Astyan Heavy Battle Armor

[Tee]

(Astyan Heavy Battle Armor, Mk2)

Ancient, pre-Refugee Astyan military development placed great importance on flexibility, endurance, and protection of each warrior. A natural result of great advances in all three areas was the development of Astyan Battle Armor.

The pinnacle of Astyan military technology, Battle Armor gave unparalleled protection without compromising on mobility. This gave the ancient Astyans the tactical advantage in a wide variety of situations; from anchoring a battle line in the field to scouting and recon of enemy forces.

Astyan Battle Armor was a true wonder of engineering - the outer plates were constructed of a near-impenetrable mythril-nyeshk alloy, each of which could slide and move into a variety of configurations as well as lock securely into place. It was far more than a mere suit of armor, however-- fully supporting the user's weight, it was more of a mobile fortress, designed with over twelve miles of 3-dimensional orchilacum wiring that double as runes. Initial versions used simpler wiring; the secret of creating overlapping three-dimensional runes were discovered by Astyan researchers roughly a quarter of the way through its development, and so the wiring became the focal point of construction efforts.

The result was an incredible array of runes embedded within the armor itself, allowing Magi to connect their own circuitry with the Battle Armor and use it to extend their own abilities. This allowed the creation of fully integrated controls, letting mere thoughts and small body movements trigger complicated functions such as weapons or defense systems, and using the wearer's own mana to power everything.


Though each Armor was custom-designed for a single wearer, they each shared a number of traits:

* Self-powered: Each suit directly taps into the wearer's mana using a series of crystals embedded around the occupant, allowing them to tap into the wiring and effectively merge with it for full control over suit functions. The armor constantly siphons a small amount of mana and reroutes through the wiring as a sort of crude 'secondary circuit'. It remains powered as long as the occupant is alive.

* Self-sustaining: Though an occupant can live in the suit indefinitely, they were intended largely for long-term deployment in the field and could only be removed in an Astyan artificer's workshop. Powering down the suit from the occupant's mana was a time-consuming and complicated process and was usually done by following instructions in a field manual.

* Each was created with three layers of locking nyeshk-mythril plate surrounded by dense, specially-treated cylion fibers. The outer filigree and plate shapes were often custom-made and tended to be extremely elaborate.

* They were rare even in pre-Refugee times, requiring intense amounts of labour and materials and now-lost Astyan technology. Often they could only be afforded by elite guard or military leaders, and needed special facilities to produce.

* Custom Made: Each suit could be custom-fitted with a number of modular additions, such as lance-launchers or energy beams, all by carefully manipulating the flow of mana through the suit.

Astyan Heavy Battle Armor was first created to face the forces of Mordred the Perfect, but was never made in large enough numbers to turn the tide of the war in their favour. Later suits became even more complex and difficult to create, requiring specialist artificers and intense amounts of already-dwindling resources.

One by one, the suits were lost in battle, often their last resting place entirely alone, forgotten, and surrounded by an enormous mountain of demon corpses.

Only a few final remnants of Heavy Battle Armor managed to make it to Esshar with the refugees; largely these suits were prototype units, modified variants, or decorative units that were unfit for battle - the best examples had all been desperately (and, in the end, futilely) used to turn back the wave of Mordred's advance.

Modern descriptions and depictions of the armor are sparse, and tales of the armor are seen entirely as myth; nearly all given information on the suits are wrong, save for a few Academy archives and Pellaux tomes. A few surviving examples are said to still exist (rumor has it the Academy has a still-working boot), though full suits are so exceedingly rare they are hard to even prove to have existed.

The secret to constructing the Armor, as well as knowledge of three-dimensional runes or the forging of nyeshk-mythril alloy, was lost during Mordred's destruction of Astya; certainly any remaining relics would be well over a thousand years old by now and taking one apart to study it would probably be some kind of historical hate crime.

(Astyan Heavy Battle Armor Mk. 6, Final Version, Ornamental Variant)

[Xzerx]

One question. Does it come in black?

[Tee]

it comes in matte black, turquoise pearlescent and two-tone with racing stripes