I’ve spent a lot of Sundays now developing alien races and the year is coming to an end. Is it time for PDR to do something different? Well, if it is, I’m going to ease myself back to those “human” things by looking at a couple that have been interacting with aliens.

Alien Abductees

Dan Hastings is a university student who has a part-time job at a grocery store. If he were asked, he’d probably say he was a pretty ordinary guy. The truth is, though, that Dan has trouble sleeping. For as long as he can remember, he has had dreams of strange beings surrounding him and doing strange things to him while he can not move. At least, he tells himself that they’re dreams, though he believes that they are real. What Dan doesn’t know is that the beings who have been doing this are a Strondovarian science crew that orbits the planet in a secret station and is experimenting on Dan’s mind. The first Strondovarians to discover the planet they are interested in testing the limits of the human mind by giving Dan Hastings mental powers like telepathy to see what he does with them.
Universe: Blue

Unlike Dan, Paula Parker has not returned to Earth after she was abducted. Paula was only seven years old when she went missing during a family picnic. Her family never got any closure to her disappearance, because she had been stolen by an alien who had created a wormhole to reach the Earth, taken the child and left. The abductor, whose purpose Paula never learned, was a large creature with advanced technology but never expected that the child could be a threat. Paula lashed out at her kidnapper, smashing a piece of alien equipment and causing an explosion. The alien died, leaving Paula stranded at the alien’s headquarters on an apparently otherwise empty world. Paula survived, learning what she could of the alien technology. She eventually figured out how to use the wormhole device, but had no idea how to tune it back to Earth. She had adventures on many strange planets and met many strange peoples, none of whom had any idea what humans were or where they came from. The universe is large and finding a single planet in it is near impossible if you don’t know where to start. Paula had to give up on ever seeing her world again, and for over a decade has fought for her survival among the stars.
Universe: Orange

It must be noted, however, that humans aren’t the only ones who are getting stolen by weird forces from beyond their homeworld. Carmohka is a Hivrhin One, the strongest warrior of her city, perhaps of the entire planet. She was participating in a plan to raid a neighboring city’s Queenhouses, if the mission had been successful, her city would have become the dominant power in their hemisphere. But without warning, while en route to the job, a strange flying craft appeared above Carmohka for just a moment, and Carmohka vanished. Her allies never got any explanation, her superiors had to assume she’d become a coward and fled. Even Carmohka doesn’t know the truth, because as soon as she was aboard the strange craft, she was placed in suspended animation by her captors, an alien race intent on capturing the best warriors and preserving them for a threat they predict will arrive in the future.
Universe: White

Vrangens

The Vrangens are a ten-legged species with compound eyes and poisonous spines at their mouths and tails. Their fragile-looking legs are actually extremely tough and flexible (similar to pipe-cleaners in that way). Their planet is tidally locked toward their sun, so one side is always warm, one is in perpetual night, and the weather is violent and intense. The Vrangen, and all life on the planet, live beneath the surface. Though there are tunnels and caves that reach into the warm and cold extremes of the planet, most of Vrangen society exists under the surface along the twilight areas where day forever meets night.

Tiffoy is a medic and a surgeon. Though Vrangen poison is deadly to other Vrangens, medics devote their lives to their craft, which includes eating a unique diet that weakens their poison. This allows them to sting their patients, putting them into a sleep instead of killing them, so the medics can operate. Tiffoy is a grumpy old sort, but is very good at the job.

Denning is a power engineer. Vrangen technology uses electricity gained from wind turbines that are extended to the surface of the planet, where the winds are extremely strong. While no Vrangen has been to the surface, engineers like Denning have come close enough to poke their machinery up there.

Yuddy is a scientist studying the nature of space-time itself, looking to develop a method to move into higher spatial dimensions. At this stage, Yuddy’s work is all hypothetical, but it may be on the right track considering that there are several Higher Dimensional beings who have taken notice and are now actively trying to help, or hinder, Yuddy’s progress.

A Fact About Vrangens: Vrangens do communivate with a spoken language, but they go about it in an odd way. When conversing, they emit a constant monotonous hum, which is broken by sudden quick silences. These silences are the Vrangen language. In a way, their words are the opposite of ours, being patters made out of noiselessness, instead of patters made of noise.

Universe: Brown

Ormidians

The Ormidians are a humanoid species, they’ve got the whole two-legs-two-arms-one-head thing going on. They are about the same height as humans, and their society is structured somewhat similar to humanity’s as well, with cities and nations and governments and all of that stuff. Their planet is called Ormidia and, though they have not yet left the world or discovered life on other planets, they have been visited in secret by the Space Gods of this universe.

Melo is a city guard, essentially the police force of the city. Unfortunately, Melo is something of a corrupt cop. Melo routinely takes bribes from the criminal element, and also picks on innocent people if Melo has a reason to do so.

Whooldoon is a demi-god. Ormidians do not reproduce in the same way that humans do, with two partners coming together to form a new human, but instead they expel little globules we can call eggs and they are put into a big pile with eggs from all the others who are reproducing at that time. Mostly, the resulting offspring are clones of the egg donor, but they take genetic elements from the others in the pile, so some variations do occur. When Whooldoon’s parent was trapped in a burnt-out wasteland after a war, they laid an egg alone that would have died, but the Space God Valia took pity on them and kept the egg alive. The resultant child, Whooldoon, took elements of the god’s power and is now a tall, somewhat glowing, demi-god who is trying to find a place in the world. (Whooldoon’s “half-sister” of sorts would be Nicole Archibald.) With superhuman (or “superormidian” rather) strength and stature, Whooldoon is capable of doing much good and opposing all sorts of evil, but does that make Whooldoon brave? As a child of the God of Courage, even if they don’t know it, Whooldoon feels that strength is an important virtue, but can’t be sure if it is one they possess.

Scarrow is a priest for one of the most common religions on Ormidia, one based around the prophecies of a doom-speaker thousands of years ago. The prophecies insist that the end of time is upon us and we will all be dead within a generation. It has said that for thousands of generations now, and it isn’t any truer now than it was then. The adherents of the religion surely must have some doubts by now, but they plug along with their traditions as if the end was right around the corner.

A Fact About Ormidians: Rail vehicles, somewhat like trains, are the most popular form of transport on Ormidia. Between cities and even over oceans, the railways are built, and almost any one city in the world can now be reached by rail from anywhere else.

Universe: Silver

Rootfolk

This species doesn’t speak any kind of sound-based language, but in their travels through space, they have met the Strondovarians and their word describing them would translate as “root-folk” so we’re going to use that. This species evolved in the soil of their world as a clumpy, slow-moving thing whose main advantage was their ability to grow plantlike appendages. The “flower heads” seen as a standard part of modern Rootfolk are just limbs they can grow to contain eyes. If you destroy that flower, they’ll be blind until they grow a new flower head, but the important parts of the Rootfolk are under the soil. And today’s Rootfolk keep their soil in robotic bodies that allow them much more mobility. They’re a very old species and have been travelling over the galaxy spreading to other worlds, coming into conflict with other species, and fighting space wars.

Stardrinker is the captain of a Rootfolk spaceship, exploring the galaxy to find new inhabitable worlds. The Rootfolk are conquerors, so if those worlds are already inhabited, that doesn’t bother Stardrinker. Only recently have the Rootfolk discovered species that are actually able to rival them in technology. It has not gone well.

Longpuddle is a soldier who serves in the Rootfolk space army, conquering alien worlds. Longpuddle is a veteran of a war that involved the Strondovarians and the Omnivoroids, but also another mysterious species that made no attempt to communicate and which was much more advanced than any of the others. After intense warfare, the mystery race retreated for some reason and the other sides ceased hostilities. To this day, Longpuddle is confused and terrified about that mysterious alien race.

Wetsoil is a scientist who is studying the remains of a species that was wiped out by the Rootfolk several generations ago. Seeing how fascinating the species had been makes Wetsoil realize that driving them to extinction, causing the loss of a unique culture and preventing them from adding anything more to the universe, might be… kind of a shame.

A Fact About Rootfolk: The Rootfolk have a religion that puts a strong emphasis water and soil, and considers freezing to be the ultimate symbol of evil. It has been quite unnerving for them how many planets they’ve reached that are nowhere near so warm as their homeworld.

Universe: Blue

Yefonix

The Yefonix are a species that has arisen on a planet they call Yefon. They are basically humanoid in shape, with flat stumpy legs and arms that have multiple joints allowing an astounding range of motion. They have no sense of hearing and communicate in several ways, including hand gestures and complex written ideographic languages. They can also feel vibrations in the ground through the soles of their feet with extreme sensitivity, which helps them tell what’s going on around them.

Most of Yefonix society is currently in a state we would compare to the medieval level of development on Earth. They build most of their technology from stone and the hides of animals they keep as livestock, with metallurgy being a relatively new art.

Corly is a well digger and maintainer. Surface water has been growing sparse in the equatorial regions of Yefon, so every tribe needs to have at least one well. In Corly’s region, they try to have a well available for every family, so Corly’s services are truly valued. Corly finds the work somewhat mindless, but ultimately enjoyable.

Veveed is a soldier in the service of a wealthy Yefonix tribe. Like most soldiers who can afford it, Veveed wears thick metal armor that limits arm movement somewhat, but protects the body. Veveed has fought in numerous wars and has many scars as a result, and is also mentally unwell, having grown addicted to feeling pain for “good causes”. This addiction has made Veveed a greater risk-taker during fights and can not end well.

The Yefonix have never had a physical currency, but have a system of credit that involves intense record-keeping. Tryder is a wandering merchant whose records are kept in a filing system in a large city, so whenever a deal is done, the proper records are made and attached to a trained flying animal that returns to the city to deposit the records with Tryder’s partners. The hunting of these animals is considered a great crime, because preventing the records from reaching their destination can prevent one from having to repay a debt. Tryder has had to kill several customers who tries to capture his animals after making a deal.

A Fact About Yefonix: One aspect of Yefonix technology that is well advanced compared to our Medieval stage is cooking. They have devised many interesting things, such as ovens that use sunlight to trigger different segments of the cooking process as the day progresses.

Universe: Indigo