Resource The Fanon Thread

The following fanon foods have been selected to boost Yav and Ysanne's picnic, in the OTP challenge:
Tepasi flatbread (created by @Daneira )
Shiny pink vacuum flask of boontaspice-flavoured kahve (joint-developed by @leiamoody, @Chyntuck ) - based on flavoured Turkish coffee.
Taba oolleh – a salad made of taba leaves from the planet of Ool (inspired from RL tabbouleh) (created by @Chyntuck )

 

Just wondering: if you are introducing a species that's spread over many planets with different cultures do people think it's a good idea to give some short examples of those planets and how the species culture differ on each world or is it just enough to say that theyare spread over many planets with different cultures without any examples?

------------------------

Also, my planet Koa-Moa, from the Lahara sector post, has been used by @WarmNyota_SweetAyesha in his/her(?) "On the Brink of Something Special" story. Did you want to know this here or by PM @FanonSock ? Or had I misunderstood that?

 

------------------------
I don't think there is any need for examples. You can give a couple of examples if you want.

 

This is from the handouts from my current Star Wars D20 game. I hope you guys enjoy them. They were written up by Lobot, who turns out is remarkably chatty in text.

Barnabus Brandt-Ni'Colens

Barnabus Brandt-Ni'Colens is a former Serenno nobleman who lost his title and most of the Colensport Family Fortune in the wake of the Galactic Civil War. Accused of being a worshiper of the Dark Side and other unseemly habits, he was noted to have survived numerous assassination attempts including being shot with a blaster, impaled with a lightsaber, hung from a comm tower, and being in an exploding starfighter. Barnabus founded a mining consortium which worked in the Unknown Regions and was in the red to the tune of gigaplexes credits and no recorded ore findings. [Translation: He was financed by Imperial loyalists and bought massive amounts of planet-stripping mining material]

Later, he founded a failed shipping business with the idea of building commercial luxury yacht shipping before it was destroyed by terrorists. [Note: Bantha fodder.] He notably imported several million replacement parts for every piece necessary to construct a capital shipyard. Standard operating procedure is to have a few hundred on hand. Also, he was able to pay for all this. He is considered a poor, sad, failed businessman constantly on the lookout for new investors. [Translation: He is disgustingly wealthy and regularly meets with new investors on Canto Bight where they launder their arms trafficking money.]

Barnabus has an acute medical condition that requires him to have regular infusions of blood from humanoid sapients.

Carolyn Ni'Colens

Barnabus Ni'Colin's grandaughter and First Order pin-up girl, Carolyn Ni'Colens served the mandatory for years of enlistment in the First Order [Note: The public First Order consists of 8 Sectors of Outer Rim hellholes, the private one's size is unknown] before joining the intersystem racing circuit. Known as the Terror of the TIE and "Officer Stand at Attention" [Note: Obviously, a dirty joke for sapients with the appropriate parts-keeping it classy, FO], she has won numerous contests across the setting while providing the warm and friendly face of the First Order's numerous civilian reconstruction efforts as well as its allied corporations like Voltzspieder and Fnord.

Carolyn's actual politics are unknown but it is suspected she doesn't know her father intends to defect. Several of her victories in races across the galaxy are suspicious and some believe she may have FIB officers assisting her in her pit droid crew.

PEACE AND LOVE INDUSTRIES

The on the nasal passage named organization is the primary contractor for the First Order that the vast majority of the Ni'Colens family activity is smuggling/trading/dealing through. It has absolutely nothing to do with military supplies and imports stuff like farm equipment, industrial machinery, and basic military rations plus large amounts of assembling droids. Nothing resembling weapons but plenty you can use to make weapons or settle worlds or strip-mine or terror-farm worlds [Note: which I didn't know was a thing until I looked it up. The Empire can actually make farming evil.].

They also are a sub-contractor for the disposal of ordinance on Jakku. They buy scrap metal publicly, you know the kind that are needed to assemble starships from. The organization does many a holo-op about giving poor unfortunate human worlds relief efforts as well as exciting education and job opportunities. [Translation: They recruit heavily from these worlds, including taking unwanted young sapients, and the subjects are almost never seen again. Even so, they have a never ending supply--nonhumans need not apply, near-humans can clean freshers].

Gallius Rax

* This is fanon only as history for Rax in my game world.

Galliux Rax was an 8 year old boy who stowed away on then-Chancellor Sheev Palpatine's space shuttle. Apparently, he'd murdered another boy to keep quiet during the journey and Palpatine paid for his education at COMPNOR (then the newly created Committee for the Preservation of the Republic) university on Coruscant. He was then given a Fleet Admiral's rank after graduation with no military experience at age 18. Notably, his degree at the University was not even a Doctorate or Journeyman's but a Journeyman's in Art and Religious History.

Gallius Rax's declassified Imperial career consisted of going around the galaxy looting museums, exterminating religions, destroying cultural relics to the Jedi Knights, and eradicating Force traditions. A comparatively light war criminal despite the deep psychological damage he left on worlds and sapients, Galliux Rax was not a high value target when he ended up inheriting the galaxy from the Emperor. He had a complete set of Palpatine's master control codes that allowed him to take over the ISB and Compnor (who had its entire leadership die at a banquet thanks to bad Calamuttati).

The Raxian faction of the ISB took Grand Vizier Mas Amedda hostage and Gallius ran the Empire into the ground after six months. Gallius Rax did, however, dispose of vast amounts of Imperial war material and destroyed uncountable numbers of records except for the ones on Naboo. No one knows what happened to large amounts of Palpatine's fleets, storehouses, and victims as a result of his actions. Apparently, he was killed on Jakku according to local sources by his only appointee, Grand Admiral Sloane ("Mother of the First Order").

The Counselor to the Empire was 30 when he perished.

The Sienar Madre II

Galliux Rax never intended to win the Battle of Jakku and expended billions of soldiers lives in a pointless holding action that was designed merely to maximize the number of casualties the New Republic would sustain. [Note: The war was lost here as the Empire stood guard over a useless planet while the New Republic reinforced their forces with new ships every day]. What he did do was steal choice bits from the storehouses of Emperor Palpatine on Jakku in two Mon Calamari 80 luxury yachts (irony was Gallius' specialty) slave-rigged to Emperor Palpatine's private yacht.

The Sienar Madre I was taken with Grand Admiral Sloane and since that time massive numbers of cultural artifacts, Corusca stones, life crystals, and priceless works of art have been covertly auctioned off or returned to the owners for First Order points. These include the Crown Jewels of Dubrillon, a Jedi Holocron, the Flame Sculpture of Oswind, and the Tears of Alderaan (Leia was FURIOUS at the collector for this). Also, the frozen in carbonite form of King Beebo the Flaboo singer plus his missing master holos for "Rock around the Chrono" and "Heartbreak in Hosnian." Beebo's currently on his 14th tour since being defrosted and his third divorce. Beebo notably claims that he was on the Sienar Madre I and managed to survive First Order retaliation. Because he's the King of Flaboo, dammit.

The Sienar Madre II is the source of many people seeking its wealth and it is a galactic legend but it has remained lost this entire time. It is assumed its contents would be every bit as valuable as the originals and could be the source of incalculable wealth. The First Order has sent many archaeologists to try to recover it but none have had any luck and the Republic reprimanded them severely for such (they claimed it was their duty to help return Imperial-stolen artifacts to the public).

 

Ah, for the Fanon Indexing Project, right? Then yes, please do send it by PM to this sock, as that will help me with record keeping. Though I see I have a new PM from you already, so I'll check that out in a moment...

(I know I still have to do something useful with the data I collected in that indexing project—if anyone has any ideas or thoughts about that, just let me know.)

And once again, for everyone here: I can't stress enough that if you post new fanon here, you need to please PM THIS SOCK with a link so that I can keep track of it and add it to the index. (I am indeed looking at you, @Charlemagne19, but not just— @Sith-I-5 , I'm glad to announce those new foodstuffs, etc., if you just send me a PM with the relevant link.)

Thank you all!

 

Sock again here, announcing some updates:

• @Gamiel has a new post on
  Planets in the Mandalorian Sector.
• Gamiel has also changed the title of his original Mandalorians post to Some Fanon Regarding Mandalorians (since the information about the planets in the sector has been moved to its own post, linked above).
• He has also updated Species of the Unknown Regions.
• @Sith-I-5 fixed an out-of-focus image in his S.P.A.G.E.T.T.I. posts.
• Sith-I-5 has also updated his Foodstuffs and Drink post.

Anything else, just let me know! And, as always, please remember to shoot this sock a PM with any updates.

 

THE BLAZING CHAIN - a pirate nation in the Unknown Regions
[notably reworked canon tradition - the Wook''s post about it]

The Blazing Chain is a nomadic nation of pirates and raiders who ply their way through the Unknown Regions in search of poorly defended settlements and starships from which they can plunder whatever they need or bleed protection money from. Blazing Chain ships are painted with variations of a fiery chain wrapping across the vessel, an intimidating and fearsome symbol.

The Blazing Chain operates as small autonomous fleets, scattered throughout the void they see as theirs, known as the Chained Void. The fleets are made up of a wide variety of ships, many of them captured and repurposed, of wide varying age. Each fleet is led by an Adacap, a strong-willed, charismatic, and intelligent captain-admiral, able to keep his/her followers in line through threat, bribery, or genuine respect. Rarely does a single leader emerge to head the entire Blazing Chain. However, the fleets regard each other as brethren and rarely combat each other directly. United raids are carried out on an ad hoc basis. They also profit from “escorting” spaceships that has to travel through their territory, with their escort only protecting them in while in their fleet’s territory and the travellers having to pay up for a new escort if they want to continue in unmolested in another fleet’s territory.

The Blazing Chain has existed for over a thousand years, their territories having changed shape and even areas many times throughout the centuries. There exist no homeworld for the pirate nation proper or any of the fleets. However, they often have some shadowy planetary- or spaceports of call and the largest of the fleets even have spacestations as part of their fleet. Most members of the Blazing Chain live and die aboard their vessels.

Many of the fleets have also established hidden strongholds on isolated worlds, kept secret from outsiders and other fleets. Those strongholds serve as rallying points, supply caches, fortifications, meeting locations and (if needed) hiding places.

The Blazing Chain’s people consider manufactory work or recourse gathering (mining, farming, etc.) beneath them and instead raid, trade or use slaves for that kind of things. There are many planets that routinely have to pay the fleets for not attacking them.

What makes the Blazing Chain so dangerous is that they have Force users among them. Called wyrd, wyrdman/-woman and similar (often something combining ‘wyrd’ and their main duty, like gunwyrd, wyrdpilot and wyrdnavigator) those Force users use their wyrdcraft to foresee danger, find good hunting grounds, increase their fighting and/or leadership capability. Most of the pirate nation’s leadership comes from the ranks of their wyrd.

The wyrd have a very basic understanding of the Force, which they combine with a belief in spirits, glyphs of power and often a hodgepodge of other things variating between fleets. Many of them use drugs, rituals, blot and sorcerer-scientific devices to increase their powers when needed; whatever works (or they think works) to get an edge over their prey and opponents. Most of the Blazing Chain's wyrds are specialists who know Force powers only relevant to their area - gunplay for the gunwyrd; piloting/dogfighting for wyrdpilots; astronavigation for wyrdnavigators; etcetera - and many of them are less strong in the Force than the weakest Jedi.



TECHNOLOGY
The Chained Void is a much less developed area than the Republic with much of the technology below Republic standard on all fronts.

Ships
Hyperspace-motors in the Chained Void usually are large and you seldom find any ship smaller than a corvette that is hyperspace capable. The ‘motors have a tendency to overheat unless warmed up first and can still make short (by Republic standard) hyperspace jumps.
Fighters are also larger, usually the size of a Black Hawk helicopter, and at least two manned.

Weapons
As with space ships so are blaster technology not as developed in the Chained Void as in Republic space. They pack less of a punch and their magazines hold less shots, also so do most blasters come in two models: first are those blasters that pack a “standard” punch but they take longer for the next shot to be ready; second are the blasters that can quickly fire many shots but that pack even less of a punch. There also exist blasters were you can change the setting between the two of them but they are rare and expensive.

Beside blasters do the Enchained use slugthrowers, bolt throwers, and even automatic crossbows.

Chain blaster
This is the standard blaster pistol among the Blazing chain and resemble a larger sawn-off shotgun with is two barrels. The way the chain have gotten around the fire speed contra the destructive powers is by creating blasters that are actually two “standard punch” blasters built together that have the same trigger mechanism. After you have fired one barrel the next shot will come from the second barrel, making it possible to shot two shots quickly after each other without sacrificing the stopping power and the first blaster can reload as the other is used.
The only downside with the Chain blaster is that its weight and size makes it somewhat unwieldy.
Most Blazing chain members customise their blasters with decorations and personal modifications.

Cold-grenade
Used by kaigani, ursin and other cold environment adapted preferring members of the Blazing Chain cold-grenades, when trigged, realise a white chemical mist that lower the temperature of the near area with 10 - 30 °C, making it more comfortable for cold adapted species while usually making it uncomfortable for the people being attacked. Cold-grenades only work in enclosed areas, outside do the mist spread too far too fast to really effect the environment in an effective way. Anybody touching a cold-grenade while it’s spreading mist will receive frost burns.

Corner cutter blaster
This rather strange type of blaster comes in the size of carbine an upward, even if they are a bit heavier than a standard blaster of the same power and have less range. What makes a corner cutter unusual is that the shots fired from one turn to the right or the left, depending on adjustment, in a half arch making it a weapon that is very hard to aim with unless you have the right kind of senses or Force training. All larger corner cutter blasters seems to be designed to be wieldable by more than two hands.



PEOPLE
The Blazing Chain don’t discriminated when it comes to its members (sometime known as the Enchained), and you can find many different kinds of species among them – united not by genetics or look but by a pirate code and a pirate’s willingness to pillage and plunder.

As a group so are the Enchained bare armed and/or chested, with battle harness and/or open vest as only covering, if even that – brassiere are used by female mammals with larger breasts but those with smaller usually don’t use them.
Their lower parts are usually covered by a kilt, harem pants or just a loincloth. They have broad leather belts, some also have a cingulum militare.
Some of them use cuirasses when fighting but not all. Weapons and hang from their harnesses and/or belts.

Chain based ornaments are very common.


Among the Enchained are:
Aihai: Tall (usually between 2.10-2.50 m), humanoids with white skin that have angular blue and red markings. They have small ears, red eyes and large nostrils on the cheeks, beside their large, bony chests so are they gaunt. A former servitor race to a now fallen interstellar empire, and can therefore be found on many words with many different cultures and levels of technological.

Duros: come in all the many colour and shape variations known, even if most of them are gaunt with pale skin and black eyes.

Chadra-Fan: come in all the many colour and shape variations known, even if most of them have grey pelts with spots or stripes and blue-eyed albinism is relatively common among them.

Humans: come in all the many colour and shape variations known, even if most of them are gaunt and pale of hair, skin and eyes, with sharp features.

Kaigani: Translucent crystal humanoids with their (all too human like) blue inner organs and slowly flowing blood visible for all to see. The slow beating of the Kaigani hearth is a practically disturbing sight. Having originated on a cold world do they prefer temperatures around 5ºC to -30ºC but can function without larger problems up to 10ºC and down to 40ºC. They are a biological merciless people with a preference for close combat.

Lindorm: Four-armed naganoids with snakelike heads that speak basic with a lisp (even if that can be trained away). Have a cultural affection for poisons and racial affection for decadence. The lindorm found among the Blazing Chain is often not real members of pirate nation, instead working under hire usually as warriors, poison-makers, medics or jewellers.

Marahn: a species of blood-drinking vampires, who can live for many centuries or possibly millennia. They start off human-like, albeit very tall, pale and hairless, but as they grow older become more deranged and something less than human. They often gets into positions of power among the Blazing Chain but are then killed of by their underlings when they begin to grow to mad.

Ra-Moto: A near-humanoid avians species with one par of legs, arms and wings. They have hawk-like heads, feet, wings and hawk-feet like hands. Mischievous by nature with a natural telepathic ability and a superiority complex against non-telepaths. They lack a spoken language, but use vocal sounds to emphasis points they are making and they vocally laugh.

Sjaastjaerna: Starfish-shaped, gas filled beings that fly by sucking air through a hole in the top of their bodies and then forcing it out through holes in the bottom and tips of their appendages. Thin tentacles uncoil from the bottom of their bodies for use in navigation, sensory input, defence, and communication. A former servitor race to a now fallen interstellar empire, and can therefore be found on many words with many different cultures and levels of technological.

Squib: come in all the many colour and shape variations known.

Sluissi: come in all the many colour and shape variations known, even if yellow/yellow-ish stripes are relatively common among them.

Tarichanes: chitin shelled amphibious humanoids with crab-heads. Their shell, which is often thorny, comes in red, green-black, blue-black and pink. By nature bold and warlike, with a preference for raw flesh.

Tritonomendetes: a 2 m long weasel-like species with four legs and two arms. They are very clean minded, at first regarding themselves and what they consider their lair but some obsessively clean any place they find dirty.

Ursin: Bear-like centauroids that evolved on a world of taiga, tundra and glaciers.



RULES
Wyrd cunning: a Blazing Chain member can during character creation spend skill dices on Control, Sense and Alter. The PC can’t begin with more than 3D in any Force skill and it get three Force powers for each of the Force skills it knows, and it can get extra Force powers by spending a D+1 of his skill dices starting pool. The Force powers chosen can be dark side powers. Also, if the player want to so can the PC begin with 1 dark side point.

Rudimentary understanding of the Force: Once the game begins any Force skills the PC have (or don’t have) count as Advanced Skills. They can’t also begin with the Force powers: Beast Languages, Create Force Storms, Doppleganger, Emptiness, Force Harmony, Lightsaber Combat, Predict Natural Disaster, Weather Sense or any of the Sith disciplines.

Not from around here: a Blazing Chain member comes from a more primitive area of the Galaxy that has not had much contacted with the Republic or Empire therefore they get -1D on Astrogation, Sensors, Starship Shields, and any Repair skill. They can also not use any of their Knowledge skills for something involving Republic/Imperial space unless the GM says so.

Home turf: Each of the Blazing Chain fleets has an area in the Chained Void that’s considered theirs and the fleet members fully know. As long as a Blazing Chain member is in his fleets territory do he get +1D in Astrogation and any Knowledge skill the GM find fitting.

[Creator’s comments: part of this is copied from WotC’s The Unknown Regions with some changes and removals. I removed most of the backstory and all the rule-talk* since I did not find it important for a short introduction like this and added the 'wyrd' parts since I felt that Force users should have some kind of title like cunningman. The D6 rules for the Blazing Chain presented here are all mine, if people have thoughts/suggestions on them just post them.
* am I alone in feeling that WotC people seems to have no idea how belief works and instead write stuff that makes it seem that the in-game characters know how the game system work?

The original presentation on the Blazing Chan was rather poor in things that a player/GM/writer could use to give them life. They were basically this ancient pirate group that used the Force to be better pirates and beside some comments about how they governed themselves so was there not much to work with. They were described as having a practical use-what-works view of the Force (what that now means in this ‘verse of magic, mysticism and god- & spirit-like beings) and there was a surprisingly long write-up about how they saw the dark side which read as if the Blazing Chain had read the role books chapter about the dark side and how it affected you.

The Blazing Chain’s fashion, technology and write up of the member species is fully my own. Their fashion is inspired by Swords & Sorcery illustrations and Barsoom fashion.

I gave them the we-do-not-sow attitude to explain why they are still nomadic pirates instead of having settled down if they have existed for over a thousand years. The wyrd-parts was inspired by the chapters talking about ‘folkmagic’ in UK during the 18th to early 20th century in Ronald Hutton’s The Triumph of the Moon, to give them a bit more personality and the use of “drugs, rituals, blot and sorcerer-scientific” was added since I felt something like that would fit their use-what-works view.]

I would like to thanks @pronker for suggestion this subject and @Cowgirl Jedi 1701 , @Anedon and @Sith-I-5 for suggestions that made me think.

 

Have to ask: what is terror-farm?

 

Do you guys mean "terraforming"?

 

Last Minute Fanon Entry for September:
Had actually been working on this one for quite a bita while ago and now @Gamiel´s post for this month kinda inspired me to put it up here.

The Vleandrian Scourge
The Vleandrian Scourge is considered one of the most powerful and dangerous thread in the unknown regions and the galactic northwest. Originally just a minor pirate gang a deal with the galactic empire allowed them to grow into a feared fighting force that even the Chiss treat with caution.

Background

Vleandrian was the first recorded world sacked by the Scourge and its from it their given name comes, their actual original homeworld is unknown. Formed from human survivors of numerous failed colonial attempts the Vleandrians these days are little more than scavengers. Lacking many basic survival and societal skills, they instead survive by taking whatever they need from others, especially colonists, traders and natives of the galactic northwest.

Despite their lack of many important civilian skills the Vleandrians are fierce warriors both in space and on the ground, allowing them to compete with other pirates in the area though like them they were largely kept at bay by the Chiss, choosing to raid territories outside their borders.

When the Vleandrians attack a planet they won´t make their presence known for as long as possible, quietly scouting their victims for extended periods of time, learning their routines and weaknesses, and planning their own assault, often striking at night or when most of the local defenders are away. Their attacks are brutal even by the standards of the unknown regions. As they have no real method of keeping them in line nor the resources to feed them the Scourge isn´t interested in taking slaves so everyone in their way is brutally cut down, the scattered survivors left with nothing but the ruins of their lives, often falling victim to starvation or bands of slavers roaming the area.

Given their warrior culture the Vleandrians choose their leaders based on skill and combat powers with the strongest usually leading them. A leader is always expected to fight at the front of every battle or raid to proof his or her strength. Though this can lead to the routing of an entire war band once their leader is killed by a superior enemy.

Being more a band of people than a normal pirate gang the Vleandrians have a strong bond of loyalty and camaraderie with each other, and while they, often violently, tend to struggle amongst themselves for positions of leadership they basically never betray their kin to outsiders.

As they are very nomadic people they might stay in a certian place for some time but ultimatley are nomadic people who never linger somewhere for too long, for several reasons:

First is that their culture is enterily war based at this point, for them fighting and takeing what they need is the way of live, they consider settlers to be weak and nothing but victims.

Second is that they would be unable to do so without serious help, again they have lost many basic skills needed for survival, they can´t fix their equipment once its broken, no nothing of agriculture or craftsmanship, they would need serious help to actually be able to settle down.

Third is that at this point they have simply made so many enemies, setteling down in one location would almost certianly lead to these enemies coming after them to exact their vengance. Again staying on the move is a main reason they are still alive.

That said, they do periodically return to their original homeworld to bury their dead there.


Societal structure
The Vleandrian society values strength, cunning and skill in battle over pretty much everything else, with capable fighters and war leaders at the top. Aside from that their society is rather egalitarian, as a person's parents or gender are considered irrelevant when it comes to their treatment and position in society.

They are multi Species but with a strong human component, as mentioned they often taken the healthy fit and strong children of the victims with them to raise as their own and will do so regardless of species, so they have various within their ranks and of course through interbreeding also quite a lot of members of mixed heritage. Their xenophobia is directed at anyone who isn´t part of their community and not based on any racist notions.

Fighting Style

The Member of the Scourge heavily rely on ambush tactics both in space and on the ground, being master of taking cover and becoming basically one with their environment. This allows them to scout out and surprise their victims, denying them any chance of a prepared defense, which they usually wouldn´t be able to break through. Using cover, higher ground and lighting fast attacks they are hard to counter once the victim has fallen into their trap. So the best defense is a steady eye on ones surroundings and general cautiousness. As for weapons they aren´t really able to craft any of them themselves and as such take what they can get from their victims, which understandably leads to their equipment being all over the place and often outdated. With their later treaties with the galactic empire(see history) they have become much better armed, using modern blasters with a high rate of fire as their main weapons. Relying heavily on speed, stealth and mobility the Vleandrians basically never use armor and instead wear light clothing, if possible in a coulor that lets them blend in with whatever terain they are currently operating within.

Relations with the Outside

As the Scourge is very xenophobic they have little to no non agressive relations with anyone else. To not alert their enemies of their presence they don´t utilize diplomacy at all, not even threats or a last warning like some other pirate groups do. The only real relationship is with the empire who they believe will provide for them and eventually even allow to rule over the unkown regions. In truth they are little more than a tool to the empire, who want to use them to exterminate their enemies and prepare a possible future war in the region but other than that have little intrest in the Vleandrians, some imperials even plan to outright exterminate them once they outlive their usefullness.

History

Little is known about the scourges exact origin, but some of their enemies have made predictions as to where they come from. According to these theories they are the descendants of by idealistic colonists of the old republic who set out to find a new home to trade with the other factions of the unknown regions.
But having greatly underestimated the dangers of this place the peaceful traders became an easy prey for the Vagaari slavers and through the raids their trade broke down and with that their means of survival.
To escape their grim future they, driven by envy as well as desperation began to raid their former trader partners for supplies. Over the years their society became more and more focused on war and taking other peoples work to survive.
Initially only a small group their numbers grew with every world they raided as they abducted their enemies children to raise as their own. One of these kids, a force sensitive human named Lakrin eventually became leader of the Vleandrians in 18 BBY and under his leadership the Vleandrians became an even greater threat raiding world after world and crushing other pirates before them, earning him the title "the Butcher" by the inhabitants of the unknown regions. He even managed to evade the famed later Grand Admiral Thrawn as the Scourge doesn´t have much in the way of art, leaving little to be predicted about their seemingly random attacks.

Though with the growth of their population new problems arose, unable to sustain that many people the Vleandrians struggled at the brink of extinction, and it was around this time in 10 BBY that the Vleandrians were approached by an emissary of the galactic empire. Using both lies and truths to manipulate the raiders the emissary told them that emperor Palpatine respected their strength and was seeking their friendship, offering them equipment and resources if they would defeat his rivals. Enamored by the emissaries words and the showcase of imperial might he brought them the Vleandrians agreed. In truth the empire saw the Vleandrians as little more than the barbaric raiders they were but saw a certain use in them. After the clone wars many enemies of the empire had fled into the unknown regions and bribing the Vleandrians to take care of them was deemed easier and less costly as a full scale military operation into the region. Also Palpatine knew that both the warlord Nuso Esva and the realm of the Chiss were potential later enemies of the empire, enemies against which a local ally, in form of the Vleandrians might prove useful.
With the weapons and training received from the empire the Vleandrians became an even greater threat and eventually emerged as one of the strongest factions in the unknown regions, that even the Chiss struggle to keep at bay.

 

@Anedon - that was very good. I liked that a lot.

 

Looks good @Anedon

Some comments:

I can see some of them masquerading as travellin merchants to spy on potential targets

you don't need to keep them feed or in line for that long, just long enough to get them to the slave market.


And some questions: Do they have any homeworld/s? How do they look? Are they human only or multi species? Any reason why they don't just migrate to less hostile areas and resettle there?

 

Thanks @Sith-I-5 glad you like it.

Not sure about that, being a roving band of marauders they probably couldn´t hold up the masquerade for long as they have little to know real knowledge of civilized society. So it would probably draw unessesary attention.

Hm problem is that the Scourge is so xenophobic to any outsiders that they don´t really trade at all, maybe I should have made that more explicit in the article. This is one of the reasons they are so hard to track down, as they have no real contacts that could rat them out.

Not really, they might stay in a certian place for some time but ultimatley are nomadic people who never linger somewhere for too long, part of what keeps them alive. That said, they do periodically return to their original homeworld for something a religious ceremony to remember where they came from.

Don´t really have a universal appearance, general a rough, rag tag band of marauders, scavenged equippment, clothing as mentioned often in the same colours as whatever backrgound they try to blend in with. Also facepaint fitting with that colour as well as to intimidate potential enemies.

Multi Species but with a strong human component, as mentioned they often taken the healthy fit and strong children of the victims with them to raise as their own and will do so regardless of species, so they have various within their ranks and of course through interbreeding also quite a lot of members of mixed heritage. Their xenophobia is directed at anyone who isn´t part of their community and not based on any racist notions.

Several reasons, first is that their culture is enterily war based at this point, for them fighting and takeing what they need is the way of live, they consider settlers to be weak and nothing but victims. Second is that they would be unable to do so without serious help, again they have lost many basic skills needed for survival, they can´t fix their equipment once its broken, no nothing of agriculture or craftsmanship, they would need serious help to actually be able to settle down. Third is that at this point they have simply made so many enemies, setteling down in one location would almost certianly lead to these enemies coming after them to exact their vengance. Again staying on the move is a main reason they are still alive.

 

@Anedon your description of the Vleandrian Scourge makes me think of the Reavers from Firefly, if not as far gone.

I think you should

I think you should ad a short description of it to you main post

Okey. A sentence that appeared in my mind that I think I would use to describe the ones coming down from the landing crafts is "dressed in rags and stolen finery"

I think you should ad this info to the main post.

A more horrible version of the Scourge could possibly eat the people they kill during a raid.

I think you should ad this info to the main post.

 

Not sure where you got that from, though they probably wouldn´t wear finery as that´s kind of impractical in a fight. Also I guess they usually don´t descent from their landing crafts as much as landing secretly, observing their victims for a while and then attack them from the wilderness or other cover when an opportunity presents itself.

Not sure if they would go this far, maybe when they are starving but not usually I would say.

Added the bits you suggested and put in a new category about their outside realtions.

 

Dropping by to announce a few updates:

The post by @Gamiel originally titled Kiffar, Spacers, and Jedi is now called Near-Humans, Human cultures, and multi-species cultures. He also has a new post for October: The Blazing Chain (reworked canon pirate nation).

@Anedon has a new post: The Vleandrian Scourge (original culture).

@Raissa Baiard and @Findswoman have updated their fanon post on the Lasat with an image of the Honor Guard medallion.

Also, we have just about two months left to go on the Gamiel Games challenge. Which I know is a long time—so I am considering cutting down the length of this thread's future challenges to around 8 or 10 weeks. Please let me know your thoughts about that.

 

Real life landsknechts and pirates of the Spanish Main.

not more than rags, at least after you have slashed any too-tight part.

Okey, that was not my impression, I understood it as a united attack with attacks from both they wildness and the sky.


Also:

you should fix the bold part

 

Guess it could happen, all of it in general kinda depends on the situation at hand, if a combined assault is possible to be pulled of.

 

Terror-forming is what happens when the Empire strip mines a world's soil of all nutrients, enslaves the populace, and then works it into an unlivable hellball.

 

Nope, that's not evil unless it uses the Genesis Device.

 

THE NIRAH EMPIRE

Creators comment: the Nirah Empire was created to explain how something like the Blazing Chain was able to grow to the strength it has, since if there was only minor groups around for them to pray on there would not be enough ships and loot for them to became more than a small-time organisation. They are also there to give me a reason to have the same species appearing on many different worlds at different technological levels.

------------------------------------

One of the reasons the Blazing Chain was able to lay the ground to become the great pirate nation of today was the fall of the Nirah Empire. As the Republic rebuilt from the Banite Sith War was the Nirah Empire in its death throws. The Nirah Empire was named from its rulers, the nirah, a species of serpentine warrior-wizards, who had grown to decadent and too focused to praise their gods and themselves by bloodshed and artefact craft. The rest of their knowledge crumbled away slowly until they no longer could control their servitor races or prevent raiding outsiders. Many of their lore and secrets remain lost to this day.

The Nirah Empire was a species based cast society with the nirah on the top. Roughly speaking the Nirah Empire’s casts can be classified as the rulers (the nirah), the servant species (reptilian/serpentine species) and slave species (all other species), of course it was much more complicated than that with each of the servant species having special duties and restrictions. The Empire was at its height relatively large with many stars and planets as true parts of the realm and just as many tribute worlds.

The Nirah Empire’s highly ritualistic culture was adapted by its servant species and even today do many of the cultures whose linage is found in the Empire have many rituals for many different things.

Technology
As stated before so is most of the Nirah Empire’s knowledge lost but during the height of their technological development was they in some areas more advanced than Republic standard but in other less developed.

Their blasters-tech was firelanes based and they lacked blasterpistols; their spaceships could not make as long hyperspace jumps. They lacked droids.

During the later periods of the Nirah Empire did the nirah focuses highly on close combat and showing of their personal skills leading to the creation of many high quality close combat weapons, with variations of vibro-swords being the most common. Other close combat weapon they used was monofilament-whips, electroshock-throwing-knives, expandable spears, [other stuff]

The nirah seems to have had more advanced terraforming technology than the Republic (or maybe they were just more willing to use it) since surprisingly many of the living worlds in the Nirah space show traces of being terraformed.



Species of the Empire

Nirah
An nirah is by the shoulders as tall as a human but their long serpentine necks - ending in long mouthed, serpent-like heads – makes them notably taller. Its supple hide ranges in colour from deep green to light tan with red, yellow or even blue markings. Despite its delicate appearance, the serpent-man is strong and fast and its skin is quite resistant to damage. It prefers loose robes and sashes in its clan design which provide its limbs – especially its long whip-like tail – a free range of movement. Jewellery adorns the nirah from head to toe, much of it ensorcelled to some degree [as in being Force artefacts]. The nirah’s golden eyes burn with savage intellect and intense superiority over the "upstart races".

Compared to humans do the nirah have better lowlight vision but are often near sighted and have a stronger sense of smell; but they don’t hear as well and are less hardy against cold. Their bite is poisonous.

The nirah can still be found among most of the planes that belonged to their long fallen empire where they usually live among the ruins of the Nirah Empire’s cities, palaces and temples. Many of them kill non-nirah that try to explore the ruins.

Since they are spread over so many worlds can they be found at many different technological levels and having different societies. As an overall rule do they have a clan-based culture, where family and heritage are all important, with great ancestral warriors and wizards revered as saints. Several of the nirah societies are still decadent, with advanced rituals and social orders that long ago lost their meaning.

-------------------------------


Dallran
Serpentine lizard with eight limbs, two pare of arms and leg respectively, their head are shovel shaped, they usually hold the front part of their body upright/semi-upright (giving them a centauroid-like appearance) but can keep their whole body in a horizontal position, which they often do when climbing or stalking. They are able to change the colour of their skin to adapt to environment around them and can even lightly change its texture to mimic the surrounding, making them natural masters of camouflage, this is also helped by their bodies flexibility and they can actually flatten themselves to even more became a part of the background. They have pads similar to a geckos on their feet which make them master climbers and can even clime flat surfaces as long as they are not to polished, they usually need to use at least five limbs to climb or hold themselves steady when sticking to a wall. Many of them have a crest on their heads, along their spine and/or tail, and their natural colours usually go in different variations and combinations of grey and purple.

The dallran have large, light sensitive eyes that are of good use during the night or twilight but makes them squint in brighter environments.

They are stalkers and ambush predators by nature but do have a preference for serving their meat with some fruits and vegetables.

They had a position as spies, stalkers, scouts, assassins, and messengers in the Nirah Empire

-------------------------

Rak’!
Draconic centauroids with large, clawed feet and a spiked tail that flails from side to side. An adult rak’! stands over 2 m tall and measures 3 m long, weighing about 900 kg, their ca. 1.2 m long tail, although used primarily for balance, ends in wicked spikes that can be brought to bear in battle. Hard scales that vary in colour from green to brown to blue cover a rak’! from head to tail. Males have ornate cresting on their heads, throats, and chests ranging from bright red to deep purple. They are warm-blooded with a unusually high tolerance for extreme temperatures, they have been known to walk through boiling water or deep snow without any real problems.

The seems to have a species preference for spears as weapons since spears of many a-kind, for both close and range combat, are used by rak’! from many different cultures, on many different worlds, usually as their main and/or prime secondary weapon.

Considered holy by the nirah they were given positions as elite warriors, monster slayers, temple guards, temple workers, bodyguards and/or assistants to the most important of the nirah, the Nirah Empire.

-------------------------

Trogodon
Believed to have been created by nirah bioalchemists as guardians the trogodon are reptilian centauroids with crocodile-like heads, lower bodies and skin. Most of them are semi-sentient at best but has an ambush predator’s patience and cunning, and some of them have been known to use simple weapons (like clubs) and/or lures (like the remains of a previous prey). They are not territorial, at east as long food is a-plenty, so sudden attacks by groups of trogodons are not unknown but they are not pack hunters by nature so there is no teamwork among them.

An intelligent trogodon emerges infrequently and in their natural environment are able to lay traps; fully understand how to use weapons; create simpler weapons and items; work and coordinate with other trogodons (the normal trogodons seem to defer to an intelligent one by instinct and follow its order); communicate with non-trogodons and even trade. Nirah often pic up intelligent trogodon when they can find them and use them as bodyguards or have them lead their dim-witted kin in raids against people the nirah think are engrossing on their territory. Trogodon raised by nirah are better trained in tactics and fully capable in handling technology, even pilot spaceship and are often equipped with more advanced weapons. Some intelligent trogodons can be found among the stars without any nirah leading them, they usually work or slave as exotic barbarian mercenaries or bodyguards even if they can be found in other professions – like Braaah the Bard who uses his whole body to play a personal drum set.

Trogodon are coldblooded and prefer to live near fresh- or brackish-water but have no problem with saltwater or even living in areas with little water, as long as the temperature is right, even if they lose much of their natural advantage on dry land. They are carnivores and have no problem eating rotten meat.

Trogodon could be found on all words that was part of the Nirah Empire and can still be found on most of them and have also spread to new words.

[Creators comment: the trogodon are based on their namesakes from Scarred Lands: Creature Collection]

------------------

Planets

Umumuru
A world of mostly jungle, tropical savanna, deserts and green-blue seas, which is believed to be the asaatthi’s homeplanet and was the capital of their empire. All over the planet can be found abounded or semi-abounded ruins of great palaces, temples, and cities. One of the examples of the Nirah Empire’s once greatness and capability is the enormous pillar that retches to the planets upper atmosphere where it spread out into a great space port. This construct, known as the Imperial Spire, is actually both a great space elevator and an arcology. Sadly it’s slowly falling apart, the nirah have lost the knowledge, the equipment and the manpower to fully take care of it, they are able to keep it functioning and some areas are still in as good condition as they were before the fall of the Nirah Empire, but some other areas are fully abounded, possibly even open to the wind and rain of the outside. The Imperial Spire is the largest populated nirah city still being used and probably has the largest concentration of nirah in the galaxy. Here the nirah act as if their empire never fell, acting like visitors and traders are less than slaves with nothing of worth to give them or anything to back them up if threatened. The nirah do of course not live alone here, all their servitor species are represented in the Imperial Spire and it’s usually them that outsider’s interact with.

Umumuru native life is archosaur-like with counterparts to all big animals from the Earth’s ancient past. There exist no native mammals or birds.

-------------------------

[to be added later]

 

Hi all, sock here, just checking in with a few updates, as I am wont to do.

First, Gamiel has a new post on the Nirah Empire (right above this one, in fact).

Second, a reminder that there is now one month left in our current challenge: the Gamiel Games! Stories come due on December 6, which also happens to be Gamiel's birthday.

 

I'm a bit late coming, but can I still pick a number?

If so, I choose 10.

 

Absolutly

Number 10? Number 10 is Corporations

 

Hi, @Viridian-Maiden, good to see you back, and thanks for taking a number in the Gamiel Games challenge! I've got you in the index in post #1378.

And while I'm here, just a quick little reminder to all and sundry that there are a little under two weeks left in that challenge—the deadline is December 6.