Sprava

## Description

The grey and molten homeworld of the formidable spravac, Sprava is aglow with bright pink and purple lights, its vast megalopoli rivaling even the scale of the Holy Zyyntorean Empire. Its military is considered one of the most dangerous armies in the galaxy, and their navy is unmatched in speed and sheer numbers.

## History

### Unification

Before the empire’s beginning in 3475 CE, Sprava was divided by rival tribes with sub-par ballistic weaponry known as warbands. These bands would range in size from as little as a single family to entire city states with millions of soldiers and were linguistically and culturally diverse by considerable margins. The strongest of these states, the Gegcenscz, originated from the city of Cairé Árvós, a large city that would go on to grow to be visible from space in due time.

The chieftain of the Gegcenscz, Vógcí Tzill, like all spravac, was a remarkably audacious and ambitious warrior who sought to conquer the “Great Black” in the name of a new Spravac Empire. He, along with his horde of warriors, set out from the center of the Great Killing Wastes to conquer all tribes that he came across. However, the leaders of his armies, Jerítai Sírvíai and Rasczec Lívinc, feigned loyalty for the entirety of the Great Spravac Unification War to later betray and kill Tzill to take control of his new empire once he had conquered the entire planet.

In 3472 CE, days after the last of the spravac tribes and kingdoms had been absorbed, Sírvíai and Lívinc requested an audience with Tzill to discuss matters of governance. When Tzill entered the room, Rasczec immediately turned on him and beheaded the warlord upon Sírvíai’s order.

With the so-called Mad Warlord’s blood corroding the steel panes of the chamber, Sírvíai named Lívinc the first Incubus, a prestigious new title of a new military order tasked with guarding the existence of the Empire. The Incubus Covens are a massive network of soldiers that serve as the elite troops of the Spravac Empire and the Primes’ collective will. The Covens’ almost occult devotion to the preservation of the empire stretches even to assassinating Primes that they deem incompetent. All of these deaths have resulted in a Succession War, a common practice mirroring the ancient tradition of the Gegcenscz, who make up the largest ethnic group within the empire. These wars are little more than organized battles, in which both parties seeking to take up the mantle of Prime must gather their supporters and battle for supremacy within the Killing Wastes, the ancient battlefields in which skeletons pile up higher than some spravac are tall. Following the conclusion of the battle, the winner is then inducted by the Conclave of the Covens, in which the Vótzaiscz from each coven of the Empire chant the Prime’s name and a Blade Cape (a harness with four winglike blades that splay out) is fastened to the Prime’s torso.

### Spravac Emergence

The spravac would remain undisturbed on their homeworld for almost two millennia, eventually coming into contact with a Union survey team in 5008 CE, in which the spravac immediately began a tenuous relationship with the entirety of the Betaverse. The spravac’s first demonstration of military prowess was in the First Raleos War in 5012 CE, in which the entire raleos navy attacked the spravac defense fleet.

The spravac, eager to test the mettle of their new soldiers, allowed the raleos to break through their own fleet with relative ease, which the raleos responded to by landing over six million soldiers and 90,000 vehicles on the ground. However, upon landing, they immediately faced hordes of fresh and eager spravac troops. The spravac fleet then turned around and destroyed the raleos navy, trapping the raleos soldiers as the spravac swiftly strangled the force into oblivion. Union news crews were permitted to film the combat for informational purposes. The spravac were witnessed brutally slaughtering unarmed and wounded raleos, frequently torturing their victims and even eating them alive. Eventually, when the Union crews left, two members of the seven person team committed suicide from the mentals scars inflicted from witnessing the spravac’s savage war doctrine and love of bloodshed.

Following the conclusion of the Beta War, the spravac immediately began their expansion outside of the Betaverse. Their most infamous conflict, the Spravac Crusades, was a massive 1000 year series of wars within the Gammaverse that devastated the verse and killed hundreds of billions in the fighting, many of which were spravac or civilians.

Later, the spravac would invade the Deltaverse a multitude of times which ended with mixed results, though the spravac always enjoyed the conflicts immensely. The spravac are also well known for their long list of war crimes committed during these conflicts, with rape and mass murder being the most common of these. Rather than deny them, the spravac celebrate these acts as a virtue and the most amusing aspect of warfare, as they continuously commit such atrocities without any regard for the consequences.

### War with the NRR

The spravac have remarkably close relationships with a wealth of empires, most notably the New Roman Republic, a massively powerful empire in the northern half of the Milky Way that the spravac previously warred with for three decades from 7017 CE. The war is most famous for being the only time in which an enemy faction had a viable hold on Sprava itself, a planet that was thought, and is still generally thought to be unconquerable

Despite managing to hold large areas of the planet, the NRR took tremendous losses that nearly broke their military, as the spravac countered the marching NRR troops at every turn with hordes of soldiers and armed militia, even to the point that individual NRR troops (who are nearly twice the size of spravac) were suffocated from the weight of all of the spravac. In fact, the NRR army wasn’t even able to establish a beachhead without losing over one million men to anti-air fire alone.

The naval battle above the planet was famously deadly, with the initial battle fielding a combined force of nearly 2,000 ships, with the Spravac Defense Fleet making up over half of that number. The NRR fleet was the heaviest in terms of sheer weight that they had ever fielded, made almost entirely of heavy assault cruisers and carriers. The battle lasted a straight four days, during that time the falling debris from the destroyed ships became so thick that they blotted out the sun.

During the battle, swarms of NRR landing craft would boldly fly through the fire, attempting to land their troops before the spravac had enough time to fortify their outer defenses. Ultrabow defense cannons and transatmospheric ballistas shot down hundreds of craft at a time, so much to the point that 60,000 men were killed within the first attempted landing alone. These dangerous landings eventually succeeded on the second day of the battle, however the forces that landed were promptly overrun by hordes of Rangers and marines. It was only on the fourth day when a beachhead was successfully maintained, though even then they faced attritious fire from the spravac defenders.

Following the establishment of the beachhead within the Zgilló Domain, the NRR’s rough fortifications were harried ceaselessly by the forces of House Sczril, the vicious rulers of Zgilló and the greater Region of Vróslárá, helmed by Archon Tvûl Sczril. The Sczril forces mounted a valiant defense against the NRR forces, eventually breaking after the decisive Battle of Vugcs and the eventual fall of the Terror Keep, the noble estate of House Sczril.

With the fall of the Sczril, legions of Blackwatch and Rangers slowed the NRR advance while other houses mobilized their levies, forming prodigious swarms of marines and irregulars prepared to soak the entire planet in NRR blood.

The two massive forces clashed during the Hellreach Campaign, with the namesake coming from the expansive Kingdom of Rótzerád, nicknamed after the Hellreach Mountains that hug its borders. The NRR General charged with taking the Hellreach, Alden Grimm, clashed with Spine Prince Sgcár Ûsczim, the lord of Rótzerád and Vótzai of the Sprava Coven. The Hellreach Campaign, over the course of the 1 year battle, killed nearly 6 million soldiers on both sides, with an additional 20 million civilians and irregular fighters killed.

Despite the losses taken, the spravac refused to show the NRR any quarter, and relentlessly threw their men at the NRR. So many soldiers were killed on both sides that rivers ran dry from the amount of dead clogging them. Entire fields would have their grounds covered completely by fallen men and destroyed vehicles, and mountains were even eroded away by the amount of artillery fired into them.

For another 4 years the NRR and spravac unabatedly clashed, with nearly 1 billion spravac irregulars dying as they bitterly fought for every city and inch of land the NRR besieged.

The height of this carnage was at the fateful Siege of Cairé Árvós, the very capital of the Spravac Empire. Nearly every nearby general of the Spravac Empire was mobilized to defend the dark city. It’s population of nearly 40 million was levied to fight alongside the massive horde of Incubi and Rangers that garrisoned the imperial capital. Over 60,000 tanks, including 700 Basilisks were present, and the walls of the city, which were almost 400 feet tall, were mounted with miniature Ultrabows. The NRR knew that if they took the capital, they had a chance to end the war, a war which at this point was their most devastating yet. The city was so massive that it could clearly be seen from orbit, stretching out to the point that it was as large as a small country, at nearly 16,000 square miles.

Nearly 70 million NRR troopers were fielded to take the city. Accounts stated that the incredible scale of the city horrified the NRR soldiers, who attested that the twisting walls of spines and lights were akin to death itself, with the spravac the grim reapers stationed to guard its hellish walls.

The NRR continuously assaulted the wall for three weeks, losing tens of thousands just scaling the towering structures. The top of the walls were wide enough to hold small frigates, and massive firefights killing thousands were held to claim just a sector of the fortifications.

The greatest of these, the Shardmouth, was the main gated entrance into the city, and was mounted with two Ultrabow batteries that obliterated entire corps of NRR soldiers. The Battle for the Shardmouth was eventually won by the NRR after they flanked the walls of the gate, destroying the two cannons, allowing the NRR tanks to punch holes through the main shadowy gates.

The whole of Cairé Árvós is actually multiple massive cities closely connected by heavily guarded highways called the Stygian Web. Along the web were hundreds of other cities so large that they held millions of armed civilians, making each step the NRR took one they would pay for with gallons of their blood. The NRR vanguard was especially battered, facing countless suicidal charges from spravac militia, some of which were even more heavily armed their professional marine brethren.

House Vólé, the noble house in charge of maintaining the Web, mobilized hordes of their Incubi guards to launch hit and run attacks on the NRR supply lines, causing starvation and disease to run rampant during the nearly two year campaign.

The central hub of Cairé Árvós, the Black Citadel, was the final battle of the Siege. Though the entirety of the dark city was not even close to taking, the NRR had grown desperate, and the Emperor himself led the Battle for the Citadel. Emperor Gabriel and his elite troops clashed hideously with the Incubi and Blackwatch, who had all withdrawn from the other fronts on the planet to defend the very black heart of their Empire. Walls of dead blocked doorways, the expansive floors of the palace became replaced with dead bodies, and even then the Primes refused to escape, choosing to meet the Emperor in glorious combat.

When Gabriel entered the main throne room, he was amazed to find the three Primes waiting for him, each clad in armor and posturing shamelessly. They drew their weapons, challenging him to single combat. Gabriel, impressed by their audacity, accepted and fought the first Prime, Tzill Seró in a vicious duel that lasted nearly two hours, eventually succeeding and crushing Tzill’s skull beneath his boot.

The next Prime, Sgcál Vól, underhandedly poisoned his blade with a deadly hallucinogen. After cutting his thigh, Gabriel was bombarded by thousands of horrid visions that nearly cost him the battle, however, Vól did not finish him, instead taunting and gloating over him, filling Gabriel with so much rage that he fought past the hallucinations and tore Vól’s head cleanly from his shoulders.

It was at this point that Prime Nósczán Zgává, the last of the Primes, got an idea. He sheathed his blade and presented Gabriel with a preposition. Either continue a pointless war that had already cost him thirty years and billions of soldiers, or end the war in a truce and join in a military alliance, as the spravac were thoroughly impressed with the NRR’s skills in battle.

Nearly dead and exhausted by the war, Gabriel accepted, ending the war in a bloodied truce.

Since that point, many other powers have attempted to invade Sprava and have continuously failed. During the war against the Humae Union, the Union tried to invade the world in 307 AUA, 307 years into the arduous conflict. When the Union invaded, they immediately faltered and simply delayed their defeat for two years, during which the spravac threw themselves at the enemy for their own enjoyment, eventually isolating and killing all of the Union soldiers.

Centuries later in 736 AUA, the Syrus Empire invaded Sprava as well. Aiming to answer the issues that the Union faced during their own campaign, the Syrus were confronted with a myriad of other problems that too devastated their army. The primary issue that the Union faced was the crushing numbers of spravac soldiers and their devastating speed and reaction time to invasions. The syrus attempted to rectify these issues by invading the planet with over 2 billion soldiers, 1 billion more than the Union invasion force. Despite the immense numbers, the syrus underestimated the spravac’s reaction and mobilization time to the invasion, as the entire syrus invasion front was met by the Blackwatch, a 5 billion strong force of Incubus trained warriors who serve as the personal army of the Primes and the main garrison throng of Sprava. The Blackwatch outclassed the syrus in everything except numbers, though their superior training speed made the syrus’ numbers irrelevant, as they eventually crushed the syrus army within a year, with the syrus never actually advancing past their initial landing spot. The Invasion of Sprava is often seen as a significant turning point in the war, as the syrus’ had committed more troops to the invasion of the planet than any other in the war, and losing every trooper there severely lowered the syrus’ fighting effectiveness. The spravac used the battle as a powerful piece of propaganda to rally their troops, leading to more volunteers joining the marines than could be armed or even clothed, though this did not deter the spravac from sending them into combat anyway.

As a Kratocratic society, the spravac are believed by many to have one of the most bizarre methods of governance in the galaxy. As a race with uncontrollable lust for blood and a proclivity for cannibalism, the planet does not have laws or police to speak of, rather they function simply because the spravac psyche is imbued with an overarching sense of nationalism and devotion to the Empire.

The massive navy and army is maintained and built entirely on volunteer labor, whose only desired payment is the implication of bloodshed, which is why the spravac have no form or even concept of currency, instead proceeding to live short lives in conditions that would be considered squalor by any other species.

## Ecology

### Geography

The geographic makeup of Sprava, from orbit, appears largely homogenous. With massive expanses of barren grey wasteland and steppe, teeming with pockets of sulfuric vents that give the soil its bluish-grey color. However, upon closer inspection, it is revealed that the biomes of Sprava are much more varied. Large areas of the western hemisphere are covered in bogs and swamps, referred to as Blood Swamps by the spravac. These mires are choked with poisonous gas and deadly amphibious predators. The flora is made up mostly of moss coated trees and bulbous fungal sacks that produce clouds of greenish-blue spores that poison the lungs of any non-spravac that breathes it. The sacks are harvested by spravac nomads for recreational drug use and by the military for biological warfare. The Blood Swamps are also home to civilization, primarily in the form of medium sized cities and feudal estates that lord over the bogs.

The mountainous regions of Sprava, which are primarily in the southern continents, house their own specialized ecological areas referred to as Black Forests. Made of crystalized ash and pyroclastic hoodoos produced from the thousands of volcanos that make up Sprava’s mountain ranges, the Black Forests are twisted masses of rock as well as Blackwood trees; a large, leafless growth that has had its bark hardened and fused with volcanic ash, creating a rock-hard outer shell that is frequently harvested by the spravac for ornamental purposes. The largest of these Black Forests is the Obsidian Expanse, a massive labyrinth of shimmering stone that surrounds the base of one of Sprava’s largest volcanos; the Burning Mouth.

Though these biomes are common, much of Sprava is either desolate deserts of sulfur-tainted soil and pyroclastics or industrial cityscapes swarming with hundreds of millions of spravac and clouds of industrial pollution. The blackened waters of Sprava are forever tinted by the swamps and industrial waste of the cities, creating horribly mutated aquatic wildlife and plants, even causing the kelp of the shallow waters to expand and sprout from the surface, creating oceanic marshlands and blackened mangroves that are home to amphibious beasts and spravac nomads, particularly Árácí pirates and drifters.

The flat wastes are temporarily broken up by narrow cannons produced from Sprava’s frequent seismic and volcanic activity. Further eaten away from bouts of heavy acidic rain, these canyons are almost entirely filled with razor sharp spires of crystalline rocks, creating illusions of gigantic stone teeth. The largest of these is the Trench of Glass, a twelve thousand mile long strip that nearly bisects the entire northern continent of Zgártzál. The Trench is so wide and deep that it is able to house multiple large cities within its confines, creating twisting mazes of metal built upon the jagged mountain sized spires of rock.

### Wildlife

The spravac are not the only deadly species on the planet. The planet is remarkably biodiverse, though a majority of its fauna are just as aggressive and armed as the spravac. The primary apex predators are the Vólsczer, large reptilian beasts that the spravac utilize as beasts of burden and war. They have extremely powerful locking jaws which are lined with serrated teeth that continuously replace themselves. They typically make their homes within the expansive steppes and wastelands of Sprava’s ashen plains.

Ûntár Hounds are a smaller cousin of the Vólsczer, though they are much smaller and are pack hunters whereas Vólsczers are solitary and extremely territorial with their own kind. They also possess a naturally occurring gland in their throat that allows them to produce an ear piercing sonic scream, which they use to disorient their prey before attacking. These efficient hunters are often kept as pets by spravac and other species, and are also used by the former as hunting parties and scouting during war.

The Karoc is the largest terrestrial beast on Sprava, standing well over 80 feet in height and 75 tons in weight. Karocs are omnivorous and six limbed, and are able to stand on four legs to use their front limbs as arms. They are often used as beasts of war, with massive howdahs on their backs with tank caliber guns mounted on as well. Their massive height and strong legs make them optimal for living in the Blood Swamps, where they are commonly captured and domesticated by the spravac living there.

The Talóscz is a bizarre burrowing creature that acts as an ambush predator. Using its four tentacle-like flailing limbs attached to its back and its acidic spit to attack, the vicious beast is used as a solitary hunter in warfare, and are well-liked by the spravac for being easy to train while also having a high success rate in finding and killing their prey. They are commonly found hiding in the mud of the Blood Swamps, their primary prey being either small herbivores or juvenile Karocs.

Írítár are large flightless birds with two pairs of eyes and a ravenous appetite, known for eating just about anything that’s put in front of them. They are immensely popular as long distance traveling mounts, as well as for their meat. As such, they are found in flocks throughout the wastes, though a small mountain variety can be found living in the Black Forests or trenches.

The deadliest native species on Sprava is said to not have any natural or unnatural predators, being so powerful that even spravac have trouble killing them without outnumbering it or using heavy military grade weapons and vehicles. This beast, known by the spravac as the Vírós-Caisczai, is a semi-sentient predator of unknown taxonomy that roams the outlands of Sprava, typically in the rocky crags and mountains. So rare that it was once thought to be extinct, the Vírós-Caisczai, or Red Nightmare, is a seven eyed, crimson-skinned terror that is able to walk on two legs or on all fours like a great ape. Its hands are tipped with 12 inch claws, including on its opposable thumbs. Its long tail, which makes up about 70% of its 24’ length, is tipped with a glaive-like chitinous blade, with that same growth also tipping two of the six tentacles that jut out of its back. Its body is armored in chitinous armor plating, protecting leathery skin and spiracles located on its sides. Its pupiless eyes glow a faint red, and the seventh eye is located on its forehead, emitting a bright light that causes hallucinations and paralysis to those that stare at it for too long. Its razor sharp teeth are accompanied by four individually moving mandibles that secrete a venom that causes necrosis around the wound.

The Red Nightmare is so intelligent that spravac are not able to tame it by traditional means, instead having to bargain with it rather than beat or intimidate it into submission. They are also known to follow complex commands, and are even able to replicate speech to a certain degree with their advanced voicebox. The few that have been tamed often require two or three masters to keep them under control, and they are released onto battlefields and behind enemy lines to sow death and destruction wherever they go, as they seem to enjoy killing for recreation just as much as the spravac do.