Codex: Cundarians/zh-hans

没有在身体上吓住山羊，就没有真正的太空。

名称： 昆达里安人（单数）与昆达里安人（复数）

Sexes: Male & Female split 50/50.

Height: Males average 6’ 4” in height. Females average 5’ 11”.

Weight: 80-115 kilograms.

Hair: None

Eyes: One pair, slit-pupiled and generally yellow sclera.

Skin: Grey, dark blue and mauve are the most common shades.

Features

Cundarians are digitigrade bipeds of slightly above average body mass in comparison to the galactic norm. Their males are taller and bulkier than the females, a dimorphism exaggerated further by the different lives they tend to lead. Cundarians have prominent, defined faces immediately recognisable to humans and ausar, with the average compliment of two eyes, a fairly flat nose, a mouth and two fin-shaped ears. They do not grow body hair, however almost all adult males sprout small tentacles from their chin and jaw. These grow slowly over the course of a male cundarian’s life, displaying how old they are. All cundarians grow plated ridges from their brows across the top of their heads, and sometimes long, dreadlock-like tentacles as well. Whether head-tentacles are present, and the size and shape of the ridges, is dependent upon an individual cundarian’s ethnicity.

Cundarians have a slightly top-heavy, muscular frame most notable in their males as a result of an evolution spent mostly climbing the mountainous regions of their home world of Samaria. For the same reason they have blunt, balance-imparting tails, and their legs are hoofed; three toed and keratinous, perfect for traversing rocky, vertiginous territory.

昆达里安人最引人注目的身体特征，或许是他们能在极端温度下进入类似蛰伏的状态。他们身体大部分区域的皮肤光滑却坚韧，摸起来像鹅卵石。进入蛰伏后，表皮的化学成分会改变并进一步强化，直到整个昆达里安人的身体都变成岩石般的状态，几乎不受外界环境影响。这会迫使昆达里安人僵在原地，同时让身体和认知机能大幅减慢；但也使他们能够在会杀死其他生物的大气条件下存活数日。

繁殖

从外表上看，昆达里安人的性别构造对银河系大多数种族而言都很容易辨认。雄性会长出四枚睾丸和一根巨大、自然垂挂且顶端钝圆的阴茎；雌性则在石质泄殖腔后方长有宽敞的阴道。不过，由于昆达里安人精液的物理特性，他们的繁殖方式仍然独一无二。

射精后，昆达里安人的精液立即呈湿润、泡沫般的物质。如果任其静置，它会保持形状并硬化成光滑、坚韧却轻盈的固体。在雌性昆达里安人的子宫内完成授精后，精液会包裹受精卵，并在相对短的时间内变成硬壳卵；雌性随后便能将其产下。这样一来，昆达里安人就能比通常更快地产下大型卵，这对他们至关重要，因为每批只能产一枚卵，而种群周转率又很高（见下文）。

由于是卵生动物，雌性昆达里安人没有乳房，却拥有宽大的胯部和臀部，以便频繁产卵。昆达里安人的阴茎肌肉发达，雄性的高潮尤其强烈，才能射出半固态的精液。传统昆达里安关系中有一种常见做法：雄性用一团精液“封住”雌性的阴道口，只有卵出生时才会破裂。这样做能通过摩擦和拉伸持续刺激雌性；即使封塞始终未被破坏，也能以此“证明”她对伴侣的贞洁与忠诚。

Culture

The cundarians are a patriarchal society who place great value in honor earned through battle or personal hardship. Their very name is a samarin term meaning “bloodthirsty savage”, subsequently adopted with pride. Although their traditional values have mellowed through exposure to the outside galaxy, it is still rare for non-cundarians to meet female cundarians - they are largely confined to home worlds and colonies, where they are expected to raise children and maintain the social fabric. Male cundarians often express a desire to protect the moral sanctity of their females, a viewpoint they feel is confirmed by the licentiousness of a largely effeminate outside galaxy. This is not to say females wield absolutely no power within cundarian society - owners of property and land as a matter of course, they are traditionally the ultimate arbiters as to whether a male has earned enough honor to breed and hold station or not.

Cundarian honor is earned through vanquishing foes in battle or by overcoming intimidating trials of the body or mind. Mere strength or stamina are only one facet - tactical or technical brilliance are celebrated equally, if not more so. Whatever is materially gained from said battles or trials is of distant, secondary importance. Reports abound of cundarian raiders defeating colonial patrols and merchant convoys before simply leaving them without actually taking or killing anyone, the filmed proof of their victory enough. Outside of the anatae navy and military, cundarians usually find employment in mercenary groups and pirate gangs or on particularly hostile worlds, settings in which their mettle can be tested.

History

When the anatae discovered Samaria and uplifted the samarin in the Fifth Planetary Rush, little thought was given to the planet’s other sentient species, who unlike the literary-minded and sophisticated samarin were war-like, barely beyond the Bronze Age and confined mostly to the planet’s mountainous regions. In their early history the cundarians had brutalized the samarin, using their superior strength and aggression to tyrannize them across large tracts of the planet. Eventually, thanks to the samarin’s greater interest in and grasp of technology, they drove the cundarians back into the infertile wastelands of Samaria, where they subsequently lived a backward existence.

Unsurprisingly the samarin had a negative cultural view of the cundarians, and advised the anatae against attempting to uplift them as well. The cundarians’ natural love of adventure however saw them escape their planet anyway - mostly thanks to careless slavers - and eventually the Empire was forced into the difficult process of officially integrating them as well.

How successful that process was is debated. The anatae have ameliorated but never truly curbed the species’ entrenched traditional values, and cundarian raiders and pirates are a constant menace along new frontiers and poorly policed regions of space, a source of tension between the Empire and the rest of the U.G.C. They have however proved their worth many positive contributions elsewhere. Many of the Empire’s chief military and naval advisors are cundarian, and the first boots on the ground in any imperial intercession are invariably owned by cundarians (many of whom would refuse to serve if that wasn’t the case). Cundarians are also willing to colonize worlds most races would regard as out of the question, making them perfect for crewing mining installations and power plants on planets with hostile climates. The anatae generally view the cundarians as worth their boisterousness, given their willingness to serve at the sharp end of the Empire’s quest to spread its influence to as much of the galaxy as possible.