A Science-Fantasy Visual Grammar III

Mutation: the enemy within.  On worlds that have been infected with the Chaos of filth-darkness, filth-strain mutation often subtly infects and corrupts nearly the entire population.  Sometimes the mutations are hidden and undetectable to the untrained eye; but those mutants that 'pass' can be even more sinister as they spread their taint undetected via the space-lanes.  Mutant cults will bide their time, breeding ever more concentrated filth-mutants until the time comes to raise the bloody rag of revolution with the loathsome cry; 'There are no Gods but the Great Old Ones and Morgoth Xothulhu is their Priest and Prophet!'

The Human Sphere, especially in the Old Republic's Core and Inner Territories, is speckled with grim and wasted ruins, like pustules on a plagued man's face; where the

Collapse of the Old Republic, the Succession Wars, and the Interregnum have left entire arcology-worlds abandoned or even regressed in technology and population.  These ebon bones of once gleaming spires contain both treasures and terrors within their bosom.  Those foolish or perhaps brave enough to prospect and salvage there, those who rob the tombs of the ancients are often called 'Venturers.

Many of the treacherous ruined arcologies that foolhardy 'Venturers brave to forage for riches are guarded by the remnants of the Old Republic's Machine Legions, Omnicidal Abominable Intelligences faithfully following the last directive of the overthrown Technomancer Oligarchs of the Old Republic to purge their Hegemony of Treasonous Life.

No one knows from whence come the Terrible Frogmen, only that they spread the Darkness-Filth wherever they go, like carriers of plague and serve Warlocks and the Chaos Cults that grow around them like poisonous mushrooms.  Some say they serve the Qlippothim of Yuggoth, others the Lords of Carcosa, yet others insist they serve the Domination of Xothique.  Only the pestilent Frogs know for sure and they rarely speak of their origin.

A Khazad Iron Golem patrols deep within the underworld tunnels of the Lords Under the Mountains.  Of all the demi-human races of the Valinor Alliance, the Khazad are perhaps the most mysterious.  They rarely leave their underground hold-fasts or interact with other races.  Even when they do it is often by drone-proxy.  They are regarded as master makers and techno-wizards of legend however and many seek out their services for one great-making or another.  Those who fail to show the proper ritual respect seldom return.

It is known that the Frogmen commune with Terrible Things from the Deeps, purchasing their aid with Blasphemous Oaths and sacrifices of Maiden-Flesh.  Just who these Deep Ones are, or whom they serve is if anything, more mysterious than the Frogs themselves.  While several Sword Lords of legendary status have purified underwater infections of these Deep Ones, none of these pustules have proven to be their source and some say they intrude in the middle geometry from somewhere else.

An Iron-Man Skin-Walker, once the dreaded secret-police of the Technomancer Oligarchs of the fallen Old Republic, now their corrupted runtimes drive them to replace their decaying and necrotic flesh so that they might again possess the faces of men.  Ambitious techno-mancers have been known to attempt to bargain for services of such Abominable Intelligences, but the price is often more than originally bargained for.

'An Estate on the Rim' is usually considered something of an white-elephant gift for Sword World Nobility; kitting out a Landing-Keep and enticing settlers to the frontier-marches often consumes a landed noble's other rents and is often the work of generations.  Of course this is often the purpose of overlords granting such fiefs in the first place.  On the other hand, for a mercenary man-at-arms with no pedigree or patented family-name, such a grant is the goal of a life's work and the gateway to elevated status otherwise unreachable.  And for the landless man of noble breeding, with a good-name, a cyber-charger, and war-plate but no fief of his own, something is always preferred to nothing.

Some say that not all of the Vile Technomancer Oligarchs of the Old Republic, or their red-robed Maitreyan Order lackeys, died in the Rebellion of the Priests and instead retreated to secret Tower-Palaces somewhere out in the deep-black, far from civilized known-space and prying eyes.  The Clerical Order of the Universal Church of Light takes these rumors deadly seriously and often sponsors expeditions to seek out whatever truth may lie behind such.  Ominously, some expeditions never return. 

Life for the Common Man on the Periphery of the Sphere of Man is a constant struggle to win new lands for the Cosmos of Order in the Middle Geometry, to re-kindle the Light against the Creeping Dark.  The Peasant Life is also its own Inner-Crusade and the Wind of their Prayers is what holds the Chaos-Darkness of the Filth-Tide back from the Worlds of Men.

An heirloom Lost-Tech suit of War-Plate with Powered-Harness, layered with ablative coatings and enchantments to preserve the warrior encased within.  On far-flung Dark-Shadowed worlds where Star-Crusades have failed many such suits still yet stand erect as mute statues; holed and frozen tombs and tributes to the glorious fallen heroes of ages past.  

An Inquisitorial Kill Team of the Clerical Order in action against a Chaos Cult caught in the act.  As the Stars Fade and the Light becomes a memory of a dream, Unspeakable Cults give themselves to the Dark in Despair.  Remember; Defeatism leads to Despair, Despair leads to Chaos, Chaos leads to Filth, Filth leads to Darkness!  Be Vigilant!  Praise the Light of Order!  

A Science-Fantasy Visual Grammar I

The Far-Future-Fantastic in Pictures:

1IN the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. 4In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

The Cyber-Charger is an arcanoxenocybernetc war-machine favored by the high-ranking warrior-caste of the Human Sphere, referred to as the 'Cyber-Ritter' when granted his feoff in exchange for his service.  Once Aeldar understand the concept of using lobotomized and cyborged Qlippothim as war-machines and willingly riding them into battle, their firm belief in the collective insanity of Mankind is all but confirmed.

Church Militant Death Commando in action on a filth-infested demon world, records of the Second Star Crusade, Colourized.

Their Graces the Bishop-Prinz of New Mainz and his Lady-wife look on as their contribution to the Boy-Emperor Arcturius Pendrakul's Grand Armada takes flight.

War Canto Begin

This blog will be a record and notebook chronicling my attempt to compile my personal vision of a far-future, science-fantasy, post-cataclysmic, old-school, imperial space-opera campaign. This Blog will, if successful, will allow my vision to hit my table, and yours dear reader.

What is this vision?

In the Remote Far-Future, Boy-King Arcturus Pendrakul takes the Cross and joins the First Star-Crusade; by this he hopes to gain Glory for God and his House, reaping Ancient Treasures and Martial Renown, to capture besieged Valinor's Ivory Tower, to win the hand of the Elf King's Daughter in marriage, and to be seated on the empty Phoenix-Throne of the Holy Solar Empire of Man.

OK let me unpack that a bit.

After the cataclysmic fall of the decadent post-human trans-humanist oligarchic dystopia (think Deus Ex Invisible War: Illuminati Ending) that colonized the stars in the distant past; mankind is forced to return to older, more traditional modes of living. It is perhaps ironic that the core of survival emerges from one of the troika tripod legs supporting Corporate Elite rule in the old Corporate Republic; namely the Order of Maitreya.

This synthetic, syncretic, one-world faith supplanted the old religions of man at gunpoint. As it came to pass, many Order Acolytes preserved their ancestral ancient faiths in secret, and as the dystopia of the Republic eventually crumbled under the hubris of its hedonistic and degenerate elites in the fullness of time, these Secret-Priests soon controlled a Shadow-State within the state, providing for their faithful where the Republic could not or would not.

When the Stars themselves began to Occult and Fade, and the Darkness-Filth began to eat away at the fabric so called Final Society, these Secret-Priests rose up against the blood-soaked chaos and madness; casting down the black and red-robed diabolists of the Maitreyan Order and the malfunctioning Murder-Machine Legions of the Hegemony and her Corporations in Atomic Holy-War against the Thinking-Machines and their Machine-Men masters.

The Old Republic died in cataclysmic fire, chaos, madness, filth-tide, mutation, and magic. The Sword-Lords of the Star League rose in its place.  The Old Republic had reduced the hives of Terra to grey-faced lumpen-prole consumer-drones without culture or spirit, but on the periphery of the Human-Sphere rose new nations, and from these hardy frontier peoples a new aristocracy. 

These Sword-Lords established the Great Houses of the Star-League, and under the Legendary Karl the Hamner, founded the Great and Bountiful Holy Solar Empire of Man.  But all is not well; the Cultist, Revolutionary, and the Mutant threaten the Tranquility and Harmony of Order from within and the blasphemous Qliphoth Convenant; The Yuggothim, Xothim, Yrchlings, and other Wyldfae-Xenos and Demonic-Aliens menace from without.

The aloof Aeldar Aeshi, Prime-Eldest of the ancient and mysterious Valinor Alliance in Gal-Center have brokered a peace between the Star League and the haughty Ingelrii, servitors of the Melyae, Fourth Eldest of the Valinor Quorum of the Twelve. This alone would be shocking enough; but the Aeldari seek to bring the Human Sphere formally into the Valinor Alliance and seek to wed the daughter of Ingwe Ingweran, High-King of Valinor, to the crown prince of the Human Empire.

The problem is that the throne sits empty, none of the great houses can agree on who should take up the purple and the legacies of Karl the Hamner and Aleksandyr Norman Romanov; Emperors of Man. But the Valinor are hard pressed by the spreading Darkness of the Qliphothim and seek human military aid anyway.

And so it came to pass in the Year of Our Lord 3,960 that the First Star Crusade was preached against the foul taint of the Qliphothim Covenant and their Dread Prophet Morgoth by the Pontifex Maximus on Terra to great shouts of Deus Vult!  The prize for the Noble House that drives the Darkness from Known Space is the Throne of Man. The great race is on.

Now the Great Houses gather their fleets and banners and set forth in armed pilgrimage and holy war, sending forth scouts and questors to secure supplies, intelligence, and ancient treasures along their routes and seeing the warlike hosts of half-barbarian men descend on the quiet shire-worlds of Valinor Space, the Quorum begin to question just what it is they have done.

It's Mech Warrior meets Fading Suns, Dungeons and Dragons meets Traveller, Mass Effect meets Deus Ex, Earthdawn meets Shadowrun, Pendragon meets Rogue Trader, Lovecraft meets Tolkien, Heinlein meets Moorcock, Halo meets Destiny, Guardians of the Galaxy meets Fifth Element, Babylon 5 meets Star Wars, 2000 AD meets Metabarons, Gimenez meets Mobius, Jodorowsky meets David Lynch, Dark Crystal meets Farscape, Dune meets Excalibur, Metahistory meets Metahumans.

The Darkness shall not prevail over the Light because;  This!  Is!  Terra!