The Krikili

Name of Alien Species: Krikili

Appropriate Adjectives: Krikilian.

Species Type: Avian

Creature Type: Humanoid

Diet: Fruit eaters. Can eat small amounts of meat or greens, but not digest them.

Intended Sexes: Males and females. Approximately equal numbers of each. Females lay eggs and have no external breasts, males have slit-hidden penises that emerge for mating, but do possess external genitals.

Average Lifespan: Average lifespan is approximately sixty years.

Average Weight: About 50 kilograms is average for both males and females.

Average Height: 180cm for males, 160 cm for females.

Typical Appearance: Two arms, two legs, one head.

Multi-coloured feathers the entire body (normal Krikili will have two different feather colours (colours can vary from natural to “you sure that isn’t a dye job?”), normally the front (chest, throat and inner thighs) feathers will be a different colour to the other feathers, there is the possibility of patterns such as stripes, in a different colour to both front and back feathers, in a large area of plain coloured feathers such as the chest or back).

Arms end in what’s been described as “clawed gloves of chitin”, which reach to about mid-forearm, and also have feathered membranes running from the wrist to the bottom of their ribs (assuming they haven’t had them removed) which allow them to glide short distances.

Feet are similar, having chitin-like structures that run from the foot to mid-thigh, and ending in claws (foot fetishists are advised to steer clear of the Krikili, they are used to keeping the claws on their hands from cutting up sensitive objects but a footjob could well end in lacerations).

Heads have no external ears (Krikili do possess ears, but they are internal, the entrances hidden by feathers, and they don’t pick up sound very well), a large beak (the edges of the beak are sharp, not designed for cutting meat but for cutting the flesh of fruits. Male lovers of Krikili are advised not to get sucked by their partners unless they’re using protection or the Krikili in question is experienced with oral.)

Krikili females have human-like vaginas, but no breasts (young are born able to eat fruit immediately, so there’s no need for milk), while males have slit-contained penises (average size is six inches) and external balls covered with feathers (feathers on the ballsack tend to be softer than feathers elsewhere on the body). As a result, Krikili who are attracted to females tend not to be aroused by breasts. External dicks are arousing, though.

Racial Modifiers:

-Almost immune to crushing damage (lithe bodies mean little muscle to bruise, and their bones are near-unbreakable carbon constructs.

-Can glide short distances with their wings (only if membranes are still in place).

-Gliding membranes are difficult to repair if broken and painful to injury, many Krikili simply choose to have them surgically removed to avoid the hassle.

-Even without being able to glide, Krikili have a natural affinity for the air, making great pilots and paratroopers, as well as painting some of the best sky scenes in the galaxy.

-Krikili tend to focus on one role in life to the exclusion of everything else (though they may have knowledge of other areas if they either deemed it useful to their chosen area of study, or if they studied elsewhere before deciding on their field of expertise). This is both an advantage and a disadvantage: a Krikili physicist won’t know anything outside of physics (how to cook, clean, do anything else), but will be much better at physics than an equivalent physicist from a less focused race.

-Krikili tend to have elements of art in everything they do.

Culture: Focused. The Krikili hold that, since their lifespan isn’t long enough to master more than one field, a Krikili should aim to master the field that interests them most. Krikili children (as with humans, Krikili are children until the age of eighteen) will be exposed to as many options as possible, in order to allow them to pick out the career that interests them most. They will then spend the rest of their lives studying and working in that field.

Most work a Krikili does will have some aspect of art to it. Artists are obvious, but their scientific formulas tend to be elegant, and to those versed in visualising mathematics, beautiful. Even the movements of their paratroopers have a certain aspect of the dance about them, even if it is the dance of ****.

Government Type: Roman-style Republic (the various Krikili territories, as well as Krikili not in a territory, elect three senators. Most colony planets are counted as one territory, larger ones as two. The home planet has four, and all Krikili not in a territory count as being in one territory, Krikili Astars. The senators then convene and elect a ruling council of three of their number. The ruling council makes the day-to-day decisions, with important matters (changing the tax system, declaring war) requiring a full vote of the senate.)

Current Government Leader(s): The ruling council at current is completely uninspiring, being made up of (like every single legislative body in the Krikili empire) career politicians.

Beliefs: Almost uniquely among sentient races, there is no record of the Krikili ever holding to any faith. The race is almost entirely atheist.

Military: The Krikili military equals the Krikili airforce. It is an all-volunteer ****, with almost every unit being comparable to the elite forces of other races. The elite forces of the Krikili army could wipe the floor with just about anyone else not from a specialist military race.

For defence, they favour a **** composed of paratroopers (note: all paratroopers have their gliding membranes to the drop harnesses fit comfortably) for land defence, supported by scout planes and dive-bombers with some fighters to cover the other planes.

On the offensive, they favour a series of commando raids by fighters dropped far from their targets to knock out any anti-aircraft defences, then a full scale airborne **** aimed at key points of the enemy’s command infrastructure, with bombing runs to level anything they can’t take with paratroopers. Should the enemy still be able to fight, the Krikili are in trouble...

Strengths: Very good morale, excellent commandos, air superiority almost guaranteed, all forces are well trained and well equipped.

Weaknesses: No armour, no land-based artillery, no navy, infantry are somewhat rare.

Internal Economy: Tied to the UGC.

Aesthetics: For pleasure (pleasure cruisers, homes, public buildings etc), Krikili tend to use lots of wood (laminated on the floors) and internal plants and water. For military bases, the Krikili normally build them into the ground, with the only exposed parts being control towers and airstrips. Krikili military ships tend to have low profiles and fast reaction speeds, trusting to the reflexes and skills of their pilots more that to armour or shields.

Relation to UGC: Joined the UGC recently (in the past twenty years), having tied their economy with the UGC (i.e adopted the Credit) about a century ago.

Views of others: Dislike other species tendencies to do many things rather than focus on one. Upset that a lot of other species outlive them. Appreciate other race's advances in science and art though (especially hyperspace).

Stereotypes: It depends on how they met the Krikili. Those who first met them diplomatically tend to consider them rather uptight and work-focused. Those who met them by their art (there are several wandering bands of Krikili artists) tend to think of them as a bunch of birds with nothing in their heads except art. Those who met their paratroopers first tend to clam up when they’re mentioned.

Relationships: Krikili mating rituals centre on displays of wealth and knowledge. A millionaire inventor could pretty much bed any Krikili that was even slightly attracted to his form.

Despite their cultures focus on doing one thing and doing it well, tend to be very experimental in bed, and very open to new partners. They can live monogamously, but tend to prefer group sex, or at least several partners to sleep with.

Due to both a lack of religion, and recognising that things can get lonely in the deep jungle, same-sex attraction is considered perfectly fine in Krikili culture.

History: The Krikili evolved from birds up into the highly intelligent avians of today over the course of several million years. There was little pressure from predators to evolve, since there were almost no other animals, but the more dexterous birds consistently outmanoeuvred the less dexterous birds in attracting mates, and then the more intelligent birds consistently outmanoeuvred the less intelligent ones in attracting mates, and then the more humanoid birds consistently outmanoeuvred the less humanoid ones in building cities and ensuring a stable food supply.

Following that, their civilisation pretty much just sat around in wooded hollows for a few thousand years until a series of focused leaders built the culture that still exists now. With the aid of a razor focus on doing exactly one thing with their life, and a lack of internal strife, the Krikili got a ship into space within three millennia.

It turned out that all the space around their homeworld was totally boing and empty. The Krikili continued to look further afield, until eventually they just froze a bunch of their citizens (they volunteered, don’t worry) and shot them off into space.

One such suicide ship ran into a UGS hyperlane station. Once the initial barriers (i.e language and having just run into an extremely expensive piece of real estate, even if they caused no damage) were overcome, the Krikili were asked to get their civilisation to build a hyperlane station. They opted to load the schematics and a note onto their (now fixed) ship, and send it back home, remaining behind themselves.

By the time the ship reached the Krikili homeworld, all the initial adventurers were dead, and the UGS were beginning to think they might just have been gene-modded nutcases. Then the hyperlane station went online... (The Krikili having devoted everything they had to building it for the past forty years, and strip-mining all the other empty worlds around their homeworld to get the resources needed.)

With communication between the UGS and the Krikili now possible, the Krikili were exposed to all the ideas of the galaxy. Complaints from some of the more conservative senators that this would corrupt the youth were overruled, and the UGS credit was quickly accepted as the currency of the Krikili Empire.

Twenty years ago, following a check that they complied with all UGS regulations, the Krikili were accepted as a member race.

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Homeworld Related Info:

Homeworld Name: Lasturn

Environment Type: Endless rainforest, with several large rivers. There are few large cities, and those that do exist are built into the surrounding rainforest.

Climate Type: Wet. Whether wet and hot, wet and cold, wet and windy, wet and still, Lasturn weather means rain.

Location: Western edge of the galaxy. Only nearby system of note is the Trappist system (which contains the only hyperlane station the Krikili have links to).

Important Landmarks: The rainforest itself forms the largest untouched stretch of forest in the western quadrant.

Indigenous Wildlife: Very few animals, but lots of fruit species.