Category:Skulla

Skulla, Pallicons, Norruls, Bandians, Grayhewns

VE 01/2; VE 01/4; VE 01/5; VE 01/6

Inhabitants of the Vurugu system. Six planets revolved around an ancient star. The outer five had been terraformed and were populated mostly by Skulla, a species that decorated their skins—faces included—with countless tattoos as part of their strange religion. Some they get on holy days, and, let me tell you, they’ve got a lot of holy days. Others signify rank. Some they earn in the fighting pits. Skulla only stood about four feet tall and were thin creatures, but they made up for their small size with razor-sharp wits, and were often ruthless.

The planet closest to the center of the cluster was the home of the Pallicons. Green skinned. It was almost impossible to spot them when they were shapeshifting. The key was to stare at the edges. Focus on a single hair or a knuckle; something small and specific. If you watched a shapeshifted Pallicon for ten or twenty seconds like that you’d see a tiny flicker, and then you’d know. In truth, the term “shapeshifters” didn’t accurately describe the beings. Young ones, like the six who’d attempted to hijack the shuttle, were limited to changing their shapes. However, as Pallicons grew older, they became more resilient. Kalan had seen a middle-aged Pallicon shrug off a gunshot wound like it was nothing. The creature had simply reshaped himself so the wound no longer existed. Some said that elderly Pallicons were nearly unkillable; that you couldn’t give them an injury they couldn’t shift away. But the culture was so secretive it was impossible to distinguish truth from legend.

The leader of the Pallicons was the Bandian, a single creature who took that title when he became their leader, and "The Bandian don't let prisoners escape", so they knew they would have bigger problems in the future from him. Who were the Bandian? “It’s the name of an ancient race of warriors from this part of the system, long extinct. Warlord Nobir uses their name to remind us of the glory possible for a race even from a backwater place like this.” Shapeshufters

“The big guys that look like they have rocks growing over their skin are Norruls. They’re not from this system, but the Skulla ship them in as slaves.”

The Games: For aliens only. If one won their first match, they were awarded citizenship. If they won their second, they were awarded housing and a stipend. Each level carried its own reward.

VE 01/21

There were always fights. Their way of entertaining themselves, it seemed. Their lives revolved around work and this.Fighting was a way of imnproving their status in the society. One Skulla had lived here for years, but had recently had a baby and therefore finally decided his family needed citizenship. A female was in a similar situation, but she had two kids and a mate who had left for another planet in search of wealth and never returned, so she had decided it was her turn to look for a way to upgrade their station in life.

VE 01/24

The Bandians

The legend of the Bandians?”“Some race of great warriors, right? Extinct now.”

“Yes,” Sslake confirmed. “They were great warriors, but they were more than that. The stories say they were the first to unite the Vurugu system. Under their guidance, the Skulla and the Pallicons worked together for the first time. The three races united to defend the system from outside invaders. The Bandians were a uniting force,—basically the opposite of Nobir.”“So what happened to them?” “No one knows. Sadly, that fact, along with so much else about them, has been lost to history.”