Jorus Merrill
is mek bote
Images: Master Chicken, Kung Fu Panda 3
Name: Apokka
Designation: Sentient
Homeworld: Unknown. Common throughout Hutt space.
Language: Apok, a noble and intricate language comprised mainly of clucking sounds. Generally conversant in Huttese, Rodian, and/or Basic.
Average Lifespan: 35
Estimated Population: 20 million, scattered throughout Hutt space and the Outer Rim.
Average height of adults: 0.35m
Average length of adults: N/A
Skin color: Plumage can be brown, white, reddish, etc.
Hair color: N/A
Distinctions: Flightless avians with stunted, vestigial wings and powerful legs.
Breathes: Type I
Strengths:
- Very fast runners. Apokka can sprint up to 70kph, comparable to a racing canid.
- Very hard beak. Given enough time, Apokka are capable of pecking through anything short of armor-grade durasteel.
- Very small: hard to hit.
Weaknesses:
- Vestigial wings, completely incapable of flight.
- No dedicated manipulating appendages. To use electronics, for example, an Apokka must peck precisely, or stand on one foot and use the other for grabbing/poking/etc.
- Very small: easy to punt.
- Apokka are objectively delicious. Natural predators include Hutts, Hutt retainers, and Mandalorians.
Races: No significant genetic differences exist within the Apokka gene pool. However, significant acquired differences develop in urban versus rural Apokka. Free-range Apokka are larger, stronger, and healthier.
Diet: Omnivorous, tending toward herbivorous. Apokka favour seeds.
Communication: Apokka communicate verbally. Theirs is a noble and intricate language.
Culture: Apokka culture prizes mobility, adaptability, and contingency planning. Apokka favour discrete, secure enclaves with numerous escape routes. Apokka are suspicious of non-Apokka, especially omnivores and carnivores. To be accepted by Apokka is a rare honour.
Technology level: Quite low. Apokka don't have hands. They've become relatively adept (but only relatively) at using other people's technology with their beaks and feet.
General behavior: Apokka are grumpy, suspicious, and easily provoked to a flight-or-fight response. (Flight is, in this case, entirely figurative.) Apokka are keenly aware of their diminutive size and extreme tastiness, and are quick to resentfulness. When angry or frightened, they ruffle and puff up their feathers to appear larger. It doesn't work.
History: The Apokka were once a better-proportioned species, capable of soaring flight. Millennia ago, however, their ancestors were brought to the Hutt worlds as food. Over generations, breeders selected for small wings and plump thighs, while high-flying Apokka learned about blasters the hard way. These two influences made Apokka the flightless wonders they are today. Their running speed was a side effect of the aforementioned plump thigh breeding preference, as well as a history of natural selection via escaping deep fryers. In time, the Apokka found a niche that didn't actually involve getting eaten. Quick, secretive, tiny and easily ignored, the Apokka became the Hutts' couriers and spies. Such were their roles when the Hutts pledged loyalty to the Yuuzhan Vong. The Apokka became deeply divided, some serving their masters, and others spearheading a uniquely unforeseen resistance movement. Near the end of the war, Apokka operatives unleashed disproportionate damage on the Yuuzhan Vong across several Hutt worlds.
In the aftermath of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, the Apokka returned to their three primary roles within Hutt space: spies, couriers, and appetizers. Through the trials and travails of the galaxy, the Gulag Virus, the Dark Age, the Omni invasion, and the Second Akala Crisis, not to mention the rise and fall of empires and republics, the Apokka have remained pretty much the same. Oh, they've died off in the same proportions as any other species (and more -- Apokka make for excellent disaster rations), but they breed relatively quickly and bounce back on a collective level.
Notable Player-Characters: None as of yet. However, [member="Popo"] has committed to writing an Apokka. I've got it in writing.
Intent: I'm deeply committed to expanding the alien scene on Chaos. Avian aliens are a time-honoured part of Star Wars, and are all too rarely chosen for player character creation. Also, I need to find new viewing material for my kids.
