Relk Variants Take 1
For those of you who watch my LJ you might remember these guys as they were briefly mentioned a bit ago. These guys, as well as the other Relk variants, came about somewhere around ‘05 or ‘06.
I haven’t talked much about the Relk here, but essentially the Relk fear for their vulnerable way of existence when they discover that the massive Empire Eutharius is bearing down on their system. The Locks have a tangible presence on the Relk world long before the Empire discovers the Relk, and the Relk ask them for a way to avoid what would likely be their exploitation and possible extermination. A deal is made, and the Locks consent to create bipedal Relk to serve as emissaries to the Empire. But the Relk eventually decide the privacy they win with Eutharius through the bipeds isn’t enough, and press the Locks for a way to populate the rest of their system in order to safeguard their own world further. Again the Locks agree, although less readily, and give them the ability to manipulate their race by splicing their genome with that of the Lock-world Shiro beasts. Long story short the Relk are somewhat irresponsible and everything turns into a giant mess and they lose favor with the Locks, but in the process four races are born from the splicing: the Krio-Relk, the Wex-Krio, the Sunda, and the Gasoda-Relk.
The Gasoda-Relk are gas giant dwellers. They are double-armed winged things with air sacs and electrical current sensing/generating polyps and a long polyp-sucker tongue that looks like a fern thing. There are extremely ancient, ruined, enormous floating metal hulks of some sort drifting through various levels of the planet’s atmosphere, upon which grows a lichen-like substance that is more or less edible. For whatever reason, while in the adaptive stages the spliced Relk made this their niche environment. They flit from hulk to hulk (or fly, sometimes the distance between ruins is pretty large), scraping off the mossy bits with their beaks and then licking it up with their weird tongues.
This would be the Krio-Relk, the first Relk variant race that came about from the Relk splicing themselves with the Shiro.
I could go on a long winded tangent about these guys, but suffice to say instead of being the reliable, down-to-earth guardians of the water world they were birthed into they quickly became lazy, indulgent, flamboyantly selfish things, blessed with technological genius that they wasted on frivolities. The Krio became known for fraternizing with high society members of the Empire, inviting them to dining and entertainment on the giant hovering cruise ships that hung suspended above the endless seas. It was a traitorous blow to the Relk, who had worked so hard to gain ‘closed system’ status within the Empire. Furthermore the Krio didn’t want to stay put, and didn’t want to remain water-bound creatures, and that’s when the real trouble started.
I should mention that not all Krio were this way, but this was the attitude of the majority. There were a few smaller nomadic clans that actually did what they were made to do, and they have the same serious disposition as the Relk but are much less aggressive.