Shapeways price: $5.60 (£4.13) for 2 Link

      Fleet scale

      Direct price: £2.50 for 12 The Shop3D price: £0.80 (Resin)/£1.10 (Nylon) for 12 Link Shapeways price: $5.60 (£4.13) for 12 Link


      Photos of Replicator 2 versions.

      Maneouvre Group our in-all-but-official-name partners, are getting periously close to completing their version 2.0 rules update, to the point that my Dad is setting up his mancave to do a photoshoot for the cover art in the next few days. As such, this presents an opportunity to take some better pictures than I’m normally able to take (the past year kiboshed any chance of me attempting to make a proper lightbox still), so I elected to hold off the moderns release.

      This release marks the last of the Aotrs fleet release. In Feburary and March, the Aotrs ground force will be re-released to TheShop3D (updated to the v2 locking turrets) and a couple of updates to some (but not all) of the Shapeways models and finally a couple of new additions. In this release, you will see indeed the first couple of models for the ground force poking their lack-of-noses in!

      Speaking of TheShop3D, I am just putting in for another batch of resin prints, among which include some of the moderns for the next couple of months as well, so we should have some nice resin to show you again soon.

      Finally, once Manouvre Group is out, I will be seriously looking at preparing the scifi expansion rules for publication by them (either free or a token price). The ultimate goal for this is that I will be able to compile all the Aotrs material (and a few little extra bits still) into a single document, and be able to include game stats for both the fleet and the ground forces for Accelerate and Attack! and Maneouvre Group. If there is enough interest in that once released, as I complete powers with both a starfleet and ground force (or at least enough fleets to be able to make a package), I may do this for them as well (albeit at a much smaller scale than the Aotrs, which has history going back a quarter-century to draw from!)

      In the wait, I have basically completed the work for next month’s releases (both scifi and moderns) and a good two-thirds of March’s scifi release (and the moderns). As mentioned, Feburary and March will complete the Aotrs releases and bring it all up to speed with the re-release of the ground force. After that, we’ll be taking a break from scifi releases for a little while, as I concentrate on getting the moderns all out on Shop3D (and start the laborious process of printing out and updating ALL of the other scifi!)

      Several of the fighters are among the resin prints coming up, so hopefully by next release, I can show you some better photos!

      By-the-by, there does exist a 1/300th version of the Murder but it is sufficiently massive that it is not going on the webstores or in the catalogue, simply because of cost and size. (It would have been impossible to print on the Replicator, and I had to do some minor repairs even on the Prusa! Needless to say.)

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