Almost 15 years ago I wrote a project that was never published, which included a write-up of the two symbiotic Lamura species and the Cyrtialin Unity. I was looking for something else and found it yesterday, so here's what I have (adapted to current MT2e rules)
The Lamura & The Cytrialin Unity
The Cytrialin Unity is a small independent state lying between the Imperium and the Hive Federation. After providing a detailed description of the Cytrialin Unity and the two symbiotic species that inhabit it. See Challenge Magazine #39 for further information
The Lamura
The Lamura consist of two very different but symbiotic species. The Lamura Teg are a minor human race, while the Lamura Gav are a species of small, vaguely spider-like aliens.
Origins & History
The recorded history of the Lamura goes back more than 10,000 years. However, their early history is even more unusual. Before the explosion that changed the face of Lamura, this planet was the homeworld of an advanced human minor race that developed jump drive and other highly advanced technologies using artifacts scavenged from the ruins of a large base built by the Ancients. 46,000 years ago, these now-extinct humans, known as the Lemun, collected the ancestors of the ancestors of both the Lamura Teg and the Lamura Gav from other star systems and brought them to Lamura. These two species were part of a Lemun experiment designed to create artificial symbiosis and breed a pair of species that would be ideal servants and assistants.
The two Lamura races were created in a huge deeply-buried laboratory in one of the most geologically stable regions of the planet. This vast laboratory complex was heavily fortified and protected by advanced force fields to both deter industrial espionage and prevent the members of either race from escaping.
Most life on Lamura was destroyed when an experimental antimatter reactor exploded. Known as the Burn-off, this catastrophe cracked the world's crust and ripped away most of its atmosphere. However, because it was so solidly built, the laboratory complex survived the disaster. It was damaged, but the majority of the inhabitants survived and the internal life support system continued functioning for the next 10,000 years, by which time the surface of the world had stabilized and the surviving native life had spread back over the surface of Lamura. Because of the greatly reduced atmosphere, life could only thrive in deep rift valleys where the atmosphere was significantly denser than the world's surface. Ten thousand years after the explosion, both the defenses and the life support machinery of the huge laboratory complex began to fail and the ancestors of the two Lamura races bravely made their way from this safe haven into the ruined planet that was their new home. Unable to live on the surface, they colonized the many rift valleys produced when the Burn-off had cracked the world's crust.
The two races had been designed to be dependent upon one another, and their 10,000 years of living within a gradually failing laboratory made this symbiosis cultural as well as biological. However, the ancestors of the Lamura were ill-prepared for life outside of their laboratory. Although they knew how to use many of the advanced devices within their laboratory, the few thousand Lamura who left the failing laboratory were still TL 0 primitives who knew nothing of metalworking or agriculture. They were faced with an exceedingly harsh world and only their intense spirit of cooperation allowed them to survive.
Industrialization and the Ecological Crisis
Almost 5,000 years ago, the Lamura had colonized most of the habitable rift valleys of their world and begun the complex process of becoming an industrial civilization that relied first upon steam power and then electricity. Obtaining scare resources was often both difficult and dangerous because most of the surface of their planet was cover in an unbreathably thin atmosphere. In addition, the Lamura faced problems caused by their severe vulnerability to toxins. The extremely keen sense of smell possessed by both Lamura races insured that the early phases of industrialization produces considerably fewer toxic pollutants than on many worlds; the smells of most primitive industrial pollution were simply too noxious for the Lamura to be willing to tolerate. However, once they developed complex chemistry, they began to create plastics, artificial dyes, fertilizers, pesticides, and many other advanced chemicals. Some of the byproducts of these processes and a few of the pollutants given off by burning fossil fuels were odorless and so the Lamura did not immediately notice their presence. As a result, a few of these chemicals began to accumulate in the environment and made their way into the Lamura food chain. Because the Lamura are highly susceptible to all types of poisons, large number of both species of Lamura soon became quite ill. Before the problem was completely understood, almost 10% of the Lamura population died from poisoning related to various types of industrial pollution.
The aftermath of this incident, still known as The Poisoning, radically transformed Lamura society. Because of the difficult and limited nature of their environment, the Lamura placed great value on cooperation, sharing, and careful management of resources. The Poisoning also caused them to become very cautious in their use of technology and their impact on their environment. Technological development slowed for a century as the Lamura learned new and safer methods of manufacturing, and ever since The Poisoning, environmental protection has been one of the core values of the Lamura. The reaction to The Poisoning also led to the widespread adoption of the Cytrialin Way, which has previously been one of many small, localized religions and philosophies. At this time, the Lamura also began learning to build advanced automation so that they could create factories where dangerous chemicals were completely isolated from all people.
The discovery of hydrogen fusion 4,000 years ago was an enormous boon for the Lamura because it provided them with a powerful and completely non-polluting source of power. This development ushered in a new era of technological progress on Lamura. Within thirty years, the Lamura people had spread across the entire surface of their adopted homeworld. While the vast majority of people still lived in the rift valleys, there were many dozens of small settlements and factory towns on the surface of the world. Fusion reactors allowed the Lamura to build long-term settlements anywhere there were valuable resources and then cheaply and easily transport these resources back to Lamura cities using high-speed magnetic trains.
Within a century of the development of fusion, the Lamura also expanded out into space. Their experience at building settlements in hostile environments served them well and they soon colonized several of the other moons of the large gas giant Lamura orbits (Ylanat) as well as their system's asteroid belt. The ability to perform both mining and manufacturing on lifeless moons and asteroids was a great boon to the Lamura desire to avoid toxins and pollution. The individuals who worked off-world were paid very well and rarely risked exposure to toxins since these mines and factories were so heavily automated.
Lamura Physiology & Appearance
The Lamura consist of two exceedingly different species. The Lamura Teg are a genetically modified minor human race; the Lamura Gav are aliens that look like six-limbed, spider-like beings approximately 1.2 meters across and 1 meter tall. Both species were genetically engineered by a long-extinct species known as the Lemun. These modifications included a few general improvements that mean that both species are generally healthier and longer-lived than they otherwise would be. The Lemun also adapted the two species to conditions on Lamura before the Burn-off and modified them so that they would be symbiotically dependent upon one another.
The Lamura Teg are most notable for having tough, jet black skin that protects them from Lamura's abundant ultra-violet radiation. They are also well adapted for life in the rift valleys where they evolved for more than 29,000 years. Their small initial population, combined with the severe selection pressure caused their evolution to proceed unusually rapidly. Today, they are expert climbers with large, heavily modified lungs that allow them to thrive in the thin atmosphere. Scholars do not know if the Lamura Teg's high intelligence and exceptional memories are a result of the Lemun's genetic engineering or adaptation to the difficulties of life on Lamura, but the Lamura Teg are widely known as brilliant scholars.
The Lamura Gav look superficially like six-legged spiders with short fur that ranges in color from yellow to reddish orange and that is often patterned in subtle stripes and swirls. They have four legs and their front pair of limbs are a pair of arms that each end in four long fingers arranged radially around their palm. Although their original homeworld is unknown, sophontologists speculate that the Lamura Gav evolved on a world that gradually lost its atmosphere and that their ancestors lived in deep caves and occasionally ventured out onto the near vacuum of the surface. Because of the harsh conditions of their homeworld, the Lamura Gav can survive and even remain active during an exposure to vacuum that lasts no more than one hour. Lamura Gav are hermaphroditic; two of them are required to mate, but any two can do so.
Because they possess gecko-like pads on the ends of all of their limbs, Lamura Gav are expert climbers and can walk along ceilings and walls almost as easily as they can walk on a floor. The fact that they evolved as climbing creatures means that most of them consider walls and ceilings to be perfectly good surfaces to walk on. To help compensate for the fact that they are so much shorter than the Lamura Teg, they regularly walk up walls to open cabinets or obtain items from high shelves. Many mainstream humans find the sight of large spider-like being crawling rapidly up a wall or resting comfortably on the ceiling to be especially disconcerting, and so Lamura Gav who travel outside the Cytrialin Unity usually learn to limit their movements along walls and ceilings to those times when no other options are available.
Smell and Social Interaction
Both the Lamura species have exceptionally keen senses of smell, so keen that they can all easily tell what others are feeling. This is especially important because Lamura Gav lack easily recognizable facial expressions. Because any other nearby Lamura can tell what they are feeling, most Lamura are quite honest and suffer from fewer long-term psychological problems than most sentient species because everyone nearby knows when they are unhappy or troubled. This universal empathy has resulted in a culture where everyone does their best to care for everyone else; the concept that people would not take care of the poor or the elderly is almost incomprehensible to the Lamura, who can quite literally smell others' suffering.
This empathy is also partly responsible for the deeply held pacifism of the Lamura. Both of the two Lamura races are relatively non-aggressive species. Although many outsiders assume that the pacifism of the Lamura is because of their dedication to the Cytrialin, even those few who do not follow the Cytrialin Way are reasonably non-violent.
Because of their keen senses of smell, Lamura find the presence of others of their kind to be comforting and homey. Although Lamura Teg become almost as stressed when uncomfortably crowded as mainstream humans, they generally prefer the company of others to solitude. In addition to the prevalence of group-oriented entertainments, their gregariousness is also reflected in everything from their architecture to the fact that Lamura stand considerably closer to one another than most mainstream humans in the Imperium.
Their sense of smell also means that among the Lamura, social distance also has a very practical use. Unless the air is particularly still and there is no one else in the room, Lamura cannot use their sense of smell to pick up the emotional responses of someone who is more than 3 meters away. Lamura who trust one another or who wish to declare that they have nothing to hide always stand within 2 meters of one another. Lamura social gatherings regularly break up into such small knots of people, and moving from one small group to another sometimes requires considerably social finesse.
Social distances in more formal circumstances are very different. In any sort of formal meeting or negotiations, all parties start out between 3 and 4 meters from each other, so that everyone can keep their feelings private. Depending upon the nature of the meeting, everyone may remain at this distance or someone may request that everyone move closer to one another by using a small social ritual from the Cytrialin that is designed for just this circumstance; the person bows to everyone and mimes walking forward, thus declaring the fact that he has nothing to hide. At this point, everyone else either has the option either of talking a small step backwards to signal that they do not wish to move closer and share their feelings, or repeating the same formula and moving forward until everyone is standing close to one another. Although refusing to move closer and share emotions is usually considered an acceptable choice, if the majority of a group is willing to do so, anyone who does not move forward is considered untrustworthy. When this ritual is invoked, there is typically a pause when everyone looks to see what the other people present will do.
Outsiders who visit the Cytrialin Unity often have a difficult time negotiating social situations, Lamura who are standing close to one another almost never defend the honesty of what they are saying and rarely talk about how a statement or situation makes them feel, because they assume that everyone they are talking to already knows what they are feeling. Non-Lamura sometimes complain that they feel like they are missing out on crucial portions of any conversations they have there.
Symbiosis
In addition to living together and possessing similar sense, the two species are symbiotically dependent upon one another. To maintain both health and fertility, every Lamura must eat at least 0.25 kg of the flesh or drink 0.25 liters of the blood of the other race at least once a month. The flesh or blood contains a number of essential micronutrients that are otherwise unavailable. Although the Lamura developed methods of synthesizing these nutrients at Tech Level 8, they only use such synthetics in dire emergencies. Eating the bodies of the dead of the other Lamura species is an important ritual in the life of the Lamura and is accompanies by rituals of great reverence for the dead. Funeral customs of the Lamura always include cross species cannibalism. Because the two species are so different physiologically, corpses cannot transmit any diseases to the eater. In addition, Lamura of different races who are close friends typically give small amounts of their blood to their friends. Almost every Lamura home contains an automated device for drawing small amounts of blood for this important social bonding ritual.
One unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of their ability to extract essential nutrients from completely alien proteins is that both Lamura races are exceedingly sensitive to all forms of toxins. As a result, the Lamura have strong cultural restrictions on how they deal with toxins. A minor chemical spill that would merely make nearby mainstream humans mildly ill could kill or seriously injure any Lamura in the area. Therefore, everyone in the Cytrialin Unity is expected to be exceptionally careful when working with potentially dangerous toxins. Anyone who releases poison where Lamura could potentially be exposed to them is regarded as being passively homicidal and completely devoid of either common sense or concern for the welfare of others. Like anyone else who commits a serious crime, such criminals are given a choice between being given a solitary occupation in an isolated setting and extensive advanced psychological therapy to make certain that they avoid performing such crimes in the future. Because the Lamura know that outsiders lack their vulnerability to toxins, the first time a new ship visits a Cytrialin world, port officials always explain the basic rules regarding waste disposal and dealing with toxic chemicals.
The Cytrialin Way
The guiding philosophy of the Lamura is a lengthy work called the Cytrialin. The Cytrialin is both a rough and rather biased history of the Lamura peoples as well as a complex system of ethics and morality and a compilation of highly practical advice for life as one of the Lamura. Because so many of the Lamura are noted for reading or quoting the Cytrialin when in distress or seeking answers to a difficult problem, they have gained a reputation for being religious fanatics and impractical mystics. What most non-Lamura do not realize is that practical advice and effective systems for problem solving forms the heart of the Cytrialin. Although the most ancient version is more than 15,000 years old, it is continually evolving and being revised and it only began to take its modern form 4,500 years ago, when the Lamura people successfully weathered the Poisoning. In the aftermath of this tragedy, Cytrialin became the dominant philosophical system among the Lamura, in large part, because it provided concrete guidelines on how they could best insure their survival in a harsh world.
The Cytrialin is primarily a combination of advice on how followers should live their life and a multitude of daily rituals that followers are supposed to perform. Both the advice and the rituals are a mixture of sound psychological and spiritual advice for leading a happy and fulfilling life, and a series of sensible prohibitions and guidelines for how Lamura can avoid health and environmental problem.
Pacifism
Both their experience and the Cytrialin teach the Lamura the necessity of resolving conflicts peacefully. Before they left their homeworld, their environment was so precious and fragile that violent conflict could easily cause environmental damage that would doom both the winner and the loser. As a result, pacifism remains one of the most important teachings of the Cytrialin. However, once the Lamura expanded out into space, they discovered that not all species that traveled the spaceways had similar feelings and so they learned that violence and even warfare were occasionally necessary. Nevertheless, they regard violence as an option of last resort and only engage in it when they are attacked. However, the Lamura consider pollution and other ecological damage to their worlds to be attacks, and will escalate to violence rather quickly if visitors - be they individuals or megacorporations - persist in such "attacks" after a warning.
Environmentalism
The Lamura are deeply devoted to the principles of environmental protection put forth in the Cytrialin. While many greedy and pragmatic visitors to the Cytrialin Unity consider Cytrialin environmentalism to be naïve and unprofitable, the Lamura have sound practical and philosophical reasons for their concern about the environments in which they live. Since they are so susceptible to pollutants, living in a healthy nature environment assures them that they are largely free from the danger of being unknowingly poisoned. Similarly, damaged ecosystems upset all Lamura because they often indicate the presence of chemicals that are potentially lethal.
Conversion and Outreach
Self-determination is one of the central tenets of the Cytrialin. Devout followers of the Cytrialin Way reject the idea of attempting to force anyone to embrace the Cytrialin. Forced conversion, organized missionary efforts, and similar invasive tactics are never used. The Cytrialin explicitly tells believers that non-believers will find their own truths and that their beliefs must be respected. However, while there are no official Cytrialin missionaries, when followers of the Cytrialin Way travel outside the Cytrialin Unity, they often strike up conversations about comparative religion and philosophy and question people they meet about their beliefs and practices. Most traveling Lamura are also more than happy to talk about the Cytrialin and what it means to them. These Lamura are extremely polite and do their best to hold these conversations in an inoffensive manner. Nevertheless, outsiders often characterize Lamura as busy-bodies who talk constantly about their religion.
The Lamura have absolutely no restrictions on other species or other breeds of humaniti following the Cytrialin Way and are pleased if someone they know chooses to take up this way of life. Many Lamura who venture beyond the Cytrialin Unity carry extra copies of the Cytrialin with them and are more than happy to give their spare copies to someone who shows a sincere interest in the philosophy. As a result, there are small enclaves of followers of the Cytrialin philosophy in the sectors surrounding the Cytrialin Unity as well as a small but substantial minority of non-Lamura follows of the Cytrialin Way living inside the Cytrialin Unity.
Cytrial
Cytial, the Lamura homeworld, is a moon of Ylanat, a "hot jupiter" that orbits the bright F9 star Serragar at a distance of 1.6 AU and is the 2nd planet in the system. There are two other gas giants. Arya orbits at 4 AU, and Delo orbits at 7 AU. Two airless rocky worlds orbit at 1 and 5 AU. Lamura has one large and two small moons.
Cytrial rotates once every 29 hours and revolves around Ylanat once every 53 days. It is a cool, harsh world where most types of humanity must gasp desperately for breath on the surface and will usually fall unconsciousness in less than an hour. Even the two hardy Lamura races have difficulty surviving on the surface. Instead, they live in a vast series of deep rift valleys and in the many caverns that adjoin these valleys.
This enormous network of caverns and rift valleys were formed by a catastrophic experiment with the controlled use of antimatter that occurred approximately 29,000 years ago. The resulting explosion, known today as the Burn-off, caused vast earthquakes along boundaries of the world's tectonic plates and opened deep fissures over a region encompassing half of one hemisphere of the planet. Today, a quarter of the surface of the world consists of a huge crater, 1,500 miles in diameter and three and a half miles deep that is now the basin of a shallow sea. A series of huge rift valleys radiate out from this crater-sea. The deepest of these valleys are more than 3,000 miles long, up to 100 miles wide, and two and a half to three miles deep.
The Burn-off also blew over half of the planet's atmosphere into space, transforming the already thin atmosphere into one that is considerably less hospitable. The world gradually recovered from this catastrophe; within 2,000 years the new rift valleys had cooled and life began to colonize this new environment. Life on Lamura had great difficulty surviving in the greatly reduced atmosphere on the surface, and the higher density of the atmosphere in these valleys was far more hospitable. Today, the atmospheric pressure on the surface is only 30% that of Earth at sea level and is completely unbreathable by mainstream humans without respirators or oxygen tanks. The pressure in the depths of the rift valleys rises to between 50% and 60% of Earth at sea level and is breathable by mainstream humans as long as they avoid exerting themselves and spend several hours a day in a higher pressure environment.
Native Biology
98% of all life on Lamura died in the aftermath of the antimatter explosion. In addition, the Leman became extinct, leaving behind only heavily damaged ruins, a few abandoned bases on other planets, and the laboratory complex where the Lamura were bred. Only the toughest and most resilient life survived the Burn-off. Today, life on Lamura is divided between the few exceptionally hardy creatures that can survive on the world's surface and the many slightly less resilient creatures that can only live in the deeper portions of the huge rift valleys surrounding the huge crater ocean.
Lamura flora are all various shades of blue; those on the surface are mostly thick leaved bluish plants with leaves covered in a dense wax to protect them from drought, low pressure, and ultra-violet radiation. Most animals have both tough exoskeletons and relatively light internal skeletons. The native animals all have 8 limbs and polished carapaces much like the shells of Terran insects. No animal that lives on the surface weighs more than 60 lbs., and most are no larger than a small housecat. The situation is very different in the rift valleys. Here, some of the large and complex life that used to live all over Lamura has managed to survive. The largest creatures are the size of ponies and the largest predators are slightly bigger than one of the Lamura Teg.
While both of the two Lamura races can eat most native plants and animals, the converse is not true. Lamura Teg do not smell particularly appetizing to native Lamura life and Lamura Gav are mildly poisonous to Lamura animals. As a result, Lamura predators and parasites rarely trouble either of the Lamura races. Lamura children grow up learning that the native life in the valleys are usually quite harmless. However, the surface is a completely different environment. Here, the thin atmosphere means that few creatures rely upon smell as a major sense and prey is sufficiently scarce that almost any creature is worth attacking in the hope that it will be edible. Fortunately, the surface has very few dangerous predators, and so most Lamura grow up assuming that all animals, including predators, are not serious threats. This attitude persists throughout the Cytrialin Unity, except on those few of their worlds where the native life actively preys upon one or both of the Lamura races. Lamura worry far more about dangers from toxins and other environmental risks like thin air or extremes of temperature far more than any risks from dangerous native life-forms.
Lamura life that lives in the rift valley, including both of the two Lamura races, can only survive on the surface for short periods of time. An average Lamura of either species can comfortably spend several hours on the surface, even if they engage in light activity like walking while moderately encumbered or walking briskly while lightly encumbered. However, both species suffer from altitude sickness if they spend more than a day on the surface and only the toughest members of either race can survive more than three days on the surface.
In the long-ago days before they began following the Cytrialin, the Lamura regularly exiled criminals to the surface and forbade them from returning to the valley that exiled them on pain of death. The vast majority perished, but a few managed to make their way to other valleys. Doing so was regarded as such a rare and epic journey that all previous crimes were forbidden. Even today, Lamura adolescents regularly engage in contests where they show off their physical prowess on the surface. However, everyone who does this is expected to carry both a mobile comm that can be used to locate them and an emergency respirator mask in case they suddenly begin suffering from altitude sickness.
The Cytrialin Unity
Although individual Lamura can be found in the Hive Federation, the Imperium, and in many of the small independent buffer states, the vast majority live within the Cytrialin Unity. The Unity is a small independent state containing 58 inhabited star systems. It is located around the intersection of the Hinterworlds, Leonidae, Glimmerdrift Reaches, and Crusis Margin Sectors.
The government of the Unity is officially dedicated to the principles contained in the Cytrialin and at first glance, it appears to be a theocratic regime. The reality of life in the Unity is considerably less restrictive. As long as residents are willing to adhere to the most central precepts of the Cytrialin (pacifism, cooperation, helping those in need, stringent environmentalism, and taking extreme care with toxins) they are free to worship or believe as they will. The vast majority of those who live in the Cytrialin Unity perform the daily Cytrialin rituals, but doing neither is required. However, actively refusing to perform these rituals isolates an individual from much of the social life their world. As a result, the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Cytrialin Unity actively follow the Cytrialin Way. However, not all of these individuals are Lamura. Approximately 9% of the inhabitants of Cytrialin Unity are non-Lamura. The majority are members of other types of Humaniti, but Hivers, Vargr, Ithklur, and several other species common in this portion of space make their home in this state.
The Cytrialin Unity maintains an open emigration policy. Residents are free to leave at any time if they are not wanted for serious crimes, and outsiders may freely visit for trade, tourism, and similar purposes. Immigrating to the Cytrialin Unity is also relatively simple. Anyone who is a sincere follower of the Cytrialin Way is free to move to the Cytrialin Unity if they are not currently fleeing justice for violent crimes. Since all Lamura can smell the emotions of others, pretending to sincerely believe in the Cytrialin Way is rarely successful. Individuals who do not follow the Cytrialin Way can also immigrate into the Unity if they are willing to swear to respect the principles of the Cytrialin and to follow its central precepts. However, in such cases, immigration officials only approve individuals who have useful skills, significant resources, or some other factor that will directly benefit the residents of the Cytrialin Unity.
Although the Cytrialin Unity is dedicated to pacifism, the rulers are no less pragmatic than the rulers of any other interstellar polity. The Cytrialin Unity has alternatives to war that it has used extremely effectively on many occasions. The Lamura are known for being fiercely competitive traders, and are perfectly willing to openly mix politics and commerce. Trade embargoes and commercial boycotts are regularly used to put pressure on neighboring states. Foreigners who believe them to be naive and foolish pacifists soon learn otherwise. Also, Lamura make especially skilled negotiators and diplomats because of their keen sense of smell. Lamura who have experience dealing with other species can smell the emotions of Hivers, Vargr, and all other species that they regularly deal with. Deceiving one of the Lamura in person is exceptionally difficult.
Like the Imperium, the Cytrialin Unity maintains no policy on the type of government Cytrialin worlds must have. While democracies, meritocracies, and government by skilled professional bureaucrats are by far the most common options, as long as the populace is not coerced or oppressed, Cytrialin worlds are free to be run by everything from direct democracy to absolute dictators. However, regardless of how a world is governed, all Cytrialin citizens have the right to freely travel from one world to another. The Cytrialin Unity subsidizes middle and low passage tickets between Cytrialin worlds, so that they cost one half of what they do in the Imperium. The founders of the Cytrialin Unity decided that free and affordable travel between Cytrialin worlds was the best way to insure that the populace was not mistreated. People who found conditions on a particular world intolerable could simply leave and travel to another one. As a result, even when they are not fleeing oppression, Cytrialin are a well-traveled people.
Creating Lamura Travellers
Rules for creating both Lamura Teg and Lamura Gav Travellers are below.
Lamura Teg
Lamura Teg are a hairless species of humaniti with jet black skins and eyes that are typically grey, amber, green, or blue. They are generally tall and relatively slender, but with slightly oversized rib cages to support their larger lungs. Their height ranges from 1.65-2.1 m
Characteristics: DEX: +1, INT: +1, SOC: 1D6+4
Traits
Lamura Teg Travellers all possess the following traits:
Careers
Lamura Gav
Lamura Gav look superficially like six-legged spiders with short fur that ranges in color from yellow to reddish orange and that is often patterned in subtle stripes and swirls. They have four legs and their front pair of limbs are a pair of arms that each end in four long fingers arranged radially around their palm. They between 30 and 45 kg, and are 1.2 m across and stand only 1 m tall.
Characteristics: STR: 1D6+1, DEX: 3D6, END: 1D6+2, SOC: 1D6+4
Traits
Lamura Gav Travellers all possess the following traits:
Careers
The Lamura & The Cytrialin Unity
The Cytrialin Unity is a small independent state lying between the Imperium and the Hive Federation. After providing a detailed description of the Cytrialin Unity and the two symbiotic species that inhabit it. See Challenge Magazine #39 for further information
The Lamura
The Lamura consist of two very different but symbiotic species. The Lamura Teg are a minor human race, while the Lamura Gav are a species of small, vaguely spider-like aliens.
Origins & History
The recorded history of the Lamura goes back more than 10,000 years. However, their early history is even more unusual. Before the explosion that changed the face of Lamura, this planet was the homeworld of an advanced human minor race that developed jump drive and other highly advanced technologies using artifacts scavenged from the ruins of a large base built by the Ancients. 46,000 years ago, these now-extinct humans, known as the Lemun, collected the ancestors of the ancestors of both the Lamura Teg and the Lamura Gav from other star systems and brought them to Lamura. These two species were part of a Lemun experiment designed to create artificial symbiosis and breed a pair of species that would be ideal servants and assistants.
The two Lamura races were created in a huge deeply-buried laboratory in one of the most geologically stable regions of the planet. This vast laboratory complex was heavily fortified and protected by advanced force fields to both deter industrial espionage and prevent the members of either race from escaping.
Most life on Lamura was destroyed when an experimental antimatter reactor exploded. Known as the Burn-off, this catastrophe cracked the world's crust and ripped away most of its atmosphere. However, because it was so solidly built, the laboratory complex survived the disaster. It was damaged, but the majority of the inhabitants survived and the internal life support system continued functioning for the next 10,000 years, by which time the surface of the world had stabilized and the surviving native life had spread back over the surface of Lamura. Because of the greatly reduced atmosphere, life could only thrive in deep rift valleys where the atmosphere was significantly denser than the world's surface. Ten thousand years after the explosion, both the defenses and the life support machinery of the huge laboratory complex began to fail and the ancestors of the two Lamura races bravely made their way from this safe haven into the ruined planet that was their new home. Unable to live on the surface, they colonized the many rift valleys produced when the Burn-off had cracked the world's crust.
The two races had been designed to be dependent upon one another, and their 10,000 years of living within a gradually failing laboratory made this symbiosis cultural as well as biological. However, the ancestors of the Lamura were ill-prepared for life outside of their laboratory. Although they knew how to use many of the advanced devices within their laboratory, the few thousand Lamura who left the failing laboratory were still TL 0 primitives who knew nothing of metalworking or agriculture. They were faced with an exceedingly harsh world and only their intense spirit of cooperation allowed them to survive.
Industrialization and the Ecological Crisis
Almost 5,000 years ago, the Lamura had colonized most of the habitable rift valleys of their world and begun the complex process of becoming an industrial civilization that relied first upon steam power and then electricity. Obtaining scare resources was often both difficult and dangerous because most of the surface of their planet was cover in an unbreathably thin atmosphere. In addition, the Lamura faced problems caused by their severe vulnerability to toxins. The extremely keen sense of smell possessed by both Lamura races insured that the early phases of industrialization produces considerably fewer toxic pollutants than on many worlds; the smells of most primitive industrial pollution were simply too noxious for the Lamura to be willing to tolerate. However, once they developed complex chemistry, they began to create plastics, artificial dyes, fertilizers, pesticides, and many other advanced chemicals. Some of the byproducts of these processes and a few of the pollutants given off by burning fossil fuels were odorless and so the Lamura did not immediately notice their presence. As a result, a few of these chemicals began to accumulate in the environment and made their way into the Lamura food chain. Because the Lamura are highly susceptible to all types of poisons, large number of both species of Lamura soon became quite ill. Before the problem was completely understood, almost 10% of the Lamura population died from poisoning related to various types of industrial pollution.
The aftermath of this incident, still known as The Poisoning, radically transformed Lamura society. Because of the difficult and limited nature of their environment, the Lamura placed great value on cooperation, sharing, and careful management of resources. The Poisoning also caused them to become very cautious in their use of technology and their impact on their environment. Technological development slowed for a century as the Lamura learned new and safer methods of manufacturing, and ever since The Poisoning, environmental protection has been one of the core values of the Lamura. The reaction to The Poisoning also led to the widespread adoption of the Cytrialin Way, which has previously been one of many small, localized religions and philosophies. At this time, the Lamura also began learning to build advanced automation so that they could create factories where dangerous chemicals were completely isolated from all people.
The discovery of hydrogen fusion 4,000 years ago was an enormous boon for the Lamura because it provided them with a powerful and completely non-polluting source of power. This development ushered in a new era of technological progress on Lamura. Within thirty years, the Lamura people had spread across the entire surface of their adopted homeworld. While the vast majority of people still lived in the rift valleys, there were many dozens of small settlements and factory towns on the surface of the world. Fusion reactors allowed the Lamura to build long-term settlements anywhere there were valuable resources and then cheaply and easily transport these resources back to Lamura cities using high-speed magnetic trains.
Within a century of the development of fusion, the Lamura also expanded out into space. Their experience at building settlements in hostile environments served them well and they soon colonized several of the other moons of the large gas giant Lamura orbits (Ylanat) as well as their system's asteroid belt. The ability to perform both mining and manufacturing on lifeless moons and asteroids was a great boon to the Lamura desire to avoid toxins and pollution. The individuals who worked off-world were paid very well and rarely risked exposure to toxins since these mines and factories were so heavily automated.
Lamura Physiology & Appearance
The Lamura consist of two exceedingly different species. The Lamura Teg are a genetically modified minor human race; the Lamura Gav are aliens that look like six-limbed, spider-like beings approximately 1.2 meters across and 1 meter tall. Both species were genetically engineered by a long-extinct species known as the Lemun. These modifications included a few general improvements that mean that both species are generally healthier and longer-lived than they otherwise would be. The Lemun also adapted the two species to conditions on Lamura before the Burn-off and modified them so that they would be symbiotically dependent upon one another.
The Lamura Teg are most notable for having tough, jet black skin that protects them from Lamura's abundant ultra-violet radiation. They are also well adapted for life in the rift valleys where they evolved for more than 29,000 years. Their small initial population, combined with the severe selection pressure caused their evolution to proceed unusually rapidly. Today, they are expert climbers with large, heavily modified lungs that allow them to thrive in the thin atmosphere. Scholars do not know if the Lamura Teg's high intelligence and exceptional memories are a result of the Lemun's genetic engineering or adaptation to the difficulties of life on Lamura, but the Lamura Teg are widely known as brilliant scholars.
The Lamura Gav look superficially like six-legged spiders with short fur that ranges in color from yellow to reddish orange and that is often patterned in subtle stripes and swirls. They have four legs and their front pair of limbs are a pair of arms that each end in four long fingers arranged radially around their palm. Although their original homeworld is unknown, sophontologists speculate that the Lamura Gav evolved on a world that gradually lost its atmosphere and that their ancestors lived in deep caves and occasionally ventured out onto the near vacuum of the surface. Because of the harsh conditions of their homeworld, the Lamura Gav can survive and even remain active during an exposure to vacuum that lasts no more than one hour. Lamura Gav are hermaphroditic; two of them are required to mate, but any two can do so.
Because they possess gecko-like pads on the ends of all of their limbs, Lamura Gav are expert climbers and can walk along ceilings and walls almost as easily as they can walk on a floor. The fact that they evolved as climbing creatures means that most of them consider walls and ceilings to be perfectly good surfaces to walk on. To help compensate for the fact that they are so much shorter than the Lamura Teg, they regularly walk up walls to open cabinets or obtain items from high shelves. Many mainstream humans find the sight of large spider-like being crawling rapidly up a wall or resting comfortably on the ceiling to be especially disconcerting, and so Lamura Gav who travel outside the Cytrialin Unity usually learn to limit their movements along walls and ceilings to those times when no other options are available.
Smell and Social Interaction
Both the Lamura species have exceptionally keen senses of smell, so keen that they can all easily tell what others are feeling. This is especially important because Lamura Gav lack easily recognizable facial expressions. Because any other nearby Lamura can tell what they are feeling, most Lamura are quite honest and suffer from fewer long-term psychological problems than most sentient species because everyone nearby knows when they are unhappy or troubled. This universal empathy has resulted in a culture where everyone does their best to care for everyone else; the concept that people would not take care of the poor or the elderly is almost incomprehensible to the Lamura, who can quite literally smell others' suffering.
This empathy is also partly responsible for the deeply held pacifism of the Lamura. Both of the two Lamura races are relatively non-aggressive species. Although many outsiders assume that the pacifism of the Lamura is because of their dedication to the Cytrialin, even those few who do not follow the Cytrialin Way are reasonably non-violent.
Because of their keen senses of smell, Lamura find the presence of others of their kind to be comforting and homey. Although Lamura Teg become almost as stressed when uncomfortably crowded as mainstream humans, they generally prefer the company of others to solitude. In addition to the prevalence of group-oriented entertainments, their gregariousness is also reflected in everything from their architecture to the fact that Lamura stand considerably closer to one another than most mainstream humans in the Imperium.
Their sense of smell also means that among the Lamura, social distance also has a very practical use. Unless the air is particularly still and there is no one else in the room, Lamura cannot use their sense of smell to pick up the emotional responses of someone who is more than 3 meters away. Lamura who trust one another or who wish to declare that they have nothing to hide always stand within 2 meters of one another. Lamura social gatherings regularly break up into such small knots of people, and moving from one small group to another sometimes requires considerably social finesse.
Social distances in more formal circumstances are very different. In any sort of formal meeting or negotiations, all parties start out between 3 and 4 meters from each other, so that everyone can keep their feelings private. Depending upon the nature of the meeting, everyone may remain at this distance or someone may request that everyone move closer to one another by using a small social ritual from the Cytrialin that is designed for just this circumstance; the person bows to everyone and mimes walking forward, thus declaring the fact that he has nothing to hide. At this point, everyone else either has the option either of talking a small step backwards to signal that they do not wish to move closer and share their feelings, or repeating the same formula and moving forward until everyone is standing close to one another. Although refusing to move closer and share emotions is usually considered an acceptable choice, if the majority of a group is willing to do so, anyone who does not move forward is considered untrustworthy. When this ritual is invoked, there is typically a pause when everyone looks to see what the other people present will do.
Outsiders who visit the Cytrialin Unity often have a difficult time negotiating social situations, Lamura who are standing close to one another almost never defend the honesty of what they are saying and rarely talk about how a statement or situation makes them feel, because they assume that everyone they are talking to already knows what they are feeling. Non-Lamura sometimes complain that they feel like they are missing out on crucial portions of any conversations they have there.
Symbiosis
In addition to living together and possessing similar sense, the two species are symbiotically dependent upon one another. To maintain both health and fertility, every Lamura must eat at least 0.25 kg of the flesh or drink 0.25 liters of the blood of the other race at least once a month. The flesh or blood contains a number of essential micronutrients that are otherwise unavailable. Although the Lamura developed methods of synthesizing these nutrients at Tech Level 8, they only use such synthetics in dire emergencies. Eating the bodies of the dead of the other Lamura species is an important ritual in the life of the Lamura and is accompanies by rituals of great reverence for the dead. Funeral customs of the Lamura always include cross species cannibalism. Because the two species are so different physiologically, corpses cannot transmit any diseases to the eater. In addition, Lamura of different races who are close friends typically give small amounts of their blood to their friends. Almost every Lamura home contains an automated device for drawing small amounts of blood for this important social bonding ritual.
One unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of their ability to extract essential nutrients from completely alien proteins is that both Lamura races are exceedingly sensitive to all forms of toxins. As a result, the Lamura have strong cultural restrictions on how they deal with toxins. A minor chemical spill that would merely make nearby mainstream humans mildly ill could kill or seriously injure any Lamura in the area. Therefore, everyone in the Cytrialin Unity is expected to be exceptionally careful when working with potentially dangerous toxins. Anyone who releases poison where Lamura could potentially be exposed to them is regarded as being passively homicidal and completely devoid of either common sense or concern for the welfare of others. Like anyone else who commits a serious crime, such criminals are given a choice between being given a solitary occupation in an isolated setting and extensive advanced psychological therapy to make certain that they avoid performing such crimes in the future. Because the Lamura know that outsiders lack their vulnerability to toxins, the first time a new ship visits a Cytrialin world, port officials always explain the basic rules regarding waste disposal and dealing with toxic chemicals.
The Cytrialin Way
The guiding philosophy of the Lamura is a lengthy work called the Cytrialin. The Cytrialin is both a rough and rather biased history of the Lamura peoples as well as a complex system of ethics and morality and a compilation of highly practical advice for life as one of the Lamura. Because so many of the Lamura are noted for reading or quoting the Cytrialin when in distress or seeking answers to a difficult problem, they have gained a reputation for being religious fanatics and impractical mystics. What most non-Lamura do not realize is that practical advice and effective systems for problem solving forms the heart of the Cytrialin. Although the most ancient version is more than 15,000 years old, it is continually evolving and being revised and it only began to take its modern form 4,500 years ago, when the Lamura people successfully weathered the Poisoning. In the aftermath of this tragedy, Cytrialin became the dominant philosophical system among the Lamura, in large part, because it provided concrete guidelines on how they could best insure their survival in a harsh world.
The Cytrialin is primarily a combination of advice on how followers should live their life and a multitude of daily rituals that followers are supposed to perform. Both the advice and the rituals are a mixture of sound psychological and spiritual advice for leading a happy and fulfilling life, and a series of sensible prohibitions and guidelines for how Lamura can avoid health and environmental problem.
Pacifism
Both their experience and the Cytrialin teach the Lamura the necessity of resolving conflicts peacefully. Before they left their homeworld, their environment was so precious and fragile that violent conflict could easily cause environmental damage that would doom both the winner and the loser. As a result, pacifism remains one of the most important teachings of the Cytrialin. However, once the Lamura expanded out into space, they discovered that not all species that traveled the spaceways had similar feelings and so they learned that violence and even warfare were occasionally necessary. Nevertheless, they regard violence as an option of last resort and only engage in it when they are attacked. However, the Lamura consider pollution and other ecological damage to their worlds to be attacks, and will escalate to violence rather quickly if visitors - be they individuals or megacorporations - persist in such "attacks" after a warning.
Environmentalism
The Lamura are deeply devoted to the principles of environmental protection put forth in the Cytrialin. While many greedy and pragmatic visitors to the Cytrialin Unity consider Cytrialin environmentalism to be naïve and unprofitable, the Lamura have sound practical and philosophical reasons for their concern about the environments in which they live. Since they are so susceptible to pollutants, living in a healthy nature environment assures them that they are largely free from the danger of being unknowingly poisoned. Similarly, damaged ecosystems upset all Lamura because they often indicate the presence of chemicals that are potentially lethal.
Conversion and Outreach
Self-determination is one of the central tenets of the Cytrialin. Devout followers of the Cytrialin Way reject the idea of attempting to force anyone to embrace the Cytrialin. Forced conversion, organized missionary efforts, and similar invasive tactics are never used. The Cytrialin explicitly tells believers that non-believers will find their own truths and that their beliefs must be respected. However, while there are no official Cytrialin missionaries, when followers of the Cytrialin Way travel outside the Cytrialin Unity, they often strike up conversations about comparative religion and philosophy and question people they meet about their beliefs and practices. Most traveling Lamura are also more than happy to talk about the Cytrialin and what it means to them. These Lamura are extremely polite and do their best to hold these conversations in an inoffensive manner. Nevertheless, outsiders often characterize Lamura as busy-bodies who talk constantly about their religion.
The Lamura have absolutely no restrictions on other species or other breeds of humaniti following the Cytrialin Way and are pleased if someone they know chooses to take up this way of life. Many Lamura who venture beyond the Cytrialin Unity carry extra copies of the Cytrialin with them and are more than happy to give their spare copies to someone who shows a sincere interest in the philosophy. As a result, there are small enclaves of followers of the Cytrialin philosophy in the sectors surrounding the Cytrialin Unity as well as a small but substantial minority of non-Lamura follows of the Cytrialin Way living inside the Cytrialin Unity.
Cytrial
- UWP: A8E2987-F
- Gravity: 0.85G.
- Atmosphere: Very Thin (Thin in the Rift Valleys) Oxygen-Nitrogen.
- Surface Water: 18%.
- Climate: Cool and dry
- Population: 1.3 billion ( 550 million Lamura Teg, 700 million Lamura Gav, 50 million others, mostly Humanity and Hivers).
- Trade Classifications: Hi, In, Ri.
Cytial, the Lamura homeworld, is a moon of Ylanat, a "hot jupiter" that orbits the bright F9 star Serragar at a distance of 1.6 AU and is the 2nd planet in the system. There are two other gas giants. Arya orbits at 4 AU, and Delo orbits at 7 AU. Two airless rocky worlds orbit at 1 and 5 AU. Lamura has one large and two small moons.
Cytrial rotates once every 29 hours and revolves around Ylanat once every 53 days. It is a cool, harsh world where most types of humanity must gasp desperately for breath on the surface and will usually fall unconsciousness in less than an hour. Even the two hardy Lamura races have difficulty surviving on the surface. Instead, they live in a vast series of deep rift valleys and in the many caverns that adjoin these valleys.
This enormous network of caverns and rift valleys were formed by a catastrophic experiment with the controlled use of antimatter that occurred approximately 29,000 years ago. The resulting explosion, known today as the Burn-off, caused vast earthquakes along boundaries of the world's tectonic plates and opened deep fissures over a region encompassing half of one hemisphere of the planet. Today, a quarter of the surface of the world consists of a huge crater, 1,500 miles in diameter and three and a half miles deep that is now the basin of a shallow sea. A series of huge rift valleys radiate out from this crater-sea. The deepest of these valleys are more than 3,000 miles long, up to 100 miles wide, and two and a half to three miles deep.
The Burn-off also blew over half of the planet's atmosphere into space, transforming the already thin atmosphere into one that is considerably less hospitable. The world gradually recovered from this catastrophe; within 2,000 years the new rift valleys had cooled and life began to colonize this new environment. Life on Lamura had great difficulty surviving in the greatly reduced atmosphere on the surface, and the higher density of the atmosphere in these valleys was far more hospitable. Today, the atmospheric pressure on the surface is only 30% that of Earth at sea level and is completely unbreathable by mainstream humans without respirators or oxygen tanks. The pressure in the depths of the rift valleys rises to between 50% and 60% of Earth at sea level and is breathable by mainstream humans as long as they avoid exerting themselves and spend several hours a day in a higher pressure environment.
Native Biology
98% of all life on Lamura died in the aftermath of the antimatter explosion. In addition, the Leman became extinct, leaving behind only heavily damaged ruins, a few abandoned bases on other planets, and the laboratory complex where the Lamura were bred. Only the toughest and most resilient life survived the Burn-off. Today, life on Lamura is divided between the few exceptionally hardy creatures that can survive on the world's surface and the many slightly less resilient creatures that can only live in the deeper portions of the huge rift valleys surrounding the huge crater ocean.
Lamura flora are all various shades of blue; those on the surface are mostly thick leaved bluish plants with leaves covered in a dense wax to protect them from drought, low pressure, and ultra-violet radiation. Most animals have both tough exoskeletons and relatively light internal skeletons. The native animals all have 8 limbs and polished carapaces much like the shells of Terran insects. No animal that lives on the surface weighs more than 60 lbs., and most are no larger than a small housecat. The situation is very different in the rift valleys. Here, some of the large and complex life that used to live all over Lamura has managed to survive. The largest creatures are the size of ponies and the largest predators are slightly bigger than one of the Lamura Teg.
While both of the two Lamura races can eat most native plants and animals, the converse is not true. Lamura Teg do not smell particularly appetizing to native Lamura life and Lamura Gav are mildly poisonous to Lamura animals. As a result, Lamura predators and parasites rarely trouble either of the Lamura races. Lamura children grow up learning that the native life in the valleys are usually quite harmless. However, the surface is a completely different environment. Here, the thin atmosphere means that few creatures rely upon smell as a major sense and prey is sufficiently scarce that almost any creature is worth attacking in the hope that it will be edible. Fortunately, the surface has very few dangerous predators, and so most Lamura grow up assuming that all animals, including predators, are not serious threats. This attitude persists throughout the Cytrialin Unity, except on those few of their worlds where the native life actively preys upon one or both of the Lamura races. Lamura worry far more about dangers from toxins and other environmental risks like thin air or extremes of temperature far more than any risks from dangerous native life-forms.
Lamura life that lives in the rift valley, including both of the two Lamura races, can only survive on the surface for short periods of time. An average Lamura of either species can comfortably spend several hours on the surface, even if they engage in light activity like walking while moderately encumbered or walking briskly while lightly encumbered. However, both species suffer from altitude sickness if they spend more than a day on the surface and only the toughest members of either race can survive more than three days on the surface.
In the long-ago days before they began following the Cytrialin, the Lamura regularly exiled criminals to the surface and forbade them from returning to the valley that exiled them on pain of death. The vast majority perished, but a few managed to make their way to other valleys. Doing so was regarded as such a rare and epic journey that all previous crimes were forbidden. Even today, Lamura adolescents regularly engage in contests where they show off their physical prowess on the surface. However, everyone who does this is expected to carry both a mobile comm that can be used to locate them and an emergency respirator mask in case they suddenly begin suffering from altitude sickness.
The Cytrialin Unity
Although individual Lamura can be found in the Hive Federation, the Imperium, and in many of the small independent buffer states, the vast majority live within the Cytrialin Unity. The Unity is a small independent state containing 58 inhabited star systems. It is located around the intersection of the Hinterworlds, Leonidae, Glimmerdrift Reaches, and Crusis Margin Sectors.
The government of the Unity is officially dedicated to the principles contained in the Cytrialin and at first glance, it appears to be a theocratic regime. The reality of life in the Unity is considerably less restrictive. As long as residents are willing to adhere to the most central precepts of the Cytrialin (pacifism, cooperation, helping those in need, stringent environmentalism, and taking extreme care with toxins) they are free to worship or believe as they will. The vast majority of those who live in the Cytrialin Unity perform the daily Cytrialin rituals, but doing neither is required. However, actively refusing to perform these rituals isolates an individual from much of the social life their world. As a result, the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Cytrialin Unity actively follow the Cytrialin Way. However, not all of these individuals are Lamura. Approximately 9% of the inhabitants of Cytrialin Unity are non-Lamura. The majority are members of other types of Humaniti, but Hivers, Vargr, Ithklur, and several other species common in this portion of space make their home in this state.
The Cytrialin Unity maintains an open emigration policy. Residents are free to leave at any time if they are not wanted for serious crimes, and outsiders may freely visit for trade, tourism, and similar purposes. Immigrating to the Cytrialin Unity is also relatively simple. Anyone who is a sincere follower of the Cytrialin Way is free to move to the Cytrialin Unity if they are not currently fleeing justice for violent crimes. Since all Lamura can smell the emotions of others, pretending to sincerely believe in the Cytrialin Way is rarely successful. Individuals who do not follow the Cytrialin Way can also immigrate into the Unity if they are willing to swear to respect the principles of the Cytrialin and to follow its central precepts. However, in such cases, immigration officials only approve individuals who have useful skills, significant resources, or some other factor that will directly benefit the residents of the Cytrialin Unity.
Although the Cytrialin Unity is dedicated to pacifism, the rulers are no less pragmatic than the rulers of any other interstellar polity. The Cytrialin Unity has alternatives to war that it has used extremely effectively on many occasions. The Lamura are known for being fiercely competitive traders, and are perfectly willing to openly mix politics and commerce. Trade embargoes and commercial boycotts are regularly used to put pressure on neighboring states. Foreigners who believe them to be naive and foolish pacifists soon learn otherwise. Also, Lamura make especially skilled negotiators and diplomats because of their keen sense of smell. Lamura who have experience dealing with other species can smell the emotions of Hivers, Vargr, and all other species that they regularly deal with. Deceiving one of the Lamura in person is exceptionally difficult.
Like the Imperium, the Cytrialin Unity maintains no policy on the type of government Cytrialin worlds must have. While democracies, meritocracies, and government by skilled professional bureaucrats are by far the most common options, as long as the populace is not coerced or oppressed, Cytrialin worlds are free to be run by everything from direct democracy to absolute dictators. However, regardless of how a world is governed, all Cytrialin citizens have the right to freely travel from one world to another. The Cytrialin Unity subsidizes middle and low passage tickets between Cytrialin worlds, so that they cost one half of what they do in the Imperium. The founders of the Cytrialin Unity decided that free and affordable travel between Cytrialin worlds was the best way to insure that the populace was not mistreated. People who found conditions on a particular world intolerable could simply leave and travel to another one. As a result, even when they are not fleeing oppression, Cytrialin are a well-traveled people.
Creating Lamura Travellers
Rules for creating both Lamura Teg and Lamura Gav Travellers are below.
Lamura Teg
Lamura Teg are a hairless species of humaniti with jet black skins and eyes that are typically grey, amber, green, or blue. They are generally tall and relatively slender, but with slightly oversized rib cages to support their larger lungs. Their height ranges from 1.65-2.1 m
Characteristics: DEX: +1, INT: +1, SOC: 1D6+4
Traits
Lamura Teg Travellers all possess the following traits:
- Heightened Senses: Lamura Teg have better hearing and sense of smell than other humans. All Lamura Teg receive DM+1 to any Recon or Survival checks they have to make. In addition, their exceptionally keen senses of smell allow them to identity individuals and their possessions by smell, and to sense another sentient’s emotions if they are within 2 meters, neither of them is wearing sealed armor or a sealed vacc suit, and the Lamura Teg has spent time around the sentient’s species before. Lamura Teg gain a Boon to all rolls to detect lies if they can smell the sophont they are communicating with.
- Longevity (+3): Lamura Teg add +3 from all aging rolls.
- Low Pressure Tolerance: Lamura Teg are most comfortable in thin atmospheres and can survive for up to 24 hours in Very Thin atmospheres.
- Natural Climbers: Their musculature and slightly prehensile toes give Lamura Teg +1 to all Athletics rolls involving climbing.
- Photographic Memories: All Lamura Teg possess photographic memories
- Sunburn Immunity: Their unusual hairless skin is immune to sunburn.
- Symbiosis: Lamura Teg require a quarter liter of Lamura Gav blood or 0.25 kg of Lamura Teg flesh every month.
- Temperature Tolerance: Lamura Teg are comfortable in temperatures between -30 and 50 C and require half as much liquid as other humans. They also suffer one point less damage from extremes of temperature in their environment.
- Toxin Susceptibility: Increase the Difficulty of END checks to resist all poisons by +2.
Careers
- All Lamura receive DM-2 to enter any military career.
- Lamura Gav receive DM+2 when attempting to become a Scholar.
Lamura Gav
Lamura Gav look superficially like six-legged spiders with short fur that ranges in color from yellow to reddish orange and that is often patterned in subtle stripes and swirls. They have four legs and their front pair of limbs are a pair of arms that each end in four long fingers arranged radially around their palm. They between 30 and 45 kg, and are 1.2 m across and stand only 1 m tall.
Characteristics: STR: 1D6+1, DEX: 3D6, END: 1D6+2, SOC: 1D6+4
Traits
Lamura Gav Travellers all possess the following traits:
- Armour (+1): All Lamura Gav have +1 point of Protection due to tough hide.
- Heightened Senses: Lamura Gav have better hearing and sense of smell than other humans. All Lamura Gav receive DM+1 to any Recon or Survival checks they have to make. In addition, their exceptionally keen senses of smell allow them to identity individuals and their possessions by smell, and to sense another sentient’s emotions if they are within 2 meters, neither of them is wearing sealed armor or a sealed vacc suit, and the Lamura Teg has spent time around the sentient’s species before. Lamura Gav gain a Boon to all rolls to detect lies if they can smell the sophont they are communicating with.
- Longevity (+3): Lamura Gav add +3 from all aging rolls.
- Natural Climbers: Lamura Gav possess gecko-like pads on their four legs, permitting them to walk on walls and ceilings as easily as on floors. They gain a Boon to all Athletics (DEX) rolls to maneuver in zero-G.
- Small (-1): Lamura Gav are small and present a difficult target. All ranged attacks made against them suffer DM-1.
- Symbiosis: Lamura Gav require half a quarter liter of Lamura Teg blood or 0.25 kg of Lamura Teg flesh every month. Failure to do so results in the lost of one point of END per week that cannot be healed without ingesting Lamura Teg blood or flesh.
- Temperature Tolerance: Lamura Teg are comfortable in temperatures between -30 and 50 C. They also suffer one point less damage from extremes of temperature in their environment.
- Toxin Susceptibility: Increase the Difficulty of END checks to resist all poisons by +2.
- Vacuum Tolerant: Lamura Gav are most comfortable in thin atmospheres and can survive for up to 24 hours in Very Thin atmospheres. They can also survive and function normally in vacuum for up to 30 minutes.
Careers
- All Lamura receive DM-2 to enter any military career.
- Lamura Teg receive DM+2 when attempting to join the Scouts.
