Rachk Warshard

The Rachk are a species of clan based warriors, notable for their aggression and strength. Though industrious and powerful when unified, their impetuous nature and tendency to seek battle as soon as possible without regard for strategy often hampers their ability to use their power to its full extent. They are a traditional and spiritual people, believing that the more enemies they slay in life, the more their gods will reward them in death. Their spiritual leaders are often psychics, claiming their powers to be gifts from their gods.
The Rachk understand the universe through a lens of wrath and tribalism.
The Rachk are organised into a loose confederation of clan groups. There is constant jostling for position by powerful Rachk and between the clans themselves, as there is a hierarchy of clans based on relative strength, the leader of the most powerful clan in a given force being the leader of that force. Their reckless aggressive nature combined with the loose organisational structure of Rachk society means that large groups of Rachk experience societal upheaval and flux to a degree that would shock human observers.
Rachk history is violent and opaque. While their legends speak of an original home world, its location has been lost to time. The Rachk built grand war fleets known as War Shards and spread out into the galaxy at large at least one thousand years ago. Since their diaspora, the Rachk have been travelling through huge tracts of space on their endless crusade to appease their gods (and themselves) through unceasing battle and conquest. While this is usually focused against alien civilisations, most Rachk will have no issue fighting and killing their own in the absence of other enemies.
Rachk language sounds like a mix of guttural growls and barks. Translations of Rachk reveal speech laden with grandiose boasts of their own prowess and vicious denunciations of their enemies combat ability. Rachk will often pray to their gods as they fight, sounding to a human observer like the sharp repeated barks of an angry dinosaur, striking terror into the hearts of their opponents.
Their prowess is matched only by their ability to fashion even the most worthless scraps into weapons. The appeasement of their gods can never end and the fruits of conquest must forever be placed before their altar.

Sightings Within The Iron Stars

The Rachk Warshard fleets have been seen throughout the western and northern regions of the Iron Stars region. The first reported Post-Scream contact between the Rachk and the inhabitants of this sector was in late 2667, when a large Rachk raiding party boarded and captured several vessels belonging to the Soverign Colonies Armed Forces. The polity lost half its naval strength in one engagement with the enemy, and alarm bells across the sector began to ring.
The Rachk were silent for several months before emerging close to Saliv in mid 2668 where their Warshard was engaged by the Northern Free State Singularity. The Warshard were defeated by NFSS commander Leslie Tucksberry and her Lost Legion, but the victory came at the cost of boarding actions where casualties ended at a staggering 4:1 as the legionares struggled to bring down the dangerous aliens.
Over a year passed and the Iron Stars beleived they were free of the Rachk only to be proven wrong once again. Documents discovered during a raid on a Chimeran Ascendency planet during the brief Iron Stars Federation- Chimeran War revealed that the Chimeran had been in negotiations with a large Rachk fleet. The documents only pointed to a rough deal and few specifics had actually been agreed to by both parties. It remains unclear if the Rachk will fight on behalf of their tentative employers.
In February of 2670 a damaged Rachk generation ship and several smaller vessels that amalgamated to it emerged from metaspace above the planet Vallalpando. A blockade of the wreck was quickly established by the Northern Free State Singularity, under the leadership of Leslie Tucksberry. Realizing that despite her technical edge she did not have the manpower to contain the hulk, General Teucer of The Elysium Protectorate representing the Iron Stars Federation, and Jake Carson of the Greystar Confederation responded to the call for reinforcement.