Mridone


The Mridone are a primitive, arboreal race that lives on the world of Korjuun. Standing around 1.8 meters tall, the Mridone have a light, wiry build. They are partially quadrupedal, with opposable toes. The Mridone are covered with a layer of sleek grey fur that is coated with a water repellant oil. This fur covers their entire bodies, with exception of the fleshy pads on their hands and feet, and their large, sharply pointed ivory horns, that extend back from the front of their foreheads, then around to the sides and front. The Mridone have retractable claws on their hands and feet, which they use for climbing and combat. Mridone have brilliant blue eyes that give them a wide field of vision high detail vision, though their distance vision is not nearly as good as that of humans. The Mridone have a fairly long, non-prehensile tail with a black tuft on the end.
The Mridone have a temperament that is nothing short of homicidal, and even those Mridone that have seen planets other than their homeworld have been known to erupt into sudden rages when they feel that their territory is being invaded. The life of a tribal Mridone revolves around the clan, that is ruled by the strongest and canniest of it's members, regardless of that individual's gender. The Mridone tend to spend their lives in trees, and on the move. They hunt the other members of their forest, and are in turn hunted by some of the more powerful denizens of their world. The Mridone have no great fear of the ground, but they love the trees, and are superlative acrobats, leaping and running from tree to tree at full speed without the slightest hesitation. They are highly flexible individuals, capable of doubling over backwards with ease, and this flexibility helps them enormously in their exploits.
In many ways, the Mridone are creatures of their jungles, and they have a great knowledge of the various other members of their ecosystem. They use this knowledge both to find prey animals, and to distill poisons that enable them to better kill the prey they find. Certain tribes of Mridone have been known to regularly anoint their claws and horns with poisons, but most just coat their weapons with a wide variety of poisons from a number of sources. These poisons are used against both food animals and other Mridone, and have a wide variety of painful and deadly effects.

Stats

Attribute Dice: 13D
Attribute Min/Max
DEX: 2D+2/6D+2
KNO: 2D/3D+1
MECH: 1D/2D
PER: 1D+2/6D
STR: 1D/5D
TECH: 1D/2D
Move: 11/16

Special Abilities:

* Climbing: Unlike many other species, Mridone are born in the trees, and live running from one to the next. In natural surroundings, a Mridone halves the difficulty of climbing/jumping attempts, and can use the running skill while in the treetops.
* Poisons: Mridone on Korjuun have access to poisons of just about every nature and effects. When away from the familiar sources of their poisons, they cannot distill them as easily. However, they are able to detect the presence of poisons in natural surroundings with great skill, and can often determine the best methods of extracting and distilling them without any prior experience with the poison's sources.
* Natural Armor and Weapons: The horns of a Mridone add 1D to their ability to resist physical damage to their head region. Their claws (hand and feet) inflict STR+2D damage, and their horns and bite causes STR+1D+2.
* Temper: When a Mridone feels that his territory has been invaded, or that their tribe has been threatened, they must roll a check against their willpower to avoid being seized by a consuming rage. The difficulty of the check varies with the intensity of the threat, but Mridone have been known to go off after the slightest of infractions. In that state, they gain a +1D bonus to all STR and DEX skills, but may not cease combat until the object of their rage is either dead or out of reach. A Mridone that wishes to end his rage may make a very difficult Willpower check every third round of combat to do so.

Story Factors:

* Sleep Patterns: The Mridone tend to snatch their sleep while they can, sleeping around 6 hours out of a standard day. As they are an arboreal species, they can sleep on just about any surface, and because a fairly large number of Korjuun's species hunt the Mridone while they sleep, they awake quickly, at the slightest disturbance. These are all admirable traits in space, and many freighter captains have found Mridone to be unmatched as watchmen.
* Loyalty: The Mridone are extremely loyal to their tribes, defending them to the death against all threats, no matter how deadly. Those Mridone that leave Korjuun usually have either lost their clan and adopted a group of explorers as a new tribe, or were taken off-world very young, and imprinted on other individuals. When this fact is combined with the Mridone's ferocity and natural fighting abilities, they are much sought after as bodyguards, and a young Mridone will bring a high price on the open market.

Common Weapons of the Mridone:

Awarchi Spear: This wooded spear is designed to keep enemies at bay, after the point lodges. To do so, a heavy crossbar is affixed about 30 centimeters down the meter and a half long shaft. The point of this spear is almost always coated with a poison of some sort, and the crossbar is used to hold the target back while the poison takes effect. If a target is hit with one of these spears, they cannot come any closer to the target then they already are.
Throwing Spear: The primary weapon of the Mridone, they always carry at least three of these spears at all times. The range of these spears is substantially improved by the use of an atl-atl, or throwing stick, but when that is used, they can only fling one spear a round.
Blowgun: Though they do not inflict much damage, the short Mridone blowgun can be used in much more constricted areas than the throwing spears. They are also a very effective method of poison delivery.

Weapon_______________Damage____Short_____Medium____Long

Awarchi Spear          2D       N/A        N/A      N/A

Throwing Spear         1D+2     1-5        25       40

Blowgun                1D       1-4        12       20

Here are some of the poisons commonly used by the Mridone:

Poison           Difficulty of     Onset    

 Type:___________Stamina Check_____Time___Effect_______________

Lyrdome              15            3:00   2D damage, no possible

                                          STR Check to resist.

Kharamsool           12         1:05:00   Death

Gorass Juice         20            6:00   -1D from STR and DEX

Mikkith              7            24:00   Paralytic

Aspic Venom          16            4:00   Blinds target

Ulkith Poison        19             :30   Death

L'Norn               14            2:30   Hallucinogenic

In addition to these, the Mridone use a wide variety of other poisons, with similar effects. The more effective poisons are often harder to get, especially the Ulkith Poison, which the Ulkith is notoriously willing to donate to Mridone, though seldom in the manner that the Mridone desire.
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