Echobi

## Anatomy/Biology

**Description**: Echobi bear resemblance to centaurs in human mythology. Both males and females share nearly identical body structure, with no developed breasts, two sets of ribs, two arms with seven fingers on each hand, four eyes (two on the face and two on stalks that extend from the top of the head), no mouths, three nose-like slits, pointed ears, a lower body resembling a horse with hooves, fur, and a slender, powerful tail equipped with a wickedly sharp blade. Fur color generally ranges from cool colors to neutral colors, such as blue, purple, black, tan, etc. However, some genetic defects will lead the unusual colors or unusually elaborate patterns.

**Diet**: Because of the lack of mouths, Echobi developed a method of absorbing nutrients. To do this, they use the tip of the blade on their tail, which acts as a proboscis for nutrients with a thin tube running through the tip of the blade into the body for circulation. The tube excretes a very corrosive acid to break down molecules and thus allows them to absorb nutrients from flesh, vegetation, water, or the air itself, depending on how much of and what kind of nutrients they need.

### Male

**Average Height**: 10’ or 305 cm

**Average Weight**: 4,715 lbs or 2,138 kg

**Average Build**: Slender

**Coloration**: Blue and/or neutral colors

**Average Lifespan**: 210 years

### Female

**Average Height**: 10’ or 305 cm

**Average Weight**: 4,715 lbs or 2,138 kg

**Average Build**: Slender

**Coloration**: Purplish and/or neutral colors

**Average Lifespan**: 210 years

**Extra**: With two sets of ribs, one in their human-like torso and one in their horse-like torso, Echobi have two sets of hearts and lungs, which are used primarily for steady travel on foot. Their tail blades act as venomous barbs, while they also retain the ability to snap their tails like bullwhips as a fearsome defense. Their stalk eyes are used for 360 degree vision, but all four eyes have similar eyesight to humans. Because they have no mouths, reliance on sense of smell has led to them being able to detect pheromones and other chemicals in the air for mating and safety. It also means they lost their spoken language.

## Politics

**System**: Echobi Horde

**Values**: Individuality, equality, compassion and generosity, trust, love, sex, progress and change for the good of all, beauty

**Religion(s)**: The most prominent belief is that through good deeds and swift progress for the greater good they will be able to ascend to a super race, the Echobi-Sacri. They believe that this race awaits them in another dimension. After the Echobi race as a whole achieves worthy status, they will be invited from the Milky Way Galaxy to a dimension where good reigns supreme and quenches all bad things. The Echobi-Sacri are an evolved, elegant form that an Echobi could only ever dream to be. This ascended race is depicted in a lot of Echobi art and influences their overall goodness in personality and feats.

The Leading Light is the leader of the Echobi-Sacri, superior in all forms of intelligence, knowledge, creativity, morality, and beauty who is revered deeply and admired for their flawlessness. It is believed that an Echobi-Sacri who achieves greater feats of kindness, generosity, or progress can ascend even further and claim the rights to being the Leading Light and gain all knowledge and superiority in the universe. Naturally, others develop their own beliefs, such as those mentioned in Conflicts/Issues, but the only notable one is Echobi-Sacri due to the race being overall very agreeable with one another in terms of beliefs.

**Settlements/Colonies**: The Echobi Horde territories.

**Diplomacy**: Echobi are, while wary for awhile, open to relationships with other races as long as they show good moral compasses. Races that demonstrate immoral traits, such as racial superiority, senseless violence, slavery, etc., are immediately looked down upon and declined in terms of friendship for fear of being turned against.

**Age of Spacefaring Civilization**: 890 million years ago

## Technology

**Military**: Energy weaponry, stealth systems, neural links to vehicles and drones, powered armor, large anti-psychic dampening fields built into buildings, ships, or stations, everything that civilians have access to

**Civilian/Public**: Plasma and kinetic weaponry, vibroblades, hyperdrives, holographic projectors, Virtual Intelligence, lightly armed ships, cloning limbs and organs for replacement, personal shields that block psychic abilities, FTL comms

**Overview**: The Echobi have been swift with technological development and value technological progress forwards for the people. They’ve had immense time to modify, adjust, and develop their technology, including decisions (through unfortunate trial and error) about what can be available to the public and to the military respectively. The first start was letting everyone have access to everything to support their ideas of inequality. Then they realized some people would happily abuse their rights to the detriment of others so restrictions had to be gradually placed, getting stricter and stricter They also have developed a superior knack for engineering, which have went majorly into architectural design and other technology. Their abilities are so prodigious that they designed a good portion of the Oro Convent’s architecture.

## Racial Information

**Traditions**: Throughout the year, Echobi steadily prepare for the end-of-the-year annual event: the Scholar’s Heat. The competition is held in many areas, from architecture (the largest event), to technology of all kind, to art, to performance, etc. Each participant chooses one event to compete in and studies throughout the year to perfect the aspects of their competition. The idea behind the Scholar’s Heat is to introduce progress into society. If a participant introduces new, efficient technology, fascinating creativity and beauty behind art and design, etc. society will work to adopt it into the current system to improve the quality of life for all.

Echobi also host the Camaraderie Jamboree a few months after the Scholar’s Heat, which lasts with a week of huge festivities. The values of friendship, trust, and family are emphasized even stronger than usual through elaborate displays of light, music, dance, sports, and games. This holiday is intended to relieve tensions between competitors in the Heat and “cool” any hard feelings. However, the most prevalent tradition of all time for the Echobi are ornate, decorative masks without mouths in a silent, sorrowful remembrance of the Slaughter. It’s also not uncommon to see Echobi temporarily or permanently dye their face with similar patterns and symbolism. These are predominantly worn at the incredibly extensive, two week long ceremonies. The events include education on recognizing dangerous, violent behavior, very tribal, ethereal, and traditional dance and music to mourn with the Echobi-Sacri, sending floating lights into the air and sending lights down rivers, and other very solemn, spiritual, symbolic activities. The Camaraderie Jamboree takes ample time to allow participants to annually vow to stay on a path of goodness and peace, where violence is never senseless.

Another major tradition is giving. When someone does something kind for another person, the receiver is supposed to become a giver by passing it on to others or reciprocating it, creating a chain react of good deeds in the community, which often proves to make society efficient with volunteers for many tasks and charities.

One of the other important traditions includes the reading of minds and memories in union, essentially marriage, to prove intimacy. Unions can be formed between two or more individuals of any gender, as long as there is a proven trust and love. After the elaborate, elegant ceremony, passionate sex follows, with the first round going to the newly wed and the second round for everyone invited to join in and have fun, whilst also strengthening closeness between individuals.

Sex, love, and trust go hand-in-hand-in-hand in Echobi society, which can be displayed between lovers, friends, and family of the same race or a different one. If an individual forces or coerces another into sex, they have broken all boundaries of trust and morality, being shunned and heavily looked down upon by society.

A more minor tradition, while not explicitly celebrated, is fashion. Echobi are elegant, graceful creatures and will often don themselves in jewelry, textiles, or tattoos to embrace their individuality and beauty. Their blades are a sacred focal point of fashion, with many treatments available to polish, sharpen, or shape the blade to proudly display the fearsome, independent side of the gentle Echobi.

**Conflicts/Issues**: The Echobi struggle with having a super efficient judicial and criminal justice system. Their values lean them towards forgiveness and looking at the inherent good in a person. They’ve learned over time that some people will seriously abuse the forgiveness, causing the system to become stricter. Unfortunately, Echobi have a terrible habit of relenting and giving in to their nature of forgiving others until it goes wrong again.

Another issue with Echobi nature is their excessive friendliness. Again, it is a trait that can be easily abused by others. A growing number of Echobi recognize this pattern and loathe it as weakness. The group has grown to believe that they are “enlightened” while others will be subject to the cycle of their weakness for eternity rather than ascending to Echobi-Sacri. They see it as a condemnation from the Leading Light for refusing to be practical rather than prone to feeling, inhibiting societal progress. These “Belligerents” tend to be hostile, uncaring, and too stubborn for their own good. However, because of their greater lack of reserves, they are prone to be more powerful and wicked.

Some Echobi will have rites of Union with Despiri and are open to other races. Mixed-race sex is not something necessarily taboo in society, especially since they can’t have offspring anyway, there’s no risk for birthing issues. However, a small group of modest Echobi believe that sex should not be such an open concept and hatefully oppose mixed-race union and sex, saying it infects the genetic purity that will allow one to ascend to Echobi-Sacri.

### Relevant History

#### Pre-Convent

Once, Echobi had mouths, with wickedly sharp teeth, similar to a shark's. 850 million years ago, they finally developed their sapience, and the results were brutal. With their newly obtained ability for complex thought, these herd animals turned bloodthirsty. For long, they had been preyed upon by greater predators. With gnashing teeth, strangling hands, and hard hooves, these monsters began to wreak havoc on their previous hunters until they actually drove them to extinction. Their safety was a success! Until their lifestyle of violence caused them to turn against one another.

It was a bloodbath on their homeworld. They drove themselves to threatened levels of a population. The most common form of killing was ripping throats out with their terrible fangs. Soon, tribes were taking hostages, killing them, sewing their mouths shut, and hanging their heads for enemies to see. This became a practice on the living, as well. Gradually, Echobi reached enlightenment that violence was hurting them. Peace was made. On the most remarkable day in Echobi history, all Echobi on the homeplanet gathered together, killers and grievers, in a mournful ceremony of lamentation. The howling and moaning and screeching could be heard to their moons and back.

In an extreme truce, all Echobi agreed to wear elaborate, beautiful masks decorated with mournful designs in symbolism of the Slaughter. The masks were only to be removed for eating. Even today, this cultural symbol is expressed through elaborate dye on the face or ornate masks to resemble the original masks. They had reached a collective depression and forlornness of what had been done. They started to focus on helping one another and developed the Echobi-Sacri religion to help find understanding and meaning in the universe.

#### Convent Affiliation

844 million years ago, Echobi, still recovering from the Slaughter, discovered FTL flight. They had been making progressive and swift changes in technology, with emphasis on their natural knack for design and engineering. They were getting more and more impressive as time passed. When they began their space travel, they encountered a nation known as the Oro Convent. The contact was very civil and more so based on whether they could be beneficial to each other. The Echobi designs for architecture had caught the attention of the Convent. In exchange for genetic alteration to get rid of those cursed teeth and mouths, the Echobi offered architectural designs that fit the aesthetic of the Convent but worked with incredibly stability. The most famous and valuable design they offered was the Echobi Shell, which would serve as the Grand Temple of the Oro, completely workable in design as long as someone could actually construct it. The Echobi, in turn, were modified to use a very small proboscis that ran through a new tail blade to absorb nutrients from the air, flesh, water, etc., as long as they could stick the sharp tip into something. This was also around the time it was decided that in order to function properly as a society, they would need a government for efficiency.

823 million years ago, as the newly governmental Echobi explored and expanded slowly but surely, they encountered a race, the Despiri, on their homeworld. The two races almost immediately hit it off. It was a strange click, almost as if they were meant to be. But while Echobi were still shying away from violence, these proud warriors admired their taste for science. It was a beneficial trade for both. However, both Despiri and Echobi had incredibly advanced concepts for music and were ecstatic to mix and match their styles to create glorious war songs, chants, and other genre arrangements. This was the most significant bonding point between the two societies.

The Despiri would quickly absorbed into the Echobi’s nation as equal citizens and their friendship was as solid as diamond. Of course, differing ideals had to be compensated for, as Despiri were more accustomed to battle whereas Echobi were still traumatized. But eventually, the fear of violence subsided, albeit very gradually. Today, Echobi aren’t afraid to stand up for themselves or the Despiri and are proud to use their natural bullwhips against dangerous predators or people.

The primary aspects of their growth as a nation came through a lot of progress in science and technology, expansion into new territories, and compassion for others. They developed cautiously, trying to avoid another Slaughter. Of course, once the Echobi became less sensitized to violence, they experienced issues without an adequate justice system. 678 million years ago, crime suddenly became rampant, almost tearing the nation apart. They had to get strict quickly. It worked as a last-minute resort, but even today, Echobi find it hard to fight their passive, polite, forgiving nature against criminals.

575 million years ago, the Oro Convent offered another deal. They would protect the Echobi as they developed and expanded their nation, provided the Convent could still use and acquire designs on demand. It was a done deal! The Echobi became a Vassal Race.

After the Convent Civil War, they were released as a Vassal Race. The Echobi developed a value their independence as a people, taking pride in their engineering capabilities that were so impressive, even the Oro Convent took note of it. Their current ideals are progressive steps forwards that better the race as a whole, and keeping their people happy. In the darkest part of an Echobi’s mind, the Slaughter awaits, ready to strike whenever they let their guard down to primal urges. No matter how much denial someone can put into it, that devastating bloodbath was a part of who they were.

## Racial Abilities

* Binding: The ability to restrict the movements of others via the mind.
* Empathy: The ability to interpret the emotions of others.
* Memory Reading: Read the memories of others.
* Mental Hallucinations: The ability to cause mental hallucinations.
* Mind Reading: The ability to read/sense and visually see the thoughts of others.
* Psychic Communication: The ability to open up secret conversations and relay covert information.
* Psychic Navigation: The ability to create a mental map of the surrounding area.
* Telempathy: The ability to communicate through emotions.
* Telepathic Relay: The ability to act as a mental relay station for a group of minds, allowing said minds to "speak" to one another through the user.
* Telepathic Speaking: The ability to speak aloud using only the mind.