Home Planet: Noviah
Brief Summary of their Home Planet: The planet much resembles earth, except it is about 4.0x larger and is pretty much a thick jungle all the way around, with scattered mountain ranges, a handful of plateaus, and few plains. Water is plentiful, covering about 61% percent of the planet and creating an abundance of water channels such as rivers, lakes, and springs. However, it's purely saltwater, Nohvan's can't drink pure freshwater. Some villages exist on land, typically high up or set in cave systems. However, the world is extremely dangerous and even the plants want to kill you, so the Nohvan's have taken to the oceans, building great floating biospheres and underwater cities.
Most of the danger lies on the mainland, most. The most famous of these deadly predators is the
Canopy Wyrm, A long snake like creature that travels through the tops of the thick jungle trees and averages in sizes that could easily swallow a normal man without trouble. Even when fighting them one has to be careful, if it's not the long toothed mandibles it may be that fact that it bleeds an acidic compound. Another of the planet's infamous deadly beasts are actually a somewhat semi-intelligent
Gharou. With fundamental weapons and tools, this species has a pack mentality, and live in orbital houses woven from vines and such, set against thick tree trunks and connected by elevated bridges. They are also extremely territorial, and will pursue trespassers across their entire territory. They are quick, and very numerable, but not very smart nor particularly strong.
Turning towards the waters, the situation tends to be a bit safer, if you can handle the salt. The most danger inland is from small river serpents, most of which are of course, poisonous. The most notable aquatic danger lies in the ocean, following the theme of enormous, dangerous serpents brings us to the
Dhumandi, the water variant and cousin of the Canopy Snake. Fortunately they avoid brightly lit areas, unfortunately masses of surface water algae allow the Dhumandi higher depths of hunting. They don't bother the cities, or most aquatic vehicles, really diver's without a few extremely bright lights are in danger. The creature has very poor eyes which are sensitive to light, but also has an incredibly tough skin.
Empires This Race Belongs To: It is the only race in its empire
Member of the Galactic Federation?: Yes, they joined later as pirates became a serious threat to Noviah.
Number of Colonies: Seven
General Appearance: Nohvan's typically range from 5'5 to 6'1, anything above or below those numbers doesn't fit the average. As a people they are typically lithe, with toned and compact muscles when present, almost not noticeable due to the nature of their skin which closely mimics Silicon. It's soft, slightly slippery, and has about the same durability as a Human's. Nohvan's are typically brightly colored, females tending to be more along the more vibrant colors such as violet, teal, and so forth, whereas males tend to have deeper hues. Silver and White are androgynous colors, and are uncommon. Pure Red and Pink Nohvan's are rare. Nohvan's tend to be born with colors relating to their environment, a genetic adaptation to help them blend in. If all else fails they do have a pair of hollow fangs which inject a fast acting paralytic poison.
Nohvan's have webbed fingers and toes, wide eyes, and pointed ears that poke out of brightly colored hair, which feels soft and almost silky. Due to the day and night cycles, their eyes have adapted to better see in low-light conditions, especially in the underwater cities, and the biospheres which are kept very dim. The iris almost looks like a cataract with color, and that's not far off. In normal daylight vision is very blurry for Nohvans, anything brighter can stun and cause pain, extreme conditions can result in trauma to the eyes leading to blindness.
Average Life Span: Approximately 160 Earth Years, Average age of death is roughly 140 years.
Galactic Rarity: Very Uncommon
Primary Governmental Structure: The Nohvan have a society based on Meritocracy, putting those with the best skills and talents in powers of position. A Nohvan child could be a governor as long as he passed the test of merits, which is an incredibly extensive test, which also takes into account personal accomplishments and your impact on society. Few children achieve strong positions, but it has happened. At anytime a council member can be challenge, pitting talent against talent, and skill against skill. The challenged has the right to pick the details of challenge, whether it be combat, a game, or something more creative. Nobody is ever forced into a position of government, and often those with great merit but only hold the title of commoner are still respected and have their opinions thoroughly discussed.
Brief Description of Culture: Nohvan's revolve around Independence, but also Unity. You are only as good are your merit, and your merit is only as good as its impact on society. It's a solid principle based on what one can do for others, rather than themselves. Upon reaching maturity, Nohvan's are expected to set forth and seek a life for themselves, the farther away from their friends and family, the farther from their comfort zone, the more respect they earn, though visits are not unheard off. Advancing the benefit of society is the ultimate goal, which is why they rely on the Galactic Federation for their military needs. Noviah outputs an impressive amount of scientific research.
Special Traits/Racial Abilities:- Nohvan's have Excellent Night-vision, but quite sensitive to light.
- Nohvan's are great swimmers, and can breath underwater.
- Nohvan's silicon like skin reduces contact velocity, offering a slight resistance to physical impacts.
- Nohvan's enjoy sickening amounts of sugar and salt.
- Nohvan's have two hollow fangs, equipped with a fast acting paralytic poison.
Race Age: 750,000 Years
Brief History of the Race: The Nohvan's haven't been a part of the Galactic Federation long, but they'd been traveling in space for a time yet. Once the discovery of the FTL drives Federation forces eventually found Noviah and began negotiations, trades, and integration. Noviah, like most of their other colonies, lie close to the outskirts of known space, making them very remote. They often operate beneath the public eye, and have few members in positions of power within the Federation, but do post some of the best new technologies and rapid advancement.
Major Technological Innovations/Inventions: A lot of Nohvan research centers around quality of life, how to live in harsh habitats and defend against monstrous, or even tiny and dangerous creatures. However, their most notable area of expertise lies in genetic manipulation. Despite being unable to artificially incubate their own children and fixing their terribly low birthrates. The Nohvan's never struggled with disease, and have increased their own lifespans over the years. This knowledge has spread through federation space, allowing parents to choose desirable traits in their children. Even Nohvan's can inject a cell cluster into their incubating females to be absorbed by their egg sacs.
Expanded Cultural Overview:Nohvan's have what you would call low birth rates, despite laying hundreds of eggs, they hardly ever survive the dangerous waters of their planet. Unable to artificially incubate their offspring, it's become something of a tradition to just, continue the cycle as it always has been. Sure, they could eliminate oceanic dangers, over time, but that would destroy everything that they've founded their lives on.
Death is about the only time a Nohvan will see their entire family at one time. It's a heavily important matter that they see their kin into the water, where they will sink, and surface in the afterlife. The bodies are wrapped in large swathes of seaweed and cocooned in a hardened, clear oil made from fish and algae. They sink to the bottom of the ocean where their body nourishes bottom feeders, the beginning of the food chain, for years.
Birth on the other hand, is less eventful. The Female Nohvan can become pregnant from either sex and incubate hundreds of eggs, but they must be deposited in the ocean of their home world, attempts at artificial incubation have always failed, it's still a huge topic of research for them. And as it is with all sea life, not all of them make it. The eggs hatch hours after being deposited into leech like tadpoles, where they will seek out a source of food and latch onto it for the next couple of months. This leech matures into parasite, which then burrows into its host, if two different parasite try to enter the same host they will fight, and likely kill each other. From here the parasite incubates in the creature's reproductive organs, sending fine filaments through its hosts body which help in preserving the parasitic baby. From here the process becomes closer to human birth, except after the second incubation period, about twelve months, the Nohvan Child must find a way out of the creature, through any means possible. Finally, a year later, the child must find its way back to its mother, using the large nerve on the top of it's head like an antennae.
Should a child ever make it's way home, the odds of that being about One out of the hundreds, the whole day stops immediately and an enormous celebration is spontaneously thrown together. The celebration builds steam until a full blown wild party is rampaging through the streets. Typical parties can last anywhere from an entire day, to three or four days later. At the end of the party, the Nohvan's gather for the ceremonial cutting of the Antennae, signifying the child's independence of its mother. A Nohvan child actually has many mother's, being cared for and taught by multitudes of close friends or lovers of the mother. Upon their tenth naming day, the child may get a job, and start their life, in fact, it's expected.
There are really only a few ways to commit a crime on Noviah; Excessive Abuse against children (Sometimes they need a slap), defilement of the dead, and murder outside mutual combat. However, laws protecting against unwanted sexual advances, assault, thievery, or things like social securing services like a police force, or fire fighting force, don't exist. Nohvan's are expected to be strong enough to protect themselves and what they own, and to come together in times of need. Taking what you want is meritable, as life itself is selfish, as long as the end goal is the benefit of society and advancement. A Nohvan child has exclusive protection until their twentieth naming day, where the celebration of maturity involves a lot of attempts to test how well the Nohvan can protect themselves and what they've acquired.
Nohvan criminals, as rare as they are, are exiled from Nohvan colony worlds. Which, is actually honorable, as life is precious and independence is respected. Others see it as a death sentence. A lot of crime's are determined in a public court on a case-by-case system. Many Nohvan's choose to be exiled in the domains of humanity, due to their close resemblances.
Expanded History: Nohvan's began as a series of struggling tribes, living in all manners of homes and locations. It was the verge of extinction that drove them together, forming what is now the sacred ruins of Hopapi, an ancient city. Here the Nohvan's managed to survive, slowly, and defend themselves. There weren't many animals to domesticate, but the creation of tools were plentiful. Myths and Legends centered around great heroes who saved others, often depicted wrestling canopy snakes single-handedly or holding up a massive boulder from crushing their comrades and other impossible feats.
As the years progressed Nohvan's became apt farmer's, without domesticated animal they lived on a diet rich in roots, vegetables, fruits, and other foliage. Hunting was a hard, and extremely honorable task, the root cause of many other legends and heroes.With the Progression from poorly crafted spears, to iron rods, and further into guns, fire weaponry, and bio-organic electricity, The Nohvan's found each stage of technology advancement increasing their rates of survival, and their quality of life.
The lands were ever becoming more hostile and dangerous, and the Nohvan's eventually found ways to move out into the oceans. It began with floating wooden villages on the coasts, but that left them prone to both predators and nature, often large swells would rip apart their homes. Once the discovery of metallurgy and major processing hit, it was easier to stake a little further out using thick iron posts to anchor their cities in place, durable, but still not immune to nature. Now, the Nohvan's have large floating cities which drift along the oceans, propelled by massive engines when need be. In the event of an emergency like a tsunami, these floating biospheres and cities can use sonic wave generators to create a second tsunami, carefully measured in strength, to collie with another at a safe distance from the city. The resulting forces dispel the forces driving the original tsunami, and drive the excess water away from the city with a much gentler force.
They've also taken to living along the ocean floor, and smaller communities seeking a more traditional and natural lifestyle live in cave systems or other naturally defensible locations inland. Once the Nohvan's began breaking away and creating multiple settlements, strife hit. The Nohvan's have been through many wars, which quickly depleted their numbers. It was the use of a genetically modified canopy snake that finally made them realize they were about to erase themselves from their planet. The Dhumandi was a weapon of war, and was never supposed to populate. It is the main reason that Nohvan's have such low birth survival rates. The introduction of the Dhumandi into the ecosystem threw the balance off, and as the creatures died their genetically engineer forms were devoured by other sea life. This is why Nohvan children hardly ever survive.
Other:
- Relative Nohvan Ages in Reference to the Human Life Cycle
- 0 - 3 Months: Egg Incubation Period
- 4 - 5 Months: Leech Larvae Stage
- 6 Months - 1.5 Years: Parasitic Embryo Stage
- 1.5 - 3 Years: Early Childhood
- 4 - 7 Years: Childhood
- 8 - 10 Years: Late Childhood
- 11 - 14 Years: Pre-Adolescence
- 15 - 19 Years: Adolescence
- 20 - 24 Years: Late Adolescence
- 25 - 49 Years: Young Adulthood
- 50 - 74 Years: Midlife Adulthood
- 75 - 99 Years: Mature Adulthood
- 100 - 139 Years: Elderly Adulthood
- 140 - 160 Years: Waiting for Death
- Nohvan's can have memories as far back from the day they first hatched
Racial Notes:
- Nohvans are pretty much named whatever strikes the parent's fancy.
- Nohvan mothers usually stay on the home planet after laying a clutch for around thirteen months waiting for their child.
- They do not worship god or goddesses, but rather heroes, legends, and myth who seem to have done legendary deeds.
- Nohvan children are taught to speak both their own language, and more recently a more common, galactic dialect. The language is smooth, and sounds slightly melodic.
Nohvan Language Mixer Use setting "Melodic 3".
