INTRIGUE

The Septs of Bastion are powerful noble factions, most of them centuries old. Each sept commands its own resources, voidships, and armies. Alliances rise and fall, feuds simmer for centuries, and all owe fealty to the Sovereign.

Sept Alzareen

Holdings: Tharkestra, Sentry (sub-moon of Tharkestra)

Current Head: Empress Selisandra Alzareen, formerly called Sorceress Selise

Heraldry: A violet tower flanked by twin suns

Known For: Unseating previous sovereign, magical prowess, powerful fleet of warships

Sept Alzareen of Tharkestra, the current Sovereign, boasts a large fleet and the most capable mancers in the Known Orbits. Perhaps most feared are the Fadeless, Alzareen’s mancer royal guard and secret police. Fadeless agents operate throughout the Known Orbits, working against Alzareen’s political opponents. The Sovereign is currently ruled by Empress Selisandra, a young woman fifth in the line of succession. The civil conflict on Tharkestra involving the heir apparent and the regent empress (known as the Tharkestran War of Succession) left the sovereign seat to Selise, the emperor’s daughter. She was coronated two years before the arrival of the Harbinger.

Sept Inuwa

Holdings: Verloren (formerly)

Current Head: Lady Anwen Inuwa, commonly called Lady Swiftblade

Heraldry: A green tree, split down its center with an orange flame at its heart

Known For: Reverence of the wilds, fast attack stealth ships, loss of homeland

With the destruction of their homeworld, Verloren, Sept Inuwa and its shattered population live as refugees, surviving in a migrant fleet of Verloren voidships. Spiritual, reverent people, they feel the Breath no more, as their homeworld breathed its last with the arrival of the Harbinger. Lady Swiftblade, the current matriarch of the house, rules from the command deck of the Last Breath, Inuwa’s flagship.

Sept Ruldo

Holdings: Ozen

Current Head: Lord Kirezan Ruldo the Deathless

Heraldry: A golden eel wrapped around a spear

Known For: Ironbone merchants and artisans, skilled sailors, shrewd businessmen

The ruling house of Ozen, Ruldo are shrewd fishermen and merchants who deal in ironbone from the hard-headed giant eels that populate their acidic seas. The massive ironbone eels are valued for their durable yet flexible bones, used in the construction of building materials and armor (as well as the art of scrimshaw). Lord Kirezan the Deathless, the current patriarch of the house, is the oldest-living nobleman in the septs, having lived for more than 150 years. Due to his age and ailing health, he is confined to a throne of ironbone, fed refined blue astra intravenously at all hours of the day.

Sept Grimarr

Holdings: Arganas

Current Head: Lord Fell Grimarr Ravoksbane, commonly called Warcaller

Heraldry: A white battleaxe cleaving a mountain in two

Known For: Survival instinct, prowess with melee weapons, unmatched mercenary army

A house of noble mercenary warriors and reckless magic-users, Grimarr rules the savage, icy moon of Arganas. Known for their fierce soldiers, who often eschew firearms in favor of melee weapons, Arganas lends their military might to the highest bidder in times of conflict between septs. They most recently became entangled in the Tharkestran War of Succession. Lord Fell, called Warcaller by his people, wears armor of ravok hide. He reportedly killed the ravok himself with his axe as a young man, though there are many who doubt this feat.

Sept Larkin

Holdings: The Drift Market, Terminus Dusk (rumored)

Current Head: The Council of Drifting Kings

Heraldry: Three hexagons of gold, silver, and brass, crossed over one another

Known For: Owners and operators of Drift Market, known slavers, wealthy merchants

The merchant kings of the Known Orbits, Sept Larkin makes no claim on a moon. Instead, they rule the Drift Market, a massive floating installation of cobbled-together voidship hulls, retrofitted into a traveling, celestial bazaar. The Larkins are wealthy in both glint and resources, and deal in refined astra, weapons, armor, ammunition, voidships, barrowmechs, human slaves, and even relics from the Harbinger itself. Sept Larkin has no singular head, but rather is led by a council of noblemen who each oversee a different aspect of the Drift Market’s infrastructure.

Sept Wyloth

Holdings: Graef

Current Head: Lady Nurm Wyloth, commonly called Queen of Graves

Heraldry: Black silhouette of a skeletal strix

Known For: Scavengers, robbers of tombs, trainers of birds, obsession with death

The meager house of Wyloth is not a particularly well known or well respected sept. Winners of no wars, owners of little wealth, Wyloth is a house far removed from the power struggles that grip greater septs – and they prefer it that way. Wyloth takes pride in their hermitage, in their steadfast resolution to survive on the harsh, storm-wracked world of Graef, riddled with its ruins. Wyloth navigates the plunging canyons and sunken ruins of its moon using strix – large, hyper-intelligent owl-like birds with keen insight and an affinity for the dead. Wyloth too, has a strange obsession with death, and seemingly worship the concept. Many necrotechs originate from Sept Wyloth and the moon of Graef.

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