Jernwerks

…Transmission Start…

Space is vast, cold, and deadly; Vanaheimr is far worse. Officially charted as Colony I-225 this frigid hellscape is nothing more than an ice ball floating in the great snifter of the cosmos. Founded by the Edda Group over a thousand years ago, Vanaheimr is a gathering place for tax evaders, corporate wage slaves, and miscreants of the worst sort. Centered in Asgard the Edda Group and its corporate buddies rule with cameras at every corner, bio-scans on all the doors, and the Guard wandering the streets. Bootlickers or Bosses, everyone sucking up to someone else for just a little bit more warmth from the cold, a little more protection from the monsters. Oh, right.

                The Monsters.

                The Jotnar are the real reason anyone sticks around this place. I mean why would you come all the way out here to the middle of Gods’ nowhere at the dark end of the universe? You ever seen a Jotnar? Twelve meters tall if they’re a hair for the small ones. They can knock a hab over by accident with a swish of their tails. Powered by some kinda nuclear reactor in their guts these things break every law of nature, spitting lightning tween their teeth and eating polonium like candy. Dozens of types out there in the wastes, dozens of different powers just waiting to find something to use them on. Jotnar aren’t just big, they’re special. They don’t exist nowhere else in the gods’ verse and they might as well be magic for what they can do. A good hunter can take a Jotun apart and grab its power, use their bodies to make things beyond human ken. Things that anyone in the rest of the verse would pay anything for.

 But those are the babies, the youngins we can still stop or use. The real big ones are the ones beneath our feet. Big as mountains and as lethal as a planet buster, they’re the ones you never want to meet. They’re not all bad though. Sleepy bunch, they’ll burrow into the ice for a few centuries, lay low as they work off their latest meal. That’s how we live ya know? The heat off a sleeping Ancient is the only thing can melt the ice, make the land habitable. We might fear em, but they’re what keep us alive. They keep us warm, keep us living out here. You respect the Ancients, you let them rest, and you don’t fight em. Even if you kill one all you’ve done is kill yourself. Nothing like a whalefall full of the worst radiation the human race has ever seen leaking out for all time. But you don’t wanna hear about that. You want to hear about the Baghatur.

What can stand up to a Jotnar? Monsters from legend require heroes to fight after all. That’s where the Jern come in, and their pilots of course. When fighting monsters the size of hab-blocks you need armor just as big. Jern were originally war machines from the great Khagan’s war, giant mechs designed to breach capital ships. Now they serve a different purpose, improved and made powerful by Jotnar based technology. A Jern is nothing without their Baghatur, a pilot with a few screws loose and more courage than sense. It takes a special kind of individual to climb into a 15 meter tall mech and go fight dragons after all. Jern come in as many shapes and sizes as the Jotnar themselves do, each one unique, each one tailored to the hunting style of their Baghatur. Some protect our cities, others ply their trade to whoever hires them doing dirty work that is best not talked about in the light of day. But you, you want to be a Hunter. You fight the monsters on the wastes, hunt down Jotnar for power and glory. A great Jern will be remembered in song forever like the Ashen Lady, but most die in the ice, victims to hubris or a Jotun’s claw.

So why do it? Why come out so far from the inner sphere, the rest of the Terran Khagante? I mean the planet has a balmy high of -10, you’re a century away from the nearest habitable planet even with the Slip Gate, and there is a non-zero chance of being eaten by a centipede with a human face? Sounds like paradise right? Well it is. If you can hunt. So try your luck, seek your glory. At the very least I can be there to track your story, no matter how brief.

…Transmission end…

                -Introductory Vid by Jorgen Daneson, Baghatur of the Jern Hagen, Brave of Broken Spire.