Cephalians

## BASICS

● Name: Cephalian

● Homeworld: Lephus

● Lifespan: 200 to 250 years

## GENERAL INFORMATION

● Planet(s) Inhabited: Numerous

● Current Status: Spacefaring

## APPEARANCE

● Description:

● Height Range: 6ft to 8ft

● Weight Range: 120 lbs. to 180 lbs.

● Genders: Hermaphrodital

## Stat Bonuses

+10 to distribute across the Tech skills tree.

## LORE

Cephalians are an exceptionally long lived species and were even before the advent of spacefaring levels of technology amongst their species. Their culture is rooted heavily in science and few, if any, Cephalians (shorthand; Ceph) worship any deities. Instead their culture reveres older Ceph as great leaders with few elderly Ceph being shunned from society. Those with age most often lead the communities through mating rituals as Ceph only mate once every century or two, through political strife between rivaling ideologies and in war. For another Ceph to take control of a community from another elder there are two methods; the most common being a debate between the two which eventually forms a consensus between the community. The less common of the two is a trial by combat in which the elderly Ceph wil engage one another in weaponless fights with the goal of the fight being to force the opponent to yield rather than die though the latter is acceptable if the first cannot be achieved.

Regardless of the outcome the elder that loses is castrated to prevent them from breeding others though they are left capable of being impregnated. This ritual, perhaps a bit barbarically, is performed without anesthesia or localized numbing agents; meaning the Ceph in question is conscious and feels every bit of the ritual. To lose the ability to impregnate another is extremely dishonorable in Ceph society which is, despite the species being hermaphrodites, very focused on not having to carry the young or care for them. In any binary gendered species this would likely be patriarchal. Ceph 'females' are stripped of most rights and cannot choose who they breed with; meaning that they have no right to say no to a potential suitor either.

Despite this the Ceph rarely engage in combat with one another and swim in huge herds millions strong when on a planet they occupy. Their buildings are underwater or filled with water if above ground. The pressure inside such buildings is incredibly high; so high that humans would need to be inside a mini-sub in order to navigate them lest they be crushed.

The Ceph are typically nonconfrontational and do not often engage in combat outside of the aforementioned trial by combat. When they do engage in warfare, they do so en masse with little thought given to the individual; swarming a target until it is dead or all of their numbers have been depleted. In space they are shrewd tacticians and will engage from afar, up close and with any number of ships in their fleet. Most notably the Ceph employ the use of 'suicide swarms' which are small fighter craft designed to ram an explosive into an opposing ship to disable or destroy it. This concept is not unknown to humans who often use drones or missiles to accomplish the same effect but the Ceph will use manned ships and declare the death of a pilot a 'noble sacrifice for the greater collective'.