BlueStar
Overview of the main historical events.
Family tree of the main species and races
Centaurians – Grasslanders, Plainsfolk
Six limbs, four used for walking, two for tool using.
Telepaths tend to be male and always have a single horn, these are very rare and have limited ability though tend to be very long lived - up to 400 years. Non-telepaths live up to 250 years.
Come in two sexes, the males generally larger. Females bear live young then suckle them for eight years. Gestation lasts one and a half years, and almost always produces triplets. They have four mammaries at chest level and a further set of six on the belly.
7 feet tall, strong and fast. Sure footed. Excellent hearing, average sight. Herbivorous, Live in woven huts on the open plains of grass. Tend to live in small herds or tribes – up to several dozen.
Leaders tend to be alpha males with up to four females as his mates taking active roles in tribal decisions.
The uncultured polar races are white and stocky with thicker fur whereas the civilised races are the equatorial more slender, dark-brown variety. On the main tropical continent the Centaurians developed a high civilisation that reached out and colonised many worlds in the Rassu Sar system. Whilst the other continents were left wild and untouched as they are averse to crossing water. The homeworld civilisation was ruined by the insectoids and the colonies collapsed into barbarism or lost much of their technological knowledge.
Remnants of the intelligent race include the brothers Dranis and Goocra – respectively father and uncle of Farnac who were fully brown. Their children were all hybrids with the local white race. Farnac was the result of a cross with the daughter of the old chief of the tribe who was a telepath and killed by Goocra so he could be chief.
Family tree of the main characters
Pegassi, Pterrahippus
Six limbed herbivorous race, four limbs used for running the central pair used for flight. They are distant cousins to Centuarians, but of low intelligence. Usually have a wide range of brightly coloured pelts.
Hexahippi
Primitive ancesters of both Pegassi and Centaurs. Six legged pack animals, native to the great plains. Usually they are striped blue and orange to confuse their appearence from dragons above.
Elfin races
Elves – Tree Dwellers, Forest Spirits
Have a wide range in mature size, from a few inches to three feet. Four limbed – two legs and two arms. Completely nude of body hair. Have blue bodies to blend in with native vegetation.
These creatures have evolved from amphibians, and have moved onto the land and developed a close symbiotic relationship with the trees of their forests. They eat only tree sap, which naturally collects in nectaries between branch nooks.
They come in one sex only, to reproduce they lay a single egg in the nectaries of the tree that can develop to birth with no other help. If two eggs are lid in the same nectary – they exchange genetic material before developing into twin children. From egg laying to “birth” is 30 years, where the young takes an aquatic larval form and feeds from the special juices in it’s private nursery pond.
Many live to be over a thousand years old. They are mainly arboreal and have few facial features. Their digits are long and dextrous to aid in climbing. They live amongst the branches of the trees themselves and rarely visit the ground.
Though they are very intelligent their culture & symbiancy stops them from permanently harming any creatures or plants of the forest and kill those that do. They therefore have gathered knowledge of science from other cultures but have no technology of their own and live only on the homeworld.
Tolerant of most races they live without making too much contact with them, though when they trade for things they usually ask for memories in return for forest raw materials.
Their telepathic powers are strong and include telekinetic powers they use to heal and kill. They are capable of becoming perfectly invisible by changing the colour of their skin. They are also partially photosynthetic.
Elves were the first sentient race on Huenta; they have assisted in the breeding of intelligence in the Equine and Draconian races using their gene manipulation powers. Also, one group of Elves was thought to have experimented in self-alteration, eventually producing the Fay and at the extreme – the mysterious Shape-Shifters.
Shape-shifters, Formless ones
Tall, spindly cousins to Fay. Never seen in true form, always hiding amongst other races on which they paracitise for blood and life energy. They use host bodies to incubate their eggs to maturity.
They are relatively rare as they find it difficult to raise numbers unnoticed and any cities they build are inevitably destroyed by the other “host” races.
Fay
Related to elves, ground dwelling, very pale blue in skin colour. Tend to be from 5 to 8 foot when mature. Most aspects of them are the same as Elves though their psychic powers are much weaker.
They lay their eggs – which are a foot across, on the ground in nests.
Though some live like Elves – no technology at all, many have traded with the other races to form great hidden cities in the forests. Their culture is not very secretive and they often let other races enter their cities to discuss trades and politics.
Goblins
Goblins are a diminutive, semi intelligent, non-sentient subterranean race. They range from several inches up to 2 feet in height. Omnivorous, eating roots, beetles etc.
Most live in forests, but there are other varieties that prefer to live in plains and another that prefers mountains. They dig shallow burrow systems and breed rapidly, are the bottom of many food chains.
Mechroids
Metallic artificial life forms created by the advanced fay. They tend to resemble hexapod insects but many have a humanoid torso or head. Most live in space stations created by the Fay.
Draconian Races
Ghoulda
Subterranean race, have vast tunnel systems with which to mine for food and minerals. Are stocky and range from 2 to 3 feet high.
Humanoid though can run on all fours, horned and tailed. Have scaly red skin. Distantly related to Dragons.
Have deep understanding of metalurgy and are skilled smiths.
Although they have helped improve the Centaurian and Fay technology to the level of interplanetary colonisation, they have themselves shunned leaving their mother planet.
Dracoids, Dragons
Gigantic winged race, have four powerful clawed limbs with which they pick up their prey. They are more closely related to Goulda than wurm, with the same intelligent ancestor, though Dragons are far less intelligent. Roost underground, only visiting the plains to feed.
Many of the smaller varieties have been tamed by the Goulda, who breed and ride them, especially for hunting and as beasts of war.
Wurm
Six limbed dracoid creatures, primitive ancestors of the Dragons and the Ghoulda. Partially subterranean. Carnivorous but occasionally will eat carrion.
NON-HUENTA RACES:
Kukk
Silicon-based lifeforms native to Trooval. Troll-ike, see Discworld
Range from 2 foor to vast cliff-like 1000 foot ancients, can live for tens of thousands of years. Tend to be immobile when older than their fifth millenium.
Number of limbs vary greatly, some are vaguely humanoid.
Intelligence level varies, sentience develops at around 500 years old - their term for this time roughly translates as “puberty of the mind”.
Dronn - Dark Ones, Insectoids
Not native to the BlueStar system. They colonise planets using a unique form of interplanetary and interstellar travel using Spore.
They breed quickly in hives of thousands. Have a caste-system of King, Queen, worker, drone & solder. These range in size from the queen that is 40 feet long to the three-foot high drone, to the Star Seeders, a caste whose members are a mile across and eject Spore into interplanetary/stellar space.
A violent race of panivores - they will eat anything even remotely organic. Six legged, sleek, black and fast. Have hard exoskeletons and kill using tooth and claw.
Are relatively mindless individually, but have a collective hive-mind equal to a single individual’s intelligence when the colonies have over a few hundred members.
Other races tend to hate them and have declared war upon them. Others merely avoid or flee from them. They are not intelligent enough or willing to keep peace with the other races
Cetacids
Completely aquatic sentient species, have colonised other planets in this star system as well as Huenta’s oceans. Origin unknown.
Sophaloids
Cephalapod-like helium 2 based lifeforms. Origin unknown. Highly advanced race. Have colonised all gas giants in the system, and may have built interstellar probes.
ASTRONOMY:
BlueStar: Rassu
A Blue Giant star with five orbiting bodies:
1) Companion yellow dwarf star: Gooui
2) Terrestrial planet: Gortre colonised by both Fay and Centaurians
3) Terrestrial planet: Tograndis. Only planet not to feature in mythology as it is a dark, matt, icy world.
4a) Gas Giant: Raootha with no indigenous life forms
Main satellites include:
Huenta (homeworld for Centaurians, Goulde & Fay)
Trooval the yellow (like sulphurous Io) - Home planet of Kukk
Arska the pale blue (like icy Europa) - infested with Dronn
Douin (like Europa) colonised by the Sophaloids
4b) Raootha also has two groups of Trojan asteroids: the Celestial Armies, they orbit Rassu at points 600 ahead and behind of Raootha in it’s orbit.
5) Cold kuiper belt object: Xyphod (colonised by Sophaloids)
Huenta
Due to the fact that is a satellite of the gas giant Raootha, it receives two types of light: Raoolight and Sunlight. Each orbit of Raootha takes 45 earth years. One day is a 3600 rotation of the planet about it’s axis, a month is the time taken for Douin to orbit Raootha.
map of the northern continent, where the story takes place
The Time of Plenty is the time when Huenta is between Raootha and the sun, then tides are high, and the temperature is highest. Each night is still lit by Raoolight so is never dark.
In The Dark Time, Huenta is on the far side of its orbit of Raootha, it is much darker at night and generally colder. Raootha cannot be seen in the sky at night. At the peak of Dark Time there is 3 years of complete darkness when Huenta passes through Raootha’s shadow.
MYTHOLOGY:
This is the Triadd - combined mythology of the Centaurians, Goulde and Fay.
Most of the original material is Centaurian in origin then spread to the Goulde and Fay cultures, absorbing elements of their cultural stories.
Creation Myth
At first there was the void, empty. Out of the void came the dark one: Nyxxos the father of evil. He reigned for millennia until a vast broiling cloud came into existence. From the primeval cloud Rassu, the globe of eternal flame was born and filled the universe with her beautiful light.
Using her powers, Rassu, created the twin siblings Huenta and Raootha by dividing the rest of the Primeval Cloud and then took Raootha as her mate. Nyxxos brooded for an age until he decided to create terrible children with which to wage war upon the new gods of light.
The War of the Gods
The Light Deities multiplied, taking mates from their own families or producing children by themselves. A war to shake the cosmos broke out between the new chaos serpents and the other gods. This war terminated with the gods of light casting the serpents into the remains of the void, now named the Chasm. As a last resort to overthrow the gods, Nyxxos created the Nine Woes whose names can be transkated as follows: War, Greed, Love, Dreams/Nightmares, Sleep, Misery, Sickness, Old Age and Death.
*Those who die whilst their soul is with the Dream Lord, shall forever after dwell in his realm. He is a tempestuous ruler and as often his mood causes storms as sunshine.
*War drinks human blood, and can be appeased with animal blood and widow’s tears. To give your blood to him means he will protect you into your battles, but at some great cost.
*Old Age is a character much like that of Old Father Time, but he is seen as a sort of paracite, sucking the youth out of you as you work, gnawing on your bones and draining the colour from your hair.
*Death is the wife of Old Age, her work begins as his finishes, taking that last breath of life from each mortal.
*When Sleep first came to the world, people panicked, as their friends and loved ones fell as if struck dead, but recovered, only to fall seemingly ill again. With the coming of her husband Dreams they came to accept this new experience as a trip to another plane of existence.
Family tree of the gods
The Power of Three
The mythological representation of the three races Fay, Centaur & Goulde as respectively asexual, masculine and feminine races.
The myth of Night time
According to legend, every evening the globe of Rassu falls into the primeval pit called the Chasm of Nothingness. Beneath Huenta the Chasm is a remnant of the ancient Void. In the chasm the Chaos Serpents dwell and they smother Rassu & stifle her light with their writhing bodies all through the night. As she is entombed beneath the earth, the serpents Frakk & his son Xyphod - who represent darkness and night, are set free to fill the sky and are only prevented from having a free run of heaven by Raootha’s light.
Before every dawn Rassu is cut free of the coils of destruction by the heroic efforts of the warrior-prince Torna, her nephew and allowed to climb the vaults of heaven once more, to bring light back to the world.
Nyxxos
The Dark Father of the first chaos serpents, personification of the Dark Time. The chaos serpents include: Drukkio - death, Grekka - disease, Kullit - War, Frakk - darkness, Tussra - famine, Xyphod - night. Xxyozok is the creator of the Dronn race acording to the Dark Legend.
Rassu: The Great Mother, Bringer of Light, Source of All Life
The wife & sister of Raootha. Sister also of Huenta.
Personification of the sun and therefore godess of light. The first good deity and creator of Raootha & Huenta.
Raootha: the Ever-Watchful
God of knowledge and divine leadership. So-called because of the circular eye-like storm on Raootha, therefore throught to see everything when he can be seen in the sky. He is the husband-brother of Rassu. Brother to Huenta and uncle to the twin warriors Torna and Douin.
Huenta
The goddess that is a personification of the earth. Sister of Rassu and mother of the twin brethen Torna and Douin.
Torna the Warrior-Prince
The morning star, son of Huenta and twin brother of Douin. Husband to Trooval, father by her of the two celestial armies.
Douin the faithful
Son of and twin brother of Torna. Angel messanger for Raootha, his uncle. Father of the quadruplets Frae, Frio, Granne and Gorri, the parents respectively of the races of Fay and Elves.
Frae & Frio
The progenitors of the race of Fay. Great spirits of the forest.
Granne & Gorri
Begetters of the Elfin race, also Great spirits of the harvest.
Gooui Protector of Rassu’s Womb
A minor god, personification of the companion star Gooui. Represents chastity and temperence.
Trooval the Vain
Godess of beauty and sexuality. Mother to the two armies of heaven.
Arska the Vestal
Godess of fertility and the plains. Mother of Daago, the first centaur.
Groubda
The goddess of the underworld, also of mineral wealth. The creator goddess of the Goulde, Goblins and the benevolent earth spirits.
Varassa
God-personification of the ocean. Son of Huenta
Blyssu
Neutrally sexed god of the air, weather and wind.