Bokkel

Natives of the planet Alfmani, the stout and hairy Bokkels were a people caught betwixt three powerhouses of the Imperial Epoch: the militant Plombite Empire, the governing Sly-Ky Confederacy, and the rising power of the Jurrikian Empire. Prior to the Sly-ky invasion of their homeworld, the Bokkels lived relatively peaceful, quiet, slow-paced lives, mostly in small agricultural communities of rural Alfmani. Partly due to the featureless geography of Alfmani’s plains, the Bokkels devised few territorial boundaries and engaged in little warfare. Land was acquired hereditarily, and farming was integral to a typical Bokkel life. This simple lifestyle was turned upside-down when the Imperial Sly-Kies arrived on Alfmani, claiming the planet as an agricultural territory in the rapidly growing Confederacy and forcing the Bokkels into serfdom. Many of the close-knit Bokkel communities were displaced as a result of the Sly-Ky invasion, but as the Confederacy began to focus their attentions on a war with Imperial Jurrikia, slowly the Sly-Ky lost their hold of the Bokkel homeworld. This became only a brief moment of peace for the local Bokkels, who were just beginning to return to their traditional ways before a second invasion of Alfmani began. This time it was the Plombite Empire, who were also engaged in war with the Sly-Ky Confederacy, looking for military outposts to fortify their imperial perimeter. The Plombites never actively interfered with the Bokkels quite like the Sly-kies had done, but their presence heavily impeded the Bokkel way of life nonetheless, with military camps and watchtowers constructed on ancestral Bokkel farmland, and resources being heavily depleted to fuel the ever-hungry Plombite war machine. The tensions between the Bokkels and Plombites eventually came to a conclusion with what many call the third Alfmani invasion – the arrival of the Jurriks. This invasion, however, inadvertently brought about the liberation of the Bokkels with the defeat of the Plombite Empire, making the Jurriks heroes in the eyes of the heavily downtrodden Bokkels. Immediately the Alfmani locals swore to devote themselves to the Jurrikian Cause, becoming a protectorate of the Empire, free of serfdom or displacement, only expected to provide their aid to the Empire when it was required of them. The Jurriks did eventually come to colonise Alfmani, but relations between the two races were harmonious – too harmonious, as far as the Jurriks were concerned, with many Bokkels ceaselessly insisting they serve their saviours dutifully. It was then that the Jurriks recognised just how devoted the Bokkels actually were, providing services well beyond their skillset, such as piloting ships having never done so before, engaging in military missions with no military experience, or executing official Imperial orders with the laidback, slow-paced attitude inherent in all Bokkel-kind. Nevertheless, the Bokkels remained a protectorate of the Jurriks throughout the rest of the Middle Era until the fall of the Empire in the Bleak Epoch as a result of the galactic cataclysm of the Great Silence, when Bokkels and Jurriks and numerous other nations throughout the galaxy became extinct.