Kalians
The four-armed humanoid race that terran explorers named kalians evolved independently on Zeta Pyxidis-6, a world on the fringe of Zeta Pyxis’s habitable zone, a warm G5III star 236 light years distant from Sol in the constellation Pyxis. The human explorers named their world Kali, after the four-armed Hindu goddess of destruction, to honor its unusual inhabitants, and also because the warring, balkanized kalians had hundreds of names for their world and no consensus on any one of them.
Few would deny that kalians are the most hotheaded of the known humanoid races. They grudgingly accept the outwardly imposed name of kalian when dealing with other races, but use a variety of other planetary, racial, and national names among themselves.
Evolved from bipedal scavengers, modern kalians are the product of thousands of bloody generations forced into savagery by successive ice- and heat-ages. Cooperative hunting (hunting other kalians, for the most part) led to language and the invention of primitive tools, mostly weapons of war like jointed spears and slings. Further progress has not stemmed their penchant for violence.
Kalians are four-armed, upright bipeds that display remarkable parallel evolutionary development with standard terrestrial humans. Their upper arms are somewhat stronger than their lower ones, with larger, more developed shoulder muscles, but the difference is slight. Kalians have long, adaptive fingers with remarkable strength and dexterity.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Similar to humans in many ways, though they have four arms instead of two.
Growth Rate & Stages
Kalians age much quicker than humans. They are considered adults on their 12th birthday. Which is about 10 earth years.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Omnivorous, though they tend to eat more protein than other sources of nutrition. This protein can come from meat, nuts, or other sources.
Additional Information
Social Structure
Due to their constant infighting, there is no real social structure. An old kalian proverb says, “Two of us are a couple, three or more a nation.”
Facial characteristics
Kalians have smaller noses and larger eyes than humans. The eyes are all black and angled like a V from the nose. Similarly their mouth is quite small. They tend to have higher pitched voices than humans. Not drastically higher, but no one would confuse a kalian voice for a human.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Their homeworld is Kali. However, they tend to integrate better with other species than they do with other kalians. Because of this they are found almost anywhere. With large populations on Earth, Canopus-4, Daal and Carolia. Due to the fact that kalians tend to be considered hot headed, and erratic, they do not tend to work will with Serrans, so there are very few kalians on their home world.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
They have eyes, ears, noses, and their senses are equivalent to the human norm.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
Common names have X or Z in them. Having names with added punctuation is not unheard of. Due to their violent past, it is traditional to give children a temporary name. This name is replaced on their 10th birthday with a name chosen by the child.
Average Technological Level
They are on par with the rest of the known worlds, with a few exceptions that they excel at. Kalian Hyperdrives are much faster than regular Hyperdrives, also, their security and surveillance technology is among the best in the Known Worlds.
Major Language Groups and Dialects
The kalian spoken language is as fragmented as their politics; universal translation devices are necessary to pick through the many dialects. The syntax is quick, sentences short, and synonyms and homonyms many, leading to even greater tension and potential for misunderstandings. Some kalians simply will not speak a particular dialect because of long-held hatreds.
Common Dress Code
Kalians prefer tight clothes that show off their muscular physique.
History
The history of kalian civilization is a list of bloody wars and devastating campaigns between tribes and factions. No nation or confederation of factions extant upon Kali today can trace its history more than a few decades; political fortunes change quickly, banners raised, lowered again, and forgotten in short order.
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
Kalians often mix more easily with other humanoids than they often do with their own kind. There are few large enclaves of Kalians elsewhere in the Known Worlds. Even on Earth, where there is over a million kalian expatriates in residence, there are no “kali towns” or segregated communities.
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