By Wade Dyer
"Your genetically engineered people are just now returning to the stars to usher in the dawn of a new age. Now is the time to reconnect with other forgotten species, explore war-torn worlds, combat ancient threats and forge new frontiers.”
Fragged Empire is a post-post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting where your people are just now returning to space following a century of hiding during the aftermath of a galactic war where the Nephilim and their X'ion master successfully defeated the Archons and their servile nations. It's a universe that leans heavily into themes of cultural tension and exploration, with a dash of transhumanism, nation-building and a hope for a better future.
A typical game of Fragged Empire will see you and your friends take on the role of a character from one of eight core species. You will join together to form a ragtag band of misfits who travel around the sector in a spaceship taking odd jobs and getting into trouble.
Corporation
Rejected by their Archon creators as inferior, the Corporation (formerly known as Vargarti) have grown to see the Great X’ion War as a liberating event that freed them from an existence of insignificance and irrelevance. Discarding their racial identity, they are now eager to prove themselves through the continued success of their powerful free-market society.
Kaltoran
Born with the genetic memories of their ancestors, Kaltorans are an innately gifted and flexible species. They are eager to make a new future for themselves and their families, though they struggle with the genetic memories of not only the Great X’ion War but the extreme measures taken by their post-war ancestors to survive in their underground pit cities beneath the oceans of Kadash.
Legion
A physically imposing species that was hastily created by the Archons to fight their losing war against the X’ion, the Legion now struggle to create a stable society and to find meaning without a war to fight. In recent times the Legion have formed a close economic relationship with the Corporation, acting as enforcers for hire... but are they once again becoming the warrior-servants for another master species?
Nephilim
The term Nephilim is broadly used to describe the millions of genetically engineered monsters that were created by the X’ion to fight the Archons and their creations during the Great X’ion War. Once the Archons were exterminated the X’ion abandoned the Nephilim, causing most of them to become little more than primal beasts.
But those on the planet Eden maintained their minds under the rule of the Devwi-Ich, the commander who oversaw the destruction of the Kaltorans and Legion in the sector during the Great War. While the Eden Brood are publicly no longer loyal to X’ion and seek peace with the other species, their primal society is still deeply violent and addicted to genetic perfection.
Palantor
During the Great War, the Archons believed they were adapting Human-created software to produce the mechanical horrors known as Mechonids, but in truth they were ham-fistedly warping ancient and sentient digitized Human minds into sociopathic killers. Though the Great War has ended, the Mechonids continued to harvest these minds to create more of their own. In doing so, they have forced these digital beings - known as the Palantor - to flee back into a physical existence that they have not experienced for over three millennia. The Palantor were once gods of a digital realm, but are now food for the insane Mechonids. If they are to survive as a people they must defeat their great foe and build a place for themselves in this new era.
Remnant
Betraying their Archon creators, the Ursai sided with the invading Nephilim during the Great War. But this was all for naught as the Ursai themselves were in turn betrayed by the Nephilim and accidentally exterminated themselves (and their Nephilim attackers) using an ancient Human weapon that was known as the Deatomiser.
This would have been their end if not for the arrival some fifty years later by the god-like entity that is known as the All-Being, who raised millions of Ursai from the dead. These Ursai became a new people: the Remnant, spiritually focused and forever seeking the true nature of the All-Being, working to learn why they, traitors and failures, were brought back to life.
Twi-Far
The space-faring, nomadic Twi-Far inhabit bodies formed from two independent, sentient species: the Archon-created Twilinger and an energy-based creature of unknown origin that is called a Faren. To escape their selfish Archon masters during the Great War they have remained out in the deep dark of uncharted space for a hundred years, only just now returning after being pursued by a brood of gigantic Nephilim slavers called Oni.
Zhou
The Zhou were created during the later years of the Great War by the Archons to be a devastating biological weapon that could consume all organic matter on a world. The Zhou of the planet Praid have pushed themselves beyond this design and are struggling against their unquenchable hunger to coexist alongside the other species.
Fragged Empire 2nd Edition is available now!