Tever

Illustration by Charley Hall.

Pictauris acuminata

Descended from ambush predators, the painted Tever are a species of fiercely independent hunters who have learned, since the early days of the Alliance, to play nicely with others – but instinct is a powerful thing, and not easily shed even in the cold depths of space. In idle conversation, they are direct; on the prowl, they are daring; at the negotiating table, they are dangerous. You’ll only see a Tever if they want to be seen.

Tever Appearance

Requirements

Tever have pointed ears, which can be phys-repped with prosthetic elf ears of any length – these may also hang down instead of jutting out. Tever also have bright patterns on their skin, often accentuating their bone structure; these patterns can be created with face paint and makeup and should be consistent between events!

Additions

• Multiple tips on the ear
• Geometric tattoos merging with the natural patterns on their skin.
• Fangs or pointed teeth

Avoid

Don’t cover your whole face with patterns – a few lines and shapes along the brow, cheekbone or jaw will do just fine, and keeping it simple will make it easier to replicate it consistently.

Variant: Scora Tever

There are many tever who practice cosmetic scarification, resulting in an intense “masked” appearance. This tradition is called scora, and can be represented through makeup, ridge prosthetics ridges and bumps, small flesh tone “mermaid” style elf ears, or wound makeup (provided it is applied in a way that appears to be both deliberate and healed). There is no gameplay difference between tever who practice scora and those who do not.

Tever Biology

Tever are humanoids descended from mesothermic ambush predators. They possess distinctive long and pointed ears, which act as heat sinks – by diffusing heat through the ears, the Tever’s actual body becomes less obvious to thermally sensitive prey. The bright patterns on their faces and limbs evolved as a threat display, and are often accentuated or altered with tattoos and/or scarification.

Tever ancestors were strict or obligate carnivores – modern tever are able to synthesize the necessary compounds they would otherwise only get from the meat of their prey. Tever are reliant on their diets to regulate their body heat, as hot foods (such as fresh meat) and drinks raise their core temperature to replace the heat lost through the head and ears. Slow-release MRE packs alleviate the need for Tever to hunt and eat continuously, as was once necessary.

Tever infants are hairless, rugose and quite helpless. Their heads and mouths are lined with patches and patterns of bright colour, which evolve as they age into the distinctive patterns on their faces. These patterns allowed their caretakers to spot and identify their young through the dense foliage of their homeworld; Tever children do not cry, a necessary adaptation towards stealth in their evolutionary history.

The age of physical maturity in Tever is around 20 years, though the age of majority – defined in philosophical terms as the age at which one should have discovered their purpose – is 35. Their average modern lifespan is approximately 70 years; a great improvement over the historical average, which was skewed considerably downward due to the dangers in their lifestyle.

Though dampened by their lives in polite society, the natural instincts of Tever are strong – especially in the young, who are often driven to hide and “pounce” on their playmates in order to develop hunting skills. Even older Tever are prone to outbursts of savagery and hostility when pushed, though these fight-or-flight reactions are generally confined to emotional outbursts rather than physical violence. For this reason, Tever are often shown more patience than other species regarding instinctive displays of their temper, but they are still expected to follow and uphold Alliance law to the same standard as anyone else.

The Tever are known for the Scora (scoh-rah, “bark-like”) subculture, one of the few practices of their species which survived the latter day obliteration of their history. Scora Tever perform cosmetic scarification on themselves and each other to accentuate the threatening qualities of their appearance. Such modifications range from cutting notches into the ears or raising keloid ridges over the nose, to extensive carving of the face so that it resembles a fearsome mask.

Tever Culture

Traditional Tever culture values directness of action and of intent. Young Tever are encouraged to find their purpose and embody it as early and as fully as possible. The species is well represented among the explorers, scouts, shock troopers and first responders of the Alliance, though just as many Tever throw themselves just as thoroughly into academic and sedate pursuits.

Tever have been known to head off alone or in small groups of similar age in order to prove themselves – an early life crisis that drives young Tever to run away from home and slightly older Tever to throw themselves into new careers. This does not always meet with success, and both heroic and cautionary tales abound in recent Tever memory and epic historical sagas. To this day, Tever society makes allowances to provide their young with the chance to “go it alone” as an important developmental opportunity (though doing so as part of the Ardent Initiative was vetoed, perhaps for obvious reasons).

The Tever philosophy of osil (oh-seal, “territorial conflict”) can be summed up as the idea that one must strive in all aspects of life to act from a position of strength – and if you cannot, to evade, manoeuvre and regroup until you have the advantage. Osil is cyclically popular among young people of all species, particularly on Viront Z85, and pamphlets on its principles have been found in locales as far flung as SHADOW raid-forts.

Above all else, the Tever have sought to emphasize that their approach to life is based in rational and pragmatic principles rather than reflexive savagery. Direct solutions to problems prevent unnecessary suffering, and allow us to move on; to be willing to act on one’s principles when others are afraid is both practical and laudable.

Naming Conventions

Extant tever languages consist of hisses, prusten and whistles. When transcribed or rendered through a universal translator, these codes are simplified into common descriptors. In this fashion, tever given names are often parts of plants: it is traditional to name a tever child after the largest things on their homeworld, the trees, in the hope that they will grow to be as strong and as sheltering. These names can be direct translations (staying true to their literal meaning) or be altered to add with sounds from their untranscribed language: ss, sh, ch, kh, ph, ff, making them more unique.

Language examples: Arliris (ah-lie-riss, homeworld), osil (oh-seal, “territorial conflict”), scora (score-ah, “bark-like”)

Name examples: Bark, Cambium, Leaf, Meristem, Pith, Root, Xylem

Tever Homeworld

Arliris

Galactic Co-ordination System: Forest, DIBOLE-2

Arliris is a humid world of heightened temperature, low ocean coverage and a high amount of atmospheric water vapour. The result is a highly consistent climate across latitudes, with even the polar and equatorial regions supporting vegetation in the form of a dense and diverse forest. Much of the surface is concealed beneath the canopy.

The homeworld of the Tever is sparsely populated and underdeveloped by the standards of many Alliance planets; the traditional Tever preference for personal space and the value they place on an unspoilt forest environment means that Arliris resembles a nature reserve rather than the birthplace of a spacefaring species.

Visitors to Arliris are often easily lost in the cities of the Tever, which tend to be sparse and embedded in the natural environment, as a holdover from that stalemate age of secrecy. Even Tever from other regions on the planet may be hard-pressed to work out which district they are standing in when they visit an unfamiliar city – or if they are even standing in a city at all.

The administration of Arliris does not encourage visitors. This was agreed as a concession to the traditional Tever lifestyle of hunting and hiding, which is still practiced in its original form by many on Arliris – but also as a way of ensuring the safety of travellers, who might easily lose themselves in the planet’s threaded woods and succumb to exhaustion and/or heatstroke before they could ever be found. With that being said, there are a few notable sites that are accessible and welcoming to outsiders:

• The province of Corilis (core-ee-liss) and in particular the administrative district of Leril (leh-real) within it comprise the capital of the planet – they held the seat of the planet’s government in the colonial age before the Alliance was formed. The open-air amphitheatres here once held meetings between the ruling council and representatives of farflung Tever colonies, though these matters of state now occur in more formal environments with better air conditioning.
• The nadir of the canyon known as the Dehesilin (deh-heh-seal-een) Rift holds a memorial for all of the voyagers lost by Arliris when it first set out into space. The structure is barren, crude, and carved entirely with primitive tools – a symbolic act of penance to form a site of quiet contemplation.
• Moruc (moh-ruck) is Arliris’ highest mountain, which rises clear over the canopy around it. Moruc is not notably tall by the standards of other planets, rising to a mere 852m above sea level at its peak – but it is broad, dry, temperate and comparatively clear of vegetation on its wide shelves, which made and makes it an ideal site for launching and receiving spacecraft. “Moruc” means either gift, visitor or invader in the Tever language, depending on the dialect.
• The Prili (pree-lee) is a coastal region notable for lacking the mantle of vegetation that coats most of Arliris’ other landmasses – instead, its gentle hills are covered in a spongy and absorbent moss, creating a dry and pleasant landscape unlike any other on the planet. Prili moss is remarkably resilient and an invasive species – controls on its spread have been bolstered by the mandatory decontamination of all visitors in or near the region before they leave the planet.

Tever History

The history of the Tever begins in medias res; the earliest days of the species are shrouded in smoke, the result of careful obfuscation by the dominant factions of their homeworld Arliris to conceal their origins and weaknesses from each other. What is known – what can be cross-referenced between the surviving accounts – begins as follows:

Prehistory to A -1000

The Tever evolved on the planet Arliris, and grew (in spite of frequent and brutal warfare between families and states) to global dominance. Weapons of mass destruction put an end to open bloodshed, after a fashion, by forcing the species into a stalemate between several prominent factions.

A -750 to -650

The development of Tever spaceflight becomes a “long game” – the species did not develop manifold collapse technology for faster-than-light travel, but instead explored their neighbouring star systems over centuries by sending manned scout craft the long way, at near light speed. Pilots would make the trip in cryogenic suspension, knowing full well that their arrival meant that they could be stranded for their remaining lives. All available evidence suggests that the competing Tever states intended to establish holdings on other planets as soon as possible.

A -650

One misaligned Tever scout craft lands on a world that – between its launch and the forerunner’s arrival – has been settled by the Omdua. The Omdua respond by delivering the pilot back to the Tever homeworld, as a show of good faith to initiate diplomacy. The mission is disastrous; the Omdua are completely unprepared for the secretive Tever culture, and the crew that land on Arliris are captured by Tever responding to a perceived threat.

A -640 onwards

Cooler heads (and/or pragmatism) prevail – the Tever release their Omdua captives after studying their vessel and reverse-engineering manifold collapse technology. Formal diplomacy is established, though dissimilarities between the species mean relations are strained. The Tever use FTL travel to establish and administer colonies on the habitable plants they had already explored; the culture holding said technology becomes dominant, ending the stalemate on Arliris.

A -550

Tever exploration has reached its fever pitch, but the establishment of so many outposts strained the resources and the authority of the homeworld – an internal crisis loomed, and collapse of the colonies into independent fiefdoms seemed inevitable until the Omdua stepped in to facilitate negotiations. A union was formed to represent the Tever’s interstellar holdings – and many of its founding tenets survive to this day in the legal codes of the Alliance.

A -500 onwards

The Omdua unwittingly courted disaster by attempting diplomacy with MOTHER, who responded by immediately invading Omdua space. The Tever moved to protect the Omdua, and that intervention – paid for with many Tever lives – cements the bond between the two species. Together, they form a mutual defensive pact – a true alliance – in A -495.

Present

The Alliance has grown exponentially since the Tever formed one half of it, and the changes have been difficult for some to reconcile. But, while the Alliance’s first resort will always be diplomacy, its defenders understand that there will always be threats and disasters that demand direct action – and that there will always be a reason to stay ready, and to keep your senses sharp.