Codex: Suulas/zh-hans

因歌声而俗称“塞壬”。

Name (Singular): Suula

Sexes: Male, female, and hermaphrodite (Evenly split between the three.)

Height: 6’ to 8’

Hair: Suula hair is composed of extremely slender, soft feathers. In terms of style and texture, they closely mirror human or ausar hair, while remaining aerodynamic and water resistant.

Skin: A suula’s skin is composed of a layer of extremely smooth, soft scales. Similar to that of a Terran shark, a suula’s epidermis is highly advantageous for swimming. Common colors range from blue, red and green, to purple, gold and silver. The skin is often marked with stripes, and most suula have a paler coating on their bellies and chests. Their digits are slightly webbed, and their forearms bear a thin coating of vestigial feathers.

Eyes: A suula’s eyes are black, with vertically slit pupils. Irises come in a variety of colors, predominantly green, gold, blue, and red.

Feet & Legs: Suula legs are clawed, with four digits and a dew claw on the heel. Their toes are rather dexterous, able to grip and hold objects nearly as well as their hands, though they lack precise motor control of species such as the simii.

Wings: Each suula is born with a pair of sprawling feathered wings growing from his or her upper back. These wings are strong enough to enable short bouts of flight in Terran-standard conditions, or for extended durations in their native atmosphere on Valdera.

外观

苏拉人是高大、强健的掠食者，既为水下狩猎也为空中狩猎而生。他们在类人框架上结合鸟类与水生特征，许多人认为其生理构造既带威胁又富诱惑。多数族人皮肤色彩鲜明，有宽大的羽翼，身材最适合形容为丰满。然而他们也拥有棱角分明的脸，生着双排撕裂性牙齿和一条一英尺长的缠握舌。苏拉人手指带爪，每人都有可施出锤击般力量的鳍尾；耳朵高而有鳍，从手腕到接近肩膀的前肢覆有绚丽色彩的羽毛。

凭借黑暗、掠食者般的眼睛及光滑鳞肉上的独特花纹，许多人把苏拉人误认为非常原始的种族并不奇怪。事实恰恰相反，但不少苏拉战士乐于利用自己可怕的外表。另一些人则更愿以迷人的丝绸衣物、炫目珠宝或全息技术来冲淡这种印象。

性与繁殖

苏拉人有三种性别：雄性和雌性拥有银河标准的性器配置，此外还有雌雄同体者。三者外表都颇为女性化；雄性是三者中体型最小、最纤细的，却拥有比本种雌雄同体者平均大约 25% 的生殖器。雄性苏拉人还有不成比例地巨大的外置睾丸，常有葡萄柚大小或更大，并连接在平均约一英尺长的雄性器官上。在所有性别中，他们带毒的阴茎触须效果最强。

同样，雌性苏拉人的臀部、乳房和屁股明显比其他性别大：按地球人／奥萨尔人标准，平均雌性相当丰满，罩杯平均为 F 或更大，臀部也适于养育大窝幼体。雌性在身高和体格上也是三种性别中最大的，其他种族最好以“亚马逊式”形容她们；她们可长至八英尺以上，古代时曾是本族主要猎手与养家者，因此拥有可怕的身体力量。

因此，在大多数方面，雌雄同体的苏拉人介于纯性别同族之间。他们身高适中，通常约七英尺，而性器官尺寸则大致符合人类比例。

Suula genitalia is positioned in the usual place for a biped, though the shape and contents are comparatively unique. A suula’s vagina is comparatively tight but elastic, and filled with hundreds of small cilia that are constantly in motion during intercourse. The entrance of the womb is surrounded by somewhat larger tentacles that wrap around a penetrating penis and pull it deeper to insure fertilization.

The masculine organ is long and thick, with a bulbous crown. Tentacles line the penis, each tentacle able to sting their partner with a potent mix of aphrodisiacs and fertility enhancing drugs. At the tip, six smaller, thinner tentacles lay waiting to sting and to help pull open the entrance to a female’s womb. At the base, six larger, longer tentacles wait to tease and stimulate a female inside and out, helping to bring about orgasm and relax her womb’s entrance. These tentacles will even caress and sting a male’s member before sex on instinct, necessitating he reach maximum hardness and sensitivity to help with repeated potent orgasms during sex. Between their tentacles and venom, suula copulation can last hours and dozens of climaxes.

After a successful mating, suulas will carry their young for six months before giving birth to live offspring. Birth is comparatively painless for the race thanks to their cilia-lined vaginas, which help to move the offspring out quickly and easily. Most suulas prefer to give birth in shallow water, as this helps to open the newborns’ gills early—as well as easing their own physical burdens due to the pregnancy. Suulas invariably give birth to twinned offspring (so twins, quadruplets and sextuplets are their equivalents of singletons, twins and triplets). Clutches of four are the most common, meaning a mother suula becomes quite gravid during pregnancy.

Because all suula pregnancies result in multiple births, and the race is quite active in terms of reproduction, so-called “womb siblings” are considered the closest form of relationship (perhaps even stronger a bond than mates or parents), and later in life it is quite common for womb-sisters to share lovers, or even take common mates. Suulas are quite naturally polyamorous, and while most females choose only one “stud” to sire her children, suulas of all sexes commonly enjoy the attentions of several partners. Between womb-siblings’ tendency to share and the race’s naturally high libido, suulas have developed something of a reputation for sexual excess and orgiastic behavior.

History & Society

Suulas hail from the oceanic, mountainous world of Valdera, located within the current borders of the Gryvain Heartland Republic. A thick-atmosphere, stormy world, Valdera has little in the way of solid land—and what there is, is extremely rocky and unforgiving, with little vegetation. Because of this, it’s little wonder the suula evolved from predatory fish (believed to be similar to Terran tiger sharks) before acquiring the means to take to the air.

As they adapted to sapience, and eventually civilization, suulas primarily constructed coastal settlements, combining underwater segments of their cities with vaulting halls dug into the sides of the mountains and cliffs, protected from their homeworld’s violent storms. From these halls, the suula began to mine for crystals and gemstones—to this day, ornamentations of jewelry is culturally significant, both as status symbols and as ornamentation for mating rituals, friendship bonds, and other cultural touchstones.

Valdera was discovered in the 10th Great Planet Rush, during which time the suula were in a roughly medieval state of technology and social development. Their upliftment process was difficult, between the species’ surprising shyness in the face of alien contact, compounded by both a spiritual awakening around a latent psionic who claimed the “power of the crystals” to repel the invaders and a rapidly growing war-like sentiment once rushers began strip-mining certain landmasses. It took several decades for Confederate diplomats (and a small force of Terran-Space Coalition marines) to finally bring the various queens and warlords of the planet to the table and begin the uplifting process in earnest.

Naturally, Valdera’s rich supply of gemstones and precious metals, especially sheradine, has since made the world a fairly profitable destination for trade and mining corporations. Post-First Contact, Steele Tech and Aegis are the primary interests on the planet, with Aegis operating a massive in-atmosphere shipyard on the planet’s watery surface. Hundreds of thousands of suulas are employed by the foundries and yards sprawling across their worlds’ southern ocean.

As mentioned, Valdera currently resides within the domain of the G.H.R. A very close neighbor of the gryvain homeworld of Vendiko, Valdera’s similar atmosphere and the two races’ similar physiologies suggest a possible shared heritage — though scientists currently cannot make a certifiable connection that would prove one or both races are descended from a common, terraforming-capable ancestor. Relations between the two species are quite amicable regardless, though each insists that, should there be a shared ancestor, their race was clearly the original. Unsurprisingly, gryvain-suula hybrids are an extremely common occurrence.

Suula themselves are best known throughout the galaxy for their singing voices. They were originally called “sirens” by the spacers that first encountered them for good reason: suulas have haunting, song-bird-like voices that carry an enchanting beauty, and among spacers who work and live with them, their voices have taken on an almost mythic quality. Across the rest of the galaxy, suulas count hundreds of best-selling pop icons, opera singers, and even symphonic metal vocalists among their ranks — any genre where a soulful woman’s voice can make its mark.

Despite their predatory nature, modern suulas are often described as being quite gentle and fun-loving. Indeed, they are quite famous for a strong romantic streak: most suulas admit to thinking quite frequently about their partners, especially on matters of settling down and raising children. Romantic bonds are exceptionally important to the suula, especially those made with their “mates” (and between a female and her “stud,” or the sire of her children). They are a peaceful race, with no record of major interstellar conflict since their upliftment.

Technology

Modern suula technology is galactic-standard, primarily influenced by gryvain and terran trade. Their dedicated military forces are relatively small, operating a few dozen warships to counteract piracy as part of the planet’s Guardian Force, supplemented by G.H.R. and Confederate Peacekeeper protection for the species’ handful of newer colonies. Like the gryvain, the suulas heavily supplant their military and worker force with V.I. drones. Most suula-made technology is highly decorative (and expensive) but functional, incorporating gold and gemstones liberally into their designs.