The harsh, cold tundra is the home of the Obsidian race. Dark, bending synths, spacey pings and plucks lay out a landscape of vast mountain ranges covered in ice. This is a gigantic, loyal, brooding and warring people. Massive braams separate the harsh, viola-sung, forlorn beauty of their homeland and the wrathful pride of this ancient and brutal force of nature.

The enigma. The imposter. The warlord. The father. Apprehensive to his calling, the sound of driving synths and percussion set the stage for churning cello ostinatos and longing dulcimer. Something awakens within. The one to set back the clock arises. Passionate viola and cello legato hooks give way to soaring french horns, as the battle for freedom intensifies. Angelic choirs sing down with fury. If your heart beats like a drum, and your leg's a little wet, it's because The Reaper has come, to collect a little debt.

Bending, pulsating synths dance with the most frightening sound in the Core: the howling of wolves, sung by a band of misfit marauders. Oriental woodwinds soar above clacking a sticks rhythm, while a proud violin ostinato pushes forward into the fray. Always one step ahead, always just barely outside of the peripheral. When least expected, the massive metallic hammer drops. You're either in their way, or you're forever thankful for the vision of flowing wolf cloaks in the wind.

Pulsating bass synth, pizzicato violas, delicate violin ostinatos, and the synthetic calling of the most respected word in the galaxy: DOMINUS. Prideful and mournful french horns, relentless, massive percussion, growling low brass. They tamed planets. They subjugated billions. You know them by the color of their eyes.

Armored by cello ostinatos, distant bending brass, and the bittersweet melodies of your home planet, in your starShell, you are an unstoppable force. Falling, always falling to yet another battle, with dancing, panning synths and muted bells - from the heavens you land yet again amidst the smoking ruins of another city ripe for the taking. For The Rising. For The Reaper. For neverending Glory.

They are the upper-eschelon of the elite's very own 1%. The scar upon their face demands obedience. Its distant clarion alarms ring out across bassy, growling synths and ominous pulsing cello ostinatos. Forever warring, the heavenly warriors in cloaks of gold, helmets of monsters, and the impossible movement of gods, the Peerless Scarred patrol the most dangerous of battles to the sound: soulful and angelic choirs, machine-gun percussion, wrathful risers, and blazing strings. Duality is their nature. The imperfect perfect.

The ancient House Augustus' legend was built upon the sound of pulsing, massive taikos, soaring, heavenly strings and an honor a millenia old. Prideful brass, determined strings ostinatos, searing synth alarms - there are few families whose lineage dates back as far as the conqueror himself; one which stretches even the great divide of the Society at large. The lion. The jackal. The mustang. Humanity's survival hangs in the balance of the dance of the three.

You are a towering genetically-modified human entering your starShell to the pulsing, percussive sound of hybrid drums and growling synths. Then you are loosed from space, and you see you are one of what must be thousands, diving at a quickening pace, dodging particle beams and railgun munitions. Blood and bile are indistinguishable from the pounding, percussive rhythm inside your helmet. Is this your first Iron Rain?