The Consortium is a multispecies body consisting of representatives from many different planets, countries, species, nations, and large organizations. It generally goes a good job of keeping the peace and ensuring that citizens of its member polities don't suffer too much in the way of deprivations, but it's also known for being a ponderous and fractious organization that's slow to adapt to new information.
Magic and the Lumin
Magic is known to almost every sentient species. Conscious minds (usually sentient, but magical animals also exist) can access the Lumin, an extra-universal space of great power. They all access it differently; some of these differences are biological (like the crevn body-telepathy that keeps them together) and some are cultural (see: the significant differences in magical practice amongst the three dominant ssilon populations.)
Shiftgates
Shiftgates are the only known mechanism for traveling faster than light. They require two pieces of magic -- powerful space-warping magic to open a bridge through the spaceless realm of pure Lumin, and a diviner to know where to open the other half of the gate. This means that any spaceship will have at least one of each of these, as they need to be sapient. (One or both might be the ship itself, depending on how tolerant that culture is of sapient starships.)
Getting lost inside a shiftgate is not good. The Lumin is spaceless, dimensionless, and runs on non-abelian geometry, which is part of why it can be crossed so quickly by a skilled navigator, but it means it can be nearly impossible to find your way home if the path was not clear. There exist entire paramilitary organizations devoted to search and rescue of ships lost in the Lumin.
Survey Corps
The Survey Corps is a branch of the Consortium devoted to exploration and mapping of the galaxy. There are several different branches; some of them try to gather further information about existing known worlds, some try to find entirely new worlds altogether.
The four classes of ship most commonly used by the Survey Corps are:
Pulsar-class. The newest and most technologically advanced kind of ship, the Pulsar is essentially a flying laboratory. They exist to investigate particularly unusual magical or scientific anomalies, rather than more mundane planetary exploration. Pulsars are also used for making contact with new sapient species after first contact (which is typically done by a Nova) with a crew complement of anthropologists, linguists, xenobiologists, and diplomats.
Nova-class. The bread and butter of the Survey Corps, a Nova-class ship is a long-term exploration vessel with as many of its systems self-contained as possible. Frequently entire families, breeding groups, etc will serve together on a Nova class; because they are intended to be gone for months or years at a time, they need to be socially self supporting as well as materially independent. A Nova-class ship will be sent out along a newly discovered leyline to find entirely new places.
Binary-class. These are construction ships, used to build essential infrastructure on planets that are planned to be colonized or exploited. These tend to also get sent to "domestic" megaengineering projects as well; if an orbital habitat or solar shade needs to be built, it's usually best to call on a Binary class ship to do it. The work they do in new systems tends to be magical resonance beacon networks, He-3 extraction points, et cetera.
Quasar-class. These are essentially carriers, used for widespread deep exploration of a particular planet or system. They typically carry more personnel than any other kind, as well as hundreds of rovers, skimmers, shuttles, and even smaller classes of main-line ships, and act as mobile command centers for entire projects.
Species
Ssilon
The ssilon are a spacefaring amphibian species. They had a long history in interstellar space, emerging from their hot and humid home planet of Freskil, discovering magic FTL travel, and expanding around to their local neighborhood. Then a plague -- widely considered to be military in origin -- burned through the entirety of the ssilon diaspora. It not only killed many of them across all the colony worlds, but it also sterilized many females (or rather, made their eggs unviable.) The separate colonies recovered slowly, some of them going all the way back to the stone age in many places (especially their home planet) and taking millennia to get back to the stars. This happened at roughly the same time in three places: Freskil itself, Ssei, and Akalis. These are almost separate species at this point, they've been divided for so long. The Freskil ssilon are the industrial powerhouses and have by far the highest population still. The Ssei ssilon developed a more sophisticated mental magic and psionic culture, and the Akalis ssilon, although they were a small colony, managed to quarantine themselves away from the plague. They have a techmonastic culture, because they wanted to not lose their technological knowledge despite losing the infrastructure to use most of it.
Ssilon are small for a sentient species, being only 130 to 160 centimeters tall. They have very slender three-fingered hands and prehensile tongues, evolved for eating social insects (both above and below water) and the nectar of large flowers. They also have a powerful electrosensitive organ -- useful in air, but incredibly perceptive and long-ranged in the water. It is referred to in the Consortium paralang as their "sense of ell", as in "Wasei the ssilon elled her friend coming around the corner." The linguistic similarity to other species' sense of smell is intentional.
Spacefaring ssilon bring hives of specific breeds of insect with them into space, as well as an algae that breaks down easily into a lot of sugar. They are, unusually for sentient species, pretty intolerant of other species' food -- although they have very strong immune systems (which is actually part of why the plague was so hard to eradicate.) They also bring a lot of water with them into space -- when sharing space with other species, this can be a major logistical concern, because they need to keep their skin moist. When in dry situations, they will often wear humidity suits.
There is an ancient art form called sadunai -- which has evolved in radically different ways on the three different ssilon worlds -- that involves embedding permanent electrets into paintings, sculptures, or other art forms in order to create a multisensory experience. Alien art critics sometimes have access to special gloves that allow them to feel the electric fields in this art form.
Ssilon are also considered to be one of the more attractive species in interstellar society, although the reason for this is highly debated. They have a sort of pseudo-marsupial reproductive cycle, where a small clutch of one to four younglings each gestates in their own soft, mermaid pouch style egg. They develop inside the mother at first, then after a while are laid as a clutch to finish.
Ssilon clothing is minimal. When they do wear clothing, they tend to avoid artificial fabrics, leathers, and furs, because any buildup of static electricity can be distracting or even painful to the ssilon electrosense.
Arafran
The arafran are a newly spacefaring race. They were uplifted by an unknown mechanical benefactor species several thousand years ago; these benefactors are a major feature in arafran religion, although they didn't stick around to provide much technology past the Bronze Age era.
The arafran are tall hexapodal mammalian omnivores. They are one of the largest terrestrial sophonts known; a 230-280 cm long being of lithe, flexible muscle with soft white fur. They have two powerful arms and two smaller limbs attached to the bottom of their ribcages that they use for climbing balance. They thrive in cold climates naturally, but part of the uplift process of the arafran made them unusually easy to develop gene modifications for, so temperature sensitivity is often turned off in individuals.
Arafran agriculture consisted initially of farming cold-resistant perennial root crops and large (although not by their standards) avian livestock. As a consequence of their unusual environment, they lived in very spread out environments, and it took them a little while to develop dense enough living conditions for technology to really take off.
Once they did, though, the arafran were greatly helped by the various pieces of technology that the now-gone uplifters left behind in their wake. Once they were able to understand some of the rudiments of the technology, it kicked them from the early industrial era to the interstellar age in a matter of two centuries. The arafran's benefactors had some small presence in other worlds in the area, but nothing much past that, and it is still a matter of great debate where they came from, and where they went.
Part of the uplift process involved extensive upgrades to psychic and magical aptitude. Arafran are typically empaths and specialists in divination magic. Their clerical class consists of those with the strongest aptitude for such things, and they are marked by dyeing their fur. Originally it was only whatever dyes they had available to their technology at the time, but modern Arafran shamans generally go for extremely bright, unnatural colors.
Arafran give live birth, and nurture their young using milk glands underneath their lower arms. Arafran almost always give birth to twins; singletons are (depending on culture) either considered fortunate or inauspicious. Arafran also tend, more than other sapient species, to plurality (the state of multiple consciousnesses in one body.)
Arafran don't tend to wear clothes -- they're furry enough that they don't really need to -- but they wear elaborate jewelry and piercings to denote clan status, history, gender, and more. Aliens often have a hard time telling the distinctive pieces apart, but it's usually very easy to tell individuals apart by their jewelry. While they have no nudity taboo, the arafran do have a handedness taboo, relating to their middle set of handfeet. They don't eat with them or touch other people with them except in an intimate setting, and gloveshoes are one of the very few exceptions to the nearly universal lack of clothing amongst the Arafran.
Techroi
The techroi are less a specific species and more of a political group. They are composed of any kind of artificial, non-evolved beings -- robots, constructs, elementals, and homunculi. Certainly not all beings of these descriptors consider themselves techroi, but many find the appeal of a society of their own folk to be appealing.
Techroi seek a state that they call Multiplex; that is, interacting with the universe on as many different fronts as they can manage. To that end, techroi tend to take on attributes of other techroi species -- a robot will seek to upgrade parts of its body into an elemental, a homunculus will upgrade with robotic parts, a water elemental will magically graft ectoplasm to itself. Many techroi are in fact several individuals inhabiting a single physical space -- for example, a flaming construct where the flame elemental and the solid construct body are separate (but inseparable) individuals.
The techroi have developed a somewhat unsteady peace with the other species of the Consortium, after centuries spent forcefully liberating their siblings from captivity. Part of the peace treaty that ended the war involved massive advances in the civil rights of artificial beings under Consortium member worlds, and the techroi have recently joined the Consortium in their own right.
Starskippers
Starskippers are one of the most unusual sophonts known in the galaxy. They are spaceborne squid-whales, possessing an inborn shiftgate organ that lets them travel the vast voids between stars in short amounts of time. They skim helium-3 from gas giants, and speak to one another with gravity waves.
Starskippers were not known to be sapient for a long time, which is still a point of contention to this day, as they were previously hunted for the caches of He-3 they contained. However, most of them don't hold too much ill will for the smaller races, because they have a different conception of the flow of time and the circular nature of life and death.
Many ships will have a starskipper scout as an unofficial or official crew member. Nobody is totally sure what the starskippers are getting out of it.
Vard
The vard are one of the most populous races in the galaxy, and a long-standing member of galactic community. They are bipedal with two arms and a head, a very common body plan amongst sapient species, but with very small, narrow heads. Their heads just contain a pair of eyestalks, a ring of breathing spiracles, and two mouths, and enough bone to hold everything in place. Their main brain is located in their upper chest, but the head does contain a large nerve cluster that manages a lot of autonomic sensory and reflex functions. They evolved from quadruped scavengers, and are equally comfortable walking upright and loping on all fours, meaning they have quite long and spindly arms for their frames. (This is the reason for the eyestalks; it's so they can have proper forward binocular vision in either mode of locomotion.)
Vard stand between 160 and 210 centimeters when fully upright, and they have three biological sexes: kains, joumen, and prelei. While once these were tied to gendered social roles, the cosmopolitan vard have generally adopted languages and social structures that do not tie genders to these sexual phenotypes.
The vard have been involved with other species of sophonts for so long that they've lost their own culture to some extent -- or rather, much of the amalgamated Consortium culture came from the vard. They have a reputation as somewhat stodgy and bureaucratic, and their native way of accessing magical energy is through very complex inscriptions, patterns, and incantations that require a lot of study and coordination. On the other hand, they also have a reputation for being very fair traders. Being descended from scavengers, they also eat a lot of things that other species find unpleasant, or even straight up inedible.
Having both two mouths and two larynxes, the art form that the vard are most known for is singing. Vard operas are renowned throughout the Consortium, and it's very common for multispecies musical groups to have a vard singing lead (and backup) vocals.
Rykin
The rykin are one of the only species of sapient that are smaller than the ssilon. Coming in at 80 to 110 cm tall, these mammal-lizards are, contrary to what they look like to most other species, both slow to breed and slow to die. They are in fact one of the largest species on their home planet, which has an unusually high atmospheric pressure and temperature for a lifebearing world, and is thus quite hostile to megafauna. (The rykin that don't still live on Esseryk have augmentations to make them more comfortable in galactic standard environments.) The rykin are their world's megafauna, and they have the quiet humility to match.
Rykin have an inherently disciplined nature, and are often considered very wise by others. They are also, however, not opposed to the idea of war, and the various rykin societies each have their own ancient and byzantine forms of martial art. Esseryk dojos are common destinations for travelers looking to improve themselves, as many of them are open to new students. This is also the primary form of rykin magic as well as art, although several other traditions of accessing the Lumin exist.
Rykin are one of the few obligate carnivore species in galactic society, although after contact with the ssilon, many of them get by quite happily on a primarily insect diet.
Gosa'a
The gosa'a consider themselves the most advanced species in galactic civilization. They are lithe bipeds, 150-200 cm tall, with four luminous eyes and no mouths. They are one of the rare species that actually subsists on magic -- their homeworld's system was perched on an unusually rich flow of Lumin, and much of the flora and fauna evolved to interface with it. The gosa'a are most closely approximated to be fungivores -- an advanced fungus-type family of organisms that accumulates Lumin is the typical food source for the gosa'a.
Very few other sophonts have ever visited No'o, the gosa'a homeworld. The gosa'a ethos is to allow those back on their homeworld to live as "pure" of an existence as possible. They tend to be kind but patronizing towards other species, and most of the time when their advanced magic and technology gets out of their control, it's because someone reverse engineered it rather than because they willingly gave it away.
The gosa'a have a disproportionate representation in Consortium matters, because they (along with the vard) founded it, but about a hundred and fifty years ago there was a kind of quiet revolution which deposed the worst excesses of entrenched gosa'a power in the Consortium. This led to (or, more accurately, deepened) a major division among the species. A xenophobic wing of gosa'a politicians began to agitate for political isolation from the rest of the galaxy, and for the most part, they got it.
Bubblers
The true name of the bubblers is unpronounceable, because their languages are entirely visual. The bubblers are a species of cryo-ammonia dwelling invertebrates, with a bulbous body with a cluster of dextrous tentacles on either end. The front tentacles are adapted to tool use, and the rear tentacles for propulsion. On their own, they would never have been able to develop technology more advanced than stone and water-ice tools; fire is already a difficult proposition on high-pressure ammonia planets, but the bubblers have the second disadvantage of being ocean dwellers. Despite this, they were able to achieve some pretty amazing feats; they had a form of writing (initially as a knotted braiding of vinelike plants, and then with stone carving) and complex culture that went back millennia. They were discovered by gosa'a surveyors and given the option to join galactic society.
Bubblers occupy a unique niche within the Consortium. While habitable colony planets are usually either set aside for explicitly multispecies colonization efforts or carefully parceled out amongst habitable species, the bubblers get basically every ammonia planet the Consortium comes across. They are thus a quiet force in Consortium politics; people don't expect their population to be as large as it is. On the other hand, technology use still comes with great difficulty to them. They have managed to patch together some home grown ingenuity, but their native environment makes creation of such things difficult. A new galactic-living-standard bubbler colony requires quite a large bootstrap to get going, and while they are uncomfortable in space, the bubblers are extremely dependent on trade.
Bubbler magic is largely based around their complex sign-and-chromatophore languages, and is thus almost completely incomprehensible to other species. It's also, as far as anyone knows, not particularly compatible with Consortium standard magitech standards.
Crevn
The crevn are a complex, hive-minded species from a high-chlorine planet. Each crevn individual is composed of five organisms -- one mostly sessile "torso" unit (about a meter long), two winged "seeker" units (about 60cm long), and two crawling "defender" units (about 80cm long). The torso unit is not physically gifted, possessing no hands and four fairly weak legs. It contains the digestion and reproductive systems, and produces "milk" for the other four units. The seeker units acquire food and scout ahead, and have dextrous talons that serve as the crevn's main hands. The defender units guard the main unit from predators; they are stronger but less nimble than the seekers, with some amount of dexterity in their claws. The consciousness is spread between the five, using sophisticated telepathy. When a crevn loses a unit, other than the torso unit, they can reproduce another, but the consciousness breaks down if there's more than four non-main units. Modern magic and technology hasn't overcome this restriction, but the two-and-two restriction no longer applies; many spacefaring crevn have three seekers and only a single defender.
The archetypal crevn art form is theater. A common form of art among many crevn societies is the rosekm, or "many play". A rosekm is a narrative for five characters, where each character's five units are each played by a different crevn. Each of the five actors has a hand in each of the five characters. A troupe that can perform such a play is known for having an unparalleled level of coordination and like-mindedness.
Crevn magic is primarily contained in their telepathic intra-person bond. It's such a complicated and bio-intrinsic spell that trying to do other kinds of magic can occasionally disrupt it. Usually the magic of other species don't cause a problem, but crevn can be a little overly cautious around magical fields.
Crevn, having minds perfectly suited to sapient control of many systems at once, are the archetypal starship engineer in Consortium space. Five of the ten largest starship technology manufacturers are on Notepr, the crevn homeworld, or Atagz, the largest and oldest crevn colony.
I loved Khorag Sinji and Arrian Zorzi from the Fabius Bile omnibus so much (and Honourable Tzimiskies Flay too) that I’d love to have models for them all.
I don’t know if it would be at all playable but it would be awesome to have a Squad of the Consortium (or a Kill Team, maybe?).
—
Obviously you need to have Fabius Bile to lead them, because no one else can lead the Consortium.
A quick google tells me that Apothecaries are single units, not squads (because functionally, they’re healer units in the game and you wouldn’t need a squad of healers all clumped together for obvious reasons).
So either the models would have to be other units that are kitbashed and customised heavily OR Apothecary models who are just proxied to be other units ‘technically’.
Google also says that Squads of Space Marines can be between 5 and 10 models based on points costs for each guy, and I’d be comfortable assuming any member of the Consortium is heavily points costed. So I think you could argue for a 5 man Squad size there.
At the moment the Squad is:
Fabius Bile
Arrian Zorzi
Khorag Sinj
Honourable Tzimiskies Flay
And I think the obvious 5th slot goes for Saqqara Ur-Damak-Thresh. As much as he is much more ‘antagonistic’ to Bile and the rest of the Consortium, he is crucial to a lot of Fabius’s plans. And he is a fun character too
—
This actually could work well as a Kill Team, which has squad sizes between 5 and 14, again depending on points costs.
But between Fabius having his New Men and other genetically engineered creatures; Khorag being a DeathGuard and having access to Nurglings and other Nurgle demons; Honourable Tzimiskies being an Iron Warrior and having access to automatons; and Saqqara being a Word Bearer and having access to all types of demons, that means you could likely fill any remaining points costs with a bunch of options which is great for keeping the Sqaud feeling fresh.
—
Fuck.
I think this is gonna be a long term project / goal for me to work on.
I’m definitely not at the level required for the needed conversions and kitbashes.
Regarding the Roush company from The X Files, I was really curious as to the origin of the company’s name. At first, I figured it might be a German word, as a lot of the X files names come from references to Nazi figures or old war powers (e.g. Strughold, etc). I thought “Rausch” might be it, meaning intoxication or euphoria in German, but I didn’t think that fit very well.
Then I stumbled upon “Ruche”. In English, it means a strip of pleated fabric used as trim, but its etymology is French. Translated literally, it means “beehive.”
THE KNIGHT AND THE SLAYER: An Ultimate Spin Prequel
Black Knight’s Office
Unknown Location
3 weeks before The Worldwide Curing
Black Knight: What’s the status on the intruder?
Black Pawn: We don’t know! This thing… it’s not a…
Gunfire, screams, and static came through the radio with the Pawn trying to explain whilst fighting for his life.
Black Knight pressed the button on her conference speaker.
Black Knight: It’s not a what? Damnit tell me!!
Black Pawn: IT’S NOT AN EVO!! Oh god. No don’t! Aaaauuuughhh!!!
The door was broken down as the Black Pawn she was talking to landed at the front of her desk, with an agape wound from his chest.  She saw the silhouette of the thing… no not a thing as she saw the insect like arms folded retracting into its back all the features of this creature faded and shifted into the silhouette of a human man. The person walked out of the shadows to reveal a man with a fine cut beard and mullet-like long hair with a suit she never seen before with a spider-like symbol engraving the chest area and some kind of touch pad on his left arm.
???: You should insist on better guards.
Black Knight pulled out her sword build and armor without her helmet.
Black Knight: And you should insist on better manners. Who are you?
???: Let’s just say I’m a certain individual who is taking an interest in you.
Black Knight: And what interests would that be?
???: We both want the same thing. To heal the world. To better it. To make it in our own image for a brighter and better tomorrow. 
Black Knight: How does your agenda align with ours? What does your plans have to do with the Consortium?
???: I wasn’t interested in the rest of your entourage. No you and only you knows what it’s like same as I to be brought down to lowest of levels. We both know what it’s like for others in power to turn their backs on us and what we would bring, to have the means to achieve it only to have it snatched away multiple times by meddlesome pests and traitors and fools! You still have a way. Many ways to take it back. I can give you the means to do so but to do it is to look elsewhere. Not out there in the wider world, or in space, but in other dimensions. Parallel Universes.
Black Knight: We already have the means to travel other dimensions. We have a second dimensional portal under construction. Why would we need you for it?
???: You’ve only scratched the surface. What I’m offering is something 10 times beyond your wildest dreams.
The man reaches into his pocket and reveals some type of flash stick.
???: May I?
Black Knight rolls her eyes.
Black Knight: Sure. By all means.
The man plugs in the drive into her computer showing things she has never seen or ever even dreamt of.
Black Knight: Incredible.
???: I’m offering more than just that. I will give you more powerful force that matches Providence  nearly almost in every way but without their flaws. More tech, more weaponry, everything you and your Consortium will ever need including to expand your research. But that’s not all.
The man pulls up on her computer a set of schematics and plans from his drive.
???: what we require to build this will be using my tech and yours and the brilliant minds to do so from both my universe and yours. For my part and to ensure Providence and our enemies don’t get in our way I know of a few individuals who could help us. Willingly or otherwise. 12 of these people you don’t know but there are 5 you do.
He opens file and brings up a list of people and names familiar and unfamiliar to her.
NORMAN OSBORN
OTTO OCTAVIUS
CURTIS CONNORS
PHINEAS MASON
ADRIAN TOOMES
MAC GARGAN
FRITZ VON MEYER
ABNER JENKINS
SERGEI KRAVENOFF
CLAYTON COLE
HERBERT LANDON
HUNTER CAIN
BRANDON MOSES
WEAVER
GABRIEL RYLANDER
ATHONY HADEN-SCOTT
HAROLD OSBORN
???: So, Black Knight…
He raises his hand out to offer her a handshake then her speaker chimed.
???: Do you accept my offer?
Black Pawn Captain (on radio): Black Knight, we’re in route to you now. Men, the intruder is to be shot on sight.
Black Knight pressed the button on the speaker.
Black Knight: Negative, Captain. Stand down. We will be attending a guest and a possible business partner.
She reaches out her right hand and both shake their hands in agreement.
Black Knight: It will be a pleasure doing business with you, Mr.
