The Coreward Reach is on the frontier of known space in the current era, but in ages past it was second only to the Archaic Oikumene's core as a center of human civilization. The region’s ancient and eclectic cultures are currently under threat from the advance of the Locusts, a spaceborne swarm of alien von Neumann machines that devour any habitats they encounter, and expansionist states like the Instrumentality of Aom and the The Vokun Empire.