[Space] [Templates] Really Alien Aliens II: Empire of Pain

SydneyFreedberg · 08-12-2022, 12:10 PM

Teceti
Small, skittish rodent-like beings with keen hearing and a nose for business

Description:

Spoiler:

Adaptable and inventive capitalists, the Teceti are one of the species which flourished under Trinoc rule and carved out an empire of their own in the ruins of the Trinocs. But they were poor warriors and made the mistake of enslaving the Fomori to fight their battles for them. Today, the vast majority of Teceti — over 80% — are slaves to the Fomori, albeit often high-status slaves who manage the imperial economy for their masters or who serve as elite scouts.
Teceti are short, furry creatures — about 4’ — with two legs, two arms, a long-snout, and a striking resemblance to Earth rats. However they are tailless, with six small black eyes and two enormous ears. They have extraordinary hearing and a fine sense for vibrations, and their vision is nearly as good in the dark as in daylight, although they see poorly at any distance. They evolved as arboreal, nocturnal herbivores, hiding up trees to avoid predators and avoiding violent conflict wherever possible. They particularly favored vast, dark forests that, because of their homeworld’s highly elliptical orbit, suffered long and brutal winters. To survive the cold months, the Teceti’s ancestors developed strong instincts for acquiring and hoarding food.
These food stores became central to Teceti culture. Teceti practice sexual reproduction and strong but not lifelong pair bonding, with females giving live birth to tiny, helpless young that need years of care and feeding from both parents. As a result, both males and females instinctively appraise potential mates first and foremost on their ability to provide food for the long winter.
The ancestral Teceti were much like Earth squirrels hiding acorns, but as they became more intelligent they learned to build elaborate storehouses, then to practice agriculture to ensure a stable supply of food, then to make tools, and then to keep records of what they had stored. The Teceti swiftly developed a market economy and mastered banking before iron. Merchantile republics, with voting rights linked to property, became the dominant form of government, competing constantly with one another through trade but only rarely through violence.
The Teceti had reached the Iron Age when they were first contacted by the Trinocs. Fortunately, by that time the Trinoc Empire had evolved out of its initial spasm of genocide and decided to systematically incorporate intelligent species as vassal races. The Teceti proved able economists and merchants, and their love of wealth made them enthusiastic servants of the Empire. By the time the Trinoc Empire collapsed, Teceti effectively managed the economy of the spinward provinces and swiftly took those areas over entirely, reducing their former masters to slaves.
However, many of the Trinocs’ vassal species made bids for empire as the Trinocs’ collapsed, and the Teceti soon found themselves at war with several rivals. The Teceti tried to emphasize trade within the former empire and peaceful colonization beyond it, but they remained inextricably locked in a generations-long conflict with the unimaginative but determined Spitslugs, whom the Trinocs had settled as workers on many of the same worlds where the Teceti managed trade. Appalled by the cost of the conflict and reluctant to risk their own lives, the desperate Teceti turned to mercenaries. At first they employed other former vassals of the Trinocs, especially species that had served as slave-soldiers. But the wars continued to go poorly — and then Teceti explorers discovered the Fomori. Here was a race of born warriors who had no modern technology of their own and whose loyalty could be ensured, not with money, but by torturing them.
With their new Fomori warriors, the Teceti Republic turned the tide of war. But as the Fomori rapidly grew in numbers, technological sophistication, and influence in Teceti strategic councils, the warrior species lost respect for its timorous, merchantile masters. The Fomori gradually gained more and more power, eventually taking over the entire Teceti military. Finally, after the final conquest of the Spitslugs, the Fomori generals staged a bloodless coup and converted the Teceti Republic into the Fomori Empire. Millions of Teceti managed to flee, joining a diaspora of Teceti who had settled in small trading communities on worlds ruled by other races across the former Trinoc Empire, and a steady trickle of refugees from Fomori rule continues to this day. But most Teceti live under Fomori rule, in constant fear of being tortured or, worse, pillaged of their property. Only on a handful of worlds do Teceti rule themselves: Mostly they live as outsiders on other races’ world, economically invaluable but little loved.

[EDIT: The template below has been extensively revised — click here to read the latest version.]

~~Teceti (16 points)~~

Spoiler:

SydneyFreedberg · 08-12-2022, 12:11 PM

Spitslugs
Dull-witted, acid-spitting invertebrates with superb fine-motor skills

Description:

Spoiler:

Spitslugs are the most numerous slave race of the Fomori Empire, performing every kind of artisanal and technical work with their dextrous tentacles. A few — perhaps 10% of the race’s total population — live outside Fomori rule, most of them also working as technicians.
Spitslugs resemble Earth slugs, with two prominent eyestalks and long, vermiform bodies; like all animals on their planet, they are invertebrates. They do, however, have limbs: ten short tentacles, arranged in two sets of five on either side of the forebody, which collectively give the average Spitslug the grasping ability of a two-armed creature but with much greater fine-motor control. This “manual” dexterity, a tremendous physical resilience, and sheer stubborn determination are the race’s primary assets.
However, Spitslugs have poor large-motor skills, lower average intelligence than most sapient species, and by some measures less imagination than any other starfaring race. Until they made contact with other sapients, Splitslugs had no concept of humor, fiction, or deliberate falsehood, and they still struggle with these concepts. Most scholars attribute these traits to the lack of competition on the Spitslug homeworld, where few animals were faster or larger, and none more intelligent.
Spitslugs are omnivores, whose jungle ancestors got most of their meat by scavenging; their ability to shoot acid probably evolved to drive rival scavengers away from choice carcasses. Spitslugs have two sexes, but with negligible differences between them. The females give live birth to tiny young, a few inches long and totally blind, who require even more care than infant humans and spend most of their early years riding on the backs of adult relatives. Spitslugs naturally live in tribal bands of 20 to 50 members, whose members mate more or less indiscriminately among themselves and raise their young collectively.
The Spitslugs were stone-age hunter-gatherer-scavengers when the Trinoc Empire made contact with them. Fortunately, it was late enough in Trinoc history for the Empire to have largely given up on genocide and learned to exploit intelligent species as thralls instead. The Trinocs were impressed by the Spitslugs’ dexterous tentacles, doggedness, and lack of any imagination to make trouble, so they bred them as workers, taught them technology, and spread them throughout the spinward provinces of the Empire. The Spitslugs were grateful to be lifted out of their uncertain pre-agricultural existence and revered their new masters’ intelligence and creativity.
But other subject races looked down on the Spitslugs, who resented them in return — especially the Teceti, a clever, rodent-like race that effectively ran the economy in the spinward region and ruthlessly exploited Spitslug labor. When Trinoc rule began to fragment, the Spitslugs stayed loyal longer than most other subject species. When the Trinoc’s slave soldiers had all rebelled, many Spitslugs took up arms to defend their masters — especially against the Teceti, who were now trying to carve out an empire of their own. Only when the last vestiges of Trinoc government collapsed completely did the Spitslugs reluctantly create their own interstellar state, and even then they retained the region’s remaining Trinocs as advisors.
The Spitslug Empire and its Trinoc allies consolidated control of a sizable region of the old Trinoc territories and gradually pushed back the Teceti Republic over generations of brutal attrition, the slugs’ bloody-minded determination outweighing the rodents’ cleverness and wealth. With the Spitslugs stubbornly refusing to make peace, the increasingly desperate Teceti turned to Fomori mercenaries. The Fomori soon conquered the Spitslugs, who numbly accepted defeat and submitted to their new masters — who then turned on the Teceti.
Today, the Spitslugs and Teceti play largely the same roles under the Fomori as they once did under the Trinocs: skilled laborers and merchants respectively, resenting one another but forced to collaborate by their common overlords.

[EDIT: The template below has been extensively revised — click here for the latest version]
~~Spitslug (30 points)~~

Spoiler:

Pursuivant · 08-12-2022, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SydneyFreedberg

Spitslugs

If the species is described as being invertebrates, why don't they have the Invertebrate disadvantage? (Admittedly, GURPS misuses the term, but it might be appropriate.)

If they're slug-like, they might have the Cold-Blooded disadvantage.

If they've got slug-like feeding mechanisms, they might have the Slow Eater disadvantage, or a weaker version as a Quirk.

They might also have reduced Move or Basic Speed.

Racial Will and Per might be boosted to 10.

Their Innate Attack makes them extremely dangerous in melee combat. Putting the Limited Uses limitation on it makes them much less effective.

Pursuivant · 08-12-2022, 03:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SydneyFreedberg

Teceti

The racial Reputation seems a bit extreme for what is now a marginalized species. The bad reputation might be a function of racial greed.

Individual Teceti will need to develop positive Reputations to overcome their racial Reputation.

They might have a Racial Talent (Administration, Climbing, Merchant, Stealth, Survival (Arctic)).

Night Vision -9 seems a bit generous. Given their background, they might have a Racial Feature of Night Vision balanced by an equal penalty to deal with bright light.

Clinging would be a logical choice if they're still fully arboreal. Alternately, consider this house-rules version of Brachiator.

Phobia (Agorophobia) seems like a likely optional trait.

Mental disadvantages such as Compulsive Behavior (Hoarding), Obsession, or Paranoia seem like possible optional disadvantages. Likewise, advantages like Absolute Direction, Higher Purpose, Lightning Calculator/Intuitive Mathematician, and Single-Minded might work well as optional traits.

In an ultratech setting, Bad Sight might be correctable allowing a Mitigator limitation.

08-12-2022, 12:10 PM	#1
SydneyFreedberg Join Date: May 2019	Re: [Space] [Templates] Really Alien Aliens II: Empire of Pain Teceti Small, skittish rodent-like beings with keen hearing and a nose for business Description: Spoiler: Adaptable and inventive capitalists, the Teceti are one of the species which flourished under Trinoc rule and carved out an empire of their own in the ruins of the Trinocs. But they were poor warriors and made the mistake of enslaving the Fomori to fight their battles for them. Today, the vast majority of Teceti — over 80% — are slaves to the Fomori, albeit often high-status slaves who manage the imperial economy for their masters or who serve as elite scouts. Teceti are short, furry creatures — about 4’ — with two legs, two arms, a long-snout, and a striking resemblance to Earth rats. However they are tailless, with six small black eyes and two enormous ears. They have extraordinary hearing and a fine sense for vibrations, and their vision is nearly as good in the dark as in daylight, although they see poorly at any distance. They evolved as arboreal, nocturnal herbivores, hiding up trees to avoid predators and avoiding violent conflict wherever possible. They particularly favored vast, dark forests that, because of their homeworld’s highly elliptical orbit, suffered long and brutal winters. To survive the cold months, the Teceti’s ancestors developed strong instincts for acquiring and hoarding food. These food stores became central to Teceti culture. Teceti practice sexual reproduction and strong but not lifelong pair bonding, with females giving live birth to tiny, helpless young that need years of care and feeding from both parents. As a result, both males and females instinctively appraise potential mates first and foremost on their ability to provide food for the long winter. The ancestral Teceti were much like Earth squirrels hiding acorns, but as they became more intelligent they learned to build elaborate storehouses, then to practice agriculture to ensure a stable supply of food, then to make tools, and then to keep records of what they had stored. The Teceti swiftly developed a market economy and mastered banking before iron. Merchantile republics, with voting rights linked to property, became the dominant form of government, competing constantly with one another through trade but only rarely through violence. The Teceti had reached the Iron Age when they were first contacted by the Trinocs. Fortunately, by that time the Trinoc Empire had evolved out of its initial spasm of genocide and decided to systematically incorporate intelligent species as vassal races. The Teceti proved able economists and merchants, and their love of wealth made them enthusiastic servants of the Empire. By the time the Trinoc Empire collapsed, Teceti effectively managed the economy of the spinward provinces and swiftly took those areas over entirely, reducing their former masters to slaves. However, many of the Trinocs’ vassal species made bids for empire as the Trinocs’ collapsed, and the Teceti soon found themselves at war with several rivals. The Teceti tried to emphasize trade within the former empire and peaceful colonization beyond it, but they remained inextricably locked in a generations-long conflict with the unimaginative but determined Spitslugs, whom the Trinocs had settled as workers on many of the same worlds where the Teceti managed trade. Appalled by the cost of the conflict and reluctant to risk their own lives, the desperate Teceti turned to mercenaries. At first they employed other former vassals of the Trinocs, especially species that had served as slave-soldiers. But the wars continued to go poorly — and then Teceti explorers discovered the Fomori. Here was a race of born warriors who had no modern technology of their own and whose loyalty could be ensured, not with money, but by torturing them. With their new Fomori warriors, the Teceti Republic turned the tide of war. But as the Fomori rapidly grew in numbers, technological sophistication, and influence in Teceti strategic councils, the warrior species lost respect for its timorous, merchantile masters. The Fomori gradually gained more and more power, eventually taking over the entire Teceti military. Finally, after the final conquest of the Spitslugs, the Fomori generals staged a bloodless coup and converted the Teceti Republic into the Fomori Empire. Millions of Teceti managed to flee, joining a diaspora of Teceti who had settled in small trading communities on worlds ruled by other races across the former Trinoc Empire, and a steady trickle of refugees from Fomori rule continues to this day. But most Teceti live under Fomori rule, in constant fear of being tortured or, worse, pillaged of their property. Only on a handful of worlds do Teceti rule themselves: Mostly they live as outsiders on other races’ world, economically invaluable but little loved. [EDIT: The template below has been extensively revised — click here to read the latest version.] ~~Teceti (16 points)~~ Spoiler: Attributes (+0) SM -1 ST -3 [-30] DX +1 [+20] IQ +1 [+20] HT -2 [-20] Advantages: Acute Hearing +5 (+10) Discriminatory Hearing (+15) Eidetic Memory (+5) Night Vision +9 (+9) Perfect Balance [+15] Vibration Sense [+10] Fur (+1) Reputation: master merchants (+3 with capitalists; -3 with anti-capitalists) [0] Disadvantages: Bad Sight: nearsighted [-25] Fearfulness x2 [-4] Greed [-15] Racially Learned Skills: Climbing @ DX [2] Racial Skill Bonus:: Climbing @ +1 [2] Common optional traits: These traits are NOT part of the racial template but are included as suggestions for individual characters Wealth [varies] Perception [+5/level] Lightning Calculator [+5] Talent: Business Acumen [10/level] Versatile [+5] Cowardice (self-control 12) [-10] Additional Fearfulness [-2/level] Gluttony (12) [-5] Miserliness (self-control 12) [-10] Pacifism: Reluctant Killer [-5] Diaspora Teceti: Social Stigma: Minority [-10] Teceti from the Fomori Empire: Subjugated (-20) -or- Enemy: former masters [varies] Last edited by SydneyFreedberg; 08-29-2022 at 02:37 PM.

08-12-2022, 12:11 PM	#2
SydneyFreedberg Join Date: May 2019	Re: [Space] [Templates] Really Alien Aliens II: Empire of Pain Spitslugs Dull-witted, acid-spitting invertebrates with superb fine-motor skills Description: Spoiler: Spitslugs are the most numerous slave race of the Fomori Empire, performing every kind of artisanal and technical work with their dextrous tentacles. A few — perhaps 10% of the race’s total population — live outside Fomori rule, most of them also working as technicians. Spitslugs resemble Earth slugs, with two prominent eyestalks and long, vermiform bodies; like all animals on their planet, they are invertebrates. They do, however, have limbs: ten short tentacles, arranged in two sets of five on either side of the forebody, which collectively give the average Spitslug the grasping ability of a two-armed creature but with much greater fine-motor control. This “manual” dexterity, a tremendous physical resilience, and sheer stubborn determination are the race’s primary assets. However, Spitslugs have poor large-motor skills, lower average intelligence than most sapient species, and by some measures less imagination than any other starfaring race. Until they made contact with other sapients, Splitslugs had no concept of humor, fiction, or deliberate falsehood, and they still struggle with these concepts. Most scholars attribute these traits to the lack of competition on the Spitslug homeworld, where few animals were faster or larger, and none more intelligent. Spitslugs are omnivores, whose jungle ancestors got most of their meat by scavenging; their ability to shoot acid probably evolved to drive rival scavengers away from choice carcasses. Spitslugs have two sexes, but with negligible differences between them. The females give live birth to tiny young, a few inches long and totally blind, who require even more care than infant humans and spend most of their early years riding on the backs of adult relatives. Spitslugs naturally live in tribal bands of 20 to 50 members, whose members mate more or less indiscriminately among themselves and raise their young collectively. The Spitslugs were stone-age hunter-gatherer-scavengers when the Trinoc Empire made contact with them. Fortunately, it was late enough in Trinoc history for the Empire to have largely given up on genocide and learned to exploit intelligent species as thralls instead. The Trinocs were impressed by the Spitslugs’ dexterous tentacles, doggedness, and lack of any imagination to make trouble, so they bred them as workers, taught them technology, and spread them throughout the spinward provinces of the Empire. The Spitslugs were grateful to be lifted out of their uncertain pre-agricultural existence and revered their new masters’ intelligence and creativity. But other subject races looked down on the Spitslugs, who resented them in return — especially the Teceti, a clever, rodent-like race that effectively ran the economy in the spinward region and ruthlessly exploited Spitslug labor. When Trinoc rule began to fragment, the Spitslugs stayed loyal longer than most other subject species. When the Trinoc’s slave soldiers had all rebelled, many Spitslugs took up arms to defend their masters — especially against the Teceti, who were now trying to carve out an empire of their own. Only when the last vestiges of Trinoc government collapsed completely did the Spitslugs reluctantly create their own interstellar state, and even then they retained the region’s remaining Trinocs as advisors. The Spitslug Empire and its Trinoc allies consolidated control of a sizable region of the old Trinoc territories and gradually pushed back the Teceti Republic over generations of brutal attrition, the slugs’ bloody-minded determination outweighing the rodents’ cleverness and wealth. With the Spitslugs stubbornly refusing to make peace, the increasingly desperate Teceti turned to Fomori mercenaries. The Fomori soon conquered the Spitslugs, who numbly accepted defeat and submitted to their new masters — who then turned on the Teceti. Today, the Spitslugs and Teceti play largely the same roles under the Fomori as they once did under the Trinocs: skilled laborers and merchants respectively, resenting one another but forced to collaborate by their common overlords. [EDIT: The template below has been extensively revised — click here for the latest version] ~~Spitslug (30 points)~~ Spoiler: Attributes: DX-2 [-40] IQ -1 [-20] HT +2 [20] Secondary Characteristic Modifiers: Will +3 [+15] Basic Move -2 [-10] Extra Hit Points x5 [+10] Advantages: 360 Vision (eyestalks) [20] Arm DX (both arms) x3 [48] Fearlessness x1 [+2] Fit: Very Fit [15] Flexibility [5] High Manual Dexterity x2 [10] High Pain Threshold [10] Injury Tolerance: No Neck [5] Innate Attack: Corrosion 2d (Jet; Low Signature; Takes Recharge: 5 seconds) [20] Nictating Membrane x2 [2] Universal Digestion [5] Disadvantages: Odious Racial Habit: eat carrion & garbage [-10] Short Arms x2 [-10] Chummy [-5] Hard of Hearing [-10] Hidebound [-5] Incurious (self-control 12) [-5] Invertebrate [-20] No Sense of Humor [-10] No legs: slithers [0] Sense of Duty: baby Spitslugs [-5] Truthfulness [-5] Weak Bite [-2] Reputation: Trinoc & Fomorian lackeys (-3, almost everyone but Trinocs and Fomori; +4, Trinocs & Fomori) [0] Taboo Traits: Charisma, Empathy, Talent:Smooth Operator, Squeamish Common optional traits: These traits are NOT part of the racial template but are included as suggestions for individual characters Additional Fearlessness [2/level] Single-Minded [5] Talent: Artificer [10/level] Unfazeable [15] Callous [-5] Clueless [-10] Gullibility [-10] Honesty [-10] Incurious with lower self-control [varies] Oblivious [-5] Selfless [-5] Stubbornness [-5] Diaspora Spitslugs: Social Stigma: Minority [-10] Spitslugs from the Fomori Empire: Subjugated (-20) -or- Enemy: former masters [varies] Last edited by SydneyFreedberg; 08-29-2022 at 02:49 PM. Reason: Linked to revised version.