Privateer Press Previews July Releases

Get me a jury and show me how you can say, “in July” and I’ll… make cheese for you. Anyway, in July, Privateer Press will be releasing some new Monsterpocalypse and Warcaster kits. You can get a look at them here.

When the armies of the Tritons move, the ocean itself speeds along their advance—impossible ocean currents create impromptu highways to transport the massive monsters of the deep. From the strange unknown world of the Mariana Trench come creatures beyond imagining, from the terrifying to the utterly bizarre. One such is the Ketos Crab, which carries sea water within it that pours out of it to coalesce around its shell, lurching it forward before being re-absorbed and repeating the movement.

Deep beneath the earth in vast unexplored caverns are entire ecosystems that the Subterrans call home. Pitch-black toxic fumes permeate that ecosystem; in high enough concentration, the smoke is lethal to all other creatures except the denizens of those caverns. The Smog Factories are designed to produce those fumes on the planet’s surface, creating a microcosm of that ecosystem, one conducive to Subterran physiology. In the long term, however, they act as terraforming platforms designed to turn all Earth into a perfect Subterran habitat.

Once the Legion of Mutates had the power to stand up to governments all over the world,Outreach Centers began to appear in many major cities. Constantly under the dutiful guard of massive mutates, it’s not unusual to see people with all sorts of animalistic forms moving in and out of the Centers, as these locations act as bases of operation and supply for the temporary growth formula to be distributed to militia whenever monsters attack their city. They are also where humans can go to receive the permanent mutagen that transforms them into hybrid creatures with amazing physical abilities. The Outreach Centers bring the power to the people in a way the world’s governments have entirely failed to do.

When the Masters of the 8th Dimension entered our dimension for the first time, strange phenomena were left in their wake. Nearly all attempts to study the breaches in reality have failed; the only fact that can be confirmed about the breaches is that they warp reality, causing even the fundamental constants of the universe to be distorted. Observers have noted matter passing through other matter without interacting in any way and substances simply skipping small portions of space to appear instantaneously nearby. On occasion, this has caused creatures to occupy the same space as other matter,most often resulting in their deaths.

The Warder is a wyrd, a human born with the ability to sense and manipulate Arc. Though much weaker than those born with a more intuitive command of arcane forces, such as theurges and warcasters, the wyrds’ capabilities enable them to counter opposed magical forces on the battlefield. For reasons not yet entirely understood but possibly linked to unique mining techniques, some Marcher Worlds are given to high percentage of wyrd births. Many of these children are trained in the use of their limited talents and inducted into the Ranger forces at an early age. Equipped with specialized mechanika to increase these powers, such individuals serve as Warders, whose role is to defend their squads against the disruptive Furies of their enemies.

A walking arsenal of advanced firepower, the Paladin Siegebreaker strides the battlefield from within the eye of the storm, obliterating any obstacle in its path with overwhelming force. Though slow and plodding under the weight of heavy exo-armor, the Siegebreaker’s arcantrik turbine can speed up his pace in battle. Though capable of attacking with all of his weaponry simultaneously, the Siegebreaker’s mechanika Power Focus enables it to channel Arc into a single guided attack, meaning he can either target multiple enemies or devastate a single target with a focused strike.

A massive robotic guardian beast created by the Aeternus Continuum to defend its temples, the Rakers are mechanical mastiffs typically issued to the Vassal squads that patrol the outermost grounds of a temple. Their suite of integral sensors makes the Rakers adept at locating and tracking down those spies and interlopers who seek access to temple grounds. A powerful and aggressive combatant, Rakers are also utilized in times of conflict and provide Vassal squads with much needed raw power on the battlefield. Rakers are equipped with simple cortexes that grant them a degree of autonomy and the ability to recognize and understand simple coded commands. The Rakers’ unnatural stillness until commanded to action belies their vicious animalistic nature. These beasts were built to hunt.

An exile and fugitive, Corebus is a former Empyrean Aeon who has sought solace and safety amongst the Marcher Worlds. He was present when humanity first arrived in the Hyperuranion and felt an immediate kinship for these dispossessed people. When fighting broke out between the Empyreans and the humans, Corebus felt great sadness. Later, when the Empyreans withdrew to Cyriss Prime, Corebus remained as an observer and watched as humanity spread out across the stars. Later, he would passionately plead for humanity’s right to choose its own destiny, even as the Empyreans laid the foundations for a new army of conquest a millennia in the planning. Eventually, his protestations brought him into direct conflict with the ancient voices of the Great Constellation, and Corebus was forced to flee for his life. His craft damaged beyond repair, Corebus managed to crash land on the Marcher backwater world of New Thuria. Battered and broken, he was taken in by the communities there, who aided him in constructing a new form to replace the body broken in the crash. As news of his defection spread, Corebus was formally invited to join the Coalition of Worlds, an offer he accepted with great pride. Corebus now serves as an agent for the Ranger forces with a specialization in all matters pertaining to the Empyreans.

Doctor Myra Hurst is one of the few humans allowed to safely visit the outskirts of Empyrean space. Hurst is a theurge, a human with the inborn ability to sense and manipulate Arc. A civilian citizen of the Alliance, she coupled these talents with a keen scientific mind, becoming the foremost human expert of Arcanessence in the whole of the Hyperuranion. With a boundless thirst for knowledge that has occasionally run afoul of Alliance intelligence, Hurst has even reached out to the Empyreans themselves and was shocked to be met with open arms. She has conducted a number of experiments in direct cooperation with the Empyreans. Some of the knowledge she has gained has filtered back to the universities of the Alliance, where Hurst sometimes lectures on her findings. Some within the Alliance wish to limit her interaction with the Empyreans, fearing the damage wrought by her potential defection.

Harlan Sek is a notorious smuggler, procurer, and dealer of rare and exotic mechanika artifacts. Lacking any discernable moral structure or ethical code, Sek is motivated only by profit. While he has served most of the Factions of the Hyperuranion, he has burned nearly every bridge, leaving the Aeternus Continuum as his most steady employer. Secretly, however, the smuggler serves two masters. While on a mission to a distant world deep in Empyrean space, Sek was captured and forced to plead for his life. Rather than paying the price of summary execution that most humans pay for entering Empyrean space uninvited, the clever Sek managed to strike a bargain with Empyreans. He was allowed to live and was even given access to certain artifact-rich sites and information in return for smuggling goods back into human space. Sek is also required to keep his eyes open for certain relics of Empyrean origin that are returned directly to their makers without question. Sek has learned there are some masters you cannot afford to betray. When in the field, Sek wears heavy encounter armor and wields a variety of potent artifacts.

Despite the obvious complexities of their internal systems, Empyrean warjacks outwardly utilize simple weapon configurations. Typically, weapons are mounted on the warjack’s forearms and set into its back. Heavier warjacks like the Sentinel have an additional hardpoint set into their chests, where many of their most powerful weapon systems draw power directly from the heart of the machine. The Sentinel’s weapon options include the stunning Arcantrik Destabilizer and the disrupting Antiminator. These machines can also be equipped with wide-band scanning Metaperceptors. Back-mounted weapons include the force-projecting Meteor Cannon and the defensive Force Shield Projector. Its chest weapons include the multi-field Cyclotronic Razor and power draining Eclipse Inducer. Cortex options include the smart-locking Divinator cortex and the Arc-drawing Numen cortex.

The Sentinel is the Empyreans’ heavy support warjack. Aggressive, powerful, and nigh invulnerable while charged with Arc, the warjack is armed with some of the most advanced mechanika weapons ever developed. While they share a configuration with the lighter Daemon warjacks, the Sentinels have an additional hardpoint set in their chests, where their most disruptive weapons tend to be housed. The Sentinel is a terrifying monstrosity, able to withstand concentrated enemy fire that would devastate a lesser machine.

The Daemon is the most commonly encountered of the Empyreans’ advanced warjacks. While possessing limited artificial intelligence, the Daemon is slaved to the will of the warcaster, which it executes without thought or hesitation. These warjacks are typically heavily armed, with hardpoints set into the arms and back. They are also equipped with a variety of enhanced mechanika adaptations, including an Aegis Field capable of blunting the impact of all manner of ranged attacks. These adaptations, however, are not all defensive in nature. The Daemon’s Disruption Engine enables it to cleave through a target’s arcane defenses, dispelling enemy Cyphers on contact.

The Aeroliths are complex mechanika drones deployed alongside the Empyreans’ Saber squads. The robotic servitor not only possesses a suite of sensory apparatuses that can pinpoint even the best hidden enemy forces but also has a destructive pulse array, capable of unleashing powerful force explosions to devastate those same enemies where they are discovered. The Aeroliths take the single-minded devotional programming of the Saber forces to a whole new level, willing to move directly into harm’s way to protect assets deemed necessary by their Aeon masters.

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