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Description

Some mook designs for my long-standing sci-fi/fantasy property, Zorian Saga. The Zorian Order uses the Chosen as its shock troopers as it invades new universes; selected from those who offered the most spirited resistance to the Ordo's previous conquests, they fight for a variety of reasons; some believe their loved ones are in the hands of the Ordo and will be tortured, 'I Have No Mouth And Must Scream' style, if they do not serve the Ordo. Others have genuinely come to believe in the Ordo's paradise, while others are simply motivated by the desire to be able to inflict violence and death, virtually consequence-free. The Chosen exist as patterns of data which can be shifted from the 'leisure bodies' they wear when not on call to cybernetic 'combat bodies' anywhere in the multiverse at a moment's notice. Beneath the armour-plating, their bodies are animated by a mixture of electronic and higher-dimensional clockwork components, hardened to be able to withstand anything up to and including low-megaton nuclear detonations. Unknown to the individual Chosen, the Ordo also copies individual Chosen millions of times, utilising their nigh-omniscience to orchestrate events that no two copies meet. In the 'To Wound All Heels' storyline we follow a group of Chosen, focusing on reluctant recruit Séa Assaingou as he struggles to comprehend the scale of the War.

Each squad of Chosen is led by an Eternal; originally the only one of a group of Chosen who would be guaranteed the body-shifting immortality now on offer for all Chosen, Eternals retain their title as theoretically a step closer to the Zorian Immortals and receive equipment not available to 'regular' Chosen. My notes follow on the various patterns and variants employed by the Chosen:

Templar - very ornate with a T-shaped visor and an engraved inset at their neck. Séa notably uses this variant. It's designed for all-rounder use.
Teutonic - bulky, with a V-shaped visor, cross-shaped reinforcement on the helm (dividing the arabesque sections into four insets) and prominent radiators on the shoulders. Squad leader Aquila uses this design, which favours a stalwart, defensive posture, but is also significantly stronger and can phase further than regular variants.
Cavalier - streamlined with a strongly V-shaped visor but shallow reinforcement lines down the centre of the helm. The Cavalier variant is fast, agile and strong, making it a favourite for reckless or aggressive Chosen; as such the psychotic Iei Sharitan favours this design.
Keltic - Y-shaped helm with a reinforcement line up the middle of the forehead; this design is slightly faster but less physically capable than the Templar variant and is favoured by Rhaine Custer.
Roundhead - a unique-looking design with a rounded helm that, uniquely, has a solid, smooth top and only two arabesque insets on the cheeks, with a T-shaped visor. The more 'old-fashioned' look of this design means it is specifically associated with Fe'Ra'Xs's own long-standing loyal troops; the Chosen who taunt Michael X when he is captured are Roundheads and they are also seen during the brief civil war between Fe'Ra'Xs and the other Immortals, holding other Chosen hostage. It can be assumed that Roundheads are at least equal to the Teutonic type in strength and phase-shifting.
(Also, this name strongly identifies Fe'Ra'Xs as Cromwell, the guy who overthrew the King - Ah'Nah'Toh'Nah'Ah - and is ostensibly ruling the Order as a democracy while in fact he is the new monarch; his New Model Army are the Roundheads, loyal only to him; their similarity to the Teutonic variant suggests that Aquila is the most likely to swear fealty to Fe'Ra'Xs alone)
Other variants include an alt-eternal variant with a wide Y-shaped visor (Corinthian?), and a variant of the Cavalier with a rounded visor (like an infinity symbol - Apollonian?).

I didn't include the Ordo Palace Guard, however these have a large round open visor that leaves most of the 'face' uncovered, showing that they truly have no organic matter behind it, and scrolled sections of arabesque curling around the helm. They are half again as tall as normal Chosen and significantly stronger and faster (most likely equal to Extreme Combat Form Timoteus, or Cronus).

By giving the To Wound All Heels boys different armour variants you can easily tell them apart in their armoured mode, and the eventual reveal that they have been copied millions of times also suggests that when we see the same armour variant elsewhere it might (or might not) be an iteration of the WAH squad.

(You may note this particular layout is quite heavily inspired by the 40K Space Marines Chapter colour design editor; the large pauldrons and boots of the Chosen have always owed a debt to 40K power armour so I thought it only fitting to produce a Zorian Saga version of this)

Note: Phase-shifting is the time-manipulating fighting style used by many Zorian Saga characters. By phasing, the world seems to slow around you while you appear to move faster and hit harder from the perspective of non-phased combatants. Chosen are able to step 'between' (perceiving as a length of time similar to a minute) milliseconds casually and can further push themselves to phase between microseconds, though this rapidly degrades their combat bodies and they will generally do this only for short bursts. To enable our protagonists to fight on even vaguely comparable terms with Chosen, they generally rely on luring them into ambushes with antichronoton fields that drop them out of phase and into realspace. Without them, 'fights' with Chosen and other phase-shifting enemies look like horror sequences, with members of the team snatched away and killed between blinks.

Description

Some mook designs for my long-standing sci-fi/fantasy property, Zorian Saga. The Zorian Order uses the Chosen as its shock troopers as it invades new universes; selected from those who offered the most spirited resistance to the Ordo's previous conquests, they fight for a variety of reasons; some believe their loved ones are in the hands of the Ordo and will be tortured, 'I Have No Mouth And Must Scream' style, if they do not serve the Ordo. Others have genuinely come to believe in the Ordo's paradise, while others are simply motivated by the desire to be able to inflict violence and death, virtually consequence-free. The Chosen exist as patterns of data which can be shifted from the 'leisure bodies' they wear when not on call to cybernetic 'combat bodies' anywhere in the multiverse at a moment's notice. Beneath the armour-plating, their bodies are animated by a mixture of electronic and higher-dimensional clockwork components, hardened to be able to withstand anything up to and including low-megaton nuclear detonations. Unknown to the individual Chosen, the Ordo also copies individual Chosen millions of times, utilising their nigh-omniscience to orchestrate events that no two copies meet. In the 'To Wound All Heels' storyline we follow a group of Chosen, focusing on reluctant recruit Séa Assaingou as he struggles to comprehend the scale of the War.

Each squad of Chosen is led by an Eternal; originally the only one of a group of Chosen who would be guaranteed the body-shifting immortality now on offer for all Chosen, Eternals retain their title as theoretically a step closer to the Zorian Immortals and receive equipment not available to 'regular' Chosen. My notes follow on the various patterns and variants employed by the Chosen:

Templar - very ornate with a T-shaped visor and an engraved inset at their neck. Séa notably uses this variant. It's designed for all-rounder use.
Teutonic - bulky, with a V-shaped visor, cross-shaped reinforcement on the helm (dividing the arabesque sections into four insets) and prominent radiators on the shoulders. Squad leader Aquila uses this design, which favours a stalwart, defensive posture, but is also significantly stronger and can phase further than regular variants.
Cavalier - streamlined with a strongly V-shaped visor but shallow reinforcement lines down the centre of the helm. The Cavalier variant is fast, agile and strong, making it a favourite for reckless or aggressive Chosen; as such the psychotic Iei Sharitan favours this design.
Keltic - Y-shaped helm with a reinforcement line up the middle of the forehead; this design is slightly faster but less physically capable than the Templar variant and is favoured by Rhaine Custer.
Roundhead - a unique-looking design with a rounded helm that, uniquely, has a solid, smooth top and only two arabesque insets on the cheeks, with a T-shaped visor. The more 'old-fashioned' look of this design means it is specifically associated with Fe'Ra'Xs's own long-standing loyal troops; the Chosen who taunt Michael X when he is captured are Roundheads and they are also seen during the brief civil war between Fe'Ra'Xs and the other Immortals, holding other Chosen hostage. It can be assumed that Roundheads are at least equal to the Teutonic type in strength and phase-shifting.
(Also, this name strongly identifies Fe'Ra'Xs as Cromwell, the guy who overthrew the King - Ah'Nah'Toh'Nah'Ah - and is ostensibly ruling the Order as a democracy while in fact he is the new monarch; his New Model Army are the Roundheads, loyal only to him; their similarity to the Teutonic variant suggests that Aquila is the most likely to swear fealty to Fe'Ra'Xs alone)
Other variants include an alt-eternal variant with a wide Y-shaped visor (Corinthian?), and a variant of the Cavalier with a rounded visor (like an infinity symbol - Apollonian?).

I didn't include the Ordo Palace Guard, however these have a large round open visor that leaves most of the 'face' uncovered, showing that they truly have no organic matter behind it, and scrolled sections of arabesque curling around the helm. They are half again as tall as normal Chosen and significantly stronger and faster (most likely equal to Extreme Combat Form Timoteus, or Cronus).

By giving the To Wound All Heels boys different armour variants you can easily tell them apart in their armoured mode, and the eventual reveal that they have been copied millions of times also suggests that when we see the same armour variant elsewhere it might (or might not) be an iteration of the WAH squad.

(You may note this particular layout is quite heavily inspired by the 40K Space Marines Chapter colour design editor; the large pauldrons and boots of the Chosen have always owed a debt to 40K power armour so I thought it only fitting to produce a Zorian Saga version of this)

Note: Phase-shifting is the time-manipulating fighting style used by many Zorian Saga characters. By phasing, the world seems to slow around you while you appear to move faster and hit harder from the perspective of non-phased combatants. Chosen are able to step 'between' (perceiving as a length of time similar to a minute) milliseconds casually and can further push themselves to phase between microseconds, though this rapidly degrades their combat bodies and they will generally do this only for short bursts. To enable our protagonists to fight on even vaguely comparable terms with Chosen, they generally rely on luring them into ambushes with antichronoton fields that drop them out of phase and into realspace. Without them, 'fights' with Chosen and other phase-shifting enemies look like horror sequences, with members of the team snatched away and killed between blinks.