Created long ago by a great and long dead civilization, Marsupial men were somehow made from wombats and koalas to serve as workers. Standing 1.3 to 1.5 meters tall, Marsupial men are optimized for work. They have four to five times the upper body strength of a man, they have excellent fine motor control and vision optimized for seeing fine details. Physiologically they have an intense desire to be useful and helpful to humans, are generally good natured, have little creativity and are for the most parts absolute cowards when it comes to violence. When marsupial men were first discovered, they lived in an abandoned agricultural settlement in a volcanic crater. Now they can be found in numerous cities, working in a variety of jobs both agricultural and industrial. As they are willing to accept low wages and long workdays, they are much loved by buisinessmen and generally disliked by the working classes. Marsupial men in general very rarely commit violence: they are capable of defending themselves and some can be hardened to have some resolve in a fight, but for the most part their responce to any form of violent threat is to run and hide. Their is one exception to that, the matter of what is known as "The Trigger". If a Marsupial Man sees a human child in danger he/she will be strongly compelled to save them. If someone commits violence against children, this sets off the trigger. This will send them into a killing rage against those who would dare harm a child against them, clawing, chewing and if they have appropriate tools on hand, stabbing, clubbing and spearing the perpetrator until it dies. They can be trained to control this and this will subside after a few minutes if they have nothing to let it out on, but caution is still advisable.
A set of soldiers for a Dieselpunk fantasy setting i am working on. Not Terran sphere related in any way.
Imperial General: Imperial generals are (naturally) the leaders of the Empire's armies, graduates from the Military Academies and hardened veterans who have worked their way up the command ladder. Imperial Generals typically stay at the rear, commanding and giving commands by radio from inside the armored hulls of battleships or landcrawlers, dug in command posts or fortresses. Because of this, they rarely engage in combat. High ranking officers get staff to make sure that their uniforms are in proper shape. Their armor is for show more than combat, but is still capable in a fight.
Imperial Conscripts: Conscripts are the lowest level in the Empire's Army and are drawn from the non citizen classes (citizens are immune from conscription). Conscripts serve as both soldiers and sailors, as well as other technical. Conscripts are given the short end of the stick in terms of what is invested in each individual soldier. They receive at most a third of the pay of a citizen soldier, citizen soldiers get priority in terms of rations and medical treatment and their equipment is of lower quality. Conscript infantry are armed with a Bayonet, a couple of grenades and either a lever action shotgun or a bolt action rifle, both of which are often hand-me-down weapons. They are given a steel helmet and a cuirass made of steel plates, cotton padding and warsilk (a special variety of silk with a higher amount of tensile strength compared to normal silk) that protects them against shrapnel and some bullet fire. Conscripts are often used in human wave tactics and typically engage enemy positions to hold them down so they can be destroyed by more mobile citizen soldiers. To keep conscripts loyal, they are stationed away from where they are recruited from and are given the opportunity to be promoted to citizen status. From every hundred conscript recruits, at least one who preforms well is promoted to Legionary with full citizenship at the end of training while further promotion is done. For the rest, it comes at the end of twelve years of service with an honorable discharge.
Imperial Legionaries: Imperial Legionaries are citizen soldiers, either volunteers or promoted conscripts. They are employed in a variety of roles that conscripts are not, Legionaries man machine guns and artillery, fly aircraft and drive ground vehicles. Legionary infantry are better equipped than their conscript counterparts, they have superior (and more expensive) body armor and also carry light machine guns and sub machine guns, as well as swords for hand to hand combat. Legionary units generally have a strong esprit de corps and are feared and are respected on the battlefield. Legionary officers lead conscripts into battle.
Of all the races of the west, the Goblins are considered the lowest. Humans, Elves and Dwarves look down on Orcs and Orcs look down on Goblins. Goblins are established throughout the western continent, though they have yet to cross the frozen steeps, hard mountains and burning deserts that separate the western and eastern halves of the great continent. Some Goblins are established in the southern continent, but only in the north. They stand about three to four chi tall, long armed and short legged. Gobblins possess a suprising amount of upper body strength, twice as much as a human being but less dexterity. Goblins breed quite fast, normally giving birth in liters of two to five once every one or two years but this is kept in check by a high attrition rate and a short life span (generally 15-25 years, some examples kept by Dark elves have reached 32, but this is rare).
Goblins were the predecessors of Orcs, a race created by the dark elves during the reign of the Dark Emperor by somehow combining traits of various other creatures together and like the Orcs they were created for war. They were capable of wielding weapons, bred fast and reached adulthood quickly, making indoctrinating them to serve as slave soldiers quick and efficient. However, as the first steam engines were prone to failure and required constant attention, Goblins had many flaws from the haphazard assembly. Their bones were prone to displacement after injury, wounds would heel poorly, occasionally their bodies would produce too much of a certain chemical and they would become sick or die while cancer. In areas of high background magic they would occasionally explode. At the same time, their minds were also sensitive, ticks were common among goblins, as a tenancies towards manias and other such qualities, while breakdowns into madness would also happen. On top of that they have below average learning skills and intelligence. In of itself their cruel masters did not care about the well being of their Goblin slaves and for the most part killed those who suffered from severe damage or psychological damage that rendered them unable to fight. In combat, Goblin forces were ill disciplined and un-cordinated, generally charging their foes in mobs armed with basic weapons (maces, small axes, clubs, cloth on frame shields and short spears) and tended to break easily, especially when fire was used against them. Outside of their expendability, they were of limited use and cavalry and chariots were highly effective against them. At the same time, to be deployed in large numbers required an extensive supply train. Eventually they were supplanted by the orcs, which were more refined and hearty, as well as superior fighters. Most of the remaining goblins were expended afterwards, with only a handful kept around for training purposes and execution.
A few goblins were separated from their units and managed to get free and breed. The end result was the establishment of small goblin bands across the western world. Unlike Orcs, they never managed to gain power and survive on the margins. This mainly has to do with their inability to form large groups, as well as their general weaknesses and the fact that they are generally seen as vermin. Goblins can speak, but generally have very limited gutteral vocabularies. Goblins live as nomadic to semi nomadic groups of up to a couple hundred individuals. Mostly they live in forests with low to medium background magic and underground in the west's vast network of caves. Culture (if it can be called that) varies immensely from region to region. That said, some trends are common. Position in Goblin society is based on a combination of age, gender and achievements. After a few months, they become scroungers, searching for firewood and whatever food or otherwise useful scraps they can find. After two to four years they become hunters, trapping and hunting down animals for food in addition to general harvesting. After eight to ten years, they become bosses, leaders and fighters until they die. Underground ones are more sedintary and also have among their ranks campers, who raise pigs, rats and mushrooms and work as basic craftsmen. These occasional exist on surface dwelling goblins, but these are mostly on the move. Status in Goblin society is generally discernible by clothing. Low ranking goblins wear loincloths or blankets in winter while higher ranking ones wear progressively more clothing as well as home made armor. Cannibalism happens among goblins as part of necessity, generally eating their dead and weak in times of famine, as well as occasionally hunting down goblins of other tribes for meat.
As said before, the other races of the west see goblins as vermin. Occasionally some peasant or woodsmen will trade goblins for minor things such as mushrooms, scrap metal or gold coins (which goblins will have little use for) but most relations between other species and goblins involve theft and the hunting down of goblin thieves. Goblin bands do sometimes attack caravans, usually during the winter. Dwarves in particular hold goblins in contempt and often engage in campaigns of extermination to clear out caves. Orcs will sometimes capture and breed goblins as disposable slaves while the Dark Elves breed goblins for purposes of training (releasing armed goblins on trainees for them to cut down and as moving targets) and releasing mobs of them on troublesome slaves for purposes of execution and gambling. Among the Bureaucrats assigned to run the western provinces and the Imperial court their is no praticular idea on what is to be done with the Goblins, though the idea of setting aside reserves for them is under consideration.
A Novan Imperial Army sniper turret. Equipped with an modified SR53 5.5mm sniper rifle. Low cost and low maintenance, these systems can be set up in a wide variety of locations to pick off enemy soldiers at ranges up to 2km. It has a 500 round drum and a rate of fire of 30 rounds per minute. In addition, it can also spot and range targets that pass by via radio