Twilight Imperium

Sword of the Hacan

2026 / 01 / 07

Greetings, Keleres. 

I’m glad you volunteered for shipboard duty aboard our newest acquisition, the Artemiris. Frankly, that cruiser is the most powerful vessel orbiting Mecatol Rex right now, and it gives us some serious and much-needed authority in the Galactic Council, even as things are heating up. 

However, Artemiris is still only one ship, and you’re not going to take on one of the Great Civilizations’ navies on your own. You and the rest of the crew are going to have to be smart about any battles you pick, and that’s why I’ve sent you some light reading. 

Zi Krik is one of the best investigative chroniclers in the galaxy, and she happened to write a whole series on the various navies of the Great Civilizations (with the notable exception of the Yssaril Tribes’ fleets, of course). I think you’ll find her observations interesting. 

-Tribunii Harka Leeds

Excerpt from Three Months With the Sword Fleet, by Zi Krik

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My credentials as a chronicler would have only gotten me aboard a sebeko pulling convoy escort duties, of course. But here my chameleonic skin paid off. Soon I had slipped away from the Quieron’s handlers and was stowed away aboard a transport shuttle. I hoped to end up aboard one of the Sword Fleet’s sorbarrks so I could see and chronicle the heart of the Emirates’ fleet in action. Little did I know that the transport was headed for the fleet’s flagship, the grand sorbarrk Wrath of Kenara. 

So first, a few words on the Hacan’s…particular traditions towards their warships. Unlike most of the Great Civilizations, the Hacan do not retire and scrap their capital ships when those ships become obsolete. Instead, they are lovingly restored and rebuilt, even if this would cost more than simply building a new vessel. I suppose the Emirates certainly have the money to spend on these projects. 

So this means any of their sorbarrks (the Sword Fleet’s equivalent of a dreadnought) could be hundreds of years old or more, and are as much a historical artifact as they are a weapon of war. And this is doubly true for their grand sorbarrks, the flagships of the fleet. 

Once we had docked aboard the Wrath of Kenara, I snuck out of the hold and began to explore. I tell you, walking through the halls of the Wrath of Kenara was like stepping into the finest museum in the Core Systems. The ship is over 3,000 years old, after all. It was built before the Twilight Wars. Bulkheads were covered in slabs of polished desert marble, thick carpet paved the companionways and grand corridors, and some of the main spaces had honest to space chandeliers. At one point I even got to an observation deck and saw the Emirates emblem that’s emblazoned on the bow. You ever wonder if those were real 20 meter rubies that form the red circles in their symbol? Well, they are. 

But the longer I stayed aboard, the more I realized that a lot of this finery was all for show. Once I got beyond the main spaces and the officer decks, I realized this old cat still has fangs. The Wrath has a full battery of plasma weapons, and though they may be old, there are enough of them to take on a modern warship. 

One final thought I’ll leave you with, dear reader. The keel of this ship was laid down before the end of the Lazax Empire. This vessel is so old, that it may contain secrets installed by Lazax shipwrights, secrets that even its masters don’t know about.

Discover more secrets in Ships of the Shattered Empire, the latest Genesys sourcebook set in the Twilight Imperium universe. Available at your FLGS starting January 9^th.

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