#rwac6

there we goddamn go the redguns got scugged. and scav'd. this took me like three weeks because designing is hard

michigan/the veteran - guy from a nomadic colony of slugcats (which is the one walter/the handler was actually dropped off with hence why the two of 'em know each other). colony passed through Through Material Force's region and got detained; michigan tamed one of the wild AC-beasts and led them to fight back. they fought to a standstill that was only broken when he made a deal with TMF to stay in exchange for the rest of his colony being allowed to leave.

nile/under-the-river - elite scavenger (biologically technically a freemartin-esque third sex for scavengers with the way i'm writing things). born and raised in TMF's main city and had a pretty good life overall. decided that he'd like to join the effort to keep it that way. like in canon, was the one who arrested huahai ++ was a key part of the skirmishes against michigan's colony

red/the recruit - also born and raised in TMF's inner city. took on a slugcat name/title because of how much he idolized michigan. albinistic in the way snakes can be (scavengers have multiple pigments as i've been writing it); visually looks like a very pale colourpoint.

wu huahai/the purveyor - solo nomad for a time. used to bring in items of interest/use to random settled colonies and tribes and offer his services before stealing their stuff and disappearing into the rain. rinse and repeat. tried this stunt a little too close to TMF's main city and got caught by nile. alt name the charlatan because technically slugcat name/titles are chosen by the individual but if everyone disagrees with what you picked they can and will call you something else.

volta/wall-that-does-not-break - technically born in TMF's region, but somewhere that slipped through the cracks. community didn't give a shit about the iterator, he didn't give a shit about the iterator, his attempts at bringing in resources from iterator-controlled areas were marked as stealing nonetheless and he got brought in. good friends with huahai like in canon

hey buddy

crustiest old slugcats this side of rubicon

been working on this crossover for a good while now. was like "it'd be funny to put a pile bunker on a rainworld vulture" and then i doodled a 621 slugcat to go with their pet pilebunker and the rest is history

arquebus and balam are also iterators now (advancement despite division/through material force). not iterators in the traditional sense, they're here to serve as staging grounds/living quarters/war platforms for their respective peoples, who originally had their eyes set on a specific void-affected region with weird properties and were willing to fight each other for access to it.

the iterator solitary overseer was built over a very void-affected region as a research outpost, which went fine until the arquebus/balam ancient facrions saw the region and decided they wanted it mostly because everyone wanted to be the first ones to figure out the whole deal with it, and perhaps get famous off sparking a second scientific void revolution if they're lucky. whole space race type situation except it's a void race and all sides are not above straightup killing each other.

when the ancients all disappeared their iterators did not stop. when sapient life popped up ADD and TMF both grabbed their local slugcats and scavengers and enlisted them in the conflict. after enough fighting, SO tried to stop it all and their plan triggered the rainworld equivalent of the fires of ibis. congrats dude that's the worst anyone's done it

snail's from ADD's region outright and grew up in a time when they were already very well known- he aimed to become one of their most trusted agents and got there. this went directly to his head and now he thinks that he speaks their will. michigan's originally from a nomadic slugcat colony who passed througn TMF's region and basically got detained. he initially led his colony to fight back, but eventually managed to strike a deal with TMF to stay if the rest of his colony was is allowed to gtfo

walter was found as a slugpup by iterator solitary overseer (rubicon research institute narrative equivalent). they're dead now and he's trying to finish what they could not, as per canon. i think he actually got handed off to michigan's colony pre-fires which is how the two of 'em know each other

rusty's from SO's region, post-fires, same with the rest of the rubicon liberation front. here they just wanna fucking live can these goddamn iterators stop sending purposed organisms and other slugcat/scavengers to fight right over their homes ffs

go my (and @bexleytychus) horrible idiot corporate iterators

--- for a character based off arquebus corporation in general, advancement despite division is surprisingly nice. they will put up with any amount of eccentricity so long as you prove yourself competent. well, you know. if you're a friend. or at least an asset.

they were built by a group of ancients as their research and war base. now the ancients are gone, but they still continue their people's goals.

ADD's people were convinced that ascension was a fad and was mostly trying to kickstart a second industrial void revolution using the void anomaly under solitary overseer's region for the fame and the recognition. they assumed that only a handful of people would actually ascend, and then the world would go back to how it was before.

--- through material force is boisterous and jovial and completely, utterly untrustworthy. which is probably made worse by the way it acts because it can and often does metaphorically trample over others for the crime of being in its sights.

it was built for the same reason ADD was, though its people just operated under the belief that they could do better by the region's void anomaly than the other two groups vying for control of the place.

halfassed sketches of the vespers and redguns. i'm working on a way better reference lineup but this is the approximate idea i've got

okay so i haven't posted about PCA because i a) need to actually figure out a name for them (i do certainly want to keep the initials, because it'd be fun!) b) need to actually finish designing them

but here's the bastard as they currently are! and a bonus SO. both of their heads are somewhat based off ancients' masks, by the way- i just think, narratively, it would be cool to just not show SO's face proper. also means i don't have to actually design their head just imagine whatever you want to

PCA is the group 'senior' of SO. after SO's collapse they essentially are operating under the mindset that SO is part of their group, they are the senior here, therefore everything SO had/did before now belongs to them.

allmind is. okay one second. starting from the beginning.

the central plotpoint, as i've sort of mentioned before, is rubicon-III being a specific region affected by a void anomaly of sorts. the exact nature of this void anomaly is based heavily off the specific narration in the background of the watcher DLC trailer.

the idea here is that cycles are a very weird quantum superposition type thing. every single possible thread is true until it isn't, and one 'true' timeline happens going forward. note that i'm working with the idea that there are NOT alternate timelines, these are only theoretical possibilities. you cannot hop timelines is my point- they're not 'real' in that way

the void anomaly here makes the boundary between the real world and all the theoretical alternate possibilities thin enough that with the right sort of meditation, or the right piece of technology, you can reach into an adjacent possibility and yoink part of it into the real world.

anyways so this means that some of the possibilities out there are essentially echoes of people who never truly existed. they can be interacted with essentially in the same way normal echoes can be, i haven't really thought too hard about the mechanics yet.

ayre is one of these. allmind, too, is one of these. allmind in particular is the 'echo' of an iterator who never actually existed. this also gives allmind a motivation to seek the equivalent of coral release!

some of the canon ACs as weird fuckin lizards