Daikan (race)

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Name: Daikan
Cost: 36 pts
Description: Space born traveling people who are capable of withstanding the vacuum of space for short term. Also able to swap genders.

Daikan Characters in Game:
None

ADVANTAGES

• Hermaphromorph – 5pts
• Breath Holding x 5 – 10pts
• Claim to Hospitality – 2pts.
• Magery 0 – 5pts
• Radiation Tolerance divisor 10 – 15pts.
• Universal Digestion – 5pts.
• Vacuum Support – 5pts
• Temperature Tolerance – Space – 10pts.

TOTAL: 57 Pts

DISADVANTAGES

• Social Stigma – Minority Group – 10pts.
• Distinctive Appearance – 1pt
• Gregarious – 10pts

TOTAL DISADVANTAGES: 21pts
HISTORY

The Daikan started out on a large mineral poor asteroid belt containing asteroids big enough to  be classified as small planetoids. The largest of these asteroids was riddled with an underground network of tunnels and caves. These were filled with mostly inedible, plants, and small animal life. The Asteroid belt is called by the human corporation that found it “Rodger IV”.

To know how the Daikan came to be, you would have to look at their myths and stories. No learning institution has studied them, so it is up to them to explain how they came to be.

As the Daikan tell it:

Long ago, the land was solid. It was not floating in pieces like it is today. That land was alive, and thinking. It was strong, and created and destroyed life on its surface to amuse itself. Its name was Alakai. Alakai was not benevolent, and had no one to belong to. This turned his mind towards his own destruction. It’s not good to live all alone.

After many many lifetimes, Alakai had done with his business of creation and destruction. He was as barren looking on his surface as was his heart and mind. He lost interest in his own desolation, so he went into a great slumber.

During his sleep, Coryon the capricious lady spied him through a hole from the rainbow colored void. She is all clouds of beauty and color, and is ever changing. In his slumber, Alakai had no way to take precautions against her. Everyone knows to go to Coryon’s realm in the void-filled warp is dangerous, and even mores when she comes to ours.

She stole over Alakai, wrapping herself around his barren skin. She was soft and insistent, and gentle. She crawled into every crevasse perpetrating an artful seduction. She reached into his very center, and he awoke to find himself in her embrace. When they were done, Coryon went back through reality, and Alakai was left pregnant with child.

  He had already destroyed any chance for his offspring to survive on his surface. He spent his pregnancy with the dawning realization that his children would die when they came because he had become a lifeless, and desolate land. When the birthing came upon him, he used all his power to create a living place in the only space he could. He tore himself apart leaving what he could for his children. He sacrificed his own life, hollowing out what he could, to create a home, which they could huddle in, and survive cold hard space.

That is how we came from the rock of Alakai, and the void clouds of Coryon. We are part earth and rock, and part void. Alakai left us with spaces to hide in, small amounts of air to breath, and small game to hunt. It wasn’t much, but considering his black heart had warmed to us, it was enough. Although Alakai gave us his life, it’s Coryon that occasionally looks in on us, and protects us. She may be capricious, but she knows we are hers.

Approximately 5 to 6 generations ago, a human Corporate outpost was placed on the Daikan’s home asteroid without any knowledge that the Daikan were already there. It didn’t take long for some good bargaining to take place.

The Daikan learned the research crew were shocked at their minor shapeshifting ability to change gender. They were shocked that humans couldn’t change gender as needed.

Daikan were the ultimate scavengers, and discovered that human waste and garbage was a bounty. Cast off machines, tools, and food were adapted to make their own lives easier. A healthy rapport was built up between the two peoples.

Then came a disaster for the research group. Some sort of equipment failure led to their outpost collapsing. Most Daikan seem to think other humans attacked the researchers. This human versus human attack bewildered the Daikan completely because warring amongst themselves was unheard of. Life was too hard on their inhospitable home to have the luxury of war.

The Daikan took the human refugees into their caves, and protected them as their own. Although the humans were not as hardy as the Daikon, they were willing to teach them in return for their safekeeping. The Daikan learned they were able to have children with completely alien humans.

After that, it took only a generation or two for the Daikan to launch into space with their new knowledge, and their own new research into spells that would help with mechanical spacecraft. They scavenged the Outer Core for ships to salvage, and rather quickly they built up a small fleet, and launched into the stars. Being vacuum tolerant made salvaging old hulks easy, and their survival instincts allowed them to thrive.

The Daikan are a clannish, tight knit, people. When they were alone on their asteroid belt, their numbers were always in danger. A high birthrate balanced the high death toll related to the inhospitable environment. They rarely lived past the age of 30 human years. This probably explains the extreme loyalty they feel towards one another, and their willingness to lay down their lives, so that a greater number of them might live. For a Daikan, the survival of the greater number of people is always the right choice.

They are a uni-gendered race with the ability to switch to any gender at will. This could be an adaptation for survival, or a leftover from their believed warp paternity. They appear as short humans, ranging from 4’8” to 5’4” tall. However, they are a space tolerant race that can survive exposure to space for as long as they can hold their breath, which can be several hours. They also are radiation tolerant as their skin goes from pale to dark depending on how much radiation is in the environment.

They are a very superstitious race. Most are able to cast a few spells, but some possess great talents in the thaumaturgical arts. These talented magicians become Elders, and are seen as touched by Alakai and Coryon. They are also blessed with a little more common sense than the standard Daikan, and take up leadership of small groups.

Elders act as counselors, healers, and mentors. They often change the outcome of their family groups with incredible magical feats. These abilities are used to help hide from governing bodies, the Holy See’s witch hunts, getting dead ships running again, and protecting themselves.

Since coming in contact with the the rest of the space faring races, they keep their magical and psionic abilities hidden. It’s well known the Holy See hunts and kills magical and psionic talents under the ridiculous idea that they are protecting the known races from the warp. The older Daikan are also learning enough about the other power structures in the universe to keep a low profile, and move their caravans ever outward to keep their magical or psionic abilities from outside eyes.

The Daikan are currently experiencing the largest population boom in their history. They are breeding faster than they are dying. Life in space is easier than life on a barren asteroid, and they are becoming a small plague to the ruling bodies they run into, who still views them as human vagabonds.

Daikan are often raised communally. Parentage is of import for identification, but has no real value in childrearing. Family, or ship of birth, is more important for tracing lineage than any other way. Older more settled Daikan often raise the children while younger more adventurous ones seek out food, supplies, and adventure.

This change in behavior from bravely foolhardy to wise adult seems to occur around the age of 30 to 40, but for a few it never comes. Younger Daikan are energetic in the extreme, highly excitable, and motivated for short periods, but lack any real organizational skills. Elders, those that have passed those frenetic foolhardy youthful years intact, often end up making the larger decisions for a caravan. Since living as a space faring race, more and more Daikan are living into their 30’s and 40’s. They have a similar lifespan as a human.

Naming conventions for Daikan are often considered completely inappropriate by other races. They love names that are from strong or well-known people, outside of themselves. It’s not unusual to meet a Jesus Christ, Elvis Presley, or a Daffy Duck. Media personalities, characters from books or cartoons, historical personalities, and religious figures all are considered fair game no matter what race they come from.

They have the custom of creating and making charms. These usually have no real magical significance whatsoever, but are believed to help the Daikan to avoid death and bad luck. They often make them for each other as a sign of favor, and make them for themselves in an effort to stem the tide of injury and death.

Hedonism could best describe their religious leanings. They don’t actually pray, but consider it very sinful to not celebrate life. This often includes what other races might view as debauchery, or partying. Drinking and drug use have no negative effects unless it prevents the individual from any other action, and then they are taken to the local Elder to sort out. The sorts of spells needed to sort out addicts pretty well known to Daikan.

Their attitude about information and knowledge has no concept of ownership. They freely show innovations to one another, with no reservations. A Daikan can accrue a certain amount of prestige for sharing new technology, good ship dumping yards, or spells. They are also very community minded about it, feeling that new information should be shared as fast as possibly to prevent it’s loss. Any items, or methods seen as a way to better survival are shared as fast as they are learned.

They are also very frugal, and recycle everything. If something isn’t being used it is often freely offered up to someone that can use it. There is little to no jealousy over belongings as everything is for the good of the family, or Daikan as a whole. Even their eating habits reflect this as they eat bugs, rodents, and abandoned trash as often as they eat regularly bought food. This sense of usability comes into their death rituals as well, as the dead are consumed by the clan in order to help feed the family group. The bones and skulls of the dead are often fashioned into tools, and charms.

They have, as a race, an incredible knack for cannibalizing other race’s technology. They have been known to take a derelict ship with an open hull, and a reactor bleeding radiation, and rebuild it.They favor working with existing technologies, rather than pioneering their own. They also feel it would be disrespectful to the creators of such items to just throw things out without using it until the very last.

The Outer Core, and Rim are seeing more and more dog-eared fleets. They are brightly painted with thinly disguised magical protections. It is common for several Daikan ships to travel together working on one another until each ship is self sufficient enough to start it’s own caravan working on other derelict ships in tow. They snatch up drifting hulks faster than the space salvage yards can get to them in some areas of the Rim.

The inside of their ships are riddled with fabrics, and more painted magical protection glyphs. They don’t care for large open spaces, instead creating myriad catwalks, and small rooms out of found items inside a ships hull, unless they are hauling cargo. They seem to enjoy brightly colored fabrics, and shiny metal charms, but bits of engine, or wire are just as coveted.

No Daikan are left at home anymore, as life in the stars is so much easier. They consider Alakai’s nurturing to have come to an end, and now it’s their turn to take those first fledgling steps out of the nest. There is also the grim reality that the the rest of the universes powers are not Daikan friendly. Being on the move keeps Daikan out of sight and out of mind.