Shroud of Maradh / MARADH

The Shroud of Maradh

Centuries ago, in the early 2300’s, a group of scientists and scholars — the Pillars of Ashla — looked, along with the rest of humanity, into deep space. Focusing their efforts at the forefront of interstellar exploration, they endeavored to find berths or positions on any vessel that was pushing the boundaries of the known universe. They worked as science officers, helmsmen, cooks, and janitors. They worked as pilots, doctors, repairmen, and guards. The positions didn’t matter, so long as they were on the edges of space, absorbing any knowledge they could.

While working on one of the vessels exploring the Croshaw system in the late 2300’s, Ashla anthropologist Khalid Maradh began feeling that perhaps the answer to another of man’s greatest questions could be found through the jump points that were being mapped and explored. In the grand quest for knowledge it seemed to him that his peers were ignoring a chance that mankind hadn’t had for millennia: the chance to find the ultimate answers to our origins, the spark of life in the universe. In short: Divinity. Maradh became obsessed with pushing further, taking small vessels through newly discovered jump points and seeking the answers to age-old questions. He believed that the divine was a tangible thing, something that existed among the stars, be it alien, or some as-yet undefinable force. He knew that we were closer to revelation than ever before, yet no one seemed to be looking for those answers anymore. He was ridiculed, his quest deemed folly at best, reckless at worst, but a few followed him, and The Shroud of Maradh was born.

Khalid Maradh never found God in the Heavens, unless it occurred after his death in 2435. The irony of his passing a mere three years before humanity’s first contact with beings from other worlds was not lost on either his detractors or his followers. Those followers were still few, but they kept on in the spirit of Maradh’s fervor, always pushing further than anyone else, looking for anything that would redefine mankind’s existence, physical or transcendental, in the stars.

Now, 500 years later, The Shroud of Maradh still exists, and acts as the exploration arm of the Ashla Conglomerate. The Shroud still pushes into the deepest regions of space, always on the lookout for clues, guideposts, and pieces of the existential puzzle. Few, if any, of them still believe they’re searching for the Divine, but they all agree that nothing is beneath consideration. All must be known. All must be found. Leave No Star Unturned.