In DeadSpace, my gothic neo-mythic RPG, there are things out there in space, beyond the fluke world that bears life: "...dead armies writhing endless beneath black suns..." (or something along those lines)

Probably a half-decade or more ago at this point, I did an illustration that was one of the idea-seeds of the setting: a technological-looking suit with a goldish glass-like helmet shaped as a raven's head, with morbid hints it covers a grinning skull.

This quickly became the idea that there was a corpse inside that suit--of a member of a long-vanished alien species--that was still moving and expanding and marching to war. But I've been trying to rectify that idea with later developments in the idea of the setting, specifically "If the universe is a dead cinder abandoned by its creators as a failure and Midgaard is a lone fluke where life should not exist--if life never arose elsewhere because it could not--then where do these enemies or forgotten alien species come from?"

The question became: how do you encounter what can't exist?

From that followed the idea that they were a psychic imprint; that mankind created these horrors from the void itself. They didn't exist, but the mere existence of man gave life to them. They are all phantasms given flesh: existing in a half-life, undead, because they were never truly alive.

Some of that is all too clinical. Instead, the void is a twisted reflection of history and imagination. A subtle nightmare manifest. But it still doesn't make me happy. How do you know the void is empty if you're encountering the psychic cast-offs of humanity's dark side? How did we discover the universe is empty in the first place?

There's a piece missing that I'm still working on.

Nonetheless, the enemy list I have come up with is:

Hel's legions. The dead of the Earth, the fallen of Midgaard, empty hulks crewed by the souls of dead men, those ships launched into the void in funeral pyre.

The wolves. Blood-thirsty rapine raiders and bandits with animal skulls covering their faces sailing ships built of bone and muscle and metal.

The ravens. Dead, inhuman things in LED-lit suits of tarnished metal and tinted glass, drawn to death, warfare, and blood.

The giants. Things is the only way to describe them. Inhuman, tentacled monstrosities that sleep in the void and beneath the dead flesh of barren worlds.

Still, I wish I could pull this together with that missing setting piece. I've thought about an alternate dimension like hyperspace, but I'm not fond of that idea. An ancient gate activated by man. Devourers from beyond the edge of the universe. A dark spiritual reality. Something that lets me have the empty universe, the lone jewel of Midgaard idea, and yet also the lurking horror of alien zombie things.

Damn.

See, ya drag your feet and somebody beats ya to it -- Hellas: Worlds of Sun and Stone. Hellas is a game of mythology-infused space opera and science fiction.

(Regardless, I WANTS!)

"Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." -Sir Arthur Eddington

---

This is what the skalds tell:

When men left the cradle of Midgaard to seek out the Other Worlds of Yggdrasil, they found nothing but dust and emptiness in the vast, black seas beyond their blue shores. There were shining minerals and potent chemicals aplenty to be taken by the strong on the barren islands of fire and ice in the void, refined and sold by the clever to the varied men of Midgaard.

But as men sailed on the empty winds out among the stars, he discovered the universe empty of life, brutal, cold, and barren, utterly unsuited for habitation beyond Midgaard. But man set his ships upon the dark waves and sailed ever further outward, because he must, and because he believed he could not be both special...and alone.

The truth, as often, proved much darker than this.

( ....the truth of the runestone... )

---

I figured I should start putting some of my notes for Dead*Space, my sometime-eventually forthcoming role-playing game of gothic neo-mythic science fiction first mentioned on the Forge here. This post is a thumbnail sketch presentation of the core setting and underlying mythology. If you have questions or want explanations of one of the presented ideas, please ask.

(Note that for once I am not looking for critiques/criticisms.)