Beginning A New Adventure

‘Every seat in the passenger cabin was occupied, the occupants sitting so peacefully one could believe they were napping, if it weren’t for the fact that each and every one had been completely drained of their blood. The same fate had befallen the rest of the crew, even the captain in his capsule was now only a dry husk…’

-- The Blood Raiders

Over the weekend I finally fit my Stratios with a reasonable build and headed out to do some extended exploration. But where to go? I want to learn how to fly some of the combat sites as well as hunt down the usual data and relic sites, so I set my eyes on the Amarr Empire. Why? Lasers. I figured that since the Amarr use lasers, and the Stratios fits lasers, I should go to a place where the NPCs are vulnerable to that weapon system.

The Amarr Empire is a pretty big place. Officially the Empire consists of 8 regions, but I also include Genesis, the home of CONCORD, and the Ammatar Mandate in the region of Derelik. The Empire is also home to two pirate factions, The Blood Raider Covenant and Sansha's Nation. Both are pretty nasty pieces of work in different ways, but share a love of, and vulnerability to, electromagnetic and thermal damage. Perfect for my laser-fitted Stratios.

I have to admit, I made my choice on where to start my expedition based on avoiding factional warfare zones. I want a nice quiet, relaxing time. If I want to play hide-and-seek with the militias, I'll go back to Metropolis. Since the western half of the Empire is free of the simmering conflict between the Amarr Empire and the Minmatar Republic, I decided to begin there. The western half is the home of the Blood Raider Covenant.

A lot of players would look at the stats of the NPCs and go on their way. Not me. Instead, I like inventing a narrative that leads me through the campaign I create. My characters are Minmatar and don't like the Amarr a whole lot. They do business with them, but not much else. The Blood Raiders are a crazy type of Amarr. From the Chronicle...

"The Blood Raiders are part of an ancient cultist faction called Sani Sabik, meaning Bloodfriends. The cult first appeared thousands of years ago on Amarr Prime, long before space travel came into being. The cult was based on schismatic sect of the Amarr state religion, which advocated that some people were born for greatness and other people only lived to feed and breed these geniuses. To this the cult added the obsession of the Amarr elite - the Holders - about eternal life so the result was a cult so pervasive and destructive that the Amarr authorities immediately stamped down on it. But the cult lived on in the shadows, every so often mutating itself anew. At one time in their history they started using blood in their gruesome rituals, until then they’d had only used blood in the initiation ritual, but now it became the focal point of their supposed search for eternal youth."

The leader of the Blood Raiders, Omar Sarikusa, served as the focal point of The Crimson Harvest event that ran last October. CCP even released the following Scope video featuring Bloody Omir.


Pretty gruesome stuff. So I put my trusty Cheetah in the hangar and am now flying around in something a little more dangerous. I intend to run a lot of data and relic sites, but engaging in combat with NPCs is a little out of character for me. Thanks to the lore, I have a reason for my changed behavior. Some NPCs just need killing.