The Campaign Builder's Guild

Between the stars
A lone outpost
Like an abscess
Festers in silence

Small creatures
Mere microbes
Scuttle across
Cold metal floors

Vermin of the void
Who give their lives
To sustain
Some meager colony

These creatures
Lowest of all—
Misbegotten, wretched,
Humans.

Yes, humans. Vile, disgusting, utterly resistant to reason, utterly destructive in their manner. Resourceful, hateful, base creatures—ah, but you are one of them, are you not?

We are the Strangers. We sail the stars.

We met you many eons ago. We rode the light-rails to your morbid little mudball. You stole fire from lightning, then learned to wield it yourselves.

Then, in the blink of the celestial eye, you set your world on fire. You overran it, filled it with waste and junk. You tapped the core of this resource-poor planet, turned its liquids to sludge, and cluttered the soil with an indestructible crust of toxic materials. The strange thing was how eager you were to destroy your own species, how senseless your parasitism was.

You spread like a virus across the cosmos. Everywhere, you hungered—you devoured—you destroyed. Most species struggle to maintain equilibrium, but you, inevitably, grew mad with desire. You consumed beyond sustenance, always taking more than you needed.

When we chose to terminate your species, you have to understand—it was not out of malevolence. The doctor does not hate the disease, he simply seeks to eradicate it.

We were the doctors of the universe, but you proved a more resilient threat than we had supposed. We turned our tools on you like a surgeon, blasting away whole cultures in a flash of our solar cannons. We imploded planets, dimmed stars, and destroyed entire armadas of your pathetic ships.

At every turn, you adapted to our methods. You overcame. You continued your senseless existence, tearing holes into the void as you jumped from system to system.

We were ineffective at excising you, at treating the symptoms of the disease. We created an antibody, the ones you call Myrath, to seek you and destroy you. We created the first predator of humanity to pose a true threat since you crawled out of your miserable caves.

The Myrath were relentless. 

Perhaps we made their hunger too great.

Perhaps we underestimated their will to live.

They turned on us, despite our precautions. They ravaged our worlds, disrupted our empire, and scattered our people. We retreated beyond their reach, but from this distance we watched. No matter how small our numbers, how close we teetered to annihilation, we always watched.

The Myrath needed you to survive, and so the Myrath began to cultivate you. They grew possessive of their humans, and feuded over territory. The greatest Myrath magnates would flaunt their wealth by showing how many humans they kept, turning whole systems into massive farms.

The Myrath do not simply crave human flesh. I will explain it to you like this—their giant mouths, their razor fangs, the hot blast of nuclear radiation that comes from their maw—these are made to destroy not just human bodies, but ships, buildings, even the very planets you come to inhabit. This is how the Myrath reproduce, by consuming enough organic material to convert into larvae. Due to an oversight in their design, the Myrath were allowed to feel pleasure in this one act. Thus, the only pleasure—in fact, a wholly erotic thrill—that your predators can ever feel is by devouring an entire civilization.

The Myrath have grown adept at self-control. They allow you to fester, grow, and expand just enough to make your destruction satisfying. The greatest of the Myrath allow your kind to grow unchecked and wild, then destroy you for sport.

Through their gross cultivation of your kind, through their relentless expansion and predation, your predators, your masters, your farmers have destroyed far more worlds than your petty race ever did. Our supposed remedy has become the very cancer we hoped to cure.

We shall return. Your kind, in scattered pockets, prepares to fight back against the Myrath. As ever, you reach out into the cosmos, pleading for intervention, desperate for salvation.

A reckoning shall come. An account shall be held of all creation. As you turn your weapons to the sky, fearful for the fire and fangs, terrified at the endless cycle, we debate our course. Do we honor your pathetic struggle and unmake our foul plague? Or have we meddled in the lower forms enough?

We Strangers sail the stars. We only wish them to be clean.

And, soon, we shall pass our judgment.

[ooc]Potentially more to come later- perspectives from humankind and the Myrath. Be forewarned: I'm not really sure where any of this is going.[/ooc]

Fantastic set-up.  Reminds me both of StarCraft (the Xel Naga) and Mass Effect (the Reapers), but not in such a way that it's derivative or hackneyed.

Presumably there are other races out there apart from the Strangers, humans, and the Myrath?

Cool narrative, in content and especially in style.

I dig this, for certain.

How perverse is it
For the ant
To worship the boot?

THIS IS AN ALL-WIRELESS BULLETIN
DISENGAGE ALL HOLOCHANNELS
DISENGAGE ALL VIDCHANNELS
MYRATH INTERCEPTORS INBOUND
AUTHORITY TO ISSUE INSTRUCTION
THIS MESSAGE WILL REPEAT

THIS IS AN ALL-WIRELESS BULLETIN
DISENGAGE ALL HOLOCHANNELS
DISENGAGE ALL VIDCHANNELS
MYRATH INTERCEPTORS INBOUND
AUTHORITY TO ISSUE INSTRUCTION
THIS MESSAGE WILL REPEAT

THIS IS AN ALL-WIRELESS BULLETIN
DISENGAGE ALL HOLOCHANNELS
DISENGAGE ALL VIDCHANNELS
MYRATH INTERCEPTORS INBOUND
AUTHORITY TO ISSUE INSTRUCTION
THIS M—

...ALL-WIRELESS OVERRIDE DISENGAGED.
...
...CALIBRATING...
...
...RECEIVING TRANSMISSION...
...
...TRACKING...
...
...TRANSMISSION COORDINATES 0.000.0.000.000
...
...ERROR: COORDINATES INVALID
...
...OVERRIDE...
...
...QUERYING SYSTEM
...
...ALL-WIRELESS OVERRIDE ENGAGED
...
...BEGIN:


You have been lied to about us.

You have been hidden from the light.

We worship the light, the light that cleanses. The Authority wants you to fear the Myrath, wants you to hide in your bunkers, to disengage your channels. They do this because they fear the truth. They do this because we, the Acolytes, spread the will of the gods through these means. They seek to deprive us of our holy instruments, but the faithful shall never turn a deaf ear to the song of the stars.

The gods destroyed the Myrath centuries ago. The Authority claims that they lay dormant, beyond our sight, lurking for some unknown reason. The Authority denies the gods, the ones they call Strangers. They spurn our teachings, and spread false propaganda. Tell me, if the Myrath still lived, why would they let us grow strong? The Authority is heavily armed, and our interplanetary defenses are quite robust. What purpose could our foes have in delaying our destruction?

No, the Authority hopes to clothe naked ambition in the pretense of imminent danger. How else can they justify the silencing of dissent? How else can a government hope to reconcile the prison ships full of citizens, whose only crime is their rightly held belief in the divine?

By the time this message ends, the Authority will have raided no less than seven decoy outposts beaming these words across the stars. There are no interceptors, no Myrath, no great threat.

But the Authority is correct in one regard.

There shall indeed be a reckoning—when the gods descend upon the worlds of man, only the righteous shall be spared their wrath.

Lift your voice. Beam your hopes into the heavens. Let all the cosmos know where the holy congregate. Broadcast your devotion—

Last transmission heard from the Calaman system, broadcast by Ankur Athari, Prelate of Calaman Prime.

This is awesome!  Keep it coming!

Calaman has many rings
Once rings of stone
Once rings of ice

Now rings of flame
Now rings of ash



REPORTING OFFICER: [REDACTED]
DATE: [REDACTED]
TIME: [REDACTED]
SUBJECT: MYRATH CAPABILITIES


Seventeen known and additional unknown supra-orbital advanced omega-threat life-forms codename MYRATH surrounded Epsilon Forward Mobility Base immediately prior to Calaman system Extinction Level Event. First responders were Spacewing Command Corps Unit 3503 codename Falcon Squad, designated forward response team by Central System Authority Department of Military Operations. Initial response team consisted of seven hundred CZ-30533-x one-pilot fighter units codename STARCREST, thirty-three WM-99133-s three-crew bomber units codename QUIVER, and nineteen zero-g advance tactical single-operative power armor units codename DRAGONSLAYER.

Of these initial responders, zero units survived initial incursion with MYRATH.

Of these initial responders, zero black boxes survived initial incursion with MYRATH.

Of these initial responders, one unit was in contact with Central System Authority. All other units believed to be subject to communications relay jamming technology, codename INTERCEPTOR. Unknown if technology is apparatus or biological function of MYRATH. Investigation ongoing.

Forensic analytical units 33c0111-20.a, 33c0565-10.a, and 33c5526-30.a activated and deployed to Calaman System by order of [REDACTED]
Forensic analysis of Epsilon Forward Mobility Base impossible due to scarcity and degradation of remaining samples. Evidence of massive thermonuclear radiation output in vicinity.

Calaman System heavily irradiated. Sensors unable to enter atmosphere of any previously populated planet due to previously undocumented and highly irregular magnetic fields within the system.

Unknown quadripedal life-forms with high tolerance for radiation detected within system. Massive pod-shaped ships aggressively expanding into now-uninhabited wastelands. Unknown if species is related to MYRATH or only capitalizing on damage to system.  Fired on all forensic analytical units, damaging 33c0565-10.a and terminating 33c526-30.a.  Unknown species highly territorial. Investigation continues.


MYRATH are capable of system-wide destruction on a scale previously unknown. Conventional tactics, weaponry, and defenses have proven ineffective at even delaying MYRATH in their actions. MYRATH appear to have no motive beyond the simple destruction. The only description of any encounter with MYRATH that survives is a limited transcript of a one-way communication to control. Said transcript is attached below. New species detected in Calaman system is equally troubling and deserving of aggressive investigation.


No further forensic teams should be ordered into the system. Central System Authority should recognize the overwhelming power MYRATH have.

Contact with MYRATH may prove impossible. MYRATH seem to be attracted to any system with sophisticated technology.

MYRATH are without mercy. MYRATH ENCOUNTER PROTOCOL 664 CSACS 443 § 32.0(a)(3)(ii) must be amended to reflect the futility of any attempt to establish contact with MYRATH. All protocols should further be amended to reflect the futility of any attempt to engage MYRATH.

All protocols should further be amended to reflect the futility of any attempt to escape MYRATH.

[ic=Transcript]
...RECEIVING TRANSMISSION...
...
...TRACKING...
...
...TRANSMISSION COORDINATES X5.450.1.303.900
...
...QUERYING SYSTEM
...
...HANDSHAKE CONFIRMED
...
...TRACKING...
...
...
...HOLOCHANNEL INVALID
...
...
...QUERYING VIDEO SERVER
...
...
...VIDCHANNEL INVALID
...
...
...QUERYING VOICE-TO-TEXT SERVER
...
...SIGNAL ESTABLISHED
...
...INBOUND COMMUNICATION STATUS:
...ONLINE.
...
...REPORT:
...CALLSIGN ARTEMIS
...SERIAL 503392600100
...RE: HERO-1 DOWN MUST REROUTE

...SCANNING TRANSMISSION...
...
...WIREHOP NOT DETECTED
...VIRUS NOT DETECTED
...INTERCESSOR NOT DETECTED
...CONVERTER BEAM NOT DETECTED
...ENCRYPTION PROTOCOL CONFIRMED
...COMPRESSION PROTOCOL CONFIRMED
...ACCEPTING TRANSMISSION.

BEGIN:

CONTROL, HERO-1 IS NO-GO.

FALCON SQUAD GONE

MYRATH SPAWNING ON EPSILON BASE

SEVENTEEN CRAWLERS ALL HOT

CONTROL, EPSILON BASE BURNING—

NO, NOT BURNING—GLOWING—GONE

PULLING IN CLOSER—

THEY HAVE, EYES, EYES, BURNING EYES

CONTROL, THEY SEE ME

CONTROL, THE SPINES—THE FANGS—

CONTROL, THE MAW—

WINGS AND FLAMES—

FANGS—OH GOD—

CONTROL, YOU HAVE TO WARN—
[/ic]