Collaborative Post-by-Post Universe Game: Mark II

[Invictus]

Let's do this.

Slightly new rules:

- Collaborative post-by-post universe. There will be brief synopses on what there is so far now and then.
- There is no need to contribute one whole subject matter per post. You can also add detail or twists to any existing subject, or leave a skeleton for others to add to!
- You cannot post after your own post (to maintain balanced content input).
- You cannot contradict a previous poster's material (only build upon each others' stuff).

Also, this time I'll start the thing off with a definite premise:
---

The supreme ruler of the Nine Galaxies, the AEON KHAN, is dying. True, it is open secret that His Augustness has been ailing for a very long time indeed, but the rumor that his condition has declined so far that he may not be able to complete this decicycle's Pilgrimage of the Feast has thrown the Galactic Courts in a tizzy! Unrest simmers in the border systems, and the conspiring whispers of the Khan's numberless heirs have risen to a storm.

---

A Summary and Commentary: POTENTIAL CLAIMANTS to the NINE THRONES

The Unknown Girl: Of no lineage and no particular reputation in the Nine Spirals at large, and with nothing of note except a racing-car typical to her backwards frontier world. Yet rumors will not cease to name her the Champion of the Last Godhead, possessed of some hidden quality that makes her the most worthy successor to the AEON KHAN.

Warmaster Magra-Chadra: Once named the greatest of the Warmasters of the Nine Spirals, Magra-Chadra's military genius chafed in an era of relative peace. He left the Civilized Universe long ago in a fool's quest for more glory than can be found in this age, but the unimaginable fleet that now returns can only means that he has succeeded and he now returns. Nobody knows what he had encountered in the infinite darkness and how it had changed him.

The King Revealed: The prophecised Universal Messiah among the cults and congregations of the Fist of The Unknown King, whose godly mien and infinite radiance shall surely mark the next Aeon of the Nine Galaxies as his. Though there is no sign at large that such a claimant is already among us, it is at no fault of the questing cultists who feverently anticipate his coming - after all, the Nine Galaxies are large.

Tensela Khandao, The Great Royal Wife: Valued agent and loving consort of the AEON KHAN, her rise to the greatest confidence of her husband-sovereign has demonstrated her loyalty, competence and determination beyond doubt. Such is her adoration that she will ensure that no other takes His place upon the Nine Thrones. But is undying love enough for a woman to triumph over the undoubtedly arduous challenges of the INFINITE GAUNTLET?

The Dragons: There is little doubt that the dragons are a formidable force across the Nine Galaxies, as ancient and puissant a race they are. But so obvious is their might that they are also the most watched and guarded against, and their moves to contest the successorship of the Nine Thrones most obviously feared. However all this assists their enemies none if they squarely enter one of their number into the INFINITE GAUNTLET, if the GAUNTLET can be won by might alone...

The Titan Reborn: If the blood of the former master of the Seventh Spiral runs true, its scion shall shake the universe with its stature, a sight not seen since the days of legend. A Titan born into this era will find no Khan to throw him down, but will he be content to restore his kind's rule over the Seventh Spiral, or seize the mantle of his predecessor's subjugator and achieve far beyond what his ancestor accomplished? And even if he shall, will he prove a worthy successor?

[Mobius 1]

THE INFINITE GAUNTLET

It is true the AEON KHAN has a multitude of heirs, and it is equally well-known his intense displeasure with his offspring. Nevertheless, the Champion of Nine Spirals has long since brought forth the most clever minds of the galaxy to update and fashion a grand new version of a challenge of ancient times – the INFINITE GAUNTLET.

While legends speak of the AEON KHAN’s rise from humble beginnings, all know of the magnanimity of the supreme ruler. Since his youngest years the Khan held a great faith in the equality of man, in their level creation and unchecked potential for success. Such are the many fine institutions of learning the Khan built during his rule, spanning all disciplines and free to any eager mind. It has now been shown that the AEON KHAN had been planting the seeds for the INFINITE GAUNTLET for years before anyone would dream of the wane of his personal health, allowing each individual living under the umbrella of the Nine Spirals to achieve to his or her ends, to assemble the skills they see fit.

The INFINITE GAUNTLET is designed to test such skills, such competence, to search for the ultimate being, the one who can claim the title of Khan and manage of the multitudinous facets of ruling a trans-galactic empire. Who can protect the empire with his knowledge of all powers, his might on the battlefield, the swiftness of his tongue at the negotiating table? Who will balance the needs of the smallest man with the wonders of the voidcorp houses? Who will guide the empire into an even greater period of peace and growth, capture the minds of the populace, be fair and strong and wise?

The INFINITE GAUNTLET shall determine just such a person. It is open to all who dare apply, for its trials shall be arduous, dangerous to the physical being, mental sanity, and oneness of soul. The trials shall cover all areas, all those deemed suited to produce the ultimate ruler.

The very notion of the INFINITE GAUNTLET, to be revealed at the conclusion of the Pilgrimage of the Feast, has swept unrest over the elite with as much intensity as first word of the AEON KHAN’s failing health. The numerous offspring, once rightful heirs; the most powerful warmasters, helming titantic gigafleets; the House Lords, chairmen of immensely rich voidcorps; the nine Godheads, once the physical manifestation of the Khan’s will, gifted with free will, have fallen into different allegiances. Only four of the original nine and the Knifehands, those many who form the loyal and secretive right hand of the Khan, stand ready to support the INFINITE GAUNTLET and the legitimacy of its final victor.

[Invictus]

The Nine Godheads are just that: each chancellor over an entire galaxy, each only answerable to its peers and their creator His Divine Terribilis, the AEON KHAN. Each Godhead is a moon-sized computational engine, unfathomably complex machinery animated by the divine, molten spark of genius that the Forger of Planets has imbued into them. As such, of all the counselors and confidantes in the Nine Galaxies none can claim to be know the heart of the AEON KHAN better than the Godheads themselves. From their lofty orbits, the Godheads oversee the vast ministries of the Divine Service which in turn govern the very order of the galaxies themselves. From a million electrum telecourts the Godheads dispense Galactic justice, provide impartial advice and proclaim the edicts of His Augustness. Upon the foundation of their labor do the peoples of the galaxies excel, the commerce of the voidcorps turn, and the great vision of the AEON KHAN come to pass.

Yet this was not always so. Once the Godheads were mere will-constructs, torn blazing from the great-than-divine mind of the AEON KHAN to assist His Augustness in administering his unspeakably vast domain. Capricious in form and temperament, they were his earliest companions and only equals, yet remade from moment to moment when the young and intemperate AEON KHAN shifted his wishes and whims, even in the midst of far missions and critical parleys. They exulted as he exulted, becoming great looping dragons with scales brighter than stars. They mourned as he mourned, becoming grotesque black gargoyles whose very sight drove ordinary men mad with despair. They raged as he raged, exploding into elemental storms that tore planets from their orbits. It was from these lessons that the AEON KHAN realized the value of stability, and called upon the resources of the Nines Galaxies to give each avatar of his errant will an imperishable mechanical body so that they may by tamed. Thus it became so.

Yet it did not remain so. Some seditionists mutter darkly that in forging the Godheads, the AEON KHAN relinquished the greater part of his youthful brilliance. Such talk is rightly castigated, but it is undeniable that by being given their own wills and their own voices, the Nine have long since drifted from lockstep loyalty to the aging Divine Will. The Four who back the INFINITE GAUNTLET attend to His Augustness with their remote avatar-bodies, assisting his frenzied finalization of the correct trials and contests that shall uncover his worthy successor. Another Four have all but declared that their mind-father's implementation of the ancient and sacred challenge is flawed and will produce no worthy successor to the Nine Thrones, and on this doctrinal point they stand separate from all-consuming work of the AEON KHAN and their wayward peers. However, there is no consensus between these Four whether to formulate their own version of the INFINITE GAUNTLET or to seek other, more expedient means of succession. The Last has yet to speak on the matter.

[Ford Prefect]

News of the Infinite Gauntlet has reached from the heights of the glittering towers of the White Jade City to the farthest, most desolate reaches of the Nine Spirals. So, too, have rumours of the Nine Godheads and their lack of consensus. Debate rages from the loftiest of aristocratic estates to the bawdiest of soba noodle bars: what is the will of the Last of the Nine?

On a world white-sanded world flung out on the very cusp of the AEON KHAN's trackless domain, the dusty people who make their living with only the scantest of news from the great centres of the universe would claim to know the mind of the Last. The Most August and Olympic King of Kings has lost an heir, they would tell you, small and fragile seeming but with a fire in her eyes that would seem to harken to the early days of AEON KHAN's conquest. Her star has been rising out on the plains, where archaic automobiles race for blood and money. This girl has no name, no apparent heritage at all, yet still mysterious envoys in robes of glittering silicon have been seen in the night, coming and going from the ramshackle shed where she keeps her prized vehicle, the Trans Am 66,000,000.

Could it be that the Last is cultivating some lost heiress to His Augustness? That it was they say in drunken whispers. The girl with no name has called this foolish, but if you were game enough to try, you could follow her out into the wilds, and see her siting upon the hood of her custom racer, staring at the stars.

[Booted Vulture]

The Imperial Bureau Of Capitalisation is a critical organisation in maintaining the grandeur of the Imperial throne and forcing proper respect of The Emperor's name. By the most important task of making sure it is always typed and represented in FULL CAPS, to fully encapsulate the True Magnificence of AEON KHAN.

They scour all text based forms of communication to enforce their edicts, merely typing the sinful phrase AEON KHAN results in heavy fines, while disseminating such a word form to a wider audience or typing 'AEON KHAN' can result in incarceration or even mental outlook retuning by the Bureau.

This duty is the Bureau's prime concern, the fact that having legal access to all text based communications has resulted in them gaining an awful amount of confidence and sensitive information is quite irrelevant. Rumours that they use this access to act as a general intelligence service has been officially denied on numerous occasions by the government on all levels up to AEON KHAN himself.

[Shroom Man 777]

The Bureau never rests.

[Invictus]

As the once utterly irrepressible vigor of the AEON KHAN declined to the pitiful state that it is now at, the upkeep of his health has grown from a mere afterthought to the grave matter which currently consumes most the bureaucratic machinery of White Jade City. For is the AEON KHAN not the Fulcrum of All Things? Is he not the light and the will of the Nine Spirals themselves? The Galactic Courts' mortal courtiers can scarcely countenance the passing of his aeon, even as the supreme trial of his succession is being set into motion. Nay, it is too much to contemplate. Better His Augustness linger centicycle by centicycle in closed cloisters though he may be a shadow of himself, so that things would be as they always were!

Thus, the halls of the Colleges Physik and Alchemik bustle with activity as they never have before, devising ever more potent elixirs and restoratives for the consumption of His August Corpus. Scholars ply the farthest corners of the Nine Galaxies and the deepest reaches of the Galactic Archives for obscure formulae to return health to a god. The Steward-Hierarch of White Jade City has declared hirself head of the grand organized effort to sustain the health of the AEON KHAN, brazen with the cautious favor the Four Godheads has bestowed upon hir so that the King of Kings' strength may last until he has completed his First Summa of the INFINITE GAUNTLET. The Steward-Hierarch has caused the bottomless coffers of White Jade City to be unsealed, and its endless riches are being lavished upon a veritable legion of supplicants brandishing their unique and miraculous remedies for the AEON KHAN's condition. At the Hall of Petitions on each capitol world of the Nine Galaxies, perfectly vatsculpted representatives of great voidcorps-medicae are packed alongside the most bedraggled of physicians-errant to have their gifts met with the assessment of the Godheads and the newly minted Stewards Extraordinary shuttle-fresh from White Jade City. Great explorer fleets, flush with the promise of reward, venture deep into the wilds of the universe to locate legendary and elusive medicines such as the void mandrake and the nebula lotus, even as their backers purchase and evict entire worlds in anticipation of their cultivation. Vast fortunes have been funneled into mere hopes, and already some supplicants have had their efforts censured and purged by Office of Orthodoxy for invoking dark and forbidden techniques of the Pre-Khanate aeons. All nine Godheads have spared some of their attention to this concern, for even though not all of them agree to the reasoning of the Four and the self-aggrandizement of the Steward-Hierarch, none of them wish for their primogenitor to die.

Of course, for those disapproving of the entire tumultous and wasteful endeavor, a contrary view can be found. It is not inconceivable indeed that ambitious claimants to the Nine Thrones may seek to sabotage the great Call to remedy the health of the AEON KHAN by slipping deadly poisons into his tinctures! The Four Godheads who stood apart are naturally suspected, being the gatekeepers of the influx of medicines in their respective galaxies as well as opponents to the AEON KHAN's final work. Others glance towards all who have influence on the suddenly effluent Steward-Hierarch and hir central committee or Imperial caretakers, and even the Steward-Hierarch hirself. The Knifehands naturally investigate all such rumors with alacrity and any genuine plot against His Augustness' life will be met with their peerless wrath.

[speaker-to-trolls]

The Nine To Ten Beacons

Though the AEON KHAN is dying, though the embodiments of his immortal will are fractured and at war with one another, still, he is the Supreme Lord Above Gods, and still, when he speaks, the cosmos will hear his words. Thus, as he proclaims the beginning of the INFINITE GAUNTLET, the ultimate trial for the ultimate prize in the universe, the beacons shall be sent out.

Each beacon is nine kilometres in length and shines like a sun, in each system in the unfathomable dominions of the AEON KHAN, for three days, nine new suns will shine as nine beacons visit it. In each of the Nine Spirals, 387,420,489, nine to the power of nine, of the great beacons have been dispatched, so that throughout the universe nine to the tenth power of these mighty ships patrol the universe, spreading their sombre and glorious message: The Master of Galaxies is dying, and He seeks a successor.

Their message will be broadcast across every band of communication known to man and shall echo in the minds of whole civilisation. Feasts and celebrations shall be held in their honour on a billion worlds as they proclaim to all that creation seeks a new king, that somewhere, someone worthy to take the Crown of Spirals shall hear and heed.

[Invictus]

And across the universe did challengers arise to answer the call of the Nine-to-Ten Suns. The invitation is universal, the prize irresistible. Yet the rising stars of some worthies were ill-met by the astrologers of the Galactic Courts, and made the troubled godlings of the Divine Service wish they could gainsay the word of the Champion of Nine Spirals.

Warmaster Magra-Chadra is the greatest general of the Nine Galaxies in living memory, subduing rebellions against the rightful rule of the AEON KHAN with the ease of a bull trampling grass. But in these relatively peaceful times such challenges, most agree, are unworthy of the Warmaster's immense talents. Though Magra-Chadra did shine when he led the Gallant Galactic Fleet and the Nine Totem Armies against the the Complacency of Zaar, repelling their nightmarish legions and harrowing their infernal fortresses in a short and brilliant campaign, the bulk of his career was spent quelling academy riots and voidcorp disputes where he humbled his opponents just as his Titan-blooded stature humbled all around him. The Warmaster chafed at his service even as the Galactic Courts chafed at his unruliness and constant demands for increased funding and military readiness against no apparent threat. The state of affairs declined until Magra-Chadra abruptly left the Nine Galaxies with his personal House and twenty gigafleets at his back, vowing not to return until he finds and conquers the mythical Tenth Galaxy in the name of His Augustness the AEON KHAN, the Fulcrum of All Things. He has not been heard of since.

But now, watch-stations at the edge of the Nine Spirals are ablaze with alarm, as their instruments detect the looming hypershadow of a fleet of unimaginable size approaching the civilized universe. Who could it be, the Galactic Courts whisper in panic, other than the return of Warmaster Magra-Chadra himself, laying claim to the Crown of Spirals with the strength of an entire galaxy behind him? At the lack of information, rumors abound: that inconceivably, the news of the INFINITE GAUNTLET had reached him even across the vasty void, and now he speeds to his master's side to join forces with his loyalists in exchange for the Four's favor in his own entry into the contest; that regardless of consequence he comes to plunge the Nine Galaxies into a new aeon of strife, using his unshakeable numbers and unmatchable genius to rewrite the cosmic order through blood and laser; that the conquest of the Tenth Galaxy was but a lie to cloak his true quest, and that he now returns bearing a relic that could cure the infirmities of the AEON KHAN with a single touch. Such is the speed and distance of the coming fleet that no envoy or probe can arrive ahead of it. Thus in truth its identity and intention is a mystery, and in the absence of truth rumor must do.

[speaker-to-trolls]

The Night's Marches and the Watchtower

Beyond the shining bounds of the Nine Spirals lies the cold, black infinity of the Uncivilised Beyond, the darkness that stretches for unknown billions of lightyears beyond the realm of the AEON KHAN, and the darkness is not wholly empty. Out there in the empty places beyond the reach of known life there are the banished followers of Zaar, the exiled Houses of the Grey Sun, the hundred heretic lower khans who failed to recognise the majesty of the Fulcrum, and there are other things besides. There are creatures like ghosts and demons, the Othermen and the Astrovores and the Silent Dragons, races and armies born to the unfathomable cold, who sometimes threaten the safety of the Nine Galaxies.

And on the rim of the Spirals, watching forever against these threats, there are the soldiers of the Watchtower, the Great Wall of Space, a wall made of guardian fleets and fortresses who keep their eyes peeled for exiles and aliens who may seek to threaten the peace of the AEON KHAN's domains. In each galaxy are nine Lord Marshalls of the Watchtower, one to watch each of the Nine Vectors of space, and a tenth, who commands them from their Singular Fortress, and sits at the side of the AEON KHAN when commanded, one of his unimpeachable Knifehands.

The Watchtower has heard of strange things stirring in parts of its territories as the time of the INFINITE GAUNTLET approaches, strange and troubling tidings, especially as some of the Lord Marshalls find themselves drawn by the INFINITE GAUNTLET's call, and are tempted to abandon their posts to seek the ultimate reward by the ultimate trial.

[Invictus]

The Fist of the Unknown King

There are a million heresies great and lesser fomenting in the realm of the King of Khans, each seditiously claiming that the right to rule the Nine Galaxies belongs to another. Some are little more than cults of personality around warlords or deluded prophets, easily scattered after their exalted claimants are crushed by the Totem Armies or a single ferocious deployment of the Dragon Legion. Some are cults who through purpose or accident called dark and forbidden entities across the Veil of Mortality and succumbed to their mad influence in which case the Divine Service and the Office of Orthodoxy step in to banish such entitles through sigil and song, and exile their irreperably tainted followers to the Void beyond the Wall. Some are mere masks created by the conspiracies of mortal courtiers to rally pawns and misdirect rivals as to further their agendas in the grand and byzantine power plays of the Galactic Courts, which mean they inevitably wither and disperse when their secret patrons fall prey to the Knifehands. However, the followers of the Fist of the Unknown King have no leader; for they claim that their promised messiah has yet to come to be, but has sent his teachings ahead of him to prepare the universe for his coming. They make no overt moves against the authority of the AEON KHAN, for they claim that the One Who Succeeds will come at his own appointed time, and that his sovereignty will be undeniable and unchallengeable when his arrival fills the universe with infinite light. And they are not easy to crush, for the teachings of the Fist of the Unknown King contain potent and mysterious astras that transform pious followers into astonishing preacher-warriors capable overmatching gang enforcers, rival sects and Ordermen precincts. The followers of the Unknown King humbly claim that such power is merely a gift from the Shining One, but there is little doubt that their creed is on the rise in the declining years of the AEON KHAN, spreading and congregating across a thousand worlds to even merit notice by White Jade City.

As always, the Call of the Nine To Ten changed everything. It was a sign that the Aeon of the Khan is finally drawing to a close, so perhaps the next Aeon shall be that of the King Revealed? So some sects of the Fist argue as they begin preaching openly for rebellion, leading armies of the faithful to overthrow habitats and worlds and imposing their teachings onto their populace. Other sects have dispersed themselves before the oncoming reprisal, spreading mendicants across the civilized universe and beyond to seek signs that their messiah may already walk among them. Some sects merely settle down and watch for signs of the Shining One's appearance at the first trials, for naturally he would prevail in any contest for kingship. Most shockingly of all, word from White Jade City has openly acknowledged the claims of the Fist of the Unknown King regarding universal kingship, and will not oppose the participation of its collected sects in the INFINITE GAUNTLET...as long as the followers of the Fist can agree to send forth one champion, one representative. The Galactic Courts generally believe the sudden announcement to be no more than a ploy to distract and divide the troublesome movement, and many sects of the Fist agree. Some even reject the legitimacy of the INFINITE GAUNTLET for all its age and sacred pedigree, believing the creed of the One Who Succeeds to be rooted in even greater antiquity. However, even mere acknowledgment from the Axis of All Cosmos has had its enormous impact, for in one word it elevates a champion of the Fist to the equal of mighty Warmasters and Watch-Marshalls, within reaching distance of the Nine Thrones and all its mighty dominions! If such a champion could be selected among the prophets, hermits and anchorites of the holy host! Can such an opportunity be denied by its leaders?

[Booted Vulture]

Duelling Armour.

Duelling Armour covers an entire range of combat exoskeletons used by the Aristocracy. Though not technically legal, those of highest rank are rarely prosecuted. Duels are usually conducted when a grievance is of sufficient magnitude between two beings, that is no honourable way they can be expect to tolerate each other. The matter should be of a personal nature that cannot be settled by the legal system, short of petitioning for the judgement of the boundless wisdom of AEON KHAN himself. Given that the lives of mere men are like the fluttering of a nat's wing to the KHAN, those who have petitioned him on such trivial matters tend to come feeling all the worse for it. Thus the duelling code was revived so not to trouble AEON KHAN and to let him.

Duelling Armour does not come in matched Pairs and each duellist must bring their own personal suit. The only standardised component is that of the primary weapon system. The field generator; a marvellous system able to manipulate gravity, the electromagnetic spectrum and the underlying ether fabric of the cosmos. It is a device of such tremendous versatility and power that the physical capabilities of the suit mounting it are considered negligible.

The simplest of armours considers merely of a muscle suit with a chest mount for the field generator and the more complex can consist of fully enclosed power armour.

The largest known suit was commissioned by the Duke Tristan El Farris and was a thirty foot tall mechaniod constructed of layers of titanium, silver, gold, and platinum and utilised circuitry of an embedded crystalline matrix of artificial diamonds, rubies and sapphires.

The Duke did not get challenged to many duels...

[speaker-to-trolls]

Tensela Khandao, The Great Royal Wife

'Shall I tell you of my relationship with the AEON KHAN?

I was born the child of a humble clerk, whose home world orbitted the palace of Haraku Harakin, seventh Watch-Marshall of the Third Spiral, as he was then, for I oversaw his execution, many trials later. My mother sold me to Harakin when it became apparent I was attractive, charming and clever. Harakin placed me somewhere in the lower eschelons of his harem, for there were many attractive, charming and clever children he could afford to buy.

I distinguished myself in his service, I demonstrated to the Watch Marshall that I was greater in intellect, more desirable as company, braver in action, than his other concubines, and so with every year he took greater notice of me until he entrusted me with many of his secrets, and with the planning of many of his operations. I should not have been shocked by the depths of corruption that lay at the heart of the Gatehouse of the Star-Rending Lion, but there were such depravities in his past, such waste, that I felt it was only right to expose him. I also knew that I would be rewarded for bringing Harakin's maleficence to light.

It took me years to gather my evidence against Haraku, and to organise my network of spies who would take it to the ears of greater authorities than him. That network undid me, for it was made up of my fellow concubines and clerks, and not all of them were reliable. Thus, I was betrayed, and Haraku extracted his vengeance and subjected me to intensive questioning, only sparing me because I had devised ways of keeping the truth from him. The network saved my life, as well, for some of my agents did manage to bring my information to the ears of the Singular Fortress and the Third Godhead itself, thus while I suffered I lived long enough to see the Gatehouse of the Star Rending Lion surrender and fall to greater authority.

Haraku did not kill me in time, and so I was freed by the hands of the law as it came to punish its wayward servant. I was brought before the Lord Marshall himself as Haraku was imprisoned and investigated, and it was then that He arrived, drawn, I was told, by rumours of the mere concubine who had defied and indicted a Watch-Marshall who had forsaken his duty.

I saw the face of the One Above Gods, the AEON KHAN, and in that instant I knew a measure of love and of awe which I had never imagined possible.

'This one interests Us,' he said, and his voice was like the force that moves the galaxies on their axis, like the songs that echo through the hollow spaces of the cosmos. I willingly gave myself over to His service on that day, as once I had been given to the service of one of his lesser servants. Since that day I worked to impress Him, to be worthy of His greater than divine attention. I have been a mother to his children, a general to his armies, a diplomat and a herald to his people and a keeper of his estates. He has rewarded me with honour, with power and love and status, I am one of the greatest among the Knifehands, my wedding ring is brilliant gold and shines more brightly than the star it encircles, a billion silver dragons attend to me, and I am counted among the immortals by those who do not know better.

Those who do not know better, indeed, for there are no immortals. He is dying. He has sent out his beacons to announce that He is dying, that He demands a successor to take up the crown of the Universe. He locks Himself away, now, deep within His palace, and even I cannot see Him.

So, if He wishes it of me, if this is my duty to Him, then I will again make him take heed of my quality. My Khan, my God, my Husband, I will take up your gauntlet, you need not fear that an unworthy hand should touch your crown.'

[Invictus]

The Nine Totem Armies

If the Gallant Galactic Fleet stands as the void-bound arm of the authority of the AEON KHAN across the breadth of the Nine Galaxies, the Nine Totem Armies are his innumerable fingers upon the numberless worlds of his domain.

They are a breed apart from the petty vassal lifeguards, sanctioned militias, standing levies and contracted trainbands raised by the voidcorps and the aristocracy to safeguard their fiefs and estates; each Army is united under a single command and the martial spirit of a single war-totem, responsible for the security and morale of its own galaxy.

They are a breed apart from the universal Ordermen who patrol the streets and apprehend wrongdoers, because for as comparably vast the ranks of the Ordermen are, they are only seconded to the magistrates and the enforcement bureaux of the Divine Service and their duties only extend to keeping the peace; while the Totem Armies answer only to the High Council of Warmasters (who sometimes convene in White Jade City and sometimes in an enormous collection of mobile fortresses and command dreadnoughts, a gigafleet in and of itself) composed of the most honored and most senior generals under the service of the King of Khans, and they are expected to be used by boldly and decisively by the High Council in bloody battle.

They are a breed apart from the men and women who make up the fleets and fortresses of the Watchtower, for the latter swear grim oaths of service and by custom their families must mourn their mustering as though they are forever lost; but the former by enlisting discharges the levy-duty upon his family for a whole generation and their departure is therefore much celebrated, and also due to the fact that they bring home bounteous stipends if they survive to complete their service.

Though each Totem Army is mandated to be fully capable of intergalactic expeditions, each is deeply and intimately tied to the culture and traditions of its home galaxy. The directives of the AEON KHAN and the High Council of Warmasters impose a measure of uniformity to logistics and tactical doctrine, to be sure, but the sheer size of the Armies ensure that serious divergences have developed between Army to Army and even between Legion to Legion. It often takes the Warmasters among the High Council promoted from and experienced with the quirks of the Army in question to command them effectively. The deeply independent traditions of the Totem Armies are manifest most of all in the Totems they have adopted. Most veterans and officers will reply that they proudly display the colors of their Armies because the colors have always been so. But the archivists of White Jade City will tell you that many of the Totems can be traced back to the emblems and devices of the great Galactic Empires who squabbled over the Divided Spirals before the coming of the AEON KHAN. The retainment of the old Totems was merely their reward for their peaceful capitulation to the Khan of Kings as He reformed their militaries to serve Him, while the Empires who resisted - as well as the Armies who later rose in open rebellion - have had their names and symbols obliterated from memory and new devices selected from the cauldron of Galactic history to take their place. Some whisper that this is also the reason why the AEON KHAN had banned the Dragons from serving among the Totem Armies; for the memories of the Dragons are Old, and alone of all the species of the Nine Galaxies they remember a time before the Champion of Nine Spirals.

The Nine Totem Armies are the Dragon Triumphant Army, the Garuda Volant Army, the Lion Rampant Army, the Phoenix Unsullied Army, the Serpent Wound Army, the Scorpion Victorious Army, the Titan Uncrowned Army, the Storm Unbidden Army and the Demon Errant Army.

[speaker-to-trolls]

The Dragon Legion

Of all the myriad species and peoples among the Khan of Kings' subjects, the dragons are the most ancient, the most wise and the most learned in all the arts, including the art of war. While the Pearled Race are barred from serving in His Ultimate Majesty's Totem Armies, there is yet a place for their expertise and power among his soldiers, and that place is in the armoured swarms of the Dragon Legion.

Unattached to any of the Totem Armies, the Dragon Legion is under the direct command of its general, the Lightning Pearl Warmaster, who is itself one of the Knifehands, and one of those closest in confidence to the Khan of Kings. The Legion of the Lightning Pearl is dispatched when an enemy threatens the harmony of all the Nine Spirals, and its commander is ever slightly outside the normal chain of command. It is a true aerospace force, with its mighty armoured warriors able to fight both in space or within the bounds of planets, habitats and other, stranger environments. Each dragon is fitted with finely crafted armour outfitted with the most deadly in Field Generator technology, and is able to match its skills against cosmic junks and astral destroyers as well as against land bound armies and fortresses. Gigafleets and continents alike have fallen in ruin before the onslaught of the Lightning Pearl, and when they are brought to battle many an enemy has surrendered rather than face them.

The Lightning Pearl Warmaster and his legion have unanimously supported the INFINITE GAUNTLET, and the Dragon Legion has dedicated itself to guarding the resources of the trials. It is seditiously suggested by some that they only do this so that they can set one of their own race upon the throne of the next aeon.

[Invictus]

White Jade City

As He consolidated the Nine Galaxies under the rule of the Crown of Spirals, the AEON KHAN decreed a new capitol city to be built - a city which must be voluminous enough to hold the all the machinery of government required to administer His domains, yet be the ultimate fortress against enemy siege, while also serving as a shining symbol of the new age that would be unequaled in the infinities before or after. The result was White Jade City.

Set at an equidistant point of maximum auspiciousness between the Nine Galaxies is the white supergiant star Xanadu. It is thousands of times the bulk of an average star, burning away the trackless void around it with its unfathomable outpourings of radiation, and its radiance is such that it is visible in all but the most remote spirals of the Divine Genius' domain. It is no natural stellar object - indeed, it takes the most wizardly sciences the Nine Galaxies can muster to ensure its layers stay stable and its light remain the purest of white, while shielding its fantastic innards from the ravenous radiance of its outer surface. For Xanadu is a hollow star, and White Jade City is built within.

To enter White Jade City, one must be guided by the Imperial Stewards who for countless generations have mastered and safeguarded the the secret regions and periods where the tempestuous surface of the artificial star gives way to safe passage. An incorrect approach will see even the most well-shielded of gigafleets burned up in moments by Xanadu's holy brilliance, and even vessels taking the most auspicious entrances will see their fields strained opaque by the ambient flame. When one enters the body of the star itself, the path of relatively abated heat that one must follow is even more thoroughly guarded - there are dead ends and trapped passageways to avoid, coded challenges in stellar flares to answer correctly and gates of swirling plasma to pass. Tasked to watching these approaches are the last of the gargantuan Starudas, a species who frolic and gestate in the bodies of stars, all but extinct in the Nine Galaxies at large and granted sanctuary by the AEON KHAN here. It is thusly that the Fulcrum of All Things maintains His imperial mystery, and all messengers and petitioners must find cause with the impartial Imperial Stewards before they can be heard before the Starheart Court. Only the Knifehands, the High Lord Marshalls of the Watchtower and a rare few individuals bearing special keys, even greater in the confidence of the AEON KHAN, can come and go as they please through the secret ways of the Singular Fortress.

There is a point in the entrant's passage where the unbearable fury of Xanadu ceases, and the radiant abruptly gives way to the physical. One will pass through an aperture in the shell of great arcane engines that keep the star outside blazing and city inside cool, and one will pass into the unspeakable splendor of White Jade City proper. Such sights! Such majesty! There is naught but a gentle omnipresent sunlight tempered by the regular passing of nightshades and statite-mosaics, massive works of art commemorating great victories and mighty achievements done in the King of Khans' unutterable name. Grave temples and shrines to the forgotten and the fallen similarly drift, and so do the massive bureaupoli of Galactic government, linked by crystal chains and gold-inlaid void bridges and gigafleets of jeweled transports fashioned in the shape of sea-going vessels from ages past. More impressive still are the palaces and pleasure spheres of the AEON KHAN in their stately dancing orbits, and other treasure troves and wonders too numerous to mention. For White Jade City is the Nine Galaxies ultimate trophy hall, and within it has accumulated much that is dear to the AEON KHAN in His millenia of grand and virtuous rule.

But now the rule is ending, and the Champion of Nine Spirals has not left His beloved city for a long time. Without His guiding hand, the affairs of state have overflowed from the overworked Starheart Court and into the Galactic Courts of the Nine Galaxies and the hands of their power-hungry aristocracy. The Stewards are no longer the impartial custodians of old, consumed as they are with the self-appointed task of preserving their sovereign master. And some savants say that Xanadu's light has began to wane...

[speaker-to-trolls]

The Titan's Bastards

The Totem Army of the Seventh Spiral bears the image of the Titan Uncrowned, and this is not mere fanciful picture, for it relates to the very earliest history of that galaxy, back at the dawn of the Aeon of the Khan. In those times the being now known as the Titan was the greatest emperor of that galaxy, ruling over billions of worlds by the power of His invincible armies and the irresistable force of his strength. When He gave the word the void was filled with savage fleets and when he struck the ground of a planet its crust would shatter. His monuments shone against the darkness of space and his children were as numerous as whole populations. Yet he was not truly invincible.

When the Champion of the Nine Spirals came to the Titan's galaxy their struggle was long and terrible, but eventually the AEON KHAN proved victorious, and the Seventh Spiral looked on in awe as the Titan set his crown aside and knelt before the Fulcrum of All Things.

His children and his and subjects mostly followed his wishes, and the Titan joined the service of the Khan of Kings, it is said that his knowledge of stellarchitecture helped lay the foundations for White Jade City, and that he established the College Megalithian, where the builders and architects of the Nine Spirals now learn their trade. Eventually death overtook him, as it shall soon overtake his master, and his body, vast as a moon, is now a holy site in the Seventh Spiral, remembered and guarded by the Titan Uncrowned Army.

But there were some of his descendants who would not accept their progenitor's demise, scattered among the sixty swirling arms of the Seventh Spiral, they could not believe that the Titan had surrendered to anyone. They are removed from the inheritance and honour of their forebear, but since his time they have prowled among the borders of the Seventh Galaxy, plotting against the AEON KHAN and waiting for the plan they believe their ancestor made against the Khan of Kings to come to fruition. With the waining of the AEON KHAN's power they have become more restless each year, and now two bountiful arms of teh Seventh Spiral all but belong to them. Some of them even claim that soon they will discover one among their number who has inherited the full divine strength of their great ancestor, who may take up the INFINITE GAUNTLET and give them all the power their Great Father would have posessed, had the AEON KHAN not stood in his way.

[Invictus]

The Singular Fortress

If White Jade City is the ultimate shining city, the Singular Fortress is its shadow and opposite - the ultimate hidden stronghold. To the Nine Galaxies the Singular Fortress is nine and one and a million in number, and all such counts are on some level true. For the fortress' structure is a network of caverns excavated into the fabric of space-time itself, wrought from countless numbers of wormholes joined at the tail to a great stable nadir of closed space which serves as the main bulk of the impossible complex. Tunnels wide enough to admit gigafleets reach upwards from this labyrinth warped and pinched off even from hyperspace, terminating at the nine Greater Singular Fortresses that form the centerpieces of fortification in each of the Nine Spirals. Other tunnels lead to drifting termini at various secret points throughout the Nine Galaxies, shrouded by impenetrable event horizons. Other, even smaller tunnels lead to fixed gates of even greater secrecy to allow the swift passage of the most trusted agents of the AEON KHAN. It is the unique nature of the fortress that makes it so suitable as the headquarters and citadel of the disparate fleets and stations of the Watchtower.

To give access to the Singular Fortress, keys wrought from folded space and intricate voidjade circuitry are entrusted to the nine High Lord Marshalls of the Watchtower, passed from holder to holder of the exalted position. As well as serving as symbols of their vital authority and proof of the divine trust placed upon them by their sovereign master, the keys allow precise control over the awesome cosmic machinery of the Greater Fortresses. With a command they can open the space-tunnels to convey gigafleets across unfathomable distances to reinforce any beleaguered watch-station or boundary world in the King of Khans' domain. The keys even grant the High Lord Marshalls to power to alter the very shape and location of their Greater Fortress, ordering the embedded wormhole to swallow it and disgorge it elsewhere. Within the hyperspace depths of the True Fortress, the keys have even greater powers to mold the very nature of the citadel at will, altering the flow of time, creating new passageways or cutting off cul-de-sacs as a god would upon a lesser universe. It is with these powers that some of the most dangerous artefacts and individuals in the history of the Nine Galaxies have been been safely incarcerated within the bowels of the Singular Fortress.

Lesser keys, programmed with powers of transport only, are assigned to select members of the Knifehands and built into the mechanical bodies of the Godhands. The AEON KHAN and the Godheads also each possess a number of keys that they are at their absolute discretion to grant to individuals they deem worthy of bearing them, though in each case override controls are incorporated in favor of their true masters.

In contrast to the completion of White Jade City which was breathlessly lauded all throughout the Nine Spirals, there are no official records of when and how the Singular Fortress was constructed. Some say this is right and proper: the ultimate bastion of the Watchtower should hardly have its true nature advertised far and wide to the numberless enemies of the AEON KHAN. Others maintain that it was because the Singular Fortress was not constructed from the genius of the Fulcrum of All Things - instead, He had inherited it from an ancient and forgotten occupant, and that not even His most dedicated Knifehands have plumbed all its secrets.

[speaker-to-trolls]

The Ministry of Heavenly Highways

The Heavenly Highways of Hyperspace link all the major points of the Nine Galaxies, from the Three Ultimate Roads which lead from White Jade City, each branching into three Great Spiralling Roads, each of which leads to one of the Nine Galacies, each of these branching in turn into many lesser pathways. In this away, the entirety of the Civilised Universe is linked together by safe and stable pathways through the otherdimensional realms of Hyperspace.

At the end of all of this are the Three Ultimate Gatehouses, three huge rings surrounded by spaceborne spires of luminous Starstone, orbiting equidistantly from White Jade City, and these are the headquarters of the Ministry of the Heavenly Highways. The Ministry's reach extends from these points all through the Nine Galaxies, where it is charged with maintaining the stability of the Highways, keeping the geometries of Hyperspace safe for passage, free of pirates and monsters, and to monitor all the traffic that passes through the realms of the King of Khans. The rule of this Ministry is given over almost exclusively to the Watching Dragons, in whose unique neurology and second sight is the secret of understanding Hyperspace as no other being can.

In ages past the AEON KHAN established the Ministry to administer his realms, to spread prosperity and harmony throughout the cosmos, and it performed its job well, very will indeed. But as his power has waned, so has the efficiency and integrity of his Ministry. As such areas of Hyperspace have become dangerous and tangled, travel has become difficult in parts of the Khan's dominions and pirates and monsters once again stalk the pathways made for civilised men. Worse than all this, there are agents of the Ministry who have turned against their purpose, corruption has begun to spread through those elements removed from the Ultimate Gatehouses, some say there are dragons who have taken bribes from pirates to allow them to ply their murderous trade, or used monsters and mercenaries to grant themselves power, setting up petty fiefdoms in the far removed arms of the Nine Galaxies. More disturbing than this, though, is the division among the Ministry stemming from the division of the Nine Godheads, for it is said that elements of the MInistry will not permit the passage of the Nine to Ten, nor that of contenders for the INFINITE GAUNTLET whom they do not support, using their power over Hyperspace to enforce the terms of their own position. If the arteries of the cosmos close themselves through political strife, it is said, then what will become of the body of civilisation?

[Ford Prefect]

The Demiurge

For uncounted revolutions of the Nine Spirals has the AEON KHAN ruled the Civilised Universe. The days of conquest where The Most August and Olympic King of Kings brought the old gods to heel and bent the fabric of space to his will are so distant and ancient that they cannot be said to be history any longer. They are no longer even legend: they are myth. All that exists of that time are memories: the memories of the Dalai Khan, his Nine Godheads, perhaps the merest handful of other creatures as mysterious and reclusive as the former. And mysterious and reclusive the Spiral King is! Even for those who have earned positions at the Starheart Court, or whom have attained some home within glittering Xanadu and the White Jade City, the AEON KHAN is an enigma. Even Artemesia El Xanadu, latest in the long line of Prime Consuls and perhaps the most powerful living being in existence short of the August Personage of Jade himself, cannot claim to know any of the Khan's secrets. And if she, highest counsel of the Spiral King, knows nothing then what does this leave the countless citizens of the Nine Spirals? Or indeed, where does this leave the enemies of the Nine Spirals? Who is this leader, this mysterious phantom who rules nine galaxies from the heart of the universe?

Who is the AEON KHAN?

This is not a question that is regularly asked. However, this does not mean it is a question that is punished. There is no law that mandates against such a question. Not even the most devout of Knifehands would act against a person who asks 'who is the AEON KHAN?', for they themselves would wonder. Perhaps even the Tensela Khandao wonders, at times. For most, it is enough to know that he exists, and that he is ruler of the Nine Spirals. But for those others, there is The Demiurge.

An electric book of unknown origin and with no known author, central authorities have warned of the danger it poses, but in such vague and half-hearted ways that it seems clear that they are not willing to label it one of the few Proscribed Texts. It is not in nature of the AEON KHAN to stifle the speech of the masses, no matter how scandalous the subject matter: only where there is real danger to the people shall an electric book or glass scroll be Proscribed. And it is rumoured that on the matter of The Demiurge, the AEON KHAN himself determined that the book was without real harm.

And yet the content of that book seems almost defamatory. It speaks of an existence named Ialdabaoth that came from the lonely darkness beyond the Darkness Beyond the Nine Spirals. It speaks of a phantom king with a heart of void that cowed the old gods and bent the fabric of space to its will. It speaks of Ialdabaoth as a demon from before the universe, from an epoch so ancient that it could not possibly exist except as some fantasy. No one who has read The Demiurge has even taken it as fact, and most who have read it would claim that it was puerile nonsense, barely better than a dimestore wuxia scroll.

Yet as unsatisfying as The Demiurge is, that question remains: who is the AEON KHAN?

[Invictus]

House Su'merc

One of the Twelve Great Houses that traditionally dominated both politics and commerce in the Fifth Spiral, boasting both a respectable presence in Galactic governance and a Grand Compact First Class for the conduct of business with almost unrestricted freedom in their entire home galaxy, a privilege granted to a mere few hundred of the greatest voidcorps. The great gigafleets commanded by the Seated Scions of the House consist of ferries and great gilded liners, bulk freighters served by voidtugs and mobile refineries, fast-boats bearing the most precious and perishable of cargos, armored convoys bearing cargos no less valuable, manufactory barges capable of swallowing asteroids whole and taking great bites out of stellar coronas, all busy at countless commercial operations scattered throughout the civilized arms of the Seafoam Galaxy. Upon the terrestrial sphere, way-stations and clearing-houses are in equal prominence, displaying the deep roots of the House in the wealth of the galaxy. Meanwhile treasure fleets captained by more expendable scions ply the outer spirals for opportunity and plunder, goods which have grown to great abundance with the ailing of the AEON KHAN and the discord of His heaven. With every reshuffling of the Ancestral Board and every change in policy trillions of investors go wild in speculation and thousands of vassal-subsidiaries rise and fall. It is fair to say that there is nowhere in the Fifth Spiral where the turquoise wave-sigil of House Su'merc will not be recognized.

Yet House Su'merc is merely one out of twelve in the fifth of nine, and though most of the Twelve Great Houses of 'Merc have fallen further and harder than they, the struggle for true prominence is far from settled between the remaining contenders. The Other Great Houses may be less vast in scope but possess unchallengeable monopolies in certain trades, while less worldly but more talented aristocratic lineages have risen up to displace much of the old power and influence wielded by the Su'merc in the Galactic Court and the magistracies of the metropoles, and with this repercussions are even shaking the deeply entrenched Su'merc Worthy Ancestors from their positions in the Divine Service. Some scions suspect the hand of the Fifth Godhead behind the slow fall of the Twelve Houses, foreseeing some disfavorable outcome if the old ways of the the galaxy in its responsibility were to continue. But if so, the passing of the Nine-to-Ten Suns have thrown all such plans into disarray. Even as it is known that the Fifth Godhead is one of the Four Who Stand Apart, the Ancestral Board have pitched all the ships and men the House could spare into the quest for the supreme panacea in the hope that it would be to the Su'merc that the Cynosure of Heaven would come to owe a life-debt to. Such an unimaginable boon would be more than enough to restore the fortunes of the House against whatever ill-will the Godheads have piled against them. It is no surprise that command of the sumptous questing gigafleet was granted to the Infante Apparent Fireze El Su'merc himself, who dreams of accomplishing this quest to win the heart and the hand of the Princess Yinping, heir of the Supreme Surpassing Sovereign Himself, whom he once espied accompanying her father in the Pilgrimage of the Feast.

Like much aristocracy that can trace their lineage to the Fifth spiral, House Su'merc claims descent from the old goddess Myrs the Traveler, a demiurge-figure still revered throughout much of the Fifth Spiral despite the immeasurable wane of her worship compared to the times of old. Though both the Emissaries of the Last Godhead and the Ministry of Mortality have declared that not even the faintest echoes of the Goddess' living spirit could still be heard, the fact has not stopped the seastone shrines to her in Su'merc serftowns from seeing regular business, nor stopped the Su'merc shipwrights from giving new void-vessels figureheads carved in her image. It is even maintained by some devout that the goddess only left the Fifth Spiral to wed the AEON KHAN and live with Him in the new paradise He built beyond the stars. Any scholar familiar with the history of the Fifth Galaxy will scoff at this belief. Yet in the stately orbiting mausoleums at the serene depths of White Jade City, filled to bursting with memorials dear to the heart of the One Above Gods scoured from the Nine Galaxies, one can find a statue of imperishable turquoise jade without name or inscription, of a brave-featured woman whose garb blends into the carved waves surrounding her, holding a simple oar in her hands.

[speaker-to-trolls]

The Questing Herbalist Heierarchy

When the AEON KHAN conquered the Second Spiral, he cast down the jungle fortresses of the Stellarborean Green Kings, the great inpenetrable tangles of superplanetary plantlife that had, over countless millennia, been grown into cities and military bases of the most fearsome proportions, the greatest of them encircling whole star systems. Though the King of Khans brought these beings low and laid waste to their defences, the great beauty and wondrous nature of the ecology of the Stellarborea. It is for this reason that He, in His great wisdom and taste, brought the greatest variety of their most interesting life forms and set them up in new gardens of fitting magnitude, in the very heart of the Second Spiral, where they might drink in the light of a billion furious stars.

Over the course of the KHAN's Aeon, these gardens, the Celestial Gardens of the Conqueror, have grown and thrived, producing the most wondrous plants and concoctions in the universe. Little wonder, then, that it was here that many turned to find the cure for the King of Khans' own ailments, and so the Questing Herbalists found their beginning. Now they form a huge and many layered brotherhood of scientists and sages, constantly searching jungles the size of solar systems which, in many places, have become wild, overgrown and dangerous.

[Invictus]

The Emperor Clad in Burnt Jade

The conquest of the Nine Galaxies by the AEON KHAN persists today as little more than sanctioned legend and scholarly reconstruction. The general consensus is that The Champion of Nine Spirals began His reign in the First Galaxy and gradually subjugated his future domain from Second to Nine, which caused them to be named so today. By examining accounts of the swelling fleets and growing ranks of legendary heroes who accompanied the Supreme Surpassing Sovereign as He descended upon each untamed galaxy, this theory seems to bear true. So it was the Ninth Spiral which the One Above Gods brought light to last, and in that dim aeon it was a place which was much in need of it.

In the days before the Coming of the Khan of Khans, some of the Nine Galaxies were hardly united, but ruled by millions of squabbling fiefdoms of every description and stripe. The discord and suffering produced in such galaxies could hardly be blamed on the petty mortal rulers of those polities, for before the Coming of the Khan of Khans how could they in their narrow vision conceive of unity for the scintillating infinitude that is a Galaxy entire, let alone nine? Other galaxies did have rulers which could lay fair claim to great swathes of their home galaxies and nominal stewardship over its entirety. such galaxy-khans were a rare breed and impossible to generalize, but on the whole they ruled justly if not as justly as the Khan of Khans, and made policy wisely if not as wisely as The Divine Genius. However, at the Coming of the Khan of Khans the Ninth Galaxy was claimed by a tyrant of the utmost rapacity - The Emperor Clad in Burning Jade. Ensconced in his tomb at the great central black hole of the galaxy, he drank voraciously the treasures tributed from a billion worlds for countless millennia, his death in eras past proving to be no end to his appetite in luxuries of every kind. Whatever his species was when he was alive, however benevolently he ruled - all such detail was obliterated by the seemingly-eternal cycles of brutal suppression and desperate privation his subjects then endured. Countless ecosystems were denuded of their bounty and countless planets their entire mass as generations of craftsmen processed them into novel grave goods to be cast into the maw of the Emperor's tomb, equally numb as the populations of mortal attendants who were destined for the same destination. Rebels and malcontents swiftly relearned terror of their eternal undying master through his omnipresent ghost fleets and invincible spectral legions.

Thus one could imagine the support the denizens of the Ninth Spiral gave to the AEON KHAN as He swept into the galaxy with the might of eight others behind his back. Nevertheless the fighting was unprecedentedly fierce: the Emperor in his mad hunger could not even conceive of equity with another sovereign, let alone surrender to a greater power. His ghost fleets were painstaking scoured from the vast galaxy and exorcised to the last ship and man. Calling His Godheads about Him, the Olympic Augustness ascended to the dark half-realm that the Emperor himself inhabited and struck his festering corpus in so so wrathful a blow that centuries' worth of tribute spewed from the event horizon of the galactic black hole in a great fountain. The One Above Gods then Blinded the Emperor, and Bound him, and Gagged him, and then ordered the construction of a cage of voidjade that would encompass the entire supermassive black hole and seal it off from the galaxy that the Emperor once terrorized, so that the mad undead god would be punished by an eternity of withering hunger. Upon the completion of this great work the conquest of the Nine Galaxies was finally complete, and in apocrypha the AEON KHAN was heard to have proclaimed "THIS IS THE EXTENT OF MY EXPEDITION, THE FINALITY OF MY RULE." Scholars and savants puzzle of the meaning of these words today, and with ever-greater intensity now that the life of the Cynosure of Heaven nears its end. Could the Jade Tomb hold some revelation related to the eventual passing of the Fulcrum of All Things? Some claim by the meaning of the proclamation that by opening the Tomb, the Aeon of the Khan will somehow be perpetuated. Others, less mad and more mindful of the depredations of the Emperor of old, merely wait for some sign of the changing of Aeons that will be borne on the Tomb itself.

[Booted Vulture]

The Church Of The Republic And Latter Day Martyrs

Among the teeming trillions of subjects of AEON KHAN there are many beliefs and strange practises being practise, with so many beings across the nine galaxies, statistically it is inevitable that some of them will choose to believe in the most improbable and heretical of institutions; The Republic.

The Church Of The Republic And Latter Day Martyrs have a dream, a dream so fragile they can but whisper it, among the shouting hordes of the Khanate. They refute the INFINITE GAUNLET, Ignore the call of the Nine To Ten beacons, and hope that when the AEON KHAN Falls the KHANATE falls also and man may once more rule himself.

Members of this church, call themselves 'Martyrs' for they know if the forces of the KHAN ever actually noticed them, that is what they would be; Crushed beneath the thumb of the KHAN like the annoying buzzing fly.

Yes, the matyrs whisper, yes their words fall on deaf ears, but make no mistake,

They are not silent.

[speaker-to-trolls]

The Watchers of the Fire, the Tempengu

And one day, in his travels about the stars of the Fifth Spiral, as he courted the voyaging goddess Myrs, the AEON KHAN came upon a cold planet, far from its sun, hollow and riddled with caverns, that his beloved feared to approach.

'This is the planet of the Tempengu, my Khan, and I dare not touch nor go beneath its surface,'

But these words would not deter the AEON KHAN from the strange world, nay, indeed, had our Most Beloved and August Progenitrix not told him of her concern, He surely would not have thought it of any interest, but Her trepidation made Him curious, both because He feared nothing and because He wished to dispel His bwloved's fears.

Within the hollow chasms of the cold world, the One Above Gods met a creature who sat by a fire, while all around him was a wide circle of ash, where the fire had once burned, but had since burned away its fuel.

'Creature,' He addressed it, 'I ask you, as a visitor to your world, what are you, what is this planet, and how do you occupy yourself here?'

The creature looked to him and replied, 'I am a Tempengu, this world is called the Hollow House, and I occupy myself by watching the fire,'

- The High History of the Goddess Myrs, Heo La Cronnos, Chronicler Elect and Twenty-sixth in line to the House of Ol’Merc

Of all the races in the civilized universe, few have any knowledge of the time before the Aeon of the Khan, it is said that only the dragons can claim such knowledge. The Tempengu might also claim as much, but that their understanding of history is quite different to that of other peoples.

Many myths exist about the Tempengu; that they live in the underverse beneath normal spacetime, or that they move always halfway between space and hyperspace, that they are able to travel through time at will and able to move through it at will, that they appear at every death to bring assess the soul on behalf of the AEON KHAN, and many things besides. They are a mysterious race, and only the King of Khans, if anyone, knows the truth of these claims.

When the AEON KHAN first encountered the Tempengu in the Hollow House, which remains their headquarters in the Civilized Universe, the rooms of this place are hidden away from the normal universe, inaccessible except to those who have permission to enter them. More than this, though, these rooms experience time in a different way to the outside world, time passes more slowly in some of these places, and in some, it is said, time does not exist at all. From these rooms, in any case, the Tempengu can look out across the universe, to many different points in time and space, and watch the lives and deaths of the AEON KHAN’s subjects. They exist, it may be said, alongside the world of past and future, the closer they draw to it, the more it effects them, and fascinates them. It is natural for the Tempengu, that they should watch the course of time, of entropy, as it takes its slow toll upon the cosmos.

Tempengu are often seen near scenes of death; ghostly figures glimpsed by those with the means to see them. They rarely communicate with anyone, save the King of Khans, and when they do it is most usually cryptic, fulfilling some inscrutable purpose given by their Lord. What task he has assigned to them none can say with certainty. Whatever their true purpose in the plans of the One Above Gods, though, it is surely connected to his inevitable decline and the predicted end of His Aeon.