Exoles

The origin of the Exoles is a closely guarded secret among the Exoles, their home being located in a dense nebula that has little seeming value to other races. The Exoles are able to keep the location of their home a secret easily, since they have evolved the ability to not only survive in out space, but to thrive there. Exoles now ride through space, soaring on solar winds among other methods of travel (they can easily hitch a ride on an unknowing spacecraft), and only stop into planetary atmospheres on rare occasions. There is not a lot of “society” among Exoles, as they largely roam the cosmos solitarily, but they do come together for matters concerning that secret home of theirs.

A group of Exoles first made a cameo appearance in a Hover Head story, then one was insulted by Little Choy.

Always Soar is a traveller who is interested in seeing as much of the universe as it can during its lifetime. Having left home early in its life, Always Soar has never returned. Instead, it has encountered more different places and things than any of its peers, and these life experiences are what it cares about most.

Star Watcher is content to stay in a relatively small part of space. Having found a trinary star system in Sector Bokka that has dozens of worlds going around it, providing resources and comfort and that is all that Star Watcher could want.

Fast Drift is one of the Exoles most involved in keeping what little Exole society there is, alive. Taking messages between the home and the far-flung Exoles, Fast Drift makes sure that everyone is as up on the latest news as it is possible to be in a species spread across veritable light-centuries.

A Fact About Exoles: Communication between Exoles comes in several forms. They can create pulses of radio waves that create patterns of “words” which is ideal for communicating at a distance in space (and is also the language with which they communicate with other species), but it is very draining of the body’s resources. For more intimate and detailed communication, Exoles will entwine with one another and slowly writhe and wiggle in ways that get their meanings across clearly and with much less use of energy.

Universe: Bronze

The Circle is a small, but very densely populated galaxy (which we encountered as the home to the Dellwellians). With many, many planets making up a galaxy-wide society, there are vast shipping lanes that bring supplies between worlds. This is prime territory for criminal activity, and one crew of such criminals go by the name “The Feral Pirates”.

Murb Deel

Murb Deel is a Drutag, and Drutags are not a species native to the Circle. Back home, Murb was a test pilot who was flying a new type of spacecraft when something went wrong. Murb has no idea of the physics of what happened, but the next thing he new he was in a new galaxy and surrounded by Space Pirates. Luckily, the Drutag are a species who advance in rank by being superior in combat, and that worked with these pirates too. Murb is now in charge of a pirate ship with a crew from a bunch of species from this strange new galaxy. Though Murb is not bloodthirsty, crimes being committed to make a living are fair game. And, of course, proving the superiority of the ship in battle is a must.

In any other story of this sort, this is the role that would be occupied by a human. If it isn’t clear by now that PDR don’t necessarily play that way, I don’t know what to tell you.

Haqwad

Second in command to Murb Deel, Haqwad is the femme fatale of the crew. Skilled with martial arts and espionage tactics, Haqwad’s real skill is the art of seduction. Haqwad occasionally hints at a mysterious past in which she was an assassin, but that is just to draw suspicion away from her real mysterious past as a member of a law enforcement agency.

Henjuen B

Henjuen B is from a species that could best be described as “brain cells inside large floating devices”. Henjuen B is the pirate ship’s chief mechanic, keeping the thing running even when it is being blasted apart by enemy fire and replacement parts are just too expensive to get right now. Perhaps rightfully so, Henjuen B is a cantankerous sort and plays it up, often playfully bantering with the rest of the crew, especially Pilot.

Pilot

Pilot is not a robot, but a member of a species who used their advanced technology to upload themselves into computers. The rest of the species has suffered bad times, with a sort of computer virus corrupting their memory banks and forcing them to go into sleep mode. Pilot now works with the pirates in the hopes of finding the means to save the rest of the species, but is also not averse to having a fun time along the way.

Swobbin

Swobbin is something of a loose cannon. Nobody else on the crew is quite certain if Swobbin is typical of her species, or if even among them she would be considered crazy, but she is almost suicidally reckless and unpredictable. She’s the sort who might betray the crew for the right price, but she’ll probably then kill the payers when she loses interest. She’s the type who might try to trick the crew into going to a planet where there is supposed to be treasure, but there is actually a bunch of people she wants to beat up. They can only justify keeping her around because she is really good in a fight.

Dworreh

Dworreh is the team’s muscle. From a species who are so feared that they aren’t even allowed to leave their home sector without permission from law-enforcement agencies, Dworreh is the secret weapon that the pirates don’t advertise unless they are planning on taking no survivors. Dworreh is less concerned about keeping the secret and is more eager to get into action than the others would consider wise.

Owds People

The People of the planet Owds are ruled over by a royal family who justify their rule purely by might. Perhaps at one time they gave some justification about being divinely chosen or whatever, but if so, that is lost to history. Now, the fact they are the most powerful is reason enough. If you don’t agree, why don’t you do something about it?

The Empress of Owds was featured on a Supervillain Sunday post, which suggests she might not be such a great person. The trippy cosmic hero Astrona has taken an interest in saving this world.

The Owds People conform to most of the standard humanoid features. One difference, though, is their two mouths. While the Owds People do stand upright on their hind legs when still, they move around on all fours. Commonly, if they are moving and want to hold on to something, they will place it in their lower mouth to hold it.

Vethew Tekh is a high-ranking member of the Owds’ secret police service. Tekh’s identity is so secret that no record of his existence can be found outside of his own files and the memories of those who are allowed to know. If a citizen learns that Tekh and the secret police are there, it is already too late for that citizen. Tekh has beaten seventy-three people to death in service of the Empress, and has enjoyed it every time.

Ezbrick Doi is a scientist working for the royal government on a secret reality-warping project. The project, the translated name of which would be something close to “The Godseyes”, is a set of goggles that allow the wearer to modify anything they can see in any way they can imagine. Obviously, this is a lot of power, so only test subjects who are extremely loyal to the royal dynasty can be used to test it, lest they use the power in some way against them. It has not been easy to find subjects loyal enough to trust, and the first nine tried all died in horrific ways. Ezbrick is certain, though, that the Godseyes will be ready for the Empress before too long.

And Iswin Heheka is the average suffering citizen of Owds. Living in a port city, Iswin is employed as a ship-builder. Iswin keeps a low profile, as all Owds people do, because they are always reminded to report any suspicious behavior to the guards. In her own time, though, Iswin composes beautiful music that she does not get to share.

A Fact About Owds People: The biological waste that Owds people produce is vomitted out through their lower mouths. For the species to have existed like that for so long, it is no surprise that they take sanitation very seriously. Owds people (and all the animals on the planet closely related enough to have the same system) expel their waste daily, after which they take baths in the highly acidic ponds that are naturally abundant on their world and are useful sanitizers. It has not been unheard of for Owds people to expel waste on enemies in battle, but… it’s rude, obviously.

Universe: Green

The Advit Empire

The Advit Empire is native to a planet called Nodlia. They are an upright-standing, bipedal, fur-covered, horned species that stand in the average about two metres tall and have long tails. Long ago, in their history, the species called itself “Nodil”, and “Advit” was just a term to denote a native of the nation called Advi. But the militant Advit Empire conquered the world and wiped out any opposition, so now the species bears that name.

Since entering the age of space travel and developing the means to reach other worlds, the Advit Empire has discovered life on other worlds, and they aren’t all too thrilled about it. As long as the species found on other planets are willing to submit to Advit rule, there are few problems, but if they aren’t, the Advit go to war without regret. Just recently, for the first time, the Advit have encountered another space-faring race, the Ugder. This has caused tension, to put it mildly.

Iart Hyee is part of the Emperor’s court, serving as a security specialist in the Imperial Palace. Positions like this are assigned by the rulers themselves, so they are often made up of those close to the royal family, but Hyee is an exception. Hyee gained fame as a competitor in the Power Games, a sporting event held regularly on the homeworld that consists of events similar to what we’d call vehicle racing, javelin throwing, and hide-and-seek. Hyee’s performance so impressed the royals that the security position was offered as soon as Hyee aged out of the games.

Fraylar Yeer is the overseer of the planet Eiyoker, home to the Graaimer, the first species that was conquered by the Advit Empire. The Graaimer are a small reptile-like species, only forty centimetres tall, so Yeer towers over them. Yeer has little respect for the natives of Eiyoker, and treats them as slaves and toys with their lives by having them fight to the death as entertainment.

Nyat Hayn is an armored soldier, wearing the finest warriortech that the species has created. As with most soldiers privileged enough to wear this stuff, Hayn has not been given the chance to develop much of a personality, but has been indoctrinated since birth and shaped into a sort of dull-witted thinker, but skilled reactor on a battlefield. The arms of the battle armor are permanently grafted to those of the wearer, but can be attached to modularly-designed weapons that will then react to the wearer’s thoughts as if they were a natural limb. When the Advit conquer a “lesser” species, they will reward some of its members with suits of this style as long as they act as a sort of police force on the conquered worlds, protecting Advit interests. Aliens in that role are called “Loyal Soldiers”.

A Fact About the Advit Empire: The Advit Empire has a sort of religion, based on fire-worship. Almost all homes keep a lit torch, not for light, but as tradition. The bodies of the deceased are cremated.

Universe: Narsidon

Arrphays

The Arrphays are a species of people with serpentine bodies and two limbs each with three digits. Arrphays are native to a world called Treinaf, which is a moon that orbits a gas giant planet, and is tidally locked so that one side of the world is always facing the planet.

Arrphay society is very territorial, with individuals building nests at the top of the planet’s treelike growths, and don’t let anyone else near it. This isn’t done with animosity, it is the norm for these people, but violence results if the social mores of solitude are broken. During the appropriate times of the day when Arrphays meet for various reasons (feeding, mating, planning, etc.), the gatherings are done in shelters built on the ground, away from any occupied trees.

The Wallfixer named Zerbdoffer is a member of this species, though he has not spent any time on the planet since his Wallfixer powers manifested and he left to be trained.

Ediwung is an artist, who sets up large decorative objects (painted stones, shiny streamers, that sort of thing) around the ground shelters. The resulting decorations are nice, but the actual installation of the pieces, the construction, is a performance and that is what the Arrphays to consider to be the “art”.

Accolan is constantly nervous about wars breaking out. There have been wars on Treinaf before, though never on the kind of scale we on Earth know, but Accolan saw some of the worst of it, and is now certain it will happen again. Every slightest sign of turmoil, every hint of anger between two Arrphays causes Accolan to exclaim with certainty that the war is beginning! Everyone who lives near Accolan is getting pretty sick of it.

Marhutto lives in one of the tallest trees on the world. That is not generally a concern when building a nest, much more important is distance from other trees, but Marhutto is very proud of the height. The view from Marhutto’s nest is stunning. Marhutto often spends hours sitting and looking out over the planet and singing softly.

A Fact About Arrphays: Arrphays have no teeth, but their tongues and the roofs of their mouths are rough like sandpaper. They “chew” their food by rubbing it around in their mouths.

Universe: White