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Sann-gar - Giant, Schnorkel the Avenger - MVP, Sentry Guns, Sergeant Howlett, Shensig Interplanetary, Shojuun - Dreadball Sponsor, Slalaran Vesh - Species 525 MVP, Slippery Joe MVP, Smoke Grenades, Sorak (Sorak Swordspawn), Sphyr Team, Stealth Cloak, Strider GR77: Corporation/Plague/Rebs, Stuntbot, The Survivor.
KEY - Deadzone, Dreadball, Dreadball Xtreme.
Sann-gar, Giant.
Sentry Guns.
Sentry guns use stripped down, heavy barrelled versions of heavy rifles, as used by normal Enforcers. This allows them to share ammo supplies and makes resupply easier. Their job isn’t to kill enemy troopers as much as to give warning of enemy movements and allow the Enforcers time to react and reposition themselves in the event of an enemy attack. Earlier models carried heavier weapons, but these were found to run out of ammo too quickly in the face of massed enemy assaults. They were also extremely heavy and were seldom taken as primary choice when the lighter alternatives were available.
In the sparsely populated planets of the far reaches of Corporation space, the settlements all tend towards a familiar look – built from the same prefab units that are supplied by Shensig Interplanetary to almost every colonist collective and security unit known to man. These boxy and utilitarian blocks are formed into storage units, barracks, workshops, offices, armouries, labs, holding pens, and medi-centres with equal ease. They are the defining architectural wonder of the Corporation and are commonly what alien races assume to be the pinnacle of human achievement. They are a far cry from the architectural marvels of the Core.
From the Core to the Frontier, from freighters to waystations, there are countless tales of the Shojuun. They talk of a mysterious traveller who walks the hidden paths between stars, acting under the orders of a higher power and slaking his thirst with the blood of his enemies. While his appearance on the underground DreadBall circuit goes some way towards demystifying him, the teams of vicious killers and conniving tricksters he routinely backs only further the rumours of his malevolence.
The GCPS is quick to label species they encounter with certain characteristics, but there will always be stand-out individuals that prove how wrong they can be. Slalaran Vesh, known as “Big Slick” to his friends, is a prime example. Unlike most Oozers he is a massive extrovert, and despises doing what others tell him to. He’s slimy in more ways than one, a repellent creature with a reputation for doing the least appropriate thing at any given time. He has a great love for humans (and a particular obsession with the Void Sirens) and will do anything to show off in front of them, so DreadBall was an obvious career move. Too obnoxious for the official leagues, he has made a name for himself on the illegal circuit where he can get away with swallowing entire players into his plasma body.
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An older variant of the ‘Strider’ template, the Bot is piloted by a highly trained Goblin. Their small stature and dextrous fingers more suited to the controls of these machines. Armed with powerful but crude weaponry, it is a brave soldier who takes one of these machines on one on one.
A spacefaring traveller, The Survivor is the only known living being to have been infected by the Plague and survive a Containment Protocol. Since then he has had only one desire: to retrieve a piece of a Plague Artefact and try to synthesise a cure for himself. For The Survivor it is simply a race against time before the Alien Virus overcomes his biological defences and he succumbs to the infection - a race he cannot afford to lose.
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Sann-gar - Giant, Schnorkel the Avenger - MVP, Sentry Guns, Sergeant Howlett, Shensig Interplanetary, Shojuun - Dreadball Sponsor, Slalaran Vesh - Species 525 MVP, Slippery Joe MVP, Smoke Grenades, Sorak (Sorak Swordspawn), Sphyr Team, Stealth Cloak, Strider GR77: Corporation/Plague/Rebs, Stuntbot, The Survivor.
KEY - Deadzone, Dreadball, Dreadball Xtreme.
Sann-gar, Giant.
There are regions of the deep that not even the Sphyr would dare to travel to. These areas are ruled by Sann-gar, hulking apex predators that fiercely guard their territory from invaders. Many a young pup has been warned of venturing too far lest they be eaten by Sann-gar, and the lengths a Corporation Collection agent have to go to in an attempt to capture one only inflames the stories.
Hunted for their teeth and their skins, Sann-gar are sometimes acquired by desperate sponsors in a bid to end a blood feud. Rumors persist that a Sann-gar by the name of Oseid was once bribed to put an end to Buzzcut’s reign of terror after he slaughtered three of The Shojuun’s finest guards… the remains of the Gradenstad where they fought can still be found on the moon of Hjil.
The peace-loving Elastopods used to inhabit a small cluster of planets at the edge of the Expansion Zone. They had developed space travel, but had only used it to make short exploratory hops between worlds. Tragedy struck when a passing Blue Flag liner suffered a catastrophic core meltdown and engulfed the small empire. The only surviving member of the race was Schnorkel, one of their finest explorers, who was undertaking a voyage of discovery to a nearby system. He made his way to the nearest inhabited world in a state of shock. The naïve Elastopod was taken in by the nefarious locals, who convinced him that his first step towards getting revenge upon the Blue Flag Company involved battling all comers in the local underground DreadBall arena. Schnorkel the Avenger was born that day, ever hoping that eventually someone might actually explain to him what the second step might be.
Schnorkel the Avenger - MVP.
Sentry Guns.
Sentry guns use stripped down, heavy barrelled versions of heavy rifles, as used by normal Enforcers. This allows them to share ammo supplies and makes resupply easier. Their job isn’t to kill enemy troopers as much as to give warning of enemy movements and allow the Enforcers time to react and reposition themselves in the event of an enemy attack. Earlier models carried heavier weapons, but these were found to run out of ammo too quickly in the face of massed enemy assaults. They were also extremely heavy and were seldom taken as primary choice when the lighter alternatives were available.
Sergeant Howlett.
Most Enforcer sergeants are steady in battle, calmly holding a line when others have fled, or advancing methodically by long-established drill. Sergeant Howlett comes from a different school of tactics.
Most Enforcer sergeants rise through the ranks through the tactical units and it has long been acknowledged that this offers the best all-round training for a prospective leader. Tactical units face the widest variety of combat situations and foes, so the mettle of a trooper is tested most thoroughly. Sergeant Howlett has only ever served with assault units.
Most Enforcer sergeants hang back slightly from combat, their duties being to direct the battle as a whole rather than show individual prowess. If personal leadership does need to be shown then they naturally lead an advance, but always as part of a key move within the structure of the overall operation. Sergeant Howlett leads by example, charging recklessly into the thick of battle to personally cut down as many of those who oppose the will of the Seven as he can. If others follow, that’s fine by Howlett. If not, then he’ll chew them out later, back at base. If they live.
Shensig Interplanetary.
In the sparsely populated planets of the far reaches of Corporation space, the settlements all tend towards a familiar look – built from the same prefab units that are supplied by Shensig Interplanetary to almost every colonist collective and security unit known to man. These boxy and utilitarian blocks are formed into storage units, barracks, workshops, offices, armouries, labs, holding pens, and medi-centres with equal ease. They are the defining architectural wonder of the Corporation and are commonly what alien races assume to be the pinnacle of human achievement. They are a far cry from the architectural marvels of the Core.
Whether a settlement is military, contractor or colonist it will be built in much the same way. First the construction bots lay down a foundation of concrete sections laced with multiweave for additional strength and with expansion buffers between slabs for thermal integrity. On top of this they then use the patented habtainers to construct the required buildings. These habtainers are designed to be used both as shipping containers en route to the new settlement and as habitats once they arrive. Their simple and robust cube form allows them to tessellate with maximum efficiency both in spaceship holds and within security perimeters. They are even moderately bullet proof.
When a Containment Protocol is declared the fighting is usually not long in following, and these battles almost always take place in and around Shensig habtainers. The reason is simple. Any alien artefacts must be reported to the local Corporation military, who can then examine them. This places the source of almost every single Plague outbreak within a Corporation base. That is where the Plague are most common and where the Enforcers must go to stamp them out. The plundering forces of Rebels, Marauders, Forge Fathers or Veer-myn don’t care about the swamps and backwoods of the planet as much as the high- tech resources and information that can be plundered from the abandoned Corporation bases. So they too head for the habtainer jungles of Corporation settlements…
Shojuun.
From the Core to the Frontier, from freighters to waystations, there are countless tales of the Shojuun. They talk of a mysterious traveller who walks the hidden paths between stars, acting under the orders of a higher power and slaking his thirst with the blood of his enemies. While his appearance on the underground DreadBall circuit goes some way towards demystifying him, the teams of vicious killers and conniving tricksters he routinely backs only further the rumours of his malevolence.
Slalaran Vesh, Species 525 MVP.
The GCPS is quick to label species they encounter with certain characteristics, but there will always be stand-out individuals that prove how wrong they can be. Slalaran Vesh, known as “Big Slick” to his friends, is a prime example. Unlike most Oozers he is a massive extrovert, and despises doing what others tell him to. He’s slimy in more ways than one, a repellent creature with a reputation for doing the least appropriate thing at any given time. He has a great love for humans (and a particular obsession with the Void Sirens) and will do anything to show off in front of them, so DreadBall was an obvious career move. Too obnoxious for the official leagues, he has made a name for himself on the illegal circuit where he can get away with swallowing entire players into his plasma body.
Slippery Joe MVP.
Joe has what might best be called an old music hall villain moustache – a great, black soup-strainer of a thing that sits like a giant slug on his upper lip and which he twirls thoughtfully as he leers at the crowd in what has become his personal interpretation of showboating. And despite his comical appearance he gets to twirl the waxed tips of his moustache rather more than his opponents would like as he is a prodigious Striker. Yes, Striker!
Smoke Grenades.
A smoke grenade does no damage and does not hinder movement at all. It is simply designed to create clouds of smoke to conceal an advance or block the line of sight of enemy weapons.
Sorak.
The Sorok are a fierce race with a rigid warrior caste system. Their honour-duels are known to last for days, and a swordspawn is expected to make its first kill before it learns to speak. Despite this, they are often underestimated by those who do not know them, due to their outlandish appearance. The Rebellion boasts entire enclaves of Sorok warriors, who see the Corporation’s expansion policies as a threat against their traditional ways.
Sorak Swordspawn
Sphyr Team.
The Sphyr were from a waterworld before the Corporation stripped the planet of its natural assets, leaving a dry, arid planet in their wake.
There was a time when Sphyria was an oceanic paradise; 96% of the world’s surface was covered in great seas that positively surged with life. The exploration fleets of the GCPS found the world at the centre of a small empire which spanned several planets, populated by a civilisation of amphibious sentients who called to mind the ancient predators of Old Earth’s oceans.
Despite their fearsome appearance they were civil and forward-thinking, accepting the offer of incorporation on their own terms. They were accepted into the GCPS with open arms, but all that changed when an administrative error left Sphyria as the target for large-scale weapons testing by Accutek. The seas boiled away, leaving little more than an arid dust-bowl.
The implications were catastrophic. Any Sphyr who had the chance immediately severed ties with the Corporations, retreating to their own worlds to decide what their next move would be. Many joined the Rebellion, but there is a growing number who don’t trust the predominantly human-led rebels, preferring to fight battles on their own terms. A large number participate in underground DreadBall matches in exchange for information and funds that will aid them in their mission to take vengeance upon Accutek and its sister corporations.
There was a time when Sphyria was an oceanic paradise; 96% of the world’s surface was covered in great seas that positively surged with life. The exploration fleets of the GCPS found the world at the centre of a small empire which spanned several planets, populated by a civilisation of amphibious sentients who called to mind the ancient predators of Old Earth’s oceans.
Despite their fearsome appearance they were civil and forward-thinking, accepting the offer of incorporation on their own terms. They were accepted into the GCPS with open arms, but all that changed when an administrative error left Sphyria as the target for large-scale weapons testing by Accutek. The seas boiled away, leaving little more than an arid dust-bowl.
The implications were catastrophic. Any Sphyr who had the chance immediately severed ties with the Corporations, retreating to their own worlds to decide what their next move would be. Many joined the Rebellion, but there is a growing number who don’t trust the predominantly human-led rebels, preferring to fight battles on their own terms. A large number participate in underground DreadBall matches in exchange for information and funds that will aid them in their mission to take vengeance upon Accutek and its sister corporations.
Stealth Cloak.
Sometimes called a chameleon cloak, this cloak’s covering of photo-reactive cells makes it harder to target the wearer as it blends into any background.
Strider GR77, Corporation/Plague/Rebs.
‘Strider’ is a generic term applied to a variety of bipedal vehicles employed by the Corporations. The GR-77 model is a combat variant employed by the Enforcers, but often stolen and re-purposed by other factions. As versatile as it is powerful, a Strider is a valuable asset to a strike team.
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A multi-purpose bipedal vehicle with a single pilot that is widely used by the Corporation and has subsequently been acquired by both Reb and Plague factions via a variety of means.
Stuntbot.
An older variant of the ‘Strider’ template, the Bot is piloted by a highly trained Goblin. Their small stature and dextrous fingers more suited to the controls of these machines. Armed with powerful but crude weaponry, it is a brave soldier who takes one of these machines on one on one.
Survivor, The.
A spacefaring traveller, The Survivor is the only known living being to have been infected by the Plague and survive a Containment Protocol. Since then he has had only one desire: to retrieve a piece of a Plague Artefact and try to synthesise a cure for himself. For The Survivor it is simply a race against time before the Alien Virus overcomes his biological defences and he succumbs to the infection - a race he cannot afford to lose.
Acknowledgements.
Gmorts Chaotica would like to thank James M Hewitt, Mantic Games, the Quirkworthy Blog, Titan Games and of course the Corporation for their invaluable assistance in the compiling of this encyclopaedia.
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