Character Creation

Slushball
Kuot developed complex life roughly similar to Earth's Carboniferous period, dominated on land by quadrupedal amphibians and insects as well as towering conifers. The axls' arboreal ancestors were forced into living in Kuot's caverns during a major glaciation period that wiped out much surface life around 100 million years ago; this ice age would last until the start of the Kuotoan Stone Age. During this time, these ancestral amphibians evolved to life in the vast cavern systems, with its network of subterranean lakes and rivers.

Cavernous Colonists
Archaic axls developed systematic stone tool use 6 million years ago, becoming nomadic hunter-gatherers that traversed the subterranean waterways in search of migratory fishes and other fauna, supplementing their diet with speleoflora and fungi, and often developing semi-permanent settlements in littoral caves that connected with the caverns. Archaic axls usually returned to ancestral caves every year for egg-laying.

They began traversing to the surface through roof holes in the deep caves, exploring what had become an forested planet once more. Over time, they re-colonized the surface world.

The Great Collapse
Conflict between surface- and cave-dwelling groups sparked a systems collapse in the height of the Kuotoan Iron Age, leading to mass depopulation, political disruption, and a wave of popular revolts. It took almost a thousand years to rebuild, a Dark Age that still haunts their historical memory; the East Land was, at the time, sparsely colonized, though it grew in a mass exodus of refugees.

Once they reached industrial modernity, it was not long before they "closed the frontier" and engaged in massive industrial wars. In the aftermath, an international league was founded with an emphasis on cultural and economic unity, as the Holy League of Kuotoan Republics. They began colonizing Kuot's moons and later the nearby planets, expanding bit-by-bit across a handful of star systems. They were discovered by the shrikes and entered into the pact that became the United Suns.

Walking Fish
Axls are stout bipeds who walk in a somewhat slouched stance, with their forelimbs sprouting halfway down their torso rather than high at what most bipeds would consider their shoulders. They have long, thin arms with webbed, clawed fingers, as well as webbed feet on digitigrade legs. They have a small, membranous tail for balance; though it was once used for swimming, it is too small and weak now to be a significant swimming aid. They have fleshy, bulbous heads with with large round eyes set wide apart and wide mouths filled with sharp rending teeth. Fleshy barbels, much like those of Earth catfish, protrude from their upper lips and head, for sensory perception. Their eyes evolved for life in caverns, and as a result the colonization of the surface of Kuot required nocturnal activity.

Axl have been remarked as being somewhat resembling fish-like humanoids, though this is a heavily-stretched meaning of "humanoid". Their skin tones range from pale white to pinkish-orange to a light greenish-brown. Their skin texture has often been referred to as rubbery, moist, and clammy, exuding a sort of mucus that helped insulate them against the cold when they lived in caves.

Axl reproduce roughly once a year, when females lay a clutch of around a dozen eggs in an aquatic or water environment; in ancient times, this would be in ancestral grottoes, and in modern times this is in hospital ponds. In archaic axl, males would compete violently to earn the right to fertilize them, which developed in Bronze and Iron Age axl society as organized martial arts tournaments presaging the annual fertility rites. From early modern times, these rites became limited to noble and priestly families; modern axl females are liberated from being an object of competition, and freely choose their mates.

Theocratic Rulers
Urbanization and spacefaring technology has not diminished the role of traditional hierarchies and religion in their society. The predominant form of government is that of a feudal republican city-state, with a social hierarchy dominated by a military aristocracy. However, above even the nobles are the traditional priesthoods; each republic is co-led by a chief lord and an archpriest.

Each city-state has their own ancestral grotto, and even internecine conflict is halted for the major religious festivals, where nobles, priests, and clan chiefs make pilgrimage to the western caverns. Small family groups are woven within larger clans, each with their own chief; typically, all of the children of a clan are raised and educated together, so their parents can focus on their careers. Mothers tend to bear clutches of a dozen eggs, with multiple fathers.

Axl Names
Axls tend to have a personal name followed by a clan name, some of which are compound words deriving from occupations or past deeds. The difficulty in enunciating complex Kuotoan words means that most family names are translated into English, while the simple, syllabic personal names are left untranslated.

Axl Traits
Axls tend towards a common disposition, guided by their evolution.

Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 2, and your Dexterity score increases by 2.

Age. Axl mature into adulthood by around 7 years of age, and typically live around fifty years.

Alignment. Axls tend towards a lawful neutral alignment. Their society operates in accordance with arcane religious tradition, but their faith has no framework for morality, only order.

Size. Axl are around four to five feet tall, and weigh 85 to 120 pounds. Your size is Medium.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feet. Your swimming speed is 50 feet.

Amphibious. You can breathe air and water, and have a swimming speed equal to twice your walking speed.

Deep Diver. Axls are adapted to oceanic depths and frigid environs. You have resistance to cold damage, and you ignore any of the drawbacks caused by a deep, underwater environment.

Keen Senses. You have Proficiency in the Perception skill.

Improved Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 120 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern colour in darkness, only shades of gray.

Slippery. You have advantage on ability checks and saving throws made to escape a grapple.

Sunlight Sensitivity. You have disadvantage on attack rolls and on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of your attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight.

Languages: You can read, speak, and write Kuotoan.

Shared Home
Kappas and baeyag both evolved on a warm, damp garden world covered in tropical swamps and forests, with a thin but breathable oxygen-rich atmosphere.

Culture Clash
The baeyag encountered the kappas at the height of an early modern age of exploration, leading to a centuries-long conflict as both attempted to colonize the other and fought across the archipelagos for dominance and resources. The global war led to atrocities and reprisals, eventually seeing outside intervention by human soldiers in the early 3000s. A long, brutal guerrilla war did not stem the tide of human occupation, seeking to pacify the situation. The baeyag unified during this time into a federation, seeking a negotiated peace with the invaders if it would benefit them.

A technological uplift enabled a huge leap from pre-industrialism to fusion-age modernity. They experienced a population explosion due to modern medicine and the creation of orbital habitats and lunar settlements, which only grew as they were allowed to settle on other nearby worlds. They expanded their economies and clan ties to these colonies, creating an interstellar network of patronage and land ownership to enrich themselves. Baeyag colonies focused their economies to specialize in heavy industry and resource extraction. However, this period has also seen a rise in hostility towards other races, especially the kappas. Human attitudes towards the practice of slavery has also been a mixed policy of opposing pressure and tacit support.

Pygmy Fury
Baeyag are pygmies by human standards. They have large heads, forward-facing eyes, long ears, and pointed noses with mouths filled with sharp, rending teeth. Baeyag are largely carnivorous, and their physical features are indicative of a species of pack-hunting predators. Skin tones range from sandy brown to deep mahogany.

The so-called "goblins" are mammalian, bearing live young that gestate inside the mother and suckle milk as an early form of nutrition from their mothers' breasts.

Petite Tyrants
The Baeyag have a strongly patriarchal and hierarchical society, framed around a masculinist, martial honor culture. A complex layering of gender roles and caste status is supported by long-standing tradition and well-entrenched legal precedents. At the top of the hierarchy is a military aristocracy and landowning elite; they rarely work for a living outside of military and business pursuits. Next are the warriors, industrial workers, artisans, and overseers. At the bottom rung are the laboring masses, permanently bound by serfdom to landowning masters.

Centuries ago, the various baeyag kingdoms unified into a federal empire, which remains the recognized authority for the baeyag on the homeworld. The few baeyag colonies are largely autonomous, but follow the customs and social order established at home. The rare worker uprisings have been crushed by a combination of local troops and human police forces to maintain order.
These societal features have not been without criticism, both at home and abroad.

Baeyag Names
Baeyag are all given names on a clan-based naming pattern. Personal names are followed by family names, much as in other individualist species. However, serfs are not allowed to have family names. Women unilaterally take their husband's name upon marriage.
Female: Arinet, Horinia, Shyza, Vortiga
Male: Aronok, Caliban, Fenten, Zarn
Family Names: Dagyag, Jygg, Prezasz, Zrodbier

Baeyag Traits
Baeyag have some common ground, united in their diversity.

Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.

Age. Baeyag tend to reach adulthood between 8 and 12 years of age, and usually live to around 80 years old, though some might live for a century.

Alignment. Baeyag society is bound by strict codes of honor and hierarchy, but rely on mass slavery to keep this going. Many in power are lawful evil, but the marginalized masses eke by to survive and often have a neutral disposition.

Size. Baeyag grow to be around four feet tall, and around 80 to 100 pounds. Your size is Small.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Nimble Escape. You can take the Dash or Disengage action as a bonus action on each of your turns.

Pygmy Fury. When you damage a creature with an attack and the creature's size is larger than yours, you deal extra damage to the creature equal to your level. Once you use this trait, you can't use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Languages. You can read, speak, and write Baeyag Common.

World of Rain
Iculos is a terrestrial world with a thick, insulating atmosphere and a hot, humid climate dominated by shallow seas and lush jungles of low-growing mosses and ferns. It is a world of incredible biodiversity, but its fauna is incredibly dangerous and hostile, growing often to large sizes. For the iculians and their near ancestors, these evolutionary pressures forced them to act very carefully to avoid death. Through this meticulous nature and crafty survival sense, they evolved to be highly efficient, nimble predators.

Uplifted
The iculians were not a spacefaring race at the time of first contact with the shrikes, and had only just entered a postindustrial period. The shrike Associated Worlds League sought potential colonial ventures, but the planet's hostile environment proved to be an insurmountable difficulty, so they set to exploration instead. After several robotic probes observed the native species, they decided on an uplift policy.

The process was slow at first, with abductions and observation, but gradually they presented the iculians with opportunities to find new land on orbital habitats and less gravity-heavy worlds. It is in these environments that the iculians flourished, and became a regular sight on shrike colonies as scouts. In time, they ended their status as a client race and became partners in the formation of the United Suns in the 27th century.

However, the iculian delegation switched sides during the Great War and sold valuable intelligence to the Terran Empire. In exchange, the iculians retained many of their worlds and colonies as an Autonomous Alien Protectorate. 

Arboreal Amphibians
The iculians are impish amphibian humanoids with large, wide-set eyes providing keen panoramic vision. They are incredibly graceful and have incredible reflexes, but are not typically strong and operate better in groups. Their skin color ranges from dappled grey-green to a vibrant primary colors striated with black stripes, depending on lineage and region of origin.

Iculians, like many pseudo-amphibian species, are egg-laying and deposit their eggs clutches in water. Fertilization is external, however, unlike most other species. Infant iculians are born in a tadpole-like form, morphing gradually into fully-formed individuals after about a year.

Prideful Feudalists
Iculian culture is rooted in both their homeworld traditions and in the adopted cultural attitudes of the shrikes who technologically uplifted them. As the most successful uplift example in galactic history, iculians display a sense of racial pride rivaled only by humans. Indigenous customs of ancestor veneration, animism, polytheism, and a tribal social model remain strong. They are adept crafters of fine goods, bankers and financial analysts, and skilled explorers.

Lineage is of great importance to iculians. Separate families from different star systems may share a clan name, and consider themselves part of the same kinship group. The iculians struggled with internecine ethnic strife prior to their uplifting; the contextualization of their species amidst a wider galaxy reduced these internal struggles somewhat. Nevertheless, a predilection for bigotry is still a rampant social issue.

Iculian colonies are largely allowed to run themselves, operating under a semi-feudal system of large landowners and country squires.

Iculian Names
Iculians have one name given at birth, and a clan name based on which clan they were born into. Because the Iculian written language is a syllabary, most personal names are composed of two syllables and clan names of three syllables.
Female names: Avni, Hana, Kela, Tela
Male names: Kemo, Manka, Tanji, Zaga
Clan names: Bivana, Delanna, Hemato, Jirenji, Makoto

Iculian Traits
Iculians are generally small and scappy, and have certain key traits they evolved on their harsh homeworld.

Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2 and your Intelligence score increases by 1.

Age. Iculians live short, fast-paced lives, maturing within a year and living to around 25.

Alignment. Iculians are have a complex hierarchical society, but many are opportunists who break boundaries to achieve greatness. Because of this most iculians tend towards a neutral alignment.

Size. Iculians stand around 2 feet tall, and weigh usually around 15 to 25 pounds. Your size is Small.

Speed. You have a base walking speed of 30 feet. Your swimming speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Amphibious. You can breathe both air and water. Your swimming speed is equal to your walking speed.

Amphibian Agility. You are proficient in Acrobatics and can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.

Pack Tactics. You have advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one of you allies is within 5 feet of the creature and the ally isn't incapacitated.

Poison Immunity. You are immune to poison damage, and immune to the poison condition.

Poisonous Skin. Any creature that grapples you or otherwise comes into direct contact with your skin must succeed on a Constitution saving throw, with a DC equal to 8 + your Proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier, or become poisoned for 1 minute. A poisoned creature no longer in direct contact with you
can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

Standing Leap. Your long jump is up to 25 feet and your high jump is up to 15 feet, with or without a running start.

Water Dependency. If you fail to immerse yourself in water for at least 1 hour once a day, you suffer one level of level of  exhaustion at the end of that day. You can recover from this exhaustion only by immersing yourself in water for at least one extra hour.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Iculian Basic and Shrii.

Shared Home
Kappas and baeyag both evolved on a warm, damp garden world covered in tropical swamps and forests, with a thin but breathable oxygen-rich atmosphere.

Clash of Civilizations
As the kappa developed their empires, several nations arose and fought over territory, water access, and metal resources. The kappa life-cycle necessitated access to water reservoirs, spurring the development of massive hydraulic empires. They came into competition with another intelligent species on their world, the baeyag (whom humans dubbed "goblins"). The differing needs of the species for basic survival, combined with competition for living space, led inevitably to conflict. Both species formed leagues and alliances to fight a brutal, highly-racialized global colonial war. Both alliances engaged in genocide, slavery, and other atrocities in an attempt to achieve victory in a total war; the conflict spurred technological development in gunpowder weaponry, shipbuilding, and navigation.

Uplifted
By the time of first contact with humans, the kappas and the baeyag were at the tail-end of pre-industrial Early Modernity. After a decade of observation, the Terran Empire intervened to prevent further genocide and made the planet a protectorate; a process which necessitated a protracted guerrilla war. In the end, both species were uplifted technologically, making a huge leap from pre-industrialism to fusion-age modernity, and were allowed a curated access to the wider galactic political scene. Their population septupled within a century due to modern medicine and the creation of orbital habitats and lunar settlements, which only grew as they were allowed to settle on other nearby worlds.

Recently there has been a turning-inward, with many kappas developing a bitterness towards humanity and their ages-old foes, the baeyag. Racism has become endemic in kappa society, manifesting as a prideful spirit of independence in the face of human occupation, and a fierce invective against the baeyag.

Battle Toads
Kappas are slouched humanoid amphibians with long, powerful hind legs. Their large heads sit upon thick necks, with bulbous eyes and wide mouths. Their moist skin ranges from green, gray, brown, and mottled yellow tones, to the bright primary colors streaked with black of the noble families.

Males tend to be slightly larger, and possess a throat sac to make mating calls; this behavior is also used in macho displays of dominance between competing males, sometimes escalating into violence. Female kappas lay clutches of eggs in water; archaic kappas would lay them in natural, still reservoirs like ponds and lakes.

Much like Earth frogs, these eggs hatch into spawn that morph into tailed larvae that are fully aquatic until reaching physical maturity. These polliwogs have to be cared for intently by their parents, which spurred the development of complex society to rear and protect young.

Haughty Lords
Kappas are a very socially diverse species for one with such a small population. Its half-dozen colony worlds are largely independent from one another, usually with their own patchwork of republics and monarchies. The six great empires on the homeworld are all constitutional monarchies, with elaborate systems of aristocracy and land ownership. In such states, the former slaver aristocracy has retained much of its power and landholdings, enabling to retain a grip on local economy, which has largely shifted into light industry, finance, and agricultural exports.

Traditional society still holds strong and racism is endemic and pervasive. With it comes a regression to older patriarchal norms and a revival of mysticism, ancestor-worship, and animism as a reassertion of kappa self-identity. This is highly controversial among many, both within their species and from the human authorities.

Due to these factors, kappas have a reputation for being haughty and difficult to work with, or otherwise as pushy and violent thugs.

Kappa Names
Kappa names usually sound like a harsh, guttural croaking or hissing, matching their vocal anatomies. They are, however, imitable by humans.
Female names: Bagruud, Gertudd, Mershent, Sharassh
Male names: Bruug, Grugen, Horglash, Kermshugg
Family Names: Foduun, Qadoon, Swumpish, Toudall

Kappa Traits
Kappas all have some features in common.

Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2, and your Wisdom score increases by 1.

Age. Kappas physically mature at around 4 years old, and are considered sexually mature adults at around 10. They can live up to 50, though many die in their 20s or 30s due to high rates of violence.

Alignment. Kappas tend towards a lawful evil alignment, as their culture and politics are based on domination and slavery.

Size. The height of a typical kappa ranges from four and a half feet to five feet tall, weighing in at around 100 to 130 pounds. Royalty, however, tends towards the taller and heavier, sometimes up to six feet tall and 200 pounds. Your size is Medium.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feet. Your swimming speed is 40 feet.

Amphibious. You can breathe air and water.

Swamp Camouflage. You have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made to hide in swampy, marshy, or jungle terrain.

Standing Leap. Your long jump distance is up to 20 feet and your high jump is up to 10 feet, with or without a running start.

Languages. You can read, write, and speak Kappan.

Dark Side of the Moon
Myconids evolved on the damp, cool, life-bearing moon of the gas giant Jehai, with a mostly nitrogen and methane atmosphere. Their moon evolved lichens and algae around a billion years ago, gradually colonizing the land out of its warm water lakes. Mushroom-like fungi became the dominant form of land life, ranging from tall, towering tree-like stalks to colonies of bunched-up fruiting bodies; they mostly avoided competition from insectile species that also evolved on their moon.

Fungal Nomads
However, in certain regions, the soil was nutrient-poor and the fungal life there evolved to be actively carnivorous to supplement their nutrition, eating insects. Later species evolved a primitive form of mobility in order to find new soils and hunting territory.

Archaic myconids evolved to have leg-like limbs in order to rapidly roam from place to place, becoming the dominant migratory predators. Coming to their modern form, they developed a primitive culture and nomadic lifestyle; settlements developed as communal hunting lodges, eventually becoming more complex urban centers to exploit mineral resources.

Pathfinders
Industrialism arose late in the myconid Iron Age as fossil fuel resources became available. The planet's considerable lodes of metals, alumina, and deep veins of water ice enabled the development of space technology. They built their first space colony on an adjacent moon of the gas giant. Their further exploration, however, was very sluggish. By the time of their discovery by the shrikes, they had only managed to colonize two star systems, partly through terraforming, and had yet to develop faster-than-light travel.

The myconids began to appear throughout the United Suns, though the majority of their population were centered on a cluster of colony systems. They gained a reputation as explorers who could survive in exotic environments.

Fun Guys
Myconids have squat bodies with three stubby legs jutting out for mobility, and two arms for interacting with their environment. Their bodies lack bones, but have developed a semi-rigid exoskeleton in order to support a moving biomass. They are otherwise very fleshy and soft-bodied creatures. Their most striking feature, however, is a capped fruiting body that protects their brain, eyes, and eating apparatus, and conceals air-breathing gills. This gives the appearance of a semi-humanoid mushroom with glowing eye stalks and a mouth part under the cap.

Myconids reproduce asexually by dispersing spores, though only one sex is capable of generating fertile spores; the other sixteen biological sexes produce inert spores. For the sake of convenience, outside observers refer to the fertile sex as "female". These spores are technically an aggregated macrospore composed of tens of thousands of microscopic spores, which agglomerate into the primordial embryo of an individual myconid. These spores are parasitic and usually sprout an individual after around a year of gestation. Infant myconids grow rapidly into adults.

Inert myconid spores are used for communication, being bioluminescent and exuding unique pheromones; however, these spores can be toxic to many other species if inhaled. A poorly-studied aspect of their biology is what appears to be a mild telepathy, able to use their spores to directly interface between minds as if using a neural link for brief periods of time.

Elder females can live much longer and grow to be much bigger than other myconids, becoming sessile after around six centuries of life. Their legs root into the ground and they adapt to absorb nutrients from minerals, becoming literal pillars of the community.

Consummate Communitarians
Myconids live in small communal groups of a few hundred individuals, usually the children produced from fertile spores. As such, these communities are led by an elder female, the group's "mother" who rules as a sovereign. One in every thousand spores is a female, who usually leave to form their own families when they reach physical maturity. These communities form over several generations of reproducing, as female myconids disperse around a dozen fertile spores once a year. Myconid communities act as families, hunting bands, and militia units.

Myconids are generally averse to intraspecific violence, and focus most of their aggression outward through hunting rituals and meditation practices. As such, myconids have a reputation for being largely pacifists, though they are also renowned hunters and martial artists. When not working, hunting, or engaged in other recreation activities, myconid groups often engage in communal meditation and trance.

Myconid Names
As a nonvocal species, myconids do not identify each other by names. Instead, their rapport spores exude individual chemical markers, like a scent, and it is through this that they identify themselves. But even this tends to be less important in their communal trances, in which the self is subsumed into the collective unconscious. Members of other species often give myconids individual names, often relating to native species of fungus; such names are nonsensical to a myconid.

Myconid Traits
Myconids have common abilities due to their unique biology.

Ability Score Increase: Intuitiveness and resilience define your people. Your Wisdom score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.

Age: Myconids reach maturity after around two years, and most sexes live to around age twenty. Females are the exception, and can live to over a thousand years.

Alignment. Myconids like peaceful lives in close-knit communities. They tend towards a neutral good alignment.

Size: Myconids stand around four to five feet tall, and weigh between 80 to 200 pounds. Your size is Medium.

Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Superior Darkvision: Accustomed to the gloomy darkness, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 120 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern colors in darkness, only shades of grey.

Sun Sickness: Unaccustomed to luminous environments, you are greatly affected by ordinary sunlight. While in direct sunlight, unless otherwise concealed, you have disadvantage on Strength, Dexterity and Constitution based ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws.

Illuminating Spores: As an action, you can disperse illuminating spores in a 30-foot radius. These spores emit a soft glow akin to moonlight, floating in the air and suffusing the radius with dim light. The spores can only emit such dim light for 20 minutes, after which they lose their glow and wither. You regain use of this trait once you have completed a short or long rest.

Rapport Spores: As an action, you may exude a puff of spores in a 20-foot radius, exuding pheromones and emitting brief flits of luminescence as well as pulsing a peculiar pulsing signal that can only be described as remote brainwaves. These spores can go around corners and affect only creatures with an Intelligence of 2 or higher that aren't undead or constructs. Affected creatures can communicate telepathically with one another while they are within 30 feet of each other. The effect lasts for 1 hour.

Stun Spores: As an action, you can eject spores at one creature you can see within 15 feet of you. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw equal to 8 + your proficiency modifier + your Constitution modifier or be stunned for 1 minute or until it takes damage. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. You regain use of this trait once you have completed a short or long rest.

Languages: Myconids are not capable of vocalization. Instead you communicate through gesture, subtle body language, pheromones, and rapport spores. You can read and write a native script, called Jehaiid.

Planter Elite
Umbrid society traditionally is based around land ownership and slavery. Historically, umbrid nations developed complex social hierarchies with plantation-owning aristocrats at the top, followed by yeomen farmers, small holders, and poor freemen (mostly soldiers). Even among slaves, there was a hierarchy based on carapace color, size, and breed. Umbrids emancipated members of their own race, but retained a slave status for conquered peoples as they spread out to other star systems.

Lobster Folk
Umbrids are semi-aquatic, crustacean-like aberrations with many legs and a long, segmented body. Their thorax can rear up to a height of around five or six feet, bearing two muscular arms with strong pincers and a second set of smaller arms for manipulating objects. The abdomen bears six large, segmented legs that allow them to scuttle along walls and other surfaces while leaving their four arms free to attack or manipulate their environment. Their heads are partly retracted into their front segment, the cephalothorax, but can extend for feeding. The head contains two bulbous compound eyes on stalks, a cluster of antennae, and mandibles. Their body is covered by a hard, segmented carapace. This carapace is typically dark blue, black, or reddish-brown, but can also appear in vibrant, iridescent colors as well as more exotic patterns and colors.

Umbrids are a sexually dimorphic, egg-laying species, and require water to nest their eggs. As they developed technology and civilization, they cultivated water ponds and reservoirs for egglaying. A clutch of eggs will produce 100 children, but even with modern medicine few of these reach adulthood. Simple biology results in high infant mortality rates as umbrid spawn go through several moults in their first year of life.

Opportunists
The umbrid unified government administered a modest space empire in the Sagittarius Arm, which maintained its independence through a rigid policy of neutrality during wars. It established numerous resource collection interests near the Outer Core, and leveraged this into an economy founded on antimatter mining, agriculture, and banking. Its very lax banking laws made it a tax shelter for interstellar financiers and businesses, attracting external wealth that made for a new wave of industrialist barons. The umbrid Worlds Alliance remained neutral in the Great War, but tended to trade more with the United Suns until 3271. It shifted its partnership to the human ISTO, despite the human states' professed antagonism towards aliens.

In the aftermath of the war, the umbrid alliance became a client state of the CGU. New restrictions by their human overlords caused the financial elite to fall from power, and the landed aristocracy regained their prominence.

Umbrid Names
Umbrids speak in a complex series of clicks and hisses, a language that cannot be reproduced by most other species' vocal anatomy. As such, their names are translated into other languages; they are usually rendered similarly to xan names, as chains of poetic compound words. Umbrids make clear distinctions between male and female naming patterns. Male names are associated with ownership and aggression, while female names are correlated with things of beauty.

Umbrid Traits

Ability Score Increase. Your lifestyle is lively and robust. Your Constitution score increases by 2, and your Charisma score increases by 1.

Age. Umbrids age slowly, reaching maturity around 50 years of age. They typically live to around 300 years old, but do not experience senescence. Instead, after a certain age, moulting becomes energetically taxing and an elderly umbrid dies from exhaustion or from infections caused by a decaying carapace.

Alignment. Umbrids tend towards a neutral or evil disposition, depending on their place in the landowning hierarchy.

Size. Umbrids stand up to 6 feet tall, and may be eight to nine feet long. They usually weigh between 400 to 800 pounds. Your size is Medium.

Speed. You have a base walking speed of 30 feet, and a climbing speed of 30 feet.

Breath of the Sea. You can breathe air and water.

Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern colors in darkness, only shades of grey.

Multiple Arms. Umbrids have two main arms, with pincers. Two smaller arms protrude from the front. These smaller arms are not very strong, and cannot lift heavy objects or wield heavy or two-handed weapons, but can do dexterous work and can hold or use ordinary objects and most weapons.

Natural Armor. Your hard carapace is resistant to damage. When you are not wearing armor, your Armor Class is equal to 13 + your Dexterity modifier. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit.

Pincers. Your claws are a natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with a claw attack, you deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier and the target is grappled (escape DC equals 8 + your Strength modifier + your proficiency bonus).

Powerful Build. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.

Spider Climb. You can move up, down, and across vertical surfaces and upside down along ceilings, while leaving your hands free. You hav a climbing speed equal to your walking speed.

Hot and Heavy
The xan evolved on Xarantis, a hydrovenusian planet with a dense, insulating atmosphere, widespread sea coverage, and high levels of precipitation. While a hostile hothouse to many, the xan find the environment highly amenable to their needs. High gravity, warm climates, and high moisture are optimal conditions for the boneless gastropods.

Finders of Lost Civilizations
The highly competitive ecology of Xarantis led the xan to become efficient hunters and tool-users. This eventually led to material culture, agriculture, and civilization. The natural volcanism of their homeworld spurred the development of early industry, harnessing geothermal power for steam engines by the 900s CE. Later archaeological study on the planet led to some peculiar findings, such as that the xan were not the first sapient race to evolve on Xarantis.

The older civilization had developed some 5 million years ago, but had wiped themselves out in a nuclear catastrophe that had accelerated the climate change that led to the planet's Hydrovenusian conditions. The xan utilized some lost technology to accelerate their development, and they achieved space travel earlier than most species. The xan adapted well to the low gravity environment of orbital space. They expanded and ruled a mighty space empire in the far spinward rim of the Galaxy.

The Bug War
They were overran in the 26th century by a spacefaring, intelligent insectile race called the vryst, and sought contact with the galactic community for military intervention. The rump Xan Federacy limped on for eight centuries, but the majority of their colonies were destroyed in the Bug War. Foreign intervention held the vryst at bay, but their population never truly recovered from being overran. They remained neutral in the Great War and became a human-dominated protectorate to avoid annihilation.

Snailiens
Xan are bulky, muscular aberrations whose ventral side acts as a single, muscular foot that propels them along by subtle undulations. Xan have no bones, making them incredibly flexible. They are able to turn almost 270 degrees around without moving their foot. Their bodies have three-fingered arms protruding from the front, and tapers to a head with eye stalks, a mouth and olfactory sensory organs. Despite having a definable head, their brain matter is distributed through their body rather than being concentrated in one point. Xan also have a rigid, calcified shell covering their dorsal side, which can provide considerable natural protection.

Xan are usually a mottled brown to greenish color, though some display rather vibrant patterns of yellow or white. Shells tend to be black or grey, with loud colors often interpreted as a religiously ominous portent.

Messianic Tradition
Xan culture and social structure has remained largely unchanged since the 26th century. Prior to the Bug War, they had a prosperous and expansive empire held together by trade and tradition. The apocalyptic events of the war with the vryst changed that. The xan colonies became functionally independent, developing their own customs and governments. In the aftermath of the war, new religious movement sprang up.

The most common religion today is an apocalyptic, messianic faith that worships the xan diplomat Chorrl who led the xan empire to negotiate with the galactic nations to intervene. They believe that Chorrl will return when the xan are threatened again with apocalypse. Chorrelleh, the "Way of Chorrl", incorporates xan ancestor worship and animism, and acted as a vehicle to maintain certain traditions. Other, more extremist sects are much more radically apocalyptic. Syncretic variations melding Chorrelleh with Christianity are not uncommon, especially among the political elite.
Some common customs that remain are the mating rituals of time immemorial. As xan are all hermaphrodites the enter into a breeding phase roughly twice a year, communities assemble in orgiastic gatherings to mate. Elaborate courtship rituals precede the mating festivals. Children are raised communally.

Xan Names
Gastrid is not able to be wielded by human vocal anatomy, so xan names are almost always translated for convenience. Xan don't have clan names, but rather use elaborate, highly poetic personal names.
Personal Names: Feeder-of-Ravens, God-Given-Peacemaker, Makes-Bright-the-Dark, Offspring-of-Eternal-One

Xan Traits
All xan share some things in common, as a unique species of gastropods.

Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution and Wisdom scores both increase by 2.

Age. Xan mature rapidly, reaching adulthood after six years. They tend to live around three centuries, but some can live up to four.

Size. Xan usually crawl full-forward, but can rear up the front part of their body. When doing so, they range in height from four to six feet tall, and usually are another 4 feet long. They usually weigh between 350 and 600 pounds. Your size is Medium.

Speed. You have a base walking speed of 20 feet.

Aberrant Form. Because your body is not humanoid, you cannot easily wear standardized armor and clothes. Armor is priced for you as if it were barding.

Hard Shelled. Your hard shell gives you some natural defenses. While you are not wearing any armor, your Armor Class equals 14 + your Dexterity modifier. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit.

Soft Bodied. Your soft body means you have Vulnerability to slashing damage.

Languages. You can read, speak, and write Gastrid.

Tropical World
Dangwar is a large oceanic world dotted with tropical archipelagos and a few large island landmasses. Their distant ancestors were forced onto land during a period of high marine volcanism that killed off most undersea life some 200 million years ago. The most recent ancestor of the xhellan evolved from a line of coastal fish-eating bipeds, reaching their anatomically modern form around half a million years ago. Their hunter-gatherer lifestyle shifted to settling down and they developed agriculture, cultivating tidal kelp as well as terrestrial nuts and pulses; this was partly in response to fishery depletion due to a minor marine extinction event.

Their settlement flourished into advanced metallurgical civilizations, though they experienced periodic societal collapses until the advent of technological changes that enabled global exploration and colonialism. World-spanning seafaring empires arose from the northern islands in the pre-industrial age and fought wars over territory and resources, deeply affecting the southern islanders who became colonized subjects.

To The Stars
These northern nations industrialized in the early 21st century, taking advantage of the wealth of metal, mineral, and fossil fuel resources. Two centuries of industrial warfare ensued, giving way to the threat of nuclear war looming for another two centuries afterwards. Space technology only slowly developed due to difficulties with Dangwar’s high gravity. After much conflict, a peaceful world government was established by the 24th century, and they began space colonization efforts as a safety valve for a growing population and to exploit extraplantary resources. 

Shell Power
Xhellan are stocky, humanoid reptilians with leathery skin, hard dorsal shells, and stubby yet strong limbs with long, grasping claws. They tend to have blunt faces with large, expressive eyes. Their skin color ranges from pale blues to mottled greens and browns to pitch black. They generally look similar to ambulatory, humanoid variations of Earth turtles and tortoises.

Natural Explorers
Traditionalism and a reflexive conservatism are common among most xhellan communities, especially on their homeworld. The experience of many tribal communities of being colonized by industrialized, conquest-hungry nations is still a fresh cultural wound, and many made a deliberate turn towards ancient ways as a refutation of industrial society. Even the very nations that developed industry and colonialism have reverted to traditional society, as a sort of cultural expiation of "northern guilt". The space colonies tend towards a more cosmopolitan culture, adopting some human norms and customs.

In traditional xhellan society, children are raised communally out of clutches of four to twelve eggs, with each mating pair contributing one to two eggs. The mating pairs rarely stay together past the mating season, though some make repeated connections. Xhellan on the homeworld are usually organized into tribes and clans, led by matriarchal elders who also function as shamans and priestesses. Ancestor worship and animism are ubiquitous, and most xhellan believe in one or more powerful sea goddesses, the highest being the personification of Dangwar itself. Reincarnation is a common belief, in which the spirit recedes into the sea and is reborn again in a new body.

The homeworld islanders have a strong seafaring tradition, and space colonists carry this on, using nautical metaphors and terminology when it comes to spacecraft. On the homeworld, commercial fishing is the predominant agricultural activity and fishermen are respected as much as warriors in most tribal communities. A certain restlessness and an urge to sail and explore in a nomadic lifestyle is expected of most adults as they come of age.

Xhellan Names
Xhellan prefer simple personal names, which lack gendered connotations. Because hatchlings are raised communally, and mating pairs don't bond long-term, individuals take clan names.
Personal Names: Django, Gywan, Niha, Olo
Clan Names: Aklati, Krull, Tengo, Zanshi

Xhellan Traits
Xhellan have some features that bind them together across the stars.

Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Wisdom score increases by 1.

Age. Xhellan are able to crawl as soon as they hatch, and start walking on two legs within a few weeks. They are usually considered adults by age fifteen, and can live as long as two centuries.

Size. Xhellan adults stand between 5 and 6 feet tall and average at about 450 pounds. Their shells account for roughly a third of their weight. Your size is Medium.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet. Your swimming speed is 30 feet.

Claws. Your claws are natural weapons, which you can used to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with them, you deal slashing damage equal to 1d4 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal to an unarmed strike.

Marine Ancestry. Despite dwelling on land, xhellan feel drawn to the sea and learn to swim from a young age. You can hold your breath for up to 1 hour at a time, and have a swimming speed of 30 feet.

Natural Armor. Your shell covers your back and sides, protecting you against harm. While you are not wearing any armor, your Armor Class is 17 (your Dexterity modifier does not affect this number). You can use a shield and still gain this benefit.

Shell Defense. While not wearing armor, you can withdraw your head and limbs into your shell as an action. Until you emerge, you gain a +4 bonus to AC, and you have advantage on Strength and Constitution saving throws. While within your shell, you are prone, your speed is 0 and cannot increase, you have disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws, you cannot take reactions, and the only action you can take is a bonus action to emerge from your shell.

Survival Instinct. You gain proficiency in the Survival skill.

Languages: You can read, speak, and write Xhell, and one human language of your choice.

Restriction: Non-amphibious air-breathing humanoid
Aquatic gene mods are designed to allow a person to breathe underwater as well as on land, and to function in the water with normal mobility and speed. It subtly accelerates skin growth between the fingers to form webbing, forces the formation of gill structures, and alters bone and muscle densities. The end result, though painful, is a creature that can breathe and swim underwater. This is especially used by sailors and divers in various walks of life.

Aquans have the following traits:
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 1.
Amphibious. You can breathe in air and underwater.
Improved Darkvision. You can see well in the darkness of the sea. You can see in dim light within 90 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Natural Swimmer. You have a base swimming speed of 40 feet. You have Advantage on Acrobatics and Athletic checks in marine environments.

While "cyborg" technically refers to any person with cybernetic implants or replacement parts, the term is colloquially used to refer specifically to full-bodied cybernetic organisms. People who have replaced their entire body with a robotic platform, nourished by electricity and synthetic fluids. Their brain and spinal column are the sole remaining physical vestige of their organic selves. However, they are not truly robots or synthetics, as their brains and intellect are organic. Nor are they androids, as they are not vat-grown organic living constructs. They straddle somewhere in between these categories. It is estimated that roughly 3-5% of the human population are full-bodied cyborgs.

Cyborgs have the following traits:
Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1.
Cybernetics. You are able to implant a number of cybernetics equal to 8 + your Proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier. You are automatically considered to have a neural link cybernetic implant.
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Fragile Circuitry. Cyborgs possess delicate electronics that can be damaged by electrical discharges. You have vulnerability to Lightning damage.
Living Construct. Your body is constructed, but your brain is living. You are considered both humanoid and a construct for the purposes of effects targeting such creatures. You do not require food or water, though you can eat and drink if you so wish. You are immune to disease, fatigue, paralysis, poison, and being stunned. You are immune to Poison and Necrotic damage. Instead of sleeping, you enter an inactive state for 4 hours to gain the effects of a Long Rest. Even though you are inactive during this state, you are aware of your surroundings and notice approaching enemies and other events as normal.
Repairable. Cyborgs generally cannot heal themselves naturally, outside of using their self-repair protocol. You may artificially be repaired by another character using mechanical tools and electrical tools, in the same way that an organic character may be healed using a first aid kit or surgical tools during a Long or Short Rest.
Self-Repair Protocol. Cyborgs may not require food to function, but they possess a self-repair system that can render organic proteins into a nanite paste that can repair damage while they enter an inactive state. You may naturally heal yourself as part of a Long Rest as long as you have consumed protein-rich food that day. You are not able to naturally heal yourself as part of a Short Rest.

Paragons are genetically engineered for the peak of physical performance. A series of retroviruses alter the genetic code of a creature, boosting muscle growth and physical endurance. Some have criticized paragon gene splicing as a form of racial eugenics, but its proponents point to use use without regard to race or ethnicity. Military use of paragon genomes have likewise been controversial, especially as paragons tend to express higher levels of aggression. But the result of a genetically engineered paragon is an unarguably more potent physical form.

Paragons have the following traits:
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength and Constitution scores both increase by 2.
Size. Paragons remain the original size category of their base race, but now tend towards the upper limits of height and weight due to their dense musculature.
Aggressive. As a bonus action, you can move up to your speed toward an enemy of your choice that you can see or hear. You must end this turn closer to the enemy than you started.
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Hardened Physiology. You are immune to the poisoned condition and have resistance against Poison and Necrotic damage.
Menacing. You gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill, and may use your Strength rather than Charisma for Charisma (Intimidate) checks.
Powerful Build. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.
Relentless Endurance. When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead. You can't use this feature again until you finish a long rest.
Savage Attacks. When you score a critical hit with a melee weapon attack, you can roll one of the weapon's damage dice one additional time and add it to the extra damage of the critical hit.

Psionic powers have been the subject of speculation for over a thousand years. Mystics in times long past believed many magical and paranormal phenomena could be chalked up to a mysterious "psychic" power. But no evidence demonstrated this, and so the belief in such things became the focus of pseudoscience and new religious movements. But unbeknownst to the general population, psionics were real and did manifest in people. It remained dismissed for centuries, and poorly understood even by dedicated researchers well into the end of the 3rd millennium. It is only very recently that psionics have begun to be truly studied and understood. It is still largely a secret kept from the general population. At the very least, admitting that psychics are real would sound as preposterous as the government stating that magic or dragons are real, which would severely affect its credibility. The darker side of this is that the state often has, and does, progress the study of psionics in order to turn it into a weapon.

Psionic creatures have the following traits:
Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1.
Psi Points. You have a reservoir of energy that you can devote to your psionic powers called psi points. You have a maximum number of psi points equal to your Intelligence score + 1 per level. All psi points are recovered after you finish a Long Rest.
Psi Limit. There is a limit on the number of psi points you can spend to manifest a power at any given level. Your limit begins at 2, and increases by 1 at 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th, 15th, 17th, and 19th level.
Psionic Ability. Intelligence is your ability for psionic powers. You use your Intelligence modifier for your saving throw DC when using a psionic power (8 + your Proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier) or when making an attack roll with a psionic power (your Proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier).
Psionic Talents. You know 2 Psionic talents of your choice, and learn an additional Psionic talent at 9th and 18th levels. Talents do not requires the expenditure of psi points, however you never use your psychic focus on a talent.
Psionic Discipline. You choose two Psionic Disciplines, one major and one minor. A Psionic Discipline is a set of powers that cost psi points to manifest, and a static benefit that can be activated with your psychic focus. At 8th level and again at 16th level, you select one additional Psionic Discipline.
Psychic Focus. You can focus your psionic energy by taking a bonus action. In doing so, you can gain the psychic focus benefit indicated in your Psionic Discipline.

Restriction: Humanoid
Spaceborn creatures are born and live most of their lives in space. As early as any species' first eager steps to colonize their world's orbit, there arose people uniquely adapted for long-term habitation in zero-gravity or low-gravity conditions. Since the massive waves of expansion and colonisation, increasing numbers of people lived their whole lives in space: in orbital habitats, in deep-space stations, or aboard enormous itinerant colony ships. The Spaceborn, also referred to derisively as Spacers, often develop a unique culture along the way. A mixture of mistrust of outside powers, combined with an internal sense of order and obedience, characterizes traditional Spaceborn culture. Much of this can be attributed to the philosophy of each ship or station being self-sufficient due to long voyages. Many Spaceborn are instructed in various technical trades, to better assist in crises aboard spacecraft, or to give them better job prospects.

Spaceborn have the following traits:
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity scores increases by 1.
Age. Spaceborn mature around the same time as their base race, but often live up to half a century longer.
Size. Spaceborn tend to be taller and lankier than their base race, but are still the same creature size.
Swift. A Spaceborn creature's base walking speed increases by 5 feet.
Space Adapted. Spaceborn creatures, due to living in an environment with greater exposure to radiation, have advantage on saving throws against the effects of radiation.

Restriction: Medium-sized humanoid
A Stout character is not just shorter than usual, but also broader and tougher. Among creatures that are ordinarily medium-sized, stout members of their species typically are categorized as dwarfs, suffering from one of a number of genetic anomalies that inhibit growth. Most stout persons have normal-sized heads and torsos, but shorter limbs. A lifetime of adjustment to this predicament causes many dwarfs to orient themselves towards physical fortitude.

Stout creatures have the following traits:
Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1.
Size. You rarely grow beyond 4 feet tall, and top out at just under 5 feet, on the lower end of your race. Your size remains Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is reduced by 5 feet.
Dwarven Resilience. You have advantage on saving throws against poison, and you have resistance against poison damage.
Dwarven Toughness. Your hit point maximum increases by 1, and it increases by 1 every time you gain a level.