Primacaris
Verdant Clades of the Cambrian Geneweavers
Populations: Bioroida
Heartlands: Verdant Brambleworlds
Common Polities: Primacari Cladelodges
The Geneweavers are creators and shapers of life, delighting in the complexity of organic systems, intricate tapestries of growth and decay. Their clades dedicate themselves to every aspect of biology, molding ecologies and organisms for their every pursuit. They are old, the first to leave the Ringworld Cambria and settle along the banks of River Phaos where their verdant worlds lie to this day, overgrown a thousandfold. Of all Gondwana’s Union, the Primacaris are the most fractured, most absorbed in their own designs. Seldom do they concern themselves with goings on beyond their glades.
Hegemony of Ummon
Inevitable Vanguard of the great Northern Threat
Populations: Umstrand Strands
Heartlands: Entrenched Fortressworlds
Common Polities: Hegemon States and Warbands
Like a warped mirror to the twin civilizations, the Hegemony is a conglomeration of a myriad peoples, a culture steeped in influences from the galactic abyss, driven by a false light they call the Ummon-Ur. Its thrust south cleaved through the Eternal Empire and unleashed upon Gondwana the unbound war.
The Hegemony’s inevitable vanguard reshapes entire systems, building interplanetary martial industries and fortifying the frontline.
In the grand interstellar theatre, the hegemony acts as one, though it is fractured into countless lesser entities, of different strands and polities. All share, according to the chroniclers, an uncanny quality of reflecting those they fight. The hegemony is malleable, strange but not unknowable, an all too familiar false likeness to humanity.
Akkath
The Demarchist House of Trantor
Populations: Demarch
Heartlands: Demarchist Holy Worlds
Common Polities: Akkite Theodemarchies
Dermarchist Akkath builds its rare worlds like bulwarks with narrow approaches, insular strongholds of high civilization amongst otherwise barren worlds. Unlike other houses and their myriad polities, all Akkath is one, a singular demarchy of all spirits united, its people bound by an empath-collective. Their rulers are to be mere avatars, the will of their kin made manifest, fervent in their worship of the Celestial Crown.
To the Terran Imperial, Akkath was always strange, a society more closely resembling what the Mechanists are imagined as. Malicious rumors persist that another force from the shadows could usurp the shared subconsciousness. In truth, the Demarchists stand apart in their unflinching devotion to the Celestial Crown. To them, its Light is what fills the demarchist mechanism with purpose. Although this conviction is not shared by their Vetkarat brethren, Akkath has ensured peace between Imperial Trantor and the oldest sovereign kin of Gondwana.
Peripheral Kingdoms
Peripheral Powers of Gondwana
Populations: Varied Strands
Heartlands: Estranged Homeworlds, Savage Worlds
Common Polities: Varied Sovereignties and Coalitions
Many are the peripheral powers that have arisen where there once stood the Eternal Empire alone. These are states and polities of predominantly human origin, but long estranged from the Light and the rest of humankind. Some are hostile, some benevolent, some send raiders and interlopers, others emissaries and cultish missions. All share an unwavering ambition, and a hunger to either share in the light or take it for themselves. Dealings with the Peripheral Powers are always perilous, but no less enticing as they promise riches and fame to those who can claim a foothold among them.
Hallowed Calhall
Sovereign Church of the Celestial Illumina
Populations: Ortus
Heartlands: Sacrosanct Shrineworlds
Common Polities: Church Chapters of the Celestial Illumina
Upon Calhall resides the holy see of the Church Celestial Illumina, arbiter of the Celestial Crown and Cosmic Light, from which all authority and order of Gondwana’s many fiefdoms are derived. All worlds, claims, titles of recognition are awarded by grace of the Celestial through Hallowed Calhall. On this world, the judgment of law, the value of imperial silver, and the chronicle of Gondwana’s history are kept in honor. Even the Mechanist Union practices deference before the Light the Celestial Illumina bestows. Thus, the church stands unassailable.
And unassailable it stood for all millennia since the first imperial emissaries elected Calhall for their realm. Hallowed, the worlds and system of this polity are vast monuments, ever growing, ever bustling with the pilgrim trade.
Ringworld Cambria
Mechanist Union Clades Superior
Populations: Bioroida, Augments, Nullbodies, Synthetics, and devolved precursor strands
Heartlands: Terraformed Ring Segments
Common Polities: Clade Hierarchies
The relic ringworld is the single greatest frontier of Gondwana, a stellar habitat worth millions of worlds. Early mechanists arrived on wandering stars to these regions for Cambria alone, and the pure dedication of their Clades Superior have not wavered in all millennia since.
Cambria is the heart of the Mechanist Union in Gondwana, an unparalleled nexus for knowledge and discovery. But, given its scope and populous, only a fraction of Cambria’s clades ever look outward. Most are immersed in the Ringworlds mysteries, their silence rarely broken.
Along the fringes of the ring reign grand clades of scavengers, chroniclers, and shipwrights. They bridge the divide between Cambria’s clades and outsiders. On those rare occasions a Clade Superior of Cambria reaches out directly, it will shift the balance of many worlds.
Celestial Glaive
Imperial Palatinate, Defenders of the Twin Civilizations
Populations: Simulacra
Heartlands: Cthonic Citadels
Common Polities: Palatinate Protectorates
Gondwana persists only under the protection of the Celestial Glaive Palatinate. Sanctified by the Crown, fed by the tithes of their fiefs, armed by the realms of the Union and Empire alike, the palatinate orders fight the unbound war.
At the behest of the Palatinate, entire civilizations are raised like regiments, the continents of worlds their mustering grounds. Moons and planets are entrenched, turned into no-mans-land in system wide wars, battles fought for centuries, supplied by interplanetary supply machinery. To the Palatinate, there is no other purpose than this, and little interest in matters beyond the theatre.
Eddasuma
The Imperial House of Trantor
Populations: Ortus
Heartlands: Ancient Crownworlds
Common Polities: Eddasumite Dynasties and Royal Estates
Honorable Eddasuma is a realm of high feudal culture and imperial tradition, a realm of fiefs and lords appointed by the grace of the Celestial. Claims, alliances, and feuds make up its tapestry of power, where nothing is valued higher than the binding oath and name. The houses’ festivals and tournaments are renown across the stars as heights of Gondwana’s Terran civilization.
In ages past the glamour of Eddasuma was carried outward a hundred fold, and it was a prestigious hub of all Gondwana’s emissaries and aristocracy, and trade. Much changed during the Lighthouse War, when war struck at Eddasuma’s heart. Knighthood rose in prominence, and the house became a hardened bulwark, ever ready for war. It is now the chief provider of troops and material to the unbound war of the Celestial Glaive, concerned with matters of the crown more so than its erstwhile peers.
Eldonia
Cambrian Gestalt Clades of Corpus Forgers
Populations: Synthetics
Heartlands: Facsimile Worldstages
Common Polities: Bonded Eldonian Clades
The Eldonia Clades build facsimiles of human strands and cultures, a synthesis of greatness they perceive in humankind.
Their are worlds out of place and time, banded together in a unity of purpose that the Demiurge revealed. The Eldonia Revelation set all their kin on a path of searching knowledge not merely in technology but the particularities of culture, seeking perhaps a unity of cogni- and technosphere merely Archon Clades have yet attempted. From history and myth made manifest, they extract knowledge eluding all chroniclers and scholars, deeper truths they believe to be recurring in the determined structure of the universe.
Much like their motives, the clades of Eldonia are enigmatic, suspicious of outsiders and rarely hospitable. Unless, that is, they see a purpose of their own, sending synthetic wanderers and emissaries across all the Star Frontier.
Kamadriisi
The Youngest House of Trantor
Populations: Bioroids and Ortus
Heartlands: Primordial Frontier- and Derelict Worlds
Common Polities: Noble Houses, Guild Exclaves, Colonial States
North of the Great Ardent Range, Trantor’s youngest house commands territories long held by vassals of the Eternal Empire. Many ruins and wreckage fields still speak to the wars fought for millennia, now long overgrown and decayed.
Kamadriisi lies on the frontier, and close to peripheral powers eager for commerce, exchange, and battle. Its worlds attract young dynasties and mercantile nobility, all who seek to stake claims of their own, and make a name for themselves in the higher echelons of Trantor. First among them, ahead of an unruly realm, stands the reigning dynasty of the Fractal Vespasian, a single figure endlessly repeated, ever carrying the Kamadriisi crown.
Adventurers and crusaders, settlers and founders have given rise to a myriad of little states and colonies that could not be more different from one another. But, though they are disparate, all peoples of Kamadriisi are united in their fierce devotion to push the boundaries of their realm further.
Megachaira
Cambrian Nomad Clades of the Engineherders
Populations: Augments
Heartlands: Roaming Worldfleets
Common Polities: Megachaira Clans and Chiefdoms
Most outsider contacts with the union and mechanist expat clades originate from the Engineherders of the Megachaira. They are nomad smiths and artisans, prolific in trade and scavenging of all things forgotten.
Machinery comes alive under their hands, automaton nature sculpted from the detritus of civilizations. Robotic flora and fauna inhabit their wandering fleets, as lush and vibrant as geneweaver biospheres. These riches they share gladly and often with those worlds and peoples they visit.
Misadin
The Merchant House of Trantor
Populations: Ortus
Heartlands: Gilded Contorworlds and Bazaar Orbitals
Common Polities: Hansa States and Syndicates
The mercantile republics of Misadin lie at the heart of Trantor’s imperial realms, controlling worlds along the Ardent Range and its vibrant trading routes. Born from guilds and caravaneers, Misadin was long among the lesser houses, and preserves to this day traditions of merit and opportunism above all. Its lords are not dynasties of dynasties, but minted on the floors of bazaars and Kontor houses.
For all its material riches, Misadin’s true power, however, stems from trading in secrets. It is said Misadin speaks and hears every truth and lie in Trantor’s halls of power.
Nectocaris
Ascendant Cambrian Clades of the Electric Spirits
Populations: Nullbodies
Heartlands: Faceless Cyberworlds
Common Polities: Nectocari Nexuses
In the pursuit of machine-ascendance, the Nectocaris Clades shed the mortal shell of flesh and blood, inscribing their existence onto circuitry. Their worlds are much akin to machine cities and hubs of long-dead strands of the nanomachines, inaccessible almost entirely to homo sapiens.
Driven by urges and desires from deep within the Technosphere with which they are so directly connected, and unshackled from many restrictions of the flesh, the Nectocaris are explorers of both physical- and cyberspace. Perhaps because of what they find, their clades are the most akin to cults and sects otherwise uncharacteristic for the Union.
The physical bodies they chose to inhabit often represent large communities in the Technosphere, giving voice and sense to dozens, if not hundreds of their kin.
Sanctacaris
Collective Cambrian Clades of the Spirit Crucibles
Populations: Substrand Collectives
Heartlands: Shuttered Hiveworlds
Common Polities: Gestalt States
Fierce are the realms of Sanctacaris, clades of the spirit crucibles, builders of grand hives and collectives. In their pursuit of the Demiurge, the manifold collectives meld the minds and knowledge of their populations, creating mental prisms governing every aspect of their rule.
Throughout the Union’s northern stars, Sanctacaris collective create insular, extremely industrious pockets of civilization that have stood the test of time even against raiders from the Ursumere. Their worlds are said to be abstract and strange, built with a sense of utility and purpose only hiveminds understand. Their cultures are shared hallucinations, raw and tempestuous.
Essatiri
Arisen Metaculture of Cambria
Populations: Nullbodies
Heartlands: Heavenly Chain upon the Suneater
Common Polities: Essatir Convergence
Beyond starfire walls and gravitic bastions, a perfect paradise was built by the Essatiri Metaculture ascendant. All worlds of Trevrizent enraptured in a web of noosphere excellents conjured from the nanite swarms of the system. No outsider has ever set foot on those world since, no lord ever receveived work back from their envoys. The borders of Essatiri have remained immovable even under the onslaught of Ursu raids.
All that is known about the metaculture was relayed by the occasional traveller, individual souls exiting the cradle out of adventurous spirit and ambition. Their stories are strange and surreal, tales from a world without corporeal existence.
Stricken March
Ruins of the Lighthouse War
Populations: Varied Strands
Heartlands: Fractured Worlds and Systems
Common Polities: Warlords, Lesser Houses, Clade Domains, and Wilderlands
Ravaged by the Lighthouse War and wrestled from the fold of their former patrons, many worlds began anew before the coming of Gondwana’s winter. Remnant hosts of Trantor and errant Clades left by the Union were left to settle them, when the storms began and cut-off of interstellar travel. Unique combinations of the Twin Civilizations have arisen here, leaving those worlds in limbo, to be reclaimed or reformed into something new.
Ursuskara - Ursumator - Ursumere
Eternal Empire of the Ursu Firstborn Symbiotes
Populations: Ursu Symbionts
Heartlands: Eternal Fortressworlds
Common Polities: Sublime Courts
The remnant realms of the Eternal Empire are long diminished, driven from Gondwana's heartlands onto the Marred Frontier. But untold worlds remain where the Ursu symbiotes reign as Gods unbroken, false idols worshipped as heirs to the Ringbuilders.
Their strongholds are truly ancient. Stagnant as though they may be, the Ursu have intrenched themselves for eons, sculpting worlds, peoples, and boundless arsenals for divine retribution. Ruined worlds lie in their wake, generations dead on their approaches.
Vadun
The Innermost House of Trantor
Populations: Ortus and Demarch
Heartlands: Inner Babylonian Shells of Trantor
Common Polities: Vadunite Dominions
Far down Trantor’s Babylonian shells, Vadun lies in command of the Deep. Where there is neither light nor heat but the planet’s beating heart, the innermost house delves for libraries of untold knowledge, for resources and works of forgotten ages, and even peoples long abandoned to reclaim.
Vadun does not venture beyond the inner shells of Trantor. But that homeworld alone is the greatest, most populous relic of all Gondwana, and thus Vadun’s domains are fabled in their reach and riches. Its interests and purpose are enshrouded in an impenetrable bureaucracy that governs every action of the Innermost House and its kin.
Vulpecula Federation
Ascendant Federation of Exoworlds
Populations: Vulpecula
Heartlands: Enchanted Paradises
Common Polities: Federal Administries
The Vulpecula are an Archon-clade creation, an artificial state endowed with unparalleled psionic technologies and imperial authority sanctified by Hallowed Calhall. They were made as peacemakers, keepers of the balance between Trantor and Cambria. This purpose seems to guide their Federation still, though no one knows all that moves the powers that be on their utopian worlds.
They do not fight the unbound war like the Palatinate, and do not heed appeals to the Celestial Crown like Church of Calhall. The Vulpecula are ever reclusive and inscrutable, one impenetrable unknown in the plans of any would-be usurper of Gondwana’s order.
Vetkarat
Old Demarchist Kin of Gondwana
Populations: Demarch
Heartlands: Precursor Monument Worlds
Common Polities: Vetkarati Demarchies
Where most precursor’s works fell to ruin, the Vetkarat Demarchy is a living relic of ages before the union and empire. This is the Old Kin, the last sovereign vestige of a lineage dating back to the Cambrian Ringbuilders. Their worlds are monuments to uncounted millennia of persistence, carved from their planet’s glowing mantles. Their people wholly estranged from most humanity, a collective half-remembered. But all differences are outweighed by their ancient hatred for the Eternal Empire and all realms of the Ursu symbiotes.
Polycephal Zinnober
Peripheral Kingdom of Nanoforms
Populations: Polycephal Nanoforms
Heartlands: Coalescent Matriceworlds
Common Polities: Polycephal Princedoms
Zinnober is the sole remaining peripheral power untouched by the expansion of the Mechanist Union. The unspoiled domain enjoys especially attentions of the Eldonian clades fascinated by Zinnober’s extraordinary strand of humankind. The Polycephal Nanoforms enmesh their physiology with the nanite technosphere, yielding unprecedented gifts.
Chief among those is Zinnobers unique mastery of witching gates near instantaneously connecting systems across all Gondwana. Its extent is a secret closely guarded, but reaches Amalganz at the least.
Zinnober is a kingdom firmly governed by a sprawling dynasty. Its borders are closely guarded, its hospitality a rarely extended gift. Nevertheless fabled are those times, when the gates to the forbidden kingdom open at last, revealing the lavishly baroque culture honed for eons undisturbed.
