Exciting news for Beyond the Gates of Antares – our first look at the next faction to be introduced into the game – The Freeborn.
The Freeborn are merchants and traders, pursuers of wealth, influence and power within Antarean space. Their numerous fleets maintain a free-flow of commodities and technology between human worlds and beyond. The neutral status of the Freeborn allows their ships to travel easily between antagonistic societies such as the Isorian Shard and Panhuman Concord, and the Ghar and Algoryn. Although the Freeborn maintain a number of hidden worlds as supply bases, for the most part they stand aside and apart from other human societies, recognising no masters but the lord of their own household.
Each household comprises a vast fleet that plies its trade between groups of worlds. The ownership of these trade routes is in part hereditary and the source of every household’s wealth. When routes become contested, rival Freeborn will go to war, as happened between the Oszon Mercantile League and Ky’am Freetraders. Feuds between the Freeborn households are deeply felt family affairs and matters of honour. Feuds can last for generations and are rarely forgotten even after hundreds of years have passed. Relationships between the households are complex and are often settled by intermarriage between ruling families, political arrangements made between one Vardo and another.
The Freeborn don’t just deal in commodities and knowledge, they also deal in human services, including those of mercenary fighters. These mercenary soldiers are recruited, trained and equipped by the Freeborn from amongst the more primitive worlds of the Determinate and the Spill. When a Freeborn household goes to war its forces are made up of both it’s own and mercenary troops. Freeborn have access to all the weapons and armour of Antarean space, but, with an eye to cost and practicality, tend to favour mag guns and reflex shielding as basic equipment. Amongst the ruling family and their close relatives anything goes, from expensively re-sharded Isorian phase armour to compression carbines and all manner of alien exotica.
The Domari are the core of most Freeborn forces. Squads are armed with mag weapons in the main, they can be supplemented with the heavier Micro X-launcher. The colour scheme you see here is that of the Oszon Mercantile League – colours vary from house to house, as do sigils and ornamentation.
Over the next couple of months we’ll be making plenty of Freeborn squad, support weapons, etc available so keep your eyes peeled…
Now is the time to get into Beyond the Gates of Antares!
Sam Phillips