The Covenant
In the World Torn Apart, there are more Monoliths than that which leads to Akara. They mutely stand inert and equidistant from the Core City Ruins, separated by land utterly incomprehensible, and where they lead only the imagination for now can follow. One, though, has opened. In the Chitinid Crest there is a Monolith that spews forth hordes of eyeless scren, and though that apocalypse we must one day face roils ominous upon the horizon, it tells us something hopeful too: that the Monoliths can open, and they do lead to where life is possible.
In fact, in the year 395 After Starfall, the Akarans made first contact with one such expression of life. From the far east they came, beyond the Radials Unnamed, an alien species with bodies almost human but decidedly not. The scavengers that made this first contact were defensive, scared; with the thoughts of scren on the mind, and of abominations, how could fear not be their guidepost when dealing with the unknown? But this species was not aggressive. They reached out with their inhuman minds and injected into the scavengers the memories of who they were.
They were the Covenant, and they were orphaned here in this World Torn Apart.
The Covenant are a highly evolved race that heralds from a planet they can no longer return to. The ones that made first contact — roughly 500 or so individuals — were a highly specialized squad sent by their people into Torn when their Monolith originally opened. Upon entering, they found that the Monolith did not let them return home. Instead, walking through it led nowhere, and thus with no home remaining, after waiting a great length of time, they set out West, for the deepest reaches of the East contained nothing for them but oblivion.
Note the Covenant’s mechanical prosthetics and advanced hunting mask. This is what they call their Technologized Anatomy. In short, their culture knew enough about the sciences that they could integrate technology into their flesh to cover their faults and empower them. While knowing nothing of shardstones, this mastery they had over physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering made them supreme.
In Torn, such supremacy is nowhere to be found. Their Technologized Anatomy is failing them, and they must scavenge the Zenith People’s ruins to find partially adequate replacements. In this way, they find themselves relying heavily on the Akaran people, with whom they have fashioned an Alien Alliance. In exchange for their great depth of knowledge, Akaran scavengers teach them what they know of shardscience and help them keep their technology operational. It is a relationship neither side is eager to ruin now or in the future.
The Covenant decided on their own name, and they created a language — Coven — that allows them to write down messages for scavengers to understand. Beyond that, they use their memory-based telepathy to communicate. Due to their Technologized Anatomy and natural biology, they do not eat or drink as other creatures might, but instead absorb nutrients through the air in a process similar to osmosis. This assortment of factors makes them quite capable, but pales in comparison to their mental abilities.
These mental abilities are a consequence of the Covenant’s biological immortality. As they age, their brains — which are spread throughout their bodies and interwoven with the neural meshes of their Technologized Anatomy — bud nascent consciousness to store new memories and information. In this way, the Covenant is quite literally a covenant of minds, each a child personality of the original that in turn is fermenting a new mind and together these personalities come together to guide the shared body that is the Covenant.
Learn more about the Alien Alliance, the Covenant’s homeworld, and how you can play a Covenant scavenger in our upcoming Kickstarter, Torn & Beyond!
