Kalran: Tales of the four nations/A Empire of hatred and slavery

A Smouldering Wasteland
Arcadia, once the world's most populous country with a population with 800 million people and the capital of the late Tuatha Empire, is now the face of an alien world. Where once stood great monuments and mighty palaces, now lie barren fields covered in a green fog, a noxious gas that poisons anyone who breathes it. The charred earth is covered with a layer of ash, remains of what was once a thriving civilization. The sky is a dark gray churning mass, blocking out every last ray of sunshine, blanketing the world below in darkness. Scattered everywhere are little black lumps, the last remains of its former inhabitants. In the distance, a mushroom cloud slowly rises as winds whip up sandstorms, which last for days on end. The air alone is lethal to anyone who breathes it, and the black rain simply adds to their torture as their skin is burnt away.

Welcome to Frontier, the Last Hell on Kalran. And beneath this wasteland, underneath a layer of glass that was one the empires capital, Arcadia, lies the Reclaimers base.

Only The Unloved And Unnatural Hate
The Reclaimers, under the rule of the tyrant Bahlgram, is bonded by a mutual brotherhood forged by their hatred of the Tuatha Empire that grew to the entirety of Alcradia, their will to conquer, and their bitter paranoia, yet even then rivalries can surface and lead to some serious backstabbing. They value their hatred and opportunities to express it, and treat most they know, especially the clones, as tools to express their hatred and accomplish their goals. To a Trueborn, everything boils down to a resource to be used and/or an obstacle to be cleared. War is a mathematical equation that has to be solved for victory. Clones are slaves, expendable soldiers, tools, and ultimately something to be fed (literally) into the Reclaimers war apparatus, making their lives a living, nightmarish hell beforehand. Fellow Trueborn and clones are expected to carry out their brutal, violent work without question. The Trueborn carry an alien sense of camaraderie and unflinching loyalty to Bahlgram, forged by a bitter hatred of their enemies and their cruel urge to dominate and enslave. At best, they view fellow Trueborns as coworkers or brothers-in-crime and clones as pets, or at worst, as hated rivals and exploitable resources. With the cells ally and deal with each other to stave off the next battle so they can go to war on more hated targets, but if they smell weakness among their ranks or a slight directed at one of them, they might decide the clones and Trueborn would be better off under their leadership, no matter the cost to get it.

And when the Reclaimers go to war, everyone is expendable, just to different degrees. Back in the days of the great war they spent Trueborn, back when they were numerous enough, lives like artillery rounds, and clone lives like machinegun bullets, and they haven’t exactly gotten better with time. Their pure, unadulterated contempt for life is such that, in the Siege of Arcadia, they refer to their clones simply as “flesh,” and place orders for more like they're ordering food. Speaking of food, when rations started to get low, the Trueborn started feeding the clones the rendered down remains of the dead.

In the society of the Reclaimer the order of the higher up is absolute, especially for a clone. If the clone fails at the job, do something their way, or shows any degree of insubordination, they're done for, end of story. If they do the job right, they'll keep pushing them until every last ounce of usefulness is squeezed out of them, after which they are recycled as a replacment comes in. As for the Trueborn they are marginally better, as they live in the lap of luxury, or as close to one can get given their situation, but all it takes is to refuse one order to be turned into one of Josef more horrific machines.