The World of Horizon Trigger

In the 22^nd century, humanity reached out to the stars. The advent of slipstream travel allowed us to send ships, packed with colonists and materials to habitable planets all over the galaxy. Slipstream travel was fast, efficient, and easy. Slipspace was our greatest achievement.

Like all things, it was too good to be true.

The War in Heaven

One of our ships landed on a planet that humanity’s scientists deemed uninhabited and suited for human use. Upon landing, the colonists quickly discovered ancient ruins, powered by slipstream technology.

Turned out, we were never alone in the galaxy.

The colonists accidentally awoke the dormant progenitor empire of the Voidratic Imperious, who began to wage war on humanity, unrelentingly, without known cause. What we did to drive the Voidratic Imperious to such a war against us remains unknown, and our greatest failure among the stars.

Their weapons overpowered our defenses, colonies vanished overnight under the Voidratic onslaught. Their mastery of slipspace made it impossible for us to effectively travel, communicate, and organize.

Humanity’s defenders tried but could not hold the line in the onslaught of the Voidratic Imperious. We lost system after system, colony after colony, and desperation took hold. Humanity faltered in the face of an enemy we couldn’t make peace with.

The galaxy was burning, and we were the kindling for the fire stoked by the Voidratic Imperious.

We needed a new plan—a new goal.

We needed guardians and warriors, scientists, and artists. Singular individuals pave the way for our species to rebuild and rekindle our civilizations. We needed minds and souls that would give them all to keep the hope of humanity alive in the cold dark of space.

Redoubt

As humanity fractured under the pressure of the assault by the Voidratic Imperious and the 24^th century dawned, a message came in from one of the oldest colonies of humanity.

They’d captured (through great cost) a Voidratic ship and were able to reverse engineer the technology the Voidratic Imperious used, arming a small selection of elite soldiers called Knights. These Knights were super-soldiers, capable of taking the fight to the alien empire trying to destroy us.

Though the war could not be won through the Knights alone, their technology and powers allowed us to draw a stalemate with the Voidratic Imperious.

It gave us a chance to breathe.

So, we fought the Imperious to a standstill, using captured Voidratic technology. Combined with the best of human scientific advancement, the Knights established a haven. As safe as can be in this turmoil of galactic warfare. A home where humanity could attempt to regroup and establish a counter-offensive against our enemies. We found a nebula, with a dying blue star and habitable planets hidden within. We named it Alcazar. The unique radiation from the nebula helped hide us from the Voidratic. We found ancient ruins littered throughout the nebula, which we could use to construct defenses, research centers, and shipyards. Megastructures, planetary ruins, and more were all created by a culture we named the Alcazar Ancients.

We could be safe here, find a new home among the stars, where the cosmos themselves granted us a measure of protection. And so, we built a new city. A Paragon to guide humanity through the dark times ahead. Connected to Earth through slipspace portals, this city, situated deep underwater on a terraformed planet became the center of humanity’s struggle to live on in the dark universe, and was named REDOUBT.

For a time, Redoubt was humanity’s second home among the stars.

Today

But all things end.

Humankind finally fulfilled our greatest promise: we destroyed the Earth. A series of thermo-seismic bombs, set off at the climax of our greatest internal and political conflicts tore the planet apart, catastrophically dislodging Luna from its orbit, and devastating the Martian and Venusian population centers. Internal conflicts caused humanity to destroy the Earth, leaving Redoubt as our last safe haven in this hostile galaxy, and future generations will pay the price.

All that remained of humankind was Redoubt, small outposts, settlements, and shipyards past the Sol System, and from there, we began to rebuild, desperate to ensure the survival of our species.

New railships were dispatched, sent to avoid slipspace, but the centuries or millennia it will take for them to find their new homes and establish strongholds means the Knights must hold on, keeping humanity alive while the universe seeks to snuff us out. Without faster-than-light travel, these ships require inhabitants to remain in stasis, as flight plans are calculated thousands of years in advance.

A slow crawl towards survival, with metal tombs in the deep vacuum of space, carrying the seeds of our future into the stars.

Can the Cadres of the Knights keep the torch of our future lit? Or will the dark of the universe snuff it out…

The Alcazar Nebula

The Alcazar Nebula is the default “canon” setting for Horizon Trigger, where the metaplot of the DLCs, Global Events, and more all take place for the time being (don’t worry, we have more planned in locations far outside the Alcazar system).

Your game can take place outside the Alcazar system, but if you intend to play the published adventures, just be aware you might need to change them to fit your campaign and how your home table differs from the published Alcazar system.

The Alcazar system features a dying blue star, which bears the same name as the system, with five planets orbiting it. The system is situated deep within a nebula, which plays havoc with the Voidratic Imperious’ ability to locate its exact location and has been what has allowed humanity to establish a safe foothold among the stars.

While the star is dying, humanity has several million years before it goes out. Our fate will be decided long before the star decides for us.

The Alcazar Nebula represents the bulk of the Knight operational field, where Cadres attempt to uncover the secrets of the Alcazar Ancients, keep the Voidratic Imperious away from Redoubt, and guide and protect railships as they travel out to establish a new foothold for humanity.

While the core planets of the Alcazar system have few ruins built by the Alcazar ancients, numerous asteroids, megastructures, and other rogue planets in the Alcazar Nebula carry more.