Appearance

Compact, but beautiful by Kel’Regar standards, Ku’ar’Riss stands a bare 1.6 meters tall, her lithe frame defined by rippling muscles that move with an unnerving grace. Long hair swirls around her midnight face, framing it with a curtain of the darkest blood, a color matched in her alien eyes, slanted and slitted in a narrow face, flawless in its unearthly beauty, save for a single, wine-red scar that graces a path from her ear to her neck.

Ku’ar’Riss favors clothing in the style of her people, a strange, still-living fabric that clings to her like a second skin, and she often wears a pulsing, organic breath filter, designed to insulate her from the scent of humans.

History/Background

As the Kel’Regar began to discover that they were not alone within the universe, the idea of co-operation, rather than warfare, with the alien species was one that soon came to the mind of the males. It was a simple matter to select to outfit only females who could be persuaded of this view with the equipment required to explore beyond Regar itself. It was a harder matter, however, to choose those who would maintain contact with alien governments, once the males had come to understand the concept of a united species. The first males sent assimilated into their hosts too easily, unwilling to take the stands needed to protect the interests of the Kel’Regar themselves in the face of conflict. A female would be needed. One who knew how to bind together as many of her sisters as possible.

Searching among the bands of females, then, Ku’ar’Riss was eventually selected as a candidate. During her times in the jungles, she had proven herself as a cunning and resourceful hunter, surviving many a situation which would have slain a lesser woman. More importantly, she displayed what few Kel’Regar females did: Charisma, and a sense of something larger than herself. Her personal band, nearly forty females, administered solely by her, was almost unheard of among the Kel’Regar. Taken in by the males, she was quickly convinced of the need of the thing, of its benefits to her, and then educated, as best as possible, in the way of the males, and taught the rudiments of the alien tongue.

Her destination? Sol.

Much work had gone into preparing for her arrival on Venus, and a carefully prepared, woman ambassador sent to meet her, at her request. Yet, as Ku’ar’Riss stepped forth from the tiny vessel to survey her new home, all the pretty words of greeting were lost to the human girl, as she found herself mouthing the words of an ancient poem.

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

And to hear this could only make Ku’ar’Riss smile. This one,  she knew, this one understood and feared her. It was good.

Special Equipment

Ku’ar’Riss carries with her a pheremone filtration mask at all times. While it decreases her ability to understand the humans around her slightly, it is vital for her in order to mix with males without her powerful sexual urges coming to the fore. With or without it, she finds the human’s preferred atmosphere to taste flat and lifeless, though it is thick and easy to breathe.

Like many other Kel’Regar females, she is ‘cybernetically’ enhanced with a variety of organic implants, most of which have comparatively subtle effects on her metabolism, optimizing her for the situation at hand, keeping her at top physical form. She is armed at all times, possessing a set of diamond-bone claw implants as well as a light narcotic poison injected by biting.

She maintains an ambassador’s domicile on Venus, where she is permitted to import the ecosystem of her choice to the sealed dome. As such, it is a strange blend of Terran and Regarin flora, and to a lesser extent, fauna, which she hunts regularly. A small staff is at her service, consisting of two Oraki, four human women, and a pair of human men. While they are ostensibly household staff, the women are strongly under the sway of her ‘pack leading’ abilities, at once loyal and terrified of her, while the men are enthralled, strongly sapped of whatever their original personality was. Other humans occasionally whisper the words ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ when interacting with them. The Oraki, meanwhile, are treated with surprising evenness, much as a human would be expected to treat a servant. As they do not engage Ku’ar’Riss’s instinctive responses, she has no framework with which to deal with them, taking cues from the surrounding culture. While they are reasonably loyal, they do not display the fanaticism that her human staff does, and have occasionally made note of the ‘madness’ that surrounds them.

Roleplaying Notes

Ku’ar’Riss is a powerfully ambitious woman, seeking to cement her personal power, her race’s power, and peace, in approximately that order. This, combined with her natural tendency to command, makes her extremely machivellian in her dealings with humanity. Deeply complex schemes that play the varying earth factions against each other are her primary mode of operation, and she is completely unafraid to hire humans for dirty work. She has, in fact, performed some of it herself, for the thrill of the hunt, though as of yet, no evidence exists to prove it.

Ku’ar’Riss is a predator at heart, and should behave as such. Moreover, she does not acknowledge the individual rights that humans do. Only the female portions of her ‘pack’ are extended such privileges from her, which causes no end of friction between herself and the humans she deals with on a regular basis. Ironically, her ambassadorial immunity is fairly vital to her mission, as she has committed thousands of what humans would consider crimes by this time.

Ku’ar’Riss has difficulty dealing with men, as the raw power of her instincts drive her to consider them as a different kind of being, one suitable for her personal use, not so suited for partnership. Women, she will often attempt to dominate. Those few women who can counter this, she has come to treasure most of all, coming to consider them as sisters, a higher order of being than the rest of humanity to her.

Brelan grinned, almost maniacally, at the two sentients that had just plopped down at the bar, and made requests of him. One, short and purple, had asked for something to knock him flat on his back, and he hadn't thought it even possible for the other to even get drunk. None had ever asked him for alcohol befor. "... Aah! I see, small one. You would challenge me indeed, then! ... Naaa, the Kel'Ora as well? Haaa-laaa, the Gods have smiled on me this day." A flurry of activity, hands flying and, yes, he did just kick that bottle, marked in the alien script of his home into the air off the shelf and into his own hands. Flip and flash and... was that something screeching beneath the bar? Or was that a part of the music? Either way, it was hard to tell, as twin highballs landed on the bar, thick and syrupy, bubbles slowly working their way up from the bottom of the glass through the brilliant green color of the concoction. "Seven creds, each, because I like you. You two, yes, you have the look of the hungry traveler about you."

Appearance
Tall and thick, to those who know how to look, Brelan has sampled many of his own wares over the years, his body having the appearance of toneless muscle everywhere. His broad, cheerful face is pale, though not ghostly, and colored often with the emotion that fills his expressions, while his sharp ears poke out from beneath his impeccably groomed blonde hair.

When Brelan speaks, it sounds sing-song to the human ear, rising and falling in strongly emotional crescendos, and he often spices his sentences with interjections, drawn from a half a dozen separate tongues from his homeworld.

Perhaps oddly, he has forsaken the normal garb of his kinsmen, and when he is at work behind the bar, he can normally be seen in a tremendously frilly white shirt and black tuxedo pants, his waist wrapped with a silken sash, whose color changes with the day.

History/Background

As a young man on an established colony world, Brelan found himself restless, unsatisfied with his early work as a food supply engineer. Drifting often around the small city that he was helping to grow, he found himself in the bar at the foot of the space elevator again and again, watching the human immigrant mix drinks, even as he himself got drunk. It did not take long for it to dawn on him that what he was watching was an art form, though it did take somewhat longer for him to decide that it would be his new calling.

Starting with a hypernet course, he soon traveled to another of the myriad frontier worlds, where, he reasoned he would have plenty of relatively willing victims for his initial experiments. While they appreciated his alcohol, and indeed, he started to learn the subtleties of the alien palate, he was run off-world in short order, largely due to his hamhanded ways in the bar, and his initial clumsiness at handling the social aspects of his new chosen profession.

Making a few more hops, and finally reaching another frontier world, he spent some days in introspection, consdering his failures, and here, on his new home, he did his best to keep the locals happier. It is probably for the best that the local crime boss has taken quite the liking to his exotic liquors. In turn, the Kel'Regar learned to sniff out, quite literally, which direction spacers looking for work should be sent - to the official boards, or to the boss, becoming one small portion of the grease required to keep the station going, above and below decks. And it gives him so much chance to ply his real art, that of making more and more insane drinks.

Special Equipment

Brelan generally has access to a truly remarkable range of liquors, but otherwise has no special equipment.

"Work? Saaa, let me think a moment, spacer. Halon Jane is trying to get her swoop track up and running, and the pirates have been harassing the shipping lanes. Haa-laa, the guard, they are always looking for scouts out there, scouts and salvagers to clean up the hulks of the war-fields."

Roleplaying Notes

Brelan is attracted to the exotic and the alien, at least from his point of view. Ancient earth liquors are an especially favored hobby, and the Kel'Regar can always be counted on to be operating several semi-legal stills.

Brelan will dispense his friendly ear to all those who wish to talk at him, but any advice that he dispenses will be bizzare and often entirely inappropriate, though often naive - he finds the way that humans and their descendant races interact with each other to be entirely incomprehensible, and will often fall back on his experiences in the commune that he grew up in, an all-together less frenzied pace of life than humanity's way.

He is, however, able to sort those he meets into a handful of bins in his mind, primarily based on how much they trip the 'predator' reflexes of his body. The worst, he will send towards the local crime bosses, if they're looking for work, but his reccomendation carries little weight. These men will often be used in an expendable fashion.

Hooks

First and foremost, Brelan knows what everyone else thinks is going on. He is the axle about which the local rumor mill turns to make its grist, and there is no rumor he does not hear over and over again. He may be used to find the sources of one particular rumor, or even paid to seed one, as his morals are very flaky, even by Kel'Regar standards. 

Second, his advice has likely landed another in very, very hot water. If it is someone he needs to survive, he may well be seeking freelancers to put the situation right... especially if it's the sort of situation no sane freelancer would stick his nose into. He may well have sent an important person straight into the arms of the local crime lords, or even one of their guests into the hands of the local militia! 

Thirdly, because of his obsession with Old Terran booze, he may be interested in having humans steal a bottle of something or another.. or better yet, the recipe for long forgotten brands of alcohol. Chasing down the legend of Pabst Blue Ribbon in the 3rd millenium may prove extremely troubling indeed. 

Full Item Description
Kel’Regar technology is primarily organic in nature, being first bred, then genetically manipulated into shape by the Kel’Regar over time. This has produced a form of technology with unique abilities and unique limitations, often progressing in manners that users of the traditional path find paradoxical or even impossible.

Appearance
Kor’na’Nath is tall and beautiful, even for a Kel’Regar male, standing nearly 215 cm tall, his frame bearing almost 130 kilos of mass in its smooth, graceful manner. His skin is the color of warm cream, while his hair glints a brilliant silver beneath the harsh light of the sun.

In the manner of his people, he wears a living garment at almost all times, the membranous green creature clinging tightly to his body, almost like a second skin.

History/Background

Kor’na’Nath was born, as all Kel’Regar men are, in the fields of the jungle, and deposited nearly immediately at the nearest men’s commune. Fully ignorant, and completely uncaring of his parentage, he swiftly became immersed in the culture of the commune, showing a special talent for the arts, especially music. It was strongly likely that he would have remained in his commune, as most men did, composing great works of music, and dabbling in the sciences, were it not for a new kind of report coming in from the outside, one which with he was most facinated. Reports of strange aliens, whose sexes worked together. Of stranger aliens, who were made of iron and plastic instead of flesh and bone. And most of all, of strange creatures who had no arms and legs, merely bodies of crystal and mind. The strange harmonies of these aliens resonated in his mind, and he could not hope but to think of them constantly. And every woman who met them, he asked of these things, and he began to compose.

His song was a new one, of a theme never heard before on Regar. It was a theme of cooperation, of what could be done as a world-commune. Despite the danger, he began to travel between the communes, to sing his siren song of unison. And it was heard. And he sang his song to males, to females, and e’en to the strange crystal ones, who could hear his thoughts and his songs, and who spoke directly into his mind. And there, in the fields where he planted the seeds, the harmony of his song took root, slowly blossoming, though it took many a decade. And when time came to choose one to lead all the communes and bands, they chose the one who planted the seeds, Kor’na’Nath. And his title would be Lan’Kel’Lahn, which translates, very poorly, into Terran as ‘Composer of the People’s Harmony’.

Roleplaying Notes

The Lan’Kel’Lahn nearly completely lacks the aggressive nature that is so prominent in the females of his species. Instead, he controls his people through the Song of Harmony. Deep within the Kel’Regar mind that hears it, the Song implants the desire to work together, to advance as one great ‘Kel’, or people. Through this, the Lan’Kel’Lahn gives his people the confederative organization they need to survive in the universe. And this, in truth, is his primary goal. He understands well that there are those in the universe bent on destruction and enslavement, and that only chance had protected his people before.

Comparatively, Kor’na’Nath is a wise, and effective ruler, though he has done little as of yet besides unite his people, and lay the grounds for the great Seeding of the Stars. His people would spread among the many planets, even though it would take so much time. As of yet, he has faced no major wars, though his people have skirmished with a strange, warrior tribe from spinwards.

To deal with the Lan’Kel’Lahn is the great frustration of the human Ambassador, Bennett. Despite the Lan’Kel’Lahn’s great motivation (for a Kel’Regaran male), Bennett finds that the Lan’Kel’Lahn is lackidasical and whimsical, and finding the man putting down the text some treaty or another in the forging to play a flute or smell some daisies, right in front of the Ambassador would incite tremendous rage in the man, except that he just can’t seem to feel it anymore. All his other desires function as normal, but something, be it the air, be it the Song, keeps him from growing angry. Bennett himself, who is completely in the grasp of the Lan’Kel’Lahn’s Song, is beginning to suspect himself mad. But things are too nice here for him to be completely mad, aren’t they? Crazy people are unhappy, and he’s certainly happy. How many years has he been here? Really, that many? But there’s still sooo much to do.

Procurer or not, Lukas Sternflug hated this city. He hated the oppressive, jungle-like heat and humidity that choked his breath. He hated the strange and alien musks that swirled and clung to his nostrils, each provoking a strange and powerful emotion. He hated the snatches of bizarre music that always seemed to be heard from around the corner, but he hated its silence more, for then, he could hear the slow and rhythmic breaths drawn by the city itself. He hated the way he could feel the pulsing of the immense organs beneath his feet, as he walked along the strangely leathery material that served as foot-paths. Most of all, though, he hated the the way the sun fell in dapples from the leaved arches that twisted between the buildings, bringing shadow for the strange and twisted creations of these aliens to dart through…

He would be glad when he had inked the contract and could leave. Preferably before they tried to feed him something.

—
History

Nath’ar’Selass’Resan is the landing point, and initial colonization site of the world of Selass’Resan, the first major interstellar colony of the Kel’Regar. A cooler and more generally hospitable planet than Regar, their homeworld, Selass’Resan has nonetheless been recently the site of a major extinction event, a heavy asteroid strike that lead to the extinction of the majority of large lifeforms on Selass’Resan, a few short tens of millenia ago. This has left behind little except for small, warm-blooded, egg-laying creatures, and plants hardy enough to either survive the long, long winter, or whose seeds were able to lie dormant for that time. While the world’s life has begun to regrow and diversify somewhat, with vast plains of simple grasses and dark forests of evergreen trees with waxy needles spreading throughout the temperate areas of the world, and vast swamps full of ferns and strange molds have risen in the equatorial areas, the largest creature that walks through them is a small, furry omnivore, the four-legged beast not entirely unlike a miniaturized jackal. It was into this thinned ecosphere that the Kel’Regar first descended.

Yet, even here, they found potential, for the burst of evolution which would fill the hundreds of empty niches had begun, and observably so. And so, after much discussion, those responsible for shaping the world to the needs of the Kel’Regar chose to have a light touch, only releasing those creatures which would be needed to sustain the female half of their race upon the surface, much to the dismay and consternation of those same ladies. For the food animals that they released were relatively small, and though numerous, they would be easy prey, with little skill or excitement in the kill.

It was as they landed and began to plant their first city here, which would be known later as Nath’ar’Selass’Resan that they made their next major discovery - readily converted iron ore and free, nodular copper. While not especially more metal rich than the majority of life bearing worlds, Regar’s own metal paucity had put sharp restrictions on the growth of Kel’Regar technologies. All that would be needed would be a way to exploit this new resource. And so, this new enclave, this new city, would grow to become a new model of Kel’Regar industry, one centered around this new resource, while the metals were swiftly integrated into their organic technologies

As the single enclave grew, small bands of females began to strike outwards, seeking not their previous prey, but new and larger sources of these metals, and the fuels required to make use of them. In the early days, these were dug by hand, requiring frequent returns to the enclave to obtain new equipment, leading to frequent claim-jumping, which often turned violent. Others, recognizing an opportunity for both power and profit, soon implemented a system of guards and transport, which, when matched by advances in parallel batch production by the men inside the enclave, would create a form of industrial revolution within Kel’Regar society. While the traditional forms would never be completely abandoned, this new model would provide the Kel’Regar with the heavy industry they sorely lacked previously.

Accordingly, Nath’ar’Selass’Resan is an enormous city for the Kel’Regar, larger in population than any other metropolitan area under their primary habitation, and it is centered almost fully around the production and export of cybernetic materials. Many collectives, which interact with off worlders in a fashion similar to an earth corporation, exist, each producing a small handful of specific creatures, or, more rarely, components to be installed in creatures at other sites.

With the massive flow of goods and credit throughout Nath’ar’Selass’Resan, it has taken on a sort of strange metropolitan flavor, its buildings of flesh and bone filled with the men of the Kel’Regar and their artistic pursuits, which further leak over into the tools born and bred for export. Unlike in human endeavors, there is little line drawn between function and beauty, or between work and leisure.

—
The modern experience

Drawing one deep breath, though it made his head swirl with the heady scents of the air, Lukas began to descend down the path towards the abomination these alien called a subway system. It would be tight, he knew, and worse, moist, but at least it would be quicker, and probably safer, than walking.

The majority of personal transportation throughout Nath’ar’Selass’Resan is by the underground people movers, the kel’rakth. With cars consisting of smooth, plastic tubes with one conical, yet rounded end, the kel’rakth looks like nothing quite so much as an oversized suppository, big enough for a hundred men to ride inside, flexed along at speeds approaching forty kph by the enormous, overstimulated muscle that surrounds it, working the car forwards in much the same manner as a swallowing throat. Steamy, cramped, and dark, there are few outside the Kel’Regar who find the kel’rakth pleasant transportation. Above ground, movement throughout the city is dominated by a variety of beasts of burden, from enormous, six-legged hauler creatures to the comparatively tiny personal flitter, an insectoid creature capable of carrying 2 to 4 people and a very small amount of luggage through the air. Still, for ultra heavy cargo loads, and inter-city deliveries, imported grav-sleds of a variety of alien makes have started to replace the beasts.

Disoriented, sweaty, and unfortunately disheveled, Lukas emerged from the kel’rakth, stumbling out into the horribly brilliant sunlight, then tripping, his hand lashing out reflexively to catch himself against the disturbingly warm, and sickeningly leathery material underfoot. Lurching back to his feet, he did his best to straighten himself out as he finally found his stride, heading towards one of the patches of eerie music, his destination familiar to him from this ‘station’. It never seemed to get much more enjoyable, though, when it came down to it.

To call the buildings of Nath’ar’Selass’Resan architecture is a stretch of the imagination at the best, and an outright lie at the worst. Though carefully engineered, and strongly planned, all of Nath’ar’Selass’Resan is a single, enormous organism, woven together with skill and cunning. Buildings of wood and bark stretch upwards towards the sky, their moss-green exteriors seemingly stretched against the ‘beads’ that make up the floors within, while a tough, though faintly rubbery black flesh stretches between them, an insensate flesh taking the place of pavement, while beneath, a variety of many-hearted circulatory systems carry the raw materials of life throughout the metropolis. Maintaining the life of the city, meanwhile, is the duty of a sprawling, coastal biochemical ‘industry’, which primarily harvests engineered algaes for the feeding of the city.

There. That was the building? creature? whatever… where his contacts did their business. Even standing outside it, and looking up, Lukas could hear the strange, ululating music that drifted down from above, through the odd, rounded windows that he could see above. Drawing a deep breath, he chose the chance for billions of profits over his personal comfort, and entered, and after a brief sing-song conversation with the communal receptionist at the bottom, he entered the elevator, and thumbed the node that told it to stop at the proper floor, trying his best to ignore the disgusting flexing of the visible parts of the walls as they lifted the capsule upwards. Stepping forth, when it arrived, he finally straightened, and managed a brisk step out. It was time for business, after all.

Producing a vast number of organic chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical implants, cybernetics, and even arms, while importing a variety of raw materials, the world of Selass’Resan, and in particular, Nath’ar’Selass’Resan, is the trade and economic capital of the Kel’Regar. It is here, rather than the much more physically hostile home world of Regar that other races come to make deals with the Kel’Regar, and it is here that the industries are eager to receive them.

Negotiating with Ras’thel was always difficult for Lukas. The blasted Kel’Regar was as hard to pin down as a piece of the wind or the water, and his mellifluous voice wore at his mind like a hypnotist. But, in the end, a deal profitable to both parties was brokered, as it always seemed to be. Until, at least, Ras’thel put his hand on the human’s arm, his grip tightening. "Lukas, you’ll let us entertain you tonight, for the harmony of our future." Trapped, there was no reasonable objection that Lukas could create, as he was steered towards the elevator once more. "And, I believe Mal’lana knows you were scheduled to arrive." The mention of the female’s name, alone, was enough to drain the color from Lukas’s face. Just… great.

Nightlife and culture in Nath’ar’Selass’Resan tends to come in three parts, primarily segregated by sex, as is the Kel’Regar’s habit. Though a few bits of things from other worlds and peoples have seeped in, this deep into Kel’Regar territory, the majority of activities are native.

For the men, a complex and vibrant artistic culture thrives, a kind of strange and alien Broadway. A vast array of art galleries, orchestras, theaters, and even a few cinemas, run on imported equipment dot the central areas of the city. While Kel’Regar theater is notably similar to several forms of earthly theater, their odd music concentrates more on shifts of volume and origin, played in complex manners on a relatively simple scale of notes, harmonious, but in a different fashion than human songs. Galleries, meanwhile, tend to have living creatures in addition to the familiar forms of art, free-expressions of genetic skill that serve no niche in the ecosystem, but rather, simply exist to astound and amaze at their very existence. As well, a vast array of ‘amateur’ options exist for performing and creating art - there are very few professionals, and most of those performing at any given venue are selected from a large pool of those who work throughout the city. While sports are not unknown to the men, most of those played tend to be indirect competitions of skill, with variants of throwing and marksmanship type games being very popular. ‘Fine dining’ is also available, for those that find the Kel’Regar idea of vegetables palatable, as are a establishments that serve a select and reasonably safe variety of intoxicants.

For the women, meanwhile, the fringes of Nath’ar’Selass’Resan tend to concentrate on a more rough and tumble variety of entertainments. Combat sports are common, as are high impact contact sports. Music is also valued here, although it is, again, less ‘refined’, with a strong value placed on rythym and beat. Surprisingly, human rock and roll has proven particularly valued, and many establishments pump it at high volume along with homegrown music. Particularly popular dining destinations tend to center around serving meat in one form or another, including the ‘Kill it and grill it yourself’ variety.

Dinner had been tolerable, if a bit bland, and awful hard to chew. Lukas was never quite sure if he was eating food, or cooked wood when he dined with Kel’Regar men, but as strong and strange as the drinks were, he had still managed to warm up and have a good time… until, at last, he looked up at his new surroundings, and realized where he was, recognizing it from his last visit. So, too, did he recognize the strong hands that gripped him, even as their clawed tips drew blood from the shallow tracks they made, and the throaty voice that purred in his ear from behind, and he shouted, that most versatile of curse-words from the English language.

And his ‘captor’ responded, her voice like an oversized cat, "Yes, delicious, that was the idea. Do struggle, I like that."

Meanwhile, Kel’Regar males and females tend to socialize together for a single purpose - Sex. Venues catering to this basic need tend to form a ring around the center of the city, where men generally live, and the fringes where the women have established themselves. A wide variety of tastes and fetishes are available, almost always with the full consent of those participating. Surprisingly, as with the arts, the powerful biological compulsions of the Kel’Regar mean that there are very few professionals, with the handful of prostitutes being almost entirely men.

Exhausted, but with all of the dangerous bleeding staunched, Lukas tumbled into the soft, fabric cushions that would serve him as a bed tonight, pulling the stuffed blanket over himself. The deal was done, at least, even if he would have a prime hangover in the morning, as he tried to get back off world. Next stop on the loop was Neo-Terra, thank the First Ones.

Full Description
An average Thoron, when exposed to human eyes, possesses a strangely regular form, fractally geometric. His translucent body may range in color from ruby to sapphire, but is most often emerald or sapphire in hue. His myriad of facets catch the light most gloriously, and occasionally, he may cause sparks to jump between the edges. His crystalline body may range between 250 mm and 1.250 m in any particular direction, depending on a wide number of factors.

Thoron are capable of movement at only a few speeds: A diffusional crawl, a slow, ponderous float, and -natural- warp travel. Because of the ability to create carefully defined currents of both charge and mass within their own body, Thoron have a natural ability to directly manipulate space-time to their own ends. However, this ability is largely coarse, and is limited to pushing and pulling themselves and other objects. Tools and technology are beyond the ‘natural’ Thoron. His warp trips are constrained by the energy he can store within his structure, and even the largest can jump only a few hundred light years at a piece.

However, the Thoron are a kind of hive mind. All Thoron’s thoughts are heard and understood by all Thoron, and this ‘overmind’ is directed by the still living First One. With seven billion years and tens of millions of bodies of memories, the Thoron have developed a complex and alien philosophy, one which humanoids often have a vast difficulty trying to interpret. Accordingly, their priorities are very different from a man’s.

Thoron may communicate directly a few forms of life, by literally reading their thought’s magnetic patterns in their mind. To return the speech, however, they must use writing, a stylus dragged over a substance, or an assistance mechanism.

History
The Thoron began their evolutionary path over seven billion years ago, deep with in the silicate mantle that surrounded a world. There, bathed in the heat, the First One came to life, but hardly awareness. Over time, he grew, adding bits and pieces to the order of his body, and from time to time,   he budded, sacrificing bits of himself so that they too, could grow, their order different from his.

Over two billion years, he grew so fantastically complex that he awoke, and for the first time, he thought. And so, he was in a way that he had never been before. And the buds that broke away from him now, these too were complex enough to know, and to be in this new way.

As the mind grew, it learned to shape its body to new effect, to new purposes, so that it could direct the spark of its own thought through itself, to cause changes in the world outside itself. First electricity, then mass, it mastered, and again, four billion years after it first grew, it budded true.

Two billion years more, and a single bud would reach the surface, and it would look out into the cold, airless void, which touched its hot world. And as it felt its mind cooling, becoming faster, quicker, easier, he thought back to the First One, and the First One, too, came. With these great, speedy thoughts, they concurred, and the bud was sent forth, using his mass to twist space, and he was gone, faster than even light could dance. It had been so… very… simple!

For many years, but the blink of an eye, the First One waited, and listened to the thoughts of his buds as they traveled through the void, and when the thoughts ceased, he knew pain, and sadness. The thoughts of quick moving things, things that grasped and flashed and flowed and struck and took, all these came to him. And he knew despair, for he knew that in time, this speed must overcome his people, no matter how many years it took. And the millennia rolled past, turning into aeons turning into ages. And the First One knew that the star above was roiling and growing. Soon, it would die, and with it, him, and so many of his buds.

Yet the thought came to him, the thought of a star far away, one like his star had been in its youth. A race of the quick ones was near by, but they had, as of yet, no way to cross the void, their fluid-filled bodies too fragile to travel it alone. Perhaps they could be made to… Yes. He would risk it.

With all their thoughts together, they picked up their very world, and they moved it, placing it in orbit around this new star. And a bud would be sent to the home of the quick ones, and perhaps…

The quick ones! The bud could see the patterns that their mind took, foreign and strange though they were. They could be spoken with! They thought of themselves as… "Kel’Regar". Yes. This could be helpful.

The Kel’Regar Alliance
Over many hundreds of years, the Thoron budding shared many an idea, many a thought with the Kel’Regar. And he came to understand how they had mastered the manipulation of life about them, and he told them of how many other quick ones his race had encountered. Ever curious, the male philosophers of the Kel’Regar worked at length with the Thoron bud, and in time, a hybrid technology was born. The Kel’Regar would provide the means for the Thoron to manipulate the world in real time, to speak, to have surrogate hands, and in return, the Thoron would create special buds, to allow the Kel’Regar access to travel across the void.

Symbiotes for the Thoron were created, then, things which they could control to walk, to talk, to take things and manipulate them. This symbiote effectively grates him four legs and two, tentacle-like arms, tipped with two fingers and an opposable thumb.

Society
While each Thoron is capable of independent thought, the thoughts of all Thoron are woven into a single web, much as a many-processored computer may work to a single end, each contributing its own to the whole. All of these thoughts are heard and directed by the First One, that same ancient entity of long ago. As such, there are no strange customs, no rituals or religions, only the alien wisdom of the First One.

While many, many Thoron have burrowed deep into suitable planets, to preserve and continue their race, many more float in deep space, where they can think and function at full speed, though they require the radiant energy of a sun to ‘store up’ for leaner times and interstellar travel.

While the ‘quick ones’ will often destroy the first Thoron buds they meet, the Thoron can often prove themselves to be neither threat, nor competition with carbon based life forms. As such, few races feel threatened by them on the animal level, and peace can often be reached.

Credit where credit is due:
The Chenjesu ( http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Chenjesu ) provided the basic inspiration.