![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaI have to do two loads of laundry before I go to bed, or at the very least the second one has to be in the dryer before I conk out. Considering that I got perhaps a total of three hours of sleep last night, not contiguously, this may be problematic.
Anyway, on to today's GURPS Jorune addition:
Once again, this is adapted from Skyrealms of Jorune 3rd ed..
The enterprising tauther will undoubtedly encounter many of the interesting sentient life forms of Jorune in his or her travels. Some of them will be helpful, others indifferent, and some actively hostile. The hominid races and the Children of Iscin - that is, those races who descend one way or another from the life of Terra - have already been detailed. But what of those races who were already here when the first colony ship landed?
--
Cleash
The cleash are semi-centauroid arthropoids, standing about 6' tall at the shoulder and about 8' long from front to end. They have six limbs, two of which are used only for walking, two of which can be used for either locomotion or coarse manipulation, and two of which are fully functional hands, with three mutually opposable digits. As far as can be determined by humans and thriddle, all cleash are hermaphroditic, capable of both producing eggs and fertilizing them. Their heads have large, forward-facing compound eyes that give them good perception of motion and color and a wide field of view, but less depth perception than humans. Their mouths are two pairs of mandibles; the larger pair is capable of ripping off chunks of flesh, while the smaller pair chews them. They have no antennae, nor any exterior ears. Their carapaces are mottled patterns of black, brown, or gray; their joints make a creaking or clicking noise as they move. There is a large plate on the back of the thorax that houses a pair of translucent, sparkling vestigial wings; they keep these hidden when around most races, but vibrate them constantly when scarmis are in the area. A set of glands in the lower segment of the body produces small capsules; these have various chemical effects when thrown, such as exploding and causing shrapnel damage, releasing noxious fumes that gag any air-breathers in the vicinity, gluing the victim to the floor, and so on.
Cleash are hostile to all forms of non-insectoid life on Jorune; the only race they do not attack are the scarmis, who follow their orders, although exactly why is unknown. While the homeland of the cleash is on Gilthaw, the frozen continent north of Voligire, they sail the seas on ships of their own design and appear with alarming frequency in the Trinnu Jungle Lands. A group of cleash who see a group of other sentients that they think they can successfully attack will do so; otherwise they will flee, leaving lethal traps behind if they can. Cleash attack shanthas on sight, apparently mindlessly, and will always fight to the death against them. On the few occasions that they need to barter or parlay with other races, the cleash will send a scarmis to speak for them; they will often carry a few queel gems with them for barter. These beautiful iridescent spheres - they look like a soap-bubble frozen in time - are now known to be the eggs of the cleash, hardened in a fire and then boiled until clear.
Corastin
The corastin are even taller than the trarch and the croid; they are the tallest of the sentient races, the males commonly reaching a height of 9' tall and the females being only 2" shorter on average. They are gangly, with long limbs, although they are heavily built at the shoulders and quite strong. They have strong reptilian traits, with pebbly, almost scaly gray-green skin, a distinctly lizard-like head, and a dextrous (although not prehensile) tail. Their feet have four long toes; their hands have two long fingers, a much shorter finger, and an opposable thumb, all with short but dangerous claws. They have some mammalian traits, but they resemble the marsupials; they are warm-blooded and give birth to their young live, then nurse them in a belly-pouch until they are old enough to walk on their own. (The pouch, which is hard to spot if it is unoccupied, is the only sure way to tell the females from the males.) A set of dull but hard spikes made of a horn-like material runs down their spines, from the back of the head to the end of the tail; a pair of bony horns protrudes from the back of the skull, just behind the pointed ears. Their reptilian snouts have a single nostril on the top. They have excellent hearing, and good senses of smell, but they are almost as nearsighted as the crugar. They are about as intelligent as the trarch, but they have much less of a sense of curiosity - where trarch would investigate, corastin will quietly move away from a disturbance.
Wild corastin live in small tribal bands, usually no more than two dozen individuals, scattered across Jorune. These corastin live as traveling hunter-gatherers, and are very protective of their base camps; intruders are likely to find themselves at the wrong end of a number of clubs. More than half of them now live in the cities, making their living carrying heavy objects (they make excellent packers and teamsters), acting as cheap muscle, or doing odd jobs. Clans of corastin have, at various points in their past, been forced into slavery by the ramian, by the crugar, and by humans, and they chafe at the suggestion that they are not a free people. They like to be paid visibly for their labor; a corastin would rather take his pay as a sack of gemules at the end of every day than to have a few easily carried gems or coins at the end of every week. A clever employer will also praise his or her corastin employee's labor on occasion where other workers - especially other corastin - can hear it. A corastin who finds their labor coming too close to slavery - hours too long, pay too low, or most offensive, conditions too restrictive - will quit with no notice. Corastin are somewhat claustrophobic and dislike being forced into social situations for more than a few hours at a time; it is unwise to take one on a ship, either as a passenger or as a crewman.
Croid
The croid are the least intelligent of the commonly accepted sentient races, able to be outsmarted by the average blount. They are also the largest of the sentient races, standing almost as tall as the corastin (averaging 8'8"; there is no difference in height between genders) and being almost as wide as they are tall. They are hunchbacked, with a short, forward-thrust neck; their chests and upper arms are massive, and their legs large enough to hold them. They weigh over a ton apiece. All their body surfaces except for the palms of their hands and their faces are covered with a thick, callous-like growth of scaly skin; this stuff, called crudge in their language, serves them as body armor, but also restricts their movements if it grows too thick, as it often does in cold weather or when irritated. Their hands and feet have four digits, with thick, almost hoof-like nails. They have horns similar to the corastin, to which they are probably distantly related; they also have a pair of curved, foot-long tusks projecting from their lower jaws at the corners of their broad mouths. Their eyes are small and protected by bony ridges above and below; they can see motion quite well, but they are completely color-blind. Their noses are broad, flattened, and bull-like.
Most croid live solitary lives in desert, wooded, or jungle areas; they prefer warmer climes, and are most common in Drail. If hailed in their native tongue, most croid will indicate whether they are interested in trading, or merely want to be left alone. Disturbing a croid who is in no mood for visitors can be fatal; they are easily angered, and a blow that would merely drive home a point to another croid can stave in a hominid skull. A few croid have gotten used to more social lives, and offer their services in human villages or cities, either as lifters of heavy things (at which they excel, even more than the corastin, although the corastin are better at figuring out what to do with the heavy things after they are lifted) or as bodyguards. A croid who is paid fairly and fed well is a very loyal employee.
Ramian
The ramian are almost as mysterious as the shanthas, avoiding conversation or any other than the most terse and business-like communications with other races. Their racial motto translates to "Powerful Silence." These humanoids stand approximately 8' tall; their frames are close to humanoid, if very thin by human standards - despite their height and density, they rarely weigh more than 350 lbs. Their feet have two forward-pointing toes and one backward-pointing one; their hands have two fingers of approximately equal length and two opposable thumbs, one on either side. Their bodies are covered with a tough, leathery blue-gray skin stretched over bony plates; horn-like spikes jut through the skin on their knees, elbows, calves, and shoulders. Their narrow chests have no visible ribs, just a curving plate of what appears to be solid bone just under the skin. Their necks are narrow and about 8" long. They have very elongated chins, sharp cheekbones, deep eye-sockets and small mouths; they have ridges of sharpened bone instead of teeth. They have no noses at all; the space between eyes and mouth is completely flat - they breathe through a blowhole on the top of the head, which is protected by a flap of skin. (The thriddle have suggested that forcing air through their vocal cords and mouths is a significant effort, which would explain why they speak so little.) Their ears are small and squarish, folded back close to the head. There is no visible external difference between male and female ramian, although dissection of their dead corpses suggests that they are essentially marsupials, keeping their immature young in an internal pouch. Thriddle claim to be able to tell males from females from their skin tones and speech patterns, but if they are telling the truth, they have never successfully taught the difference to a non-thriddle.
Ramian live for at least 200 years; on reaching puberty, they go through a period of blood-madness called chiveer, during which they grow a pair of tusk-like bony spurs through their top lip and will go berserk at the slightest provocation, attacking anything that moves and feasting on its flesh. They continue to go through chiveer for two years of every twenty for the rest of their lives. Even other ramian avoid the chiveer. A few have the willpower to subdue their bloodlust and force themselves out of chiveer; these chiven rachu-eh are known by the permanent purplish bruises on their temples, the result of veins burst in this mastery of mind over flesh. Despite their long lives, ramian heal very slowly; a simple scratch may remain an open wound for months, even years. A particular type of bio-pod, the shirm-eh, produces a thick liquid limilate that the ramian ingest to speed their healing; many of their raids on other lands are to steal shirm-eh.
Most ramian live as farmers in the paddies of Voligire, growing the plants they use for food (most of which are not nutritious for Terran life), but others venture out into the rest of the world in search of advantages - crystals, Earth-Tec, or simply more shirm-eh. The ramian are at a disadvantage to other races in one important respect; they are completely isho-less, showing up as hollow shadows to those who use Tra-Sense or Tra-Vision. However, they make up for this with their native strength, skill, and cunning. Especially feared are the Gire, the ramian privateers that prey on shipping and are known to take slaves. Still, they are occasionally known to carry on peaceful relations with other races; after suffering several crippling military defeats, they now trade daij and their well-made swords with the Jaspians for crystals and shirm-eh.
Scarmis
The scarmis are another centauroid insectoid race, although much smaller than the cleash; they stand about 5' 6" tall and are only about 3" from front to back. Four of their six limbs are legs, adapted for climbing up near-vertical surfaces; the other two are gripping limbs with three mutually opposable digits. Their bodies and heads strongly resemble an enlarged version of a Terran praying mantis, though they are wingless. Like the cleash, they appear to be hermaphroditic. They have four antennae, which they use to perceive vibrations in the air around them.
The scarmis are essentially an enslaved race; they are completely under the influence of the cleash. A scarmi in the presence of a cleash will follow any order it gives, including suicidal ones. Even out of their immediate presence, a scarmi will follow the last order given to it by a cleash unless it can be convinced that the order is impossible or nonsensical. This isn't terribly difficult, if you can speak in the scarmi's language; they're not very clever and they are notoriously scatterbrained.
Some communities of scarmis live in areas where there are no cleash; there is a small scarmis neighborhood in Ardoth, for example. They are relatively good citizens, except for their habit of spitting an unpleasant brown liquid all over those they meet; this is a purely instinctive reaction, although if you beat them to the first spit and ask them not to (and they understand the language you are speaking - not all of them know Entren, even in the cities), they will stop. However, their conversations with members of other races are confusing at best; even the thriddle do not claim to really understand what motivated a scarmi.
Shanthas
Even after sharing a planet for 3500 years, little is known about the shanthas. The thriddle don't seem to know much more, although they have a much better grasp of the shanthic language than any human. It is known that shanthas are divided into seven sects based on the Color and moon they are most attuned to, and that one of the sects almost went extinct during the colonists' biowarfare; shanthic culture has not truly recovered since. Most shanthas are still hostile to humans, although they are more likely to harass them from a distance than actually commit physical violence. A few will deal peacefully with those who do not use Earth-Tec. They are more likely to react positively to muadra than to the other races, perhaps because they feel their perception and connection to the isho brings them closer to a shanthic perspective.
A shantha stands at about 7' tall; males and females are the same height. Their general body structure is startlingly humanoid, which makes the divergences even more strange-looking. They are much like placental mammals (except that they are hairless), and the females even have human-like breasts. Their skin is ivory and very smooth to the touch. Their hands have only two fingers and a thumb, making them much narrower than human hands; their feet are a single pod, without separate toes at all. Their necks are strangely elongated (although not quite as long as those of the ramian). Most disturbingly, their heads are nearly featureless ovoids; they have neither eyes nor nose, seeing by Tra-Vision and breathing through a vertical blowhole in the front of the chest, between the collarbones. Their ears are little more than holes to allow the sound passage to their eardrums. Their mouths are a short , lipless slit much lower on the face than a human mouth. However, they have beautiful voices; their language is complex and melodic, and they can generate one tone at the blowhole and another through their voicebox, singing in harmony with themselves. All shanthas can weave dyshas; they are trained from birth in those of their sect, and the useful ones from other sects. Many have training with their crystalline blades as well.
Thiven
The thiven do not appear in any human records before 3113, when they appeared trading with the ramian. They shortly began trading primarily with human lands, finding them far more profitable than those of the spartan ramian. A male thiven stands about 5' 8" and weighs about 180 lbs; females are slightly shorter and heavier. Their most obvious physical traits are their heavy, coiled, ram-like horns (which appear on both genders). They have four fingers on each hand, and three toes on each foot, with hoof-like nails. Like the ramian they traded with, they have no noses, breathing through a blowhole on the top of the head. They have leathery skin in shades of gray, puce, and off-white. They have thick white hair on their heads, cheeks, backs, forearms, and chests; males have short, goat-like beards. The females carry their children in pouches like the corastin; however, they remain in pouch until they are nearly three years old. Their eyes are bright and fairly large, and they see well in low light.
Thiven are master crafters and traders. They seem to have special talents for smithwork, gem-cutting, and weaving, but they will dabble in goods of almost any sort. They are also excellent performers, especially where music in concerned; they have low but soothing voices, and play such instruments as the hide drum, crystal rods, and a stringed instrument called a jamper. It is sometimes hard to tell whether a thiven is a master craftsman who makes a little extra money playing in a tavern, or a professional musician who still works at his old day job.
Thriddle
Thriddle talk. Constantly. They are the master linguists of Jorune; any given thriddle is likely to be fluent in five or six languages and at least be able to get along in half a dozen more. They are also the primary diplomats between races; while Burdoth and Heridoth may be left to work things out with each other, if Dobre and Burdoth are in conflict, the thriddle will be there to calm the flames. They are driven by levels of curiosity that would kill a crugar; thriddle are driven by the need to find out - and then tell everyone they know about it. Oddly enough, they are also one of the most secretive races after the shanthas and ramian; their capital, the Mountain Crown at Tan-Iricid, holds secrets many centuries old that are never shared with other races. The bronth have been known to theorize that the thriddle compulsively tell small secrets precisely so they won't be tempted to spill the big ones. Whether this is true or not, the thriddle have knowledge in theoretical mathematics, physics, and astronomy far beyond what the other races commonly know, although they don't appear to ever use it for practical applications - the most they ever build is children's toys. They also enjoy inhaling the fumes from giggit, a larval creature found in the Jungle Lands; most other beings find the smell disgusting, but the habit calms down the often-frenetic thriddle enough to be tolerable.
The thriddle resemble no other race on Jorune. They are roughly fig-shaped, or perhaps pear-shaped. Their hind limbs resemble those of flightless birds; they walk - hop, really - on their three toes. Their front limbs are short and weak, although their tiny three-fingered hands are quite dextrous. Their necks extend upward like the stem of the fig, supporting a strangely long, upright jaw with three fleshy lips (two top, one bottom; imagine a cross between the upper lip of a Sullustan, only jowlier, and the bottom lip and jaw of one of the Martians from Sesame Street). Two nostrils perch above the upper jaw, and the head ends there; the eyes are on a pair of jointed, limb-like eyestalks mounted on the sides of the head. A thriddle can move his eyes apart or closer together to get a better sense of depth, but the two eyestalks cannot be focused independently. Thriddle have no external ears; several organs sensitive to vibration run along the back of the eyestalks and serve as auditory organs, giving a thriddle a greater depth of auditory field than most races. Finally, a pair of glandular organs known as "trid-nodes" perch on the thriddle's rump; the angle of the trid-nodes is the only obvious external signal of a thriddle's gender, as their genitalia are internal. Their skin is rubbery and slightly rough, and comes in shades of brown, purple, and red.
Thriddle are mostly to completely vegetarian; even those who eat fish and meat use it sparingly, as a flavoring. The staple of their diet is the grain known as codditch, but they supplement it with a number of other vegetables. They can eat most human crops, and have developed a fondness for barley-and-durlig soup. Thriddle living in human cities usually keep a stable of hirelings around - a bodyguard or two (thriddle are hopeless at fighting, although they are the race most likely, after the shanthas and the muadra, to be able to weave dyshas), and at least one querrid, to serve as a go-between from the thriddle to those who have information to buy or sell. You can be pretty sure a thriddle will not harm you, but trusting one often turns out to be a mistake - even the most loyal and true-hearted thriddle occasionally make stupid mistakes, like teaching the crugar the Lighting Bolt dysha.
Anyway, on to today's GURPS Jorune addition:
Once again, this is adapted from Skyrealms of Jorune 3rd ed..
The enterprising tauther will undoubtedly encounter many of the interesting sentient life forms of Jorune in his or her travels. Some of them will be helpful, others indifferent, and some actively hostile. The hominid races and the Children of Iscin - that is, those races who descend one way or another from the life of Terra - have already been detailed. But what of those races who were already here when the first colony ship landed?
--
Cleash
The cleash are semi-centauroid arthropoids, standing about 6' tall at the shoulder and about 8' long from front to end. They have six limbs, two of which are used only for walking, two of which can be used for either locomotion or coarse manipulation, and two of which are fully functional hands, with three mutually opposable digits. As far as can be determined by humans and thriddle, all cleash are hermaphroditic, capable of both producing eggs and fertilizing them. Their heads have large, forward-facing compound eyes that give them good perception of motion and color and a wide field of view, but less depth perception than humans. Their mouths are two pairs of mandibles; the larger pair is capable of ripping off chunks of flesh, while the smaller pair chews them. They have no antennae, nor any exterior ears. Their carapaces are mottled patterns of black, brown, or gray; their joints make a creaking or clicking noise as they move. There is a large plate on the back of the thorax that houses a pair of translucent, sparkling vestigial wings; they keep these hidden when around most races, but vibrate them constantly when scarmis are in the area. A set of glands in the lower segment of the body produces small capsules; these have various chemical effects when thrown, such as exploding and causing shrapnel damage, releasing noxious fumes that gag any air-breathers in the vicinity, gluing the victim to the floor, and so on.
Cleash are hostile to all forms of non-insectoid life on Jorune; the only race they do not attack are the scarmis, who follow their orders, although exactly why is unknown. While the homeland of the cleash is on Gilthaw, the frozen continent north of Voligire, they sail the seas on ships of their own design and appear with alarming frequency in the Trinnu Jungle Lands. A group of cleash who see a group of other sentients that they think they can successfully attack will do so; otherwise they will flee, leaving lethal traps behind if they can. Cleash attack shanthas on sight, apparently mindlessly, and will always fight to the death against them. On the few occasions that they need to barter or parlay with other races, the cleash will send a scarmis to speak for them; they will often carry a few queel gems with them for barter. These beautiful iridescent spheres - they look like a soap-bubble frozen in time - are now known to be the eggs of the cleash, hardened in a fire and then boiled until clear.
Corastin
The corastin are even taller than the trarch and the croid; they are the tallest of the sentient races, the males commonly reaching a height of 9' tall and the females being only 2" shorter on average. They are gangly, with long limbs, although they are heavily built at the shoulders and quite strong. They have strong reptilian traits, with pebbly, almost scaly gray-green skin, a distinctly lizard-like head, and a dextrous (although not prehensile) tail. Their feet have four long toes; their hands have two long fingers, a much shorter finger, and an opposable thumb, all with short but dangerous claws. They have some mammalian traits, but they resemble the marsupials; they are warm-blooded and give birth to their young live, then nurse them in a belly-pouch until they are old enough to walk on their own. (The pouch, which is hard to spot if it is unoccupied, is the only sure way to tell the females from the males.) A set of dull but hard spikes made of a horn-like material runs down their spines, from the back of the head to the end of the tail; a pair of bony horns protrudes from the back of the skull, just behind the pointed ears. Their reptilian snouts have a single nostril on the top. They have excellent hearing, and good senses of smell, but they are almost as nearsighted as the crugar. They are about as intelligent as the trarch, but they have much less of a sense of curiosity - where trarch would investigate, corastin will quietly move away from a disturbance.
Wild corastin live in small tribal bands, usually no more than two dozen individuals, scattered across Jorune. These corastin live as traveling hunter-gatherers, and are very protective of their base camps; intruders are likely to find themselves at the wrong end of a number of clubs. More than half of them now live in the cities, making their living carrying heavy objects (they make excellent packers and teamsters), acting as cheap muscle, or doing odd jobs. Clans of corastin have, at various points in their past, been forced into slavery by the ramian, by the crugar, and by humans, and they chafe at the suggestion that they are not a free people. They like to be paid visibly for their labor; a corastin would rather take his pay as a sack of gemules at the end of every day than to have a few easily carried gems or coins at the end of every week. A clever employer will also praise his or her corastin employee's labor on occasion where other workers - especially other corastin - can hear it. A corastin who finds their labor coming too close to slavery - hours too long, pay too low, or most offensive, conditions too restrictive - will quit with no notice. Corastin are somewhat claustrophobic and dislike being forced into social situations for more than a few hours at a time; it is unwise to take one on a ship, either as a passenger or as a crewman.
Croid
The croid are the least intelligent of the commonly accepted sentient races, able to be outsmarted by the average blount. They are also the largest of the sentient races, standing almost as tall as the corastin (averaging 8'8"; there is no difference in height between genders) and being almost as wide as they are tall. They are hunchbacked, with a short, forward-thrust neck; their chests and upper arms are massive, and their legs large enough to hold them. They weigh over a ton apiece. All their body surfaces except for the palms of their hands and their faces are covered with a thick, callous-like growth of scaly skin; this stuff, called crudge in their language, serves them as body armor, but also restricts their movements if it grows too thick, as it often does in cold weather or when irritated. Their hands and feet have four digits, with thick, almost hoof-like nails. They have horns similar to the corastin, to which they are probably distantly related; they also have a pair of curved, foot-long tusks projecting from their lower jaws at the corners of their broad mouths. Their eyes are small and protected by bony ridges above and below; they can see motion quite well, but they are completely color-blind. Their noses are broad, flattened, and bull-like.
Most croid live solitary lives in desert, wooded, or jungle areas; they prefer warmer climes, and are most common in Drail. If hailed in their native tongue, most croid will indicate whether they are interested in trading, or merely want to be left alone. Disturbing a croid who is in no mood for visitors can be fatal; they are easily angered, and a blow that would merely drive home a point to another croid can stave in a hominid skull. A few croid have gotten used to more social lives, and offer their services in human villages or cities, either as lifters of heavy things (at which they excel, even more than the corastin, although the corastin are better at figuring out what to do with the heavy things after they are lifted) or as bodyguards. A croid who is paid fairly and fed well is a very loyal employee.
Ramian
The ramian are almost as mysterious as the shanthas, avoiding conversation or any other than the most terse and business-like communications with other races. Their racial motto translates to "Powerful Silence." These humanoids stand approximately 8' tall; their frames are close to humanoid, if very thin by human standards - despite their height and density, they rarely weigh more than 350 lbs. Their feet have two forward-pointing toes and one backward-pointing one; their hands have two fingers of approximately equal length and two opposable thumbs, one on either side. Their bodies are covered with a tough, leathery blue-gray skin stretched over bony plates; horn-like spikes jut through the skin on their knees, elbows, calves, and shoulders. Their narrow chests have no visible ribs, just a curving plate of what appears to be solid bone just under the skin. Their necks are narrow and about 8" long. They have very elongated chins, sharp cheekbones, deep eye-sockets and small mouths; they have ridges of sharpened bone instead of teeth. They have no noses at all; the space between eyes and mouth is completely flat - they breathe through a blowhole on the top of the head, which is protected by a flap of skin. (The thriddle have suggested that forcing air through their vocal cords and mouths is a significant effort, which would explain why they speak so little.) Their ears are small and squarish, folded back close to the head. There is no visible external difference between male and female ramian, although dissection of their dead corpses suggests that they are essentially marsupials, keeping their immature young in an internal pouch. Thriddle claim to be able to tell males from females from their skin tones and speech patterns, but if they are telling the truth, they have never successfully taught the difference to a non-thriddle.
Ramian live for at least 200 years; on reaching puberty, they go through a period of blood-madness called chiveer, during which they grow a pair of tusk-like bony spurs through their top lip and will go berserk at the slightest provocation, attacking anything that moves and feasting on its flesh. They continue to go through chiveer for two years of every twenty for the rest of their lives. Even other ramian avoid the chiveer. A few have the willpower to subdue their bloodlust and force themselves out of chiveer; these chiven rachu-eh are known by the permanent purplish bruises on their temples, the result of veins burst in this mastery of mind over flesh. Despite their long lives, ramian heal very slowly; a simple scratch may remain an open wound for months, even years. A particular type of bio-pod, the shirm-eh, produces a thick liquid limilate that the ramian ingest to speed their healing; many of their raids on other lands are to steal shirm-eh.
Most ramian live as farmers in the paddies of Voligire, growing the plants they use for food (most of which are not nutritious for Terran life), but others venture out into the rest of the world in search of advantages - crystals, Earth-Tec, or simply more shirm-eh. The ramian are at a disadvantage to other races in one important respect; they are completely isho-less, showing up as hollow shadows to those who use Tra-Sense or Tra-Vision. However, they make up for this with their native strength, skill, and cunning. Especially feared are the Gire, the ramian privateers that prey on shipping and are known to take slaves. Still, they are occasionally known to carry on peaceful relations with other races; after suffering several crippling military defeats, they now trade daij and their well-made swords with the Jaspians for crystals and shirm-eh.
Scarmis
The scarmis are another centauroid insectoid race, although much smaller than the cleash; they stand about 5' 6" tall and are only about 3" from front to back. Four of their six limbs are legs, adapted for climbing up near-vertical surfaces; the other two are gripping limbs with three mutually opposable digits. Their bodies and heads strongly resemble an enlarged version of a Terran praying mantis, though they are wingless. Like the cleash, they appear to be hermaphroditic. They have four antennae, which they use to perceive vibrations in the air around them.
The scarmis are essentially an enslaved race; they are completely under the influence of the cleash. A scarmi in the presence of a cleash will follow any order it gives, including suicidal ones. Even out of their immediate presence, a scarmi will follow the last order given to it by a cleash unless it can be convinced that the order is impossible or nonsensical. This isn't terribly difficult, if you can speak in the scarmi's language; they're not very clever and they are notoriously scatterbrained.
Some communities of scarmis live in areas where there are no cleash; there is a small scarmis neighborhood in Ardoth, for example. They are relatively good citizens, except for their habit of spitting an unpleasant brown liquid all over those they meet; this is a purely instinctive reaction, although if you beat them to the first spit and ask them not to (and they understand the language you are speaking - not all of them know Entren, even in the cities), they will stop. However, their conversations with members of other races are confusing at best; even the thriddle do not claim to really understand what motivated a scarmi.
Shanthas
Even after sharing a planet for 3500 years, little is known about the shanthas. The thriddle don't seem to know much more, although they have a much better grasp of the shanthic language than any human. It is known that shanthas are divided into seven sects based on the Color and moon they are most attuned to, and that one of the sects almost went extinct during the colonists' biowarfare; shanthic culture has not truly recovered since. Most shanthas are still hostile to humans, although they are more likely to harass them from a distance than actually commit physical violence. A few will deal peacefully with those who do not use Earth-Tec. They are more likely to react positively to muadra than to the other races, perhaps because they feel their perception and connection to the isho brings them closer to a shanthic perspective.
A shantha stands at about 7' tall; males and females are the same height. Their general body structure is startlingly humanoid, which makes the divergences even more strange-looking. They are much like placental mammals (except that they are hairless), and the females even have human-like breasts. Their skin is ivory and very smooth to the touch. Their hands have only two fingers and a thumb, making them much narrower than human hands; their feet are a single pod, without separate toes at all. Their necks are strangely elongated (although not quite as long as those of the ramian). Most disturbingly, their heads are nearly featureless ovoids; they have neither eyes nor nose, seeing by Tra-Vision and breathing through a vertical blowhole in the front of the chest, between the collarbones. Their ears are little more than holes to allow the sound passage to their eardrums. Their mouths are a short , lipless slit much lower on the face than a human mouth. However, they have beautiful voices; their language is complex and melodic, and they can generate one tone at the blowhole and another through their voicebox, singing in harmony with themselves. All shanthas can weave dyshas; they are trained from birth in those of their sect, and the useful ones from other sects. Many have training with their crystalline blades as well.
Thiven
The thiven do not appear in any human records before 3113, when they appeared trading with the ramian. They shortly began trading primarily with human lands, finding them far more profitable than those of the spartan ramian. A male thiven stands about 5' 8" and weighs about 180 lbs; females are slightly shorter and heavier. Their most obvious physical traits are their heavy, coiled, ram-like horns (which appear on both genders). They have four fingers on each hand, and three toes on each foot, with hoof-like nails. Like the ramian they traded with, they have no noses, breathing through a blowhole on the top of the head. They have leathery skin in shades of gray, puce, and off-white. They have thick white hair on their heads, cheeks, backs, forearms, and chests; males have short, goat-like beards. The females carry their children in pouches like the corastin; however, they remain in pouch until they are nearly three years old. Their eyes are bright and fairly large, and they see well in low light.
Thiven are master crafters and traders. They seem to have special talents for smithwork, gem-cutting, and weaving, but they will dabble in goods of almost any sort. They are also excellent performers, especially where music in concerned; they have low but soothing voices, and play such instruments as the hide drum, crystal rods, and a stringed instrument called a jamper. It is sometimes hard to tell whether a thiven is a master craftsman who makes a little extra money playing in a tavern, or a professional musician who still works at his old day job.
Thriddle
Thriddle talk. Constantly. They are the master linguists of Jorune; any given thriddle is likely to be fluent in five or six languages and at least be able to get along in half a dozen more. They are also the primary diplomats between races; while Burdoth and Heridoth may be left to work things out with each other, if Dobre and Burdoth are in conflict, the thriddle will be there to calm the flames. They are driven by levels of curiosity that would kill a crugar; thriddle are driven by the need to find out - and then tell everyone they know about it. Oddly enough, they are also one of the most secretive races after the shanthas and ramian; their capital, the Mountain Crown at Tan-Iricid, holds secrets many centuries old that are never shared with other races. The bronth have been known to theorize that the thriddle compulsively tell small secrets precisely so they won't be tempted to spill the big ones. Whether this is true or not, the thriddle have knowledge in theoretical mathematics, physics, and astronomy far beyond what the other races commonly know, although they don't appear to ever use it for practical applications - the most they ever build is children's toys. They also enjoy inhaling the fumes from giggit, a larval creature found in the Jungle Lands; most other beings find the smell disgusting, but the habit calms down the often-frenetic thriddle enough to be tolerable.
The thriddle resemble no other race on Jorune. They are roughly fig-shaped, or perhaps pear-shaped. Their hind limbs resemble those of flightless birds; they walk - hop, really - on their three toes. Their front limbs are short and weak, although their tiny three-fingered hands are quite dextrous. Their necks extend upward like the stem of the fig, supporting a strangely long, upright jaw with three fleshy lips (two top, one bottom; imagine a cross between the upper lip of a Sullustan, only jowlier, and the bottom lip and jaw of one of the Martians from Sesame Street). Two nostrils perch above the upper jaw, and the head ends there; the eyes are on a pair of jointed, limb-like eyestalks mounted on the sides of the head. A thriddle can move his eyes apart or closer together to get a better sense of depth, but the two eyestalks cannot be focused independently. Thriddle have no external ears; several organs sensitive to vibration run along the back of the eyestalks and serve as auditory organs, giving a thriddle a greater depth of auditory field than most races. Finally, a pair of glandular organs known as "trid-nodes" perch on the thriddle's rump; the angle of the trid-nodes is the only obvious external signal of a thriddle's gender, as their genitalia are internal. Their skin is rubbery and slightly rough, and comes in shades of brown, purple, and red.
Thriddle are mostly to completely vegetarian; even those who eat fish and meat use it sparingly, as a flavoring. The staple of their diet is the grain known as codditch, but they supplement it with a number of other vegetables. They can eat most human crops, and have developed a fondness for barley-and-durlig soup. Thriddle living in human cities usually keep a stable of hirelings around - a bodyguard or two (thriddle are hopeless at fighting, although they are the race most likely, after the shanthas and the muadra, to be able to weave dyshas), and at least one querrid, to serve as a go-between from the thriddle to those who have information to buy or sell. You can be pretty sure a thriddle will not harm you, but trusting one often turns out to be a mistake - even the most loyal and true-hearted thriddle occasionally make stupid mistakes, like teaching the crugar the Lighting Bolt dysha.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-03-20 09:27 am (UTC)