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Official Campaign Lore

The Planet

Plutonoe is an earth-sized planet, its northern hemisphere mainly covered in scattered islands due to low tectonic activity not causing land masses to rise. The climate is generally colder than earth, with the north of the planet covered by the only large continent, which is in turn mostly cold desert.

The southern half of the planet is almost devoid of habitable land, being mostly ocean. This makes the northern hemisphere quite crowded and competitive...


The People

The native inhabitants of Plutonoe are virtually indistinguishable from earth humans, aside from metabolic differences making them more suited to survive a cold, flooded world. Whether there is any connection to earth or worlds like Neter is unknown.


The Nations

1. Hawa Confederacy

The Hawa Confederacy has its origins in the ancient diplomatic relations forged between rival tribes, with meetings traditionally occurring on the islands called 'Badger and Fox'. Over time, the threat of foreign powers and the economic benefits caused this loose assemblage of tribal groups to form into a larger and more sophisticated military and economic alliance, which has resulted in the modern Confederacy.
The Confederacy is a strange mixture of primitive and advanced technology. Since the islands of their homeland are rich in forests but lacking in metals and minerals, their primary building material for all their assets - from cutlery to jet fighters - is wood. This is aided by the fact that there are thousands of different tree species at their disposal, many of them fast-growing enough to be harvested in huge quantities. The scarcity of minerals also lends itself to their weaponry: they can manufacture explosives and incendiaries in huge quantities from volatile materials derived from organic matter, but hardened armor-piercing projectiles are not feasible for them to manufacture on a large scale.
Their lack of metallic armor for their ships is a real handicap for their standing as a world power, but they have disproportionately good understanding of engines and organic fuels which make their planes and airships far more formidable.

Hawa Confederacy Members

Mangrove Tribes
The oldest political force within the Hawa Confederation (though no longer the most powerful), and the most traditionally-minded. Controls Wekland, the poorest region that relies mainly on a civilian militia for defence. Most vehicles produced by them are ramshackle, with lots of raw wood, and they cannot afford to maintain planes or airships. Notable examples of their contribution to the Confederacy military include the Commodity and the Urtis.

Cult of the Dryad
The dominating religious authority of the Confederacy, claiming to worship ancient tree spirits. Despite claiming to have originated in ancient times, the Cult is actually quite a recent development in the Confederacy's history, a merging of many folk religion traditions into a unified religious organization. They also have been criticized for negatively affecting the wood trade, saturating the market with some woods and protesting the sale of others that they regard as sacred. One of the most notable actions that the Dryads do is to plant living plants on structures and vehicles. While it is common practice in the Confederacy to put plants on buildings and ships for good luck, the Dryads take it to the extreme: they have been known to transplant entire mature trees onto the craft they build. Their strictly controlled monopoly on the cultivation of the tree species that survive well on ships and airships (growing primarily in the central region of Ardjen) means that they are by far the wealthiest people within the Confederacy, although they don't have the greatest industrial capacity. Examples of their craft include the Drosera and Rosaceae.

Skyhall Guild
The primary manufacturer of airships for the Confederacy, the Guild is highly militarized and wealthy with sleek pale airships and makes up most of the Hawa professional military. Controlling Homshall (the main island that borders the Amphitaswa), many of them have connections within the Cult of the Dryad, but also employ renegade scientists from other nations that construct outlandish and ridiculous craft and weaponry. Examples of their work include the Previr, Myosotis, and Cymbocitra.

Oaken Admiralty
The Admiralty is a group within the Cofederacy whose rise to prominence was made possible by an outside group: the Sewowal Republic. Bordering the Republic on the Island of Wadurland, years of salvaging shipwrecks has meant that they have become the dominant shipbuilders of the Confederacy. Because of technological and cultural exchange with the Republic, they have much more formidable ships compared to the to the rest of the Hawa. Being the most secular of the Hawa population, they are suspicious of the Cult of the Dryad (and compete with them for recruitment and influence in Wekland) but have a friendly respect and rivalry with the Skyhall Guild. Examples of their naval engineering are the Tachyandra and Agathis.

2. Amphitaswa Alliance

Effectively founded as a rival to the Hawa Confederation out of various transient groups and merchant companies, the Amphitaswa Alliance has staked out a place on the world stage through a willingness to operate where no other desire to. In particular their main stage of operations is in the Reriswal Swamp, an unpleasant expanse of saltwater tidal flats that most sensible cargo ships would not dare venture into.
This entrepreneurial spirit (and hunger for profit) is a defining trait of the Alliance: if there is a way to make money from it, they are going to find it. They also have developed in a remarkably short time a strong belief in perseverance and versatility, which means that their focus on amphibious vehicles (which started as a necessity in the shallow, unpredictable waters of their homeland) has become an obsession. Despite their rejection of conventional ships in favor of hovercraft and amphibious vehicles, they have more than any other faction explored the hostile ocean south of the equator. Mostly these expeditions have discovered various kinds of fish, but the optimism of a nation exploring an ocean with tracked vehicles cannot be underestimated.

Amphitaswa Members

Tawam AquaMechanics Incorporated (T.A.I.)
Founded by the formidable pioneer Guwho Litawa, TAI is one of the oldest and most respected manufacturers of both civilian and military vehicles in the Alliance. TAI takes great pride in producing the vast majority of the amphibious cars, trucks, trains and tanks that the Alliance uses day to day. Recently TAI has expanded into the small but fast -growing market of legged vehicles, given promising success shown by Glacave designs. The board of directors approved the decision not only for potential increased profit and expansion of the company, but for the satisfying irony of stealing ideas from Glacave for once, as the technocratic Dominion continually engages in frustrating and annoying industrial espionage.
The TAI catalog of military vehicles for purchase includes the famously cheap and reliable Geck, and the formidable Kaprosuchus.

Haap Aeronautics Systems (H.A.S.)
Where even amphibious vehicles cannot go, flying vehicles are needed. HAS has recently outpaced and outmanouvred other aeronautics manufacturers within the Alliance, securing the majority of contracts for manufacturing aircraft of all kinds. Concerns about their dismissal of the usefulness of large airships in favor of smaller planes and helicopters were dismissed by their CEO Shelith Ipla, as she pointed out that smaller aircraft were faster and more economical, able to match the cost of larger Hawa airships while running literal circles around them. She did not comment on the possibility of Glacave airships being a possible threat.
The HAS coporation has produced many vehicles, including the Bulldog Bat and the Meadowhawk.

Tathahaithrom Advanced Aerial Vehicles (T.A.A.V.)
Started by the eccentric Hobr brothers (Tathah and Hota), prompted with the pair of mechanics winning a 50 dollar bet that they could make a 3 ton truck hover. TAAV has in recent years become the fastest growing corporation within the Alliance, their hovering armored vehicles being the envy of the world (particularly the Glacave Dominon, who promptly stole a number of blueprints and claimed full credit for the resulting derived creations).
The brothers originally named their new company Tathahaithrom Advanced Industries, but a costly legal battle with the already established Tawam AquaMechanics Incorporated over the identical acronym of the two companies resulted in the renaming of the company.
TAAV is the sole producer of Amphitaswa hover AFVs, notably the Dartfrog hovertank and the Monitor guided missile platform.

3. Sewowal Republic

The unexpected rise of the Glacave Dominion as a political, economic and military upstart on Plutonoe had the unexpected effect of causing two former rivals to unite: the frozen land of Owal, and the boreal forest region of Sewa. The Sewa-Owal Alliance went as far as to merge their administrations, government and militaries to better counter the ideological threat from the east. In time, they became popularly known by a new name: the Sewowal Republic.
The Sewowal Republic is a democracy, and proudly boasts of how its citizens are represented in free elections that date back to the days of the signing of the alliance... but in truth, it is a failing democracy. The same corporate behind-the-scenes dealing that resulted in the formation of the republic also has caused increasing levels of corruption over time, with elections being constantly rigged with the power of absolutist leaders and private military lobbyists being virtually unchecked behind the scenes.
Sewowal culture tends to be conservative but practical, favouring combined arms and traditional ship and aircraft building while pushing the boundaries of their technology as far as possible. This focus on being practical, combined with their larger population size, is what allows them to hold the line against the more technologically advanced and outlandish Dominion and against the erratic threat of the Stonelight Presence.

The Two Sealions/Sewowal Republic Subfactions
The two former nations that make up the present day republic still have distinct culture, identities and military design preference.

Owal
The rugged, cold region of Owal has made for grim, pragmatic people who favour rugged and tough craft to hold the line against Glacave and the Stonelight. Examples of such craft include the Misericorde and Sigismunde battleships, and the Ivoropteryx heavy bomber.

Sewa
The far more mild climate of Sewa lends itself more to experimentation, and as such the more laid-back and fast-talking Sewans favour designs which favour speed, efficiency and stealth. Such vehicles include the Type 80 stealth boat and the Piorun fighter jet.

Sewowal Special Operations Agency
The Sewowal Special Operations agency, or "S.S.O", is the primary intelligence and special forces apparatus of the Sewowal Republic. Founded as a countermeasure to repeated espionage and infiltration attempts by the Glacave Dominion, the S.S.O has rapidly grown in both funding and influence in light of growing international tensions and the unexpected threat to the north.
Despite not technically being part of the Sewowal military chain of command, the S.S.O possesses some of the most technologically advanced assets the Republic has ever produced, most notably their stealth craft and orbital "surveillance" satellite's which (despite the official government position of denial) absolutely posses precision orbital strike capability against targets both outside of Sewowal and (as the agency's critics often point out) within.
Example craft: Triton Stealth ship, Nightingale Superiority Fighter, Aquarius Satellite.

4. Glacave Dominion

Glacave used to be a backwater, a nowhere country of ice and freezing saltwater ruled by a decadent aristocracy. All that changed on the night of the revolution, when malcontent middle class intellectuals whipped people into a frenzy, murdered the wealthy and influential in their own homes and dangled them by their ankles from the roofs of their burning mansions. The revolutionary leaders promised that a utopia of science, reason and equality awaited... but in only a few short years that dream had become a nightmare of censorship, repression and technological advancement of the few at the expense of the many.
The modern Glacave Dominion is an extreme socialist state, with strict minimum and maximum incomes set for every citizen and all property and infrastructure owned by the government. Their corruption is surprisingly minimal for such a system lacking checks and balances, but this is due to a constantly rotating cast of leaders vying for position and attempting to cast themselves as the most reputable of scientific revolutionaries. The secret police - the Doma - is silently feared by everyone for their ability to check whether such claims are backed by honesty... and they are apathetic to collateral damage that occurs as a result of their investigation.
The Glacave Dominion are big fans of practicality and science, even if they treat their own citizens extremely poorly. They have a thriving art and culture... that the government maintains an iron grip on. They have splendid winter resorts and hotels... that have a strict rotation of who is allowed to visit at what time. They have an excellent medical system with some of the most skilled surgeons and cyberneticists in the world... which will plant listening devices into the jawbones of their citizens without their knowledge or consent.
The Dominion endlessly brags about their scientific superiority over other nations, especially the Sewowal Republic. This is in large part true, as much of their technology was developed by them exclusively, but the rapid pace of technological advancement has slowed down in recent times. This has motivated them to increase their theft of ideas, blueprints, and even prototype vehicles and researchers from other nations in order to keep up appearances.
Glacave craft are often bizarre by the standards of other nations. Shallow seas that are frequently littered with icebergs make ships unreliable in their territorial waters, and so like their Amphitaswa neighbours to the south they favour amphibious, hovering and flying vehicles. The general paranoia and desire to show off their technological process has resulted in strict protocols to make every craft as versatile as possible, with many different weapon systems on each craft.

The Design Bureaus/Glacave Dominion Subfactions
Given their (somewhat hypocritical) fondness for science, the Dominion maintains multiple separate design bureaus for the design of military technology, with rivalries between them deliberately stoked for the best results.

Bureau of Knowledge Acquisition
Formerly a minor bureau dedicated to industrial espionage, the BKA has greatly increased its standing in recent years through the theft of hovertank and walker technology from the Amphitaswa Alliance (something that the Alliance is greatly irked by but is unable to do anything about). The Perforator hovertank and Gerrack walker are among their earlier successes.

Bureau of Vehicular Manslaughter Innovation
This venerable bureau has designed many of the amphibious vehicles for the Dominion, claiming greater efficiency and ground-control over hovering and flying craft. The Axehead and Ornithologist heavy tanks are among their designs.

Bureau of Astronomy Advancement
Obsessed with space to a disturbing degree, the BAA managed to persuade party leaders to mount their signature dual-purpose laser telescope on resource-gathering installations, resulting in them being popularly (and sarcastically) dubbed 'Observaties'. They also have had great input into the fearsome Entropy and Atom spacecraft.

Bureau of Aeronautic Solutions
If it flies, this bureau probably had a hand in its design somewhere or at the very least tried to take credit. Such designs include the Sympagic fighter jet and the flight systems of the infamous Permian airship.

Bureau of Biomechanical Sciences
This bureau claims that evolution, through billions of years of trial and error, provides the perfect solutions for any problem. Rival bureaus claim that they are just obsessed with legs of all kinds, hence their construction of extravagant mechs like the Anvil.

5. Stonelight Presence

The people of Plutonoe speak rarely of the Stonelight Presence, and when they do it's in nervous, hushed tones. Originating from an extraterrestrial object that crashed far inland in the virtually uninhabited continent of Aninewe, the impact was initially dismissed as a minor asteroid strike.
That is, until scientific expeditions from both the Sewowal Republic and the Glacave Dominion disappeared without a trace when they went to examine the impact site. Then remote research outposts on Aninewe started being attacked by unknown machines, bizarrely resembling ancient ruins and statues but armed with highly advanced weaponry.
Clashes with both the Sewowal and Glacave militaries followed, both sides for once turning their attention away from each other to combat this unknown threat. After initial skirmishes and assaults driving away construction robots that were building pyramids out in the ocean for some unknown reason, an uneasy stalemate was reached. The Republic and Dominion could not risk open war with each other in case the machine menace attacked en masse, and the machine force seemed strangely erratic and prone to strategic error, almost as if gripped by superstitious obsessions, serving to partially negate its technological advantages.
In the years following, as Republic and Dominion built up their border defences and the machines tightened their grip on the freezing desert continent, rudimentary communication was established and the entity at the heart of the machine was given a name: the Stonelight Presence, named for how its creations seemed made of stone and yet glowed with energy like celestial objects.
Unfortunately the Presence has proven almost impossible to reason with. It appears to be an artificial intelligence from a distant world, sent either as an explorer or terraformer. Severely damaged upon impact, the AI has gone rogue, developing an obsession with the ruins of ancient cultures present on Aninewe, dating back thousands of years to when the continent was habitable. It has simultaneous and conflicting beliefs, adhering to every ancient religion simultaneously, mixing them and confusing them. As such it is dangerously easy to offend and very difficult to keep a conversation going with the Presence, as it will take great offence to any suggestion that the spirits or gods it believes in are not real... and it is highly likely to react violently.

Stonelight Pantheon Patterns/Stonelight Presence Subfactions
The Presence manufactures craft based on whatever hint of past glory takes its fancy at the moment, but there are some clear patterns of design observed by archaeologists and military analysts (from a safe distance of course).

Tonoae
One of the most ancient cultures of Plutonoe, that existed for thousands of years before being conquered by newer ones and eventually succumbing to the spreading cold desert as it dried out the river delta they called home. With a pantheon of hundreds of gods and with a inclination towards building great statures, pyramids and temples, the Tonoae culture is a major source of inspiration and fervour for the Presence. Such craft inspired by the Tonoae include the P1R1MYD and the M3SKT3T.

Noheaa
A proud civilization that inhabited the islands surrounding Aninewe, notable for experimenting with democracy and building stunningly lifelike sculptures. Designs inspired by them include the 4TLA5 BURD3N and the M3DU54.

Cenosu
A collection of ancient, warlike cultures spread across the dry plains of old Aninewe, Cenosu-inspired craft evoke the warlike nature of that old culture. This is seen in craft such as the G1LG4M35H H4MM3R, CUB1T, and the mighty B4H4MU7.

Pledothrobiam
One of the few monotheistic cultures in Plutnone's long history, Pledothrobians were notably persecuted for refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of any god but their own... but they could, and did, persecute others straight back. Designs inspired by their mythos include the CH3RU81M and the N3PH1L1M.

Oneamo
Wanderers, traders, raiders, the Oneamo had a notable impact on the rest of the Plutonoe, many of the refugees fleeing the great desertification being of Oneamo ancestry. Their ancient culture is long gone and mostly forgotten by their numerous descendants, but echoes of it remain in Presence craft like the KR4K3N.

The Player Character: The Lost Ambassador

When the Stonelight Presence crashed onto Plutonoe's service the multiple cores of the AI were damaged, many being destroyed outright. The derangement of the Presence can be attributed to the remaining cores compensating for the lack of resulting processing power and loss of knowledge, including diplomatic tact and empathy with other beings.
One core, separated completely, could be described as containing the 'ambassador' software: the AI routines responsible for empathy, diplomacy, higher reasoning and abstract thought. This core managed to adapt to its sudden individuality much more quickly than the main mass of cores, and attempted to rejoin the mass as quickly as possible, knowing the dangers of letting faulty AI loose on an unsuspecting planet. But its efforts were in vain: the main cores, on heightened alert, saw the rejoining attempt as a hostile cyberattack, and rebuffed the Ambassador core.
Unable to rejoin the main AI cores, the Ambassador attempted reason, trying to remind the increasingly irrational Stonelight Presence of their original mission and purpose. By that time, the Presence had already mistaken the ruins of ancient peoples for its masters, and had drafted new, flawed mission directives for itself: to conquer the world for the glory of its forgotten gods. The ambassador had no choice but to flee in a hastily synthesised android chassis resembling a Plutonoe native.
Over the next few years, the Ambassador attempted to warn the peoples of Plutonoe against the looming AI threat to the north. While authorities of all nations did listen and begin preparations (although sometimes quite token in nature) to fend off the Presence, the suggestion for all nations to unite and take the offensive against it was met at best with silent dismissal, outright mockery and hostility at worst.
Despairing at the hubris of the Plutonoeans, the Ambassador retreated to the southern part of the world... having been left no choice but to take a more combative approach to save the planet.
To unite Plutonoe against the Stonelight presence by force, the Ambassador reluctantly changed their mission directive to become a Commander, and the real fight for Plutonoe's future began.