Pre‑Modern (PM) — The Iron Crucible
Pre-Modern is where industrial confidence turns into organized slaughter. The old world is still recognizable, but it is being swallowed by ministries, trench maps, weapons programs, and the administrative language that makes mass death feel professional. This era should feel big, ugly, and frighteningly familiar.
Era‑Specific Rules
- Theatres & Total War: multi‑front commands, trenches, armor breakthroughs; Exhaustion ends wars as much as battles.
- Signals & Ciphers: radio nets, codebooks, intercept rooms; Followers corrupt from within.
- Chimera Programs (Forbidden): Nabour artifact catalyzes mutant formations.
- Propaganda & Sanctions: home‑front morale, rationing, war bonds, black markets.
Era Items
Bolt‑action rifles, LMG/SMGs, mortars, early tanks, gas shells (outlawed), field radios, codebooks, flamers, Nabour interface rigs.
Era Materials
Oil, rubber, aluminum, TNT/picric acid, ball bearings, radar valves, early plastics, Nabourite shards.
What This Era Rewards
- campaigns where logistics, morale, and propaganda matter as much as battlefield wins
- intelligence work that feels genuinely decisive
- body horror and state violence kept just inside the line of plausibility
- the slow realization that the Iron Fist is not appearing from nowhere; it is being made
Overarching Story — The Iron Crucible
Act I — Guns of Autumn
Border skirmishes become mud continents. Ketran convoys thread U‑boat gauntlets. Lanwen cavalry write the last glorious charge and the first motorized raid.
Act II — Project Chimera
A Nabour vault—Specimen N—feeds a genetic advance program. Altered soldiers turn on their handlers. Among them rises Aaron, a two‑voiced leader who cannot die.
Act III — The Man with Two Voices
Aaron infiltrates the regime, replaces ministers, and renames the state: The Iron Fist.
Act IV — Twilight Peace
The war ends without victory. Corporations replace generals. The Conclave’s Black Division seeks to translate relic behavior into radio equations.
Player Paths
- Front Commander
- Cipher Master
- Chimera Rebel
- Convoy Admiral
Endgame & Seeds → Modern
The Iron Fist stabilizes at home. Megacorps own patents that define medicine, food, and news. Followers trade uniforms for suits.