Codex: Tarratch/zh-hans

昆虫型灵能奴贩。

名称（单数与复数）： 塔拉奇人

性别： 雄性与雌性，各占一半。

Height: 6' 1", average.

Weight: With half of them capable of flight the tarratch are light for their size, their evolution trading the safety and endurance afforded by dense bone and exoskeleton structure to achieve weights of 80-100 pounds.

Hair: Head only, naturally almost universally black.

Eyes: Black, pupil-less.

Wings: Seasonal, male only. See Reproduction.

Antenna: Their most recognizable natural feature, tarratch antennae grow in a “ruff” corona around their necks. They have the appearance of short, wide feathers which when vibrated shimmer with hypnotic, kaleidoscopic colors. Aside from being able to sense vibration the ruff apparently lends its wearer a limited ability to sense nearby minds, and can be used to communicate silently with other tarratch.

Appearance

Evolving from the strange insect analogues of their uncompromising home world of Origaiz, the tarratch are bipedal humanoids with distinct arthropod features. Their delicately featured spearhead-shaped faces and their alabaster skin are immediately recognizable to humans and ausar; their inky eyes, spidery digits and black exoskeleton-clad limbs are not. Their physical similarity to other sentient insect analogues, such as the recently discovered zil and myr, has lent fuel to the fire of galactic divergent evolution or “Seeder Precursor” theories. Setting them apart from other bipedal insect sentience are their ruffs of diaphanous, multi-colored moth-like feathers, which the tarratch can use to hypnotize and, with the aid of their long, butterfly-like tongues, feed psionically upon prey.

性别二态性、繁殖与性

雄性塔拉奇人天生有约六英寸长、微弯的黑色叉状阴茎，睾丸内置。雌性有黑色、无阴蒂且内部略弯的阴道。塔拉奇人不像多数种族那样射精：叉状阴茎尖端多孔，雄性在性交全程渗出油性透明精液，以逐渐增加润滑并方便插入。尽管没有阴蒂，塔拉奇阴道会自行润滑且敏感，雌性完全能够获得性满足。

塔拉奇人的性别二态性不大，雌雄均身形纤细、中性而俊美。雌性则有小型装饰性胸部隆起和位于臀部上方的昆虫腹部，通常仅足球大小。由于母星资源稀缺，塔拉奇人大部分生命都不育，只有身体感知到附近资源足够养育孩子时才会自然恢复生育力。届时雌性腹部膨大，雄性有时生出半透明昆虫翅膀，且两性性攻击性增强。受精后，雌性经腹部在短暂孵育期后产下一小窝卵。

尽管能与其他拟昆虫种族（或改造充分的其他种族）繁殖，塔拉奇人并不特别受生殖需求驱使。他们把天然不育视为恩赐，让自己纯粹为了享乐和强化心灵进食感受而追求性。和人类一样，他们乐于基因拼接以增强性快感，遇到带离奇附肢和改件的塔拉奇人并不罕见。

两性数量相等、身体差异小，加上雌性分娩相对容易，使塔拉奇人形成昆虫种族中相当罕见的性别平等观。遇到掌权或显要的雄性与雌性的概率相同——如果偶遇时能分辨差别的话。处于一个性别差异显著的银河中，塔拉奇人常以玩味态度对待性别，夸大天生中性特征以混淆、令他人不适，甚至引诱他人。

历史

奥里盖兹是一颗小型岩石星球，轴倾角很小，勉强处于炽白恒星的宜居带内。一面在无情酷热中炙烤，另一面又随迅速轮转冻结至核心。所有生命都演化出同时承受极热与极寒的能力：白天吸收能量、夜晚散失能量，并总是深埋地壳以避温并取得含水层。地表食物极少，塔拉奇人很早便演化出用闪耀颈鬃定住猎物、迫使其简单心灵将思绪和记忆浮现，以获知巢穴位置。母星敌对且急变的环境，使他们发展出反复无常、多样而无情的文明，围绕内战与掳奴运转；最佳资源不断随昼夜之间的温和天气带移动，因而拥有长期目标的持久社会概念对他们完全陌生。

第十次行星热潮中，奥萨尔人发现并提升塔拉奇人时，他们仍在铁器时代边缘挣扎。他们逃离奥里盖兹，来到对他们而言像无尽夏晨的银河多样生境，也发现拥有异常丰富心灵和有趣身体的大量智慧生命，令掳奴与交易能力呈指数扩张。塔拉奇人只部分依靠声带交流，也通过羽毛传递思想和感情，涉及复杂的礼节和虚张声势艺术。因此这昆虫种族文化上会轻蔑看待任何具有生物或人工灵能的种族，视其为受限的智慧，不能理解自己天生不过是塔拉奇人的玩物。

急于勘探、提取奥里盖兹矿产与奇异野生动物的奥萨尔人，曾轻易提升这群感激而非敌对的塔拉奇人；当他们与边陲海盗和掳奴者同义时，奥萨尔人后悔不已。U.G.C. 多次撤销奥里盖兹会籍并置其观察期，试图迫使其控制问题，却收效甚微。奥里盖兹位置偏远、环境严酷，吓退潜在占领者；而该种族技术上不与任何人交战，也乐意同任何足够不择手段的人交易矿物、珍贵致幻蛾及契约仆役，使 U.G.C. 不愿采取更强硬手段。许多塔拉奇阶层还与人类、奥萨尔人所有的基因改造、房地产和贷款公司建立获利伙伴关系，深度介入银河金融业来抵御谴责。

社会

离开边陲后，塔拉奇人发展成都市化、追求享乐的社会，永远好奇银河下一种刺激与快感。

塔拉奇人技术相当先进，却几乎不明言关注改造、享乐和灵能以外的领域。其快速攻击、攫取资源的本能令他们形成闪电战方式：飞船与军备都为立即震慑、压倒敌人而设计；若不成功，就尽快撤退。虽然偏爱同类陪伴，他们也愿与其他种族合作，可在边陲作为佣兵、商人和拼接师找到。但因观察期身份难以在核心世界通行，他们几乎总出现于银河无政府枢纽。虽官方殖民地不多，却在跨域法较宽松的门户世界和空间站有强大存在，得以自由活动。

塔拉奇人没有可识别的中央政府，而是组织成“阶层”。每个阶层关注何事、规模多大、如何治理差异极大，并随新伙伴关系、分裂团体、接管或政变不断变化。奥里盖兹快速变化的环境并未让他们形成特定治理模式；相反，这个文化以适应性、反复无常以及让其他社会难以捉摸为傲。若有什么文化母题，那就是可变性。塔拉奇人几乎没有背叛或叛国概念：若某人因下属或同伴反对而失权，只被认为不够聪明或不够适应。

融入更广银河社会后，许多以营利为本的阶层找到限制过度变化的方式，以便更好地与非塔拉奇人做生意。这常采取正式“门面”形式，通常在外星人协助下建立，供他人谈判；后台的塔拉奇人仍可实行让大多数外人困惑、不安的政治。商务旅行者应注意，塔拉奇人很少只为一个目标订约；他们买卖货物可能有多达三十六个理由，其中多数对另一方不透明，却未必没有后果。

奴隶制

除对时尚与享乐的强烈热爱外，奴隶制是塔拉奇文化唯一真正稳定的兴趣。奥里盖兹上快速变化的社会使他们对此有别于多数种族：在同月内独裁国可变成公社的世界，塔拉奇奴隶或许有很多机会摆脱地位，因此仍为奴者是应得或想要如此。这支撑他们更广泛的看法：其他种族缓慢、刻板、多数不能进行伪灵能沟通，而心灵又营养丰富，因此理应被奴役，且这本就是其自然状态。不过他们完全能尊重 U.G.C. 法治，塔拉奇人从婴儿床偷人或空间站抓丁的恐怖故事总是假的。所有正式阶层仅从事契约仆役交易、奴役不法者，以及边陲热潮中技术上合法地捕猎本土种族。

Tarratch-contracted servants are invariably kept for sexual, nutritional and/or ornate purposes. Any need to use slaves for labor purposes died out long ago, and employing them in this capacity is seen as an embarrassing waste. For the purposes of nutrition, tarratch often expose servants to a wide variety of experiences, in order to make their minds richer and therefore more satisfying to feed off. Tarratch interest in gene-modding is a happy coincidence; richer owners will literally change their servants repeatedly, testing out new combinations of mods that will in turn shift the perceptions of the servant and inflict any number of new emotions on them, from extreme pleasure to shock and horror, which can then be tapped and enjoyed. Slaves have prestige value, and trading exotically shaped and minded pieces of property is an extremely popular pastime. Being an indentured servant to the tarratch is generally an eventful but extremely draining occupation.

Tarratch-run syndicates often market themselves as “specialist” indentured servant traders, looking to meet the tastes of the most discerning of customers, whilst waging turf wars with their rivals and independent pirates in the frontier. More recently, in order to offset bitter competition they have encountered in the indentured servant trade, some tarratch hierarchies have reportedly expanded into drug running and chemical narcotic experimentation.

Feeding

Aside from the mundane requirement to eat that is understood by most other biological life, the tarratch are driven to feed upon the thoughts and feelings of other beings. This process, still not fully understood by wider galactic society, apparently provides them with the nutrients they need to continue being functionally psionic.

A tarratch looking to feed hypnotizes his or her target with their feather ruff, drawing their most intimate thoughts and memories to the surface, sexually overwhelming them. They then insert their long, hollow tongues into whatever closest resembles a mouth upon the target and feed upon the heady froth of psychic imagery that has formed, usually taking advantage of the aroused state of the victim at the same time. The sensation is described as like receiving long, extremely ruthless mental oral sex.

The tarratch are capable of reading their victim’s minds to a limited extent this way – particularly clear memories and strong impulses can be discerned – but observably and explicitly prefer the “taste” of raw emotion, usually seeking to drain a strongly perceived feeling from an invaded mind before anything else. Short term effects from being fed upon by a tarratch include memory blanks, sexual arousal backwash and complete loss of one or several emotions; if the victim is given enough time to recover however this recedes and missing thoughts grow back.

Having spent millennia feeding upon the simple and base emotions of animals, the tarratch found the sentient life of the galaxy an almost impossibly rich banquet which they have spent most of the intervening time gorging upon whilst working out new ways to make it even more delicious. Tarratch will rarely simply attack other beings on gate-worlds and stations, unless suitably desperate – they are much more likely to solicit willing “donations” with money or credit. Sentients encountered on the frontier, or indentured servants the tarratch themselves own, are considered fair game.