Post by Asarinha on Dec 2, 2012 18:06:19 GMT -6
The Krogan are a species of large reptilian bipeds originally native to the planet Tuchanka, a world known for its harsh environments, scarce resources, and overabundance of vicious predators. Now displaced in the Sol system, they have colonized throughout the moons of Jupiter, where they wage constant inter-clan warfare over myriad tiny, mostly unpopulated territories.
Primary Territories:[/u] Skar Tashlar, The Wounded Moons (location link goes here)
Earthen Population:[/u] Variable transient individuals, no permanent populations
Off Earth Population:[/u] Roughly 600-700,000
Lifespan:[/u] Centuries, often as old as 1,000
Imposed Breeding Restrictions:[/u] Females may reproduce once their previous batch of offspring reaches maturity, a period of nine years
Allied Races/Factions:[/u] Vorcha (master/serf race dynamic)
Rival Races/Factions:[/u]
Turian Hierarchy (Org/Race link goes here)
Salarian (Sol) Union (Org/Race link goes here)
Each Other
General Physical Description:[/u]
Average Height- 7 ft.
Average weight- Roughly one ton in armor
Coloration- Light beige skin at a young age, brown when mature. Crest and plates range between various earth tones (grey to brown/black)
Hair- none, crest tops head instead, various bony plates across rest of body
Pre-Reaper War: Krogan
Clans:
Rites of Passage
In present circumstances, rites of passage may involve duels against hopefuls from rival clans, or other forms of aggression against the clan's enemies, since Jupiter's moons are characteristically absent of natural faunal threats, the hunting of which would have been the typical test of bravery and skill. Most frequently these ritual duels and rites are held on the icy, uncolonized surface of Europa, a place where wanton destruction will not interfere with the safety of any represented clans. There are no rules to these duels, other than one: the weapons of the combatants must be evenly matched. As such, duel weapons can range from simple handheld blades to full-sized Mako, Grizzly, or more popular Tomkah tanks, and the best, most evenly matched duelist pairs will work their way through a series of weapons in long, bloody battles, giving a spectacular show to those present. The rite of passage and all other rites and traditions are preserved by the clan shaman.
Known Krogan clans:
Government:
Each Krogan clan is overseen by a Clan Chief, typically a warlord of very high standing, with a long history of military success. Directly below the Chief is the Chief’s krantt, and the clan Shaman. Below this tier are the many warlords, each with their own warriors, who make up the majority of the clan. These warlords are local rulers in their own right, but all the warlords are subservient to the Chief, who will take the opportunity to remind them of this by making an example of an unruly warlord, should the need arise. Krogan females do not fit into the military breakdown of the simple Krogan hierarchy, but they are effectively at an equal political rank to that of the clan Shaman.
Economy:
The Krogan economy is very simple, since most of the clans’ time is spent waging war, or preparing for the next battle. Beneath the crusts of both Ganymede and Callisto is a layer of ice, within which is contained trace amounts of Helium-3. The ice mantles of both moons were saturated over a very long period of time by gaseous emissions as a result of their proximity to Jupiter, and as such, the frozen water is a relatively good source for processing and obtaining usable Helium-3 for starship fusion reactors. The Krogan have constructed a number of subterranean ice mines that are primarily staffed by expendable Vorcha workers, and the mined resource-rich ice is traded for supplies and weaponry to various Citadel traders (as well as a number of illegal contractors).
Culture:
The harsh krogan homeworld conditioned the krogan psychology for toughness just as it did the body. Krogan have always had a tendency to be selfish, unsympathetic, and blunt. They respect strength and self-reliance and are neither surprised nor offended by treachery. The weak and selfless do not live long. In their culture, "looking out for number one" is simply a matter of course. Krogan have powerful territorial instincts which serve them well in combat, but can create problems; when traveling on starships, for example, krogan find sharing quarters nearly impossible.
Most krogan trust and serve no one but themselves. This solitary attitude stems in part from a deep sense of fatalism and futility, a profound social effect of the genophage that caused krogan numbers to dwindle to a relative handful. Not only are they angry that the entire galaxy seems out to get them, the krogan are also generally pessimistic about their race's chances of survival. The surviving krogan see no point to building for the future; there will be no future. The krogan live with a generally violent and short-sighted attitude of personal gain.
Though traditionally it has been noted that the females of the Krogan species live in clans separate from that of the males, the recent focus on reproduction and the vicious clan infighting has left no safe place for the female clans. Females now align themselves with the clans that they are born into, and older females returned to the clan of their father. The females are carefully guarded by their respective clans, and yet are often taken as spoils of war by rival factions. Due to the lifted effects of the genophage, the Krogan females are valued almost more than clan territory, while at the same time they hold the power to choose their own mating partners. In most clans, the females hold positions of power above the average clan members, equal with the Shaman, and ranked below only the Clan Chief and his krantt.
Religion:
The Hollows of Tuchanka, sacred to the old Krogan, have no equal on the Moons of Jupiter. Krogan religion has therefore taken even more of a seat on the sidelines, kept alive only within the Shamanic tradition. The only Krogan to undergo Shamanic rites nowadays are those who are claimed at birth by the clan Shaman himself as a replacement for the old Shaman upon his death. The Shaman cannot claim the child of a Clan Chief without his permission, and even lesser-ranked Krogan have been known to reject the decision of the spiritual leader, a clear warning sign of the death of Krogan beliefs.
Shamanism
Military:
Since the end of the Krogan Rebellions, the Krogan had been prohibited from constructing warships. This ban was enforced by the Council Demilitarization Enforcement Mission arm of the Citadel Council, which maintained garrisoned outposts throughout the Krogan DMZ. Now that the clans are stranded across multiple small moons, space travel is a necessity that cannot be denied the Krogan, but the ships they are permitted to construct or buy are on the lagging end of Sol's tech advancement, may not be armed with mass accelerator cannons or GARDIANS, but instead only fission-era nuclear weapons, completely impotent versus anything beyond the Krogans’ own tech. Additionally, they are not designed for long-distance travel, effectively limiting the Krogan to impotently bombarding their own moons unless they can find work to take them away, or illegally obtain a ship built by another race.
Inter-clan combat takes a special form for some of the clans that control both ample resources and assorted small moons. In a borderline psychotic attempt at military escalation, massive stationary guns have been constructed on a number of small moons, which take advantage of the moons' orbital cycles to allow the guns to pass within range of the surface of the moons of rival clans. These four-barreled "quad cannons", as they have been (in)appropriately named, can thus be used to bombard rival clans with nuclear payloads at certain points in the orbital cycle, but since the guns cannot manually aim and the payload has such an extreme distance to travel, these shots are rarely effective, and serve more as a status symbol for the clan that owns the gun at the moment.
Post Reaper History Timeline:
*As written and designed by Minagen.
Primary Territories:[/u] Skar Tashlar, The Wounded Moons (location link goes here)
Earthen Population:[/u] Variable transient individuals, no permanent populations
Off Earth Population:[/u] Roughly 600-700,000
Lifespan:[/u] Centuries, often as old as 1,000
Imposed Breeding Restrictions:[/u] Females may reproduce once their previous batch of offspring reaches maturity, a period of nine years
Allied Races/Factions:[/u] Vorcha (master/serf race dynamic)
Rival Races/Factions:[/u]
Turian Hierarchy (Org/Race link goes here)
Salarian (Sol) Union (Org/Race link goes here)
Each Other
General Physical Description:[/u]
Average Height- 7 ft.
Average weight- Roughly one ton in armor
Coloration- Light beige skin at a young age, brown when mature. Crest and plates range between various earth tones (grey to brown/black)
Hair- none, crest tops head instead, various bony plates across rest of body
Pre-Reaper War: Krogan
Clans:
Rites of Passage
In present circumstances, rites of passage may involve duels against hopefuls from rival clans, or other forms of aggression against the clan's enemies, since Jupiter's moons are characteristically absent of natural faunal threats, the hunting of which would have been the typical test of bravery and skill. Most frequently these ritual duels and rites are held on the icy, uncolonized surface of Europa, a place where wanton destruction will not interfere with the safety of any represented clans. There are no rules to these duels, other than one: the weapons of the combatants must be evenly matched. As such, duel weapons can range from simple handheld blades to full-sized Mako, Grizzly, or more popular Tomkah tanks, and the best, most evenly matched duelist pairs will work their way through a series of weapons in long, bloody battles, giving a spectacular show to those present. The rite of passage and all other rites and traditions are preserved by the clan shaman.
Known Krogan clans:
-Clan Drau - A unique clan of mercenaries with relatively few but relatively stable holdings, based on Callisto. In return for resources, Clan Drau often agrees to assist another clan in attacking a specific enemy.
-Clan Forsan - A minor clan based entirely on multiple small moons, with several tiny outposts on Io. It is small and displaced enough that it is forced to avoid fighting enemy clans directly, and it relies on a tenuous alliance with Clan Urdnot for supplies in exchange for joint ownership of the clan's many moons.
-Clan Ganar - Ganar Wrang, an exiled Krogan battlemaster, founded the Blood Pack mercenary group. In recent years, Clan Ganar has made its home on Callisto in the Valhalla Crater basin. It shares this moon with Clan Weyrloc.
-Clan Gatatog - A minor clan based on Ganymede and several other small moons, Clan Gatatog makes most of its income via piracy.
-Clan Hailot - A minor clan based on Ganymede. Has few close-knit holdings on the moon and none beyond; the clan is very isolationist, and is fully resurrecting the old tribal ways.
-Clan Jorgal - a clan known to have one of the longest Krogan breeding lines. This clan is now the second most powerful clan on Ganymede. Its long breeding line has left the appearance of very fertile females, and the clan took advantage of this strong appearance to intimidate its competition while amassing a sizable military force. It brought its army to bear against its disorganized and unprepared rivals with extreme effect.
-Clan Khel - A minor clan, has a small holding on Ganymede and control over a number of tiny moons.
-Clan Ravanor - The primary clan based on Ganymede, Clan Ravanor cements its position of power by sheer production. It has access to the prime Helium-3 extraction locations on the moon, and the strategic resource it produces returns in the form of weapons and supplies for the clan. Since much of the clan's power is mercantile, however, traders from Clan Ravanor are often targeted by pirates.
-Clan Urdnot - The Clan of the great Wrex and Grunt, Clan Urdnot has fallen back on hard times following the absence of its leaders. The other clans, eager to have someone to blame for the predicament following the destruction of the mass relays, turned on clan Urdnot, and when infighting broke out it was one of the first major clans to be targeted. It now maintains an unobtrusively small base on the war-torn Io, as well as possession of several small moon outposts.
-Clan Weyrloc - The primary aggressor against clan Urdnot, Clan Weyrloc wasted no time in ousting Urdnot from Callisto and bringing their lands into the victorious clan's hands. The clan now controls the Asgard Crater basin and surrounding regions.
-Clan Forsan - A minor clan based entirely on multiple small moons, with several tiny outposts on Io. It is small and displaced enough that it is forced to avoid fighting enemy clans directly, and it relies on a tenuous alliance with Clan Urdnot for supplies in exchange for joint ownership of the clan's many moons.
-Clan Ganar - Ganar Wrang, an exiled Krogan battlemaster, founded the Blood Pack mercenary group. In recent years, Clan Ganar has made its home on Callisto in the Valhalla Crater basin. It shares this moon with Clan Weyrloc.
-Clan Gatatog - A minor clan based on Ganymede and several other small moons, Clan Gatatog makes most of its income via piracy.
-Clan Hailot - A minor clan based on Ganymede. Has few close-knit holdings on the moon and none beyond; the clan is very isolationist, and is fully resurrecting the old tribal ways.
-Clan Jorgal - a clan known to have one of the longest Krogan breeding lines. This clan is now the second most powerful clan on Ganymede. Its long breeding line has left the appearance of very fertile females, and the clan took advantage of this strong appearance to intimidate its competition while amassing a sizable military force. It brought its army to bear against its disorganized and unprepared rivals with extreme effect.
-Clan Khel - A minor clan, has a small holding on Ganymede and control over a number of tiny moons.
-Clan Ravanor - The primary clan based on Ganymede, Clan Ravanor cements its position of power by sheer production. It has access to the prime Helium-3 extraction locations on the moon, and the strategic resource it produces returns in the form of weapons and supplies for the clan. Since much of the clan's power is mercantile, however, traders from Clan Ravanor are often targeted by pirates.
-Clan Urdnot - The Clan of the great Wrex and Grunt, Clan Urdnot has fallen back on hard times following the absence of its leaders. The other clans, eager to have someone to blame for the predicament following the destruction of the mass relays, turned on clan Urdnot, and when infighting broke out it was one of the first major clans to be targeted. It now maintains an unobtrusively small base on the war-torn Io, as well as possession of several small moon outposts.
-Clan Weyrloc - The primary aggressor against clan Urdnot, Clan Weyrloc wasted no time in ousting Urdnot from Callisto and bringing their lands into the victorious clan's hands. The clan now controls the Asgard Crater basin and surrounding regions.
Government:
Each Krogan clan is overseen by a Clan Chief, typically a warlord of very high standing, with a long history of military success. Directly below the Chief is the Chief’s krantt, and the clan Shaman. Below this tier are the many warlords, each with their own warriors, who make up the majority of the clan. These warlords are local rulers in their own right, but all the warlords are subservient to the Chief, who will take the opportunity to remind them of this by making an example of an unruly warlord, should the need arise. Krogan females do not fit into the military breakdown of the simple Krogan hierarchy, but they are effectively at an equal political rank to that of the clan Shaman.
Economy:
The Krogan economy is very simple, since most of the clans’ time is spent waging war, or preparing for the next battle. Beneath the crusts of both Ganymede and Callisto is a layer of ice, within which is contained trace amounts of Helium-3. The ice mantles of both moons were saturated over a very long period of time by gaseous emissions as a result of their proximity to Jupiter, and as such, the frozen water is a relatively good source for processing and obtaining usable Helium-3 for starship fusion reactors. The Krogan have constructed a number of subterranean ice mines that are primarily staffed by expendable Vorcha workers, and the mined resource-rich ice is traded for supplies and weaponry to various Citadel traders (as well as a number of illegal contractors).
Culture:
The harsh krogan homeworld conditioned the krogan psychology for toughness just as it did the body. Krogan have always had a tendency to be selfish, unsympathetic, and blunt. They respect strength and self-reliance and are neither surprised nor offended by treachery. The weak and selfless do not live long. In their culture, "looking out for number one" is simply a matter of course. Krogan have powerful territorial instincts which serve them well in combat, but can create problems; when traveling on starships, for example, krogan find sharing quarters nearly impossible.
Most krogan trust and serve no one but themselves. This solitary attitude stems in part from a deep sense of fatalism and futility, a profound social effect of the genophage that caused krogan numbers to dwindle to a relative handful. Not only are they angry that the entire galaxy seems out to get them, the krogan are also generally pessimistic about their race's chances of survival. The surviving krogan see no point to building for the future; there will be no future. The krogan live with a generally violent and short-sighted attitude of personal gain.
Though traditionally it has been noted that the females of the Krogan species live in clans separate from that of the males, the recent focus on reproduction and the vicious clan infighting has left no safe place for the female clans. Females now align themselves with the clans that they are born into, and older females returned to the clan of their father. The females are carefully guarded by their respective clans, and yet are often taken as spoils of war by rival factions. Due to the lifted effects of the genophage, the Krogan females are valued almost more than clan territory, while at the same time they hold the power to choose their own mating partners. In most clans, the females hold positions of power above the average clan members, equal with the Shaman, and ranked below only the Clan Chief and his krantt.
Religion:
The Hollows of Tuchanka, sacred to the old Krogan, have no equal on the Moons of Jupiter. Krogan religion has therefore taken even more of a seat on the sidelines, kept alive only within the Shamanic tradition. The only Krogan to undergo Shamanic rites nowadays are those who are claimed at birth by the clan Shaman himself as a replacement for the old Shaman upon his death. The Shaman cannot claim the child of a Clan Chief without his permission, and even lesser-ranked Krogan have been known to reject the decision of the spiritual leader, a clear warning sign of the death of Krogan beliefs.
Shamanism
Krogan shamanism is polytheistic in nature, and relies on the belief that each celestial body has a representative deity. The characteristics of the object determine the nature of the god or goddess: for example, Old, barren Tuchanka is represented by an ancient crone (from which the Krogan people are said to descend), while the Salarian world of Sur’Kesh, covered in rich jungle and home to sneaky, intelligent beings, is personified as a pyjack. In the Sol system, the Shamans have already given images to Jupiter and its moons as a Krogan mother and her children (a direct reference to the genophage cure). Ganymede, the largest, is the elder daughter, viewed as a fertility symbol, as opposed to the ‘guardian parent’ figure of Jupiter itself. Callisto is the eldest son, the ‘Clan Chief’, representing order, command, and alleigance. Io, however, is the ‘Battlemaster’, marking violence, military might, and the Krogan blood-rage. Its polar opposite is Europa, the ‘Shaman’, representing level-headedness, wisdom, and mysticism.
While each planet is personified as a god/goddess, the deities are not able to speak directly with the Krogan people in a way that they can understand; they do so via natural events, and so a Shaman must be in many ways a prophet, able to interpret the world around him as divine signs. A Shaman may come upon a sign entirely at random, or the Shaman may seek one out, as an answer to an important question. Often, the seeking of a divine answer in such a way requires a pilgrimage of undetermined length and severity of conditions, growing steadily more taxing until the gods deem the Shaman has earned his answer.
The gods’ other means of communication is via visions or dreams of the Krogan ancestors, and so the Shaman must be a historian as well, with a long memory of the path his people have walked. It is for this reason also that the Shaman still honor an ancient law permitting the collecting of the bodies of the slain from the battlefield, without fear of attack from either side, so that the departed can be given a satisfactory burial, and their remains returned to the gods that created them. In a similar fashion to their communing with nature, a Shaman may undergo a trial to seek out a vision as an answer to a question.
While each planet is personified as a god/goddess, the deities are not able to speak directly with the Krogan people in a way that they can understand; they do so via natural events, and so a Shaman must be in many ways a prophet, able to interpret the world around him as divine signs. A Shaman may come upon a sign entirely at random, or the Shaman may seek one out, as an answer to an important question. Often, the seeking of a divine answer in such a way requires a pilgrimage of undetermined length and severity of conditions, growing steadily more taxing until the gods deem the Shaman has earned his answer.
The gods’ other means of communication is via visions or dreams of the Krogan ancestors, and so the Shaman must be a historian as well, with a long memory of the path his people have walked. It is for this reason also that the Shaman still honor an ancient law permitting the collecting of the bodies of the slain from the battlefield, without fear of attack from either side, so that the departed can be given a satisfactory burial, and their remains returned to the gods that created them. In a similar fashion to their communing with nature, a Shaman may undergo a trial to seek out a vision as an answer to a question.
Military:
Since the end of the Krogan Rebellions, the Krogan had been prohibited from constructing warships. This ban was enforced by the Council Demilitarization Enforcement Mission arm of the Citadel Council, which maintained garrisoned outposts throughout the Krogan DMZ. Now that the clans are stranded across multiple small moons, space travel is a necessity that cannot be denied the Krogan, but the ships they are permitted to construct or buy are on the lagging end of Sol's tech advancement, may not be armed with mass accelerator cannons or GARDIANS, but instead only fission-era nuclear weapons, completely impotent versus anything beyond the Krogans’ own tech. Additionally, they are not designed for long-distance travel, effectively limiting the Krogan to impotently bombarding their own moons unless they can find work to take them away, or illegally obtain a ship built by another race.
Inter-clan combat takes a special form for some of the clans that control both ample resources and assorted small moons. In a borderline psychotic attempt at military escalation, massive stationary guns have been constructed on a number of small moons, which take advantage of the moons' orbital cycles to allow the guns to pass within range of the surface of the moons of rival clans. These four-barreled "quad cannons", as they have been (in)appropriately named, can thus be used to bombard rival clans with nuclear payloads at certain points in the orbital cycle, but since the guns cannot manually aim and the payload has such an extreme distance to travel, these shots are rarely effective, and serve more as a status symbol for the clan that owns the gun at the moment.
Post Reaper History Timeline:
- 2187: Commander Shepard defeats the Reapers. The Mass Relays are destroyed, and the Krogan are stranded in the Sol system with the other races, and set up temporary refuge on the moons of Jupiter.
- 2188: Mass Relays are non-salvageable. The Krogan construct sedentary colonies on Jupiter’s moons without the Systems Alliance’s consent, but they are permitted to stay to avoid a violent incident. Their mining economy is put in place.
- 2200: Without the leadership of Wrex or Eve, the Krogan clans fragment once again. With no enemy to unite against, they turn on themselves. The first inter-clan nuclear attacks are launched.
- 2210: Vast swathes of Ganymede and Callisto have become no-mans’-land due to nuclear attacks. Having exhausted their own military supply, the Krogan turn to the other races as well as illegal sources for arms to use against one another. Jupiter’s many lesser moons are turned into military bases and stationary artillery points.
- 2223: Clan Urdnot is hit with a surprise attack from Clan Weyrloc, being supported by several minor clans, as a result of Weyrloc blaming Urdnot for their stranded position in the Human system. Weyrloc seizes Urdnot holdings on Callisto, forces Urdnot to relocate to Io.
- 2241: Weyrloc attempts to attack clan Ganar, which calls for Blood Pack support. Weyrloc and Ganar fight to a standstill, leaving little room for other clans to live on Callisto. War erupts on Ganymede as well between the various clans over mining rights. The lesser moons of Jupiter change hands regularly.
*As written and designed by Minagen.