Lancer: The Beautiful Machine OOC

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Hey everyone! please post your characters below-I'm going to be transplanting (and hopefully updating) the setting info here in the coming days along with a discord thread. Welcome aboard!

Spoiler: Shotora: An Overview

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Shotora is a planet found far in the 10th Ring of known Union Space (the Karakoram Line). A blink gate is approximately 8 months out from the planet. Initially colonized by the SSC corpo-State in its early days as a hail-mary sort of investment when things looked dire following initial disappointments with the perfection of ontological bridging tech, today the planet is host-legally and in actuality-to a colony governed by House Canamos of the House of Stone from the capital, Klataua. This ascendency followed a series of conflicts between Karrakin and SSC elements that was only resovled with the arrival of a Loyal Wing of Albatross, the nomadic peace keeping nation-state. Following the declaration of the Alabatross for Karrakin forces under the command of the current Governess' Grandmother and a combined victory over SSC, a schism occurred in the Albatross. Some defected from the Wing to join the Governess in her moment of victory. Those that didnt escape the following purge were either killed or sent to Golgotha.

It is a pangeal planet, its sole landmass capped by twin secondary continents of frozen freshwater, the northern of which are stained grey for how moutains barge into them, while the south's rust-ochre deserts are carved through with melted veinules of glacier. Klataua itself not only faces the (saltwater) eastern sea, but is itself partially built into the massive ocean trench and cliff it is perched upon. West of the capital lies a fertile bad of riverland that gives way to a massive, primordial forest that spans the rest of the westside of the continent, a fact known only for satellite imaging and not because of any (successful) exploration. Below is a bit more detail on the various biomes. As a note, barring the Eastern Interior the odd expedition, the majority of people in the North, South and West are descended from the the initial First Wave of SSC colonials. I also plan to fill out the biomes with various NPCs if people want to connect their backstories with them.

Spoiler: The Crown of the World

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Going north from Klataua the verdant fields of waste-high grass begin to wilt. Give way. Shrink. Becoming first sallow marshlands, then sparse taiga cut through with rivers and studded with rock, the only visible plantlife too stubborn mosses and grass not knowing its dead. Further still north one comes to the mountains and the glacial masses of ice grown over.

It is at the highest peaks of these ziggurauts that one might find their inhabitants, the so-called Stormcallers. All but abandoned SSC command elements pushed far north in the sanctioned Karrakis claiming of the planet, the Stormcallers are a hardbitten bunch, forced to make do with living from the various fungi and mountain fauna they've cultivated within the shelters they've carved from and into the mountain chains. Meteorologists amongst the faction have noted a marked increase in the yearly thaw, no doubt brought about by Karrakin research team elements or some other interloper sent to set a flood upon them.

To this end, the Stormcallers have been preparing. Rumours abound from the north that they're working on some sort of great flying superweapon/contraption that is to be turned upon the capital. While this is almost assuredly media histrionics filtered through a carefully managed propaganda lenses, the fact remains that they are working on something. Something big. It doesnt help that the Stormcallers use some of the most manoeuvrable mechs on Shotora, hosting several escapees from the Loyal Wing of albatross that Canamos' grandmother betrayed.

Spoiler: Klataua, The East

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Far and away the most developed region of the planet, the east enjoys the benefits of a dual legacy. Initally the site of unsuccessful SSC attempts at altering the planet, all House Canamos had to do was nudge the out of date efforts in the right direction to get what they wanted. Little did they know that these efforts would disrupts the equilibrium of the other SSC personnel reluctant to let go of their hard earned ways of life. Generally speaking, the one goes further away from Klataua, the less developed things get. Golgotha remains an exception insofar as it represents an actual commitment of resources by the capital to extract something in kind from the planet. Otherwise, the progression is one from a modern Karrakis standard found in the Capital to things like steel-plate domed roofs on the houses of farmers that similarly border the woods.

Spoiler: The Great Forest

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A vast arborcology that has been the subject of many a field expedition legal or otherwise, the west has always been defined by a pair of traits: its common border with traditional Karrakin borders and the relative unknown that comes with what is truly inside. While satellite imaging can track the extent of the forest, the density and the heat put out by the flora has made it difficult to actually pinpoint individuals once they enter the forest proper.

It is also these two traits that have made it ideal for the most pressing concern facing Governor Canamos at the moment: the Woodsmen. Once a bad bed time story told to children, the Woodsmen are made up of the veteran SSC security personnel defeated in a decisive battle by the Governor's grandmother. In the years since, at least enough of them have put swords to ploughshares within the forest to sustain themselves a society that can launch raids on Karrakin frontier elements.

While initially founded on the principals of mobility and elegance associated with all SSC frames, subsequent raids on Karrakin and Albatross elements have led to a renvisioning of typical tactics. Now, these retrofitted frames that were once spoils of a long war not over serve as the anvil, deployed initially in raids so as to draw attention for the passing familiarity of their hulls before the more strangely styled SSC holdovers strike when the enemy is not looking.

Spoiler: The South Wastes

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The bounty of the other biomes gives way to ash and cinder the further one goes south. Huge heaps of sand dunes clot the landscape, flanking scant rives that hold luscious bounties of durable vegetation that has found succession amidst such harsh climates. Few are the people that come to the wastes willingly, though there is something to be said for the richness of what little soil persists.

The few who do come here to stay often do so because they have no where else to go. So called Cinderlords are madmen and outcasts from all walks of life and almost all universally Lancers or frame pilots of some kind, they chassis as much bunkers against the environs as any permanent shelter they possess.

Subsequently, elements found here that are hostile to Karrakis are almost always also hostile to everyone else. The south is that kind of place. The mechs to be found are an eclectic bunch, as varied and from different walks of life as the people who pilot them. Still, some constants persist by way of design. Anyone who survives down south long does so with an eye towards resisting the heat, to say nothing of utilizing it as a potential armament for energy based weaponry.

Spoiler: Golgotha: the Prison

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In spite of the impositions the prison brings to the Shortoran ecology, Golgotha is a fully functioning ecosystem all its own, possessed of a functioning on-site lab/med-bay, a garrison house (complete with an armory) and a mag lev rail system that directly connects to the capital of House Canamos colony. Further below ground one finds the massive apparatus designed to haul mining equipment and penal laborers up-Prison to hack away at the various flora above-ground.

And again, far below that lies the prison-ghetto, a hub of "wrongly" convicted, wrongly convicted and, until recently, principles that have turned the prison-economy towards more lofty designs that the fullfillment of prison quotas. Rising up. The ghetto itself is built in three tiers into the side of a vast crevasse, extensively mined through via workers perilously strung or lashed to the cliffside where paths havent been carved for the deployment of large scale mining frames. A long rumoured jamming device mitigates what can truly be printed by the prisoners, but as Lancers and prospective heroes-to-be you've managed to cicrumvent that. It'll definitley have to go first if your to make any substantial progress to above-ground.

Below are some of the major figures found in Golgotha, allies and notable enemies:

Spoiler: NPCs: The Revolution

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Commander Emil Karst, Father of the Revolution: Karst is ex-Albatross, and it’s the remnant of forces still loyal to him that form the hardened core of your burgeoning revolution. Emil is an old man in his late fifties, always clad in some sort of military apparel that typically favors black as a color. It has been a long, long time since he’s been in the cockpit of his Nelson-the Last Call-but if the scraped together pilot simulators found underneath Golgotha’s surface are any indication time apart has done nothing to dull the betrayed Commander’s skills as a pilot.

While the Commander personally divulges little regarding his imprisonment, its still relatively easy to piece together what happened to the former Albatross member. Karst’s wing arrived to Shortora in answer to an alleged distress signal. What followed were a gradual series of concession-betrayals which culminated in the Commander’s imprisonment and the ascension of Commander Gorth’s father to the head of the “Loyal” Wing remnants that would go on to form a nominal Baronic Free Company under Governor Cannamos’ purview. Many wonder what will happen when Emil meets his former friend’s son in battle.

Karst’s role in the revolution is twofold: while Kareftis might have a mind for politics and Liz for engineering, it is the Old Man alone who knows how to command a war. The second feature is that, aside from the aforementioned Albatross veterans he brings with him, Karst has been able to scuttle, import and steal a sizable amount of munitions and armaments for you and the revolution to use, all the more impressive for how he did so from the bowels of Golgotha. He’s seen a great deal many weapons on a greatsame many worlds in his time as a cosmopolitan, which has made the unforeseen betrayal of his former comrades sting all the more. Worse than any warpike’s bite.

Lady Irimloza Kareftis: The lady Kareftis is far from home. Raised on the icy sepulcher of Begum, Irimloza was provided with an education classical to the House of Remembrance: a mix of genetic education and the sort of cutthroat political acumen sorely missing from the revolution. Its these two pillars that the exiles and former noble members of Klataua have subsequently flocked to, deferring to the noblewoman for her her superior ranking amongst them as much as for her scientific acumen in the field of biology.

It was this very same skill that saw Irimloza to Shortora, ostensibly on a survey mission investigating remnants of genetic diversity in the Long Rim. What she discovered was a truth known to some but not all: Karrakis was late to arriving on Shotora first. Naturally, Governor Cannamos could not let such an idea propagate amongst the lower rungs of Klatauan society. Public censure did little to curtail Lady Kareftis’ research into prior colonial elements and, undisuadid by threat or promise of reward, the Lady kept looking. Too high within her the House of Moments to risk the fallout of a death abroad, Governor Cannamos instead opted to “reassign” Irimloza to the depths of Golgotha.

Now amongst the lowborn (and a few sympathetic nobles), Kareftis acts as the informal head of the Revolutions intelligentsia, having accrued intellectuals and thinkers the way a sponge sops up water. While Karst might have a mind for war and Liz for machines, it is the Lady and her thinkers that are concerned not only with maintaining the haleness of the prison’s population (as she’s keen to remind other Karrakin nobles technically it is Doctor Kareftis) but with their education in the political as well. Irimloza, like Karst has seen what the rest of Union space contains in terms of its peoples and their myriad outlooks. Time will tell if her work yields something entirely new in terms of thought or if it is the genesis of Shotorans thinking like a more established entity.

Liz & SLATE: The laborers of Golgotha are an informal bunch, much more inclined to their work then they are to socialize with the prior to factions of the Revolution. Publically, their representatives are a wizard of an engineer and her hulking guardian of an NHP. The dyad of woman and artifice (Throne only knows where and how she cycles it below ground) have been instrumental in ensuring not only that Golgotha’s quotas are met via the repair of essential mining tools, but that the bare minimum of provided habitation technology that allows for work underground is maintained so as to preserve the prison-community’s “ecosystem”.

Much more cagey than Kareftis in the origins of her incarceration, it’s a matter of hotbutton conjecture the prison over just what Liz did to land themselves in Golgotha, to say nothing of how it’s a topic of frequent good-natured debate between the Revolution’s Laborers and Intelligentsia. There's even a small betting pool going on. There's an unspoken expectation that the reveal and conclusion of the betting will be timed to coincide with the “Big Push” as Karst puts it, no doubt blared out via whatever speakers Liz’s NHP has been able to suborn.

While not an active combatant, Liz and SLATE bring the full technical expertise of the laborers and their engineers to the revolution’s cause. This is displayed is a strange knack for improvisation, a talent which plays no small part in their ability to maintain the many work machines the laborers use for mining Shotora’s flesh. It was only natural that this technical acumen could be further applied to the mech frames that made the revolution a feasible option for Liz and her NHP. Rumors abound that the young Shotoran native is working on converting SLATE’s chassis into a mech-frame of their own

Spoiler: NPCs: Antagonists (Golgotha)

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Warden Rhosyane-Ludra: a governor writ-small against the backdrop of the would-be kingdom that is Golgotha, the warden is a brutal individual. She sees the prisoners under her thumb as little more than economic units, numbers that run up and down alongside other tallies. It is an earned cynicism, accumulated like so many layers of sediment after a long and storied career abroad in the House of Stone’s Paragon Company. The brutality of this outfit-and the commanding position she held within it-made her well suited to controlling mining interests far away from the Capital.

This totalitarian haigography is all fueled by a common, well known origin in the Long-Rim putting down pirates on various satellite planetoids in defense of the House of Stone’s economic holdings abroad. It was during this service to the House that Rhosane-Ludra was injured against a paracausal entity. The wound has since permeated her body, leaving the austere woman unable to leave the confines of her mecha, The Gavel.

Something of a careerist, its never personal with the Warden. Its just business. Well. Sort of. When the Warden came to Golgotha they came with family. A son, the result of some sort of dalliance on an off-planet colony during her time in service. Bashir-her progeny-is the only person in all the prison who does not call her Warden.

Security Chief Harkon: A big bull of a man on an extended leave from the Capital, Harkon is the much more public facing middleman between the Warden and Golgotha’s prisoners. Where the Warden is a careerist who sees herself as the head cog in the prison machine, Harkon has something arguably more dangerous than duty: ambition. Not for some petty position lording over the condemned but a return to the sunshine and leisure of the capital.

in keeping with his role as the Warden’s presence, Harkon’s reasons for exile from the capital are unknown, though whatever nobility might have been involved in the Security Chief’s departure has long since be eroded away by the confines of his current environment. Now he acts as a bully first and head of security second, readily abusing his authority in a manner that’s seen Golgotha take a remarkable turn towards corruption under the Warden’s current tenure.

In this sense, Harkon fills a vital niche in the prison’s economy: he’s the go to person for acquiring things not readily available from the surface. Karst has had to take great pains to circumvent Harkon’s parasitic stranglehold on Golgotha’s prison economy. This has played a large part in the decision to excise the Security Chief as a part of the Revolution, to say nothing of the fact that Golgotha boasts a readily available complement of security personnel, many of them hand-chosen from the Warden’s former unit. It galls the Security Chief all the more that these veterans recognize that he’s never served and so afford him the requisite amount of respect.

The OVERSEER: While the Warden secures Golgotha’s place in the greater planetary ecosystem and Harkon sees to order at the end of a gun barrel, the actual administration of the prison has been given over to an NHP given the simple designation of the OVERSEER. The being is responsible for ensuring that the quotas stripped from Shotora’s flesh are processed and melted down into something more suitable for transport to the capital.

Much like the Warden, the OVERSEER is a dispassionate worker, largely framing itself as an ally when the reality of its cognition is that it is incapable of feeling things like cruelty, joy or contempt for those around it. This dissmemination has a flaw insofar as the OVERSEER has a prime unit it typically occupies close to the upper levels of the prison, but many more of its RPVs and subalterns can be found in the prison's depths proper.

Typically, the OVERSEER occupies a number of RPV chassis, haunting the various work crews and prisoner mining outfits with a ghoulish sort of indifference. Beyond the filling of quotas that is. Thus, the OVERSEER stands as a sort of mocking reminder: Golgotha could be wholly capable of mechanizing its production and focusing on the reform of its prisoner elements. But it hasn’t.

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Spoiler: Reserve Roster

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Temporary Assets (Golgotha)
Temporary Assets are available on a mission-to-mission basis.
1) Homecoming, Lance of the First Maktaba (Unique Main Melee, Threat 3, Knockback 2, Thrown 5, 1d6 Kinetic Damage): At the end of your turn, if you have Thrown this weapon it automatically returns to you. Karst will want this small little victory from the Betrayal of the Wing back when your done with it
2) Underslung (Weapon Mod): As long as your mech has the weapon mount this mod is attached to, you may add +5 to the range of any grenade you bring with you on a mission.
3) Extra Core: When acquired, this reserve grants an additional use of the Pilot's Core Power (edited)

Permanent Assets
Permanent Assets are ones that, due to their availability or due to being permanently secured during downtime as an LTP, are always available to acquire prior to a mission. Reserves marked with a fraction within a parentheses ex: (1/4) Are acquiring these reserves ticks these factions as a clock associated with them. When the clock is filled, the reserved is removed from the available roster.
1) High Quality Ammunition: Spend this reserve at the start of any combat scene to give all your weapons Reliable 1 until the end of the scene . If your weapon already has Reliable, increase the value by 1.
2) Redundant Repair: Expend this reserve to Stabilize 1/mission as a free action
3) Recon Drone: At the start of any combat, Scan 1 enemy NPC within 50 spaces. (edited)

Location-Specific Assets (Golgotha)
Location-Specific Assets are permanent assets, but only so long as the PCs remain in a location associated with them.
1) Environmental Shielding: Equipment that allows you to ignore a particular battlefield hazard or dangerous terrain-Lava in this instance.
2)The Breath of Ra: This asset may be acquired as either a Krakatoa Thermobaric Flamethrower from LL 1 of the Ghenghis or a Slag Cannon from LL 2 of the Kobold. This weapon may be mounted for the duration of the mission it was acquired for on an appropriate mount of the corresponding type as though the user possessed the required LL for the weapon