A.P.E.S. Champions
Universe Worldbuilding
The Apes Perpetual Expansion & Selection corporation holds a total monopoly on orbital mining, runs its workforce as a gig economy, and papers every station corridor with propaganda that reads HARVEST THE STARS WITH US! It’s the universe Fever Tilt is bolted into and the sky Star Harvester hauls gems out of — a future that shot for Star Trek and landed in Idiocracy.
A universe isn’t set dressing until somebody has to live in it. These are the three who do — painted by commissioned illustrator Storam into one arena-lit frame, each with a full backstory and a stat line, because in the A.P.E.S. economy even your character sheet is a personnel file.
The champions
Temperament: loyal, hardened, resourceful, enigmatic.
Build: medium-tall, muscular, solid, athletic. Wears the tactical rig like it grew on him; the A.P.E.S. armband reads as a sentence served.
Base stats: AP 5 · IP 4 · HP 2 — the only champion who can take a hit, which tells you how he's been used.
Temperament: keen, intuitive, confident, composed. Million-dollar smile; reads a room faster than the room reads her.
Build: small, lean, athletic, toned. Company patch on the vest, dog tags that aren't the company's business.
Base stats: AP 6 · IP 4 · HP 1 — fastest hands in the frame, one bad day from the actuarial table.
Temperament: brilliant, cynical, tenacious, reckless — in whichever order the situation punishes least.
Build: tall, slender, wiry, lanky. White hair at full charge; goggles of his own manufacture, naturally.
Base stats: AP 4 · IP 6 · HP 1 — the highest intellect in the company's files, attached to the least survivable body. He considers this efficient.
Why they exist
One commander, one explorer, one scientist: loyalty, hunger, and brains — the three ways a person ends up working for a monopoly that owns the sky. Their portraits hang together in one frame under arena lights because that’s where A.P.E.S. puts its people: on display, mid-shift, smiling for the recruitment poster whether they mean it or not.
Our manifesto commits the studio to properties that can stand on their own, and a property stands on characters. Fever Tilt supplied the arcade cabinet; Star Harvester supplies the ships; the champions supply the faces you’ll be seeing again.
Credits
The three champions were painted by Storam, the illustrator the studio commissioned for this frame. Van Sacke’s tactical rig, Reyes’ company patch and off-the-books dog tags, Dudakov’s self-made goggles and white hair at full charge — the faces and the finish are all Storam’s hand. Outright Mental supplied the world, the dossiers, and the art direction; Storam supplied the people you’re looking at. The feature illustration links straight through — see the rest of the work at studiostoram.com.
The A.P.E.S. universe is in active development — the flagship it grew from is Fever Tilt, entering Steam Early Access November 2026.
