Who's who in Aurin: the Guilds' people, the scavengers and who to avoid

Hardly anyone in Aurin flies a flag. The people who raise the villages, smelt the metal, guard the passes and sell the maps work for the five Guilds, and the Guilds work for whoever pays. The houses have their cities and their war; the rest of the system belongs to whoever works it. This guide is the canon of who you run into, as the Codex records it in the people of Aurin.

The current build has human enemies with AI that take cover, flank and reload. Which groups appear in each alpha wave will be in the alpha notes; faction warfare, sieges and missions are still in design.

At a glance

Group	Who they are	Attitude	How to tell them at thirty metres
The Forge	labourers and smelters	neutral; no fighting in their compounds	orange overalls
The Pioneers	settlers, medics, cooks	neutral	beige overalls
The Pathfinders	cartographers, sensor operators, pilots	neutral	blue overalls
The Vanguard	garrisons and mining escorts	neutral, unless you force your way in	plain olive with a yellow stripe on the shoulder
Apex Syndicate	trackers and hunters	neutral	woodland pattern and hanging trophies
El Tizón miners	independents on Cinera	neutral	amber headlamp, soot-stained overalls
Guardia Vertical	the Zenith’s military and police arm	the Zenith’s	white and gold, cyan visor
Flotilla Libre	the Nadir’s militia	the Nadir’s	stitched-together patterns, amber lights
Guardabosques	the Nadir’s keepers of Ithera’s fauna	the Nadir’s	green with a brown cape and an antenna
Descarnados	the Nadir’s radicals	they don’t warn you	black, no insignia, covered face
Scavengers	unlicensed salvagers	hostile to everyone	dirty sand pattern, mismatched helmets
Cementerio pirates	the scavengers of the vacuum	hostile to everyone	three hand-painted red stripes on the helmet
Smugglers	whatever slips past El Fiel	hostile to intruders	they decide fast: client or intruder

The colours come from the notice board at El Bastión, reproduced in the Codex as an archive document. None of the people in overalls carries a weapon: if someone in overalls points a gun at you, they are not overalls.

The Guilds’ people

Everything built on the ground is neutral or belongs to people without a side, and treats the Zenith and the Nadir alike; only each house’s cities are its own. The Pioneers keep villages, El Vivero’s medicine and shelters open to anyone on the storm routes. Apex Syndicate hunts from El Aguijón, by quota. The Forge runs the foundries and refineries, from La Fragua Baja to the Refinería Yermo on Kharsis, and allows no fighting inside them. The Vanguard garrisons El Bastión and escorts mining crews at El Yunque: come with a contract and you find shelter; force your way in and you find the garrison. The Pathfinders sell maps and readings to both houses. The whole story is in the five Global Guilds.

The crew that receives you

In the canon, a newly arrived colonist is picked up by an induction crew led by Vedma Oleiro, foreman and pilot of the Tozuda, a Tortuga with twenty years of patches, with Chemo Ardal and Tais Renne as labourers. They are paid per head that stays on its feet, and they say so plainly: “We’re not your friends.” They teach new arrivals to mine and to come back with the cargo.

Without a guild

The independent miners of El Tizón work in the dark on Cinera every time Aurin flares. Cantina keepers move their flying cantinas to wherever the customers are. The stevedores of El Ancladero on Ashkar load the cargo bound for the Cementerio de Aura. And on Tirane, the sanctuary moon, pilgrims walk between the lanterns to Puerto Aurora: nobody shoots there.

The houses

The Zenith have the Guardia Vertical, with its training officers, the Archons. The Nadir have the Flotilla Libre, a militia with no single command, the Guardabosques, who watch over Ithera and its fauna, and the Descarnados, who sabotage the Zenith’s technology. They live in their stations, El Pináculo and El Fondeadero. In the current build you choose a side when you enlist, and the choice is permanent; more in the Zenith and the Nadir.

Who to avoid

The scavengers live off salvage that isn’t theirs. They wait until the work is done: an old Tortuga sets down in a clearing behind the crew, a few dozen metres away, and a voice on the open channel says “Leave the ore on the ground and your boots on.” They fight in threes from behind the rocks, miss more than professionals do and don’t leave: a crew that takes cover and fires back drives them off. Vibrosteel makes their job easy, because its signature can be picked up from far away; in the canon they turn up most at El Reloj de Arena on Kharsis after each storm, at the deposit on Ashkar and in Kaldrek’s Campo de Fumarolas, and hardly ever on Ithera. Where each ore is, and why vibrosteel draws company, is in where to get technalite.

The Cementerio de Aura pirates are the scavengers who work in vacuum, as far out as the Baliza Confín. The smugglers keep whatever slips past El Fiel, the customs post of Melvara, in hideouts that appear on no map, and tell no factions apart, only clients and intruders. And the automated security of Ípsilon-7, the Pathfinders’ data centre, doesn’t tell colours apart either.

How they act

In the canon, guards of any side work and chat at their posts until they see you; then they go on alert, draw, shout a warning and fire from where they stand, and only take cover once you shoot back. Civilians run at the first shot. The fauna follows its own rules: those are in the Aurin fauna guide.

Read the people of Aurin in the Codex · Apply for the closed alpha