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THE WARCASTER SETTING

There was a time, the Keepers tell us, when all of humanity huddled upon a single rock, awaiting their end. The only world our forefathers knew was laid siege by an unstoppable horror.

Mighty heroes of their age rose up and held back the darkness until the Great Machine opened a path to the stars. We have never looked back.

Five thousand years have passed since we forged a new future a billion light years from where it began. We fought the Architects to share their space, and we fought their Guardians to master the void gates that connect our worlds. We unlocked the ancient secrets to a new form of mechanika…and then we used it to fight each other over the Thousand Worlds we had spread across, for it seems there is no planet, system, or galaxy big enough to satisfy the appetite for conquest our kind possesses.

Alas, it may have all been for naught. The Keepers have warned us that our galaxy is dying. Too much have we plundered from Cyriss, and yet more is stolen every day. Eventually, the Arcanessence that flows through our worlds will be depleted, the life force of our planets greedily harvested to feed our machines.  And even now, a darkness lurks on the fringes of our existence, promising the doom of man as we hurtle toward our moment of weakness when the only hope for humanity will once again be put in the hands of the heroes of our age: the Warcasters.

The Hyperuranion and The Empyrean

Cyriss is a galaxy possessing an untold number of stars and planets. Within that galaxy, a domain called the Hyperuranion encompasses a thousand worlds connected by extradimensional highways accessed through massive, planetary void gates. The Hyperuranion is the greatest design of the Architects, a divinely inspired people who transcended this realm to merge with the heavens long before any current record of time.

At the heart of the Hyperuranion is Cyriss Prime, the massive celestial body that holds the galaxy in its orbit. Around Cyriss Prime, the Architects created the Great Constellation, also known as the Empyrean, from which the cosmic movements of all the stars and worlds in the Hyperuranion can be controlled like a galaxy-sized clockwork construct.

It was the divine aspiration of the Architects that all the souls in all the worlds across Cyriss be joined as one in the Great Constellation, where their light would shine eternal. And over unfathomable eons, through the network of void gates that made up the Hyperuranion, the Architects emptied one world at a time of its souls. Those that came willingly joined the glorification of Cyriss in the Empyrean. Those that did not were removed from the Hyperuranion, lest their presence disrupt the harmony of the Great Constellation.

For a time unrecorded, the boundless expanse of the galaxy was devoid of souls save those in the everlasting embrace of Cyriss Prime. And then from beyond the fringes of the Hyperuranion, the remnants and castaways of a forgotten tribe broke the silence: humanity.

The New Age of a Thousand Worlds

What came next has been lost to time. The Keepers allude to a period of war that drove them into hiding so they could keep their knowledge safe; thus, no chronicle exists to describe how humanity came to dominate the Hyperuranion. What can be discerned is that the Architects were unprepared for mankind’s arrival and ultimately retreated to the security of Cyriss Prime. Unchecked, humanity commandeered the void gates and charged blindly across the thousand worlds of the Hyperuranion to establish new civilizations, nations, and factions that would continue the human tradition of conquest and expansion.

Were it not for one small detail, humankind would have surely laid siege to the Empyrean, and only the Keepers might fathom what state the Hyperuranion would be in today. For whatever victories the tribes of man claimed against the Architects, they had no map or the knowledge of when the gates that connected the worlds might open. The Hyperuranion was a trackless cosmic wilderness, a thousand worlds connected by extradimensional gates, their operation governed by enigmatic celestial tides and alignments whose locations would remain hidden until found. And beyond each gate lurked the unknown—a bountiful planet with ample resources to nourish a new civilization or a hostile world, untamed and treacherous to any who might test it. Even more dangerous was the vacuous space between the gates, where the unprepared and irresolute could easily become lost, if not overwhelmed, by the specters of castaway travelers that eternally haunt the void.

For five millennia, the many factions of man that have come to be since their arrival have sought to chart the Hyperuranion and understand its workings. Wars for control of key void gates are constant as trade routes and desirable worlds are fought over. And the race to discover the road to the Empyrean and seize its power to control the galaxy is a temptation that has cost many their lives and more.

But to achieve power one must possess power…

Arcanessence

The Cyriss galaxy is rich in a unique crystalline element called Arcanium. Radiation emitted by Cyriss Prime eventually breaks down the Arcanium crystals, releasing an energy called Arcanessence (“Arc”). Arc permeates the galaxy, trapped within deposits beneath the surface of planets and released through springs and geysers. The closer in proximity to Cyriss Prime, the more bountiful a planet’s Arcanessence.

The Architects revere Arcanessence as the sacred lifeblood of Cyriss; humanity values Arc for its ability to power mechanika. Most important, those attuned and trained in the manipulation of Arc can tap into mechanika in profound ways and shape Arc into supernatural effects that defy normal reality. 

In the right hands, Arc wins wars.

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