A remarkable departure from all the other factions, the FoC have forged their own, unique way of life. They have no form of mass production, no major cities, or population centres with more than one thousand people on any ground location. They stay away from technology for the most part, and have little to no interest in trading with other factions. Centred around a living “deity” known as Cyrune, the FoC are heavily ritualistic in their lifestyle.

 

The FoC offer “the simple life” to anyone who is tired of the hustle and bustle of the Terra-corps. There are no adverts, no sprawling mega-cities, no insane twenty hour job shifts, no screens, nothing. They offer a return to simpler times, to build your own house in a small community and live off the land, growing your own food and building your own skills. For many, this is a compelling hook on it's own, but there's another layer to FoC life that either makes or breaks the deal; anyone who joins the FoC has a “Syphon rune” placed on their soul. All souls generate energy, and this rune skims a little energy off the top, and feeds it into the emprie's “psyonic web”, one of the most powerful structures in the entire universe.

 

The FoC are massive users of psyonics, mitigating their lack of mechanisation with powerful soul magic instead. Once trained, those in the hierarchy of the FoC can tap into the psyonic web and use its power directly for a variety of purposes, from healing the sick, to resurrecting fallen crusaders, or chilling the surface of a star to a shimmering standstill. The power skimming from the runes is minimal and doesn't interfere with the person's life at all, but some individuals take issue with their energy being used for purposes unknown. On the other hand, many find it gratifying that their simple existence can be used to heal or help others, and the FoC has little shortage of people looking for an escape to simpler times.

 

Due to the fact that their inhabitants live in villages and towns, rather than high-rising cities, the FoC is always short on valuable land and is an aggressive expansionist faction, constantly looking for new planets to settle on due to its inefficient use of space. A good portion of their population live aboard massive space citadels that are kept functioning and protected by the psyonic web, instead of technology and engineering. These sprawling stonework ships are gigantic and hold many millions of people aboard them, with some waiting to be transferred planet side, and others happy to do the hard work required to keep their empire alive and thriving onboard, from maintaining the huge capacitor crystals that contain their soul energy, to hand forging weapons and armour for their fighting forces. Their lack of mass production means life is always busy for the FoC, especially for those at the front of the empire.

 

The sheer amount of energy contained with the psyonic web is the FoC's greatest weapon, by far. With hundreds of trillions of souls feeding it power constantly, this is the single element that allows them to go toe to toe with the other heavy hitters. After years of honing their craft, they've been able to fuse psyonic power with soul runes, to make up for their otherwise lacklustre tech and perform seemingly impossible feats.

 

FoC fighters have their bodies and souls attuned to “Blood pools,” and Warlocks who revive the zealot upon death at these blood pools. The sheer amount of energy within the psyonic web is so great that reviving even millions of zealots is a feeble matter, meaning FoC assaults only end if the defenders can either kill the warlocks or destroy the blood pools. This means that FoC have overwhelming, endless numbers of psyonically enhanced crusaders and zealots to push front lines and break enemy formations. Crusaders typically weigh in over a ton each in their armour, and wield great swords as long as a human man capable of cleaving through heavy armour with precision strikes, giving standard grade power armour equipped soldiers a run for their money in terms of physical strength and durability.

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Beyond their endless assaults, the FoC have a varied selection of psyonically enhanced warriors and projects to aid them in assaulting the other factions, such as the “Gifted ones” who are demi-god like figures who can cast battlefield changing psyonics and cut foes down with unsettling grace, or towering "Pyres" ,who are an awful amalgamation of permanently burning “Flares” that have bonded together, throwing flaming artillery in any direction and scorching the ground with their every step.

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Those who've not fought the FoC before usually relish the chance, as gunning down a line of melee weapon equipped religious fanatics sounds like one of the easier battles one could participate in, but veterans know that the FoC are utterly horrendous to fight, grinding their opponents down under waves of bodies and blood and using walking psyonic war crimes to dismantle their opposition in brutal fashion. It's a battle of attrition, and a single lapse in judgement can end with you getting speared on the end of a crusader's sword as he roars to his battle brethren, urging them on. And, unlike these crusaders, when you die, you don't come back.