Sentient Grimlyns

Charles

...I See You...
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:|: Grimlyns :|:

"You want someone butchered in their sleep? With nothing left of the bugger but their half-eaten maggot-infested corpse? Their limbs, ears, and nose all torn off? Grotesquely scalped with weird insults carved into the body?
Yeah... Hire bloody Grimlyns."
- Unknown

Designation: Sentient
Classification: Mammalian humanoid
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Height Range: 5'0"-5'8"
Weight Range: 100-160 lbs.
Lifespan: 60 standard galactic years

Skin Colors: Various
Hair Colors: Black
Eye Colors: Various

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Homeworld: Thaator (Write-up Inbound)
Habitats: Various
Language: Grimish
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Biology and Appearance
"We may not have much in stature, but we make up for it in sheer numbers! Ever seen ants swarm a grasshopper? You're the grasshopper."

A Grimlyn's defining characteristics are their long pointy ears and nose, large eyes with slitted pupils like a cat's, sleek black hair, and their apposable toes. Their skin is usually speckled and mottled with darker splotches of their main skin hue. They even have elongated toes with one apposable big toe on each foot. Their eyes give off an eerie reflective light in the dark. Their teeth were usually sharp and pointed, able to easily tear through flesh. They also had a very high pain tolerance that allowed for the species to continue acting on adrenaline after receiving bodily damage without going into shock. Some Grimlyns could lose entire limbs and still fight like a ferocious animal.

Though they are usually smaller than your average human, they are vastly more agile and quick. Their finger and toe nails are not long or sharp enough to be used as natural weapons, but they do give Grimlyns the advantage of being able climb most surfaces with ease. Their feet also helped them with this, as they could grab with them like normal hands if they chose to. Grimlyns were designed for darker terrain, with their large eyes being able to see in a lowlight night vision. A pair of long sensitive ears and a large nose also gave them keen hearing and smell.

However, Grimlyns had a strange reaction to natural UAV rays. When exposed to sunlight, it nearly blinded them as their eyes were meant for the dark and they easily burned under prolonged exposure to sunlight, even if the heat and light wasn't extreme. To cope with this, Grimlyns usually covered themselves when traversing by day, wearing helmets with tinted visors to aid their eyes.


Reproduction and Matabilism
When it came to reproduction, Grimlyns produced sexually, with the female gestation period lasting about six months. Grimlyns always gave birth to at least three offspring, which has aloud for their species to multiple fairly quickly. A strange quirk in their DNA allowed for many Grimlyns to be born with nanism or giantism. However, Grimlyns that hailed from Grimlyn parents were more likely to be born with nanism while hybrids with one Grimlyn parent were more likely to have giantism. Because of this, Grimlyns were not opposed to pairing with other species. Especially if it meant producing even stronger and smarter hybrids. In this case, most hybrids received the long ears and night vision with a slight sensitivity to sunlight without the major drawbacks stated above. They wouldn't receive the elongated toes for climbing either but did take the Grimlyn's natural pain tolerance.

Grimlyns matured much more quickly than most other races and were considered adults by around twelve to fourteen years of age. Grimlyns, however, did not have the longest lifespan either, only being able to reach about fourty years of age before their physical condition began to diminish. The oldest Grimlyns lived to be a little over sixty but few ever made it that far.

Grimlyns were omnivorous but they always preferred meat. Their stomachs were strong enough to eat raw meat without risk of getting sick. In fact, raw edible material was easier for them to digest than processed and cooked meals.



Behavior and Culture
"If one of us doesn't like you, we all don't like you. Talk backwards? Dead. Annfyn or Sephi? Double dead. Don't eat meat? Fuck you!"

Grimlyns have been known to be very opportunistic and cruel folk, using their cunning for their own and their clan's gain. Because of the harsh environment of their homeworld, they value survival above all else. Whether it be through intelligence, strength, or something in between. They are all naturally aggressive and short tempered, usually the ones to start or join a fight rather than break one up. Subtilty, to say the least, is not their strong suit.

When it comes to the pecking order, they pick on the weak and obey the strong. The strongest usually leads an entire clan of goblins while the weakest sit at the bottom of the totem pole with little hope of climbing up. However, Grimlyns always seek to be led- despite being quite capable of being self-sufficient. The leader, or Grimlord, of a clan always searches for some sort of master, weather vile or gracious, to give their people purpose. As such, the actual leader of a Grimlyn clan is usually not a Grimlyn.

There are at least fifty separate Grimlyn Clans that run rampant, but there are three clans larger than all the rest. It is said that they come from the noble line of the old House Umbra Dalhaeros and each is especially competitive with one another. The three Clans are called the Great Clans of Umbra, Da'hl, and Hiiroos.


Grudges and Leadership
Regardless of how pathetic one might be considered to one clan, they are all intensely loyal to each other and will fight to the death if someone challenges their honor. This, mixed with their high aggressivity, was what made them such a force to reckon with in combat. No Grimlyn is ever completely by itself, and seldom do they ever prefer solitude over numbers. Crowded spaces give them comfort and empty places make them fairly uncomfortable.

However, Grimlyns harbor deep unreasonable hate for both the Sephi and the Annfyn. Grimlyns were said to have been Annfyn once, but had been exiled for reasons still disputed to this day. But, what all Grimlyns can agree on is that they were left for dead, and because they were left to rot on Thaator, they lost the grace and longevity they once had. They blame both races for their primitive decent and that hate is unquenchable.

Grimlyns do have a common ranking system for each clan and it goes as follows;


Master/Grimmaster: The undisputed leader of a Grimlyn clan, usually not a Grimlyn at all.
Grimlord: The spokesman/leader over an entire Grimlyn clan.
Grimhook: The warriors and sentries of the clan.
Grimshank: The hunters, healers, and farmers of the clan.
Grimlock: The craftsman, builders, and engineers of the clan.
Grimbles: The lesser-most members of the clan, usually elderly or the ill conditioned.

The Force
Grimlyns revere the Force as a source of strength, therefore the gifted are usually made Grimlords or Grimhooks when they're old enough. They call the Force sensitive members of their society 'Goblyns' which translates closely to 'God-like' in their native language. Sometimes, a Goblyn will have no desire to be led and will become the undisputed leader of a clan, shunning any past non-Grimlyn away, whether peacefully or viciously. However, if the master of their clan is Force sensitive, usually they offer any Goblyns up to be trained by the master. Very few Grimlyns are gifted with the Force, and because of it's rarity and their naturally angry nature, they don't view the Force as having two sides (that being the Light Side and the Dark Side). It simply just is.


Coming of Age
When it came to raising offspring, they were usually taken care of by the clan's healers instead of the parents, and were raised communally. Most Grimlyns do not care about who they pair with, only seeing reproducing as a necessity and way of survival. Children were expected to become proficient in at least one productive skill before the age of fourteen when they would be considered adults. There was no ceremony or rite of passage held for those coming of age, and were expected to do their part within the clan or suffer being left behind.

Cannibalism
One fairly controversial subject that has caused many to look down on Grimlyns as no more than mere savages, is their delight in cannibalism. To Grimlyns, anything made of flesh would be considered food- and that included their own kind. When one Grimlyn clan went to war against another Grimlyn clan, the winners would eat the fallen losers. Not out of some ritual or strange belief- they just ate one another. This is primarily due to the fact that their homeworld is so barren and food is hard to come by. If one clan began to starve during a harsh winter, they would eat the weaker members of their cast or even devour other clans if it meant their survival.

However, Grimlyns never ate children of their own or other species, seeing as they aren't mature enough to fend for themselves yet. Though they may seem gruesome, they have some standards to say the least.


Skills and Trophies
Grimlyns made sure to always adorn themselves with piercings, self-inflicted scars, or brandings, for each major feat one accomplished. Everything else would essentially come down to clan preference. Some groups shaved their heads while others grew their hair out until was longer than their own body, dragging behind them like a tail. Grimlyns usually wore colors that represented their clan and even had trade mark war paint and tattoo styles affiliated to that clan.

Grimlyns were also a fairly intuitive species, able to create kit-bashed starships, weaponry, and armor out of scavenged scraps. However, the shinier and more expensive something looked, the more they wanted it. This greed and ambition would lead to the many clans always being at war with one another over who's hoard and food supply was bigger. The need to win these skirmishes motivated most goblins to come up with bigger and better machinations. Essentially, given the resources, a Grimlyn could forge what they would call a 'Bad-Day MK 2' and it would preform just as well as what we would call an 'E-11D'.


Language
They way Grimlyns communicated was through their own strange dialect called Grimish. It is a very harsh and guttural sounding language that uses overenunciated consonants that resulted in lots of spit and an intimidating sound. While Grimlyns would hear a simple 'I love you' the uneducated would probably think they've just received a death threat.

History
13,000 BBY: House Umbra Dalhaeros banished from Annwfyn.
13,025 BBY: Colony crash landing on Thaator.
12,000 BBY: House Umbra Dalhaeros divides themselves into three main Clans.
2,000 BBY: First arrival of explorers, believe the de-evolved Annfyn to be a new race and name them Grimlyns.
1,000 BBY: Individual Clans splinter from the main three and establish trade with other planets, but are still too chaotic to establish a capital and planetary government.

5 BBY: Still unable to stop warring with one another, leads to subjugation under the Galactic Empire.
0 BBY: The Galactic Empire pulls assets off Thaator, leaving them to govern themselves.
1 ABY: The Clans begin warring with each other again.
130 ABY: Shamans of the Great Clan Umbra prophesize of peace under a mighty ruler.
140 ABY - Present Day: Clans still at War, primarily between the three Great Clans of Umbra, Da'hl, and Haeros.

Grimlyns were believed to once be Annfyn themselves, derived from the House Umbra Dalhaeros. However, this House had a fanatical worship of the Dark Side that let to their banishment. This led to a colony crash landing on Thaator. They sent out a distress call for help before the colony ship was destroyed, but for some reason, no one answered the call. So, the colony had to survive Thaator on their own, and it wouldn't be another thousands of years before the planet would be visited by other sentient life. Because the surface world was usually too rough to live on, they moved underground and built their cities in the bases of mountains, cave systems, and caverns. During that time, the race slowly evolved with each generation to better survive their new rugged homeworld, and thanks to the planet's natural affinity with the Dark Side, it only further progressed this aggressive evolution. This rapid warping of biology would soon lead to what we now know as Grimlyns.

In the present day, Grimlyns are still quite rare to find away from their homeworld, even more so by their lonesome. But, a few braver Clans have traveled away from Thaator in search of some new found purpose, whether it be as pirates, mercenaries, or a very strange security team, they are always willing to serve under strong leader that pays and feeds them well. However, a few zealous Clans hailing from Great Clan Umbra are in search of the one foretold to one day unite the Grimlyn people. If a Grimlyn is separated from their Clan for whatever reason, they usually find comfort in joining bands of mercenaries, pirates, or other like-minded individuals that give them purpose and a family or sorts.


Intent
To create a sub-species of Annfyn, with permission from both @LouJoVi and @LilyNion , that's more evil-inclined than good. Also to create a fun species for future character ideas that brings a goblin-esque feel next to the already approved elves, orcs, and tieflings. It takes inspiration from the Falmer, in Skyrim, the stereotypical Goblins from Dungeons and Dragons, as well as the lesser Orcs from Lord of the Rings.
"The Age of Elves/Orcs/Tieflings is over, the Age of Goblins is Nigh!"

 
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