Onyx Reach

Our Truths

• Cataclysm: Sun plague, origin unclear, accounts differ, many are religious rather than scientific
• Exodus: When the Exodus fleet set off on a ponderous journey to a new home outside our galaxy, they marked the Forge as their destination. Countless generations lived out their lives aboard those titanic ships during the millennia-long passage.
  • The fleet arrived in the Forge 200 years ago.
  • While the Exodus fleet was in transit, scientists developed the Eidolon drive, but it couldn't be retrofitted to the huge generation ships. It has enabled us to rapidly begin exploring the Forge.
• Communities: Dangers abound, but there is safety in numbers. Many ships and settlements are united under the banner of one of the Founder Clans.
• Iron: Iron vows are sworn upon the remnants of ships that carried our people to the Forge.
• Laws: Laws and governance vary across settled domains, but bounty hunters are given wide latitude to pursue their contracts. Their authority is almost universally recognized, and supersedes local laws.
• Religion: Our faith is as diverse as our people.
• Magic: Supernatural powers are wielded by those rare people we call paragons, caused by evolutionary mutations.
• Communication and data: Information is life. We rely on spaceborne couriers to transport messages and data across the vast distances between settlements. The Forge has relatively thick gas clouds and interstellar radio is notably unreliable. The is no FTL communication system. Ships sync up comms when they arrive.
• Medicine: To help offset a scarcity of medical supplies and knowledge, the resourceful technicians we call riggers create basic organ and limb replacements.
• Artificial Intelligence: We no longer have access to advanced computer systems. Instead, we must rely on the seers we call Adepts. We have lost the knowledge to create and maintain AI.
• War: Professional soldiers defend or expand the holdings of those who are able to pay. The rest of us are on our own.
• Life: This is a perilous and often inhospitable galaxy, but life finds a way.
• Precursors: Over eons, a vast number of civilizations rose and fell within the Forge. Today, the folk we call grubs—scavenger crews and audacious explorers—delve into the mysterious monuments and ruins of those ancient beings.
• Horrors: Put enough alcohol in a spacer, and they’ll tell you stories of ghost ships crewed by vengeful undead. It’s nonsense.

Setting

We're in the Outlands, in the Onyx Reach sector.

PCs

• Jason - Leehau Baxton - Lost his wife and two children, explores the void because on an unknown world, nothing will make him think of his dead family.
  • Naturalist
  • Navigator
• Gary - Johan McInnes - Last survivor of one the Exodus ships that didn't make it. He has vague memories of shipboard life.
  • Brawler
  • Vestige
• Jake - Jeb Slenson - Burnt-out ex merc, looking for inner peace, or maybe love. He was a well-known member of his mercenary troop, saw one buddy too many killed, and deserted.
  • Veteran
  • Explorer
• Tim - Gristle McThornbody - Merc with a medical discharge, trying to find a new profession.
  • Mercenary
  • Augmented
• Lisa - Geneva Alarif - 20-something, wanted to be a doctor, kinda sorta forced to leave med school,
  • Healer
  • Empath
• Joe - Dex Quint, ambitious guy looking to make some fast money
  • Lore hunter
  • Scavenger