Exalted!

The Stal Republic

On the western border of the Central Empire lies the Stal Republic, near a small patch of the Damned Reaches known as the Crimson Eye. While the Republic isn't much of a power player at the moment, its strong military for its size ensures it is rarely ignored.

Stal Prime

Stal Prime was once a verdant, heavily forested world, but an attack during the Malfean War (see below, under Ungenerous-Hand-of-Reprisal 1-9-7-3) destroyed much of its greenery and caused long-lasting disruption to its weather patterns. To this day, the Stal work to reclaim the Desert of Ferand, and any major replanting project can easily find backers.

The Stal

Physically, the Stal are primarily humanoid, standing ten feet tall at the shoulder. However, instead of having two arms, they have four - two massive "lifting arms" attached at the shoulders, and a pair of small, dextrous limbs extending from the chest region. The hands of the larger arms are little more than crude gripping tools; the smaller ones end in extremely nimble six-fingered hands. Fortunately, the Stal torso is fairly malleable, allowing Stal in human territory to fit through doors with discomfort, although wise hosts who expect to interact with the Stal frequently arrange for larger doors and corridors than they otherwise would.

Stal have grey skin and four yellow eyes. They are capable of surviving on human-appropriate foods, although they tend to add large quantities of spices when preparing a meal from human ingredients to replicate the strong tastes of Stal cuisine. They are warm-blooded, although their standard body temperature is about five degrees Celsius below a human's, and bear live young after a quite lengthy gestation period. Twins are almost unheard of, and are commonly believed to be destined for great things when they do appear.

Stal Culture

The Stal have a very insular and traditional culture. While many Stal are interested in outside cultures, these tend to be viewed as countercultural groups by the more established power blocs such as the royal clan and the major religions, and so policy is set primarily by conservatives and isolationists. This isn't necessarily bad, but does need to be borne in mind when dealing with an official Stal government envoy. Their main exterior alliance, a somewhat one-sided deal with the Central Empire, exists largely because the Stal noble houses know very well that His Divine Lunar Presence's military forces could probably purge the entire Stal Republic down to the bedrock if roused to anger.

Among humans, the Stal have a reputation for being sullen and moody. This arises largely from an issue of demographics - most Stal among humans have been temporarily or permanently exiled from their homes. As a result, the Stal most likely to be bitter and resentful are also the Stal most likely to come into contact with humans.

The primary Stal power bloc consists of the noble houses, led by the royal clan. Generally, speaking, any clan beginning with 0 or 1 (see below) can be considered a major player. Legislation is typically introduced into a "house of lords" parliament by one of three representatives from any noble clan, although the representative of the royal clan - typically the king or queen's child or younger sibling - has access to an executive veto, as does the king or queen. The current King of the Stal is Perfect-Leader-of-Warriors 0-0-0-0, an elderly Stal who used to rule from the front lines of their latest border skirmish. Perfect-Leader-of-Warriors does not trust any of his descendants, though, and hopes to live for quite some time longer to stave off the inevitable succession crisis, hence his covert support for the Iron Moon Conspiracy (see below).

Stal have two genders, roughly analogous to male and female. However, male Stal are able to bear implanted children if given the correct course of hormones before implantation, and the Stal have quite advanced biology, meaning that outside of certain fairly minor cults, a Stal bonding ritual can take place between any combination of genders.

Stal Religion

The primary Stal faith is the Church of the Ten Gods. This originated when a group of disparate monotheisms underwent a gradual syncreticism from a ground-up level; parishioners would typically pay their respects to the fertility cult when their bondmate was expecting a child, or to the craft-goddess Oadenol when they were adding extra rooms to their dwelling, and as a result the cults slowly merged into a single pantheon. The priesthood will accept acolytes from any social level, even the lowest clans, and the Luminarch - the de facto head of the religion, accepted to be only marginally less influential than the king or queen - can theoretically come from any social stratum. While the balance has skewed toward the more powerful clans, several Luminarchs in past centuries have come from far less socially powerful clans. The current Luminarch is Noble-Hand-of-Forgiveness 0-9-2-2, but her second in command, Stalwart-Champion-of-Truth 6-6-5-4, is very ambitious and not overburdened with scruples.

There is also a low-level system of traditions and rituals that nearly all Stal subscribe to on some level. Even a secular Stal will still keep his name secret (see below) just to be on the safe side, and will often undergo a degree of seminary training in order to perform certain traditional ceremonies without needing to hire an ordained priest (this training can be from any religion, since the rituals rarely specify a priest of what).

The Power of Names

A major aspect of Stal culture is the belief that by knowing something's true name, you gain power over that thing. Stal are given their true names by their parents when they reach the Age of Maturity, in a private ritual. Most Stal households have a special room, barely large enough for three and heavily soundproofed, in order to minimise the risk of an enemy hearing the name. Among the Stal, telling another your true name is seen as the most sacred gesture of trust you can make, and those who abuse this trust are treated as among the lowest of the low; it is considered good manners, when this gesture is made, to tell them your true name in return. As an illustration of how exclusive this trust is, upwards of 80% of bonded Stal do not know their partner's true name and refer to them by a pet name instead. Only a handful of humans have ever known a Stal's true name, and there is no known record of one letting it slip.

To guard their names, Stal go by what are known as task-names. These typically relate to the Stal's present career or aspiration, and are changed through a special but fairly quick ceremony that can be carried out by anyone with a modicum of priestly training. Canny outsiders dealing with Stal traders rapidly learn to get a biometric record with a deal, because a con artist will complete the negotiations for, say, selling a wing of fighters under the name Bountiful-River-of-Gifts, take the money, race back to his base of operations to complete the ritual, and become Inflexible-Knight-of-Regulations just in time to say - with a straight face - "there is no Bountiful-River-of-Gifts here."

Stal surnames, by contrast, are public knowledge. The Stal have one hundred blood-clans, numerically designated and structured - the 0-0 clan is the royal bloodline, whereas any clan starting with a 9 is typically a dredged-together collection of criminals and their descendants, kept populated by outcasts from other clans unable to find a more salubrious clan to adopt them. 9-9, the lowest of the low, consists mainly of those who would be exiled if they could be captured, and a disproportionate number of Stal criminals have gone out of their way to rub the numbers 9-9 in the face of the authorities - one notorious serial killer even branded his victims on each cheek with the 9 glyph.

When a pair of Stal perform the bonding ceremony, they add their partner's clan designation after their own - if a Stal from 0-4 was to bond with a partner from 2-6, the pair would be [name] 0-4-2-6 and [name] 2-6-0-4. Descendants typically receive the higher-class designation, although some rebellious types choose to be associated with the lower clan instead.

The Stal tell their children that the numerical clans were created in a past age, when their people were so mistrustful about their true names that most were forgotten, but this has the ring of a just-so story and has little historical evidence to support it.

Ungenerous-Hand-of-Reprisal 1-9-7-3

The most famous Stal hero started out as a disappointment to his family. 1-9 was noted as a clan with a rich military history, but the young Diligent-Supplier-of-Materiel served not as a warrior, but as a quartermaster's aide. Further infuriating his parents, Supplier bonded with a lower middle class priestess named Shroud-of-Sacred-Purity 7-3 and had several children. Just when he was about to be formally disinherited, the first shots of the Malfean War were fired, and their border skirmishes with the Kranix were put on hold to match this threat. Supplier served his task admirably, until one day when he learned that Shroud-of-Sacred-Purity and their offspring had been slain in a raid on Stal Prime by the warship-spirit Ferand, an agent of Isidoros known as the Lord of Embers.

Supplier did not leave his cabin for five days. When others battered down the door, fearing the worst, they found he had been painting his armour in the red of a Nemesis - a formal oath that he would claim a harsh blood-debt for each of his fallen loved ones or perish in the pursuit of same. Diligent-Supplier-of-Materiel then performed the ritual for choosing a new task-name, and Ungenerous-Hand-of-Reprisal was born.

While he had once been an unwilling combatant who only just had the determination to complete basic training, Ungenerous-Hand-of-Reprisal was a devastating force. His people still sing of his prowess in the Siege of Kyrith 5-2-1, when he was the sole boarder on one of the Ebon Dragon's subsidiary craft, and managed to overcome illusions, traps and a large number of demons until he reached the control node on the bridge of the ship and shattered it with one blow. He subsequently used it to ram a number of demonic fighters out of the air while firing its weapon banks into other ships, and even managed to survive its eventual destruction by ejecting in time. Unlike most Nemeses, who tend to function as suicide squads indifferent to their own survival when there are enemies to slay, Ungenerous-Hand-of-Reprisal was able to keep a cool head, prioritising his own survival in order to slay more of the Stellar Intelligences' forces in the next engagement.

When the Malfean War ended, there were still many Nemeses active among the veterans, and Ungenerous-Hand-of-Reprisal became their de facto general. Warships were stolen from rival powers, salvaged from deserted battlefields or purchased on the open market. Weapons were forged and repaired. And a force in red armour, flying red-painted ships, began launching attacks into the Damned Reaches, prioritising systems infested by the kin of Isidoros.

In time, most of the Nemeses were slain or deemed their blood-price paid, and so only Ungenerous-Hand-of-Reprisal remained. He disappeared into the Ydreni Gulf, seeking only to find and destroy the demonic ship that set the path of his life. Neither Ferand nor Ungenerous-Hand-of-Reprisal has been seen since, and Stal storytellers claim that the two remain locked in mortal combat within the deepest, darkest region of the Ydreni Gulf.

The Iron Moon Conspiracy

The Stal have never been major players on the galactic front. While some would consider this to result from their isolationism and relatively small population, a surprising number of Stal believe it to instead result from their lack of Exalted. As a result, a conspiracy of Stal - tacitly supported by multiple noble clans - are working to create a Stal-only Exaltation, using relic nanotech Lunar Exaltations from well before the war, vivisection of captive outcaste Dragon-Bloods, and whatever data they could scavenge. The head researcher, Walker-of-Hidden-Mists 0-3-4-4, believes she will be able to produce a functional Exaltation within months, although early batches will likely be significantly less stable than the tried-and-tested Exalts created by humanity.

Biology

Kittiri stand between three and five feet tall and typically have pallid skin. Their skeleton is unusual, with the structure of their arms being more reminiscent of a human’s or snake’s vertebrae than the standard human limb bones, and most of their bone structures being extremely flexible arrangements of multiple pieces rather than rigid, tightly connected chunks like in a human. Taken as a whole, this allows them to squeeze through quite small holes; sadly, it also makes them much more vulnerable to blunt force trauma, since their bony structures lack the rigidity to resist a direct strike from a hammer or club. The Kittiri brain is diffuse, a collection of connected nodes rather than a centralised chunk, allowing the skull to be reshaped without significant risk of brain trauma. Kittiri are warm-blooded, with a natural body temperature of around 40 degrees Celsius, and near-totally hairless.

One unusual aspect of the Kittiri is that while they do have sight, their primary sense in day-to-day life is sonar. Vision is used mainly to avoid a species of luminescent cave fungus that is extremely toxic, meaning that their eyes are not particularly strong compared to human senses. Their eyes are small and hooded, but they have two large sets of leaf-shaped ears – one for sonar, one for regular hearing. On most worlds, their pallid skin burns extremely rapidly in the light of the sun, causing considerable pain and encouraging Kittiri to go about in robes and hoods.

Kittiri live for around sixty human years, or twelve eruptions in Kittiri timekeeping, with a three-month gestation period. They can reproduce only once a year, but this still allows them to grow in numbers quite rapidly.

Society

One of the most important Kittiri customs is the Fivefold Path, which is tied into the five elements. The initial path, education, is associated with Wood (or, in Kittiri parlance, Fungus) and lasts until a child is two eruptions/ten years old. After this, they are expected to follow three careers, each for two eruptions’ time – one Fire career, one Air, and one Water, in that order, although there is no generally accepted list of which careers count as which element, and generally Kittiri can get away with almost any job as long as they choose three different ones and can come up with some spurious rationale about how they qualify for the appropriate element. The final path, Earth, generally consists of their preferred previous career, and lasts until their retirement at ten eruptions of age. Retired Kittiri frequently continue to follow their preferred career as a sort of hobby, since Kittiri are usually active almost until death. As a result, a Kittiri may spend two eruptions as a soldier, arguing that war is a fire, then become a musician on the grounds that music moves through the air, shift over to become a trader to draw profit from the flow of goods and alien currency, and finish his career by returning to music.

Of course, this system has certain drawbacks. Even given that the Kittiri tend to learn quickly, they are still spending quite a lot of their lives being educated for new jobs. In addition, experts are quite rare, and those who are not incredibly gifted in a field tend to face social stigma for sticking with it after they were supposed to transfer.

In times of emergency, however, the Fivefold Path is suspended. Since the Path is a social custom rather than a law, it cannot be decreed by the central authority, but the tacit social contract is that whenever a clear and present crisis has manifested, there is no stigma attached to keeping a career aimed at maintaining or solving it. During the Malfean War, for example, there was no shame in remaining a soldier, medic or weapons manufacturer for longer than the customary two eruptions.

Kittiri timekeeping is based on eruptions, which originated from a geyser near the ancient city known imaginatively as Geyser. For unknown reasons, this geyser erupts consistently at exactly the same point in the planet’s orbit, and never erupts at any other time. Due to its reliability, it was used for timekeeping once clockwork had been invented. An eruption, the time between one venting and the next, is equal to about five human years and is divided into 25 shards, each roughly the length of a Kittiri pregnancy and named according to the order Fungus, Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and then numbered from 1 to 5 – so the year starts with Fungus One, goes on to Fungus Two, and ends with Earth Five.

Kittiri mainly export metals, gained from mining operations deep within the planet’s crust. They import technology and food, to feed their rapidly growing population. Prior to first contact, metal was rare due to the difficulty of smelting it; now, smokestacks rise from the ground above furnace districts and ships emerge from special launch ports around Outhive.

The Kittiri government is democratic, with a new election each eruption. There are three chambers of government, consisting of a debate chamber to settle on the wording of laws, an oversight/veto chamber to rate their constitutionality, and a review chamber that has the authority to examine any law more than five eruptions old and either reword it or recommend it for repeal. Either way, their decision must pass through the other two chambers before it is carried out. There are many Kittiri political parties, who tend to form loose coalitions and splinter frequently. There is for all intents and purposes no leader, because the majority in any given chamber can change three times in any given day. Outsiders often wonder how anything gets done. Others hatch conspiracy theories. Certainly, the head of the police force seems to wield more legislative power than any given politician does.

The Kittiri have colonised more than a dozen worlds, each of which is legally independent of the Kittiri homeworld but typically exists in an unofficial mutual defence pact with all other Kittiri worlds. Most of these have their own complicated tricameral systems in emulation of Osol Kittir, although you can probably find a Kittiri world or a Kittiri subterranean habitat on a human world that has any given social arrangement.

Kittiri law is enforced by a police force, which recruits heavily from those who have just completed two eruptions in the military. Execution is a common punishment for serious crimes such as murder, rape, or dealing in illegal narcotics, simply because the Kittiri reproduce very quickly and as a result exist in a near-perpetual state of overpopulation. Theft, meanwhile, is hardly punished at all, since Kittiri culture does not attach too much importance to personal possessions, and “thief” is considered an acceptable if crass choice when walking the Fivefold Path.

Kittiri do not have a marriage-equivalent, and many consider the human tradition of monogamy to be somewhat peculiar.

The main Kittiri religion is an ancestor-cult. Devotees tattoo themselves with glyphs, make animal sacrifices to members of their bloodline, and in some cults perform ritual cannibalism of deceased parents as a mark of honour, although this is uncommon. Other Kittiri religions include a cult that worships the Lunar who made first contact as a messenger of a divine spirit, a cult dedicated to a deity of luck, and the Missionaries of Stone, a religious form of neo-primitivism that holds the Kittiri abandoned the true way when they began dealing with outsiders.

Military

The Kittiri space navy is remarkably potent for its size. Due to their small stature, the Kittiri are able to fit larger crews on their ships than human-scale life forms and thereby have more individually targeted weapon arrays and maintenance crews, and their flexibility permits them to access quite narrow spaces, allowing technicians to maintain the more complicated machinery better than most humans can manage. For those not capable of fitting their entire body through a one-foot hole or equipped with powerful cutting tools, boarding a Kittiri-constructed ship is likely to be a humiliating and possibly lethal experience.

In ground combat, however, Kittiri prefer to fight indirectly. Due to their small size, limited physical power, and fragility, Kittiri tactics are heavy on giving ground and luring the opponents into pre-prepared kill zones. Kittiri combatants tend to favour light pistols, flamethrowers and sniper weapons, and Kittiri mercenaries are much in demand wherever a subterranean war is being fought. Several Kittiri colonies have darkbrood infestations, and so Kittiri who seek military careers often train to fight there for a few shards.

Kittiri ships have one notable feature: their crews mainly operate on sonar, since their eyesight is poor, meaning that every Kittiri ship has a converter that transforms data from the sensors into soundwave patterns. While this allows them to skip installing viewports entirely, this also makes them vulnerable to surprise attacks from ships that don’t show up on sensors for whatever reason.

Among Aliens

Kittiri of an adventurous disposition often leave their worlds and go to make a living on worlds of other races. Frequently, their first challenge is to overcome mild agoraphobia, since it can be quite jarring to grow up in a network of tiny tunnels and then relocate to a world of open sky and large rooms. Kittiri who strike it rich or have construction skills often have any home they may acquire remodelled with additional walls and smaller doors, with a large atrium for entertaining friends of other races, but with the rest of the building converted into a hive of darkened corridors to remind them of home.

A sad note is that Kittiri on human worlds often fall into the criminal underworld for a few years. With their flexibility, Kittiri are remarkably adept burglars and pickpockets, and their nimble hands and quick minds offer an advantage over security systems. As a result, on many worlds Kittiri have a largely undeserved reputation as thieves and scoundrels.

The Trans-Kittiri

Some Kittiri who dwell on human worlds out in the frontier come to resent their limitations – they grow tired of hiding from the sun in voluminous robes or failing to detect matters of interest due to their weak eyesight. As a result, there is a small subculture of Kittiri who work on enhancing their bodies to overcome these vulnerabilities. While attempts to reduce their fragility have proven less than successful, usually crippling their flexibility in the process, some Kittiri have managed to purchase cybernetic upgrades to their weak eyes and the implantation of pigmentation sacs and ultraviolet converters within their skins, allowing them to appear in the open without a cloak and giving them visual acuity on par with a human. Kittiri who have been enhanced in this way are obvious to those who have seen natural Kittiri, due to their brown, grey or blue skin and often visibly artificial eye prostheses.

Sadly, medicine in the Frontier is often limited by available equipment, training and funds. As a result, many Trans-Kittiri are unable to locate or afford a sufficiently talented surgeon to reliably perform the procedure, and the risks of receiving brain surgery in a back alley should be obvious to anyone. As a result, most Trans-Kittiri are considered to be unstable or even insane by other Kittiri, and not just because they were willing to undergo the procedure in the first place.

Trans-Kittiri often seek out additional cybernetic enhancements, but the reliability of these upgrades, especially in the frontier, is if anything lower than that of the light sensitivity and vision package, with everything from catastrophic biological dysfunctions to psychotic episodes resulting from botched black market surgeries.

Osol Kittir

Osol Kittir, the Kittiri homeworld, lies near the Salinan Configuration. Before the Malfean War, this region of space consisted of stars arranged into a massive glyph, aligning Essence flows between distant worlds. During the War, the Stellar Intelligence Szoreny, known as the Mirror Sun, broke the glyph by destroying a number of stars, and this has caused Essence instabilities across a hundred worlds. It is speculated that if some force could place new stars within the gaps, the balance could be restored, but with the Solars diminished and the Stellar Intelligences hostile, what could rearrange the galaxy on such a scale?

Osol Kittir itself lies at the opposite end of the Configuration from Szoreny’s strike zone, a world whose largely untamed surface conceals a hive of activity below ground. It takes around five human years to rotate around its sun.

Under the surface, Osol Kittir is home to continent-spanning networks of narrow caves and tunnels. This is the true home of the Kittiri. The tunnels have occasional gateways to the outside, but most of the time the ecosystem is relatively closed and dependent upon recycling organisms, mainly fungi.

The original landing on Osol Kittir by human explorers turned up nothing but hostile wildlife, christened by the expedition with such cheerful names as caustos krakens and cliffleapers, leading to the world being classified as not worth the effort of colonising. Later, however, a Lunar Exalt came to Osol Kittir to hunt the creatures of this untouched world, eventually finding a cave entrance and making first contact with the Kittiri. Fortunately for the Kittiri, this Exalt was a bit of a maverick, and helped them prepare for non-violent contact with the Empire.

The surface of Osol Kittir has only one city, known as Outhive – a place for alien emissaries and traders to gather. Outside it is mostly wilderness, although since the surface is largely unpoliced, there are hidden outposts of pirates and similar outlaws. Several have been located and met with massive force from the Kittiri navy for raiding arriving or departing ships – very bad for business. Outhive trader veterans rapidly learn to tolerate Kittiri mind-games such as holding negotiations in the dark or cramped spaces. Visitors from most races are unable to access the interior of Osol Kittir, leaving Outhive as the primary link between Osol Kittir and the galaxy, but particularly protean outsiders can visit the Kittiri in their homes. In particular, most Imperial ambassadors tend to be Lunars, who still occupy a position of special respect among the Kittiri after first contact, even though the average Kittiri has never seen a moon in his life.

The most notable animal from Osol Kittir is the borer bug, a terrier-sized creature resembling a beetle that is capable of not only digging through earth at rapid speed, but also leaving a tunnel behind it. Kittiri sometimes keep borer bugs as pets, guards, or work animals.

Uba-Sathlo

The Kittiri Uba-Sathlo made his legend-making haul during his Earth career. Following careers as a soldier, thief, and cook, Uba-Sathlo chose to walk the Earth path as a master thief, gaining authority over the Geyser criminal underworld through skills gained during his military career. After a botched burglary of a Council member, however, he accidentally slew the man and had to flee. In his exile, he devised the greatest crime of all time: a data hoard from the Central Emperor, a powerful Solar, locked within the depths of the Grand Celestial Mountain.

Uba-Sathlo’s true gift was coordination. Leading a squad of handpicked exiles into the Mountain, he arranged for multiple alarms, explosions, and similar distraction methods to occur across quite a wide area, drawing most of the security detail away from the path he intended to take. He then crept into the central data-complex, blew the door with a disruptor, and seized the coded wafers of the Emperor’s hoard.

Then a very loud alarm started up.

Uba-Sathlo and his surviving agents fled back to their base of operations with a dozen Imperial warships on their tails. What followed was a gruelling year-long tactical game of move and countermove, with Uba-Sathlo’s forces setting up traps and kill zones, Imperial forces striking from unexpected angles and blasting holes in the walls to gain entrance, and all the chaos you’d expect. After a year, however, the Emperor himself called off the assault, impressed by the tactical skill Uba-Sathlo had shown, and pardoned the thief-general on the condition that he never raid the Mountain again. Uba-Sathlo, who had reached the age of retirement, accepted, and settled back to live on his past hauls and tell stories of his deeds to impressionable youths.

While the theft was known to be true, most of the versions of the story Uba-Sathlo told are not. The thief-general was a notorious liar and braggart, who claimed to have, among other things, pilfered the Stal King’s sceptre while he was holding court, stolen a Solar Essence from its host, extracted five arcane devices known as “Graces” from a mighty potentate among the Shrieking Hordes, seduced the maiden master-program Saturn and earned her blessing, and hijacked the Ratch flagship by himself while it was on full battle readiness.

Playing a Kittiri

Using Revlid's mutations rewrite, Kittiri have the Creeper (4), Fragile (-3), Quick Learner (3), Sonar (2), Ambidextrous (1), Enhanced Hearing (2), Inexhaustible (1), Small (1), Climate Sensitivity [sunny] (–2), Short Gestation (-6), Short-Lived (-2) and Weak Vision (-1, treat as a negative Adaptation penalising visual Awareness rolls) mutations, totalling 0 mutation points.

Trans-Kittiri have had cybernetic eye/brain implants and melanin-equivalent infusion procedures carried out by anyone from top-notch surgeons and technicians to unqualified back-alley doctors, allowing them to function more effectively in the environments favoured by humans. Trans-Kittiri characters who have found a decently talented cyberneticist do not possess the Climate Sensitivity or Weak Vision traits, and thereby have a cost of 3 mutation points or 1 bonus point. The majority of Trans-Kittiri on the frontier, however, receive their enhancements from less-than-savoury sources, meaning they often suffer from some form of derangement due to the drawbacks of ham-fisted brain surgery – the majority of Madness and Emotion mutations are possible outcomes, but Mood Swings and a loss of their Ambidexterity are a common result and will reduce the cost of a Trans-Kittiri character to 0bp.

Trans-Kittiri often seek out other upgrades, often to counteract their Short-Lived mutation, but these are even more likely to result in physical or mental dysfunction. One important detail to note is that virtually any attempt to reduce the Fragility of a Kittiri will remove Creeper along with it; both their vulnerability to blunt force trauma and their gift for entering small spaces derive from the same bone structures.

Biology

The Dragon-Blooded explorer who first encountered the Kranix bluntly described one as “an octopus dressed up as a crab”. Kranix closely resemble a large terrestrial cephalopod, save that their primary body is encased within a thick shell. Most Kranix tentacles terminate in three-fingered hands, although their rear-mounted limbs end in flipper-like structures instead. The shell is usually open, revealing a large serrated beak surrounded by slitted eyes and colour-shifting skin.

Kranix, like most F Falan organisms, are carbosilicate beings, with silicon atoms interlinked with carbon to form their biochemistry. Their shells in particular are primarily made from silicate compounds. Kranix do not have an internal skeleton; their tentacles are largely constructed from muscle groups, similar to a human tongue, although silicate structures analogous to bones exist in the hands.

The nervous system of the Kranix is diffuse, with the central brain deep within the body connected to lesser limb-coordinating neural junctions. While they can usually directly control most of their limbs, they will regularly find themselves unconsciously fiddling with something nearby. This is usually harmless, although Kranix healers get a lot of practice repairing minor injuries caused by this habit – twiddling a spear around, for example, or absent-mindedly picking a mildly poisonous bit of seaweed.

Kranix excel in the ammonia oceans of F Fala. Similarly to an octopus or squid, they have a form of biological jet propulsion. Sadly, they are also unable to breathe a human-acceptable atmosphere or communicate verbally, with their “spoken” languages taking the form of surprisingly intricate codes of patterns and colours rippling over their skins. Kranix who wish to communicate with humans or other beings reliant upon sonic communication typically use computerised communication, either in the form of written messages or, using the version typically installed in a Kranix survival tank, a speech synthesizer. One diplomatic crisis was precipitated when a saboteur installed a receiver in the Kranix ambassador’s synthesizer and remotely controlled it to bellow insults at the human, Stal and Uvall dignitaries, only to be foiled by the diligence of the Dragon-Blooded counterintelligence agent known only as K.

Kranix are genderless and reproduce by laying clusters of eggs.

The main Kranix ethnicities are based on shell. Warmer areas of the F Falan ocean provided a selection pressure in favour of shells with heat-radiating structures, while the colder areas inclined them to smoother, heat-retaining appearances. The genes for “spiny” or “smooth” are codominant, producing a ridged appearance when combined. Thankfully, outside of a few groups of extremists, the Kranix lack internal racism.

Society

The Kranix have a culture that prizes art and the creative endeavour. While in theory there is no outright stigma attached to taking a non-artistic job, most Kranix spend two decades or so in a career with the attitude of a struggling actor waiting for their first big break before coming to accept it. Sculpture and poetry are the primary Kranix venues for self-expression, and Kranix poetry is considered an extremely fine visual art in much of galactic society. Rich connoisseurs on human worlds sometimes have screens up around the house showing the ever-changing blend of hues that represents Hathakel’s Forgotten Legends or Damarith’s translation of the classical poem Sentinels. Usually a translation is on a plaque nearby; for Forgotten Legends, the plaque typically occupies the entire rest of the wall in small writing.

The military is the big exception. F Fala is regularly besieged by demons, due to the Spiderweb Cage – a network of gravitational beacons that were used to temporarily hold the ocean-world Yozi Kimbery during the Malfean War, and which had curious effects on the already strained space-time that surrounded a major canal nexus within the region. The area around the Cage, now known as the Shattered Sea, has peculiar properties that cause it to attract spatial anomalies. F Fala’s position, on the edge of the Shattered Sea, makes it a regular target for demonic forces, and as a result a career in the military is considered esteemed, although poets and sculptors are still higher on the totem pole.

The dominant Kranix religion, which translates as the Disciples of the Cosmic Ocean, is pantheistic. The more devout regularly engage in fasting, the better to minimise the number of animals they consume, and practice non-violence. Military personnel are considered an exception, since they kill only to defend others. There are dozens of denominations, although the most powerful are the Ritualists, a fundamentalist and strongly evangelistic sect who believe aliens should be taught the truth of the Cosmic Ocean, and the Descendants, who believe that the spirits of ancestors remain part of the totality of the Cosmic Ocean after death and view the Terminus as a horrific threat to the fabric of reality.

F Fala is a democratic theocracy; each citadel has a Hydra from each major and many minor denominations, which stand for election at the start of each solar rotation. The ruling council consists of each victorious Hydra, and the denomination with the most Hydrae appoints its leader – usually with a title such as Seaspeaker or Starvoice – as the Theocrat until the next election. (These terms are, of course, translation conventions – a Hydra’s actual title is a pattern of shades representing a specific multiple-headed creature from the depths of the ocean with deep symbolism within the Disciples’ beliefs.) There are constitutional restrictions prohibiting the council from outlawing any denomination, no matter how schismatic, and the police force is sternly, even aggressively nondenominational, and gives a degree of preferential treatment to secular agents in an effort to encourage objectivity.

Military

Kranix hold a key advantage in space combat. Most other spacefaring races evolved in a predominantly two-dimensional tactical environment, and as a result three-dimensional strategy is very much a learned response; to the Kranix, it is instinctive. As a result, Kranix space tactics are very advanced. Kranix ships are also difficult to capture, since most readouts are simply patterns of finely gradated hues, and so it is difficult for one not experienced with the Kranix language to understand whether a display is listing the round count or warning that the self-destruct is active. The ammonia atmosphere is also a relevant consideration, although most boarders use airtight suits.

However, the Kranix military is quite small. Since they only have one world under their control, they cannot afford a substantial space presence, with only enough ships to guard F Fala itself and little ability to project force. To make matters worse, it is usually engaged in defence against threats from the Shattered Sea. Fortunately, however, the vast majority of outside races have no particular desire to seize F Fala, since neither its biochemistry nor its atmosphere are useful to invaders, meaning that taking it would be a largely pointless exercise in flag-waving.

Kranix are terrible ground combatants, since damage to their suits usually results in rapid death, but when they are engaged in aquatic combat with their ocean of ammonia, they are a terrifying foe, ripping enemies apart with their serrated beaks.

A surprising number of frontier capital ships near the Shattered Sea have large, airtight tanks on their bridges, to allow Kranix mercenary strategists a place from which to coordinate the battle. Only a handful of Kranix mercenaries are active at any given time, however.

Among Aliens

Very few Kranix choose to live among aliens. Fundamentally, very few worlds have F Fala’s ammonia oceans. On a human-habitable world, a Kranix without an airtight suit and a supply of ammonia will rapidly suffocate.

Some wealthy Kranix do, however, overcome these drawbacks. Kranix habitats, known colloquially on a hundred worlds as “octopus’s gardens”, consist of a large metal structure buried under the ground, and an atrium for human entrance. Polite Kranix maintain a number of ammonia-safe diving suits within the entrance, to permit human emissaries access to the primary environment through an airlock. The average Kranix habitat has imported fish and plant life from F Fala itself, providing not only a pleasantly homey atmosphere, but also a handy snack.

Kranix forced to operate outside a garden tend to be very formal and cautious, because there is nothing like being a single cut away from asphyxiation to encourage care and politeness. The few exceptions typically have armoured “scuttler” tanks constructed, with limbs controlled from the interior, but these are quite rare.

F Fala

F Fala lies deep in the frontier, near the Damned Reach known as the Shattered Sea. When first explored, it resembled a brown marble hanging in space; now, a silver web hangs in orbit around it, the orbital construction field for Kranix ships and the primary nexus for alien visitations. The ocean floor of F Fala itself is left largely unmarred by change; outside their cities and manses, the wilderness is left unspoilt, to treasure the Cosmic Ocean.

Typically, alien visitors deal with Kranix through text. Kranix who deal with outsiders often tend to be skilled typists, allowing the bulk of a negotiation to be carried out with both parties looking into each other’s eyes through the reinforced glass of an ammonia-filled tank.

F Fala’s surface is entirely submerged. Due to ammonia’s low freezing point, there are no ice caps or surface structures, except for two space elevators to provide access to the orbital shipyards. Those few humans who have seen the F Falan ocean floor describe it as an array of bronze nanocoral spires, usually based on ancient fortresses. Within each citadel, houses are structured from more nanocoral in various metallic shades, often with an almost organic aesthetic and entrances and exits at all levels, while religious structures are frameworks for the growth of more traditional biological coral; new churches are half skeletal while ancient ones are overgrown. The capital, Transcendence, has a large central cathedral to house the ruling council. Rest areas are decorated with statues, and museums created from merged organic and nanotech coral are frequent. The various metallic colours of nanocoral are often used to make artistic statements; entire neighbourhoods form abstract paintings in silver and red when viewed from above. Others just pick a shade they like.

The deep ocean of F Fala is largely unexplored, even after thousands of years. Who knows what lurks therein?

The Legend-Seeker, Hathakel

One of the Kranix’s greatest heroes, Hathakel was no commander of soldiers or conqueror of worlds. Rather, Hathakel was a scholar – a hunter of myths lost to the ages. He lived a century after the Malfean War, and by all reports, he hated how many legends of all cultures had been lost to the upheaval. He arranged for the construction of a specialised environment suit, and set off on a sixty-year journey to collect as many obscure tales of ancient heroes as he could. He was sighted on Stal Prime, Nexus VI, Osol Kittir, and according to some reports, even Imperial Centre itself, where he supposedly gained an audience with the then-Emperor, a Twilight Caste Solar with a keen interest in history. He journeyed into the Celestial Mountain and negotiated with agents of the maiden-program Jupiter herself. He broke into private archives and raided archaeological digs.

And then, in the twilight of his life, he travelled back to F Fala and composed his magnum opus, Forgotten Legends, a poem that told the stories of dozens of legendary heroes whose tales had become almost forgotten within the realms. It takes two days and two nights to perform, and is to this day considered unsurpassed. He died shortly afterwards.

A large statue of Hathakel watches over the Jade Library, where the greatest poems of Kranix culture are kept in written form. Forgotten Legends occupies an entire room, engraved on heavy slabs of white jade.

Playing a Kranix

Using Revlid’s mutations system, Kranix have the Multiple Arms x4 (12), Cosmetic (0), Shifting (1), Mute (-2), Natural Swimmer (4), Natural Armour (3), Natural Plating (2), Action Obsession (-1), Lethal Attack (2, heavy attack), Limb Regeneration (2), Restricted Diet (carbosilicates, -2), Ammonia Breather (2), Air Drowner (-6), Weird Body (1) and Alternate Reproduction (0) mutations, totalling 18 mutation points or 6 bonus points.

Players are advised to think carefully before creating a Kranix character, due to their profound limitations within a human-compatible atmosphere.

A big thankyou to Sandact6, whose contributions to the Stal thread inspired this take on the Ratch. (Quarians? Never heard of ‘em.)

Biology

The Ratch are among the closest races in the galaxy to human. Indeed, if you dyed a human’s skin a dusky indigo colour, sculpted his or her ears into crescent shapes, and raised the cheekbones, the result would be able to pass for a Planetbound until they were injured or had to do some climbing.

Ratch biochemistry is close to human, save for their oxygen carriers. Ratch blood is blue, the result of their haemoglobin equivalent being cobalt-based. While neither transplants nor transfusions from a human to a Ratch (or vice versa) will function, the two races can survive at least for a time on the same foodstuffs, except that Ratch are unable to eat vitamin C, which is toxic to them.

Anatomically, the largest difference between Ratch and humans lies in the feet. Where human extremities are adapted to serve as a stable platform, the Ratch originated in an arboreal environment, and thus their feet are better adapted to cling to branches and handle tools. Among the Pariahs, this is used to navigate ships more easily; Planetbound typically have handholds and bars scattered around their dwellings, allowing them to brachiate around the house.

Ratch reproduce in a similar fashion to humans, typically bearing one child at a time. Humans and Ratch are physically compatible with a little bit of ingenuity, but are genetically incapable of conceiving.

The Ratch have proven adaptable, with Ratch raised in null gravity able to adapt to the planetary surface quickly, but Pariahs do tend to find high gravity environments extremely hard to deal with.

Planetbound and Pariah

The Ratch are a race divided between two primary cultures: the Pariahs and the Planetbound. The key difference is environment: the Pariahs have resigned themselves to a life on their ships; the Planetbound have grown weary of wandering and set up colonies on other worlds. There are many variations of both cultures, with each world or fleet having a subtly or blatantly different society, but Ratch are not permanently consigned to one or the other; Pariah fleets regularly visit Ratch colonies to drop off any who grow weary of the endless travel, and often pick up Planetbound young adults who wish to travel the stars. A more morbid transition is the transfer of ashes; many Ratch wish to be buried in space rather than the soil of a world not their own, and so cremated Planetbound are passed to visiting Pariah fleets, prior to finding their final rest among the stars.

The original split in the Ratch cultures occurred after the formation of the Scar Nebula during the Malfean War. The sizeable Ratch navy, believing their homeworld Ratchir to lie deep enough in Imperial-held territory to be safe, had launched an attack on the fleet of the psi-constellation Hegra. However, a Stellar Intelligence of unknown name and nature made its presence known with an all-out attack on the region of space containing Ratchir. With the sacrifice of many brave Exalts and an entire fleet of warships, the hostile Stellar Intelligence was slain – but its cataclysmic death throes devoured Ratchir, slaying billions.

Admiral Ikir, the leader of the Ratch fleets, was horrified. As the de facto leader of the surviving Ratch on board their warships, she declared the fleets would no longer fight the War – they had already paid too dear a price. She then decreed that her people would never take another homeworld, but rather dwell forever on their ships. Her ship, renamed Memories of Ratchir, became more than just the flagship – it was now, for all intents and purposes, the capital city.

With the disastrous loss of several capital ships in a canal anomaly, it became clear that the Ratch were putting their long-term survival at risk by keeping all their ships in one formation. Thus were the Five Fleets created – each of Ikir’s four Vice-Admirals took a portion of the Ratch navy and set off, an effort to ensure no force could destroy the Ratch in their entirety. Others grew weary of the eternal travel ahead of them, and abandoned the fleets entirely to set up colonies in defiance of Ikir’s proclamations.

Both Ratch cultures retain the marriage traditions of their lost home, and there is a current of matriarchy running through them. Lineage, for example, is tracked through the parent, and three of the four remaining Pariah Admirals are female.

A Life Among the Stars

The typical Ratch ship has been heavily customised. Cargo bays are converted into research labs, hydroponics bays, carniculture vats or additional living quarters. Endurance and survivability are more important considerations than speed and flashiness. Most unusually, artificial gravity is disabled outside certain modules set aside for physical training, with the majority of the ship customised to be easy for an experienced Ratch to navigate – but almost impossible for a boarder accustomed to their feet remaining on the floor.

Each of the Five Fleets has a rough population of twenty to thirty thousand Ratch aboard a rag-tag mix of salvaged and purchased vessels. Four of the Fleets have, at their heart, a sizeable battleship from the Malfean War, its systems patched up a hundred times since the destruction of Ratchir; the Second Fleet lost its flagship to an anima field malfunction a hundred years ago.

Three of the Five Fleets are still run along the lines of naval forces, with a chain of command and robust military discipline. While most Ratch ships are at least a little grubby, from having many generations of citizens onboard, this tendency is less obvious among military-run fleets. Of the other two Fleets, the Second is an oligarchy of captains, and the Fourth has degraded into little more than a gang of pirates. The other three Admirals are beginning to wonder whether forcing the Fourth back onto the straight and narrow would be worth the risk.

Most Pariahs are at least capable with weapons from early adolescence. Boarding exercises tend to favour the Ratch, especially on their own turf. In addition, Pariah marines tend to have families on the ships they crew, and so have strong motivation to fight ruthlessly to the last man.

The priesthood of the Pariahs descends from the chaplain corps of the old navy. Their primary deity was believed to live in the heart of Ratchir, and so she receives no prayers and her name is not spoken. Her five daughters, however, are each revered as the patron of one Fleet.

It is important to remember that Pariah is a self-applied label; Ratch are generally welcome on most civilised planets no matter what their origin, so they are named Pariahs by choice rather than necessity. Indeed, many Pariahs make sure to regularly walk on a planetary surface, to strengthen their immune systems and improve their physical fitness.

The elite troops of the Pariahs are known as the Bloodbond; they wear blue armour and receive special training, especially on the subject of fighting demons. Bloodbond marines are used wherever the fighting is expected to be fierce.

New Homelands

Planetbound colonies tend to be straightforward agricultural collectives. When a Ratch steps off a ship to live on a planetary surface, the joys of military discipline and hydroponic food are usually the last things on his or her mind. Before growing a crop or purchasing a stock animal, a sensible Ratch farmer obtains a sample of the fruit or meat, cuts it open and presses it to his or her arm to see if it raises a welt – if it does, it contains vitamin C and is therefore inedible. Most Planetbound social groups either fade into the local culture or set up out on unoccupied land and develop into a village-council cultural model. They still use plenty of technology, but the majority of food is either grown or bred.

All but the most reclusive of Planetbound colonies maintain a beacon in the village square; these devices emit a homing signal on a specific frequency, allowing the Five Fleets to land there when they pass. Frequently, there will be a message sent there several months in advance, allowing the Planetbound time to build up a stockpile of tradeable food – Pariahs may have effectively agreed to a lifetime diet of hydroponics and carniculture, but both of these are notoriously bland and many ship-dwelling Ratch will jump at the chance to eat planet-grown food.

Older Planetbound colonies rarely give much thought to long-lost Ratchir. The War has been over for more than a thousand years, they say. It’s time to stop living in the past. On worlds where the Ratch have essentially been assimilated into the dominant culture, it isn’t uncommon for Ratch children to have never even heard of their world of origin.

Ratchir’s-Daughter

Ratchir’s-Daughter, the City of Yesterday and Tomorrow, is a Planetbound settlement on the dark side of the rotationally locked world Abdiel Secundus. The closest thing to a Planetbound capital in the Known Worlds, the skyline of Ratchir’s-Daughter is dominated by a towering structure, the Memory Spire, which is capped with a holographic projector. Every available inch on the Spire is engraved with the name of a Ratch who fell in the destruction of the homeworld; the list was compiled from the memories of survivors, and so there are many Ratch whose names are lost to history. Every orbit, when the path of Abdiel Secundus brings it closest to the admittedly distant Scar Nebula, there is a mournful Day of Memories, and the holographic projector casts an image of Ratchir into the sky. When it is furthest, the joyful Day of Dreams is celebrated, and the projector is instead used to liven up the sky with fireworks displays and other lightshows.

Day and night on Abdiel Secundus are determined primarily by one’s own instincts, except in the City of Yesterday and Tomorrow. There, the intensity of the streetlights determines which stage of the Ratch thirty-hour day it is.

Ratchir’s-Daughter divides most of its industries up into guilds – there is a Guild of Soldiers, a Guild of Weaponsmiths, a Guild of Healers and a Guild of Scientists, among others. The heads of the Guilds and the current leader of the city’s one noble house, the lineage of Hana, form an oligarchy known as the Conclave. The Conclave backs the local currency, the relic; the exchange rate is roughly three relics to a thaler.

Farms surround the city, growing the peculiar night vegetation of Abdiel Secundus. These plants, which can grow in very little light, provide much of the food the City of Yesterday and Tomorrow needs to survive. The glittering noxfruit, which grows on a vine with pitch-black leaves, is a staple of the Ratch diet due to its high cobalt content.

In recent years, a new cult has been making a name for itself in the City of Yesterday and Tomorrow, preaching that the heiress of the Lost Goddess is growing within the heart of Abdiel Secundus. When it is the true new home of the Ratch, these cultists maintain, their embryonic goddess will be born. Authorities mostly disregard it, since it is unlikely the cult will ever gain enough resources to launch a serious colonisation effort on the scorching and largely unexplored light side of Abdiel Secundus, a gesture they feel will mark the planet as exclusively the home of the Ratch.

Hana, Ikir’s-Daughter, the First Child

Hana was the first child born after the destruction of Ratchir, the daughter of a technician who had been in the early stages of pregnancy when she boarded the ship. Her mother passed away shortly after she was born, leaving Hana alone in the universe. Shortly afterwards, however, Admiral Ikir stepped in and raised Hana as her own. To this day, historians debate the admiral’s motives; was she touched by the child’s plight, mindful of the symbolic benefits of raising the first Ratch born without a home, or driven by grief over the loss of her own family on the homeworld?

In adulthood, Hana proved a keen trader, and served as the emissary to a number of worlds, purchasing vital supplies and ships for the First Fleet. But each visit made her heart ache; she came to hate her people’s nomadic existence and long for a place to set down roots.

In time, she could take it no longer. She gathered a number of like-minded young Ratch and abandoned the fleet with materials she’d secretly gathered over a dozen trade visits, leaving only a recorded message in which she proclaimed that while Ratchir was her people’s home, it was not her home – she had never seen it, never set foot on it, never breathed its air, and never would. Admiral Ikir was furious, but when the Memories of Ratchir had the fleeing shuttle in its sights, she could not bring herself to order her daughter shot down. So it was that the Planetbound were born.

Hana and her co-conspirators went on to construct the first darkside farms on Abdiel Secundus, due to a malfunctioning engine preventing them from reaching the twilight ring. More Ratch from the fleets joined her, and the tiny farming complex she built grew to become the city of Ratchir’s-Daughter, where many of her descendants dwell to this day. Her tomb lies below the Memory Spire, buried deep in the land she took as her home.

Playing a Ratch

Ratch have the Cosmetic (0), Ambidextrous (1), Omnidextrous (2), Wall-Crawler (2) and Vitamin C Allergy (-2) mutations, totalling 3 mutation points or 2bp. Ratch raised as Pariahs frequently have Zero-Gravity Native (2) and Climate Sensitivity (high gravity, -2) as well, while Ratch from the dark side of Abdiel Secundus frequently possess Climate Sensitivity (sunny, -2) and Night Vision (2).