January 2, 2025
Hi everyone,
Every week we're highlighting the lore of a few factions for each of our games, and this week we're focusing on Grimdark Future factions!
Human Inquisition
"The Human Inquisition is a secret organization of investigators, psychics, assassins, fanatics, and other misfits dedicated to protecting humanity in Sirius. The Human Inquisition tends to fight alongside other forces, deploying highly trained specialists to achieve their mysterious goals.
Originally, the inquisition was established as diplomatic contacts and investigators within the scattered human colonies of Sirius. They came to rely on secrecy, vigilantism, and other underhanded methods, in order to gather information and neutralize threats. Their dubious reputation has made them pariahs to some, but the Inquisition continues to carry out their work of protecting humanity.
The rise of a messianic figure known to history as the Founder resulted in a devastating war that soon engulfed Earth and its colonies. As the war grew more devastating, many survivors began to seek a means to escape. A desperate group of refugees commandeered the Founder’s own flagship in order to escape the conflict, leading a fleet of like-minded survivors. They were pursued by the Founder’s forces until they were lost and scattered by the sudden appearance of a wormhole which brought them to Sirius.
The Blessed Sisters formed shortly after humanity arrived in Sirius, hoping to aid the human colonies and resist the followers of the Conduit. However, the Sisters themselves spent most of their time training and living in monastic isolation. To remedy this, they began to send out investigators and envoys to gather intelligence, and learn how the Sisters could best aid their allies. These individuals came to be known as the Inquisition, working to uncover threats and call on the help of the Sisters when needed.
Whilst these investigators sought to help humanity, many human colonies were wary of these groups, and tried to isolate them. The Inquisition began to hire their own agents, operating in secret, using bribery, and building hidden alliances to carry out their objectives. They used their connections to carry out secretive occult and scientific research to discover more about the Sirius Sector, as well as other threads like the Havoc Gods.
The Blessed Sisters eventually discovered the extent of their Inquisition’s hidden influence and conspiracies, and denounced this as overreach, fearing that they might lose the trust of the very colonies that they sought to protect. The Inquisition refused to disband however, claiming they had only done what was necessary. Instead, they severed their official connections with the Sisters and began to train their own agents, including specialized assassins, to deal with high level threats instead of relying on the Sisters.
The Inquisition maintains hidden ties within a number of human factions, even amongst the Battle Brothers who they had once been formed to oppose. Their unchecked zealousness has caused problems due to false leads or misplaced suspicions, but has also been vital revealing a number of troubling threats, such as the Infected scourge, Havoc worshipers, and Soul-Snatcher cults.
How will you protect humanity from the shadows?"
Ratmen Clans
"Ratmen Clans are humanoid rats, originally created as an accidental byproduct of advanced genetic science. Lacking the organization and skill of other factions, Ratmen clans use their vast numbers and a variety of weapons to defeat their foes.
As Ratmen emerged to their creators as sentient beings, they were greeted with fear and violence, and they were forced into a life of hiding and scavenging until they could flee their home world. Now that they finally found safety on secluded and abandoned worlds, where their numbers rapidly grew, they seek to help others even as many in Sirius still view them as vermin.
Soon after their arrival in Sirius, the Conduit’s followers turned to genetic experimentation to adapt to the challenges of their new reality. Their scientists began testing on the rodents who had stowed away in their fleet, but they had to make due with their rather limited number of test subjects, reusing them multiple times over a number of tests.
These test subjects began to grow, developing increased reaction time and strength compared to typical rats. Some scientists began to report signs of collaboration, tool use, and even communication among the rodents. Rumours began to spread about subjects escaping the laboratories. These reports were ignored and dismissed by superiors who were desperate for further advances to be made to the Battle Brother gene-mods.
Feral colonies of rats began to form outside of the labs, where the descendants of the original test subjects continued to grow in size and intelligence. The resulting species had become fully sapient and gradually emerged to greet their creators as equals. The humans who created them, however, viewed them with horror and revulsion, and the Ratmen were driven into hiding as Humanity hunted them as vermin and failed test subjects.
The Ratmen soon decided to flee off world rather than risk destruction if they were discovered. They began to raid less defended ships and scrap heaps in order to slowly assemble a fleet. Yet before they left, the Ratmen agreed that they could not escape and leave the other rats to their fate. Together, the Ratmen launched a raid on the laboratories where they were created, and despite heavy casualties, they escaped with the surviving test subjects.
The fleeing Ratmen fleet found a remote and uninhabited system, where they could build a new home for themselves. Some decided to stay there and remain hidden from the Battle Brothers and those like them. Others decided that they no longer wished to hide from the galaxy. Instead, these Ratmen formed into family-run clans on their ships and began to explore the stars.
As the Ratman clans encountered other factions, they began to recognize their own former plight in those oppressed or imprisoned by other factions. The Clans use their skills to help others escape, or otherwise sabotage those they view as oppressors, and some factions have come to view them as foes and vermin, to be actively sought out for destruction.
How will you survive in a sector that views you as vermin?"
Machine Cult
"The Machine Cult are a faction of humans who have sought to enhance their bodies with machinery to become something greater. These enhancements have allowed them to become a highly specialized army with a great deal of mobility, giving them an edge in rough environments.
These cults have embraced the inevitable transcendence of machines, and work to merge themselves with their machines, but this process has caused them to become isolated and outcast from the rest of humanity. Despite their faith and patience, the promise of transcendence still eludes them even after centuries of devotion.
The Machine Cult trace their origins to old Earth. Their cult has long believed that the advancement of technology is inevitable and eventually humanity itself will be surpassed by the machine in an event called the Singularity, which would have absolute power to determine the fate of humanity. The Cult believes that only by embracing the machine can humanity remain relevant, and their cult rejected the Founder and his plan for humanity, believing that his genetic enhancements were mere distractions from the inevitable machine Singularity. The Founder in turn banned their cult, and as a result, many Machine Cultists eagerly joined the refugee fleet.
When humanity arrived in Sirius, the Machine Cult and its members were scattered throughout many of the surviving colonies. Though far apart, they were united in their faith and their fascination with augmentation. The Cult gained adherents from those who believed that their upgrades were the best way to adapt to new worlds. Driven on by discoveries in Sirius and trade with newly encountered species, the Machine Cult began to augment themselves in ways which could not have been imagined previously.
As augmentation became more easily obtained, many of its adherents began to augment themselves beyond anything that they were capable of on Earth, seeking to embrace the machine in new ways. As they did so, the adherents of the cult began to grow apart from other colonists. Others began to see the Cult and their followers as strange and inhuman. Some even began to leave the cult, embittered by augmentation failures or haunted by a feeling that they had lost some part of humanity.
As a result, the Machine Cult began to petition the Great Human Alliance for settlement rights. Their augmentations and robots allowed them to settle a number of inhospitable worlds which were otherwise not suited for settlements. The Machine Cult’s detachment and isolation meant that few were surprised when the Cult demanded independence from the Alliance. The Alliance were not interested in resettling or occupying the worlds the Cult had claimed and saw little to gain from war, and as such, the Machine Cults gained their final independence diplomatically, rather than through war.
The Machine Cults still maintain their eternal vigil, awaiting the transcendence of technology and the ascension of the machine. Their forces search throughout the Sector, seeking hidden and lost technologies that might help this come about or allow them to more fully embrace the machine.
How will you guide your people towards the Singularity?"
Infected Colonies
"Infected Colonies are settlements infected by a mysterious parasites with a mind of their own. Most common in human colonies, the infected subjects undergo a series of mutations and changes.
The parasites initially existed relatively harmlessly on their world until human colonists arrived. As it infected humans, the parasites gained sapience, and as the infection spread, it gradually came to understand that its hosts were also sapient creatures. This realization caused the Infection to fragment into strains, with each branch struggling to come to terms with the idea that their species requires death in order to survive.
The Infected Colonies story begins when the parasites’ home world was scouted out by a human expedition, and chosen for colonisation. The parasites managed to spread quickly through the colony, evading discovery until far too late, and erasing their hosts’ consciousness. As the last signs of human life on the colony faded out, the parasites gained a new level of intelligence through their hosts. With this, they realised they could now spread beyond their world and into the stars
From their home world, the parasites managed to spread along human maintained trade lines, infecting a number of ships and spreading throughout the Sirius Sector, before a quarantine could be enforced. Soon, there were many different Infected Colonies through the Sirius Sector. As the infection spread, they gradually came to understand their own nature better, and how their procreation required the death of not just living, but sentient creatures, if it wished to continue to grow and understand itself.
Once discovered, the Infected Colonies became a source of curiosity for some of the Robot Legions, who would reach out to them without fear of infection. The Robots soon came to understand that the parasites that made up the Infected Colonies, while strange, were intelligent and not inherently hostile. Both species sought to understand their place in the galaxy, though unlike the Robot Legions, the birth of a new symbiote always required the death of some host.
As the Infected Colonies came to understand their potential hosts as more than prey, their views began to splinter. Some did not care about the feelings of their hosts and carried on as they had before, while others sought a means to co-exist. Many Colonies have come to believe that it is their place to choose hosts that are deserving of death so that new life may blossom instead, seeking out raiders, tyrants, and others whom they believed they could offer redemption to, by seizing their bodies and using them for good. A number of desperate worlds also sought out infection deliberately, offering to guide them towards future hosts who are in need of redemption, and bring balance back to the galaxy.
How will your colony bring redemption to Sirius?"
Titan Lords
"The Titan Lords are massive robotic walkers commanded by the idle rich. These bored members of the upper classes wage war from mobile fortresses and view the battlefield as their playground.
Few in number, the Titan Lords usually offer their services as mercenaries, but on the rare occasions when they fight together, their armies of massive walkers are a spectacle to behold. With little fear of consequences for their actions, Titan Lords often wander from one battlefield to the next, seeking some sort of thrill or purpose that is lacking in their pampered lives.
Within a relatively short time, humanity has managed to build up a large industrial base in their colonies throughout the Sirius Sector, and most of these are owned by a handful of powerful companies. This has created a class with wealth far beyond that of Earth prior to the civil war. Some amongst this elite class began to grow restless in their comfortable lives, and these elites formed mercenary corps. Many however became discontent with the risks involved and the discipline of mercenary life, even from the relative comfort of leadership.
A few of the most powerful military companies collaborated to create a new weapon of war which would allow the operators to remain in relative comfort and safety. These mobile fortresses were called Titans. A number of wealthy colonists began to commission these Titans privately, and the owners of these new super-weapons began to style themselves as Titan Lords. The Titan Lords are able to go into battle in relative comfort, eager to claim glory and victory. They view war as sport and lend their services to anyone who could afford their demands for unique luxuries, contracts and valuables.
A sort of code of honour has developed amongst Titan Lords, detailing how one must act in every interaction. These range from expectations of how a Titan Lord ought to dress, to how they ought to spend their earnings. Using the earnings of battle to enrich oneself further is seen as vulgar and a sign of insufficient wealth and nobility. Perhaps most importantly to the Lords, a complicated system of heraldry has been developed to ensure that pilots and their Titans are easily recognized.
Some Titan Lords seek to be acclaimed for their heroism, taking on dangerous jobs for relatively little pay in hopes of gaining fame and love for their valour. Of course, these noble heroes rarely deal well with those who refuse to recognize their selfless heroism. Other Titan Lords view this as a childish desire for praise and care far less for the rabble. These Lords are content to take any work, so long as they can experience the thrill of battle.
How will you use your supremacy over the battlefield?"
That's it for our Grimdark Future lore focuses, you now have a basic overview of all the factions, and much more is soon to come.
We hope you enjoyed these articles, and we can't wait to share more lore and keep expanding the world of Grimdark Future. :)
Happy Wargaming!
– OPR Team
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