 May 16, 2008 - 1:54pm | Okay ... I have posted it elsewhere but I will post info on the S'sessu here as well ... perhaps they have been discussed in other forums throughout this site? To make things clearer though, at least as I understand it, one of the purposes of such a section as Sathar variants is to give a little more material for GM's to flesh out and make the play richer. Up to date there have been two variants posited: the first are the S'sessu themselves, which were created by David Cook and written up in Issue #96 of the old Dragon Magazine. The second is moreso a brainstorm of mine, borrowed heavily from the (now defunct - grrr!) Firefly tv show ... that of a strange group of "Sathar Reavers" that popped up for reasons, origin wise, somewhat similar to what was described for the original Firefly show. So then ... to details! :) @}-,-`- "It is a joyful thing indeed to hold intimate converse with a man after one’s own heart, chatting without reserve about things of interest or the fleeting topics of the world; but such, alas, are few and far between." – Yoshida Kenko (1283-1350), [i]Tsurezure-Gusa (1340) |
May 16, 2008 - 1:57pm | S'Sessu Here is a link to a .pdf article of the write up that David Cook did on this strange group back in the Dragon Magazine: http://www.f4fbbs.com/StarFrontiers/rules/Dragon/The%20Coming%20of%20the%20Ssessu.pdf @}-,-`- "It is a joyful thing indeed to hold intimate converse with a man after one’s own heart, chatting without reserve about things of interest or the fleeting topics of the world; but such, alas, are few and far between." – Yoshida Kenko (1283-1350), [i]Tsurezure-Gusa (1340) |
May 16, 2008 - 2:16pm | "Sathar Reavers" First of all ... a NAME for them should be come up with. We have nothing for the concept. Second of all ... the tentative premise for the Sathar Reavers is this: The Sathar in their expansion and colonization of other planets often use "terra-forming" techniques to make the planet suitably habitable for the Sathar proper. During one of these new planets they experimented with some new biochemical substances and produced totally unexpected results ... ultimately raising the savage aggression levels of the Sathar thereon to unheard of levels, and producing the "Sathar Reavers". The Sathar Reavers seem to be cunning and mindlessly aggressive viking cannibals, without respect to race - INCLUDING the Sathar themselves! There are tales of their preferring to eat their foes' flesh while they are still living ... Here is an edited summary of the reaver entry from wikipedia tailored for the image of the "Sathar Reaver" "They are savage, brutal and primal. Their contact with other sentient beings appears limited to combat, torture, murder, and cannibalism, and no dialogue has ever been shown; yet they are never shown in conflict with each other. They are still able to cooperate and act purposefully enough to use spaceships and set highly technological traps, suggesting that they have retained some level of higher intelligence.A few other things to consider. The original Reavers would often ram other space ships with their own to disable them. Since this may not work in the SF rules for interstellar combat, perhaps a varaiant could be developed wherein the Sathar Reaver somehow release part of their ship to ram the other and disable it, while the other part would then tow the disabled ship away. There was also the practice of towing ships back to "Reaver space" and devouring/torturing them there when the time arrived. @}-,-`- "It is a joyful thing indeed to hold intimate converse with a man after one’s own heart, chatting without reserve about things of interest or the fleeting topics of the world; but such, alas, are few and far between." – Yoshida Kenko (1283-1350), [i]Tsurezure-Gusa (1340) |
 May 2, 2015 - 3:56pm | I like the idea of Sathar Reavers... the question is how do they fit in, in Firefly we know it is the exposer to Pax (if I remember right) an attempt to make a population easy to control... a galactic scale oopsy. I could see a technological race trying the Pax thing as away to enslave & conquer. Did the Sathar do it to themselves? (like the humans in Firefly) or Did another race try it on the Sathar? Could be any number of suspect races the Sathar give no quarter to... could explain Volturnus even. Would the Reaver Sathar create Reavers out of races? If so how? Regular Sathar regardless of how the Reavers came about would no doubt go all genocidal against any precieved Reavers as it is a kill or be killed survival situation. Could Reaver Sathar be the result of issues with insane minds running a clan? or an aspect of the overmind suggested in another thread as hating the sathar it controls... a sort of Id gone wrong thing? Or are they victims of some ancient technology and they are not the only reavers out their in the vast cold darkness of space? "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 May 3, 2015 - 2:53pm | Perhaps the suicide complex is a response to another race capturing and manipulating the sathar in some way? What happened was so abhorent to them they've decided as a race/culture that suicide was to be prefereed over capture. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 3, 2015 - 6:28pm | Perhaps the suicide complex is a response to another race capturing and manipulating the sathar in some way? What happened was so abhorent to them they've decided as a race/culture that suicide was to be prefereed over capture.
Yes, that could be... what if another more scarry race did turn them into Reavers when captured and then released a Reaver Apacolypse on the Sathar... holy cow suicide would be prefered to prevent that from ever happening again. Or what if a % who don't commit suicide instead become reavers when their leaders die... what if they mentally plunge into a mental chaos, shock and trauma from being seperated from their overlord mind or what ever sytem presents order for their minds. Sort of like the borg did when severed from the collective but instead those that don't die go all Lord of the Flies and their most primitive drives take over and the survivors reorder in an extremely violent tribal way (the marking the ships, the mutalation of their bodies is all part of forming the new group)... what if they regress without what ever it is that keeps them ordered, civilizied, I am wondering if they suffer from some sort of psychic shock, that leaves them raw with just the purpose to kill, eat living creatures and breed, drives they can no longer control (Pon Far gone way wrong)? "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
May 3, 2015 - 7:24pm | I would make it lower caste have a chance of going reaver- however from the perspective of the Frontier Races this would just be observed to be a suicidal charge. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 3, 2015 - 8:28pm | I agree it would be the lower castes, it would explain also maybe all the other crazy stuff, like running ships in such a way radiation exposurer is a threat... yet they are cunning laying traps, following ships to "feeding" grounds, and the rushing into battle in suicidal ways. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
May 11, 2015 - 11:48am | I am thinking of creating several racial types... Blind Mentalist/Psionic race from myth & legend (scares other Satharoids even) A Proto-Satharoids or Regressed Satharoids (Caveman-primitive Satharoids) Maybe a pygmy race? Just kicking some ideas around for giggles. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
May 15, 2015 - 4:20pm | attavistic caveman type race- yes though not quite reavers. Blind mentalist sathar should be scary even for upper caste sathar and serious bad assed to present a possible TPK situation for the PCs pygmies? I dont know. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 15, 2015 - 6:55pm | Yep big mega brained Sathar... bulging head veins, pale white with just the slightest shading of various colours... creepy grey blank pupilless eyes. These guys would think other Sathar are inferior I think. Though in myth & legend they might help, hinder, seduce, trap, torture, kill, test, and so on the Sathar hero. Naturally such beings would have their own agendas and this would make them totally dangerous to everyone. Inclined to collect zoo specimens, dissect people and run experiments on folks. The pygmies is just whimsy... But the Cave-Sathar should be primitives at just the dawning of intellect... Maybe something of course has caused this, cause a whole Sathar out post to regress, can "it" infect/effect the PCs? Or are they "proto-Sathar"? Or Sathar developed to be brute force for someone and dumped, forgotten... And what to do with a planet of "primitive" Sathar that may not even be hostile or maybe very hostile? Both? Different waring tribes... "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
May 18, 2015 - 6:38pm | Okay poking around not even looking up info for RPG and at http://blackmoormystara.blogspot.com/2010/10/maggot-men.html I find a picture of a creature designated as Alternative Maggot-Man and it is a Cave Sathar!  "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
May 18, 2015 - 7:12pm | Why would a cave sathar have bristly hairs? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 18, 2015 - 8:45pm | Actually some RL worms do have hairs in the extreme (all worms have hairs)... though I would have to go read up on the why so much. I just saw this and thought Sathar with hair. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
