Bandish

The **Bandish** are a race of squat, hairy, long-bearded aliens, perhaps most notable for the fiery destruction of their own homeworld, Izim Bishim, and the launching of massive invasions on the Republic of NEN at the start of the Modern Epoch.

## Biology and appearance

Bandish are mammalians, native to the vast, dry plains and forests of Izim Bishim. They are stocky of build, heavyset with hard, thick bones, and have remarkably strong arms for their size. Their faces extend into long, thick snouts, accommodating for a long tongue. Their eyes are comparatively small to the rest of their head. Some males, typically the more dominant ones, display a subtle cranial crest, but this is often not visible due to dense, shaggy fur.

The most obviously striking feature of any Bandish is the extraordinarily long beard that hangs from the chin to the feet, often dragging along the ground as the Bandish walks. This beard is present in both males and females, but is lacking in children until sexual maturity is reached. Bandish fur is waxy, and acts as a kind of fire-retardant, protecting Bandishes from the frequent wildfires of their homeworld and subsequently their own pyrotechnic machinery.

## History

### Pre-New Era

Prior to the New Era, the Bandish lived as a pre-galactic, rarely-contacted people, native to Izim Bishim. They predominantly inhabited the planet's enormous, open plains and scrublands, with some major populations inhabiting Izim Bishim's forests. As inhabitants of such a climatically unpredictable planet, many Bandish communities lived nomadically, following rainfall and floods and avoiding areas of heavy drought. The planet's susceptibility to wildfire also motivated the Bandish to stay on the move.

The first, vague reference to the Bandish from another race is believed to come from the late Plombite Empire, which landed missionaries on the Bandish homeworld, referring to it derogatorily as a "desolate cauldron of fire-dancers and smoke-spinners." From this reference it is evident that the Bandish custom of fire-dancing and smoke-spinning (burning one's own beard and spinning furiously) has been practiced at least as far back as the early-Middle Era.

During the late-Middle Era, the Bandish endured several drastic developmental changes, beginning with the rise of the five founding nations that eventually branched into the modern-day Bandish states. Many other nations became established at this time, but it was these first five nations - the Ashaterai, the Funer Oldrim, the Qorai, the Shingin Imbin, and the Tossokorig - that grew the quickest with the rapid absorption of smaller neighbouring groups - a development unanimously characterised by extreme militarism, colonialism and nationalism.

By the time of the Bleak Epoch, the five dominant Bandish nations of Izim Bishim were at war with one another. This was a result of massive growth within each of the nations, necessitating vast areas for agriculture, forcing traditionally nomadic minorities into sedentary labour, lack of available resources (which came as a result of traditional practices being lost among the Bandish minorities), invasion of territory, and the stratocratic authority of the military elite.

The Izim Bishim War, dubbed "The Five Infernos" by many of the Izim Bishimic Bandish due to the excessive use of pyrotechnical weaponry, became one of the most destructive planetary conflicts in the history of the galaxy. By the end of the Bleak Epoch, so much of Izim Bishim's surface had been charred that many areas were permanently ablaze year-round. The devastation caused catastrophic losses of life for all sides, predominantly as a result of failed crop yields due to chemical overspills and incinerated agricultural land.

### New Era

At the start of the New Era, the Bandish nations were forced to accelerate their plans for independent space campaigns as a result of Izim Bishim's failing biospheres. With much of the world on fire and most of the fighting being put on hold, the Izim Bishim War became, ironically, a cold war. The first of the five nations to achieve space travel was the Qorai, who colonised a nearby planet of the Ishiki system, naming it Qorazim. The Shingin Imbin quickly followed suit, colonising a more distant dwarf planet, calling it Shingizim.

The 3rd Age of the Second Dawn Epoch saw rapid developments in space travel for all five of the Bandish founding nations, each of which had by this time split into a number of independent states in accordance with new planetary colonies; who, as they had done before, organised themselves into anarchistic stratocracies, governed loosely by the military, with no real figure of authority. Many Bandish communities remained on Izim Bishim, however, and despite the planet's near-inhospitable environment, they managed to restore many of the former Bandish traditions, able to sustain themselves by living nomadically.

### Involvement in the New Era Wars

*main article: New Era Wars*

With the majority of the Bandish population inhabiting foreign planets of the Ishiki system and its neighbouring stars, the Izim Bishim War became an interstellar conflict, referred to simply as the Bandish Feud. The expansionist policies of the independent Bandish States wreaked havoc among their already inhabited neighbouring star systems, most notably the Fringe Nations of the yet-to-be-established Republic of NEN, whose defences were already heavily debilitated as a result of constant Orogogic invasions. The self-insertion of the Bandish States into the widespread conflict of the New Era Wars brought the galaxy's attention to the Bandish people as a race of reckless warmongers, a reputation that has caused them to be either deeply feared or heavily persecuted.

Much of the Bandish territorial expansion into the Fringe Nations came from the most actively militaristic and astrographically extensive of the Bandish States, the Qorai Major; but as the New Era Nations began to form their Republic, economic and military sanctions were put in place on all of the Bandish nations, many of which never engaged in conflicts outside of the Bandish Feud.

### Today

In the Modern Epoch, the Republic's economic excommunication of the Bandish States persists, with major invasions of Republic territories (generally by the Qorai Major) remaining a prevalent issue. Non-militant Bandish minorities have a steadily increasing population in the Republic, however, with many passing the borders as refugees of the Bandish Feud. These minority communities continue to receive much hostility from civilians of the Republic, generally as a residual effect of the ill-gotten Bandish reputation for warmongering, but efforts are in place to support Bandish refugees. Economically, though, the vast majority of Bandish refugees struggle more than any other ethnic minority in the Republic, with most having no way of earning money for themselves in Republic communities save that of the criminal underworld.

## Society and culture

### Fire-dancing

Fire has always played a significant role in all Bandish cultures. Historically, many Bandish cultures worshipped the flames of wildfires during dry seasons, believing it to be a life-giving substance as a result of increased fertility after wildfires have burnt through an area. Most of the old Bandish creation myths involve fire in some way, typically resulting in the Bandish, along with all of Izim Bishim's fauna, springing from the flames like a baby from a womb. Fire dances are also common throughout Bandish cultures, often featuring dancers setting their beards on fire and spinning furiously to create whirlwinds of smoke.