Age of Ruin

The Thalansarii and their empire are among the most influential groups in the galaxy, both within the Stellar Republic and without. While they posses sizable armies and fleets, they are hesitant to use them, preferring instead to broker influence and exercise soft power. Financial control, regulatory capture, tariffs, bureaucratic red tape, propaganda, and other less-than-savory tactics are the preferred trades the Thalansarii will ply.

Only when other options fail will the Thalansarii bring their magnificent biotechnological weapons to bear. Warriors will perfectly adapt to harsh conditions in the few hours before battles. Their wargear is almost entirely biologically derived, from the dense plates of armor made from engineered, interlocked bacterial husks, to the fleets of warships built into the enormous corpses of purpose-bred voidwhales.

Appearance

The so-called common Thalansarii are essentially gigantic lizards. They stand approximately 1.4 meters tall at the tops of their painfully-arched spines. Their heads, with a pair of bulging eyes and huge mouths, hang at the same level as their shoulders. Head crests come in various shapes and sizes. Their arms are divided into three main segments, much like a human’s. Each hand has three fingers, with one running counter to the other two and acting as a thumb. Their two legs are reverse-jointed. Their feet also terminate in three digits, arranged around the foot at even intervals, and are prehensile. Thalansarii have long, thick tails used for balance and grasping.

For a species that likes to tamper with genes, it’s no surprise that tremendous variation exists among Thalansarii, both between the various clans, and even among their stratified social classes. Horns, tusks and other boney protrusions are common among the inhabitants of backwater worlds, while merchants, politicians, viziers and the like will have scales so small and smooth so as to be indistinguishable from skin. Color variation runs the gamut, even within a single population. In rarer cases, wealthy clans have modified their genetic profile to add or remove limbs, reproduce asexually, or control their body temperatures internally. While remarkable, these induced mutations remain unstable and are quick to revert, and so must be meticulously maintained, demonstrating wealth and status.

Society

Thalansarii society is highly stratified, legalistic, with low social trust. Members of a lower class or station are expected to serve and obey their betters, whether it be in their workplace, clan, or military unit. As such, Thalansarii society is also highly collectivist. Thalansarii of any station will view their charges as resources to be exploited in the name of serving some larger goal.

Clear sets of easy-to-follow rules are deeply important to the Thalansarii, and form the basis of their mechanism of cooperation. Any world where Thalansarii dominate will thrive on routine. They are very narrow thinkers and don’t deal well with unexpected circumstances for which they have not planned. Information gathering is vital to Thalansarii psychology, as they are loathe to make any decision without feeling they have a firm grasp of the facts. Punishments for failure are swift and severe.

While conformity is a prized trait for a Thalansarii, the truth of the matter is that each and every one of them is looking to improve their lot in life, and that comes at the expense of others. The racial importance of conformity and obedience to one’s betters means that an enterprising Thalansarii must always appear to be upright in all his dealings while subtly manipulating circumstances to his favor. Commanders, corporate executives, great statesmen and the like have all learned through experience to understand this aspect of their race and to exercise it to great effect. Rivals for power and status are given glamorous promotions somewhere far, far away. Upstarts are overburdened and set up to fail. Lackeys and lickspittles are lavished with rewards.

Fraud and misrepresentation are a cancer in Thalansarii society. In many healthy human societies, taking advantage of someone less well-informed, weaker, or more foolish than yourself is shameful. However, to the Thalansarii, exploiting the weak is quietly approved of, so long as the exploitation isn’t too egregious.

Just as the Thalansarii are observed to behave among themselves, so too does their entire race behave towards other races. The Thalansarii have systematically absorbed and enslaved dozens of other intelligent races and have modified and integrated them into their civilization to fill niche purposes.

Except on worlds in the process of colonization, Thalansarii rarely perform unskilled labor. That work belongs to the Golungarii, squat, dimwitted creatures that stand about one meter tall. Just as they perform menial tasks for their masters, the Golungarii also make up the vast bulk of Thalansarii armies, serving as disposable cannon fodder. Artificial intelligences are rare among the Thalansarii. Instead, colonies of Cnidarum are suspended in noofulid and used to process information, whether it be aboard a capital ship, or as the combat system of an individual hardsuit. Hundreds of races are assembled into a patchwork ripe for exploitation with populations of each species varying tremendously throughout the empire.

Religion

Just as prestige and rewards are sparingly doled out from superior to inferior at all levels of society, so too do the Thalansarii believe their gods bestow knowledge and insight to them as a race. The Thalansarii creation myth holds that their gods discovered them as a unintelligent beasts, selected them to be their servants and proxies, and wrought their bodies to carry out the will of the gods. They then passed on morsels of specialized knowledge to manipulate not only their own biology, but the biology of others, forming a continuous hierarchy of life from the immeasurably wise and powerful, down to simple microbes.

These gods, the Thalansarii believe, only interact with the most powerful members of society. Only the Grand Kharrbis of the Great Clans, and perhaps a few of their attendants, can credibly claim to have met and spoken with the gods. In return for granting insight in matters both great and small, the Thalansarii carry out the will of the gods, whatever that happens to be. Grand structures and spaceborne monuments dot the Thalansarii empire, and there sacrifices are made to the pleasure of the particular god that whispers into the canals of the kharrbis.