Muphinz
Active Member
Apex are they. Rending flesh and bone will they.
Save us, they might." -Forgotten Shaper
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a well written race to play around with
- Image Credit: Polo (McPrieto) Mendoza, Luis Carrasco, Sonya Chelombieva,
- Canon: N/A
- Links: Yuuzhan Vong,
- Name: Ulyrix Vong, The Ulyrix, Vong-Spawn
- Designation: Sentient
- Homeworld: Yavin-4 (Unknown to them... could be discovered though)
- Language: Yuuzhan Vong, Basic
- Average Lifespan: 145 Standard Years
- Estimated Population: Scattered
- Description: Standing 2.1 to 2.5 meters the Ulyrix Vong are giants who rarely wear full clothing which ends up showing their physical prowess and chiseled natural appearance. Genetically designed to be one of the most tenacious warriors in the galaxy, any and all Ulyrix Vong are physically fit and appear to never tire.
- Breathes: Type 1 or 2, Can survive in Type 3 for a short period of time.
- Average height of adults: 2.1-2.5 Meters
- Average length of adults: N/A
- Skin color: Mostly Tan, Gray, Or Dark Blue. But other colors are possible
- Hair color: They don't technically have hair, more like tendrils. Yet the colors would be black, or a very dark blue or gray, but again other colors are possible.
- Distinctions: The biggest and obvious distinction is their mandibles. These mandibles are primarily used for tearing off chunks of meat and injecting it with dissolvable acids to help dissolve it on the way down towards the stomach (similar to human spit, but a little more intense). Another big distinction is the lack of gender dimorphism between male and female Ulyrix Vong. Both males and females are rather lean muscled and acrobatic, similar bone structure and heights. The only differences is any purely female organs compare to fully male organs. Another thing of note is the difficulty categorizing the Ulyrix Vong in normal scientific terms. They lay eggs and have no hair, yet they are warm-blooded and produce milk, so whether to categorize them as a freakish amphibian or a freakish mammal is up for debate.
- Races: All Ulyrix Vong are divided into small bands of nomadic warriors, who's gene pools are often rather different than one another. This is both due to the fact that they rarely encounter other bands in the wide galaxy thus their gene pool stagnates, and the fact they are constantly tweaking their genetics in an attempt to perfect their own bodies how each individual Ulyrix Vong sees fit.
- Strengths:
Vong-Formed Warriors: The Ulyrix Vong were transformed from a previously primitive race into what they are today, powerful warriors. Thus their bodies are genetically prone to being physically fit and ready for combat even if they should never work out. Yet it is a genetic compulsion for them to seek to better their physical bodies both through hard work and combat, a deep instinct difficult for them to shake. Yet eitherway the average Ulyrix Vong is capable of besting a human nearly at every sport and through incredible hard work and genetic mutations they are able to compete with other physically prominent species.
Efficient Innerworkings: Their creators wanted them to be able to survive many different environments thus they were given two different sets of lungs, one adapted to type 2 atmosphere and the other to type 1 and both sets can be utilized to draw whatever oxygen and nitrogen they can find from a type 3 atmosphere and hold it and practically recycle it for several hours before they must return to breathable space.
Toxic Fangs: Their mandibles are able to inject a homebrew of Hydrochloric acid created in a similar process to how humans produce it. This is primarily to help digest particularly hardy materials to be utilized by their bodies, but it can also be used as a weapon. The acid produced by their fangs is very effective against organic tissue, but practically useless against heavier armors.
Adaptive Essence: The genetic code for a Ulyrix Vong is effectively made out of organized building blocks of genetic code which can be swapped out with one another or edited at ease, making it painfully obvious they were engineered and allowing the Ulyrix Vong to constantly edit themselves. However, an egg of a Ulyrix Vong will always sort out these chosen adaptations and hatch into a 'vanilla' Ulyrix Vong.
Bioluminescence: The Ulyrix Vong's pigment cells are also fitted with bioluminescence capabilities, allowing them to glow dimly and communicate this way or to seem more of a threat. This was origionally inteded to act as a way of silent communication but it has become a key part of Ulyrix Vong culture, specifically how they show emotion and put emphesis on their wording, and helping them stand out from their similar looking brethren.
Force-Dead: The Ulyrix Vong are completely dead to the force, invisible to normal force senses and incapable of being directly manipulated by the force.
- Weaknesses:
Genetically Frail: The building block style of their genetics makes them incredibly weak to viruses both natural and synthetic that pray upon the genetics of their cells, and can easily succumb to these microbial infestations.
Slow Growers: Ulyrix Vong can take anywhere from 25 to 30 years to reach full adulthood due to slow cell reproduction. This also makes it harder for them to recover from wounds, having become dependent on technology to recover from wounds in a reasonable amout of time.
Instinctual Warriors: Instincts echo through any Ulyrix Vong's genome from a time past where they were to be used as warriors. The need to hunt, kill, collect genetic material, and to improve themselves is as necessary to them as for birds on many worlds to fly south for the winter. Some fight these urges, fewer still master them, but they still plague the minds of every Ulyrix Vong.
Proles: The Ulyrix Vong find much of modern existance too confusing and tend to ignore such frivolities, leading them to have little to no knowledge of modern currencies and rarely leading them to invent, rather staying with their traditional knowledge or scavenging other tech from raids or trades.
Melee is the Best Way: Whether out of tradition or the fact their hands can't fit in most blasters, the Ulyirx Vong are highly unskilled with blasters and mostly don't use them.
Poor Vision: Mostly nocturnal, the Ulyrix Vong have poor eyesight, and flashes of light (like from a blaster) can disorient them if they're not wearing protective gear.
Durasteel Allergen: Genetic manipulation plays a tole on the immune system of most organisms, and that is no different for the Ulyrix Vong. Originally overlooked by their creators, the Ulyrix Vong have an intense weakness to durasteel. Contact can cause blisters and boils, while ingestion can cause blackouts and even death. When Durasteel is lodged into them (Shrapnel or a blade for example) the durasteel makes it difficult for their blood to clot thus they just bleed, and bleed, and bleed.
CULTURE
- Diet: Meat primarily, but they can survive on vegetation although it'll weaken them, barely supporting their vital systems.
- Communication: Oral Communication of a variety of different languages thanks to an organ that acts similarly to the Tizowyrm which is located just above the ear and has a direct connection to the brain. Yet they compliment this oral communication with bioluminescent displays to emphesize words or to show emotion.
- Technology level: Mostly Standard.
- Religion/Beliefs: Many follow The True Way, but many believe in a splinter religion of The True Way where it is believed that Yugo'Coth, the God of Predation and true creator of the Ulyrix Vong (who used the Yuuzhan Vong as tools to create them) was shattered among the universe, pieces of his genome is in every apex predator and it is the Ulyrix Vong's duty to unite these genomes to rebirth Yugo'Coth who will reduce the universe to its true state of the Hunter and the Prey.
- General behavior: Ulyrix Vong have been stuck in a primitive hunter-gatherer mentality for most of their existence, and much of their behaviors reflect this.
The strongest leads strike teams down to the planet's surface to seize important technology, capture or kill especially dangerous creatures which may have a gene-seed of Yugo'Coth or is otherwise desirable or may take the younger generations on hunts to train them or put them through tests to prove their adulthood. Under this leader are the betas who pursue similar goals yet usually alone or in smaller groups, wanting to improve their skills and genetic makeup, either to attract a suitable mate or challenge the leader. Under the betas are the gammas which are the weaker members of the group, dedicated to taking care of the young in the hatchery, taking care of the equipment, operating the spacecraft, cooking, and other menial chores. They too can accompany the leader or betas on hunts, but usually are there to take care of the logistics of the equipment and take care of the hunters and the camp at night.
Child Rearing: Children are seen as of no particular parentage, but rather the child of the entire unit as betas are traded off and bred to create potent offspring. They are raised in the 'hatchery' which is an incubated room where the gammas constantly care for the leathery eggs in large pools of water as a female Ulyrix Vong usually lays 2-3 eggs at a time thus it is difficult for one to look after them all. This hatchery is usually rather dimly lit and extremely humid and warm, mimicking their swamp like homeworld which none of them even wish to go back to.
Upon Hatching, the child is nurtured and cared for by various gammas with the betas and leader pitching in here and there as well until he's considered a teen. Upon reaching this age he is assigned to a beta who will train him in the basics of hunting, combat, technology, genetic manipulation, and religious practices until he is nearly an adult. Upon reaching this stage the leader takes the teen under his wings and begins rigorous testing to determine their place in the pecking order, as a beta or a gamma. Should they pass every test including the final where they are dropped off on a world to hunt a dangerous beast of the leader's choice, then they will be trained as a beta by the different betas and the leader. Should they fail these tests, they'll be turned over to the gammas to be trained by them. And that is where they'll stay until they are able to complete the tests, which many simply stop wishing to do, content with their life helping out the group in the subtler less heroic ways.
Economy: The economy of the Ulyrix Vong is nothing more than a trade and barter system. Some groups have accepted the galactic credit and have learned the use of currency, but the vast majority stick to trade and bartering. Interactions between two familial units often include the exchange of genetic data for other genetic data or the exchange of genetic data for other goods and services. This is also a time of marriages, story swapping, and general revelry, even some cooperative hunts on particularly dangerous installations or creatures.
Trade and Barter with non-Ulyrix Vong is simple. Offering materials and goods raided from smaller easier to defeat groups to the bigger more dangerous ones where violence won't get them these materials or where the Ulyrix Vong respect the inhabitants enough to trade with them with no ulterior motive.
Marriage and Partnership: Marriages, for the most part, are for breeding prominent Ulyrix Vong and are usually lifelong commitments brokered and bartered by the leaders of different familial units or within the same familial unit should the two interested parties be not as related (keep in mind a 'familial' unit could have cousins a bajillion times removed and no one's quite sure how they're related). Ulyrix Vong do not frown upon homosexual marriages or commitments as long as the betas in question are willing to have children with others when the leader demands it.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
The Yuuzhan Vong, who had been the scourge of the galaxy for so long were now losing. Some had righteous fervor that their gods would not abandon them, that they would be able to push the infidels back and purge this galaxy of all the heretical mechanisms of iron and steel. Some threw their hands up in great temples, begging their deities to save them as pessimism and despair grabbed at their very hearts. Yet a smaller group still saw that the gods would not save them and that they were indeed going to lose.. with possibly disastrous results for their people. So instead of praying, or charging headfirst into battle singing their sacred songs, this select group with the help of the Hutt Cartel, ravaged the outer rim looking for very specific gene codes. Ferocity, might, body mass, stature, poisons, acrobatics, the predators of the galaxy had all these things in abundance and they had to be harnessed.
The gene codes were collected in a matter of weeks as the infidels pressed closer and closer to their new homeworlds, they were knit together by great shaper cults like a weaved basket or a delicately played instrument. Their muscle's abilities from a gundark, their acid from the humans themselves (the irony was not wasted on the shapers that their greatest foes would help form their greatest weapon and many other small genetic codes. But most importantly, the hosts of this new genetic transformation was a sub-sentient species on Yavin-4. Their initial invasion of the planet was a failure, yet the huts could be paid to do anything, and so the entire species vanished within a week and the republic was none the wiser, too busy with their war.
Yet they saw little engagement, these few hundred who managed to survive the process. The war was over, the infidels had won, forcing the Yuuzhan Vong into paying for the damage they had caused. These new beings, who's gift of sentience came at great cost, were cast out by their masters as they had little time or resources to train up an entirely new sentient species that was dedicated to war.
And thus, the Ulyrix Vong took their ships, divided into a few groups led by those who had been lucky enough to learn the technology of the time, and departed in their separate ways. Hunting and gathering what they could, dividing their nomadic groups in half to create more when the population got too large, the Ulyirix Vong spread across the galaxy. Many of the initial groups didn't survive, hunted down by pirates or defense forces thinking that the desperate survivors were nothing more than pirates themselves. Yet those that did survive, prospered. The galaxy was a wide and dangerous place, a perfect place for a predator to hunt and then vanish into the abyss before being found.
This lifestyle was perfect for their instinct to hunt, an imprint left by their previous masters, so they explored every inch of the galaxy that they could find. And soon, the flotillas that thought they were the only survivors started to run into other Ulyirx Vong nomads more and more frequently. Trade, barter, a basic economy of swapping genetics and marital alliances began to form, the foundations for a true civilization instead of hunter-gatherers. This friendly interaction began to manifest towards other species they found worth it as well, Mandalorians, Sith and Jedi, Chiss, other warrior species who could best a Ulyrix Vong in a fight.
Soon a new cult began to spread through their population. It is difficult to say there was a single emergence event for this religion as many had already assigned some mystical purpose to their constant search of genetic data. Yet when it was given a name, and a holy mission, many Ulyrix Vong took arms for this new god and continued their sacred duty to rebuild him with even more fervor. He will save them from their curse, connect them to the force so that they may be one with the nature of the galaxy, and then he will turn the galaxy into what it was meant to be, hunter and prey.
