Vett'iri

### Distinctions

Two semi-rigid tentacle-like appendages atop head, semi-reflective skin, streamlined body-structure, usually immune to illness

**The Vett’iri** are the only race in Spectra that knows exactly where they come from and why they were created. Having only been in existence for less than a century, they are easily the youngest race to join Spectra’s list of civilized peoples.

## **Biology**

Created by the Exodeists in AY 2911 as a slave race, they toiled and labored for decades without their pleas for freedom being heard by the other races; the Hegemony and Empire preferred to keep amiable relationships with the Exodeists rather than intervene with their business, and so ignored the Vett’iri’s cries for help. In 2956, the Sentinels finally stepped in on their behalf and presented the Exodeists with a choice; free the Vett’iri, or face justice. Within a few weeks, the synthetic beings had released their creations from the bonds of slavery.

Standing only a few inches taller than their former masters at an average of 5’6 (1.72 meters), the Vett’iri are on the shorter side of the galactic spectrum. Their bodies appear amphibious in nature, with silvery, somewhat reflective skin and three-toed feet. Their heads have pointed snouts and split into two curved tentacle-like appendages at the top. Though similar to an irva’s fins at first inspection, these appendages are rigid and unmovable from their position aside from some mild muscular flexibility.

As a result of the Exodeists' genetic tampering, Vett'iri live healthy, almost completely illness-free lives; the same cannot be said for their deaths, however. Eventually, most Vett'iri spiral into a number of degenerative disorders that stem from rapid cell death and breakdown with no way to stop the process. Which cells begin to break down first changes from case to case; some Vett'iri will lose their cognitive functions and grip on reality, and others might experience more physical symptoms like peeling skin and losing teeth. As unfortunate as it is, their bodies *literally* begin to fall apart, and there hasn't been any progress made yet in finding a way to counteract this process.

## **Society and Culture**

The Vett’iri are generally looked down upon by the other races, though through no fault of their own; the sudden influx of new citizens to Spectra meant that the economy struggled to find proper positions for them in the workforce. They were forced to accept just about any job position they could acquire, which led to them getting reputations as ‘easy’ labor, as beggars looking for any chance to claw themselves out of the hole they’d been put into. As that reputation increased, so too did the necessity for the Vett’iri to look for any and all paying work, which further cemented their tarnished reputation in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Without proper time to develop and create a proper government of their own before they were freed by the Sentinels, the Vett’iri populace fragmented itself as they all split off to explore, learn, and discover on their own. This meant that there was no central Vett’iri leadership to report to, and inadvertently left the race without a support network to depend upon. Their culture quickly became individualistic and self-focused whereas they had once been a unified voice, and members of the race applied to become citizens of any government that would take them, many of them being folded into varying layers of the Hegemony via races allied with the Kugraw like the Pykes or Teregrine.

The name “Vett’iri” comes from the Exodeists’ original dialect. Roughly translated, it means “prime and reserve”. This comes from the fact that the Exodeists engineered their race to almost exclusively give birth to identical twins, ensuring that there was a great likelihood of every breeding resulting in the production of at least one new slave, should one of the twins die. The children would then be designated as either a “Vett” or an “Iri”, and many of their future labor tasks differed based on this distinction.

Due to the sad truth of their inevitable cellular degeneration, the leading cause of death amongst the Vett'iri is suicide; most would rather end their lives prematurely than have to endure the terrifying and potentially excruciatingly painful process of a 'natural' death.