Faction Homeworlds

## United Empire

**Name:** Raia

**Class:** Terran

**Description:** The first Mezari starships arrived millennia ago, landing on a green, virginal--and empty--planet of breathtaking, fecund wildernesses. Today, Raia proudly shows its pioneering, frontier past as it tamed the wild lands and storm-wracked seas, its landmasses now brimming with mighty industrial swathes and vast urban powerhouses. On the oceans stand huge mining platforms, Raia's riches now the United Empire's riches. Above, half-built starship yards orbit the conquered world, as the Empire prepares to take its glorious civilization to the rest of the galaxy.

## Sophons

**Name:** Hekim

**Class:** Boreal

**Description:** The Sophons evolved on Hekim, a rocky world orbiting a blue star. As their sun produced relatively high radiation, their rate of mutation and evolution was unusually rapid. Though their world is cold, numerous volcanic fissures and vents created networks of warm spots, oases, and habitable cave systems which allowed the Sophons to indulge themselves in the study of biology and geology from early in their history. With natural energy sources leaving the atmosphere clear, their eyes soon turn to the study of the stars . . .

## Cravers

**Name:** Husk

**Class:** Jungle

**Description:** Built by the Virtual Endless during the Dust Wars as weapons, the Cravers successfully wiped many planets and stations clean of the Concretes. Once their usefulness was over, however, the Endless shut down the factories and abandoned the Cravers, dumping the remaining troops on Husk, a random planet, and bombing it back to the Stone Age. Grim and resolute the Cravers survived and evolved, using makeshift and stolen technology to scrabble their way back to the stars.

## Horatio

**Name:** Horatio Prime

**Class:** Mediterranean

**Description:** Horatio Prime is a world that in most other factions would serve as the vacation planet. Dry, warm, breezy, and beautiful, it is clear from the extensive Endless ruins that more than one spacefaring race has selected it as a preferred destination. Its current infrastructure projects tend to vary with Horatio’s tastes; some buildings blend seamlessly with the landscape while others are garish and metallic statements of architectural extravagance.

## Riftborn

**Name:** Vanguard

**Class:** Snow

**Description:** Upon arrival in the galaxy, the Riftborn settled on a snow-covered world that they named Vanguard. Like the rest of the universe they find themselves in, they have little love for the planet, yet in its pristine, white snowfields they find an echo of their own universe, Coroz. Less a home, and more a staging ground for further explorations, the Riftborn inhabit a small corner of the world with order and vigor.

## Unfallen

**Name:** Koyasil

**Class:** Forest

**Description:** An ancient world, its origin lost to the mists of time, Koyasil's entire landmass is now one vast, primeval forest. How long ago the Unfallen rose from the gloomy, silent woodlands is uncertain, but most historians who have studied the species of the galaxy place them as one of the oldest. In the depths of the forest, a sense of timelessness reigns supreme, and it is said a fallen tree will lay undisturbed for millennia, its very fabric becoming another layer of the forest. The Unfallen strive for little, content in their ageless world, but the stirrings of younger races across the galaxy has awoken something in Koyasil . . . something ancient, mysterious, and powerful.

## Vodyani

**Name:** Tchinomy

**Class:** Tundra

**Description:** The home planet of the Vodyani was a poor yet temperate world, and the fragility of its environment meant it was soon depleted. As a result the Vodyani were driven into space by necessity, and already have a long history as a ship-bound people. Though their civilization is now tied to their Arks, their planet of origin remains a powerful symbol both as a lesson in ecology and as a memory of the weak and grotesque forms they had before Virtual technology allowed them to evolve beyond that.

## Lumeris

**Name:** Jenes

**Class:** Atoll

**Description:** Jenes, an atoll planet full of tropical islands and tropical storms, is the home of the Lumeris civilization and the home base of the Lumeris Families that rule it from behind the scenes. Their oceanic environment necessitated the ability to adapt to the water, yet the need to create fire and build advanced technologies drove them to the land. From there they are now challenging the heavens themselves, bringing their unique style of economic development to an unsuspecting galaxy.

## Vaulters

**Name:** No Home System

**Spawn Location:** Rejuvenation Field

**Class:** Special Node

**Description:** A relic of the Endless, doubtless constructed at the time of their civil wars, this Dust-energized anomaly heals and repairs ships that pass through its sphere of effect. Ancient ruins indicate it was once known as the "Lodestone of the Nine".

## Hissho

**Name:** Uchi

**Class:** Jungle

**Description:** The Hissho home planet is hot, craggy, and rocky, but full of lowland jungles. Though the highlands are arid and dry, the valleys and oceans of the planet form a dense forest habitat that teems with life--and prey. The difficult conditions have led the HIssho to be hardy and stoic, whether they are meditating in a temple carved into the side of a mountain or hunting game through dense woods.

The rough terrain lent itself to development of clan and family as the root of both social and political structure, and even now that they have their eyes set on the stars the Hissho remain tied in webs of ancient loyalties.

## Umbral Choir

**Name:** Nexus

**Class:** Crescent

**Description:** The Umbral Choir are outsiders to the Endless galaxy, and Nexus is their hidden fortress from where they explore this new realm. As immaterial wraiths capable of infiltrating the logical foundations of machine and cybernetic systems, the Umbral Choir are masters of espionage, but, equally, are unable to colonize worlds by traditional methods. Nexus is their answer to this conundrum. A medley of constructed interlocking rings, this artificial world acts as a bridge between the material and immaterial domains, permitting the Choir to fulfil their ambitions of ending the suffering in the galaxy.

## Nakalim

**Name:** Sobra

**Class:** Desert

**Description:** The Nakalim have been on Sobra since their birth, and though it is heavily exploited they still view it as a gracious and civilized home. A more interesting fact is that the planet was once protected by a Lost, also called Sobra by the Nakalim, who guided and aided them over the long, slow growth of their culture. They feel the loss of their god to the weapons of the Endless keenly, and are dedicated enemies of that dead civilization. From Sobra they once built an empire that controlled much of the galaxy, and they are eager to rebuild it.