Woggos

Woggos are a primitive race of giant ape-like primates native to planet Surak. Enslaved by the Skargh about 800 years ago, the Woggos are presently found throughout the Skargh Empire. Valued for their massive size and strength, Woggos are commonly used for a variety of tasks that require great physical strength. They are often seen on the battlefield accompanying their Skargh masters as porters, heavy weapon operators and expendable shock troops.

## Overview

Biologically, woggos are highly similar to Terran great apes, except much more massive in size - the largest alpha males can tower over 4 meters tall when standing in an erect posture. Because of their usual heavily-slouched, knuckle-dragging posture, they typically appear much shorter, but still remain taller than most humanoids and bulkier by far.

Visually, woggos resemble giant orangutans or gorillas, clad in a thick reddish-brown or black fur. Short-furred and white albino woggos also exist as distinct phenotypes. The red-brown woggos generally dwell in the plains and deserts of Surak, the black woggos residing in the planet's vast tropical jungles. In the millenia since woggos first learned to build boats and fish, a new race of short-haired "sea woggos" has evolved as well, their usual long coats of fur prone to getting soaked being a disadvantage in a seafaring lifestyle.

The rare white woggos have a special place in their native culture, being seen as marked by the spirits and endowed with special powers. Consequently, any woggo born with a white fur can look forward to a life as the tribe's shaman. Interestingly, the same mutation that causes white fur in woggos also seems to cause heightened intelligence in them - perhaps as a mechanism to compensate for the obvious disadvantage that such a lack of camouflage is bound to cause while hunting or evading predators and foes.

Much like Terran apes, woggos are placental mammals with a complex family and social structure. In their native environment, Woggos live in tribal groups composed of several related family troops. Each troop is led by a "silverback" alpha male, a patriarch of undisputed authority, who has proven himself in hunts and clashes with rival tribes over many years. The alpha male has the right to mate with any female of his troop, subordinate males only being allowed to seek out a mate from among females who have already mated with the silverback. The collective body of alpha males form a tribal council of elders that decides the everyday matters of the tribe. When threatened by war with a rival tribe, however, the alpha males will choose the strongest and bravest among them (usually decided by means of fighting each other) to lead the tribe as war-chief. A war-chief will typically be expected to step down once the threat is over, i.e., the enemy tribe has been repelled or annihilated, the survivors being assimilated into the victorious tribe. However, some war-chiefs continue to rule over their tribes alone in peacetime, particularly when the war that put them in power resulted in most alpha-males who could contest them being killed, the younger males not yet being of age and authority to try asserting themselves as alphas.

Woggos live a semi-nomadic lifestyle, able to switch rather easily between sedentary farming and nomadic pastoralism or hunter-gathering. A tribe that has taken to farming will typically never stay in one place for more than a few years, i.e., until the soil of their fields is depleted. When that happens, the tribe will move on in search of a different plot of land to farm. These migrations will often bring them into the territory of other tribes, resulting in conflicts. Tribal conflicts are avoided by means of exchanging gifts and people - if a tribe has a shortage of females of breeding age or able-bodied warriors, it will try to secure some from a neighboring tribe in exchange for gifts. Such exchanges of people help tribes maintain healthy genetic diversity and also make conflicts less likely to erupt as neighboring tribes are often related by blood because of it. Survivors from tribes annihilated by warfare will usually be assimilated into the victorious tribe.

Whenever a tribe grows too large for the environment to sustain it, part of it will break away and head off in search of new hunting grounds. Oftentimes, young males discontent with life of subordination under their patriarch will set out on their own, forming all-male troops. These troops act as freelance warbands and tend to cause a lot of trouble, often raiding other tribes in an effort to secure territory and females for themselves. Most often, these bands eventually settle down and become tribes of their own after having procured enough females to breed.

Females generally have a low status in woggo society, raising children and performing most menial labour in the village while the males are away hunting or fighting. Their opinions are rarely consulted by the patriarchs, with the exception of female shamans, who command a unique position of authority that even the patriarchs respect.

Having a strong warrior culture, woggos will fight with exceptional ferocity when provoked. In battle, male woggos tend to fly into a primal berserk rage, smashing and tearing apart everything in their path until the object of their fury is finally destroyed. Pheromones secreted by enraged males will inspire a similar rage in other males in close proximity, and in sufficient concentrations prompt aggression even in the females, the aggressive response of the tribe thus elevating in proportion to the threat. While inter-tribal conflicts are generally resolved in small skirmishes or single combat between troop leaders or war-chiefs, on those occasions when the conflicts break down into an all-out war between tribes, the results tend to be spectacularly violent and bloody. These warrior qualities haven't gone unnoticed by the Skargh.

Technologically, woggos are primitive, even the largest and most advanced tribes not having advanced beyond Iron Age. This is in part because of the general absence of any permanent settlements, Woggos simply seeing no need to settle down in any place permanently. The most sophisticated tribes will at most have a few fortified villages inhabited on a semi-permanent basis. Despite their primitive nature and way of life, woggos are intelligent enough to learn the use of modern technology in their service of the Skargh.

Woggos on their homeworld follow a simple animistic religion, believing that every living thing has a spirit, and that certain gifted individuals may commune with these spirits and consult them for advice. When the Skargh arrived, woggos were awed by their technology and offered little resistence, for most part submitting willingly as they saw the aliens as emissaries from the spirit world. Those who did resist, however, did so with a ferocity that left even the vastly-superior Skargh impressed enough to see use in preserving the woggo species.

## Relationship with the Skargh

Although the Skargh clearly regard Woggos as their slaves, and themselves as their undisputed and rightful masters, from the Woggo point of view, it is such an honour and privilege to be selected for service off-world that young males will fight each other in hopes to be selected, as the Skargh usually select the fiercest and strongest.

The Woggos of Surak are largely left to their own devices by the Skargh, who come merely to collect annual tributes in slaves. For the Skargh, it is mainly a matter of expedience - they don't have to spend resources in training their servants for the rigors of battlefields, as life in the tough environs of Surak already takes care of that, breeding woggos as tough as they ever come. By keeping the bulk of woggo population isolated and ignorant of the broader galaxy, the Skargh also ensure the unquestioning loyalty of their woggo servants, who believe they have been elevated to the heavens rather than enslaved, their families at home likewise holding to such belief and regarding the Skargh as messengers of the gods.

While the lives of woggo slaves can be tough and often short as well, they can nonetheless be considered the best-off of all Skargh slave races, regarding their service as a privilege rather than oppression. Consequently, the Skargh have few reasons to doubt their loyalty and treat their woggo servants better than most other slaves. They are prized as porters for their great carrying capacity, and as warriors for their natural ferocity and physical prowess.

Woggos in Skargh service are instructed in the uses of modern technology where it concerns their duties. They are intelligent enough to learn the use of modern weapons and their maintenance, and develop a rough grasp of tactics. Woggos employed in non-military jobs are likewise quick to grasp the operation of industrial tools and machines, and are known to perform their duties with religious diligence - because from their perspective, their tasks are by all means and purposes religious. Woggos do not really understand (nor are explained) the principles behind the technology they are using, only that it works and what can be done with it. To keep with their simple minds, the Skargh consequently design the tools and weapons meant for Woggos rugged and simple, with basic pictographic instructions that their illiterate servants can easily understand.

Woggos in military service usually operate individually or in crews attached to Skargh units, since for all their loyalty the Skargh are wary of letting such powerful creatures assemble in larger units with their own leadership. Larger all-Woggo units led by Skargh officers aren't unheard of, however, and operate similarly to the all-male troops of their homeworld.

## Trivia

Because of their powerful body odour and perceived dim-wittedness, likening someone to a woggo has become a popular insult among Federation humans and Sidhae.