图鉴：塔拉奇人

昆虫型灵能奴贩。

名称（单数与复数）： 塔拉奇人

Sexes: Male & Female, equal split.

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。

Impatient to begin examination and extraction of the mineral resources and strange wildlife of Origaiz, the ausar regretted uplifting the grateful and non-hostile tarratch so readily once the race had become synonymous with frontier piracy and slave-taking. Origaiz has had its U.G.C. membership withdrawn and placed upon probation numerous times in an attempt to force it to get a handle on the problem, with little effect. Origaiz’s distant location and hostile environment deters would-be occupiers, and the fact the race aren’t technically at war with anyone and are perfectly willing to trade minerals, the prized mood-altering glamorflies and of course indentured servants with anyone unscrupulous enough, means the U.G.C. aren’t inclined to chase more hardball tactics with them. They have further buttressed themselves against opprobrium by becoming heavily involved within the galactic financial sector, with many tarratch hierarchies forging profitable partnerships with human and ausar-owned gene mod, real estate and loan companies.

Society

Away from the frontier the tarratch have developed into an urbane, pleasure-seeking society, forever inquisitive as to the next thrill and high that the galaxy can provide them.

The tarratch are a reasonably technologically sophisticated race, however they have little explicit interest in areas outside modding, pleasure and psionics. Their natural instinct for fast attack and resource seizing has caused them to evolve a lightning approach to warfare; their craft and armaments are designed to shock and overwhelm an enemy immediately, and if that doesn’t work, to retreat as fast as possible. Whilst they prefer the company of their own kind they are willing to work with other races, and can be found throughout the frontier working as mercenaries, traders and splicers. However, the difficulty they have moving throughout the core worlds thanks to their probationary status means that they are almost always found in the lawless hubs of the galaxy. Though they have few official colonies the tarratch have heavy presences on gateway worlds and stations, where intragalactic law is relaxed enough for them to operate freely.

The tarratch lack any recognizable form of central governance, instead organizing themselves into “hierarchies”. What each is concerned with, how big they are and how they are governed varies wildly, and changes all the time as new partnerships are formed, new groups splinter off and takeovers or coups are performed. The swiftly changing conditions of Origaiz did not readily implant a particular style of governance amongst the tarratch. Indeed, they as a culture express a pride in their adaptability, capriciousness and the difficulty other societies have in pinning them down. If they do express a particular trope culturally it is just that: changeability. Tarratch have little concept of betrayal or treason; if one tarratch loses his position of power as a result of their underlings or comrades working against him, this is considered a result of him simply not being smart or adaptable enough.

Since integration into wider galactic society, many profit-based hierarchies have worked out ways of moderating excessive changeability, in order that they may do business better with non-tarratch. This often takes the form of official “fronts”, usually constructed with the help of aliens, which others may negotiate with, whilst backstage the tarratch can continue practicing a form of politics that is bewildering and unsettling to most outsiders. Business travelers should be aware that tarratch rarely enter deals with only one goal in mind; there may be as many as three dozen reasons why they are attempting to buy or sell a good, most of which will be opaque to the other party, if not without consequence.

Slavery

The only truly stable interest tarratch culture has, aside from a pronounced love of fashion and pleasure, is slavery. Their fast-changing societies on Origaiz has evolved in them a different view of the practice to most; on a world where a dictatorship could become a commune within the same month, tarratch slaves may be presented with plenty of chances to overcome their position, and therefore a slave that stays a slave deserves or desires to do so. This feeds into a wider view amongst tarratch that other races - slow, staid, mostly incapable of pseudo-psionic communication, minds richly nutritious - simply merit enslavement, and that indeed it is a natural state for them to be in. They are perfectly capable of respecting U.G.C. rule of law, however, and scare stories of tarratch cot-robbers and press gangs on space stations are invariably untrue. All official hierarchies confine themselves to indentured servant trading, enslaving outlaws and, during frontier rushes, technically legal poaching of native species.

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.