TEXT: faith rulebook
  The Universe
  51
  WHEN HOPE IS THE ONLY THING LEFT.
  
  52
  faith rulebook
  The Universe
  In all places where life can exist, it will exist.
  The known Universe consists of a few hundred habitable 
  planets where six species intelligent enough to develop civi-
  lizations have met. There are thousands of other species 
  with some level of self awareness  or even metacognition, 
  and the total number of known species is innumerable, as 
  species evolve and become extinct constantly.
  While about 80% of the discovered animal species 
  breathe oxygen and 99.9% have an organic carbon-based 
  chemistry, scientists do not dare set limits to the life forms 
  that could exist. One of the main reasons why more differ-
  ent life forms have not been discovered is that most of the 
  research and exploration is limited to planets where the 
  intelligent species can survive. However, some exploratory 
  missions on deep gas giants have yielded the discovery of 
  virus-like forms that are not composed of carbon. 
  As the newest models of spaceships extend the range 
  and speed of space travel, and increased energy needs ne-
  cessitate more exploration, contact with strange life forms 
  and new worlds will undoubtedly become more common. 
  There are well-founded interests in exploring and harvest-
  ing resources from such fascinating places.
  The fi ne line between the living and the lifeless is perhaps 
  an arbitrary concept. It has been completely redefi ned with 
  the invention of extremely capable artifi cial intelligences 
  and the discovery of the strange new viruses. Every expedi-
  tion through an unexplored wormhole is a new experience, 
  leaving exploration teams wondering what they will fi nd 
  or who they will meet. It is a certainty that there are more 
  species to be discovered, but no one knows if they will be 
  friend or foe.
  The Universe is still a thing of wonder: a place of which 
  very little is known, and the capacity to traverse it is 
  very limited. But the existence of the Labyrinth, a natural 
  network of wormholes connecting thousands of star 
  systems, makes it possible for the species of the Universe 
  to traverse it within their lifetimes. 
  Many theorise about the relation between the Labyrinth 
  THE UNIVERSE OF FAITH
  The empty space between the two seemed to have the 
  consistency of stone. 
  They could feel the solidity of the air between them 
  wherever they would go. When they had lunch together, in 
  the distance between her sofa and his armchair, between his 
  desk and hers. Even at night, they would only enter their bed 
  through opposite sides.
  Sandra could feel on her skin the icy touch of the mass 
  that separated them. 
  Their voices entered through it, but they arrived distorted 
  and empty. They became like the sound of voices of long lost 
  friends in distant memories, but so distant that they became 
  unrecognisable and like fi gments of imagination. Sandra 
  always answered gently, but she could never remember 
  what they actually said. 
  She was waiting. Routine would drag out each little task 
  and make distant the memories of the past. It was only when 
  a colony ship arrived at their planet did she realise that ten 
  whole years had gone by - and that she didn’t know what she 
  had been waiting for. It certainly wasn’t that ship, but she 
  decided to get on it anyway. 
  He cried, for two reasons: to make her feel something 
  about leaving him, and to remind her that there was once 
  something between them that had been worth it. They didn’t 
  blame anything on the other. It would have been easier if she 
  could hate him, but he didn’t deserve to be hated. 
  Already on the ship, Sandra read the pamphlet again. It 
  promised a new beginning.
  But she wasn’t so sure. Sandra saw the wormhole through 
  the monitor. She felt as though the same pressure that 
  crushed the dust specks that came to realise the whole of 
  the Universe now took hold of her own heart. The promise 
  of an unexplored wormhole could take her to a place so far 
  away that it was possible that the light of her native star had 
  not yet reached it. 
  The man that was sitting next to her encouraged her: they 
  were going to make history. Perhaps they would discover 
  worlds where other creatures shared their vision of life. Or 
  maybe planets where the soil was so fertile that there was 
  no need to cultivate. 
  Sandra smiled at the enthusiasm of the stranger that 
  shared with her his conviction. 
  But in an instant, the wormhole swallowed them whole. 
  Their ship never made it back. And the ship sent after them 
  never returned either. It was determined that the wormhole’s 
  exit was unsafe and any rescue was abandoned. A commit-
  tee determined that it probably exited too close to a sun, but 
  in reality, they had no idea.
  Jack never married again. He lived the rest of his life in the 
  house he had shared with her. And at times, he could still feel 
  the space between the two.
  
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  and the Gods. Some say the Gods live inside it, others 
  that Gods are space-time itself and wormholes are the 
  tool they use to bring their believers together. Nothing is 
  yet proven, and while scientists disregard most of these 
  popular theories, no one can explain why the Labyrinth 
  leads to so many star systems with habitable planets and 
  sentient species, despite the majority of the Universe being 
  so vastly empty.
  LIFE IN SPACE
  Vacuum causes the lungs to remove all gases from the 
  bloodstream, which results in loss of consciousness within 
  9 to 12 seconds due to lack of oxygen in the brain. Death by 
  hypoxia (lack of oxygen irrigation in tissues) follows after a 
  couple of minutes. Exposed body fluids like saliva and tears 
  instantly boil at body temperature, and the steam from 
  other body fluids bloats the body to twice its normal size. 
  Spacesuits often include compression bands that prevent 
  these symptoms even in an event of suit decompres-
  sion, but then the body has to deal with other issues like 
  embolism and decompression sickness, which can cause 
  crippling pain and even death.
  Congelation is not a pressing danger due to the low rate 
  of heat loss in space, although harmless frost may appear 
  around the mouth, eyes and other areas with exposed 
  fluids. On the other hand, radiation does present a real 
  threat, with symptoms ranging from severe sunburn in a 
  few seconds of exposure and temporary damages to the 
  immune system to all sorts of cancer after long term 
  exposure, unless using proper electromagnetic shielding or 
  taking appropriate drugs.
  Solar flare events may even prove fatal within minutes, 
  and even when it is not so, the reappearance of older 
  diseases already present in the body may prove equally 
  lethal in the long term unless treated accordingly.
  Weightlessness has many different effects on a living 
  body. The most severe, long lasting effects are bone and 
  muscle mass loss; and short term effects include disori-
  entation, nausea, and a wide array of distorted sensorial 
  perception including smell, taste and vision.
  There are ways to reduce the impact of most effects as-
  sociated to living in space thanks to the development of 0-G 
  pills, but a comprehensive list of all their side effects is yet 
  to be made available to the general public and some groups 
  have raised their concerns about the safety of such drugs.
  SPACECRAFTS
  The control rooms of spaceships are not visually im-
  pressive. There are not thousands of bleeping lights and 
  buttons. There are not countless screens and dozens of 
  workspaces for each specialist. Generally, there are only a 
  few seats in front of an empty wall, with each seat having 
  a cortex connection at the height of the neck. It is here that 
  the pilots are able to connect themselves to the ship, and 
  become part of the ship itself. 
  Spacecraft pilots do not need to read or see pertinent 
  information, in the normal sense. They innately know and 
  learn the information, like memories, as it uploads to their 
  minds in real time. As events occur, the pilots are made 
  aware and, within milliseconds, the semi-AI of the ship 
  uploads relevant data from its memory banks directly to 
  their minds, such as situational solutions for the pilots to 
  process. In this heightened state of mind, pilots are able 
  to process and make decisions reflexively. The spacecraft 
  becomes an extension of their body.
  WORMHOLES
  Wormholes are massive distortions in the space-time 
  continuum, resembling giant spheres. They bend space-
  time in strange ways that allow matter to go through them 
  and travel to another corner of the Universe. The duration 
  of travel could be shorter (or longer) than the time it would 
  take an object to travel between the two points via standard 
  methods, even if it could reach the speed of light. Conse-
  quently, a wormhole has a weak ‘anti-gravitational’ field, 
  pushing away matter rather than pulling it in.
  The theory of general relativity states that nothing can 
  exceed the speed of light, and so far this remains true for 
  all the known species. Wormholes allow spaceships to cir-
  cumvent this rule by forming a path between two locations 
  
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  that is shorter than the path outside of the wormhole. It 
  was once believed that they could not be found naturally, 
  but this has since been proved wrong.
  While wormholes have been proven extremely useful for 
  space travel (in fact they are the only known form of travel 
  between star systems within the lifespan of a traveller), 
  they can be very dangerous environments. The twisted 
  space-time and the ‘echo’ effect can cause an inexperienced 
  traveller to become lost, or end up in unexpected places.
  In addition, and perhaps more importantly, a wormhole 
  is not constant in space. Its size can expand and shrink, its 
  length can vary, and its ‘mouths’ (entrance and exit) can 
  move in space. A wormhole may close upon itself unex-
  pectedly if not kept stable, crushing anything caught too 
  close to it in the same way a black hole would. In fact, an 
  unstable wormhole can turn into a black hole.
  MOVEMENT 
  The fi rst concept to understand is that a wormhole is 
  closed space loop. The wormhole is a tunnel without walls, 
  yet if a traveller does not move following the direction of 
  the wormhole, that traveller will be moving in circles - even 
  if his ship is in fact trying to move in a straight line. Essen-
  tially, aiming in the wrong direction and shooting a missile 
  could lead to shooting oneself.
  The bigger problem is that there are no points of refer-
  ence or any sign of the correct direction to actually move 
  somewhere. Spaceships will navigate a wormhole by 
  sending signals in all directions and waiting for them to 
  circle back - the direction in which the signal does not return 
  is the correct direction of the wormhole. This is a very good 
  system in the smaller parts of the Labyrinth, where it takes 
  only seconds for the signals to return, but some areas of 
  the Labyrinth are so large that the process takes hours or 
  even days. 
  Still, this method isn’t perfect. When a signal does not 
  come back after waiting for very long, travellers cannot 
  know if it is because it is still travelling through a large loop 
  or if it left the Labyrinth through one of the exits.
  WORMHOLE COMBAT
  Crafty pirates are able to use the characteristics of 
  wormholes against their victims, such as when facing a 
  spaceship with shielding on its front. When engaged by an 
  enemy from the front, the obvious action to take is to shoot 
  straight-on, hoping to cause damage. However, an experi-
  enced captain could use the space loop to his advantage, 
  shooting backwards and have the missiles hit the enemy 
  spaceship in its rear. Similar strategies can be used to 
  attack an enemy by surprise, striking from an angle they 
  did not expect.
  As the loop affects light, it is possible for one to see 
  several copies of themself in all directions when in a small 
  tunnel. While this can be used to navigate the loop, it can 
  also be used in battle to scare attackers, making it more 
  diffi cult for them to identify one’s position or the number 
  of allied ships. 
  COMMUNICATIONS
  Laws of physics apply as normal inside the wormhole - 
  they just have to bend to the curvature of space and time. 
  Consequently, the propagation of electromagnetic waves 
  (communication, light, lasers) must follow the curved 
  space. As such, various effects may occur: observers 
  inside the wormhole may see duplicates of themselves 
  when looking in the direction of a loop, and any communica-
  tion signal would also be duplicated resulting in an ‘echo’ 
  “Sir, we have found the cure.”
  “And it’s a hundred years too late.”
  “I know.”
  If AT-01 were human, it might have asked why MK-41 
  continued its search, nearly a century later. But AT-01 
  understood the compulsion of another robot to fi nal-
  ise its work.
  “What is left for you to do?”
  “Nothing, my code is empty.”
  If MK-41 were human, it would have been happy to 
  achieve its life goal. But MK-41 had no feelings. It just 
  stood there. 
  AT-01 moved on, its code always had something for 
  it to do. And that made it neither happy or unhappy. 
  Alhalam is a planet whose inhabitants died tens of 
  thousands of years ago. Their species went extinct, 
  exterminated by a devastating disease. Their functional 
  (but now pointless) robots continue to work and keep 
  the cities tidy and full of resources. These ghost cities 
  maintain their robots through their Self Conservation 
  Robotic System, that fi xes any robots that might be 
  broken, corrupted, or that would otherwise act outside 
  of normal duties. Sometimes, a robot might have a 
  problem that was not programmed to be fi xed by the 
  system, leaving it to roam on its own with its unusual 
  new behaviours. 
  Alhalam is under the control of the Iz’kal, and they 
  have chosen to not interfere or establish any colonies 
  on it to honour the memory of the old species that 
  once lived there (and the strange microcosms that its 
  peaceful robot inhabitants have achieved). 
  A team of iz’kal researchers have established them-
  selves on the planet and continue to observe and learn 
  from what is left by the extinct race and from the inor-
  ganic tecnosystem left by them.
  A team of iz’kal researchers have established them-
  selves on the planet and continue to observe and learn 
  from what is left by the extinct race and from the inor-
  
  faith rulebook
  The Universe
  55
  effect. An experienced navigator, however, can fi nd the 
  right angle to send a signal and bounce it off the curves 
  of the wormhole to make it reach otherwise unreachable 
  spots. This same technique can be used to foil the intercep-
  tion of messages and other forms of communication. This 
  is especially useful when attempting to  communicate in 
  secret between close-by ships, but the distance between 
  colonies is so large that messages sent this way often end 
  up corrupted, distorted, or lost in space loops. It is not rare 
  for a travelling ship to receive signals than have been there 
  for years. 
  These facts imply that communication between two 
  exits of a wormhole is hard and intermittent at best: the 
  only reliable method is sending a spaceship through with 
  the information in their systems to be downloaded on 
  arrival. This is very taxing and only done when neces-
  sary. However, between two important systems, there is 
  always a spaceship or a fl eet full of servers that crosses 
  the wormhole daily or weekly, bringing all the necessary 
  information to the other system. These server ships are 
  highly desired targets of pirates and hackers, and are thus 
  strongly defended or are disguised as civilian ships. But in 
  the most remote systems, like some mining colonies, news 
  can take weeks or even months to arrive, until a spaceship 
  brings them new tools or an empty cargo ship returns from 
  a shipment.
  SPACE EXPLORATION
  The discovery of the Labyrinth completely changed the 
  landscape of space exploration. The Corvo, who had made 
  rigorous but primitive strides towards wormhole technolo-
  gy, put their research on hold as they did not need to create 
  their own wormholes anymore. The Labyrinth, a gigantic 
  web of naturally occurring, interconnected wormholes - a 
  web with more exits than can be counted - is very treacher-
  ous to navigate. Some tunnels are so narrow that only the 
  tiniest of robot probes can navigate them without colliding 
  into themselves, while others contain entire star systems. 
  Many teams have been sent to explore its tunnels but very 
  few have returned; as communication inside the wormhole 
  is extremely complicated, one can only wait.
  The Corvo and the Iz’kal started to explore the Labyrinth 
  as soon as they were capable, unaware of the other as 
  they mapped, conquered, and exploited the resources of 
  dozens of star systems. Since they found the Labyrinth, the 
  growth of the Corvo had been exponential - at least until 
  their fi rst encounter with an iz’kal colony. For the fi rst time 
  in their age of exploration, they had met another species as 
  advanced and as powerful as themselves.
  The fi rst contact was tense and all attempts at a diplo-
  matic and friendly relationship had failed. Their civilisations 
  were too different, their moral codes disparate. To each, 
  Tall and impossibly beautiful, the gates towered above 
  the small party. They were covered in exquisite carvings 
  depicting a beautiful city that was no more. The grand doors, 
  inducing mixed feelings of awe and tranquility, guarded the 
  entrance to the Chamber of Reminiscence, a sacred place in 
  which the Iz’kal stored their history in resonance stones.
  At fi rst, Keler had been reluctant. Entering the chambers 
  was considered a serious offense - let alone stealing the 
  Greatstone - but after the last meeting he had come to 
  realize that the Council would never support his request 
  unless he had a way of forcing their hand. Finally, he sought 
  out Fassir and agreed to work with him. The plan was simple 
  enough: they would enter the Chamber of Reminiscence on 
  the night of the Reckoning (the anniversary of the night the 
  Korian were annihilated) when no one was guarding it. That 
  was where Fassir’s help would be invaluable. As counselor 
  and guardian of the memories, he was in charge of the keys 
  to the chamber.
  Keler could sense the unease of his companions as if it 
  was his own, or maybe it was his own uneasiness that tinted 
  all of their thoughts through the hyperlink. He wasn’t sure, 
  but at this point it didn’t matter. Each and every one of them 
  was committed to the plan. Each and every one was aware 
  of the consequences should something go wrong. And they 
  knew that this was what had to be done if they wanted to be 
  heard.
  Just outside the chamber, Keler took out the crystal key. 
  The size of a clenched fi st, the key shone with a pale blue light 
  that casted gloomy shadows around them. He approached 
  the keyhole and inserted the crystal into the square opening. 
  Light radiated from the stone, along the carvings in the doors 
  like rivers fl owing through twisted paths. Suddenly, the light 
  vanished and the doors opened in total silence. 
  They stood at the edge of a large circular pit that extended 
  downwards as far as the eye could see. A thin metal 
  walkway led from the doorway to a spiral staircase situated 
  in the center of the opening, which descended to the bottom 
  of the pit. Additional walkways radiated from the staircase 
  towards the walls at every level. The walls were lined with 
  resonance stones that were the size of skulls. And they were 
  shaped like skulls too, glowing with a tenuous red light, like 
  embers on a dark night.
  Every step along the walkway was announced by a 
  metallic clang that echoed down the pit, a bright sound that 
  invaded the absolute silence that reigned over the place. As 
  they reached the staircase and began their long trip down, 
  they felt exposed, as though they were being watched by the 
  thousands of stones lining the walls, staring at them with 
  accusatory but vacant eyes. 
  After a time that felt like an eternity, they reached 
  the bottom of the pit and found themselves facing a low 
  
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  tunnel, a bright white light visible at the other end. Slightly 
  bent so as to avoid the ceiling of the corridor, they walked 
  the short distance that separated them from their objective, 
  their fear and anxiety conquered by a much stronger feeling 
  of reverence. They reached the Chamber of Ascension, the 
  only thing visible in it a prism-shaped crystal that irradiated 
  a bright white light, in spite the rest of the room which was 
  covered in absolute darkness.
  Keler stretched his hand towards the stone but froze 
  midway. Fear, primal and savage, fl ooded his thoughts, so 
  intense that for a moment he thought he might faint. As soon 
  as he recovered, he turned around looking for the source of 
  the commotion. His eyes focused on a lone fi gure standing 
  in the opening of the corridor they had just crossed. Despite 
  its relaxed stance, it was impossible to ignore the threat it 
  posed, and its eyes were unmistakably fi lled with contempt 
  and the promise of death. Keler’s mind raced as he tried to 
  fi nd a way out of their situation. 
  Even if voidwalkers were as powerful as the stories told, 
  this one was still alone against nine high sevans, powerful 
  and capable casters. His thoughts were quickly echoed by 
  those around him as they prepared to fi ght their uninvited 
  guest. Keler would have been amazed by the speed with 
  which the fi gure moved towards his companions, if 
  only he had been alive when it happened.
  A second fi gure gently held his lifeless body as it fell, 
  before joining the fi rst in a terrible dance of death.
  the other represented decay and evil. One wanted freedom, 
  and the other wanted community. They tried to stop com-
  munications, to keep the other away, but both species 
  were too involved with the Labyrinth. They had grown 
  into it, and their colonies and their interests lied within it. 
  In each species’ quest for expansion, interaction would be 
  inevitable: often one would spend enormous amounts of 
  resources to explore a system, only to fi nd that the other 
  had arrived fi rst. There were two choices: start a war or 
  go somewhere else. Open war was not an option on the 
  table: the destructive power of both civilisations ensured 
  the complete annihilation of both sides, with no one left 
  to enjoy the spoils. And both sides were not ready for a 
  full scale space war, especially in a place as strange as in 
  the Labyrinth - where things can go south at the smallest 
  miscalculation. 
  The relationship between the Corvo and the Iz’kal had to 
  continue. They met, they discussed, they fought, and they 
  hated. An agreement was created, and the rules of inter-
  galactic exploration and conquest were drawn. It was very 
  simple: there could be no attacks between the two civilisa-
  tions and whomever landed fi rst on a planet had all rights 
  to it.
  The space race began. Each species wanted the best 
  planets, either to colonize them or to mine them. They 
  set up their fl ags everywhere they went, whether it was a 
  habitable paradise or a desolated rock. And while the rules 
  were fair, the space race resulted in plenty of dirty tactics. 
  Expedition teams into new territory would disappear 
  regularly, followed by the discovery that the other species 
  had already claimed that territory for themselves. The gov-
  ernments took advantage of the fact that communication 
  was diffi cult, and that it was hard to fi nd proof of foul play. 
  The war was slow, silent, and deadly. 
  The Corvo and the Iz’kal now coexist in a state of cold 
  war, as direct confrontation is nearly impossible. They 
  compete for resources and try to collapse their opponent’s 
  economic systems through fi erce commerce. They fi ght 
  black-op wars on remote planets, while incredible duels 
  between hackers take place on a daily basis, fuelled by 
  the information that intelligence and counterintelligence 
  agents provide them. Missionaries and inquisitors convert 
  their rivals’ populations to their own Gods, and agitators 
  stir the native species of planets under their enemies’ 
  domain into rebellion.
  However, each species has its own internal confl icts, as 
  many religions coexist and their greedy Gods are always 
  hungry for expansion.  Prophets, politicians, and business-
  men all struggle for control.  The universe holds its breath, 
  waiting to see who will fall fi rst and what will be the fate of 
  the known species.
  
  faith rulebook
  The Gods
  57
  It is up to the GM and the players to interpret the 
  God’s commandments and apply them correctly. 
  The extension and severity of each commandment 
  should be based on the character’s Faith attribute 
  and the amount of Divine Upgrades he has.
  �������� Vexal asks of his believers that they 
  help others without giving up their personal 
  freedom in the process. For a follower with Faith 
  1 and one Divine Upgrade, this can mean that the 
  character should try to help others when he can 
  and share with others when he is able, but for a 
  follower with Faith 3 and several Divine Upgrades, 
  this can very well demand a whole new level of in-
  tensity. Perhaps he should actively try to find ways 
  to benefit the people around him and to share as 
  much as possible, all while following his own path 
  and without taking orders, in true Vexal fashion. 
  For the concept of the Gods to properly work it 
  is essential for the GM to be strict when judging the 
  behaviour of the players according to their Gods’ re-
  spective commandments. The GM should promise 
  them future rewards whenever they follow those 
  commandments, and warn them about the conse-
  quences of acting against the rules of the Gods. If 
  they do not follow the commandments, or they 
  break them, the GM must not hesitate to call onto 
  the players the wrath of their God and tell them 
  they have lost their powers for the rest of the 
  session. If they continue to behave that way, she 
  must remove a Divine Upgrade from their character 
  board without the chance of recovering any experi-
  ence points spent to acquire it. Players will need to 
  make amends with their God and gain more experi-
  ence to regain that Upgrade.
  THE GODS
  While there is no reason for the existence of life, life 
  itself does not care. The problem arose when it gained con-
  sciousness and came to realise that its own existence was 
  an accident. In its realisation of itself, a voice spoke from 
  within. It told a truth - the only truth: life ought to create its 
  own reason to be, lest it be consumed.
  Some say there are as many Gods as there are minds, 
  each God matching the being to whom they are connected. 
  However, most people believe that there are only five Gods 
  that take on many forms. Believers do not choose their God, 
  nor do the Gods choose their believers. Instead, believers 
  are linked to their Gods through their personalities. In FAITH, 
  the Gods are not creators or allfathers. They are entities 
  that surged from the collective conscience of beings that 
  have found a similar reason to exist. The Gods came into 
  existence at the very same time as their believers. Now, 
  every new being that finds a reason to exist finds a similar 
  God within him.
  The Gods are powerful, but intangible; they exist only 
  inside the minds of their believers, yet somehow they exist 
  as a single entity in all of them. Gods have no body nor voice, 
  or do they have the capacity to affect the Universe directly. 
  They can only do so through their believers, bestowing their 
  gifts of power upon them, or taking those gifts away.
  When two species meet in the vastness of space they 
  know they will have at least one thing in common: They all 
  have the same Gods.
  Those who stays true to the path laid out before them by 
  their God can expect great powers in exchange: abilities of 
  a supernatural essence that defy reasoning or explanation. 
  Throughout the centuries, different people from all species 
  have studied the signs sent by the Gods and have written 
  the commandments of each God accordingly.
  COMMANDMENTS:              
  REWARDS & PUNISHMENTS
  The Gods of FAITH are fickle beings. However, it is not 
  rare for them to pay attention to their believers, who are 
  the source of their power and their only way to mould the 
  Universe to their desires. Gods can grant powers to their 
  believers if they like their behaviour, or withdraw their 
  support if their believers betray them.
  Each God has a set of commandments that instruct fol-
  lowers on their God’s desires. While their specific interpre-
  tation may vary, it is commonly agreed that the Gods agree 
  with many versions of the same concepts.
  The wishes of the Gods are open to interpretation; as 
  they lack a voice to speak, their desires are very much a 
  matter of faith. Believers follow what they believe is just 
  and it is proven that there are several correct interpreta-
  tions of the commandments of each God. 
  Differences in beliefs are common between believers 
  of the same God. Some differences are amicable, while 
  others have driven different cults to war. Some religious 
  wars have been fought by soulbenders empowered by the 
  same God on both sides. The common belief that explains 
  this fact is that the Gods do not care much about the 
  trifling differences their followers might have. They only 
  care about making the world right in their own eyes, and in 
  these wars they appreciate and support the righteousness 
  of both sides.
  
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  CULTS
  In the universe of FAITH, most believers see their beliefs 
  as philosophies to live by and ways to live their lives. Faith 
  and religion are not often followed through organizations 
  or structured worship.
  Some believers use mantras, stories, poetry, or song 
  to remind themselves of their God’s commandments, but 
  these are often personal or passed down by relatives. 
  There are no great institutions or organized religions that 
  speak for their Gods.
  However, there are some cults that do follow these 
  practices, where one or more members lead. These cults 
  remain a minority, but they grow in strength as they are led 
  by believers with great divine power. Kalivan and Vexal cults 
  are usually found in iz’kal society as an organised form of 
  rebellion against the status quo, while Ergonaut and Hexian 
  followings are more often found in corvo cities, also as a 
  form of protest.  Ledger has no cults and they very rarely 
  work together and when they do, like their God, they do it 
  randomly. These cults prosper among those rejected by 
  society, as they give answers to the echoing questions in 
  the minds of those that do not fit. The cults, regardless of 
  their faith, attract some of the most radical believers of all 
  and many unethical choices have been made in the name of 
  these organisations.   
  GODLY FAVOURS
  The Gods of FAITH favour the most extreme kinds of 
  people. Most others have a little bit of every God inside 
  them, and they do not follow any God exclusively. While the 
  relationships between the Gods themselves are adversarial, 
  the vast majority of the population of the Universe treats 
  them more like a pantheon, where each God represents a 
  different aspect of life and offers a unique perspective to 
  learn from. In general, most people do lean towards one 
  God, but they are unlikely to become fanatical followers. 
  A character who wishes to be rewarded by his God must 
  be very vocal and consistent with his beliefs. He must not 
  allow anyone or anything to prevent him from following 
  and practising those beliefs.
  Following a God is a difficult decision that requires the 
  follower to live by a strict moral code without moments 
  of weakness. Conquerors, activists, and movement leaders 
  are examples of the kind of people who are more likely to 
  follow a God and who are devout enough to be rewarded 
  with mighty powers. This is why only a very small minority 
  of the population has divine powers; those who have won 
  the favour of a God are often respected for their strong 
  will, and feared even more for their radicalism.
  Witnessing the use of such powers is a thing of wonder. It 
  will often be the talk of the town for those that see it. 
  AVATARS OF GOD
  The Avatar of a God has an indestructible faith and disre-
  gards all other ways and beliefs. He is usually considered 
  a prophet by the followers of the same God and his words 
  are listened to, learned, and studied as sacrosanct. 
  Some Avatars are so powerful, and their willpower is so 
  strong, that they are capable of powers never seen before. 
  Most are named from this special power: the most famous 
  iz’kal Ergonaut prophet is known as the Necromancer, as it 
  is thought that he can bring the dead back to life. The leader 
  of the infamous Firebirds pirate organisation is called the 
  Seer. Not only is he always where he is never expected, but 
  the Mocking Jay, his vessel, has never been caught, in spite 
  of the combined efforts of all the megacorps and the many 
  well prepared ambushes it has suffered. It is thought that 
  Hexia has rewarded him with the power of clairvoyance. 
  There are many other prophets. Some remain mysteri-
  ous and their powers unknown, with the only things ever 
  said about them is that their every desire seems possible.
  Characters must follow the commandments of their God if they want to be able to gain and use their powers. 
  These Divine Upgrades are gained by spending experience points and their acquisition requires the approval of the 
  GM, who will be the ultimate judge of the character’s behaviour according to his God. 
  ��������� If a character continuously role-plays in a way that puts him against his God, the GM should consider 
  what other God fits him better and offer him to pledge allegiance to that God instead. He will lose all the Divine 
  Upgrades he has now, but he will be able to gain new ones from this new God. If he were to change his God in an 
  epic manner, the GM can give him any number of Divine Upgrades of his new God, up to the same number he had 
  before. It is recommended to keep it at one -after all, the character must still prove himself worthy to his new God 
  in the long run.
  
  “To truly have you must give. If you cannot give something away, it is that thing that 
  owns you and not the other way around.” - Hamid Al-Razim, iz’kal philosopher
  faith rulebook
  The Gods
  59
  � 
  All are equal
  � 
  Thou shalt bend thy will to the needs of the many
  ERGON’S COMMANDMENTS
  ERGON
  It has been proven time and again that collaboration beats competition. Those that believe 
  otherwise are not necessarily mistaken, but it is clear that they are following an agenda for 
  personal gain, costing society a great deal more than they can offer.
  When will they see that power and money are merely a means to an end? Don’t they realise 
  that those things are pointless in themselves? We are social beings and we can only be our 
  true selves with others, and when freed from social stratifi cation and differentiation. The only 
  true, lasting happiness must be shared, hopefully by all.
  Many cynics ridicule Ergonauts for being naive and for 
  being afraid to make their own choices. They miss the 
  point: bending one’s will to the will of the many requires 
  more courage than just following one’s basic instincts and 
  desires. 
  If one should doubt Ergon, they only need to see how 
  Ergonaut societies are the happiest and healthiest of all, 
  while places of inequality run rampant with crime and 
  hatred.
  Ergonauts do not believe that they are more worthy 
  than others, but that others are as worthy as them. It is 
  important for them to remind themselves that they are not 
  working to increase their worth, but to help others see their 
  own worth in the eyes of Ergon. 
  They do not see themselves as above anyone else and are 
  willing to put up with whatever is needed to reach a social 
  agreement that benefi ts everyone as much as possible. 
  There is no ‘I’ for an Ergonaut, there is only ‘us’. It is not that 
  they think they can speak for others, but that they wish to 
  include everyone in their ways.
  Personal needs, liberties, and desires are not that impor-
  tant when one shares everything with like minded people. A 
  true Ergonaut will go to sleep happy if he helped everyone 
  else get some food, even if he is hungry. True freedom, 
  from others and from oneself, is to be able to give every-
  thing for a cause that one knows to be true. 
  Ergon is interested in selfl ess people who see beyond 
  their own needs and realise that true fulfi lment can only be 
  achieved through a shared experience with everyone else.
  Ergonauts have found a very simple truth: happiness 
  must be shared. We are social beings, our lives are inter-
  mingled, and we have to learn to work together.
  They believe that they must put themselves forward and 
  sacrifi ce for others, sometimes even for those that do not 
  think the same way. True altruism does not expect anything 
  in return and Ergonauts like it this way. They only hope that 
  they can help others fi nd a way to see things in the same 
  manner.
  They know that power and economical differences 
  are the root of all evil. Corruption, greed, fear, and envy 
  all come from these differences among people. Creating 
  equality is the only way to banish these aspects of social 
  alienation.
  Ergonauts believe that there are extraordinary possi-
  bilities within ordinary people. The foundations of a great 
  society are built by equal opportunity and equal respect; 
  equality grants people the opportunity to become their 
  greatest possible selves. Ergonauts believe that people 
  will reach beyond their current limitations only when given 
  the right conditions, and that it is important for everyone to 
  strive to be a part of and to create those conditions. 
  � 
  Thou shalt not hinder thy people
  � 
  Thou shalt help others be their greatest selves
  
  “Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestous sea 
  of Liberty.” - Thomas Jefferson, human politician
  60
  faith rulebook
  The Gods
  � 
  Thou shalt be above all
  � 
   Thou shalt not succumb to weakness
  KALIVA’S COMMANDMENTS
  KALIVA
  Nature isn’t as pure as one might think. Nature is ruthless and cares not for those who 
  fall behind. The strong prey on the weak and the weak on the weakest. Why can Nature be 
  cruel and not be judged? Why do we force ourselves to suffer this double standard? Have we 
  forgotten that we are just a small part of a whole? 
  An animal will do what it must to survive, and it will do it without hesitation. To survive is 
  the most important thing Nature asks from us. I am just another tiger making my way in this 
  jungle.
  deserves, he must work for it. 
  Followers of the other Gods defame Kalivans by calling 
  them out as evil, as if they actively tried to harm others. 
  Such a notion is ridiculous to a Kalivan. All a Kalivan looks 
  out for is his own well being. This sometimes benefi ts other 
  people and sometimes it hurts them. It is the harsh neces-
  sity of life.
  Kalivans are those that create themselves from nothing. 
  Those who fi ght every step of the way. Those that let other 
  people deal with their own affairs and instead put their 
  energies towards their own. Most of the Universe is led by 
  Kalivans, a fact of which they are proud (and rightly so). But 
  they are not proud for other Kalivans who have achieved 
  their dream, as they are mere competitors; they are proud 
  because this fact reinforces the belief they hold as the 
  ultimate truth. While the followers of other Gods want their 
  futures to be handed over to them, Kalivans create their 
  own and shape the futures of those around them as they 
  rise towards the top.
  Kaliva respects only one thing in mortals and that is the 
  will to improve oneself. Kaliva only accepts those who work 
  hard to achieve their goals and who are never satisfi ed with 
  being in second place. For Kaliva, there is always a way, and 
  those that do not fi nd it are not good enough. 
  Compassion and charity are fl awed in the eyes of a 
  Kalivan. They show weakness and allow others to become 
  lethargic and dependent. Each person must become their 
  own man or woman, and competition can only promote 
  self-improvement. Only those that truly deserve it will 
  make it.  
  Everyone deserves a chance and Kaliva will grant it to 
  them regardless of the prospects of failure. Failure is just 
  a part of the learning process, no matter how many times 
  it happens. For Kaliva, true failure is giving up, feeling satis-
  fi ed with less, or being a parasite who lives off of the hard 
  work of others.
  Taking things for granted and not working hard are 
  symptoms of a sick society that preys on the goodwill of 
  hard workers.
  Feed a man everyday of his life and you are left not with 
  a productive citizen but a pet. To allow someone to rely on 
  another person’s hard work is disrespectful, as it reduces 
  that someone to the bearable minimum of a person. For 
  a person to be truly able to express all of his potential, 
  and therefore feel empowered and as important as he 
  � 
  Thou shalt not bear a master
  � 
  Each to their own
  
  “Very few people are smart enough to understand their own real needs, and even fewer are 
  smart enough to understand the needs of others. People with power are more likely to do 
  more bad than good, even if they have good intentions.” - OIDIA, [Unknown species] hacker
  faith rulebook
  The Gods
  61
  � 
  Thou shalt not bear a master
  � 
  Thou shalt think for thyself
  VEXAL’S COMMANDMENTS
  VEXAL
  Trying to understand an animal’s true nature by studying one in captivity will provide you 
  with the wrong answers. The animal’s habits, behaviour, and mood are completely changed 
  from what they would be in liberty. Unsurprisingly, it is the same with people. When you hear 
  someone speak about our true nature as people, the dangers of it, and how we need rules and 
  laws to control it for our own safety, stop for a moment and think about this: the people behind 
  those propositions have never seen the true nature of our species. They are simply basing 
  their studies on specimens born into submission, fear, preconceptions, and rules.
  We need to be free and we need to be equal to even start scratching the surface of our true 
  nature and all its possibilities. I think we will be impressed and humbled by them. I think we will 
  see that all the evil we suffer today is not in the roots of our nature, but instead yet another 
  tax of an oppressive, unjust, and controlling society.
  do, but when they do choose to work on something they 
  are very productive. After all, they are usually caring 
  and curious people, who live to get involved in things that 
  matter to them. 
  Being an individualist does not mean that they won’t work 
  in teams, and they will do so for as long as the group has 
  no hierarchy and every voice is taken into consideration. 
  Usually these groups are formed around a shared need for 
  collaboration and only carry on for as long as everyone 
  considers it to be their path. However, if rules are imposed 
  and someone tries to make decisions for everyone else, the 
  Vexales will soon disappear in the wind.
  Vexales are usually adventurers, hackers, outlaws, or 
  any other kind of free people.  While they generally disap-
  prove of vigilantism, which is seen as proud and egotistic, 
  they are not above carrying out their own forms of justice. 
  Vexales enjoy exposing the wrongdoings of corporations, 
  states, and any form of imposing power. Their social criti-
  cism has shaped the perceptions of many societies, and has 
  caused the rise or decline of many corporations and politi-
  cians. Everyone must be an activist for real change to occur.
  Vexal wants his believers to understand that there is no 
  particularly correct view on things. Everyone must search 
  for their own truth, as each individual may live in different 
  circumstances, and even then each person will probably 
  change his own views with the passing of time. This is why 
  imposing a way of life and indoctrinating people has such 
  terrible consequences.
  People who believe in Vexal are those who do not like to 
  follow any rules, but they have a deep respect for others 
  and are always willing to give a helping hand. They do not 
  take orders very well and dislike societies that pretend that 
  everyone has to live by the same rules; they believe that 
  each person should be treated differently but respectfully.
  They believe there will never be peace for as long as 
  there is any type of hierarchy; there must be an absolute 
  dissolution of the principle and practice of authority. This 
  is why, while they will not sacrifi ce their own freedom for 
  anyone, they might be willing to sacrifi ce their own life for 
  a good cause.
  While they have a reputation of being poor team players, 
  many Vexales have proven that they are extremely hard 
  working people. Understandably, they want to choose their 
  occupation and they will not be happy when told what to 
  � 
  Thou shalt not restrict others
  � 
  Thou shalt benefi t others
  
  “In chemistry, when you want a specifi c reaction to occur, you do not throw in the mix your favour-
  ite compounds. You study it and use the elements that, under the conditions given, will most likely 
  produce the desired reaction. In politics you should do the same.” - Xiang Yi Lee, corvo politician
  62
  faith rulebook
  The Gods
  � 
  Thou shalt pursue knowledge and expertise
  � 
  Thou shalt set the greater good above all else
  HEXIA’S COMMANDMENTS
  HEXIA
  At their core, people are simply a combination of complex, ongoing chemical reactions 
  that are constantly responding to their environment. The illusion of choice is powerful and 
  deeply rooted in our rational minds, because there is a tendency to separate the self from 
  the chemistry that runs our bodies and minds. The truth is that we are the chemistry, and 
  chemistry works by following rules, not choices. 
  When you are in a laboratory and a chemical reaction goes wrong, you do not yell at the 
  test tube, and you do not blame it on the evilness or laziness of the compounds - they have no 
  choice in how they react. People are like chemical compounds: they react as such, and they 
  should be treated as such. And sometimes, one compound needs to be removed to save the 
  whole reaction.
  strongest power, because those that have the most re-
  sources have the best chances of winning and securing even 
  more resources. Power is thus accumulated in one end of 
  society, which in turn enables said end to gain ever more 
  power in a never ending cycle. The fi nal picture is something 
  very different from democracy and way less pretty. 
  Hexians want a society for everyone but it is clear that 
  letting everyone decide has the grave danger of ending 
  up following the decisions of the most powerful. Hexians 
  are tired of trying to convince people of complex ideas to 
  improve society, and of being defeated by charmers selling 
  short term happiness and easy ways out.
   Their ways are sometimes unethical, sometimes 
  criminal and most of the times so grey that they are really 
  hard to explain on their own. But Hexians look at the bigger 
  picture: they understand that some steps will be harsh 
  when creating the path to a new way of living.
  It is the duty of a good Hexian to fi nd ways to improve 
  society, regardless of what people might think. What 
  is truly important is that their grandchildren will live in a 
  better place. History will recognise the efforts of the just. 
  Hexia looks for people willing to use their genius and 
  power for the common good. Instead of forcing them 
  to submit to the ideas of others, Hexia encourages free 
  thought and for people to spread their own ways.
  Hexians want the best for all people, but they understand 
  that most people are brainwashed or unfi t to decide what is 
  best by themselves. Hexians have come to terms with this 
  sad reality, and they will follow their ideas and try to make 
  them a reality for everyone else, even those that do not ac-
  knowledge those ideas as true and good yet. Hexians know 
  that once their ideas are established, people will be capable 
  of collaborating and forming a true community in which 
  everyone will learn to overcome their personal desires 
  and to see through lies and manipulation. Mediocrity will be 
  raised to greatness. 
  Democracy is a beautiful and necessary concept, but 
  in an unequal society it is destined to fail. In a democracy 
  there are different powers, lobbies, groups, associations, 
  industries, and many other kinds of pressure groups. 
  Choices are made based on what is possible and allowed by 
  those powers. As they are not constant nor in agreement, 
  changes proposed by many different and confl icted powers 
  can take place. However, the general trend is obvious and 
  logical: in the long run most changes lean towards the 
  � 
  Thou shalt show others the way
  � 
  Thou shalt not bend your will
  
  faith rulebook
  The Gods
  63
  � 
  Follow your impulses
  � 
  Do not sow
  “The whole point of having an opinion is to piss people off.” - Ledger
  LEDGER’S COMMANDMENTS
  LEDGER
  He has a voice that is like fi re. Whenever he speaks worlds burn in the pyres of passion. 
  They think he is a visionary, and follow him by the millions. But he is just a primal being of 
  unleashed desires.
  Ledger, which makes everything very confusing for police 
  forces, who are forced to adopt code names for each one. 
  This makes Ledger giggle. All of them.
  Ledger is the only God without an organised cult. Most 
  Ledger believers are unstable enough to be too dangerous 
  for each other. They are surely unstable enough to be a 
  danger to themselves. But it is in the nature of Ledgers to 
  not care for themselves, and sometimes misfortune brings 
  a few together and horrible things happen. They never 
  last very long, as even Ledger himself, in all his might, has 
  trouble keeping his followers alive. It is not known if he even 
  cares.
  In order to bring even more chaos to the Universe, Ledger 
  grants powers to his believers that allows them to pretend 
  to believe in other Gods, so many of them have been found 
  in other Gods’ cults. It is every Ledger’s dream to become 
  a prophet of another God. They enjoy long and elabo-
  rate ongoing jokes, so it is possible that this has already 
  happened. A Ledger can take a joke so far that he might 
  even increase the reach of the God he is falsely following, 
  taking his joke to the grave - or he might blow up a cathedral 
  and cause a war between two cults instead. Who knows.
  Ledger is the God of those who want to see the world 
  burn, or who think that life is a joke that should be pushed 
  to the limit. There is very little sense in what a follower of 
  Ledger does, because they do not benefi t anyone, not even 
  themselves.
  People believe in Ledger for all kinds of reasons. Some 
  think that the sentient species bring evil to the Universe 
  and should be extinct, some desire revenge for the pain 
  they have suffered, and some do things that do not benefi t 
  anyone, for reasons not understood. Many simply fi nd 
  joy in causing chaos, from compulsive internet trolls and 
  pranksters, to mad terrorists with no clear ideology behind 
  their actions. Ledger gives these people an outlet for their 
  madness and a purpose where there is none.
  Ledger believers are usually considered dysfunctional 
  members of society, and a danger to others and themselves. 
  When confronted with these accusations, Ledger followers 
  have responded with these answers: “No answer”; sets fi re 
  to his hair; “you are the sick ones, sugar coating life with 
  biased ideology and social constructs based on miscom-
  municated knowledge and values from older generations 
  whose ways of living were meant to satisfy different needs 
  than those of yourself, which causes you to live in a broken 
  society of lost people incapable of adapting to a system 
  that has lost sight of the true nature of its citizens”; “how 
  would I know?”; “you are simply a fragment of my subcon-
  scious being, don’t bother me with stupid questions.” 
  Those who believe in Ledger are unorganised and are 
  loose in their moral behaviour. Their actions bring confu-
  sion, disorder, and chaos.
  The most devoted believers give up their previous lives 
  and become ‘ghosts’ by abandoning or killing those they 
  knew, burning their fi ngerprints, and ingesting drug cock-
  tails that mutate their DNA, so that any traces of who they 
  were are destroyed. Every single ghost calls themselves 
  � 
  Do not obey others
  � 
  Confuse
  
  64
  faith rulebook
  The Gods
  BRING THE TRUE FAITH TO THEM.
  
  faith rulebook
  The Corvo
  65
  The Corvo are an independent and capable people. They 
  are smaller in size than humans, averaging 1.6 metres in 
  height and 54 kilograms in weight, and they have adapted to 
  life in space. Their capital Tiantang is a sector of the Dyson 
  ring that circles their dwarf star.
  Male and female corvo have very few physical differ-
  ences other than their reproductive organs. The females 
  have wider hips and abdomens, and have lighter colours, 
  but they are equally big and strong. The Corvo reproduce 
  sexually. A few days after being fertilised, the female corvo 
  lay their eggs, which hatch a few weeks later after being 
  cared for by both parents.
  Thanks to their slow metabolism, their natural life ex-
  pectancy is very high at around 110-120 Earth years, but 
  lower class corvo can expect to live to only 80 years, due to 
  malnutrition, illnesses, stress, and the conditions of living 
  in space. On the other hand, the richest and most fortunate 
  corvo have access to state of the art biotechnology and ar-
  tifi cial organs that can extend their lifespan to around 200 
  years. Some of the most eccentric billionaires are said to 
  have even given up their physical bodies and have had their 
  brains and nervous systems installed into machines. It is 
  currently unknown how effective this treatment is, as the 
  oldest known corvo who has undergone such a procedure 
  is only 230 years old. Still, the technology is young and the 
  possibilities are endless. The Corvo may very well be the 
  fi rst known species to reach immortality. Only time will 
  tell.
  Originally from Quanjie, a planet with a day/night cycle 
  of 30 Earth hours, a corvo would normally sleep for 8 of 
  those 30 hours. However, each corvo colony has their own 
  unique sleep cycle, and those that live in them have adapted 
  accordingly. They are omnivorous, but their diet depends 
  greatly on the planet they inhabit and the resources 
  available.
  CORVOSPHERE
  The Corvosphere is the amalgamation of everything 
  corvo related, from the planets they inhabit, their space-
  crafts, and their mines, to their art, culture, and technology. 
  It is considered to be every single thing that is related to and 
  sometimes affected by the infl uence of corvo society.
  Rebel fl eets, pirates, anarchists, and any other groups 
  who do not accept the ways of common corvo society are 
  not considered part of the Corvosphere.
  SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS
  The Corvo do not show their feelings openly, and they 
  show their respect or love for others by making them proud 
  or giving them gifts, rather than with words or physical 
  affection. Most corvo have a hard time asking for help as 
  they know that they should be able to achieve anything by 
  themselves, but the consumer society to which they belong 
  keeps them longing for new material things. While most of 
  the middle class are in huge debt, they remain optimistic 
  due to the ever growing corvo economy.
  The Corvo are at the same time monogamous and pro-
  miscuous. They marry and share their lives with a single 
  partner in a very similar fashion to ancient humans, but 
  sex is seen as a token of power for both sexes, something 
  to be scored and bragged about among friends. It is not 
  uncommon for corvo spouses to be aware and proud of the 
  love achievements of their partners.
  Female and male corvo are considered equal in their 
  culture and they do not have predefi ned roles. Same sex 
  relationships are common and they are not treated any 
  differently. 
  THE CORVO
  
  66
  faith rulebook
  The Corvo
  Corvo strive to show off their own uniqueness, and most 
  differentiate themselves using tattoos and prosthetics. 
  Their fashion is continuously reinventing itself, absorbing 
  elements from the various species they come across and 
  from their own history. It is common for males and females 
  to dress differently, and to the untrained eye that is the only 
  noticeable difference between the two.
  Corvo fi nd a lot of pride in family and both spouses will 
  raise their children together. A corvo family often revolves 
  around their family business, and it is common for children 
  to work for and eventually join this business. New genera-
  tions are judged by how effectively they are able to manage 
  and benefi t their family business. . While the Corvo are a 
  self-made people, they have no problem riding the wave 
  of their families’ success for as long as their contribution 
  enhances it. 
  Corvo couples have a lot of children (averaging 3.4 
  children per couple), which means that the population 
  nearly doubles every generation. Governments have tried 
  to establish some control over natality, but the Corvo do 
  not allow their personal freedoms to be compromised. 
  Corvo civilisation has a huge need for expansion, and those 
  that cannot afford to move to a new colony see themselves 
  impoverished in an endless cycle of generations incapable 
  of moving forward. As a result, crime rates are extremely 
  high in the Corvosphere. 
  CORVO SOCIETY
  Corvo consumerism is legendary. They are extremely 
  engaged with new technologies and fashion. Being able to 
  afford luxury goods from remote planets is intrinsically 
  related to popularity and pride. Their industries are always 
  coming up with new models of their products with new and 
  fascinating functionalities and capabilities, in an effort to 
  keep the attention of a public that is never satisfi ed. Corvo 
  companies have devised all kinds of creative methods to 
  attract consumers, from standard billboard advertise-
  ments to 3-D sensorial feeds in the streets of virtual 
  worlds. People that enter certain areas with sensorial 
  feeds salivate with hunger as they can smell and taste the 
  restaurant’s menu just by walking nearby.
  They enjoy a highly technological lifestyle, in which they 
  spend most of their time connected to the net. Thousands 
  of different virtual worlds are hosted on their networks, 
  readily available to those with a cortex connection. Most 
  travel agencies offer special cortex-connected vacations 
  to wonderful virtual worlds, as real travelling is extremely 
  expensive and the Corvo are very dependent on their jobs. 
  They normally do not like to leave them for more than a 
  week at a time, as they feel they are damaging their pos-
  sibilities to ascend.
  Complete immersion in the net-worlds is delicate, as 
  bodily functions decrease when the mind becomes absent 
  this way. Thus, corvo normally do not stay connected for 
  more than 15 to 18 hours per day. There have been cases 
  of people that have died by neglecting their physical 
  bodies. Only the richest people can afford to be installed 
  into high-end machines that keep their bodies healthy and 
  nurtured while their minds spend their whole lives in all 
  kinds of net-worlds.
  LIFEMODS
  The most renowned type of art in the Corvosphere is 
  the creation of lifemods for AR helmets and implants. 
  Lifemods completely recreate the appearance of reality 
  for the user, allowing for a personal and interesting way 
  of experiencing life. This allows for fans of certain games, 
  books, fi lms, etc., to see life around them as if they were 
  living in their favourite piece of fi ction, making the urban 
  environment of Tiantang look like an underwater city or a 
  jungle - with buildings as trees or mountains. Most people 
  use lifemods of some kind, and some very powerful ones 
  can even change the looks of people, not only things. 
  Using lifemods has its risks: lifemods that are in beta 
  or that have not passed all required safety tests can 
  disrupt the user’s experience of reality in a harmful way. 
  For example, when someone crosses a road and a certain 
  model of car is not recognised by the AR, the lifemod could 
  
  faith rulebook
  The Corvo
  67
  glitch and make the car appear to be immobile. It is recom-
  mended to keep lifemods up to date and only use those sold 
  by recognised companies, as hackers can very well affect 
  how others see reality. And there are plenty of lifemods 
  created by coders or pirates, as their way to express 
  themselves and their view of the world. Some might 
  change street advertisements into anti-system messages, 
  while others list the horrors that take place to create such 
  products (such as child labour, slavery, abuse, and the pol-
  lution of alien planets). 
  Lifemods are fantastic ways for workers to escape their 
  routine. Some days their work place will look like a tranquil 
  forest and other days like an epic volcano. It has by far 
  become one of the most used and sold types of softwares.
  CORBALL
  Corball is the most extreme sport there is and it is by far 
  the most popular one in the Corvosphere. It started as a 
  training exercise for EVA operators during the early stages 
  of the construction of the Dyson Ring, but an investor saw 
  lots of promise in revisiting the exercise as a competitive 
  sport. It soon became the favourite of the workers in the 
  stations and started to be broadcasted in the home planet 
  of the Corvo, Quanjie, as well. Today it is seen and played all 
  around the Universe, but the playing fi elds in Tiantang are 
  still the biggest, and it is there where the Universal Cham-
  pionships are held.
  Corball consists of two or more teams of 5 members 
  each. Players wear deployment suits and are fi red at in-
  credible speeds using railguns that put them in orbit around 
  a moon or asteroid without atmosphere. They remain in 
  orbit at high speeds until they are somehow stopped. There 
  are several railgun rings distributed around the moon as 
  well, which players can use to increase or decrease their 
  speed, while they control their fl ight with their deployment 
  suits. 
  Teams must compete for the control of a ball. The 
  matches have a duration of 20 minutes and a team scores 
  a point for every full minute that the ball is under their 
  control, without interruptions. The team with the most 
  points at the end of the match wins. No weapons are 
  allowed, but it is a full contact game in which players physi-
  cally assault each other for control of the ball, to defend 
  their carrier (the player in control of the ball), or to send 
  someone to their death against a pillar or one of the many 
  asteroids in the way. It is not uncommon for some of the 
  players to die during the match.
  Hacking other players’ deployment suits is allowed, 
  although it is a rather dangerous strategy as fl ying at thou-
  sands of kilometres per hour in an asteroid fi eld requires all 
  of the player’s attention to make it out alive.
  If a player moves too far from the ball, their suit will shut 
  down and they are forced to leave the game until the players 
  pass by an area in which they can rejoin along with reserve 
  players.  Additionally, players can spend points gained in 
  the match to launch orbital attacks against certain areas 
  of the moon fi eld, dropping dozens of explosive projectiles 
  and often incapacitating or killing the majority of players 
  caught in the blast. This established the corball motto, 
  “the safest place is under your opponent,” and forces all 
  players to stick together, as those that overtake or stay 
  behind the pack are the ones likely to be targeted. Spending 
  points is a risky move, however, and more than one match 
  has been lost by a team targeting opponents who had been 
  left behind and then losing the ball to the opponents who 
  were nearby.
  The violent and frantic gameplay and the stunning looks 
  of the players make corball matches mesmerizing events 
  that shut down the entire Corvosphere for their duration. 
  Many people spend all their time and money following their 
  favourite team. Corball players are among the most famous 
  people in the Universe, their daily lives a reality show that 
  can be seen by anyone willing to pay. The richest fans can 
  afford access to the sensorial feed that is recorded by the 
  players’ cortex connectors, allowing them to feel every-
  “Luck is only the factors not taken into consid-
  eration in the original plan.” - Old corvo saying
  
  68
  faith rulebook
  The Corvo
  thing the player feels, and some corvo have spent entire 
  fortunes living the lives of their favourite players.
  FREE MARKET
  The diffi culty of an effective communications network 
  through the Labyrinth does not allow for a centralised 
  corvo government. Thus, each colony has its own distinct 
  government, much to the satisfaction of the corvo citizens 
  who prefer their politicians close. They are united under the 
  Economic Equality Pact (EEP) which allows them to conduct 
  commerce and other businesses freely and which keeps 
  trade taxless between countries. It is also a good defence 
  against an economical takeover by the Iz’kal.
  While government systems, laws, and power are not 
  equal between any of the corvo colonies, they all share one 
  thing: their love for the free market economy. 
  Corvo civilisation is built around freedom of choice and 
  private property. They are very wary of government 
  institutions and other organisations that could hinder the 
  expression of their freedom, and they understand that 
  these institutions are forms of social domination and create 
  injustice. While there is no consensus around the issue of 
  how much power the government should wield, all colonies 
  have found a common ground by limiting the government 
  to the control of the police, and the administration and en-
  forcement of laws. The most laissez-faire colonies - among 
  them Tiantang - even allow taxation to be voluntary. They 
  see it as another form of insurance policy; those that do not 
  pay taxes are not assisted in security and justice affairs.
  When mandatory, taxes are extremely low and only used 
  to pay for the most basic services of the government. Most 
  other service departments are in the hands of private com-
  panies and free from the monopolistic power of the state to 
  interfere between free transactions among people. Corvo 
  are very protective of their freedoms, and all attempts of 
  creating more powerful governments have been stopped 
  by angry mobs of outraged citizens from all social classes.
  Economic differences are extreme among corvo: some 
  live in the most rotten misery at the bottom of retired 
  0-G space-freighters or in lunar habitats, while others are 
  richer than the districts or colonies they live in. However, no 
  one stops the poor from becoming wealthy and powerful if 
  they work for it. It is not easy, but the Corvo understand this 
  fact better than any other species in the universe. 
  Those that really deserve it and fi ght for it can become 
  owners of more land than any man can imagine; some own 
  even entire planets, having riches beyond what they can 
  spend in their life spans, which stands true for even the 
  corvo whose life span extends for centuries. There is no 
  limit to what one can achieve in the corvo system.
  The Avoidance of an                        
  AI-Caused Recession
  Capitalism’s endless struggle to reduce costs can have 
  a costly effect upon itself, as one extremely effective way 
  of reducing costs is by replacing labour with machines. This 
  has the downside of reducing employment and therefore 
  reducing the acquisitive power of workers, who are also the 
  “That’s libertarians for you — anarchists who 
  want police protection from their slaves.” 
  - Kim Stanley Robinson,  human writer
  “Kalivans have a very narrow view of crime, 
  they see it as an unconnected factor that arises 
  from personal choice, instead of seeing it as a side 
  effect of inequality and lack of opportunity as most 
  studies have proven. Blaming individuals and putting 
  faces to problems makes good press and allows 
  you to blow justifi ed anger upon someone. The idea 
  of a broken state (and not a particular person) that 
  condemns the most defenceless to a criminal life 
  cannot leave the sweet taste of revenge. Sadly, life 
  is bitter”. Lee Yin, corvo philosopher and supporter 
  of the Iz’kal State.
  
  faith rulebook
  The Corvo
  69
  consumers of the products. This problem is responsible for 
  many long economical crises and depressions (and perhaps 
  a few revolts and coup attempts) throughout corvo history. 
  As a result, there is a huge taboo on AI in corvo society. 
  There are no machines running machines in the Corvos-
  phere, and it is a corvo’s duty to supervise production lines, 
  etc.
  Machines are run by code that allows them to do fast re-
  petitive jobs. They do not require adaptability and all other 
  jobs rely on the hands of corvo labour, either directly, or by 
  remotely controlling a machine.
  This artifi cial limitation upon productivity (accepted by all 
  megacorps) allows the Corvo to maintain billions of jobs in 
  a time where machines could replace people in most areas 
  and leave them without the means to support themselves.
  LAW
  Judges are paid by the government, but lawyers and at-
  torneys are not. No prosecution will be made, regardless of 
  the crime, if the appropriate fees are not paid.
  Killing and murdering is completely illegal but not 
  uncommon, especially in the poorest districts, where 
  crooks and other lowlifes too weak to make a living for 
  themselves try to take what others have earned through 
  their hard work. Not much is done about it, however. Police 
  services must be hired by citizens and only sometimes will a 
  corporate businessman pay for a raid in the deepest favela 
  hell, and only when they fear that their interests might be in 
  danger or when civil order starts to disappear.
  On the other hand, those who can afford the fees will 
  have the best lawyers in the Universe, and will fi nd their 
  justice.
  MIGRATION
  While some corvo have the most fantastic and opulent 
  lifestyles imaginable, there is a great majority that live in 
  a very precarious situation. Many of them are forced to 
  move away from their homes to try to make a living, leaving 
  behind families and friends. As lovers of freedom, the 
  corvo colonies put very few restrictions on immigrants, but 
  most do require that they have a job secured at their desti-
  nation or that they have enough money in their accounts to 
  support themselves while looking for one. This very simple 
  rule is a must as a colony can see its crime rates increase 
  when inundated with people who cannot fi nd a job and who 
  must do what they can to survive. 
  Those that are not allowed to travel must turn to the 
  mafi as, who are the only ones capable of getting them to 
  places where they are not wanted. Everyday, hundreds of 
  corvo put on low quality spacesuits and are fi red into the 
  Labyrinth by these mafi as. While some are intercepted by 
  the emigration police set around the exits of the labyrinth, 
  the majority pass by and are then picked up by a spacecraft 
  inside the Labyrinth, which takes them to their destination 
  and fi res them through the Labyrinth exits to pass the 
  emigration control that is there as well. Finally, they are 
  picked up by a ship that takes them to the colony’s surface. 
  This is an extremely risky way of travelling and many die 
  in the process. Sometimes the transport ships don’t show 
  up, other times the pilots are lazy and do not pick up all the 
  emigrants. The most unfortunate are picked up by slavers 
  to be sold off at distant planets.
  MILITARY CONTRACTORS     
  AND PRIVATE POLICE
  Although there are exceptions, police services are 
  usually unrelated to the government and belong to private 
  “Fear those whose shadow is bigger than 
  themselves.” - Old pre-space age corvo saying
  If you were to ask Xiang if machines could talk, she 
  would say yes: even those that have no voice have a 
  way of making themselves understood by those who 
  listen.
  Machines were simpler and purer than people. 
  They had no evil or good in them. They functioned and 
  that was it. No ulterior motives, no secret agendas.
  Xiang wished that she was a cyborg. Her body had 
  all the technological upgrades she had been able 
  to afford. Most people wait until their natural body 
  parts give out to factory accidents or disease, but 
  not Xiang. She replaced her own arm for a bionic one 
  that could turn into all the tools she needed to build 
  drones. At least if she were to lose it now, it wouldn’t 
  hurt, she thought happily.
  She wished for people to be more like machines: 
  happy little beings that worked hard to do their 
  best and who never went out of their way to make 
  other people’s lives miserable. And when machines 
  failed, it was because they were broken rather than 
  because of something they could be at fault for. She 
  believed that machines were like people, in that if you 
  never stopped to listen to what they had to say, they 
  ended up broken.
  Like her brother. If he had been a machine, Xiang 
  could have repaired him. Or even better, she could 
  have listened to him, and helped him before he broke.
  
  70
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  companies. That means that their services will only be 
  available to those areas and neighbourhoods that pay for 
  their services. As a result, private police forces compete 
  for the business of the best neighbourhoods. It is common 
  to see advertisements about different private police and 
  their superior training methods. Certain areas can become 
  very complicated when the neighbours do not agree on con-
  tracting the same service and each house is under protec-
  tion from a different company. Some conspiracy theorists 
  talk about how some police forces move bodies to areas 
  of other companies to avoid having to resolve complex or 
  undesired crimes. 
  It is not uncommon for corvo to own personal weapons 
  for extra safety. Some even disregard the services of 
  police forces and prefer to rely on their own abilities to 
  defend themselves.
  On the other hand megacorps use military contractors 
  for their expansion enterprises, protecting spacecrafts and 
  colonies. These contractors hire and train their own person-
  nel, using the most advanced weaponry in the universe, and 
  they are the closest thing to an army in the Corvosphere. 
  There are plenty of these companies, with most of them 
  belonging to The Union Megacorp, and there are millions 
  of mercenaries working for them. Some mercenaries are 
  renowned for their incredible feats, such as single handedly 
  taking out entire pirate outposts or surviving for years on 
  desolated planets, and as a result have become famous 
  stars in the Corvosphere. Some of them are really popular, 
  and they are used by military agencies as role models for 
  young corvo to try and attract new recruits.
  Military contractors are also believed to be responsible 
  for many black operations against the Iz’kal, rebel groups 
  within the Corvosphere and the Labyrinth, and even against 
  other corporations.
  CYBERCRIME
  Cybercrime is the most extensive type of crime, due to 
  the fact that everyone is connected to the net and new 
  ways to exploit software weaknesses are constantly being 
  discovered. It is also a very safe type of crime as it can be 
  performed from home, and is difficult to trace without 
  the aid of a private security company. Therefore, most 
  criminals target lower or middle class citizens, aiming for 
  large numbers of easy victims instead of the more enticing, 
  but difficult, upper class. That said, there are some fan-
  tastic hackers known for being capable of penetrating the 
  strongest of digital defences and for discovering the most 
  “The Corvo have created a new civilisation for a new millennium. They have taken their cities to 
  space, where they can feed from what is virtually an eternal source of energy. No longer coerced 
  by the weather, the availability of land, the changes in tectonic plates, the atmosphere or any 
  other planetary problems. They expand without restraint through the Labyrinth, from where 
  they can obtain any amount of resources whenever needed. 
  The Iz’kal accuse them of having unsustainable exponential growth, but with the discovery of 
  the Labyrinth, growth is no longer a liability - it is a necessity. Who knows who else is out there? What species and 
  what powers might one day come out of an unexplored region of the Labyrinth. The Corvo are doing what they must 
  for their survival. Holding hands and rainbows are all fine until you are conquered by a stronger foe, after which the 
  only thing your hands will hold will be a pick and a shovel, and you will be forced to terraform your lovely planet to 
  some strange creatures’ climate, hoping that once you are done you might be able to at least breathe what they 
  breathe. 
  The Iz’kal have to stop working with dated concepts from single-planet economies. The Labyrinth is the most dan-
  gerous thing to ever occur to our species, but it is also an opportunity. History will prove who is right. The Iz’kal should 
  work harder if they want to write a few pages of it.” - excerpt from “A Free Society,” Abbas al Din, iz’kal dissident and 
  statistician at The Union.
  
  faith rulebook
  The Corvo
  71
  closely guarded secrets of the megacorps. These hackers 
  must live in complete anonymity as they not only risk their 
  freedom, but sometimes their lives.
  “Oops, I did it again” or OIDIA is one of the most notorious 
  and wanted hackers in the entire Corvosphere. He is named 
  after the signature he leaves behind and is known for his 
  peculiar way of looking at data as a living organism - as 
  another form of life that can be tamed like an animal. Some 
  think that he is code itself; that he is the first real AI. Others 
  might believe that he was killed during his latest job. But 
  from time to time some astonishing hacking attack turns 
  corvo society upside down with the signature “Oops, I did it 
  again” to prove that he is very much alive.
  “Killing is not innately bad. Our contempt for 
  killing comes from the reasoning that a society 
  cannot prosper if killing exists. Organic creatures 
  have evolved to be efficient and to be able to get 
  what they need when they want it. The most 
  animalistic call is to try to obtain what you want 
  without planning for future consequences, and 
  killing sometimes is a good and easy way of achiev-
  ing things. Even less intelligent animals understand 
  this problem, and they have strict codes of behav-
  iour. A wolf that kills another will be abandoned by 
  the pack. So, not killing is mostly something we do 
  in the hope that others will do the same and won’t 
  kill us back.” - Xue Lin, corvo comedian and political 
  activist 
  MEGACORPS
  Small governments are incapable of achieving great 
  things and therefore the conquest of the stars was left 
  in the hands of private interests. The largest ventures 
  required such amounts of wealth and resources that small 
  companies chose to merge into larger companies, which 
  allied and grew into massive corporate holdings that as-
  similated all lesser businesses, who did not want to be left 
  behind. When these economic giants merged to achieve 
  greater things such as opening wormholes or mining entire 
  solar systems, the mega corporations were born.
  The bigger the megacorp, the more powerful the owners 
  of all the companies that fall under their umbrella become. 
  Megacorps are owned by so many businessmen from so 
  many industries that they operate as de facto countries 
  with their own interests.
  Competition is relentless and uncompromising. While 
  there are millions of businesses and owners, most of them 
  form part of one of the three existing mega corporations. 
  Being part of one gives them the power to fight off competi-
  tors and those that resist assimilation are soon bought out 
  by bigger fish. In all the corvo colonies all the companies 
  belong, one degree or another, to one of the megacorps, 
  even if they are not aware of it.
  While all megacorps have diverse branches and attempt 
  to cover all potential sources of profit, they specialise in 
  one or two main areas of goods and services.
  NATION’S SOLUTION
  Nation’s Solution is the megacorp that oversees the 
  corvo industries of nanotechnology and genetic modifica-
  tion. They also provide the main private medical system for 
  the corvo people. Nation’s Solution has most of the control 
  over the food production chains, the medical centres and 
  the bio-enhancement centres within the Corvosphere. 
  Their investment interests lay within those areas and 
  they are always interested in expanding their biological 
  understanding, including the uses of new species and bio-
  spheres. They are highly interested in the exploration and 
  discovery of new biomes and lifeforms, and they invest the 
  most out of any company into these types of projects.
  As a result, Nation’s Solution is forced to rely on other 
  megacorps to aid their expeditions. They are looking for 
  ways to not depend on Wang Corp for their devices, fearing 
  corporate espionage and sabotage. They also depend on 
  The Union to defend their interests in the colonies and in 
  mining areas, but are always wary of the convenient failure 
  of an agreement. Nation’s Solution generally dislikes the 
  need for violence, but they will use any method available to 
  keep their shareholders happy.  
  
  72
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  WANG CORPORATION
  Wang Corporation bases its business in the creation of 
  software & hardware for all devices in the Corvosphere. 
  They hold the rights to X OS, the largest operating system 
  in the Corvosphere.
  Wang Corporation is entirely dedicated to innovation. 
  They recognize the importance of technological progres-
  sion and seek to be at the forefront of all development. 
  They heavily invest into mining rare materials, often from 
  gas giants, in order to fuel their research and they are able 
  to create thousands of tech patents every year. They are 
  always growing and investing in great ideas and innovations 
  in an effort to avoid losing clients to alien competitors. 
  Wang Corporation recognizes the importance of cyber 
  security, and they boast the strongest cyber defense 
  systems in the Corvosphere, ensuring that their great ideas 
  remain theirs.
  They are looking for alternatives to the Nation’s Solution 
  health and food systems for their workers, fearing that a 
  monopoly could heavily affect their worker’s productivity. 
  They also depend on The Union for most of their sales, 
  and so their success is intrinsically tied to a rival megacorp. 
  They would like to extend their businesses into other 
  species’ economies. They have found success with the 
  Raag, but have failed in the uberprotectionist markets of 
  the Iz’kal. 
  THE UNION
  The Union Megacorp creates all weaponry and hires and 
  trains most of the military in the Corvosphere. They also 
  invest the most in mining and space exploration.
  The Union is deeply interested in weapon and spacecraft 
  developments. They have the best technicians for their 
  mining facilities and they seek to recruit lesser species to 
  their military and their workforce, utilising their diversifi ed 
  capabilities and their cheap labour. Most of the humans in 
  the Corvosphere work for The Union.
  They are not happy to deeply depend upon Nation’s 
  Solution to satisfy their workers needs for basic resources. 
  The Union fears being left with no health care system and 
  no food in a moment of war or critical expansion.
  The Union would love to fi nd an alternative to Wang Corp 
  for their software and hardware needs; they hope to be 
  able to produce everything in-house in the future. They 
  are studying if Wang Corp might have left back doors in 
  their systems for future use, perhaps in a hostile takeover 
  attempt.
  “He found a way to win the war for us. We had to kill him in his sleep. Imagine the 
  horror, how many businesses would have been destroyed? How many people would 
  have lost their jobs? Madness.” - Xue Lin, corvo comedian and political activist
  “The economy of the Corvosphere is run by people competing against each other to the death. Imagine a government 
  in which each minister is trying to overthrow the other ministries by reducing their worth, creating bad press about them, 
  and so on. Yeah, that sounds like a good system to run a country by. What could go wrong? [...] Only a small percentage 
  of the population can be CEOs, famous people, or leaders. They are inherently limited in their membership, yet we have 
  a society based on the desire to become one of them. How healthy can it be to live in a society where most dreams are 
  condemned to be broken ones? [...] The concept of the state is not the problem, but the very solution if applied correctly. 
  Anarchist ideologies will only slow down the process, as at some point organised groups will grow, as it is an easy way to 
  gain power, and they will soon impose their ways. Anarchism is condemned to live in a vicious circle with dictatorship. Only 
  a state of the people for the people is a system capable of sustaining itself.” - From “The shameful Sphere” Lee Yin, corvo 
  philosopher and supporter of the Iz’kal State.
  
  faith rulebook
  The Corvo
  73
  CORVO HISTORY
  Modern corvo are the only extant members of the Cor-
  vacius Clade, a branch of great corvides characterised by 
  erect posture and bipedal locomotion, manual dexterity, 
  and increased tool use, and a general trend towards larger, 
  more complex brains and societies. 
  The oldest specimen known in the corvo ancestry is about 
  120,000 years old. The Corvo began to exhibit evidence of 
  behavioural modernity around 30,000 years ago, after 
  which they soon occupied most of their planet. The spread 
  of the Corvo had a profound impact on every environment 
  they urbanised. 
  The general growth of the Corvosphere has always been 
  exceptionally fast. This is because the Corvo are adept at 
  fi nding new solutions to new problems: the exploitation of 
  their planet’s resources was well underway when they set 
  their eyes on asteroid mining and energies more effi cient 
  than fossil fuels. The corvo CEOs keep sight of the long 
  term plans of their businesses - perhaps it was their long 
  life expectancy that gave them the necessary perspective. 
  This is why they understood the value of investing in R&D, 
  and it was space that proved to be the bottomless mine that 
  their economies needed. 
  SPACE AGE
  The Corvo began their space age 2,000 years ago when 
  Liu Liwei became the fi rst corvo to enter outer space. Five 
  corporations of three different countries with a common 
  vision signed a deal for long term collaboration. They were 
  looking for what they thought would make them indispen-
  sable to the future of their species: an endless energy 
  source. At least for the next billion years, which seemed like 
  enough. Their plan was to establish a ring of solar powered 
  satellites around the sun (a Dyson ring in human jargon) 
  and send the energy back to their planet with a system of 
  microwaves.  These satellites would receive solar energy 
  every single second they were operative, with none of it 
  being lost to the atmosphere nor to other celestial bodies 
  that could stand in the way. Thousands of corvo workers 
  and technicians moved to space bases that became part of 
  the Dyson ring. 
  This new system was extremely costly, but it had trans-
  formed the corvo economy well before it was even com-
  pleted. The fi ve corporations merged into a single entity 
  which eventually became the fi rst corvo megacorp: it was 
  known as Jiaoyang and it took over more than 60% of all 
  businesses. 
  There was a complication. Each satellite could only 
  provide so much energy, and the subsequent rapid expan-
  sion of the Corvo required more energy than what the 
  Dyson ring could provide. Thus was the beginning of a great 
  recession, known as Sundown. The public accused Jiaoyang 
  of creating a monopoly over the Dyson ring’s energy 
  production, which ultimately lead to the crisis. These ac-
  cusations damaged their reputation and caused their stock 
  prices to fall hard. 
  Jiaoyang could not continue to expand the Dyson ring. 
  There was a shortage of materials which could only be 
  provided by the two corporations that had taken over the 
  real estate of the remaining rocky planets in the system. 
  Jiaoyang had to agree to open the Dyson ring to other busi-
  nesses, and the free commerce treaty that was signed 
  set the basis for a truly free and competitive economy. On 
  the other hand, the two corporations that had unilaterally 
  claimed the land of two whole planets were found guilty of 
  not operating within the free market, and they were sold 
  for parts by their shareholders. Jiaoyang split into two 
  companies: one that focused on the maintenance of the sat-
  “Corruption is the use of the tools of the state to the benefi t of the individual in a capitalist system. They claim it 
  is the fault of the tools that the system is corrupted, yet they understand that people kill people, and not weapons. 
  Weapons are just tools, aren’t they?” - Aklaq N’eil, raag enginseer. 
  “Never shoot a gun cocked by 
  someone else.” - Kalivan saying
  
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  faith rulebook
  The Corvo
  ellites and the workers’ bases, and another one in charge 
  of providing services to new companies and workers that 
  needed astronaut training and transportation to the Dyson 
  ring. 
  Both the planets and the Dyson ring became places of 
  investment and growth, resulting in the erasure of the 
  previous patronage system. Thousands of companies 
  started to work on the Dyson ring to produce energy, to 
  perform maintenance work for the satellites, and to provide 
  services to the ever-growing population of workers. Others 
  worked on the mining sites of the neighbour planets, which 
  were otherwise mere rocks where life could not exist.
  TIANTANG,                              
  A SPACE BASED ECONOMY
  With enough material to keep up with the expansion of 
  the Dyson ring, its growth was almost exponential. The ring 
  was finally completed, and its capital sector was named 
  Tiantang. The Corvo had mined two planets to their core, 
  and with a condensed ring of space stations and satellites 
  at 1AU of their star, almost half the corvo population had 
  chosen to move to live and work in Tiantang or nearby 
  mining bases. Not only had the majority of the industry 
  and services moved to space, but also their entire financial 
  system. In a genius move by several megacorps, they had 
  the stock and currency markets moved to Tiantang, which 
  resulted in a delay of 3 light minutes as information trav-
  elled from Tiantang to Quanjie, and forced all planetary 
  corporations to be unable to compete in the big leagues.
  All the important and well paid jobs were in Tiantang, 
  and many service companies moved to space stations 
  in the ring. Quanjie was slowly but surely depleted of its 
  most capable citizens and industries, as well as most of its 
  resources. 
  The need for material things, for new software, enter-
  tainment, energy, and resources, was ever growing. The 
  CEOs of the largest companies were well aware of what 
  would happen to their economy if they could not keep up 
  with their growth.
  THE ARTIFICIAL WORMHOLE
  When it seemed like the corvo expansion had reached its 
  limit, exhausting most of the resources available in their 
  solar system, the great mind of Mehdi Ben and his team of 
  scientists found a solution: they claimed that with enough 
  energy output they could create a wormhole. Creating a 
  wormhole is the summit of all technological advances in 
  space travel engineering. No form of energy has ever been 
  able to push the speed of a manned spaceship even close 
  to of the speed of light, and thus wormholes were the only 
  theoretical way to travel between star systems within the 
  lifespan of any of the recognised sentient species.
  The creation of a wormhole is the most complex task 
  known today and can be highly dangerous. It requires the 
  presence of matter with negative mass, which can be either 
  created or found in regions of space known as N-regions, in 
  which mass arbitrarily changes from positive to negative. 
  Creating this form of matter is extremely expensive, and 
  thus a relatively close N-region is normally sought when 
  planning the creation of a new wormhole. It also needs an 
  enormous amount of energy to be continuously fed into it in 
  order to stay stable and not collapse upon itself.  
  Mehdi Ben convinced several megacorps to invest heavily 
  into his concept. If it worked, they could create a door to a 
  whole new star system, full of the resources and job op-
  portunities they needed. 
  What Mehdi Ben did not tell his investors was that it was 
  impossible for him to choose where the wormhole would 
  lead to. The only conclusion they could reach based on their 
  experimental data was that the other end of the wormhole 
  would open at a nearby N-Region. While they are scarce, 
  most star systems have one of these regions within a week 
  of subluminal travel. N-regions become more scarce the 
  further you are from a star, though the reason for this 
  relation has not been discovered yet. 
  This was enough assurance for Mehdi that the wormhole 
  would take them close enough to another star system and 
  its resources. He knew the risks of telling this to the share-
  holders, who would appreciate money more than a leap of 
  faith, so he kept it a secret from everyone.
  
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  The Corvo
  75
  When the wormhole was created, something completely 
  unexpected happened. Instead of taking them to an unchart-
  ed N-region, it took them to a natural wormhole that was 
  connected to thousands of points throughout the Universe, 
  thus creating an artificial connection between their location 
  and countless others. This was a success beyond what their 
  wildest theories had predicted. The corvo businesses and 
  people now had an open door to the Universe, which they 
  called the Labyrinth.
  NOW
  The Corvo now use the Labyrinth to create new colonies 
  wherever they find habitable planets, and mine dozens of 
  planets and asteroid rings for Tiantang, their ever growing 
  Dyson ring. Some dream of creating a solid sphere around 
  the star, which would allow them to collect virtually all of 
  its energy output without any loss. Although this would 
  require creating a surface area several billion times that of 
  the surface of a planet, something scientists see as impos-
  sible now and highly unlikely in the future, the Corvo are not 
  a people who take a no for an answer and the Dyson ring 
  keeps growing every year.
  The Corvo have expanded to other worlds in other star 
  systems and have built new homes for their people. Millions 
  of corvo inhabit hostile worlds where they spend their lives 
  mining vital minerals. It is also believed that wonderful 
  planets have been discovered, that are now inhabited by 
  only the richest corvo.
  CORVO HABITATS
  The Corvo have expanded to other worlds in other star 
  systems and have built new homes for their people. Millions 
  of corvo inhabit hostile worlds where they spend their lives 
  mining vital minerals. It is also believed that wonderful 
  planets have been discovered and are now inhabited by only 
  the richest corvo. 
  QUANJIE
  Quanjie is the home planet of the Corvo. It is the place 
  where they evolved and where the majority of corvo lived 
  for nearly a millennium since the beginning of their space 
  age. Deforestation and heavy mining has made Quanjie a 
  poor place to live, with barren land and a weak atmosphere. 
  The population has been greatly reduced and there has 
  been a business exodus to Tiantang.
  The only industries left on Quanjie are the exploitation of 
  rare woods and raising large animals for meat that cannot 
  be kept in Tiantang. Both trades are highly sought after in 
  the Dyson ring. However, the population of Quanjie is far 
  too large for its poor ecosystem and life is harsh for all 
  but the richest of the inhabitants. Those who have enough 
  money will often try to move to the Dyson ring to look for 
  opportunities. 
  TIANTANG
  The Dyson ring of Tiantang is composed of thousands 
  of space habitats and millions of solar satellites. Hosting 
  billions of corvo and a few million inhabitants from other 
  species, it is ever growing, and even more ships and bases 
  are constantly being built with materials brought in from 
  distant worlds. 
  With unchecked growth in all directions, the sprawling 
  Tiantang has become huge and chaotic. New freighters 
  are attached to old ones by tunnels, which carry trans-
  port ships and everyday commuters. These improvised 
  space habitats form communities called districts, of 
  which Tiantang has thousands. Each district is completely 
  detached from the others as it isn’t safe to create larger 
  structures. Rich districts are often also isolated from the 
  poorer ones. 
  While in the Corvosphere, you cannot forbid someone 
  from moving and establishing in unowned space. However, 
  empty areas between districts are completely owned by 
  aggregations of citizens or corporations, making them 
  private property and therefore allowing the owners to 
  decide who can or cannot land there. 
  Transportation between districts is run by transportation 
  companies, which have large fleets of spacecrafts. Middle 
  and high class corvos own personal space cars that fill the 
  vacuum between the districts like locusts.
  
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  The Corvo
  The richest of corvo society live aboard their own 
  personal spaceships with all the commodities and servants 
  their capabilities deserve. These spaceships are the summit 
  of the corvo engineering, large and beautiful as palaces, 
  powerful like war machines, revered like cathedrals, and 
  probably the most expensive things to ever exist in the 
  Corvosphere.
  Middle class citizens live in comfortable, safe and beau-
  tiful districts, composed of a single spacecraft called a 
  gyro-zhan. Gyro-zhans are round spacecrafts that spin 
  continuously to recreate a sense of gravity through cen-
  trifugal force. Thus, inhabitants of a gyro-zhan live on the 
  outermost section of the space station, with their ceiling 
  being in the direction of the center section of the space 
  station. Like an onion, there are several fl oors from the 
  outermost section going into the centre, each of them a 
  ring in the station. Since gravity diminishes the closer you 
  are to the centre, most core services, gardens, and storage 
  are located in the central areas. The main hangar of a gyro-
  zhan is located at its core, with an airlock in the exact centre 
  of the station. This is the only point of the gyro-zhan that is 
  easily accessible to transport spaceships.
  People in the gyro-zhans work all types of jobs: informa-
  tion technology, internet, transportation, debris collection, 
  brokerage, law, entertainment, resource management, 
  services, health care, etc. These stations are beautiful and 
  magnifi cent. They are where people have the space and 
  time to grow and learn all the information ever recorded 
  from the largest privately owned libraries. In these librar-
  ies, the most powerful minds of the Universe of all the 
  species meet to discuss all kinds of matters.
  Iz’kal geniuses disenchanted by their conservative and 
  not-merit based society move to Tiantang to try to earn the 
  patronage of a megacorp for their inventions and theories. 
  The corvo have the resources and open mind to make 
  anything possible happen, for as long it makes them back 
  their investment and then some, of course. 
  Several thousand corvo live in each of these stations, but 
  most of the population live in space freighters, which are 
  better known as space favelas.
  While the demand for workers is huge, there are now 
  so many workers that the companies can offer low wages 
  knowing that there will always be someone desperate 
  enough to take the job. This has drastically reduced the 
  quality of life of corvo workers in Tiantang. Veteran 
  workers see how their well paid jobs are being taken by 
  inexperienced immigrants from Quanjie or from some 
  other colony, who agree to a tenth of the salary. This has 
  created large scale problems of xenophobia, and groups of 
  Hexia and Ergon believers have teamed up to ask for a more 
  protectionist state and stronger immigration laws. Still, 
  the lobby groups of the megacorps and the vast majority 
  of the population are completely against such ideas, and 
  therefore the situation isn’t likely to improve.
  Immigrant corvos arrive by the thousands every day 
  and are sucked into the space favelas: old space freight-
  ers the size of islands, now too old to be operational, have 
  been transformed into slums where layer over layer of 
  containers extend as far as the eye can see, each housing 
  one or more families, and all of them living in 0-G in the 
  worst possible conditions. Most families live and die in one 
  of these containers, without ever experiencing gravity. 
  Their bodies are kept alive thanks to the intake of G-pills 
  that minimise the effects of the lack of gravity on their 
  organs. Their only chance of a better life is being seen as a 
  capable worker by their foremen, and getting a proper job 
  in a gyro-zhan. 
  Many resort to crime. The worst districts are controlled 
  by mafi as who decide who gets to work when, and on what. 
  While there is almost no crime whatsoever in the richer 
  districts, the majority of the lower class corvos are unable 
  or unwilling to pay for police protection. Therefore, there 
  are millions of corvo that live in the favelas without even 
  the most basic of services.
  Some with even worse luck live in the same factory ships 
  they work on every hour they are awake, building new ships 
  or satellites, fabricating weapons, anti-matter batteries, 
  or operating food processing chains, pharmaceutical pro-
  cesses, etc.
  In Tiantang, the upper class can eat and enjoy anything 
  they can imagine. The middle class usually travels once or 
  twice per year to a tourist colony and enjoys the entertain-
  ments available in Tiantang the rest of the time: they can 
  eat out several times per year, but mostly eat algae and 
  other food products that can grow in space. Gyro-zhans 
  have tanks of algae used both as food and energy source. 
  The algae is fed with organic waste, imported minerals and 
  sunlight. The lower classes are usually restricted to virtual 
  entertainment and a diet based on fodder, insects rich in 
  proteins, and compressed algae.
  Private habitats
  The most rare and exotic habitats are owned by exceedingly wealthy or highly reputable 
  individuals. Most are small planets, moons, or asteroids turned into luxurious paradises. The 
  number of private habitats in existence is unknown, but many famous people talk about their 
  visits and how the experience was like a dream far beyond their sensorial capacities to fully 
  enjoy it. These places are, of course, protected by the best security contractors and their 
  location is keep a secret from the common people.
  
  “YOU ARE BUT A  
  MORTAL BODY. I   
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  The Corvo
  77
  YING
  Ying was wise. He knew this, regardless of what others 
  told him or how they laughed when he didn’t seem to 
  know the obvious. He knew he didn’t have an education or 
  a well-positioned family. In his job, he was the street kid 
  that somehow made it. That made him proud. Let others 
  talk about his strange mannerisms, his uncouth behaviour, 
  or his lack of understanding of celebrity culture. When he 
  was born, he was meant to die at the bottom of a 0-G space 
  freighter, and now he was working as an specialist collecting 
  space debris.
  His friends in the favela called him the trash collector - 
  which he kind of was. His job allowed spaceships to travel 
  around Tiantang. Collecting debris in the middle of space was 
  not for the faint of heart and only a few had the skills needed 
  to operate the specialized equipment.
  He breathed in the last oxygen remaining in his O24U 
  machine, some stupid thing he bought when it was on sale 
  last week. It was built so that you couldn’t recharge the 
  oxygen with anything but a special tank sold by “Living Solu-
  tions”. What a rip off. There were much better options when 
  buying good clean O2 for indoors, but none of that matters 
  now. Ying was leaving Tiantang for good and he would not 
  need such things anymore. 
  He had done well for himself and today he was about to do 
  a lot better. He pushed himself upwards and exited his alu-
  minium house from a hole on the roof - or the floor (in the old 
  0-G space-freighter it didn’t really matter). His house was at 
  the top (or the bottom) of a column of houses as tall as the 
  ship. He couldn’t think of a thing there that he would miss. 
  Thousands of corvo floated in all directions. They used 
  handrails to push themselves in whatever direction they 
  needed to go, when they were not launching themselves by 
  kicking some wall that could barely withstand their weight. 
  They had lived like that for their whole lives. For most, 
  gravity was something they had never felt. Ying still hated it. 
  He kicked the wall behind him and entered the vegetable 
  market like a rocket. His timing was perfect and he passed 
  between two elder men that were yelling at each other about 
  some fake meat. Without needing to readjust his trajec-
  tory, Ying grabbed a bag of vegetable pills without anyone 
  realising. 
  When Ying moved in 0-G he felt like he could fly. Every-
  thing was so natural to him that he did not even realise when 
  he used walls to propel or redirect himself. His movement 
  was graceful and fluid. And he was like a ghost. He had to be, 
  as favelas were not the safest place to live in.
  It was a long bullet train commute to the docks. He had 
  to cross four spacecrafts to reach the docks of his district, 
  where he had to show his ID, which allowed him to get into 
  the morning ship to the Commuters Spacecraft. The CS was 
  a large ship, in the shape of a honeycomb, where thousands 
  of transport ships arrived and went in a somehow organised 
  chaos that connected dozens of districts. Ying got out of the 
  ship and jumped into an elevator, which moved at 100 kilo-
  metres per hour and took him to a new waiting area. Here he 
  had to pass another ID check that allowed him into a corridor 
  with dozens of entrances on each side. He pushed himself 
  to float a couple hundred meters in a straight line towards 
  entrance A291 without the need of redirecting himself at all.
  There he stared at the clock, which told him the ship would 
  be there shortly, but he was really looking at the teaser 
  of a new space opera to be released in a couple of weeks 
  about a spaceship that gets lost in the Labyrinth after being 
  chased by some envious iz’kal for some unclear reason. This 
  was being fed directly into his cortex through his implanted 
  computer, and he was choosing to see it in its VR format, so 
  he was completely surrounded by images, and the sounds, 
  smells, and touch sensations made him feel as if he was one 
  of the crew members. He gave the thought command of 
  turning it off. He was bored to death of bloody space operas 
  and stupid problems in the Labyrinth. With only wishing it, 
  he tuned in to the nature channel and chose to see - for the 
  thousandth time - the documentary about Karriam. 
  The VR took him there instantly, he could feel the humidity 
  
   PUPPET STRUNG TO THE FATE OF YOUR 
   SHALL FREE YOU.” - LEDGER, CHAOREN
  78
  The Corvo
  and hear the sound of the jungle, a place of blue trees so 
  beautiful and fresh that it was almost unreal. He could also 
  hear the calling of some animal that sounded like… the 
  sound of the transport ship arriving. 
  Ying turned off the VR and he was back in the corridor, 
  holding himself with his feet to the security bar. The whole 
  place was now full of other corvo that pushed through each 
  other to try to get onto the transport ship. Ying didn’t move 
  and contemplated the chaos of those floating bodies, some 
  rightside up some upside down, and others sideways - all 
  yelling and swearing. He felt above that. Soon he would be in 
  Karriam. Soon he would have so much space around him that 
  he would probably need one of those neural treatments for 
  agoraphobia that he kept seeing in the commercials on the 
  “Move to a Colony” website.
  He got in last, with all the eyes on him, as he was delaying 
  the door. He moved slowly and deliberately, and he enjoyed 
  the hatred in the atmosphere.
  Maybe he didn’t know who was the new hit in hologram 
  pop music or who was trending in eSports. But he somehow 
  knew that none of that really mattered. It wasn’t making any 
  of his friends happy, and it definitely never made him happy. 
  But Karriam was the real deal. A paradise. 
  “A New Opportunity,” “The New World,” “Fly today with 
  Space Made Straight,” Ying reviewed his feed. The images 
  were haunting, out of this world, something Ying, who had 
  lived all his life inside a metal frame, could barely understand. 
  He felt the ship dock and turned off his VR feed. He saw the 
  rest of the commuters coming back from their own VRs to 
  reality and blinking to adapt themselves to the light.
  They began to float out. They were in the Space Made 
  Straight headquarters. From here, a dozen ships launched to 
  cross the Universe to new worlds everyday. From here, his 
  ship to Karriam was leaving today.
  Soon everyone had left, except for Ying who was the only 
  one left in the transport. He noticed the amazing size of the 
  building, the neon screen with images of dozen of worlds and 
  the ships that could take him to them. Here, thousands of 
  people went about their business in all directions. It looked 
  like the bee’s nest in the documentary about Karriam. Ying 
  did not move. Finally he looked down at his feet. 
  The transport ship closed its doors and took Ying back to 
  the Commuters ship.
  
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  The Iz’kal
  79
  The Iz’kal are a gregarious and proud people. Slightly 
  smaller in stature and more slender than humans, they live 
  in large cities on the surface of the planets they colonise.
  Iz’kal are mammals with an average height of 1.8 metres 
  for males and 1.73 for females. The average mass of an 
  adult iz’kal is 70 kilograms for males and 65 kilograms 
  for females, but this is highly dependent on the gravity of 
  the planet they grow up in and many other factors such as 
  exposure to sunlight and nutrition. 
  Their life expectancy is quite high at 70 Earth years, but 
  with genetic manipulation, an urbanite iz’kal with access to 
  the free care system of the State can live up to 180 years.
  Iz’kal are completely hairless and have a tougher skin 
  than humans, but their skin has a tendency to dry up. This 
  is why they live in swamplands and along coasts whenever 
  possible. They are adept swimmers and they have a very 
  large lung capacity.
  Before genetic manipulation, the Iz’kal had no vocal 
  cords and had evolved to communicate through hyperlink. 
  After the Uprising, in which the Iz’kal wiped out the Korian, 
  they developed an advanced civilisation and modifi ed 
  themselves genetically to develop vocal cords to be able 
  to communicate in a universe that they shared with many 
  other species. 
  They have a tail, reminiscent of their time as marine crea-
  tures, which they used for swimming. They can still control 
  its movement, but they cannot grab anything with it. They 
  have a head appendage that contains an organ connected to 
  the brain called the iz, which allows them to enter hyperlink. 
  Although it has been studied in depth, there is still much to 
  learn about it. When an iz’kal loses his iz, he can no longer 
  engage in hyperlink, which usually leads to depression and 
  suicide. Very few iz’kal can live without the hyperlink, and 
  those who do so become ‘voidwalkers’, suffering heavy 
  changes on their organs and even at a genetic level.
  Iz’kal modify themselves genetically to adapt to the 
  star cycle and environmental conditions of the planet 
  they inhabit, allowing them to eat whatever is available. 
  However, they tend to have vegetarian diets.
  THE STATE
  The State is the concept that incorporates everything 
  that is iz’kal related, from the planets they inhabit, to their 
  spacecrafts and their mines, and even their districts in 
  shared planets with other species.
  Rebel fl eets, pirates, anarchists and any other type 
  of groups who do not accept the ways of their common 
  society are not considered part of their society or the State 
  itself.
  HYPERLINK
  Iz’kal can form neural networks with other members of 
  their species. While connected, individual thoughts merge, 
  creating a large single mind infl uenced by every individual. 
  This connection is known as a hyperlink.
  While in hyperlink, iz’kal get a pretty good picture of the 
  feelings and reasonings of all the other members. Witness-
  ing the internal processes of another person creates a 
  strong bond and makes everyone very empathetic. This is 
  one of the reasons the levels of violence and discrimination 
  are so low within their society.
  THE IZ’KAL
  
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  The Iz’kal
  A hyperlink can only be achieved by reaching out to 
  others close by, and as the network increases in size, the 
  mind processing capability of the joint mind grows stronger. 
  Any number of iz’kal can join the same hyperlink if they are 
  close enough to any of the members already in it. In urban 
  areas, iz’kal tend to form large networks, allowing them to 
  share their thoughts, discuss the latest news and engage 
  in small talk with their fellow citizens, while also enjoying 
  a shared mental map of the city. Even when visiting a new 
  city, an iz’kal will fi nd his way around very easily and will 
  always feel like a small but essential part of a whole. 
  In their houses, iz’kal share a more personal hyperlink 
  with their home community, but they can transition to the 
  main city hyperlink very quickly. In rare cases, hyperlinks 
  are formed between the society as a whole to tackle 
  matters that pertain them all. Such large hyperlinks are 
  tiresome to the individual and some fear what it might do to 
  an iz’kal’s individuality. 
  An iz’kal can choose to disconnect from a hyperlink at 
  any time, but to be able to join or create one with another 
  individual, all its members must be willing to accept him. 
  Most iz’kal have no trouble connecting with any other 
  members of society and share their interests and motiva-
  tions. In fact, most of the relevant decisions in the personal 
  life of an iz’kal are made while in hyperlink.
  Iz’kal learn to control the emotions they share at an early 
  age, since their feelings can easily infl uence those around 
  them. Individual sentiments of anger, fear, sadness, or hate 
  are usually suppressed, but when they are too intense to 
  keep inside, they usually exile themselves from the hyper-
  link to avoid affecting others’ psyches with their personal 
  problems. The hyperlink exile takes as long as the individual 
  needs to come to terms with whatever affected him; some 
  iz’kal are so damaged that they never join a hyperlink again, 
  and they become voidwalkers.
  THE VOIDWALKERS
  When an iz’kal spends a great amount of time disconnect-
  ed from hyperlink, he becomes anxious and has a feeling of 
  loneliness that can easily turn into a deep depression. 
  If the separation from hyperlink is long enough or 
  produced by a shocking event of great magnitude, some 
  individuals might never be able to connect with others 
  through hyperlink ever again. In times previous to the 
  addition of the vocal cords to the Iz’kal, this meant that a 
  voidwalker could never talk with another person again. 
  The change affects the iz organ, which develops a new 
  function for itself that increases the mental strength of the 
  Iz’kal (it is thought to be an evolved trait to reduce the risk 
  of suicide) and makes the voidwalkers excellent soulbend-
  ers, allowing them to wield the powers of their Gods at a 
  whole new level. Some radicals put themselves through 
  this ordeal on purpose in order to obtain this ability, but 
  they are forever changed.
  The voidwalkers are treated with a mixture of respect, 
  fear, and sadness, for losing the ability to communicate 
  through hyperlink is seen by all iz’kal as a great loss, and 
  the events that lead to that loss are usually just as terrible. 
  They tend to be lonely and quiet, trying to stay away from 
  other iz’kal and keeping mostly to themselves. Their mental 
  strength and determination make them extremely valuable 
  to the State, and many voidwalkers enter the ranks of the 
  Savak, the elite force in charge of state protection.
  The Iz’kal State has seen value in this trait and their elite 
  military group, known as Savak, is composed solely of 
  voidwalkers. That most of them are people who have lost 
  everything makes them even better soldiers, as they are 
  given a new reason to live and die for. 
  “‘For your own good’ is a persuasive argument 
  that will eventually make a man agree to his 
  own destruction.” - Janet Frame, human writer 
  
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  The Iz’kal
  81
  SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS
  In their personal lives, iz’kal engage in majmoas, which 
  are usually group relationships of three to ten members 
  of both genders, but they stay faithful to that particular 
  majmoa. Monogamous relationships are rare and seen 
  as restrictive. Although not all members of the majmoa 
  engage in sexual activity with all the others, they are all 
  very close to each other, sharing all their experiences and 
  emotions through hyperlink and devoting themselves to 
  each other. Each majmoa shares a house and any child born 
  is considered the child of the whole group.
  The Iz’kal are mammals and, while female and male 
  members have different physiologies, their social structure 
  does not enforce differences between them. Reproduction 
  is controlled by the government. New citizens are geneti-
  cally engineered during conception and pregnancy cannot 
  occur without medical intervention. Only in rare cases, such 
  as when a group of colonists is sent to a new planet, are 
  they modifi ed so as to restore their natural reproductive 
  physiology.
  Bringing a new child to the Universe requires govern-
  mental approval to keep the population levels low enough 
  to maintain the extremely high quality of life the Iz’kal are 
  known for. When a majmoa wishes to have a new child, 
  they can apply to the State, and if they meet all the re-
  quirements, they will be granted permission. It is up to the 
  majmoa to choose which among the willing female will be 
  impregnated with the baby. This is one of the few instances 
  where individual choices are allowed and not frowned upon. 
  The baby himself is genetically designed in a laboratory, 
  following the highest standards to ensure that the new 
  specimen is as healthy as possible and extends the genetic 
  diversity of the iz’kal species in case of epidemics or other 
  similar threats. This can very well mean that the baby 
  might not share any relation to any of the members of the 
  majmoa he will be born into. While this might seem strange, 
  iz’kal see no problem whatsoever with this and everyone in 
  the majmoa will behave as caring fathers and mothers to 
  this new child.
  All iz’kal societies that have been studied throughout 
  history have had group relationships of this kind, even 
  before genetic manipulation and the Korian.
  ENTERTAINMENT AND ART
  The Iz’kal did not have natural vocal cords, and thus they 
  were always fascinated with the singing of other species, 
  especially of humans. Good singers are always welcomed 
  in an iz’kal community, where they will be hosted by a dif-
  ferent majmoa every day. In small towns, the arrival of a 
  singer is a celebrated event and most people will attend 
  their performances. In the big cities there are stadiums 
  where thousands of iz’kal watch concerts by human or 
  corvo singers. 
  Having an excellent voice is one of the easiest ways for an 
  alien to be accepted in the State as a citizen, and many do so. 
  Some alien communities are aware of it and in the poorest 
  neighbourhoods the children train their voices in the hope 
  that they will be brought to a place where all their needs 
  are taken care of. Many spend their savings on a one way 
  trip to an iz’kal colony, where they hope to be welcomed.
  Iz’kal are considered to be excellent dancers and are 
  “It is dangerous to be right when the 
  government is wrong.” - Voltaire, human 
  writer, philosopher and historian 
  “When an iz’kal is born, he or she has around a dozen parents. When she goes on to study, the choices of subject, 
  location, and ways are already made for her. When she begins to work, she will face hundreds of experts parenting 
  her. When she goes to choose the colours of her home, she has experts making the choice for her. The State treats its 
  citizens like children for their whole life. The Iz’kal have yet to reach the maturity of their society.” - Feng Wang, corvo 
  politician and businessman.
  
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  The Iz’kal
  very kin to learn and practice all the arts imaginable. So 
  much so, that some instrumental and dancing groups 
  known as ghaziwas are lured into the Corvosphere, with 
  the promise of richness, to play in galas and parties of the 
  highest level. There is a trend of corvo infatuated with the 
  iz’kal costumes and their fashion, a new age confrontation 
  resembling the political realities of their species. The trend 
  is believed to originate from corvo who believe that they 
  are above political conflict. For this very reason, the State 
  has hardened its emigration and movement laws - making it 
  very hard for an iz’kal to move to the Corvosphere. 
  Science and philosophy are the other two main forms 
  of entertainment for the iz’kal, who are encouraged to be 
  curious from early ages, continuously engaged with the 
  Idealab and the hyper-schools where learning is the main 
  focus. They are fascinated by metaphysics and the whole 
  process of understanding the Universe, life, the Gods, and 
  themselves. Many iz’kal are granted special permissions to 
  travel the Universe as groups of explorers looking for new 
  places through the Labyrinth, or as missionaries trying to 
  bring the iz’kal ways to other species.
  RESOURCE-BASED         
  ECONOMY
  The iz’kal are organised around a concept called the 
  State. The State is the organisational structure and system 
  of governance of the iz’kal society in which all citizens, 
  called technocrats, take part as the administrators of the 
  State based on their expertise and hard data.
  The State works as a moneyless and ownerless organi-
  sation. Instead, it uses a fluid system that takes into consid-
  eration the labour force, the production capacity, and the 
  reserves of resources of the colony, and manages these 
  parameters to figure out how to run the colony with basic 
  sustainability principles and technical capacities in mind, 
  obtaining the most efficient lasting results. 
  Iz’kal people spend their whole lives working at the job 
  that best suits them, regardless of their personal interest 
  in it, although personal interest usually implies better 
  results and the iz’kal are generally very satisfied with their 
  roles. After all, they see themselves as an extension of the 
  society as a whole and are willing to sacrifice their personal 
  agendas for the good of all.
  On the other hand, the majority of iz’kal only work in the 
  scientific, technological, sociological, or entertainment 
  fields, as most of the physical labour is performed by 
  machines. Most iz’kal are therefore poets, writers, scien-
  tists, musicians, engineers, dancers, actors, philosophers, 
  etc. All of their work is shared freely, to be used, manipu-
  lated, improved, and elevated by all others.
  There are no boss-employee relationships, nor leader 
  and follower, as everything is collaborative. Despite that, 
  social pressure is strong and if the majority within one’s 
  department asks them to perform a certain task, they are 
  obligated to perform it, putting aside their personal needs. 
  Of course, strong laws defending personal dignity and life 
  are in place to avoid abuse of individuals by the group, which 
  seems to be the largest problem in iz’kal society.  
  The State is based on public interaction and collaborative 
  design, facilitated by open-access systems, open feedback 
  programs, a high mobile labour force, and primary and 
  secondary sectors based almost entirely on automated 
  machinery.
  Technocrats can put forward new motions to resolve 
  existing problems or improve old systems. To do so, they 
  must follow the scientific method approach. The proposals 
  are presented anonymously and are reviewed by groups of 
  “You are the only one qualified to decide how to live your life. Take a step, raise your 
  arm in the air, and claim your freedom. You are an individual, not a gear of the State. 
  Stand up. It is the time of change.” - Karim El-Amin, iz’kal political activist 
  Zahid was selected by the school of Furusiyya at 
  the age of six. He had been genetically manipulated 
  before birth and he had showed aptitude. He was told 
  he would become a warrior: a martial artist born to 
  defend his nation. He would not understand what this 
  meant until much later in his life. 
  Throughout his years, he proved that he had what 
  was needed to be a great warrior, but he was a 
  disobedient student and his ideas often clashed with 
  those of his masters. While he loved his art and his 
  fellow Furusiyya students, he did not agree with the 
  methods and the values of his school. It was during a 
  verbal confrontation that Zahid had taken a master’s 
  gesture as an attack, and promptly took him down, 
  resulting in his permanent expulsion from Furusiyya. 
  Zahid became an outcast, wandering from one 
  place to the next, longing for a purpose. He decided 
  he would travel to learn from other martial arts, and 
  come back to Erthum to create his own school - one 
  where new ideas would be heard. 
  He now travels from world to world through the 
  Labyrinth, learning the techniques of other species. 
  He will show his old masters their own arrogance 
  and how there is so much more to learn and improve.
  
  faith rulebook
  The Iz’kal
  83
  experts. When these proposals have been deemed viable at 
  the technical level, they are distributed among the depart-
  ments that might be affected by the changes proposed. 
  The technocrats of these fi elds take into consideration how 
  it would affect their work, and how their own fi eld could 
  improve the motion. These critiques or offers for collabo-
  ration are again distributed. The team that originated the 
  idea takes them into consideration and works upon them. 
  They are usually joined by teams of other departments to 
  create a multidisciplinary motion.
  Once these improved motions have taken into considera-
  tion their implications at all levels, and the availability of 
  the resources and labour needed to implement them, they 
  are compared with other alternatives and the most effec-
  tive one is applied.
  All motions are at all times open source and accessible 
  through the State’s main system, Idealab. This means that 
  any other technocrat can build his own motion upon it or 
  perhaps request that the team already working on it takes 
  into consideration some variable or idea the technocrat has 
  come up with.
  As there is a direct link between the citizens and the 
  production of goods without an exchange in between (as 
  in monetary systems) or possible personal gain, all new 
  policy considerations are based on their utility and there is 
  no market resistance to new products that might put old 
  products out of business, nor planned obsolescence.
  ZAKI-WAAHA CITIES
  Planets have limited resources and the iz’kal have 
  managed to make the best of the environments of their 
  colonies, building smart cities effi ciently managed by highly 
  specialised teams.
  Although very expensive to build, these zaki-waaha cities 
  have proven to be the most cost-effi cient way to live for 
  big communities in the long term. The buildings recycle all 
  the waste their occupants generate and the industrial parks 
  generate an almost organic symbiosis between factories, 
  bringing the usage of raw materials to a minimum. Public 
  transport is constantly evolving to better suit the needs of 
  the citizens, and while it might be confusing for a recently 
  visitor, the neural webs formed through hyperlink by iz’kal 
  allow them to manage the apparent chaos with ease.
  Water is stored in centralised deposits, and energy is 
  usually generated with a well balanced mix of solar and 
  geothermal energy, coupled with nuclear fusion during 
  periods of low light. The water tanks are used as batteries, 
  pumping the water up when there is an excess of energy 
  generation and allowing it to fl ow down again when there 
  are energy shortages.
  Everything in a zaki-waaha serves a purpose, and the 
  constant monitoring of resources, citizens, and the environ-
  ment allows the automated systems to take care of almost 
  every problem without any assistance. Most routine tasks 
  are performed by robots and the only non-robotic workers 
  are police offi cers and archivists that constantly study the 
  workfl ow of the machines, seeking ways to improve them. 
  After many years, the systems have been almost perfected 
  in most colonies, but iz’kal do not like to leave any stone 
  unturned in their quest for effi ciency.
  “The Iz’kal are not governed by tyrants, yet they 
  are not free. They oppress their fellow man and 
  woman, and in the same way they feel oppressed 
  themselves. It is the government of the behav-
  ioural coercion of the peers. An iz’kal city feels like 
  Alhalam, still running, but not even itself knows 
  why or what for. It just can’t stop [...] They live long 
  and healthy lives, yet they do not own them. They 
  are more spectators than participants. They know 
  not of pain, yet they barely understand pleasure. 
  They do not know of the grey scale in things, nor 
  of black and white - they have only seen white and 
  their stares are just that: blank, white, and bored 
  looks of the walking dead.” - Xeon Magno, CEO of 
  The Union, after his visit to Erthum.
  “Reader, suppose you were a slave. 
  And suppose you were an iz’kal. But 
  I repeat myself.” - Bill Mordok, human 
  comedian, paraphrasing Mark Twain
  
  84
  faith rulebook
  The Iz’kal
  ECONOMIES OF THE MAJMOA 
  AND THE INDIVIDUAL
  The Iz’kal have no currency and, for them, it is a diffi cult 
  concept to grasp. Although it is known that iz’kal societies 
  previous to the Korian did use it, after the Uprising they 
  created a system of living without private property. 
  How individuals obtain the usage rights of something 
  depends on a system of waiting lists. While some items are 
  consumables (such as food), and therefore cannot be given 
  back, all others are acquired for a period of time depending 
  on the utility of the item. 
  Public transport is by far the most common form of 
  transportation, but spaceships can be requested when 
  time is of the essence or when traveling to rare locations. 
  When in need of a vehicle, a request will be submitted to 
  the system, which will determine whether it is a reasonable 
  request and if so, which vehicle is the most adequate for 
  the journey. Once the journey is fi nished, the vehicle will be 
  returned and made available for someone else. Things are 
  always being used by someone. As soon as one stops using 
  them, they are handed over to the next person who needs 
  them. Some items are only available at specifi c locations, 
  and anyone wanting to use them will have to go to those 
  locations. Other items, such as house appliances or clothes 
  can be acquired for as long as one lives, as it would be inef-
  fi cient to transport them between houses while they are 
  not being used. The majmoas also improve the usage ratio 
  of most appliances and other household goods.
  Whenever an iz’kal wants to acquire a product, he places 
  a request on the system and is put on the waiting list for 
  that item. This can be done through the internet or in person 
  by using one’s ID. His place on the waiting list is based on 
  how much the person requesting the item needs it when 
  compared to others. If the system decides that someone 
  doesn’t need an item, they won’t be able to get it even if 
  they are the only one on the waiting list.
  Each iz’kal is given a unique ID which is imprinted onto their 
  genome during conception. Through this ID, all relevant 
  information about a citizen, such as his place of birth, job, 
  hobbies, relationships, and the complete list of items and 
  services he has ever used or requested, can be accessed.
  All this information is taken into account when an iz’kal 
  citizen wants to obtain something and complex algorithms 
  are used to place him on the waiting list for that object or 
  service.
  How fast the waiting list moves depends on how fast 
  the item is produced, which in turn depends on that item’s 
  relevance and the current needs of the society. Necessary 
  items, such as food, are usually acquired at the moment of 
  the request, and the citizen is then pushed back a reason-
  able amount of time on the waiting list before being able to 
  request it again.
  Some items are produced on request and delivered fol-
  lowing the waiting list. 3D printing technologies and mal-
  leable polymers allow each technocrat to build what he 
  personally needs, accessing the best designs in the Idealab 
  or creating his own. Each technocrat receives a given 
  amount of raw materials for these uses depending on the 
  availability of resources, and must make do until more is 
  available, reusing what they have if they desire to create 
  something new or giving it to someone else when they don’t 
  have use for it anymore. 
  The Iz’kal are a very eco-friendly and minimalistic species 
  with a deep interest in preserving their natural resources. 
  They strive to create items meant to last and that are able 
  to be upgraded instead of replaced when possible. So, while 
  it is possible for an iz’kal to request a copy of every existing 
  item, the central service of resources will take this into 
  account and the delivery of items deemed unnecessary by 
  the system could be postponed for as long as his entire life 
  span.
  Asking for an update or a repair for an existing item is 
  usually faster than requesting a new one, and while there 
  is also waiting list for this, it is favoured by the system as it 
  saves resources.
  Iz’kal frown upon excessive waste and material needs, 
  sometimes avoiding hyperlinks with those interested in 
  such things. There is a strong social pressure to behave in a 
  respectful and conservative manner towards the resourc-
  es of all, and it is rare for an iz’kal to request something he 
  
  faith rulebook
  The Iz’kal
  85
  doesn’t actually need. The absence of any kind of market-
  ing in the entire State also contributes to this behaviour, 
  since there is no reason for an iz’kal to desire something he 
  doesn’t need. This keeps the waiting list processes stream-
  lined and fairly fast.
  In rare times of a scarcity of resources, such as droughts 
  and wars, fi rst necessity items are rationed and given spar-
  ingly to extend their availability. Priority will be given to 
  those most valuable to the preservation of the species as 
  determined by the system.
  Iz’kal streets have almost no stores and most items are 
  purchased from the Central of Resources website or built 
  at home. In contrast to corvo, for whom shopping is one 
  of the most pleasant activities and a sign of social status, 
  iz’kal consider it an undesirable necessity and will only do 
  so when necessary. 
  The national drink of the Iz’kal, the lial, is often sold in 
  lial shops that line the streets. Lial is consumed in all social 
  situations, when engaging in hobbies, in parks, theatres 
  and sports centres, and in hyper schools. Hyper schools 
  are places where respected individuals in different areas 
  engage in hyperlink with visitors to share their knowledge 
  and recent discoveries. They are not meant to replace tradi-
  tional learning systems, which also exist, but are fantastic 
  places to fi nd out about what is new in the fi elds of one’s 
  interests.
  The streets are almost silent even when busy, as iz’kal do 
  not talk among them, but join each other in hyperlink. To the 
  other species this is an eerie experience, seeing thousands 
  of people walking in all directions without a single word 
  being spoken, the only noise the sound of the friction of the 
  clothes and their steps.
  POLICE AND THE SAVAK
  For many years there has not been a police force in iz’kal 
  society. Crime is extremely rare, and is even uncommon 
  in iz’kal fi ction. In a society as empathically connected as 
  the Iz’kal, people are always aware of the feelings of those 
  around them and most problems can be tended to before 
  they affect society. Still, there is no such thing as a perfect 
  society and certain individuals do perform minor crimes, 
  such as people taking things outside of their usage rights. 
  These crimes are reported by other technocrats as soon 
  as they become aware of the crime. The ‘criminal’ must 
  appear before a commission whose job is to fi gure out the 
  cause of his behaviour. Criminals are treated as mental 
  patients who require re-education and there are many 
  social workers whose job is to fi gure out a way to improve 
  the criminal’s life (socially rather than economically) to the 
  usual levels of other technocrats, ultimately restoring that 
  person to society. This is usually done by psychoanalysing 
  the criminals, and having them enter hyperlink with people 
  that can connect with them and help them improve. 
  More serious crimes are usually due to strong mental 
  illnesses that cannot be treated by social workers. Neu-
  roscience is making big advancements in these areas, and 
  most of the patients affected by mental illnesses can now 
  be treated and restored to a normal brain function. Those 
  so out of touch with society that they are irrecoverable are 
  eventually turned into voidwalkers, and many of them end 
  up joining the Savak.
  The Savak is composed of voidwalkers, iz’kal who have 
  lost their ability to enter hyperlink and who have undergone 
  an important physical and mental transformation. Those 
  that so choose are trained under one of the most rigid and 
  demanding military systems in the Universe. They are given 
  a single purpose in life: to defend the State. Although many 
  fear their rigid moral code and lack of empathy, most iz’kal 
  accept and agree that this is the best life for those that have 
  lost their purpose. The risk of these soldiers abusing their 
  power is there, but no one else is willing to fi ght the wars 
  that the State must fi ght for the survival of all. 
  “The story of every criminal previous to his crime is the story of a victim of somebody else’s crimes. 
  The story of every criminal after his crime is the story of a victim of his own crimes.” - Aliyah Saab, 
  iz’kal sociologist
  
  86
  faith rulebook
  The Iz’kal
  MIGRATION
  It is quite hard for an iz’kal to move from one colony to 
  another, as each colony is built to work with an specific 
  number of citizens. As a result, the State asks that one 
  provides them with a proper reason for the emigration, 
  which should be somehow beneficial for the society 
  (taking into consideration the work he can accomplish in 
  the new colony and the work he will stop doing in the old 
  one). Things like moving houses, or moving to a new city or 
  planet are also organised with waiting lists. This can take 
  several years, but is free and available to the totality of the 
  society so the iz’kal endure as they understand it is needed 
  to maintain their privileged lifestyle. 
  When the State needs to populate a new colony or city, 
  or create any other migration movement, they will do so as 
  fast as it is needed. People can sign up for such things, and 
  if the vacancies are not filled voluntarily, they will be filled 
  by drafting. How likely a citizen is of being drafted depends 
  on many factors, such as the role he currently fills, how 
  useful his skills are at the destination, or how much he will 
  suffer by being moved. Most drafts entitle entire majmoas 
  to avoid breaking such bonds. 
  It is also very hard for a member of another species to 
  come into iz’kal society. While some colonies are more 
  open to visitors and are prepared to receive them, most 
  are completely closed, as changes in the demographic of 
  the State could put the efficiency of the system at risk. 
  These colonies are called conversion camps by the corvo. In 
  general, the Iz’kal haven’t had such good experiences with 
  other species and are reluctant to welcome them in.
  Members of other species have many problems adapting 
  to iz’kal ways. They are usually unhappy with working at 
  whatever the State assigns them at the time, living only 
  where given the right to, having ‘holding rights’ (as the 
  corvo call it) over items or services, etc. They also have 
  problems communicating with the iz’kal as they cannot join 
  them in hyperlink and miss out on most things relevant to 
  society that are communicated this way.
  THE HEXIAN MOVEMENT
  When the Iz’kal met the Corvo, everything changed. It did 
  not take them long to understand that they were incompat-
  ible and that they had to share a universe that technology 
  was rendering progressively smaller (in spite of its con-
  tinual expansion).
  The Iz’kal are aware that the Corvosphere grows very 
  fast, discovers new planets and exploits them to the core, 
  and is always investigating new ways to be more effective 
  at expansion regardless of the cost in lives and happiness 
  of their people as a whole. It did not take long for many so-
  ciologists to project how long the State had until it would be 
  economically inferior to the Corvo - two centuries. 
  If nothing changed in two centuries, the Corvo would 
  have grown so large that it would not matter that the Cor-
  vosphere was not an united front. Each of the megacorps 
  would be as large as the Iz’kal State and hungry to expand 
  their market. At that point, there would be nothing the State 
  could do to stop them from expanding into the iz’kal society 
  the same way they did with the humans and the Raag. 
  The Iz’kal would not go down easy, but in the end it 
  wouldn’t matter. The Corvo have proven over and again 
  that they are proficient at destroying native economies and 
  becoming the new and better source of goods, soon after 
  imposing their terms by monopolising the options. 
  As soon as the State became aware of this fact, it started 
  taking the necessary steps to protect itself. After centuries 
  of hardship and sacrifices under the dominion of the Korian, 
  the Iz’kal are forced to endure hardships once more. Prin-
  ciples will need to be put aside, and sadly personal rights 
  need to be sacrificed. The Hexian movement claims that the 
  Iz’kal need to grow as fast as the Corvo or they will lose 
  everything.
  “We disagree on everything, but do you 
  know the difference between us? While you 
  would like to suppress my right to express 
  my ideas, I would give my life to protect 
  your right to express yours.” - Lee Bao, 
  corvo diplomat, to his iz’kal counterpart
  
  faith rulebook
  The Iz’kal
  87
  THE KORIAN AND    
  THE IZ’KAL UPRISING
  A thousand years ago, when the Iz’kal were a primitive 
  preliterate species still in the dawn of civilisation, newly 
  arisen to walk the land from their aquatic origins, they were 
  attacked by the Korian, a powerful and brutal species that 
  came to their planet from outer space. They were easily 
  subjugated and enslaved. They solemnly endured every 
  punishment and hardship their masters put them through. 
  They waited and learned from their new masters while 
  serving them meekly, fi nding solace in the secret connec-
  tion they shared with each other, burying their hatred and 
  preparing for the moment when they could retaliate.
  The Korian were a strong species of conquerors that trav-
  elled through the Labyrinth taking whatever they desired 
  from wherever they landed, with little to no regard for the 
  biosphere of those places. They had a monarchist system 
  based on very rigid and backwards laws that disregarded 
  the rights of their own people and of course considered all 
  other species nothing more than insects in their soup. 
  The Korian used iz’kal as servants and pets, fi nding them 
  harmless as they lacked, to their eyes, the “gift of talking” 
  as they called it. The Korian tended to feel threatened by 
  species that could talk and, if the stories told by iz’kal are 
  to be believed, they killed off several species they found 
  during their travels for this very reason. Back then, iz’kal 
  could only communicate through hyperlink. They had no 
  evolutionary need for vocal cords and this made them mere 
  animals to the Korian. It was only after the Iz’kal regained 
  their freedom and built their State that they genetically ma-
  nipulated their genome to develop vocal cords, supposedly 
  to communicate better with alien species, but some think 
  that they wanted to overcome the feeling of inferiority that 
  the Korian had imposed upon them.
  The Iz’kal were the submissive slaves of the Korian for 
  two centuries, during which they went through all kinds 
  of vexations and tortures without having a single iz’kal go 
  rogue and revealing their secret language and intelligence. 
  Some historians do not believe in this romanticised idea. 
  They agree that it had to be rare for an iz’kal to betray their 
  species looking for a position of favor from the Korian. 
  However, some theorize that the hyperlink was made man-
  datory so that each individual iz’kal was at all times part 
  of the common iz’kal mind, making the individual needs of 
  each iz’kal seem insignifi cant. Those that tried to turn on 
  their own would then have to leave the linkmind and would 
  be assassinated by the others. 
  Twenty generations of iz’kal lived and died as slaves, 
  hoping that their sacrifi ce would increase the chances of 
  survival of the species in the long run. For them, a species 
  in the bronze age, the machinery of the Korian was nothing 
  short of magic. They studied it nonetheless, understanding 
  that in it laid the power of their masters. The Korian had no 
  interest in understanding technology, only in using it, and 
  they saw the iz’kal interest in it as an animalistic and inferior 
  curiosity. It did not take the Iz’kal long to know more about 
  the technology than their masters.
  Once they knew enough about the technology and they 
  outnumbered the Korian, the moment came for them to 
  strike back. All the anger and hatred that had been sup-
  pressed, pulsating like a living being deep within their shared 
  mind, urging them to fi ght, fi nally surfaced. It erupted with 
  the silent scream of millions of voiceless souls, a wail that 
  froze the blood of the Korian - a promise of retribution and 
  death. That moment is now known as the Uprising.
  When the Korian fi nally surrendered, no mercy was 
  shown to them. The Iz’kal lusted for vengeance, their anger 
  feeding those around them, unquenchable and too loud to 
  be ignored. The Korian were brutally massacred down to 
  the very last of them. Those who tried to hide were hunted 
  and those who tried to run were chased down.
  Despite the sudden rebellion that caught the Korian 
  unaware, the Iz’kal paid a high price for their freedom. 
  Almost half of their population died and the vast majority 
  of the technology was destroyed. Cities were levelled to 
  the ground, space stations shattered, and many colonies 
  starved to death before the Iz’kal could put themselves 
  back together and use the few korian spaceships left to go 
  save them.
  It would take three hundred years for the Iz’kal to 
  properly understand the complex technology left by the 
  Korian. In half a millennium, they went from the bronze 
  age to being an intergalactic empire. It was only because 
  they were such a united and selfl ess society that they were 
  able to not fall to internal battles that could have left them 
  divided and broken across the galaxy.
  Today the Iz’kal stand tall and proud upon the civilisation 
  of their old oppressors, a bloody reminder of the fate of 
  any species that might try to take their sovereignty from 
  them. 
  “They are a species whose only achievement has been to kill off the hand that fed them. It appears 
  that killing off enemies and those that think differently is a characteristic of all governments, regard-
  less of the species.”  - Sun Qingzhou, CEO of Nation’s Solution
  
  88
  faith rulebook
  The Iz’kal
  THE KORIAN CIVILISATION
  The Korian are thought to have been a post-literate 
  species. While it is unknown if they ever were literate, it is 
  agreed by all the experts that if the Korian did develop their 
  own technology they must have been.
  They are thought to also be post-industrial and post-
  technological. As learned from archaeological evidence 
  and as told by iz’kal witnesses that survived their yoke, the 
  Korian did not understand their own technology nor did they 
  know how to create new ones or even replace the existing 
  ones. Their technology worked through voice commands 
  and they had powerful self repairing systems so that their 
  tech did not age.
  The Korian were very comfortable with their ways and 
  had no real interest in developing further (only a few rare 
  cases of individual korian are thought to have been inter-
  ested in such matters). It allowed them to enjoy all the 
  pleasures of life as they saw it: eating, sleeping, fornicating, 
  and warring. 
  They did not keep records, data, recordings, or any other 
  kind of archives, nor did their machines or computers, 
  which had only kept the code they ran on. Therefore, there 
  is no history to be studied by historians, all that is known is 
  what the iz’kal survivors left behind in the shape of stories 
  - stories clearly tainted with hate. The Iz’kal at that moment 
  were a preliterate species and it took a long time after the 
  Uprising for the Iz’kal to reach literacy. In that time most of 
  the korian and iz’kal history had died.
  The Korian only cultivated two arts. The culinary arts, 
  of which they were very proud of, consisted of recipes 
  that used spices from dozens of planets. Their martial art, 
  called Meriam, was practised every day of their lives. They 
  became intoxicated by the dancing rituals of the Iz’kal and 
  would spend their long and copious meals watching their 
  slaves dance, which (according to some records) were re-
  quested to end with copulation between the dancers, with 
  their masters sometimes joining them. 
  The Korian had no entertainment apart from fi ghting, 
  watching the iz’kal dances, and having the Raag fi ght one 
  another in combats to the death. They had no television or 
  music - nothing. There are no pictures or drawings of the 
  Korian either, as they did not allow any of the species they 
  had enslaved to develop their own arts. 
  Although modern technology allows the reconstruction 
  of the korian likeness from bones (with proper cloning as 
  a possibility), the Iz’kal are still in mourning and bringing 
  them back to life is out of the picture. Many corvo from 
  anti-iz’kal groups would love to get their hands on some 
  korian remains to do so.
  The true origin of the Korian is completely unknown. 
  Korian that lived in the times of the Iz’kal probably had no 
  idea as well. There are several theories about this and it 
  is a favourite subject in iz’kal historian circles. The often 
  recognised theory (but not the most supported one), is 
  that the Korian lost interest and didn’t see the necessity of 
  further developing their technology, and in time left all of 
  its use in the hands of their primitive AIs. After that, they 
  ended up focusing on violence and conquest, as no one 
  really believes that those traits could have been present 
  prior to their technological peak. Such violent tendencies 
  would have been their doom, or at least would have kept 
  them within their home planet.
  Recent and more supported theories based on compara-
  tive studies of korian technology make experts believe that 
  the Korian did not actually develop it themselves; they 
  had to either steal it or receive it from another species, or 
  another korian civilisation now extinct. All of the machines 
  left (and the remains from the Uprising that were available 
  “Their claims of injustice among us are completely 
  unfounded. In the Corvosphere, anyone with skill will 
  thrive, and the lack of resources (and in some cases 
  laziness) is the reason why not all of us do. They say 
  that their people live better and happier, but they have 
  not seen what a corvo can become if he works hard - the 
  riches he can achieve are immeasurable. Our population 
  is also a million times larger than theirs. They claim all 
  their people live well, yet in the Corvosphere, there are 
  more billionaires than they have people.“ - Fang Wang, 
  CEO of Wang Corp
  
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  The Iz’kal
  89
  to be studied) use the exact same type of hardware and 
  software, which is unusual for a civilisation as large as the 
  Korian, who would likely own some updated systems. It 
  seems like all of their technology came out of the factory 
  on the same day.
  There is also no archaeological evidence of previous tech-
  nology or the factories needed to build the existing tech on 
  any of the korian planets. While factories could have been 
  lost during their post-industrial age, some archaeological 
  remains would have emerged by now. Some counter this by 
  saying that the Korian come from an unknown planet from 
  which they built all of their technology (or that they perhaps 
  created it in space similar to the Corvo). This is supported 
  by the lack of archaeological evidence of korian presence 
  on any planet for more than a few hundreds years.
  IZ’KAL HABITATS
  The Iz’kal inhabit many different planets, and although 
  they built it upon the remains left by the Korian, their civi-
  lisation is eminently different from their former masters’.
  AL’AMEEN
  The original planet of the Iz’kal is mostly fl at and 
  composed of dozens of small continents along its equator. 
  The continents are fi lled with swamplands that also 
  connect the two large oceans of the planet, one in each 
  pole. Al’ameen has two main seasons: the dry season, in 
  which the swamps dry up and another, in which the swamps 
  grow large and convert most of the land to mangroves for 
  several months. This was the environment in which the 
  iz’kal evolved to be semi-aquatic creatures. 
  Al’ameen is a rich planet in natural resources and it is a 
  paradise for the Iz’kal, who keep most of it as wild land, with 
  very few ecofriendly cities on its surface. The population 
  is limited to a few hundred million iz’kal and immigration 
  With the tips of his fi ngers, Akram caressed his 
  wrinkly face. A weathered face returned his stare in 
  the mirror. But he did not feel old. He felt endless and 
  powerful, like his body could not contain him and he 
  could live on after it turned to ashes.
  This was a common feeling among those that 
  spend most of their lives in hyperlink. They lose their 
  individuality; they become the hive mind: something 
  much greater than oneself, a more complete being 
  without the pettiness of personal needs and differ-
  ences. They were not just part of the larger mind, 
  but they became the larger mind itself.
  When not in hyperlink, Akram felt orphaned, like 
  a shattered piece of a whole. Akram was a true 
  ergonaut, a man who always sacrifi ced for others - 
  and the beauty of it made him happy. He was a truly 
  happy man for as long as he was not alone. 
  But he was alone. Everyone else was dead. The 
  colony was broken, the food processors had stopped 
  working, the atmosphere machine had burned down. 
  He did not know how many days he had left, but in 
  whatever time he had, he was going to make them 
  pay.
  The corvo ship had landed in the park in front of 
  him, its crew already drunkenly celebrating their 
  victory. They had taken the small colony by surprise. 
  It was easy for them: before an iz’kal ship could come 
  and see what had happened, they would be gone. Not 
  a single evidence of their wrong doings would be left 
  in the wake of their routine bombings before leaving.
  But they had not taken into consideration the 
  power of a true believer of Ergon, a man who lived 
  for a community that was no more.
  He could feel the anger running through his veins, 
  like rivers of lava burning from within. He could still 
  hear the voices of the others in his head, as if parts 
  of him had died and left behind a simpler and poorer 
  self. He was not a part of anything anymore - the 
  corvo had taken that from him.
  He opened the door and the killing began.
  
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  The Iz’kal
  laws do not allow other species to move in permanently. 
  A handful are accepted every year as visitors for a short 
  period of time. Many rich corvo enjoy visiting Al’ameen and 
  return home to tell their friends all about the strange habits 
  of its people.
  Even fewer are allowed to visit Alhena, a network of 
  caves in the heart of Al’ameen, illuminated by gigantic and 
  luminescent fungi. This magical place survived the korian 
  conquest as it was never discovered by them. Iz’kal all 
  around the Universe make a pilgrimage to this place. When 
  in Alhena, all the iz’kal join in a single hyperlink with all their 
  fellow pilgrims so that they may share their minds freely. 
  Here, iz’kal from all colonies share their experiences with 
  each other and together are able to learn things that they 
  were not even capable of imagining alone - about ways of 
  life on strange planets, about ideas they had never heard of, 
  and about personal life experiences and the thoughts behind 
  them, which give them an incredible insight on the reasons 
  people have for their behaviour. This is, for many iz’kal, the 
  most intoxicating and beautiful experience possible. Some 
  are addicted to it and travel to Alhena once a year, even if 
  they live in the other side of the Universe. 
  ERTHUM
  For the most part, Erthum is a desert, and a dangerous 
  one at that, as sandstorms are abundant and can last days, 
  pinning down populations or travellers for long periods 
  of time. In the poles, the temperatures are very low and 
  almost lifeless, while the land in between the ice poles 
  and the central deserts is a steppe containing no civilised 
  population at all. 
  Cities in Erthum are built to be efficient and to maximise 
  their productivity. The environment is so harsh that it 
  requires them to be extra careful with their natural equilib-
  rium. They are heavily investing in terraforming the planet 
  to create diversity and to improve its atmosphere. This is a 
  slow process as they must take all the different variables 
  into consideration. Roothounds have been imported from 
  Sulivar to regrow the wildwood, and they are now one of 
  the most common animals found in the planet. They are 
  very territorial, and only specialised personnel is allowed 
  into the new forest areas to avoid incidents.
  THE COLONIES
  The Iz’kal keep their colonies few in number and creating 
  one is an organised process after a long period of study. 
  Many times has the State invested time, equipment, and 
  personnel to research the viability of a planet as a colony, 
  only to discover that it would not be worth it in the long run. 
  Perhaps the planet would run out of some vital resources 
  within a couple hundred years. The State has no need for 
  expansion, as iz’kal population growth is carefully con-
  trolled, and sometimes even halted.
  Therefore, they only build colonies on planets where 
  they know that, within a few generations, they will be able 
  to create a society as egalitarian and with a quality of life 
  as high as in Al’ameen, where all the iz’kal standards can 
  be achieved. This means that by principle, the State will not 
  colonise a place that cannot become self-sufficient after a 
  period of adaptation. However, the growth of Hexian ide-
  ologies, which are concerned with the possibility of being 
  overpowered by the Corvo, is forcing the State to recon-
  sider these policies - at the cost of personal liberties and 
  the preservation of new planets’ biospheres.
  Unlike the Corvo, the Iz’kal do not have mining colonies 
  or other places only used for their resources, as these 
  colonies are not self-sufficient. The Iz’kal have suffered the 
  horrors that can come from this, such as after the Uprising 
  when the korian colonies could not communicate or share 
  resources for years, and whole populations of iz’kal died of 
  starvation, cold, heat, or asphyxiation.
  They do create scientific and military outposts, however. 
  Scientific outposts are created wherever they think they 
  can make new discoveries that will further their under-
  standing of the Universe and perhaps themselves. Military 
  outposts are formed between colonies set far apart to 
  protect convoys between them, or in strategic places to 
  hinder the growth of the Corvo and to protect the State 
  from any attempt at war.
  
  “WITHOUT THE    
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  The Iz’kal
  91
  FOOD FIGHTS
  He had scouted the battlefield thrice and only dust and a 
  sickly greenish mist were moving. He was the only survivor. 
  The skinny Iz´kal soldier felt proud for a moment, but soon 
  enough an overwhelming stream of dread flooded his body 
  again; there was no one else.
  There has to be someone else, please let there be someone 
  else, he thought to himself.  The Iz’kal continued walking, ig-
  noring as best he could the pain of his shattered foot and the 
  feeling that half of his face was missing.
  Then he heard a gobble nearby. It repeated persistently, as 
  if it were trying to attract his attention. As one of the few inter-
  preters of his battalion, he knew what the sound was imme-
  diately. He spotted a milky lump not far from him, half buried 
  in the sand, covered by similar bodies. He carefully removed 
  them, uncovering his dying enemy, and offered her what she 
  was asking for. Did etiquette and procedural guidelines matter 
  anymore? he asked himself. He unsheathed a flask from his 
  belt and gave the stranger a sip of “Hero’s Mana”, also known 
  as “Captain’s Cum” in the human barracks. When he observed 
  the Corvo more closely, he realised she was not buried at all 
  but had lost the lower half of her body in combat. He hoped 
  she had enough stomach remaining to hold the Mana inside 
  her damaged body.
  “I thank you, Iz’kal.” The liquid dripped from the Corvo´s 
  mouth, giving new life to the dried blood on her chin. He knew 
  some Corvo where snow white when they were not wearing 
  all the technological gibberish they were known for, but this 
  one’s swollen face was so pale it hurt to look at it.
  “I think it is only you and me.” The Iz’kal said. ‘First I give 
  her a drink, and then I start chatting with her. This must be 
  treason somewhere. Well, it is of little importance now’, he 
  thought. 
  “The last standing. We should be named heroes.” The Corvo 
  stated, then laughed raucously. “It is a shame no one is ever 
  going to find out.”
  “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t they…?”
  “Don’t play the fool with me, boy. You already know what I 
  mean.” He did know, but he didn’t want to hear it.
  “I… I have no idea what…”
  “You know what kind of battle this was. You know this 
  wasn’t a fight for land or money, for we fought on a tiny moon 
  covered in dust. You know it wasn’t for honour; for only the 
  traitors, the worthless, and the damned were sent here to 
  fight. Tell me boy, which group do you belong to?”
  “Shut up! Stop talking!”
  Food Fight was the nickname given to these offensive 
  strikes, to honour the fact that both armies threw their scraps 
  and leftovers into one another’s faces. His mother had laughed 
  at the wordplay, while his father asked for respect to those 
  who perished for an honourable cause. At least father will be 
  proud. He doubted so. If you thought about it, it was undeni-
  able that these encounters had a reason to be.  Someone had 
  to try out the newest weapons, or the ones that had expired 
  long ago. Even the defective ones had to be tried, those that 
  exploded in your hands before throwing them at the enemy. 
  Someone has to see what works when everything else fails.
  “Do you see that green haze? Of course you do, you’ve still 
  got one eye left on that mangled face,” laughed the Corvo. 
  “That was our secret weapon. Laser radiation. Point and 
  zzzzt! Custom post-nuclear treatment straight into the heart 
  of those you hate the most. What could go wrong? When we 
  opened the container, the four soldiers that guarded it were 
  already dead. We assumed it was a leak, and we realised 
  where we were at that point. It was too late.”
  “It didn’t matter…”
  “Exactly. At least we were going to have fun for a while. How 
  grand would it be to leave this world winning your last battle, 
  right?”
  The Iz’kal looked at her. She seemed so frail, as if she would 
  crumble like ash were he to touch her.
  “Laughing and singing, we prepared to engage. And then… 
  Half our forces blew up in the air, and with them our dreams 
  of being remembered as heroes. We wanted to be the first to 
  survive such a battle.”
  
    STATE THERE IS NOTHING.” - JALAN & SHEKH 
  92
  The Iz’kal
  “Don’t speak as if it were over! We’re alive! I’m alive!”
  “That’s right, we keep breathing. That increases our likeli-
  hood of dying.”
  “Silence!”
  “That green shit is in the air, and the more you breathe in 
  the quicker it kills you. In a few hours you will be rattling on 
  the fl oor, begging for mercy, but I won’t be here to help you 
  anymore.”
  “I don’t need your solace! I can’t stand this anymore!” The 
  Iz’kal’s hands were shaking, but there was enough strength 
  left in him to point his handgun at the Corvo.
  The dying Corvo looked away. “What I am saying is if you 
  think a rescue team is going to arrive before… well… You sure-
  ly must know how it works. They will send a science team, 
  covered head to toe with those protective suits, and they’ll 
  just collect weaponry remnants to study them. But you… you 
  won’t be here by then. Accept the truth, it’s easier that way.”
  Nobody knew they were in a Food Fight until it had started. 
  It dawned on you once you disembarked, once you saw the 
  rest of the lowlifes that were going to fi ght with you, once you 
  were given a weapon that made you fear for your life. Then 
  you refl ected on your foolish acts, the things that brought 
  you there. You were sentenced to death without knowing why. 
  Who did you wrong? What did you miss? He couldn’t bear it 
  anymore. He just wanted the pain and suffering to end. Now.
  He pointed the gun to his head, put it in his mouth, and 
  closed his eyes. His hands were shaking. He bit the barrel until 
  it hurt. He caressed the trigger and then… opened his eyes.
  “I can’t do it. I want everything to end, but I just… can’t,” he 
  stammered. And then he wept.
  “I can.”
  “How?” asked the Iz´Kal.
  “We could help each other. We are the last ones standing 
  in this stupid quarrel. We are the heroes of this shit. I will fall 
  soon, but you… you shared Mana with me.”
  The Iz´kal looked into the red, misty eyes of the Corvo for 
  a long time, and nodded. He handed her the gun. The Corvo 
  took it in her shaking hand and, with great effort, pointed at 
  the Iz´kal.
  “Thank you.” said the interpreter. He closed his eyes.
  “No, thank you.” - “Why?” - “Because now, I’ve won.”
  She pulled the trigger.
  
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  The Humans
  93
  Due to their exponential exploitation of Earth’s resources, 
  humanity had driven itself to the point of near extinction. 
  Mighty nations fell under the weight of their own pride and 
  corruption. The only hope for humanity was to somehow 
  develop their technology far further than it currently was. 
  They could not.
  War was the terrible answer, and soon after, all that was 
  left of humanity were those who stood aside and who no 
  one cared to kill. With no internet, no fuel, and no social 
  systems, humanity grew in small villages so far from 
  each other that they could have been on different planets. 
  Warlords, tyrants, prophets, and all kinds of leaders led 
  the tribes. Humans became tough and heartless.
  Then the Corvo came through a wormhole, and it was 
  easy for them to take over. They fi rst established a base 
  on no man’s land in the old continent of Africa and initiated 
  economic and military negotiations with the locals. Their 
  economic capacities, supported by a universal economy, 
  made them the strongest faction on the planet. Eventu-
  ally, most humans were working for the Corvo and fi ghting 
  wars against their enemies, which were often fellow human 
  factions that did not want to work for the Corvo or owe 
  them anything. Earth became a colony of the Corvosphere.
  Shortly after the occupation, humans started gaining 
  a reputation as very capable mercenaries. They were 
  far more prepared for physical tasks than their corvo 
  counterparts. The corporations specializing in military 
  contracting, defense, and security started hiring humans 
  in great numbers. Entire bands of warriors joined military 
  contractors.
  Earth became a breeding and training ground for human 
  mercenaries. A planet controlled by dozens of factions in 
  constant war with each other and with limited resources is 
  the perfect place to secure an endless supply of soldiers, 
  and the Corvo made sure that Earth stayed that way by 
  supplying them with weapons whenever they requested it. 
  The harsh conditions on Earth mean that there are always 
  humans willing to leave their lives behind to work, and many 
  human lords pay their debts to the corvo corporations with 
  the labour of their young people.
  The humans started to visit space in large numbers to 
  work for the corvo. They became leaders in many black-
  ops against pirates, rebels, other corporations and, of 
  course, the Iz’kal State.
  The fear  of humans running out of control in the Cor-
  vosphere, or even moving to work for the State, gave way 
  to the fi rst clause of every human space labour contract: 
  that they must agree to genetic sterilization, a process that 
  attacks their reproductive capacities on such a level that is 
  beyond any sort of repair. The process does not have major 
  effects on the person, but it is known to stop female men-
  struation. Reverting this process is impossible, although 
  some iz’kal claim that they could perform such a task if 
  they had access to the DNA of a non-sterilized human. The 
  corvo corporations have a very strict methodology when 
  interacting with Earth to avoid the possibility of that DNA 
  reaching the State.
  Earth’s location is unknown to most, and it is one of the 
  best kept secrets of the Corvosphere - not even the CEOs 
  of the megacorps know the totality of the route. This 
  is achieved by a complex set of routines that only highly 
  loyal - and well paid - corvo pilots have partial knowledge 
  of. Someone who would want to fi gure it out would need to 
  bribe, torture, or somehow make ten different people talk, 
  and even this is no easy task, as their identities are kept 
  secret as well. 
  Regardless, humans became valuable and wanted, and 
  the Corvo were unable to keep them all on their side. Many 
  humans changed sides to the State for a better offer, as 
  loyalty was something they did not have for their new 
  THE HUMANS
  
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  The Humans
  bosses. The Iz’kal State, understanding the menace of 
  strong aliens species working for the Corvo, work hard to 
  recruit humans to their side. They offer them citizenships in 
  exchange for several years of work defending their borders 
  and interests. Many humans, tired of being exploited by 
  corvo, fi nd ways to move to the State, but most of them do 
  not fi nd the idea of being a citizen of the State appealing at 
  all. The Corvo do promise and do deliver riches to those that 
  are good enough to gain them. The most capable humans 
  work in million credit contracts as personal bodyguards of 
  CEOs and other important corvo. 
  Most corvo spaceships carry a few human guards 
  who are kept in stasis for the duration of their travel, or 
  a number of years as established in the contract. While in 
  stasis, the human is in a comatose state and does not age 
  perceptibly. This allows the contractor to keep the salary 
  low, as the humans are not paid extra for the time they are 
  in stasis. Humans agree to this as they have few economi-
  cal choices and they have no needs while in stasis. Most 
  of the times, nothing happens and they spend a couple 
  of decades in stasis and wake up to a roll of bills - a few 
  more decades in stasis and they might be able to afford a 
  home and support a family. Other times, they are awakened 
  when the ship is under attack and must fi ght to the death to 
  defend the property of their contractors. At the least, the 
  fl at fee of their contract is paid to their next of kin when 
  they die. These contracts have completely broken up the 
  human society in the Corvosphere, as the perception of 
  time is different for each human depending in the contracts 
  he has undertaken. Many humans meet up with childhood 
  friends to discover there is now 20 or 30 years of differ-
  ence between them.
  There is a human legend in the Corvosphere. It talks of a 
  human colony somewhere in the Labyrinth, established by 
  a rebel group that escaped with a terraforming spacecraft. 
  They talk about a place in the Labyrinth where a ship awaits 
  any humans that might want to join them, to guide them 
  to their free colony. This mythological colony is known as 
  the Terra Nova. Some shady humans and corvo claim they 
  can take people there for over a hundred thousand credits. 
  Some humans spend their Iife’s savings to go with them, 
  and they never come back. It is hard to say what fate befalls 
  them, whether they fi nd their paradise or become subject 
  to some terrible reality, in the form of slavery or worse. 
  It has been 300 years since the arrival of the Corvo to 
  Earth, and free humans have spread throughout the known 
  Universe as bounty hunters, mercenaries, and killers. 
  There are not many of them, making their hiring prices high, 
  and their fortunes uncertain.
  A few human groups have taken arms against the mega-
  corps, stealing the ships they were supposed to protect, 
  and now live within the Labyrinth or in some unexplored 
  space. They are nomads, pirates, or warlords who sell their 
  work to the highest bidder. The strongest faction of this 
  kind is the Human Front. 
  HUMAN FRONT
  The Human Front is a faction of humans obsessed with 
  the idea of creating a new beginning for the human species, 
  on a healthy planet far away from the economic control 
  of the Corvosphere or the manipulation of the State. They 
  are human rebels who once joined the Corvo and have since 
  taken arms against them. They are trying to discover their 
  way back to Earth to help their brothers and sisters escape 
  the circle of violence. The Human Front is classifi ed as a 
  dangerous terrorist group that attacks important corvo 
  enclaves and has been accused of committing terrible 
  attacks against corvo civilians - the Human Front remains 
  silent in this regard. 
  The Human Front is characterized by not accepting 
  members of other species, but they are willing to hire them 
  “It is a strange feeling when you know that 
  there is more of your species’ history that 
  has already happened than history that will 
  happen. I can feel the coming extinction in 
  my guts.” - Remko Vugac, human explorer
  
  “I WAS BLIND, BUT NOW I SEE. I WAS LOST, 
  FOUND. FOLLOW ME, FOR I AM THE CHOSEN  
  The Humans
  95
  for contractor jobs if needed. After all, there are still places 
  that only a corvo or an iz’kal can reach.
  Being a large organization persecuted by all, they must 
  keep on the run and are dispersed throughout the Laby-
  rinth. As a result, the Human Front does not always follow 
  a single consistent line of thought. When some segments 
  of the organization are trying to establish truces with the 
  Corvo, other segments might be blowing up their mining 
  colonies. This means that the Human Front has not made 
  big advancements for the liberation of their people - many 
  humans do not agree with them openly, as their behaviour 
  has increased the levels of xenophobia in the Corvosphere 
  against humans, who are seen as terrorists (or at least, 
  troublemakers) by the media, and most of the population.
  FULCRUM
  Fulcrums are humans ‘recycled’ by the Corvo, into semi-
  autonomous machines. Robots can be hacked and turned 
  against their owners, and designing an AI is taboo (while 
  semi-AI are extremely expensive). The solution found by 
  the Corvo is to install a deceased human with an intact brain 
  to operate the machine. Their personality and other traits 
  are turned off and everything else is wired into the machine. 
  In principle, what is left of the human is only the 
  ‘hardware’ - so it is basically like donating a body to science. 
  Still, there have been stories about how some fulcrums 
  speak the names of people they should have forgotten 
  about.
  Humans are not forced into this, as corvo despise slavery 
  and value free will - though they think anything is accept-
  able if everyone involved agrees to it. 
  Security companies offer big pay cheques to living 
  humans so that they can use their bodies when they die 
  to create a fulcrum. Some shady companies offer quite 
  gruesome deals to very desperate human immigrants in 
  exchange for their bodies, such as 10 years of housing and 
  care in exchange for a prompt euthanization afterwards. 
  At this moment, there are only human fulcrums due to 
  limited and specified research. However, as more and more 
  poor corvo request to be part of these programs out of 
  desperation, research is being made to allow them to take 
  on those kinds of deals.
  
   BUT NOW I’M 
    ONE.” - ARTYOM
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  faith rulebook
  The Humans
  NIGHT OF THE TITANS
  Sergeant Sullivan was happy. He was working for the Corvo, and he missed his times as a hired gun for the Iz’kal a little 
  less every day. He did not like the iz’kal ways. It was damning enough to bear day after day of gunshot hell, from trenches 
  unknown, fighting an unseen enemy, but the thing that Sullivan found most deplorable about the Iz´kal was the fact that, for 
  them, fighting was not enough: they wanted to convince you that you were doing the right thing.  As if a piece of bread to eat 
  was not enough! Droning mass speeches about the cause, and how they were on the right. Banners and anthems dotted the 
  base, displaying answers to dilemmas he never had. So many that, more often than not, he was glad to be unlearned. He 
  despised living with the continuous feeling that he was being brainwashed.  He struggled to understand why the Iz’kal were 
  trying so hard. He was, after all, one of thousands of brothers and sisters who would kill their own mothers if that meant not 
  having to return to their former, miserable life. 
  Life at the Plinth 03 space station with the Corvo was much more pleasant. Being left alone, undisturbed, after weeks of 
  fighting and sweating and killing and swearing. It was exactly what he wanted. Drinking with his brothers and lying with his 
  sisters; betting his lunch on a card game. They could live, even if it was for only a small while, before the Commander-in-Chief 
  reappeared and sent them on yet another mission. He particularly enjoyed the kino nights, when the corvo set up one of the 
  four spherical rooms of the Plinth and showed them one of their old films. The rest of the time, those rooms were used to 
  prepare battles in huge 360-degree virtual environments, but during The Night of the Titans, it was a place where the legends 
  of Serxos, Qadinkral the Die-Hard, and other corvo heroes came back to life all around them.
  The truth was that he was not going to let the Corvo brainwash him any time soon. He knew that hundreds of humans 
  had perished behind each of the heroes’ triumphs. He was aware that they were vacuous stories, filled with half-truths and 
  double lies, manufactured to make the Corvo’s wars the stuff of legend. He did not buy it, but in spite of everything, they 
  were fun. They were bloody entertaining, even.  And certainly more effective than alcohol! Reality mattered little when, for 
  a couple of hours, monsters fought monsters in space, and made him forget the crude reality where a projectile shot from 
  nowhere could blow away his head, and nobody would give a 
  damn, except for the three drunkards singing an old song in 
  an armoury far away. 
  But that night, Sergeant Sullivan did not think about such 
  things. He was deeply engrossed in reliving one of the most 
  intense missions of Qadinkral. It was a story about a human 
  - a rare occurrence. A noble brother who had lost his life 
  between the arms of Qadinkral, sacrificing himself for the 
  greater good.  How glorious it must be to become immor-
  talized in corvo culture. A brother was raised as a Titan, on 
  The Night of the Titans. Maybe, one day, he could be like that 
  brother. He could become immortal. Sergeant Sullivan was 
  happy. 
  “At one time in the world, there were 
  woods that no one owned.” - Cormac 
  McCarthy, human writer
  
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  The Raag
  97
  The Raag are a species of large, strong, and aggressive 
  beings. They are native to Heimis, a planet covered in a thick 
  layer of ice with a liquid ocean underneath. Below the ice 
  crust lies the Crystal Abyss, huge caves connected by a 
  network of tunnels, where the Raag evolved and live. While 
  the surface of the planet reaches temperatures of -200ºC, 
  the temperatures inside the caves are a cozy -40ºC. 
  Many raag now live in gigantic space fortresses, con-
  stantly waging wars on each other. They use comets and 
  asteroids as the foundation for their fortresses and equip 
  them with weapons, hangars, and propulsion systems 
  that they gathered from the Korian during the previous 
  centuries.
  Renowned for their strength and endurance, they place 
  great importance on tradition and honor. Most of them see 
  technology as something that is unnatural and mysterious, 
  something to be feared and revered. Only the enginseers, 
  trained by the Cult, have the knowledge and understanding 
  necessary to use it.
  THE SOCIETY
  Raag have short lifespans. They reach maturity at the 
  age of 10 and those that don’t die of violent causes will die 
  of muscular hypertrophy before they turn 60. Their lives 
  are divided into four stages. 
  For the fi rst 10 years, they will be looked after by the 
  keepers, a group mostly composed of elder females. 
  During this time, they grow fast and become progres-
  sively more violent. 
  At the age of 10, most of them have become so ag-
  gressive that they are forced to leave the under-
  world. For the following 5 to 10 years, they will 
  live alone or in small tribes on the surface of 
  the planet, hunting for food and fi ghting other 
  tribes over territory. As they grow older, they 
  become stronger, but they also learn to manage 
  their aggressiveness and eventually return to underworld, 
  where they will join the Surani for a few years. It is here 
  that they will train and prepare for the Culling, the great 
  selection during which they will be assigned to one of the 
  great clans, to which they will belong for the rest of their 
  lives.
  Raag have been found to only be able to procreate in 
  Heimis, which has prevented them from colonizing other 
  planets. They have short pregnancies that last 5 months, 
  during which the female will usually stay at the Surani, 
  being taken care of by other females. Once the child is born, 
  they will look after them for a few months before leaving 
  them in the hands of the Surani and returning to their clan.
  Social Structure
  Heimis is divided into two main areas, the Surani, and 
  the many clans’ Kuraima. The Surani, ruled by the High 
  Council, is a sacred territory in which no fi ghting is allowed. 
  Members of the different clans meet here to barter and 
  negotiate. This is where children are raised and where they 
  live until they take part in the Culling, a trial of adulthood 
  that allows them to demonstrate their worth and earn their 
  place in one of the great clans. The Surani is located in the 
  heart of the Crystal Abyss, deep within the frozen crust of 
  Heimis, and extends over a vast area upon which several 
  settlements can be found. 
  Composed solely of elder females, who are more capable 
  of restraining their violent nature than their male counter-
  parts, the High Council is the highest form of government in 
  raag society and it is in charge of ensuring the survival of 
  the species. The members of the High Council are revered 
  by the other raag as only the most powerful and capable 
  females, those that have proven their worth as clan leaders 
  THE RAAG
  
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  The Raag
  or enginseers, are chosen by the High Council to join their 
  ranks. Those females that enter the High Council will leave 
  behind their families and their clans, and pledge their lives 
  to the protection of their society. The rulings of the High 
  Council are followed by every clan, and a clan that refuses 
  to do so will be cast out and exterminated by the other 
  clans. In spite of this, the High Council does not usually 
  issue commands to the entire society, and their daily tasks 
  revolve around the administration and organization of the 
  Surani, the education of young raag, and the raising of the 
  children.
  The rest of the population will live in their clan’s Kuraima 
  (the territory which they control and on which they can hunt 
  and build), or aboard one of the space fortresses assigned 
  to them. Most clans are ruled by a War Council composed 
  of their strongest and most honorable warriors, although 
  a few of them are ruled by other types of councils. Regard-
  less of which council is the ultimate ruler of a clan, the High 
  Council has veto power over them.
  The Cult is a secretive organization that holds the secrets 
  to korian technology. They are ruled by the Shadow Council, 
  which is made up of the most powerful and ambitious 
  enginseers, who are feared and respected by all the other 
  raag, although they are distrusted by many. Other councils 
  seek their advice and guidance in most matters, and their 
  suggestions carry weight even within the most distrusting 
  War Councils.
  As members of the Surani, the Cult is tasked with the train-
  ing of new enginseers. Only young raag that show the in-
  tellect needed to understand technology, and who have a 
  strong connection with their God, will be chosen for this 
  training (which lasts until they enter the Culling). After-
  wards, they will be chosen by one of the clans, although 
  they can leave when they wish to, or the Cult calls them 
  back. While many of them will sever their bonds with the 
  Cult and join their new clan as full members, others will go 
  back to the Cult after serving their clan for a few years. 
  This creates mistrust towards new members trained by the 
  Cult, since their loyalty is unknown, and sometimes leads to 
  violent encounters that must be solved by the War Council. 
  On the other hand, those that pledge their loyalty to their 
  new clan are given honorable positions within it, since their 
  knowledge and counsel are extremely valuable. 
  The Culling
  The Culling is the most important event in the life of 
  most raag. They usually spend years preparing for it as 
  the outcome of this ceremony will determine their future. 
  During this time, they will attempt to draw the attention of 
  some clan or earn a reputation at their trade.
  It takes places once a year, during the longest night of 
  the year, and any raag that has never participated can 
  take part. During the Culling, the different clans will 
  approach the individuals they are 
  interested in. Those approached 
  by more than one clan can choose 
  which of those clans they want to 
  join, but this does not happen often as the 
  most powerful clans tend to approach fi rst, 
  scaring off lesser clans from attempting to 
  compete for the same candidate. Those raag that 
  are not chosen by any clan will usually remain in the 
  Surani for the rest of their lives. 
  Economy
  The Raag lack an established form of currency and all 
  their economy is based on bartering. Some of the most 
  valuable goods are food and tools, but the value of the 
  different goods and services will vary greatly among dif-
  ferent clans and at different times.
  The ice fortresses come back to Heimis every few years, 
  bringing all kinds of resources and tools collected from dif-
  ferent places around the universe. They will give out close 
  to half of their goods to the Surani and the other half will be 
  used by their clan.
  Dealings with Other Species
  After the Uprising, the Iz’kal attempted to establish an 
  
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  alliance with the Raag, but it quickly became apparent that 
  they were too different from each other and they began 
  to keep their distance. While commerce between them is 
  not uncommon, and there have been instances when they 
  have collaborated and helped each other, they will keep to 
  themselves most of the time.
  Ever since they came across the Raag, the Corvo have 
  tried to impose their market system on them. Despite their 
  best efforts, the Raag have shown little interest in most of 
  what the Corvo had to offer, and only The Union has been 
  able to secure a stable business relationship with them, by 
  trading old and heavy weaponry for strange korian arti-
  facts and raag mercenaries. Even so, the High Council, wary 
  of the intentions of the Corvo, imposed severe restrictions 
  to the kinds of dealings that the different clans could make, 
  and the Cult, overprotective of their secrets, has refused 
  any dealings with any other species, afraid of losing their 
  power and influence.
  THE AGE OF                       
  THE GLADIATORS
  The Raag lived under the rule of the Korian for a hundred 
  years before the Iz’kal were enslaved. Although they were 
  spread all over the korian empire, many of them still lived 
  on their home planet, the only place where they could 
  breed. Korian hunting parties would often go there and 
  hunt them down like wild animals for fun or to sell them as 
  slaves. They served as labourers and as entertainment, and 
  the most violent were traded among the different warlords 
  and trained as gladiators for the Blood Games. Owning a 
  strong gladiator was seen as a sign of power among korian.
  It didn’t take long for korian to start breeding the strong-
  est and most violent raag among themselves in an attempt 
  to preserve and enhance those traits for future genera-
  tions. Reproduction fields were established on the surface 
  of Heimis which later turned into training fields. Warlords 
  from all across the empire would travel to these places, 
  seeking new gladiators for their games. 
  Over the years, many of these gladiators managed to 
  escape and hid in the deepest area of the Crystal Abyss, 
  which would later become the Surani. They started training 
  other raag in the ways of battle that they had been taught 
  by their masters, slowly creating an army of mighty 
  warriors that lusted for korian blood.
  As their numbers grew, more and more korian hunting 
  parties started to go missing, the hunters becoming the 
  prey. Eventually the most powerful gladiators started 
  attacking the training fields and other korian outposts on 
  the surface, timing them with the fierce snow storms that 
  sometimes lashed the surface of the planet to leave no 
  traces of their attack. The battered remains of the korian 
  spaceships and weapons became hidden in the depths of the 
  Crystal Abyss, and would eventually be studied by those 
  raag who attempted to understand them. This marked the 
  origin of the Cult of Eternia and the first enginseers.
  The Cult of Eternia
  During the age of gladiators, those raag that were unable 
  to fight were despised for their weakness and remained in 
  the Crystal Abyss while the gladiators and their followers 
  went out to fight the Korian. Some of these raag quickly 
  realized the potential that the captured korian devices could 
  have and started studying them in an attempt to prove their 
  worth to the other raag.
  Among the ships that the Raag managed to capture, one 
  stood out from the others, and it was called Eternia. Even 
  to the Raag, whose knowledge of technology was rudi-
  mentary at best, there was something undeniably alluring 
  about Eternia, and it wasn’t long before the cultists started 
  treating it with reverence. It took them almost 2 years to 
  be able to open it, and once they did, their reverence turned 
  to devotion. The ship was able to speak their language 
  fluently, had answers to all of their questions, and dis-
  played unmistakable intelligence. With the help of Eternia, 
  the Cult’s influence increased to the point where it matched 
  that of the gladiators. The ability to control the technol-
  ogy at their disposal and the endless source of knowledge 
  that was Eternia helped them secure a status that would 
  have been unthinkable otherwise. The Cult progressively 
  became more secretive and protective of Eternia, and even 
  kept its existence hidden from most of their own members.
  The gladiators felt threatened by the rise of the Cult and 
  distrusted their ways and newly found magic, but they 
  could not deny their usefulness, and so they endured their 
  arrogant attitude.
  A Fight for Supremacy
  The raag originally lived in small tribes that were 
  governed through strength. There was no unity among the 
  tribes and no raag society to speak of. All of that changed 
  after the arrival of the gladiators, under the korian occupa-
  tion. They travelled all over Heimis, rallying the different 
  tribes under their banners. Under their leadership, the raag 
  became organized for the first time. It was during this time 
  that the Surani was created, first as the place for civilians 
  and children to live in and later as the administrative center 
  of the society. 
  However, as the society grew, the violent nature of the 
  Raag started resurfacing. The different leaders began 
  fighting each other over power, which younger raag saw 
  as an opportunity to prove their worth. A civil war threat-
  ened to collapse the frail society that they had managed to 
  build, until some of the oldest and most powerful females 
  decided to join forces and put a stop to the fighting. One by 
  one they dealt with each of the leaders, using either brute 
  force or common sense as needed. It was agreed that the 
  
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  The Raag
  Surani would become a sacred territory in which no fighting 
  was allowed, a place where young raag could be raised and 
  protected. The different leaders agreed to take their fol-
  lowers away from the Surani and settle somewhere else, 
  which marked the origin of the first clans.
  The High Council was given veto power on all decisions 
  taken by the clans as a way to ensure the survival of the 
  species. Besides that, they were tasked with the adminis-
  tration and well-being of the Surani and all the raag living 
  within it.
   THE ICE FORTRESSES
  After the Uprising, most of the surviving raag came back 
  to Heimis. The population became too large for such a 
  barren planet and starvation became a real threat. For the 
  first time, the High Council, the different War Councils, and 
  the Shadow Council came together to determine a solution 
  to the problem. After a long discussion, it was decided that 
  they would attempt to turn the asteroid belt around Heimis 
  into floating citadels that would then roam the galaxy in 
  search of food and other goods that were needed at Heimis. 
  For the next few years, all able hands were employed for 
  the task, and every large spaceship left by the Korian was 
  dismantled for parts that would later be installed on the as-
  teroids. The result was a fleet of giant spaceships the size 
  of cities, each capable of harboring hundreds of thousands 
  of raag. Every clan was given command over a few of the 
  fortresses and sent into the unknown. They would come 
  back every few years, their stores full of supplies essential 
  for the survival of the inhabitants of the planet.
  The ice fortresses have allowed the Raag to survive and 
  prosper, despite the harsh conditions of their home planet. 
  Each clan is responsible for the maintenance of their own 
  ice fortresses, which explains why the enginseers, who are 
  the only ones capable of repairing them, are held in such 
  high esteem.
  THE CLANS
  Raag males are extremely territorial, and the strongest 
  among them don’t bend to the will of others easily. It was in-
  evitable that, when so many of them were forced to live so 
  close, fights would arise for leadership. When the females 
  put a stop to the inner fighting, many of the alpha males 
  decided to split off from the community and establish their 
  own clan, and each took with him a large number of eager 
  followers. Thus, the different clans were born. In the begin-
  ning, the clans were composed solely of warriors and each 
  was led by a gladiator. However, the growing influence and 
  power of the Cult saw that they were also included among 
  the clan’s ranks. As time passed, the strongest clans grew 
  from small camps to small cities. Workers became a ne-
  cessity to maintain and expand the cities and so the clans 
  turned from small armies into small communities. The 
  weaker clans were eventually consumed by the others until 
  only five clans remained in control of most of the land on 
  Heimis. While there are still many minor clans, most of 
  them have nomadic lives, living on the surface of the planet 
  as hunters and following the movements of wild animals. 
  Many of these clans are composed of raag that never went 
  back to the Surani after their childhood.
  The members of the Kimora clan are known for their 
  physical strength, honor, and courage, and for despising 
  treachery, cowardice, and mindless violence. They are 
  the oldest and most respected clan; their influence and 
  authority is second only to the High Council. Even so, their 
  honorable ways and their concern for the well-being of the 
  Surani has secured them the support of the High Council in 
  most matters.
  While not the most numerous clan, they possess the 
  strongest army and their warriors are renowned for their 
  prowess in battle. Even the workers and other civilians are 
  given military training. They will sometimes work as mer-
  cenaries for the Corvo in exchange for vehicles, weapons, 
  and food, although they will always do so under their own 
  terms. 
  Ever since the Cult started gaining power, the Kimora 
  have disregarded them and attempted to limit their influ-
  ence and status. The distrust the Kimora feel towards the 
  Cult and their dislike for technology are only enhanced by 
  the knowledge that they need both to survive. For years, 
  the Kimora have tried to find an alternative to the Cult, but 
  the Cult’s culture of fear within the High Council has caused 
  them to prohibit the sharing of knowledge and technology 
  with other species. The Kimora are extremely careful when 
  
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  101
  choosing enginseers during the Culling, approaching only 
  those that have proven their worth, and even then, they 
  must pledge their loyalty to the clan as soon as they enter 
  it. Being chosen by the Kimora is a great honor and they 
  never lack enginseers among their ranks.
  The Eferi clan is both mysterious and powerful. It was 
  funded by members of the Shadow Council and, with the 
  support of the Cult, it quickly rose to become one of the 
  most prominent and feared clans. 
  The members of the Eferi are ambitious and shrewd, and 
  many raag who are invited to join the Eferi during the Culling 
  are trained by the Cult. The warriors in their midst are 
  usually smaller than those of other clans, but they make 
  up in cunning and technology what they lack in brute force. 
  Despite being the least numerous clan, their advanced 
  technology, mysterious ways, and their alliance with the 
  Cult have secured them a privileged status. They are led by 
  a War Council composed mainly of enginseers, although the 
  number of warriors in it keeps rising.
   It was through the Eferi that the Cult found a way to 
  grow and become something more than simple counselors, 
  advisors, and technicians. The Eferi became the means for 
  the Cult to fulfil their ambitions and achieve their goals. It 
  allowed them to expand by separating themselves from 
  their dependence on the Surani, and by allowing them 
  to recruit new members during the Culling, eventually 
  allowing them to command their own army and ice for-
  tresses. But as the Eferi grew and became more complex, 
  differences between them and the Cult arose, and they 
  were no longer comfortable being lackeys of the Cult. The 
  resulting power struggle hurt both of them, and they were 
  forced to acknowledge that they needed each other. An 
  alliance ensued in which both were considered equals.
  Ever since the Eferi was founded, they have been in 
  conflict with the Kimora, who look down on them and their 
  ways, and believe them to be nothing but pawns of the 
  Cult. The Eferi wish to take out the Kimora, the only clan 
  whose opinions carry more weight than those of the Cult 
  in the High Council, but they are aware of the risks of an 
  open battle with them and for now, only small skirmishes 
  between ice fortresses have taken place.
  The Noteri is composed of outcasts. Those who are not 
  approached by other clans during the Culling are given the 
  choice of joining the Noteri. Those who join understand the 
  implications and the price they are paying for being part of 
  the clan. They will be scorned by other clans for the rest 
  of their lives, but they will also be feared. The Noteri favor 
  smaller spaceships over the large ice fortresses, since they 
  are more suitable for their savage raids. They will attack 
  isolated colonies and ice fortresses of other clans, leaving 
  no survivors and nothing to implicate them, ensuring that 
  no retaliation can be taken against them. The members of 
  the Noteri are savage, ruthless, and fearless. They respect 
  nothing and they will stop at nothing to survive.
  The Noteri don’t have any establishments on Heimis. 
  Most of them live aboard their spaceships and those that 
  remain on Heimis will never stay in the same place for long, 
  to avoid being found by those in other clans. Their lack of 
  ice fortresses and land means their survival depends solely 
  on the success of their raids. As their numbers grow, they 
  become more aggressive and their hunger for power and 
  lust for battle leads them to more reckless raids, some of 
  them against planets of other species.
  They have frequent dealings with the Corvo, who find 
  their lack of morals very convenient. While they are not as 
  powerful as the Kimora, they are much more willing to do 
  dirty work in exchange for new ships and weapons and a 
  sizeable part of the loot.
  The Velada is the most populous clan, and almost one 
  third of the raag population belongs to it. The members 
  of the Velada are hard working and non-violent for raag 
  standards and most of them work as builders, artisans, or 
  farmers. Despite having a sizeable army, they show little 
  interest in warfare and use it only to protect their cities - es-
  pecially from Noteri raids (although being the largest clan 
  means that they will be the target of most other clans at 
  one point or another). This has led them to have frequent 
  
    MALIINA KILL. YOU DIE.” - MALIINA
  102
  The Raag
  dealings with the Kimora, who will offer additional protec-
  tion to their fleets and cities in exchange for the services of 
  their builders and artisans.
  They are the only clan to have established colonies on 
  other planets, where they produce large amounts of food 
  and have access to resources that cannot be found on 
  Heimis. Unlike the other clans, they are capable of pro-
  ducing everything they need and, since they don’t need to 
  roam the galaxy seeking resources, they can use their ice 
  fortresses solely to move resources between the colonies 
  and Heimis.
  The Velada have started to show a keen interest in the 
  enginseers during the Culling, as they have realized that 
  they can enhance the productivity of their colonies and 
  probably even improve the work of their builders and 
  artisans with their help. The Cult has seen this as an attack 
  against them that might risk their monopoly over technol-
  ogy, but they have been unable to do anything to stop it as it 
  has the full support of the High Council.
  The ���� is a small clan of explorers. Its members are 
  adventurous, curious, and so peaceful that during their 
  childhood, when most raag are forced to leave the Surani 
  due to their violent behaviour, they were allowed to remain 
  there. Despite that, most of those who join the Jino choose 
  to leave the Surani of their own will to venture into the 
  depths of the Crystal Abyss, their curiosity driving them to 
  explore the world around them. Bright and curious, many 
  of those who are chosen to be Jino have been trained by 
  the Cult.
  Most of their population lives aboard small ice fortress-
  es, and those that remain on Heimis live in small towns near 
  the Surani. Their ice fortresses will be gone for years at 
  a time, traveling deeper into the Labyrinth than any other 
  species has ever traveled. They are the only clan that has a 
  close and friendly relation with the Iz’kal, with whom they 
  trade knowledge of the Labyrinth in exchange for advanced 
  navigation technology and spaceships. Sometimes, they 
  will take groups of iz’kal explorers and scientists on their 
  travels, and some of their members have spent short 
  periods of time living in the State. 
  The Jino are the only clan that doesn’t have an army and 
  also the only clan not led by a War Council. The captains 
  of each ice fortress are the closest thing to a leader in the 
  clan and they are in charge of the administration of food 
  and resources for the entire clan. Still, most proposals and 
  decisions are submitted to a referendum in which every 
  member affected by it can vote. Since the different ice 
  fortresses are filled with like-minded raag who share the 
  same curiosities, the outcome of the referendums tends 
  to be pretty unanimous and those who voted otherwise 
  behave in a civil manner.
  
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  The Ravager
  103
  <HUD log 5027.3. Pvt 1c W. Jenkins/Chriton outpost/Torin 
  Prime sector/1st contact event> <audio playback on [tran-
  scription enabled]> 
  <00:00> We don’t know where the Ravager originated 
  since, by the time we fi rst encountered them, they had 
  mutated to the point where it was impossible to tell what 
  remained of the original creatures, if anything at all. <video 
  playback error [feed disabled/corrupted]> <01:24 feed con-
  tinues> Most of our current knowledge about them comes 
  from the few specimens that have been recovered from the 
  battle of Parsaius and from the clues that can be found on 
  the ravaged worlds they leave in their wake.
  For a long time, they were no more than a myth; they 
  were mere stories from space sailors and tradesmen, 
  who spoke of colonies and spaceships that had been found 
  abandoned, with no signs of life and with entire sections 
  that looked like they had been devoured whole.
  Of course, it was the Corvo who blamed the Iz’kal for the 
  disappearance of their colonies, and the Iz’kal retaliated by 
  blaming the Corvo when it happened to their own. Open war 
  became a real threat.
  Then came the onslaught. Creatures out of a nightmare, 
  in numbers that darkened the sky, fell upon Izuan Tai, the 
  economic center of the Corvo. The defenses of the planet 
  were overrun in a matter of minutes and those who tried to 
  escape the slaughter were hunted down. Only the fastest 
  spaceships managed to fi nd their way into the Labyrinth to 
  carry word of the attack back to the Corvosphere.
  One month later, a large corvo fl eet arrived 
  at Izuan Tai’s system. The reports of what they 
  found stills sends chills down my spine. The 
  planet had been engulfed by a strange looking 
  substance, and a closer look revealed that the 
  inhabitants of the planet were inside that sub-
  stance, trapped alive and being slowly digested. 
  Tendrils emerged from a large pool-like struc-
  ture on the surface of the planet, like roots 
  extending out of a tree, and they stretched 
  out as far as the eye could see into the 
  substance, pulsating as they carried the 
  digested matter of the corvo people back to 
  the processing pool, which was bubbling with activity.
  Despite their technological and military supe-
  riority, the fl eet was vastly outnumbered and 
  it quickly became clear that it was a battle 
  they couldn’t win. In a last act of courage 
  and desperation, the fl eet fought its way to the 
  surface 
  of the planet and blew it up, annihilating both sides and 
  releasing the prisoners of their terrible fate.
  It wasn’t long before another ravager fl eet was detected 
  approaching Parsaius, a large iz’kal colony. For the fi rst 
  time in history, the Iz’kal and the Corvo joined forces to 
  face a common threat, one that they both understood 
  could very well bring about the end of the known universe. 
  Despite the time they had to prepare for the attack and 
  the knowledge that they had gathered about their enemy 
  during the battle at Izuan Tai, the assault took a high toll in 
  lives. <video paused>
  <07:06> We had gained essential knowledge about our 
  common enemy, but the price we paid for it was far too 
  high. <end of line>
  THE SWARM
  <HUD log 5031.9. Pvt 1c W. Jenkins/Chriton outpost/Torin 
  Prime sector/3th contact event> <audio playback on [tran-
  scription enabled]> 
  <00:00> The Ravager live and die for their swarm, 
  which is the name given to each of their colonies. 
  Every swarm is ruled by a single queen, who 
  controls the actions of every other ravager in 
  the swarm. A swarm is as powerful as her 
  queen, and it’s sole purpose is to protect the 
  queen and help her evolve. 
  THE RAVAGER
  
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  Although the initial wave of attacks made it clear that dif-
  ferent swarms will sometimes collaborate, we have been 
  able to witness a fi ght between two swarms that ended up 
  in the victorious queen devouring the defeated one and the 
  losing swarm being completely annihilated.
  The swarms wander across the galaxy, consuming every 
  life form they come across and gathering their genetic 
  material, which is used by the queen to evolve and enhance 
  her capabilities, and, by extension, those of her progeny. 
  We have been enlightened as to how this genetic material is 
  obtained thanks to the reports from Izuan Tai. Despite my 
  unquenchable thirst for knowledge, this is one thing I wish I 
  never had to learn.
  DEVOURERS OF WORLDS
  <1:03> Once the swarm arrives at a planet, the queen 
  releases bacteria that quickly spread over its surface and 
  starts digesting its inorganic matter, turning it into a strange 
  substance that the ravager can feed on. Living organisms 
  are entombed within the substance, which keeps them 
  alive for as long as needed, until the tendrils that will carry 
  their DNA back to processing pools have had time to 
  reach them. It is at this moment 
  that the substance digests the 
  entombed creatures to extract 
  their DNA. The substance even-
  tually covers the entire planet, and as it expands, new 
  processing pools are created to keep up with the increasing 
  amount of genomes that need to be processed. The areas 
  that have been processed turn into spawning pools; the 
  nutrients of the deceased dwellers of the planet are used 
  to create new ravager. Once the entire planet has been pro-
  cessed, the swarm leaves it to look for a new planet. The 
  substance will continue to erode the surface of the planet, 
  so that a swarm that has taken heavy losses can go back to 
  one of these planets to quickly repopulate. We have been 
  able to use some of these planets to follow the trail of the 
  swarms, hoping to fi nd something that might help us stop 
  them, although we haven’t had much success so far. <end 
  of line>
  THE HIVEMIND
  <HUD log 5032.0. Pvt 1c W. Jenkins/Chriton outpost/
  Torin Prime sector/4th contact event> <audio playback on 
  [transcription enabled]> 
  <00:00> It is clear to me now that the queen controls 
  the actions of every other ravager in the swarm. We fi rst 
  noticed this during the battle of Parsaius, when we started 
  detecting strange and complex radio signals coming from 
  the ravager fl eet. We now know that every ravager is 
  capable of emitting and receiving radio signals through 
  which they communicate with each other over long distanc-
  es. Although this ability allows them to coordinate their 
  efforts and act as a single mind, it is also a weakness we 
  have been able to exploit, since distorting this signal seems 
  to confuse them for a short while. Even so, jamming these 
  signals is a complex task as they continuously change their 
  wavelength spectrum and quickly react when any inter-
  ferences affect them.
  Different ravager emit waves of different inten-
  sity and complexity. The most simple ravager emit 
  weak waves on a single frequency, whereas those 
  emitted by the queen are extremely complex. It 
  is through this mechanism that the hierarchy of 
  the ravager is established. Those that emit more 
  complex signals will be able to control those 
  that emit simpler signals, creating a clear power 
  structure in which the weaker links will follow 
  every command given to them, thus avoiding rogue 
  elements in the system. On the other hand, it also 
  means it is possible to detect the commanders of the 
  swarms by simply locating the source of the most 
  complex waves.
  ORGANIZATION                     
  OF THE SWARM 
  <00:41> The discovery of the hivemind 
  has allowed us to differentiate the different 
  
  “SOME FOOD IS NOISIER THAN OTHER.” -  
  The Ravager
  105
  ravager according to their role and importance. While the 
  queen is ultimately in control of everything that happens, 
  she will usually do so through other ravager, who act as 
  the link between her and the rest of the swarm. This has 
  led us to classify the different ravager into four levels, 
  the highest one being the queen and the lowest being the 
  spawns. The other two levels correspond to the heralds, 
  second to the queen, and the alterants.
  The Ravager Queen
  <01:03> The queen lives aboard the mothership, or rather, 
  she is the mothership, as her body is so deeply fused with 
  the ship’s structure that it is impossible to tell where one 
  ends and the other begins. We couldn’t find any traces of 
  a conventional body on the mothership we recovered from 
  the debris of Parsaius. The entire ship was made of differ-
  ent resins, some of which we haven’t been able to identify 
  yet. But what made us think of it as a living being was the 
  presence of nerve endings within the resin itself, along 
  with a circulatory system and some other traces of organs 
  embedded deeply within the structure of the ship. They all 
  seemed to originate from the core of the ship, where we 
  imagine the brain of the queen would be, but the core of 
  the mothership we recovered was too damaged to draw 
  any conclusions. <video playback error [feed disabled/cor-
  rupted]> < 2:14 feed continues> 
  Our current theory is that the queens are heralds that 
  have undergone a metamorphosis, shedding their previous 
  body and covering themselves in a biopolymer matrix that 
  eventually becomes the mothership. As the queens age, 
  their bodies grow and the motherships become larger, 
  which allows them to carry more ravager aboard them. At 
  the same time, their brains mature, increasing their power 
  as a hivemind and allowing them to keep more heralds 
  under control. That means that the age of the queen is 
  directly related to the size of the swarm and its power. 
  Older queens will try to eliminate the younger, weaker ones 
  to secure their long term survival, whereas young queens, 
  aware of their vulnerability, will collaborate in order to stay 
  alive. There is no available knowledge on the approximate 
  lifespan of a ravager queen.
  The Heralds of Extinction
  <02:48> The heralds are by and far the most dangerous 
  creatures in a ravager swarm. Known as the Heralds of 
  Extinction, they are impossibly fast and strong; their bodies 
  can alter their structure almost instantly, allowing them to 
  adapt to most situations and threats in a matter of seconds. 
  We believe they act as the link between the queen and her 
  proxies and spawns, thus allowing her to control the entire 
  swarm. The more heralds the queen can keep under her 
  control, the larger the swarm can become, but the queens 
  must be careful when spawning too many heralds, as they 
  will sometimes try to oppose the hivemind. When a queen 
  dies or is unable to keep the heralds under control, the 
  heralds will escape to start their own swarm or kill each 
  other and the queen so that they may take her place. 
  
    UNKOWN HERALD
  106
  faith rulebook
  The Ravager
  They are extremely intelligent and deceitful, and we 
  have encountered several ravager fleets led by heralds 
  (without any queen) that proved to be as difficult to deal 
  with as those that were led by a queen, although they were 
  considerably smaller in size. In spite of their great value to a 
  fleet, the heralds can often be found in the vanguard of the 
  ravager fleets, controlling everything and assisting where 
  needed. While easy to spot, they have proven extremely 
  hard to kill. When they enter battle, death follows.
  The Alterants
  <03:25> The alterants are in charge of the DNA harvest, 
  and of the spawning pools. They analyze the DNA samples 
  that are gathered, integrating those that prove valuable to 
  the genome of the queen, and they perform experiments 
  on some of the prisoners. They are rarely found on the 
  front lines and will usually remain near the queen until the 
  fighting is over and the first samples have been collected, a 
  time at which they will travel to the spawning pools to begin 
  working on the new specimens. 
  The alterants are the best protected members of the 
  swarm. Most of them can be found near the core of the 
  mothership, working in what I can only describe as labo-
  ratories filled with tanks, where specimens belonging to 
  different species can be found. Despite the poor state of 
  the specimens aboard the mothership we found, it was 
  evident that they had been subjected to terrible experi-
  ments and their bodies showed mutations so horrible that 
  it was hard to recognize even those that belonged to known 
  species.<video playback error [feed disabled/corrupted]> 
  <14:24 feed continues> 
  Alterants were initially known as proxies, since we 
  believed them to act as the link between the heralds and 
  the rest of the swarm, but it has become quite clear that 
  this is not a role they usually perform.
  Our initial assessment of their role as proxies came from 
  the analysis of their wave emission pattern, which is quite 
  complex, indicating they are probably able to control most 
  of the other members of the swarm. Even so, they seem to 
  have little interaction with them, focusing solely on their 
  research and experiments. Despite their frail appearance, 
  we know them to be resourceful and dangerous enemies 
  perfectly capable of handling themselves in combat.
  The Spawns
  <14:51> The spawns refer to a broad variety of creatures, 
  each with unique characteristics and abilities. We have 
  included in this group all the remaining ravager, since, 
  although the different creatures in the group don’t have 
  anything in common and their wave emission patterns 
  are quite different from each other, they all have a highly 
  specific role within the swarm and display a rather basic 
  intellect. Although the appearance and traits of the spawns 
  can vary from one swarm to the next (and even within the 
  same swarm depending on the environment they were 
  designed for), the essential attributes of each kind of spawn 
  will remain the same. This tells us that they either all origi-
  nated from the same queen not too long ago or that the 
  different swarms collaborate more than we had originally 
  believed, sharing with each other useful genomes that they 
  have come across. <end of line>
  <HUD log 5034.7. Pvt 1c W. Jenkins/Chriton outpost/Torin 
  Prime sector/7th contact event> <audio playback on [tran-
  scription enabled]>
  <00:03> I fear this might be my last entry. They seem to 
  be onto us. None of our spy drones is operative anymore. 
  <video playback error [feed disabled/corrupted]> <0:21 
  feed continues>  ...illed. He asked me not to bring him with 
  me to this expedition. I told him I needed him. It is my fault. 
  Not theirs, not his, but mine. They do not understand what 
  they do, They are but mere mindless predators. 
  They also got Chao and Kiata a few hours ago. I have 
  not seen their helmet feeds, but Lee has confirmed they 
  are down. I hope their sacrifice was for something, I hope 
  people will understand the danger we are facing as a 
  species. These creatures stop for nothing. 
  I have got to go now. Our ship is not responding, We have 
  to EVA and figure out what is wrong with it. I will connect 
  again as soon as I get back. <end of line><last diary entry 
  [press OK to create a new entry].>
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Faith/FAITH - The Sci-Fi RPG - Lore.pdf