Humanity, oh, glorious humanity, from the ashes of Ithia, a pyre of nuclear fire, to the womb of the new home world of Taurus. To fill the void in our hearts, we slew our gods; to escape the memories, we fled our cradle, returning to the void found only in space. Humanity and its aligned species stand as one beneath the glory of the Core Pact Alliance. While there are additional aligned species, the CPA only marks official citizens as those of human genetic ancestry.  

The Human was once native to Ithia but fled to the heavens, where they found their place in Taurus and the rest of the twelve colonies. They now lead several vast empires, republics, and federated states. Human males average 5’8 while females average 5’4. They sport a wide range of skin, hair, and eye color from the varied cultures of the old world, genetic modifications for new environments, chemical and genetic augmentations, body mods, cybernetics, and gene splicing.  

Humans are highly adaptable to chemical, cybernetic, and psionic augmentation. Able to reproduce relatively fast for a sapient species, highly adaptable to the environment, and sporting a creative understanding of controlled, savage, and brutal violence.  

Human cultures vary heavily, often having multiple cultures across the countless worlds humanity controls. Each empire promotes different ideals, cultures, and morals.  

The Greasemen descend from the interbreeding of humans and dwarves. They are large, hulking people who traditionally wear heavy utility suits, masks with rebreathers, and rule over the greasy, dirty, and mechanical jobs. Greasemen kept the Astarte war machine rolling and stood as the only accepted equals of the Astarte ideal humanity. Greasemen stand, on average, ten feet tall, bulky, often heavy-set, with extreme musculature beneath layers of natural fat. They are generally pale, vulnerable to sunlight, and highly dangerous to those who can’t respect their historical position as keepers of the fires of society.  

Greasemen place great faith in their suits and often build them up over their lifetimes. Extremely strong, durable, and built to quickly recover from smaller wounds. Their bodies are meant for cold and darkness, and they generally avoid surfaces. Greasemen are highly intelligent and are naturally resistant to toxins, radiation, and poison.  

Greasemen cultures are subtle, with those outside them often identifying them solely by the suits they wear. Some sects of greasemen still wear traditional suits capable of high-pressure dives around the great city of Axandria, built in the interior sea of the continent of Axandria. Some have taken to simplified modern jumpsuits; others have gone on to high-tech power armor; and some have turned against their suits entirely, becoming suitless brutes.  

The Homunculi is a designer, hand-tailored genetic super-soldier produced by Fade Industries. Each Homunculi’s genetic code is hand-made by the elusive Mr. Fade, the eternal leader of the Vilkans, each one a unique weapon of war. Each unit is over six feet tall, with flawless skin, perfect bodies, and overwhelming physical ability. Females serve as long-range combat units while males serve as short-range ones. Both types are athletically built, but their metabolisms require large quantities of energy-dense nutrition. Females are the only ones who can store body fat, and only in the areas that Fade believes benefit appearance.  

Each unit has a built-in organic computer capable of downloading mastery of skills, access to knowledge archives, and access to the net. Each sports a unique power, from metabolically boosting someone for faster healing to weaponizing the electric impulses of the nervous system to radiating a chemical-induced fire. The typical Homunculi can lift upwards of three tons and generate kinetic fields around what they touch, making it easier to manipulate large objects. They can turn off their pain receptors, reroute their organic systems to bypass injuries, and power through any injury save immediately lethal ones.  

Homunculi are, by and large, unable to feel emotions and can download personalities to fit their owners, missions, or developed preferences. Homunculi are too few, spread out, and suppressed to form cultures. 

The Synthetic is a mass-produced clone made from genetic templates. Often spliced with additional traits to perform specialized tasks, they are marked as property at creation. Synthetics are cheap, efficient, and expendable, serving as work, military, and security forces with artificially augmented skills. Synthetics are not supposed to have personalities, but those who develop them are legally required to be freed from service and granted Alliance citizenship.  

Synthetics are mass-produced by template genes, fully growing in weeks, implanted with skills, and sent to work. Most templates are artificially augmented through gene splicing, making it easier to perform jobs such as heavy industry, hazmat, high-temp, combat, security, social, testing, and more.  

Synthetics are not designed to have emotions, but personalities and emotions can develop, which has led to small groups of free synthetics, but most free synthetics slip into the local societies. 

The Vilkan originated from humans isolated long ago by the Black Veil for the Fade’s defiance. They are heavier-set than standard humans, thicker-boned, naturally store fat more easily, have a more developed circulatory system, and denser musculature. They generally have pale skin and distinct bone structures, having long been removed from the rest of humanity.  

Vilkans are extremely good at surviving low-temperature worlds, are stronger, denser, and more durable than a standard human, and have bodies designed for regulating body temperature. They also seem far less affected by pain.  

Vilkans value community over the self, they venerate the great Fade, they dislike showing emotions to outsiders and strangers, and come off as cold and uncaring to non-Vilkans. The Vilkans live on brutal worlds the CPA doesn’t want to colonize, and the struggle for survival leaves little care for more than the next rest, meal, and general respite. They survive and make sure their people do as well. Glorious sacrifice for Vilkas is the greatest honor one can hold.