Vari

Illustration by Charley Hall.

Oculoptera avolitans

The industrious insectoids known as Vari are known for their pragmatism and their resilience. They evolved on a world where death in the form of much larger creatures, with even bigger jaws, lurked around every corner; their drive to survive left them with thicker skins than most, and bigger hearts (or equivalent hemocoelic systems). Among the Vari and their firm friends in the Alliance, no one is left behind – no matter how many they number, or what odds they face.

Vari History

The Vari have strived to preserve records of their people in many forms, according to whatever was most readily available. From inscriptions on coiled shells to lunar calendars woven from reeds, the past has been reconstructed – occasionally from within the carapace of the carnivore that originally devoured it. Be that as it may, exact dates are few and far between; carbon dating of artifacts that have been retrieved after several digestive cycles can only do so much.

Prehistory to A -5000

Proto-Vari evolution on the planet of Chetom is led by their need to be faster and smarter than their many predators. Early Vari cultures are defined by a common aptitude for the domestication of large livestock lifeforms, and by a nomadic bent – Vari who nest in one place for too long become easy prey.

Approximately A -2000

The variegated past of the Vari culminated in “the Muster” – a meeting of folkloric scale between all of the extant Vari bands, culminating in a pact of mutual survival. While Vari groups had always been drawn together to survive blights, banes and disasters of all kinds before peeling apart in less fraught times, this union of the species enshrined the principle of caring for each other as kith and as kin. This principle is frequently tested in the intervening years, but never broken.

Approximately A -2000 to A -1000

This era saw the establishment of the three major cities on Chetom – a triumvirate of well-defended and ever-growing metropoles, collectively “the Citadels”, largely built below the ground for added security. Any material at the Vari’s disposal – from precious metals to the carapaces of hunted arthropods – was fed into new structures and new forms of art, which succeeded more often than they failed. The strength of solidarity (and of numbers, as the population surges) brought the Vari into a golden age.

A -1000 onwards

The golden age came to a sharp end in a cataclysm known as “the Looming”, thanks to the reappearance of Chetom’s Silseradi apex predators. These ancient arachnoids are large enough to loom over the spires of the Vari, and long-lived enough to hibernate for thousands of years in polar ice between brief feeding and egg-laying frenzies. By this point in their history, Vari agriculture had coalesced around a single versatile livestock species – the Apharid, a cattle-sized beast of burden and protein source bred for docility. The helpless Apharidi herds were wiped out by Silseradi predation, forcing the Vari deeper into a centuries-long cultural and industrial recession.

A -300 to -250

Start of the era of “the Flight”, which begins with the arrival of Alliance explorers on Chetom. The opportunity to leave the planet repulses some Vari and proves irresistible to others; the decision becomes the single largest test to the ancient accord of the Muster, above even the lean years of the Looming. Diplomacy prevails – Chetom remains as a home to many and a site of pilgrimage to many more, with those who wish to leave welcomed warmly on their return.

Present

Of the Vari who remained, some accept Alliance help to rebuild the Citadels of old Chetom – while others return to their nomadic roots, seeking harmony with the planet’s ecosystem. Of those who left across the stars, new friends and new opportunities are always around the corner – and even the most fearsome of foes seem small, compared to what they’ve already been through to reach them.