Crabs, Shellies

These are slurs commonly used to refer to a species of chitin-plated bipeds known as the Cheynari, a rather savage and tribal people who call a scrap-laden irradiated dustbowl of a planet home – Cheynari are a hard people forged through generations of radiation-induced mutations and evolution, which is why they make excellent slaves if you manage to dodge their hard-hitting rifles long enough to slip a slave collar on. With thick natural armour capable of stopping small-arms fire and very unfussy diets its no wonder most of the ones who have gotten away from their homeworld have been in chains prior.

It is difficult to get them to co-operate with others, let alone themselves and so this along with their savage, backwater nature makes the Cheynari nothing more than an occasional pest in the eyes of the Kikyo Sector’s bigger players, usually when one is seen disturbing the peace by eating roadkill or some equally disgusting act – they sit in a grey area where they are neither potential ally material nor something that could one day be considered a powerful foe, they are an annoyance and nothing more.

Cheynari were once microscopic beings who etched out a meagre existence in the frozen ball of hydrogen and ammonia they called home, simple creatures tunnelling through the ice that would one day melt into vast planet-spanning oceans beneath a pair of binary suns.

The Cheynari would grow and evolve as did all things on this planet, a process sped up by the latent background radiation of decaying materials buried deep in the planet’s core – warming the planet from the inside as the harsh suns chipped away at its exterior.

The Cheynari would become mastiff-sized crustaceans that dwelled at the deepest parts of these oceans. Nowhere near the top of the food-chain though their thick shells and relative closeness to the radioactive metals beneath the ocean floor would eventually give the Cheynari the edge they needed to outlive a lot of the other species.

The oceans boiled, with the sun and core both drying them up until naught was left but a barren desert, the sands and corpses of coral reefs all but glowing with how much radiation they contained now that the cooling seas had dried up – the Cheynari burrowed out of the sands as a new people whose bodies would strengthen and curl backwards as they became a bipedal race. This brings us to the Cheynari as they are now, a savage and heavily armoured race of humanoid crustaceans who don’t take kindly to themselves let alone outsiders – due to these hostilities and the general harshness of their environment, the home planet of the Cheynari is used as a dumping ground for unused or unwanted scrap, with most exhibitions into doing more than that ending in bloodshed.

The Cheynari can easily be likened to a suit of organic power armour, a very much bipedal race that generally stand between 5’6” to 6’ tall and wrapped in a thick layer of chitinous plates from head to toe, with their lidless eyes being protected by clear chitin lenses that trap moisture beneath them. Their heads are rather flat and featureless, with two long nostril slits appearing half way up the face of a Cheynari and their ears being nothing more than a seam on either side of their head, overall they are a rather hardy people built to weather the harsh environment of their homeworld.

A Cheynari possesses both an exoskeleton made up of thick chitinous plates and an endoskeleton to better support their weight now that they no longer swim through oceans, with dense and powerful muscles sandwiched in-between they generally weigh roughly twice as much as a human of equal proportions, with the layer of rarely-seen muscle being a grey hue while the pigmentation of a Cheynari’s plating changes over time to suit the colour palettes of their surroundings – with most Cheynari bearing tan tones that match their homeworld, others that have spent a considerable time away from home having only remnants of these tan hues represented among a base coat better correlating with the environment they have been spending more time in¹⁾. Cheynari eyes bare black scleras and pupils, with their large irises glowing behind the hard lenses that protect them – their irises can be almost any colour in the visible spectrum, even dark greys though never the same shade of black as their scleras and pupils nor a darker shade.

The internal skeleton of a Cheynari is not so different from that of a human’s at a glance if you disregard the fact it is made from the same Chitinous material that makes up their exteriors, the most obvious differences being their sturdier skull with its slightly smaller brain cavity, with things like the spine and other load-baring areas being thicker to handle the increased load of their armoured bulk – their hands have three fingers and a large thumb, all of which end in clawed points built for ripping apart the shells of their food, Cheynari possess two rows of 50 tiny razor-sharp teeth and a set of double jointed jaws, with only the smaller front section opening during general conversation and the second that splits their face from earhole to earhole opening when eating to allow larger portions in or when angered to help assert dominance.

Cheynari view the world in tetrachromatic vision like some avians and it gives them a rather unique perspective of the world, able to view the Ultraviolet channels as well as red, green and blue with their unblinking eyes – though this can cause them to not entirely understand what people are trying to convey if they describe something using colours as the main descriptor, “Cut the red wire” for instance may lead to some confusion on the Cheynari’s behalf.

A Cheynari is roughly twice as strong as an average human of equal size, though not quite able to keep up with a human’s running speed, with the weight of their armour being the main limiter to their speed – additionally a briny liquid sits beneath the armoured plates, this being stored water that the Cheynari slowly absorb into their bodies, something they evolved as their homeworld’s water sources began drying up.

Their blood is royal blue and a Cheynari’s flesh is extremely salty-tasting though otherwise has the flavour of a crab, despite not tasting too bad the generations of radiation means that ingestion of a Cheynari’s flesh will almost certainly lead to death within a few hours.

Cheynari are a hermaphroditic species that reproduces asexually, with a full internal set of male and female genitalia that fertilizes a clutch²⁾ of eggs when the individual wishes it, due to all the immense radiation floating around their blood small genetic mutations overrule any downsides that might otherwise stem from a lack of genetic diversity – these eggs are roughly the size of marbles and sit in the abdomen of a Cheynari for a handful of hours after fertilization, with unsuccessfully fertilized eggs being slowly broken down by the body and replaced over the next few days. Successfully fertilized eggs though pass up through the Cheynari’s digestive tract and exit the body through the mouth, usually into the carcass of a recently slain foe/creature where they sit for roughly three weeks, breaking down the flesh of whatever they were deposited in and absorbing the nutrients derived from it.

Cheynari are naturally omnivorous scavengers with rather hardy digestive tracts that are not fussy in the slightest, they can eat almost anything that they can derive some sort of nutritional value from and lack taste buds – the preferred food of the Cheynari however tend to be the small burrowing crustaceans that are natural to their home planet, with the Cheynari usually ripping the shells apart with their bare hands before sucking the insides out, they require less water than most other species and trap moisture in their bodies to make it last longer due to the desert-like nature of their home.

Cheynari thrive in the small burrows they dig beneath the heavily irradiated sands of their home planet and usually skulk around in the shade during the day unless they have something better to do, they use these burrows as hunting-blinds that a Cheynari can quickly pop out of to take a shot or two at their unsuspecting prey/victim. Due to their planet’s thin and polluted atmosphere a Cheynari typically requires about a third as much oxygen as a human their size and planets with high nitrogen levels tend to make a Cheynari feel light-headed, even rendering them somewhat docile when compared to the species’ natural temperament. Additionally planets with low levels of background radiation and UV-exposure can make a Cheynari feel chilled if they are not acclimatized to it.

Cheynari burrows tend to only be built to house one individual and are often laden with junk they have repurposed into simple tools or something they have placed value upon/found particularly interesting. Cheynari craftsmen usually have a larger and more permanent burrow reinforced with metal rods tucked away in a secure location away from prying eyes to decrease the likelihood of being ransacked.

When offworld a Cheynari will often seek out enclosed, run down spaces to sleep in such as the wrecks of crashed ships or run down and abandoned buildings, tucking themselves away in the darkest corners beneath a layer of whatever they could find to cover themselves with.

The Gestation period for Cheynari is usually around five hours with an incubation period of two weeks before the lightly-plated creatures tear out of their now-football-sized eggs – a fresh-born Cheynari shares the same proportions as an adult thought with a somewhat larger head, they can generally walk within an hour and their vocal cords are ready to go within a day, though freshly born Cheynari have immense neural plasticity and learn the basics of their language between one to two weeks after being born.

It takes three years for a Cheynari to mature to adulthood and they can live for up to three hundred years though this is usually cut short by another Cheynari who might be jealous of their rifle’s sling, Cheynari have a potential to be something great but are held back by their own bloodlust.

Cheynari are a race of scavengers and skirmishers with no sense of structure nor hierarchy to their people let alone any sort of government nor unified currency, they would just as quickly drop to their knees to consume a carrion as they would swing a machete at their own kind for some spare ammunition – Cheynari are a people of hunting and trading who wield breathtakingly powerful breach-loaded firearms for ranged combat, moving in to finish their victims/prey off with a scrappy yet sharp blade before dragging it off to trade for more ammunition.

Arguably they would almost be honourable if not for their own greed and paranoia.

Being a Cheynari means you constantly look at your own people as though they were hungry wolves ready to rip you apart at a moment’s notice, it means keeping the rifle you had forged from an exhaust pipe and some shrapnel close to your dominant hand at all times and hoping either you would be quicker to the draw or that your armour was thick enough.

Cheynari are hunters through and through, usually waiting for their targets to be alone and under the cover of darkness before striking – the rare specimen you’ll find away from home is more often than not either a hardy slave or a macabre bounty hunter with the blood of their latest mark still dripping from their maw, they fit into other societies³⁾ poorly and usually drift about with no real purpose other than living to see the next day.

Cheynari do not wear clothing in the traditional sense due to having no need for modesty and having tempered shells providing more than adequate protection from the elements, rather they may occasionally wrap themselves in scraps of crude cloth for camouflage or bolt a section of metal over a crack in their chitin to keep it protected as it heals – the closest thing a Cheynari may wear that could be considered clothing is a combination of this and/or crude armour, with the most common design being an armoured poncho made from metal plates crudely attached to a sheet of leather or a similarly tough material – very rarely a salvaged shield generator running in a less than optimal state may be involved though a Cheynari smith gifted enough to pull this off and not blow themselves up in the process is extremely rare, borderline mythical.

Cheynari are often called revolting and grotesque for their eating habits, often not wasting time cooking the creatures they rip apart and guzzle down, their diet can vary from the many small crustaceans that roam the barren land they call home to shamelessly ripping chunks off the rotting remains left behind by other predators.

Cannibalism is not a taboo thing for Cheynari, they will take whatever they can get even if it is one of their own people, though once you consider the fact that they eat other crustaceans that roam the planet and that these other creatures share more than a few genetic markers with Cheynari then it is somewhat less surprising though no less disgusting. Outside of their natural environments Cheynari usually subside off of rodents, left-over parts from a carrion some other creature caused or even pets unfortunate enough to cross paths with them – food is food and a Cheynari will hardly lose sleep over you finding them rending your neighbour’s housecat.

There is no formal name for the language the Cheynari speak but the most commonly used slur is “Clack-speak” and it is a rather difficult language for the vocal cords of other species to replicate despite being a rather savage and animalistic dialect – what makes it so nuanced is the various clicking and chattering sounds of chitin-clad lips that perforate the low growls of a Cheynari talking. On the other side of this though Cheynari have a hard time speaking languages such as Trade and Yamataigo, they can still be understood though it takes some effort to decipher what they are trying to say when speaking a tongue foreign to their own, often stumbling on vowels and mispronouncing words with more than three syllables.

What is simple to understand though is that a Cheynari usually hisses when it is pissed off or feels like you are acting aggressive towards it, a rather universally known signal to back off.

The Cheynari dialect is a barbaric language and likewise their names are anything but fancy, usually somewhere between a growl and a snort though never more than three syllables long – needless to say the names are hard to properly enunciate unless you have been speaking their tongue your entire life.

Some examples of Cheynari names are:

• Grnng
• Raghh
• Hyalhh
• Wryn
• Hgarr

Simple, guttural, easily forgotten and misspoken.

Politics are barely a concept to Cheynari, sometimes they might listen to a physically bigger and more intimidating Cheynari or one who has a reputation for being borderline unkillable but it is only a matter of time before that same individual who bent at the knee moves on or makes a move on the individual they were just letting boss them around.

There is no structure to their society, no set leaders or even a currency to speak of, most Cheynari preferring to take what they want by force or a fair trade.

Without outside interference the Cheynari will remain one of the more technologically disadvantaged species in the Kikyo Sector, their constant infighting and savagery in combination with their planet’s harsh conditions overrules the majority of the impressive neural plasticity the species has when they are young – reducing what has the potential to be a quickly-advancing species down to smiths and salvagers who can hammer a sheet of metal into a fine barrel but will struggle to wire up any kind of power source.

They are, however, ingenious and know how to work with what they are given – with some of the more high-quality Cheynari rifles available sporting such scrap as bicycle seats and springs into the stocks to dampen the recoil of their powerful firearms, though on the opposite end of the spectrum a poorly-made firearm can explode in the user’s hand the first time it is fired.

Cheynari are far from space faring, with vehicles at all being a new concept to them though occasionally you might find a Cheynari who has managed to tame one of the beasts they share their home world with.

Cheynari as a people have no societal order and acquire goods either through force or fair trade, they have no currency and are a rather simple people, albeit two-faced and ready to stab each other in the back – some Cheynari who are particularly renowned crafters are less prone to being murdered for petty reasons due to their ability to consistently hammer out masterworks, though these are the only major exception to the usual blind Cheynari treachery.

SirSkully created this article on 2020/04/20 19:46.

🚧 This article is a work-in-progress. Is it not currently approved.