Proposed Species: We-russ *UPDATED*

Species Info:

We-russ

(Playable Main)

So this was written in a style similar to how species are portrayed in the MOAG book. Certainly more stiff and verbose than what I've seen others do... Forgive me, I'm still an infant MOAGer!
Also, give me lots and lots of feedback. I love feedback. 

Species Traits:

Electro-Magnetic Alter*:

We-russ’es natively manipulate broad spectrum EM waves - this is how they communicate with each other. This gives them 1D½Knowledge free skill points towards the write-in RP skill EMA, which they can use to generate magnetic fields, scan their surrounding environment, or any other conceivable use for being sensitive to and able to manipulate EM waves.

This skill counts as their native language roll, but should be placed with regular skills. Modifiers will be added at GM discretion - dense metropolitan areas in particular should incur modifiers for heavy use of EM waves (space wi-fi, etc.)

They don’t have vocal chords, and their airways are not connected to their mouth. This means that to speak, they use special devices called comm recryptors, which allows them to use their EMA to speak directly into other character’s comms. It handles encryption, decryption, and other complex tasks required to transmit and receive digital audio via comms.

Because they must communicate with other sentients through comms, points in languages for them is less “I can speak and understand the language with level amount of proficiency” and more “I can restructure my thoughts to be compatible with a recryptor translating this language with level amount of proficiency”. This means, first, that they cannot speak to any creature that does not have a comm, and second, they only have a chance of understanding the spoken language without a comm if they have invested points in the language.

The best this skill can achieve as a scanner is equivalent to a level 1 scanner - at GM discretion, if the skill is at level 10 they have a chance of reaching level 2 scanner equivalency.

Empathic Resonance:

We-russ’es can enter a trance state where their emotions, sensations, thoughts, and any knowledge carried by them are broadcasted to each other and shared.

When in this state, they get a helper of 1 for all rolls per pair that are in the trance, to a maximum helper of 5. This means more than 10 entering a trance will grant no additional helper - the increased distance and complexity arising from more participants means each of them can only really use information from about 9 others beneficially). To enter this trance state, they must all beat their EMA skill by 8 or more, which will effectively give them 20 seconds worth of resonance with each other. They also are unable to communicate with other species while in this trance due to the intense focus required to synchronize with each other.

Stone-age Culture:

We-russ’es are in the process of being elevated from a stone-age culture. Their capacity for learning is good, but they struggle interacting with other sentient species and adjusting to FTL level technology.

On character creation, after you have rolled knowledge for skill points, exhaust ½ of your points immediately.

Weak Fingers:

Due to the unique physiology of their hands, a We-russ struggles to pull the trigger on most weapons.

On character creation, roll 1d4+2. Add the result as a modifier to the base roll of every gun skill. This may be undone if the character gets a cyborg frame, or at GM discretion in certain situations (if the gun has no trigger), so it is recommended to write it out as base (base+modifier) and roll (roll+modifier), or to just write in the added modifier:

Skill	Level	Base	Roll
Rifle	4	6(11)	2(7)

Species Backstory:

Home Planet and Star System:

H'rarwi is larger and colder than earth. Similar to how a meteor strike wiped out dinosaurs on earth, a flurry of meteor strikes wiped out much of the life on the planet many millions of years before We-russ’es existed. The planet was already very high in iron, copper, and other similar metals, and this only increased even more due to the meteor strikes. Cloud cover is almost omnipresent. Intense lightning storms combined with the extremely high ratio of electromagnetically relevant metals on the planet made it difficult to continue to live without developing some sort of protection against the electromagnetic chaos.

Most plants and animals on this planet are anywhere from rust orange to bright neon violet, with smatterings of metallic pigments. The soil is rust red, and most of the omnipresent clouds are near to the same. Plant life has evolved to convert both static electricity and solar radiation into cellular energy, making it by far the most dominant and prolific form of life on the relatively cold, stormy planet. Animal life is primarily omnivorous, making every animal a potential predator to any other animal. This has led to some very complex evolutionary pressures and relationships.

Evolutionary History, and Rise to Sentience:

This species adjusted to the frequent electromagnetic storms on the planet by evolving electromagnetic affinity. Early in their evolution, We-russ’es were arboreal marsupial primates whose EM connection with each other allowed them to better warn each other about the presence of predators on H'rarwi, and detect/avoid particularly dangerous EM storms. Over time, this interconnectedness of emotion pushed We-russ’es with brains better able to process the stream of information from the others to be superior among their peers, eventually leading to overall larger brains and then, sentience.

EM sensitivity allowed them to locate hives of insects for food with relative ease, giving them a nutritional foundation for a larger brain. The kinds of insects they rely on for nutrition are typically in well-hidden colonies underground or sometimes in decomposing trees. Being able to use EM sensitivity to “see” insect-like activity, or even visualize underground hives became extremely important for pushing them into nutritional superiority. Better and quicker processing of their environment, and superior ability to communicate that information to others in the tribe gave them almost supernatural awareness in response to predatory threats. If one notices a predator, within a quarter of a second, any others within 100 meters know exactly where and what it is, a feat achieved by hundreds of thousands of years of evolutionary refinement of their visual/spatial cortex in tandem with their electromagnetically specialized Broca’s area.

We-russ’es now use EM affinity to communicate thought very efficiently - almost instantaneously - as well as to keep tabs on environmental variables. When they were discovered, they were still in the stone age, but extremely successful, with many competing tribes on every continent.

Physical Appearance: Like a humanoid Tarsier

Photograph of a We-russ brandishing a ceremonial stone knife

They have large eyes to adjust to low-light conditions, and three ear canals per ear, all of which are used at least partially in their EM sensitivity. They evolved separate tubes for breathing and swallowing due to a deadly parasite whose airborne eggs only hatch after exposure to hydrochloric(stomach) acid. They have a flap in their swallow tube that looks like what used to be vocal chords. Two arms, two legs, six digits per hand and foot. Skin color ranges from dark brown to black. If humanoids appear more like apes, then We-russ’s appear more like monkeys - slender limbs, thin bodies, and an equal emphasis on arms and legs.

Their hands do not have a palm connecting the digits to each other - each finger is rooted directly in the wrist, connected only by a web where the palm would typically be. This reduces overall hand strength, but increases the nimbleness and flexibility of their digits significantly.

Reproduction:

Their reproduction is sexual, very similar to that of other species, except that copulation happens very quickly - no repetitious thrusting involved, just one simple package delivery. Sexual interaction usually happens extremely isolated from the rest of the tribe. Since their thoughts and emotions are broadcasted, and strong emotions become overwhelming, it’s extremely taboo to copulate anywhere near the village.

Technically they are monogamous, but they only pair together to mate, and usually only once or twice in their lifetime. They don’t practice any long term cohabitation that could be interpreted as marriage, except for some isolated examples. Females typically give birth to an odd number of infants, between 5 and 9. Infants are born hairless, blind, deaf, without anal or urinal cavities, and completely helpless. Not long after birth the father lays next to them and allows them to crawl into a pouch on his belly. From there it is primarily his job to protect and feed them until they become mobile and their eyes open at about 13 weeks. During this period, the weight of the litter in his pouch triggers patches of modified hair follicles to grow sweet, protein-rich edible fibers dubbed “cotton milk” by sentient mammals, a nod to how mammals make use of modified sweat glands to lactate. Because the infants have not yet developed anal or urinal cavities, and they lose very little moisture and have no need to drink fluids yet. They rely solely on the cotton milk for sustenance. When the infants do finally develop urinary capacity, the urea in the first urine triggers the edible hairs to stop growing, and not long after the father will not allow them to stay in the pouch, typically a few days before the first bowel movement.

Behavior and Culture:

They are hyper-empathetic, as emotion and thought are transmitted via EM in a form purer than would be possible if only sound and language were used. This necessitates responsible emotions and thoughts, which makes them extremely socially cautious. It’s rare to find a rash We-russ.

Extreme disdain for individuals who cannot control their words or feelings is a cultural norm, curbed somewhat by how empathetic they are. This effect is muted further in alien environments, as they understand that different creatures behave in different ways.

Privacy of thought and language are both foreign and extremely difficult concepts for them to adjust to, making interaction with other sentient species sometimes very frustrating for them. That being said, they are reserved enough that most species can hardly tell what they are feeling or thinking unless they verbally express it.

Technology:

We-russ’es were discovered in their stone age, and so have no native technology of any note. However, in order to communicate with them, more advanced sentient species developed a kind of speech interface for them, dubbed a comm recryptor - it enables them to ‘think’ digital audio data into comms, and interpret/decode comm information back into EM waves they can ‘hear’. Every We-russ that leaves H'rarwi has one of these.

Language:

Because they communicate with EM waves, they have no spoken language. They were discovered at a pre-historic point in their timeline, so no written word was developed. Because their EM language transfers meaning exactly, rather than using phonetic elements, they have no specific word for themselves beyond what is roughly translated as “us” - it took several years to learn how to communicate with them, and once asked who they were, the translation was simply, “We Are Us”, and this was misunderstood as the literal "We-russ". When asked the name they had for their planet, they replied "Here Are We" - mistranslated as the literal "H'rarwi". Similarly, their names are usually Adjectival in nature, describing the personality and appearance of the creature, and can change with time, particularly if their understanding of or relationship with the subject has changed. This means they can each have a slightly different name for the same thing, per individual. They might all use similar “root” meanings, i.e. hard, heavy for a rock, but the meanings are also colored by personal experience, i.e. a We-russ who was hit very hard with a rock as an infant might call it a “HardHeavyPainful”, where a We-russ who makes stone arrowheads might call a rock “HardHeavyCraftable”. Each will use this meaning and each will know exactly what the other is wanting to communicate because the experiences associated with the words are shared as instantaneously as the words themselves.

The difficulty in learning how to communicate with them was exaggerated by their lack of vocal folds - several of their early evolutionary predators had extremely good hearing, and so their vocal folds went the way of the appendix. Within a few months of discovery, the more advanced sentient species figured out that they were communicating with EM, but converting that into a phonetic based language was extremely difficult without expensive, specialized equipment. Eventually, they were able to teach a few young We-russ’es how to send signals in ‘Macanean’ by inventing and building a comm recryptor. This was a very difficult and arduous process that was only possible because these We-russ’es were exposed to interaction from the alien sentients from birth.

Sketch of a We-russ holding a bow

Physiological Table:

Lifespan	40 years(on home planet)
Height	4’8”
Weight	70 lbs
Eye Color	Brown
Skin Color	Rust brown to Black
Hair	Rust red to Black
Sleep	10 per 30 hours
Diet	Primarily insectivores - they also eat fruits, seeds, and nuts when available.

Attributes Table:

	Dice	Low	Average	High
Strength	1D8 + 3	5	8	11
Endurance	1D8 + 3	5	8	11
Knowledge	1D10 + 5	7	11	15
Reasoning	1D10 + 4	6	10	14
Comeliness	1D10 + 2	4	8	12
Charisma	2D4	4	6	8
Dexterity	1D12 + 5	7	12	17
Perception	3D8 + 12	18	27	36
Heal	2D4	4	6	8
Willpower	+1	1	1	1
Add	1D4	1	2	4

Sum of averages/Average of averages**:

We-russ:    96  / 10.66~
Human:      99  / 11
Macaneon:   108 / 12
Mo-Ti-Quee: 137 / 15.22~
Gorloch:    140 / 15.55~

Natural Add***:

We-russ:    2.00833~

Human:      0.9

Macaneon:   1.05

Mo-Ti-Quee: 4.425

Gorloch:    3.19166~

*Scientific grounds for life forms developing electromagnetic sensitivity:

https://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/can-organisms-sense-via_radio-frequency
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15627020.2016.1151828
http://madsci.org/posts/archives/2005-07/1121843568.Zo.r.html

**Low/avg/high rolls are calculated by ignoring 1's, because if you roll a 1 on an attribute you typically add and re-roll.

***Natural Add: This is the sum of the probability of getting a 1 from each die that is rolled. It does not account for re-rolls. (Someone with math skills should make a formula that accounts for re-rolls so I can use it, haha.) This roughly represents the average extra attribute points a character will have just from rolling a 1, adding and re-rolling.
Ex:
If 2D10 and 1D12 are rolled, the Natural Add is  0.2833~, or 2/10 + 1/12.