Archive of Races-a collection of tyrany, villainy, and infamy

[Smulm]

(Based on the Triton Avatars)

Here’s my effort to give a backstory and profile for all the avatar races that don’t have one of their own, with data for their various species as well as any “notable” cough empires that I may be aware of. I won’t mention any that aren’t of my own creation so I don’t end up offending someone by accident, unless permission is granted, of course!
46. Insechrodes. Government claves of note: Mawstum Carnigarchy.

Long, long ago, when even the races of today who declare themselves ancient were but still passing the first curve of evolution to sentienthood, there were the Insecrode. Eons ago, this race slowly rose up from the dust of an even more ancient race after a disaster nearly eradicated the ancients from the face of the universe.

Many beings who profess to be advanced and civilized as a whole are often revolted by Insechrode appearance. Dressed often in naught but rustling silk threads produced by their own bodies, and with exoskeletons resembling dried bone, it isn’t hard to feel uneasy at first glance. When the Insechrodes glance back, many species feel even more misgiving at facing all six of their shiny, black eyes. Perhaps their mere appearance alone would not beget such bigotry if not for that Insechrodes are Protelean parasites; using their proboscis to puncture and then inject their eggs into living hosts as food material.
Insechrode feeding methods often leave many civilized races in yet more shock and revulsion, sometimes more so than their appearance does. They use their harpoon proboscis below their mandibles to puncture prey trapped within their webs, injecting a kind of desitoxin that sucks all moister from the body and emits it as kind of unique nerve gas through the pores or crevasses of the prey’s body. This results in a near desiccated corpse with an interior like that of fine dust. These dry internals are then sucked up into the proboscis via a vacuum organ.

Primary Exports: Mystic goods containing Architech from long ago, presumably from their ancestral race, examples including optical transposition communication statues, often shaped like an Insechrode head, power crystals, and machinery built from heavily treated webbing that somehow manages to function alongside alien machinery flawlessly.

War potential/tendencies/characteristics: Resilient and stealthy, the Insechrodes are masters of patience, waiting for foes to come to them in their web-woven space nests so they might ensnare their enemies in their jaws. This makes them rather frightening enemies, weaving their webs to ensnare battleships and fighters, dragging them into massive, ghostly hives for the crew’s swift ingestion. Insechrodes are often hired out as top of the line assassins, since little is left but bones and dust when the Insechrodes finish their meal; meals and targets are often the same thing.

Mawstum Carnigarchy. “Ah, we are the Mawstum, the last expanding empire of the once mighty Ancestors, who we know only in our memories. Many would see us destroyed like the Ancestors, as for some reason the Mawstum are often subject to a kind of prejudice. We aren’t really sure why this is. Perhaps it’s because of our somewhat ominous form of government. We are, after all, an oligarchy that elects its warlords through cannibalism. This sometimes gives the wrong impression that we desire violent conquest. Nothing of the sort! The Mawstum are honorable beings who desire only to create safe nests for our younglings and their host species who act as living food for them as they grow into adult Mawstum. Ah, the sound of the screaming cradlestock as they are eaten from within fills this historian’s tracheole system with warmth. If we Mawstum had hearts, I suppose that would be warmed, too.
The Mawstum fear our undoing shall be our understanding of the technology we wield, our lack of understanding, rather. While our glorious Ancestors once comprehended the methods behind the function of our magic, we modern Mawstum know not the whys to our unique creations, only that they do their job. How tragic, that our greatest pride shall be our downfall. For as society advances, we Mawstum shall be left behind in the dust from whence we came. May it not be so!
Despite our controversial form of reproduction, our violent system of government, and stagnant society, the Mawstum still believe firmly that our continued existence is assured and not in any real danger of declining into extinction. We honor all the races we encounter who honor us, and show mercy where we can in this treacherous universe.
Honor, however, has proven to be a most brittle of shields…

[Smulm]

Mesolech. Government clades of note: The Liberation

If the Insechrodes crawled from cold ashes of the Great Calamity that destroyed their mutual ancestors, than the Mesolechs rose from the yet burning embers of the disaster. Industrious and some would say ingenious, the Mesolechs apply innovative uses of old technology to propel their industry to ever greater heights.

Outsiders are prohibited from taking part in Mesolech affairs. Like their cousins, the Insechrodes, Mesolechs aren’t a hive mind or given over to forming Union Intelligences, though it’s been said to happen before. This lack of absolute unity makes their reluctance for outside involvement appear snobby to some species who enjoy intermingling, particularly the Formiculus banking firms, who desperately want to get their greedy tentacles upon the massive industry of the Mesolech race.

Some suspect the Mesolechs are preparing for a new disaster that may threaten them. Seeing the tail end of the Great Calamity’s fiery aftermath left a great impression upon the genetics and minds of the Mesolechs. They are determined warriors and refuse to give ground unless they can retake it later, ever seeking new places to build and expand. They have a great love for personal freedom and capitalism, despite the primitive nature of that economic system. Despite the lack of rigid social order, the Mesolech have uniform policies and metaphysical principles that tie them all closely together.
The biology of the Mesolechs highlights their violent inception into the universe. With glowing eyes and a carapace composed of hard, durable minerals and hardened lavarock, the species is built to survive high temperatures. The primary habitat for Mesolechs are volcanic worlds or even some stars of lower temperatures, such as Red Giants. This tendency has led to energy absorption tech that the Mesolechs sell as a specialty item, though almost always only to second class races within their own borders.
War potential/tendencies/strategies: Stubborn as rock and with the tempers of active volcanoes, a Mesolech fleet hovers motionless for long periods as if in a hibernation cycle. Without warning the fleets attack! Cycling rays that suck all heat energy from targets and then blast them back leave flash-frozen craters, molten debris fields, and stray quarks in their wake. Beguiling Mesolech patience confuses fast-moving races into interpreting their lethargic movements as lack of intelligence or industry. However, few are more active or busy as a hive of Mesolech engineers, and their patience is more often than not rewarded.

The Liberation.

Being born into a post apocalypse was traumatic for the early Mesolechs. Seeing a once thriving civilization rich in mega structures, art, and science reduced to ashes callously by forces of nature must have done something to their way of thinking. While not accounting for the whole race a good many Mesolechs look at the modern state of the galaxy and sneer.

The Liberation and all its adherents march to the sound of chaos and absolute anarchy. Any form of structure and cumbersome order leaves them near catatonic with revulsion. Despite their fanaticism, the Liberation Mesolechs rarely take their beliefs too far, using all manner of planning, order, laws (an obscene word to them) and structure to free as much as they can. Many races don’t look kindly to being called “Orderlies”, and like even less how carelessly the Liberation expresses its intention to liberate them from their structured ways, whether they like it or not.

War potential/tendencies/strategies: The Liberation is dedicated to the absolute disorder of all things and it has the weapons to do it. The cycle rays of Mesolechs are a perfect expression of Entropy’s effects in their eyes, next only to the Holy Action of atomic decay, the ultimate act of disorganization. Their Disamalgamation cannons can cause all atoms in the range of the weapon to release their grip on sub-atomic particles, resulting in devastating and wide-spread destruction that is to the Liberation both exhilarating and beautiful. Many simulations of mass “Freedomizing” of planets and star systems sell tickets in communal viewscreen coliseums all across Liberated Zones. Enemies often watch similar videos in war rooms, desperately trying to implement countermeasures to the Liberation’s monstrous and most favored weapon of war. Total war.
the Liberation commits every fiber of its society in assisting the eventual unraveling of the universe and the fate Entropy has in store for it; be it a heated death or one chilled with ice, the Liberation will see it done.

Be Liberated.

[HULK]

Hulk SMASH!!!
Don’t make him angry …

[Smulm]

I take it that means you like them.

And yes, those ape monsters are quiet the warrior type. What sci-fi name should we use for them?

I’m afraid Hulk is already trademarked, for some reason.

Tanglesia Horticult. This race of Anurians took their love for the earth further by cultivating plants in their rich soil. Through various life-forming means, these Anurian claves eventually broke away from Anurian central and became an independent empire bent on cataloguing and subduing all plant life in the universe. Over time this Horticult became an empire when Tanglesia, a powerful leader, managed to stumble upon a galaxy rich in plant life and claimed it as a sign of his rightful leadership. His descendants have taken to calling themselves the “Pharaohs” of the Horticult. Unlike most Anurians, the Tanglesians rarely seek out minerals or new earth deposits to bathe in, though they go out of their way to procure soil good for farming or raising plants.

Over time, the Horticult came to dominate much of the known regions of the Universe as the public face of the Anurian race, despite being in the relative minority compared with the prime Anurian empire, Ga Ia Nur.

Primary Exports: the Tanglesia Horticult focuses upon the production of organic technology ranging from the exotic and bizarre to practical goods. Their most famous feat of engineering is the hyperdrive blooms they use for increasing their hyperspace range. These bulbs are often sold frequently to allies and are known for their durability and user-friendly bio-interfaces. Other goods include Prism Berries, some of the most prized jewels amongst Anurians and Limaxians, foundation boles, a prize amongst industrial societies, particularly the warlike Amboles, who ironically are a prime enemy of the Horticult. Self-sustaining and cleaning plant clothing, mining plants, root nervous-system augmentations, seed implants, galactic seeders, used by nearly all races in the civilized universe to produce fertile galaxies, and much more are available from Tanglesian merchants.

War potential/tendencies/strategies: The Horticult has proven itself aggressive at times, determined as it is to ensure all organic life remains untainted and preserved. In a universe currently dominated by such things as anti-matter and exotic particles, one would believe the Horticult foolish for failing to use such fiery darts of extermination. However, many have learned that Horticult life-forming applies well to the cultivation of weapons as horrific as they are effective.
Like the hyperspace bulbs Horticult militaries have a number of mainstay species used for warfare. Their scanning abilities are rated favorably high by the Mantid Guild of Espionage, as the Rafflesia Radar Blossoms are durable and hard to jam. Aside from their visual prowess the Horticult manages quite well in ship to ship fighting. They create Liveships for battle, organic vehicle plants of death that can take many different forms. One particular favorite destroyer class resembles a mass of elegantly curved thorns, with a tangle of vines wrapping them all together into a spherical shape. Many other kinds exist as well, including fortress class “warbulbs” that take the form of durable shells with many billions of chestnut-like spines. Ouch.
For destroying opponents nothing suits the Horticult better than a spore attack. Some spores are near microscopic making them difficult to detect. Many supposedly invincible fortresses, cities, and cultures vanished into the jungles that mysteriously and suddenly sprang up like super weeds from the floor or ground. On ships the spores eat away at the structure until they form parasite mushroom roots. The roots eventually break the whole ship down until it loses structural integrity, thus fragmenting. The blooming body of the mushroom then bursts thereafter or until punctured by a foolish enemy, spraying countless trillions of spores to infect new hosts, which then create new budding bodies, which then burst to infect yet again, so on and so forth.
Other technologies include “Warpwoods”, whole interconnecting warpbloom gates for the mass transfer of Liveships and their Basket carriers to the front lines. The Warpwoods have often been seen growing naturally in some galaxies, possibly a result of over-breeding and carelessness on the part of Horticult wood rangers.
Recent history has proven many of the Horticult Pharaohs to be very open to strong alliances with like-minded races. Their valor and dignity have won them much honor and trust in a world of the trustless, while their Liveships have proven tenacious in the extreme. Some anti-organic races fear the Horticult may continue expanding and growing, until the weed of Tanglesia becomes an epidemic of strong trees that cannot be uprooted.