Alien Races

[AlexanderHowl]

I was just wondering if anyone was interested in sharing the alien races that they made for their games. I will share one of mine.

The T'var (The Dryads)

The T'var are an ancient sapient plant species that suffer from extreme sexual dimorphism. The female T'var are shockingly humanoid, to the point where they can enjoy sex with humans, and, while they are capable of limited rooting and photosynthesis, they evolved as mobile plants that consumed other plants and animals. The male T'var are sessile plants that can grow to over 10 meters in height during their lifespan and reproduce with the female T'var through producing 'fruit' that female T'var insert in their reproductive channels. Female T'var bear the resulting seed for three months before planting it in soil. Six months later, it either releases a female T'var baby or sprouts into a male T'var sapling.

The T'var control an interstellar polity of 2,000,000 stars within 500 ly of their home system. The female T'var handle everything while the male T'var contemplate the universe. With an average lifespan of 1600 years, T'var are capable of planning for the long term and are unimpressed by human civilization. With a TL(1+11)^ biotech civilization and paranormal abilities that defy human comprehension, the T'var are quite capable of keeping humans out of their space. They do allow limited trade, and female T'var do occasionally take human lovers of either sex when they become bored, but they do not allow permanent human habitation in their space. They understand that humans will be consumed by their technology and, when they are, the T'var will destroy the resulting Singularity, like they have every other time that it occurred in the Milky Way Galaxy over the last quarter billion years.

[ericthered]

The vote up a space opera alien submission thread had a lot of creatures I'm fond of.

But I'm always coming up with Science fiction Aliens, and I'm always happy to share them.

From my blog comes the Hawfax. The Hawfax are arboreal aliens around the size of racoons or large monkeys. They look something like a six limbed slow loris, though the four toothed tongues in the jawless max somewhat spoil the effect. They see in a different spectrum from humans, though not necessarily a better one. They have excellent smell but poor night vision.

Most of that blog series is about a specific scenario where the Hawfax (who have very modern sensibilities) land on earth in 1894 in the amazon rain forest and the reaction of the humans (who have decidedly non-modern sensibilities). The linked article is about their biology though, and the article on Hawfax City describes how arboreal might build a city.

[smurf]

Sens:
Sens are particular tall, extremely strong bald humanoids. They have large glowing eyes and a mouth filled with sharp teeth. All Sens are pitch black in colour and have very little in the way of distinguishing features. Their skin is fantastically tough to survive on their home world. Sens average in height of 12 to13 feet tall; their height also gives them an incredible reach.
There is no form of formal or informal dress. On their home world they are quite likely to be naked or wear skins of animals they have killed. Off world Sens tend to dress in whatever enlarged clothes of their adopted home. All Sens carry a white stick; those who do not carry this weapon will be challenged in a duel.

[smurf]

Deelleah

The Deelleah are tall and powerful humanoids. They do not have any protruding ears or noses. They have quite a large jaw line and powerful teeth. Their skin has hard scales and eyes have a second eyelid. Deelleah skin colour varies from green to brown. Their height is peculiar because they continue to grow throughout their entire lives; they can easily be twice their height at death than when they were at maturity.

Deelleah do not have clothes as such but straps and sashes with pouches on them. They prefer quick drying materials because of their aquatic nature. Therefore, pockets, pouches, and bags need to be water tight. Many Deelleah prefer to add extensions or include variable size loops to their clothing to make it last a bit longer.

[smurf]

Esti

Esti are a peculiar race made from bio-engineering. Their heads have hair and their jaws are large and square. They have small protruding ears and nose with lizard slit eyes with a nictitating membrane. Surprisingly they have large upper canine teeth and large ‘tomb stone’ teeth, also their nails are blunt claws. Their skinny frames stand over long legs between a height of 5’7” to 6’4” with a muscular prehensile 7’ tail running into an slightly enlarged spine. Their skin is scaly and also quite tanned, depending on their mood their eye and hair colour can change.

Most Esti dress in split skirts with tight shirts, there is currently a preference to boots. There is little physical difference between the genders and therefore no specific gender clothing. It is normal for their tails not to be covered. Many prefer to roller skate from place to place.

[khorboth]

I once created a REALLY alien race which was comprised of coherent heat.

They were approximately 2-4 feet in diameter and roughly spherical. Nearly invisible to the naked eye, they showed up as cold spots on IR cameras because they didn't allow heat to escape.

Interaction with humans was difficult at best and communication generally nearly impossible. They seemed to communicate using minute changes of shape and small bursts of temperature variation. They gained energy in the form of ambient heat and had some mechanism for keeping it contained which scientists hadn't managed to fathom. Internal temperatures tended to run from 1k-10k Fahrenheit with older creatures being hotter as they had fed more. The creatures had little respect for personal space and would accidentally cause severe burns.

In retrospect, the science really doesn't hold up, but the novelty factor is high.

[DakkaBoyzRool]

The Xor'Rak.

Big, bulky insectoid-looking xenos. About a good 8 feet tall on average, bipedal with arms like exoskeletal tree trunks. 3 claws for fingers on each hand, eyeless wedge-shaped heads with a mouth like 5 crab mouths stacked on top of each other. Blind, find their way around with very powerful echolocation that they also use to communicate. Always give off loud "static" noise even when staying still. Biggest and oldest ones can grow to around 20 feet tall if they're lucky.

Usually live and travel in hordes of millions, hunting herds of billions of prey creatures. Can communicate over huge distances. Evolved on a very flat, very old world with mostly tundra and steppe-equivalent. Tend to stay on their own worlds unless they're on a warpath, where the entire race decides to collectively start building ships and migrate in a random direction to find new worlds to settle and attack any inhabited worlds in their way. Bring their herds with them to settle down somewhere once the warpath dies down and they find a planet with enough empty space and grazing for them.

Tech is as advanced as the rest of the galaxies' races, it just looks like its' been cobbled together out of scrap and duct tape. Tends to be more spiky than is probably necessary. Writing system is like if someone was trying to write in braille but was drunk on cheap vodka while doing it. Mostly consists of punching holes in sheets of metal with their claws, but the placement and size of the holes matters greatly. They choose their leaders among the oldest of the horde, not necessarily the biggest.

They take a lot of slaves among the other races, mainly for food when they're on a warpath when they haven't set up their herds yet. The slaves are usually just tied together and expected to keep up with the horde or be dragged along to their deaths. Not many slaves tend to survive. The Xor'Rak also have a helper race which humans call "Scrappers", but they usually live behind the front lines so humanity doesn't have much real information on them, like their real names. The scrappers look like much smaller, thinner and lither versions of their Xor'Rak brethren; the "Goblins" to their "Orcs", of you will. They're either the young or a subspecies of the Xor'Rak, and tend to and maintain their tech; they don't seem to make it outright, however.

The Xor'Rak are impossible to negotiate with when they're on a warpath, and tend to isolate themselves from galactic affairs when not, so diplomacy with them is usually seen as a wasted effort, as is the norm with the non-human factions of the galaxy that humanity hasn't already wiped out. They control a sizeable territory in the southern galaxy, and their warpaths either tend to fizzle out after being met with sufficient resistance or peter out themselves if they are directed towards relatively sparse areas of the galaxy. Offensive actions against Xor'Rak held worlds run the risk of triggering a warpath early, so most actions against them are defensive in nature.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by khorboth

I once created a REALLY alien race which was comprised of coherent heat.

They were approximately 2-4 feet in diameter and roughly spherical. Nearly invisible to the naked eye, they showed up as cold spots on IR cameras because they didn't allow heat to escape.

Interaction with humans was difficult at best and communication generally nearly impossible. They seemed to communicate using minute changes of shape and small bursts of temperature variation. They gained energy in the form of ambient heat and had some mechanism for keeping it contained which scientists hadn't managed to fathom. Internal temperatures tended to run from 1k-10k Fahrenheit with older creatures being hotter as they had fed more. The creatures had little respect for personal space and would accidentally cause severe burns.

In retrospect, the science really doesn't hold up, but the novelty factor is high.

If you have the right gear, communication is quite possible. You just need to have a camera with some odd settings to listen to them. Talking back seems like it would mostly require a specialized TV screen. Sure, it will "sound" like a voice synthesizer does to us, but that's hardly unusual for alien communication.



They sound like a really good candidate for a star-trek style first contact mission.

[ericthered]

Rotaliths, Vensuvians, or Starfish Aliens


An old favorite of mine, these creatures should really be viewed as a clade rather than as a single species. Rotaliths are radial creatures that look a great deal like over-sized starfish. they have 5 legs and 5 arms, with the legs being large and sturdy, and the arms ending in "hands" featuring three opposable digits. They are fairly flat creatures, slung low to the ground. Many Eyes are found symmetrically placed in their bodies, though they do not look much like eyes to most observers. Rotaliths are very tough, but very slow, being partially silicon based. They also live a long time, and can survive and heal from nasty injuries. They prefer echolocation for navigation and also use high pitched sound for communication.



The founders of the clade, known as Vensuvians, originated in a hot, high pressure environment. When they arrived in the solar system, they sought out possession of venus as their equivalent of an "Ocean" world for terraforming. They have been able to cooperate well with terrestial races, as competition for resources is low, and each species has access to radically different manufacturing techniques.



The rotalith design appears to be fairly easy to tweak, based on the number of genegeneered designs. Most designs humans encounter have been adapted to live in exotic environments. Asteroid and Icy body designs appear to be the most common, designed as laborers in space, but a terrestial design has been made to operate in the same pressure-temperature zone as humans (roughly, all designs seem to have massive pressure and temperature tolerances), and a deep ocean mod has been spotted as well.



The tweaked designs seem to have compromised on mental capacity. The laborers seem to be second class citizens of a sort. Different groups care for their less mentally adept differently. Some are little more than slaves, while others are treated as full citizens.

[doctorevilbrain]

What does partially Silicon based mean?