Vyr'ar
Emperor of the Unknown
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
[SIZE=11pt]Intent[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]: Flesh out the Grysk species[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt][/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]Image Credit[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]: Artist is Beckjann [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Canon:[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt] [/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Grysk[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Links:[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt] Grysk Hegemony[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]GENERAL INFORMATION[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Name[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]: Grysk[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Designation:[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt] Sentient [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Origins:[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt] Grysk Homeworld[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Average Lifespan:[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt] Approximately 118 standard years[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Estimated Population:[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt] Interplanetary, though while rarely seen outside their Hegemony it is likely they are quite numerous. According to various reports on Grysk attacks on other Unknown Region entities.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Description[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]: Some would say that merely the form of a Grysk oozes the cruelty of their people, an angular and boney people rising a head above most humans: with an angled brow ridge that makes them seem eternally angry at some transgression, while their tapered skulls and eyes set deep within them that have been said to give them a vaguely corpse-like appearance. Many Grysk prefer to be bald over having any flowing manes of hair, and this cultural trait has lead to further this comparison to corpses that those few who have gazed on their faces have mustered.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]PHYSICAL INFORMATION[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Breathes[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]: Type 1[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Average Height of Adults[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]: 1.98 Meters[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Average Length of Adults[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]: N/A[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Skin color[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]: Pale-Greys, occasionally with a slight green tint[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Hair color[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]: Black, usually. Though some Grysk are willing to indulge in simpler (and less violent) pleasures and will dye it.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Distinctions[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]: In comparison to baseline humanity Grysk are generally seen to have a more villainous look to them. Their brows point downwards as to make them seem almost eternally angry, and their tapered skulls lead them to commonly remained helmed so as to protect these slightly weaker skulls than many of the species in the Galaxy. Unlike humanity their eyes are more deeply set, and their forms are much lankier (though there is a deceptive power within them). And of course, their coloration makes them immediately distinctive from baseline humanity. Ranging in a wide variety of rather dull and uninteresting pale greys, with the occasional tint of color.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Races[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]: The Grysk people have become a fairly mixed bunch over the long years of their Hegemony’s existence, there is no major difference in race between Grysk. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Force Sensitivity[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]: It is incredibly rare for a Grysk to possess any ability in using the force, and those that can are usually very weak in it. Possessing only a single power or two they can use at a basic level. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Strengths[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Pheromonal Thralls[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]The Grysk possess potent pheromones, whilst once used to subdue prey during the primitive years of the Grysk the application for this has expanded tenfold. As ever since the days of the ancient Hegemony active during the reign of Palpatine the Grysk have expanded the use of their pheromones to bring under planets under their thrall. Used to great effect during their many conquests. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]War is all [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]In matters of warfare it is hard to match the Grysk people, with a culture almost entirely devoted to conquest and the waging of war. These cruel and cold souls can wage war to an effectiveness few races in the Galaxy can claim to share. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Weaknesses[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Closest the most Dangerous [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]The biggest fault of most Grysk is they rarely see the wider picture of things, this is most relevant in combat and warfare: their preferred method of that ever important combat is to assail the closest target as viciously as possible. A fault that has come to bite them more than a handful of times during their long history. This also can come around with individual Grysk being far more concerned with fighting the closest threat to them rather than looking beyond to the further and more dangerous threats.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Hot-Headed Marauders [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Grysk are a violent people, and it is hard to deny such a thing. Whilst there has been a shift towards the possibility of diplomatic approaches, the Grysk naturally go to violent options for dealing with issues. This has lead them to biting off more than they can chew during certain parts of their history, leading to massive losses for the Hegemony. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]CULTURE[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Diet[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]: Naturally, Grysk are a carnivorous people. But as time progressed the vast majority of Grysk Warriors have replaced the teeth needed to reliably chew through meat replaced with moulds holding various tools. Most Grysk now will just subsist on a diet of nutrient paste and other similar military rations: those who are outside proper military operations or stay home continue on with this carnivorous diet instead. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Communication[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]: The Grysk language is a bizarre and alien thing to the other species in the Galaxy, especially when one considers that the vast majority of Grysk warriors will not actually be speaking it to each other: many Grysk will communicate with long-reaching ultrasound communications to quickly converse and to prevent gleaning enemies from picking up their plans. When actually spoken it a rough and fairly guttural language: befitting for ones so well endowed into the art of war. Grysk do as well write, and it ends up being more common than their spoken tongue.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Technology leve[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]l: Whilst not more primitive than the rest of the Galaxy, the Grysk have developed methods that are somewhat unlike the rest of the Galaxy. Such as capital ship ferrying warships, an extensive use of Slugthrower and Lightning gun based weaponry, and uncommon cybernetic replacements. But, outside of the war-lust that dominates Grysk culture many of their peacetime technologies do not differ far from the wider Galaxy.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Religion/Beliefs[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]: The Grysk have a polytheistic religion, though in recent generations the worship of these gods has somewhat began to eclipse for secular warfare. These gods represent various aspects of life that is considered important to the Grysk people, foremost of all these gods is Aman’esk the War God: to little surprise. Even with the slow decline of religion within the Hegemony many will still pay tribute to Aman’esk, for war and battle is the defining traits of Grysk culture. Other aspects considered important to the Grysk’s current culture are Emisha the Goddess of fertility and prosperity, and Gamhar the Void God. To some extent these deities are still worshipped purely for a rather mundane desire for tradition and nostalgia: save for declaring themselves to Aman’esk for good omens during wartime many will only venerate these gods in passing.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]General behavior[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]: [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Grysk are a cruel and aggressive people, they are natural conquerors. So long has the expansion of the Hegemony been thoroughly dug into the minds of their people that these ways of life have become normal, they are majority a warrior-species at this point with only a small amount of the population staying home. The Grysk believe themselves superior to all species in the Galaxy, and truthfully believe they are the rightful rulers of the entire void: this belief is tempered in their handful of diplomats, but their brutal subjugation of planets that oppose absorption into the Hegemony shows just how little they think of other species, enslaving the populace and scouring the world of any valuable resources. Whilst Grysk are a brutal and aggressive people, they are not stupid: they are more than willing to abuse the fact of their wildly different military development from the rest of the Galaxy, observing a target before launching a vicious strike to bring this foe to heel. Whilst usually applied during conquest, such things have become applied to almost their entire lives: watch and learn, then act.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]HISTORICAL INFORMATION[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Early Existence, Conquered to Conquerors[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]The homeworld of the Grysk is a brutal place, and so it made a brutal people. In these ancient days, where the first races were starting to reach the stars: the Grysk lived a simple life, the concept of their authoritarian regime an impossibility. They lived off the land, they hunted with the crushing efficiency that would be seen later on when they reached the stars. They learned the meritocracy that would come to dominate their way of life in these old days, the strongest would live, the strongest could lead their people, and the strongest would lead them to the path of survival. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]But this simple life was not to last.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]More and more races had begun to reach the stars, and the Unknown Regions were always a dangerous place filled with people just as vile as the Grysk would become. The Vagaari, one of the most prevalent aggressor species within that entire region of space, had begun on the path they would follow the rest of forever it seemed. Their crude warships took the stars, they hunted for conquest, for slaves, they could all that which they had done to their own and now inflict it upon others. Unfortunately, the primitive Grysk had ended up in the way of this early conquest. They could not hold to even this crude technology that took species to the stars, and this early technology of war. And so, the hunters became hunted, the conquerors of the future were the conquered of the day. They toil, they began to fuel the new Vagaari war engine. Enslaved to build weapons, warships, whatever warmest that their brutal homeworld left was broken by even more brutal overlords.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]But even then, submission was not in the interests of the Grysk. While they labored, they learned. They studied these weapons of war, they were the tools of the strongest hunter. But the strongest hunter was not Grysk, not from the tribe. And this would not do. No, would not do at all. And so did the Grysk’s hatred for all other species grow in the toiling shipworks, and with this hatred bred rebellion. A handful of visionaries who would come to rally the enslaved Grysk to reclaim their spot as the prime hunters, greatest of these was one Mahar’elsk the man who would become the first Fleetmaster of the Grysk Hegemony and it’s first ruler for whom all Grysk later try to emulate. During this rebellion where the Grysk learned of the more potent application of their phenomena, slowly but surely many slaves began to enthrall their masters to serve as the sparks of rebellion. These enthralled slavers provided the spiteful and beaten laborers with the very weapons they had been creating. Now with their thralls entow and weapons in hand, the Grysk began a mass uprising that spread like wildfire to all the populated areas of the planet. They learned to strike in ways that which their Vagaari rulers could not prepare or defend against: this ancient victory lending to their gravitation to obscure tactics later on when the Hegemony itself came into existence. And with unrelenting brutality they avenged their fallen kin and turned their shackles upon their captors, even those without weapons tore chunks of flesh with bared teeth. They marched, and with that march the Grysk learned war. Beautiful, judging, war.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]With their thralls in tow they took to the Vagaari’s primitive spacecraft, claiming them for their own. The start of the Grysk’s ever important navy, and with this warship they took the stars. Not in the ways of other races with advancements in technology and sophistication. No, these primitives forced their way into the Galactic field, and with this in mind it becomes no wonder why the Grysk act as they do. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Mahar’elsk, the Visionary, and the Formation of the Hegemony[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Mahar’elsk took hold as the Grysk’s new leader during this new and tumultuous time in their history, declared the Fleetmaster of their new single warship they Grysk took to deeper within their own solar system. The grasp of their people would now spread, and any Vaagari who had supplanted themselves in their lands would feel the burning lash of the angered Grysk people. Though little was to be found, they planted their flags in dead worlds and not until they reached one of the last worlds of the system did they encounter the meager Vaagari outpost. Utterly crushing the alien presence in their system, the Grysk declared themselves rulers of this rather empty place the great visionary Mahar’elsk took his people into an early golden age of discovery and reverse engineering that would sky-rocket them from their formerly primitive lives.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Turning the Vagaari’s foundries into tools of expansion, they learned the mysteries of space travel through their captured warships, how to develop warships and weapons and create the meager foundations of what would eventually become the Grysk war machine. Let this not inflate the might of the early Grysk too much, they were a pathetic little power that was untouched by the vast majority of the Galaxy. For while the Rakatan’s grew their mighty Infinite Empire the Grysk merely sat in blissful ignorance, their mighty leader pushing his people on to do great and better, even as he grew into an old and weary man. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Mahar’elsk had ascended somewhat to the status of living god, and many did in fact worship him as a being sent from above by those divine creators of existence. A god of progress and innovation, and one that all future leaders of that cold and dark people would try and emulate, to never quite the same rampant success that the mighty Mahar’elsk reached in his long life.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]But with a true people forged, and a growing ability to actually expand out of their near lifeless system. The question now arose: what next?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]They Say, History Repeats Itself[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]It would truly be a lie to say the Grysk have an interesting history, if one finds themselves fascinated by the early history of mundane species then they will certainly find pleasure in their somewhat violent records of industrialization and scouting, a minor war with the Vaagari that would span almost 100 years with no major battles that became worthy of the legends of the Unknown Regions, the Grysk prospered on their slowly crumbling world. Industry had taken it’s toll on the land, and resources were expended faster than it could handle. The world became hostile, even more so than it already was. The system itself became scoured of valuable materials and resources used in the production of goods and weapons of war. In these dull times, that would span thousands of years, the Grysk soon needed to look outwards, deeper into the void that surrounded them. They were the prime hunters, were they not? And they would take what they needed. In this simple decision, what would become known as the Grysk Hegemony had been set properly into motion. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Now, it was time for war.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Eternal Conflict[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]The time for expansion had begun, now possessing the weapons needed to wage war against the other species of the Unknown Regions: those handful that they actually knew about. The Grysk would quickly become infamous for their savage methods of war and merciless expansion of their new Hegemony. Putting the tricks they learned against their Vagaari slaves they began one of the traits they would become one of the most feared for: enthrallment. They began the slow infection of any world that was unfortunate to fall in the path of the Hegemony’s first expansion, this enrapturing of lesser races fueled the new war machine even greater. And this fact is what has made the Grysk such an infamous threat within the Unknown Regions, there is very much a snowball effect to their war effort: the more they expand, the more thralls and resources they will collect, and with that they can produce even more armaments and armor, conquer more worlds, produce more thralls, and the cycle will repeat until the Grysk’s space grows more and more bloated. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt] Much like nature itself, this period that would become known as the Grysk Conquests became an almost inescapable aspect of life within the Unknown Regions. For as the Grysk expanded they came into conflict with many other powers within the Unknown Regions, such as the Chiss Ascendancy, these bloody wars would be catalogued by art of the period and shadowy records of the period. This rapid expansion killed thousands in the coming war, there was no mercy given by either party. Such was the sudden threat of these early Grysk, and to some extent this past glory has never been totally reclaimed. In cycles these wars would happen again and again, for the early Hegemony was beaten back into a fraction of its size by the many enemies it had made. So they returned to the shadows, and they grew.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]These trying times of war taught the Grysk many things, the exotic ways in which they wage war that is unlike many other species in the Galaxy, a moderate reverence for death, and the truly all consuming pretense for preparations for the next war. The cycle would continue and expansionary war after expansionary war would pop up after every handful of years, sometimes there would be a decade plus without another Grysk assault, sometimes it was only a few years. During this long period of conflict, the Grysk developed a sort of living history with their warriors: defacing the right side of their armor after particularly memorable battles or when fighting against particularly destructive opponents. It became a show of seniority, a memory of those foes worthy of remembering. This became one of the most defining features of the Grysk warriors as they launched their attacks. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]These conflicts would continue on well into the reign of Palpatine, and there would be multiple times the Grysk minorly came to blows with the Empire. Disappointingly never enough to truly take their own power-base much outside of the Unknown Regions.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]An Unexpected Shift[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]In the recent history of the Grysk there has been a long pause of any true war, they have been biding their time before unleashing an assault upon those other powers in the Unknown Regions, instead there has been a somewhat “peaceful” shift within these savage warriors.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Upon the crowning of one Emperor Vyr’ar there became many radical shifts in the doctrines of the Grysk, changes whilst minor to some, they were massive compared to the fairly static political structure of these people. Vassals were created, a massive change in the thrall culture that had been perpetuated prior: an offer given to worlds to kneel and join peacefully into the Hegemony then be crushed under the weight of the Grysk’s army. True diplomats were made, able to ferry the Grysk into having real alliances and an ability to slowly but surely make their way into the proper galactic sphere.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Once more, the Grysk way of life prepares to shift. Be it for the better or the worse is something that only time can tell.[/SIZE]
I had a lovely time reading this! Only one or two things and then we can get this approved: