Nexus Ascendant

Purpose:

The Nexus Ascendant serves as a mobile command center, ceremonial vehicle, and transportation hub for the Covenant of the Mecha. It is designed to showcase the faction’s mastery of arcane-tech fusion while asserting their dominance and prestige within Dark Syde.

Design Aesthetic:

• Exterior:
  The Nexus Ascendant is a massive, sleek construct combining matte-black alloys and glowing silver veins of embedded arcane runes. Its surface shimmers with holographic patterns that shift dynamically, displaying the Covenant’s insignia, mission-critical data, or mystical symbols.
• Shape: The main body resembles a streamlined leviathan, with curved edges and sharp spires that evoke the Covenant's architectural style.
• Size: Comparable to a modern aircraft carrier, it can house hundreds of personnel and equipment.
• Lighting: Dim, pulsing neon-blue lights line its edges, with a radiant energy core glowing from within, visible through transparent sections of its reinforced hull.

Key Features

1. Arcane-Tech Control Hub:

The heart of the vehicle is a towering command center where magic and technology merge seamlessly.

• Central AI: Named "Arch Mind", an integrated artificial intelligence powered by sentient arcane magic that interfaces with the Covenant’s leaders, offering strategic insights and managing the vehicle’s systems.
• Magic-Infused Displays: Floating holo-runes and ethereal projections provide real-time data on the settlement, the vehicle’s systems, and external threats.

2. Ceremonial Chamber:

At the core of the vehicle is a grand ritual chamber, used for initiations, arcane experiments, and gatherings led by the Grand Arbitrator.

• Design: A circular room with a raised dais, its floor inlaid with glowing runic circuits. Arcane energy surges through the walls, amplifying the abilities of those within.
• Functionality: Can be converted into a high-output magical conduit to power the Covenant’s larger-scale experiments or shield the vehicle in emergencies.

3. Training Arenas:

Onboard the Nexus Ascendant, advanced simulation rooms allow students to practice combat and ritual magic in highly adaptable environments.

• Simulated Terrain: Creates holographic and enchanted environments for realistic training scenarios.
• Danger Level Adjustment: Dynamic difficulty scaling, ensuring initiates and adepts are constantly pushed to their limits.

4. Living Quarters and Laboratories:

• Student Housing: Dormitory-style accommodations for initiates and adepts.
• Instructors’ Quarters: Private, rune-sealed chambers for higher-ranking members.
• Research Labs: Spaces equipped for both magical experimentation and technological innovation, fostering collaboration among researchers and students.

Propulsion

A colossal flying fortress, the leviathan stays aloft via a dozen engines powered by nuclear power. Thanks to its size, the leviathan is slow, but it is not an easy target, able to lose half of its engines and remain aloft. The nuclear power is generated at the core of the ship and thus is well protected.

Weapons & Armament

A leviathan has six turret mounts for heavy weapons. Each of these are an Atomizer. There is one in the front, one in the back and two on each side. Each Atomizer can make one shot against a target within line of sight and range.

• Cost 24,000
• 2d8 radiant damage ( 2d10 for Ultra Max)
• Range 300/1200
• Properties: Heavy, Nuclear, Reload (15-M), Sniper +2

Heavy Weapon

These large weapon systems require a tripod, a base, a platform, or any other stable point from which to fire. (They have a built in mount for the vehicle)

Properties

Heavy weapons use the same general rules as ranged weapons, except as follows.

• Because of their cumbersome nature, if you move or are moved any distance, you have disadvantage on attack rolls with a heavy weapon until the beginning of your next turn.
• Unless mounted, heavy weapons require at least Strength 13 to use. If not mounted or if wielded by someone of lesser strength, attacks have disadvantage, and after firing, the target is knocked prone. These weapons may be purchased for a Large user (e.g.: exo-armor). If so, the heavy weapon counts as a twohanded weapon. It can no longer be used by Medium-sized users.

Nuclear

These are directed energy weapons similar to plasma and laser guns. Where a laser inflicts condensed radiation and plasma inflicts severe heat, weapons with the nuclear property inflict damage via a high-energy beam of atoms. Upon impact, they disrupt the molecular structure of the target. Tissue damage from radiation is a common side effect. This technology has been dubbed a "dirty solution," as it frequently emerges before the advancement of high powered lasers and plasma weapons. In other circles, these devices have been called particle accelerators. Nuclear weapons are rare items.

Nuclear weapons inflict radiant damage and also deal additional damage to creatures vulnerable to necrotic as if they dealt that damage type.

Fission (6th level). This weapon gains the Armor Piercing property.

Accelerator (8th level). If you hit with a nuclear weapon, every subsequent hit on the same target gains a +1 bonus to damage. This is cumulative up to half the character’s level and is lost if you don’t hit that same target before the end of your next turn.

Radiation (8th level). If you roll a natural 20, the target is poisoned until the beginning of your next turn.

Armor Piercing

This weapon ignores a target's resistance to the weapon's damage type (e.g. a piercing weapon ignores resistance to piercing). If the target has fantasy damage resistances, the weapon also counts as magical, silver, and adamantine.

If an opponent has immunity to the weapon’s damage type and the weapon has the AP property, the opponent has only resistance to that weapon instead of immunity. Certain weapons unlock the AP property at indicated character levels while others gain them immediately.

Reload (15-M)

The weapon can be fired a number of times equal to its Reload score before you must spend 1 attack or 1 action to reload. You must have one free hand to reload a firearm.

Requires a Battery Cell M to reload.

• cost 10
• weight 0.5#
• Each Atomizer has 10 such batteries readily available to their gunners with 100 additional batteries for each Atomizer available in storage should the gunner call to be restocked by a runner. This restocking requires 2 rounds and the runner can bring 10 new batteries.

Sniper +2

These weapons contain advanced targeting systems for long-range fire. These include tracking systems and scopes.

Sniper weapons list a bonus. If you are proficient with the weapon, you can use an action or bonus action to aim, gaining the bonus on your following ranged attack with the weapon against a creature 25 feet away or further. The bonus is lost if you move or are moved. You also lose the bonus after making a ranged attack with the weapon (whether you hit or not). This bonus is cumulative for up to two actions.

Gunners

Each gunner is considered proficient with the Atomizer and is level 10. Thus, they gain all the benefits that the weapon has to offer.

Targeting the Gunners

While in the Nexus Ascendant, the Gunners use the vehicle's armor class as their own. This means that they benefit from the vehicle's immunities as well.

Armor and defense

Immunities

The leviathan is immune to cold, fire, as well as slashing and bludgeoning damage.

Pressurized. The leviathan and its crew are immune to gas attacks and inhaled poisons.

Resistances

The leviathan has resistance to acid and thunder, as well as piercing from nonmagical weapons.

Potential Weaknesses

Despite its immense capabilities, the Nexus Ascendant is not without vulnerabilities:

• Energy Dependency: Prolonged use of its more powerful systems can deplete its energy reserves, requiring recharge time.
• Mobility Limitation: Its massive size makes it less effective in narrow or urban areas, relying on its drones and smaller vehicles for direct intervention.
• Reliance on Arch Mind: If the central AI is compromised or damaged, the vehicle’s efficiency and functionality could be severely disrupted.

This vehicle embodies the convergence of magic and technology, acting as the ultimate expression of the Covenant’s ethos and a vital tool in their operations.

Cultural and Symbolic Role

The Nexus Ascendant is more than a vehicle—it’s a beacon of the Covenant’s ideals and serves to enforce their dominance:

• Recruitment Tool: The awe-inspiring sight of the Nexus Ascendant landing in a settlement often encourages families to willingly give their children to the Covenant.
• Symbol of Power: Its arrival signifies the Covenant’s presence and authority, ensuring compliance and cooperation.
• Mobile Propaganda: Holographic projections and ceremonial displays from the Nexus Ascendant reinforce the Covenant’s narrative of protecting and advancing Dark Syde.

Owning Organization

The Covenant Council

Current location

The Dark Syde

Price

200,000

Rarity

Rare

Speed

40ft

Complement / Crew

80

Cargo & Passenger Capacity

20,000#

Vehicle Rules

For the most part, vehicles should not be featured in combat, as the logistics of handling two separate scales are too complex for general purposes. When they are featured, they involve a slight departure from regular movement rules. See the Ultra Modern 5 Redux source book for all vehicle combat rules.

Aircraft

• Class: Leviathan
• Maneuver: Disadvantage
• Armor Class: 18
• Hit Points: 200
• Size: G
• TL: 4

Night Vision

The leviathan has darkvision to 1,000 feet.

The leviathan’s crew can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. This vision can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

You hear it before you see it—a low, resonant hum that vibrates in your chest, growing louder with each passing moment. Then, emerging from the thick haze above, it comes into view. The Nexus Ascendant is unlike anything you’ve ever witnessed, a leviathan suspended in the air, its massive form blotting out the light. Its matte-black surface glistens faintly with shifting, silver veins of arcane runes, glowing like molten metal as they pulse in rhythmic patterns. The air seems to warp around it, as though the sheer magnitude of the craft bends reality itself. Along its edges, dim neon-blue lights pulse with an eerie cadence, outlining its sleek, predatory silhouette.

As it descends, the intricate details become clear—the holographic insignias and symbols projected from its hull, shimmering with an almost hypnotic allure. Sharp spires jut from its streamlined body, evoking both elegance and menace, while transparent panels reveal glimpses of the radiant energy core within, its light casting otherworldly patterns on the ground below. A faint, metallic scent mingles with the ozone as the hum deepens, and the leviathan slows, hovering with a precision that seems unnatural. You can’t help but stare, a mixture of awe and dread tightening in your chest, as this embodiment of the Covenant's power looms above, a testament to the terrifying union of magic and machine.

Arch Mind

A character can attempt to hack into the AI computer of Nexus Ascendant. First, the character will need to have equipment that allows them wireless access (such as a tablet assistant or the Remote Link cybernetic). Hacking into the Nexus Ascendant requires a Computer Use skill check DC 20. Doing so without the AI detecting the intrusion requires a Computer Use skill check DC 25. If someone hacks into the computer and the AI becomes aware of them, they will be required to make opposing computer use skill checks to complete any action within the computer system. Arch Mind has a computer use skill +15.