Fauna and sentinels · what the planet can kill you with
The Aurin bestiary
En quelques mots
The bestiary covers the four known creatures of the Aurin system. Three are animals from the planet Ithera (the Ombrask, the Rolvak and the Lumbro); the fourth is the sentinel, a machine from the settlers’ fleet that nobody rescued. It explains which ones attack, where each lives and what you get from them.
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We’ve spent 46 years cataloguing what this planet can kill us with.
What creatures are there?
The bestiary covers the four known creatures of the system of Aurin, the settlers’ star. Three are animals from Ithera, the temperate planet, which has the richest native life in the system. The fourth is a machine from the Flota Aura, the fleet that brought the settlers. It is an auxiliary core, one of the Fleet’s small machine minds. It has gone forty-six years without anyone giving it a new order.
The places named most often are on Ithera, around La Cicatriz. It is the furrow the Arca Aurora, one of the Fleet’s great ships, tore open when it crashed. Today La Cicatriz is the capital of the five Guilds, trade organisations that take no side. Its centre, the core, is still cordoned off. To the west lies the wetland of the Espejos de Rocío; to the east, the Vergel Pálido, a spore forest that glows.
| What it is | What it is like | Where it lives | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ombrask | giant predator | about 6 m; aggressive and territorial; solitary | Ithera’s canyons; the largest in the core of La Cicatriz |
| Rolvak | the small, numerous variant of the Ombrask | about 2.5 m; neutral; lives in herds | rocky ground; nests in the Vergel Pálido |
| Lumbro | armoured ball | under a metre; passive; lives in herds | the wetlands of the Espejos de Rocío |
| Sentinel | an auxiliary core nobody rescued | a flying hull with tentacles and claws | above La Cicatriz; as salvage drones, in the Cementerio de Aura |
The Cementerio de Aura is the band of wreckage left by the battles of Year 1.
How can you tell if a creature is dangerous?
Look at three things: temperament, warnings and weak spot.
Every creature has a temperament, which tells you when it attacks:
- Aggressive: attacks as soon as it senses you, by sight, sound or smell.
- Neutral: stands its ground and growls, but only attacks if you do. After that it bears a grudge. It hunts you, not the spot you fired from.
- Passive: doesn’t attack. The Lumbro won’t even run when it sees you; it only runs when you hurt it.
They all give warning before they attack, too. And each has a weak spot: a hit there counts double.
| Temperament | How it warns you | Weak spot | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ombrask | aggressive | growls, then roars; the roar carries a long way | the head, the neck and the crest hanging from its nape |
| Rolvak | neutral | growls on a loop while it makes up its mind | the head, the crest on its nape and the tongue |
| Lumbro | passive | only chitters, so quietly that at twenty metres you can’t hear it | the head |
| Sentinel | aggressive | lights up its tentacle tips half a second before it fires | the eye |
On the beasts, a shot to the legs does less damage than one to the body.
Who hunts them?
The Bahía de Contención Xenológica, the Arca Aurora’s fauna laboratory, held the first samples of Ithera’s animals. When the Arca came down, the cages opened. Then came the Cuarenta Días de Fuego, the forty days after the crash, and their nights belonged to the fauna.
Apex Syndicate, the hunters’ guild, was born from the unit that contained those animals. Its law is the controlled cull: kill what is necessary, leave what is enough.
Others see it differently:
- The Zenith, one of the system’s two factions, pay for “total clearances” before terraforming. The Guardia Vertical, their army, places the contracts.
- The Nadir, the other faction, have the Guardabosques, their watch corps on Ithera. They watch over the planet’s fauna and veto hunts that empty it.
- The Pathfinders, the explorers’ guild, lose their readings every time someone clears a valley. So hunting costs you their trust.
What do you get from them?
The Mercado de Trofeos buys hides, glands and claws. It is in El Aguijón, Apex Syndicate’s seat in La Cicatriz. The hunt also yields the trade’s materials, one per creature:
| Creature | Material |
|---|---|
| Rolvak | Espina de Rolvak (Rolvak spine) |
| Ombrask | Placa Quitinosa de Ombrask (chitinous plate) |
| Lumbro | Glándula Bioluminiscente de Lumbro (bioluminescent gland) |
| Sentinel | Núcleo Motriz de Centinela (drive core) |
What each one is used for is in this Codex’s resource and loot guide.
What happens when the fauna comes down?
Every few weeks, a sudden migration overruns La Cicatriz’s defences. This is the fauna invasion, also called the “Ruptura del Armisticio”. The Armisticio de Ithera is the pact that ended the war and left Ithera free of armies.
- Rolvaks pour out of the Vergel Pálido at El Aguijón.
- Ombrasks cross the core cordon. They head for the furnaces of La Fragua Baja, the seat of The Forge, the producers’ guild. They also make for the road to El Bastión, the seat of The Vanguard, the military guild.
- Sentinels, erratic, go for El Faro Roto, the Pathfinders’ seat.
While the invasion lasts, there is no fighting between factions on Ithera: the Zenith and the Nadir defend together. El Vivero, the seat of The Pioneers, the settlers’ guild, becomes a field hospital. The Espejos de Rocío are the fallback zone. The glowlice there, as people call the Lumbros, get jumpy but don’t attack.
Are they the same everywhere?
No. No animal in Aurin is the same everywhere. The same species changes colour, size and habits with the climate. These are its regional forms, and each sheet in this bestiary lists its own.
