Symbol: The Vulture
Colors: Rust and White
Ship Prefix: LS (League Ship)
Territory: The Arashi Desert
Capital: Aileron

The Arashi League is a loose confederation of independent city-states, some in truth little more than shantytown hamlets or travelers’ encampments just this side of permanent, eking out a marginal existence in the unforgiving dust of the Arashi Desert. Both cursed and blessed by geography, the inhabitants of Arashi endure frequent, devastating sandstorms and lack adequate fresh water, arable land, and vegetation of almost any kind, yet the barren, cratered hills harbor a wealth of technological and industrial assets in the sand-clogged ruins of dead towns, factories, and processing facilities that are the only remains of this once populous industrial region.

Adapted to their peculiarly harsh environment, the resourceful Arashi are expert survivalists as well as professional scavengers, ranging widely outside their desert borders to salvage wrecks, trade scrap, and repurpose the cast-off detritus of the prewar industrial age to every use imaginable. They are also mechanically adept, tinkering with cobblework machinery and reverse-engineering the technology around them to build new contraptions using old parts, jerry-rigged components, incomplete diagrams, half-remembered science, and plenty of imagination. Some of the more intact facilities among the ruins have been inhabited and in later years rebuilt and powered up by Arashi engineers who returned them to their original purposes or converted them for entirely new work, as with the original Feraille ironworks, the munitions factory at Kugel, or the Mercure machine shop housed in a prewar automobile factory.

As a people, the Arashi tend to be fiercely individualistic and independent in character. Family, clan, and town affiliations take precedence over faction loyalty, and squabbles between neighboring towns within the League are common. Most towns in Arashi began as coalitions of traveling families and scavenging bands who camped together for mutual support and security against roving desert brigands. Certain protections were afforded to anyone on the right side of the wall who was willing to abide by the rules of the community, while those who betrayed or stole from their fellows were dealt with without mercy.

Downtime is scheduled for 7:00PM EST tonight.

UPDATE: And we’re back as of 7:15PM!

First up…

Symbol: The Crane
Colors: Blue and Black
Ship Prefix: YIA (Yeshan Imperial Airship)
Territory: The Rusted Range mountains
Capital: Chang-ning

Founded on the principles of tradition, authority, and military might, the Yesha Empire has a good claim to being the oldest civilization in the region, with a history going back almost 200 annums to the founding of Chang-ning, the City of Eternal Tranquility, during the Age of Dust. From the ashes of the old world, Yesha was the first to arise and establish a new society built to endure in an uncertain future. Deploring the chaotic violence into which the world has fallen, the leaders of the Empire recognize their divine mission to improve conditions in these harsh times by extending their sovereign protection and way of life to all peoples.

Constitutionally a republic, the Empire is ruled not by an emperor but by a triumvirate of consuls elected by the Senate, each responsible for a different aspect of the Empire’s government: the Deer rules over trade, the Tiger controls the military, and the Ox oversees domestic affairs. Ascension in the Yeshan political ranks is strictly meritocratic, with prospective civil servants studying philosophy, government, and rhetoric for annums, in addition to the three annums’ military service compulsory for all citizens.

Mining forms the economic backbone of the Empire, for Yesha’s chief export is the raw, unprocessed ore carved straight from the iron-rich mountainsides. As ground travel is slow in the rugged terrain of the Yeshan heartland, the great air transports frequently seen shuttling through the skies form an essential link between the fortified towns and cities of the Empire. Yeshans are renowned for their expert shipbuilding; the Imperial Shipyards at Jingshan are notable for both quality of craftsmanship and sheer number of airships constructed, and the Yeshan admiralty commands a standing armada second to none in the known world.

Lands under the Empire’s protection are said to be “beneath the Blue Veil.” Through a combination of diplomacy and military might Chang-ning has gradually extended its influence to encompass territory across the Rusted Range, down the Wu River valley to Far Point in the south and up through the Flayed Hills to Hongshi Coast in the north. Having formally adopted an expansionist policy with the Ninth Proclamation of the 50th Consulate following the Battle of Jingshan in AB 267, the Empire has made manifest its intention to spread its Blue Veil to cover the earth, uniting the scattered towns of the Wastes and beyond under its benevolent and enlightened rule — by any means necessary.

Game servers will be down for about an hour in order to do maintenance. We’ll be back up soon and ready to set you all back loose into the skies.

The Icarus Sky Tournament is happening the 25^th of this month with prizes for those who manage to fight their way to the top that will and also be streamed by Qwerty2jam.

For all the rules click here.
To sign up click here, but hurry because sign ups close the 20th.

Special thanks to our slave galley of Community Ambassadors who gave up their weekend to keep us flying. Metafive (shown above) matched our time in game helping people.

We had our biggest weekend ever for Guns of Icarus and we want to thank TGS for showing us off, our engineers for working all weekend on patches to keep the servers working, our amazing support staff of players who manually started games while the countdown was going slow, and for all of our players for being patient while we brought the lobby servers back in line.

As our old guard know and all our new comers get to find out.  We don’t like thanking with words alone so for your patience and in honor of all the amazing engineering work that went into keeping the game afloat we want to give out a full engineering set for both genders to every player who logs onto the game before Wednesday.

When you log in you will receive the Airmen’s Kepi, the Shield Visor (to block exploding servers,) and the Conductor costume!

For those who missed it, we sent out a new newsletter with an update on the progress  of the Adventure Mode Kickstarter, a reveal of the new Labyrinth map, new items in the store and the addition of the new Commendation system. You can see the newsletter by going here and you can also opt-in to the newsletter by going here.