HADES SQUADRON - An Interstellar Sci-FI Mecha Campaign in D&D5e!

About the adventure

This is a homebrew campaign set in our universe several hundred years into the future. It focuses on a squadron of soldiers who pilot powerful machines colloquially called mechs, but are known professionally as Warcaskets. This is their story... It is the year 2413. Humanity has reached outside their solar system and befriended the beings beyond their home. Some arrived with war and destruction, while others arrived with diplomacy and grace. They shared their secrets, and now distant colonies sprout across the stars. Thirty years ago, silent invaders arrived in orbit over Earth in black ships. They wreathed the world below them with blood-red fog. Those who suffered it died and rose again as a cruel mockery of life - part machine, part flesh. They tore apart their friends and family, rampaging across the world as the black-clad soldiers of their masters marched behind them. Twenty years ago, after the fall of the United Nations, what would become the Coalition reached out to the imprisoned members of their communities: Fight or starve. Experimental machines that would serve as their machines of war and as their jail cells, to wage war against an enemy that cares little for rules of war. They accepted and were placed into machines they became part of, fed by the machine that they controlled with their minds. With restrictions in place to keep their fellow soldiers safe, these former criminals became the first Warcasket pilots. Ten years ago, the Dominion (the silent invaders) fled the solar system, driven off by the remaining mechs and their undying pilots. Left behind was a world ravaged by war and covered in a deadly fog that ever-so-slowly dissipates. Now, the old enemy returns. The Dominion has set its sights on Earth once more, guided by traitors who believe the fog their masters left behind is the next step in organic evolution. This fog has caused those who survived to become powerful psychics called espers. Join the Star-Eater Confederation, or die like the Coalition. You are capable individuals who survived the blood fog and became more than you were before, now a living weapon empowered by your mind. With little other option as a not-yet-fully-understood esper, you accepted the invitation to join Hades Squadron, the remaining squadron of Warcaskets in the Coalition. Unlike their previous pilots, these mechs are free to leave and enter, and no longer serve as a prison. You will be trained to fight, to function as a team, to pilot your mech, and to wage war against the Dominion across Earth and throughout the stars. Each mech is unique, and your new esper gifts will make it function like it's always been a part of you. Suit Up, Pilot We Got a War to Win! This is a story-driven campaign that follows certain plot beats that shift and change as the party progresses. They arrive as orders from the people who guide the Squadron and progress from actions on Earth to out amongst the stars.