Gurk-Tal-De-Oktee

*The Fleshmongers have captured some of out troops last week, I saw them again today, purging fire was the only mercy I could give them now.* -Diary of an unknown soldier, presumably dated in the War for Human Prosperity.

The Gurk-Tal-De-Oktee or in their language "Those who have bent the universe to their will" were a caste-based alien civilization obsessed with biological modification, craftsmanship and scientific achievement. One of their greatest flaws as a species was their desire for validation which expressed itself most clearly in the Gurk-qo caste, a caste which existed almost solely to provide for the egotistical “Shapers” and “Builders” an audience. This race is now completely extinct, the only remainder of their civilisation the Green Dome located in Bunker-4, on Koschei, as well as some ruins spread around the planet.

## Foreword

"The following account has been derived from the logs of the Extermination Force sent against the Gurk-Tal and documents translated by Xenologists and linguists. Please note that “The Perfect One,” is one such document and that the author of this translation is in no way sympathizing with either the alien rebel or the Gurk-Tal, instead it is an attempt to accurately express their bizarre thought patterns."

## Extermination

The Gurk-Tal-De-Oktee, henceforth addressed Gurk-Tal, were marked for extermination when a group of human explorers discovered the species while surveying the planet named Kerdava by the explorers, now Koschei, unusual cave networks. Remarkably the cave network contained sprawling cities with artistic mosaics made of valuable minerals, bizarre architecture and vile statues of flesh which seem to draw breath yet.

An Extermination Force arrived in orbit above Kerdava in early 2209, and open their assault with a preliminary orbital bombardment of portions of the cave network the explorers had identified as vulnerable. The Extermination force would land a month later and be met with stiff resistance from flesh-wrought monstrosities commanded by members of the ruling Gurk-Ba Caste or “Those who shape” in the language of the species. The Extermination Force would come to call the Gurk-Ba caste Shapers and the species of aliens “Fleshmongers.” The humans would spend a full year on the surface of the planet constantly being attacked by giant worms, multi-armed insect bi-peds and worse before a breakthrough was made.

Initially targeted assassination of the Shapers was attempted but each time it was attempted the beasts under the aliens control would go into a frenzy. Furthermore each time a Shaper was killed they would just be replaced by another with no apparent loss in morale, in fact, these new Shapers seemed to be even more energetic, as if the previous Shapers had only been an opening act for them. It was only when a stray artillery shell originally aimed at a particularly nasty clawed giant decimated a crowd of Gurk-Tal onlookers that the weakness of the Gurk-Tal was finally discovered.

Once the artillery shells obliterated the crowd of onlookers, the Extermination Force noted an immediate loss of morale from the Shaper controlling the Giant. Both the Shaper and the giant became lethargic and unwilling to fight with as much ferocity as they had before. From that point onward it became a policy to immediately target any onlookers, later identified as the Gurk-qo or “Those who watch” in the language of the Gurk-Tal. After the Extermination of an estimated 5-million of the alien onlookers, the Shapers ceased coming to the surface.

In mid 2210 the Extermination Force would begin their assault on the Uppermost portions of the Gurk-Tal cavern cities. The Extermination Force would encounter some continued resistance from the Shapers but would encounter greater resistance from the apparent soldiers of the species, the Gurk-ol or “Those who destroy.” This new threat would cost the Extermination Force greatly, and their suicidal determination proved to have no solution beyond pure attrition.

When the Extermination Force finished eliminating the majority of the Gurk-ol in late 2212, they had hoped to be able to exterminate the upper cavern cities, and when they arrived at those cities, they discovered they were empty. In early 2213 it was declared that the Gurk-Tal had sacrificed it soldiers to buy time for the rest of the species to retreat to the Lower Depths of the world. An attempt was made to chase the aliens, but they had barred their escape with an immense Bio-mechanical Dome whose only defining feature was it's dark green color and its unnervingly large gates. The Extermination nicknamed the construct the “Emerald Dome” the Gurk-Tal name it the “Gark-Ric-Ud-Tick-Icree” or “That which has united us in life and will avenge us in even in death.”

When attempts were made to breach the Emerald Dome the contract responded with killing every living thing within a twenty-five-kilometer radius with some twisted form of biopsionics which seemed to kill all those inflicted on the cruelest and slowest manners possible.

In retribution, the Extermination Force withdrew all forces from Kerdava and began a systematic bombardment of the planet in late 2213. The bombardment targeted the tectonic plates of the planet in such a way to cause an artificial planet-wide earthquake. The bombardment would cease in 2214 after extensive scans of the planet reported minimal life. One can only begin to imagine what may have occurred in the darkness, but the official declaration of the experts and the commander of the Extermination Force was the species known as the “Fleshmongers” had been eliminated and that Kerdava was ready for habitation. A clear success even if the atmosphere was damaged and the cavern systems were in ruins.

## Castes

The Gurk-Tal had a seemingly very strict caste system based on the physical composotion of its members, the ways in which this structure was maintained is elaborated upon in the biology section of this article.

### Gurk-Ba

Those who shape. The rulers of the Gurk-Tal-De-Oktee, hence addressed as Gurk-Tal. Largely  Biopsionic and blessed with great intellect they were known to change the structure of their bodies on the daily, morphing from quadri-ped, to slime, to bi-ped and many more incomprehensible shapes. Every Gurk-Tal has the right to seek shaping for their bodies, but only the ruling caste may perform the shaping and only in their special shaping chambers.

### Gurk-fi

Those who build. The builders and artisans who were charged with mastering the less biological and less glorious task of crafting non-organic things such as automatons and architecture.

### Gurk-ol

Those who destroy. The soldiers, police force and demolishers of the Gurk-Tal, engineered to be blindly loyal to the ruling caste. They were charged with upholding the caste system and eliminating those persons and artistic works that the ruling caste considered to be an abomination.

### Gurk-qo

Those who observe. The members of the Gurk-Tal who exist to be an audience to the shapers and builders and to experience their experiments. From the early days of the Gurk-Tal's existence, they have understood the necessity of an audience to validate their ego.

## “The Perfect One”

In what is determined to be around 2035 Or-Dot-Refi revealed their plans to unleash a shaping virus upon the entire Gurk-Tal species, turning them into some uniform "perfect" abomination with no ability or need to reshape. The Gurk-ol quickly apprehended the criminal and rebel and attempted to execute them, but after multiple attempts, it was clear that Or-Dot-Refi had somehow made themselves immortal. While Or-Dot-Refi expounded on how their seeming immortality was proof of their new form being what the entirety of the Gurk-Tal needed the Destroyer caste steadfastly and calmly continued their attempts to silence the fool. After many dozen more execution attempts the Gurk-ol resolved to throw the criminal in stasis. The last words of Or-Dot-Refi were that "It is too bad even after all your attempts to me kill me that you can't understand the potential of my new form for us all and that you deny your only chance for salvation not only for salvation but freedom."

## Spacefaring Technology

It was an initial surprise the Extermination Force when they discovered sophisticated space craft in some of the upper caverns of Kerdava. It was initially speculated that the Gurk-Tal had failed in the pursuit to breach their own atmosphere. More surprising still was the disrepair of these extremely sophisticated vessels, the dust and corrosion seemed to indicate that all but one of the craft seemed to have not been maintained in over two thousand years. The state of disrepair of the craft was judged by engineers to be even more tragic, for each craft examined felt like it might have been a spectacular art piece in its glory days. The sole craft that was maintained appeared to be a trading vessel, which engineers judged as being of a lesser quality.

The rot of the Gurk-Tal’s space ships is symbolic of the species as a whole. At one time the Gurk-Tal night have entertained the idea of exploration and other pursuits that required them devote attention outwardly. At one time the species might have seen the value in not focusing their pursuits so inwardly on their physical forms. Instead of the vast Flesh Forges which the Builders create and maintain and the Shapers use along with their psionic power to mold biomass and members of their own species into new forms, perhaps the species could have conquered the sector with a highly advanced fleet.

## Biology

As is tradition when a war occurs a sizeable amount of bodies were made available to the xenobiologists of the Extermination Team to properly document the Gurk-tal’s biology. The closest comparison the chief examiner noted about their biological makeup is what they referred to as “earthworms”. A peculiarity observed across all members of the species is that they all share the same basic genes, from the Shapers to their giant war beasts and even what the Force referred to as “Flesh Forges”. However, only the Shaper and Builder castes were able to biologically reproduce, the Onlooker and Destroyer castes where all, in truth “synthetic” and sterile. As for the warbeasts themselves their fertility varied from one specimen to another.

Other than the basic traits and skin coloration not many physical characteristics were common to the Gurk-tal as a whole. Members of different castes had their own distinct physical traits and were designed according to their creator’s whims. In the case of the Shapers, their forms varied almost impossibly from one specimen to another, bearing very little resemblance between the individuals. This led to initial confusion as the xenobiologists couldn’t properly identify the caste by their physical characteristics. This changed when one scientist identified the key organ in the Shapers’ body that distinguished them from all other Gurk-tal. Supposedly it is this organ, named by the humans as “Forge brains” that allowed the Shapers to wield biopsionics to such a high potency.

The “Flesh forges” themselves seemed to be an upsized womb that produced specimens of the species to the controlling Shaper’s desires. This led the examiners to believe that the Gurk-tal had mastered their own biology to create these horrors and affronts to God. Although most historical documents from this era are lost, it is theorized that these discoveries led the full extermination order to be signed.