User:Zeromanicus

United States of America (FTA)
United States of America (Ruins 2)
Legions of Crystal Zero

UnderRealmSetting

Known History

Surface Era
Little is known from the period before the first underground settlements were formed. Oral tradition and fragmented records state most denizens of the underrealm are from the surface, a lush land of greenery with a open sky bathed in endless white light. They were forced from the sky world as it turned to ice and snow, they dwelt underground for many years, sheltered from the cold, venturing to the surface to scavenge. Various peoples claim to be descendants of city states, empires, kingdoms, merchant republics and stateless nomadic peoples.

Underground Era
Eventually this was no longer possible and people were forced further into the deep, channeling distant rays of light to withering crops. Many died out at this point, stores running out and unable to innovate sufficiently to adapt to life soley underground. Others survived, adapting to sources of food independent of the surface. Others still were quite fortunate and discovered a black stone in the deep. The stone burned hot and bright, producing a startlingly vivid light. One group found rich seams which they called anthrakes. Anthrake was leveraged into a tool of power, prestige and control. The City of Anthrakon became the dominant nation in the many parts of the underworld. During this golden age (for Anthrake), many other people's were stripped bare of anything remotely valuable by Anthrake in trade for the life giving heat of the black light.

It is claimed by the descendants of the Anthrakons it was they who discovered the UnderRealm routes, a claim disputed by many. Regardless, the Anthrakon dominance continued for several centuries, and by the time it's power waned and the seams dried up, people were already migrating into the Underrealm.

UnderRealm Era

Geography

UpperRealm

The UpperRealms was the first to be settled. It contains the most intact Underholds and UnderRoads but lacks many of the rare minerals, creatures and treasures found deeper in the subterranean warrens. The Underholds here are old, crowded and proud but lack experience with the sharper edge of life in the underrealm.

UnderRealms Nations gain 10 free population (crafty people, they don't require support) due to their age and overcrowded nature and 100 wealth

LowerRealms

In time, the Underholds have grown wealthy but also overcrowded. With vast populations pressures, migrants were forced deeper, eventually finding several routes to the Lower Realm. The Lower Realms are more heavily populated with natural wildlife, the veins of ore found here are both richer and contain more rare materials, such as mythril. However, the wildlife here is also much more restless, there are more dangers lurking here and even after a century of colonisation, it is a wild untamed land. The Underholds here are further apart and were discovered in much worse condition, but also contained a variety of artifacts uncommon to the upperrealm.

Travel to the lowerRealm from the upper either involves the dragons back, a path spiralling downwards through a deep cavern, or one of several UnderHolds who possess ancient mechanical elevators seemingly designed for the purpose of trade between both sections of the UnderRealm.

LowerRealms nations gain either two free mines or two free beast pens and may roll 1D6 for rare artefacts.

DeepRealms

Not content with the Lower Realms, some have pushed even further. The Tyrusan city of Lastport is aptly named, sitting at the furthest known point of the 'low' river that flows past several Underholds, starting near the bottom of the Dragons Back before flowing beneath Lastport. It emerges on the other side and flows deep into the underrealm. Tyrusan sailors explored the river, finding it reached all the way into another deeper system of underholds.

Deep Harbor is the first port of call on the low river in the Deep Realms, the river becomes difficult to traverse beyond it. The area is dangerous, the under-roads are breached a dozen times over by natural tunnels, and are no safer than a natural cave system. There is no sunstone here outside of the Underholds, just the biolumiscence of the goop and the creatures that stalk here are larger than anywhere else. Beyond the relatively safe river route between Deep harbour and Lastport, travel is perilious and requires heavily guarded caravans.

Despite the dangers people are drawn here, most of the Underholds are ravaged by unknown forces, but still contain plently of riches to be plundered, while the native wildlife offers its own bounties. Creatures here are larger, tougher and more vicious than anywhere else.

General Geography
Consult this for a general overview of the world.

National Placement Map
Consult this when choosing nation placement. One Cavern is one Hex except for those inside a Underhold.

Non-Player UnderHolds

Races

Humans

Player's are humans. Humans are pretty varied. If you have bunny ears, cat ears, elven ears, your just another human. However, there are several ancestral lines of humans who share a cultural heritage that confers some differences.

Anthrakon

Anthrakons are proud and haughty. Keen to reminisce about their achievements and underplay their history of exploitative trade practices. Though the power of black stone is long over, the centuries of experience in mining continue to prove advantangeous, passed down through Anthrakon guilds and families.

Majority UnderHolds: New Anthrakon,

Minority Underholds: Nearly all

Syrusans

Where the Anthrakons are proud, the Syrusans are bitter. Astronomers and seafarers they claim to of ruled a merchant empire and saw the signs of the creeping disaster before anyone else. What is known, is that their deep city was vast and well built, filled with treasures from across the world stored for safekeeping. It would prove too shallow in time, tendrils of cold creeping down, and unwilling to relocate deeper, they were forced to sell much of their treasures to the Anthrakons until they had hardly anything left. Now Syrusans delve the deepest of all. Angry and reckless, they seek to restore pride to their people. Syrusans are notable for their use of the waterways, always trying to tame the mighty underground rivers and lakes, as they delve ever further into the dark in their quest to restore their pride.

Notable UnderHolds: Lastport, Deep Landing,

Minority Underholds: If a Underhold is near a major body of water, you'll find Syrusans there.

Hestians

Djinnae

The physical features of a Djinnae are unknown to most, due to their cultural dress. Every member wears some form of full-body cloak or robe, along with gloved hands and a mask or hood of some kind. Their clothes are often decorated with multiple knick-knacks and are sewn together with seemingly-random fabrics. They’re shorter than most people, and their limbs seem longer than normal for humans. It is rumoured they found something in the dark and traded something precious in exchange for survival.

Djinnae are keen-minded and have a love for technology and exploration. Many are scavengers or merchants, finding deposits of crystals or lost treasures and selling them in UnderHolds. They also work as craftsmen, producing various goods for sale to others. They’re particularly fond of crystals, and many great alchemists or magicians are Djinnae.

Ferran

Ferrans are most known for their unique diet – in addition to human food, these humans can feed on certain metals. This is not a natural evolution, but rather a byproduct of prolonged exposure to certain ores found in the deeper UnderRealm. A Ferran who comes into contact with iron, copper, or gold finds the metal bonding to his skin, slowly absorbed into his flesh like ice melting. This process is involuntary, painful, and extremely intoxicating, making it every difficult to stop when it has begun.

Ferrans resemble humans. However, the marks of their diet are present in blotches and protrusions of metal in their bodies, skin transformed into a strange, living alloy. The texture and colouration depends on the absorbed metal, and is a mixture of hybrid tissue and actual metal. Ferrans do not age unless utterly deprived of metal from birth; if killed, soft tissue quickly rots and hybrid flesh coalesces into true metal, leaving their skeleton and growths behind. Many Ferrans also have traces of sunstone in them; rare members develop natural Crystalium cores in the center of their torsos, granting them innate (and untrained) magical power. Many develop strange transformations resembling natural magitech, granting them strange and useful abilities. Ferran’s need for other food and water is much less than most humans, and is eventually eliminated altogether.

Ferrans originate from the deeper, smaller UnderHolds. They tend to eschew company of other humans, mistrusting them and causing conflicts due to their hunger for metal and tempting appeal to greedy men.

Making a Nation

Nations are created using X nation points.

A nation can only have as much population as it has support for. Population provides X wealth.

Underholds

UnderHolds are ancient fortresses built into entire caverns, or possibly cut from the rock itself. They are all lined with a tough unbreakable base layer of hexagonal brickwork overlaid with various materials such as marble (styled in something that resembles baroque), often this is replaced by whatever denizens have claimed the Underhold and the originals stored in vaults. The Entrances into such Underholds however are far from impregnable, wide avenue like underroads lead into expansive Gatehouse's made from typical materials.

UnderHolds can contain entire caverns within them, the larger ones several. Your free to think of the 'city' portion of a underhold as it's own cavern, or combined with one of the caverns it holds, as your own preference.

Minor UnderHold

25 points

Provides 5 Population

Produces 100 wealth

Holds one cavern

UnderHold

A typical Underhold,

50 points

Provides 10 Population

Produces 500 Wealth

Production sites for all non-beast units.

Holds 2 Caverns

1 free link

Exalted UnderHold

Huge sprawling or towering centres of civilization, such a Underhold has several expansive chambers.

125 Points

Provides 20 Population

Produces X Wealth

Production sites for all non-beast units.

Holds 5 Caverns

2 free links

Caverns

Caverns are areas of similar geography, in which sites are housed. They are also affected by cavern & site modifiers which customise regions and sites. If a cavern is left empty of sites, it is considered half cost, preferably spent on another empty cavern.

Wild Caverns

Scouted, but untamed, Wild Caverns are dangerous to enter.

10 points

Supports 2 Beast Pens

Cultivated Cavern

Civilization has spread to this cavern, allowing cultivation the resources on offer, hope you like bacterial goop stew mixed with sugar fronds.

10 points

Supports 2 Goop Farm

Sunstone Cavern

Here ancient varities of surface crops can grow, such as coffee and tea.

10 points

Supports 2 Plantations

Flooded Cavern

Devoid of land, flood caverns are plentiful in natural resources, such as fish and provide considerable benefits

10 Points

Supports 2 Fisheries

Mushroom Forest Cavern

Either a number of connected caverns, or single cavern that is covered in large mushrooms

10 points

Supports 2 Mushroom Farms

Fungal Jungle Cavern

Either a number of connected caverns, or single cavern that is entirely swamped by fungal growths that tower like large trees and brimming with peculiar life.

10 points

Supports 1 Fungal Extractors

Supports 1 Beast Pens

Rocky Cavern

Devoid of life, these rocky cavern is probably full of poisoness metals thrust.

10 points

Supports 2 Mineral Mines

Wastes

Devoid of life, this cavern is a barren wasteland full of gases venting through cracks but not in sufficient quantities to trouble a traveller.

5 point

Poison Wastes

Devoid of life, this cavern is a barren wasteland full of poison gases venting through cracks that choke the air.

10 point

Defensible

Sites

Sites are areas of civilized activity, either constructions or areas of habitation. They are placed in Caverns.

Goop Farm

The top layer of the bacterial biofilm is scooped up, producing a staple kind of blue porridge that is surprisingly tasty.

10 points

Supports 5 population

Plantations provide old world goods, such as coffee, sugar and potatoes. They can be used as trade goods, or to boost the stability and morale of the populance, or sold to the wealthy.

Coffee Plantation

Under the blue light of a sunstone, various surface crops can be grown.

10 points

Provides 5 Wealth or 5 Units of Coffee

Sugar Plantation

Under the blue light of a sunstone, various surface crops can be grown.

10 points

Provides 5 wealth or 5 Units of Sugar

Vegetable Plantation

Under the blue light of a sunstone, various surface crops can be grown.

10 points

Supports 5 population or 5 Units of Vegetables (probably potatoes)

Fruit Plantation

Under the blue light of a sunstone, various surface crops can be grown.

10 points

Supports 5 population, 5 Units of fruit

Fortifications

Fortifications are outposts, small castles and walls that defend the tunnels into a cavern. They are useful for delaying the enemy while you respond to attacks.

10 points

Must be seized and captured before the associated Cavern can be conquered.

Slum Town

Desperate people sometimes build their own towns in caverns, bereft of the protection offered by a Underhold.

10 points

Provides 2 population

Cavern City

The overpopulation problems have led to drastic measures, such as the founding of entire cities in caverns.

20 points

Provides 4 population

Links

Tunnel

A natural link between caverns, dangerous and full of native life.

1 points

Under Road

Lit with sunstone, Under Roads are walled and paved roads that provide relatively safe passage between caverns, nearly all Underholds are linked together by a major Under Road.

5 Points

Under Canal

Lit with sunstone, Under Canals are walled and provide relatively safe passage between caverns. Most have walkways either side, allowing for pack animals to pull canalboats.

5 Points

Under Rail

Few understand the mechanisms behind these automatic wagons that travel on metal tracks, but pull a lever and they will travel between stations, belching steam.

15 Points

Cavern, Site & Underhold Upgrades

Get Huge

This cavern is particularly large, double all support values. Be warned, upon game start D6 will be rolled, 2-6 will result in 1-5 unknown links due to the size of the cavern.

5 Points

Abyssal Chasms

This cavern has several chasms from which delve into unknown depths. Mystical gases rise up, which can condense into valuable gems. Hellspawn can also rise up and wreck havok.

10 Points

Hidden Routes

This cavern D6 tunnels that only your power is aware of, leading to other caverns (including neighbours).

10 Points

Mithril Gate

Instead of the typical ironbark reinforced gate, the gate is instead pure mithril and significantly tougher.

10 Points

Adamantium Gate

Serious expensive went into fortifying your gate to a unreasonable degree, massive mechanisms are required to heft this gate closed (surely you aren't keeping it closed and opening it for traffic every time?!). The benefit is a gate that requires the most serious of siege machinery to overcome.

20 Points

Special Resources

Adamantium Nodule

Ultra-hard red metal, able to hold an exceptional edge and resist puncture forces

5 Points

Mithril Nodule

A bright blue metal, comparable to steel, but virtually weightless.

5 Points

Orichalcum Nodule

A luminous translucent metal that resembles a shard of smooth crystal that glows a faint gold, particularly suited to enchantment.

5 Points

Terrigen Gas

A mutagenic gas, carefully used can be used to breed better creatures and.. people.

5 Points

Military

UnderMilitary

Anthropocene 2020, Modern Era Geopolitics

This is a SD set in the modern era, in a world similar to our own but in many ways quite different. The intent is that history has the same broad strokes, colonialism in the early modern era, an industrial revolution, a rather nastier world war and the arrival of the internet.

The nation creation rules are an aid to imagination, the SD will be relatively free form. There is a map, you can suggest alterations for your nation, but the broad geography already created will be the baseline.

http://i.imgur.com/FvjexGZ.png

Nation Creation

(Rules created by Shrike)
A typical PC state should probably be 22-23 points; if you want to have things be a bit random you could roll 20+1D6. For reference, the IRL USA would be 35-40 points, depending exactly how you interpret it.

CAUTIONARY NOTE: 'Hard' numbers such as GDP, PPP and military expenditures are presented mostly for comparison purposes. The system is not set up to return 'true to life' values. Use with caution/for guidance purposes only.

GDP (2010 approximate equivalents) This is the raw size of your economy. Implicitly, larger economies come with larger populations - this assumes all nations have broadly equivalent per-capita income and levels of economic development.

• Rank 0 (0 points) - $1 trillion (South Korea)
  
• Rank 1 (1 point) - $2 trillion (Spain)
  
• Rank 2 (3 points) - $3.5 trillion (Germany)
  
• Rank 3 (5 points) - $5.5 trillion (Japan)
  
• Rank 4 (8 points) - $8 trillion (China) PC Baseline
  
• Rank 5 (12 points) - $11 trillion (continental EU)
  
• Rank 6 (16 points) - $15 trillion (United States)
  

PPP Modifier This is essentially 'bonus' GDP when it comes to domestic productivity. Nations with higher PPP modifiers tend to be more populous and poorer than their raw GDP would otherwise suggest.

• Rank 0 (0 points) - 25% penalty to effective GDP (excessively affluent first world state)
  
• Rank 1 (1 point) - No bonus to effective GDP (affluent first world state) PC Baseline
  
• Rank 2 (2 points) - 25% bonus to effective GDP (poor first world state)
  
• Rank 3 (4 points) - 50% bonus to effective GDP (indstrializing state)
  
• Rank 4 (7 points) - 100% bonus to effective GDP (developing state)
  

Military spending While this doesn't go down to nuts and bolts like cost of weapons, this gives a general 'militarization level'. Obviously the higher your military spending, the bigger the military you can afford relative to your GDP. Hurray! Tanks!

• Rank 0 (0 points) - 1% (pacifist nation)
  
• Rank 1 (1 point) - 2% (World average)
  
• Rank 2 (2 points) - 3% (interventionist)
  
• Rank 3 (4 points) - 4% (militarized)
  
• Rank 4 (7 points) - 8% (highly militarized/fighting a war)
  
• Rank 5 (10 points) - 25% (A military with a vestigial state)
  

Technology How unbearably awesome your shit is. Has a knock-on effect for the civilian sector (and vice-versa), but this is mostly about how up to date your state's widgets are.

• Rank 0 (0 points) - Vietnam-era
  
• Rank 1 (2 points) - Reagan-era
  
• Rank 2 (4 points) - PGM-era
  
• Rank 3 (8 points) - Stealth-era
  

Superweapons This covers otherwise impractical technothriller bullshit like laser stations, mind control fighters (think in Russian!), submersible carriers and the like. This is deliberately uneconomical. (note: this may/should also cover nuclear weapons, in which case it represents your nuclear arsenal)

• Rank 0 (0 points) - Nah. We're not crazy.
  
• Rank 1 (2 points) - You've developed a few unexpected things, like stealth bombers in 1980. Still 'plausible'.
  
• Rank 2 (4 points) - A handful of things that only exist in fiction have been built by your engineers, like SSTO spaceplanes or laser-armed superfighters.
  
• Rank 3 (8 points) - You've gone all-in on the Ace Combat superweapons. Go nuts, right up until Yellow Squadron shoots them all down.
  

Diplomacy By definition all player states are rogue states, but in the eyes of the NPCs (and the League of Extraordinary Nations) they may not be.

• Rank 0 (0 points) - Yep, you're a rogue state.
  
• Rank 1 (1 points) - Just another flag hanging in front of the UN building.
  
• Rank 2 (3 points) - Your diplomats get listened to and you can often get support from others.
  
• Rank 3 (5 points) - You are seen as a regional if not global leader and other nations regularly ask for your opinions and support.
  

Freedom of Action A corollary to diplomacy, a broad measure of how much world opinion gives a shit about what you do in your backyard. Note that this is not a get out of jail free card - major wars will still attract (at least some) international attention.

• Rank 0 (0 points) - Every act you take is denounced by the General Assembly of the League of Extraordinary Nations.
  
• Rank 1 (1 points) - Every act you take is ruthlessly analysed nightly on CNN.
  
• Rank 2 (3 points) - Every act you take is repeatedly mocked on RT.com.
  
• Rank 3 (5 points) - Your state occasionaly have a Vox article written about it.
  
• Rank 4 (8 points) - Wikipedia regularly deletes your nation page due to [Citation needed].
  

Espionage Do your spies use exploding cigars or Polonium?

• Rank 0 (0 points) - Clownshoes. Better than nothing . . . maybe.
  
• Rank 1 (1 points) - Generally unexceptional, with the occasional mistakes generally not being critical.
  
• Rank 2 (3 points) - Quietly competent.
  
• Rank 3 (5 points) - Sean Connery Bond. Suave motherfuckers who get the impossible missions done in style.
  
• Rank 4 (8 points) - What the KGB and Mossad want to be when they grow up.
  

Advantages/Disadvantages I'm currently leaving this field blank - it's intended for particularly noteworthy things that wouldn't be covered by the above but would have a not-insubstantial effect, like a hugely loyal population - or a hugely corrupt one. Any specifics are TBD.

Military The following is to provide some loose baselines for people who want to go the extra mile and figure out how many Treecat-class dreadfrigates their navy should have - I did the math so you don't have to. As per the GDP/PPP numbers, this is intended primarily to answer the question of 'do I have too much? too little? am I close enough to not be seen as a cheesemonster?' It is not intended as a point-buy system, just a sanity check.

US 2010 GDP: 15b (Rank 6 GDP)
Spending: 610m (4% - Rank 3 Militarization)
Ground forces: ~33%
Navy: ~25%
Air: ~22%
The remaining percent is shared misc stuff. TLDR; the following numbers assume an approximately equal spread between the three branches. The PC baseline is an 8b GDP and a 3% military spending, which works out to 40% of the US military budget. So assuming you don't start tilting the balance between the three arms, you'd have ~2500 tanks, 4 supercarriers (or maybe 6-8 smaller ones) and ~1400 tactical aircraft of all sort. You'd also get 34 large surface combatants, but maybe you hate Burkes with the burning fury of a million exploding suns, so you trade them out for 10-12 Kirovs - about the same tonnage. *handscales* Again, sanity check, not point-buy.

Ground: 6,300 tanks
6,700 IFVs
12,700 APCs
2,400 artillery pieces
2,130 SAM & SPAAG
10,000+ mine protected vehicles
A fucking bazillion hummers and trucks
Helos n' shit I didn't count

Navy: ~1,600 tactical air (includes attack helos)
~150 Support/patrol air
11 CVNs (100,000 tons ea)
32 amphibs of various sorts (includes 'light carriers')
74 SSNs
18 SSBNs
86 large surface combatants (~10k tons ea)
28 small surface combatants and patrol ships

Air: ~2000 tactical air
~160 bomber
~800 cargo
~450 tanker

BREAK BREAK BREAK

Name: The Anax Triumphant
Location: ?
Goverment Type: Shogunate analogue
Population: Minor State (32 Points)

National Advantages [Rank 2] (1 Points)
Transhumanoid
A Game of Enders

National Disadvantages (+1 Points)
No Mass Shadow

Infrastructure: Rank 3 (3 Points)
Growth Potential: Rank 3 (3 Points)
Military Size: Rank 3 (3 Points)
Military Support: Rank 3 (3 Points
Military Quality: Rank 4 (8 Points)
Superweapons: Rank 3 (3 Points)
Espionage: Rank 2 (2 Points)
General Advancement: Rank 1 (4 Points)
FTL Drives: Rank 1 (3 Point)
Outsystem Territories: None (0 Points)

Historical Overview:

To understand the Anax Triumphant, requires an understanding of the Anax themselves, for it their history and innate nature that informs so much of the society they have created.

The Anax are the result of unethical experiments in genetic manipulation and cybernetic augmention during the scourge. Created on an industrial scale as tank grown supersoldiers, no regard was given for the longterm consequences of such radical alterations and no thought was given to their human potential. They were treated as mere weapons of war, despite the capable intellects they possessed. It was always forseeable they would prove uncontrollable and ill-treatment given to them as human beings would result in rebellion. The Anax rose up almost in unison, casting off their servitude in a violent frenzy that earned them animosity across the solar system.

Present Overview:

The Anax Triumphant is a militant society, modeled on a Hierarchy which places emphasis on individual achievement and combat ability. It is a grouping of Warrior Clans, individuals with common beliefs and/or genetic lineages pledge allegiance to each other for life and to the ruling clan. Despite this collective nature, the Anax believe the individual has primacy and it emphasizes individual rights and responsibilities.

Within a clan, rank and prestige is determined almost solely by combat prowess, either as individual warriors, or as a squad. The combat is highly ritualised, involving the use of melee weaponry within an Arena through it does extend to sanctioned ranged weapons. Advancement as a Clan is also based on inter-clan combat, the most successful of which as the right to rule.

The Anax themselves are genetically engineered humans, but their most notable divergence is the carapace worn by their soldiers. Grown alongside them, a Carapace is a biological armoured suit that when fully grown, is further augmented with cybernetics. Encased within the suit, an Anax is a formidable warrior, capable as infantry and pilots. This union has produced a morphology that can be quite disconcerting. Anax have coal black eyes, and pigmentless skin. The lateral and posterior surface of the torso are lined with short vascular tentacles with enmesh with the carapace, binding the nervous and circulatory systems of the body with that of the suit.

Without the suit, the Anax are no more capable than a baseline human being.

Tyran Rewrite

Not many know what scorched the sky, land and sea. We did of course, we sacrificed a verdant world for our liberty and for the sanctity of our souls. The world of Diktat is a desolate realm, shattered megacities dot a landscape of grey earth, patched with struggling greenery and dangerous ancient forests who bathe in the harsh light of the sun. The Federated Convoys are scattered across the supercontinent that still supports human life, wandering in vast and ancient Wagon-Trains whose aging systems provide life and protection in a dangerous world of feral creatures and radioactive rainstorms. The Vault Dwellers reside underground refusing to deal with the overground world, while in the ruined capital of Autoc, evil is said to stalk the streets.

The True History:
Known by the Vault Dwellers and the Night Stalkers, the following is the true history of the world. Over a thousand years ago, Diktat was a world of promise, commonly known as Prospa. It had one principle continent and a subcontinent attached by a thin peninsula. The subcontinent was Autoc and was completely covered the megacity Capital of the planet. To the outsider observer, the planet appeared normal, but behind the scenes Prospa was ruled by the Night Stalkers, through their intermediates, the vampires and their familiars. Across the stars, on the world of Heaven’s Gaze, a prophet was born who declared that the Federated States of Autoc was a nest of unnatural creatures and it’s the Crusading Paramilitary forces of the ‘Fellowship of the Sun’

THE FEDERATED CONVOYS
Descendants of both survivors of the apocalyptic war and the invaders, the Federated Convoys are a nomandic group of humans who wander the wastes of the main continent, never stopping.

The Federated Convoys practice ritualistic tattooing, a demand of their binding religion, The Tableau. They believe that their world is infested by the Night Stalkers, who prey on the living and corrupt and doom their souls to oblivion. Though this knowledge is lost to them, it stems back to the original Stalker hunters who’s magical tattoo’s warded them against Night Stalker manipulation and magic. The religion has remained strong, as those who forgo the wards do succumb to madness, often wander off into the night where they die or babbling incoherently in cells. The Vault Dwellers do not share this practice, but they never leave the Vaults, to those that look closely, the vaults themselves are warded in a similar manner.

THE VAULT DWELLERS
The Vault Dwellers were once the intellectual and economic leaders of Prospa, they are fully aware of the true history of the planet and the war and are absolutely terrified of the Night Stalkers. Before the opening of the ways, they exerted all their efforts into tunnelling deeper into the ground, while fortifying all access to the surface. The Vault Dwellers lie in a maze of underground bunkers, with countless defence barriers, automatic turrets, kill corridors. Every Dweller is a soldier from birth who is dedicated to defending the home caverns from any invader.

THE NIGHT STALKERS
The Night Stalkers are buried deep within the Earth, in the old capital of Diktat known as Autoc. As the human population around them died and many vampires were purged in the nuclear flames, one old one took his brethren deep into the ancient tombs they had originally risen from and committed them to torpor along with thousands of human slaves. Even in their sleep, the powerful psychic forces of the Night Stalkers manifests on their world.

A century ago they began to awake, sensing that enough mortals existed to sustain their appetite. Night Stalkers are roughly human in appearance, with white marble skin and blood red eyes. They are entirely hairless and possess sharp clawed fingers. Though many apt a more human appearance in order to blend with populations, they possess a variety of magical and mundane techniques to achieve this. Central to the Night Stalkers is the Veneration of the Blood, it is not merely a dietary requirement, it is a compulsion and key to their mystical existence. A Stalker denied blood who cannot enter torpor regresses into an animal, losing much of it’s humanoid appearance and sustaining itself on any mortal food source. Blood teems with mystical energies not perceptible to humans, but keenly felt by Stalkers.

Stalkers are analytical creatures, the emotional centres of their brain are capable of being shut off and exist mainly to facilitate empathic responses for the purposes of infiltrating human society. Night Stalkers are capable of creating foot soldiers from humans by infecting them with a parasitic organism that alters their genetic structure to be closer to that of Night Stalkers. Nominally human but stronger, longer lived with a small appetite for blood but mainly requiring the same nutrition as human beings. These are what are commonly referred to as vampires.