The people of Aurin

Who owns what is on the ground?

The system’s two houses, the Zenith and the Nadir, own only their cities. Everything else built on the ground is neutral or belongs to people without a side. And it treats both houses alike.

The rest is run by the 5 Global Guilds, five trade organisations that take no side. Their people raise the villages, smelt the metal, guard the passes and sell the maps. The Guilds, in turn, work for whoever pays. The houses have their cities and their war; the rest of the system belongs to whoever works it.

Who works for the Guilds?

Each guild has its own trade and its own seat, the base it works from.

• The Pioneers, the Settlers’ Guild. They are village settlers, cooks and the medics of El Vivero, their seat. They also keep shelters open to anyone: on the storm routes, in the high passes and on the airless moons. They sell what they grow to both houses.
• Apex Syndicate, the Hunters’ Guild. They are the trackers and hunters of El Aguijón, their seat. They hunt by quota, meaning a fixed limit of kills. They buy hides, glands and claws.
• The Forge, the Producers’ Guild: it mines, refines and hauls. Its labourers, smelters and foremen work at La Fragua Baja, its seat. They also work at the Refinería Yermo on the planet Kharsis and the Colector Solar Prima on the planet Ormek. And on two moons: at the Fundición Alta on Kravane and the forge on Pyra. They allow no fighting inside their compounds.
• The Vanguard, the Military Guild. It is the garrison of El Bastión, its seat, and of the mountain bases. It also escorts the mining crews at El Yunque, a massif on the planet Kaldrek with heavy ore. Come in with a contract and you find shelter; force your way in and you find the garrison.
• The Pathfinders, the Exploration Guild. They are cartographers, sensor operators and pilots. They work at El Faro Roto, their seat, and at Ípsilon-7, their data centre. Also at the Baliza Confín, a listening post on the edge of the system. They sell the same to both houses.

Then there are the inspectors at El Fiel, the customs post the Guilds built on Melvara, one of the moons of Ithera, the temperate planet. They count everything that leaves the moon.

Who receives the newcomers?

A newly arrived colonist is picked up by an induction crew: a small team that teaches the basics. It is led by Vedma Oleiro, foreman and pilot of the Tozuda. The Tozuda is a Tortuga, the most common heavy transport in the system, with twenty years of patches. With Vedma come two labourers, Chemo Ardal and Tais Renne.

They are paid per head on its feet, and they say so plainly: “We’re not your friends.” They lend the newcomer a first ProtoGun, the hand tool used to mine rock. They lend it because a ProtoGun is made with your hands and another ProtoGun. They teach the newcomer to mine, to build a weapon and to come back with the cargo.

Who works for themselves?

Some people work for no guild at all.

• Independent miners. They work at El Tizón, a Nadir listening post on the moon Cinera. Every time Aurin, the system’s star, gives off a flare (a burst of light), they work in the dark.
• Cantina keepers. They move their flying cantinas to wherever the customers are. You find them on almost every body in the system.
• Stevedores. They work at El Ancladero on the asteroid Ashkar, a refuelling and cargo port. They load cargo bound for the Cementerio de Aura, the debris band left by the war of Year 1.
• Pilgrims. On Tirane, the sanctuary moon, they walk between the lanterns to Puerto Aurora. It is the port that waited for the Arca Aurora, a ship that never arrived. Nobody shoots there.

What people do the two houses have?

Group	House	What it is
Guardia Vertical	Zenith	Their military and police arm. Its training officers are called Archons.
Ascendidos	Zenith	People who traded cybernetic or genetic upgrades for social rank. They wear their implants in plain sight.
Flotilla Libre	Nadir	A militia with no single command.
Guardabosques	Nadir	They watch over Ithera and its fauna.
Descarnados	Nadir	Radicals who sabotage the Zenith’s MMU, the manufacturing matrix both houses inherited.

You see them in their stations: El Pináculo, the Zenith’s, and El Fondeadero, the Nadir’s. They come down for missions, sieges and war windows (the announced periods when the contested points are fought over).

On Ithera they may not deploy in force. The Armisticio de Ithera, the pact that stopped the war in Year 12, forbids it.

Who shoots at everyone?

Four groups are hostile to anyone, whichever side they are on:

• The scavengers. They ambush mining crews just as they think the job is done.
• The smugglers. They keep whatever slips past El Fiel in hideouts that appear on no map. They tell no factions apart: only clients and intruders.
• The Cementerio de Aura pirates.
• The automated security of Ípsilon-7. It doesn’t tell colours apart either: every group’s livery looks the same to it.

How do they behave?

Guards of any side work and chat at their posts. When they see an enemy, they go on alert and draw their weapons. They shout a warning and fire from where they stand. They only take cover once someone shoots back.

Civilians run at the first shot.