Kapaku

Survivors of the decimation of their own world, the **Kapaku** have slumbered for centuries as they crossed the stars. Emerging onto Auriga's horrifyingly vibrant and green lands, they have a single aim - to recreate their old world of ash and lava. The Kapaku can only get their Food from volcanic terrain. Yet, they can also rely on their Volcanoformer machines to change any terrain into a volcanic one.

## Lore

*Rescued from the brink of extinction after the invasion of their home world, the Kapaku were evacuated by the Concrete Endless and sent to Auriga. They were promised a new beginning on a new planet, but discovering the true intentions of their saviors will pit them against both Auriga’s current denizens and the dark remnants of the Dust Wars.*

*The Kapaku are tinkers and inventors, a race of craftsmen with powerful bonds to earthen energies. Small in size, their resourcefulness and skill led them to create powerful stone golems to use as labors and soldiers.*

*The Kapaku are a new race uniquely suited to the Volcanic Terrain, able to thrive off it where other races would struggle, and their symbiotic relationships with their golems allows them to exploit more resources more efficiently, fueling their machinery to turn Auriga into a new Volcanic Paradise.*

## Faction Traits

### Born of Ash

This trait gives the Kapaku a strong preference towards Volcanic tiles, whereas Volcanic terrain is usually detrimental to other factions. All Kapaku units and heroes have the Inner Fire capacity which grants a 20% bonus to Damage when in battle on Volcanic tiles, and prevents them from taking damage from Lava Flows. Additionally, Kapaku units are able to regenerate health on Volcanic terrain, whereas other factions' units are not. However, this all comes at the cost of the Kapaku being unable to produce Food on non-Volcanic tiles. While this can be an issue when it comes to expanding into non-volcanic terrain, the Kapaku's other trait Volcanoformation helps with this.

### Stargazers

This trait gives the Kapaku the ability to predict upcoming Dust Eclipses accurately in the same way that the Allayi are able to predict the start of Winter. Additionally, the locations of the confluxes that appear on the map are revealed within regions controlled by the Kapaku, and their neighboring regions. Those confluxes also provide a greater bonus to Kapaku armies than to everyone else. The effects of the confluxes for the Kapaku are listed here:

* Empowering Conflux: +50% Attack , Ignores movement penalties due to terrain
* Nourishing Conflux: -60% Upkeep on unit, +50% Health Regen
* Swift Conflux: +6 Movement , +50% Initiative

### Volcanoformation

This trait gives the Kapaku the ability to create and deploy Volcanoforming Devices on the map, which will turn the tile its placed on and the six surrounding it into Volcanic terrain after a number of turns - 5 on normal speed. Volcanoformation devices are created by spending an amount of any one strategic resource, starting at 2 and increasing by 2 every time that resource is used; i.e. if Titanium is used 3 times to create a Volcanoformation device, the cost to purchase the next one will be 8 , but the cost to create one with Glassteel will still be 2 . Once a Volcanoformation device has been created, any Kapaku army anywhere on the map can deploy it on an unoccupied tile, after which the Volcanoformation process will start. It should be noted that these devices can be destroyed before their task is complete, so it is best to guard the device while it is working to prevent that.

## Unique Technologies

  Focus:  |  Military

  **Effects:**
Stone Sentinels have no military upkeep

  Focus:  |  Military

  **Effects:**
Provides a Rubble Stockpile generated by dealing siege damage to enemy city fortificationsDisplay a siege damage counter in the empire management screen

  Focus:  |  Influence

  **Effects:**
+15  on terrain with ruins

## Heroes

Note: *Base Attributes* reflect the unit's attributes before bonuses from equipment or capacities.

All Kapaku heroes are able to wield Longspears, Hammers, Battle Hammers, and Shields as weapons.

### Quest Heroes

#### Haukea Wai

Haukea Wai is received as a reward for completing Chapter 4 of the Kapaku faction quest. Haukea is received at Level 4, so her base attributes reflect this, but do not include bonuses from capacities or equipment.

#### Custodian Tua

Custodian Tua appears leading an army in Chapter 6 of the Kapaku faction quest, and cannot be obtained by normal means in-game. Tua and the army she is leading must be defeated to complete the quest. Tua appears at Level 3 with a full set of Tier 1 Iron Armor, and is wielding Tua's Hammer. Because Tua only appears as an enemy and therefore cannot have her equipment changed, her listed attributes and capacities include the bonuses gained from her equipment and level.

## Faction Quest

*After the destruction of their homeworld by the machines - terraforming robots of the Virtual Endless - the Concrete endless brought the Kapaku, to Auriga, promising them a world that they could transform into another fiery Eden. When the Kapaku discover Auriga is not the empty world their saviors led them to believe, Custodian Aktyl begins to wonder what secrets this new world holds...*

 From the Journal of Custodian Aktyl
Ash buries all, in time. But still we mark the pages and pass down the stories before the all-consuming fire comes.
Auriga frightens. Vast sparkling blue oceans, crisp green plains, snowy wildernesses - a sickening panorama, not unlike the hellscape the machines made of our world.
Twelve-and-five fire-births we have witnessed, cowering and huddling in the shadow of the Endless' great vessel that carried us to this world. Why they saved us I know not. Time untold we slumbered in their cold crypts, held in dreamless sleeps by strange machines beyond our understanding. Too long, I fear.
If Overseer Elohys knows more of this world, it doesn't say. For all it's done for the Kapaku, the thing unsettles me: ancient living brain entombed in a walking coffin, at once magnificent and macabre. I often spy it in kindled conference with Custodian Tua, but she never shares of what they speak. More qualms... Her name would be last on my lips as one to succumb to fanaticism: her mind a grindstone, pragmatic and tenacious - But I confess, the burning reverence for the Endless that has sparked among my kin disturbs me.
Yes, they saved us. But as we Kapaku say: only the flame gives its warmth freely. For now, I must put these doubts aside. The time has come to strike out from our savior's cradle.
We will tame Auriga. One day basalt plains will stretch as far as the eye can see, great volcanoes will loom from the cracked earth, and the sickening blue of its seas will have turned to the chromed yellow and green I still remember.
It is our right - the Endless have promised us, and given us the tools to make it so.
 Summary
 Our long journey beneath the stars is over. Now it is time to begin transforming Auriga into a fiery paradise. First though, we will need materials to power the Endless' terraformation machines...
 Reward

 From the Journal of Custodian Aktyl
Ash buries all, in time. But still we mark the pages and pass down the stories before the all-consuming fire comes.
Auriga frightens. Vast sparkling blue oceans, crisp green plains, snowy wildernesses - a sickening panorama, not unlike the hellscape the machines made of our world.
Twelve-and-five fire-births we have witnessed, cowering and huddling in the shadow of the Endless' great vessel that carried us to this world. Why they saved us I know not. Time untold we slumbered in their cold crypts, held in dreamless sleeps by strange machines beyond our understanding. Too long, I fear.
Upon our arrival, we discovered several intelligent life forms on the planet. It seems Auriga is not the clean slate the Concrete made it out to be... Overseer Elohys claims to be as shocked as we are, for what that's worth. For all it's done for the Kapaku, the thing unsettles me: ancient living brain entombed in a walking coffin, at once magnificent and macabre. I often spy it in kindled conference with Custodian Tua, but she never shares of what they speak. More qualms... Her name would be last on my lips as one to succumb to fanaticism: her mind a grindstone, pragmatic and tenacious - But I confess, the burning reverence for the Endless that has sparked among my kin disturbs me.
Yes, they saved us. But as we Kapaku say: only the flame gives its warmth freely. For now, I must put these doubts aside. The time has come to strike out from our savior's cradle.
We will make Auriga our home, even if others already claim it! Descending in the Endless' great vessel, we spied nomadic trails, scattered hamlets, even bustling metropolises. We will start with the villages in whose midst we find ourselves...
 Summary
 Our long journey beneath the stars is over. But Auriga is not the empty world the Endless promised us. Otherskins stalk the land, some more civilized, others less so. We must start with the weaker ones...
 Reward

 From the Journal of Custodian Aktyl
The night terrors assail me every eve.
Half-truth, half-fantasy, they are born from my memories of the last days on our old world. Wave upon wave of killer machines moving ever closer to our last remaining settlements, crashing against our Golem defenders whose numbers dwindle every day. Beyond them I see that our beautiful world is already gone - sturdy grasses covering what was once lava plains, volcanoes smouldering into dormancy, the air disgustingly clear. And then our Endless saviors arrive, smashing the machine menace, but when Overseer Elohys reaches me he offers not a hand, but a fist.
I always wake at that moment, stone cold.
Auriga is not the empty world we were led to believe. Our scouts have unearthed more ancient mechanisms. We hoped they might be the trinkets of long dead races, perhaps the lost artefacts of Otherskins who crashed onto the world aeons ago, but when a Kapaku expedition came face-to-face with living, breathing Otherskins that dream died. I watched Custodian Tua carefully as the truth was announced at the Magma Council meeting... She knows more than she lets on.
Overseer Elohys plays down the Otherskins' presence. "Evolution is tenacious", it pronounces. "Life finds a way".
The Endless insists it didn't know that Auriga was inhabited, and that nothing has changed by the fact.
"The world is still yours to make in your own image. You have our blessing. And our tools."
A solemnity has fallen over the Kapaku. There are stirrings of a schism. Some whisper that we must learn more of these Otherskins before we act further, while others murmur that our volcanoforming efforts should be redoubled at once.
There is but one thing agreed by all: We must be prepared. Now is not the time for ideological disputes.
 Summary
 We learn that Otherskins walk this land. Our priority must be defense.
 Reward

 From the Journal of Custodian Aktyl
The night terrors assail me every eve.
Half-truth, half-fantasy, they are born from my memories of the last days on our old world. Wave upon wave of killer machines moving ever closer to our last remaining settlements, crashing against our Golem defenders whose numbers dwindle every day. Beyond them I see that our beautiful world is already gone - sturdy grasses covering what was once lava plains, volcanoes smouldering into dormancy, the air disgustingly clear. And then our Endless saviors arrive, smashing the machine menace, but when Overseer Elohys reaches me he offers not a hand, but a fist.
I always wake at that moment, stone cold.
Auriga is not only settled with crude Otherskins. Our scouts have unearthed more ancient mechanisms - intricate, complex devices that couldn't have been fashioned by any of the races we have come across. Even our best tinkers are bewildered by the intricacy of the craftsmanship. There can be only one conclusion: a great civilization once occupied this world. I watched Custodian Tua carefully as the truth was announced at the Magma Council meeting... She knows more than she lets on.
Overseer Elohys claims ignorance and plays down the implications. "The galaxy is ancient", it says.
"Who knows what races spread across the stars in past eras? Today they are gone, and only primitive tribes remain. Auriga is still yours to make in your own image. You have our blessing."
A solemnity has fallen over the Kapaku. There are stirrings of a schism. Some whisper that we must learn more of these Otherskins before we act further, while others murmur that we must strike while we still have the advantage of surprise.
There is but one thing agreed by all: We must be prepared. Now is not the time for ideological disputes.
 Summary
 Otherskins stalk this world, growing bolder with every passing day. Our aura of mystery, perhaps even invincibility, dwindles as their memories of the descending star vessel fades. We must assert our authority over the more pliable ones.
 Reward

 From the Journal of Custodian Aktyl
We are united in our survival, but the faultlines in our society grow. After leading a geological expedition, Overseer Elohys returned only to be ambushed by an angry crowd. They jostled the Endless, accusing it of deceiving the Kapaku and demanding it admit the truth of why its people sent us to Auriga. I know not what truth they imagined, but their accusations found sympathy among many passers-by. Open riot seemed imminent until cooler heads prevailed.
Privately, my mind too worries over these ideas... Are we being turned into tools, here to destroy an ancient enemy of the Endless? Are we part of a cruel entertainment or experiment? Or are we, as Elohys maintains, simply unlucky to find Auriga inhabited?
Custodian Tua stands fast by the latter. Even more than the High Priest of the Temple of the Saviors, she is the one who has become the figurehead of the Endless' defenders. "The Endless saved us from the machines!" she rails. "Do we so easily forget? Overseer Elohys has forsaken its people, its home, its very physical form, so that we may benefit from its wisdom and survive this harsh world! Remember, we Kapaku are certainly fallible."
She still burns from the Magma Council's refusal to address the machine incursion early enough. To our great shame - to my great shame - most of us thought them innocent visitors. And who paid the greatest price for that willful ignorance? The Haku Clan. Tua's clan.
So, we find ourselves split at either side of a fissure that runs deeper every day.
The Doubters and the Defenders.
I don't know who to believe. All I know is that there is no going back from Auriga. In spite of its harsh wildernesses, hostile races, and strange climes, it is now our home.
With our forces strong, the time has come to thoroughly survey this land.
 Summary
 Is Overseer Elohys here for us or the Endless? Auriga's ruins may hold the truth.
 Reward

 From the Journal of Custodian Aktyl
The Kapaku stand at a great crossroads.
The history of this world remains shrouded in smoke, but it cannot be disputed that Auriga seethes with intelligent life. Myriad races occupy the planet. From windswept deserts to snow-covered peaks, from shadowy forests to deep caverns, even in the clear, terrifying seas: The Kapaku have found creatures that are much more than simple beasts. Understanding is difficult, but we cannot deny the truth. They are civilized. They are like us.
Except for one vital difference. More like a gulf, in truth.
Where we suffer and struggle in Auriga's hellish landscapes, they flourish.
And that's the great dilemma that threatens to tear us apart: Do we attempt to claim the entire world, as we orginally intended, and consign them to death? Or do we try to fashion some equilibrium with these races so all may survive? The Doubters say turning Auriga into a world of rock and lava would make us no better than the machines, while the Defenders chide that we have no time for sentimentality. In their eyes, to think we can share this world is the deadliest naiveté. Overseer Elohys and Custodian Tua share the latter opinion, of course.
They are not always in harmony, however. Yesterday, I spied them in furious argument, the Endless a trembling volcano of suppressed rage, while Tua spat gobs of incandescent fire. Elohys stonewalled me when I later asked the nature of their feud, while Tua answered with barefaced lies. She told me their quarrel concerned only tactics, and in the larger strategy of conquering Auriga they were united.
I don't know which path we should take. All I know is that there are secrets to uncover. The Endless have a past here, I am certain of it.
 Summary
 Deep divisions risk spilling into civil war over the rights of Auriga's other races. I must learn why the Endless sent us here - fast.
 Reward

 From the Journal of Custodian Aktyl
What is this world that the Endless have delivered us to?
We had expected seasons - even on a world of rock and lava we measured our lives against the shifting weather. Ash blizzards through the depths of winter, lava storms at the height of summer. We marked events and celebrations by these shifts, not least among them the annual meeting of the Magma Council when summer's meteors burn on the night sky.
Auriga though? Auriga's seasons are deranged. Yes, there are summers and winters here, but they are chaotic: Their arrival and length no more predictable than Overseer Elohys' moods. The long nights of twilight unsettle us too, when the world becomes cloaked in darkness and the Dust sparkles and shimmers. We know it is bound to the movement of the planet's moons, and we can even anticipate its arrival for the Endless have taught us this much, but its mechanism is frustratingly opaque.
But I'm merely dancing around the worst issue:
Auriga's winters are growing longer.
Every season the winters grow worse, the winds more biting, the snows deeper. Each time the thaws come later and later. A growing fear spreads like a disease among the Kapaku: We fear one day Auriga will become nothing more than an icy crypt for all its denizens, all our misadventures frozen for time immemorial in its snowy wastes.
Did the Endless send us to a doomed world?
And if so, for what reason?
I dare not ask Overseer Elohys bluntly, for fear of arousing its rage. But the question remains, a burning coal in my mind during the long nights. Perhaps Auriga is experiencing some growing cataclysm, it suggests. All the more reason to fight harder.
Elohys' patience with us wears thinner by the day. It spends more and more time secluded with Custodian Tua, plotting. I will send my champion into the political fray, and pray she can use all her wits to uncover the truth.
 Summary
 Auriga's winters grow harsher with every passing season. Is the planet condemned to an icy death? We must find answers, but first Haukea Wai must discover what Custodian Tua and Overseer Elohys are plotting.
 Reward

 From the Journal of Custodian Aktyl
Some sights you can never forget. They sear into your mind, and you will carry them with you till your flame burns out.
We reached the entrance tunnel to the underground site as night fell. Haukea emerged from the shadows, eyes scanning the horizon beyond us. It must've only been a matter of moons since I'd last seen her, but in her eyes I could see someone who'd aged half-a-lifetime.
"Thank the Fires", she managed. "You must be exhausted - and famished. Rest tonight and we can -"
"We go now."
She nodded, then snapped her fingers to call over her mount.
We descended in silence, deep into the earth. The air grew hotter and murkier - enough so that I could remove my breathing mask - but it was a small comfort against my trepidation. The passage sides gradually smoothed from natural formations to artificial walls, and I gasped when I first spied the familiar symbols of the Endless, their carvings half-eroded by time. Strange dead shells littered the ground, like the sloughed exoskeletons of giant insects. We passed a couple of crumpled suits, the fabric frayed, alien bones poking through the rips.
Then we entered the facility proper. I still shudder at the recollection. Preservation stacks filled with corpses, each displaying different variations of fatal burns. Cylindrical fluid chambers where blind, crab-like tentacled menaces still twitched in time with our footfalls. Flickering screens documenting the terrifying evolution of a fungal phage on different host species. Every chamber greeted us with fresh horrors.
"What is this place?" I stuttered.
"We believe it's an Endless military lab. They must've been researching every conceivable means of mass killing."
I was left speechless. The horror was too much to take in.
"We have uncovered another two facilities since I sent for you. Even more in the weeks prior. All deserted."
Everything suddenly fell into place. Auriga, the whole planet, must've been an Endless research station. A secret world of horrors until some calamity had befallen it, forcing the Endless to abandon it. Evidently, the world had healed in the time since, and the survivors had emerged from their hideaways to reclaim the surface.
And in the Kapaku, the Endless had found a race capable of erasing their great shame - completely. We were their hapless cleaners, and our survival mattered not a jot.
It was then I knew we must find Custodian Tua.
 Summary
 With its horrifying, experimental labs, Auriga became the Endless' great shame. Overseer Elohys thought it could use the Kapaku to destroy the evidence, no doubt using Custodian Tua as an orchestrator. Why had she helped though? We need to find her.
 Reward

 From the Journal of Custodian Aktyl
Custodian Tua was brought before the Magma Council this morning, heavy chains rattling on the stone floor.
To my surprise, she had known of the Endless' history on Auriga before we even set eyes on the world.
"Before I went into cryosleep," she said, "Overseer Elohys told me that if the Kapaku were to survive on Auriga, I had to do everything in my power to help it destroy certain sites with the volcanoforming machines. It threatened to kill us all if I ever spoke of this plan. I think it chose me because my clan came so close to annihilation; it knew I wouldn't hesitate. Everything I did, I did for the Kapaku."
While the Council remained in stunned silence, the news of the Endless' deeds spread through the city like wildfire.
If Overseer Elohys is true to its word, this knowledge will doom us. Or perhaps it was lying to Custodian Tua, empty threats to keep its pawn in check. In either case, the revelation of the Endless' deception has united the Kapaku.
The Temple of Our Saviors has been ransacked, set to torch. None would defend the Endless now. The Kapaku are nobody's tool, nor will we be the excecutioners of the Otherskins from Auriga.
No doubt many of those races evolved from the Endless' twisted experiments. This world is their birthright, bought and paid for with the same sufffering and loss that we have endured on our own world.
If we are to have a future we will have to find a common path - and hope to weather out winter together.
First though, a more pressing matter burns. A thorough examination of Overseer Elohys' quarters has revealed the Endless' true plan: To see Auriga cleansed in a single wave of lava, using our volcanoformation machines to precipitate volcanic eruptions from pole to pole.
The Endless' reprehensible past will be lost, along with all life on the planet. Even we Kapaku won't survive it.
 Summary
 Overseer Elohys is attempting to trigger a chain reaction of volcanic eruptions that will see Auriga become one unending lake of lava. It must be stopped.
 Reward

 From the Journal of Custodian Aktyl
The memory of the Endless' deceit is still a raw and painful one in our collective psyche. The wounds will be a long time healing. We trusted the Endless, thought them our saviours, but they saw us as nothing more than an instrument of erasure.
Why did Overseer Elohys take such personal interest in the Scouring of Auriga? That remains a matter of broad speculation. Custodian Tua wasn't wrong when she said the Endless had made great sacrifices to join us here.
Some think it might've been one of the Endless who oversaw Auriga during its days as a world of horrors. Others that it was the scientist personally responsible for birthing the terrifying Necrophages. Others still, think perhaps it was just an ordinary Endless... A citizen riven with patriotic fervor, who couldn't abide any tarnishing of the Endless' reputation on the galactic stage.
We may never know.
The winters are growing longer and harsher. We will claim enough of Auriga to give ourselves a chance of survival, but I am not convinced this great freeze can be arrested.
Every moon we hear whispers of the Otherskins' plans for survival - escape, slumber, descent - and their ideas fuel our own geomancers' imaginations.
So we hope, and we keep the fires kindled.
Whatever happens, we can ensure Auriga's past is not lost. We will never destroy - or subvert - history. Not our own, nor anyone else's.
Expeditions to the Endless' labs are being mounted, and the grim spectacles locked therein studied, deconstructed, and chronicled. We are tinkerers, after all. This is our great strength. We will build a great monument-archive for Auriga's story to last through the ages.
 Summary
 The Endless' shameful past on Auriga must not be lost. First though, we need to carve out our own realm on this world, and ready ourselves for the longest winter.
 Reward

 *Prerequisites: Must be playing custom Kapaku faction without the Volcanoforming trait*
From the Journal of Custodian Aktyl
The memory of the Endless' deceit is still a raw and painful one in our collective psyche. The wounds will be a long time healing. We trusted the Endless, thought them our saviours, but they saw us as nothing more than an instrument of erasure.
Why did Overseer Elohys take such personal interest in the Scouring of Auriga? That remains a matter of broad speculation. Custodian Tua wasn't wrong when she said the Endless had made great sacrifices to join us here.
Some think it might've been one of the Endless who oversaw Auriga during its days as a world of horrors. Others that it was the scientist personally responsible for birthing the terrifying Necrophages. Others still, think perhaps it was just an ordinary Endless... A citizen riven with patriotic fervor, who couldn't abide any tarnishing of the Endless' reputation on the galactic stage.
We may never know.
The winters are growing longer and harsher. We will claim enough of Auriga to give ourselves a chance of survival, but I am not convinced this great freeze can be arrested.
Every moon we hear whispers of the Otherskins' plans for survival - escape, slumber, descent - and their ideas fuel our own geomancers' imaginations.
So we hope, and we keep the fires kindled.
Whatever happens, we can ensure Auriga's past is not lost. We will never destroy - or subvert - history. Not our own, nor anyone else's.
Expeditions to the Endless' labs are being mounted, and the grim spectacles locked therein studied, deconstructed, and chronicled. We are tinkerers, after all.
This is our great strength.
We will build a great monument-archive for Auriga's story to last through the ages.
 Summary
 The Endless' shameful past on Auriga must not be lost. First though, we need to carve out our own realm on this world, and ready ourselves for the longest winter.
 Reward

## Gallery

* The Kapaku leader in the diplomacy screen