Not every citizen of a League is born of flesh. The Ironkin are true artificial intellects, brought into being by the same Votann Ancestor Cores that safeguard the Kin's heredity, and they emerge from the forge as fully formed minds much as their organic kin step complete from the crucible. Each is built of two parts: a cerebral unit, the seat of the self, woven with microfield generators that make it fiendishly hard to destroy, and a body shaped to whatever purpose the League requires.
What sets the Ironkin apart from the mindless servitors and machine-thralls of other powers is that they are regarded as people. Their shared Votann ancestry and common manner of birth have earned them a standing no other galactic culture grants its machines: they are equals rather than tools, and to the Kin the old truth holds that whether one is wrought of meat or of metal, kin is kin. So thoroughly have they integrated that they mirror Kin habit and society.
An Ironkin's frame is fitted to its calling, and many are made for war. As shock troops they are formidable, sealed in heavy void-hardened armour yet able to advance as swiftly as any living warrior, smashing through defensive lines that would blunt a slower assault. Others serve as combat pilots, wayfinders, or the crews of the Leagues' war machines, lending tireless computation and resolve to the Oathband. In every role they fight not as expendable automata but as citizens defending their own, which is precisely what they are.
Order of battle
