Okay, let's put up some basic Kirn information, if anyone wants to whip one up!
Kirn (pronounced keern)
Home Planet: Motuv'Utaw, Ios system. The planet Motuv'Utaw (The Face of the Mother) is almost entirely covered in rainforest.
General Statistics:
Average height: 5'6"
Average weight: 121 lbs.
Life Expectancy: 110 years
Kirn are slightly weaker in the willpower than humans, but more than make up for it in raw dexterity, speed, and attractiveness. Guarana has proven to be a rather nasty neurotoxin, and chocolate has a very detrimental effect upon their inhibitions.
Racial Variation: There are no distinct geographical races, but a great genetic diversity. Populations nearer to swamplands tend to have thicker body hair. Skin color varies among the Kirn from milky white to black. Hair color ranges from blond to black. Body hair tends to match skin color. Tail fur can be very short or rather bushy. The Kirn reproduce quickly and easily. Babies are born with light color and blotchy darker spots of body hair that fade in childhood. Males tend to have thicker hair on their shoulders and down the spine to the tail. This extra body hair grows at adolescence and darkens with maturity.
Technology:
Early in their Industrial Revolution, the Kirn realized that they could not completely raze huge tracts of rainforest for development. Destroyed rainforest usually leaves nothing but wasteland, and the Kirn feel a spiritual connection with all life. They cultivated a material culture in harmony with their environment, a cooperative cyber-organic technology. The Kirn never really developed weapons of mass destruction.
Dwellings:
Kirn settlements are built atop the rainforest canopy. Like lattices woven across the upper branches, they are often supported on the enormous trunks of the forest giants. Some of the largest trees are hollowed out, yielding access to the cities from the land below. The essentially bromeliad cities are built from the top down, steel and glass towers with transportation tubes running through the rainforest. Because there is little open country on the planet, the Kirn developed transport by helium blimp as a major mode of moving between cities. Also, the interconnected rivers allow for heavy transport. Their architecture tends to be freewheeling, chaotic, and organic because they use many unrefined materials.
Primary Social Structure:
Mystic cults, which have been a mainstay of Kirn civilization for millenia, have a great influence on Kirn politics. The Kirn are gregarious, and tend to form cooperative organizations for dealing with manufacturing, trade, and other social tasks.
History:
Although not highly technological or industrial, the Kirn of ages past raised huge stone cities and monuments, many of which remain in ruins in the rainforest covering most of the planet's surface. A shift in orbit brought the planet closer in orbit to the sun, changing the ecology of the surface into the rainforest it remains to this day. The Kirn of today are the descendants of the survivors of the planetary shift. It is believed that what xenobiologists call "adaptive reproduction" took place. Kirn DNA can actually adapt at each generation, so that the Kirn can breed and have offspring with a surprising number of humanoid life forms.
From the ruins of the old civilization, the present day Kirn arose, building cities and technology in harmony with their forest home. They ignored more industrial sciences as incompatible with their way of living. Contact was made in the year 2725 by a small human scout ship, and in the century since the Kirn have settled into their new role as part of a much larger intergalactic community.
Conditions on Homeworld:
Many Kirn have preferred to colonize offworld, leaving the population of Motuv'Utaw at only about 2.5 billion inhabitants. On an Earth-sized planet covered with only thirty-seven percent water, this means that huge tracts of the planet are completely uninhabited. Areas the size of continents are covered with teeming swamps; other equally huge portions contain only the ruins of ancient cities or cities abandoned since the discovery and reclaimed by the jungle.
In the capital of Kwal'zhutlayn and other cities, one can find all the amenities of "modern-day" life. However, in the wild sections, explorers are left in a savage environment. On religious grounds, the Kirn were always careful not to hunt species into extinction, so many dangerous creatures still inhabit this world.
The Kirn are very playful, and rough in their play. Offworlders singled out for a little "sport" might unfortunately wind up dead.
Kirn (pronounced keern)
Home Planet: Motuv'Utaw, Ios system. The planet Motuv'Utaw (The Face of the Mother) is almost entirely covered in rainforest.
General Statistics:
Average height: 5'6"
Average weight: 121 lbs.
Life Expectancy: 110 years
Kirn are slightly weaker in the willpower than humans, but more than make up for it in raw dexterity, speed, and attractiveness. Guarana has proven to be a rather nasty neurotoxin, and chocolate has a very detrimental effect upon their inhibitions.
Racial Variation: There are no distinct geographical races, but a great genetic diversity. Populations nearer to swamplands tend to have thicker body hair. Skin color varies among the Kirn from milky white to black. Hair color ranges from blond to black. Body hair tends to match skin color. Tail fur can be very short or rather bushy. The Kirn reproduce quickly and easily. Babies are born with light color and blotchy darker spots of body hair that fade in childhood. Males tend to have thicker hair on their shoulders and down the spine to the tail. This extra body hair grows at adolescence and darkens with maturity.
Technology:
Early in their Industrial Revolution, the Kirn realized that they could not completely raze huge tracts of rainforest for development. Destroyed rainforest usually leaves nothing but wasteland, and the Kirn feel a spiritual connection with all life. They cultivated a material culture in harmony with their environment, a cooperative cyber-organic technology. The Kirn never really developed weapons of mass destruction.
Dwellings:
Kirn settlements are built atop the rainforest canopy. Like lattices woven across the upper branches, they are often supported on the enormous trunks of the forest giants. Some of the largest trees are hollowed out, yielding access to the cities from the land below. The essentially bromeliad cities are built from the top down, steel and glass towers with transportation tubes running through the rainforest. Because there is little open country on the planet, the Kirn developed transport by helium blimp as a major mode of moving between cities. Also, the interconnected rivers allow for heavy transport. Their architecture tends to be freewheeling, chaotic, and organic because they use many unrefined materials.
Primary Social Structure:
Mystic cults, which have been a mainstay of Kirn civilization for millenia, have a great influence on Kirn politics. The Kirn are gregarious, and tend to form cooperative organizations for dealing with manufacturing, trade, and other social tasks.
History:
Although not highly technological or industrial, the Kirn of ages past raised huge stone cities and monuments, many of which remain in ruins in the rainforest covering most of the planet's surface. A shift in orbit brought the planet closer in orbit to the sun, changing the ecology of the surface into the rainforest it remains to this day. The Kirn of today are the descendants of the survivors of the planetary shift. It is believed that what xenobiologists call "adaptive reproduction" took place. Kirn DNA can actually adapt at each generation, so that the Kirn can breed and have offspring with a surprising number of humanoid life forms.
From the ruins of the old civilization, the present day Kirn arose, building cities and technology in harmony with their forest home. They ignored more industrial sciences as incompatible with their way of living. Contact was made in the year 2725 by a small human scout ship, and in the century since the Kirn have settled into their new role as part of a much larger intergalactic community.
Conditions on Homeworld:
Many Kirn have preferred to colonize offworld, leaving the population of Motuv'Utaw at only about 2.5 billion inhabitants. On an Earth-sized planet covered with only thirty-seven percent water, this means that huge tracts of the planet are completely uninhabited. Areas the size of continents are covered with teeming swamps; other equally huge portions contain only the ruins of ancient cities or cities abandoned since the discovery and reclaimed by the jungle.
In the capital of Kwal'zhutlayn and other cities, one can find all the amenities of "modern-day" life. However, in the wild sections, explorers are left in a savage environment. On religious grounds, the Kirn were always careful not to hunt species into extinction, so many dangerous creatures still inhabit this world.
The Kirn are very playful, and rough in their play. Offworlders singled out for a little "sport" might unfortunately wind up dead.