Infernal Aliens

Beings not from Shem who have infernal or imperial powers.

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Delothian

Pink-skinned aliens attuned to confusion and chaos.

• Lifespan : 1,000 years
• Diet: Omnivore
• Habitat: Red desert
• Socioeconomic Status: Ruling class colonizers

Delothians are pink-skinned aliens from the planet Avagen (a few planets over from Shem). They stand about 7' tall, have long fingers, and domed heads. Their eyes are disproportionately small for their heads.

Delothians have the ability to fashion pink crystals from the red sands of Avagen (made of iron oxide); on Shem, they must find it elsewhere, though it is not uncommon. It can even be extracted from the blood of many species.

These crystals can control light to form illusions that baffle and confuse those who see them. This is used by the delothians to create mazes and strange landscapes to live in, but on Shem, they use them mostly within their homes for decoration.

Their home culture is extremely alien to people on Shem; they replicate it on Shem by keeping their buzzing "music", their illusory foods, and their xenophobic refusal to talk to non-delothians without being paid first. In the colonies, they are privileged elites, but they are still viewed as oddities.

Players who choose to be a delothian must be one who has lost their ruling class status and become a criminal.

PRO 8 ATH 8 STR 7 AWA 11 WIL 11 PRS 9 STH 8

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Inoxan

Floating beings with painful tentacles.

• Lifespan: 500 years
• Diet: Psionic energy
• Habitat: The jungles of Inoxuil
• Socioeconomic Status: Ruling class, but disliked

Inoxans appear to be floating membranes with long, thin tentacles, not unlike jellyfish, but with more features.

Inoxans float naturally in any atmosphere (or none at all). They are psionic beings, specifically powerful with ponometry, or the psionic ability to trigger pain receptors.

Inoxans thrive off the psionic energy harvested from those in pain. They have slaves from around the cosmos that they use for this purpose. They live in great empires of cruelty and conquest on Inoxuil, ruling over millions of enslaved people. They are feared throughout the solar system, hated by many, and seen even by other ruling class cultures as unnecessarily cruel. They are treated as visiting dignitaries when they are with other imperial or colonial cultures, but distrusted. They face no systemic barriers, but they do face general prejudice.

Some few inoxans are NOT ruling class and seek to recall their culture before the rise of the cruel tyrants who have erased all their past in favor of a fiction of conquest and evil. What they have found is that they once removed pain from other beings to help them, thriving off this, but some among them found they could gain more by inflicting the pain to harvest it instead. These rare, non-tyrannical inoxans are healers and therapists, but they try to hide what they are (usually very badly).

PRO 8 ATH 11 STR 4 AWA 14 WIL 14 PRS 6 STH 12

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Lutipariant

Alien puffballs who create pollution.

• Lifespan: 40 years
• Diet: Nature
• Habitat: Industrial areas
• Socioeconomic Status: Ruling class

They appear to be a puffball mushroom, though they are not at all related to fungi of any kind. Their coloration matches the environment they are in as a form of camouflage.

If their puffball is popped, toxic spores will be released that poison everything they touch, living or not.

Their poisonous spores befouls anything it touches. If what it touches is organic - alive or not - that material can potential develop into a new lutipariant. If it is not organic, it is still befouled, and the energy of industrial magic will infuse it. The consequences of this varies by material - hard steel, concrete, treated wood, or other produced materials will simply be toxic to the touch for others; natural materials like raw iron ore, unquarried stone, or living trees will be poisoned, weakened, and reduced to sludge.

Lutipariants dwell within industrial zones where they amplify the effects of the pollution there. As they wandered the universe, lutipariants sought worlds with enough polluted ground, air, and water for them to survive, but not enough that they would have nothing new to corrupt and eat.

Lutipariants generate new lutipariants, which they then use in order to generate more foulness, allowing themselves to eat. A new lutipariant has instant consciousness and awareness, but is weaker than an older lutipariant. The younger lutipariant either withers and dies as it is used to create food for its parent or it manages to steal enough of that food for itself and survives to break free and become an independent lutipariant.

In Lyfane on Shem, they have a symbiotic relationship with the ruling classes there, helping them generate industrial magic and sludge that is used to increase the output of their massive factories, create weaponry, and protect the properties of the tycoons. Their entire role is simply to feed off the destruction of Mother Shem and escalate it. Those who are on the moons have been brought there from Shem.

Though they thrive off corrupting and befouling nature, they are perfectly capable of surviving without it, living off detritus like an actual fungus, but they gain more power from industrialized wastes and fouling. They engage in this practice for power, not sustenance.

PRO 6 ATH 9 STR 11 AWA 11 WIL 11 PRS 1 STH 14

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Stragulian

NPC only

Alien eyes who watch from above.

• Lifespan: 400 years
• Diet: Energies
• Habitat: Upper orbit
• Socioeconomic Status: Ruling class

Stragulians are massive eyes, 5' in diameter, surrounded by a fleshy pod that has eyelids and nictating membranes within. They have antennae all over their pod.

Stragulians can see for thousands of miles, clearly and in great detail, in any direction, and they can then broadcast what they see via their antennae to anyone they wish. Their vision can penetrate clouds, dust, haze, and similar barriers. Their antennae also absorb energies to sustian them. They are immune to radiation, unaffected by pressure changes, and can adjust their internal temperature at will. They float in the upper orbit of any orbital body. If they descend into atmosphere or heavy gravity, they will be severely limited.

The stragulians around the moons have made an alliance with colonial powers. They previously only served themselves and were largely uninterested in the people below them, but they have in recent times become agents of the imperials. Some few have rejected this alliance and turn their eyes into the cosmos instead.

PRO 8 ATH 10 STR 12 AWA 30 WIL 10 PRS 4 STH 9

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Talithan

The people of the second empire.

• Lifespan: 150 years
• Diet: Omnivorous
• Habitat: Arid worlds
• Socioeconomic Status: Ruling class

Talithans appear to be human, but their skin is shimmering gold. They have a penchant for mechanical augmentations of their bodies.

A talithan has the ability to see and control the dreams of others, which they use to control the oppressed peoples of their worlds. They are especially skilled at sending nightmares. Powerful talithans can turn nightmare images into reality.

Talithans live on arid worlds, mostly deserts, mountains, dry savannas, and xeric shrublands. They have a powerful empire, which they refer to as "the second empire" (the first being the one on their original homeworld) that spans many planets across many systems. Their culture is one of complex political games, cruel enslavement, and a deep belief system in dreams, fate, and predestination. There are many who are also among the oppressed classes, however, who remember when they were simply followers of dreams who wanted nothing more than to see wonders.

Those who visit Shem usually claim to be there diplomatically or as visitors, tourists, or traders, but many assume them to be scouting for their eventual attempted conquest.

PRO 9 ATH 9 STR 7 AWA 10 WIL 12 PRS 9 STH 8

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Unist

Tentacled, isolated aliens.

• Lifespan : 1,000 years
• Diet: Energies
• Habitat: Deep space
• Socioeconomic Status: Ruling class colonizers or Oppressed

A unist appears to be a green-skinned, 5' tall, hairless being with mottled, bumpy skin and tentacles. They have 17 eyes in a random configuration on their bulbous heads. They have between one and 17 tentacles, and their lower bodies end in a stump. They move using their tentacles if they are not in deep space.

Unists are aliens from isolated parts of deep space. They have little to no understanding of community, friendship, or social interactions. While there are many who do take to social interactions and community when they experience it, some resent it and seek to gain power from inflicting isolation, loneliness, and despair on others.

Unists are immune to radiation (which they absorb as food) and cold and do not feel air pressure changes. They have the power to sense emotions, though they cannot sense what the emotions are. Instead, they sense that they exist and in what quantity, over great distances. If they are in the presence of another individual, they have the power to steal their sense of social connection via their tentacles. If they do this, they convert that to energy within themselves and gain new magical powers the more they do this, based on the people they have isolated.

As solitary beings, they have no culture or understanding of history or context. Each believes they are the only one of their kind, and when they meet another, they kill them. The remains of those they kill spawn new unists after a few hundred years of floating in space. Those who come to Shem either assimilate into the oppressed and become communal beings, giving up their tentacle powers, or they join the ruling class and seek to inflict isolation on the masses to help strengthen colonial or capitalist control.

PRO 9 ATH 9 STR 8 AWA 8 WIL 8 PRS 3 STH 7

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Validus

Four-armed conqueror aliens.

• Lifespan: 200 years
• Diet: Assimilated
• Habitat: Anywhere
• Socioeconomic Status: Ruling class colonizers

Validuses stand about 8' tall on average. They have four eyes set in their heads - the lower pair is glittering black and sees different energies, the upper pair are always blood red and see mundane light. Their skin ranges from dark blue to blue so light it is almost white. Their hair is always straight; "men" in their cultures tend to wear it shoulder length and "women" in their cultures wear it cropped short. Hair color ranges from red so dark it is almost black to orangish gold. They have four arms, which makes many think they are a kind of brannish, though the two species are completely unrelated. Atop their foreheads they have three antennae that have special senses. Their faces have finned flaps on the side, and their legs have silvery spines along the sides. Their backs are ridged and encrusted with bony plates.

On Shem, Amolian validuses often have bull horns, and these are the most common in Endruin.

All validuses are born with the ability to breathe any gas or liquid, as they have lungs and gills and an immunity to most mundane poisons and acids.

Validuses are beings of conquest. They take on powers and abilities that they steal from the subjugated locals. It does not matter if the individual validus took part in the conquest; if they live there, they benefit. Their powers will be based on the indigenous nations in the area, so it is as much cultural as biological. That is, if a nation of animal folk lived there when the land was conquered, the validuses will gain some animal-based powers, but if that nation culturally practiced arts that used, for example, d'qiarsea, the validuses living there would also gain powers derived from that energy.

Most validuses on Shem live in Furich Amol, the original land of minotaurs, so they have excellent combat abilities, great strength, and sometimes horns. The minotaurs fled south to Wymmera and live in diaspora, but some few remain as a slave race in Furich Amol. A validus who lives in a place that is not conquered by them will revert to their base form and powers, but if they are a citizen of a conquered land living in an unconquered place (or actively conquering a place), they will retain the powers of their homeland unless they separate from their homeland.

Validuses do not have to conquer lands. They do not have any need to gain these powers. In fact, they thrive without doing so, and oftentimes, they find their assimilated powers cause them odd problems - Amolian validuses, for example, get sick because they do not assimilate the minotaur's digestive system, but still find themselves drawn to a minotaur-esque diet of grain-fed meats.

The more power an individual validus has within their own society, the greater their conquered powers will be. Therefore, the Emperor of Furich Amol, Naman Rath, is almost invincible and a warrior of unbelievable skill with massive horns, while a validus enslaved in Furich Amol gains almost nothing.

If a validus is not of or from a culture of conquest, their base form and powers shift such that they can associate with any culture. They can take on cultural and biological powers just by living amongst others as themselves. This is extremely rare and can be broken if they are taken in by other validuses, who will cause them to revert to the culture of that group of validuses almost immediately, whether they like it or not. This is why validuses who escape their base culture are often captured and made slaves, in order to keep this secret.

Validuses have four extrasensory organs: their second pair of eyes and their three antennae. Their second pair of eyes sees esoteric light, depending on where and what they have conquered. Amolian validuses sense aetherial light because they dwell on the surface of Shem where those energies are most prominent, and they sense infernal and celestial light because those energies were once used by beings that dwelled in Furich Amol before they arrived.

Their antennae never change: the right one senses all forms of psionic energy. Their middle one senses mundane electromagnetic radiation and radio waves. Their left one senses danger.

Furich Amol is a major trading partner with the colonies. They are deeply aligned, especially in regards to the slave trade, so validuses are considered a major ruling class species. They are also viewed with fear by most oppressed species because of their history of conquest and their magical powers.

Their culture is one of dominance, conquest, and warfare, and thus, they are brought up to be warriors, bullies, and leaders. They are raised to believe in their own supremacy, in a patriarchal system of power, and in the rightness of enslaving others. They genuinely believe their species should rule the entire world.

PRO 11 ATH 10 STR 11 AWA 9 WIL 10 PRS 7 STH 7

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Zaurakian

Bringers of misfortune.

• Lifespan: 600 years
• Diet: Minerals
• Habitat: Colony ships
• Socioeconomic Status: Ruling class

Zaurakians appear to be conical aliens made of compressed, colorful pastel powders (the point of the cone is their heads). They hover a little above any ground they are on, and they have gleaming white marbles for eyes. They have insect-like arms.

Zaurakians are surrounded by an aura of misfortune that only affects non-Zaurakians. If their bodies are struck, they will erupt into a cloud of powder, then reconstitute, unless something disperses their powder forms. They hover above the ground at will, and they absorb moisture and cold instantaneously. They consume only powdered minerals.

Zaurakians lost their homeworld to a collision with another planet eons ago, and ever since, they have been space nomads seeking worlds to conquer and destroy. Their habit is to essentially pulverize worlds, consume them, and enslave their inhabitants. They fly through space in massive colony ships. Those few zaurakians who reject this culture are jettisoned into space.

Those who are on Shem are usually there as part of an ambassadorial away team. Long ago, the zaurakians learned not to try to attack the planets around Sol Angelos, losing a major war and many colony ships there, so now they work to try to ally themselves with other imperial powers in the system.

PRO 8 ATH 6 STR 9 AWA 9 WIL 8 PRS 5 STH 8