The Outrim Void. The Trojan Reach. The place where empires die.

Between the Spinward Marches and the ever-advancing Aslan Hierate is an expanse of wild space called the Trojan Reach. A narrow ribbon of stars, the dust-spice trade route, links the two empires. Every day, ships brave the perilous crossing from Imperium to Hierate, navigating a circuitous route from Fist (Tobia 3215) to Tyokh (Tlaiowaha 2226). Between these two worlds is a sea of lawless, dangerous planets.

The Reach is where empires run aground and mortally wound themselves, and where fortunes can be made on trade and commerce. The First Imperium never conquered the Reach; the Second Imperium left isolated colonies across its expanse, and even the Third Imperium claims no more than a sixth of the systems here.

During the long night, another petty empire arose here – the Empire of Sindal. The Sindalians were barbarian raiders who crowned themselves kings and conquered several dozen worlds before their subjects rose up against them. Today, Sindal is a ruined world of a few
hundred dirt farmers whose ancestors once ruled all the night sky, and the Sindalian empire is remembered in confused tales of a golden age and wars amid the stars.
When the Empire of Sindal collapsed, outlying regional capitals became the seat of even lesser kings, and the longest-lasting of these was Drinax (Tliowaha
2223).

Drinax’s kings claimed half the worlds in their subsector for generations. The Drinaxians were wiser than their cousins; they learned to hide the iron fist of orbital bombardment behind a velvet glove of trade and protection. Drinax itself became a garden world,
fat and plump, an oasis of culture and technology in a dangerous and barbaric sector. The floating palace of Drinax – a huge citadel of beauty and art, suspended on a grav platform of prodigious size – was a wonder of the galaxy.

Then, another empire came to the Trojan Reach. The Aslan were numerous, hungry, aggressive and confident, and the Empire of Drinax was fat, lazy and wholly unaware of the sheer numbers and might of the Hierate. The Aslan trade routes to the Imperium ran through the
Kingdom of Drinax, and the kings became greedy. They demanded tolls, taxes, bribes… and the Aslan were incensed. In a single bloody war lasting less than a year, the Aslan shattered the last surviving remnant of the old Empire of Sindal. Drinax’s subject worlds were either
conquered by the Aslan or revolted. Drinax itself was blasted to ash, leaving the floating palace as the only remaining property of the King of Drinax.

One palace… and a few ships.

That was two hundred years ago. Today, trade ships from the Imperium and the Hierate
pass by broken, beggared worlds. The worlds once claimed by Drinax realise they have exchanged one master for another, and that the Aslan have even less regard for them than the kings did. The Imperium and the Hierate pretend to be friends while they jockey
for position. The sector stands on a knife edge. The right pressure could push half the Trojan Reach into the claws of the Aslan, force an already overstretched
Imperium to extend its forces deeper into the sector, permit Drinax to rise again – or carve out a new kingdom in blood and steel!

Now is the time for corsairs and privateers, for rogues and empire-builders. The King of Drinax offers a small band of trusted, resourceful bastards the chance to make their fortune. He gives them a ship and a letter of marque. They are to go adventuring in the Trojan Reach, prey on shipping and build up support in the worlds once held by the Kingdom of Drinax, playing the two great powers off against each other. If they succeed, they will become princes in the renewed kingdom.

If they fail, the stars will be their grave.

In the days of its strength, the Kingdom of Drinax – or, to give it its proper title, the Star Dragon Empire of Sindal in Exile – ruled many worlds across Tliowaha subsector. Tliowaha, of course, is the Aslan name; old charts still call it Drinax subsector. The heart of the Kingdom of Drinax was the arc of planets first named by Solomani settlers in the age of the Second Imperium. These worlds were named for the great visionary writers of old Terra – Banks (now Khusai), Stross (now Kteiroa), Asim, Pourne, Hilfer, Paal, Torpal, Clarke
and Blue. Beyond these core worlds, the Kingdom also had a presence in two dozen other systems across the subsector and beyond.

Of course, the Kings of Drinax also claimed to be the heirs to the vanished Empire of Sindal, and if one were to accept that right, then half the sector legally belongs to them. That particular Empire of Sindal arose in the year -2000 and ruled for 600 years, although for much of the last 200 years it was riven by internal dissent, rebellions, and brutal punitive attacks on its own vassals. The Sindalian Empire finally fell around -1400, when the imperial seat at Noricum was bombed to oblivion.

Half a dozen regional dukes proclaimed themselves Emperor or King, and the Kingdom of Drinax was the longest-lasting of these pretenders. From -1400 until the year 902, a span of more than two millennia, the Kings of Drinax ruled over their domain, guarding their vassal worlds from invaders and pirates. For most of their reign, the Kings were wise and well loved. It was only around the year 700, under the disastrous reign of Glaco IX, called the Vengeful, when Drinax started using the old tactics of Sindal and bombed their vassals to keep them in line. The Kingdom became increasingly unruly in the face of the growing Aslan
threat, and the outer worlds broke away from the cruel yoke of the Kings.

Matters came to a head in 884, when King Oleb XIV placed a tax of 20% on all trade between the Third Imperium and the Aslan Hierate that passed through the Kingdom. The Aslan response was swift, deadly, and all too fitting for the descendants of Sindal.

They bombed Drinax from orbit.

Few Travellers visit Drinax today. According to the charts of the Imperial Scouts, the planet still has a Class-A Starport, but the charts are centuries out of date. Drinax
is a dead world. There are no settlements on its surface, only the scars left by the Aslan when they bombed the cities from orbit. The once-fertile grasslands were seared to deserts; the forests where the kings of old hunted were razed. The seas bloom red with algae after they were boiled to death. No-one lives on Drinax anymore. They live above it.

A sense of irony is shared by both Humaniti and Aslani. The Hierate’s invasion force spared the famous floating palace of the Kings of Drinax. They blasted the cities and laid waste to the countryside, but did not touch the golden grav-platform or any of the palace’s elegant
15 domes or delicate towers. They exterminated millions of commoners, but let no harm come to the nobles, servants, sycophants and courtiers on the Floating Palace.

The survivors of the invasion, numbering a scant few thousand, had to adapt to survive. The glorious Hanging Gardens, said to be a wonder of the sector, were cleared of their exotic blooms from a hundred worlds and turned into hydroponics bays. Delicate nobles who had never worked an honest day in their lives suddenly found tools thrust into the hands. The early years were not easy. Blood stained the diamond tiles of the King’s Seraglio, and the ancient Scrolls of the Prophet Zaol were used for kindling. Still, the people of the Floating Palace survived. In the months before the invasion, the King had ordered the staff of the great university to transfer their best scientists and equipment to the Scholar’s Tower, so they were able to retain the bulk of their scientific knowledge. The Drinaxi still have TL15-era knowledge, although they lack the mineral resources to put it to use. With most
of the world below still radioactive, diseased or simply scorched beyond use, all the knowledge in the galaxy is useless when you have no copper or steel or rare earths
with which to forge your wonders.

Behold, then, the Floating Palace – a flying city, an aerial pleasure-dome of surpassing beauty, of endless wonder... and utter despair.

Stand on the Parapet of Glory, a mile-long balcony along the starboard side of the Floating Palace, and look out across the dusty skies of Drinax. Those dots that circle like birds of prey are the Hawk Warriors, held aloft by grav belts. King Oleb XVI flies at their head, although he must wear three grav belts to carry his tremendous girth.

The King is... well, his courtiers call him ‘Magnificent’, his enemies dismiss him as ‘loud, fat and impetuous’, and an unbiased observer would certainly deem him ‘energetic’. Perhaps he should have been born a hundred generations ago, when he could have led the Star Guard Navy to battle across the stars. Instead, he rules a dead world and a crumbling palace.

The King loudly proclaims his love for strong wine, red-haired women, and glorious battle, but despite his bluster, he is also a subtle and clever ruler. All his life, he has harboured ambitions of restoring the Kingdom of Drinax to its former glory. All he needs is a little leverage. All he needs is one good ship...

… and the Star Guard of Drinax has just found one. She’s an old Drinaxi Harrier from the great days of the Kingdom. She jumped in to defend Drinax from the Aslan attack, but her drive malfunctioned as she arrived in-system. Her crew were blasted with a lethal dose of
radiation, and the ship drifted crewless and rudderless through the system’s Oort cloud for two hundred years until she was recovered. She is as close as Drinax has to a working warship.

King Oleb offers you – and the other Travellers – a chance for glory!

He will give you the Harrier as your ship, and more, he will give you a letter of marque and reprisal. This document gives you the right to prey on merchant and military shipping within the borders of the old Empire of Sindal that does not carry the proper documentation.

Piracy is punishable by death. The old Ziru Sirka of the Vilani punished it with spacing; captured pirates were hurled naked out of an airlock to freeze to death in the vacuum, while pirate captains were permitted the honour of a spacesuit, prolonging their suffering for hours. In the vanished Sindalian Empire, pirates were hung by the neck until dead, their bodies preserved in a silicon sheath and attached to the hull of pirate hunter ships. The modern Third Imperium, more prosaically, permits suspected pirates a trial before they are imprisoned or executed by firing squad. As for the Aslan... the lord of each territory
personally carries out execution with his own dewclaw.

If you are captured, you are bound for death. The letter of marque will not save you – unless the Kingdom of Drinax is restored. If Drinax’s flag is raised again over a dozen worlds, then your crimes are retroactively negated – you were never devilish pirates, you were always
licensed privateers, carrying out the king’s commands!

Saving Drinax will also save your own necks...